governments aren't run by alien overlords, they are run by people. calling them sociopaths is just a way for you to push off the problem into the realm of prejudicial nonsense, and allows you to abrogate any responsibility for your own government: it's run by people somehow fundamentally different form you and me, therefore, we can't do anything about it. fucking bullshit
the truth is that all governments decay from their ideals over time, and only constant effort keeps it clean. the fact the government is vulnerable to corruption means nothing: of course its vulnerable. it always is. it always will be. of any form. so the job before you, as a citizen, is a constant clean up effort that never ends, never will end, and that's as good as it ever will get. you never clean up government once, retire, and it never gets dirty again. this is fantasy land
this is just the way it is. there is no better deal than that. no matter what kind of government you imagine
for a market to be truly free, as in just, a market must be highly regulated so large and small players operate on the same level ground
without such government intervention in the market, the largest players collude and squash the little ones, and there is no real market at all, just a few large rent seeking parasites and no consumer choice whatsoever
but don't listen to me, i only have the entirety of economic history to back me up
by all means, don't let reality interfere with what are basically religious myths you depend upon to think the way you do
the problem the pauls and libertarian fundamentalists like them have is they are incredibly naive about what small government really means: a power vacuum that is filled by corporations. at least with our deeply flawed government, there is actually a pretense that it is supposed to stand for our individual freedoms, and some means of recourse
weaken our government, and you are left with monopolies and oligarchies who are happy to trample on our freedoms in the name of their "freedom", and no recourse whatsoever
oh yeah, you can take your business to a competitor, because without regulation the three dominant players aren't colluding and squashing all real competition
oh yeah, you can sue them in court. like you have 6 months and $100,000 and you lose anyway because they can just wear you down with their legion of lawyer goons
the essence of martyrdom is that the martyr suffer. there is no such thing as a martyr who hasn't suffered for a cause. everyone sees them suffer, and this inspires them to suffer for the cause as well. previously ambivalent sympathisers now become active participants
that's the psychology in play here
so if you don't want to inspire martyrdom, you don't create martyrs, you don't torture them or make them suffer
you let them get off unharmed, and they fade away, uninspirational and unimportant
the process you are describing doesn't seem to understand how martyrdom works. you are describing how simple fear of brutality works. but martyrdom transcends fear of repercussions. you are sacrificing in the name of a cause
i'm not saying what is going to happen with assange, but if he inspires martyrdom, it means people will be more willing to pass info to wikileaks, participate in it, and otherwise support it, because they seem him as a continuing victim and feel his cause is worthy of their own sacrifice as well. so the USA should just ignore him and forget him, if they had any understanding of the psychology in play here. it's not like prosecuting him will return anything, all the damage has been done
martyrdom is the inversion of the self-protection mechanism. it is about sacrificing yourself in order to protect something else: a cause. your words seem fixated on self-protection as the dominant instinct in play, when in fact martyrdom is about the exact opposite instinct in play: the subversion of the self to something seen as a greater cause, something more worthy than protecting the self
now explain that to tea party dimwits who say otherwise
you have to understand: bike lanes, public transportation and intelligent civil planning in general is a UN plot to destroy America (people actually believe this, spurred on by the paranoid schizophrenia broadcast on Faux News)... welcome to USA, 2012:
Next you'll tell me funding bridges, roads, tunnels, railroad, etc. is good for the country
These are just feel goid schemes to funnel money away from rich folk and corporations, preventing them from creating jobsand growing a giant government that stifles growth
Nothing useful or capital creating will come out of this, just some socialist European egg heads making up theories without proof that destroys young people's faith in God...welcome to America. Weep for us.
right. now divide the idiots from the people with the common sense
ok, first define common sense
the problem with what you say is that you wind up committing worse damage than the hoards of idiots whom i agree with you are committing damage. but they are committing damage to THEIR country. whenever you divide the commoners from the people who "deserve" to rule, whether by birth (aristocracy), money (plutocracy), thuggery (dictatorship), or your bullshit undefineable "common sense", you are on the road to hell. just study your history
so i trust the fate of my country to the common man. if for no other reason than what you offer is far, far worse
a real captain of industry, which everyone should strive to be, builds their own electric lines, transformers, bridges, power plants, automobile factories, etc, and doesn't reply on charity from others, which only destroys character
besides, we privatize things like power plants and electric utilities, because capitalism is magic fairy dust that solves all problems
nevermind that competing against an entrenched player with a network effect requires huge upfront costs that won't realize a return for over a decade, and therefore, no one in their right mind competes. and that in the meantime, a monopoly or oligarchy exists without any effective competition. and there is no market pressure to respond to customer's needs, since they have no where else to turn, they are captive
no, we still talk about the magic of free markets, even though all we have created is rent seeking parasites that drain capital to middlemen and executives who offer nothing in return. no, the real problem is government, you see
And you solve religious terrorism by raising standards of living. Except all the 9/11 attackers came from middle class backgrounds.
The point being, poverty isn't the driver of the problems people like to say poverty drives. This is a nice, intellectually dishonest and shallow way for you to dismiss the problem in your mind. Because the problem is really ideology, specifically religious teachings on reproduction.
The future of the world is the Philippines: the Catholic Hierarchy and their insane teachings on reproduction have a stranglehold on that country, which leads to massive poverty and suffering, and yet no one can get sane teachings on reproduction in that country:
You say: "why is the Philippines the future of the world?" Because the guy or gal who is ecologically aware and understands he or she should have less kids breed themselves right out of the world, and leave it to the families having 12 kids and believing in ideological memes that says lots of kids is ordained by god, or whatever belief that overwhems common sense on the issue.
There are middle class families with 8 kids in the USA: think the Orthodox Jews or the Mormons or Southern Baptists. Economic betterment doesn't solve the problem of having lots of kids.
I am a strict believer in freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of religion.
But my mind encounters problems like overpopulation, and I have a problem: freedom simply results in a runaway reproduction train, because it's really not about choice, it's about a simple biological imperative combined with bountiful resources and empowered by ideological memes that reproduce right along with the kids. Evolution in action simply means more and more of a biological creature until it is stopped. It does not stop itself. This is our problem: the ideologies of the world that reduce humanity to a fungal growth, which, when resources are so scarce and education is not affordable, we basically will be.
So, I have come to the regretful conclusion that China, so wrong on so many other freedoms, has it right on population: you need to clamp down on these "vaginas are a clown car" belief systems. I don't like this thought of mine, to embrace such authoritarian control system ONLY in regards to reproduction, but I simply see no other way.
Please, someone tell me there is another way, turning to Chinese authoritarianism as a the best model in anything creeps me out.
The problem is a serious one. It does not go away on its own. People who choose to have less kids go away, and leave the earth to the vagina=clown car religions.
but you disproved your point deeply by saying that
among a certain set, it is attractive to privatize everything
of course, in industries with a network effect (electricity, cable, telephone) and huge startup costs (power plants, car manufacturing) the effect is that a few large players dominate, an oligarchy. this is true of google and twitter and facebook as well
an oligarchy is not the same thing as a free market where consumers can easily and freely switch providers
this being true, there is no easy and obvious alternative. if i dislike the sandwich my deli made me, i can walk down a block to another deli. but there is no other twitter. well, there is, but, the network effect being what it is, it's like saying i'm going to drop verizon and take up cardboard cups on strings
so, in response to your comment, i say this: for fields dominated by a few large players, the government has the right, in your name, to regulate those players as if they were part of your government, and that it is not at all illogical to say that rights you hold your government to, such as free speech, be imposed on the private enterprise, because it is, after all, basically serving a public interest with no real competitors
you can't have it both ways: either the situation is truly like a free market, or it is like a government service. you can't point at an oligarchy and a monopoly and say the rules of walking down the street to another deli applies. there are no other choices, it's not really a free market
just because you privatized a service to a few huge players is not the same thing as a free market. you're just playing silly games because you believe capitalism is some sort of religion that answers all things, when it clearly doesn't
You're supposed to build this yourself, because, as the saying goes, loose lips sink ships. You are proposing a non-military access point onto a vessel vested with the task of protecting the interests of the United States. You're asking for a tactical trojan. Security should be your highest concern.
So you need to figure out how to do it in house. That's why you get so much $$$ in the Federal budget. So go spend some of it. We give you the big $$$ because I don't want the good guys protecting me exposed to network vulnerabilities YOU brought on the ship.
Frankly, your question reminds of this post from the other day:
It is an abstract representation of value that only has meaning in the context of a society.
It has no meaning or value in and of itself: can't do much with a sack of gold in the middle of the Sahara, unless you meet some tauregs, which brings us back to the point: whatever you agree is a medium of exchange has to derive meaning in terms of what other people think of as value.
Gold has ancient meaning, but ones and zeroes have to stand for something else: a sack of gold in a bank somewhere.
Which implies accountability, traceability, authority.
Without those things, no one in their right mind will accept your currency.
You have to know what currency actually means, and you can't design currency that defies those meanings, or what you have isn't really currency. Except amongst other idealistic clueless fanboys of alternacurrency, but this is a fringe group playing silly games, not actually making something that will replace real currency at large.
There is no trust in the parameters you have outlined. And with no trust, no trade.
Slashdot Mirror
At the timing of news stories, to see the conspiracies in action behind the scenes
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/07/06/0021254/ron-pauls-new-primary-goal-is-internet-freedom
It is clear Ron Paul is an agent of the fascist UN. We have been fooled!
(this post is sarcasm, not actual paranoid schizophrenia)
The church of the Streisand effect
You're an idiot.
The internet isn't a market.
You do understand the unfair, often brutal shenanigans that go on in black markets, right?
The example of the black market is example number one in support of what I am saying.
governments aren't run by alien overlords, they are run by people. calling them sociopaths is just a way for you to push off the problem into the realm of prejudicial nonsense, and allows you to abrogate any responsibility for your own government: it's run by people somehow fundamentally different form you and me, therefore, we can't do anything about it. fucking bullshit
the truth is that all governments decay from their ideals over time, and only constant effort keeps it clean. the fact the government is vulnerable to corruption means nothing: of course its vulnerable. it always is. it always will be. of any form. so the job before you, as a citizen, is a constant clean up effort that never ends, never will end, and that's as good as it ever will get. you never clean up government once, retire, and it never gets dirty again. this is fantasy land
this is just the way it is. there is no better deal than that. no matter what kind of government you imagine
i absolutely understand and agree with your point!
and this is the corporate corruption of our government. and this must be stopped
what is the alternative? reduce and weaken the government?
thereby rewarding the source of the problem?
i never understood this "the patient is sick, so kill him and give the virus an award" thinking about the corporate corruption of our government
you see as the source of the problem as the government
the source of the problem is the corporations
we need to fight back and reclaim OUR government
not weaken it, and reward the crimes committed when our government is compromised
rainbows!
unicorns!
for a market to be truly free, as in just, a market must be highly regulated so large and small players operate on the same level ground
without such government intervention in the market, the largest players collude and squash the little ones, and there is no real market at all, just a few large rent seeking parasites and no consumer choice whatsoever
but don't listen to me, i only have the entirety of economic history to back me up
by all means, don't let reality interfere with what are basically religious myths you depend upon to think the way you do
the individual's?
or freedom like this?:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/07/04/1538201/verizon-claims-net-neutrality-violates-their-free-speech-rights
the problem the pauls and libertarian fundamentalists like them have is they are incredibly naive about what small government really means: a power vacuum that is filled by corporations. at least with our deeply flawed government, there is actually a pretense that it is supposed to stand for our individual freedoms, and some means of recourse
weaken our government, and you are left with monopolies and oligarchies who are happy to trample on our freedoms in the name of their "freedom", and no recourse whatsoever
oh yeah, you can take your business to a competitor, because without regulation the three dominant players aren't colluding and squashing all real competition
oh yeah, you can sue them in court. like you have 6 months and $100,000 and you lose anyway because they can just wear you down with their legion of lawyer goons
give it up, randroids
Is this the plot of some manga masquerading as news?
When do the cyborg rape octopuses show up?
the essence of martyrdom is that the martyr suffer. there is no such thing as a martyr who hasn't suffered for a cause. everyone sees them suffer, and this inspires them to suffer for the cause as well. previously ambivalent sympathisers now become active participants
that's the psychology in play here
so if you don't want to inspire martyrdom, you don't create martyrs, you don't torture them or make them suffer
you let them get off unharmed, and they fade away, uninspirational and unimportant
the process you are describing doesn't seem to understand how martyrdom works. you are describing how simple fear of brutality works. but martyrdom transcends fear of repercussions. you are sacrificing in the name of a cause
i'm not saying what is going to happen with assange, but if he inspires martyrdom, it means people will be more willing to pass info to wikileaks, participate in it, and otherwise support it, because they seem him as a continuing victim and feel his cause is worthy of their own sacrifice as well. so the USA should just ignore him and forget him, if they had any understanding of the psychology in play here. it's not like prosecuting him will return anything, all the damage has been done
martyrdom is the inversion of the self-protection mechanism. it is about sacrificing yourself in order to protect something else: a cause. your words seem fixated on self-protection as the dominant instinct in play, when in fact martyrdom is about the exact opposite instinct in play: the subversion of the self to something seen as a greater cause, something more worthy than protecting the self
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
and you sound like a dirty socialist
THAT WAS A JOKE
obviously
invest in infrastructure and business thrives
now explain that to tea party dimwits who say otherwise
you have to understand: bike lanes, public transportation and intelligent civil planning in general is a UN plot to destroy America (people actually believe this, spurred on by the paranoid schizophrenia broadcast on Faux News)... welcome to USA, 2012:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/activists-fight-green-projects-seeing-un-plot.html
funding education, healthcare, science: that's evil socialism
Next you'll tell me funding bridges, roads, tunnels, railroad, etc. is good for the country
These are just feel goid schemes to funnel money away from rich folk and corporations, preventing them from creating jobsand growing a giant government that stifles growth
Nothing useful or capital creating will come out of this, just some socialist European egg heads making up theories without proof that destroys young people's faith in God ...welcome to America. Weep for us.
they only feed the fire by going after him
the "damage" assange did is done, and there's no way you can hide what has been revealed
just forget about him. move on
because all the efforts the USA goes through just feeds the myth and makes the man a hero, deservedly or not
right. now divide the idiots from the people with the common sense
ok, first define common sense
the problem with what you say is that you wind up committing worse damage than the hoards of idiots whom i agree with you are committing damage. but they are committing damage to THEIR country. whenever you divide the commoners from the people who "deserve" to rule, whether by birth (aristocracy), money (plutocracy), thuggery (dictatorship), or your bullshit undefineable "common sense", you are on the road to hell. just study your history
so i trust the fate of my country to the common man. if for no other reason than what you offer is far, far worse
that is evil socialism, collectivist action
a real captain of industry, which everyone should strive to be, builds their own electric lines, transformers, bridges, power plants, automobile factories, etc, and doesn't reply on charity from others, which only destroys character
besides, we privatize things like power plants and electric utilities, because capitalism is magic fairy dust that solves all problems
nevermind that competing against an entrenched player with a network effect requires huge upfront costs that won't realize a return for over a decade, and therefore, no one in their right mind competes. and that in the meantime, a monopoly or oligarchy exists without any effective competition. and there is no market pressure to respond to customer's needs, since they have no where else to turn, they are captive
no, we still talk about the magic of free markets, even though all we have created is rent seeking parasites that drain capital to middlemen and executives who offer nothing in return. no, the real problem is government, you see
And you solve religious terrorism by raising standards of living. Except all the 9/11 attackers came from middle class backgrounds.
The point being, poverty isn't the driver of the problems people like to say poverty drives. This is a nice, intellectually dishonest and shallow way for you to dismiss the problem in your mind. Because the problem is really ideology, specifically religious teachings on reproduction.
The future of the world is the Philippines: the Catholic Hierarchy and their insane teachings on reproduction have a stranglehold on that country, which leads to massive poverty and suffering, and yet no one can get sane teachings on reproduction in that country:
http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4657&Itemid=189
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/philippines-constitutional-framer-more-people-more-glory-to-god/
You say: "why is the Philippines the future of the world?" Because the guy or gal who is ecologically aware and understands he or she should have less kids breed themselves right out of the world, and leave it to the families having 12 kids and believing in ideological memes that says lots of kids is ordained by god, or whatever belief that overwhems common sense on the issue.
There are middle class families with 8 kids in the USA: think the Orthodox Jews or the Mormons or Southern Baptists. Economic betterment doesn't solve the problem of having lots of kids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_Kids_and_Counting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull
I am a strict believer in freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of religion.
But my mind encounters problems like overpopulation, and I have a problem: freedom simply results in a runaway reproduction train, because it's really not about choice, it's about a simple biological imperative combined with bountiful resources and empowered by ideological memes that reproduce right along with the kids. Evolution in action simply means more and more of a biological creature until it is stopped. It does not stop itself. This is our problem: the ideologies of the world that reduce humanity to a fungal growth, which, when resources are so scarce and education is not affordable, we basically will be.
So, I have come to the regretful conclusion that China, so wrong on so many other freedoms, has it right on population: you need to clamp down on these "vaginas are a clown car" belief systems. I don't like this thought of mine, to embrace such authoritarian control system ONLY in regards to reproduction, but I simply see no other way.
Please, someone tell me there is another way, turning to Chinese authoritarianism as a the best model in anything creeps me out.
The problem is a serious one. It does not go away on its own. People who choose to have less kids go away, and leave the earth to the vagina=clown car religions.
but you disproved your point deeply by saying that
among a certain set, it is attractive to privatize everything
of course, in industries with a network effect (electricity, cable, telephone) and huge startup costs (power plants, car manufacturing) the effect is that a few large players dominate, an oligarchy. this is true of google and twitter and facebook as well
an oligarchy is not the same thing as a free market where consumers can easily and freely switch providers
this being true, there is no easy and obvious alternative. if i dislike the sandwich my deli made me, i can walk down a block to another deli. but there is no other twitter. well, there is, but, the network effect being what it is, it's like saying i'm going to drop verizon and take up cardboard cups on strings
so, in response to your comment, i say this: for fields dominated by a few large players, the government has the right, in your name, to regulate those players as if they were part of your government, and that it is not at all illogical to say that rights you hold your government to, such as free speech, be imposed on the private enterprise, because it is, after all, basically serving a public interest with no real competitors
you can't have it both ways: either the situation is truly like a free market, or it is like a government service. you can't point at an oligarchy and a monopoly and say the rules of walking down the street to another deli applies. there are no other choices, it's not really a free market
just because you privatized a service to a few huge players is not the same thing as a free market. you're just playing silly games because you believe capitalism is some sort of religion that answers all things, when it clearly doesn't
so there you go. there's no good reason for leap seconds. bundle them and apply them once a decade or more.
Why not bundle them and apply them every 10 or 20 years?
And apparently I'm not alone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second#Proposal_to_abolish_leap_seconds
Hogwash, Astronomers can find coping mechanisms, it's either that or these ridiculous levels of stress for systems admins.
Then you have to question the wisdom of putting the Internet on a military vessel
It's the goddamned SECURITY that is the issue here, dear genius IT person
You're supposed to build this yourself, because, as the saying goes, loose lips sink ships. You are proposing a non-military access point onto a vessel vested with the task of protecting the interests of the United States. You're asking for a tactical trojan. Security should be your highest concern.
So you need to figure out how to do it in house. That's why you get so much $$$ in the Federal budget. So go spend some of it. We give you the big $$$ because I don't want the good guys protecting me exposed to network vulnerabilities YOU brought on the ship.
Frankly, your question reminds of this post from the other day:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2947355&cid=40496109
Serious business! ;-)
It is an abstract representation of value that only has meaning in the context of a society.
It has no meaning or value in and of itself: can't do much with a sack of gold in the middle of the Sahara, unless you meet some tauregs, which brings us back to the point: whatever you agree is a medium of exchange has to derive meaning in terms of what other people think of as value.
Gold has ancient meaning, but ones and zeroes have to stand for something else: a sack of gold in a bank somewhere.
Which implies accountability, traceability, authority.
Without those things, no one in their right mind will accept your currency.
You have to know what currency actually means, and you can't design currency that defies those meanings, or what you have isn't really currency. Except amongst other idealistic clueless fanboys of alternacurrency, but this is a fringe group playing silly games, not actually making something that will replace real currency at large.
There is no trust in the parameters you have outlined. And with no trust, no trade.
reading TFA is not allowed according to slashdot cultural norms. who are you stranger?
isn't that exactly how Iran caught that US drone a few months ago?
google...
tada:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/12/15/2013249/us-sentinel-drone-fooled-into-landing-with-gps-spoofing