well-paid people tend to be more liberal than conservative
I find that a better way to a priori determine liberal/conservative bias is this:
Living on someone else's money - liberal.
Living on your own money - conservative.
It works in so many ways - young people are strongly biased towards liberal: they live with their parents. PHDs are strongly biased towards liberal: they have tenure. Rich people from old money are strongly biased towards liberal: they do not work for their money. Actors, singers, etc: they do not work for their money, they get paid to play.
Middle aged people are biased towards conservative: they have to earn their way. Rich people that earned the money themselves: the had to earn their way.
Look at the statistics - it really does align very well.
Well, I did explain why you would tend to see incompetent CEOs - good CEOs are rare, and so sometimes you have to make do with what you can get. Your comparison of a bad CEO and a good social worker is a good one - a bad CEO destroys less value than a non-existing CEO, while a good social worker does not increase the "stuff" society has by much more than a non-existing social worker. That is the comparison - it is how would you fare doing without. That is what decides "fair pay".
Now it is totally true that without social workers, the world would be a worse place - but without social workers, the world would actually run more efficiently and produce more stuff. I think it is even more true that if 20% of the population would learn to be a CEO (or small business owner, as we would then have) the world would be amazingly better off. The problem with a shortage of CEOs is that companies tend to not have adequate competition (internally and externally), leading to the problems that you mention. The "bad people" getting more money than good people happens much more in large companies than in small ones - and generally happens in poorly managed large ones.
As for your table - thanks for pointing that data source out, it is an interesting read. I believe your point is that it is unfair for 5% of the people to get 20% of the value surplus created by society - either that or that it is increasing. As I read the data, 5% of society creates 80% of the value surplus of society - and we are gradually increasing the share of the surplus that those value creators get to keep (which is fair because they created it). You know that 90% of the good code is written by 10% of the programmers, right? The same thing is true elsewhere. By paying people based on how much they produce, everyone is incentivized to take jobs that are helpful to society instead of taking social worker jobs that make you feel good (but in my opinion, most social workers do more harm than good - look at the projects in Chicago).
Yes, there are inefficiencies - people with good negotiation skills end up with more pay, etc. But networking is incredibly important when you are talking about value creation, so even some of these things that look like inefficiencies are actually value creating. And some social workers take advantage of the people they are supposed to serve, but that doesn't mean much for the value of social workers.
I think you are looking for "fair". "Fair" doesn't exist, because what I think is "fair" is very different from what you think is "fair". Like I tell my daughter, life isn't fair - you just have to do the best you can with what you have!
people are paid according to their contribution to society
I have to admit, I really do believe that - almost by definition. Your example of contrasting a CEO and a social worker are the most telling to me - examine them closely. What happens if you remove a particular social worker from society? Either another one fills their place (because social workers are not really very differentiated), or we go without. Worst case, a few more children/people die than could have been. What happens if you remove a CEO from society? The amount of stuff that society can create goes down by the amount that the CEO was able to organize. Good CEOs are irreplaceable - if that was not true, they would not be getting the high salaries they command. Any person in the US can become a CEO at any time - incorporating a company in the US cost practically nothing. But the fact is, we (as humans) have a critical shortage of people that can turn the effort of others into stuff. We have no shortage of people to work - we have a critical shortage of people that can make work into something useful. The result - CEOs get paid ridiculous salaries, even though anyone off the street can become one (its not regulated), and CEOs are not typically very good at their job (because there is a shortage so we take what we can get).
You can talk about how a social worker has a more fullfilling job - perhaps you could discuss morals (although I beleive that if you do think the job of a social worker is more moral than the job of a CEO [ignoring the differences in actual people, just looking at the jobs], then you have something wrong with your moral structure).
Society pays people more for 2 things: 1) value to society, and 2) guns. If he's not using guns, and he's earning a high wage - he's helping society.
People born into rich families do not really get paid a lot comparatively - unless they are very good at resource allocation, another thing our society needs (though we seem to be better at that as a species than the CEO thing). If they aren't good at resource allocation, their money is quickly moved to those that do. That said, I do not believe that people should be able to give their kids large sums of money and power - mainly because it is bad for the kids. My will only allows my child to use any money for surviving until 18, and college.
You say that a lot of the deciding factors of income are related to the accident of birthplace - which is totally true. But if you go further, you will find the reason for this - who your parents are and what you are taught determines to a large extent how useful you will be to society. It is possible to a certain extent to learn to be a good CEO - at least above average. If your parents were CEOs, you are more likely to be one. But this can be circumvented by hard work and a little luck - my income has gone from living way below the poverty line due to injuries (and my father being away in a war, and let's face it: our military pay stinks!) to living far in excess of the average person. (I really reccommend everyone start a business, by the way. Even if it doesn't work out, what you learn doing it will make you MUCH more valuable to society.)
As for politics, I also greatly prefer the two dimensional representation - but many people have trouble with it. I am on the right, and a bit of a libertarian on most people's charts. The problem, of course, is that there is no real centerline - that was just where someone thought that the centerline belonged. (It is really funny to hear about how Europeans think the US is SO far right - it is, of course, just as valid to put the centerline way to the right of both of us. That way the US is much closer to center!)
Are you European, by chance? Your political views sound very European, so it would be rather interesting if you were an American.
Please excuse me - I'm going to take two quotes slightly out of context:
I realize I may be in the minority when I say that...the government should be forced to FIND another way
I'm curious about this - assuming that your are in the minority (which may or may not be true, but bear with me), would you still work to force the government to find another way? In other words, would you knowingly attempt to bypass the will of the people in this matter?
Obviously, it is an ethical/moral question - do you allow people to make decisions that you believe to be bad, and that have a perceived negative effect on you? Essentially, that is the contract of democracy... at least that is how I see it. What are your thoughts?
The only thing worth it: a better world. We may not get it, but we have to try!
It's just like the bully in middle school
Well, to be honest I found the most effective way to deal with a bully was to attack back - but an eye for an eye does leave the world blind, as you point out.
I do wish that the government didn't regulate everything within an inch of its life - but I think that is just what happens to "middle aged" countries. Me, I'm a young country guy - and I'm working on that as well.
I do respect your opinions, and really, I think that what makes our country great is the constant battle between two sides that are both right - but both are better in some ways, and worse in some ways.
But I do think there ARE times when it is necessary
I do agree with your sentiments (although I find myself more trusting of the people in the government and therefore lean more towards safety), but to me this statement is the crux of the matter. Even assuming angelic motives, the journalists that are exposing the classified information are in the worst position to make the determination of "is it necessary". They do not know why something is being done, and at some point you need to trust that the people in the NSA are doing the best they can. In the past, I could see editors thinking long and hard about what they would and would not reveal - even calling up the President and giving them a heads up. Not asking permission, mind you - but at least finding out what is really going on. (And to be honest, I am not liking what I am hearing from the CIA - all government enforcers must be apolitical [at least when viewed externally] or we will fall.)
My problem is just that I don't see editors concerned about leaking information - anything that damages the current administration is OK to leak. No one is considering "maybe we shouldn't", or "let's get an insider's viewpoint" - it's just tell everyone, let our enemies know exactly how we try to listen to them, etc.
To be honest, I think what we need is a higher standard for journalists. We need to arrest them and have a trial to determine if they should have leaked the information, or if they were putting their personal politics higher than the lives of those in uniform. I'm fine with someone that leaks "CIA reads grandma's email" getting off after a trial (or even before the trial if there is no objection) - but someone that leaks "here are the locations of the NSA's secret listening post concentrators, which may be used to read grandmas email but more likely are used to allow broadband, wide net secure communication or overseas spying" really needs to go to jail.
I mean really - read the evidence, and use the assumption of innocence. The evidence is: 1) the NSA has super secret rooms (well, they used to be super secret) and 2) those super secret rooms have direct access to the AT&T communication backbone. There is no evidence of wrong doing, there is only evidence of the capability of wrong doing. In other words, by these standards we are all rapists - we have the equipment...
I guess I just think that the journalists are going too far, and that this is very bad for the country. In the end, journalists abusing their duty to report the bad classified stuff will end up reducing the access journalists have to classified stuff.
An entirely different situation. That was about people compromising our ability to fight a war...
That is your opinion, and the opinion of Wired. However, the oposing viewpoint is that we are fighting a war of information. How long did Bin Laden keep using his phone once a journalist published that an intercept came from listening in on his phone calls? (That did really happen - though a congressman had told him, so it was an excusable oversight)
Publishing information about how we learn about attacks does not make us safer - because "bad guys" will now know more about how to circumvent the NSA's monitoring.
Personally, I believe that this does compromise our ability to wage the war we are in right now. The only question is how many deaths each freedom is worth. It is not zero deaths. I don't know how many it is, but is your father overseas right now? Is your brother? Would you go and sacrifice your life if you thought (not knew, just thought - soldiers always doubt) you could keep the rest of us free?
I believe the pendulum must move back towards freedom - but giving journalists a blank check to expose classified material is just a bad idea.
I think the real point you are trying to make with #1 is that having an IQ below 100 does not make you an idiot - and you're right, it doesn't. My point was simply that, in a democracy, you do quit well to target the lower half of the population - so both parties do it. (Presumably the smart people will not be convinced by retoric - at least that's the theory)
That said, IQ is a rather silly notion in my opinion - everyone has the area where they stand out, where they are better than most. IQ is one, rather insignifcant, dimension of a multidimensional human. It is merely interesting to people because humans are inherently so hard to measure that IQ is one of the best working models we have.
I agree completely - and that is the point that should be argued in this case! Not "why wasn't I notified of this top secret project", but do we still need top secret projects. What are we going to do about this war that will not end for 20 years? We cannot have Guantomino indefinately. We cannot have unfettered serveliance indefinately. But without those, we will be overrun by terrorists. Or will we?
One thing we do know is that terrorists inspire other terrorists. We see a gradual build up in attacks until we hit back, and then they back off - until we get complacent again and the cycle starts over. After 9/11, there was a clear and present danger to the US - those attacks prodded terrorists all over the world to target the US. There were 2 more attempted attacks by non-al queda parties before we had even made a counterattack - fortunately, due to heightened awareness these attempts were foiled.
At what point do you back off, and say we went too far? Right now, if we back off people will die - but liberty is worth deaths. The question is how many deaths - or to put it simply, how soon do we back out of the emergency measures put in place.
Every war has had a severe decrease in liberties in the beginning, followed by grumbling, followed by an increase in liberties after the war. We do need to get rid of the Patriot Act, and all the other emergency measures - simply because if we don't then they will be abused. But if we get rid of them too soon, we will turn to a Ceasar style dictatorship (where the people gladly give the President unlimited power because "everyone" is dying after the next attack). If we get rid of them too late, we will turn into an Orwellian nightmare because we will get people in office that are "used to" the power and will fight too hard to protect it.
This is not a simple issue, and I think it is counter productive to simplify it - and really, the timing seems to be split across party lines, which is always a warning signal to me.
Well, if someone must lose I will lose for you. I'm OK, I can take it. But I guess the pointof my argument was not the he was biased. I did point out his bias (which is a useful thing apart from arguing any points - some people have pointed out my biases in several instances, which really helped me to understand their side of the issue), but then I went on to describe why I thought his information was incorrect.
Just an aside, arguing with people that you are right because they are dumb doesn't really work. Definately doesn't get people elected, regardless of merit.
Wow - that's some very strong coolaid you have there!
So 3/4ths of the people are of average or higher intelligence
Um. Um. Wow. Just wow.
The "They don't really value freedom, so we might as well not 'give' it to them" argument
Whose argument is that?
40% of the common people repeatedly tell pollsters they already want Bush impeached
Where did you get this? Is President Bush doing a good job, yes or no. And no means you actually want him impeached? Fascinating. What I find incredible is that 30% of the people think he is doing a good job - I don't think he is evil, but I have trouble describing his administration as doing a good job.
So in summary, if I subscribe to your newsletter: 1) Everyone will be above average 2) Anyone that values freedom will dig out the facts about every government initative, but bad guys will not 3) The government will voluntarily give up power 4) If anyone thinks I don't do a good job I will be arrested
Hm. Any takers yet? I think I will have to pass on this one.
a) there are bad guys b) there is information that bad guys could use to hurt you and c) there is no way to prevent the bad guys from knowing what most of the good guys know.
In this case, the best you can do is to limit the number of good guys that know - but make sure that the knowlegable good guys interests are not aligned, so that there will be good vetting of data/ops. That's the system we have - covert ops does stuff, but they must report to a very few Congressmen. These Congressmen have the power to shut the ops down if things are going wrong. This process was followed - though possibly not completely, which is where we need information (I don't need to know that YOU have no idea what is going on, but I do need to know if the oversight committe had no idea!).
This system can be abused, obviously. This system almost certainly is abused to a certain extent (as any system invovling controlling humans will be). However I believe this system is FAR better than allowing journalists to decide whether they should publish clasified data or not.
You may disagree, and that is your right. You may even convince me if you can present a good argument - and if you can convince me, we could probably get the law changed. But you cannot decide that since you disagree, you can ignore the law and publish the data. (Well, you can, but you will go to jail most likely).
Well, all things are relative, I suppose. I think they are pretty far left, except in the things you mentioned;-}
The thing is, it is very hard for the upper x% to argue for anything other than a meritocracy. Unions serve to make everyone get the same rewards, regardless of effort or ability - so it brings up the slackers and down the hackers, so you can easily see why hackers would be against it.
A simpler metric might be: Who thinks that Clinton is better than Bush? Who thinks that Bush is better than Clinton?
Or if that is unfair, who was better Regan or Clinton? Both men seemed to be very popular with their constituancies - where do you think slashdot would fall?
Personally, I don't really think Slashdot is that far left, really. I think that most of the annoying adolescents are far left, and they are the ones giving the crazy mods.
Well, as I have said elsewhere, if what he claims is 1) true (probably is), and 2) is unusual - then people need to raise a ruckuss and change things. But when I look into the facts of the situation, what I see is people screaming "why wasn't I told" who are not even in the government, and Congressman with no need to know (as in not on the oversight committees) screaming "why wasn't I told". So my take away is that the Democrats are playing politics because they do not see the danger in doing so.
I believe such politics is extremely dangerous - because either they are really helping the enemy, or they are spamming the information wells so that I don't ever hear about Senator Ron Wyden (assuming that he was supposed to be informed and was not).
BTW, I am rather impressed with what I read about Senator Wyden - I wish there were more like him in office.
Um, you're not? You are not a congressperson - there is no reason you should know about secure ops. The way this works is that you elect the president, and you elect congress to keep tabs on things.
The security committe knew about all this stuff - and they were the only people that were supposed to know.
Should we take it down? YES. But increasing survelliance and decreasing rights during a time of war is necessary, and has happened in every war. And just like this one, after the war everyone complains and fights the government to get there rights back (and the government has always fought the people, not wanting to give up their power). We have a system, it doesn't involve guns.
But it does involve extremists taking extreme positions (and getting on the news), so don't let me stand in your way. Be carefull that you only make the "big push" after the war is over, so that the "common man" doesn't tire of your tirade before it is effective.
Conservatives stand for the ideas of the Founding Fathers.
And yet our founding father executed several people as spies - for publishing military information to our enemies. The situation is not as black and white as you make it out to be. (For example, by having Wired publish this we are having the least informed person make the disclosure decision. Remember, these programs have bi-partisan Congressional oversight - but only by the security committee. The Congressmen that are posturing are just using the fact that they are not on the committe for political gain. Don't be naive, look for the motivations of your representative.)
It's the sort of political ideology that resonantes with the less intelligent people of society.
Ah - no bias here! Honestly, the same could be said about any political party. Half of the people have an IQ less than 100. Very few have a high IQ (above 140 or so). Dumb people out vote you, get over it. (As a collorary to what I said above, your representative is primarily conserned with convincing those that do not check facts, but watch the news. Always check the facts! [BTW, as a republican you should be reading this site for an opposing viewpoint. I'm not sure what you should do as a Democrat - is the Drudge Report any good?])
And I find it laughable that someone (the grandparent) is worried about getting modded down by conservatives. Conservatives? Slashdot?
Watch, this comment will be modded down by liberals - virtually guaranteed!
Actually, the Bible is a terrible book from the standpoint of unambiguously defining good and bad. Personally, I think that this is a major point of the Bible - that we need to think for ourselves in addition to following the basic commandments.
For example, show me the Bible section that says Gays go to Hell - and I will show you the section that pretty much does the same for all males. (Mat 5:28)
The key to Christianity is tolerance, love and forgiveness. And if you think a Gay guy is going to Hell while your sins are "lesser", I wouldn't want to be you meeting Jesus!
I don't know - I read his evidence yesterday and while I thought that it should be looked into, my first read was "man, this guy is wacko".
I mean really, what with all the union throwins, etc?
After I got over that, the evidence did not say "illegal" all over it, though it did not rule out illegal things either. For example, the NSA having access to the AT&T backbone connection is absolutely necessary for them to do their jobs - the question is what filtering algorithm was used?
Or is the assumption that they are "backing up the internet"?
OK, you may now mod me down for disagreeing with you.
Hm... I hadn't really thought about the resources angle - for me, I wanted to own those resources myself; but I admit I am rather strange. I still think the "best of the best" would be able to avoid all the political stuff that goes on - because they can always get a job somewhere else very easily, so they can get what they want (Though as you point out, that may not be pay).
I have worked for DOD (the government) and also for large startups, and (not to tout myself too highly) I have to consider myself above average. What I have found in those situations is that a manager will "take ownership" of my services, and basically eliminate the need for me to deal with the politics of working in those environments. My competition was still a meritocracy, even in those environments - but only because my very good work made whoever attached themselves to me look good, so our interests were aligned.
Well - look closely at your statements. You are basically saying that corporate america is not a meritocracy - and I would definately agree. Most of corporate america seems to be infighting about who gets the handouts - not that much different than the government, really.
Here is my list, going from mediocracy to meritocracy:
US Government Local Government Unions Corporate america Mid-sized startups small startups single person companies (consulting, etc.)
Basically, ask yourself "if I stopped producing and instead worked only to keep my job (without producing any saleable output), how long would I earn a living?"
The shorter the time period, the more a meritocracy you work in, the higher your pay grade (assuming you are above average), and the more you get done.
(I work for the bottom two, BTW - and for anyone interested in this type of work, I recommend keeping at least 2 jobs going at any time)
Slashdot Mirror
well-paid people tend to be more liberal than conservative
I find that a better way to a priori determine liberal/conservative bias is this:
Living on someone else's money - liberal.
Living on your own money - conservative.
It works in so many ways - young people are strongly biased towards liberal: they live with their parents. PHDs are strongly biased towards liberal: they have tenure. Rich people from old money are strongly biased towards liberal: they do not work for their money. Actors, singers, etc: they do not work for their money, they get paid to play.
Middle aged people are biased towards conservative: they have to earn their way. Rich people that earned the money themselves: the had to earn their way.
Look at the statistics - it really does align very well.
Well, I did explain why you would tend to see incompetent CEOs - good CEOs are rare, and so sometimes you have to make do with what you can get. Your comparison of a bad CEO and a good social worker is a good one - a bad CEO destroys less value than a non-existing CEO, while a good social worker does not increase the "stuff" society has by much more than a non-existing social worker. That is the comparison - it is how would you fare doing without. That is what decides "fair pay".
Now it is totally true that without social workers, the world would be a worse place - but without social workers, the world would actually run more efficiently and produce more stuff. I think it is even more true that if 20% of the population would learn to be a CEO (or small business owner, as we would then have) the world would be amazingly better off. The problem with a shortage of CEOs is that companies tend to not have adequate competition (internally and externally), leading to the problems that you mention. The "bad people" getting more money than good people happens much more in large companies than in small ones - and generally happens in poorly managed large ones.
As for your table - thanks for pointing that data source out, it is an interesting read. I believe your point is that it is unfair for 5% of the people to get 20% of the value surplus created by society - either that or that it is increasing. As I read the data, 5% of society creates 80% of the value surplus of society - and we are gradually increasing the share of the surplus that those value creators get to keep (which is fair because they created it). You know that 90% of the good code is written by 10% of the programmers, right? The same thing is true elsewhere. By paying people based on how much they produce, everyone is incentivized to take jobs that are helpful to society instead of taking social worker jobs that make you feel good (but in my opinion, most social workers do more harm than good - look at the projects in Chicago).
Yes, there are inefficiencies - people with good negotiation skills end up with more pay, etc. But networking is incredibly important when you are talking about value creation, so even some of these things that look like inefficiencies are actually value creating. And some social workers take advantage of the people they are supposed to serve, but that doesn't mean much for the value of social workers.
I think you are looking for "fair". "Fair" doesn't exist, because what I think is "fair" is very different from what you think is "fair". Like I tell my daughter, life isn't fair - you just have to do the best you can with what you have!
people are paid according to their contribution to society
I have to admit, I really do believe that - almost by definition. Your example of contrasting a CEO and a social worker are the most telling to me - examine them closely. What happens if you remove a particular social worker from society? Either another one fills their place (because social workers are not really very differentiated), or we go without. Worst case, a few more children/people die than could have been. What happens if you remove a CEO from society? The amount of stuff that society can create goes down by the amount that the CEO was able to organize. Good CEOs are irreplaceable - if that was not true, they would not be getting the high salaries they command. Any person in the US can become a CEO at any time - incorporating a company in the US cost practically nothing. But the fact is, we (as humans) have a critical shortage of people that can turn the effort of others into stuff. We have no shortage of people to work - we have a critical shortage of people that can make work into something useful. The result - CEOs get paid ridiculous salaries, even though anyone off the street can become one (its not regulated), and CEOs are not typically very good at their job (because there is a shortage so we take what we can get).
You can talk about how a social worker has a more fullfilling job - perhaps you could discuss morals (although I beleive that if you do think the job of a social worker is more moral than the job of a CEO [ignoring the differences in actual people, just looking at the jobs], then you have something wrong with your moral structure).
Society pays people more for 2 things: 1) value to society, and 2) guns. If he's not using guns, and he's earning a high wage - he's helping society.
People born into rich families do not really get paid a lot comparatively - unless they are very good at resource allocation, another thing our society needs (though we seem to be better at that as a species than the CEO thing). If they aren't good at resource allocation, their money is quickly moved to those that do. That said, I do not believe that people should be able to give their kids large sums of money and power - mainly because it is bad for the kids. My will only allows my child to use any money for surviving until 18, and college.
You say that a lot of the deciding factors of income are related to the accident of birthplace - which is totally true. But if you go further, you will find the reason for this - who your parents are and what you are taught determines to a large extent how useful you will be to society. It is possible to a certain extent to learn to be a good CEO - at least above average. If your parents were CEOs, you are more likely to be one. But this can be circumvented by hard work and a little luck - my income has gone from living way below the poverty line due to injuries (and my father being away in a war, and let's face it: our military pay stinks!) to living far in excess of the average person. (I really reccommend everyone start a business, by the way. Even if it doesn't work out, what you learn doing it will make you MUCH more valuable to society.)
As for politics, I also greatly prefer the two dimensional representation - but many people have trouble with it. I am on the right, and a bit of a libertarian on most people's charts. The problem, of course, is that there is no real centerline - that was just where someone thought that the centerline belonged. (It is really funny to hear about how Europeans think the US is SO far right - it is, of course, just as valid to put the centerline way to the right of both of us. That way the US is much closer to center!)
Are you European, by chance? Your political views sound very European, so it would be rather interesting if you were an American.
Please excuse me - I'm going to take two quotes slightly out of context:
I realize I may be in the minority when I say that...the government should be forced to FIND another way
I'm curious about this - assuming that your are in the minority (which may or may not be true, but bear with me), would you still work to force the government to find another way? In other words, would you knowingly attempt to bypass the will of the people in this matter?
Obviously, it is an ethical/moral question - do you allow people to make decisions that you believe to be bad, and that have a perceived negative effect on you? Essentially, that is the contract of democracy... at least that is how I see it. What are your thoughts?
What exactly have you sacrificed for?
The only thing worth it: a better world. We may not get it, but we have to try!
It's just like the bully in middle school
Well, to be honest I found the most effective way to deal with a bully was to attack back - but an eye for an eye does leave the world blind, as you point out.
I do wish that the government didn't regulate everything within an inch of its life - but I think that is just what happens to "middle aged" countries. Me, I'm a young country guy - and I'm working on that as well.
I do respect your opinions, and really, I think that what makes our country great is the constant battle between two sides that are both right - but both are better in some ways, and worse in some ways.
I agree absolutely! Well, I guess mostly - I think in times of war solidarity may become more important - though possibly not...
But I do think there ARE times when it is necessary
I do agree with your sentiments (although I find myself more trusting of the people in the government and therefore lean more towards safety), but to me this statement is the crux of the matter. Even assuming angelic motives, the journalists that are exposing the classified information are in the worst position to make the determination of "is it necessary". They do not know why something is being done, and at some point you need to trust that the people in the NSA are doing the best they can. In the past, I could see editors thinking long and hard about what they would and would not reveal - even calling up the President and giving them a heads up. Not asking permission, mind you - but at least finding out what is really going on. (And to be honest, I am not liking what I am hearing from the CIA - all government enforcers must be apolitical [at least when viewed externally] or we will fall.)
My problem is just that I don't see editors concerned about leaking information - anything that damages the current administration is OK to leak. No one is considering "maybe we shouldn't", or "let's get an insider's viewpoint" - it's just tell everyone, let our enemies know exactly how we try to listen to them, etc.
To be honest, I think what we need is a higher standard for journalists. We need to arrest them and have a trial to determine if they should have leaked the information, or if they were putting their personal politics higher than the lives of those in uniform. I'm fine with someone that leaks "CIA reads grandma's email" getting off after a trial (or even before the trial if there is no objection) - but someone that leaks "here are the locations of the NSA's secret listening post concentrators, which may be used to read grandmas email but more likely are used to allow broadband, wide net secure communication or overseas spying" really needs to go to jail.
I mean really - read the evidence, and use the assumption of innocence. The evidence is: 1) the NSA has super secret rooms (well, they used to be super secret) and 2) those super secret rooms have direct access to the AT&T communication backbone. There is no evidence of wrong doing, there is only evidence of the capability of wrong doing. In other words, by these standards we are all rapists - we have the equipment...
I guess I just think that the journalists are going too far, and that this is very bad for the country. In the end, journalists abusing their duty to report the bad classified stuff will end up reducing the access journalists have to classified stuff.
And that is bad!
If you must know, I am disabled so I could not go. My father is there. My brothers in law are there. My best friend is there.
I became disabled serving others.
I think calling me a coward is rather laughable.
An entirely different situation. That was about people compromising our ability to fight a war...
That is your opinion, and the opinion of Wired. However, the oposing viewpoint is that we are fighting a war of information. How long did Bin Laden keep using his phone once a journalist published that an intercept came from listening in on his phone calls? (That did really happen - though a congressman had told him, so it was an excusable oversight)
Publishing information about how we learn about attacks does not make us safer - because "bad guys" will now know more about how to circumvent the NSA's monitoring.
Personally, I believe that this does compromise our ability to wage the war we are in right now. The only question is how many deaths each freedom is worth. It is not zero deaths. I don't know how many it is, but is your father overseas right now? Is your brother? Would you go and sacrifice your life if you thought (not knew, just thought - soldiers always doubt) you could keep the rest of us free?
I believe the pendulum must move back towards freedom - but giving journalists a blank check to expose classified material is just a bad idea.
I think the real point you are trying to make with #1 is that having an IQ below 100 does not make you an idiot - and you're right, it doesn't. My point was simply that, in a democracy, you do quit well to target the lower half of the population - so both parties do it. (Presumably the smart people will not be convinced by retoric - at least that's the theory)
That said, IQ is a rather silly notion in my opinion - everyone has the area where they stand out, where they are better than most. IQ is one, rather insignifcant, dimension of a multidimensional human. It is merely interesting to people because humans are inherently so hard to measure that IQ is one of the best working models we have.
Obviously, you are an obstructionist, with pigeon-like tendancies ;-}
On a (only slightly) more serious note, wouldn't that make an interesting Slashdot poll?
I assume you are calling me a coward. I sure hope you are in Iraq posting that... what is your unit?
I agree completely - and that is the point that should be argued in this case! Not "why wasn't I notified of this top secret project", but do we still need top secret projects. What are we going to do about this war that will not end for 20 years? We cannot have Guantomino indefinately. We cannot have unfettered serveliance indefinately. But without those, we will be overrun by terrorists. Or will we?
One thing we do know is that terrorists inspire other terrorists. We see a gradual build up in attacks until we hit back, and then they back off - until we get complacent again and the cycle starts over. After 9/11, there was a clear and present danger to the US - those attacks prodded terrorists all over the world to target the US. There were 2 more attempted attacks by non-al queda parties before we had even made a counterattack - fortunately, due to heightened awareness these attempts were foiled.
At what point do you back off, and say we went too far? Right now, if we back off people will die - but liberty is worth deaths. The question is how many deaths - or to put it simply, how soon do we back out of the emergency measures put in place.
Every war has had a severe decrease in liberties in the beginning, followed by grumbling, followed by an increase in liberties after the war. We do need to get rid of the Patriot Act, and all the other emergency measures - simply because if we don't then they will be abused. But if we get rid of them too soon, we will turn to a Ceasar style dictatorship (where the people gladly give the President unlimited power because "everyone" is dying after the next attack). If we get rid of them too late, we will turn into an Orwellian nightmare because we will get people in office that are "used to" the power and will fight too hard to protect it.
This is not a simple issue, and I think it is counter productive to simplify it - and really, the timing seems to be split across party lines, which is always a warning signal to me.
Well, if someone must lose I will lose for you. I'm OK, I can take it. But I guess the pointof my argument was not the he was biased. I did point out his bias (which is a useful thing apart from arguing any points - some people have pointed out my biases in several instances, which really helped me to understand their side of the issue), but then I went on to describe why I thought his information was incorrect.
Just an aside, arguing with people that you are right because they are dumb doesn't really work. Definately doesn't get people elected, regardless of merit.
But by all means, you win.
Wow - that's some very strong coolaid you have there!
So 3/4ths of the people are of average or higher intelligence
Um. Um. Wow. Just wow.
The "They don't really value freedom, so we might as well not 'give' it to them" argument
Whose argument is that?
40% of the common people repeatedly tell pollsters they already want Bush impeached
Where did you get this? Is President Bush doing a good job, yes or no. And no means you actually want him impeached? Fascinating. What I find incredible is that 30% of the people think he is doing a good job - I don't think he is evil, but I have trouble describing his administration as doing a good job.
So in summary, if I subscribe to your newsletter:
1) Everyone will be above average
2) Anyone that values freedom will dig out the facts about every government initative, but bad guys will not
3) The government will voluntarily give up power
4) If anyone thinks I don't do a good job I will be arrested
Hm. Any takers yet? I think I will have to pass on this one.
Unfortunately, such a system does not work when:
a) there are bad guys
b) there is information that bad guys could use to hurt you
and c) there is no way to prevent the bad guys from knowing what most of the good guys know.
In this case, the best you can do is to limit the number of good guys that know - but make sure that the knowlegable good guys interests are not aligned, so that there will be good vetting of data/ops. That's the system we have - covert ops does stuff, but they must report to a very few Congressmen. These Congressmen have the power to shut the ops down if things are going wrong. This process was followed - though possibly not completely, which is where we need information (I don't need to know that YOU have no idea what is going on, but I do need to know if the oversight committe had no idea!).
This system can be abused, obviously. This system almost certainly is abused to a certain extent (as any system invovling controlling humans will be). However I believe this system is FAR better than allowing journalists to decide whether they should publish clasified data or not.
You may disagree, and that is your right. You may even convince me if you can present a good argument - and if you can convince me, we could probably get the law changed. But you cannot decide that since you disagree, you can ignore the law and publish the data. (Well, you can, but you will go to jail most likely).
Well, all things are relative, I suppose. I think they are pretty far left, except in the things you mentioned ;-}
The thing is, it is very hard for the upper x% to argue for anything other than a meritocracy. Unions serve to make everyone get the same rewards, regardless of effort or ability - so it brings up the slackers and down the hackers, so you can easily see why hackers would be against it.
A simpler metric might be: Who thinks that Clinton is better than Bush? Who thinks that Bush is better than Clinton?
Or if that is unfair, who was better Regan or Clinton? Both men seemed to be very popular with their constituancies - where do you think slashdot would fall?
Personally, I don't really think Slashdot is that far left, really. I think that most of the annoying adolescents are far left, and they are the ones giving the crazy mods.
Well, as I have said elsewhere, if what he claims is 1) true (probably is), and 2) is unusual - then people need to raise a ruckuss and change things. But when I look into the facts of the situation, what I see is people screaming "why wasn't I told" who are not even in the government, and Congressman with no need to know (as in not on the oversight committees) screaming "why wasn't I told". So my take away is that the Democrats are playing politics because they do not see the danger in doing so.
I believe such politics is extremely dangerous - because either they are really helping the enemy, or they are spamming the information wells so that I don't ever hear about Senator Ron Wyden (assuming that he was supposed to be informed and was not).
BTW, I am rather impressed with what I read about Senator Wyden - I wish there were more like him in office.
What's funny is that your claim is refuted by the very first link that comes up in google.
Heh!
So, just exactly how am I supposed to figure out
Um, you're not? You are not a congressperson - there is no reason you should know about secure ops. The way this works is that you elect the president, and you elect congress to keep tabs on things.
The security committe knew about all this stuff - and they were the only people that were supposed to know.
Should we take it down? YES. But increasing survelliance and decreasing rights during a time of war is necessary, and has happened in every war. And just like this one, after the war everyone complains and fights the government to get there rights back (and the government has always fought the people, not wanting to give up their power). We have a system, it doesn't involve guns.
But it does involve extremists taking extreme positions (and getting on the news), so don't let me stand in your way. Be carefull that you only make the "big push" after the war is over, so that the "common man" doesn't tire of your tirade before it is effective.
Conservatives stand for the ideas of the Founding Fathers.
And yet our founding father executed several people as spies - for publishing military information to our enemies. The situation is not as black and white as you make it out to be. (For example, by having Wired publish this we are having the least informed person make the disclosure decision. Remember, these programs have bi-partisan Congressional oversight - but only by the security committee. The Congressmen that are posturing are just using the fact that they are not on the committe for political gain. Don't be naive, look for the motivations of your representative.)
It's the sort of political ideology that resonantes with the less intelligent people of society.
Ah - no bias here! Honestly, the same could be said about any political party. Half of the people have an IQ less than 100. Very few have a high IQ (above 140 or so). Dumb people out vote you, get over it. (As a collorary to what I said above, your representative is primarily conserned with convincing those that do not check facts, but watch the news. Always check the facts! [BTW, as a republican you should be reading this site for an opposing viewpoint. I'm not sure what you should do as a Democrat - is the Drudge Report any good?])
And I find it laughable that someone (the grandparent) is worried about getting modded down by conservatives. Conservatives? Slashdot?
Watch, this comment will be modded down by liberals - virtually guaranteed!
Actually, the Bible is a terrible book from the standpoint of unambiguously defining good and bad. Personally, I think that this is a major point of the Bible - that we need to think for ourselves in addition to following the basic commandments.
For example, show me the Bible section that says Gays go to Hell - and I will show you the section that pretty much does the same for all males. (Mat 5:28)
The key to Christianity is tolerance, love and forgiveness. And if you think a Gay guy is going to Hell while your sins are "lesser", I wouldn't want to be you meeting Jesus!
I don't know - I read his evidence yesterday and while I thought that it should be looked into, my first read was "man, this guy is wacko".
I mean really, what with all the union throwins, etc?
After I got over that, the evidence did not say "illegal" all over it, though it did not rule out illegal things either. For example, the NSA having access to the AT&T backbone connection is absolutely necessary for them to do their jobs - the question is what filtering algorithm was used?
Or is the assumption that they are "backing up the internet"?
OK, you may now mod me down for disagreeing with you.
Hm... I hadn't really thought about the resources angle - for me, I wanted to own those resources myself; but I admit I am rather strange. I still think the "best of the best" would be able to avoid all the political stuff that goes on - because they can always get a job somewhere else very easily, so they can get what they want (Though as you point out, that may not be pay).
I have worked for DOD (the government) and also for large startups, and (not to tout myself too highly) I have to consider myself above average. What I have found in those situations is that a manager will "take ownership" of my services, and basically eliminate the need for me to deal with the politics of working in those environments. My competition was still a meritocracy, even in those environments - but only because my very good work made whoever attached themselves to me look good, so our interests were aligned.
YMMV
Well - look closely at your statements. You are basically saying that corporate america is not a meritocracy - and I would definately agree. Most of corporate america seems to be infighting about who gets the handouts - not that much different than the government, really.
Here is my list, going from mediocracy to meritocracy:
US Government
Local Government
Unions
Corporate america
Mid-sized startups
small startups
single person companies (consulting, etc.)
Basically, ask yourself "if I stopped producing and instead worked only to keep my job (without producing any saleable output), how long would I earn a living?"
The shorter the time period, the more a meritocracy you work in, the higher your pay grade (assuming you are above average), and the more you get done.
(I work for the bottom two, BTW - and for anyone interested in this type of work, I recommend keeping at least 2 jobs going at any time)