I think that the "wealthy benefactors" thing is kind of a straw man, and you don't entirely understand what a Libertarian wants. Those people really don't have a national impact by building a few schools among tens of millions of students. The rich benefactors actually represent a small amount of the GDP, so the middle class is the only group that has enough resources to educate the tens of millions of students.
Who educates the students then? The parents should (according to libertarianism) pay for schooling for their own children, largely.
Who educates the students who don't have enough to pay for school? There are a few answers. First, we must ask ourselves how many students are unable to afford education, and the answer may be smaller than you think. Let's say that some government agency issued vouchers as assistance to students who can't pay for education themselves. Already we have an improvement: the governments involvement in education is a small fraction of what it once was, students have a choice in school, and everyone has an opportunity for education. Next, we need to question the role of the federal governement: why must this assistance be at the federal level? The answer is that there's no reason at all. It's much more controllable at the state level and the states must compete with one another based on results.
I think the government programs are an unecessary burden on other people's freedom. But what I suggest above is a huge step forward in removing government control.
Why is there only the complete liberal vs the absolute fascist?
I would like to first clear up the misconception that a libertarian resembles a fascist. Fascists heavily control private enterprise, which is the opposite of a libertarian. I also wouldn't classify fascists as non-interventionists. I'm trying to figure out if there's any similarity at all.
Next, remember that Badnarik is running for Federal office. Libertarians want a small Federal government. The Constitution set up a framework for a union of states, and he's following that. Small-scale social programs are often quite effective, and much easier to control. Many libertarians would not even oppose a small-scale (small state or local) social program.
Local programs don't really have the ability to confiscate in quite the same way. You can move, or attend a town hall meeting and voice your opinion, etc. If you disagree with Social Security and don't pay in, you go to prison. And just try to voice an opinion about Social Security and see how far you get. Now that is confiscation.
Remember that 122 Million Americans are completely outseide the Federal tax system, according to this source. That means they can vote your money away with no consequences whatsoever.
I don't think that Libertarians are as focused on equality as you are. Liberty and equality are often at odds, as a matter of fact.
The U.S. school system sucks, to put it mildly. People argue over the reasons, but few argue with that statement. If 90% of kids get a basic education by the 12th grade under Badnarik, that would be phenomenally better than the current system, in my opinion.
The current system isn't all that equal anyway. Just consider the quality of the teacher pool in some areas. In some areas the Dads make a lot of money and the Moms don't have to work, so the Moms help out A LOT with the educational process, both by helping their own kids and volunteering at school.
I don't think it's the governments responsibility to equalize anything. It's an economically ruinous task for one, and often at odds with liberty, which I value very highly. Some people get the short end of the stick, and that will always be true. Some people will be born poor, some people born disabled in some way (like me), some people born ugly, and all of those people are at a disadvantage, but not all of those things can be corrected, nor should the government attempt to correct the inequities by taking away the liberties of other people.
It is clearly the role of government to crush false hope wherever it may be found, by whatever means necessary!
A substantial number of people in this country feel it is immoral to use embryonic stem cells for research. The ban on using new embryonic stem cells applies only to federally-funded research projects.
So, one might also ask: is it the role of government to confiscate resources from some people (122 million people are outside of the federal tax system, according to this source) and conduct research that many of those people do not believe in?
I prefer there to be embryonic stem cell research. But I would not favor confiscating other people's money to do it, particularly if those people are not like-minded about the type of research.
And what are you going to do when all the old people move to Florida to retire?
There are people that move to other countries, too, and that doesn't stop them from getting social security benefits.
Let's say that the state programs worked exactly like social security. Your payout would be based on the years you spent paying into the system (although not the actual amount you paid, just the time), like SS. Someone like you who moves around might end up recieving a couple different checks from a couple different states, regardless of where you live now.
we all need the same health care
Some, like me, need more healthcare than average.
Reducing the price of healthcare to $0 means that consumers will demand more than anyone can possibly supply. If someone walks in with a head cold, why not do an MRI (a costly diagnostic procedure) just to make sure it's not a tumor, as long as the price is $0?
That is fixed by reducing the quality of services and putting artificial barriers between you and the care you need. This barrier might be a 6-month long line to get any kind of care.
If quality of service deteriorates, or barriers develop between me and the care I need, or medical research grinds to a halt, I will lose years (or decades) from my life and the remainder won't be nearly as pleasant.
That's why I don't want socialized health care. But I suppose most people don't care, since they don't stand to lose nearly as much as I do.
Well, social security is currently all about how much time you work and pay into the system, and they pay you based on that, even if you move overseas. So, in a state system, it should be the state you're from.
I'm not much for socialism anyway, so I'd vote against it, but I would assume that's how it would work if it was a state program. And I agree about healthcare, but a state system is way better than a federal system, which everyone is pushing for.
I think you overcomplicated the issue and brought in too many other, irrelevent factors.
The post to which you were replying was also complicating the situation. I made an attempt to show how the investment actually flows in my reply to said post.
The largest investment that 90% of the US population will make is buying a home. Even if the capital gains taxes on this is raised, those people will NOT stop buying homes.
If capital gains taxes are up, people can't afford as expensive of a house, so they buy a cheaper one, also known as investing less. The average person might not understand why, but the loans may be more expensive because of increased forclosure possibility or some such, and will cause them to buy a cheaper house or do less investing for retirement. The effect of those higher taxes will be represented somehow. Maybe some will even choose to rent instead.
How does that help the average person?
I said, hypothetically, that everyone in the country benefits. Isn't benefit help? Let's say the taxes go from 100% to 50%, wouldn't that benefit everyone? There would certainly be a greater disparity between "the rich" and "the poor" though.
Again, hypothetically, if a flat tax is beneficial to everyone, why not do it? Just the fact that some people benefit more than others hardly seems like a reason to prevent anyone at all from benefitting.
When you buy that stock, you are increasing the demand for the stock, because the supply remains constant (in your example it wasn't MS issuing new shares, so it's constant).
When lots of people do this, it allows MS to buy more things with stock, like labor and capital (perhaps other companies). Companies in general and MS in particular use stock to hire new workers.
To make a full circle out of the situation: (1) Person A buys X shares of MS stock (2) MS uses the increased value of MS stock to pay new workers (3) Workers need to buy food, so they sell the stock to people like "Person A".
So basically, you paid the salary (or part of the salary) of the new workers, and the value of your stock increases by the amount those workers produce (above and beyond what you pay them).
It seems like a pretty straightforward investment scenario to me. It's indirect, but all stock transaction are.
This argument does not stand up very well in my eyes. Are taxes on "the rich" too low? How about we make the taxes 100%? Or maybe we could just have a tax system where you get taxed exactly enough to leave you with the same amount of money as everyone else?
It's a fact that when you tax investments more, people invest less. The only way new jobs are created is by investment.
My point is that there's a balance. You don't want taxes to be 100%, and you don't want them to be 0%. If either of those happen, tax revenue is $0. Time and time again, tax rates are reduced and tax revenue is increased.
You accounted for none of these factors, so your implication that taxes should not be reduced in some brackets carries no weight at all.
Your post contains one other major logical flaw. If everone in the country benefits from a tax decrease (hypothetically), does it matter at all if the wealth disparity increases? Only to those who prefer to kill the neighbor's cow (so to speak).
The main point of Libertarianism is to remove these responsibilities from the United States Federal Government.
We live in a nation of many governments, local, state, and of course one federal government.
Why must retirement be a federal program? Why must healthcare?
It would be easy to judge the effectiveness of these social programs if some states are involved and some not.
I would say that most of the tax dollars should be going to the state, not federal government. The federal government can take care of national defense and that would be the most expensive item at the federal level. Just about everything else should go to the state.
If your state wants a healthcare program, then they can do it. If it fails, other states hopefully won't adopt it. Same with retirement.
I thought this was some sort of forced-takeover issue.
You may have been confused because it's a hostile takeover.
That means that Oracle is trying to take over PeopleSoft, while PeopleSoft is resisting the takeover. Oracle simply tries to buy as many shares as it can until Oracle has a controlling share. The target firm (PeopleSoft) is resisting because they don't think it will ultimately be good for PeopleSoft, but if Oracle gets the controlling share then they can't do anything.
I'd like to add that an important aspect of teaching yourself is that you learn how to learn.
It's much more valuable to know that you can type "man grep" than to memorize that "-i" means case-insensitive.
One thing is for sure: nothing can replace self-teaching. You will be a much more valuable resource to your company because of it.
However, the orginal poster's company needs him now. I think he should install linux everywhere he can and start taking classes. Then, I'd just pick the instructor's brain when I encountered a problem. Hopefully he gets competent fast enough to be helpful.
I try to do that, but I always end up stopping the vim process by C-x C-s, because I'm so used to emacs. Then I have to realize what I did and do C-q or whatever it is to resume.
By the way, does anyone at all know a way to make the emacs command NOT try to open xemacs without having to type "emacs -nw" each time? It's REALLY annoying.
Re:yet another worthless article about IPv6
on
An Introduction to IPv6
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Creating game servers, etc, usually requires having an outside server with a dedicated IP address.
The reason the internet is successful is that every user is a peer. One computer may be a server and the other a client, but the server could just as easily be the client and the client could just as easily be the server.
Unless, of course, the client is stuck behind NAT and can't be a server. Maybe he could ask his ISP or sysadmin for permission to recieve incoming connections on a specific port.
When you tell some users that they aren't good enough to be servers, they miss out on potential applications. An example may be to create a game server and ask your friend to connect, or if you need to send your friend a large file over ftp and both of you are behind NAT.
Re:yet another worthless article about IPv6
on
An Introduction to IPv6
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
That's another "restrict their freedom for their own good" argument.
The internet is successful because there is little central control (aside from DNS). When you start trying to solve other people's problems by mandating network policy, you end up with the "smart network, dumb terminal" philosphy of the phone network.
The internet doesn't work when Joe can't connect to Jane because they're both behind NAT. By discouraging IPv6, and therefore forcing NAT upon large parts of the internet, you drastically limit the number of possible connections that users can make.
Just because browsing and email work fine behind NAT doesn't mean NAT isn't limiting other new applications of the internet. And just because you can't think of new applications doesn't mean that the millions of people trapped behind NAT can't.
In fact, people already have, and they get stuck behind NAT all the time. Game servers, P2P apps, etc.
I wasn't entirely sure if that was a contradiction or not, I just don't understand precisely where you stand.
There will be uninformed people. We should encourage those people to inform themselves. I think we can agree there.
However, after we encourage them to inform themselves, there will still remain some uninformed people. I see absolutely no reason we should encourage those people to vote. I'm not advocating any kind of poll quiz or anything, I'm just saying that I see no reason to encourage them to vote.
It seems that you think its people's civic responsibility to inform themselves and then vote. I might agree with that if it's both or nothing, i.e. either inform yourself and vote or don't vote at all. If you don't inform yourself, I don't think that voting is still a civic responsibility.
Some people who can't be buggered to even research beyond smear campaigns think that their voice should be as important as anybody elses. In reality I doubt it should be.
That was the elitist statement you were referring to, I think, and it was a couple posts up. He is simply not in agreement with democracy, and I'm not in agreement with him on that subject.
ANYONE who thinks Bush will win the war on terrorism...
I think the war on terror is kind of like the war on drugs: it's not really meant to be won, and a few civil liberties go in the process. The point is to deter terrorism and make it very costly and ineffective, like the war on drugs. I think this war on terror and the war on drugs are working toward their goal, and the question is mainly: is it worth the cost?
For the record, I don't think that the war on drugs is worth the cost, in fact I think even the goal of fewer recreational drugs is counterproductive.
The war on terror is a little harder to classify. We don't know the costs or the results exactly. We hope that using our military power quickly after the attacks will deter future terrorists because their chance of success is lower. In Spain and the Phillipines, the terrorists now have a track record of success, and I wouldn't want to be in that position. We hope to scare away those harboring terrorists as well, or funding them, and it has started to work already (e.g. Syria).
That being said, the war has HUGE costs. So you be the judge at the polls, as will I. And so will millions of people who are in agreement with one of us for all of the wrong reasons.
Tom Lane, one of the core developers of PostgreSQL RDBMS, is an amazing developer.
He cranks out new features, fixes difficult bugs, helps the release process, and answers questions to newbies and developers alike.
He can break down a tough problem in no time and give the real answer clearly. He knows when a feature is just the latest DB buzzword and won't be a net win. He'll explain for the 1000th time why PostgreSQL is not using an index on someone's 12-record test data, or autogenerated test data where 90% of the records match.
He is a brilliant developer and has taught me a lot about practical database development.
The whole point of democracy is that everybody gets to vote
Now:
I prefer to argue that we should encourage people to become more informed. I don't think we should discourage anyone.
I'm having a little trouble determining your position. My position is that we should encourage people to inform themselves, and hope that they vote when they do inform themselves.
There is a fine line between "not discouraging" and "encouraging". It's not the most difficult thing in the world to vote, that's for sure. There are absentee ballots and you can vote even if your address is "in that cave behind the tree on that mountain over there", and they won't charge you postage. They even provide some basic issue information.
After a certain point, this hand-holding becomes rediculous. Not everyone can take the day off from work even if it is a federal holiday (what about doctors?). And I don't really like the idea of a "class" (whatever that means) where government employees are telling people how to vote at the polls.
Some people are uninformed. The first thing on my mind is encouraging them to inform themselves, but the last thing on my mind is encouraging them to vote. When they are informed, hopefully they will care enough to vote. Encouraging someone to vote and then hoping they inform themselves is like handing someone a gun and hoping they learn to be safe. The logic is just backwards. Of course it's their right to be an uninformed voter (or an untrained gun owner), but should we encourage it?
However, it's not that simple. Lots of idiots vote republican too... it's just that they don't need any encouragement to vote; they vote anyway.
Also, some people have principles. Some people think that income should be redistributed even if it does hurt the economy. Some people care more about some other issue more than the economy and the Constitution combined. And some people think that the Republicans aren't true enough to their own economic platform (if they have one any more) to really make much difference.
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I think that the "wealthy benefactors" thing is kind of a straw man, and you don't entirely understand what a Libertarian wants. Those people really don't have a national impact by building a few schools among tens of millions of students. The rich benefactors actually represent a small amount of the GDP, so the middle class is the only group that has enough resources to educate the tens of millions of students.
Who educates the students then? The parents should (according to libertarianism) pay for schooling for their own children, largely.
Who educates the students who don't have enough to pay for school? There are a few answers. First, we must ask ourselves how many students are unable to afford education, and the answer may be smaller than you think. Let's say that some government agency issued vouchers as assistance to students who can't pay for education themselves. Already we have an improvement: the governments involvement in education is a small fraction of what it once was, students have a choice in school, and everyone has an opportunity for education. Next, we need to question the role of the federal governement: why must this assistance be at the federal level? The answer is that there's no reason at all. It's much more controllable at the state level and the states must compete with one another based on results.
I think the government programs are an unecessary burden on other people's freedom. But what I suggest above is a huge step forward in removing government control.
Why is there only the complete liberal vs the absolute fascist?
I would like to first clear up the misconception that a libertarian resembles a fascist. Fascists heavily control private enterprise, which is the opposite of a libertarian. I also wouldn't classify fascists as non-interventionists. I'm trying to figure out if there's any similarity at all.
Next, remember that Badnarik is running for Federal office. Libertarians want a small Federal government. The Constitution set up a framework for a union of states, and he's following that. Small-scale social programs are often quite effective, and much easier to control. Many libertarians would not even oppose a small-scale (small state or local) social program.
Local programs don't really have the ability to confiscate in quite the same way. You can move, or attend a town hall meeting and voice your opinion, etc. If you disagree with Social Security and don't pay in, you go to prison. And just try to voice an opinion about Social Security and see how far you get. Now that is confiscation.
Remember that 122 Million Americans are completely outseide the Federal tax system, according to this source. That means they can vote your money away with no consequences whatsoever.
I don't think that Libertarians are as focused on equality as you are. Liberty and equality are often at odds, as a matter of fact.
The U.S. school system sucks, to put it mildly. People argue over the reasons, but few argue with that statement. If 90% of kids get a basic education by the 12th grade under Badnarik, that would be phenomenally better than the current system, in my opinion.
The current system isn't all that equal anyway. Just consider the quality of the teacher pool in some areas. In some areas the Dads make a lot of money and the Moms don't have to work, so the Moms help out A LOT with the educational process, both by helping their own kids and volunteering at school.
I don't think it's the governments responsibility to equalize anything. It's an economically ruinous task for one, and often at odds with liberty, which I value very highly. Some people get the short end of the stick, and that will always be true. Some people will be born poor, some people born disabled in some way (like me), some people born ugly, and all of those people are at a disadvantage, but not all of those things can be corrected, nor should the government attempt to correct the inequities by taking away the liberties of other people.
It is clearly the role of government to crush false hope wherever it may be found, by whatever means necessary!
A substantial number of people in this country feel it is immoral to use embryonic stem cells for research. The ban on using new embryonic stem cells applies only to federally-funded research projects.
So, one might also ask: is it the role of government to confiscate resources from some people (122 million people are outside of the federal tax system, according to this source) and conduct research that many of those people do not believe in?
I prefer there to be embryonic stem cell research. But I would not favor confiscating other people's money to do it, particularly if those people are not like-minded about the type of research.
And what are you going to do when all the old people move to Florida to retire?
There are people that move to other countries, too, and that doesn't stop them from getting social security benefits.
Let's say that the state programs worked exactly like social security. Your payout would be based on the years you spent paying into the system (although not the actual amount you paid, just the time), like SS. Someone like you who moves around might end up recieving a couple different checks from a couple different states, regardless of where you live now.
we all need the same health care
Some, like me, need more healthcare than average.
Reducing the price of healthcare to $0 means that consumers will demand more than anyone can possibly supply. If someone walks in with a head cold, why not do an MRI (a costly diagnostic procedure) just to make sure it's not a tumor, as long as the price is $0?
That is fixed by reducing the quality of services and putting artificial barriers between you and the care you need. This barrier might be a 6-month long line to get any kind of care.
If quality of service deteriorates, or barriers develop between me and the care I need, or medical research grinds to a halt, I will lose years (or decades) from my life and the remainder won't be nearly as pleasant.
That's why I don't want socialized health care. But I suppose most people don't care, since they don't stand to lose nearly as much as I do.
Well, social security is currently all about how much time you work and pay into the system, and they pay you based on that, even if you move overseas. So, in a state system, it should be the state you're from.
I'm not much for socialism anyway, so I'd vote against it, but I would assume that's how it would work if it was a state program. And I agree about healthcare, but a state system is way better than a federal system, which everyone is pushing for.
You're my hero. Thank you. I think its actually emacs21-nox, but close enough to be added to my "friends" list.
Well, go for it, and if I'm on your jury, you'll get off free :)
I agree, although I don't think the drug laws are as much of a stretch as many other laws.
I hope this thing comes to a head. It'll put Berkeley and SF to some real use, and they'll put the feds in their place.
Seriously though, I doubt you'd be busted here in Cali for pot unless it's part of another crime or you're driving or something.
I think you overcomplicated the issue and brought in too many other, irrelevent factors.
The post to which you were replying was also complicating the situation. I made an attempt to show how the investment actually flows in my reply to said post.
The largest investment that 90% of the US population will make is buying a home. Even if the capital gains taxes on this is raised, those people will NOT stop buying homes.
If capital gains taxes are up, people can't afford as expensive of a house, so they buy a cheaper one, also known as investing less. The average person might not understand why, but the loans may be more expensive because of increased forclosure possibility or some such, and will cause them to buy a cheaper house or do less investing for retirement. The effect of those higher taxes will be represented somehow. Maybe some will even choose to rent instead.
How does that help the average person?
I said, hypothetically, that everyone in the country benefits. Isn't benefit help? Let's say the taxes go from 100% to 50%, wouldn't that benefit everyone? There would certainly be a greater disparity between "the rich" and "the poor" though.
Again, hypothetically, if a flat tax is beneficial to everyone, why not do it? Just the fact that some people benefit more than others hardly seems like a reason to prevent anyone at all from benefitting.
When you buy that stock, you are increasing the demand for the stock, because the supply remains constant (in your example it wasn't MS issuing new shares, so it's constant).
When lots of people do this, it allows MS to buy more things with stock, like labor and capital (perhaps other companies). Companies in general and MS in particular use stock to hire new workers.
To make a full circle out of the situation:
(1) Person A buys X shares of MS stock
(2) MS uses the increased value of MS stock to pay new workers
(3) Workers need to buy food, so they sell the stock to people like "Person A".
So basically, you paid the salary (or part of the salary) of the new workers, and the value of your stock increases by the amount those workers produce (above and beyond what you pay them).
It seems like a pretty straightforward investment scenario to me. It's indirect, but all stock transaction are.
This argument does not stand up very well in my eyes. Are taxes on "the rich" too low? How about we make the taxes 100%? Or maybe we could just have a tax system where you get taxed exactly enough to leave you with the same amount of money as everyone else?
It's a fact that when you tax investments more, people invest less. The only way new jobs are created is by investment.
My point is that there's a balance. You don't want taxes to be 100%, and you don't want them to be 0%. If either of those happen, tax revenue is $0. Time and time again, tax rates are reduced and tax revenue is increased.
You accounted for none of these factors, so your implication that taxes should not be reduced in some brackets carries no weight at all.
Your post contains one other major logical flaw. If everone in the country benefits from a tax decrease (hypothetically), does it matter at all if the wealth disparity increases? Only to those who prefer to kill the neighbor's cow (so to speak).
What's most important to libertarians is to limit the scope of the federal government.
Local governments, and to a lesser extent state governments, are more controllable than the federal government.
I think it would be great to have a libertarian in federal office. It's not like he will make it illegal for states to have such laws/programs.
Under Badnarik (Congress willing), Medical Marijuana would be legal here in California.
The main point of Libertarianism is to remove these responsibilities from the United States Federal Government.
We live in a nation of many governments, local, state, and of course one federal government.
Why must retirement be a federal program? Why must healthcare?
It would be easy to judge the effectiveness of these social programs if some states are involved and some not.
I would say that most of the tax dollars should be going to the state, not federal government. The federal government can take care of national defense and that would be the most expensive item at the federal level. Just about everything else should go to the state.
If your state wants a healthcare program, then they can do it. If it fails, other states hopefully won't adopt it. Same with retirement.
I thought this was some sort of forced-takeover issue.
You may have been confused because it's a hostile takeover.
That means that Oracle is trying to take over PeopleSoft, while PeopleSoft is resisting the takeover. Oracle simply tries to buy as many shares as it can until Oracle has a controlling share. The target firm (PeopleSoft) is resisting because they don't think it will ultimately be good for PeopleSoft, but if Oracle gets the controlling share then they can't do anything.
Well said.
I'd like to add that an important aspect of teaching yourself is that you learn how to learn.
It's much more valuable to know that you can type "man grep" than to memorize that "-i" means case-insensitive.
One thing is for sure: nothing can replace self-teaching. You will be a much more valuable resource to your company because of it.
However, the orginal poster's company needs him now. I think he should install linux everywhere he can and start taking classes. Then, I'd just pick the instructor's brain when I encountered a problem. Hopefully he gets competent fast enough to be helpful.
I try to do that, but I always end up stopping the vim process by C-x C-s, because I'm so used to emacs. Then I have to realize what I did and do C-q or whatever it is to resume.
By the way, does anyone at all know a way to make the emacs command NOT try to open xemacs without having to type "emacs -nw" each time? It's REALLY annoying.
Creating game servers, etc, usually requires having an outside server with a dedicated IP address.
The reason the internet is successful is that every user is a peer. One computer may be a server and the other a client, but the server could just as easily be the client and the client could just as easily be the server.
Unless, of course, the client is stuck behind NAT and can't be a server. Maybe he could ask his ISP or sysadmin for permission to recieve incoming connections on a specific port.
When you tell some users that they aren't good enough to be servers, they miss out on potential applications. An example may be to create a game server and ask your friend to connect, or if you need to send your friend a large file over ftp and both of you are behind NAT.
That's another "restrict their freedom for their own good" argument.
The internet is successful because there is little central control (aside from DNS). When you start trying to solve other people's problems by mandating network policy, you end up with the "smart network, dumb terminal" philosphy of the phone network.
The internet doesn't work when Joe can't connect to Jane because they're both behind NAT. By discouraging IPv6, and therefore forcing NAT upon large parts of the internet, you drastically limit the number of possible connections that users can make.
Just because browsing and email work fine behind NAT doesn't mean NAT isn't limiting other new applications of the internet. And just because you can't think of new applications doesn't mean that the millions of people trapped behind NAT can't.
In fact, people already have, and they get stuck behind NAT all the time. Game servers, P2P apps, etc.
Even if that is true (I suspect not), wouldn't the median be a much more appropriate statistic?
PostgreSQL 6.X is ancient. PostgreSQL 7.0 was released in May 2000, over 4 years ago.
I think I can safely say that PostgreSQL is dramatically better in every aspect since the 6.X days.
I wasn't entirely sure if that was a contradiction or not, I just don't understand precisely where you stand.
...
There will be uninformed people. We should encourage those people to inform themselves. I think we can agree there.
However, after we encourage them to inform themselves, there will still remain some uninformed people. I see absolutely no reason we should encourage those people to vote. I'm not advocating any kind of poll quiz or anything, I'm just saying that I see no reason to encourage them to vote.
It seems that you think its people's civic responsibility to inform themselves and then vote. I might agree with that if it's both or nothing, i.e. either inform yourself and vote or don't vote at all. If you don't inform yourself, I don't think that voting is still a civic responsibility.
Some people who can't be buggered to even research beyond smear campaigns think that their voice should be as important as anybody elses. In reality I doubt it should be.
That was the elitist statement you were referring to, I think, and it was a couple posts up. He is simply not in agreement with democracy, and I'm not in agreement with him on that subject.
ANYONE who thinks Bush will win the war on terrorism
I think the war on terror is kind of like the war on drugs: it's not really meant to be won, and a few civil liberties go in the process. The point is to deter terrorism and make it very costly and ineffective, like the war on drugs. I think this war on terror and the war on drugs are working toward their goal, and the question is mainly: is it worth the cost?
For the record, I don't think that the war on drugs is worth the cost, in fact I think even the goal of fewer recreational drugs is counterproductive.
The war on terror is a little harder to classify. We don't know the costs or the results exactly. We hope that using our military power quickly after the attacks will deter future terrorists because their chance of success is lower. In Spain and the Phillipines, the terrorists now have a track record of success, and I wouldn't want to be in that position. We hope to scare away those harboring terrorists as well, or funding them, and it has started to work already (e.g. Syria).
That being said, the war has HUGE costs. So you be the judge at the polls, as will I. And so will millions of people who are in agreement with one of us for all of the wrong reasons.
Tom Lane, one of the core developers of PostgreSQL RDBMS, is an amazing developer.
He cranks out new features, fixes difficult bugs, helps the release process, and answers questions to newbies and developers alike.
He can break down a tough problem in no time and give the real answer clearly. He knows when a feature is just the latest DB buzzword and won't be a net win. He'll explain for the 1000th time why PostgreSQL is not using an index on someone's 12-record test data, or autogenerated test data where 90% of the records match.
He is a brilliant developer and has taught me a lot about practical database development.
From an earlier post of yours:
The whole point of democracy is that everybody gets to vote
Now:
I prefer to argue that we should encourage people to become more informed. I don't think we should discourage anyone.
I'm having a little trouble determining your position. My position is that we should encourage people to inform themselves, and hope that they vote when they do inform themselves.
There is a fine line between "not discouraging" and "encouraging". It's not the most difficult thing in the world to vote, that's for sure. There are absentee ballots and you can vote even if your address is "in that cave behind the tree on that mountain over there", and they won't charge you postage. They even provide some basic issue information.
After a certain point, this hand-holding becomes rediculous. Not everyone can take the day off from work even if it is a federal holiday (what about doctors?). And I don't really like the idea of a "class" (whatever that means) where government employees are telling people how to vote at the polls.
Some people are uninformed. The first thing on my mind is encouraging them to inform themselves, but the last thing on my mind is encouraging them to vote. When they are informed, hopefully they will care enough to vote. Encouraging someone to vote and then hoping they inform themselves is like handing someone a gun and hoping they learn to be safe. The logic is just backwards. Of course it's their right to be an uninformed voter (or an untrained gun owner), but should we encourage it?
That was my sly implication :)
However, it's not that simple. Lots of idiots vote republican too... it's just that they don't need any encouragement to vote; they vote anyway.
Also, some people have principles. Some people think that income should be redistributed even if it does hurt the economy. Some people care more about some other issue more than the economy and the Constitution combined. And some people think that the Republicans aren't true enough to their own economic platform (if they have one any more) to really make much difference.