I would argue that the poor get far more value from government ( in terms of value received vs. taxes paid ) than the rich or middle class do.
Horse hockey.
The rich stay rich because government guns protect their stuff.
The rich (generally) get rich through creating or investing in government-chartered corporations (and many of the most profitable of these corporations rake in hauge contracts or other forms of welfare from the government), or through government-created ownership of land, natural resources, and "intellectual property" (patents and copyrights).
If it wasn't for the military, we would all be living under Hitler.
Without the military to back him up, Hitler would have been just another raving loon.
That's the problem with military force, and government power in general - it's a vector quantity that can be rotated very rapidily, increased more slowly, and almost never reduced. A powerful military may be pointing in the "protect our people's freedom" direction one month and the "destroy the enemies of the Fatherland" direction the next.
Also note that being opposed to a strong standing military doesn't mean being a pacifist. The authors of the Federalist papers viewed a standing army as one of the greatest threats to freedom, prefering a strong militia to defend the nation from invasion.
But it is an interesting question whether non-violent resistance could have turned the German population away from Hitler with less loss of life than was involved in WWII. Thoreau's civil disobedience was a tactic designed for use against the laws of one's own government, and that's where it has seen its greatest successes - Indian independance, the US civil rights movement, the end of apartheid. I don't know if it could be used against an invading state.
The movie The Mouse That Roared was based on a novel of the same name by Leonard Wibberley. I've never seen the film but I have read the book, it's a hoot.
You can't seriously expect a movie based around ewoks to be aimed at the typical starwars crowd.
So 'Return of the Jedi' wasn't aimed at the Star Wars croud?
Return of the Jedi has sort of a split-personality this way. You've got the whole Ewok thing for the kiddies, but on the other hand there's this serious plot of Luke sacrificing himself to bring about Vader's redemption and confronting the dark side within himself. The latter is great, I just turn my brain off during the former.
They also have the first episode of the star wars radio plays. If you haven't heard these yet, you are MISSING OUT big-time on something really cool.
Seconded! I heard these for the first time a few months back during a drive to NYC with my sensei. If I can't find a copy on my own I'm going to see if I can swap her a dub of my Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy radio play tapes (also most excellent!) for a dub of her Star Wars radio play CDs.
"Loser pays" has problems of its own. Let's say Amalgamated Megacorp is screwing you over by dumping toxic waste in your swimming pool. You take them to court, but because they have millions to spend on O.J.'s legal team and the Chewbacca defense, you lose. You now have to pay their legal costs. You end up bankrupt, ruined, living on the street in a cardboard box.
Given the possibility of having to pay millions for your opponent's legal fees, average citizens are unlikely to bring suits against the rich and powerful even if their case has merit.
and trigger happy prosecutors have more to think about before filing cases.
What do prosecutors have to do with civil litigation? Although that's an interesting idea, making the state liable for defendant's legal fees if a prosecution fails.
...their leaders (until very recently,) have steadfastly refused to publicly encourage AIDS education and/or safe sex. These leaders blather pithy pleas for 'abstinence' while they themselves do God/Allah knows what behind closed doors.
Why, those uncivilized Africans. Certainly, American leaders would never behave that way.
The fallacy of the Extended Analogy often occurs when some suggested general rule is being argued over. The fallacy is to assume that mentioning two different situations, in an argument about a general rule, constitutes a claim that those situations are analogous to each other.
This fallacy is best explained using a real example from a debate about anti-cryptography legislation:
"I believe it is always wrong to oppose the law by breaking it."
"Such a position is odious: it implies that you would not have supported Martin Luther King."
"Are you saying that cryptography legislation is as important as the struggle for Black liberation? How dare you!"
But understand that I do not agree with the USPS charging for it's database. As far as I am concerned, their mail monopoly should be revoked and they should compete with UPS, FedEx, et al, for the delivery of first class and bulk mail.
USPS gets its first class monopoly in return for a guarantee of universal one-price service. There are important governmental and legal reasons for such a service..."I'm sorry but our company doesn't deliver packages or documents from any third party. Have a nice time getting your election flyers out."
And I think certified mail has special legal standing. Someone in another thread recommended contacting your congresscritter via certified mail, because the USPS is obligated to deliver it directly to the addressee, not to a flunky.
There's good reason that the power to create a postal service is explictly granted to Congess in the U.S. Constitution.
And I'd rather deal with USPS than UPS any day - USPS has not broken any of my packages, while UPS has busted two, and UPS has even worse customer service than USPS. USPS priority mail is a pretty good deal, IMHO. FedEx is ok, I've had no problems with them. (Other than that they're contributing to the ugly trend of advertizing by buying the name of a sports stadium..."FedEx Field?" Ugh. Besides, wouldn't that make fans of rival teams less likely to use your services?)
Damn, the proletarian revolution happened and no one told me??? Cool, when do we workers form our new government and take back the wealth that the bourgeois state has been stealing from us?
"The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat."
This hardly seems to have happened. Whether is could, or whether it should, it a different issue. But it ought to be clear that it hasn't.
Or are you just another one who doesn't know the difference between communism, socialism, command economies, and totalitarianism?
Socialism - an economic system based on labor, wherein the "means of production" are controled by the workers. Some forms of socialism call for a strong central government to implement this control, other forms are based on decentralized "bottom-up" structure. Contrast with "capitalism", wherein the "means of production" are primarily controled by a small population of private owners.
Communism - a form of socialism invented by Karl (with a "K") Marx. The main idea is that humanity is divided into two classes, and that the working class should revolt and form a powerful government to estabish a new order. The state then fades away. As you may have noticed, this is the part that fails severely. "When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character." Problem is, (almost) no government gives up political power.
Command economy - an ecomony where the government decides what is to be produced. Seen in communist nations (though not a part of Marxist doctrine) and occasionally in capitalist ones in times of war or emergency, and in a lesser form of public goods. Contrast with a market economy where producers and consumers trade freely.
Totalitarianism - a form of government where the state can control any aspect of life that it pleases. Meant to be a temporary feature of communism (but it's not), also found in capitalist states such as Singapore.
The U.S. shows distressing signs of moving towards a totalitarian government, but make no mistake that is a capitalist one.
Implant everyone? No. Only those who have been "brought within the system." Probationers, parolees, prisoners and ex-cons. Though of course since these poeple are still a threat to our children, we have to leave the chips in after they have served their time. It's just like tracking sex offenders. A small price to pay for a safer society, right?
These also would be an excellent replacement for the bracelets or anklets used for home detention. Especially if combined with a small explosive charge that detonates if they leave the prescribed area. That will keep these evil perverts from threatening children. And you don't hate children, do you?
Of course, now it's easier to bring people "within the system" for minor offenses, to identify and control them before they go from vandals and joyriders to murderers. We can control more criminals with fewer prisons and police (and thus lower taxes), and have safer streets for our children to play in when we start implanting explosive tracers in minor offenders. This ease of control will let us start getting really serious about law enforcement! No more problems with prison overcrowding when every convict can have their own portable prison.
But what really excites me is the possibility for embracing and extending preventative detention programs. You might know that the courts have found that it's perfectly ok to lock people away before they've actually committed any crime. Really the only barrier to applying this broadly - and thus making our children almost completely safe - is the cost of incarcerating all those thought criminals. No more! Finally, everone who is - or might become - a threat to our children can be tracked and controlled automatically.
Surely, paradise is at hand.
Pardon me while I go stock up on home surgery supplies...
But still, it's true. An extra ten seconds talking to someone - anyone - probably would have saved his life.
Not necessarily. If he lost control of the car due to mechanical failure or driver error or fatigue, this probably would have happened the same way if he'd left a few seconds later; he would have just collided with a different car. Maybe more people would have died.
We can second-guess ourselves too the max, but a chaotic universe where a butterfly's flight can influence a hurricane days later is just too damn complicated for us to bear responsibilities for such "If only"s.
Terra did not lauch on the 16th; I was in an auditorium at Goddard (I'm contracting at TRW on EDOS, the EOS Data and Operations System) watching the launch attempt on Thursday. They had to delay to get a glider out of the airspace (!), then the lauch was cancelled at the last minute; I think they failed to get an expected signal from the spacecraft indicting it was powered up. Whole bunch of disappointed people, let me tell you.
Terra is the first of the EOS satellites, with several instruments designed to gather information about global climate change (global warming, pollution, cloud cover, and so o.) and large-scale weather patterns. It's the satellite formerly known as AM-1, "AM" because it's in a polar sun-synchronous orbit that crosses the equator in the morning when conditions over land are clearest. Next to lauch will be Aqua (nee PM-1), which crosses in the afternoon for observations over water.
After all, even if my web page is publicly available, if I explicitly tell you NOT to access my server, then you have no legal right to do so.
Is there any law or precedent that says this? I don't think I can write messages on the side of my house and then tell you you don't have a legal right to read them.
The only issue I see is if you're blocking everyone else's view - which Bidder's Edge might have been doing if they spidered eBay too often, essentially resulting in a DoS attack.
In this case, The Right Thing To Do would be for eBay to make their servers throttle responses to an overly-inquisitive client.
Re:Computer Scientists and the Physical World
on
Planet Gattaca
·
· Score: 2
The physical world is much less forgiving than the theoretical world... and talking about creating a new life form is unadulterated fantasy - nothing else.
Perhaps so...but cloning a mammal was "unadulterated fantasy" only fifteen years ago (last time I took a bio class). And because it was dismissed as "unadulterated fantasy", there was precious little discussion of the ethics of cloning until the birth of the sheep heard (herd?) 'round the world.
Maybe the time to talk about these things is while they're still "unadulterated fantasy"?
I think the use of genetic tracking and classifying is perhaps more insidious than the spectre of "babies (or bacteria) to order". Certainly, genetic classifying is much closer, and raises serious privacy issues: analyze my DNA and you're also getting information about my parents, siblings, and relatives. Do I have the right to compromise my father's (and brother's, and uncle's) genetic privacy by putting the sequence of my Y chromosome up on my website?
The sheeple accepted drug testing with hardly a bleat; how much of a fight will they put up against genetic testing? "We need to protect the children by testing them for propensity for disease. You don't hate children, do you?"
I can think of a few lifestyle factors that might make some forms of mental illness more common today than in the past.
I recall reading that minor dehydration can lead to increased irritability and depression, and that USAmericans tend to be slightly dehydrated much of the time due to our penchant for sugary and/or caffeinated beverages.
Today's USAmericans also tend to get significantly less sleep then folks did a few years back.
There are known environmental factors which affect the development of the nervous system. Lead exposure is one such - children who grow up in lead-contaminated areas are more likely to end up with poor impulse control and behave violently.
And families - which, when functional, are an important psychological support mechanism - are more likely to be broken up and scattered.
Don't be too quick to rely on well water. Just a few months ago, there was a large sewer main break in a town near here that contaminated all the wells. The whole town, homes and businesses, had to rely on trucked-in water for weeks.
It occurs to me that most USAmericans have a large 30 to 50 gallon water tank in their homes - their water heater. (I think tankless heaters are the norm in other parts of the world.) Would it be sufficient to just flush it out real good in the next week or two, then close the inlet valve around 11:59 on Dec 31 and not open it until you're heard "all clear"? I'd think that would at least give water clean enough to run through my camping filter before drinking.
Ironic that I saw this today, though - I just bought a 30 gallon water storage bag (sort of like a big "solar shower") this afternoon. Doubt I'll actually need it on Jan 1, but there's a good chance it'll come in handy someday. (Heck, even if I never need it for a disaster it'd be perfect for a camping trip in the desert.)
Yer a Wiccan, yippy, just say it, no need to beat around the bush and pretend your ashamed of it...
Actually, since he celebrates Yule, he's probably Pagan, but not all Pagans are Wiccans. Wicca is one form of Paganism. Druidism and Discordianism are others. Let me recommend ESR's Frequently Asked Questions about Neopaganism.
Me, I'm a Zen-Pagan-Taoist-Athiest-Discordian. I'll be visiting my parental units for "Christmas" on the 25th and have my friends from the Circle of Laughing Thunder over for a Yule celebration on the 26th. (That turned out to be the most convenient day for everyone, even though the Solstice and a full moon fall on the 22nd.)
We're completely off-topic, so if anyone want to discuss further e-mail me. (Remove "spambefuddler-" from the address above.) Happy (insert-holiday-here)!
CCTV cameras won't blow your head off, if they're acivated by mistake.
Actually, here in the US at least you're much more likely to be killed by a match or a lighter being activated by mistake than by a firearm. Poisonings, drowings, and death by fire all claim several times more lives than firearms accidents - especially if you take into account that many "accidents" are covered-up suicides.
The table of contents and first chapter of "The Transparent Society" are available at Brin's site, for those who'd like to read more.
Regardless, as scientists and engineers begin mounting tiny cameras on little MEMS that can crawl under doorways and through cracks in walls, these kinds of issues will become more and more important.
Interestingly enough, Brin's fictional works suggest a technological countermeasure to the surveillance state. One of the later Eathclan books features something called a "privacy wasp", a bioengineered critter that seeks out and obscures surveillance cameras.
Small autonomous disposable robots could be outfited with paint bombs and sent crashing into cameras. (Actually, I wonder what a laser dazzler would do to these cameras? Laser pointers are pretty cheap now. One could stand out of frame and bounce the beam off a reflective surface to the camera. Hmmm....) Hunter/killer MEMS could be programmed to search and destroy spy MEMS.
Radar surveillance of driver brought about the radar detector. Phone tapping brought about tap detectors and scramblers. I wouldn't be surprised if technological countermeasures to these new types of surveillance were also developed.
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The rich stay rich because government guns protect their stuff.
The rich (generally) get rich through creating or investing in government-chartered corporations (and many of the most profitable of these corporations rake in hauge contracts or other forms of welfare from the government), or through government-created ownership of land, natural resources, and "intellectual property" (patents and copyrights).
That's the problem with military force, and government power in general - it's a vector quantity that can be rotated very rapidily, increased more slowly, and almost never reduced. A powerful military may be pointing in the "protect our people's freedom" direction one month and the "destroy the enemies of the Fatherland" direction the next.
Also note that being opposed to a strong standing military doesn't mean being a pacifist. The authors of the Federalist papers viewed a standing army as one of the greatest threats to freedom, prefering a strong militia to defend the nation from invasion.
But it is an interesting question whether non-violent resistance could have turned the German population away from Hitler with less loss of life than was involved in WWII. Thoreau's civil disobedience was a tactic designed for use against the laws of one's own government, and that's where it has seen its greatest successes - Indian independance, the US civil rights movement, the end of apartheid. I don't know if it could be used against an invading state.
The movie The Mouse That Roared was based on a novel of the same name by Leonard Wibberley. I've never seen the film but I have read the book, it's a hoot.
"Loser pays" has problems of its own. Let's say Amalgamated Megacorp is screwing you over by dumping toxic waste in your swimming pool. You take them to court, but because they have millions to spend on O.J.'s legal team and the Chewbacca defense, you lose. You now have to pay their legal costs. You end up bankrupt, ruined, living on the street in a cardboard box.
Given the possibility of having to pay millions for your opponent's legal fees, average citizens are unlikely to bring suits against the rich and powerful even if their case has merit.
What do prosecutors have to do with civil litigation? Although that's an interesting idea, making the state liable for defendant's legal fees if a prosecution fails.Heh heh heh.
HTH. HAND.
And I think certified mail has special legal standing. Someone in another thread recommended contacting your congresscritter via certified mail, because the USPS is obligated to deliver it directly to the addressee, not to a flunky.
There's good reason that the power to create a postal service is explictly granted to Congess in the U.S. Constitution.
And I'd rather deal with USPS than UPS any day - USPS has not broken any of my packages, while UPS has busted two, and UPS has even worse customer service than USPS. USPS priority mail is a pretty good deal, IMHO. FedEx is ok, I've had no problems with them. (Other than that they're contributing to the ugly trend of advertizing by buying the name of a sports stadium..."FedEx Field?" Ugh. Besides, wouldn't that make fans of rival teams less likely to use your services?)
Or are you just another one who doesn't know the difference between communism, socialism, command economies, and totalitarianism?
- Socialism - an economic system based on labor, wherein the "means of production" are controled by the workers. Some forms of socialism call for a strong central government to implement this control, other forms are based on decentralized "bottom-up" structure. Contrast with "capitalism", wherein the "means of production" are primarily controled by a small population of private owners.
- Communism - a form of socialism invented by Karl (with a "K") Marx. The main idea is that humanity is divided into two classes, and that the working class should revolt and form a powerful government to estabish a new order. The state then fades away. As you may have noticed, this is the part that fails severely. "When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character." Problem is, (almost) no government gives up political power.
- Command economy - an ecomony where the government decides what is to be produced. Seen in communist nations (though not a part of Marxist doctrine) and occasionally in capitalist ones in times of war or emergency, and in a lesser form of public goods. Contrast with a market economy where producers and consumers trade freely.
- Totalitarianism - a form of government where the state can control any aspect of life that it pleases. Meant to be a temporary feature of communism (but it's not), also found in capitalist states such as Singapore.
The U.S. shows distressing signs of moving towards a totalitarian government, but make no mistake that is a capitalist one.Implant everyone? No. Only those who have been "brought within the system." Probationers, parolees, prisoners and ex-cons. Though of course since these poeple are still a threat to our children, we have to leave the chips in after they have served their time. It's just like tracking sex offenders. A small price to pay for a safer society, right?
These also would be an excellent replacement for the bracelets or anklets used for home detention. Especially if combined with a small explosive charge that detonates if they leave the prescribed area. That will keep these evil perverts from threatening children. And you don't hate children, do you?
Of course, now it's easier to bring people "within the system" for minor offenses, to identify and control them before they go from vandals and joyriders to murderers. We can control more criminals with fewer prisons and police (and thus lower taxes), and have safer streets for our children to play in when we start implanting explosive tracers in minor offenders. This ease of control will let us start getting really serious about law enforcement! No more problems with prison overcrowding when every convict can have their own portable prison.
But what really excites me is the possibility for embracing and extending preventative detention programs. You might know that the courts have found that it's perfectly ok to lock people away before they've actually committed any crime. Really the only barrier to applying this broadly - and thus making our children almost completely safe - is the cost of incarcerating all those thought criminals. No more! Finally, everone who is - or might become - a threat to our children can be tracked and controlled automatically.
Surely, paradise is at hand.
Pardon me while I go stock up on home surgery supplies...
We can second-guess ourselves too the max, but a chaotic universe where a butterfly's flight can influence a hurricane days later is just too damn complicated for us to bear responsibilities for such "If only"s.
Terra did not lauch on the 16th; I was in an auditorium at Goddard (I'm contracting at TRW on EDOS, the EOS Data and Operations System) watching the launch attempt on Thursday. They had to delay to get a glider out of the airspace (!), then the lauch was cancelled at the last minute; I think they failed to get an expected signal from the spacecraft indicting it was powered up. Whole bunch of disappointed people, let me tell you.
They rescheduled to Saturday (the 18th), and apparently it's up.
Terra is the first of the EOS satellites, with several instruments designed to gather information about global climate change (global warming, pollution, cloud cover, and so o.) and large-scale weather patterns. It's the satellite formerly known as AM-1, "AM" because it's in a polar sun-synchronous orbit that crosses the equator in the morning when conditions over land are clearest. Next to lauch will be Aqua (nee PM-1), which crosses in the afternoon for observations over water.
The only issue I see is if you're blocking everyone else's view - which Bidder's Edge might have been doing if they spidered eBay too often, essentially resulting in a DoS attack.
In this case, The Right Thing To Do would be for eBay to make their servers throttle responses to an overly-inquisitive client.
Maybe the time to talk about these things is while they're still "unadulterated fantasy"?
I think the use of genetic tracking and classifying is perhaps more insidious than the spectre of "babies (or bacteria) to order". Certainly, genetic classifying is much closer, and raises serious privacy issues: analyze my DNA and you're also getting information about my parents, siblings, and relatives. Do I have the right to compromise my father's (and brother's, and uncle's) genetic privacy by putting the sequence of my Y chromosome up on my website?
The sheeple accepted drug testing with hardly a bleat; how much of a fight will they put up against genetic testing? "We need to protect the children by testing them for propensity for disease. You don't hate children, do you?"
I recall reading that minor dehydration can lead to increased irritability and depression, and that USAmericans tend to be slightly dehydrated much of the time due to our penchant for sugary and/or caffeinated beverages.
Today's USAmericans also tend to get significantly less sleep then folks did a few years back.
There are known environmental factors which affect the development of the nervous system. Lead exposure is one such - children who grow up in lead-contaminated areas are more likely to end up with poor impulse control and behave violently.
And families - which, when functional, are an important psychological support mechanism - are more likely to be broken up and scattered.
Don't be too quick to rely on well water. Just a few months ago, there was a large sewer main break in a town near here that contaminated all the wells. The whole town, homes and businesses, had to rely on trucked-in water for weeks.
It occurs to me that most USAmericans have a large 30 to 50 gallon water tank in their homes - their water heater. (I think tankless heaters are the norm in other parts of the world.) Would it be sufficient to just flush it out real good in the next week or two, then close the inlet valve around 11:59 on Dec 31 and not open it until you're heard "all clear"? I'd think that would at least give water clean enough to run through my camping filter before drinking.
Ironic that I saw this today, though - I just bought a 30 gallon water storage bag (sort of like a big "solar shower") this afternoon. Doubt I'll actually need it on Jan 1, but there's a good chance it'll come in handy someday. (Heck, even if I never need it for a disaster it'd be perfect for a camping trip in the desert.)
Me, I'm a Zen-Pagan-Taoist-Athiest-Discordian. I'll be visiting my parental units for "Christmas" on the 25th and have my friends from the Circle of Laughing Thunder over for a Yule celebration on the 26th. (That turned out to be the most convenient day for everyone, even though the Solstice and a full moon fall on the 22nd.)
We're completely off-topic, so if anyone want to discuss further e-mail me. (Remove "spambefuddler-" from the address above.) Happy (insert-holiday-here)!
Interestingly enough, Brin's fictional works suggest a technological countermeasure to the surveillance state. One of the later Eathclan books features something called a "privacy wasp", a bioengineered critter that seeks out and obscures surveillance cameras.
Small autonomous disposable robots could be outfited with paint bombs and sent crashing into cameras. (Actually, I wonder what a laser dazzler would do to these cameras? Laser pointers are pretty cheap now. One could stand out of frame and bounce the beam off a reflective surface to the camera. Hmmm....) Hunter/killer MEMS could be programmed to search and destroy spy MEMS.
Radar surveillance of driver brought about the radar detector. Phone tapping brought about tap detectors and scramblers. I wouldn't be surprised if technological countermeasures to these new types of surveillance were also developed.