progressive or otherwise. If their user #s are to be believed just about everybody in the country with internet access has an account. If it's a bubble we're all in it.
I have an account; that doesn't mean I do anything more than check my messages on Facebook every few weeks. I'm pretty typical there among the people I know.
Most of the beliefs you're post outlined and/or represent belong to the right wing,
I didn't post any "beliefs". I identified categories of statements that likely get you censored on Facebook.
It's also kind of funny to see someone so opposed to identity politics playing the "Stright White Male" card
I'm not a straight white male, so I'm not sure in what way I would be "playing a card". I'm simply pointing out a racial and gender distinction that progressives make. I am opposed to all political distinctions based on race and gender, so I disapprove of that.
It's kind of silly to play the victim card when your side literally won everything.
By "my side", you mean the side of liberalism and reason, the side of political independents and mainstream voters? I mean, I used to be a registered Democrat until the 2016 election, now I'm just an independent and swing voter.
And I'm not a victim. I have survived in the face of much worse bigots and jerks than you or the luminaries in the Democratic party. I'm simply telling you that it would be nice if 25% of the US population, people like you, would stop being such partisans, jerks and bigots and rejoin civil society again. If I, as a gay man and immigrant, can overcome the Democratic party indoctrination, so can you.
You are apparently not very familiar with the vile and oppressive history of progressives and leftists on homosexuality.
then they banned imprisonment,
Are you kidding? Progressives love through people in prison.
then they outlawed discrimination.
Indeed, progressives stomp on freedom of association with their jackboots. As a gay man, I can't even refuse to serve people who preach that I should be killed.
Now you can't even spew out vile hatred without hiding behind a computer screen.
You're projecting; it's progressives that "spew vile hatred", usually of conservatives and classical liberals. And at the same time, they try to trample on the free speech rights of others.
What's a good old Conservative to do?!
What conservatives usually do: go to church, volunteer, donate to charity, and raise their kids in traditional two parent households. You know, the kind of thing that produces successful kids and a decent, civilized society.
The other thing they should do is quite Facebook and speak out against jerks like you.
Zuckerberg Testimony: Facebook AI Will Curb Hate Speech In 5 To 10 Years
What Zuckerberg will likely be "curbing" and what Facebook tends to ban:
- claims that racism is not the primary cause of poverty and criminality in minority communities - pointing out that gender is not a social construct - using a non-preferred pronoun with a transgendered person - rude or critical statements about Hillary Clinton (if you use the words she/her, it's automatically misogynist hate speech) - speech critical of illegal immigrants or advocating the expulsion of illegal immigrants - speech critical or disapproving of Islam - anything containing derogatory words for progressive protected classes (but not derogatory words for straight white males)
Of course, the net effect will be that Facebook turns even more into a progressive bubble. And while that may be comforting to progressives, it makes it hard for them to understand why their favorite political candidates or policies don't catch on among Americans in general.
FB practices were well-known even outside of FB, this couldn't possibly be the first time they found out what is happening in the showers.
They didn't care as long as it was for "progressive causes" and "progressive candidates": government healthcare, government retirement programs, a healthy middle class, breaking up big corporations, high taxes on capital gains, eminent domain, value-based compensation, etc. You know, mostly what those early 20th century progressives wanted. And just like their predecessors, they hate conservatives and classical liberals.
As others have pointed out, we can do both at the same time.
No, we cannot. Money that is spent on climate change is not spent on something else.
But there is another problem: We are not measuring the true economy - we only measure the part of it that is largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper
And there you have the reason why money spent on climate change is wasted: it looks superficially like it contributes to the economy but in reality it doesn't: a dollar spent on replacing energy-from-oil with energy-from-solar shows up economic activity, but it doesn't actually produce any new value.
and ignore externalities, like the state of the oceans and atmosphere, the services provided by the ecosystem, and so on
Even according to the IPCC alarmists, the costs from climate change are actually fairly modest. And they are not accounting for all the benefits of a warmer, wetter climate.
On top of that, the more developed a nation is, the better it can deal with climate change. One third of the Netherlands is below sea level and some of the richest countries on earth are in hot climates. If we bring developing nations up to the level of Western European economies over the next half century, climate change is simply not going to matter to them. If, on the other hand, we engage in aggressive climate change prevention today, not only are those nations going to fail to develop, Western economies are also going to stagnate.
What do you call a person who learns to interact socially but doesn't feel the emotions and empathy that drive normal people to be sociable? The ones who have to study social interaction like they study coding, sometimes with people to teach them, rather than intuiting it...
A progressive, socialist, communist, or fascist; Marx, Hitler, and most socialist and progressive leaders are excellent examples of that.
"Every dollar we spend today on preventing climate change is a dollar we aren't spending on innovation and economic growth." - errr... why can't the innovation and growth be part of the "prevention of climate change" e.g. power storage systems, solar power, wind, etc etc
Because the market already spends the maximum that can be efficiently spent on that; any additional dollar that is spent based on new laws or policies is a dollar that isn't spent efficiently.
"Residential and personal energy usage in the US and Western Europe are meaningless contributors to climate change." possibly but its encouraging change with power generation at the grid too.
So you agree: none of the things proposed were actually useful per se, you just hope that they "encourage" other things by sympathetic magic or something.
"The "fossil fuel industry" doesn't care much; they have already hedged their bets" - they didn't care at all but now a lot of the big companies like Shell are beginning to invest in renewables as they see the writing on the wall
I.e., the comment about "We just gotta stop listening to shills from the fossil fuel industry," is bullshit.
This [wikimedia.org] is what an economy of scale looks like. It's not modest
That's not "economies of scale", that's improved technology over time. That is, the technology in 1977 was completely different from the technology in 2015.
And production has been increasing by 50% annually [wikipedia.org] so I have no idea why you think it's "scarce" either.
The very fact that production is increasing tells you that it's scarce.
And solar (both PV and non-PV) right now accounts for less than one percent of US electric output and an even smaller fraction of total US energy consumption. That tells you that there is no way that current PV production could have any significant impact on US energy production.
There were claims from "analysts" years ago that solar "couldn't possibly" get below $1.30/W because trillions would have to spent to scale it up enough.
Well, either you are misquoting those analysts or they are just as ignorant as you obviously are.
The more we do today, the fewer and/or smaller problems we'll have in the future
Nope, that's false. Every dollar we spend today on preventing climate change is a dollar we aren't spending on innovation and economic growth. The long term effect of that is far worse than any effect climate change is realistically going to have.
and do what is in our individual power today. Some people can afford EVs. Some people can afford solar panels. Some can only practice conservation at this point. Any of those options are good if it's the most you can do and if they make sense for your situation.
Residential and personal energy usage in the US and Western Europe are meaningless contributors to climate change.
We just gotta stop listening to shills from the fossil fuel industry,
Take off your tinfoil hat. The "fossil fuel industry" doesn't care much; they have already hedged their bets.
Of course, you are right that these are problems. But let's be clear why these are problems. It's not because the Internet makes parenting hard, or because of transportation policy, or because of lack of parental leave. It's because parents are increasingly selfish pricks who neglect their kids and place their own careers and convenience above the welfare of their children. If you can't properly raise your kids and spend lots of time with them, don't have kids, period.
But if you're a teenager stuck with such bad parents that your only option is to sit at home playing with your iPad, you always have the traditional option that all kids with bad parents had: either become a bookworm or a fitness nerd. Neither of those costs you anything.
That level of investment helps build needed scale for the sector,
Economies of scale are modest for renewable energy production, and even less so if you attribute transmission line and energy storage costs to them, so this won't make renewables cost competitive. Furthermore, the supply of renewable energy technology is scarce: if Google buys a lot of it (solar cells, etc.), they are simply driving up prices for everybody else. On top of that, many renewable energy plants are subsidized by tax payers. And a lot of renewable power plants will take years to break even on their carbon budget, so this actually results in higher carbon emissions in the short term.
So what Google is effectively doing with renewable energy is the equivalent of clearcutting forests and buying taxpayer subsidized food from increasingly big agribusinesses and then throwing it away.
Who told you socialism is state ownership of corporations?
Marx.
Cause if you really believe that, you elites mind washed you with propaganda. I suggest you take a trip to Sweden to see how socializm works. Or most EU contries.
I emigrated from Europe, I know exactly how it works.
Corporations are a creation of the state. Without a corporate charter, approved and sanctioned by the state, they wouldn't exist. Corporatism is just another form of statism. The solution isn't more state, it is less state. A lot less state.
The primary reason for a government-based corporate charter is to protect investors against government legal sanctions when there are legal claims against the corporation. That's because current law wouldn't allow corporations to discharge such liabilities contractually. That is, the corporate legal form merely corrects for a problem created by an overbearing state in the first place.
Corporatism IS fascism -- literally corporations in bed with an authoritarian state.
Correct.
The proper response is SOCIALISM, where the government actually acts in the interest of ordinary citizens, not wealthy CEOs.
What you advocate, "government acting in the interest of ordinary citizens" is, in fact, the essence of fascism. It's the rallying cry of fascists. Once you give the state the power to impose its will on corporations (fascism) or own corporations outright (socialism), it will necessarily become authoritarian. You're a fascist; at least have the decency to admit it and embrace it.
The only way to have a free society is to limit the power of the state greatly. That means that the state doesn't act in the interest of anybody, either citizens or corporations, because it lacks the power to do so. The outcome is inevitably an unfair system with much inequality, but that's the price people have to pay for living in a free and prosperous society.
The robust way to do that, the way that can’t be set aside at the whim of a government, is to require systems to be built so as not to collect data about a person [...] To restore privacy, we must stop surveillance before it even asks for consent.
That's a lot of platitudes and no concrete ideas about improving privacy in the real world.
Here are some hints, Richard:
(1) Government mandates on privacy don't work and are even harmful. EU privacy directives contain massive loopholes, in particular for government spying.
(2) No individual has the necessary knowledge to determine whether something is a privacy invasion or a benefit. You may like to step untracked into a black cab, but I'm quite happy that Uber and Lyft track my every move. Ultimately, when government stays out of these decisions, privacy comes down to individual transactions between businesses and their customers.
(3) Privacy preserving cash transactions are a non-starter, in particular in the EU: financial regulators are never going to let it happen.
(4) When you say "we" and "require", who are you talking about? If it's any particular institution, they are going to abuse that power. If you are saying that "end users should require", well, then you need to convince end users to do so, and your incoherent writings are not doing a good job at it.
If you want to advance the cause of privacy, Richard, you need to build software and build businesses that serve the needs of a broad range of end users, and you haven't done that. Stamping "GNU" on some third rate open source software projects that are vaguely related to privacy isn't going to have any impact on the world.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an account; that doesn't mean I do anything more than check my messages on Facebook every few weeks. I'm pretty typical there among the people I know.
I didn't post any "beliefs". I identified categories of statements that likely get you censored on Facebook.
I'm not a straight white male, so I'm not sure in what way I would be "playing a card". I'm simply pointing out a racial and gender distinction that progressives make. I am opposed to all political distinctions based on race and gender, so I disapprove of that.
By "my side", you mean the side of liberalism and reason, the side of political independents and mainstream voters? I mean, I used to be a registered Democrat until the 2016 election, now I'm just an independent and swing voter.
And I'm not a victim. I have survived in the face of much worse bigots and jerks than you or the luminaries in the Democratic party. I'm simply telling you that it would be nice if 25% of the US population, people like you, would stop being such partisans, jerks and bigots and rejoin civil society again. If I, as a gay man and immigrant, can overcome the Democratic party indoctrination, so can you.
You are apparently not very familiar with the vile and oppressive history of progressives and leftists on homosexuality.
Are you kidding? Progressives love through people in prison.
Indeed, progressives stomp on freedom of association with their jackboots. As a gay man, I can't even refuse to serve people who preach that I should be killed.
You're projecting; it's progressives that "spew vile hatred", usually of conservatives and classical liberals. And at the same time, they try to trample on the free speech rights of others.
What conservatives usually do: go to church, volunteer, donate to charity, and raise their kids in traditional two parent households. You know, the kind of thing that produces successful kids and a decent, civilized society.
The other thing they should do is quite Facebook and speak out against jerks like you.
This will end up being some variant of: "You want to see hot naked girls? We'll even share your stats with them, you gorgeous hunk! Just click OK!"
What Zuckerberg will likely be "curbing" and what Facebook tends to ban:
- claims that racism is not the primary cause of poverty and criminality in minority communities
- pointing out that gender is not a social construct
- using a non-preferred pronoun with a transgendered person
- rude or critical statements about Hillary Clinton (if you use the words she/her, it's automatically misogynist hate speech)
- speech critical of illegal immigrants or advocating the expulsion of illegal immigrants
- speech critical or disapproving of Islam
- anything containing derogatory words for progressive protected classes (but not derogatory words for straight white males)
Of course, the net effect will be that Facebook turns even more into a progressive bubble. And while that may be comforting to progressives, it makes it hard for them to understand why their favorite political candidates or policies don't catch on among Americans in general.
They didn't care as long as it was for "progressive causes" and "progressive candidates": government healthcare, government retirement programs, a healthy middle class, breaking up big corporations, high taxes on capital gains, eminent domain, value-based compensation, etc. You know, mostly what those early 20th century progressives wanted. And just like their predecessors, they hate conservatives and classical liberals.
There is no contradiction between your citations and what I said. The reason you think there is is that you don't understand what you're reading.
Gosh, why do you think I said "-0.5C to 0.5C"?
Go look up the melting point of water, and you'll find out!
No, we cannot. Money that is spent on climate change is not spent on something else.
And there you have the reason why money spent on climate change is wasted: it looks superficially like it contributes to the economy but in reality it doesn't: a dollar spent on replacing energy-from-oil with energy-from-solar shows up economic activity, but it doesn't actually produce any new value.
Even according to the IPCC alarmists, the costs from climate change are actually fairly modest. And they are not accounting for all the benefits of a warmer, wetter climate.
On top of that, the more developed a nation is, the better it can deal with climate change. One third of the Netherlands is below sea level and some of the richest countries on earth are in hot climates. If we bring developing nations up to the level of Western European economies over the next half century, climate change is simply not going to matter to them. If, on the other hand, we engage in aggressive climate change prevention today, not only are those nations going to fail to develop, Western economies are also going to stagnate.
While Zuckerberg isn't particularly distinguished as a programmer, it takes a lot of drive, ambition, and skill to build the kind of company he has.
He's a wiz, just not a technical wiz.
A progressive, socialist, communist, or fascist; Marx, Hitler, and most socialist and progressive leaders are excellent examples of that.
Because the market already spends the maximum that can be efficiently spent on that; any additional dollar that is spent based on new laws or policies is a dollar that isn't spent efficiently.
So you agree: none of the things proposed were actually useful per se, you just hope that they "encourage" other things by sympathetic magic or something.
I.e., the comment about "We just gotta stop listening to shills from the fossil fuel industry," is bullshit.
That's not "economies of scale", that's improved technology over time. That is, the technology in 1977 was completely different from the technology in 2015.
The very fact that production is increasing tells you that it's scarce.
And solar (both PV and non-PV) right now accounts for less than one percent of US electric output and an even smaller fraction of total US energy consumption. That tells you that there is no way that current PV production could have any significant impact on US energy production.
Well, either you are misquoting those analysts or they are just as ignorant as you obviously are.
Nope, that's false. Every dollar we spend today on preventing climate change is a dollar we aren't spending on innovation and economic growth. The long term effect of that is far worse than any effect climate change is realistically going to have.
Residential and personal energy usage in the US and Western Europe are meaningless contributors to climate change.
Take off your tinfoil hat. The "fossil fuel industry" doesn't care much; they have already hedged their bets.
If the temperature of a glacier rises from -0.5C to 0.5C, glacial lakes can disappear within weeks! Who would have thought!
We can opt out of Facebook Ads for free... by opting out of Facebook.
Well, I suggest you go look for those citations yourself instead of making a fool of yourself.
Then you aren't really bored.
At 20F ground temperature, you don't get "rain/sleet/hail". In fact, 20F is a great temperature for outdoors fun.
You don't get outside much, do you?
Of course, you are right that these are problems. But let's be clear why these are problems. It's not because the Internet makes parenting hard, or because of transportation policy, or because of lack of parental leave. It's because parents are increasingly selfish pricks who neglect their kids and place their own careers and convenience above the welfare of their children. If you can't properly raise your kids and spend lots of time with them, don't have kids, period.
But if you're a teenager stuck with such bad parents that your only option is to sit at home playing with your iPad, you always have the traditional option that all kids with bad parents had: either become a bookworm or a fitness nerd. Neither of those costs you anything.
You really have to be a rather dull person to be bored. Here are some simple suggestions:
- Take a second job. You can use the money to address some of the problems you keep complaining about: student loans, expensive housing, poverty, etc.
- Learn a new skill: between YouTube, Udacity, Kindle, and Google Books you can learn just about anything for next to nothing.
- Volunteer for a charity.
- Do something outdoors, like hiking etc.
Economies of scale are modest for renewable energy production, and even less so if you attribute transmission line and energy storage costs to them, so this won't make renewables cost competitive. Furthermore, the supply of renewable energy technology is scarce: if Google buys a lot of it (solar cells, etc.), they are simply driving up prices for everybody else. On top of that, many renewable energy plants are subsidized by tax payers. And a lot of renewable power plants will take years to break even on their carbon budget, so this actually results in higher carbon emissions in the short term.
So what Google is effectively doing with renewable energy is the equivalent of clearcutting forests and buying taxpayer subsidized food from increasingly big agribusinesses and then throwing it away.
Marx.
I emigrated from Europe, I know exactly how it works.
The primary reason for a government-based corporate charter is to protect investors against government legal sanctions when there are legal claims against the corporation. That's because current law wouldn't allow corporations to discharge such liabilities contractually. That is, the corporate legal form merely corrects for a problem created by an overbearing state in the first place.
Correct.
What you advocate, "government acting in the interest of ordinary citizens" is, in fact, the essence of fascism. It's the rallying cry of fascists. Once you give the state the power to impose its will on corporations (fascism) or own corporations outright (socialism), it will necessarily become authoritarian. You're a fascist; at least have the decency to admit it and embrace it.
The only way to have a free society is to limit the power of the state greatly. That means that the state doesn't act in the interest of anybody, either citizens or corporations, because it lacks the power to do so. The outcome is inevitably an unfair system with much inequality, but that's the price people have to pay for living in a free and prosperous society.
Indeed it is. But corporatism is the antithesis of free markets and capitalism.
Quite the opposite: government interference in the free market is what creates corporatism.
That's a lot of platitudes and no concrete ideas about improving privacy in the real world.
Here are some hints, Richard:
(1) Government mandates on privacy don't work and are even harmful. EU privacy directives contain massive loopholes, in particular for government spying.
(2) No individual has the necessary knowledge to determine whether something is a privacy invasion or a benefit. You may like to step untracked into a black cab, but I'm quite happy that Uber and Lyft track my every move. Ultimately, when government stays out of these decisions, privacy comes down to individual transactions between businesses and their customers.
(3) Privacy preserving cash transactions are a non-starter, in particular in the EU: financial regulators are never going to let it happen.
(4) When you say "we" and "require", who are you talking about? If it's any particular institution, they are going to abuse that power. If you are saying that "end users should require", well, then you need to convince end users to do so, and your incoherent writings are not doing a good job at it.
If you want to advance the cause of privacy, Richard, you need to build software and build businesses that serve the needs of a broad range of end users, and you haven't done that. Stamping "GNU" on some third rate open source software projects that are vaguely related to privacy isn't going to have any impact on the world.