So there's no secret police, which you admit indicates there is "failing totalitarian state," but you're still comparing it to East Germany.
The Federation most certainly does have a secret police; we have seen it. We don't know what other kind of social control it uses either. We also know that its government is susceptible to corruption, injustice, and political takeovers, because we have seen those as well. So, it is a human government with human problems, not some super-smart AI, and there is no reason to believe that it should work any better than any existing government.
despite the fact that you have just admitted that there's no on-screen evidence that the Federation is at all comparable to East Germany.
There is plenty of evidence that the Federation is comparable to East Germany, you are simply too blind to see it, probably because you lack the first hand experience.
it's that you're too immature to accept that other people can disagree with you on the value of money.
The problem is that you are too immature to accept that that free markets are a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for political freedom. And your problem is immaturity because your beliefs are the naive beliefs of rebellious teenage socialists.
Roddenberry's economic and political system is even less plausible than warp drive. For warp drive, we at least have some theoretical ideas about how it might work, and Star Trek weaves a whole range of fictitious inventions around making it work. Roddenberry's economic and political system is as if you took a 19th-century steam-driven riverboat and in all seriousness suggested that if its paddles just went fast enough, it would go faster than light.
But feel free to come up with a plausible construction of how such a system might work, in light of the massive amount of economic theory and data.
So you start out saying that inequality is a problem, and nothing about secret police, and now you;re implying there are secret police
I don't think economic inequality is a problem. Furthermore, the existence of a secret police isn't a defining characteristic of East Germany, it's a symptom of any failing totalitarian state.
And how many countries in the world with multi-hundred-million populations have no visible minority advocating for major change? That's just kind of how the human race works.
So, in your way of thinking, a white minority advocating for the reintroduction of apartheid is morally equivalent to a democratic movement arguing for free speech and fair elections in socialist East Germany. Thanks for clearing that up.
Apparently you don't, since you are still comparing a people with a Law of Jante to a people with an active secret police service.
You really don't see the connection between a cultural that values uniformity and dislikes exceptional achievement on the one hand, and socialist and progressive political structures on the other?
But the reason people want to leave isn't that their wants aren't being met, it's either that they want something of their own or they have some interesting little religion that doesn't fit in.
Correct. So, it's roughly like East Germany: an oppressive shithole whose claim to fame is that it keeps its citizens clothed, fed, and busy.
In other words they're not complaining some evil elite in the Federation has monopolized the prosperity, or that there's not enough prosperity, they're claiming they want to be less Jante-like.
Correct. In different words, they want the Federation to be less socialist and more liberal.
Dude, the Law of Jante [wikipedia.org] isn't a law that's been passed by Parliament. It's the way a novelist described how his fictional village of Jante treated people who did not fit in because they were too proud of themselves.
You don't say! Are you so unfamiliar with what we are talking about that you feel that warrants pointing out?
Zero-risk is kind of a weird strategy for someone holding stock, but okay, whatever.
You said: "As an investor, you're going to support a 5G rollout because if your competitors do and you don't, your portfolio will be well and truly screwed in a few years." That's not about risk, it's about certainty, namely the certainty of a low rate of return on investment.
So the stock price finds a lower equilibrium, because people feel that 5G's gonna be an overall negative for the carriers. So what? The carriers still have to deal with it.
And where are they going to get the money for the capital investment from?
I cannot believe I'm explaining the invisible hand of the market to someone who's arguing *against* government regulation.
You can't explain what you evidently don't understand. Even progressives recognize that when they try to regulate fossil fuels out of existence or object to regulation of abortion clinics. For some reason, you don't seem to apply that understanding when it comes to jobs, utilities, or housing: you regulate them and you get less of them; you regulate them too much and they disappear.
Except that I'm precisely not judging Europe, except on objective criteria.
No, you don't. You babble about "societies that seem to do better by their people" and that they are "civilized". Those are not "objective" criteria. You believe in European myths, not European realities.
Go back to your Ayn Rand romantic fantasy, where every capitalist is a hard-working, ethical genius made rich by their efforts and every altruist or even every poor person is an idiot, a liar, a whiner, and a thief.
Oh, my view is that the "idiots, liars, whiners, and thiefs" are privileged, well-off people like you who use straw men about "the working class" and "fairness" to enrich themselves at the expense of others. No, you didn't make it on your own as a "highly paid code monkey", you are the Bourgeoisie and oppressor that the Marxists hate so much, and with good reason.
There's dangers involved in demanding accountability for every little thing, in that it has a chilling effect on getting anything done. It's usually easier to justify inaction and not making minor mistakes when doing nothing, and people who are doing things will make mistakes.
Good! Let's hold many more hearings and tie the federal executive branch in knots!
As an investor, you're going to support a 5G rollout because if your competitors do and you don't, your portfolio will be well and truly screwed in a few years.
Are you daft or something? These are publicly traded companies. As an investor, I'm not going to hang on to shares that are even going to have a whiff of a possibility of "truly screwing up my portfolio", I'm simply going to sell my shares and invest in something else.
Heh, no they aren't. 4G data plans in the EU don't even come *close* to $70/month. Vodafone Germany's most expensive data-only plan, for instance, is only 30 euro.
Who said "data only"? Average UK cell phone bills are around $70/month. Go look it up.
So the market rewarded the early movers, incentivised the industry as a whole to roll out 4G, and kept prices fair.
The industry may well be incentivized through competition and a desire for customer retention to implement 5G. But a 5G rollout is a massive capital investment, and where is the capital going to come from? As an investor, I'm only going to invest money in a 5G rollout if I can expect a substantial return on it. If I'm looking at substantial requirements to lease my networks to competitors and have no growth or revenue opportunities from moving into content, where is the return on my investment going to come from?
What makes you think it'd be any different this time?
Last time, there was no net neutrality, so investors were anticipating larger returns. Also, the move from 3G to 4G makes much more of a difference to users than from 4G to 5G. The cell phone market is much more saturated this time, and phone upgrades also don't result in much profit for carriers anymore.
But fear not, the kind of abolition of net neutrality the carriers are talking about is the "stick it to the Americans" kind: mobile operators want to be able to demand money from US advertising providers, and EU politicians may well grant their wish.
Have government own and run the cellphone infrastructure as a public service, like roads. Let corporations provide the content and services that run on that network.
It is certainly new. We weren't able to prove germs existed until we had powerful enough microscopes.
That's quite incorrect. Germ theory did not even postulate the existence of discrete microorganisms, but even if it did, you can prove the existence of discrete microorganisms without a microscope or any form of direct observation.
There are a huge range of problems in biology, geology, chemistry, mechanical engineering, nanoscience, neuroscience, and even sociology and economics to which the rigorous, empirical traditions of physics are making major contributions.
Physicists simply aren't educated in the statistical tools or experimental procedures required to deal with complex real-world systems, and they often have a prejudice in favor of simplistic, unifying, elegant theories. Of course, many physicists are smart enough to learn on the job, but they succeed in other fields despite their physics education, not because of it.
Someone more studied in Marx and his ideas may call these gross mis-characterizations of his ideas. That's just my understanding
Marx said a lot of other stupid stuff, but let's stipulate that this is the core of his ideas. Now note what those statements are: you value certain employer/employee relationships, you value certain ways of setting salaries, and you value a lack of competition. That is, Marxism is a statement of preferences and values, not a set of scientific principles and rational decision rules. I and a lot of other people happen to disagree with those values; in fact, I consider the values you articulate morally reprehensible and dehumanizing.
My kids' teachers are influencing young minds, I'm playing code monkey for corporate executives. Supply and Demand says I get three times their income. If you consider human beings a resource no different from cattle, iron, or cotton then it makes sense.
If you wanted to, you could put your money where your mouth is and send your kids to a private school where the teachers are paid as much as you are. Alternatively, you could donate 2/3 of your salary to charitable causes if you think you're paid too much, or just take a more meaningful job. It is your personal choice to place such a low value on the education of your kids and their teachers. Don't blame others for your moral failings.
Of course, behind all that Marxist veneer is a well-paid upper-middle-class engineer who is trying to find nice sounding justifications in order to divert more of other people's money to causes that benefit him and his class; that is, your "morality" is simple and naked self-interest and your desire to enrich yourself at the expense of others.
Then it's back to nationalization. Not the worst thing that could happen by a longshot.
Apparently, you don't remember the days of regulated telcos or government-run phone service, and the excessive prices and piss-poor service they provided. Minitel and ISDN, yeah!
You approve of endless expensive and time-wasting and unsuccessful Congressional inquiries to try to pin some wrongdoing on Clinton with respect to the Benghazi attack?
The point of Congressional hearings is to have the executive branch answer to lawmakers and the public, and do so truthfully and with consequences if they lie. We also get to learn something about our lawmakers in the process. "Pinning wrongdoing" on someone is not the primary point, although that does occasionally happen. The Congressional hearings were as much there to give Clinton an opportunity to make her case as it was an opportunity of Clinton's opponents to accuse her and present their evidence.
Apparently, you prefer the executive branch only to be held accountable for gross misconduct, and to be able to tell the American public whatever they want through press releases and well-placed leaks. Well, sorry, that's not how democracy should work. The executive branch is accountable to Congress and has to appear and answer for their actions. Get used to it.
Legislation isn't supposed to prop up a business model.
That's exactly what's going to happen: either European telecoms are going to get concessions on net neutrality, or they are going to get other concessions from European governments.
Find one that works with the legislation or GTFO and let someone else try his hand at it.
If Europe were foolish enough to take away the licenses over this, no sane investor would put their money into any other telecoms company.
There's transporter credits for Academy students, but it's not precisely unusual for the students at a military academy to have restrictions on themselves that civilians don't.
Your reasoning is backwards: the flagship of the Federation and its most prominent members would represent the kind of people that would have the most resources available to them. We have also seen many private quarters in colonies. Generally, Federation citizens may have small food replicators and computers but not that much more. Most homes don't seem to have transporters or large scale replicators, and spacecraft seem to be nearly completely unavailable to private citizens. We also know that there is great inequality between even Earth and its colonies, plus enough discontent from people to want to leave. From everything we have seen, the Federation is not a post-scarcity society, nor is it a liberal society.
You started talking about the official governmental system being terribly oppressive. Now you're arguing it's not the government that oppresses anyone, it's that the people would give them side-eye if they acted like you think they should act.
I'm sorry, but you're confused. You brought up the Law of Jante, and that simply provides additional support for my thesis about the government: an oppressive social structure and culture like that would naturally produce and oppressive government. That is, the government of the Federation is oppressive because the culture of the Federation is oppressive.
Strange, I've heard that she improved our perception considerably. (I'm a US citizen who has lived all his life in the US.)
You probably have "heard" a lot of things, but there is actually data on this: approval of the US jumped after Obama's election and has been gradually falling since. It's not been a precipitous drop, but you can certainly not argue that Clinton has improved our standing abroad based on data.
I find your opinion of Europeans to be peculiar. What's wrong with doing things they like? Most of them are civilized, and run many societies that seem to do better by their people than US society does by ours.
I emigrated from Europe to the US. I'm sorry, but you aren't in a position to judge Europe and how it works for its people.
Will the telecoms really leave that much profit on the table and refuse to upgrade their networks?
What profit? They are getting about $70/month right now for 4G. Where exactly are they going to make any more profit if they upgrade to 5G under net neutrality rules?
Marxism is unerring in its diagnosis and analysis.
Marxism is snake oil, self-serving drivel, and pseudo-science. Marxism fails to even begin to describe the psychology, economics, or social structure of real societies.
Marx's anachronistic history, where he doesn't see class an hierarchy emerging from agrarian technologies and the need to order societies for harvest and surplus, are not too bad a failing.
"Seeing" things and describing and interpreting history are not "science".
Slashdot Mirror
The Federation most certainly does have a secret police; we have seen it. We don't know what other kind of social control it uses either. We also know that its government is susceptible to corruption, injustice, and political takeovers, because we have seen those as well. So, it is a human government with human problems, not some super-smart AI, and there is no reason to believe that it should work any better than any existing government.
There is plenty of evidence that the Federation is comparable to East Germany, you are simply too blind to see it, probably because you lack the first hand experience.
The problem is that you are too immature to accept that that free markets are a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for political freedom. And your problem is immaturity because your beliefs are the naive beliefs of rebellious teenage socialists.
Roddenberry's economic and political system is even less plausible than warp drive. For warp drive, we at least have some theoretical ideas about how it might work, and Star Trek weaves a whole range of fictitious inventions around making it work. Roddenberry's economic and political system is as if you took a 19th-century steam-driven riverboat and in all seriousness suggested that if its paddles just went fast enough, it would go faster than light.
But feel free to come up with a plausible construction of how such a system might work, in light of the massive amount of economic theory and data.
I don't think economic inequality is a problem. Furthermore, the existence of a secret police isn't a defining characteristic of East Germany, it's a symptom of any failing totalitarian state.
So, in your way of thinking, a white minority advocating for the reintroduction of apartheid is morally equivalent to a democratic movement arguing for free speech and fair elections in socialist East Germany. Thanks for clearing that up.
You really don't see the connection between a cultural that values uniformity and dislikes exceptional achievement on the one hand, and socialist and progressive political structures on the other?
How about leaving out the crappy asterisks at the beginning of lines? They suck.
Correct. So, it's roughly like East Germany: an oppressive shithole whose claim to fame is that it keeps its citizens clothed, fed, and busy.
Correct. In different words, they want the Federation to be less socialist and more liberal.
You don't say! Are you so unfamiliar with what we are talking about that you feel that warrants pointing out?
Then don't butt in and change the subject. I responded to the "Clinton didn't lie comment".
Huh? The French telecom market was privatized and deregulated in the late 1990's; DSL didn't take off until the 2000's.
You said: "As an investor, you're going to support a 5G rollout because if your competitors do and you don't, your portfolio will be well and truly screwed in a few years." That's not about risk, it's about certainty, namely the certainty of a low rate of return on investment.
And where are they going to get the money for the capital investment from?
You can't explain what you evidently don't understand. Even progressives recognize that when they try to regulate fossil fuels out of existence or object to regulation of abortion clinics. For some reason, you don't seem to apply that understanding when it comes to jobs, utilities, or housing: you regulate them and you get less of them; you regulate them too much and they disappear.
No, you don't. You babble about "societies that seem to do better by their people" and that they are "civilized". Those are not "objective" criteria. You believe in European myths, not European realities.
Oh, my view is that the "idiots, liars, whiners, and thiefs" are privileged, well-off people like you who use straw men about "the working class" and "fairness" to enrich themselves at the expense of others. No, you didn't make it on your own as a "highly paid code monkey", you are the Bourgeoisie and oppressor that the Marxists hate so much, and with good reason.
Good! Let's hold many more hearings and tie the federal executive branch in knots!
Are you daft or something? These are publicly traded companies. As an investor, I'm not going to hang on to shares that are even going to have a whiff of a possibility of "truly screwing up my portfolio", I'm simply going to sell my shares and invest in something else.
Who said "data only"? Average UK cell phone bills are around $70/month. Go look it up.
The industry may well be incentivized through competition and a desire for customer retention to implement 5G. But a 5G rollout is a massive capital investment, and where is the capital going to come from? As an investor, I'm only going to invest money in a 5G rollout if I can expect a substantial return on it. If I'm looking at substantial requirements to lease my networks to competitors and have no growth or revenue opportunities from moving into content, where is the return on my investment going to come from?
Last time, there was no net neutrality, so investors were anticipating larger returns. Also, the move from 3G to 4G makes much more of a difference to users than from 4G to 5G. The cell phone market is much more saturated this time, and phone upgrades also don't result in much profit for carriers anymore.
But fear not, the kind of abolition of net neutrality the carriers are talking about is the "stick it to the Americans" kind: mobile operators want to be able to demand money from US advertising providers, and EU politicians may well grant their wish.
We tried that in Europe; it worked like shit.
That's quite incorrect. Germ theory did not even postulate the existence of discrete microorganisms, but even if it did, you can prove the existence of discrete microorganisms without a microscope or any form of direct observation.
Physicists simply aren't educated in the statistical tools or experimental procedures required to deal with complex real-world systems, and they often have a prejudice in favor of simplistic, unifying, elegant theories. Of course, many physicists are smart enough to learn on the job, but they succeed in other fields despite their physics education, not because of it.
Marx said a lot of other stupid stuff, but let's stipulate that this is the core of his ideas. Now note what those statements are: you value certain employer/employee relationships, you value certain ways of setting salaries, and you value a lack of competition. That is, Marxism is a statement of preferences and values, not a set of scientific principles and rational decision rules. I and a lot of other people happen to disagree with those values; in fact, I consider the values you articulate morally reprehensible and dehumanizing.
If you wanted to, you could put your money where your mouth is and send your kids to a private school where the teachers are paid as much as you are. Alternatively, you could donate 2/3 of your salary to charitable causes if you think you're paid too much, or just take a more meaningful job. It is your personal choice to place such a low value on the education of your kids and their teachers. Don't blame others for your moral failings.
Of course, behind all that Marxist veneer is a well-paid upper-middle-class engineer who is trying to find nice sounding justifications in order to divert more of other people's money to causes that benefit him and his class; that is, your "morality" is simple and naked self-interest and your desire to enrich yourself at the expense of others.
Apparently, you don't remember the days of regulated telcos or government-run phone service, and the excessive prices and piss-poor service they provided. Minitel and ISDN, yeah!
The point of Congressional hearings is to have the executive branch answer to lawmakers and the public, and do so truthfully and with consequences if they lie. We also get to learn something about our lawmakers in the process. "Pinning wrongdoing" on someone is not the primary point, although that does occasionally happen. The Congressional hearings were as much there to give Clinton an opportunity to make her case as it was an opportunity of Clinton's opponents to accuse her and present their evidence.
Apparently, you prefer the executive branch only to be held accountable for gross misconduct, and to be able to tell the American public whatever they want through press releases and well-placed leaks. Well, sorry, that's not how democracy should work. The executive branch is accountable to Congress and has to appear and answer for their actions. Get used to it.
That's exactly what's going to happen: either European telecoms are going to get concessions on net neutrality, or they are going to get other concessions from European governments.
If Europe were foolish enough to take away the licenses over this, no sane investor would put their money into any other telecoms company.
Your reasoning is backwards: the flagship of the Federation and its most prominent members would represent the kind of people that would have the most resources available to them. We have also seen many private quarters in colonies. Generally, Federation citizens may have small food replicators and computers but not that much more. Most homes don't seem to have transporters or large scale replicators, and spacecraft seem to be nearly completely unavailable to private citizens. We also know that there is great inequality between even Earth and its colonies, plus enough discontent from people to want to leave. From everything we have seen, the Federation is not a post-scarcity society, nor is it a liberal society.
I'm sorry, but you're confused. You brought up the Law of Jante, and that simply provides additional support for my thesis about the government: an oppressive social structure and culture like that would naturally produce and oppressive government. That is, the government of the Federation is oppressive because the culture of the Federation is oppressive.
You probably have "heard" a lot of things, but there is actually data on this: approval of the US jumped after Obama's election and has been gradually falling since. It's not been a precipitous drop, but you can certainly not argue that Clinton has improved our standing abroad based on data.
I emigrated from Europe to the US. I'm sorry, but you aren't in a position to judge Europe and how it works for its people.
What profit? They are getting about $70/month right now for 4G. Where exactly are they going to make any more profit if they upgrade to 5G under net neutrality rules?
Like who, for example?
Marxism is snake oil, self-serving drivel, and pseudo-science. Marxism fails to even begin to describe the psychology, economics, or social structure of real societies.
"Seeing" things and describing and interpreting history are not "science".
Anyone who proposes using science as the basis of government is "politicizing science". That's precisely deGrasse-Tyson's error.
And it is indeed the same error that Marxists made.