When someone makes a move Of which we don't approve, Who is it that always intervenes? U.N. and O.A.S., They have their place, I guess, But first send the Marines!
We'll send them all we've got, John Wayne and Randolph Scott, Remember those exciting fighting scenes? To the shores of Tripoli, But not to Mississippoli,
What do we do? We send the Marines! For might makes right, And till they've seen the light, They've got to be protected, All their rights respected, 'Till somebody we like can be elected.
Members of the corps All hate the thought of war, They'd rather kill them off by peaceful means. Stop calling it aggression, O we hate that expression. We only want the world to know That we support the status quo. They love us everywhere we go, So when in doubt, Send the Marines!
I'd like to point out the propaganda success here. The Taliban is the former government of Afghanistan. They have never committed international aggression (though I'm sure they did some nasty stuff internally while in power). They are not responsible for deaths outside of Afghanistan. "al Qaeda" is not the same as "The Taliban."
But... but they started the Temporal Cold War! Would Captain Archer lie to us?
Really, saying "don't be petty and attack people for not agreeing with you soon enough" is the same as "don't do what's right"?
Yes. "Pettiness" and "attack" are emotional evaluations which are completely irrelevant from the substance of political discussion. We need a whole lot more rational debate about issues, and a whole lot less emotional rhetorical maneuvering.
Awesome. So you don't mind if I come to your place and take all your stuff for the masses to use?
Sometime in the future, when matter replication is commonplace and law and order has collapsed, there will be roving copy-gangs savagely breaking into houses and duplicating everything inside, storing it in vast warehouses for the masses to replicate for themselves. And replicate the masses certainly shall. Like librarians caught in an animalistic orgy of card-filing.
Can you picture 300 million near-identical Ikea coffee tables all stacked up and filed, hundreds of stories high, indexed and cross-indexed, until they block out the very Sun? Dare you imagine every teenager in America wearing the same brand of jeans at once?
That's the dark future the copy-gangs will create if they're not stopped now.
I'm not sure if you are being cynical. The US government has vast organizations set up to kill people anywhere on earth (the military) or to interfere with your life (CIA). Corporations don't have ready access to either of those things.
On the other hand, Google has your GPS coordinates, and Armadillo Aerospace can launch rockets...
John Romero might not have made you his bitch, but I wouldn't mess with Carmack.
The other possibility is that the first one to cut its milk powder is exposed. Then you don’t have to cut your milk powder.
And that's a similar principle to how the GPL works. If all players have to play by the same rules, cheating is minimised, Then we can get on with making stuff and competing fairly on real efficiency, not false efficiency.
It is impossible to monitor Wikileak's integrity or transparency.
But you couldn't have that total transparency without Wikileaks releasing absolutely everything they are provided, and most critical commentators already complain that Wikileaks is releasing too much!
It is becoming clear that the purpose of Wikileaks is not to expose corruption, but to hurt the US.
On the contrary, that is not at all becoming clear.
This first batch of cables actually strengthen the USA's position in regard to Israel vs Iran. It's the leaders of Arab nations which look like two-faced manipulators, and makes the USA's support of Israel look a lot more measured.
If you reflexively feel that any truth hurts the USA - or that it's not the content of leaks that is embarrassing so much as the mere fact of leaks - then I think you simply have identified too strongly with 'your team' as if international politics is some kind of football game, rather than asking the hard questions of what each nation is trying to accomplish in the world.
But in regard to why the source of the current leaks is USA-based - then it may have something to do with three million US military employees having access to SIPRNET traffic, and with the USA being involved in the business of many nations in the world. Sheer numbers would support the USA's material popping up a lot.
It's not the source of the truth, though, but the target that you should be concerned about. And the targets of these revelations are scattered all over the world.
(where are the embarrassing leaks about EU members? China? Russia? Japan?
What, so Burlusconi's wild parties aren't embarrassing to Italy? And given the way China's scrambling to firewall the cables, they're not embarrassed either?
I think your're seeing anti-USA selectivity where it simply doesn't exist.
Are we better than other countries? Does this then give us a moral mandate to make the world a better place?
I would argue that sure, the USA probably is better than other countries, and yes, that probably does give you a moral mandate the make the world a better place. Power leading to responsibility, etc, etc.
It's only the means - coercive violence - by which the USA attempts to make the world a better place that I have problems with. Basically I think coercion is counterproductive and a waste of everyone's time. It doesn't change anyone's minds except the user - it makes them nastier people. So a country is good to the extent that they don't do evil stuff, and by evil I mean coercive.
But sure, as long as the USA's not doing evil stuff, go USA. You've done some good things which you should be proud of. Building the Internet for one.
No. It is the belief that the US is better than other countries. Not perfect, just better.
The problem is that 'better' is a function of behaviour.
'We can do bad things because we're good people' is not a coherent argument, because you're only good people to the extent that you don't do bad things.
It would be trivial for Assange to filter information and only display leaks that would damage the country of his choice.
Wait, I thought everyone's problem with Assange is that he doesn't filter the leaks enough? That he irresponsibly bulk-releases everything instead of only releasing a tiny subset of "information the public really needs to know"?
It's not just the US government with Cablegate. It's the Arab governments with their venomous anti-Iran private statements which come out looking the most like two-faced hypocrites.
Why isn't there an equal skepticism about Space Nuttery like Moon colonies, space-based solar power and asteroid mining? They are equally delusional.
No they're not, and there was plenty of skepticism about such claims when O'Neill in the 70s was proclaiming that we could be doing them all in a few years, because it was clearly technologically impossible with any reasonably justifiable amount of money. There's far less skepticism today because we can see that they could be viable in a few decades.
Possible, sure. We could go back to the moon with a big enough budget. Economically viable, though?
Solar microwave satellites were fun in SimCity 2000, and I'd still like to see them operational, but I've not seen even any proof of concept devices yet.
Further out, the big question about asteroid mining I've never seen plausibly answered is: how do you make mining bulk metal in space cheaper than mining it on Earth?
The usual space-booster response is "we won't be building stuff on earth, we'll be building stuff in space, and space mining is cheaper for that". But that begs the question: why will we be building megastructures in space in the first place? Not just to build space mining camps so we can build more space mining camps, I assume.
Speaking nice about allies like Holland yet having senate approved invasion plans for allied nations.
To be fair, WW2 military history - say, the Maginot Line - does show that if you want one country in Europe to be secure against invasion from any other, you have account for your allies themselves getting subverted or invaded. Just because they're your allies now doesn't mean they always will be. That's just sound military planning and one would expect all nations to have plans like that.
Consider North Korea.... I would bet that if you thought your boss an ignorant jackass, you wouldn't go ahead and tell him that before you sat down for a quarterly performance review.
If North Korea is the United State's boss, then the world has a lot bigger problems than a mere diplomatic leak.
there are lots of external factors you can make use of, as in a stable society, a well maintained infrastructure, a strong military and low crime.
While I agree that public infrastructure is a good thing, I'm less and less convinced that 'a strong military' is actually a productive asset to a democratic nation.
A strong military means that you have an aggressive foreign policy, a culture of secrecy, and a lot of productive capital diverted into making things that destroy rather than create value. While in the short term this might yield impressive-looking gains from strongarming other nations into giving you stuff, they're not going to respect you as much as fear you. Eventually the fear will subside, your foreign policy will stumble, and then you'll be left with just a lot of stuff that goes boom and no hospitals and factories - and a domestic population who have been disenfranchised from government by all the military secrecy.
Borrowing only makes sense if it is borrowing that actually has a reasonable chance to improve something in the future, what we see is that gov't borrowing does not fall into this category.
Why does it not?
Borrowing so you can build user-owned roads, farms, factories, hospitals and schools seems exactly like it would improve a lot of things in the future for any country which does it. At the end of the day, useful productive capital has been built which can start making stuff.
On the other hand, borrowing just so you can invade other countries, line a Swiss bank account, export your manufacturing base to a foreign owner, or pay off IMF paper loans seems like it would do nothing but drain productive resources, and should be discouraged.
Whether a government does the investing or the free market seems pretty irrelevant compared to the real question of what it is that the investment creates - real stuff or fantasy figure juggling.
At the end of the day, you either have farms and factories and hospitals, or you don't.
Slashdot Mirror
When someone makes a move
Of which we don't approve,
Who is it that always intervenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,
They have their place, I guess,
But first send the Marines!
We'll send them all we've got,
John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,
What do we do? We send the Marines!
For might makes right,
And till they've seen the light,
They've got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
'Till somebody we like can be elected.
Members of the corps
All hate the thought of war,
They'd rather kill them off by peaceful means.
Stop calling it aggression,
O we hate that expression.
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the Marines!
I'd like to point out the propaganda success here. The Taliban is the former government of Afghanistan. They have never committed international aggression (though I'm sure they did some nasty stuff internally while in power). They are not responsible for deaths outside of Afghanistan. "al Qaeda" is not the same as "The Taliban."
But... but they started the Temporal Cold War! Would Captain Archer lie to us?
Really, saying "don't be petty and attack people for not agreeing with you soon enough" is the same as "don't do what's right"?
Yes. "Pettiness" and "attack" are emotional evaluations which are completely irrelevant from the substance of political discussion. We need a whole lot more rational debate about issues, and a whole lot less emotional rhetorical maneuvering.
Awesome. So you don't mind if I come to your place and take all your stuff for the masses to use?
Sometime in the future, when matter replication is commonplace and law and order has collapsed, there will be roving copy-gangs savagely breaking into houses and duplicating everything inside, storing it in vast warehouses for the masses to replicate for themselves. And replicate the masses certainly shall. Like librarians caught in an animalistic orgy of card-filing.
Can you picture 300 million near-identical Ikea coffee tables all stacked up and filed, hundreds of stories high, indexed and cross-indexed, until they block out the very Sun? Dare you imagine every teenager in America wearing the same brand of jeans at once?
That's the dark future the copy-gangs will create if they're not stopped now.
I vote for the Xbox 4/Pi.
I don't think he does care if this stuff gets out
And yet the stuff is getting out, and all evidence is that that is exactly and only what Assange cares about.
I'm intrigued at the mental processes which lead to you observing one event and inferring from it the exact opposite.
I'm not sure if you are being cynical. The US government has vast organizations set up to kill people anywhere on earth (the military) or to interfere with your life (CIA). Corporations don't have ready access to either of those things.
On the other hand, Google has your GPS coordinates, and Armadillo Aerospace can launch rockets...
John Romero might not have made you his bitch, but I wouldn't mess with Carmack.
The other possibility is that the first one to cut its milk powder is exposed. Then you don’t have to cut your milk powder.
And that's a similar principle to how the GPL works. If all players have to play by the same rules, cheating is minimised, Then we can get on with making stuff and competing fairly on real efficiency, not false efficiency.
It is impossible to monitor Wikileak's integrity or transparency.
But you couldn't have that total transparency without Wikileaks releasing absolutely everything they are provided, and most critical commentators already complain that Wikileaks is releasing too much!
It is becoming clear that the purpose of Wikileaks is not to expose corruption, but to hurt the US.
On the contrary, that is not at all becoming clear.
This first batch of cables actually strengthen the USA's position in regard to Israel vs Iran. It's the leaders of Arab nations which look like two-faced manipulators, and makes the USA's support of Israel look a lot more measured.
If you reflexively feel that any truth hurts the USA - or that it's not the content of leaks that is embarrassing so much as the mere fact of leaks - then I think you simply have identified too strongly with 'your team' as if international politics is some kind of football game, rather than asking the hard questions of what each nation is trying to accomplish in the world.
But in regard to why the source of the current leaks is USA-based - then it may have something to do with three million US military employees having access to SIPRNET traffic, and with the USA being involved in the business of many nations in the world. Sheer numbers would support the USA's material popping up a lot.
It's not the source of the truth, though, but the target that you should be concerned about. And the targets of these revelations are scattered all over the world.
(where are the embarrassing leaks about EU members? China? Russia? Japan?
What, so Burlusconi's wild parties aren't embarrassing to Italy? And given the way China's scrambling to firewall the cables, they're not embarrassed either?
I think your're seeing anti-USA selectivity where it simply doesn't exist.
Are we better than other countries? Does this then give us a moral mandate to make the world a better place?
I would argue that sure, the USA probably is better than other countries, and yes, that probably does give you a moral mandate the make the world a better place. Power leading to responsibility, etc, etc.
It's only the means - coercive violence - by which the USA attempts to make the world a better place that I have problems with. Basically I think coercion is counterproductive and a waste of everyone's time. It doesn't change anyone's minds except the user - it makes them nastier people. So a country is good to the extent that they don't do evil stuff, and by evil I mean coercive.
But sure, as long as the USA's not doing evil stuff, go USA. You've done some good things which you should be proud of. Building the Internet for one.
No. It is the belief that the US is better than other countries. Not perfect, just better.
The problem is that 'better' is a function of behaviour.
'We can do bad things because we're good people' is not a coherent argument, because you're only good people to the extent that you don't do bad things.
this challenges the narrative of the great satan plotting your downfall, and so proof that the great satan is not a great satan.
Sure, but "the great Dilbert" isn't quite such a catchy one-liner.
It would be trivial for Assange to filter information and only display leaks that would damage the country of his choice.
Wait, I thought everyone's problem with Assange is that he doesn't filter the leaks enough? That he irresponsibly bulk-releases everything instead of only releasing a tiny subset of "information the public really needs to know"?
You can't have it both ways, people.
It's not just the US government with Cablegate. It's the Arab governments with their venomous anti-Iran private statements which come out looking the most like two-faced hypocrites.
you will be put to death ... You will not be martyred.
Unless you're planning on using a Schroedinger Box as the execution method, there's a slight contradiction between those two statements.
the last Golf War
I think I saw that one - wasn't it an Adam Sandler movie?
Why isn't there an equal skepticism about Space Nuttery like Moon colonies, space-based solar power and asteroid mining? They are equally delusional.
No they're not, and there was plenty of skepticism about such claims when O'Neill in the 70s was proclaiming that we could be doing them all in a few years, because it was clearly technologically impossible with any reasonably justifiable amount of money. There's far less skepticism today because we can see that they could be viable in a few decades.
Possible, sure. We could go back to the moon with a big enough budget. Economically viable, though?
Solar microwave satellites were fun in SimCity 2000, and I'd still like to see them operational, but I've not seen even any proof of concept devices yet.
Further out, the big question about asteroid mining I've never seen plausibly answered is: how do you make mining bulk metal in space cheaper than mining it on Earth?
The usual space-booster response is "we won't be building stuff on earth, we'll be building stuff in space, and space mining is cheaper for that". But that begs the question: why will we be building megastructures in space in the first place? Not just to build space mining camps so we can build more space mining camps, I assume.
Speaking nice about allies like Holland yet having senate approved invasion plans for allied nations.
To be fair, WW2 military history - say, the Maginot Line - does show that if you want one country in Europe to be secure against invasion from any other, you have account for your allies themselves getting subverted or invaded. Just because they're your allies now doesn't mean they always will be. That's just sound military planning and one would expect all nations to have plans like that.
Consider North Korea.... I would bet that if you thought your boss an ignorant jackass, you wouldn't go ahead and tell him that before you sat down for a quarterly performance review.
If North Korea is the United State's boss, then the world has a lot bigger problems than a mere diplomatic leak.
When people talk about the world as sunshine and rainbows while it's fire and brimstone, there is a bit of an issue with two facing.
Mmm, fireshine and brimbows and hellpuppies...
Politics is the opposite of honesty.
In much the same way as business is the opposite of fair pricing.
But perhaps it doesn't have to be that way.
there are lots of external factors you can make use of, as in a stable society, a well maintained infrastructure, a strong military and low crime.
While I agree that public infrastructure is a good thing, I'm less and less convinced that 'a strong military' is actually a productive asset to a democratic nation.
A strong military means that you have an aggressive foreign policy, a culture of secrecy, and a lot of productive capital diverted into making things that destroy rather than create value. While in the short term this might yield impressive-looking gains from strongarming other nations into giving you stuff, they're not going to respect you as much as fear you. Eventually the fear will subside, your foreign policy will stumble, and then you'll be left with just a lot of stuff that goes boom and no hospitals and factories - and a domestic population who have been disenfranchised from government by all the military secrecy.
Not at all a good mix.
Borrowing only makes sense if it is borrowing that actually has a reasonable chance to improve something in the future, what we see is that gov't borrowing does not fall into this category.
Why does it not?
Borrowing so you can build user-owned roads, farms, factories, hospitals and schools seems exactly like it would improve a lot of things in the future for any country which does it. At the end of the day, useful productive capital has been built which can start making stuff.
On the other hand, borrowing just so you can invade other countries, line a Swiss bank account, export your manufacturing base to a foreign owner, or pay off IMF paper loans seems like it would do nothing but drain productive resources, and should be discouraged.
Whether a government does the investing or the free market seems pretty irrelevant compared to the real question of what it is that the investment creates - real stuff or fantasy figure juggling.
At the end of the day, you either have farms and factories and hospitals, or you don't.