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  1. Re: definition of terms first on Are Silicon Valley Workers Abandoning Libertarianism For Socialism? (salon.com) · · Score: 1

    And the Democratic party is the one most democratic of all, that's in its name. Also, the green party is composed by lizards and what about the Tea party? Does microsoft produce small software?
    Listen, it's a name. 'First they came..' starts 'First they certainly for the socialists'. Hitler bombed Guernica for Franco, Guernica was a republican (socialist) city and Franxo was the general leading the coup against the elected socialist government. Every neonazi movement assumed it's right wing heritage, none would claim to belong to the left.
    Don't try to derive truth from words, and especially not from fantasy names like the ones people give to their associations.

  2. Re: Ah... the Liz Warren deceit on Are Silicon Valley Workers Abandoning Libertarianism For Socialism? (salon.com) · · Score: 1

    Yet the American system is very inefficient when compared to public systems that *also* cover the elderly. The explanation needs to be a difference between America and other developed countries. The US does have a large number of veterans, that is true, even proportionally, that is a possibility. Yet another possibility is that the US has no part of its health infrastructure run by the state. And for inelastic services, like health, running a part (mind, not necessarily the whole of it) of the market by the State turns out to be a great thing. The current state of things is that the American public and the State are captive and subjected to the collusion of the whole healthcare system.
    One American physician once told me that most physicians familiar with the systems used in other countries are aware of this. But they get a fat share of the money (more than other professions) so few are eager to launch a reform movement.

  3. Re: Got one part right. Force instead of choice on Are Silicon Valley Workers Abandoning Libertarianism For Socialism? (salon.com) · · Score: 1

    They can. Germany for example has a much larger share of it's economy handled by SMBs and coops than big, publicly traded corporations, when compared to US. Mind, these countries though different in size are almost as developed. So the difference is probably not intrinsic to coops but rather ecosystem and regulation.
    One obvious advantage that a publicly traded company does have is the ability to capitalize. It can use stock for that, and it has easier access to credit (either by a greater assurance that a default will result in liquidation or maybe even ideological bias by banks, they do have that, specially since credit unions are relatively so successful).
    Capitalism does behave in boom-and-bust cycles. Public companies might have a similar advantages for the boom period. But maybe the bust might undo all that good that was authentically created.
    As always, mixed schemes work best, but laize faire is not the best way to guarantee that diversity. Just a bit of regulation can do wonder. Otoh the regulation bureaucracy is as encroaching as the free market establishment and both try to expand their relative power.
    Eternal vigilance and constant tweaking are our best hoped.

  4. You said that there's no proof of what the US government says, but that its becoming clear that there is some truth because ... the US government keeps saying it?
    Mind, the summary clearly states that the government is about to pass a bill, proof or no proof. Universities reacting to the bill, or to US federal gov pressure, are not a valid indication that there's anything else but smoke. Ever been to a music show? There's no fire behind that smoke.

  5. Set theory on Kids Have 'Math Anxiety' Thanks To Parents and Teachers, Report Finds (vice.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    In Argentina, during the last right wing, US backed, dictatorship set theory was also removed from elementary school.
    The reasoning was (translation is mine) that it 'promotes the Soviet idea of the collective, and of grouping as an indispensable relationship in problem solving'. I wonder how much of red scare factor was behind the similar move in the US.

  6. The 'world' is urban dictionary? What about BBC? on Kids Have 'Math Anxiety' Thanks To Parents and Teachers, Report Finds (vice.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world...

    Seriously, Wikipedia is a site where everyone posts what they think with little oversight but UD it's a joke site, that doesn't even try to be a serious definition.

  7. We certainly don't need more humans.
    We do need more developed regions of course, so that the living standard of the existing humans improve. Actually, the development would also help with curbing the amount of humans: high development brings low pop growth.

  8. Re:Space agency launching what? on South Australia To Be Home To Australia's New Space Agency (abc.net.au) · · Score: 1

    Well, not necessarily.
    South Australia vs somewhere else in the country but to the north means the things are still done in Australia.
    Importing a submarine from another country means that you missed on the research and development capabilities generated by building it yourself. Now, theres the question of whether those capabilities are worth the price. But then the two cases are different, and you'll find that those allies probably do not buy a lot of their equipment and instead make sure that they can build their own, regardless of cost

  9. Bomb detectors? on New Zealand Travelers Refusing Digital Search Now Face $5000 Customs Fine (msn.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nicely put about the US but... Have you ever been to Mexico or Argentina? I've never seen a bomb detector in a McDonald's in my life. Mexico's said to be dangerous near the border, but in Mexico City I saw nothing like what you describe, not even in Acapulco. Also, Mexico's violence is predominantly related to drug traffic and plain old crime (kidnappings too).
    Your description of Argentina is totally inaccurate too. Even though there were two terrorist incidents in the last 30 years to Jewish/Israeli targets, the only sign you can see of that is pylons outside of synagogues and Jewish countries. The terrorist threat is non existent.

  10. But let's look at the results of the experiment on Half the World Is Now Middle Class Or Wealthier, Says Brookings Institution (brookings.edu) · · Score: 1

    You describe this theory about how those taxes create more crime. Yet the Netherlands are one of the safest places in the world, specially if we normalize by their relative size and individual freedom . Yeah, the Maldives are doing great, if you don't mind your alcohol being prohibited.
    That system might not be perfect, but you singled out one of the best implementations that we have for a society that is effective and relatively efficient in keeping it's population happy, and in good part that is because it decided to care for all of its component parts. Almost every other place is doing worse off. There are exceptions of relative social peace and low taxes, but most that I know are either tax havens (those only leak benefits from balanced societies, their relative advantage would vanish if everyone followed suit) or havie some kind of sovereignly owned resource (like oil).

  11. What animal are you talking about? on Amazon's Aggressive Anti-Union Tactics Revealed In Leaked Video (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 1

    Octopuses? Every human is born defenseless and remains mostly so until many years later. Sexual maturity takes more than a decade. Moreover, that just gives you a homo sapiens, and I bet you'd gladly deny humanity from a wild raised barbarian. Now, to raise a person you most often will need paternal care, education in language and thought, even the self learned erudites did not figure it out by themselves but from books written by other people. Newton's standing in n the shoulders of Giants.
    Your described isolation of humans is delusion. You could say that we ought to strive for it, and we could discuss it. Stating it as a fact though, over what is essentially a social animal is just plain false. Homo sapiens is social, as our ancestors were and our relatives are., civilized people is even something else, not just a socialized animal but an entity whose existence is cultural, and since no one constructed his own culture from scratch, it is social.
    Between your imagined dystopian north Korea and your also imaginary hermit natural state there are real societies where humanity and individual humans actually thrive.

  12. Funny you mention 'First they came' on Amazon's Aggressive Anti-Union Tactics Revealed In Leaked Video (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 1

    The first to verses are 'they came for the socialists' and 'then they came for the trade unionists'. Probably not chance

  13. Re: Nobody cares what Emil thinks on Leaked Video Shows Google Executives' Candid Reaction To Trump Victory (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    This. If Emil has a reason why political opinions 'cannot' be discussed at the workplace, he may bring them forward. His personal, arbitrary, preference cannot be enforced as a social norm.

  14. Re: Oh dear. on Ask Slashdot: How Would a Self-Aware AI Behave? (slashdot.org) · · Score: 1

    That was an interesting, thought provoking post. Well, waaaay too long but not unnecessarily, maybe.
    Thank you

  15. Re: We need to stop educating Chinese engineers on China Plans $47 Billion Fund To Boost Its Semiconductor Industry (wsj.com) · · Score: 2

    That's how a good part of the world feels of the USA too. China has its problems, I'm not sure they are significantly worse than the American problems though. And yes, I have been to both places, China for a month, US a lot more than that, several times.
    There's a Party in the States, and although it pretends to be a multitude of (2?) Voices, the truth is that its will is as total as the will of the CP in China. It's not quite as bad in the rest of the developed world.

  16. Excellent timing, re: the Think Tank article on NASA Launches Massive Digital Library For Space Video, Photos and Audio (space.com) · · Score: 1

    Remember the overhead article produced by a "non partisan think tank" that surprisingly recommended NASA outsourced everything? This is the kind of thing they'd included as "overhead" with their ridiculous criteria.
    I don't know enough to evaluate the current NASA administration, but I think it does many good things in reaching out to the community and keep NASA relevant to the American public.

  17. Which Article did you read? on The Only Thing, Historically, That's Curbed Inequality: Catastrophe (theatlantic.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Article *never* does a good vs evil judgement. Never advocates anything.
    Article simply states: "Inequality was only curbed by catastrophe. Even in the title, it calls all of those events *Catastrophes*!
    The point of the Article is to say that constant, mild and progressive policies have seldom had any impact vs catastrophes. The article calls the chinese and soviet revolutions "bloody affairs" and "murderous mechanisms"
    Makes you wonder why you're
    Why would you hand pick only one school out of inequality when there are many other economists in other countries producing more investigations that we could take into consideration? Many of them have also investigated inequality as a cause and an effect of market failures, that is, failure by the market to maximize the value creation (ie: an inefficient economy).
    Switzerland benefited quite a lot from the influx of foreign wealth, not produced by the swiss economy itself. During some of the catastrophes talked about in the article, a lot of the spoils were transferred to Switzerland, and it has a place in the world economy as the most famous tax haven were the beneficiaries of inequality elsewhere stored their wealth. Also, its economy is *far* from unregulated, not quite a libertarian utopia. You will be able to find many more countries with less industrial, environmental, labor and even financial regulations, why didn't you choose one of those instead?

  18. > Apparently, there are only about 38'000 missing persons under 18 per year in the US. Now, if _all_ of them are forced into prostitution (which is most certainly not the case by a very large margin), you are still missing 62'000.
    Are they reported again coming next year?
    Otherwise, if they are missing for example, since age 10 they have 6 years to continue, you can have 38k * 6 = +200k children
    Not that I think that's the actual number, but for all the number crunching in your post, that is a basic mistake

  19. Re:The very definition of insanity on Facing Layoff, An IT Employee Makes A Bold Counteroffer (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Unions are NOT the solution, an end to global corporations pushing open borders, global "free trade", and treaties like TPP (which gives almost unlimited power to corporations and frees them from oversight/limitation by nations) are what is needed

    And in the rest of the world, the most effective resistance against such public measures was by ... the Unions. Unions are not just for salary discussions, but they are political actors in themselves. Of course, there are some very corrupt unions, just as there are some very corrupt political parties. But you would not recommend to win an election with *no* party at all, would you? Same thing with unions.

  20. +5 Insightful? Where's the incontrovertible proof? on China Chases Silicon Valley Talent Who Are Worried About Trump Presidency (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    The guy said that America should change its financial aid policy if Israel continued ignoring America's foreign policy opinion. Mind, even Bush told them to halt construction, and Israel's hawks never changed tany of their policies.
    Sorry, even if his positions were much more extreme, and the guy were an anti-zionist (which in the last two decades for sure he wasn't), that is different from anti-semitism. There are many anti-zionist jewish, did you know?

  21. What a pile of apologetic excuses! on Leaked Snowden Docs Show Canada's "False Flag" Operations · · Score: 1

    1. So far, all disclosures have been about the 5 eyes. That does not mean others are doing it, but you have no proof, are just mouthing off because it makes you fell better (or because you are a shrill).
    2. Most governments don't even have a budget big enough to fund NSA style snooping. For the time being, economics still protect us.
    3. US is spying everyone else. As much as I distrust my government, I reckon it has *more* interests in common with me than US government (namely, my country's interests. US has once and again shown that it will screw other countries (population included) to further its interests.
    4. World governments, we-hate-USA edition, in public have proofs of their saying. In private. as soon as something leaks, we'll take care don't you worry.
    5. World governments, we-are-USA-puppets edition (the ones you don't branded) are part of the problem too. They should be dealt with along the US.

    The US government and the 5 eyes are the only ones caught in this abuse of their own (and other countries) population. Like you said, YOU should clean up YOUR fucking house, before claiming of others something you don't even have any proof of.

  22. And the evidence for mass surveillance on Wikimedia Foundation Files Suit Against NSA and DOJ · · Score: 1

    by other countries is WHERE? I mean, except for the five eyes, that was coordinated by US.

  23. Two points on that on New Zealand Spied On Nearly Two Dozen Pacific Countries · · Score: 1

    1. Let's suppose they're not actually spying on you. But they collect everyone's data so they:
              - Could actually be spying on every major journalist.
              - Could actually be spying on politic opponents.
                - Could actually be spying on opposing (not necesarilly bad or good, just opposing) governments.
                Once you're in power, they can use parallel construction. Just release some anonymous pointers about corruption about opponents and hide for a latter time the bits about corruption of friends. (2 years ago we were wondering why NSA was spying on Petrobras. Maybe it's only a coincidence, yet the Petrobras scandal gained a lot of force in the last week before Brazil's elections)

    2. They totally can do a lot of harm without reading your posts. There is just a thing as automated NLP, sentiment analysis and that shit. I once even saw one commercial offering that listed "Belief propragation analysis in social graphs". Think about identifying who's spreading those dangerous ideas in time. And they even had the dubious taste of using Chelsea Manning as the bad boy to identify. And these are commercial offerings ... the US military compound was traditionally many years ahead in technology than the commercial world, I'm not sure that still holds, but I haven's seen any indication to the contrary either.

  24. Re:Radical Left allowed to run a country... on Valve's Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Greece's Finance Minister · · Score: 1

    Today, 30% of Chile's income is because of the state owned Codelco. Chile's copper was nationalized by Allende.
    Chile's current economic state is partially supported by the surge in copper price in 2005 http://www.infomine.com/invest... (at the same time, Venezuela is being hit by a record low oil price, not that that excepts all of Venezuela's mistakes)
    If Allende had not nationalized the copper, Chile would need to increase taxes by 50% to maintain current budget. That wouldn't come easily to the economy.

    Statistics aside, Chile is no wonder. It's very hard to people with dependents (both older people and kids). In my personal experience, based on how I've worked with chileans in IT, they are below Argentina and Brazil (in my anecdotal evidence, *way* below).

    Chile's last right wing president ended his term with the lowest level of public support since the return of democracy, and resulted in a comeback of the very moderate left.
    Also, you probably would find it interesting to read about the portuguese Carnation Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C....

  25. posting to void mod points on Facebook Will Let You Flag Content As 'False' · · Score: 1

    typo :S