I doubt he would expect the interviewer to know nothing about one of the most famous anti-trust cases in history. He probably mentioned it because it is viewed as a good example of when government should regulate the industry. The interviewer points out that the monopoly was actually good for prices, which is not something that is widely known. In some ways, I think the interviewer is trying to get into an theoretical economics discussion with him on his views on regulation, but as it turns out, he just does what Congress tells him without really thinking too deeply about it.
Yes, I've read the Art of War. Slinging around vague analogies to rivers does not a convincing argument make.
They aren't really my analogies, but I apologize that they aren't convincing to you. But may I add that your disdainful dismissal of my comments is made evident by your yawning? I find this inappropriate for reasoned discussion.
Understanding the market, and adapting to it, is the whole basis of a smart business plan.
But now, you seem to be agreeing with me.
Nobody said anything about "proceeding in ignorance of the market".
I wasn't intending to quote you, only to illuminate the Taoist way by illustrating common mistakes that are made when it is ignored.
That doesn't obviate the need for having a plan.
The original poster (was it you, AC?) supposed that Mao's plan meant no plan. I corrected this notion, and once again, we are in agreement.
Why is it that everyone seems to equate carefully planning ahead with idiotically trying to force the environment to conform to your will? That's the exact opposite of what a good plan is.
Yet another point of agreement! From my experience, many people believe that planning ahead does mean bringing the world under control. Certain people cannot find peace until their environment is meticulously arranged to head-off any possible unplanned eventuality. A moment's introspection will often reveal this tendency more than you care to admit. Other people fool themselves into thinking that they are filled with the power to control the world. Both of these are common, foolhardy mistakes, yet often believed to be "planning ahead."
Your description of good planning seems completely harmonious with mine, so I must assume that you are a Taoist!
Actually, the Art of War was huge in 80s on Wall Street for business and investment strategy.
Somehow I'm a little skeptical of the "meh, it'll all work out by itself in the end" style of planning...
That's what happens when you make straw men. One of the metaphors that is used in the book to describe the method is "rolling a boulder down a hill." What this means is employing a minimum of effort by making use of the natural features of your environment. Designing strategies that ignore or flaunt those features is destined to fail. Another metaphor is floating down a river in a boat. The Way of the river is to go downstream, so your strategy should be to follow the river, letting it do most of the work, while you provide small adjustments and navigation. Getting in a boat in a fast moving current and trying to paddle upstream is extremely difficult and unlikely to succeed. An unwise strategist sees this as an obstacle, so he proceeds to build a bigger boat and add more rowers, which usually leads to even more problems: added weight, risk of running aground, etc. But still, the unwise blame the river when they themselves are the obstacle.
In the context of your venture capital example, the market has its own Way. If your business strategy carefully aligns itself with the natural market forces and uses them to advantage, you will likely suceed. If you proceed in ignorance of the market, you will fail.
Likewise, Isaac Mao's strategy is to make use of the natural (viral, memetic) Way that blogs catch on and expand.
Eh... unconvincing. Organic systems are great if you don't mind a little fudging of the numbers. For example, human memory is notoriously unreliable. Combining features tends to create single points of failure and organic systems have a very narrow optimal operating environment. Try dropping the temperature by a hundred degrees or so and see how you fare. The lack of validation, if you will, on inputs, creates a significant susceptibility to viruses, bacteria, food poisoning and the like.
There are plenty of successful organic systems, but there's a whole lot more failures, which you don't see, because they are all dead. And failure is pretty expensive.
Also, you aren't taking into account the fact that complex computer systems perform sophisticated analysis on other complex information systems that organic systems are ill-equipped to handle. They are really best at operating on other organic systems. So if you were to design organic financial software, it would work best on an organic financial system. When you want near-instant, reliable, repeatable and accurate information, an organic system won't work for you at all.
Its like the difference between designing a bridge over a river, and waiting for a rockslide to fill in the river.
> if I wasn't paying 50% of my paycheck to taxes, > I could afford to actually have a savings account
Probably not. If everyone's taxes are reduced, they do end up with more cash in their pocket, but unfortunately, the market compensates for that by raising prices. Its the same way with your assertion that higher corporate profits across the board lead to expansion and more jobs. If all companies had higher profits, you would find that the market would adjust, causing their operating costs to rise along with their profits. For example, a company that's flush with cash from lower taxes and eager to hire would find that every other company had the same idea, causing wages to rise, which sounds good for the workers until you realize that wages are going up for everyone, and when everyone has more cash, companies raise prices.
That's pretty much it. Libertarianism would probably work, but the costs are way too high.
Just for interest, here's a question for libertarians: Nuclear power plants currently have stringent safety regulations that are enforced the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I'm assuming that a under a true laissez-faire system, such regulations are best left to voluntary regulatory organizations in much the same way that manufacturers of dangerous chemicals insist on voluntary guidelines for securing their plants against terrorist infiltration. The logic is that market forces will weed out companies running unsafe nuclear facilities, which of course is completely true - following a nuclear meltdown, its likely that the company responsible will go out of business. Unfortunately, in this case, "market forces" would include (let's say) an uninhabitable area the size of Montana. Don't you see? The market corrected itself!
That's somewhat of an exaggerated example, but I can't really see how else the situation would be handled.
Another thought-provoking problem is this: Libertarianism assumes that consumers will make rational choices that reflect their best interests i.e. not buy products that are harmful and faulty. This assumes that the information that consumers receive is accurate, and not manipulated or blatantly fabricated by companies who also happen to own media outlets, or who advertise using false or misleading statements. I suppose it could be argued that the media has a financial interest to broadcast truthful statements, but judging from the state of the media today, I'm not so sure that's true. Wasn't it Fox News who successfully argued in court that they have no obligation to broadcast the truth?
Another question I have is on contract law. Why should the government regulate and enforce legal contracts between companies, or indeed, between individuals? Surely that's also an unacceptable interference by government into your private affairs? After all, companies and individuals have a long-term financial interest to keep their promises, and if they don't, they will eventually go out of business/be shunned by society.
Many liberals, myself included, believe that a Bush win would be the beginning of the end for the GOP. Despite being the majority party of both the House and Senate and controlling the White House for 4 years, very little has truly been accomplished to advance the conservative agenda. Contract For America, anyone? A second Bush term would likely have the same results, and without a Democratic scapegoat to blame, the 2004 campaign's strategy of appealing the far right will come back to haunt them as domestic policy is locked squarely in the middle and their base becomes disillusioned. Meanwhile, the already fractured coalition will continue to crumble, Iraq will continue to worsen and the War on Terror will seem increasingly grim. If the terrorists manage a second attack on US soil during the next Bush administration, voters will see it as a failure and the administration will be sent into a tailspin that it won't recover from. The next administration will view a victory as a mandate (regardless of the popular vote) and become even more arrogant and begin a campaign of political payback for its enemies, including traditional conservatives. Scandals will plague the administration as disgruntled ex-friends come forward, maybe even another Watergate.
I believe that a Bush win would put the Progressive movement on an even firmer footing in 2008, but with a Kerry administration there's a possibility that the bloodletting in the Republican Purge of 2005 will open up the Senate and the House in the midterm elections.
Meaning that Kerry can somehow make him proud again. Ok, fine, but what does running electoral-vote.com have to do with that? The question "Why Did You Do This?" implies that he is "do"ing something to influence people to vote in a particular way, which I simply don't see that website doing. In fact, other than the admittedly editorial sections of the site, I have found the site to be remarkedly unbiased.
I would suppose that as an academic, he believes that providing a source of information that's free of (much) partisan distortion and spin would make him proud of America again. I don't pretend to know exactly what he means, but that statement doesn't seem particularly inconsistent.
However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate?
As others have mentioned, I believe the correlation runs the other way; Bush is hated because of the perception of his inappropriate actions. In particular, Bush is perceived to be uncomfortably close to those kinds of Christians who would institute Biblical law in America. Fear breeds hate. There's the perception that he stole the election, that he lied to get us into Iraq, that he is selling us out to Corporate America, etc.
Why does "hating" someone mean what they're doing is wrong?
I'm going to step out on a limb and say that Europe is almost universally respected by Americans of all political stripes, which is why it matters what they think. Yes, even Republicans. I read the "Freedom Fries" attitude as an effort to rid oneself of perceived European superiority by trying to take those "snooty" Europeans down a couple of pegs. This is what informs the "Get US out of the UN" movement. Despite the fact that we practically own the UN, the American inferiority complex runs deep, and our involvement in diplomacy is perceived in some quarters as an admission that we're not good enough to govern on our own. Liberal affinity for Europe is seen as traitorous precisely because of that, and to some, it implies an admission of inferiority. Ironically, liberals don't have the same inferiority complex, possibly because liberals tend to have much more exposure to the warm reception our cultural products receive. As a liberal, I believe that those aspects of our country that are inferior (education, health care, etc.) are due to certain economic trade-offs that we've made, as opposed to an absolute sense of the inferiority of the American people. Furthermore, I believe that those trade-offs are making less and less economic sense. I think this is the dominant liberal view, though rarely articulated in those terms.
Panislamic radicalism will not go away on its own. And before anyone says "so the answer, of course, is more bombs and killing?" Unbelievably and utterly not the point. But, to answer that, yes: sometimes the only course of action is force.
Fair enough. Its a decent enough argument to make. Unfortunately, its the same argument that was made in support of installing Saddam, giving him chemical weapons and underwriting the war with Iran. Its the same argument that was made in support of arming Osama bin Laden in the fight against the Soviet Union in Afganistan. Is it any surprise, really, that violence begets yet more violence? This line of reasoning has been with us since perhaps the beginning of human history: "We'll kill them dead, that will solve our problems! The war to end all wars!" Looking at the world today, the preponderance of evidence does not suggest that this is a successful strategy. If the response is "Oh, we'll just do it better this time!" I'm sorry, that's not convincing - unless your plan is to have as many innocent people slaughtered on both sides as possible in an effort to really demonstrate the futility of violence and war. That might work, but I'm not sure the voters would really go for it.
We both agree that in the short run, we'll be hated and Al Qaeda will grow stronger
1. This college guy shawn fanning made napster, the first(?) p2p app...
Napster was the first real standalone p2p app, but the precursor to that was IRC channels dedicated to sharing. Much of the jargon that's used in modern p2p comes from that, for example, and the choice of encoding formats, e.g. mp3. Its almost certain that anyone who is at all serious about open source, hacking, gaming and any of a multitude of underground internet scenes has spent a good deal of time on an IRC channel at one time or another, and the scene is as much a social medium as it is a file trading medium.
Hell, if you want to go back even further, you could credit Doom and John Carmack with p2p. I haven't thought a whole lot about this, but it could be argued that the relatively open nature of Doom gave rise to networked group of file traders who would swap Doom mods and addons on BBS's, which were essentially prototypical networked IM and P2P applications (and occasional gaming platforms). The key to BBS's were that they were largely owner-operated -- you could chat with the owners, you knew them, they were part of the community. The notable thing about Doom filesharing was that creating Doom mods was a creative endeavor that benefitted from the free exchange of ideas. The runaway success of the scene spawned the idea that free and open trading of intellectural property was a moral good. Open source may have developed concurrently along the same lines, but I'm not sure there was very much cross-over. OS people were real coders and focused on that, and warez and mp3 people were more social and into gaming and things like that, almost like a collectors club. The intersection of these two groups in recent times greatly expanded on the ideas of the past, and with the addition of real coding ability came modern p2p, where coders no long limited themselves to the simple scripting environment of IRC clients, and went so far as to invent their own protocols and fully-fledged GUI environments designed to address the needs of specific internet sub-cultures. The user-friendly interfaces propelled them into the mainstream, e.g. Napster.
P2P enthusiasts are dead-serious about the importance of open intellectual property, and if its not seen as fundamental as Ghandi's struggle, it is seen as an important rights issue, which is what the parent was probably getting at more than suggesting that the P2P movement exactly follows the Ignore-Laugh-Fight-Accept model. Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA and the DMCA stifle human expression and creativity for profit and this causes immeasurable harm to society. The exact details of this harm are probably best left to another post, I may write a blog entry about it in the near future, but suffice it to say the lack of creativity and contribution in a person's life has a profoundly negative effect.
We don't get to choose where we are born, that's true. They are free to move to a different country or establish their own country with their own rules. Most people don't question the system, but they aren't deprived of the freedom to question the system.
And you can see where the populace agrees with you on the "freedom to not participate" when half the population will not vote.
Actually, I was referring to your freedom to avoid taxes by not participating in the economic system.
Actually, I'd like the capitalist side of things, thanks for playing.
See, that's where things are inconsistent. You are denouncing a completely optional system that you freely choose to participate in. You claim to hold property rights and freedom in the highest regard, yet when I and my fellow citizens decide to create roads (which are our property) and enforce certain rules for their use (which is the right of every property owner) suddenly I'm depriving you of your freedom. What's more, even if you don't pay any taxes, you are given a seat at the table anyway. Collective investment through government in infrastructure, education and research is the foundation of our economic success. These investments were made because the private sector wasn't doing it well enough, fast enough or maybe not at all. If you feel that the government is ineffective at these things and the private sector can replace government, then why hasn't it? Many companies already provide the same services that government does. There are private educational facilities, private owners of roads, private retirement savings plans that all compete against the government. Market economics predicts that companies offering better services for less money will succeed, so we can assume that the demand for government services will steadily decline as the market becomes more efficient.
If the market is better at doing the government's job, then why doesn't it do it?
On the contrary, there's an abundance of free will. The economic system of laws and taxes was created by the people, out of their own free will. If you choose (of your own free will) to participate in that economic system, certain rules apply. If you don't like the rules, you have the freedom to not participate.
In fact, its even less restrictive than that. For example, if you need your roof fixed, you can call up a roof-fixing guy who took advantage of state-subsidized roof-fixing schools to do it for you. You could trade him for computer fixing services, let's say. You don't pay any taxes to the state, and you take advantage of the people's good will. Let's say you further trade in your services as a computer fixing guy for a bicycle, and ride your bicycle to your next job. Those roads that facilitate easy transportation (and your livelihood) are paid for by the people and you don't pay anything.
So there you are: Life, liberty, property. But I don't think you'd enjoy that life, in fact, I think you'd enjoy a more modern life where we enjoy the fruits of (pinko) co-operation and distributing the costs to everyone who profits from them.
The difference is that conservatives... don't buy the original argument: that some people are, by default, "disadvantaged". We believe that all people are equal and capable of great things...
This is a misrepresentation. Conservatives have long held the view that minorites are intellectually or otherwise inferior, often used to justify restrictions on minority immigration. Take The Bell Curve, which pretends to show that Black and Latino people are genetically less intelligent and are making America stupid by living here. In 2004, it's fashionable (PC?) among conservatives to disavow this history now that its a political liability, most obviously in the term "compassionate conservative" - the addition of the adjective suggests that the noun by itself is understood as an absence of compassion. This is not to say that conservatives are not compassionate -- I have great hopes for moderate Republicans -- but its a recent innovation and a strong indicator of leftward motion within the party. To present the conservative viewpoint as deeply humanitarian and egalitarian is rhetorical spin that ignores centuries of historical precedent to the contrary.
That said, liberals need to come to the realization that traditional social programs, even if moderately successful, are not effective enough. Simply redistributing wealth to the poor by handing out cash is not going to alleviate poverty, that's outdated and simplistic thinking that should be repudiated by the left. There's a great deal of fear on the left that even moderate conservatives are hiding a secret hatred of minorities which motivates them to cut welfare programs, and I think this hampers real dialog. As time goes on and moderate conservatives establish their compassionate credentials, this will be less of a problem.
What is often ignored by conservatives is economic advantage that we unfairly leverage against the poor. The middle class greatly benefits from downward pressure on wages for menial jobs that provide no benefits. There's only so much money to go around, and many conservatives would much rather be able to pay less for their McBurger than provide someone with a living wage at their McJob. Ironically, providing that person with benefits, a living wage and education would do both in the long run, but conservatives refuse to make that investment. All attempts to increase minimum wage are met with Republican opposition, who in turn suggest abolishing income tax in favor of a regressive flat tax, or worse, a sales tax. This behavior is at odds with their stated "compassionate" approach to welfare, so its no wonder that liberals continue to be suspicious of conservative motives. Conservatives also ignore the high costs of the effects of poverty. The costs of poor health, lowered life expectancy, crime, vandalism, drug use, violence, gangs and prisons all come out of your wallet, but a conservative is not even willing to save money to fix the problem, because one of the conservative values is that if you didn't earn it, you don't deserve it, even if that means higher taxes for conservatives. Even though the core Calvinist belief that poverty is the result of divine disfavor is no longer widespread, the underlying assumption remains, notably at odds with Jesus' actual teachings. Its an oft-heard refrain: "Anyone can get themselves out of poverty if they work at it," which is a convenient fiction that lets people believe that they really aren't benefiting at the expense at someone else.
Your hyperbolic assertion that your money is taken "at the point of a gun and under the threat of jail" is another convenient distortion that is trotted out so that you can feign outrage at the democratic process that you loudly praise when it provides you with your policy goals. Myself, I don't think liberal social programs are effective or even fair, but until the conservatives provide a legitimate alternative, they won't have my vote.
Where's my freedom to make a decision about my own money?
It's a democracy, so you don't get to decide about laws and taxes all by yourself. We are all in this together, so we all decide together. If you don't like it, convince a majority that you are right, then change the laws. Or you can always move to a tiny island and crown yourself king.
The government has also invested a significant amount of money into you so that you can enjoy an extremely high standard of living and take home a massive (by global standards) paycheck. Investments into education, research, infrastructure, economic stimluation, defense, law enforcement and the courts are all made at tax payer expense and which you directly or indirectly benefit from. You are free to take advantage of all these resources at no cost up until you decide to profit from them, at which point we, the people expect a cut of your profits.
Since no-one else made the Google-text messaging connection yet, I'll weigh in with my own wild speculation:
Since lots of phones can receive MMS messages these days, Google is going to provide geographic information along with your Google Local queries. And driving directions, too.
...he would happily sit by while activist judges (of the sort he would be appointing) rammed it down our throats. Just like with abortion.
If you don't like liberal 'activist' judges, maybe you should ask the Republicans to stop appointing them. Five out of the seven concurring opinions in Roe v. Wade were Nixon and Eisenhower appointees, and one of the two Kennedy appointees dissented.
...all you can see is gamers spending money to make themselves look better..
Their website says very clearly that the purpose of the charity is to combat negative stereotypes of gamers. Its the first thing you see on the About page, and its repeated in various forms throughout the site. Its hard to claim that I'm misinterpreting their mission.
What have you done lately...?
Its tempting to reply to this question, but as I said before, I believe that virtue is its own reward and you shouldn't trumpet your charitable deeds. Let it suffice to say that I have no deficiency in this area.
"...the whole group of gamers end up looking better in the eyes of the public who are constantly flooded with negative images about gamers."
From Childsplay.org: "Last year we set up a charity called Child's Play. We set it up because we were angry the media decided to blame all the world's problems on games and gamers."
"Child's Play was conceived as a way to combat negative portrayals of gamers in the media"
"STUDENTS! We figure a good way to fix the negative press about gamers is positive press about gamers in student newspapers.
I'm not really sure how this really improves the image of gamers. To me, it says that gamers want people to think they are good people, and willing to invest some cash to prove it. I don't think there's anything horribly wrong with that, but the number of times they repeat their PR goals reveals just how focused they are on that part of it. There's nothing wrong with spending money to make yourself look better, but that's not particularly noteworthy, nor is it really charity when its designed around return on investment. There's something wrong with being so blatant about it.
In conclusion, a quote:
"When you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward."
No, the study shows that Red Bull and alcohol have no effect in a maximal effort test performed one hour after ingestion.
Interestingly, peak oxygen uptake was reduced by 5% with alcohol, but only 2.7% when taken with Red Bull -- to me, that's a 50% reduction of one of the effects of alcohol. I also question the methodology of the study. Your body uses glycogen and fat for fuel during exercise, but once you run out of glycogen, you're done. Caffeine is thought to improve performance by using less glycogen early in the exercise, making more available for longer periods of time. This study is designed to measure effects in the first 15 minutes or so that it takes to warm up and acheive the heart rate threshold, hardly where one would expect to see performance gains.
Coupled with the fact that they are testing a brand instead of any particular chemical compound, I suspect that this study was designed to fail.
this almost sounds like proprietary versus open source type of argument
I just finished reading the book. Its very like much like that, although I think that even though book leans towards open-source populism, that doesn't seem to be the focus of the book.
No, clearly Strange stole secrets of Mr. Norrell's magic and is simply wishes to spread them to the masses without authorization
Not really. You see, the parent linked to a Slashdot article discussing an article on the AP news wire entitled "Entertainment World Wary of Microsoft". But let's play your little game and pretend that the parent linked to a slashdot comment - nothing about posting an argument on slashdot and then someone else subsequently linking to it in another slashdot post causes it to be fallacious per se.
Further pursuing your line of argument (why do I bother?) and pretending that an argument posted on slashdot and then linked in another argument causes it be to false, this is still not circular reasoning.
You've got it the wrong way around! You see, the programmers that don't care about usability are the dancers who don't care that the music is crap, only that performs its basic function, i.e. get them laid (the dancers, not the programmers obviously.) The DJ is a lot like the usability expert, lovingly handcrafting each UI, only to be spurned and insulted by a crowd of unwashed programmers whose tastes have been informed by 30 years of dreck!
If you would like to see society get better figure out how to make people a little less rotten.
That's not really necessary. For the most part, people are already prevented from acting rotten if they feel that doing so would harm their reputation. In the context of doing business, corporations act rotten if its worth their while. If enough customers have the right information, it stops being worthwhile.
Consider the prisoners' dilemma -- the best outcome for both prisoners is if they both remain silent, but they don't. Why? They lack information. If they could co-ordinate their efforts, they could produce a better outcome for themselves than if they acted independently. Economic and social systems live and die on information, and when the infrastructure delivers instant and comprehensive information to the ordinary consumer, then real social change is possible.
...you're such an insecure little fuckin' wuss that you need to pick people apart in order to make yourself feel like a man...
Actually, the reason I did it was because I felt the work was so strong, that the author must be a serious amateur writer, if not semi-professional. As it turns, he's not, in which case, I'm doubly impressed! But in my experience, most skilled artists welcome feedback, that's why I called my post writer's workshop.
In any case, I think having your off-the-cuff work mistaken for serious prose is at least as much of a compliment as "ROTFLMAO!!!!111", but maybe you don't see it that way.
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt he would expect the interviewer to know nothing about one of the most famous anti-trust cases in history. He probably mentioned it because it is viewed as a good example of when government should regulate the industry. The interviewer points out that the monopoly was actually good for prices, which is not something that is widely known. In some ways, I think the interviewer is trying to get into an theoretical economics discussion with him on his views on regulation, but as it turns out, he just does what Congress tells him without really thinking too deeply about it.
Wow, really? I like pistachios! They are tasty, and I eat them all the time!
Yes, I've read the Art of War. Slinging around vague analogies to rivers does not a convincing argument make.
They aren't really my analogies, but I apologize that they aren't convincing to you. But may I add that your disdainful dismissal of my comments is made evident by your yawning? I find this inappropriate for reasoned discussion.
Understanding the market, and adapting to it, is the whole basis of a smart business plan.
But now, you seem to be agreeing with me.
Nobody said anything about "proceeding in ignorance of the market".
I wasn't intending to quote you, only to illuminate the Taoist way by illustrating common mistakes that are made when it is ignored.
That doesn't obviate the need for having a plan.
The original poster (was it you, AC?) supposed that Mao's plan meant no plan. I corrected this notion, and once again, we are in agreement.
Why is it that everyone seems to equate carefully planning ahead with idiotically trying to force the environment to conform to your will? That's the exact opposite of what a good plan is.
Yet another point of agreement! From my experience, many people believe that planning ahead does mean bringing the world under control. Certain people cannot find peace until their environment is meticulously arranged to head-off any possible unplanned eventuality. A moment's introspection will often reveal this tendency more than you care to admit. Other people fool themselves into thinking that they are filled with the power to control the world. Both of these are common, foolhardy mistakes, yet often believed to be "planning ahead."
Your description of good planning seems completely harmonious with mine, so I must assume that you are a Taoist!
Actually, the Art of War was huge in 80s on Wall Street for business and investment strategy.
...
Somehow I'm a little skeptical of the "meh, it'll all work out by itself in the end" style of planning
That's what happens when you make straw men. One of the metaphors that is used in the book to describe the method is "rolling a boulder down a hill." What this means is employing a minimum of effort by making use of the natural features of your environment. Designing strategies that ignore or flaunt those features is destined to fail. Another metaphor is floating down a river in a boat. The Way of the river is to go downstream, so your strategy should be to follow the river, letting it do most of the work, while you provide small adjustments and navigation. Getting in a boat in a fast moving current and trying to paddle upstream is extremely difficult and unlikely to succeed. An unwise strategist sees this as an obstacle, so he proceeds to build a bigger boat and add more rowers, which usually leads to even more problems: added weight, risk of running aground, etc. But still, the unwise blame the river when they themselves are the obstacle.
In the context of your venture capital example, the market has its own Way. If your business strategy carefully aligns itself with the natural market forces and uses them to advantage, you will likely suceed. If you proceed in ignorance of the market, you will fail.
Likewise, Isaac Mao's strategy is to make use of the natural (viral, memetic) Way that blogs catch on and expand.
Eh... unconvincing. Organic systems are great if you don't mind a little fudging of the numbers. For example, human memory is notoriously unreliable. Combining features tends to create single points of failure and organic systems have a very narrow optimal operating environment. Try dropping the temperature by a hundred degrees or so and see how you fare. The lack of validation, if you will, on inputs, creates a significant susceptibility to viruses, bacteria, food poisoning and the like.
There are plenty of successful organic systems, but there's a whole lot more failures, which you don't see, because they are all dead. And failure is pretty expensive.
Also, you aren't taking into account the fact that complex computer systems perform sophisticated analysis on other complex information systems that organic systems are ill-equipped to handle. They are really best at operating on other organic systems. So if you were to design organic financial software, it would work best on an organic financial system. When you want near-instant, reliable, repeatable and accurate information, an organic system won't work for you at all.
Its like the difference between designing a bridge over a river, and waiting for a rockslide to fill in the river.
> if I wasn't paying 50% of my paycheck to taxes,
> I could afford to actually have a savings account
Probably not. If everyone's taxes are reduced, they do end up with more cash in their pocket, but unfortunately, the market compensates for that by raising prices. Its the same way with your assertion that higher corporate profits across the board lead to expansion and more jobs. If all companies had higher profits, you would find that the market would adjust, causing their operating costs to rise along with their profits. For example, a company that's flush with cash from lower taxes and eager to hire would find that every other company had the same idea, causing wages to rise, which sounds good for the workers until you realize that wages are going up for everyone, and when everyone has more cash, companies raise prices.
That's pretty much it. Libertarianism would probably work, but the costs are way too high.
Just for interest, here's a question for libertarians: Nuclear power plants currently have stringent safety regulations that are enforced the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I'm assuming that a under a true laissez-faire system, such regulations are best left to voluntary regulatory organizations in much the same way that manufacturers of dangerous chemicals insist on voluntary guidelines for securing their plants against terrorist infiltration. The logic is that market forces will weed out companies running unsafe nuclear facilities, which of course is completely true - following a nuclear meltdown, its likely that the company responsible will go out of business. Unfortunately, in this case, "market forces" would include (let's say) an uninhabitable area the size of Montana. Don't you see? The market corrected itself!
That's somewhat of an exaggerated example, but I can't really see how else the situation would be handled.
Another thought-provoking problem is this: Libertarianism assumes that consumers will make rational choices that reflect their best interests i.e. not buy products that are harmful and faulty. This assumes that the information that consumers receive is accurate, and not manipulated or blatantly fabricated by companies who also happen to own media outlets, or who advertise using false or misleading statements. I suppose it could be argued that the media has a financial interest to broadcast truthful statements, but judging from the state of the media today, I'm not so sure that's true. Wasn't it Fox News who successfully argued in court that they have no obligation to broadcast the truth?
Another question I have is on contract law. Why should the government regulate and enforce legal contracts between companies, or indeed, between individuals? Surely that's also an unacceptable interference by government into your private affairs? After all, companies and individuals have a long-term financial interest to keep their promises, and if they don't, they will eventually go out of business/be shunned by society.
Many liberals, myself included, believe that a Bush win would be the beginning of the end for the GOP. Despite being the majority party of both the House and Senate and controlling the White House for 4 years, very little has truly been accomplished to advance the conservative agenda. Contract For America, anyone? A second Bush term would likely have the same results, and without a Democratic scapegoat to blame, the 2004 campaign's strategy of appealing the far right will come back to haunt them as domestic policy is locked squarely in the middle and their base becomes disillusioned. Meanwhile, the already fractured coalition will continue to crumble, Iraq will continue to worsen and the War on Terror will seem increasingly grim. If the terrorists manage a second attack on US soil during the next Bush administration, voters will see it as a failure and the administration will be sent into a tailspin that it won't recover from. The next administration will view a victory as a mandate (regardless of the popular vote) and become even more arrogant and begin a campaign of political payback for its enemies, including traditional conservatives. Scandals will plague the administration as disgruntled ex-friends come forward, maybe even another Watergate.
I believe that a Bush win would put the Progressive movement on an even firmer footing in 2008, but with a Kerry administration there's a possibility that the bloodletting in the Republican Purge of 2005 will open up the Senate and the House in the midterm elections.
I would suppose that as an academic, he believes that providing a source of information that's free of (much) partisan distortion and spin would make him proud of America again. I don't pretend to know exactly what he means, but that statement doesn't seem particularly inconsistent.
However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate?
As others have mentioned, I believe the correlation runs the other way; Bush is hated because of the perception of his inappropriate actions. In particular, Bush is perceived to be uncomfortably close to those kinds of Christians who would institute Biblical law in America. Fear breeds hate. There's the perception that he stole the election, that he lied to get us into Iraq, that he is selling us out to Corporate America, etc.
Why does "hating" someone mean what they're doing is wrong?
I'm going to step out on a limb and say that Europe is almost universally respected by Americans of all political stripes, which is why it matters what they think. Yes, even Republicans. I read the "Freedom Fries" attitude as an effort to rid oneself of perceived European superiority by trying to take those "snooty" Europeans down a couple of pegs. This is what informs the "Get US out of the UN" movement. Despite the fact that we practically own the UN, the American inferiority complex runs deep, and our involvement in diplomacy is perceived in some quarters as an admission that we're not good enough to govern on our own. Liberal affinity for Europe is seen as traitorous precisely because of that, and to some, it implies an admission of inferiority. Ironically, liberals don't have the same inferiority complex, possibly because liberals tend to have much more exposure to the warm reception our cultural products receive. As a liberal, I believe that those aspects of our country that are inferior (education, health care, etc.) are due to certain economic trade-offs that we've made, as opposed to an absolute sense of the inferiority of the American people. Furthermore, I believe that those trade-offs are making less and less economic sense. I think this is the dominant liberal view, though rarely articulated in those terms.
Panislamic radicalism will not go away on its own. And before anyone says "so the answer, of course, is more bombs and killing?" Unbelievably and utterly not the point. But, to answer that, yes: sometimes the only course of action is force.
Fair enough. Its a decent enough argument to make. Unfortunately, its the same argument that was made in support of installing Saddam, giving him chemical weapons and underwriting the war with Iran. Its the same argument that was made in support of arming Osama bin Laden in the fight against the Soviet Union in Afganistan. Is it any surprise, really, that violence begets yet more violence? This line of reasoning has been with us since perhaps the beginning of human history: "We'll kill them dead, that will solve our problems! The war to end all wars!" Looking at the world today, the preponderance of evidence does not suggest that this is a successful strategy. If the response is "Oh, we'll just do it better this time!" I'm sorry, that's not convincing - unless your plan is to have as many innocent people slaughtered on both sides as possible in an effort to really demonstrate the futility of violence and war. That might work, but I'm not sure the voters would really go for it.
We both agree that in the short run, we'll be hated and Al Qaeda will grow stronger
Napster was the first real standalone p2p app, but the precursor to that was IRC channels dedicated to sharing. Much of the jargon that's used in modern p2p comes from that, for example, and the choice of encoding formats, e.g. mp3. Its almost certain that anyone who is at all serious about open source, hacking, gaming and any of a multitude of underground internet scenes has spent a good deal of time on an IRC channel at one time or another, and the scene is as much a social medium as it is a file trading medium.
Hell, if you want to go back even further, you could credit Doom and John Carmack with p2p. I haven't thought a whole lot about this, but it could be argued that the relatively open nature of Doom gave rise to networked group of file traders who would swap Doom mods and addons on BBS's, which were essentially prototypical networked IM and P2P applications (and occasional gaming platforms). The key to BBS's were that they were largely owner-operated -- you could chat with the owners, you knew them, they were part of the community. The notable thing about Doom filesharing was that creating Doom mods was a creative endeavor that benefitted from the free exchange of ideas. The runaway success of the scene spawned the idea that free and open trading of intellectural property was a moral good. Open source may have developed concurrently along the same lines, but I'm not sure there was very much cross-over. OS people were real coders and focused on that, and warez and mp3 people were more social and into gaming and things like that, almost like a collectors club. The intersection of these two groups in recent times greatly expanded on the ideas of the past, and with the addition of real coding ability came modern p2p, where coders no long limited themselves to the simple scripting environment of IRC clients, and went so far as to invent their own protocols and fully-fledged GUI environments designed to address the needs of specific internet sub-cultures. The user-friendly interfaces propelled them into the mainstream, e.g. Napster.
P2P enthusiasts are dead-serious about the importance of open intellectual property, and if its not seen as fundamental as Ghandi's struggle, it is seen as an important rights issue, which is what the parent was probably getting at more than suggesting that the P2P movement exactly follows the Ignore-Laugh-Fight-Accept model. Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA and the DMCA stifle human expression and creativity for profit and this causes immeasurable harm to society. The exact details of this harm are probably best left to another post, I may write a blog entry about it in the near future, but suffice it to say the lack of creativity and contribution in a person's life has a profoundly negative effect.
Ok, I should really go to bed...
We don't get to choose where we are born, that's true. They are free to move to a different country or establish their own country with their own rules. Most people don't question the system, but they aren't deprived of the freedom to question the system. And you can see where the populace agrees with you on the "freedom to not participate" when half the population will not vote.
Actually, I was referring to your freedom to avoid taxes by not participating in the economic system.
Actually, I'd like the capitalist side of things, thanks for playing.See, that's where things are inconsistent. You are denouncing a completely optional system that you freely choose to participate in. You claim to hold property rights and freedom in the highest regard, yet when I and my fellow citizens decide to create roads (which are our property) and enforce certain rules for their use (which is the right of every property owner) suddenly I'm depriving you of your freedom. What's more, even if you don't pay any taxes, you are given a seat at the table anyway. Collective investment through government in infrastructure, education and research is the foundation of our economic success. These investments were made because the private sector wasn't doing it well enough, fast enough or maybe not at all. If you feel that the government is ineffective at these things and the private sector can replace government, then why hasn't it? Many companies already provide the same services that government does. There are private educational facilities, private owners of roads, private retirement savings plans that all compete against the government. Market economics predicts that companies offering better services for less money will succeed, so we can assume that the demand for government services will steadily decline as the market becomes more efficient.
If the market is better at doing the government's job, then why doesn't it do it?
On the contrary, there's an abundance of free will. The economic system of laws and taxes was created by the people, out of their own free will. If you choose (of your own free will) to participate in that economic system, certain rules apply. If you don't like the rules, you have the freedom to not participate.
In fact, its even less restrictive than that. For example, if you need your roof fixed, you can call up a roof-fixing guy who took advantage of state-subsidized roof-fixing schools to do it for you. You could trade him for computer fixing services, let's say. You don't pay any taxes to the state, and you take advantage of the people's good will. Let's say you further trade in your services as a computer fixing guy for a bicycle, and ride your bicycle to your next job. Those roads that facilitate easy transportation (and your livelihood) are paid for by the people and you don't pay anything.
So there you are: Life, liberty, property. But I don't think you'd enjoy that life, in fact, I think you'd enjoy a more modern life where we enjoy the fruits of (pinko) co-operation and distributing the costs to everyone who profits from them.
This is a misrepresentation. Conservatives have long held the view that minorites are intellectually or otherwise inferior, often used to justify restrictions on minority immigration. Take The Bell Curve, which pretends to show that Black and Latino people are genetically less intelligent and are making America stupid by living here. In 2004, it's fashionable (PC?) among conservatives to disavow this history now that its a political liability, most obviously in the term "compassionate conservative" - the addition of the adjective suggests that the noun by itself is understood as an absence of compassion. This is not to say that conservatives are not compassionate -- I have great hopes for moderate Republicans -- but its a recent innovation and a strong indicator of leftward motion within the party. To present the conservative viewpoint as deeply humanitarian and egalitarian is rhetorical spin that ignores centuries of historical precedent to the contrary.
That said, liberals need to come to the realization that traditional social programs, even if moderately successful, are not effective enough. Simply redistributing wealth to the poor by handing out cash is not going to alleviate poverty, that's outdated and simplistic thinking that should be repudiated by the left. There's a great deal of fear on the left that even moderate conservatives are hiding a secret hatred of minorities which motivates them to cut welfare programs, and I think this hampers real dialog. As time goes on and moderate conservatives establish their compassionate credentials, this will be less of a problem.
What is often ignored by conservatives is economic advantage that we unfairly leverage against the poor. The middle class greatly benefits from downward pressure on wages for menial jobs that provide no benefits. There's only so much money to go around, and many conservatives would much rather be able to pay less for their McBurger than provide someone with a living wage at their McJob. Ironically, providing that person with benefits, a living wage and education would do both in the long run, but conservatives refuse to make that investment. All attempts to increase minimum wage are met with Republican opposition, who in turn suggest abolishing income tax in favor of a regressive flat tax, or worse, a sales tax. This behavior is at odds with their stated "compassionate" approach to welfare, so its no wonder that liberals continue to be suspicious of conservative motives. Conservatives also ignore the high costs of the effects of poverty. The costs of poor health, lowered life expectancy, crime, vandalism, drug use, violence, gangs and prisons all come out of your wallet, but a conservative is not even willing to save money to fix the problem, because one of the conservative values is that if you didn't earn it, you don't deserve it, even if that means higher taxes for conservatives. Even though the core Calvinist belief that poverty is the result of divine disfavor is no longer widespread, the underlying assumption remains, notably at odds with Jesus' actual teachings. Its an oft-heard refrain: "Anyone can get themselves out of poverty if they work at it," which is a convenient fiction that lets people believe that they really aren't benefiting at the expense at someone else.
Your hyperbolic assertion that your money is taken "at the point of a gun and under the threat of jail" is another convenient distortion that is trotted out so that you can feign outrage at the democratic process that you loudly praise when it provides you with your policy goals. Myself, I don't think liberal social programs are effective or even fair, but until the conservatives provide a legitimate alternative, they won't have my vote.
It's a democracy, so you don't get to decide about laws and taxes all by yourself. We are all in this together, so we all decide together. If you don't like it, convince a majority that you are right, then change the laws. Or you can always move to a tiny island and crown yourself king.
The government has also invested a significant amount of money into you so that you can enjoy an extremely high standard of living and take home a massive (by global standards) paycheck. Investments into education, research, infrastructure, economic stimluation, defense, law enforcement and the courts are all made at tax payer expense and which you directly or indirectly benefit from. You are free to take advantage of all these resources at no cost up until you decide to profit from them, at which point we, the people expect a cut of your profits.
Seems like a fair deal to me.
Since no-one else made the Google-text messaging connection yet, I'll weigh in with my own wild speculation:
Since lots of phones can receive MMS messages these days, Google is going to provide geographic information along with your Google Local queries. And driving directions, too.
If you don't like liberal 'activist' judges, maybe you should ask the Republicans to stop appointing them. Five out of the seven concurring opinions in Roe v. Wade were Nixon and Eisenhower appointees, and one of the two Kennedy appointees dissented.
Their website says very clearly that the purpose of the charity is to combat negative stereotypes of gamers. Its the first thing you see on the About page, and its repeated in various forms throughout the site. Its hard to claim that I'm misinterpreting their mission.
What have you done lately...?
Its tempting to reply to this question, but as I said before, I believe that virtue is its own reward and you shouldn't trumpet your charitable deeds. Let it suffice to say that I have no deficiency in this area.
"...the whole group of gamers end up looking better in the eyes of the public who are constantly flooded with negative images about gamers."
From Childsplay.org:
"Last year we set up a charity called Child's Play. We set it up because we were angry the media decided to blame all the world's problems on games and gamers."
"Child's Play was conceived as a way to combat negative portrayals of gamers in the media"
"STUDENTS! We figure a good way to fix the negative press about gamers is positive press about gamers in student newspapers.
I'm not really sure how this really improves the image of gamers. To me, it says that gamers want people to think they are good people, and willing to invest some cash to prove it. I don't think there's anything horribly wrong with that, but the number of times they repeat their PR goals reveals just how focused they are on that part of it. There's nothing wrong with spending money to make yourself look better, but that's not particularly noteworthy, nor is it really charity when its designed around return on investment. There's something wrong with being so blatant about it.
In conclusion, a quote:
"When you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward."
Interestingly, peak oxygen uptake was reduced by 5% with alcohol, but only 2.7% when taken with Red Bull -- to me, that's a 50% reduction of one of the effects of alcohol. I also question the methodology of the study. Your body uses glycogen and fat for fuel during exercise, but once you run out of glycogen, you're done. Caffeine is thought to improve performance by using less glycogen early in the exercise, making more available for longer periods of time. This study is designed to measure effects in the first 15 minutes or so that it takes to warm up and acheive the heart rate threshold, hardly where one would expect to see performance gains.
Coupled with the fact that they are testing a brand instead of any particular chemical compound, I suspect that this study was designed to fail.
That's weird - when you use the word "pretty", I would use the word "bad-ripoff-of-worst-ftp-interface-ever."
I just finished reading the book. Its very like much like that, although I think that even though book leans towards open-source populism, that doesn't seem to be the focus of the book.
No, clearly Strange stole secrets of Mr. Norrell's magic and is simply wishes to spread them to the masses without authorizationYeah, that's true too.
Not really. You see, the parent linked to a Slashdot article discussing an article on the AP news wire entitled "Entertainment World Wary of Microsoft". But let's play your little game and pretend that the parent linked to a slashdot comment - nothing about posting an argument on slashdot and then someone else subsequently linking to it in another slashdot post causes it to be fallacious per se.
Further pursuing your line of argument (why do I bother?) and pretending that an argument posted on slashdot and then linked in another argument causes it be to false, this is still not circular reasoning.
You've got it the wrong way around! You see, the programmers that don't care about usability are the dancers who don't care that the music is crap, only that performs its basic function, i.e. get them laid (the dancers, not the programmers obviously.) The DJ is a lot like the usability expert, lovingly handcrafting each UI, only to be spurned and insulted by a crowd of unwashed programmers whose tastes have been informed by 30 years of dreck!
That's not really necessary. For the most part, people are already prevented from acting rotten if they feel that doing so would harm their reputation. In the context of doing business, corporations act rotten if its worth their while. If enough customers have the right information, it stops being worthwhile.
Consider the prisoners' dilemma -- the best outcome for both prisoners is if they both remain silent, but they don't. Why? They lack information. If they could co-ordinate their efforts, they could produce a better outcome for themselves than if they acted independently. Economic and social systems live and die on information, and when the infrastructure delivers instant and comprehensive information to the ordinary consumer, then real social change is possible.
Sorry, I didn't mean to be.
Actually, the reason I did it was because I felt the work was so strong, that the author must be a serious amateur writer, if not semi-professional. As it turns, he's not, in which case, I'm doubly impressed! But in my experience, most skilled artists welcome feedback, that's why I called my post writer's workshop.
In any case, I think having your off-the-cuff work mistaken for serious prose is at least as much of a compliment as "ROTFLMAO!!!!111", but maybe you don't see it that way.