they are made at separate times, according to different economic projections, according to different goals, according to different past results, and by separate committees
absolutely you can make a case denver needs more cops. absolutely the homeless doesn't need the shelters. and people are making these cases. IN DIFFERENT ROOMS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE AT DIFFERENT TIMES
to say that this is about priorities, to imply that some demonic mayor is sitting there taking money from cop funding and putting it into homeless shelters absolutely misrepresents the reality of how these decisions are made
If you don't believe me, take your credit card out on the town and make a lot of decisions "in the vacuum of any other considerations" and let me know how that works out
yes, classic demagoguery: you take the reality of a complicated sprawling funding process and reduce it to simplistic emotional scenario: a guy with a credit card choosing between buying food to feed his kids and buying a scratch off ticket. oh wait, you didn't say that. well, you can thank me for making your propaganda even more simplistic and emotional. pfffffffffft
please educate yourself, life is slightly more complicated than you think:
of the world by ignoring a myriad of other facts and instead only focusing on those facts which reinforce your prejudices
there's a couple of hundred potshots i can take at your stilted broken reasoning, but i'll list only a bare few, since i'm not going to write a doctoral dissertation just to counteract the ignorance in your comments, and instead hope that you find the time to reexamine your misperceptions
1. poverty went down and continued to go down from well before lbj and well after him. a lot of urban decay is due to the rise of the suburbs, due to the rise of the automobile. and its quite the awesome suspension of logic where you perceive people sitting on their asses as the cause of no jobs, rather the result of no jobs. and no jobs in a particular industry due to simple inevitable unavoidable changes in basic economic world realities, not because of some supposed demonic government policy
2. single, poor women do have lots of kids. single, poor women have always had lots of kids, going back centuries before the existence of welfare, going back to the dawn of civilization. welfare has lifted them socioeconomically to the point where they don't have so many kids. again, an amazing creative effort of cause and effect on your part, bearing no resemblence whatsover to reality or historical fact, where you actually blame welfare for them having kids! and of course, no effort on your part to blame the men, rich and poor, who apply financial or emotional coercion or outright physical intimidation, screw them, and leave
in which committees involved in different issues, independent of each other, make projections based on need, and in consideration of past returns for past investments, scale spending on particular issues up and down, at different times of the year, in different legislative and/ or administrative tracks
but, nah, who am i to say such a levelheaded thing? you clearly know far more about real budgeting processes, where socialist fascists sit in a room and say "we are going to fire cops so we can build palatial homeless shelters" and then laugh demonically
thanks for setting me straight on what its like to be involved in real budgeting processes
that the mayor of denver wishes his citizens would experience more crime, while the homeless live in palaces?
is that your honest assertion here about his motivations?
if that is not what you are trying to say, then maybe you can begin to consider the possibility that the choices the mayor made is gee, i dunno, just MAYBE a little more independent from each other than the stark fearmongering dichotomy you present?
the idea of communism is that everyone should be as poor as its poorest member
the ideal society is a meritocracy, right? that you receive from hard work the right to a good life. that to reward those who are lazy loitering useless souls as much as you reward those who work hard, ruins any reason to work hard, right?
i'm not asking for communism, i'm asking for a meritocracy with social safety nets. you seem equate social safety nets with communism. this is classic demagoguery
your false dichotomy is that social safety nets are anathema to the meritocracy. but you can have a meritocracy with social safety nets. i'm not asking for the homeless to live in palaces, i'm asking for them to have heat in the winter and food on the plate. those who work hard are rewarded with good life far beyond those bare bones of existence. so there is plenty of reason to work hard and take initiative. its just that in a society with social safety nets, if you don't work hard, you live a miserable life, rather than freezing to death in a society with no social safety nets. and social safety nets in turn represents less people desperate enough to turn to crime to support themselves since society won't give them the simplest of basics. in fact, the costs of crime in a society without social safety nets are more expensive than the safety nets. if you are lazy and without initiative and without personal responsibility, you don't deserve middle class perks. but you also don't deserve no health care and an early death, especially when preventative care for things like hypertension and diabetes is so cheap. treating these people with a heart attack or amputation in the emergency room is far more expensive. and then you have to deal with the poor family with the breadwinner dead
furthermore, plenty of those who are rich are rich because they enjoy income from defects in the imperfect marketplace where they are rewarded for doing nothing. furthermore, plenty who are poor are poor for sins their fathers committed, and are in fact good people who would do well in the middle class if only that pesky broken arm wouldn't prevent them working (since they have no healthcare, they can't afford to fix it). free market fundamentalists and libertarians fail to see how life isn't really a meritocracy, that inevitable structural defects constantly reward the rich for doing nothing, and punish others for simply being born poor. in fact, if life is going to be a meritocracy, you need a strong governmental presence to enforce the rules of the game, and correct these inevitable spontaneous defects in the marketplace. in fact, left to its own devices, the market falls to pieces, it bubbles and pops, bubble and pops. a "free" market needs a strong governmental police presence to stay truly free
and please, don't give me the bullshit about charities. its always those who are asking to contribute the least to society who refer to charities in the hypothetical as the safety net. charities of course they will never contribute to. as if those who are espousing a philosophy of "i got mine, sucks to be you" are bountiful cornucopias of giving. no, they are blind selfish assholes who can't understand how the money in their pocket comes from the health of the society they live in. we need social safety nets precisely because so many people like you who espouse a philosophy of selfishness and will never will donate to charity
please, i await your response, where you insist you are bountiful giver to charity. and then i await your next sentence in which you espouse the meritocracy without social safety nets, where if you have nothing, you probably deserve it. pffffffft
communism != social safety nets. social safety nets != destruction of meritocracy
please make a fucking note of it, and adjust your blind ignorant ideology accordingly. thanks
and of course, those decisions are fused at the hip right?
its impossible in your mind that the decision to pay less for police was made independently of the need for more for homeless shelters, right?
nah, the mayor was of course thinking "i want drugs and crime to spread unchecked on the innocent hardworking citizens of denver while the homeless get free palatial suites at the hilton"
see? that's some good demagoguery i wrote there
maybe i should just stop trying to fight for truth and get into your game of ignorant fearmongering
according to any serious study that's ever been done
"So, in other words, I should have to pay people off (through threat of force) to keep them from breaking into my house and stealing my property?"
yes, this statement is 100% accurate. why don't you come to grips with reality?
you have poor people who live near you. you can give them the bare essentials to live, or you can give them nothing, and they will take it from you, because they need to feed themselves. this is reality all over the globe. compare the societies that have welfare to those that don't. you tell me which is the poorer societies. if you lived in those societies who do nothing for the poor, you would be poorer, not richer. because the cash in your pocket is a reflection of the wealth around you. do you understand this simple fact?
you pay, one way or another for those who are impoverished around you. welfare is just the cheaper way to do it. you don't want to pay welfare because you think the choice is between paying welfare and paying nothing. no, the choice is between paying welfare or paying for a new television set after your place is broken into
what is it about your thinking that makes you unable to understand this simple choice that has always existed? in all of history, in every society in every culture: those societies that take care of their weaker members are further enriched, in greater amounts than what they pay
you think poor people just disappear into the ether? you think their problems aren't yours? proactively do something to help those in need in your society, or your society experiences problems that begin to affect your bottom line. simple truth, simple choice. your entire way of thinking seems dependent on a sense of isolation from society, when in fact you are part of it. and the more you contribute to it, the more dividends you receive from it. ignore how the health of society affects your bottom line, and you get less money in your pocket
the only real poverty going on here, in the end, is in your mind and your inability to perceive these simple facts
nobody in their right mind is thinking of shortchanging something like defense spending for the sake of welfare recipients. this never enters into any governmental spending calculus as it is blindingly obvious something like police are more important to absolutely everyone involved in decision making. if spending is not at the level you think it should be, it has to do with someone thinking less is needed for that particular spending allotment, in a vacuum of any other consideration, not because someone needs a battered women's shelter instead. you present a false choice in your comment that never exists in the real world
furthermore social services are a bargain: every dollar spent on welfare and healthcare and other social services is one less guy breaking into your house or mugging you on the street, because they can't feed their kids, or because they can't keep their job with a broken arm (that they can't afford to fix). it's cheaper to fix their arm. you will pay for social services one way or another. the idea of not spending on healthcare for the poor means the problem just goes away is ignorance: every untreated case of diabetes winding up in the emergency room, every case of tuberculosis untreated resulting in your children catching it, every untreated case of hypertension resulting in a heart attack for the family breadwinner who now leaves a familty to fend on their own: you pay for that in the form of a sick society, and that affects your bottom line and the balance in your checking account, whether you are blind to how you are not an island in this world or not
when you live in a rich society, you in turn are rich. when you live a poor society you in turn are poor. the money that exists in your pocket is not something devoid of any relationship to everything around you, the money in your pocket is abstract expression of the wealth around you. you pay for basic simple social services, or the money in your pocket is worth less and is less in quantity. that you can't see that is a defect in your perception. unfortunately, so many people take this defect in perception as the basis for an entire philosophy of life that assumes they exist apart from their society
it isn't about individual responsibility and self-initiative, and those who don't have that having less socioeconomic status then you, it isn't about rewarding the undeserving. it is about giving the genuinely undeserving the bottom of the basement standard of living, so they don't wind up a cancer in your society that rots your entire society, which in turn impoverishes you. think of social services as an investment that pays dividends that are indirect. apparently beyond your ability to understand. and not making that investment resulting in the loss of far more of your money than you spend on basic social services
the idea is freedom right? freedom from poverty deciding issues of basic human dignity right? oh yeah... durrr...
but you shouldn't respond to me, you should get into politics. listen to any senator arguing out of ignorant resistance to change, and we see exactly the same sort of false choices and red herrings. you have a bright future in ignorant ideological grandstanding and fearmongering: go for it dude
PARIS -- In an unusual ruling Friday at the World Trade Organization, the tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua won the right to violate copyright protections on goods like films and music from the United States - worth up to $21 million - as part of a dispute between the two countries over online gambling.
The award comes after a WTO decision that Washington had wrongly blocked online gaming operators on the island from the American market at the same time it permitted online wagering on horse racing.
Antigua and Barbuda had claimed annual damages of $3.44 billion. That makes the relatively small amount awarded Friday, $21 million, something of a setback for Antigua, which had been struggling to preserve its booming gambling industry. The United States had claimed that its behavior had caused only $500,000 damage to the Antiguan economy.
Yet the ruling is significant in that it grants a rare form of compensation: the right of one country, in this case, Antigua, to violate intellectual property laws of another - the United States - by allowing them to distribute copies of American music, movie and software products, among other items.
i mean of course its all bullshit. the concept of intellectual property makes no moral, financial, logical, or philosophical sense in the internet age. but i guess we have to wait a few years for the vanguard of ignorant dinosaurs to die off
and certainly not a boondoggle, unless you actually want to submit there's no obvious benefit from high speed rail. that would pay for itself over time
meanwhile, if you want an expensive boondoggle, try relying forever on a mode of transport which depends upon a fuel source you get by paying countries that are hostile to you, at a forever increasing price rate
put 50 people in a box on a track, put 50 people in an aircraft fuselage. you're going to tell me moving that box on a track horizontally is as anywhere remotely as costly fuel wise as launching it into the air?
furthermore, even if the airplane moves 5x as fast as the train, downtown to downtown service still beats, timewise: 1. taxi schlep to the airport 2. queue in security line 3. fly 4. taxi schlep to downtown
for la-san fran, and for boston-dc, the quantity of people, at the speed, at the convenience, at the fuel savings... high speed rail makes so much damn sense. it's really odd to me the anti-rail sentiment and where it comes from. is it expensive? yeah, sure...ONCE. so is an aqueduct. then it lasts you forever and is indisputably indispensable for modern society
china gets this, japan gets this, europe gets this
what the fuck is wrong with americans they are so fucking braindead about the blindingly obvious superiority of high speed rail?
the very concept of "the news" (as opposed to the olds?) is philosophically a liberal phenomenon
if liberalism is change and conservatism is stasis, you can make the easy deduction that a system in stasis generates no news: nothing changes, so there is nothing to communicate or talk about anything that is "new"
so indeed, the entirety of news generation is entirely the realm of liberalism. even fox news, through the simple act of giving voice to something changing out there in the world, is in the service of liberalism. no matter what the propagandistic slant, merely giving attention to some process of change makes people think about the subject matter, and therefore at least begin the cognitive process of acquiescence to and understanding of change that is necessary, even if they don't like the change
in fact, the most socially conservative groups in this world are distinguished by a conscious effort to protect themselves from "the news": the amish, hasidic groups, funamentalist religious cults in a compound out in the woods... they all wall themselves out from the world, the larger society that is undergoing the healthy, liberalizing processes of change
i'm just brainstorming potential other uses for this dissolving glass. i don't understand the basis for your opposition to the idea on nothing other than "food should be nutritious" when clearly in some areas of the world, food alone simply can't deliver proper nutrition and technology is required to give people proper nutrition
its just an idea. there's a million reasons why subdural implants of time release minerals could be unworkable. but your particular reason about medical personnel doesn't fly: poor rural people get vaccinated by travelling medical groups all the time. if they aren't eating artificially dosed foods like their city brethren, a subdural slowly dissolving mineral boost that lasts a year could dramatically improve lives for very little cost
you really think the idea should be discarded out of hand because you believe (erroneously) that food alone is the solution?
certain areas of the world are naturally deficient in certain necessary elements, like iodine. other areas are naturally high in certain dangerous elements, like arsenic. it doesn't matter how much good nutrition they get from the foodstuffs of their countryside, it doesn't even matter how rich they are. if the surrounding countryside doesn't have the element (or too much of it), it doesn't have the element (or too much of it). you need a technological response to the problem, regardless of socioeconomics or intent to eat a well-balanced diet
"Iodine deficiency has largely been confined to the developing world for several generations, but reductions in salt consumption and changes in dairy processing practices eliminating the use of iodine-based disinfectants have led to increasing prevalence of the condition in Australia and New Zealand in recent years. A proposal to mandate the use of iodized salt in most commercial breadmaking is expected to be adopted in 2009."
due to metabolic or genetic reasons: stick one of these under the skin with the proper mineral in the mix, and give them a regular slow release dosage without the worry of forgetting
or distribute them to poor areas of the world with mineral deficiencies (assuming the local demagogues don't start babbling about western plots to make muslims infertile)
and through your actions, the causes and agendas of conservatism are advanced, and you don't even understand why
social networking, business collaboration...
on
Google Wave Backstage
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· Score: 5, Interesting
nah, none of these things
google wave is going to be the backbone of a thousand homebrew MMORPGs, probably nethack interface style at first, but i don't see why eventually it couldn't look like WoW
heh, thanks google, for giving us our own battle.net to play with in the style of an easy programming interface
"I don't understand why I can't play the same game 'conservatives' do."
do you want to beat conservatives?
or do you want to be a conservative?
a frequent criticism of conservative thought after 9/11 is that you don't beat terrorism by giving up our rights and freedoms, that is, you don't beat terrorism by giving up that which makes us better than terrorists
i'm sure you can understand that. so why can't you understand that you don't beat conservatives by acting like them?
it will live forever in multiple copies all over the internet
the digitalartisnotfineart tag is of course an ignorant troll, but digital art IS different from other forms of art in that it can effortlessly be made into 1 billion copies, with no difference between any copy. of course this is also true of music and books, etc., but enjoying them in analog formats is still a possibility, and some might argue about aesthetic superiority in that difference (i wouldn't though)
of course immortality via internet puts a crimp in your thinking about people buying and selling your digital art, but you are excused for making this error, as the entire world is only beginning to grapple with the economics of effortless infinite digital works and its implications on the economics of art
"the other guy did something wrong, so i can excuse the guy i like doing wrong"
no, you throw mr. argentine appalachian trail and mr. bathroom stall sex out on their asses, AND you throw mr. porn surfing at work out on his ass
that's the only logically coherent approach. your apporach, excusing bad elsewhere because you see bad somewhere from people you don't like is serious moral and logical fail
as in, all the comments below not so much defending the porn surfer, but providing him with a surfeit of excuses as to why its not so bad, understandable, blown out of proportion, etc
which, of course, only further serves anyone who would wish to use this event against the NSF. there are genuine forces of ignorance in american politcs, anti-science forces. and you do not want this event to be used against the NSF. the NSF has a valuable mission, you don't want to discredit it. your overriding concern here should be protecting the NSF
that a lot of you should instead conclude the issue here is the explanation of the man's behavior only means you don't understand how this appears to those who don't know anything about the NSF, aren't invested in anything, and are simply offended at what they guy did. that this disgust and anger should be channeled by some into say, defunding the MSF sounds alright with them: "sounds like the MSF is full of a bunch of porn surfing lay-abouts"
the overriding concern for you here should be the protection of the NSF. for that reason, you should support the quick and quiet dismissal of the porn surfing doogus, and move on
explaining, excusing, mitigating his behavior in any way... that only misses the real game going on here
we are so accustomed to the idea that throwing more technology at a problem solves it better, that sometimes we miss genuine real world situations where the technological solution to the problem has peaked, and further application of current technology makes things WORSE, not better
voting, for one: all voting should be done on paper ballot. electronic, or heck, even mechanical voting, is simply more expensive and results in more attack vectors for election night shenanigans. so you spend more money on more technology and you wind up with less faith in your democracy and your government
ebook readers like kindle: i'm sorry, but paperback, wood pulp, is pretty much the bomb when it comes to reading large texts. there are lots of edge conditions: low lighting, etc., where ebooks come out ahead, but when you throw in durability, batteries, price, etc., wood pulp comes out ahead overall in the positives and negatives
i'm sure there are more examples
something like the automobile is clearly better than the horse. something like the gun is clearly better than the bow and arrow. but there exists higher technological solutions to problems that are of less quality than lower tech solutions in this world, and our technophilia interferes with our ability to see that sometimes
Slashdot Mirror
in a single room, at the same time
they are made at separate times, according to different economic projections, according to different goals, according to different past results, and by separate committees
absolutely you can make a case denver needs more cops. absolutely the homeless doesn't need the shelters. and people are making these cases. IN DIFFERENT ROOMS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE AT DIFFERENT TIMES
to say that this is about priorities, to imply that some demonic mayor is sitting there taking money from cop funding and putting it into homeless shelters absolutely misrepresents the reality of how these decisions are made
If you don't believe me, take your credit card out on the town and make a lot of decisions "in the vacuum of any other considerations" and let me know how that works out
yes, classic demagoguery: you take the reality of a complicated sprawling funding process and reduce it to simplistic emotional scenario: a guy with a credit card choosing between buying food to feed his kids and buying a scratch off ticket. oh wait, you didn't say that. well, you can thank me for making your propaganda even more simplistic and emotional. pfffffffffft
please educate yourself, life is slightly more complicated than you think:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/false-dilemma.html
of the world by ignoring a myriad of other facts and instead only focusing on those facts which reinforce your prejudices
there's a couple of hundred potshots i can take at your stilted broken reasoning, but i'll list only a bare few, since i'm not going to write a doctoral dissertation just to counteract the ignorance in your comments, and instead hope that you find the time to reexamine your misperceptions
1. poverty went down and continued to go down from well before lbj and well after him. a lot of urban decay is due to the rise of the suburbs, due to the rise of the automobile. and its quite the awesome suspension of logic where you perceive people sitting on their asses as the cause of no jobs, rather the result of no jobs. and no jobs in a particular industry due to simple inevitable unavoidable changes in basic economic world realities, not because of some supposed demonic government policy
2. single, poor women do have lots of kids. single, poor women have always had lots of kids, going back centuries before the existence of welfare, going back to the dawn of civilization. welfare has lifted them socioeconomically to the point where they don't have so many kids. again, an amazing creative effort of cause and effect on your part, bearing no resemblence whatsover to reality or historical fact, where you actually blame welfare for them having kids! and of course, no effort on your part to blame the men, rich and poor, who apply financial or emotional coercion or outright physical intimidation, screw them, and leave
so hire 100 maxwell's demons
with the economy they probably need the work anyways
no big deal, problem solved
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_demon
in which committees involved in different issues, independent of each other, make projections based on need, and in consideration of past returns for past investments, scale spending on particular issues up and down, at different times of the year, in different legislative and/ or administrative tracks
but, nah, who am i to say such a levelheaded thing? you clearly know far more about real budgeting processes, where socialist fascists sit in a room and say "we are going to fire cops so we can build palatial homeless shelters" and then laugh demonically
thanks for setting me straight on what its like to be involved in real budgeting processes
that the mayor of denver wishes his citizens would experience more crime, while the homeless live in palaces?
is that your honest assertion here about his motivations?
if that is not what you are trying to say, then maybe you can begin to consider the possibility that the choices the mayor made is gee, i dunno, just MAYBE a little more independent from each other than the stark fearmongering dichotomy you present?
the idea of communism is that everyone should be as poor as its poorest member
the ideal society is a meritocracy, right? that you receive from hard work the right to a good life. that to reward those who are lazy loitering useless souls as much as you reward those who work hard, ruins any reason to work hard, right?
i'm not asking for communism, i'm asking for a meritocracy with social safety nets. you seem equate social safety nets with communism. this is classic demagoguery
your false dichotomy is that social safety nets are anathema to the meritocracy. but you can have a meritocracy with social safety nets. i'm not asking for the homeless to live in palaces, i'm asking for them to have heat in the winter and food on the plate. those who work hard are rewarded with good life far beyond those bare bones of existence. so there is plenty of reason to work hard and take initiative. its just that in a society with social safety nets, if you don't work hard, you live a miserable life, rather than freezing to death in a society with no social safety nets. and social safety nets in turn represents less people desperate enough to turn to crime to support themselves since society won't give them the simplest of basics. in fact, the costs of crime in a society without social safety nets are more expensive than the safety nets. if you are lazy and without initiative and without personal responsibility, you don't deserve middle class perks. but you also don't deserve no health care and an early death, especially when preventative care for things like hypertension and diabetes is so cheap. treating these people with a heart attack or amputation in the emergency room is far more expensive. and then you have to deal with the poor family with the breadwinner dead
furthermore, plenty of those who are rich are rich because they enjoy income from defects in the imperfect marketplace where they are rewarded for doing nothing. furthermore, plenty who are poor are poor for sins their fathers committed, and are in fact good people who would do well in the middle class if only that pesky broken arm wouldn't prevent them working (since they have no healthcare, they can't afford to fix it). free market fundamentalists and libertarians fail to see how life isn't really a meritocracy, that inevitable structural defects constantly reward the rich for doing nothing, and punish others for simply being born poor. in fact, if life is going to be a meritocracy, you need a strong governmental presence to enforce the rules of the game, and correct these inevitable spontaneous defects in the marketplace. in fact, left to its own devices, the market falls to pieces, it bubbles and pops, bubble and pops. a "free" market needs a strong governmental police presence to stay truly free
and please, don't give me the bullshit about charities. its always those who are asking to contribute the least to society who refer to charities in the hypothetical as the safety net. charities of course they will never contribute to. as if those who are espousing a philosophy of "i got mine, sucks to be you" are bountiful cornucopias of giving. no, they are blind selfish assholes who can't understand how the money in their pocket comes from the health of the society they live in. we need social safety nets precisely because so many people like you who espouse a philosophy of selfishness and will never will donate to charity
please, i await your response, where you insist you are bountiful giver to charity. and then i await your next sentence in which you espouse the meritocracy without social safety nets, where if you have nothing, you probably deserve it. pffffffft
communism != social safety nets. social safety nets != destruction of meritocracy
please make a fucking note of it, and adjust your blind ignorant ideology accordingly. thanks
and of course, those decisions are fused at the hip right?
its impossible in your mind that the decision to pay less for police was made independently of the need for more for homeless shelters, right?
nah, the mayor was of course thinking "i want drugs and crime to spread unchecked on the innocent hardworking citizens of denver while the homeless get free palatial suites at the hilton"
see? that's some good demagoguery i wrote there
maybe i should just stop trying to fight for truth and get into your game of ignorant fearmongering
according to any serious study that's ever been done
"So, in other words, I should have to pay people off (through threat of force) to keep them from breaking into my house and stealing my property?"
yes, this statement is 100% accurate. why don't you come to grips with reality?
you have poor people who live near you. you can give them the bare essentials to live, or you can give them nothing, and they will take it from you, because they need to feed themselves. this is reality all over the globe. compare the societies that have welfare to those that don't. you tell me which is the poorer societies. if you lived in those societies who do nothing for the poor, you would be poorer, not richer. because the cash in your pocket is a reflection of the wealth around you. do you understand this simple fact?
you pay, one way or another for those who are impoverished around you. welfare is just the cheaper way to do it. you don't want to pay welfare because you think the choice is between paying welfare and paying nothing. no, the choice is between paying welfare or paying for a new television set after your place is broken into
what is it about your thinking that makes you unable to understand this simple choice that has always existed? in all of history, in every society in every culture: those societies that take care of their weaker members are further enriched, in greater amounts than what they pay
you think poor people just disappear into the ether? you think their problems aren't yours? proactively do something to help those in need in your society, or your society experiences problems that begin to affect your bottom line. simple truth, simple choice. your entire way of thinking seems dependent on a sense of isolation from society, when in fact you are part of it. and the more you contribute to it, the more dividends you receive from it. ignore how the health of society affects your bottom line, and you get less money in your pocket
the only real poverty going on here, in the end, is in your mind and your inability to perceive these simple facts
false dichotomies, misrepresented reality, etc.
nobody in their right mind is thinking of shortchanging something like defense spending for the sake of welfare recipients. this never enters into any governmental spending calculus as it is blindingly obvious something like police are more important to absolutely everyone involved in decision making. if spending is not at the level you think it should be, it has to do with someone thinking less is needed for that particular spending allotment, in a vacuum of any other consideration, not because someone needs a battered women's shelter instead. you present a false choice in your comment that never exists in the real world
furthermore social services are a bargain: every dollar spent on welfare and healthcare and other social services is one less guy breaking into your house or mugging you on the street, because they can't feed their kids, or because they can't keep their job with a broken arm (that they can't afford to fix). it's cheaper to fix their arm. you will pay for social services one way or another. the idea of not spending on healthcare for the poor means the problem just goes away is ignorance: every untreated case of diabetes winding up in the emergency room, every case of tuberculosis untreated resulting in your children catching it, every untreated case of hypertension resulting in a heart attack for the family breadwinner who now leaves a familty to fend on their own: you pay for that in the form of a sick society, and that affects your bottom line and the balance in your checking account, whether you are blind to how you are not an island in this world or not
when you live in a rich society, you in turn are rich. when you live a poor society you in turn are poor. the money that exists in your pocket is not something devoid of any relationship to everything around you, the money in your pocket is abstract expression of the wealth around you. you pay for basic simple social services, or the money in your pocket is worth less and is less in quantity. that you can't see that is a defect in your perception. unfortunately, so many people take this defect in perception as the basis for an entire philosophy of life that assumes they exist apart from their society
it isn't about individual responsibility and self-initiative, and those who don't have that having less socioeconomic status then you, it isn't about rewarding the undeserving. it is about giving the genuinely undeserving the bottom of the basement standard of living, so they don't wind up a cancer in your society that rots your entire society, which in turn impoverishes you. think of social services as an investment that pays dividends that are indirect. apparently beyond your ability to understand. and not making that investment resulting in the loss of far more of your money than you spend on basic social services
the idea is freedom right? freedom from poverty deciding issues of basic human dignity right? oh yeah... durrr...
but you shouldn't respond to me, you should get into politics. listen to any senator arguing out of ignorant resistance to change, and we see exactly the same sort of false choices and red herrings. you have a bright future in ignorant ideological grandstanding and fearmongering: go for it dude
((((19,856,160 x 3 sec)/60 sec)/60 min)/24 hours)/365 days = 1.9 years
entirely doable
but while you're teaching high school students science fiction, kids in other high schools are learning actual science
they are invulnerable:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/business/worldbusiness/21iht-wto.html
i mean of course its all bullshit. the concept of intellectual property makes no moral, financial, logical, or philosophical sense in the internet age. but i guess we have to wait a few years for the vanguard of ignorant dinosaurs to die off
then its just maintenance
and certainly not a boondoggle, unless you actually want to submit there's no obvious benefit from high speed rail. that would pay for itself over time
meanwhile, if you want an expensive boondoggle, try relying forever on a mode of transport which depends upon a fuel source you get by paying countries that are hostile to you, at a forever increasing price rate
put 50 people in a box on a track, put 50 people in an aircraft fuselage. you're going to tell me moving that box on a track horizontally is as anywhere remotely as costly fuel wise as launching it into the air?
furthermore, even if the airplane moves 5x as fast as the train, downtown to downtown service still beats, timewise:
1. taxi schlep to the airport
2. queue in security line
3. fly
4. taxi schlep to downtown
for la-san fran, and for boston-dc, the quantity of people, at the speed, at the convenience, at the fuel savings... high speed rail makes so much damn sense. it's really odd to me the anti-rail sentiment and where it comes from. is it expensive? yeah, sure...ONCE. so is an aqueduct. then it lasts you forever and is indisputably indispensable for modern society
china gets this, japan gets this, europe gets this
what the fuck is wrong with americans they are so fucking braindead about the blindingly obvious superiority of high speed rail?
the very concept of "the news" (as opposed to the olds?) is philosophically a liberal phenomenon
if liberalism is change and conservatism is stasis, you can make the easy deduction that a system in stasis generates no news: nothing changes, so there is nothing to communicate or talk about anything that is "new"
so indeed, the entirety of news generation is entirely the realm of liberalism. even fox news, through the simple act of giving voice to something changing out there in the world, is in the service of liberalism. no matter what the propagandistic slant, merely giving attention to some process of change makes people think about the subject matter, and therefore at least begin the cognitive process of acquiescence to and understanding of change that is necessary, even if they don't like the change
in fact, the most socially conservative groups in this world are distinguished by a conscious effort to protect themselves from "the news": the amish, hasidic groups, funamentalist religious cults in a compound out in the woods... they all wall themselves out from the world, the larger society that is undergoing the healthy, liberalizing processes of change
i'm just brainstorming potential other uses for this dissolving glass. i don't understand the basis for your opposition to the idea on nothing other than "food should be nutritious" when clearly in some areas of the world, food alone simply can't deliver proper nutrition and technology is required to give people proper nutrition
its just an idea. there's a million reasons why subdural implants of time release minerals could be unworkable. but your particular reason about medical personnel doesn't fly: poor rural people get vaccinated by travelling medical groups all the time. if they aren't eating artificially dosed foods like their city brethren, a subdural slowly dissolving mineral boost that lasts a year could dramatically improve lives for very little cost
you really think the idea should be discarded out of hand because you believe (erroneously) that food alone is the solution?
certain areas of the world are naturally deficient in certain necessary elements, like iodine. other areas are naturally high in certain dangerous elements, like arsenic. it doesn't matter how much good nutrition they get from the foodstuffs of their countryside, it doesn't even matter how rich they are. if the surrounding countryside doesn't have the element (or too much of it), it doesn't have the element (or too much of it). you need a technological response to the problem, regardless of socioeconomics or intent to eat a well-balanced diet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_deficiency#Local_impact
"Iodine deficiency has largely been confined to the developing world for several generations, but reductions in salt consumption and changes in dairy processing practices eliminating the use of iodine-based disinfectants have led to increasing prevalence of the condition in Australia and New Zealand in recent years. A proposal to mandate the use of iodized salt in most commercial breadmaking is expected to be adopted in 2009."
due to metabolic or genetic reasons: stick one of these under the skin with the proper mineral in the mix, and give them a regular slow release dosage without the worry of forgetting
or distribute them to poor areas of the world with mineral deficiencies (assuming the local demagogues don't start babbling about western plots to make muslims infertile)
and through your actions, the causes and agendas of conservatism are advanced, and you don't even understand why
nah, none of these things
google wave is going to be the backbone of a thousand homebrew MMORPGs, probably nethack interface style at first, but i don't see why eventually it couldn't look like WoW
heh, thanks google, for giving us our own battle.net to play with in the style of an easy programming interface
"I don't understand why I can't play the same game 'conservatives' do."
do you want to beat conservatives?
or do you want to be a conservative?
a frequent criticism of conservative thought after 9/11 is that you don't beat terrorism by giving up our rights and freedoms, that is, you don't beat terrorism by giving up that which makes us better than terrorists
i'm sure you can understand that. so why can't you understand that you don't beat conservatives by acting like them?
it will live forever in multiple copies all over the internet
the digitalartisnotfineart tag is of course an ignorant troll, but digital art IS different from other forms of art in that it can effortlessly be made into 1 billion copies, with no difference between any copy. of course this is also true of music and books, etc., but enjoying them in analog formats is still a possibility, and some might argue about aesthetic superiority in that difference (i wouldn't though)
of course immortality via internet puts a crimp in your thinking about people buying and selling your digital art, but you are excused for making this error, as the entire world is only beginning to grapple with the economics of effortless infinite digital works and its implications on the economics of art
"the other guy did something wrong, so i can excuse the guy i like doing wrong"
no, you throw mr. argentine appalachian trail and mr. bathroom stall sex out on their asses, AND you throw mr. porn surfing at work out on his ass
that's the only logically coherent approach. your apporach, excusing bad elsewhere because you see bad somewhere from people you don't like is serious moral and logical fail
you all lose
as in, all the comments below not so much defending the porn surfer, but providing him with a surfeit of excuses as to why its not so bad, understandable, blown out of proportion, etc
which, of course, only further serves anyone who would wish to use this event against the NSF. there are genuine forces of ignorance in american politcs, anti-science forces. and you do not want this event to be used against the NSF. the NSF has a valuable mission, you don't want to discredit it. your overriding concern here should be protecting the NSF
that a lot of you should instead conclude the issue here is the explanation of the man's behavior only means you don't understand how this appears to those who don't know anything about the NSF, aren't invested in anything, and are simply offended at what they guy did. that this disgust and anger should be channeled by some into say, defunding the MSF sounds alright with them: "sounds like the MSF is full of a bunch of porn surfing lay-abouts"
the overriding concern for you here should be the protection of the NSF. for that reason, you should support the quick and quiet dismissal of the porn surfing doogus, and move on
explaining, excusing, mitigating his behavior in any way... that only misses the real game going on here
we are so accustomed to the idea that throwing more technology at a problem solves it better, that sometimes we miss genuine real world situations where the technological solution to the problem has peaked, and further application of current technology makes things WORSE, not better
voting, for one: all voting should be done on paper ballot. electronic, or heck, even mechanical voting, is simply more expensive and results in more attack vectors for election night shenanigans. so you spend more money on more technology and you wind up with less faith in your democracy and your government
ebook readers like kindle: i'm sorry, but paperback, wood pulp, is pretty much the bomb when it comes to reading large texts. there are lots of edge conditions: low lighting, etc., where ebooks come out ahead, but when you throw in durability, batteries, price, etc., wood pulp comes out ahead overall in the positives and negatives
i'm sure there are more examples
something like the automobile is clearly better than the horse. something like the gun is clearly better than the bow and arrow. but there exists higher technological solutions to problems that are of less quality than lower tech solutions in this world, and our technophilia interferes with our ability to see that sometimes