you have a philosophy founded on the triumph of selfishness over all of altruism, and under such a social dynamic, suddenly people are going to be bountiful givers. its hilarious. or rather, it would be hilarious, if so many low iq assholes weren't so earnest about this libertarian foolishness
you are either a willfully intellectually dishonest liar, or you are completely deluded as to your own subject matter
the sum total of your beliefs is to drive this great nation into the status of something like somalia or haiti. that's what you get without a strong central government: more corruption, domination by mafia and companies, degradation and then destruction of the middle class. that really is the truth, it is such a shame so many earnest clueless fools like yourself don't understand that
work to CLEAN UP your government, fool, don't destroy the only entity which protects you from other forces that would fill the power vacuum and subject you to abuses far worse than what you complain about today
the types of powers you want to remove from government will be replaced by corporate power
corporations are beholden to shareholders. government is accountable to you. so why do you want to remove the only thing that protects you, and replace it with an entity that is not beholden to you at all, not even in theory?
of course, it doesn't always work out that the government is accountable to you: corruption of our civil servants and our legislators, by corporations, make them serve corporate interests instead of ours. THAT'S the crime you need to fight, not government itself
why don't you work on making government live up to its, shall i say for the sake of this audience, the originalist constutional purpose, of serving us, and stop working at destroying the only thing we have protecting us from corporate domination?
because right now, you are a fool: the sum total of all of your beliefs and all of your efforts serves to empower corporations, who will commit all of the crimes you see big government committing, and many more. of course, this is not what you want. the tragedy is that you do not see that the real world effects of your beliefs is to give us that: corporate domination
my hope is that fools like you can be educated as to this simple fact, before some future hell of corporatocracy, created by your efforts, does not serve as the educational lesson on why we need a strong central government to hold corporate power in check
"If you really look at Libertarianism, you'd see that corporations would lose a lot of the protections of assets and greater liability and fewer government handouts"
wow, this is an awesome form of libertarianism. so, dear libertarian, who is going to enforce this liability? answer: some form of centralized government bureaucracy... oops, we destroyed them
libertarians don't understand that when you weaken the government, there is only one power left in the room: corporations. at that point, nothing stops them from corrupting and controlling every remaining government function you hold dear
libertarians have plenty of things to hate in government. what they should do is work at REFORMING government, not destroying it
put it this way: make a list of every abuse of big government you despise and hate
now, take away that big government. what do you get?
reality: you get THE SAME LIST OF ABUSES, plus A WHOLE BUNCH OF NEW ONES, SOME FAR WORSE, being committed by corporations. that really is the truth. please recognize that
you NEED big government to hold the corporations in check. but to the extent that big government is entwined with corporations, WORK TO REMOVE THAT CORRUPTION. don't work to remove the only thing holding corporate power in check!
and north korea responded by building a nuclear bomb, launching missiles over japan, and torpedoing one of their ships
the path of diplomacy actually has its limits, especially when whom you are reaching out to is so mad with rabies they continue to attack you
i'm not saying we shouldn't continue on the path of diplomacy, i'm simply asking you to see that diplomacy does not always succeed, and war and isolation become necessary, at some point. we aren't at that point yet, and hopefully we never get to that point. but we may get there, and you should recognize that, especially when dealing with something as batshit crazy as north korea. north korea is the one who is pushing us to that point, not us. you can't extend your arms in peace to someone shooting at you
not just the usual fundamentalism of religions: muslim fundamentalists, christian fundamentalist, jewish fundamentalists, although they of course continue doing the damage they have done for centuries
also, fundamentalisms of politics and commerce: free market fundamentalists, constitutional fundamentalists, brain dead partisans: a sort of fundamentalism of political party, etc
even other bogeymen can be recast as fundamentalism: racism, for example, is a form of racial fundamentalism
whenever you adhere to one aspect of human reality, and make it your only concern, to say that is solves all problems, you yourself, you have become the source of the problems in this world. because the truth is, the world is complex, and simplistic teachings about who and what we are always fail
unfortunately, this truth never stops certain assholes from continuing to tell us that simplistic teachings are the solutions to our problems (and thereby become the source of our problems)
communist ideology is incompatible with reality, much as libertarian ideology is incompatible with reality
attempting to make communism work in reality results in domination of society by cult of personalities. individuals who can do no wrong (while they do plenty wrong). attempting to make libertarianism work in reality results in domination of society by corporations. corporations who can do no wrong (while they do plenty wrong)
balance in all things. unfortunately, we must pay a mighty price in this world for the ideolgoical fools who go to the extremes of libertarianism and communism, when the middle way, the moderate way: capitalism with socialist safety nets, socialism with capitalist engines, the only really valid real world solutions to the paradox that is human selfishness and altruism
irony #1: a television whose wit is only possible in a country with freedom of expression, being drawn by cartoonists in a country where there are no freedoms at all. anyone north korean attempting a north korean version of the simpsons would be put to death
irony #2: a country so beholden to the almighty buck that it will export the production of everything to the cheapest place possible, relentlessly and continuously, until you are driven to places where things are so cheap because of adherence to communist ideology. capitalism's relentlessness includes ways to monetize and capitalize on artifacts of the the communist age. that's an irony china certainly has a lot of domestic experience with
there are about 20 other ironies. see them for yourself
is incredibly difficult to maintain and always prone to exposure
i'm not arguing against your words on moral grounds, i'm arguing agains them on the grounds of feasibility
if you play the game that is security through secrecy, then you must recognize that part of that game is break-ins. you have declared your allegiance to a world where there are attackers constantly trying to penetrate walls and safeguards. and there are always moles, and double agents, and disenchanted guards looking for a quick buck
so it is a brittle world, one which could pop at any moment, and yet its legitimacy rests on guards and keys. so when, not if, the guards and keys are penetrated, part of your legitimacy is destroyed. its a game you can only lose
if you are eternally vigilant, then maybe this is the world for you. but more likely you are human, and fallible, and secrets will get out, as they are wont to do. its a world that can never be maintained for very long. it is an unstable world
all castles eventually fall. sometimes, they fall merely for being castles, being targets, giving your enemy something to focus its energies on
however, it seems that lately australia trying really, really hard to be a complete fucking asshole when it comes to online privacy, censorship, rights, etc
one of these days, some genius asshole is going to, just for the lulz, shut down the whole goddamn internet in 15 minutes. he or she is going to it with a worm that, of course, will be based on something in the microsoft constellation of oses/ products/ third party software. perhaps from our other security averse friend, adobe
i thought it was going to be code red or sql slammer, but no, these infections were content to zombify, not zombify and enslave the nonzombies (see below):
enslave the nonzombies: of course there are other oses out there, but they are in the minority. so listen up genius asshole: whoever writes this worm will cleverly make sure that all compromised systems DDOS non-microsoft os ip addresses on purpose. sql slammer and code red just blindly reached out to all ips and latched on to any promiscuous microsoft bitches that proved to be receptive to getting fucked. but you, oh genius asshole, will take note of those ips which defy you and share this list dynamically and automatically in real time between your other pwn3d machines
if a machine does not respond to your rude advances to be fucked, or can otherwise be quickly and reliably sniffed out as a non-microsoft os ip, punish the defiant, hard and cruel
you leveraging your growing zombie horde of microsoft os monoculturalism to mount a directed attack on nonmicrosoft machines. DDOS the responsible and the vigilant. leverage the power of the insecure to take down the secure. if the bitch won't fuck you, slap that bitch. if they will not be defeated, then they will be enslaved in a deluge of requests until they succumb. none shall survive, all shall be zombified or enslaved
and therefore completely wipe out the whole goddamn internet. for the lulz, you see
i'm still waiting, and when it happens, even though my means of livelihood is based on the internet, i'll be clapping and eating popcorn, reveling in the sheer armageddon horror of it all. awesome dude!
so where are you, genius asshole? make it happen
please don't let it happen for some insipid mundane making-up-for-my-small-penis-through-nationalism reason like cyberwarfare between usa/ russia/ china/ iran. that would be boring. nationalism is fucking retarded
get it done FOR THE LULZ my genius asshole friend, where ever you are. i'm waiting to be adequately entertained by global internet meltdown. MAKE IT HAPPEN
and they are preying on medical ignorance to extract money from the desperate. this is criminal, clearly
it's not about freedom, it's about a scam. it is not compatible with any sense of morality to watch someone lie to people, then take their money from them based on the lies
we are not all islands in the sea with the compendium of all human knowledge at our fingertips and solid fortitude of will when faced with a mortal disease. we are weak. i am, you are. we need help. and we have help: we are communities, and we depend upon each other to look after each other
so enough with the fucking libertarian fundamentalism: when you begin defending outright scam artists, you know something about libertarianism has failed as a coherent philosophy
individual freedoms matter. also, communities matter. find the fucking balance and enough with the libertarian fundamentalism please
fundamentalism is all about taking one concept and extending it far into absurdity, in outright disregard of equally coherent, valid, and important concepts about human existence. such as COMMUNITY GOOD. another such ridiculous evil fundamentalist idiocy would be called communism: saying community good trumps all, including individual liberty. obviously, communism is stupid and evil... to the SAME MIRROR IMAGE EXTENT as libertarianism, by taking individual liberty to the opposite of ridiculous extremes and completely disregarding the EQUALLY VALID CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY GOOD
real, coherent moral philosophy is about finding a BALANCE between competing concepts: altruism and selfishness. failure comes when you ignore altruism, or you ignore selfishness. BALANCE THEM IN YOUR MIND: community good and individual liberty. that really is the truth, to a greater degree than you understand the truth, if you are a libertarian fundamentalist. wake the fuck up
i am really fucking sick of stridently loud obviously ignorant libertarian fundamentalists. they are doing genuine damage to my country and our world, just as much as damage as communism did. ENOUGH!
and i was calling for the abolition of slavery, would your reply
hat's a rather childish solution. If it's broken, you have to sit down and identify why it is broken and figure out how to fix it...oh but yeah, that requires *work*, doesn't it? Of course, you are itching to respond with, "yeah, good luck getting congress to do some work." And I'll respond with, "yeah, good luck getting Congress to dismantle the patent system." At least we have to start with a sensible, realistic solution (yours isn't) and try to force people in power to follow through on it.
i hope you wouldn't say that
abandoning ip law is a completely realistic solution: creators have plenty of ancillary sources of revenue to support their endeavours. there is no need to continue a legal charade that is rife with abuse, abuses that outweigh any theoretical benefits
luckily, in regard to the arts, the internet allows us to completely ignore an ip status quo that only works in an era of vinyl and xerox machines. so we don't have to trash the law, just ignore it. as for technology: progress will continue to be blocked by idiocies until more people wake up
the interbalance in the game between military strength, economic strength, strategic resources, domestic tranquility, and scientific research is compelling and "can also be a unique tool for understanding the world" as you say
that being said, i was a fucking addict. its hard to say the same thing about books and magazines. the timesuck represented by the "just one more turn" impulse, and watching the sun rise when you thought it was evening: that's addiction, and its dangerous, and its real
so unimportant, you can have all of the financial growth you want, but people's quality of life won't improve (except if you are rich)
the giant irony is that the communist party (in name only) is recreating the social conditions which led the revolution which created it in the first place. if the average guy on the street has no rights, i don't care how hypercapitalist you are, all of that pursuit of profit just means there will be a few more rich in shanghai
either china delivers on real improvement in people's lives, by focusing on their RIGHTS, or they are fomenting social instability. social stability is NOT guaranteed by a deathgrip on the media and the internet. why the grumpy old technocrats don't understand that is beyond me. they need to relax social and political controls, for the sake of a better china
so the issue is that for all their wisdom and learned intelligence, the grumpy old technocrats suffer from the simple human weakness of fear of letting go. and china will suffer for it, mark my words
all china is experiencing now is the worst excesses of the gilded age in the west, without any of the social and political growth that the west went through in the gilded ages as well, because the government of china won't let it. oh that growth will come, but it will come in explosive social upheaval that threatens the stability of the entire country, just because the government suffers from the weakness and folly that it thinks it has to control everything
the chinese worker is not going to live in meek slavelike deference forever while the rich cavort in shanghai. its a social injustice that china really should be more aware of than us in the west, because it was the same social injustice which led to the communist revolution a short time ago, all well within the span of lives of people still alive today. a worker's collectivist upheaval against a bourgeoise communist party seems like a hilarious absurdity, but that's where we are headed:
Slashdot Mirror
"charities"
the libertarian magical cheat
you have a philosophy founded on the triumph of selfishness over all of altruism, and under such a social dynamic, suddenly people are going to be bountiful givers. its hilarious. or rather, it would be hilarious, if so many low iq assholes weren't so earnest about this libertarian foolishness
you are either a willfully intellectually dishonest liar, or you are completely deluded as to your own subject matter
the sum total of your beliefs is to drive this great nation into the status of something like somalia or haiti. that's what you get without a strong central government: more corruption, domination by mafia and companies, degradation and then destruction of the middle class. that really is the truth, it is such a shame so many earnest clueless fools like yourself don't understand that
work to CLEAN UP your government, fool, don't destroy the only entity which protects you from other forces that would fill the power vacuum and subject you to abuses far worse than what you complain about today
that is good
your motivations are pure, and i agree with your motivations as they are my motivations too
but the kind of change you want will make everything you complain about now, worse
please try to understand that
in a comment thread on slashdot
but i'll state my case:
the types of powers you want to remove from government will be replaced by corporate power
corporations are beholden to shareholders. government is accountable to you. so why do you want to remove the only thing that protects you, and replace it with an entity that is not beholden to you at all, not even in theory?
of course, it doesn't always work out that the government is accountable to you: corruption of our civil servants and our legislators, by corporations, make them serve corporate interests instead of ours. THAT'S the crime you need to fight, not government itself
why don't you work on making government live up to its, shall i say for the sake of this audience, the originalist constutional purpose, of serving us, and stop working at destroying the only thing we have protecting us from corporate domination?
because right now, you are a fool: the sum total of all of your beliefs and all of your efforts serves to empower corporations, who will commit all of the crimes you see big government committing, and many more. of course, this is not what you want. the tragedy is that you do not see that the real world effects of your beliefs is to give us that: corporate domination
my hope is that fools like you can be educated as to this simple fact, before some future hell of corporatocracy, created by your efforts, does not serve as the educational lesson on why we need a strong central government to hold corporate power in check
"If you really look at Libertarianism, you'd see that corporations would lose a lot of the protections of assets and greater liability and fewer government handouts"
wow, this is an awesome form of libertarianism. so, dear libertarian, who is going to enforce this liability? answer: some form of centralized government bureaucracy... oops, we destroyed them
libertarians don't understand that when you weaken the government, there is only one power left in the room: corporations. at that point, nothing stops them from corrupting and controlling every remaining government function you hold dear
libertarians have plenty of things to hate in government. what they should do is work at REFORMING government, not destroying it
put it this way: make a list of every abuse of big government you despise and hate
now, take away that big government. what do you get?
reality: you get THE SAME LIST OF ABUSES, plus A WHOLE BUNCH OF NEW ONES, SOME FAR WORSE, being committed by corporations. that really is the truth. please recognize that
you NEED big government to hold the corporations in check. but to the extent that big government is entwined with corporations, WORK TO REMOVE THAT CORRUPTION. don't work to remove the only thing holding corporate power in check!
and north korea responded by building a nuclear bomb, launching missiles over japan, and torpedoing one of their ships
the path of diplomacy actually has its limits, especially when whom you are reaching out to is so mad with rabies they continue to attack you
i'm not saying we shouldn't continue on the path of diplomacy, i'm simply asking you to see that diplomacy does not always succeed, and war and isolation become necessary, at some point. we aren't at that point yet, and hopefully we never get to that point. but we may get there, and you should recognize that, especially when dealing with something as batshit crazy as north korea. north korea is the one who is pushing us to that point, not us. you can't extend your arms in peace to someone shooting at you
the threat all of us faces is fundamentalism
not just the usual fundamentalism of religions: muslim fundamentalists, christian fundamentalist, jewish fundamentalists, although they of course continue doing the damage they have done for centuries
also, fundamentalisms of politics and commerce: free market fundamentalists, constitutional fundamentalists, brain dead partisans: a sort of fundamentalism of political party, etc
even other bogeymen can be recast as fundamentalism: racism, for example, is a form of racial fundamentalism
whenever you adhere to one aspect of human reality, and make it your only concern, to say that is solves all problems, you yourself, you have become the source of the problems in this world. because the truth is, the world is complex, and simplistic teachings about who and what we are always fail
unfortunately, this truth never stops certain assholes from continuing to tell us that simplistic teachings are the solutions to our problems (and thereby become the source of our problems)
communist ideology is incompatible with reality, much as libertarian ideology is incompatible with reality
attempting to make communism work in reality results in domination of society by cult of personalities. individuals who can do no wrong (while they do plenty wrong). attempting to make libertarianism work in reality results in domination of society by corporations. corporations who can do no wrong (while they do plenty wrong)
balance in all things. unfortunately, we must pay a mighty price in this world for the ideolgoical fools who go to the extremes of libertarianism and communism, when the middle way, the moderate way: capitalism with socialist safety nets, socialism with capitalist engines, the only really valid real world solutions to the paradox that is human selfishness and altruism
irony #1: a television whose wit is only possible in a country with freedom of expression, being drawn by cartoonists in a country where there are no freedoms at all. anyone north korean attempting a north korean version of the simpsons would be put to death
irony #2: a country so beholden to the almighty buck that it will export the production of everything to the cheapest place possible, relentlessly and continuously, until you are driven to places where things are so cheap because of adherence to communist ideology. capitalism's relentlessness includes ways to monetize and capitalize on artifacts of the the communist age. that's an irony china certainly has a lot of domestic experience with
there are about 20 other ironies. see them for yourself
now instead of scalping someone's finger to access their stuff, now i have to pull a hannibal lecter
is incredibly difficult to maintain and always prone to exposure
i'm not arguing against your words on moral grounds, i'm arguing agains them on the grounds of feasibility
if you play the game that is security through secrecy, then you must recognize that part of that game is break-ins. you have declared your allegiance to a world where there are attackers constantly trying to penetrate walls and safeguards. and there are always moles, and double agents, and disenchanted guards looking for a quick buck
so it is a brittle world, one which could pop at any moment, and yet its legitimacy rests on guards and keys. so when, not if, the guards and keys are penetrated, part of your legitimacy is destroyed. its a game you can only lose
if you are eternally vigilant, then maybe this is the world for you. but more likely you are human, and fallible, and secrets will get out, as they are wont to do. its a world that can never be maintained for very long. it is an unstable world
all castles eventually fall. sometimes, they fall merely for being castles, being targets, giving your enemy something to focus its energies on
as much as the next guy, but when astrophysicists start taking this shit seriously, we have a problem
and the usa and canada has plenty of problems too
however, it seems that lately australia trying really, really hard to be a complete fucking asshole when it comes to online privacy, censorship, rights, etc
assholes of the internet
keep representing australia, up there with the autocrats and the theocrats in the iron fist department. you're awesome
as opposed to the lie "everyone should be completely selfish and ignore the common good and no, everything will not become like haiti, i promise"
if you defeat me, you get a live-action cutscene of me doing your mom
unless you won teh internets by traversing the far more difficult /b/tard PvP realm in the Retards and Trolls Comment Board (tm) expansion pack (beta)
in which case you get a hentai animated cutscene of rule 34 THAT NEVER ENDS AN ETERNAL HELL OF FURRIES GROUP SEX OH MY GOD MY EYES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhol_worm
one of these days, some genius asshole is going to, just for the lulz, shut down the whole goddamn internet in 15 minutes. he or she is going to it with a worm that, of course, will be based on something in the microsoft constellation of oses/ products/ third party software. perhaps from our other security averse friend, adobe
i thought it was going to be code red or sql slammer, but no, these infections were content to zombify, not zombify and enslave the nonzombies (see below):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Red_(computer_worm)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Slammer
enslave the nonzombies: of course there are other oses out there, but they are in the minority. so listen up genius asshole: whoever writes this worm will cleverly make sure that all compromised systems DDOS non-microsoft os ip addresses on purpose. sql slammer and code red just blindly reached out to all ips and latched on to any promiscuous microsoft bitches that proved to be receptive to getting fucked. but you, oh genius asshole, will take note of those ips which defy you and share this list dynamically and automatically in real time between your other pwn3d machines
if a machine does not respond to your rude advances to be fucked, or can otherwise be quickly and reliably sniffed out as a non-microsoft os ip, punish the defiant, hard and cruel
you leveraging your growing zombie horde of microsoft os monoculturalism to mount a directed attack on nonmicrosoft machines. DDOS the responsible and the vigilant. leverage the power of the insecure to take down the secure. if the bitch won't fuck you, slap that bitch. if they will not be defeated, then they will be enslaved in a deluge of requests until they succumb. none shall survive, all shall be zombified or enslaved
and therefore completely wipe out the whole goddamn internet. for the lulz, you see
i'm still waiting, and when it happens, even though my means of livelihood is based on the internet, i'll be clapping and eating popcorn, reveling in the sheer armageddon horror of it all. awesome dude!
so where are you, genius asshole? make it happen
please don't let it happen for some insipid mundane making-up-for-my-small-penis-through-nationalism reason like cyberwarfare between usa/ russia/ china/ iran. that would be boring. nationalism is fucking retarded
get it done FOR THE LULZ my genius asshole friend, where ever you are. i'm waiting to be adequately entertained by global internet meltdown. MAKE IT HAPPEN
what the hell does that have to do with the notion of the common good?
is often fraud itself"
wow, just wow
how can someone become so fucking deluded?
and they are preying on medical ignorance to extract money from the desperate. this is criminal, clearly
it's not about freedom, it's about a scam. it is not compatible with any sense of morality to watch someone lie to people, then take their money from them based on the lies
we are not all islands in the sea with the compendium of all human knowledge at our fingertips and solid fortitude of will when faced with a mortal disease. we are weak. i am, you are. we need help. and we have help: we are communities, and we depend upon each other to look after each other
so enough with the fucking libertarian fundamentalism: when you begin defending outright scam artists, you know something about libertarianism has failed as a coherent philosophy
individual freedoms matter. also, communities matter. find the fucking balance and enough with the libertarian fundamentalism please
fundamentalism is all about taking one concept and extending it far into absurdity, in outright disregard of equally coherent, valid, and important concepts about human existence. such as COMMUNITY GOOD. another such ridiculous evil fundamentalist idiocy would be called communism: saying community good trumps all, including individual liberty. obviously, communism is stupid and evil... to the SAME MIRROR IMAGE EXTENT as libertarianism, by taking individual liberty to the opposite of ridiculous extremes and completely disregarding the EQUALLY VALID CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY GOOD
real, coherent moral philosophy is about finding a BALANCE between competing concepts: altruism and selfishness. failure comes when you ignore altruism, or you ignore selfishness. BALANCE THEM IN YOUR MIND: community good and individual liberty. that really is the truth, to a greater degree than you understand the truth, if you are a libertarian fundamentalist. wake the fuck up
i am really fucking sick of stridently loud obviously ignorant libertarian fundamentalists. they are doing genuine damage to my country and our world, just as much as damage as communism did. ENOUGH!
the internet is actually the crystal meth of human wisdom
i'm a complete idiot and there's nothing wrong with ip law. it is a field of gold and honey, there are no abuses that might outweigh benefits
continue on in ignorant bliss. consider your worldview completely unchallenged. everything is wonderful with ip law
assuming you are posting from china, try criticizing it for once
oh you wouldn't dare would you? what would happen to you if you criticized the regime politically from within china?
but ignore me, i'm obviously just a propagandized westerner
and i was calling for the abolition of slavery, would your reply
hat's a rather childish solution. If it's broken, you have to sit down and identify why it is broken and figure out how to fix it...oh but yeah, that requires *work*, doesn't it? Of course, you are itching to respond with, "yeah, good luck getting congress to do some work." And I'll respond with, "yeah, good luck getting Congress to dismantle the patent system." At least we have to start with a sensible, realistic solution (yours isn't) and try to force people in power to follow through on it.
i hope you wouldn't say that
abandoning ip law is a completely realistic solution: creators have plenty of ancillary sources of revenue to support their endeavours. there is no need to continue a legal charade that is rife with abuse, abuses that outweigh any theoretical benefits
luckily, in regard to the arts, the internet allows us to completely ignore an ip status quo that only works in an era of vinyl and xerox machines. so we don't have to trash the law, just ignore it. as for technology: progress will continue to be blocked by idiocies until more people wake up
oh, btw: wake up!
the interbalance in the game between military strength, economic strength, strategic resources, domestic tranquility, and scientific research is compelling and "can also be a unique tool for understanding the world" as you say
that being said, i was a fucking addict. its hard to say the same thing about books and magazines. the timesuck represented by the "just one more turn" impulse, and watching the sun rise when you thought it was evening: that's addiction, and its dangerous, and its real
stop making excuses for bad behavior
so unimportant, you can have all of the financial growth you want, but people's quality of life won't improve (except if you are rich)
the giant irony is that the communist party (in name only) is recreating the social conditions which led the revolution which created it in the first place. if the average guy on the street has no rights, i don't care how hypercapitalist you are, all of that pursuit of profit just means there will be a few more rich in shanghai
either china delivers on real improvement in people's lives, by focusing on their RIGHTS, or they are fomenting social instability. social stability is NOT guaranteed by a deathgrip on the media and the internet. why the grumpy old technocrats don't understand that is beyond me. they need to relax social and political controls, for the sake of a better china
so the issue is that for all their wisdom and learned intelligence, the grumpy old technocrats suffer from the simple human weakness of fear of letting go. and china will suffer for it, mark my words
all china is experiencing now is the worst excesses of the gilded age in the west, without any of the social and political growth that the west went through in the gilded ages as well, because the government of china won't let it. oh that growth will come, but it will come in explosive social upheaval that threatens the stability of the entire country, just because the government suffers from the weakness and folly that it thinks it has to control everything
the chinese worker is not going to live in meek slavelike deference forever while the rich cavort in shanghai. its a social injustice that china really should be more aware of than us in the west, because it was the same social injustice which led to the communist revolution a short time ago, all well within the span of lives of people still alive today. a worker's collectivist upheaval against a bourgeoise communist party seems like a hilarious absurdity, but that's where we are headed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/business/global/09labor.html
UNLESS the government starts delivering on human rights. NOW
i'm reminded of another union force that toppled a communist regime, in poland, not too long ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_(Polish_trade_union)