There used to be this idea of a 'fair' price, but one of my greatest criticisms of the Republican way of thinking is that a 'fair price' is the same as 'the maximum the market will allow'.
I think a better measure would be something like ( and I suspect these number can be determined fairly well). I've kicked around some kind of consumer reporting law that would at least make real data available on a given product. Something like
( Total number of expected units sold * ( cost of physical materials involved + manufacturing costs)) + cost of product research and development + cost of marketing + corporate overhead) = projected production cost.
(Total number of expected units sold * sale price ) - projected production cost = total return on investment.
Honestly if a company isn't already doing this kind of math before they start on a product they are likely to go broke.
A person might even consider a law saying something like more then a 200% return on investment is considered unfair, but at least if it is reported people can have the discussion.
I know the typical objection is ( but what about all the failed products they also research , but there is no reason you can't build that into the cost by make cost of research = total research cost / successful number of products to get an average cost for research across the company.
yes, computers need hardware so Computer Engineering is part of IT. Note: read the following sentence as written quickly or you spoil the joke. "Why can't electrical engineers tell jokes timing".
I had a friend who worked for Gateway computer and informed me that not only did this happen but a common complaint was that the coffee cup holder broke off when used. ( we are of coarse talking about CD drives )
Why ( or even is) it required by law that glasses / lenses only be sold to those who are prescribed them by a Eye DR? What if I just want 10 pairs of different magnification to demo in my science class? I don't see where there should be some kind of problem with getting them even if you don't have a prescription. I suppose their could be a down side of mistyping a prescription but I'm not sure how you would fix that unless you called every DR and verified the persecution , which sounds expensive.
"Are there any laws anywhere that would protect TV owners from such intrusive advertising?" so long as the what is going on is FULLY DISCLOSED and buyer is aware of what is happening. Why would you need or even want a law preventing it. Say someone wants to give away tv. or sell them for a dollar. That makes them available to people who otherwise wouldn't have them. So they have to put up with ads. Some people would be happy with that. Others just not use it. Not like anyone dies if they don't like their TV. This seems like a place the government doesn't belong other then to make sure sellers are honest and buyers understand what they are paying for.
You discounting the number of people killed in riots, killed by other for various supplied, killed by disease , or broken bones, or just plain stupidity. Not to mention the fires that aren't put out etc. in case of a true global catastrophe that cuts the power there would be a dramatic decrease in human population especially around cities.
The founders of NARAL and Planned Parenthood were big supports of Eugenics. They wanted to ensure that there were fewer 'minority babies' and didn't think you could expect minorities to use proper birth control. Of coarse population control is Eugenics more pleasant younger brother, but if you are going to reduce the population, you have to ask ( of what group? and who gets to pick?) because unless you can somehow enforce unilateral fertility drops across all demographic groups you natural create 'selection pressure' that favors specific characteristics.
I think there is a major difference between preventing your kinds from reading something and standing up for your kids right to NOT read something they don't want. On the college level, when parents get involved , from my experience it is almost always the latter. I young adult is in a class and being told you will read XYZ or I will fail you. The young person reaches out to parents for help because they consider XYZ to be , offensive, demeaning, demoralizing, prejudice , or in some other way immoral, and do not want to read it or participate in discussion about it. Especially when they point out repeatedly to the professor how they feel about the work and why are then demeaned and persecuted for being , prudish, old fashioned, or not worldly enough, or prejudiced.
I saw this happen to more then one of my friends in various classes in college, and near as I can tell it is only getting worse. If you are someone who doesn't agree with the morality taught at the 'secular' university then you can be expected to be persecuted by the teachers for disagreing or debating them , especially about literature.
As the article points out, 'what's wrong with reading explicit sex scenes?'. If you don't understand the question you are probably part of the problem.
Does anyone know weather or not there is any law that would lead lead people to believe they have a right to privacy in Russia? in the united states we have laws against illegal search? Does the same concept even exist in Russia?
over the air updates of your anti lock break control system.
Over the air update of auto software is only slightly less stupid then over the air updated of avionics software.
Or if you prefer, fast and cheap software updates supporting cool new software for vehicles are much more important something as small and insignificant as human life.
Anybody tried to use the app store on their wii lately? When Netflix updates there codex Netflix will no longer work because there is no way to update on the wii.
Sure purchased games still work but the device has certainly lost some of it's functionality, including the ability of most games to network. That is a company that didn't even go out of business. Just stopped supporting their own product.
The problem is that the argument is not intended to 'keep women out' it is questioning the 'orthadox' idea that general population percentage is a good metric for determining the level of minority groups expected to be the population of a specific field. The same argument might be used to explain why are there are fewer straight male nail salon artists. After all shouldn't we apply or logic equally? isn't being straight just as much a protected class as being LBGTQ and being male just as much a protected class as being female. So why are there no protest, legal actions, initiative ect to correct the obvious evil hiring practices which are excluding straight men from the nail salon business. The reason is pretty simple, there is not actual discrimination the potential employment group is discriminating against the employer / career.
So the best way to show the argument false would be prove that the percentage of applicants for engineering positions was about equal to the general population.
If it isn't then the question is why? Does it have anything to do with the people who we are expecting to hire not wanting the job?
( Quick note, my next door neighbor is a straight man who runs a nail salon business, so that's who I was thinking about.)
So, let's just say that a better than meat lab grown alternative is created. What happens to all the millions of domesticated animals now no longer of any value. I guess we euthanize them and wipe out whole species?
We are only getting close if we aren't alone in the universe AND if life isn't rare. It is pretty hard to prove we 'are alone', so believing we are not is more an act of faith then anything else, until there is evidence. Of which we only have suggestive not positive evidence.
Let me think this out a minute. Someone points out that something can be done by criminals and should be fixed. So you make it illegal for them to point it out? Is that kind of like making it illegal to speak up about 'the emperor's new cloths'(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes).
seriously, let's make it illegal then only criminals can do it. (I guess it makes it easier for the black ops guys that you own ) .
My favorite analogy is that the phone providers are like someone who builds a toll highway. They want to sell monthly access to the road. They find out they can only sell so many people monthly access before they either need to improve the road or the traffic slows down to make parts of the road unusable. So their solution to the problem is to tell people ( well you have monthly access to the road , but only a certain number of times per month).
Basically they want as many people as possible to pay a monthly fee for the road and as few as people as possible to use it as little as possible , so they can sell it to many more then would naturally or normally be able to fit on the road.
Once there was a town where all the houses were made of glass. Then someone invented paint so people didn't see each other naked. Then the police said we need to get rid of all this paint because seeing everyone naked is a great way to reduce crime. To wit the only real question was. Is it worth it?
no NO NO NO NO... school should not get you ready for life. YOUR PARENTS are supposed to get you ready for life. If it is the schools responsibility to get you ready for life then it is the schools responsibility to teach you morality and that is something public schools are expressly forbidden to attempt in this country.
the cost of education has also been driven up substantially by other factors. 1) expectations of living conditions for student housing. the normal dorms in the 30 - 50's housed multiple people per room and had cold showers. There was no expectation of anything other then basic utilties in the rooms.
2) Everyone was served the same meal from the cafitera there was no choice in what you ate or what you paid for it.
3) professors were generally there doing research and funding themselves through research. When students wanted a class they pooled their money and paid the professor to teach it, so professors paid for themselves with research or the faculty didn't exists to have particular classes.
4) there was no expectation the university would take care of you , if you failed and starved or were attacked and killed on campus that was too bad, you had to call the normal police department.
5) Historically many university and college were at least partially staffed by religious who expected to get paid next to nothing and considered their work a calling from God.
I think much of the anti-intellectualism in the united states is a reaction to the 'intellectual elite' who claim there is no God and by virtue of the fact the are 'elite intellectuals' everyone else should accept they are right and there is no God. This started mostly after world war II with the uptake of the beatnik moment that became the hippie movement, that became... whatever the mess we have now is..
I wish.. most of the lefts ideology can be summed up as 'there is no God so stop acting like there is' and 'be utterly indifferent to people hurting themselves and others so long as it fits our world view'.
I'd love to drive an electric car but until there is some way of swapping batteries or they can get charging times below 15 min what I have is half a car ( because I can't take it on long drives to visit relatives etc) at twice the price of gas car. Not very practical and I haven't been able to justify it to make myself 'feel' green or what would otherwise satisfy my vanity.
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There used to be this idea of a 'fair' price, but one of my greatest criticisms of the Republican way of thinking is that a 'fair price' is the same as 'the maximum the market will allow'.
I think a better measure would be something like ( and I suspect these number can be determined fairly well).
I've kicked around some kind of consumer reporting law that would at least make real data available on a given product.
Something like
( Total number of expected units sold * ( cost of physical materials involved + manufacturing costs)) + cost of product research and development + cost of marketing + corporate overhead) = projected production cost.
(Total number of expected units sold * sale price ) - projected production cost = total return on investment.
Honestly if a company isn't already doing this kind of math before they start on a product they are likely to go broke.
A person might even consider a law saying something like more then a 200% return on investment is considered unfair, but at least if it is reported people can have the discussion.
I know the typical objection is ( but what about all the failed products they also research , but there is no reason you can't build that into the cost by make cost of research = total research cost / successful number of products to get an average cost for research across the company.
yes, computers need hardware so Computer Engineering is part of IT.
Note: read the following sentence as written quickly or you spoil the joke.
"Why can't electrical engineers tell jokes timing".
I had a friend who worked for Gateway computer and informed me that not only did this happen but a common complaint was that the coffee cup holder broke off when used. ( we are of coarse talking about CD drives )
Why ( or even is) it required by law that glasses / lenses only be sold to those who are prescribed them by a Eye DR? What if I just want 10 pairs of different magnification to demo in my science class? I don't see where there should be some kind of problem with getting them even if you don't have a prescription. I suppose their could be a down side of mistyping a prescription but I'm not sure how you would fix that unless you called every DR and verified the persecution , which sounds expensive.
"Are there any laws anywhere that would protect TV owners from such intrusive advertising?" so long as the what is going on is FULLY DISCLOSED and buyer is aware of what is happening. Why would you need or even want a law preventing it. Say someone wants to give away tv. or sell them for a dollar. That makes them available to people who otherwise wouldn't have them. So they have to put up with ads. Some people would be happy with that. Others just not use it. Not like anyone dies if they don't like their TV. This seems like a place the government doesn't belong other then to make sure sellers are honest and buyers understand what they are paying for.
You discounting the number of people killed in riots, killed by other for various supplied, killed by disease , or broken bones, or just plain stupidity. Not to mention the fires that aren't put out etc. in case of a true global catastrophe that cuts the power there would be a dramatic decrease in human population especially around cities.
The founders of NARAL and Planned Parenthood were big supports of Eugenics. They wanted to ensure that there were fewer 'minority babies' and didn't think you could expect minorities to use proper birth control. Of coarse population control is Eugenics more pleasant younger brother, but if you are going to reduce the population, you have to ask ( of what group? and who gets to pick?) because unless you can somehow enforce unilateral fertility drops across all demographic groups you natural create 'selection pressure' that favors specific characteristics.
I think there is a major difference between preventing your kinds from reading something and standing up for your kids right to NOT read something they don't want.
On the college level, when parents get involved , from my experience it is almost always the latter. I young adult is in a class and being told you will read XYZ or I will fail you. The young person reaches out to parents for help because they consider XYZ to be , offensive, demeaning, demoralizing, prejudice , or in some other way immoral, and do not want to read it or participate in discussion about it. Especially when they point out repeatedly to the professor how they feel about the work and why are then demeaned and persecuted for being , prudish, old fashioned, or not worldly enough, or prejudiced.
I saw this happen to more then one of my friends in various classes in college, and near as I can tell it is only getting worse. If you are someone who doesn't agree with the morality taught at the 'secular' university then you can be expected to be persecuted by the teachers for disagreing or debating them , especially about literature.
As the article points out, 'what's wrong with reading explicit sex scenes?'. If you don't understand the question you are probably part of the problem.
Does anyone know weather or not there is any law that would lead lead people to believe they have a right to privacy in Russia? in the united states we have laws against illegal search? Does the same concept even exist in Russia?
true but you ability to play network games can be totally shut down.
over the air updates of your anti lock break control system.
Over the air update of auto software is only slightly less stupid then over the air updated of avionics software.
Or if you prefer, fast and cheap software updates supporting cool new software for vehicles are much more important something as small and insignificant as human life.
Anybody tried to use the app store on their wii lately?
When Netflix updates there codex Netflix will no longer work because there is no way to update on the wii.
Sure purchased games still work but the device has certainly lost some of it's functionality, including the ability of most games to network. That is a company that didn't even go out of business. Just stopped supporting their own product.
The problem is that the argument is not intended to 'keep women out' it is questioning the 'orthadox' idea that general population percentage is a good metric for determining the level of minority groups expected to be the population of a specific field. The same argument might be used to explain why are there are fewer straight male nail salon artists. After all shouldn't we apply or logic equally? isn't being straight just as much a protected class as being LBGTQ and being male just as much a protected class as being female. So why are there no protest, legal actions, initiative ect to correct the obvious evil hiring practices which are excluding straight men from the nail salon business. The reason is pretty simple, there is not actual discrimination the potential employment group is discriminating against the employer / career.
So the best way to show the argument false would be prove that the percentage of applicants for engineering positions was about equal to the general population.
If it isn't then the question is why? Does it have anything to do with the people who we are expecting to hire not wanting the job?
( Quick note, my next door neighbor is a straight man who runs a nail salon business, so that's who I was thinking about.)
So, let's just say that a better than meat lab grown alternative is created. What happens to all the millions of domesticated animals now no longer of any value. I guess we euthanize them and wipe out whole species?
We are only getting close if we aren't alone in the universe AND if life isn't rare.
It is pretty hard to prove we 'are alone', so believing we are not is more an act of faith then anything else, until there is evidence. Of which we only have suggestive not positive evidence.
Let me think this out a minute.
Someone points out that something can be done by criminals and should be fixed.
So you make it illegal for them to point it out?
Is that kind of like making it illegal to speak up about 'the emperor's new cloths'(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes).
seriously, let's make it illegal then only criminals can do it.
(I guess it makes it easier for the black ops guys that you own ) .
the leaf designers would have been better off coming up with an upgradable system.
My favorite analogy is that the phone providers are like someone who builds a toll highway.
They want to sell monthly access to the road. They find out they can only sell so many people monthly access before they either need to improve the road or the traffic slows down to make parts of the road unusable. So their solution to the problem is to tell people ( well you have monthly access to the road , but only a certain number of times per month).
Basically they want as many people as possible to pay a monthly fee for the road and as few as people as possible to use it as little as possible , so they can sell it to many more then would naturally or normally be able to fit on the road.
Once there was a town where all the houses were made of glass.
Then someone invented paint so people didn't see each other naked.
Then the police said we need to get rid of all this paint because seeing everyone naked is a great way to reduce crime.
To wit the only real question was. Is it worth it?
don't forget obvious bias against people who believe in God.
no NO NO NO NO ... school should not get you ready for life. YOUR PARENTS are supposed to get you ready for life.
If it is the schools responsibility to get you ready for life then it is the schools responsibility to teach you morality and that is something public schools are expressly forbidden to attempt in this country.
the cost of education has also been driven up substantially by other factors.
1) expectations of living conditions for student housing. the normal dorms in the 30 - 50's housed multiple people per room and had cold showers. There was no expectation of anything other then basic utilties in the rooms.
2) Everyone was served the same meal from the cafitera there was no choice in what you ate or what you paid for it.
3) professors were generally there doing research and funding themselves through research. When students wanted a class they pooled their money and paid the professor to teach it, so professors paid for themselves with research or the faculty didn't exists to have particular classes.
4) there was no expectation the university would take care of you , if you failed and starved or were attacked and killed on campus that was too bad, you had to call the normal police department.
5) Historically many university and college were at least partially staffed by religious who expected to get paid next to nothing and considered their work a calling from God.
I think much of the anti-intellectualism in the united states is a reaction to the 'intellectual elite' who claim there is no God and by virtue of the fact the are 'elite intellectuals' everyone else should accept they are right and there is no God. This started mostly after world war II with the uptake of the beatnik moment that became the hippie movement, that became... whatever the mess we have now is..
I wish.. most of the lefts ideology can be summed up as 'there is no God so stop acting like there is' and 'be utterly indifferent to people hurting themselves and others so long as it fits our world view'.
I'd love to drive an electric car but until there is some way of swapping batteries or they can get charging times below 15 min what I have is half a car ( because I can't take it on long drives to visit relatives etc) at twice the price of gas car. Not very practical and I haven't been able to justify it to make myself 'feel' green or what would otherwise satisfy my vanity.