A human researcher is needed only if the communication link to Earth is unacceptably slow. But even that can be dealt with by sending smarter robots. A human does not have built-in hi-res cameras or chemical labs or lasers in fingers. Robots do. Who is better now?
The human. What you're saying is that the human has a little overhead and requires a little better handling so you need to pay more upfront. But in turn you get a lot more capability.
Reading some of the back and forth in this thread, I have to point out that having an affair, especially a secret one, is a job performance issue in the intelligence world.
The market was not working well, it was broken and being exploited. A market does not take advantage of people's misfortune for the sake of increasing profits ten fold.
Far better that we give these people no options at all than an expensive one? As I've said before in this particular discussion, it's interesting how some people think it's more important that people not be exploited than they have a means to get the things they need.
If someone is just using an emergency to gouge desperate people around them and make a quick buck, fuck them.
So what do you do about the desperate people? At least the "gouger" was providing something they needed and were willing to pay for. I guess this is the "Sucks to be you" strategy.
What space ship? The Space Shuttle only operated in Earth orbit and wasn't designed for deep space operation. That's why it had limited capabilities such as propellant and life support (for a couple of weeks) and needed a warm planet, Earth covering up half of the horizon.
If you're worried about cost, then don't do anything at all. For all the talk of robots, humans make pretty good robots for surface exploration. Humans also make good decision makers should we ever want to do things outside of the Earth-Moon system without a huge speed of light lag coming from doing everything from Earth.
Any regulation that a foreign entity does not like fits your description.
No, it doesn't. Making stupid arguments doesn't help your case. I see I've reached the limits of what persuasion can do. Either you'll come some day to see the wisdom of my words, or you'll dwell in ignorance for the rest of your life.
As to the role of government in the creation of the Internet, of course the credit goes to the individual scientists. I leave it as an exercise to you to figure out how many of them held jobs at publicly sponsored institutions versus private ones at the time, and in case of the latter where working with public grants. Really not rocket science to figure that out.
Once again, because there was some government assistance, government gets the credit. However, the thinking person can see that academia helped more than government to create the open standards that make up our internet. And that's further evidence for my original assertion that the internet would be open even in the absence of government support.
Let us also keep in mind that the US government has supported all sorts of walled gardens in its time (eg, PLATO, the AT&T monopoly).
What's so interesting about it? No really, clue me in as I consider myself an amoral sociopath.
It's the inherent paradox and cognitive dissonance. Something beneficial is forbidden because it somehow seems unfair.
There's no rational reason to be against people killing each other, only moral. No, spare me the rationalizations on how civilization came to be because we build things instead of killing and destroying
So I'm supposed to argue this one with a hand tied behind my back? I'm not that dumb. Sounds like you've already argued the point for me. Sure, once you exclude rational reasons (such as societal prohibitions against killing helping keep societies together) to be against people killing each other, then you end up with the rest.
Sure, there are allowed means to kill. But why should I be allowed to kill when I have nothing at stake and am bothered just because something goes against my sense of fairness?
As to the original point, what is "petty"? I consider killing innocent people because you don't want icky price gouging to be petty. Killing people to survive (especially for your society to survive) is not petty.
In fact, killing each other is a defining trait of humanity. Animals usually only kill for survival. We humans are pretty much #1 in making up all sorts of reason to kill each other.
No, any aggressively territorial animal does that even if survival isn't at stake. For example, a lot of social birds can be pretty nasty with gang rapes, chick kidnappings, etc. Lots of animals will kill young that aren't related to them. It's just obvious with us, because survival is so easy.
If you want to make money, fuck off - these people deserve better.
You know who's getting fucked here? The people who deserve better. It's interesting how people willing kill other people for their own petty moral arguments.
Price gouging is raising the price because of a scarcity due to an event considered to be or creating an emergency. The government steps in because the markets can't work and people are subject to necessity that wouldn't otherwise be present in a civilized society.
Except that prior to government interference, the market was working quite well. You "fix" the market by breaking it? Do you realize how little sense that makes?
I think the water problem is exaggerated. I wouldn't recommend building in Southern California, Arizona, or Utah, if you need a lot of water. But most of the mid-West and East should be good. Just park your factory by a river or lake.
If the WTO is doesn't call it protectionism it is not protectionism.
This is an erroneous argument from authority.
You cannot just make up your own definition.
Ok.
Definition of 'Protectionism':
Government actions and policies that restrict or restrain international trade, often done with the intent of protecting local businesses and jobs from foreign competition. Typical methods of protectionism are import tariffs, quotas, subsidies or tax cuts to local businesses and direct state intervention.
They have in mind tariffs and other such things. But regulation that has the effect of inhibiting foreign competition in turn is restricting international trade. Hence, my examples are cases of protectionism just as you requested.
You can also not re-write history: The Internet is older than AOL or Compuserve and the interesting content there was user generated (FAQs) or provided and hosted by research agencies such as NASA and CERN (where the web was invented).
BITNET, UUCPNET, and FIDONET are more examples of private networks. FIDONET is particularly interesting since it is a truly independent part that merged with the internet (well, so is Compuserve and AOL, but apparently those don't count). And most users contributed their content as private citizens or employees of private businesses or non profits.
It always puzzles me how the US government can meddle in the early days of the formation of the internet and inherit credit for everything. Why aren't we blaming academia and associated businesses (like AT&T) instead for the internet? They are the ones who actually made the internet happen.
They're apparently his continually updated forecast.
You want your predictions to be understandable. Often point odds in American Football center around 3 & 7 points. Why? Those are the easiest, most likely ways to score points. Maybe an expert in discrete predictions can chime in.
I'm chiming in. Even if he really could measure his estimate of the likelihood that Obama would win to three places (and he can't), it's not useful to us to have that much precision.
How ironic (and fitting) that a land where people who still to this day wish for the good old days of slavery and cotton farms to return will soon be working in the modern equivalent of the cotton farm.
Where would this land be? You aren't speaking of Alabama or Louisiana.
What's in a name? "Metcalfe's Law" will have a hard time accounting for the fact that Facebook manages to tie people back into a reservation.
Why? Facebook is Metcalfe's Law in action. What's happened to all the Facebook competitors? It's a pretty big reservation.
"Show us that isn't true first."
Spoken like a true ideologist.
Ideology isn't wanting reasons for why you say things. I can't be bothered to figure out your reasons for why you say things when you can't be bothered to explain them either.
"You asked for non-agricultural examples of protectionism and I gave you them. "
So WTO does not classify it as protectionism but it is nevertheless protectionism because you say so.
It's not WTO's job to classify all forms of protectionism. And as you note, some forms of protectionism aren't recognized as being within the purview of the WTO. But again, you asked for examples and I gave you examples.
Hawala networks are transactional networks (think visa, paypal) not markets (e.g. ebay).
Hawala networks are both transactional networks and markets. They aren't like Paypal because the network isn't owned by a single entity. With Paypal, you have to use Paypal or you can't use the network. With Hawala networks, you can always change brokers. So there's a collection of services being offered by these brokers and a bunch of customers who want to use these services. That's standard market fare.
"My view is that the wealthier China is, the freer it will become."
That's a hope not a strategy.
That's an educated opinion based on observations of what happened to Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.
Because the Western world greedily gave them the IP to build marketable stuff. What exactly did they produce that was of any interest before the Western world invested and started outsourcing?
So what? They're producing now.
As to the Internet, have you been around when AOL was blanketing everything with their CDs?
The reason these walled gardens went away was the pre-existing Internet that offered interesting content so that these services hooked up to it.
And these preexisting services were privately created.
Well, I guess that depends on why you're taking drugs. But I wager reflection and contemplation is better for a lot of people than their drug of choice.
Three digits of precision is not at all unreasonable.
No way. We're looking at a lot of errors, not only from sample size (thousands is not big enough to justify three digits of precision), but also from poll errors (some which would be systemic and common to several polls) and errors from Silver's voting model. One digit is all you can ask for under such circumstances and even that may yield a false sense of accuracy.
You know what I believe? I believe it would be a damn shame if a person who is willing to buy gas at say $150 per gallon, couldn't buy gas at any price.
"Metcalfe's Law" - just because you call it a law doesn't make it so, especially in economics.
I called it that because that is its name. It's also worth noting that it actually works in practice and played a significant role in the development of the actual internet. After all, there were walled gardens like AOL and Compuserve and those don't exist any more.
You seem to argue from a libertarian standpoint that assumes that markets naturally blossom and always create the best outcome.
Show us that isn't true first.
None of the EU regulations that you cite are WTO accepted barriers to free trade.
Of course not. The EU is not stupid about signing away its trade barriers. You asked for non-agricultural examples of protectionism and I gave you them. I didn't say they were illegal.
Markets are created by fiat. If there was no government that enforces a level playing field you won't get a libertarian utopia but at best a Mad Max world.
Hawala networks in the Middle East are a counterexample to the claim that the "fiat" has to come from government rather than the market participants.
From my point of view this doesn't even go far enough. IMHO democratic countries shouldn't have engaged in free trade with communist dictatorships like China to begin with. Free trade should have been the price for democratic reform and compliance with basic human rights. An opportunity squandered. Now the world has to content with an ever less free America in decline and Communist mandarins emasculated to the hilt with economic power and clout.
And how would that have helped? My view is that the wealthier China is, the freer it will become. Also, we want their stuff. And the US would have declined anyway, due to the obstacles put in the way of industrial activity. I just don't see the point of your strategy.
"So you agree that there's a lot more manufacture in the US than there would be in the absence of new industry creation."
Yes, and the sky is blue in absence of clouds,and during daytime, unless you happen to be near one of the poles in the winter.
You know that's not going to stop a slashdot pedant. Too many loopholes left. As to my original assertion, "What has kept us going industrially is new industry creation", I see no reason to correct it.
Here are some counterexamples. ISO business and environmental standards are a great counterexample. It's harder to achieve compliance with ISO standards if some of your inputs come from non-certified suppliers. Such standards favor environments where most of the businesses are so certified.
The EU thus gains a substantial trade advantage over countries without widespread ISO certification. For example, I understand China is only recently overcoming this obstacle with large-scale ISO certification in recent years.
There are other certifications like the EU Ecolabel that cover areas which tend to be weaker in the developing world (such as working conditions and degree of pollution).
The EU legal system also has developed a recent habit of fining companies a fraction of their global revenue. That affects global companies more significantly than EU-only businesses since it is possible to incur a large fine on a small side business and can be a big risk for a foreign business trying to enter an EU market.
As to your contention that new industry creation keeps the US going: While it is true that there is fortunately still great innovation happing, the rate has not been steep enough to compensate for the outsourcing loss to Asia.
So you agree that there's a lot more manufacture in the US than there would be in the absence of new industry creation.
Would also like to point out that companies like SpaceX could not exist if the government through NASA wouldn't have artificially created a marked in the first place (very good policy IMHO).
NASA had to be forced to accept private space launch in 1984. It's worth noting here one of the bizarre things about the space age in the US. Namely, the bizarre abandonment of commonly accepted philosophical and economic principles. The first thirty years had a program that had a surprisingly socialist model (with private contractors). But it does go a long ways to explaining the stagnation of space development since the 50s.
And of course there'd be no Internet without the government either, just AOL and Compuserve walled-gardens.
Nonsense. You already gave two examples of walled-gardens that existed in the real world. Instead, what changed things was Metcalfe's Law, namely, that there's more valuable in a single large network for interaction services than in several small disconnected components. Services that could allow you to interact with the people you wanted to interact with, were more valuable than services that prevented you from doing so.
The same forces would have unified any other internet attempt.
You have to remember that these are highly correlated events. A lot of the uncertainty goes all the same way. But I otherwise agree with the other poster. We'll need more of a track record to see how Silver does.
There are still warning signs. For example, he has issued predictions with three digits of precision. That's an obvious sign that something isn't right.
how is eating a dangerous man made object natural selection?
Is someone trying to cull the herd? If there's intent, then it's selective breeding. If there isn't, then it's natural selection. Eating a dangerous man made object is just as natural a selection event as doing something stupid in front of a 600 pound bear.
Why shouldn't it be called that? "Meditate" means to reflect or contemplate (in addition to the Bhuddist/Hindu definition of meditate, which is very similar). That is what you're doing, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
A human researcher is needed only if the communication link to Earth is unacceptably slow. But even that can be dealt with by sending smarter robots. A human does not have built-in hi-res cameras or chemical labs or lasers in fingers. Robots do. Who is better now?
The human. What you're saying is that the human has a little overhead and requires a little better handling so you need to pay more upfront. But in turn you get a lot more capability.
Reading some of the back and forth in this thread, I have to point out that having an affair, especially a secret one, is a job performance issue in the intelligence world.
The market was not working well, it was broken and being exploited. A market does not take advantage of people's misfortune for the sake of increasing profits ten fold.
Far better that we give these people no options at all than an expensive one? As I've said before in this particular discussion, it's interesting how some people think it's more important that people not be exploited than they have a means to get the things they need.
Ok. I'll have to disagree with the AC on that one. The manned space program looks a lot healthier now than it has since Apollo.
If someone is just using an emergency to gouge desperate people around them and make a quick buck, fuck them.
So what do you do about the desperate people? At least the "gouger" was providing something they needed and were willing to pay for. I guess this is the "Sucks to be you" strategy.
What space ship? The Space Shuttle only operated in Earth orbit and wasn't designed for deep space operation. That's why it had limited capabilities such as propellant and life support (for a couple of weeks) and needed a warm planet, Earth covering up half of the horizon.
If you're worried about cost, then don't do anything at all. For all the talk of robots, humans make pretty good robots for surface exploration. Humans also make good decision makers should we ever want to do things outside of the Earth-Moon system without a huge speed of light lag coming from doing everything from Earth.
Any regulation that a foreign entity does not like fits your description.
No, it doesn't. Making stupid arguments doesn't help your case. I see I've reached the limits of what persuasion can do. Either you'll come some day to see the wisdom of my words, or you'll dwell in ignorance for the rest of your life.
As to the role of government in the creation of the Internet, of course the credit goes to the individual scientists. I leave it as an exercise to you to figure out how many of them held jobs at publicly sponsored institutions versus private ones at the time, and in case of the latter where working with public grants. Really not rocket science to figure that out.
Once again, because there was some government assistance, government gets the credit. However, the thinking person can see that academia helped more than government to create the open standards that make up our internet. And that's further evidence for my original assertion that the internet would be open even in the absence of government support.
Let us also keep in mind that the US government has supported all sorts of walled gardens in its time (eg, PLATO, the AT&T monopoly).
What's so interesting about it? No really, clue me in as I consider myself an amoral sociopath.
It's the inherent paradox and cognitive dissonance. Something beneficial is forbidden because it somehow seems unfair.
There's no rational reason to be against people killing each other, only moral. No, spare me the rationalizations on how civilization came to be because we build things instead of killing and destroying
So I'm supposed to argue this one with a hand tied behind my back? I'm not that dumb. Sounds like you've already argued the point for me. Sure, once you exclude rational reasons (such as societal prohibitions against killing helping keep societies together) to be against people killing each other, then you end up with the rest.
Sure, there are allowed means to kill. But why should I be allowed to kill when I have nothing at stake and am bothered just because something goes against my sense of fairness?
As to the original point, what is "petty"? I consider killing innocent people because you don't want icky price gouging to be petty. Killing people to survive (especially for your society to survive) is not petty.
In fact, killing each other is a defining trait of humanity. Animals usually only kill for survival. We humans are pretty much #1 in making up all sorts of reason to kill each other.
No, any aggressively territorial animal does that even if survival isn't at stake. For example, a lot of social birds can be pretty nasty with gang rapes, chick kidnappings, etc. Lots of animals will kill young that aren't related to them. It's just obvious with us, because survival is so easy.
If you want to make money, fuck off - these people deserve better.
You know who's getting fucked here? The people who deserve better. It's interesting how people willing kill other people for their own petty moral arguments.
Price gouging is raising the price because of a scarcity due to an event considered to be or creating an emergency. The government steps in because the markets can't work and people are subject to necessity that wouldn't otherwise be present in a civilized society.
Except that prior to government interference, the market was working quite well. You "fix" the market by breaking it? Do you realize how little sense that makes?
I think the water problem is exaggerated. I wouldn't recommend building in Southern California, Arizona, or Utah, if you need a lot of water. But most of the mid-West and East should be good. Just park your factory by a river or lake.
They were both Confederate states.
And they aren't Confederate states now. It's almost 150 years since the end of the Civil War. Things have changed.
It amazes me how people can become so stuck in the past.
If the WTO is doesn't call it protectionism it is not protectionism.
This is an erroneous argument from authority.
You cannot just make up your own definition.
Ok.
Definition of 'Protectionism':
Government actions and policies that restrict or restrain international trade, often done with the intent of protecting local businesses and jobs from foreign competition. Typical methods of protectionism are import tariffs, quotas, subsidies or tax cuts to local businesses and direct state intervention.
They have in mind tariffs and other such things. But regulation that has the effect of inhibiting foreign competition in turn is restricting international trade. Hence, my examples are cases of protectionism just as you requested.
You can also not re-write history: The Internet is older than AOL or Compuserve and the interesting content there was user generated (FAQs) or provided and hosted by research agencies such as NASA and CERN (where the web was invented).
BITNET, UUCPNET, and FIDONET are more examples of private networks. FIDONET is particularly interesting since it is a truly independent part that merged with the internet (well, so is Compuserve and AOL, but apparently those don't count). And most users contributed their content as private citizens or employees of private businesses or non profits.
It always puzzles me how the US government can meddle in the early days of the formation of the internet and inherit credit for everything. Why aren't we blaming academia and associated businesses (like AT&T) instead for the internet? They are the ones who actually made the internet happen.
You want your predictions to be understandable. Often point odds in American Football center around 3 & 7 points. Why? Those are the easiest, most likely ways to score points. Maybe an expert in discrete predictions can chime in.
I'm chiming in. Even if he really could measure his estimate of the likelihood that Obama would win to three places (and he can't), it's not useful to us to have that much precision.
How ironic (and fitting) that a land where people who still to this day wish for the good old days of slavery and cotton farms to return will soon be working in the modern equivalent of the cotton farm.
Where would this land be? You aren't speaking of Alabama or Louisiana.
What's in a name? "Metcalfe's Law" will have a hard time accounting for the fact that Facebook manages to tie people back into a reservation.
Why? Facebook is Metcalfe's Law in action. What's happened to all the Facebook competitors? It's a pretty big reservation.
"Show us that isn't true first."
Spoken like a true ideologist.
Ideology isn't wanting reasons for why you say things. I can't be bothered to figure out your reasons for why you say things when you can't be bothered to explain them either.
"You asked for non-agricultural examples of protectionism and I gave you them. "
So WTO does not classify it as protectionism but it is nevertheless protectionism because you say so.
It's not WTO's job to classify all forms of protectionism. And as you note, some forms of protectionism aren't recognized as being within the purview of the WTO. But again, you asked for examples and I gave you examples.
Hawala networks are transactional networks (think visa, paypal) not markets (e.g. ebay).
Hawala networks are both transactional networks and markets. They aren't like Paypal because the network isn't owned by a single entity. With Paypal, you have to use Paypal or you can't use the network. With Hawala networks, you can always change brokers. So there's a collection of services being offered by these brokers and a bunch of customers who want to use these services. That's standard market fare.
"My view is that the wealthier China is, the freer it will become."
That's a hope not a strategy.
That's an educated opinion based on observations of what happened to Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.
Because the Western world greedily gave them the IP to build marketable stuff. What exactly did they produce that was of any interest before the Western world invested and started outsourcing?
So what? They're producing now.
As to the Internet, have you been around when AOL was blanketing everything with their CDs?
The reason these walled gardens went away was the pre-existing Internet that offered interesting content so that these services hooked up to it.
And these preexisting services were privately created.
Well, I guess that depends on why you're taking drugs. But I wager reflection and contemplation is better for a lot of people than their drug of choice.
Three digits of precision is not at all unreasonable.
No way. We're looking at a lot of errors, not only from sample size (thousands is not big enough to justify three digits of precision), but also from poll errors (some which would be systemic and common to several polls) and errors from Silver's voting model. One digit is all you can ask for under such circumstances and even that may yield a false sense of accuracy.
You know what I believe? I believe it would be a damn shame if a person who is willing to buy gas at say $150 per gallon, couldn't buy gas at any price.
"Metcalfe's Law" - just because you call it a law doesn't make it so, especially in economics.
I called it that because that is its name. It's also worth noting that it actually works in practice and played a significant role in the development of the actual internet. After all, there were walled gardens like AOL and Compuserve and those don't exist any more.
You seem to argue from a libertarian standpoint that assumes that markets naturally blossom and always create the best outcome.
Show us that isn't true first.
None of the EU regulations that you cite are WTO accepted barriers to free trade.
Of course not. The EU is not stupid about signing away its trade barriers. You asked for non-agricultural examples of protectionism and I gave you them. I didn't say they were illegal.
Markets are created by fiat. If there was no government that enforces a level playing field you won't get a libertarian utopia but at best a Mad Max world.
Hawala networks in the Middle East are a counterexample to the claim that the "fiat" has to come from government rather than the market participants.
From my point of view this doesn't even go far enough. IMHO democratic countries shouldn't have engaged in free trade with communist dictatorships like China to begin with. Free trade should have been the price for democratic reform and compliance with basic human rights. An opportunity squandered. Now the world has to content with an ever less free America in decline and Communist mandarins emasculated to the hilt with economic power and clout.
And how would that have helped? My view is that the wealthier China is, the freer it will become. Also, we want their stuff. And the US would have declined anyway, due to the obstacles put in the way of industrial activity. I just don't see the point of your strategy.
"So you agree that there's a lot more manufacture in the US than there would be in the absence of new industry creation."
Yes, and the sky is blue in absence of clouds ,and during daytime, unless you happen to be near one of the poles in the winter.
You know that's not going to stop a slashdot pedant. Too many loopholes left. As to my original assertion, "What has kept us going industrially is new industry creation", I see no reason to correct it.
Protectionism in the EU is all about agriculture.
Here are some counterexamples. ISO business and environmental standards are a great counterexample. It's harder to achieve compliance with ISO standards if some of your inputs come from non-certified suppliers. Such standards favor environments where most of the businesses are so certified.
The EU thus gains a substantial trade advantage over countries without widespread ISO certification. For example, I understand China is only recently overcoming this obstacle with large-scale ISO certification in recent years.
There are other certifications like the EU Ecolabel that cover areas which tend to be weaker in the developing world (such as working conditions and degree of pollution).
The EU legal system also has developed a recent habit of fining companies a fraction of their global revenue. That affects global companies more significantly than EU-only businesses since it is possible to incur a large fine on a small side business and can be a big risk for a foreign business trying to enter an EU market.
As to your contention that new industry creation keeps the US going: While it is true that there is fortunately still great innovation happing, the rate has not been steep enough to compensate for the outsourcing loss to Asia.
So you agree that there's a lot more manufacture in the US than there would be in the absence of new industry creation.
Would also like to point out that companies like SpaceX could not exist if the government through NASA wouldn't have artificially created a marked in the first place (very good policy IMHO).
NASA had to be forced to accept private space launch in 1984. It's worth noting here one of the bizarre things about the space age in the US. Namely, the bizarre abandonment of commonly accepted philosophical and economic principles. The first thirty years had a program that had a surprisingly socialist model (with private contractors). But it does go a long ways to explaining the stagnation of space development since the 50s.
And of course there'd be no Internet without the government either, just AOL and Compuserve walled-gardens.
Nonsense. You already gave two examples of walled-gardens that existed in the real world. Instead, what changed things was Metcalfe's Law, namely, that there's more valuable in a single large network for interaction services than in several small disconnected components. Services that could allow you to interact with the people you wanted to interact with, were more valuable than services that prevented you from doing so.
The same forces would have unified any other internet attempt.
You have to remember that these are highly correlated events. A lot of the uncertainty goes all the same way. But I otherwise agree with the other poster. We'll need more of a track record to see how Silver does.
There are still warning signs. For example, he has issued predictions with three digits of precision. That's an obvious sign that something isn't right.
how is eating a dangerous man made object natural selection?
Is someone trying to cull the herd? If there's intent, then it's selective breeding. If there isn't, then it's natural selection. Eating a dangerous man made object is just as natural a selection event as doing something stupid in front of a 600 pound bear.
So why call it meditation?
Why shouldn't it be called that? "Meditate" means to reflect or contemplate (in addition to the Bhuddist/Hindu definition of meditate, which is very similar). That is what you're doing, after all.