Thank you for confirming that. It's easier to have a dialogue when you have points of agreement to work from.
Lots of people think they're better than others though. It's just an opinion. The important question is whether you think that you should be allowed to make people's choices for them. Do you?
If you do, you share that conceit with lots of questionable contemporary and historical figures.
Except when their "correct" choices pollutes the air I breath, the water I drink, and the food I eat. But hey, everyone should be free to drive to the supermarket while I'm "free" to inhale their car exhaust.
So what's your alternative? Take their choices away from them to suit your needs.
Thanks. Fuckers.
Three things about this:
1. Hate is usually not the answer, regardless of the question.
2. The "Thanks" are unnecessary. They didn't do it to help you. They didn't do it to harm you either. You're not important to every decision that everyone makes.
3. People simply trying to live their lives are "Fuckers" because you think their choices have kept you from getting the most value out of life. But you'd undoubtedly take their choices and all the good results of those choices away from them.
"Do it to them before they do it to you" is definitely a practical philosophy if you can get away with it. It's not really a moral one though. And in extreme cases, it's a criminal one.
One possible choice you might make is to tone down your obsession with minor pollution. You seem to be making yourself unhappy. This choice costs nothing. Just a thought though -- obsess if you want.
People make decisions based a lot on perceived value
Perceived value is real value. What's the value of art? If I perceive value -- if it makes me happy, say -- then it has value to me, despite the fact that it's not practical and the perceptions of value aren't universally shared.
You may disagree that a particular purchasing decision represents the best choice. In fact, since each person is unique and distinct, each person will have different judgements and make different choices. But the motive is always to maximize value and minimize cost.
If a choice is made for people, some will be happy and maximize value. Others will be unhappy, and will fail to maximize value. By allowing people to choose for themselves, each person makes the best choice for his own distinct situation. Total overall value is maximized. And if those same people are paying the cost, costs will be minimized -- or at least balanced with the resulting value.
They see the automobile as a symbol of freedom and independence, and in their minds auto ownership has a much better value despite the higher costs of a car compared with utilizing transit systems.
Indeed they do.
Everything else you've said about food choices, transit choices and housing choices are simply your opinion. And you're correct. Those choices are the correct choices for you. Other people will choose otherwise, and they'll also be correct.
Every last one of these initiatives are pointless.
When "sustainable" lifestyles become less expensive than "non-sustainable" lifestyles, everyone will switch. The same goes for alternative fuels, recycling, organic food, non-GM food, hybrid automobiles, ethanol, etc., etc., etc.
People make choices to maximize the benefit and minimize the cost. At least free people do.
(If that's not good enough for you, then freedom really isn't your thing. You're more into tyranny -- making peoples' choices for them, because you've decided you're better than them.)
People should... CARE ENOUGH TO BE WILLING TO SACRIFICE SOME OF THEIR OWN WEALTH FOR THEIR FELLOW HUMANS.
Especially CEOs...
I see. Other people than you should care enough to sacrifice their wealth.
Also, where did that wealth come from in the first place? Did someone "sacrifice" it to those other people than you? "Sacrificing" wealth doesn't create wealth. It may move it around, but it doesn't create it. Investing in product development and serving customers creates wealth, but that's not a sacrifice, because it yeilds more than it costs.
So--what's the solution for those who can't compete?
Charity. Voluntary charity. The kind where the person that needs help asks for help. And then someone helps them voluntarily. And then they say "thank you" when they get help. And they try hard to be worthy of the help that they recieved.
See almost every society throughout the history of the world for examples of this concept.
This problem was resolved about 12 years ago when NextStep shipped on Intel.
The IO libs just take care of it.
Also, it's worth noting that binary storage in a "native" format is always a Bad Idea and most serious projects would be expected to avoid it.
Re:Education works great, if you're on the payroll
on
Improving Education?
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· Score: 1
I might sympathize if I bought the BS about low teacher pay. But teachers earn a reasonably good salary given the number of days worked, and they have better benefits than almost all private-sector employees.
I might sympathize if I actually thought you were "required to teach 28 14-year-olds algebra". But I'm betting that there's no requirement to succeed in teaching them algebra.
I might sympathize if I'd gotten a good education in public school. I didn't. I got a barely-adequate education because it was one of the better schools and I worked hard.
I might sympathize if the money to pay you wasn't taken from me, forcibly, against my will. But that's the transaction.
If you're a good teacher and care about your students, you should stop perpetuating a broken system that hurts them and our society.
Education works great, if you're on the payroll
on
Improving Education?
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· Score: 1
I don't know what you're complaining about. Education works great.
Teachers and administrators get their paychecks like clockwork every 2 weeks. They have great benefits too. How is this not working?
It works for education bureaucrats too. They get their checks and they get to make sure all children are taught their beliefs. What could be better?
Oh, you wanted it to work for the students? Sorry, it's not setup that way. Student learning isn't an important part of the process and doesn't affect spending or compensation in any way.
Re:Education Sucks in the US? That's news to me!
on
Improving Education?
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· Score: 1
My public education was great.
Good for you. What about everyone else? Is it OK if 100 kids' lives are ruined just because yours turned out OK?
If our system "sucks" so much, why are there SO many successful people who went through the system?
If water is so good for you, why did all the water-drinkers born before the year 1850 die?
Our culture sucks. Geeks and intelligent kids get mocked. Kids who skip grades and push ahead are ostracized not just by their peers but by their peers parents as well.
You're right about the culture, but can you think of a basis to fix it? If someone wants to hurt a kid's feelings and be nasty to them, why shouldn't they?
It isn't the government's job to educate your children.
Thanks. Please send all my tax money back.
All the talk about parents doesn't address the problem. I have no say in "fixing" parents. Shifting the blame to parents is a time-honored tactic of the government-school apologists. "We don't have to try to do anything better, it's the parents' fault. Give us more money."
Let's say that 99% of the problems in education are the fault of the parents. Should the schools be let off the hook for causing the other 1%?
And if parents really are the problem, then does it really make sense to take resources away from the parents in taxes and give those reasources to the government schools? Didn't you just say it wasn't the goverment's job to educate? They're sure taking a lot of money to fail to do a job that isn't even their job to begin with.
Stop being a victim and realize YOU are to blame. Not your kids, or your government.
The government isn't to blame for poorly educated kids. The government IS to blame for promising an education and failing to deliver one. The government IS to blame for stealing money that a family could otherwise use to buy a good education. The government IS to blame for encouraging people to be dependant. The government IS to blame for encouraging mediocrity and punishing success. The government rewards victim-status handsomely.
And our form of government allows us to fix the government. So we should.
Manditory civil service is another term for slavery.
13th Amendment, Section 1:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
It's also a very silly bumper-sticker solution that doesn't address any problem in particular -- except the lack of slaves (a.k.a. civil servants).
You're mostly right about history. History is a bunch of stories. History should be told, not taught. History should be discussed, not memorized and tested.
They teach history the way they do because it's easy. History is easy to teach. History tests are easy to write. Grading on memorization is easy.
Like everything else in education, history education is poorly thought-out. Like everything else in education, the process is designed for the benefit of the employees and the education provider (the government for public schools), not the benefit of the students.
Just out of curiousity, why do you think that these tiny alternative fuel cars are little "death traps"? While they may not have the bulk of an SUV, they make up for it in improved handling and drastically reduced risk of roll-over.
No they don't. Those safety advantages are a tiny fraction of the disadvantages of driving a small car.
Actually, the formation of the ESRB was a great tool for the videogame makers.
No one has any standing to complain about the content in rated-M games because children can't buy them. The rating protects the game makers, and essentially, the game makers can get away with anything they want if their game is rated M.
Don't like the content of rated-M games? Don't buy them. Still don't like it? STFU and mind your own business.
And a union provides a valuable service to its members - it raises their wages. OSHA does the same - it improves the safety of workers at their jobs. And so on.
It's a detriment to employers who would prefer to use up employees like they use up gasoline, but so are police a detriment to criminals.
That's what OSHA is supposed to do. Now OSHA mostly exists as a way for unions to intimidate employers. When there's a labor dispute, OSHA gets called in. The company gets fined because some paperwork isn't filled-out correctly, even though the factory is safe.
The company pays the fines instead of hiring more workers and expanding the plant. The company's competitor subcontracts to a Chinese manufacturer. Eventually the union members lose their jobs and blame it on "greed" and people of a different race taking "their" jobs.
It's wasted just as much as the hours cops work are wasted. After all, they're not producing anything, right?
The police perform a service that has value. They're producing value. If there were no government police, people would hire private police. The police have questionable efficiency, but they definitely produce value.
They're reporting on a general trend. In the context, a slight upturn deserves a paragraph, but it's not the thrust of their (cogent, imho) point.
Every single piece of "news" in that article is good news for the US, employees, shareholders, etc. The "news" is that "Silicon Valley is coming back" and "employment grew".
Employment failing to grow and Silicon Valley not coming back is not "news". It's at least a few months old.
So why would the NY Times publish this as a negative story? The negative tone of the story is not representative of current reality.
Also, "a general trend"? There's no general trend. Technology employment hasn't had trends for a decade now. The Internet bubble, the Y2K scare, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks destroyed any hope of a regular trend during that time. Now that things have calmed down a little, maybe a trend will reveal itself.
You are correct about unions, OSHA, the EPA, labor rights, etc.
The obvious conclusion is that those things are all very expensive. Every hour spent trying to comply with a regulation is a non-productive hour. It's essentially, completely wasted.
One thing that would help the US is to consider these costs when deciding whether the government should regulate every action of every person at all times when they're at work.
We're in danger of becoming like Europe -- the jobs are so easy, so "green", so high-paying, so protected, so safe, and so rich in benefits and labor rights that companies can't afford to hire anyone.
If you read TFA carefully, you'll see that employment picked up starting in March.
Leave it to the NY Times to spin the story.
"Profits Up, Productivity WAY Up, Employment Finally Starting to Increase Too" would be a reasonably accruate way to report this. Nevermind that though.
NY Times is the official newspaper of half-truths and selective reporting. It's Micheal Moore without the showmanship.
and everyone should always be healthy and no one should ever die and the rivers should all flow chocolate and all the snow should be vanilla ice cream.
Slashdot Mirror
She probably likes the song. Different people have different tastes in music.
What's the point of putting down people who like different music than you?
Maybe she'll read this and feel bad. Or maybe other Faith Hill fans will read this and stop listening to the music that makes them happy.
I do consider myself better than them.
Thank you for confirming that. It's easier to have a dialogue when you have points of agreement to work from.
Lots of people think they're better than others though. It's just an opinion. The important question is whether you think that you should be allowed to make people's choices for them. Do you?
If you do, you share that conceit with lots of questionable contemporary and historical figures.
Except when their "correct" choices pollutes the air I breath, the water I drink, and the food I eat. But hey, everyone should be free to drive to the supermarket while I'm "free" to inhale their car exhaust.
So what's your alternative? Take their choices away from them to suit your needs.
Thanks. Fuckers.
Three things about this:
1. Hate is usually not the answer, regardless of the question.
2. The "Thanks" are unnecessary. They didn't do it to help you. They didn't do it to harm you either. You're not important to every decision that everyone makes.
3. People simply trying to live their lives are "Fuckers" because you think their choices have kept you from getting the most value out of life. But you'd undoubtedly take their choices and all the good results of those choices away from them.
"Do it to them before they do it to you" is definitely a practical philosophy if you can get away with it. It's not really a moral one though. And in extreme cases, it's a criminal one.
One possible choice you might make is to tone down your obsession with minor pollution. You seem to be making yourself unhappy. This choice costs nothing. Just a thought though -- obsess if you want.
People make decisions based a lot on perceived value
Perceived value is real value. What's the value of art? If I perceive value -- if it makes me happy, say -- then it has value to me, despite the fact that it's not practical and the perceptions of value aren't universally shared.
You may disagree that a particular purchasing decision represents the best choice. In fact, since each person is unique and distinct, each person will have different judgements and make different choices. But the motive is always to maximize value and minimize cost.
If a choice is made for people, some will be happy and maximize value. Others will be unhappy, and will fail to maximize value. By allowing people to choose for themselves, each person makes the best choice for his own distinct situation. Total overall value is maximized. And if those same people are paying the cost, costs will be minimized -- or at least balanced with the resulting value.
They see the automobile as a symbol of freedom and independence, and in their minds auto ownership has a much better value despite the higher costs of a car compared with utilizing transit systems.
Indeed they do.
Everything else you've said about food choices, transit choices and housing choices are simply your opinion. And you're correct. Those choices are the correct choices for you. Other people will choose otherwise, and they'll also be correct.
Every last one of these initiatives are pointless.
When "sustainable" lifestyles become less expensive than "non-sustainable" lifestyles, everyone will switch. The same goes for alternative fuels, recycling, organic food, non-GM food, hybrid automobiles, ethanol, etc., etc., etc.
People make choices to maximize the benefit and minimize the cost. At least free people do.
(If that's not good enough for you, then freedom really isn't your thing. You're more into tyranny -- making peoples' choices for them, because you've decided you're better than them.)
People should ... CARE ENOUGH TO BE WILLING TO SACRIFICE SOME OF THEIR OWN WEALTH FOR THEIR FELLOW HUMANS.
Especially CEOs...
I see. Other people than you should care enough to sacrifice their wealth.
Also, where did that wealth come from in the first place? Did someone "sacrifice" it to those other people than you? "Sacrificing" wealth doesn't create wealth. It may move it around, but it doesn't create it. Investing in product development and serving customers creates wealth, but that's not a sacrifice, because it yeilds more than it costs.
So--what's the solution for those who can't compete?
Charity. Voluntary charity. The kind where the person that needs help asks for help. And then someone helps them voluntarily. And then they say "thank you" when they get help. And they try hard to be worthy of the help that they recieved.
See almost every society throughout the history of the world for examples of this concept.
I love these. Where do they come from?
This problem was resolved about 12 years ago when NextStep shipped on Intel.
The IO libs just take care of it.
Also, it's worth noting that binary storage in a "native" format is always a Bad Idea and most serious projects would be expected to avoid it.
I might sympathize if I bought the BS about low teacher pay. But teachers earn a reasonably good salary given the number of days worked, and they have better benefits than almost all private-sector employees.
I might sympathize if I actually thought you were "required to teach 28 14-year-olds algebra". But I'm betting that there's no requirement to succeed in teaching them algebra.
I might sympathize if I'd gotten a good education in public school. I didn't. I got a barely-adequate education because it was one of the better schools and I worked hard.
I might sympathize if the money to pay you wasn't taken from me, forcibly, against my will. But that's the transaction.
If you're a good teacher and care about your students, you should stop perpetuating a broken system that hurts them and our society.
I don't know what you're complaining about. Education works great.
Teachers and administrators get their paychecks like clockwork every 2 weeks. They have great benefits too. How is this not working?
It works for education bureaucrats too. They get their checks and they get to make sure all children are taught their beliefs. What could be better?
Oh, you wanted it to work for the students? Sorry, it's not setup that way. Student learning isn't an important part of the process and doesn't affect spending or compensation in any way.
My public education was great.
Good for you. What about everyone else? Is it OK if 100 kids' lives are ruined just because yours turned out OK?
If our system "sucks" so much, why are there SO many successful people who went through the system?
If water is so good for you, why did all the water-drinkers born before the year 1850 die?
Our culture sucks. Geeks and intelligent kids get mocked. Kids who skip grades and push ahead are ostracized not just by their peers but by their peers parents as well.
You're right about the culture, but can you think of a basis to fix it? If someone wants to hurt a kid's feelings and be nasty to them, why shouldn't they?
It isn't the government's job to educate your children.
Thanks. Please send all my tax money back.
All the talk about parents doesn't address the problem. I have no say in "fixing" parents. Shifting the blame to parents is a time-honored tactic of the government-school apologists. "We don't have to try to do anything better, it's the parents' fault. Give us more money."
Let's say that 99% of the problems in education are the fault of the parents. Should the schools be let off the hook for causing the other 1%?
And if parents really are the problem, then does it really make sense to take resources away from the parents in taxes and give those reasources to the government schools? Didn't you just say it wasn't the goverment's job to educate? They're sure taking a lot of money to fail to do a job that isn't even their job to begin with.
Stop being a victim and realize YOU are to blame. Not your kids, or your government.
The government isn't to blame for poorly educated kids. The government IS to blame for promising an education and failing to deliver one. The government IS to blame for stealing money that a family could otherwise use to buy a good education. The government IS to blame for encouraging people to be dependant. The government IS to blame for encouraging mediocrity and punishing success. The government rewards victim-status handsomely.
And our form of government allows us to fix the government. So we should.
13th Amendment, Section 1:
It's also a very silly bumper-sticker solution that doesn't address any problem in particular -- except the lack of slaves (a.k.a. civil servants).
You're mostly right about history. History is a bunch of stories. History should be told, not taught. History should be discussed, not memorized and tested.
They teach history the way they do because it's easy. History is easy to teach. History tests are easy to write. Grading on memorization is easy.
Like everything else in education, history education is poorly thought-out. Like everything else in education, the process is designed for the benefit of the employees and the education provider (the government for public schools), not the benefit of the students.
Don Watson needs to chillax.
There's a difference between understanding you lack a thing ("none") and understanding you have a quantity of zero things.
While I do not understand the SUV craze, I understand mini-vans, station wagons
Let me help. SUV == station wagon that can pull my boat. SUV == minivan without the femininity.
I don't drive one, but that's what they're for.
Just out of curiousity, why do you think that these tiny alternative fuel cars are little "death traps"? While they may not have the bulk of an SUV, they make up for it in improved handling and drastically reduced risk of roll-over.
No they don't. Those safety advantages are a tiny fraction of the disadvantages of driving a small car.
I drive a small car myself, but facts are facts.
Actually, the formation of the ESRB was a great tool for the videogame makers.
No one has any standing to complain about the content in rated-M games because children can't buy them. The rating protects the game makers, and essentially, the game makers can get away with anything they want if their game is rated M.
Don't like the content of rated-M games? Don't buy them. Still don't like it? STFU and mind your own business.
Yeah, that's what the mafia does.
Private security guards.
And a union provides a valuable service to its members - it raises their wages. OSHA does the same - it improves the safety of workers at their jobs. And so on.
It's a detriment to employers who would prefer to use up employees like they use up gasoline, but so are police a detriment to criminals.
That's what OSHA is supposed to do. Now OSHA mostly exists as a way for unions to intimidate employers. When there's a labor dispute, OSHA gets called in. The company gets fined because some paperwork isn't filled-out correctly, even though the factory is safe.
The company pays the fines instead of hiring more workers and expanding the plant. The company's competitor subcontracts to a Chinese manufacturer. Eventually the union members lose their jobs and blame it on "greed" and people of a different race taking "their" jobs.
It's wasted just as much as the hours cops work are wasted. After all, they're not producing anything, right?
The police perform a service that has value. They're producing value. If there were no government police, people would hire private police. The police have questionable efficiency, but they definitely produce value.
They're reporting on a general trend. In the context, a slight upturn deserves a paragraph, but it's not the thrust of their (cogent, imho) point.
Every single piece of "news" in that article is good news for the US, employees, shareholders, etc. The "news" is that "Silicon Valley is coming back" and "employment grew".
Employment failing to grow and Silicon Valley not coming back is not "news". It's at least a few months old.
So why would the NY Times publish this as a negative story? The negative tone of the story is not representative of current reality.
Also, "a general trend"? There's no general trend. Technology employment hasn't had trends for a decade now. The Internet bubble, the Y2K scare, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks destroyed any hope of a regular trend during that time. Now that things have calmed down a little, maybe a trend will reveal itself.
You are correct about unions, OSHA, the EPA, labor rights, etc.
The obvious conclusion is that those things are all very expensive. Every hour spent trying to comply with a regulation is a non-productive hour. It's essentially, completely wasted.
One thing that would help the US is to consider these costs when deciding whether the government should regulate every action of every person at all times when they're at work.
We're in danger of becoming like Europe -- the jobs are so easy, so "green", so high-paying, so protected, so safe, and so rich in benefits and labor rights that companies can't afford to hire anyone.
And, amazingly enough, he published essays. Quite remarkable.
If you read TFA carefully, you'll see that employment picked up starting in March.
Leave it to the NY Times to spin the story.
"Profits Up, Productivity WAY Up, Employment Finally Starting to Increase Too" would be a reasonably accruate way to report this. Nevermind that though.
NY Times is the official newspaper of half-truths and selective reporting. It's Micheal Moore without the showmanship.
and everyone should always be healthy and no one should ever die and the rivers should all flow chocolate and all the snow should be vanilla ice cream.
grow up