I think our hypothetical scientist is suffering from a serious case of gender confusion.
I think that english covers the case of "subject gender unspecified" well enough without trying to pretend that there is some "gender confusion" involved. The only gender confusion I can see is on the part of the/. author.
Can we perhaps agree that s/he is a tranny?
I don't know what a 's/he' is. I know what 'he' means, I know what 'she' means. Referring to this unspecified professor as "she" is saying something that isn't true.
The correct word is cracker. Hacker is just a programmer.
I do not think it means what you think it means. A "hacker" is not "just a programmer". You can be a hacker without programming. It's actually "anyone who takes things apart to learn how they work and then make them do something else."
Changing the [program, books, picure] IS the point of the open source license.
No, the point of open source is having the source. Changing the source is one aspect, but simply having free access to the source allows one to understand the "program" better (for computer source) or reformat it or use it in other media (not "changing") for open source texts.
A CC http://creativecommons.org/ license book will: Remove Power from small committees of BIG states in determining what is in a textbook: Cal. Texas, NY, etc.
I don't know where you get this idea from. The open source California books were vetted by the state committee, just like any paper book. State departments of education will still mandate which textbooks will be used, whether they are paper or electrons. If you mean that local teachers will "update" the official textbooks, well, they already can provide extra material for printed books, and I don't know that I want local teachers "updating" the textbooks anyway. In fact, having them "update" an e-textbook means they can make it say whatever they want and it will still have the official stamp of approval from the state or local school board.
how do we determine that the time an author spent working on a book was funded by the government?
By looking at the grant purpose.
I don't know of any NSF grants that go towards writing textbooks. Or ONR. If it isn't part of the grant, the grant isn't paying for it.
This is an important concern for post-docs. Post-docs are paid for, in most cases, by grants. Grants don't pay for writing grants. Thus, legally, post-docs cannot write grant applications because 100% of their time is paid to do research.
That's why some places are creating "institutional post-docs" where the salary comes partly from the college, so the post-doc can learn how to write grant applications while he's still a post-doc and not a brand new professor who is expected to be successful at grant writing.
If she doesn't want to open-source a book, she simply doesn't claim it as a grant-related activity,...
You mean if he doesn't want to have his grants audited and renewals denied, he doesn't claim non-grant-related activities as "grant progress". And I will point out that women aren't the only ones required to file grant reports.
Big cities should have 100Mbps, though. There's really no excuse.
Big American cities, mostly built in the 30's and 40's, before cable, are built of brick and mortar.
Big Japanese cities are built of ricepaper and bamboo.
Have you compared how easy it is poking a cable through the wall in Japan to install 100Mbps vs. poking a cable through a brick? And don't EVEN compare how much easier WiMAX will pass through paper vs. steel-reinforced concrete.
People who live in glass houses don't need sun porches. People who live in paper houses don't need drills.
My netbook required an update to MacAfee ("free" from Comcast) because one part of it stopped working, and during its first scan, it started reporting a problem. Wouldn't tell me what the problem was unless I let it run for twelve hours to scan the whole system. I tried stopping it and looking at logs, I tried looking at logs while it was running, nothing other than the "ominous" 1 under "detected threats".
Turned out that it was reporting the crack program that allows me to run Duke Nukem without the CD -- since the netbook doesn't have a damn CD and I own the copy of Duke Nukem. MacAfraid called it "a program you might not want to have".
Right. Sure. Like calling people unreasonable and saying I'm done discussing a topic, and then posting half a dozen more comments.
It's not about your different opinions, it's the way in which you convey your opinions and disregard logic in favor of your emotional arguments.
I'm sorry, but if you were using logic in your "it's unfair" arguments, I missed it. I dealt with your emotional and untrue "but they aren't paying for the government services they are using" claim, and demonstrated that your claim that you can determine what is "enough" for other people is patently absurd.
What started all of this was your claim that you were a capitalist, which you have shown to be a lie. If you had something significant that would support confiscatory death tax rates that allow just "enough" inheritance for those you envy, you should have presented it before.
As it stands, you've demonstrated only that you have a serious hatred for the rich and a serious blind spot to the facts. And yet you claim MY arguments are emotional and ignore logic. Yes, that's the next phase of the "you're unreasonable because my arguments are perfect" discussion that so many online twelve year olds seem to use. You should be on Usenet. You'd be right at home there. You probably are.
You just seem to be totally, permanently wound up.
Yeah, I get perturbed by people who think they know how much is enough for other people and want the government to enforce their opinions. People who hate and envy others who have worked hard, and who think that the money those others earn is just a loan from the government, while holding on for dear life to every dollar they themselves come across and claiming they are "capitalists" just like the ones who have the money. Did I miss your statement that you had donated all of your inheritance to the IRS, and that you have a clause in your will handing most of your estate over to the IRS so your kids get just "enough"? No, I didn't think so. Those rules wouldn't apply to you. They're for the "rich" people you hate.
Are you through yet? Are you really done, or will I see more insults because you can't come up with an argument that convinces me you are right?
How old are you? You might be a pretty intelligent 15 year old for all I know.
How many 15 year olds are married and own their own homes? Oh, did you simply ignore everything I said and focus on promoting your class envy agenda? Or is age somehow now relevant to the argument, and libertarian 15 year olds are outside your scope of concern?
I'm done trying to reason with you being so unreasonable and emotive.
As for being "unreasonable", well, you have yet to produce any reasons for me to change my opinion. Instead of assuming that I might have a different set of assumptions and experiences that would lead to an honest difference of opinion, it is the debating style of a 12 year old to assume that the failure to convince the other person to agree is not due to a lack of convincing argument from the 12 year old but that the "other guy" is "unreasonable and emotive". It's common online, and I've come to expect it. If you can't win an argument, claim a win anyway and insult the opponent for being stupid, unreasonable, or both.
Are you really done now? Or are you so emotionally tied up with this discussion that you have to continue?
Yep. That's why the argument that "it's not fair for people to get the benefits of government without paying for it" when applied to inheritance is such a loser. You know it's a loser because it starts with "it's not fair" (the opening gambit of class hatred and envy), and it's based on the false premise that 1) the rich don't pay taxes (they pay the most) and 2) inheritances haven't been taxed (they were when they were earned the first time, and then again at a ridiculous rate when they were inherited.)
Yes, you are. I'm glad you admit that confiscatory fiscal policies on the part of
the government are unreasonable and unjustifiable. I'm glad that you understand that
trying to tell others how much is "enough" for them is unreasonable.
That's fine - and you're right I'm done with this conversation...
Followed by endless paragraphs of insults like "I hope I don't end up with kids like you". Done? No, you're not done yet.
Yeah, it's a bitch, having kids who spend their whole lives supporting you and your business for the cost of room and board, which you expect them to take over and carry on the fine family tradition, helping you build a million dollar farm and keep it running. It's a bitch having kids who think that the money YOU earned because of YOUR work was yours to do with as you see fit, and not limited by some socialist/communist schmuck who thinks you should only give "enough" to your kids and the rest to the government.
I hope you don't end up with kids, period. You trying to screw the people you envy is enough; screwing your children is too much.
There are at least a few economic counter arguments to my opinions,
Your complaint about "money to run the government" was dealt with. The taxes are already paid on that money. You got your bite of the apple. That leaves you with the sole argument that "it's not fair" that some people's children will get enough money that they don't have to work. Wow. Tough shit for you, huh?
And here's a (somewhat) friendly hint:
You've lied about the "by definition" claim that inheritance means the money wasn't worked for, so I am not surprised you'd lie about being friendly in your hint.
estate taxes are already a total bitch - they are taxed at somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of inheritable asset value. In many cases,
Which only proves that your argument based on having to pay for the services of government as an excuse for taking away all but "enough" was just bullshit to start with. The death tax should be abolished. People who know that their estates are going to be confiscated when they die aren't going to waste time producing more than they need. Why should they? And taking away a farm that I've worked hard to help build just because my name wasn't on the deed is sick.
Also, tenant in common ownership of any asset among siblings really is unsustainable;
You are so ready to tell me what is good for me, aren't you? Why don't you go back to managing your own life and leave others to theirs?
imagine if you hadn't been told you'd receive all this wealth and you could fend for yourself
With every word, you prove you have no clue about anything relevant.
you'll need a pretty big dose of luck.
All the luck I need from YOU is to keep your nose out of my life and stop acting like you know how much is enough for other people. You have no clue what "enough" is, much less what other people deserve.
In many years of programming firewire devices (cameras), I've found Sony's firewire devices to be basically awful. Packet loss out the wazoo.
BUT, I've found the same thing for almost every on-board firewire controller I've used. For some reason, they will consistently lose packets, while a $10 PCI card controller will work flawlessly.
By the way, buy Agere. Via sucks, because they changed the chip specs on their controller without changing the chip number.
Please note that I am not taking the mini and micro flavors into consideration was intentional,
Yes, because if you took mini, micro, and B USB connectors into account, you'd have to admit that you need a handful of cables to be able to connect all the various kinds of USB devices too, just like you do for 1394. In practice, I've seen three 1394 connectors: Six pin, four pin, and nine pin. That's one less than the number of USB connectors in regular use.
And I think it's nice to be able to look at a 1394 port and know it's S800/1600/3200 vs. S400/200/100. A lot better than this nonsense of finding out a USB port is USB1 only by seeing how God awful slow the hundred megabyte file you are trying to transfer is going.
Yes, 1394b has a different set of connectors, but a simple adapter is all that is required. I suspect that any Apple store, and any well-stocked computer store, has them for just a few bucks. It's not a big deal. It's hardly a "trap".
I'd say its better than using the same connector because you don't fall into the trap set by USB1 and USB2. You can't tell by looking if a computer has USB1 or USB2, or which ports on multi-controller systems are 1 and 2. You can't pick up a hub and tell if it is USB2 without searching for the USB2 label.
It's too easy to plug a USB2 device into a USB1 port and be stuck wondering when the data transfer will be done. It will be too easy to plug a USB3 device into a USB1 port and wonder why you paid extra for USB3 when the data transfer is as slow as it always was.
The fact that USB3 devices can be used with USB2 ports (and cables) - albeit at USB2 speeds - means that they've also avoided the trap Firewire fell into.
What trap? S800 devices can run at S400 if necessary, just like S400 can run at S100.
That's right. They can follow you everywhere you go and write down when and where you were. They can take pictures of people you meet and identify what books you looked at while you were at the library.
The argument that proponents of these GPS devices make is that using a GPS is "just like having a cop tail a person, which is what we already allow."
That argument is not true. It's LESS invasive and provides less information about your activities. Those who see you pass by won't see a cop following you, so they won't know you are being watched. From a liberties standpoint, it's less a loss of liberty and less invasive. That should make it better. It is, however, not a significant difference from an ethical or legal standpoint.
I am saying that that reasoning is flawed, that's all. It is not at all like tailing a person.
I know what you were saying, and you are wrong. Other than the extra step necessary to tie you to the car (e.g. you stopped at a grocery store; the clerk will testify you were there), there is no difference.
In theory, cops need a good reason to tail people. In practice, they may get away with getting the go-ahead for less than good reasons.
That's a completely different issue than whether GPS tracking is acceptable or not. GPS doesn't change this. Cops can always hornswaggle a judge into doing something. They did that before GPS.
The scarcity of police resources, in practice, offered a check on what they could get away with,
No, Sir, the COURTS offer a check on what they can get away with.
With GPS use, we will see many more instances of infringements on our rights.
That very well may be true, but it has no relevance to whether court approved tracking using GPS is ethical or legal or not. It has no relevance to whether the act of surveillance is significantly different because of the creation of GPS. It isn't. There is no significant difference between a cop getting a court order to tail you and a cop getting a court order to put a GPS on your car. "Other people could do bad things with GPS" isn't relevant. Other people can always do bad things with technology. Do you abandon all technology because of that?
Your point was none of those things. Your point was:
Enough inheritance to go to a great school, start a business, get married, etc, etc - sure.
Implicit in that "enough" statement is YOU getting to decide how much is enough. Why do YOU think you have the right to make that decision for anyone else? Claiming that kind of right comes from class envy and hatred. YOU can't make it there, so you don't want anyone else to be there, either.
...the objective should be to take as little away from the producers as possible.
That is NOT what you said, and that is NOT the logical result of your argument. Your argument is about "enough".
My point is, why should another business-person working hard to build a business pay higher taxes because people want to leave an inheritance to their kids?
They aren't. The economy isn't a zero sum game. My inheriting more than you want me to doesn't increase your taxes. The taxes on that money were already paid. It belongs to my parents. They have the right to give it to me, if they want. Why should _I_ have to pay higher taxes (an essentially unlimited "death tax") just because YOU can't succeed and you think you have the right to decide how much is enough for me?
When someone receives an inheritance they have, by definition not created the value that money represents...
You're pulling that "definition" out of your ass.
My parents own a few hundred acre farm. I've worked on that farm since I was old enough to toddle. My brothers and sisters have worked on that farm since THEY were old enough to toddle. When my parents die, I fully expect the farm to pass intact to my siblings and myself, even though I've already been to school and I've already married and bought a house. I don't give a fuck what YOU think is "enough", and your claim that "by definition" I've done nothing to create the value that the inheritance represents is simply and utterly bullshit.
I'm sorry you have no money and think that taking it away from other people is how to make yourself feel better about it, but your sad state of affairs isn't my problem.
Your counter argument seems to be "well, it's not fair". But fair doesn't matter - I'm talking in purely economically mathematical terms here.
You are talking in purely socialist terms here. From those who have to those who haven't. Don't pretend you are taking "mathematical". You are insulting everyone's intelligence here when you make that claim.
...and I don't care if you get your inheritance or not.
Based on your arguments, and continued participation in this discussion, you care very much whether I get my inheritance -- you don't want it to happen, you want me to get nothing, because I've already got "enough". So you won't mind if I tell you to put YOUR money where your mouth is. When I see YOU handing your inheritance to the government I'll consider your arguments as something more than class envy.
It migth come as a surprise to you but the planet could easily survice removal of all human life within USSR *and* USA too,
No, dear, no surprise. That was exactly my point. Thanks for getting it.
... that means that the USSR device isn't a doomsday device either, doesn't it?
Well, dear, that depends on whether the USSR [sic] device is some kind of "new bomb" that removes humans only, or the routine old kind of bomb that blows everything up and spreads decades-long contamination all over the planet and killing humans is collateral damage.
The "new bomb" that removes all humans from Russia to a depth of 500 miles clearly won't destroy the planet; it won't cause "polar axis tilt" or "9 level" earthquakes. The USSR [sic] device probably isn't as clean in it's operation.
I suspect GP is objecting to the destruction of the 500 feet of earth that would be necessary to destroy the people underneath it.
I suspect GP failed to read the thread, which started with "If the US detonated some new bomb that removed all human life within Russian borders, down to 500 miles underground,...". Nothing was said about destroying 500 feet of earth.
Key phrases: "some new bomb" means "not the same old bombs", and "removed all human life" doesn't mean "vaporized everything." Is there a wiki entry for "neutron bomb" that I need to refer to? I.e., it isn't necessary to vaporize earth to kill humans.
Yeah! is not like tectonic plates are communist or something. Remember to double check a map before the launch, you know
I have no idea why you think tectonic plates have anything to do with this.
500 feet underground * total area of Rusia it's a good bite to the earth's mass,
It is, but it is ludicrous to think that anywhere near a tiny tiny fraction of that volume is composed of human beings. Removing all the humans on the surface and down to 500 feet will be a large number of people but a very small amount of mass. Considering that killing them doesn't actually remove the mass, the mass change will be zero.
...that alone would create all sorts of havoc, as in polar axis swift and a chain reaction of nice 9 grade quakes everywhere.
I'm sorry, but did you not realize that this "Force" thing that Luke felt the disruption in was a creation of science fiction, and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people won't actually cause earthquakes and a "polar axis shift"? I mean, lots of people will be unhappy, but a polar axis shift? I don't think so.
...that would take out a good chunk of the planet and would be a doomsday machine in its own right.
The planet could easily survive removal of all human life within the borders of Russia down to 500 feet below ground. The mass would be so small, and the surrounding countries would simply cross the border and repopulate the place. Maybe not Siberia.
Some neighbor/allies of Russia might be cold for awhile until the gas supplies were secured and going again, but they'd survive.
Class envy and flamebait? No. I wrote this, because it's my belief having a permanent aristocracy is poison to a country...
You said nothing about a "permanent aristocracy", you railed against inheritance. You claimed it should be nothing more than to put someone through school and start them off.
Well, pal, let me explain real life to you. When my parents die, I expect YOU to have no say in how much of their estate they can pass on to me. According to you, since I'm already through school and well into life I deserve nothing from the estate. I say, it's THEIR money, they get to say who it goes to, not you. You have nothing to do with it.
As for my being part of a "permanent aristocracy", I think you need to look elsewhere.
... and large scale inheritances perpetuate a permanent upper class.
No, large scale OPPORTUNITY perpetuates a permanent "upper class", as you call it. Do you think that inheritance laws that prevent Donald Trump from passing his money along will do anything to stop him from hiring his kids in high paying jobs, thus setting them up for life? Did you think the political contacts Joseph Kennedy set up through his life would simply turn their backs on his kids when he died, even if he hadn't passed some money along?
Yeah, stupidity like the Kardasians who have no brains and shouldn't have money might not happen, but they are hardly a permanent upper class. If the kids don't do anything to produce money, they'll have nothing to pass along and the "permanent" becomes transitory. Once the public gets tired of seeing them waste their lives, they'll become "Celebrity Rehab" cast, and then dissappear.
On a macro-level, capitalism allocates the resources to those who deserve them...
Ok, now I know you are either a troll or just high. It's communism that says "to those according to their needs". Capitalism allocates resources to those who produce. Those who produce get to allocate it from there.
But there needs to be a way society can collect payment for the infrastructure which allowed for the business success in the first place.
There is. It's called "taxes". The rich in this country pay the vast majority of all taxes. It's only the envious and class haters that think they need to pay even more.
The most efficient and sensible way to do that, in my view, is to heavily tax inheritance.
The taxes were already paid on that money. Overtax the earning, overtax the savings? Right. "Heavily taxing the inheritance" is just another way of saying "confiscate".
And yet, all that's being discussed is imaginary property anyway...
What I replied to was a statement about INHERITANCES and MONEY.
If you consider money to be imaginary property, that's your problem. Maybe the problem is that you have none so you think it is imaginary?
I realize you intended this as flamebait, but you are hardly a capitalist.
Either someone owns his property or he is simply borrowing it from the state. The former is the heart of capitalism. The latter is socialism.
If someone truly owns his property, then it is his to do with as he sees fit. That includes giving it to his children when he dies. If he is only borrowing it from the state, however, then it is quite right to take it back when he dies.
Part of why parents work so hard is to provide for their children. Is it ok for parents to provide for their children? What about parents who die when the children are still young? Should the money be taken back as soon as they are 18?
If you get an inheritance and decide to give most of it to the state, that's fine. When I see you giving a hundred million of YOUR inheritance back to the state so you can live off your own labor, I'll consider your ideas seriously. Until then, I'll accept that they are just the result of class envy.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that english covers the case of "subject gender unspecified" well enough without trying to pretend that there is some "gender confusion" involved. The only gender confusion I can see is on the part of the /. author.
Can we perhaps agree that s/he is a tranny?
I don't know what a 's/he' is. I know what 'he' means, I know what 'she' means. Referring to this unspecified professor as "she" is saying something that isn't true.
I do not think it means what you think it means. A "hacker" is not "just a programmer". You can be a hacker without programming. It's actually "anyone who takes things apart to learn how they work and then make them do something else."
Changing the [program, books, picure] IS the point of the open source license.
No, the point of open source is having the source. Changing the source is one aspect, but simply having free access to the source allows one to understand the "program" better (for computer source) or reformat it or use it in other media (not "changing") for open source texts.
A CC http://creativecommons.org/ license book will: Remove Power from small committees of BIG states in determining what is in a textbook: Cal. Texas, NY, etc.
I don't know where you get this idea from. The open source California books were vetted by the state committee, just like any paper book. State departments of education will still mandate which textbooks will be used, whether they are paper or electrons. If you mean that local teachers will "update" the official textbooks, well, they already can provide extra material for printed books, and I don't know that I want local teachers "updating" the textbooks anyway. In fact, having them "update" an e-textbook means they can make it say whatever they want and it will still have the official stamp of approval from the state or local school board.
By looking at the grant purpose.
I don't know of any NSF grants that go towards writing textbooks. Or ONR. If it isn't part of the grant, the grant isn't paying for it.
This is an important concern for post-docs. Post-docs are paid for, in most cases, by grants. Grants don't pay for writing grants. Thus, legally, post-docs cannot write grant applications because 100% of their time is paid to do research.
That's why some places are creating "institutional post-docs" where the salary comes partly from the college, so the post-doc can learn how to write grant applications while he's still a post-doc and not a brand new professor who is expected to be successful at grant writing.
If she doesn't want to open-source a book, she simply doesn't claim it as a grant-related activity,...
You mean if he doesn't want to have his grants audited and renewals denied, he doesn't claim non-grant-related activities as "grant progress". And I will point out that women aren't the only ones required to file grant reports.
Big American cities, mostly built in the 30's and 40's, before cable, are built of brick and mortar.
Big Japanese cities are built of ricepaper and bamboo.
Have you compared how easy it is poking a cable through the wall in Japan to install 100Mbps vs. poking a cable through a brick? And don't EVEN compare how much easier WiMAX will pass through paper vs. steel-reinforced concrete.
People who live in glass houses don't need sun porches. People who live in paper houses don't need drills.
My netbook required an update to MacAfee ("free" from Comcast) because one part of it stopped working, and during its first scan, it started reporting a problem. Wouldn't tell me what the problem was unless I let it run for twelve hours to scan the whole system. I tried stopping it and looking at logs, I tried looking at logs while it was running, nothing other than the "ominous" 1 under "detected threats".
Turned out that it was reporting the crack program that allows me to run Duke Nukem without the CD -- since the netbook doesn't have a damn CD and I own the copy of Duke Nukem. MacAfraid called it "a program you might not want to have".
Phhhht.
Right. Sure. Like calling people unreasonable and saying I'm done discussing a topic, and then posting half a dozen more comments.
It's not about your different opinions, it's the way in which you convey your opinions and disregard logic in favor of your emotional arguments.
I'm sorry, but if you were using logic in your "it's unfair" arguments, I missed it. I dealt with your emotional and untrue "but they aren't paying for the government services they are using" claim, and demonstrated that your claim that you can determine what is "enough" for other people is patently absurd. What started all of this was your claim that you were a capitalist, which you have shown to be a lie. If you had something significant that would support confiscatory death tax rates that allow just "enough" inheritance for those you envy, you should have presented it before.
As it stands, you've demonstrated only that you have a serious hatred for the rich and a serious blind spot to the facts. And yet you claim MY arguments are emotional and ignore logic. Yes, that's the next phase of the "you're unreasonable because my arguments are perfect" discussion that so many online twelve year olds seem to use. You should be on Usenet. You'd be right at home there. You probably are.
You just seem to be totally, permanently wound up.
Yeah, I get perturbed by people who think they know how much is enough for other people and want the government to enforce their opinions. People who hate and envy others who have worked hard, and who think that the money those others earn is just a loan from the government, while holding on for dear life to every dollar they themselves come across and claiming they are "capitalists" just like the ones who have the money. Did I miss your statement that you had donated all of your inheritance to the IRS, and that you have a clause in your will handing most of your estate over to the IRS so your kids get just "enough"? No, I didn't think so. Those rules wouldn't apply to you. They're for the "rich" people you hate.
Are you through yet? Are you really done, or will I see more insults because you can't come up with an argument that convinces me you are right?
How many 15 year olds are married and own their own homes? Oh, did you simply ignore everything I said and focus on promoting your class envy agenda? Or is age somehow now relevant to the argument, and libertarian 15 year olds are outside your scope of concern?
I'm done trying to reason with you being so unreasonable and emotive.
As for being "unreasonable", well, you have yet to produce any reasons for me to change my opinion. Instead of assuming that I might have a different set of assumptions and experiences that would lead to an honest difference of opinion, it is the debating style of a 12 year old to assume that the failure to convince the other person to agree is not due to a lack of convincing argument from the 12 year old but that the "other guy" is "unreasonable and emotive". It's common online, and I've come to expect it. If you can't win an argument, claim a win anyway and insult the opponent for being stupid, unreasonable, or both.
Are you really done now? Or are you so emotionally tied up with this discussion that you have to continue?
Yep. That's why the argument that "it's not fair for people to get the benefits of government without paying for it" when applied to inheritance is such a loser. You know it's a loser because it starts with "it's not fair" (the opening gambit of class hatred and envy), and it's based on the false premise that 1) the rich don't pay taxes (they pay the most) and 2) inheritances haven't been taxed (they were when they were earned the first time, and then again at a ridiculous rate when they were inherited.)
Yes, you are. I'm glad you admit that confiscatory fiscal policies on the part of the government are unreasonable and unjustifiable. I'm glad that you understand that trying to tell others how much is "enough" for them is unreasonable.
I thought you said you were done with this.
Followed by endless paragraphs of insults like "I hope I don't end up with kids like you". Done? No, you're not done yet.
Yeah, it's a bitch, having kids who spend their whole lives supporting you and your business for the cost of room and board, which you expect them to take over and carry on the fine family tradition, helping you build a million dollar farm and keep it running. It's a bitch having kids who think that the money YOU earned because of YOUR work was yours to do with as you see fit, and not limited by some socialist/communist schmuck who thinks you should only give "enough" to your kids and the rest to the government.
I hope you don't end up with kids, period. You trying to screw the people you envy is enough; screwing your children is too much.
There are at least a few economic counter arguments to my opinions,
Your complaint about "money to run the government" was dealt with. The taxes are already paid on that money. You got your bite of the apple. That leaves you with the sole argument that "it's not fair" that some people's children will get enough money that they don't have to work. Wow. Tough shit for you, huh?
And here's a (somewhat) friendly hint:
You've lied about the "by definition" claim that inheritance means the money wasn't worked for, so I am not surprised you'd lie about being friendly in your hint.
estate taxes are already a total bitch - they are taxed at somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of inheritable asset value. In many cases,
Which only proves that your argument based on having to pay for the services of government as an excuse for taking away all but "enough" was just bullshit to start with. The death tax should be abolished. People who know that their estates are going to be confiscated when they die aren't going to waste time producing more than they need. Why should they? And taking away a farm that I've worked hard to help build just because my name wasn't on the deed is sick.
Also, tenant in common ownership of any asset among siblings really is unsustainable;
You are so ready to tell me what is good for me, aren't you? Why don't you go back to managing your own life and leave others to theirs?
imagine if you hadn't been told you'd receive all this wealth and you could fend for yourself
With every word, you prove you have no clue about anything relevant.
you'll need a pretty big dose of luck.
All the luck I need from YOU is to keep your nose out of my life and stop acting like you know how much is enough for other people. You have no clue what "enough" is, much less what other people deserve.
In many years of programming firewire devices (cameras), I've found Sony's firewire devices to be basically awful. Packet loss out the wazoo.
BUT, I've found the same thing for almost every on-board firewire controller I've used. For some reason, they will consistently lose packets, while a $10 PCI card controller will work flawlessly.
By the way, buy Agere. Via sucks, because they changed the chip specs on their controller without changing the chip number.
Yes, because if you took mini, micro, and B USB connectors into account, you'd have to admit that you need a handful of cables to be able to connect all the various kinds of USB devices too, just like you do for 1394. In practice, I've seen three 1394 connectors: Six pin, four pin, and nine pin. That's one less than the number of USB connectors in regular use.
And I think it's nice to be able to look at a 1394 port and know it's S800/1600/3200 vs. S400/200/100. A lot better than this nonsense of finding out a USB port is USB1 only by seeing how God awful slow the hundred megabyte file you are trying to transfer is going.
I'd say its better than using the same connector because you don't fall into the trap set by USB1 and USB2. You can't tell by looking if a computer has USB1 or USB2, or which ports on multi-controller systems are 1 and 2. You can't pick up a hub and tell if it is USB2 without searching for the USB2 label.
It's too easy to plug a USB2 device into a USB1 port and be stuck wondering when the data transfer will be done. It will be too easy to plug a USB3 device into a USB1 port and wonder why you paid extra for USB3 when the data transfer is as slow as it always was.
What trap? S800 devices can run at S400 if necessary, just like S400 can run at S100.
That's right. They can follow you everywhere you go and write down when and where you were. They can take pictures of people you meet and identify what books you looked at while you were at the library.
The argument that proponents of these GPS devices make is that using a GPS is "just like having a cop tail a person, which is what we already allow."
That argument is not true. It's LESS invasive and provides less information about your activities. Those who see you pass by won't see a cop following you, so they won't know you are being watched. From a liberties standpoint, it's less a loss of liberty and less invasive. That should make it better. It is, however, not a significant difference from an ethical or legal standpoint.
I am saying that that reasoning is flawed, that's all. It is not at all like tailing a person.
I know what you were saying, and you are wrong. Other than the extra step necessary to tie you to the car (e.g. you stopped at a grocery store; the clerk will testify you were there), there is no difference.
In theory, cops need a good reason to tail people. In practice, they may get away with getting the go-ahead for less than good reasons.
That's a completely different issue than whether GPS tracking is acceptable or not. GPS doesn't change this. Cops can always hornswaggle a judge into doing something. They did that before GPS.
The scarcity of police resources, in practice, offered a check on what they could get away with,
No, Sir, the COURTS offer a check on what they can get away with.
With GPS use, we will see many more instances of infringements on our rights.
That very well may be true, but it has no relevance to whether court approved tracking using GPS is ethical or legal or not. It has no relevance to whether the act of surveillance is significantly different because of the creation of GPS. It isn't. There is no significant difference between a cop getting a court order to tail you and a cop getting a court order to put a GPS on your car. "Other people could do bad things with GPS" isn't relevant. Other people can always do bad things with technology. Do you abandon all technology because of that?
Your point was none of those things. Your point was: Enough inheritance to go to a great school, start a business, get married, etc, etc - sure.
Implicit in that "enough" statement is YOU getting to decide how much is enough. Why do YOU think you have the right to make that decision for anyone else? Claiming that kind of right comes from class envy and hatred. YOU can't make it there, so you don't want anyone else to be there, either.
That is NOT what you said, and that is NOT the logical result of your argument. Your argument is about "enough".
My point is, why should another business-person working hard to build a business pay higher taxes because people want to leave an inheritance to their kids?
They aren't. The economy isn't a zero sum game. My inheriting more than you want me to doesn't increase your taxes. The taxes on that money were already paid. It belongs to my parents. They have the right to give it to me, if they want. Why should _I_ have to pay higher taxes (an essentially unlimited "death tax") just because YOU can't succeed and you think you have the right to decide how much is enough for me?
When someone receives an inheritance they have, by definition not created the value that money represents...
You're pulling that "definition" out of your ass.
My parents own a few hundred acre farm. I've worked on that farm since I was old enough to toddle. My brothers and sisters have worked on that farm since THEY were old enough to toddle. When my parents die, I fully expect the farm to pass intact to my siblings and myself, even though I've already been to school and I've already married and bought a house. I don't give a fuck what YOU think is "enough", and your claim that "by definition" I've done nothing to create the value that the inheritance represents is simply and utterly bullshit.
I'm sorry you have no money and think that taking it away from other people is how to make yourself feel better about it, but your sad state of affairs isn't my problem.
Your counter argument seems to be "well, it's not fair". But fair doesn't matter - I'm talking in purely economically mathematical terms here.
You are talking in purely socialist terms here. From those who have to those who haven't. Don't pretend you are taking "mathematical". You are insulting everyone's intelligence here when you make that claim.
Based on your arguments, and continued participation in this discussion, you care very much whether I get my inheritance -- you don't want it to happen, you want me to get nothing, because I've already got "enough". So you won't mind if I tell you to put YOUR money where your mouth is. When I see YOU handing your inheritance to the government I'll consider your arguments as something more than class envy.
No, dear, no surprise. That was exactly my point. Thanks for getting it.
Well, dear, that depends on whether the USSR [sic] device is some kind of "new bomb" that removes humans only, or the routine old kind of bomb that blows everything up and spreads decades-long contamination all over the planet and killing humans is collateral damage.
The "new bomb" that removes all humans from Russia to a depth of 500 miles clearly won't destroy the planet; it won't cause "polar axis tilt" or "9 level" earthquakes. The USSR [sic] device probably isn't as clean in it's operation.
I suspect GP failed to read the thread, which started with "If the US detonated some new bomb that removed all human life within Russian borders, down to 500 miles underground,...". Nothing was said about destroying 500 feet of earth.
Key phrases: "some new bomb" means "not the same old bombs", and "removed all human life" doesn't mean "vaporized everything." Is there a wiki entry for "neutron bomb" that I need to refer to? I.e., it isn't necessary to vaporize earth to kill humans.
Got news for YOU. The money and property I inherit from my parents has had the taxes paid on it already. Taxing it again is unethical and immoral.
I have no idea why you think tectonic plates have anything to do with this.
500 feet underground * total area of Rusia it's a good bite to the earth's mass,
It is, but it is ludicrous to think that anywhere near a tiny tiny fraction of that volume is composed of human beings. Removing all the humans on the surface and down to 500 feet will be a large number of people but a very small amount of mass. Considering that killing them doesn't actually remove the mass, the mass change will be zero.
I'm sorry, but did you not realize that this "Force" thing that Luke felt the disruption in was a creation of science fiction, and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people won't actually cause earthquakes and a "polar axis shift"? I mean, lots of people will be unhappy, but a polar axis shift? I don't think so.
The planet could easily survive removal of all human life within the borders of Russia down to 500 feet below ground. The mass would be so small, and the surrounding countries would simply cross the border and repopulate the place. Maybe not Siberia.
Some neighbor/allies of Russia might be cold for awhile until the gas supplies were secured and going again, but they'd survive.
You said nothing about a "permanent aristocracy", you railed against inheritance. You claimed it should be nothing more than to put someone through school and start them off.
Well, pal, let me explain real life to you. When my parents die, I expect YOU to have no say in how much of their estate they can pass on to me. According to you, since I'm already through school and well into life I deserve nothing from the estate. I say, it's THEIR money, they get to say who it goes to, not you. You have nothing to do with it.
As for my being part of a "permanent aristocracy", I think you need to look elsewhere.
No, large scale OPPORTUNITY perpetuates a permanent "upper class", as you call it. Do you think that inheritance laws that prevent Donald Trump from passing his money along will do anything to stop him from hiring his kids in high paying jobs, thus setting them up for life? Did you think the political contacts Joseph Kennedy set up through his life would simply turn their backs on his kids when he died, even if he hadn't passed some money along?
Yeah, stupidity like the Kardasians who have no brains and shouldn't have money might not happen, but they are hardly a permanent upper class. If the kids don't do anything to produce money, they'll have nothing to pass along and the "permanent" becomes transitory. Once the public gets tired of seeing them waste their lives, they'll become "Celebrity Rehab" cast, and then dissappear.
On a macro-level, capitalism allocates the resources to those who deserve them...
Ok, now I know you are either a troll or just high. It's communism that says "to those according to their needs". Capitalism allocates resources to those who produce. Those who produce get to allocate it from there.
But there needs to be a way society can collect payment for the infrastructure which allowed for the business success in the first place.
There is. It's called "taxes". The rich in this country pay the vast majority of all taxes. It's only the envious and class haters that think they need to pay even more.
The most efficient and sensible way to do that, in my view, is to heavily tax inheritance.
The taxes were already paid on that money. Overtax the earning, overtax the savings? Right. "Heavily taxing the inheritance" is just another way of saying "confiscate".
What I replied to was a statement about INHERITANCES and MONEY. If you consider money to be imaginary property, that's your problem. Maybe the problem is that you have none so you think it is imaginary?
Sounds good, I'm turning my computer off right NO CARRIER
I realize you intended this as flamebait, but you are hardly a capitalist.
Either someone owns his property or he is simply borrowing it from the state. The former is the heart of capitalism. The latter is socialism.
If someone truly owns his property, then it is his to do with as he sees fit. That includes giving it to his children when he dies. If he is only borrowing it from the state, however, then it is quite right to take it back when he dies.
Part of why parents work so hard is to provide for their children. Is it ok for parents to provide for their children? What about parents who die when the children are still young? Should the money be taken back as soon as they are 18?
If you get an inheritance and decide to give most of it to the state, that's fine. When I see you giving a hundred million of YOUR inheritance back to the state so you can live off your own labor, I'll consider your ideas seriously. Until then, I'll accept that they are just the result of class envy.