You have to be a little insane to support either party, if all you are talking about is ideology.
If you are a businessman, ideology takes a back seat: gay marriage, abortion, and other wedge issues mean little.
Not to hear your typical Republican tell it. You have to hand it to the Republican party. They have managed to place those "meaningless" issues front and center for over two decades now. Despite their bald hypocrisy on such issues, they have managed to keep a large block of voters convinced that keeping homosexuals from getting married and depriving women of the right to control their own bodies were issues of critical importance, enough so that the sheep continue to vote against their own self interests.
1. The lumber Industry was killed by the EPA and their Spotted Owl nonsense.
This is categorically false. The spotted owl "nonsense" did not eve slow down the "harvesting" of old growth timber. Two things killed the timber industry:
The lack of available hi-value timber species, i.e. old growth.
The change in tax policies that made practice of exporting raw logs more profitable than milling them in the U.S.
2. There are more forested acres in the Northwest now than there were in the 1900.
[citation needed]...because you clearly do no know what you are talking about.
In other words, you have fallen for the same timber industry bullshit. What you are going to find, if you even bother to look is an impressive number of "re-forested" acres. Big fucking deal. An acre of Douglas fir saplings is not the same thing as an acre of mature forest, nor will it ever be so, given the industry's current practices.
Anyone not woowoo anti-science (usually being the theistic types who worship the Invisible Hand) has already established:
1. Climate change is mostly man-made;
2. This doesn't mean the world's about to end, but we aren't doing enough to prevent significant harm.
I believe that you aren't being fair to the "theistic types" in that you aren't being nearly hard enough on those who are taking advantage of them and those who are similarly gullible. Those cocksuckers are, of course, the energy industry. They have a huge interest in not changing things. Their businesses are hugely profitable. Spending money to avoid the erosion of those profits is part of that business. Spending as little as possible in order to preserve as much profit as possible is just good business, and right now, hoodwinking the gullible has the most ROI. I have seen it before....
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in a town where every third job was directly related to the forest products industry. All my life, I watched huge swaths of ancient forest fall to clear cutting, knowing that the industry's party line, "Trees are America's Renewable Resource", was just so much cynical corporate bullshit. Planting "four trees for every tree 'harvested'" is not the same thing as growing even one board-foot of timber for every board-foot harvested. But the locals bought it, hook-line-and-sinker, because they wanted to. They needed to believe that their livelihoods were derived from a resource that would always be there. Fast forward forty years, or so. All the old-growth timber is long gone. Countless towns like mine are now ghost towns, "the mill" long closed and most of the forest jobs (fellers, choker setters, etc.) also gone. And the locals are still wondering what happened, while a cynical few, who reaped huge profits from the rape of a resource that can not be replaced in several of our lifetimes, could not give a shit. And the "intellectual elite", those credible experts, including most ironically, a handful of industry foresters, who predicted this can only say, "We told you so."
This same thing is happening now on a global scale WRT climate change. The opinion amongst those most qualified to cast one is overwhelming, dwarfed only by the noise from those whose profit is threatened by that opinion. And those whose livelihood, indeed, those whose very lifestyle depends on the industries that produce those profits, want very badly to believe all the noise. Based on my experience, they will continue to do so until it is far too late to do anything about it.
Get a fucking clue. Your revenues aren't what you want them to be because you don't enforce any of the "common courtesy" rules in your theaters. Talkers, texters, and lately, vapers, have ruined my experience every time I've visited one of your mainstream theaters. With an arguably superior presentation platform available in my house, why would I pay good money to be annoyed throughout the movie in your theater?
Do you mean the same Doctors who have filed fraudulent claims to the tune of Billions ? While I can not stand medical insurance companies, someone needs to monitor the system.
The insurance industry is, clearly and demonstrably, not who consumers want in that role. And BTW, straw man much?
Seriously? Insurance companies are part of the problem in health care, interfering with doctors, patients, and hospitals in providing/receiving care. They need to be regulated to doing their job (providing averaged risk assessment policies) and stay out of the hospitals and doctors business.
+1 for actually understanding the real problem. Well put, sir.
The government of the United States of America is behaving very much like an accomplice to a crime
I wonder if the founding fathers ever could have imagined a world where the government they created would be completely owned and controlled by an oligarchy of huge corporations. Could they have imagined a government where something akin to the Dutch East India Company simply walked in and individually bribed every single Congressman and the President to do their bidding, without the American people even realizing it?
I think that many of them "realize" it, but they've been convinced that bullshit issues like gay marriage and reproductive choice are more important to them.
As I understand it cellular death doesn't actually occur due to oxygen starvation for about an hour. It seems that the four to six minute mark actually causes apoptosis when oxygen is returned after that interval.
In exchange for the major corporate backing, tech reporters at SugarString are expressly forbidden from writing about American spying or net neutrality around the world, two of the biggest issues in tech and politics today.
You gotta admire the chutzpah. Even as they are saying to the FCC that they can be trusted with the authority to be the gatekeepers of the Internet, they put on a public display of their intent to inhibit public policy debate on the very issue of Net Neutrality itself.
The extraordinary lack of self-consciousness is difficult to fathom. It rises to the level of, "Let them eat cake."
I say it's completely fathomable. It was the inevitable result of decades of policy aimed at placing more an more power in the hands of corporations. First, they convinced a naive and gullible electorate that "...government is the problem..." and that tax breaks for the "job creators" would make unicorns real. Now, when the Internet, as a medium, threatens to foster genuine public discussion about such policy, they want to censor that too. No surprise it all.
"Yes, the university is a public institution and must carefully walk the line when dealing with this or that religious group, but...
Creation Summit is visiting major college and
university campuses throughout the country,
bringing world renowned scientists before the
students. Scientists with tangible proof and
viable evidence. Many, for the first time ever,
are discovering that the Bible is true – That
science and Genesis are in total agreement,
and if Genesis 1:1 can be trusted . . . . .
so can John 3:16." - http://www.creationsummit.com/
Presenting your religious beliefs as the credible output of "world renowned scientists" is, to say the least, dishonest. To do so in a plainly admitted attempt to add some attempt to add some academic cache' by deliberately choosing institutions of higher learning as the venue is beneath contempt. "The Bible and science" are absolutely not "in total agreement". Peddle your religion as religion and you are entitled to the public venue. Engage in deceit and lies and you are not.
Certainly not. I would, however, hand their check back to them and observer that they are free to peddle their nonsense anywhere they can find a willing host and audience. The university has no obligation to be either and, arguably, it does have an obligation to avoid being either, since the proposed material is neither reasonable nor scientific.
Again, so what? I do not have to agree with everything that goes on around me. And they don't have to agree with me either.
Now...if they lied about the purpose of this conference, that's a whole different story.
And again..., why the fuck do you think the university owes them a platform? That's the objection here. We agree that the creationists are a bunch of dim-witted crackpots, and that leaving them to their curious choice of things to believe in is usually the best course, but nobody is obliged to offer them any sort of elevated platform from which to spew their noise. Surely, any number of local churches would have been happy to host this gathering of erudite mythological scholars.
Because we're such a long way from AI being good enough...
Exactly. The likelihood of AI being a genuine threat of that nature any time in the next few generations is small and even that depends on a huge leap being made somewhere. More likely, it will a very long time, if ever, before a truly useful AI comes on line. So, on balance, the threat is about as real as Mickey (sp) losing control of the mops and brooms, or some Harry Potter fan accidentally summoning a real demon while playing wizard. I expected better of Mr. Musk.
Exactly. Like when the trend is that women become nurses (92%) and men become doctors (67%), it's probably unrelated to the social or historical aspects of those training programs, but rather to sexual dimorphism.
We have stated no such thing. Do try to let go of your preconceptions, just a little, m'kay?
It is not bigoted, sexist, or any other negative term you care to apply to observe plain facts. If 92% of all nurses are women, there's probably a reason for that, several reasons, most likely, but the observation says nothing about those reasons. Your motivation is righteous, but your understanding of the problem is deficient. It's not the numbers, it's the reasons that matter.
I don't believe the mission nor the culture of a "cyber warrior" (yes, whatever the fuck that is) lends itself to the military. Sorry, no. Not even close. What makes those guys (and yes, it is mostly guys, by far) tick is utterly foreign to military culture. It's a bad fit.
Why can't the market decide this? Why should this end up in court? We currently have deeply entrenched market dominance by credit card companies.
For the same reason that always makes "the free market" nothing but a myth, the customer can't know the quality of what he is buying. No, it is not reasonable to expect every consumer (and especially the idiots who seem to have their smart phone permanently welded to their hands) to understand the security implications of this or that payment scheme. It is, arguably, an esoteric discipline, well beyond the ken of most consumers in that market.
And I mean serious regulation, and I'll tell you why.
While it's efficacy has been hampered by conservative budget cutting, the FDA is the only thing protecting a consumer population from tainted food, ineffective or dangerous drugs, etc. That population can not effectively make judgements about the products offered for sale in those markets, so said markets are, by definition, not free. Most consumers, the military included, don't have the resources to ensure that this or that tech product is "safe and effective". A similar regulatory agency is in order so that consumers can be reasonably sure that they are getting what they pay for and that those things a free of dangerous defects or "side effects".
Yes, this is a huge change, but it deserves serious consideration. The alternative is bleak, if you use history as your context.
Yes. Wealth is created by the production of goods and services, not by "keeping people busy". So if we can produce more, with less labor, that is a good thing.
No. Not if your economy was built on a large and healthy middle class. Oh, by "wealth" you were referring to the one percent. Then yes, you're absolutely right.
Slashdot Mirror
You have to be a little insane to support either party, if all you are talking about is ideology.
If you are a businessman, ideology takes a back seat: gay marriage, abortion, and other wedge issues mean little.
Not to hear your typical Republican tell it. You have to hand it to the Republican party. They have managed to place those "meaningless" issues front and center for over two decades now. Despite their bald hypocrisy on such issues, they have managed to keep a large block of voters convinced that keeping homosexuals from getting married and depriving women of the right to control their own bodies were issues of critical importance, enough so that the sheep continue to vote against their own self interests.
1. The lumber Industry was killed by the EPA and their Spotted Owl nonsense.
This is categorically false. The spotted owl "nonsense" did not eve slow down the "harvesting" of old growth timber. Two things killed the timber industry:
[citation needed] ...because you clearly do no know what you are talking about.
In other words, you have fallen for the same timber industry bullshit. What you are going to find, if you even bother to look is an impressive number of "re-forested" acres. Big fucking deal. An acre of Douglas fir saplings is not the same thing as an acre of mature forest, nor will it ever be so, given the industry's current practices.
Anyone not woowoo anti-science (usually being the theistic types who worship the Invisible Hand) has already established:
1. Climate change is mostly man-made;
2. This doesn't mean the world's about to end, but we aren't doing enough to prevent significant harm.
I believe that you aren't being fair to the "theistic types" in that you aren't being nearly hard enough on those who are taking advantage of them and those who are similarly gullible. Those cocksuckers are, of course, the energy industry. They have a huge interest in not changing things. Their businesses are hugely profitable. Spending money to avoid the erosion of those profits is part of that business. Spending as little as possible in order to preserve as much profit as possible is just good business, and right now, hoodwinking the gullible has the most ROI. I have seen it before....
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in a town where every third job was directly related to the forest products industry. All my life, I watched huge swaths of ancient forest fall to clear cutting, knowing that the industry's party line, "Trees are America's Renewable Resource", was just so much cynical corporate bullshit. Planting "four trees for every tree 'harvested'" is not the same thing as growing even one board-foot of timber for every board-foot harvested. But the locals bought it, hook-line-and-sinker, because they wanted to. They needed to believe that their livelihoods were derived from a resource that would always be there. Fast forward forty years, or so. All the old-growth timber is long gone. Countless towns like mine are now ghost towns, "the mill" long closed and most of the forest jobs (fellers, choker setters, etc.) also gone. And the locals are still wondering what happened, while a cynical few, who reaped huge profits from the rape of a resource that can not be replaced in several of our lifetimes, could not give a shit. And the "intellectual elite", those credible experts, including most ironically, a handful of industry foresters, who predicted this can only say, "We told you so."
This same thing is happening now on a global scale WRT climate change. The opinion amongst those most qualified to cast one is overwhelming, dwarfed only by the noise from those whose profit is threatened by that opinion. And those whose livelihood, indeed, those whose very lifestyle depends on the industries that produce those profits, want very badly to believe all the noise. Based on my experience, they will continue to do so until it is far too late to do anything about it.
Get a fucking clue. Your revenues aren't what you want them to be because you don't enforce any of the "common courtesy" rules in your theaters. Talkers, texters, and lately, vapers, have ruined my experience every time I've visited one of your mainstream theaters. With an arguably superior presentation platform available in my house, why would I pay good money to be annoyed throughout the movie in your theater?
Do you mean the same Doctors who have filed fraudulent claims to the tune of Billions ? While I can not stand medical insurance companies, someone needs to monitor the system.
The insurance industry is, clearly and demonstrably, not who consumers want in that role. And BTW, straw man much?
Seriously? Insurance companies are part of the problem in health care, interfering with doctors, patients, and hospitals in providing/receiving care. They need to be regulated to doing their job (providing averaged risk assessment policies) and stay out of the hospitals and doctors business.
+1 for actually understanding the real problem. Well put, sir.
The government of the United States of America is behaving very much like an accomplice to a crime
I wonder if the founding fathers ever could have imagined a world where the government they created would be completely owned and controlled by an oligarchy of huge corporations. Could they have imagined a government where something akin to the Dutch East India Company simply walked in and individually bribed every single Congressman and the President to do their bidding, without the American people even realizing it?
I think that many of them "realize" it, but they've been convinced that bullshit issues like gay marriage and reproductive choice are more important to them.
As I understand it cellular death doesn't actually occur due to oxygen starvation for about an hour. It seems that the four to six minute mark actually causes apoptosis when oxygen is returned after that interval.
[citation needed]
Good job dealing with the congitive dissonance of having voted for a gangster.
What are you talking about? I have not voted for a Republican. Ever.
In exchange for the major corporate backing, tech reporters at SugarString are expressly forbidden from writing about American spying or net neutrality around the world, two of the biggest issues in tech and politics today.
You gotta admire the chutzpah. Even as they are saying to the FCC that they can be trusted with the authority to be the gatekeepers of the Internet, they put on a public display of their intent to inhibit public policy debate on the very issue of Net Neutrality itself.
The extraordinary lack of self-consciousness is difficult to fathom. It rises to the level of, "Let them eat cake."
I say it's completely fathomable. It was the inevitable result of decades of policy aimed at placing more an more power in the hands of corporations. First, they convinced a naive and gullible electorate that "...government is the problem..." and that tax breaks for the "job creators" would make unicorns real. Now, when the Internet, as a medium, threatens to foster genuine public discussion about such policy, they want to censor that too. No surprise it all.
But when I did read it, it was only on occasion, once every couple years. I found the left-wing politics distasteful.
It's just plain amazing, what qualifies as "left wing" these days.
Fine, if it comes with a really good imaging system passengers can access. A VR set "would be nice."
In reality, of course, it would likely mean that only the 1% will be able to see what's going on outside, as that sounds like a First Class option.
Fuck the multi-media toys. Give me some more leg and elbow room and I'll gladly give up the window.
Creation Summit is visiting major college and university campuses throughout the country, bringing world renowned scientists before the students. Scientists with tangible proof and viable evidence. Many, for the first time ever, are discovering that the Bible is true – That science and Genesis are in total agreement, and if Genesis 1:1 can be trusted . . . . . so can John 3:16." - http://www.creationsummit.com/
Presenting your religious beliefs as the credible output of "world renowned scientists" is, to say the least, dishonest. To do so in a plainly admitted attempt to add some attempt to add some academic cache' by deliberately choosing institutions of higher learning as the venue is beneath contempt. "The Bible and science" are absolutely not "in total agreement". Peddle your religion as religion and you are entitled to the public venue. Engage in deceit and lies and you are not.
Would there be so much "unease" about a fantasy convention?
What's the difference?
Honesty.
Would you silence a dissenting view?
Certainly not. I would, however, hand their check back to them and observer that they are free to peddle their nonsense anywhere they can find a willing host and audience. The university has no obligation to be either and, arguably, it does have an obligation to avoid being either, since the proposed material is neither reasonable nor scientific.
Again, so what? I do not have to agree with everything that goes on around me. And they don't have to agree with me either. Now...if they lied about the purpose of this conference, that's a whole different story.
And again..., why the fuck do you think the university owes them a platform? That's the objection here. We agree that the creationists are a bunch of dim-witted crackpots, and that leaving them to their curious choice of things to believe in is usually the best course, but nobody is obliged to offer them any sort of elevated platform from which to spew their noise. Surely, any number of local churches would have been happy to host this gathering of erudite mythological scholars.
Because we're such a long way from AI being good enough...
Exactly. The likelihood of AI being a genuine threat of that nature any time in the next few generations is small and even that depends on a huge leap being made somewhere. More likely, it will a very long time, if ever, before a truly useful AI comes on line. So, on balance, the threat is about as real as Mickey (sp) losing control of the mops and brooms, or some Harry Potter fan accidentally summoning a real demon while playing wizard. I expected better of Mr. Musk.
Exactly. Like when the trend is that women become nurses (92%) and men become doctors (67%), it's probably unrelated to the social or historical aspects of those training programs, but rather to sexual dimorphism.
We have stated no such thing. Do try to let go of your preconceptions, just a little, m'kay?
It is not bigoted, sexist, or any other negative term you care to apply to observe plain facts. If 92% of all nurses are women, there's probably a reason for that, several reasons, most likely, but the observation says nothing about those reasons. Your motivation is righteous, but your understanding of the problem is deficient. It's not the numbers, it's the reasons that matter.
...because Mikey lost control of the mops and brooms, we should be afraid of powerful computers? Irrational much, Elon?
You must find putting everyone in your boxes pretty easy.
You must find confusing valid observation of a trend with something else pretty easy.
I don't believe the mission nor the culture of a "cyber warrior" (yes, whatever the fuck that is) lends itself to the military. Sorry, no. Not even close. What makes those guys (and yes, it is mostly guys, by far) tick is utterly foreign to military culture. It's a bad fit.
Why can't the market decide this? Why should this end up in court? We currently have deeply entrenched market dominance by credit card companies.
For the same reason that always makes "the free market" nothing but a myth, the customer can't know the quality of what he is buying. No, it is not reasonable to expect every consumer (and especially the idiots who seem to have their smart phone permanently welded to their hands) to understand the security implications of this or that payment scheme. It is, arguably, an esoteric discipline, well beyond the ken of most consumers in that market.
The true dark side is Islam
[citation needed]
...and that would be a citation that proves Islam, and only Islam, to be "truly" dark. Good luck with that, jagoff.
While it's efficacy has been hampered by conservative budget cutting, the FDA is the only thing protecting a consumer population from tainted food, ineffective or dangerous drugs, etc. That population can not effectively make judgements about the products offered for sale in those markets, so said markets are, by definition, not free. Most consumers, the military included, don't have the resources to ensure that this or that tech product is "safe and effective". A similar regulatory agency is in order so that consumers can be reasonably sure that they are getting what they pay for and that those things a free of dangerous defects or "side effects".
Yes, this is a huge change, but it deserves serious consideration. The alternative is bleak, if you use history as your context.
And that's good?
Yes. Wealth is created by the production of goods and services, not by "keeping people busy". So if we can produce more, with less labor, that is a good thing.
No. Not if your economy was built on a large and healthy middle class. Oh, by "wealth" you were referring to the one percent. Then yes, you're absolutely right.