I am confounded by your claim that a 16-bit hardware divide would take 24000 transistors. If nothing else, you should be able to cascade it into 4 4-bit lookups, and that would handle the job. And that would probably be overkill.
Using shift-and-add would almost definitely seem to be better, especially since you could cue the operations. Although one 16-bit divide would then take about 120 clocks, 120 divides could take 240 clocks. (Look at me, I say clocks, I should say ops, and then let the clocks be whatever they are, be they quads or quarter clocks).
Even better, logarithm takes only about twice that -- it's a lookup Shift-and-add, and square root is only about 140 clocks.
Sure, you could go with the 24000 transistors, but wouldn't that end up being a cost/benefit situation? All that is in the domain of the chip design within constraints.
Sometimes a jubilee is the most libertarian thing you can do.
If you visited the ex-soviet states in the ten years after their release (1990-2000) and before their entry to the EU, you'd know what freedom was.
The key to libertarian should not be libertine, or contract law, but "liberty". âoefreedom".
That said, I find it quite unlikely, given our capitalist state. US Capitalism and libertarianism really shouldn't have much at all to do with each other, and only are shoehorned into appearing to coincide under Pekhoff Randism. US Capitalism has more to do with what the Federal Reserve does.
If he committed one felony to bring another much greater felony to justice, then the comparison would be more that I saw a car with a murder victim in back and keys in the car, and I jumped in the car and drove it to the police.
In that instance, justice would be to thank the thief, and slam the murderer to the wall.
And no, it seems quite likely that Barack Obama matters not at all, if the NSA is beyond the law. I suggest no clemancy, no pardon, and let it be a testimony to shame the US ever after.
More specifically, if it can be shown that the NSA spies on congressmen, and uses that to overthrow the citizen government, then that wounld be high treason.
Which is neither here nor there, because if they have committed high treason, then they are above the law until they stand before God, and then find themselves embedded in Dante's ice.
I'm going to say that Snowden shouldn't recieve clemancy, because (1) you don't give clemancy to heros. (2) scoundrels offering clemancy? The nerve! (3) scoundrels lie and break their promises (4) if, as GP notes, he did release some of the NSA info on foreign governments, it is our own fault for slaughtering legit whistleblowers (5) as P notes, it is more likely that the high treason was by our own spooks.
Either Draco won't cure all viruses as claimed, or it won't be safe, because in many cases viruses are critical to the proper functioning of our bodies. Retroviruses are one example of that.
Either way, as noteed elsewhere on slashdot, not all cancer is of viral origin.
Okay, it isn't nonsense; it is one of many factors. Yes, cheap cures get removed from the market (mebendazole, anyone?), new cures get challenged before the FDA by johnny-come-latelies until the developers go out of business (angiostatins?), cancers that should remain untreated and monitored instead get invasive surgery (prostate cancer)... yes, chmpanies like to ure the sick and hurting as ATMs.
That said, it is also correct to say that there is no single cure for cancer.
1) Congratulations on the development. 2) I, too, was amused by the indigenous term, not only because I have seen -- for example -- that indigenous aboriginals can sometimes be superior technicians, but also because of the similarity of 'india' vs. 'indigenous', which implies to me it would create a colonial india out in space.
My, wouldn't I like to see a colonial anything out in space: USA, Russia, China, India, Azerbaijan, whatever.
Okay, so it sounds like a win-win situation. How soon can we start?
Okay, seriously, I think that restricting the free trade is the right thing to do, and the proper way to do it is to say, if the laborers cannot freely migrate and trade their labor freely, then the companies should not have a right to trade the products of their labor.
100% embargo, and we downscale our consumption and figure it out from there.
Oh, and if we're going to do that, we have to eliminate the profiteers who corruptly profited, so do like ex-soviet glasnost, and give all people an equal amount of credits to bid on EVERYTHING. Start over. Then let people figure out what they want to do.
Re:MIT's failure to intervene
on
Losing Aaron
·
· Score: 1
Umm, because his father works for MIT, and is worth more than to have his son killed with the cooperation of his employer?
Next time you go in to your workplace, ask yourself this: "Of all the workers here, who does and who does not deserve a full living wage--a place to live, food to eat, enough to train their kids to do the same, or better, and a retirement such that they can live peacefully until they die?"
Now, the next day, go in, and ask yourself, "which of these workers deserve to die?"
Now, the next day, go in, and ask yourself, "for all those who I judge deserve to die, how many are doing jobs that are still necessary to the employer, and yet I would judge the same no matter WHO was doing the job?"
We've fallen a long way.
Frankly, I think it is our society that deserves to day. The people -- and the leaders -- all deserve to live, but maybe they don't deserve a lot more. We've all messed up pretty badly.
I agree with parent, but let me try to drive it home. Sushi is largely... fish, well, okay. What's it wrapped in? Algae. So what's the fish, the mustard, the avocado slice? They're there for interest, color, and fllavoring. Do we have sushi bars? Yep.
Global population control regime? Ever here of the UN? Have you not noticed that they've been trying, and more and more successful?
Spiritual malaise: Foxconn is an excellent example. But considering that Asimov is from a Jewish culture [I think he was... hereditarily Jewish, but not very religious] let me point out a judeo-christian concept: the physical and spiritual are inherently tied. So that un- and under-employment, the inequality, the endless hours spent on computer games, the school massacres, the suicides, the twerking, the reality shows, are all signs of spiritual malaise. A man who despises his neighbor is not healthy. Nor is a person who directs his/her sexuality to the masses, as opposed to using it to form a real, full, life-enhancing relationship with another person. Nor is a school shooter. To quote the Asimov quote in the article, "I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work!". Enforced leisure is called unemployment. And yes, the most glorious single word seems more and more to be 'work'.
Let me get this inehere: I see a lot of people saying read the Bible for history, or its literary value. No.
Read the Bible, because it is the Word of your creator, and He is involved in your life.
Read it because anyone should have, and often reference, the user manual.
And pshaw to those who say 'inconsistant'. You haven't read and cross-referenced it enough. There IS history in the Bible, and it includes peoples' misunderstandings, and how God deals with them.
Take for example, 'thou shalt not kill' vs. Elijah putting to death the priests of Baal. But look closely: G-d never told him to do that; and if you read Maccabees you will see that it is implied that he faked the fire from heaven to do it... and he feels guilt (take my life for I am no better than my fathers), and yet gives excuses even still (I'm on the run because of my zeal for the Lord, and I'm the only one left). But G-d responds in mercy, while still saying 'that lie stinks to heaven'. So it isn't inconsistant; you simply haven't read it with any depth, perhaps because you were taking it as a fantasy instead of a user manual.
o/t, maybe, but I'd love to discuss that with you. I too know my Bible moderately well, and the only reason I could think of for avoiding your house would be if you were to argue minutiae that you didn't believe, and thus were only spouting mindless noise.
I certainly hope they included in the patent 1) only letting people say what Google wants them to say, 2) Only including comics that are already predrawn with pre-existing text, only the name being different 3) not permitting the mention of anyone without an online existance.
Because those elements are key to their business model.
Yes, and government funded science also makes advances in weather forecasting and tornado analysis, despite the official positions of NOAA leadership as well. As I said, the science limps forward as best it can.
This is key. To look at the previous pattern of earthquakes and forecast a quake, is not prediction. It is guessing.
To predict, you have to show a relational mechanism that is associated with a coming earthquake. Unfortunately in both weather and quakes, the governmental "science" agencies have pursued a statistical model, which would lead to the conclusion that earthquakes cannot be predicted. Then, as it appears happened with Jack Coles, they equate prediction to crying fire in a crowded theatre, and put those who attempt science in prison.
Thus the science is prevented from advancing.
To predict a quake, you might drill in strain sensors, or study slip, or look at 1-.01 hz radio, or look at ants. All of which is early science at its best, and hogwash at its worst... but when the government prosecutes science, then you limp along as well as you can.
No... it is that human wickedness being what it is, the main sick desire of people is to be a little god, and that means being worshipped by one's neighbors. But it also means being able to rule them, to punish them, to enforce one's own view of justice on them. I see that every day, in that those who haven't recognized their wickedness and begun to battle it, really collide and irk each other. Those who *do* have power lord it over the others; those who *don't* have power get incredibly angry.
More than that, those who do have power actively work to destroy those who don't, while at the same time, criticizing their victims for not wanting better for themselves.
So if you give people a utopia, what are they going to do with it? They'll find a way to fulfill themselves. That means, they'll find a way to fulfill their wicked desires. Now, yes, the woman in the story goes on her little vacations to do exactly that, and it gets her excited... but that is not the only way wickedness plays out. And where there's a will, there's a way. People will find ways to destroy each other that are "under the radar". No computer can outdo a human in creativity, especially when the goal is so illogical (but makes one feel oh, so good).
Moreover, what doesn't feed the wickedness isn't going to give a person motivation. So again, the society isn't going to magically progress. It might devolve into computer games, where people can play out their fantasies, or board games, or sports... but it won't progress.
As to your point about the manna system being fully practical and possible, I'm not so sure about that. It seems to me that scheduling is NP-hard. So, if your manna system is going to "perfectly schedule" the business, it'll fail. However, if it's going to be "pretty good", then it can possibly succeed.
But it also could well fail in another way: what the author describes would surely lead to destruction of the systems and civil disorder, even civil war, long before it came to welfare tube-house prisons.
Moreover, every single manna-run country would be ripe targets for crackers (and how would taking out an entire nation of smug billionaires do for a person's wicked desires?) or conquest by military might.
Moreover, as a government's laws destroy an economy -- and these employers in the story are governments unto themselves -- they drive a black market. The black market is going to drive crime, which will eventually overwhelm the nation.
I don't foresee it happening the way the author says. I do foresee it possibly starting, though.
Agreed, only chapters 1-3 are worth reading, because the story diverges from probability (reality).
And yes, the book does follow a utopian-fiction pattern: posit a problem, posit a solution that solves nothing, magically make the difficulties disappear because somehow, under MY rules, we'll all be better. Oh, scuse me, better AND better.
Author of "Utopia" excepted (and other works of fiction that acknowledge their failings) -- I posit this:
Utopists are evil, not because they have a vision of a better future, but because they have no ability to envision the horrors that accompany it. Therefore, the prize becomes worth any horror to get there. And once you start down the utopia path, and miss the mark, it *must be because of some backward person who must be eliminated*.
Anyhow, I don't accept the author's alternative. It denies that "better and better", given human wickedness, includes "ruling over other people", even to the extent of "putting others to death for the thrill of it." It ignores that we like to control each other, and we like to hurt each other.
But... the nightmare of manna is a real concern. I don't know that it's practical, but it may be. If it is, the proper response is probably mobs breaking in and destroying the machine repeatedly. Worst comes to worst, it probably will end up involving civil disorder and civil war... which is probably why many of the actual robots DARPA is working on are to use against citizens in their own cities.
Whatever.
I don't intend to follow that path; my intention is simply to grieve over the horror I see, because I can't see adding to it.
Could it be because some of the biggest US robotics funding pushes come from... DARPA?
Could it be because -- although the Google motto, "Don't Be Evil" is quite benign, a lot of people half suspect that they really wanted to say "Don't Be NSA", or "Be anything except the NSA", without saying "NSA"? So they substituted a synonym?
Could it be because the obsession of powerful westerners seems to be getting rid of anyone poorer than themselves?
Could it be because the elites of East and West have devoted a huge fraction of their countries' assets into various forms of killing machines?
Could it be because we *don't* trust our leaders not to kill us when it strikes their fancy?
Could it be because we are already in the process of being destroyed in various ways, including financially, which often are followed by 3rd world style family disasters?
Could it be because cliches are cliches because everyone says it, and that's because everyone believes it?
Or could it be because we just watch too much TV and have no concept of reality?
I posit that it might be the last, or it might be the rest, or one might use the last to falsely dismiss the rest (even if the last one is true).
Actually, the equating has to do with freedom versus social norms. I tend to think that if we were not in the midst of a dark age, we would have people mostly producing their own food and necessities, and trading as benefitted them, instead of being contracted out for the profit of the masters of the universe.
It is the latter situation that makes taxation so extremely profitable to said MOTUs.
Well, the rate of earthquakes has doubled this last decade,focused at the Nevada border, where some think that a Mount Doom is about to break loose (well, aecaldera super-volcano, anyway.). There's another such location at volcano national Park in northern CA.
Sure, ask my four year old son. Even before he flips the switch, the nearby coal burning plant has a turbine in a wye configuration that puts out a grounded three phase current. Over at the telephone pole, a transformer transforms it down, and two phases come to the house. One of those phases is tied to the light switch. When he flips the switch, the power is then transmitted -- at about a tenth of the speed of light, though the electrons themselves flow at a couple hundred mph -- to the light bulb. This being a fluorescent bulb, the voltage is transformed back upward through cheap junk capacitors, to a voltage capable of triggering the fluorescing gas. The gas then fluoresces according to the blackbody equations, somewhat in the UV, but heavily in the visible spectrum. The light produced sets up a series of changing electric and magnetic fields that then transmit through the air at something like ninety-eight percent of the speed of light in vacuum, to be absorbed by an electron somewhere in his eyeball. That then triggers an enzymatic chemical reaction, whic triggers nerve impulses that are set by the previous signal, and reset by the sodium channel.
Of course he knows all that; everybody knows all that. Otherwise, they might think it was magic.
Slashdot Mirror
I am confounded by your claim that a 16-bit hardware divide would take 24000 transistors. If nothing else, you should be able to cascade it into 4 4-bit lookups, and that would handle the job. And that would probably be overkill.
Using shift-and-add would almost definitely seem to be better, especially since you could cue the operations. Although one 16-bit divide would then take about 120 clocks, 120 divides could take 240 clocks. (Look at me, I say clocks, I should say ops, and then let the clocks be whatever they are, be they quads or quarter clocks).
Even better, logarithm takes only about twice that -- it's a lookup Shift-and-add, and square root is only about 140 clocks.
Sure, you could go with the 24000 transistors, but wouldn't that end up being a cost/benefit situation? All that is in the domain of the chip design within constraints.
Or am I wrong?
Sometimes a jubilee is the most libertarian thing you can do.
If you visited the ex-soviet states in the ten years after their release (1990-2000) and before their entry to the EU, you'd know what freedom was.
The key to libertarian should not be libertine, or contract law, but "liberty". âoefreedom".
That said, I find it quite unlikely, given our capitalist state. US Capitalism and libertarianism really shouldn't have much at all to do with each other, and only are shoehorned into appearing to coincide under Pekhoff Randism. US Capitalism has more to do with what the Federal Reserve does.
If he committed one felony to bring another much greater felony to justice, then the comparison would be more that I saw a car with a murder victim in back and keys in the car, and I jumped in the car and drove it to the police.
In that instance, justice would be to thank the thief, and slam the murderer to the wall.
And no, it seems quite likely that Barack Obama matters not at all, if the NSA is beyond the law. I suggest no clemancy, no pardon, and let it be a testimony to shame the US ever after.
More specifically, if it can be shown that the NSA spies on congressmen, and uses that to overthrow the citizen government, then that wounld be high treason.
Which is neither here nor there, because if they have committed high treason, then they are above the law until they stand before God, and then find themselves embedded in Dante's ice.
I'm going to say that Snowden shouldn't recieve clemancy, because (1) you don't give clemancy to heros. (2) scoundrels offering clemancy? The nerve! (3) scoundrels lie and break their promises (4) if, as GP notes, he did release some of the NSA info on foreign governments, it is our own fault for slaughtering legit whistleblowers (5) as P notes, it is more likely that the high treason was by our own spooks.
No, just leave it alone.
Either Draco won't cure all viruses as claimed, or it won't be safe, because in many cases viruses are critical to the proper functioning of our bodies. Retroviruses are one example of that.
Either way, as noteed elsewhere on slashdot, not all cancer is of viral origin.
Okay, it isn't nonsense; it is one of many factors. Yes, cheap cures get removed from the market (mebendazole, anyone?), new cures get challenged before the FDA by johnny-come-latelies until the developers go out of business (angiostatins?), cancers that should remain untreated and monitored instead get invasive surgery (prostate cancer)... yes, chmpanies like to ure the sick and hurting as ATMs.
That said, it is also correct to say that there is no single cure for cancer.
1) Congratulations on the development. 2) I, too, was amused by the indigenous term, not only because I have seen -- for example -- that indigenous aboriginals can sometimes be superior technicians, but also because of the similarity of 'india' vs. 'indigenous', which implies to me it would create a colonial india out in space.
My, wouldn't I like to see a colonial anything out in space: USA, Russia, China, India, Azerbaijan, whatever.
All China has to do is....Walmart screaming...
Okay, so it sounds like a win-win situation. How soon can we start?
Okay, seriously, I think that restricting the free trade is the right thing to do, and the proper way to do it is to say, if the laborers cannot freely migrate and trade their labor freely, then the companies should not have a right to trade the products of their labor.
100% embargo, and we downscale our consumption and figure it out from there.
Oh, and if we're going to do that, we have to eliminate the profiteers who corruptly profited, so do like ex-soviet glasnost, and give all people an equal amount of credits to bid on EVERYTHING. Start over. Then let people figure out what they want to do.
Umm, because his father works for MIT, and is worth more than to have his son killed with the cooperation of his employer?
Next time you go in to your workplace, ask yourself this: "Of all the workers here, who does and who does not deserve a full living wage--a place to live, food to eat, enough to train their kids to do the same, or better, and a retirement such that they can live peacefully until they die?"
Now, the next day, go in, and ask yourself, "which of these workers deserve to die?"
Now, the next day, go in, and ask yourself, "for all those who I judge deserve to die, how many are doing jobs that are still necessary to the employer, and yet I would judge the same no matter WHO was doing the job?"
We've fallen a long way.
Frankly, I think it is our society that deserves to day. The people -- and the leaders -- all deserve to live, but maybe they don't deserve a lot more. We've all messed up pretty badly.
I agree with parent, but let me try to drive it home. Sushi is largely... fish, well, okay. What's it wrapped in? Algae. So what's the fish, the mustard, the avocado slice? They're there for interest, color, and fllavoring. Do we have sushi bars? Yep.
Global population control regime? Ever here of the UN? Have you not noticed that they've been trying, and more and more successful?
Spiritual malaise: Foxconn is an excellent example. But considering that Asimov is from a Jewish culture [I think he was ... hereditarily Jewish, but not very religious] let me point out a judeo-christian concept: the physical and spiritual are inherently tied. So that un- and under-employment, the inequality, the endless hours spent on computer games, the school massacres, the suicides, the twerking, the reality shows, are all signs of spiritual malaise. A man who despises his neighbor is not healthy. Nor is a person who directs his/her sexuality to the masses, as opposed to using it to form a real, full, life-enhancing relationship with another person. Nor is a school shooter. To quote the Asimov quote in the article, "I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work!". Enforced leisure is called unemployment. And yes, the most glorious single word seems more and more to be 'work'.
Let me get this inehere: I see a lot of people saying read the Bible for history, or its literary value.
No.
Read the Bible, because it is the Word of your creator, and He is involved in your life.
Read it because anyone should have, and often reference, the user manual.
And pshaw to those who say 'inconsistant'. You haven't read and cross-referenced it enough. There IS history in the Bible, and it includes peoples' misunderstandings, and how God deals with them.
Take for example, 'thou shalt not kill' vs. Elijah putting to death the priests of Baal. But look closely: G-d never told him to do that; and if you read Maccabees you will see that it is implied that he faked the fire from heaven to do it... and he feels guilt (take my life for I am no better than my fathers), and yet gives excuses even still (I'm on the run because of my zeal for the Lord, and I'm the only one left). But G-d responds in mercy, while still saying 'that lie stinks to heaven'. So it isn't inconsistant; you simply haven't read it with any depth, perhaps because you were taking it as a fantasy instead of a user manual.
I think you are confusing Christians with fundamentalist Capitalists. I can't think how or why.
o/t, maybe, but I'd love to discuss that with you. I too know my Bible moderately well, and the only reason I could think of for avoiding your house would be if you were to argue minutiae that you didn't believe, and thus were only spouting mindless noise.
You don't get to say what you want; you get to select from a list of what Google wants you to say. It's part of the new Corporate Free Speech (TM).
I certainly hope they included in the patent 1) only letting people say what Google wants them to say, 2) Only including comics that are already predrawn with pre-existing text, only the name being different 3) not permitting the mention of anyone without an online existance.
Because those elements are key to their business model.
Yes, and government funded science also makes advances in weather forecasting and tornado analysis, despite the official positions of NOAA leadership as well. As I said, the science limps forward as best it can.
This is key. To look at the previous pattern of earthquakes and forecast a quake, is not prediction. It is guessing.
To predict, you have to show a relational mechanism that is associated with a coming earthquake. Unfortunately in both weather and quakes, the governmental "science" agencies have pursued a statistical model, which would lead to the conclusion that earthquakes cannot be predicted. Then, as it appears happened with Jack Coles, they equate prediction to crying fire in a crowded theatre, and put those who attempt science in prison.
Thus the science is prevented from advancing.
To predict a quake, you might drill in strain sensors, or study slip, or look at 1-.01 hz radio, or look at ants. All of which is early science at its best, and hogwash at its worst... but when the government prosecutes science, then you limp along as well as you can.
No... it is that human wickedness being what it is, the main sick desire of people is to be a little god, and that means being worshipped by one's neighbors. But it also means being able to rule them, to punish them, to enforce one's own view of justice on them. I see that every day, in that those who haven't recognized their wickedness and begun to battle it, really collide and irk each other. Those who *do* have power lord it over the others; those who *don't* have power get incredibly angry.
More than that, those who do have power actively work to destroy those who don't, while at the same time, criticizing their victims for not wanting better for themselves.
So if you give people a utopia, what are they going to do with it? They'll find a way to fulfill themselves. That means, they'll find a way to fulfill their wicked desires. Now, yes, the woman in the story goes on her little vacations to do exactly that, and it gets her excited... but that is not the only way wickedness plays out. And where there's a will, there's a way. People will find ways to destroy each other that are "under the radar". No computer can outdo a human in creativity, especially when the goal is so illogical (but makes one feel oh, so good).
Moreover, what doesn't feed the wickedness isn't going to give a person motivation. So again, the society isn't going to magically progress. It might devolve into computer games, where people can play out their fantasies, or board games, or sports... but it won't progress.
As to your point about the manna system being fully practical and possible, I'm not so sure about that. It seems to me that scheduling is NP-hard. So, if your manna system is going to "perfectly schedule" the business, it'll fail. However, if it's going to be "pretty good", then it can possibly succeed.
But it also could well fail in another way: what the author describes would surely lead to destruction of the systems and civil disorder, even civil war, long before it came to welfare tube-house prisons.
Moreover, every single manna-run country would be ripe targets for crackers (and how would taking out an entire nation of smug billionaires do for a person's wicked desires?) or conquest by military might.
Moreover, as a government's laws destroy an economy -- and these employers in the story are governments unto themselves -- they drive a black market. The black market is going to drive crime, which will eventually overwhelm the nation.
I don't foresee it happening the way the author says. I do foresee it possibly starting, though.
If we're perpetually in transition, then the devastating now in the devastating future.
Actually, since the transition is and has been accelerating, then it'll be worse in the future.
If that's the case, expect the horrors of Syria.
As you say, unavoidable, but not devastating.
Do you have any idea what words your fingers are typing?
Agreed, only chapters 1-3 are worth reading, because the story diverges from probability (reality).
And yes, the book does follow a utopian-fiction pattern: posit a problem, posit a solution that solves nothing, magically make the difficulties disappear because somehow, under MY rules, we'll all be better. Oh, scuse me, better AND better.
Author of "Utopia" excepted (and other works of fiction that acknowledge their failings) -- I posit this:
Utopists are evil, not because they have a vision of a better future, but because they have no ability to envision the horrors that accompany it. Therefore, the prize becomes worth any horror to get there. And once you start down the utopia path, and miss the mark, it *must be because of some backward person who must be eliminated*.
Anyhow, I don't accept the author's alternative. It denies that "better and better", given human wickedness, includes "ruling over other people", even to the extent of "putting others to death for the thrill of it." It ignores that we like to control each other, and we like to hurt each other.
But... the nightmare of manna is a real concern. I don't know that it's practical, but it may be. If it is, the proper response is probably mobs breaking in and destroying the machine repeatedly. Worst comes to worst, it probably will end up involving civil disorder and civil war... which is probably why many of the actual robots DARPA is working on are to use against citizens in their own cities.
Whatever.
I don't intend to follow that path; my intention is simply to grieve over the horror I see, because I can't see adding to it.
Could it be because some of the biggest US robotics funding pushes come from ... DARPA?
Could it be because -- although the Google motto, "Don't Be Evil" is quite benign, a lot of people half suspect that they really wanted to say "Don't Be NSA", or "Be anything except the NSA", without saying "NSA"? So they substituted a synonym?
Could it be because the obsession of powerful westerners seems to be getting rid of anyone poorer than themselves?
Could it be because the elites of East and West have devoted a huge fraction of their countries' assets into various forms of killing machines?
Could it be because we *don't* trust our leaders not to kill us when it strikes their fancy?
Could it be because we are already in the process of being destroyed in various ways, including financially, which often are followed by 3rd world style family disasters?
Could it be because cliches are cliches because everyone says it, and that's because everyone believes it?
Or could it be because we just watch too much TV and have no concept of reality?
I posit that it might be the last, or it might be the rest, or one might use the last to falsely dismiss the rest (even if the last one is true).
Actually, the equating has to do with freedom versus social norms. I tend to think that if we were not in the midst of a dark age, we would have people mostly producing their own food and necessities, and trading as benefitted them, instead of being contracted out for the profit of the masters of the universe.
It is the latter situation that makes taxation so extremely profitable to said MOTUs.
Well, the rate of earthquakes has doubled this last decade,focused at the Nevada border, where some think that a Mount Doom is about to break loose (well, aecaldera super-volcano, anyway.). There's another such location at volcano national Park in northern CA.
Sure, ask my four year old son. Even before he flips the switch, the nearby coal burning plant has a turbine in a wye configuration that puts out a grounded three phase current. Over at the telephone pole, a transformer transforms it down, and two phases come to the house. One of those phases is tied to the light switch. When he flips the switch, the power is then transmitted -- at about a tenth of the speed of light, though the electrons themselves flow at a couple hundred mph -- to the light bulb. This being a fluorescent bulb, the voltage is transformed back upward through cheap junk capacitors, to a voltage capable of triggering the fluorescing gas. The gas then fluoresces according to the blackbody equations, somewhat in the UV, but heavily in the visible spectrum. The light produced sets up a series of changing electric and magnetic fields that then transmit through the air at something like ninety-eight percent of the speed of light in vacuum, to be absorbed by an electron somewhere in his eyeball. That then triggers an enzymatic chemical reaction, whic triggers nerve impulses that are set by the previous signal, and reset by the sodium channel.
Of course he knows all that; everybody knows all that. Otherwise, they might think it was magic.
I'll go you one better. I'm okay with slaves being physically beaten, because it would be vastly harder to be a slave otherwise.
See? I can be as capitalist as you.
My alter ego questions whether things might not be better without 'getting a job' being viewed as inherently good, or worse, necessary.