Sure. Look at credit cards. Aside from making transactions easier and more abstract, they also increase consumption by allowing you to spend tomorrow's money today.
The execution is over the small, early stuff because it doesn't involve any western governments like his later crimes did.
Uncle Sam says:
Apart from: -Invading the country -Deploying hundreds of thousands of troops -Installing a government -Picking the court
Apart from that - We weren't involved! The Iraquis were responsible for all of this trial!
But wouldn't it be much more effective and cheaper if the money doesn't need to be laundered by a war but be sent directly? Just sent US$ 1500 each year to each citizen of the U.S.
This was mentioned in 1984, building and destroying military objects and digging and filling in holes have the same net outcome (ie make-work, no value) but one is so much easier to sell the population on.
It's how you sell the idea:
Will you vote to give money to rich corporations on a stupid war? -> No Do you think we should pay American business top dollar to provide the best for our fighting troops? -> Yup.
Yes I agree the American economy, I am very very bearish on the economy overall. However, most people feel good about it, happy that their houses are worth lots of money, and their stocks are worth lots of money, everything is at a record high. But what if the way you keep score on things keeps losing its value? You feel rich... you vote incumbent... the fiscal liquidity tap keeps running...
The US could probably do a lot of damage to Iran by bombing it with aircraft and just trying to destroy things, but not do any kind of holding of ground whatsoever. They have infinite money (as much as they can print and hope the rest fo the world believes in) and could just sit back and use high-tech to destroy things. They suck at holding things, and winning the trust of the locals.
While the whole debacle is obviously bad for the economy overall, it does make some people a lot of money. Sure the deficits up, but their government contract is increased. The dollar is down 30% relative to other currencies but I've quadrupled my money so even in real terms, I'm still WAAAY up.
It depends on why you think they invaded Iraq in the first place. Lets start with the original ones:
-Stop imminent danger to America from Weapons of mass distruction -Bring peace and democracy to Iraq -Get people who were involved with 9/11
Ok, so they're no good anymore, so what are they currently saying?
-Bring to justice a corrupt dictator -Rebuild Iraq, hand over running to Iraquis and exit with dignity.
Ok, so apparently the first one is done, and the other looks a long way off. There's no basic services, and peace and self-sufficiency seem decades away. But there are some things that have been achieved. To the US taxpayer, or family member of those serving, it may not look like a victory. But for some people, the war is a massive success:
-Stopped Iraq from selling oil in Euros, rather than US$ -Demonstrate acceptance of American people for a pre-emptive, internationally condemmed war. -Occupied countries and military bases on the western (Iraq) and Eastern (Afghanistan) borders of Iran -Increased military spending -Real life operations practice for US forces and test ground for new weapons technology -Re-building and resource extraction contracts handed out to US firms.
You're obviously a smart person. Therefore, let us all complain about how much more you could be doing to cure cancer, if you weren't wasting time posting on Slashdot instead.
The government doesn't tax other people and pay me to post on Slashdot. Posting on slashdot doesn't kill people.
Pointing out that everything has an opportunity cost doesn't imply that all choices require criticism.
I agree completely that military R&D is necessary to maintain the strength of the American empire by allowing it to project overwhelming military might. I don't think that's good for the world, though.
But what about all of the cool things we miss out on that those "tens of thousands of engineers" could make or invent if they weren't coming up with new ways to kill people?
I guess it is part of the market as people can do something legal to make money.
However, no real productive work has been done, it is just people competing by lining up, holding products and then trying to sell them again.
Originally people who valued the Wii at $200 more than the sticker price would have had that as a kind of happiness bonus over what they paid. Now that "bonus $200" has been extracted from them, people are spending their lives lining up and selling them etc.
A good example of how GDP can go up but there is a net-negative to the world (people spend time in lines, people don't get as good a bargain as they would have)
Complex organisms that have evolved over millions of years are not just externalities! Hopefully before too long humans will realise that breeding populations of genes have immense value, even for purely selfish reasons.
The reason it died out was that Dutch ship crews used to get drunk and go bashing Dodos for fun. Apparently some mornings they found thousands of dead Dodos from the night before. They were killed for drunken human entertainment.
The way it normally works is: -All animals that are not afraid of predators are killed. The ones that are survive. -Soon the whole population is afraid of predators and a new equilibrium is established.
The trouble is, the island was small, humans are very efficient killers and they were thoroughly wiped out so not given a chance to develop the fear that is necessary to survive.
As I once learned a bit about the development of Japanese culture, the fact that they live on an island with very few natural resources that world considers to be useful or otherwise valuable, much of their cultural values developed around an appreciation for other things which I find not only admirable, but inspiring as well.
This is the same Japan that during its 1980s housing bubble (which has been deflating for 15 years while banks have a 0% interest rate) had multi-generational morgages on tiny little Toyko apartments? Yay kids, you're in debt for life!
Many modern Japanese people LOVE impractical, useless shiny things that will be thrown out in a few days once the fads over. Have you ever been to Japan?
Gold isn't just shiny. It could do good, by providing a place to store savings without the value of your savings declining due to governments over-enthusiastic money-printing.
>> A chart of tax increases vs lost freedoms might be very illuminating.
Instead of revenue, you might want to look at spending. There are other ways to fund spending than tax - including deficits & debasing the currency (one is stealing from the future, the other from everyones savings)
Europe went from the ancient world of Rome/Greece with its democracy, literacy, technology, plumbing etc, to a world where 90+% of the population were tied to a feudal lord to work land they did not own, were illiterate, shat outside and plagued by disease.
Almost nothing was recorded because almost nobody could write, except people who were so religious they make intelligent design supporters look tame! Sounds pretty dark to me.
>>>> First off, anything about evolution is controversial. >> No. Really, it's not. It;s directly observable - you can see this from the experiment.
Maybe you haven't noticed but there has been controversy - from the Scopes monkey trial to todays Intelligent design. Science doesn't convince non-scientific people if it differs from their beliefs.
static : procedural is a time/space tradeoff. Graphics card technology is starting to bottleneck on bandwidth between insanely fast procecessors so in the future it looks like procedural will see the advantage tipped its way.
But there is also the business side of it:
Static looks as the designers indented it, can be made by artists (though requiring a lot more work) Procedural requires surrendering some design vision to randomness only works on some things and requires more programmer time.
Pretty cool though, the future is definitely "Here's how to generally describe wood grain" rather than woodgrain_72.bmp
In most English speaking countries, average wage is not enough to buy an average house.
This happens every so often due to demographics, speculation and/or artificially low interest rates. Just stand back, be patient, and wait for prices to revert to long term trends.
Being able to compress knowledge well is believed to be related to acting intelligently. - IHNPTTT (I Have Not Passed The Turing Test), but while my brain is good at remember the gist of knowlege, but really bad at losslessly recalling it.
Slashdot Mirror
Cash is fungible (which is kind of the point).
Sure. Look at credit cards. Aside from making transactions easier and more abstract, they also increase consumption by allowing you to spend tomorrow's money today.
The execution is over the small, early stuff because it doesn't involve any western governments like his later crimes did.
Uncle Sam says:
Apart from:
-Invading the country
-Deploying hundreds of thousands of troops
-Installing a government
-Picking the court
Apart from that - We weren't involved! The Iraquis were responsible for all of this trial!
But wouldn't it be much more effective and cheaper if the money doesn't need to be laundered by a war but be sent directly? Just sent US$ 1500 each year to each citizen of the U.S.
This was mentioned in 1984, building and destroying military objects and digging and filling in holes have the same net outcome (ie make-work, no value) but one is so much easier to sell the population on.
It's how you sell the idea:
Will you vote to give money to rich corporations on a stupid war? -> No
Do you think we should pay American business top dollar to provide the best for our fighting troops? -> Yup.
Yes I agree the American economy, I am very very bearish on the economy overall. However, most people feel good about it, happy that their houses are worth lots of money, and their stocks are worth lots of money, everything is at a record high. But what if the way you keep score on things keeps losing its value? You feel rich... you vote incumbent... the fiscal liquidity tap keeps running...
The US could probably do a lot of damage to Iran by bombing it with aircraft and just trying to destroy things, but not do any kind of holding of ground whatsoever. They have infinite money (as much as they can print and hope the rest fo the world believes in) and could just sit back and use high-tech to destroy things. They suck at holding things, and winning the trust of the locals.
While the whole debacle is obviously bad for the economy overall, it does make some people a lot of money. Sure the deficits up, but their government contract is increased. The dollar is down 30% relative to other currencies but I've quadrupled my money so even in real terms, I'm still WAAAY up.
It depends on why you think they invaded Iraq in the first place. Lets start with the original ones:
-Stop imminent danger to America from Weapons of mass distruction
-Bring peace and democracy to Iraq
-Get people who were involved with 9/11
Ok, so they're no good anymore, so what are they currently saying?
-Bring to justice a corrupt dictator
-Rebuild Iraq, hand over running to Iraquis and exit with dignity.
Ok, so apparently the first one is done, and the other looks a long way off. There's no basic services, and peace and self-sufficiency seem decades away. But there are some things that have been achieved. To the US taxpayer, or family member of those serving, it may not look like a victory. But for some people, the war is a massive success:
-Stopped Iraq from selling oil in Euros, rather than US$
-Demonstrate acceptance of American people for a pre-emptive, internationally condemmed war.
-Occupied countries and military bases on the western (Iraq) and Eastern (Afghanistan) borders of Iran
-Increased military spending
-Real life operations practice for US forces and test ground for new weapons technology
-Re-building and resource extraction contracts handed out to US firms.
>> NOT governed by the physical universe (hence, not deterministic)
Who says the universe is deterministic?
You're obviously a smart person. Therefore, let us all complain about how much more you could be doing to cure cancer, if you weren't wasting time posting on Slashdot instead.
The government doesn't tax other people and pay me to post on Slashdot. Posting on slashdot doesn't kill people.
Pointing out that everything has an opportunity cost doesn't imply that all choices require criticism.
I agree completely that military R&D is necessary to maintain the strength of the American empire by allowing it to project overwhelming military might. I don't think that's good for the world, though.
But what about all of the cool things we miss out on that those "tens of thousands of engineers" could make or invent if they weren't coming up with new ways to kill people?
Yes, but how much of the scarcity is due to over-speculation?
I guess it is part of the market as people can do something legal to make money.
However, no real productive work has been done, it is just people competing by lining up, holding products and then trying to sell them again.
Originally people who valued the Wii at $200 more than the sticker price would have had that as a kind of happiness bonus over what they paid. Now that "bonus $200" has been extracted from them, people are spending their lives lining up and selling them etc.
A good example of how GDP can go up but there is a net-negative to the world (people spend time in lines, people don't get as good a bargain as they would have)
Tragedy of the commons...
Complex organisms that have evolved over millions of years are not just externalities! Hopefully before too long humans will realise that breeding populations of genes have immense value, even for purely selfish reasons.
Dodo flesh was apparently not very tasty.
The reason it died out was that Dutch ship crews used to get drunk and go bashing Dodos for fun. Apparently some mornings they found thousands of dead Dodos from the night before. They were killed for drunken human entertainment.
The way it normally works is:
-All animals that are not afraid of predators are killed. The ones that are survive.
-Soon the whole population is afraid of predators and a new equilibrium is established.
The trouble is, the island was small, humans are very efficient killers and they were thoroughly wiped out so not given a chance to develop the fear that is necessary to survive.
>> nitrous oxides
The downside is that there is pollution, the upside is that everything will be really, really funny.
>> nearly free energy
Tried to buy any Uranium recently? Oh. Ok. Well, if you had, then you may have noticed the price going up 700% in 3 years!
And sector 7G doesn't get donuts for free!
>> ... in the U.S. .... it ensures that you can't have a pseudo- aristocracy.
1988 Bush
1992 Clinton
2000 Bush
2008 Clinton?
As I once learned a bit about the development of Japanese culture, the fact that they live on an island with very few natural resources that world considers to be useful or otherwise valuable, much of their cultural values developed around an appreciation for other things which I find not only admirable, but inspiring as well.
This is the same Japan that during its 1980s housing bubble (which has been deflating for 15 years while banks have a 0% interest rate) had multi-generational morgages on tiny little Toyko apartments? Yay kids, you're in debt for life!
Many modern Japanese people LOVE impractical, useless shiny things that will be thrown out in a few days once the fads over. Have you ever been to Japan?
Gold isn't just shiny. It could do good, by providing a place to store savings without the value of your savings declining due to governments over-enthusiastic money-printing.
>> that excess spending drives tax increases
You'd think so, but not for every republican government since Regan.
>> A chart of tax increases vs lost freedoms might be very illuminating.
Instead of revenue, you might want to look at spending. There are other ways to fund spending than tax - including deficits & debasing the currency (one is stealing from the future, the other from everyones savings)
>> The Dark Ages weren't all that dark.
Europe went from the ancient world of Rome/Greece with its democracy, literacy, technology, plumbing etc, to a world where 90+% of the population were tied to a feudal lord to work land they did not own, were illiterate, shat outside and plagued by disease.
Almost nothing was recorded because almost nobody could write, except people who were so religious they make intelligent design supporters look tame! Sounds pretty dark to me.
>>>> First off, anything about evolution is controversial.
>> No. Really, it's not. It;s directly observable - you can see this from the experiment.
Maybe you haven't noticed but there has been controversy - from the Scopes monkey trial to todays Intelligent design. Science doesn't convince non-scientific people if it differs from their beliefs.
static : procedural is a time/space tradeoff. Graphics card technology is starting to bottleneck on bandwidth between insanely fast procecessors so in the future it looks like procedural will see the advantage tipped its way.
But there is also the business side of it:
Static looks as the designers indented it, can be made by artists (though requiring a lot more work)
Procedural requires surrendering some design vision to randomness only works on some things and requires more programmer time.
Pretty cool though, the future is definitely "Here's how to generally describe wood grain" rather than woodgrain_72.bmp
In most English speaking countries, average wage is not enough to buy an average house.
This happens every so often due to demographics, speculation and/or artificially low interest rates. Just stand back, be patient, and wait for prices to revert to long term trends.
Occipital_bun - I have one, and my girlfriend says I grunt like a caveman in the mornings.
It's easy to play God, you just refuse to reveal your existance in a scientifically verifiable way.
>> Sort of like taxing all the satellites that fly over Australia.
You have to pay the Goods & Services Tax on satellite TV in Australia.
Being able to compress knowledge well is believed to be related to acting intelligently. - IHNPTTT (I Have Not Passed The Turing Test), but while my brain is good at remember the gist of knowlege, but really bad at losslessly recalling it.