As little as 100 years ago we had all the problems China had except mass surveillance, and the only reason we didn't have that is that telecom didn't really exist 100 years ago. Workers were barely paid and worked 60+ hours a week and if you complained you were murdered. This is all pretty well documented. What changed was after WWII American workers had solidarity. Just about everyone fought or lost someone in the war. Plus losing several million working age men helped thin the herd.
But what did _not_ change is human nature. We're no more or less human than the Chinese. That goes for all the flaws everybody has. We're not better than than Chinese, and if we're not careful then as soon as money gets a bit tighter the ruling elite will come down on the working class. The real one, e.g. the billionaire class, not the "elites" Fox News talks about in the form of scientists, teachers and professors...
it's got to do with external factors. We're all one race: human. Human beings are the same all over. What's not the same is our neighbors, food supply and natural resources. The US has two weak neighbors resulting in little risk of invasion. Is it any wonder we're more individualistic? We can afford to be since we're not under constant threat of invasion. Meanwhile China spent centuries fighting off Mongol hoards (often losing). They needed a more top/down authoritarian system with stronger connections to band together for survival.
People are people. There's nothing special about one group of them. American Exceptionalism is a myth. We're just the ones that survived WWII intact and got nukes first. If Einstein's dad got that deal in Munich to go through we might all be speaking German right now.
It's about free. Google gets my info. In exchange I get YouTube, Maps, Android and their search engine for free. It's no different than getting free TV for adverts only everyone's a Nielsen family.
Also, and I keep saying this, but I have bigger things to worry about. Like the trade war going on, or paying for the $16k in tuition to my kid's in State college. Or the endless wars. Or bridge collapse. Or medical care. Or retirement. Or...
they still have Most Favored Nation Status from the US...
I don't think it's that the US is any better than China, it's just that we're wealthier and so our ruling class doesn't have to bother with that sort of thing to keep the working class in line. Go back 50 years and read up on what we did to Unions though. It's the same stuff China's doing. We didn't stop doing that stuff because we became better people, we shipped the factories where that stuff happens overseas.... That didn't really solve the problem of oppression, it just moved it out of sight, out of mind.
At the end of the day we're all just people, and we're all a week's worth of food away from savagery. The best solution is always to make it so that nobody's getting to that point.
rather than any principled stance. I base that on what little I can find on his voting record.
Still, the GOP has been pretty pro-surveillance (not that the Dems have been helping in that regard, even Bernie's voted on the wrong side at times). Still, he's back in line. Maybe Pence is. Does anyone have any recent discussion on Pence's stance on stuff like warrantless wiretapping?
Sometime back in the early 2000s companies figured out that you can have weak product support and get away with it if a) you answer the phone quickly (being on hold a long time makes people feel unimportant) and b) your reps smile, chat, say nice things and are generally friendly.
As someone for whom that doesn't work (I'm more than a bit autistic) it drives me nuts that it works. But it absolutely does.
it's a taxi service. They can always limit service to areas they're comfortable driving in. 80% coverage would still be plenty profitable. Heck 50% would.
OTOH I'm not sure China wants foreign investment. This is the same country that spent a fortune figuring out how to make pens as nice as the Germans instead of just importing the occasional nice pen. China is very nationalistic.
but there are a ton of folks who can't afford the vaccine. We don't have single payer so we've got millions without healthcare. The numbers are higher than that stats since we define healthcare access as "having insurance" but lots can't afford to use the insurance they have.
for Hostess it was Unions and Pensions. Toys R Us' rank & file didn't have those things. Maybe somebody in their supply chain did? Or maybe it let them clean out the old, older management without an age discrimination suit. I don't think it wipes the debt, does it?
Anyone know enough about financial shenanigans to know?
Japanese game companies are always trying to branch out into multi-media. They've always been a little worried folks will give up on games. And games don't have the same allure as working on movies or even TV.
they goal here is to get the two classes of workers (hourly and salaried) fighting among themselves and prevent them from Unionizing.
I"m actually annoyed that, given how old/.'s audience is and how many layoffs we've all been through that nobody else seems to have pointed this out.
It usually works. Here's hoping it fails for a change. A guy like Bernie can keep it from happening, but we need a new Bernie. The one we have is pretty old:(...
Mark f'n Hamill criticized the movie. I think it's pretty safe to say bad things about it in the nerd community when you've got a Jedi Master on your side.
or why it didn't do gangbusters. It just made the point that the Russians were using it to try and drive another wedge between communities.
Didn't you have that one kid who always tried to start shit between people in grade school? This is like that, except between nations. If America didn't have so many bombs and so much blood thirst it would be funny.
the Sharks won't turn on each other. It doesn't take much, but it does take _something_.
Like 9/11. It barely had an impact on the US until we made it impact us by going nuts and invading several countries that didn't attack us or our allies. Those wars have wrecked our country for generations and made us hated on the national stage. Mission accomplished.
it was a pretty major win and paves the way for the progressives. They can still screw us over on a second ballot, but those are so rare (last one was in the 70s) that it's not really a victory.
because from where I'm sitting at it's not. The free market has nothing to do with our transportation system. Our roads were built with tax payer dollars, oil is secured with our military and it's production heavily subsidized. Even the suburbs are heavily subsidized (the expensive part of prepping the land, running gas, water & electric is all done by the gov't. That's the big reason housing isn't affordable anymore, we stopped doing that in the late 90s).
The difference is that public transport isn't nearly as big a cash cow for mega corps as our system of roads.
because it's going to be empty for about 10-20 years while people switch over. It's not an over night thing. People's lives are built around cars. It takes decades to change it. If you build it they will come, but they'll come _slowly_. You have to convince the American Taxpayer to spend billions on public transport that's going to be almost completely unused for a couple of decades. Good luck with that.
I still think internet regulation is a federal issue and the courts are likely to think so to. The courts are pretty stacked with pro-corporation judges anyway. Guys like Gorsuch & Kavanaugh are going to side with the ISPs. Meanwhile our Senate and Electoral college means that California's voting power is heavily diluted (somebody in Montana has 46 times more voting power than a California voter). This is by design.
Baring a sea change in American politics I think NN is dead. It's not an issue that people vote on. As always it's Jobs, jobs, jobs, low taxes, hating on Bureaucracy and the classic wedge issues (guns & abortion) that drive people to the polls. And the anti-NN party does a better job of getting their folks to the polls.
and I still need gas to get to work. Would I like a public transportation system? You bet. Am I going to get one with the level of corruption in my country? Hell no.
What's frustrating is the folks demanding a "free market" solution to the problem. Maybe there will be one like there was for getting lead out of gas. After decades and decades of damage done to people's health and well being (and if crime statistics are to be believed our entire nation). What I'm saying is the free market is _slow_. I'll be dead before it fixes things. Probably from Lung cancer.
there is a small core of genuine populist Democrats. Bernie, Liz, Orcasio-Cortez and the "Justice" Democrats. Their defining feature is that they refuse all corporate donations (you can't serve two masters after all). Yeah, there's also a lot of Pelosi style "blue dogs" but even they've been forced towards populist ideas by an increasing number of primary challengers.
I don't know any equivalent on the Republican side; e.g. a movement in their party to stop taking corporate cash. Dems also support Net Neutrality, Single Payer health care, the "New New Deal" (e.g. infrastructure spending and a jobs guarantee), free college, etc. There's solid policy there and not just more "Lets cut taxes and see what happens, and by the way no Medicare for anyone under 55".
There _are_ differences between the parties. Substantial ones. And when it comes to a party that can potentially be bent to serve the will of the people the Dems are the best chance. For the reasons I stated above that's just objective fact.
but Amazon's very physically demanding. A lot of Uber drivers are folks who can't stand up straight let alone for 8 hours a day. Still, Amazon being forced to pay $15 will help drive wages up. When it comes to wages a rising tide lifts all boats.
and took an Lyft. 14 mile round trip during 'surge' pricing (it was raining) was $26 bucks. I left a $10 tip each way (hopefully Lyft doesn't take 30% of it). One guy was pretty obviously a recently out of work fellow driving an SUV bought during better times...
Also, $20k is below the poverty threshold for a family of one. Screw the gov't for not raising it. I don't think it's been raised significantly since I was a wee lad.
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As little as 100 years ago we had all the problems China had except mass surveillance, and the only reason we didn't have that is that telecom didn't really exist 100 years ago. Workers were barely paid and worked 60+ hours a week and if you complained you were murdered. This is all pretty well documented. What changed was after WWII American workers had solidarity. Just about everyone fought or lost someone in the war. Plus losing several million working age men helped thin the herd.
But what did _not_ change is human nature. We're no more or less human than the Chinese. That goes for all the flaws everybody has. We're not better than than Chinese, and if we're not careful then as soon as money gets a bit tighter the ruling elite will come down on the working class. The real one, e.g. the billionaire class, not the "elites" Fox News talks about in the form of scientists, teachers and professors...
it's got to do with external factors. We're all one race: human. Human beings are the same all over. What's not the same is our neighbors, food supply and natural resources. The US has two weak neighbors resulting in little risk of invasion. Is it any wonder we're more individualistic? We can afford to be since we're not under constant threat of invasion. Meanwhile China spent centuries fighting off Mongol hoards (often losing). They needed a more top/down authoritarian system with stronger connections to band together for survival.
People are people. There's nothing special about one group of them. American Exceptionalism is a myth. We're just the ones that survived WWII intact and got nukes first. If Einstein's dad got that deal in Munich to go through we might all be speaking German right now.
It's about free. Google gets my info. In exchange I get YouTube, Maps, Android and their search engine for free. It's no different than getting free TV for adverts only everyone's a Nielsen family.
Also, and I keep saying this, but I have bigger things to worry about. Like the trade war going on, or paying for the $16k in tuition to my kid's in State college. Or the endless wars. Or bridge collapse. Or medical care. Or retirement. Or...
they still have Most Favored Nation Status from the US...
I don't think it's that the US is any better than China, it's just that we're wealthier and so our ruling class doesn't have to bother with that sort of thing to keep the working class in line. Go back 50 years and read up on what we did to Unions though. It's the same stuff China's doing. We didn't stop doing that stuff because we became better people, we shipped the factories where that stuff happens overseas.... That didn't really solve the problem of oppression, it just moved it out of sight, out of mind.
At the end of the day we're all just people, and we're all a week's worth of food away from savagery. The best solution is always to make it so that nobody's getting to that point.
rather than any principled stance. I base that on what little I can find on his voting record.
Still, the GOP has been pretty pro-surveillance (not that the Dems have been helping in that regard, even Bernie's voted on the wrong side at times). Still, he's back in line. Maybe Pence is. Does anyone have any recent discussion on Pence's stance on stuff like warrantless wiretapping?
Sometime back in the early 2000s companies figured out that you can have weak product support and get away with it if a) you answer the phone quickly (being on hold a long time makes people feel unimportant) and b) your reps smile, chat, say nice things and are generally friendly.
As someone for whom that doesn't work (I'm more than a bit autistic) it drives me nuts that it works. But it absolutely does.
it's a taxi service. They can always limit service to areas they're comfortable driving in. 80% coverage would still be plenty profitable. Heck 50% would.
OTOH I'm not sure China wants foreign investment. This is the same country that spent a fortune figuring out how to make pens as nice as the Germans instead of just importing the occasional nice pen. China is very nationalistic.
but there are a ton of folks who can't afford the vaccine. We don't have single payer so we've got millions without healthcare. The numbers are higher than that stats since we define healthcare access as "having insurance" but lots can't afford to use the insurance they have.
But, hey, who's gonna pay for it, amiright?
for Hostess it was Unions and Pensions. Toys R Us' rank & file didn't have those things. Maybe somebody in their supply chain did? Or maybe it let them clean out the old, older management without an age discrimination suit. I don't think it wipes the debt, does it?
Anyone know enough about financial shenanigans to know?
Japanese game companies are always trying to branch out into multi-media. They've always been a little worried folks will give up on games. And games don't have the same allure as working on movies or even TV.
they goal here is to get the two classes of workers (hourly and salaried) fighting among themselves and prevent them from Unionizing.
/.'s audience is and how many layoffs we've all been through that nobody else seems to have pointed this out.
:(...
I"m actually annoyed that, given how old
It usually works. Here's hoping it fails for a change. A guy like Bernie can keep it from happening, but we need a new Bernie. The one we have is pretty old
Mark f'n Hamill criticized the movie. I think it's pretty safe to say bad things about it in the nerd community when you've got a Jedi Master on your side.
or why it didn't do gangbusters. It just made the point that the Russians were using it to try and drive another wedge between communities.
Didn't you have that one kid who always tried to start shit between people in grade school? This is like that, except between nations. If America didn't have so many bombs and so much blood thirst it would be funny.
the Sharks won't turn on each other. It doesn't take much, but it does take _something_.
Like 9/11. It barely had an impact on the US until we made it impact us by going nuts and invading several countries that didn't attack us or our allies. Those wars have wrecked our country for generations and made us hated on the national stage. Mission accomplished.
That much while doing a major tech roll out in the form of 5g? This smacks of age discrimination...
it was a pretty major win and paves the way for the progressives. They can still screw us over on a second ballot, but those are so rare (last one was in the 70s) that it's not really a victory.
because from where I'm sitting at it's not. The free market has nothing to do with our transportation system. Our roads were built with tax payer dollars, oil is secured with our military and it's production heavily subsidized. Even the suburbs are heavily subsidized (the expensive part of prepping the land, running gas, water & electric is all done by the gov't. That's the big reason housing isn't affordable anymore, we stopped doing that in the late 90s).
The difference is that public transport isn't nearly as big a cash cow for mega corps as our system of roads.
because it's going to be empty for about 10-20 years while people switch over. It's not an over night thing. People's lives are built around cars. It takes decades to change it. If you build it they will come, but they'll come _slowly_. You have to convince the American Taxpayer to spend billions on public transport that's going to be almost completely unused for a couple of decades. Good luck with that.
I still think internet regulation is a federal issue and the courts are likely to think so to. The courts are pretty stacked with pro-corporation judges anyway. Guys like Gorsuch & Kavanaugh are going to side with the ISPs. Meanwhile our Senate and Electoral college means that California's voting power is heavily diluted (somebody in Montana has 46 times more voting power than a California voter). This is by design.
Baring a sea change in American politics I think NN is dead. It's not an issue that people vote on. As always it's Jobs, jobs, jobs, low taxes, hating on Bureaucracy and the classic wedge issues (guns & abortion) that drive people to the polls. And the anti-NN party does a better job of getting their folks to the polls.
Probably With all the problems that come with Yelp, and if not it will eventually when they want to make more money...
and I still need gas to get to work. Would I like a public transportation system? You bet. Am I going to get one with the level of corruption in my country? Hell no.
What's frustrating is the folks demanding a "free market" solution to the problem. Maybe there will be one like there was for getting lead out of gas. After decades and decades of damage done to people's health and well being (and if crime statistics are to be believed our entire nation). What I'm saying is the free market is _slow_. I'll be dead before it fixes things. Probably from Lung cancer.
there is a small core of genuine populist Democrats. Bernie, Liz, Orcasio-Cortez and the "Justice" Democrats. Their defining feature is that they refuse all corporate donations (you can't serve two masters after all). Yeah, there's also a lot of Pelosi style "blue dogs" but even they've been forced towards populist ideas by an increasing number of primary challengers.
I don't know any equivalent on the Republican side; e.g. a movement in their party to stop taking corporate cash. Dems also support Net Neutrality, Single Payer health care, the "New New Deal" (e.g. infrastructure spending and a jobs guarantee), free college, etc. There's solid policy there and not just more "Lets cut taxes and see what happens, and by the way no Medicare for anyone under 55".
There _are_ differences between the parties. Substantial ones. And when it comes to a party that can potentially be bent to serve the will of the people the Dems are the best chance. For the reasons I stated above that's just objective fact.
but Amazon's very physically demanding. A lot of Uber drivers are folks who can't stand up straight let alone for 8 hours a day. Still, Amazon being forced to pay $15 will help drive wages up. When it comes to wages a rising tide lifts all boats.
and took an Lyft. 14 mile round trip during 'surge' pricing (it was raining) was $26 bucks. I left a $10 tip each way (hopefully Lyft doesn't take 30% of it). One guy was pretty obviously a recently out of work fellow driving an SUV bought during better times...
Also, $20k is below the poverty threshold for a family of one. Screw the gov't for not raising it. I don't think it's been raised significantly since I was a wee lad.