There are also non-gene mechanisms that need to be understood as well, since the genome is a blueprint, but what happens when the cell actually starts using that blueprint? Anyone who's had a house built knows that it's the contractors that actually make the house, not the architect, and there are an unknown number of contractors inside individual cells that control what gets built. What makes a particular cell use the "retina" part of the blueprint, and another cell use the "heart muscle" part? I don't believe we know all the answers outside the genome, yet. All those cellular contractors and we don't understand their language (yet).
Right, in every other "enlightened, caring" country, government bureaucrats will determine that everyone gets one, and they will get to use that information for the purposes of better government. And we know that will work out well, as it always has before...
What the heck is a "standard job title" anyway? I've worked at 12 different companies in my nearly 30 years in software development, and never have I had the same "job title." I'm pretty sure my current job title is meaningless to anyone else looking to hire me, as would the dozen other job titles I've had be.
Get back to me when the "industry" publishes a list of "standard job titles" and makes every company comply with it.
Someone needs to mod the parent up, this is important. Comcast's Internet service TOS states specifically that any server is a violation and they will cut you off if they find one, and pretty much any other non-business ISP will do the same. This is because they pay for packets going out of their network but get to charge for packets coming in, and so they throttle subscribers' outbound side while opening up the inbound side as much as technically possible.
Putting a server on your computer on their network means that lots and lots of people will be pulling packets from your server onto the network, and the ISP will be paying for it, and they don't want to pay for it.
I'm not going to quote your whole posting, it's very well-thought out and I mostly agree with the premises. The only thing I would do is separate the idea of "truth" from "fact". I don't believe that all of the Bible is "factual", which by definition is provable actions, but I believe it is "truthful", which I believe is defined in much broader terms. "Truth" can be found in many places, since it's an evaluation made by people, whereas "facts" can be repeated, or there are physical or other traces that something occurred, and could possibly be caused to occur under the same conditions.
"Truth," in the Bible, would be something like "we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God," which is basically saying "we're all selfish, self-centered gits who have hurt people at one time or other, even the most 'good' person." A "fact" in the Bible would be that a person named "Matthew" (however his name was spelled) existed and was a tax collector in the early 1st Century.
I would say that the "parables" that Jesus is documented as having told would be "truthful" but not "factual." I have no problem with (what I perceive to be) "truth" about the stories in Genesis being incompatible with the "facts" of the origin of the Earth, Solar System, and Universe. The "truth" that I perceive is that it all came about for a reason, but the facts of the method by which it came about is not important to determine that "truth."
In other words, Science (which hates to be anthropomorphized) is concerned with facts, the "what, how, how much, when, where, and sometimes why" questions, whereas Religion is concerned with the rest of the "why", and also the "who." Both are truly orthogonal to me, and so there's no conflict, just as there's no conflict between the X and Y axes of a graph.
"Society" needs more medical doctors. I don't want to be a medical doctor. I want to be a computer programmer. I don't care that "society" needs what I don't want to do. I also don't care that "society" doesn't need more computer programmers.
By your "logic" I should "get out of society" because of my choice. All I can say is, if that's the "society" you want to build, I'll gladly leave it, and leave you to it.
The people who put the rights of "society" ahead of the rights of individuals frighten me. These people tend to remove the right of individuals to influence the decisions of "society" and thus lead to tyranny. Well-intentioned tyranny is much more frightening and insidious than the totalitarian ones we've seen, but no less tyrannical for that.
Drop the attitude laughing boy. If it was so easy why is The President (PBUH) whining about foreign students being forced to leave? Sounds like you need to be re-educated to get on the latest bandwagon.
Maybe instead of standing in the way of entrepreneurs (no matter where they're from) why not remove as many obstacles as possible from business start-ups? Maybe an "incentive visa" for starting a company and hiring Americans, with a fast track to citizenship?
Why does "immigration reform" always mean "making illegals legal by fiat"?
Throw in gerrymandering of districts to effectively prevent challengers of another party from getting elected, and you have what we have now, >90% re-election rate. My district has approximately 5:1 Democrat to Republican voters, guess who runs basically unopposed? VA-8's Jim Moran, my once and future Representative. Rumor is he's grooming his son to "run" for the seat when he retires. Even if he doesn't, VA-8 will *never* have a Republican Representative, unless the district is fairly apportioned. Everyone seems happy with that arrangement, though.
Some people believe that all voices should be heard. Others believe that some voices should not be heard.
The former group wants to give all people the ability to speak. The latter group wants to prevent some people from speaking.
The Internet protocols developed so far have the potential to give everyone an equally "loud" voice, and so potentially empower the former group. The same Internet protocols can be used to muffle or silence some voices and give more weight to others.
The question you have to answer for yourself is, which group do you prefer to be "in charge of the Internet"?
I assume you don't have children? And likely don't want any? If you do, are you planning to leave them destitute when you die, so that they can "work for a living", starting from zero? And you want others to go along with that idea for their families, enforced by state seizure of estates? Your ideas are frightening, you want to trade liberty for "fairness." God help us if you succeed.
Based on the assumptions you seem to be making, it appears you believe that there is a limited amount of wealth, that it isn't created by effort, and that someone who has more "didn't build that" and thus doesn't deserve it.
Have you lived as a citizen of these supposed "successful" meritocracies you believe exist? Which ones, and when?
I'm not sure what you're talking about. How does being born poor as hell into a family that can't provide you with any opportunities and having to take out loans for school, college, and basic necessities such as transportation (loans paid to those born wealthy) mean any sort of freedom? Freedom to do what exactly, have no opportunity that does not benefit those born wealthy more than it does you?
Your argument might have more merit if you can explain how so many people who are poor and come from nothing but the clothes on their back and manage to become wealthy. Are they all, each and every one helpless to achieve without the government providing them everything?
As far as "the people" voting democratically to decide what gets done with the wealth created by some of "the people," what makes this mass of people more worthy of taking what I built and struggled for away from my family? Other than force of arms and sheer numbers, that is "might makes right?"
Why should I even try to build something for my family, when I know that it will never get to them, because "the people" decide they're not worthy of it?
My fervent wish is for people with your beliefs to live in the world you want to make, so lomg as I'm lomg dead.
If you read more detail in history, you'll see that the "historically high rates" from earlier years weren't actually extracted from those with wealth, as they all managed (and still do) to gain loopholes.
As far as the fairness of a 100% inheritance tax, what does that do to the families of entrepreneurs who build companies in their lifetimes, sometimes huge billion-dollar companies that employ thousands of people and provide goods and services for millions? Should those companies be liquidated to pay that tax, in order to achieve your vision of "fairness" and "equality" simply because "it's worked before" (it really hasn't)?
Do you honestly believe that giving the government all the wealth that gets created by private citizens on their death is better than letting individuals decide what's best for their families? What makes government so much better than individuals?
The problem lies in how the "meritocracy" gets created when the ones who inherit wealth refuse to give it up. Unless you're willing to apply force to take it from them, or otherwise restrict the freedom of people who inherit great wealth such that they can only spend and not invest or otherwise grow that wealth, your "meritocracy" is doomed.
Slashdot Mirror
It's what you expect when you're paid scale. You can't even spare a fin.
Give the GP credit, at least when being pendantic he didn't dangle his participles, quietly or otherwise.
Data -> information -> knowledge -> wisdom
There are also non-gene mechanisms that need to be understood as well, since the genome is a blueprint, but what happens when the cell actually starts using that blueprint? Anyone who's had a house built knows that it's the contractors that actually make the house, not the architect, and there are an unknown number of contractors inside individual cells that control what gets built. What makes a particular cell use the "retina" part of the blueprint, and another cell use the "heart muscle" part? I don't believe we know all the answers outside the genome, yet. All those cellular contractors and we don't understand their language (yet).
Right, in every other "enlightened, caring" country, government bureaucrats will determine that everyone gets one, and they will get to use that information for the purposes of better government. And we know that will work out well, as it always has before...
Not many people are going to get that one. Keep trying...
Well, probably the first to mine the asteroids will also mine the asteroids. Of course they won't want proximity mines in the mines' proximity...
*kaboom*
Grant.
What the heck is a "standard job title" anyway? I've worked at 12 different companies in my nearly 30 years in software development, and never have I had the same "job title." I'm pretty sure my current job title is meaningless to anyone else looking to hire me, as would the dozen other job titles I've had be.
Get back to me when the "industry" publishes a list of "standard job titles" and makes every company comply with it.
Someone needs to mod the parent up, this is important. Comcast's Internet service TOS states specifically that any server is a violation and they will cut you off if they find one, and pretty much any other non-business ISP will do the same. This is because they pay for packets going out of their network but get to charge for packets coming in, and so they throttle subscribers' outbound side while opening up the inbound side as much as technically possible.
Putting a server on your computer on their network means that lots and lots of people will be pulling packets from your server onto the network, and the ISP will be paying for it, and they don't want to pay for it.
As long as it's the "undeserving 1%" that gets their money taken, of course. The nomenklatura don't have to sacrifice for everyone elses' good.
I'm not going to quote your whole posting, it's very well-thought out and I mostly agree with the premises. The only thing I would do is separate the idea of "truth" from "fact". I don't believe that all of the Bible is "factual", which by definition is provable actions, but I believe it is "truthful", which I believe is defined in much broader terms. "Truth" can be found in many places, since it's an evaluation made by people, whereas "facts" can be repeated, or there are physical or other traces that something occurred, and could possibly be caused to occur under the same conditions.
"Truth," in the Bible, would be something like "we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God," which is basically saying "we're all selfish, self-centered gits who have hurt people at one time or other, even the most 'good' person." A "fact" in the Bible would be that a person named "Matthew" (however his name was spelled) existed and was a tax collector in the early 1st Century.
I would say that the "parables" that Jesus is documented as having told would be "truthful" but not "factual." I have no problem with (what I perceive to be) "truth" about the stories in Genesis being incompatible with the "facts" of the origin of the Earth, Solar System, and Universe. The "truth" that I perceive is that it all came about for a reason, but the facts of the method by which it came about is not important to determine that "truth."
In other words, Science (which hates to be anthropomorphized) is concerned with facts, the "what, how, how much, when, where, and sometimes why" questions, whereas Religion is concerned with the rest of the "why", and also the "who." Both are truly orthogonal to me, and so there's no conflict, just as there's no conflict between the X and Y axes of a graph.
"Society" needs more medical doctors. I don't want to be a medical doctor. I want to be a computer programmer. I don't care that "society" needs what I don't want to do. I also don't care that "society" doesn't need more computer programmers.
By your "logic" I should "get out of society" because of my choice. All I can say is, if that's the "society" you want to build, I'll gladly leave it, and leave you to it.
The people who put the rights of "society" ahead of the rights of individuals frighten me. These people tend to remove the right of individuals to influence the decisions of "society" and thus lead to tyranny. Well-intentioned tyranny is much more frightening and insidious than the totalitarian ones we've seen, but no less tyrannical for that.
That's the way it always ends up, "for your own good" of course.
Drop the attitude laughing boy. If it was so easy why is The President (PBUH) whining about foreign students being forced to leave? Sounds like you need to be re-educated to get on the latest bandwagon.
Idiot.
Maybe instead of standing in the way of entrepreneurs (no matter where they're from) why not remove as many obstacles as possible from business start-ups? Maybe an "incentive visa" for starting a company and hiring Americans, with a fast track to citizenship?
Why does "immigration reform" always mean "making illegals legal by fiat"?
Maybe they should have had more daily scrums in their agile development process...
Not to mention wouldn't help if someone runs unopposed.
Throw in gerrymandering of districts to effectively prevent challengers of another party from getting elected, and you have what we have now, >90% re-election rate. My district has approximately 5:1 Democrat to Republican voters, guess who runs basically unopposed? VA-8's Jim Moran, my once and future Representative. Rumor is he's grooming his son to "run" for the seat when he retires. Even if he doesn't, VA-8 will *never* have a Republican Representative, unless the district is fairly apportioned. Everyone seems happy with that arrangement, though.
Fork the political software!
Some people believe that all voices should be heard. Others believe that some voices should not be heard.
The former group wants to give all people the ability to speak. The latter group wants to prevent some people from speaking.
The Internet protocols developed so far have the potential to give everyone an equally "loud" voice, and so potentially empower the former group. The same Internet protocols can be used to muffle or silence some voices and give more weight to others.
The question you have to answer for yourself is, which group do you prefer to be "in charge of the Internet"?
Wow, that's...
So many assumptions, so flawed...
I assume you don't have children? And likely don't want any? If you do, are you planning to leave them destitute when you die, so that they can "work for a living", starting from zero? And you want others to go along with that idea for their families, enforced by state seizure of estates? Your ideas are frightening, you want to trade liberty for "fairness." God help us if you succeed.
Based on the assumptions you seem to be making, it appears you believe that there is a limited amount of wealth, that it isn't created by effort, and that someone who has more "didn't build that" and thus doesn't deserve it.
Have you lived as a citizen of these supposed "successful" meritocracies you believe exist? Which ones, and when?
Your argument might have more merit if you can explain how so many people who are poor and come from nothing but the clothes on their back and manage to become wealthy. Are they all, each and every one helpless to achieve without the government providing them everything?
As far as "the people" voting democratically to decide what gets done with the wealth created by some of "the people," what makes this mass of people more worthy of taking what I built and struggled for away from my family? Other than force of arms and sheer numbers, that is "might makes right?"
Why should I even try to build something for my family, when I know that it will never get to them, because "the people" decide they're not worthy of it?
My fervent wish is for people with your beliefs to live in the world you want to make, so lomg as I'm lomg dead.
If you read more detail in history, you'll see that the "historically high rates" from earlier years weren't actually extracted from those with wealth, as they all managed (and still do) to gain loopholes.
As far as the fairness of a 100% inheritance tax, what does that do to the families of entrepreneurs who build companies in their lifetimes, sometimes huge billion-dollar companies that employ thousands of people and provide goods and services for millions? Should those companies be liquidated to pay that tax, in order to achieve your vision of "fairness" and "equality" simply because "it's worked before" (it really hasn't)?
Do you honestly believe that giving the government all the wealth that gets created by private citizens on their death is better than letting individuals decide what's best for their families? What makes government so much better than individuals?
The problem lies in how the "meritocracy" gets created when the ones who inherit wealth refuse to give it up. Unless you're willing to apply force to take it from them, or otherwise restrict the freedom of people who inherit great wealth such that they can only spend and not invest or otherwise grow that wealth, your "meritocracy" is doomed.