Well, (1) widely distributed decision-making has real problems with ensuring everyone has reasonably enough information to act rationally in a timely basis
Whatever problem it has with information, it is less than any centralized decision maker has.
(2) then an assumption that people act rationally in aggregate.
No, there is no assumption of "rationality in aggregate" involved.
The two very large scale distributed decision-making examples I can think of are (a) stock markets and (b) elections. It's going to be damn hard to argue the value of large scale distributed decision making from -those- two examples.
Stock markets work better than any known alternatives. And there is no problem with elections: they optimize very well what they are designed to optimize, rent seeking, power centralization, and corruption.
That's true. But even if people were to agree completely on their "utility functions" (values, preferences), it would still be impossible for government to optimize it: it simply lacks the necessary information and is intrinsically incapable of acting without corruption.
The best way we know for optimizing utility functions in real societies is via distributed decision making, aka, a free market. And once you do that, individuals can also have different utility functions.
Leaving it ambiguous who Clinton lied to. This is not about whether you are right or wrong, it is that such a statement should not be allowed to stand, even if in context you may or may not have been referring to lying to the FBI. If Clinton didn't lie to the FBI (and we don't know that and will never know, since there are no records), that's a technicality.
And it doesn't matter one bit because if she gets elected she can simply pardon herself.
The decision about Clinton will be made at the ballot box, and that is why it's important that statements like "Clinton did not lie" are not allowed to stand, and that statements like "Clinton did not lie to the FBI" are not allowed to distract people from the fact that she lied to the American public and Congress.
Congress is impotent in this matter and just throwing a hissy fit because they don't have anything else they think matters.
Congress is using the FBI to expose Clinton and her egregious conduct; as you observed yourself, a criminal conviction down the road is not the point.
Much of government is the result of the need to regulate shit that Federation technology just takes care of. Replicators are not gonna start spitting out salads with E Coli, and since you arrived via magical Transporter beam you don't need to worry about drunk-driving your way home. Education policy seems to be totally laissez faire. So boith buerecracy and government will inevitably be less prominent in people's lives once those techs are added.
Of course, we know that the use of replicators and transporters is rationed and limited, and that those technological devices are fiercely dangerous and easily weaponized.
As for inequality and power, in this context they're the same thing because it's about relative power. If there's equality then nobody can bully anyone.
True. There are a lot of other things you can't do when there's equality either.
And if you do some research on the Law of Jante, you'll note there's an entire region of the world where multiple countries have an attidude towards personal displays of wealth/power quite similar to the Star Trek attitude.
So you agree then that The Federation is an oppressive, conformist, collectivist society with stifling limits on its technological, economic, and social progress. You simply happen to like such societies.
Trademarks allow you to identify your products. It is only "infringing" if people use your trademark to identifying other goods. Beyond that, you have no control over how your trademark is copied or stored.
Ownership of anything is defined by power, and unless you have more power than the government you live under, they can take anything from you at anytime.
No, ownership is not "defined by power", it is defined by mutual agreement. The more you define ownership by power, the more totalitarian society becomes.
Nor is it clear what rights people have to protect scans of their retinas or the contours of their face from cataloging by the private sector.
Well, it is entirely clear what rights people have to protect their scans of their retinas or the contours of their face from cataloging by the public sector: none right now.
GP isn't in a (potential) position to inflict his narrow-minded and discriminatory views upon a populace via legislation, that's what.
You're missing the point: GP wants bigoted and narrow-minded government and he is getting it; he just differs about some details.
Leadsom looks like Thatcher 2.0 in most pictures and wants to return to the pat on head don't you worry yourself about that, [...] the opposition is as effective as the England football team
You mean the Labour Party? They are even more bigoted and narrow-minded than the conservatives.
Yeah, I know: wannabe president Clinton wanted to build a fence, until her political handlers told her that it would play better with some of her voters to change her story.
For those not familiar with what is happening in the UK at the moment, we are about to get a totally unelected leader.
Yes: it's a parliamentary democracy. That's how leaders are chosen in such a system. It's how European democracies work, such as they are.
Only members of the ruling party get a vote on who it is. The general electorate has no say, and this new ruler can stay in power for at least another four years unless something unpredicted happens.
Again, Britain is a parliamentary democracy.
he choice is between Theresa May, an authoritarian bigot who is openly racist and wants repeal our human rights, and this woman who is a religious fruitcake and, for good measure, also bigot.
and a political system that is so much in the background that no Federation Presidents got named until Season 4 of DS9
That's because Star Trek focuses on some of the most privileged people in the Federation and their exploits; it's like looking at the royal court of Louis XIV and not seeing what's going on in the rest of France or Europe at the time.
Roddenberry imagined a post-scarcity world with technocratic government, a benign defensive military, and a commitment to science and exploration. But he hadn't thought through what the politics or government of such a world would look like, how power would be distributed, and who would end up privileged and who would end up oppressed, he just assumed that his world would be magically egalitarian.
That is, the lack of a portrayal of bureaucracy, power, inequality, and government in much of Star Trek is not due to their non-existence (which is logically impossible), but due to Roddenberry's failure to think things through and create a realistic portrayal of his imaginary society.
I suggest all fellow Star Trek fans boycott this production.... trash the muddies the name Star Trek, which is about science and exploration, not millennial "inclusive" bullshit.
You must be kidding. The original Star Trek was a campy space opera.
Rather think that by the time of Star Trek in a Utopian society, they managed to get over this confused "sexual orientation" nonsense.
Star Trek society is more dystopian than utopian: a stifling society based on a hierarchical bureaucracy. Just about the only good thing about it was that, at least on Earth, most people were sufficiently well off that it didn't matter.
Um, politics is, basically, manipulating people and getting them to do what you want.
True. But we don't elect people to be good at politics, we elect them to be good at government; politics is to government what pollution is to driving: a necessary evil, and something you want as little of as possible. Marcos and Hitler were both great politicians, they just used their political skills for evil. And Hillary uses her considerable political skills primarily for her own gain.
Hillary, for example, got the world in general to think much better of the US, which is a real contribution to US foreign policy, which she was in charge of at the time.
It's easy to "get the world", which mainly means Europeans, to think better of you: you just grovel before them and give their governments and elites what they want, and they will make sure the European masses cheer you on. That doesn't mean that that's good for the US (in fact, if Europeans like you, you are probably doing something wrong). In any case, Hillary wasn't even very good at groveling, since the US approval rating abroad kept slipping under her tenure.
The kind of "gullible fool" that doesn't swallow every narrative about a politician that their opponents create.
Oh, there are plenty of things Hillary's political opponents say about her that are wrong and unfair. But there are also plenty of things that are based on facts, facts that are easy to check: the Clinton Foundation, her E-mail server, her actions as SoS are all matters of public record, and any one of them show that she is unsuitable for the presidency.
I can even tell your age by the vintage of the propaganda you DIDN'T parrot up there.
You're jumping to conclusions based on flimsy data again; in fact, I merely tried keeping things simple for you.
You are correct: what he confirmed was that Clinton lied under oath to Congress, not to the FBI. (He also confirmed that she lied to the American people.)
She couldn't have lied under oath to the FBI because she wasn't put under oath, and her interviews were neither recorded nor transcripts prepared, which really makes the whole investigation a farce.
Comey will now be tasked with a formal investigation of her lying to Congress. If we're lucky, they'll still get her.
Yup, that's the Democratic and progressive party line. Personally, I'd hold against it that Democrats and progressives are self-righteous, greedy, and ignorant pricks. Hillary is pretty typical of that.
Well the laws about using a private email server in her office were passed after she left that office
That isn't true: Clinton already had a legal obligation to protect classified information. The fact that there were no specific regulations against what she did didn't make it legal.
And all of this is irrelevant to the discussion you are jumping into because I was responding to this exchange:
It is, because you incorrectly claimed that "Clinton did not lie". In fact, not only did Clinton lie in general, she also (according to Comey in today's hearings) lied to the FBI.
Are you living under a rock? Her private E-mail server, the hundreds of millions of dollars of donations to the Clinton Foundation while she was in office, her nepotism, her speaking fees, her corporate cronyism, her lies about her stance on gay marriage, and her revisionist AIDS history alone ought to be enough to consider her profoundly dishonest, corrupt, and incompetent, and we haven't even gotten to the real political stuff that the Republicans always harp on about. Really, what kind of gullible fool are you?
She said that because nothing marked classified had been sent to her.
She has said that. She has also made the same statement without the word "marked".
I know this may be tough to believe, but a person can be wrong without actually lying.
The fact that she phrased her statement so carefully actually shows the opposite: even if literally true, that statement is intended to deceive.
Even if the person is question is someone you disagree with politically.
I don't disagree much with Clinton politically as far as I know (it's hard to know what she really believes); I actually used to be a registered Democrat until a few years ago.
I think Clinton is unsuitable for the job of president because she is dishonest, corrupt, and, above all, incompetent.
In her interview with the FBI I guarantee you everything she said they felt was the truth.
I guarantee you it wouldn't have made any difference. They wouldn't have had to get her for lying to the FBI; what she admitted to was more than enough to indict and convict her.
Slashdot Mirror
Whatever problem it has with information, it is less than any centralized decision maker has.
No, there is no assumption of "rationality in aggregate" involved.
Stock markets work better than any known alternatives. And there is no problem with elections: they optimize very well what they are designed to optimize, rent seeking, power centralization, and corruption.
RTFA. Do you need me to translate the German for you?
That's true. But even if people were to agree completely on their "utility functions" (values, preferences), it would still be impossible for government to optimize it: it simply lacks the necessary information and is intrinsically incapable of acting without corruption.
The best way we know for optimizing utility functions in real societies is via distributed decision making, aka, a free market. And once you do that, individuals can also have different utility functions.
There is the error in your beliefs about good government, namely that it should "run things".
What you asserted is, and I quote:
Leaving it ambiguous who Clinton lied to. This is not about whether you are right or wrong, it is that such a statement should not be allowed to stand, even if in context you may or may not have been referring to lying to the FBI. If Clinton didn't lie to the FBI (and we don't know that and will never know, since there are no records), that's a technicality.
The decision about Clinton will be made at the ballot box, and that is why it's important that statements like "Clinton did not lie" are not allowed to stand, and that statements like "Clinton did not lie to the FBI" are not allowed to distract people from the fact that she lied to the American public and Congress.
Congress is using the FBI to expose Clinton and her egregious conduct; as you observed yourself, a criminal conviction down the road is not the point.
Of course, we know that the use of replicators and transporters is rationed and limited, and that those technological devices are fiercely dangerous and easily weaponized.
True. There are a lot of other things you can't do when there's equality either.
So you agree then that The Federation is an oppressive, conformist, collectivist society with stifling limits on its technological, economic, and social progress. You simply happen to like such societies.
Trademarks allow you to identify your products. It is only "infringing" if people use your trademark to identifying other goods. Beyond that, you have no control over how your trademark is copied or stored.
No, ownership is not "defined by power", it is defined by mutual agreement. The more you define ownership by power, the more totalitarian society becomes.
Well, it is entirely clear what rights people have to protect their scans of their retinas or the contours of their face from cataloging by the public sector: none right now.
You're missing the point: GP wants bigoted and narrow-minded government and he is getting it; he just differs about some details.
You mean the Labour Party? They are even more bigoted and narrow-minded than the conservatives.
Yeah, I know: wannabe president Clinton wanted to build a fence, until her political handlers told her that it would play better with some of her voters to change her story.
Yes: it's a parliamentary democracy. That's how leaders are chosen in such a system. It's how European democracies work, such as they are.
Again, Britain is a parliamentary democracy.
So are you. So what?
That's because Star Trek focuses on some of the most privileged people in the Federation and their exploits; it's like looking at the royal court of Louis XIV and not seeing what's going on in the rest of France or Europe at the time.
Roddenberry imagined a post-scarcity world with technocratic government, a benign defensive military, and a commitment to science and exploration. But he hadn't thought through what the politics or government of such a world would look like, how power would be distributed, and who would end up privileged and who would end up oppressed, he just assumed that his world would be magically egalitarian.
That is, the lack of a portrayal of bureaucracy, power, inequality, and government in much of Star Trek is not due to their non-existence (which is logically impossible), but due to Roddenberry's failure to think things through and create a realistic portrayal of his imaginary society.
You must be kidding. The original Star Trek was a campy space opera.
Star Trek society is more dystopian than utopian: a stifling society based on a hierarchical bureaucracy. Just about the only good thing about it was that, at least on Earth, most people were sufficiently well off that it didn't matter.
After the "Safe Harbor" and the "Privacy Shield", why not go for some spicier names for the next few rounds of this?
"Data Chastity Belt"
"Information Condom"
"The Internet Dildo"
True. But we don't elect people to be good at politics, we elect them to be good at government; politics is to government what pollution is to driving: a necessary evil, and something you want as little of as possible. Marcos and Hitler were both great politicians, they just used their political skills for evil. And Hillary uses her considerable political skills primarily for her own gain.
It's easy to "get the world", which mainly means Europeans, to think better of you: you just grovel before them and give their governments and elites what they want, and they will make sure the European masses cheer you on. That doesn't mean that that's good for the US (in fact, if Europeans like you, you are probably doing something wrong). In any case, Hillary wasn't even very good at groveling, since the US approval rating abroad kept slipping under her tenure.
(Aren't you British anyway?)
I have; I approve. I think Hillary should be in jail.
Oh, there are plenty of things Hillary's political opponents say about her that are wrong and unfair. But there are also plenty of things that are based on facts, facts that are easy to check: the Clinton Foundation, her E-mail server, her actions as SoS are all matters of public record, and any one of them show that she is unsuitable for the presidency.
You're jumping to conclusions based on flimsy data again; in fact, I merely tried keeping things simple for you.
You are correct: what he confirmed was that Clinton lied under oath to Congress, not to the FBI. (He also confirmed that she lied to the American people.)
She couldn't have lied under oath to the FBI because she wasn't put under oath, and her interviews were neither recorded nor transcripts prepared, which really makes the whole investigation a farce.
Comey will now be tasked with a formal investigation of her lying to Congress. If we're lucky, they'll still get her.
The only thing Hillary is "competent" at is manipulating people for her own gain.
Yup, that's the Democratic and progressive party line. Personally, I'd hold against it that Democrats and progressives are self-righteous, greedy, and ignorant pricks. Hillary is pretty typical of that.
That's why I'm an independent.
That isn't true: Clinton already had a legal obligation to protect classified information. The fact that there were no specific regulations against what she did didn't make it legal.
It is, because you incorrectly claimed that "Clinton did not lie". In fact, not only did Clinton lie in general, she also (according to Comey in today's hearings) lied to the FBI.
Are you living under a rock? Her private E-mail server, the hundreds of millions of dollars of donations to the Clinton Foundation while she was in office, her nepotism, her speaking fees, her corporate cronyism, her lies about her stance on gay marriage, and her revisionist AIDS history alone ought to be enough to consider her profoundly dishonest, corrupt, and incompetent, and we haven't even gotten to the real political stuff that the Republicans always harp on about. Really, what kind of gullible fool are you?
She has said that. She has also made the same statement without the word "marked".
The fact that she phrased her statement so carefully actually shows the opposite: even if literally true, that statement is intended to deceive.
I don't disagree much with Clinton politically as far as I know (it's hard to know what she really believes); I actually used to be a registered Democrat until a few years ago.
I think Clinton is unsuitable for the job of president because she is dishonest, corrupt, and, above all, incompetent.
And you know that how?
I guarantee you it wouldn't have made any difference. They wouldn't have had to get her for lying to the FBI; what she admitted to was more than enough to indict and convict her.