The only thing successful about Chavez is that we don't know about the genocides yet. Like Mugabe, you know, 15 years ago.
Am I to take then that you consider Venezuela today a prime example of what a centrally planned economy does ? Because... it's not pretty.
Besides your idea of fascism is hilarious. Corporate control of government. Quite the reverse, obviously. Government control of corporations.
Anti-some-communist-state does not mean that one is actually anti-communist. Besides you conveniently neglect to mention that there was quite a strong alliance between the USSR and Nazi Germany. The USSR actually helped the National Socialists start up the holocaust. But like all countries bent on world-domination, both the USSR and Germany had plans to conquer the other, and when a few acts of the USSR hit a little too close to home, Hitler did something Stalin didn't see coming : he attacked. 3 months later, the communist international turned on Hitler.
Real, factual history does not paint nearly as anti-communist a picture as your speech, does it ?
And in case you haven't noticed, the idea that one "kind of people" is superior to others is central to the very concept of communism. Centrally planned economy can only work more efficiently if (1) there is some subset of people that can plan better than people do themselves (2) this subset of people has some way to enforce that planning, and this is morally right to do
In other words, if you're not of the opinion that there are certain people smarter (and won't accept the market's opninion of who that is, in other words, reality's opinion of it) then you're simply not a communist.
But don't worry I expect to see a speech of how the fact that all planned economies in history have either failed to feed their people or worse (like the massive genocides most economic "plans" involved). I expect to read here how they weren't "really" planned economies, and how it's all the fault of <insert evil "un-communist" leader of a communist state here> I expect to read how it's all a big conspiracy, in the academia, so well known for their extreme-right views of life...
Yours:
It's even more sad that you like to quote dictators who worked on completely opposite ends of political spectrum, such as Hitler and Stalin, and then call them both "socialist". Which is an epitome of stupidity and ignorance.
To you and people like you, socialism is a mythical "evil" and capitalism is a mythical "good". As a result, you end up associating anything you consider "evil" with it - down to the point where you call people who were possibly some of the most anti-socialist in the world "socialist".
'All this is true, of course, because you don't know "true" rationality and all the people you refer to are possibly some of the most anti-rational people in the world'. This is how you argue.
A few questions:
Has there been ONE SINGLE planned economy that qualifies as "true" communism (a reasonably sized state, the bigger the better, in the last 2 centuries) ? Apparently, no (needless to say, this would mean communism is about as existing as santa's flying reindeers, and since you're referring to a fictional concept, of course you can fantasize anything with a straight face. How you can possibly say something like that with a straight face, is beyond me).
A further question is what went wrong all across the world with all attempts to create planned economies ? And why won't it just happen again ? Because quite frankly a lot of these attempts, from Chavez to Mugabe, are fast devolving into another round of socialist genocide.
In short : All attempts to create planned economies failed "or worse" (and let's not forget that a few of the "or worse"s included mass genocide on a scale rivaled only by muslims genocides). Why did this happen ?
It's even more sad that you like to quote dictators who worked on completely opposite ends of political spectrum, such as Hitler and Stalin, and then call them both "socialist". Which is an epitome of stupidity and ignorance.
Yes, that's really an oh-so necessary part of your socialistic ideology, right ? That "national socialism", which of course advocates a centrally-planned economy as well (the essential point, as you say), is not socialism.
And this charade must be kept up despite: 1) for a nationalist party, the nazis had a bit of trouble limiting themselves to any specific nationality, or geography, don't you think ? 2) any rational assesment of the left-right political divide, which is generally considered the difference between centrally planned economy versus distributed, free, planning economies would place the nazis squarely in the "extreme left" corner (of course, republicans would be considered more of a "centrist" party then too, and only something like the tea party could be considered rightist). 3) other socialist states, including but not limited to the USSR and China had their own "judenrein" campaigns, also based on perceived problems with jewish genes. This one is especially hard to digest. If it really was so limited to nazism, then why did other socialists do... exactly the same ?
While I agree that some socialist "revolutions" were hijacked (the Iranian 1972 revolution comes to mind, as a good example, as does the "revolution" that brought Saddam into power), the one that brought Lenin and later Stalin to power wasn't hijacked. It really was communists in control.
The fact that you talk about "trunk traffic", I am sorry to say, also denotes you as an idiot. You see, "trunk" traffic is a layer2 concept, while you're discussing something that is most definitely a layer3 thing (bgp peerings).
It's called peering traffic. Especially in the default-free zone. I'm thinking you don't even know what that is.
BTW : when will you provide the gigabit uplink in your own network, with obviously a bgp capable router behind it, also gigabit ? After all, you neglected this part... and you seem to think it's reasonable to demand things like this from unrelated third parties. Obviously you are to make these things available to me... for free.
*sigh* suppose I get my internet service from you. It has a certain bitrate. All over the world are *gasp* other connections, all have some sort of "bitrate".
All added together all those bitrates add up to quite a bit of bandwidth, right ?
Now I expect you, my internet service provider, to upgrade your connections so that ALL hosts on the internet can communicate at their "sold" bitrate on your network. Needless to say, I will not be paying one more cent for this service, as you claim is reasonable.
That's what you're asking comcast to do. 17 MILLION connections, all 512 up/20 down. Do the math, and you know WHY YOU'RE A TOTAL BUFFOON.
But don't worry, you want a network like that, it exists : the telephone network. Obviously only 2 hosts can talk to one another over this network (otherwise you have potential bandwidth shortage and *someone* will at some point not be getting their -oh so important- sold bitrate, so that's apparently outlawed)
Of course, that'd be setting technology back 100 years.
First, move into the real world, then you can perhaps one day see what is realistic for an ISP to do.
For an actual informed discussion. I especially like that "privilege" part of your answer. Can I expect you to do the same with your home network ?
You see, I like exchanging big files with, say, your son, on kazaa. I expect you therefore to interconnect with my network, and to upgrade that connection (and your "backbone") whenever I or he feel like it.
But don't worry I expect to see a speach of how the fact that all planned economies in history have either failed to feed their people or worse (like the massive genocides most economic "plans" involved). I expect to read here how they weren't "really" planned economies, and how it's all the fault of . I expect to read how it's all a big conspiracy, in the academia, so well known for their extreme-right views of life...
I guess you didn't feel like quoting that.
WHY do all these communist states have such an enormous rich-poor division ? After all, that's what they were created to fix in the first place.
Perhaps "communist" is just another autoantonym. Happens a lot in politics. You know, a word that means the opposite of what it says in the dictionary, like "democrat" or "republican", for example.
The real purpose of every even marginally successful communist or socialist party was always personal enrichment of it's members.
But I'm sure YOU are SO much better, right ? Because you're a "true" socialist. Completely opposite to all those distasteful genocidal dictators, from Hitler to Stalin, from Kim Yong Il to Mao Tse Tong. All "fake" socialists of course. Nothing like you.
Or perhaps that at least one threat to democracy is a pseudo-religious racist international political party. We all know which one we're talking about. (just like the last 2 from the 20th century were, well maybe not all that religious, but you have to admit that for "nationalists" neither the nazis nor the communists were all that interested in any one nation).
Of course, for this reason, actual people got fired, and worse. While Assange, if you're right should have been dead and buried 2 releases ago.
But we all know the leftist conspiracy theorists, and if anyone gets hurt for offending THEIR side... well that doesn't count. The plain and blatant fact that Che Guevara is a genocidal maniak and mass-murderer (and Chavez almost certainly is, too), for example, does not prevent these people from "proudly" wearing those moronic T-shirts. It might as well be Hitler, or Stalin on there (and some of them actually do that too).
You see, journalists are, like everyone seems today, first and foremost cowards. Cowards, as even a short visit in any public school teaches like nothing else, don't attack the strong, anyone with any real or perceived power to hurt others.
Cowards, like today's journalists, attack the weak, the defenseless (mostly because they refuse to hit back, not for lack of means. Of course, that won't last), the unpopular.
It is very simple. The customer pays the ISP and the Video Service provider. In order to deliver to the customer, they both need to get their data from Netflix's servers to Comcast's servers.
I hope you mean comcast's clients. Okay... I fully agree with this. But what does it have to do with the headline ? With the peering ?
Your statement is true now, comcast does this... and will still be true if Comcast blows up the level3 peering.
So what is your point ? You might as well have said "because water should be blue", as it has zero relevance for this issue. Comcast will get netflix data for it's clients either through level3's peering, or through some other peering. They have enough peerings, you know. Lots and lots of peerings.
It is advantageous for level3 if comcast allows them to send any amount of data to it's clients for free, which is the result of a historical peering agreement, and it's terms have been violated (for both parties, but level3's making money and comcast's losing money due to the assymetry)
Does that mean that this kind of mob justice that wikileaks is spreading is okay now ? How long until they do this to actual, live people ? And sure, the first person to get hurt will probably have "Bush" for a last name, but what about the second ? And the third ?
I find it most hypocritical that this relatively pro-privacy site is pushing wikileaks just because it's interesting. It can't be hard to see that wikileaks respects no law, respects no privacy, provides no recourse and no protections. How many people already got hurt ? And how long until they go after some unpopular "du jour" person ?
Also, juridically, all evidence released by wikileaks is null and void in court. You can only use legally obtained documents in court. Suppose some asshole in the FBI sends a document of a pending investigation to wikileaks and they publish it. Then, as a result of this, the FBI is forced to shut down the investigation, and let the person walk. And if the documents do specify that you got ripped off by your bank (example), you go to court, and your case gets thrown out because of wikileaks ? (and before you act all surprised about this rule, wikileaks is an organisation you essentially know nothing about, so there's no telling what they changed and/or falsified in the published documents, or if they simply got fed these documents from people who don't mean well, and falsified them beforehand).
This is going to blow up, and people will get hurt. And not because evil people in black helicopters do evil stuff, but because reality is going start to attach consequences to this absurd form of thievery.
Please explain once again why comcast is to be forced to have an unpaid-for connection to level3 and why it has to upgrade this connection to absurd levels of bandwidth for free.
Because I truly don't understand what you're saying.
You're not seriously talking about net neutrality meaning that all isp's are forced to interconnect directly ?
And I repeat, if comcast "cuts off" level3, NOTHING will happen to netflix service for comcast customers, it will NOT become unavailable. ISP's cut one another off all the time, intentional and/or by accident. That's what BGP is designed to fix, and it's doing that stuff perfectly well.
The problem is not that comcast will not route netflix traffic when coming in over the level3 backbone, the problem (for level3) is that comcast does not wish to upgrade it's interconnects with level3 for free.
I sure hope "net neutrality" doesn't mean that this somehow becomes illegal.
Is it somehow unclear what is happening here ? Traffic runs like this
1 : handsomely paid for by Netflix to level3 2 : not paid for 3 : paid for by netflix customer to Comcast
Why exactly shouldn't level3 pay to comcast ? And what does this have to do with net neutrality ? Qos doesn't even enter the picture.
I repeat : level3 is getting paid handsomely to deliver netflix traffic to (amongst others) comcast customers, a job which level3 hands off to comcast at some point... but level3 expects comcast to do for free what their customer is paying them for. How is this fair ?
The issue is a lot more subtle than this. Comcast wasn't about to block netflix traffic, they were just going to close Level3's direct connections to the comcast network. This would not prevent access to netflix to comcast customers, it would just close of the most direct route.
The issue is that level3 wants that comcast routes it's traffic for free, directly, and for huge (and growing) bandwidth demands (and expects comcast to upgrade it's links for this). It's not about to firewall netflix from their customers.
The issue is that level3 now gets to deliver netflix traffic (that they get paid for) for free to comcast. When comcast closes the settlement-free interconnects ("peerings") that means level3 will need to pay on of the other tier-1 carriers to deliver netflix traffic, which is why they're so upset about this.
This is idiotic. Of course we have too much food in one place and too little in others. Ever tried growing food in the desert ? And then 80 million Egyptians decided to live there. (just to give an example). Trust me, this is not something that's going to change. Your unspoken assumption that food transport is free is beyond idiotic. It isn't free. Not in manpower, not in dollars, not in energy (and transporting food from, say, New York, to the middle of Africa actually costs quite a bit of energy and money)
Besides, if Darwin is correct, we will be eternally unable to feed the human population, except perhaps in small periods of enormous economic growth. Most periods of history, both in the past AND in the future will see MUCH more starvation (at least in relative numbers).
In this regard, a planned socialist economy would most definitely be more efficient in a true sense of the word
Whoops. Counterexample.
Yes capitalism isn't perfectly efficient. It's even not all that efficient at all. No system is. That was not, at all, the claim I made. I simply said that it was more efficient than any alternative. No amount of pointing at local inefficiencies provides a counterclaim, of course.
Both in theory and in practice capitlism works, and central plans fail (and just be glad we've ignored the Soviet genocides, and their deathcounts, which were mostly perpetrated through "more efficient" food production).
But don't worry I expect to see a speach of how the fact that all planned economies in history have either failed to feed their people or worse (like the massive genocides most economic "plans" involved). I expect to read here how they weren't "really" planned economies, and how it's all the fault of <insert evil "un-communist" leader of a communist state here>. I expect to read how it's all a big conspiracy, in the academia, so well known for their extreme-right views of life...
Those poor misunderstood commies... if they're just given control of all the guns, they'll repeal the laws of nature and all will be happy and content and just. And all those genocides, famines, war, terror, racist exterminations,... their predecessors committed ? Well...
Yeah it's even fundamentally at odds with democracy, which encourages groupthink, and the "rights" of whatever is the majority.
In other words, democracy won't work in nations that don't have a strong protection of the individual built-in culturally. Or, at least, it won't work like you'd hope.
While I think that you're at least partially on to something, I don't really think that's all there is to it.
And the problem remains : if you're not true, you're basically asking thousands to die for a little more comfort at airports (okay, a lot more comfort at airports).
That's not an acceptable deal to many Americans, I think.
Yeah, after all... what could go wrong ? A lot of economists are of the opinion that the "subprime mortgage crisis" was really caused by the oil price... which was caused by essentially a 2% drop in oil supply available to America. And I agree that it's probably indeed a large factor.
So what would happen if open war were to break out in the middle east (again) ?
I'm wagering more than 2%.
The world cannot tolerate even tiny disturbances in the middle east. And if it takes 200% of the US GDP for 10 years, frankly, it's worth it. *Anything* is better than even a small drop in the oil supply.
And yes, I deplore that situation enormously. But it's reality, and without a massive nuclear powerplants buildup, in addition to a few "green" revolutions, this won't change (ie. electric cars that can take power from essentially any source, and electric long-haul trucks) (Nuclear power is the only way the US could realistically hope to become self-sustaining energy-wise. I'm *NOT* claiming it will be cheap, but it will be possible. Also, once in place, and we do find actual renewable energy sources (ie. fusion power, or perhaps some form of solar) nuclear power can be easily and safely phased out. Also nuclear power, while not cheap, is at least not so expensive as to totally break the back of the economy)
Isolationism is a cute suggestion, when the US is critically dependent on foreign resources. Until that changes, isolationism suggestions are little more than suicide.
Without those oil resources of the middle east, the US economy would currently have to go back to it's 1930 size or so. That would mean, amongst other things, that we'd have little hope of feeding more than 50% of Americans currently alive (never mind illegal aliens). *THAT*'s the real cost of "no war"*.
* yes that's assuming that war would break out in the middle east without American interference. That's a pretty safe bet in my book.
Do you consider that an even exchange ? I don't. Quite frankly near-any cost is worth it to prevent the economy going down to even 1990's levels.
Do you honestly think it's better in China ? Or are you just disingenious ? The US government, maybe the best in the world, but not perfect, and so it must be evil ? Get real.
Oh, and it's (unfortunately, due to the ethics involved) social security that's doing most of this buttering up.
The BIG assumption in your post is that you assume that total terror acts would stay the same given no security measures.
Do you honestly think that's true ?
Ah and the whole point of the charter flight was that you could avoid landing in the US, avoid flying over it entirely, thereby escaping all interference from US laws.
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing successful about Chavez is that we don't know about the genocides yet. Like Mugabe, you know, 15 years ago.
Am I to take then that you consider Venezuela today a prime example of what a centrally planned economy does ? Because ... it's not pretty.
Besides your idea of fascism is hilarious. Corporate control of government. Quite the reverse, obviously. Government control of corporations.
Anti-some-communist-state does not mean that one is actually anti-communist. Besides you conveniently neglect to mention that there was quite a strong alliance between the USSR and Nazi Germany. The USSR actually helped the National Socialists start up the holocaust. But like all countries bent on world-domination, both the USSR and Germany had plans to conquer the other, and when a few acts of the USSR hit a little too close to home, Hitler did something Stalin didn't see coming : he attacked. 3 months later, the communist international turned on Hitler.
Real, factual history does not paint nearly as anti-communist a picture as your speech, does it ?
And in case you haven't noticed, the idea that one "kind of people" is superior to others is central to the very concept of communism. Centrally planned economy can only work more efficiently if
(1) there is some subset of people that can plan better than people do themselves
(2) this subset of people has some way to enforce that planning, and this is morally right to do
In other words, if you're not of the opinion that there are certain people smarter (and won't accept the market's opninion of who that is, in other words, reality's opinion of it) then you're simply not a communist.
From my post :
But don't worry I expect to see a speech of how the fact that all planned economies in history have either failed to feed their people or worse (like the massive genocides most economic "plans" involved). I expect to read here how they weren't "really" planned economies, and how it's all the fault of <insert evil "un-communist" leader of a communist state here> I expect to read how it's all a big conspiracy, in the academia, so well known for their extreme-right views of life ...
Yours :
It's even more sad that you like to quote dictators who worked on completely opposite ends of political spectrum, such as Hitler and Stalin, and then call them both "socialist". Which is an epitome of stupidity and ignorance.
To you and people like you, socialism is a mythical "evil" and capitalism is a mythical "good". As a result, you end up associating anything you consider "evil" with it - down to the point where you call people who were possibly some of the most anti-socialist in the world "socialist".
'All this is true, of course, because you don't know "true" rationality and all the people you refer to are possibly some of the most anti-rational people in the world'. This is how you argue.
A few questions :
Has there been ONE SINGLE planned economy that qualifies as "true" communism (a reasonably sized state, the bigger the better, in the last 2 centuries) ? Apparently, no (needless to say, this would mean communism is about as existing as santa's flying reindeers, and since you're referring to a fictional concept, of course you can fantasize anything with a straight face. How you can possibly say something like that with a straight face, is beyond me).
A further question is what went wrong all across the world with all attempts to create planned economies ? And why won't it just happen again ? Because quite frankly a lot of these attempts, from Chavez to Mugabe, are fast devolving into another round of socialist genocide.
In short : All attempts to create planned economies failed "or worse" (and let's not forget that a few of the "or worse"s included mass genocide on a scale rivaled only by muslims genocides). Why did this happen ?
It's even more sad that you like to quote dictators who worked on completely opposite ends of political spectrum, such as Hitler and Stalin, and then call them both "socialist". Which is an epitome of stupidity and ignorance.
Yes, that's really an oh-so necessary part of your socialistic ideology, right ? That "national socialism", which of course advocates a centrally-planned economy as well (the essential point, as you say), is not socialism.
And this charade must be kept up despite : ... exactly the same ?
1) for a nationalist party, the nazis had a bit of trouble limiting themselves to any specific nationality, or geography, don't you think ?
2) any rational assesment of the left-right political divide, which is generally considered the difference between centrally planned economy versus distributed, free, planning economies would place the nazis squarely in the "extreme left" corner (of course, republicans would be considered more of a "centrist" party then too, and only something like the tea party could be considered rightist).
3) other socialist states, including but not limited to the USSR and China had their own "judenrein" campaigns, also based on perceived problems with jewish genes. This one is especially
hard to digest. If it really was so limited to nazism, then why did other socialists do
While I agree that some socialist "revolutions" were hijacked (the Iranian 1972 revolution comes to mind, as a good example, as does the "revolution" that brought Saddam into power), the one that brought Lenin and later Stalin to power wasn't hijacked. It really was communists in control.
So : can you give ONE (realistic, si
The fact that you talk about "trunk traffic", I am sorry to say, also denotes you as an idiot. You see, "trunk" traffic is a layer2 concept, while you're discussing something that is most definitely a layer3 thing (bgp peerings).
It's called peering traffic. Especially in the default-free zone. I'm thinking you don't even know what that is.
BTW : when will you provide the gigabit uplink in your own network, with obviously a bgp capable router behind it, also gigabit ? After all, you neglected this part ... and you seem to think it's reasonable to demand things like this from unrelated third parties. Obviously you are to make these things available to me ... for free.
*sigh* suppose I get my internet service from you. It has a certain bitrate. All over the world are *gasp* other connections, all have some sort of "bitrate".
All added together all those bitrates add up to quite a bit of bandwidth, right ?
Now I expect you, my internet service provider, to upgrade your connections so that ALL hosts on the internet can communicate at their "sold" bitrate on your network. Needless to say, I will not be paying one more cent for this service, as you claim is reasonable.
That's what you're asking comcast to do. 17 MILLION connections, all 512 up/20 down. Do the math, and you know WHY YOU'RE A TOTAL BUFFOON.
But don't worry, you want a network like that, it exists : the telephone network. Obviously only 2 hosts can talk to one another over this network (otherwise you have potential bandwidth shortage and *someone* will at some point not be getting their -oh so important- sold bitrate, so that's apparently outlawed)
Of course, that'd be setting technology back 100 years.
First, move into the real world, then you can perhaps one day see what is realistic for an ISP to do.
*sigh* let me just say :
http://blog.ioshints.info/2010/12/internet-peering-disputes-follow-money.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=IOS+hints+Feed&utm_content=Google+Reader
For an actual informed discussion. I especially like that "privilege" part of your answer. Can I expect you to do the same with your home network ?
You see, I like exchanging big files with, say, your son, on kazaa. I expect you therefore to interconnect with my network, and to upgrade that connection (and your "backbone") whenever I or he feel like it.
You seem to think this is reasonable ... *sigh*
Probably. I can appreciate a little mental imbalance from time to time in others too.
I even predicted your response :
But don't worry I expect to see a speach of how the fact that all planned economies in history have either failed to feed their people or worse (like the massive genocides most economic "plans" involved). I expect to read here how they weren't "really" planned economies, and how it's all the fault of . I expect to read how it's all a big conspiracy, in the academia, so well known for their extreme-right views of life ...
I guess you didn't feel like quoting that.
WHY do all these communist states have such an enormous rich-poor division ? After all, that's what they were created to fix in the first place.
Perhaps "communist" is just another autoantonym. Happens a lot in politics. You know, a word that means the opposite of what it says in the dictionary, like "democrat" or "republican", for example.
The real purpose of every even marginally successful communist or socialist party was always personal enrichment of it's members.
But I'm sure YOU are SO much better, right ? Because you're a "true" socialist. Completely opposite to all those distasteful genocidal dictators, from Hitler to Stalin, from Kim Yong Il to Mao Tse Tong. All "fake" socialists of course. Nothing like you.
Or perhaps that at least one threat to democracy is a pseudo-religious racist international political party. We all know which one we're talking about. (just like the last 2 from the 20th century were, well maybe not all that religious, but you have to admit that for "nationalists" neither the nazis nor the communists were all that interested in any one nation).
Of course, for this reason, actual people got fired, and worse. While Assange, if you're right should have been dead and buried 2 releases ago.
But we all know the leftist conspiracy theorists, and if anyone gets hurt for offending THEIR side ... well that doesn't count. The plain and blatant fact that Che Guevara is a genocidal maniak and mass-murderer (and Chavez almost certainly is, too), for example, does not prevent these people from "proudly" wearing those moronic T-shirts. It might as well be Hitler, or Stalin on there (and some of them actually do that too).
You see, journalists are, like everyone seems today, first and foremost cowards. Cowards, as even a short visit in any public school teaches like nothing else, don't attack the strong, anyone with any real or perceived power to hurt others.
Cowards, like today's journalists, attack the weak, the defenseless (mostly because they refuse to hit back, not for lack of means. Of course, that won't last), the unpopular.
Just like Assange.
It is very simple. The customer pays the ISP and the Video Service provider. In order to deliver to the customer, they both need to get their data from Netflix's servers to Comcast's servers.
I hope you mean comcast's clients. Okay ... I fully agree with this. But what does it have to do with the headline ? With the peering ?
Your statement is true now, comcast does this ... and will still be true if Comcast blows up the level3 peering.
So what is your point ? You might as well have said "because water should be blue", as it has zero relevance for this issue. Comcast will get netflix data for it's clients either through level3's peering, or through some other peering. They have enough peerings, you know. Lots and lots of peerings.
It is advantageous for level3 if comcast allows them to send any amount of data to it's clients for free, which is the result of a historical peering agreement, and it's terms have been violated (for both parties, but level3's making money and comcast's losing money due to the assymetry)
So you're claiming that releasing data on currently in-progress military operations does not cost lives ? Are you daft ?
People give wikileaks data that they have no right to and they spread it for which they do not have the right either.
Laws that wikileaks definitely breaks :
* espionage
* privacy laws
* breaking and entering
* trading in illegal goods
* violating trust placed in them
I wonder, if I stole your email archives and published them, would you consider that fair ? What about everything you ever said to anyone ?
Surely "news organizations" should spread that information too ? Or are you somehow privileged ?
So the situation where one state can't make secret agreements and other states can is a "level playing field" ?
Man you're an idiot.
Does that mean that this kind of mob justice that wikileaks is spreading is okay now ? How long until they do this to actual, live people ? And sure, the first person to get hurt will probably have "Bush" for a last name, but what about the second ? And the third ?
I find it most hypocritical that this relatively pro-privacy site is pushing wikileaks just because it's interesting. It can't be hard to see that wikileaks respects no law, respects no privacy, provides no recourse and no protections. How many people already got hurt ? And how long until they go after some unpopular "du jour" person ?
Also, juridically, all evidence released by wikileaks is null and void in court. You can only use legally obtained documents in court. Suppose some asshole in the FBI sends a document of a pending investigation to wikileaks and they publish it. Then, as a result of this, the FBI is forced to shut down the investigation, and let the person walk. And if the documents do specify that you got ripped off by your bank (example), you go to court, and your case gets thrown out because of wikileaks ? (and before you act all surprised about this rule, wikileaks is an organisation you essentially know nothing about, so there's no telling what they changed and/or falsified in the published documents, or if they simply got fed these documents from people who don't mean well, and falsified them beforehand).
This is going to blow up, and people will get hurt. And not because evil people in black helicopters do evil stuff, but because reality is going start to attach consequences to this absurd form of thievery.
???
Please explain once again why comcast is to be forced to have an unpaid-for connection to level3 and why it has to upgrade this connection to absurd levels of bandwidth for free.
Because I truly don't understand what you're saying.
You're not seriously talking about net neutrality meaning that all isp's are forced to interconnect directly ?
And I repeat, if comcast "cuts off" level3, NOTHING will happen to netflix service for comcast customers, it will NOT become unavailable. ISP's cut one another off all the time, intentional and/or by accident. That's what BGP is designed to fix, and it's doing that stuff perfectly well.
Then comcast is talking business. It is *NOT* threatening to firewall off netflix from comcast customers.
The problem is not that comcast will not route netflix traffic when coming in over the level3 backbone, the problem (for level3) is that comcast does not wish to upgrade it's interconnects with level3 for free.
I sure hope "net neutrality" doesn't mean that this somehow becomes illegal.
Is it somehow unclear what is happening here ? Traffic runs like this
Netflix <-(1)-> Level3 <-(2)-> Comcast <-(3)-> Netflix Customer
1 : handsomely paid for by Netflix to level3
2 : not paid for
3 : paid for by netflix customer to Comcast
Why exactly shouldn't level3 pay to comcast ? And what does this have to do with net neutrality ? Qos doesn't even enter the picture.
I repeat : level3 is getting paid handsomely to deliver netflix traffic to (amongst others) comcast customers, a job which level3 hands off to comcast at some point ... but level3 expects comcast to do for free what their customer is paying them for. How is this fair ?
The issue is a lot more subtle than this. Comcast wasn't about to block netflix traffic, they were just going to close Level3's direct connections to the comcast network. This would not prevent access to netflix to comcast customers, it would just close of the most direct route.
The issue is that level3 wants that comcast routes it's traffic for free, directly, and for huge (and growing) bandwidth demands (and expects comcast to upgrade it's links for this). It's not about to firewall netflix from their customers.
The issue is that level3 now gets to deliver netflix traffic (that they get paid for) for free to comcast. When comcast closes the settlement-free interconnects ("peerings") that means level3 will need to pay on of the other tier-1 carriers to deliver netflix traffic, which is why they're so upset about this.
This is idiotic. Of course we have too much food in one place and too little in others. Ever tried growing food in the desert ? And then 80 million Egyptians decided to live there. (just to give an example). Trust me, this is not something that's going to change. Your unspoken assumption that food transport is free is beyond idiotic. It isn't free. Not in manpower, not in dollars, not in energy (and transporting food from, say, New York, to the middle of Africa actually costs quite a bit of energy and money)
Besides, if Darwin is correct, we will be eternally unable to feed the human population, except perhaps in small periods of enormous economic growth. Most periods of history, both in the past AND in the future will see MUCH more starvation (at least in relative numbers).
Your alternative system in operation : socialists looking after "the people".
Your claim :
In this regard, a planned socialist economy would most definitely be more efficient in a true sense of the word
Whoops. Counterexample.
Yes capitalism isn't perfectly efficient. It's even not all that efficient at all. No system is. That was not, at all, the claim I made. I simply said that it was more efficient than any alternative. No amount of pointing at local inefficiencies provides a counterclaim, of course.
Both in theory and in practice capitlism works, and central plans fail (and just be glad we've ignored the Soviet genocides, and their deathcounts, which were mostly perpetrated through "more efficient" food production).
But don't worry I expect to see a speach of how the fact that all planned economies in history have either failed to feed their people or worse (like the massive genocides most economic "plans" involved). I expect to read here how they weren't "really" planned economies, and how it's all the fault of <insert evil "un-communist" leader of a communist state here>. I expect to read how it's all a big conspiracy, in the academia, so well known for their extreme-right views of life ...
Those poor misunderstood commies ... if they're just given control of all the guns, they'll repeal the laws of nature and all will be happy and content and just. And all those genocides, famines, war, terror, racist exterminations, ... their predecessors committed ? Well ...
Yeah it's even fundamentally at odds with democracy, which encourages groupthink, and the "rights" of whatever is the majority.
In other words, democracy won't work in nations that don't have a strong protection of the individual built-in culturally. Or, at least, it won't work like you'd hope.
While I think that you're at least partially on to something, I don't really think that's all there is to it.
And the problem remains : if you're not true, you're basically asking thousands to die for a little more comfort at airports (okay, a lot more comfort at airports).
That's not an acceptable deal to many Americans, I think.
Yeah, after all ... what could go wrong ? A lot of economists are of the opinion that the "subprime mortgage crisis" was really caused by the oil price ... which was caused by essentially a 2% drop in oil supply available to America. And I agree that it's probably indeed a large factor.
So what would happen if open war were to break out in the middle east (again) ?
I'm wagering more than 2%.
The world cannot tolerate even tiny disturbances in the middle east. And if it takes 200% of the US GDP for 10 years, frankly, it's worth it. *Anything* is better than even a small drop in the oil supply.
And yes, I deplore that situation enormously. But it's reality, and without a massive nuclear powerplants buildup, in addition to a few "green" revolutions, this won't change (ie. electric cars that can take power from essentially any source, and electric long-haul trucks) (Nuclear power is the only way the US could realistically hope to become self-sustaining energy-wise. I'm *NOT* claiming it will be cheap, but it will be possible. Also, once in place, and we do find actual renewable energy sources (ie. fusion power, or perhaps some form of solar) nuclear power can be easily and safely phased out. Also nuclear power, while not cheap, is at least not so expensive as to totally break the back of the economy)
Isolationism is a cute suggestion, when the US is critically dependent on foreign resources. Until that changes, isolationism suggestions are little more than suicide.
Without those oil resources of the middle east, the US economy would currently have to go back to it's 1930 size or so. That would mean, amongst other things, that we'd have little hope of feeding more than 50% of Americans currently alive (never mind illegal aliens). *THAT*'s the real cost of "no war"*.
* yes that's assuming that war would break out in the middle east without American interference. That's a pretty safe bet in my book.
Do you consider that an even exchange ? I don't. Quite frankly near-any cost is worth it to prevent the economy going down to even 1990's levels.
Do you honestly think it's better in China ? Or are you just disingenious ? The US government, maybe the best in the world, but not perfect, and so it must be evil ? Get real.
Oh, and it's (unfortunately, due to the ethics involved) social security that's doing most of this buttering up.
The BIG assumption in your post is that you assume that total terror acts would stay the same given no security measures.
Do you honestly think that's true ?
Ah and the whole point of the charter flight was that you could avoid landing in the US, avoid flying over it entirely, thereby escaping all interference from US laws.
If there's demand, I'm sure it will be provided.
What was the percentage liberals/conservatives again in the military ?
And in the "anti" war crowd ?
We sure have a lot of scared people, but ... let's not act like total buffoons ... it's not (many) conservatives.
("anti" between brackets because they cause more wars than they prevent by far)
And when you get arrested in China you have no rights at all. SO much easier.
Yeah, let's all go to China.
Say ...
What are those tanks doing in the middle of that protest ?
Oh ! Cool ! You even have the right to free barbecue meat in China ! SO much better than the US. Such nice people.