Linux shows that cooperation of many individuals can be a cheaper and more effective way to create a product than unmanaged competition between large multi-national corps.
The theories on the concentration of wealth have been written about by Marx et. al. Without government intervention (although libertarians would say BECAUSE of government intervention) history seems to indicate that wealth eventually accumulates at the top and a revolution is required to set things "right" again. A messy business.
As one can see from the mess in Iraq, there is little that can be done to escape greed and stupidity in its search for wealth and power....but I think things like Linux stand-out and show that the world that it CAN operate differently - effectively.
Actually, I own the patent for representing an application state in 2 files. 3 is owned by a cambodian software engineer named Ng Feng. He's a really nice guy. 4,5,and 6 are owned by Haliburton. (I couldn't believe that!)
Look at what Jesus Christ said vs. what Christianity has does in His name (from the Crusades to Jimmy Swaggart to Pedophile Priests.) Same with Marx and Engles. Same with Islam. Same with Adam Smith.
My suggestion is that implementation of these complex theories on how society should operate spun by the sages that created them always seem to fall way short of the ideal. On the other side, opponents of the sage's theory site the flawed implementations as evidence that the original theory itself is with out merit and use that as evidence that their theory is correct.
So I don't see any actual progress here. Look at our "final solution" for Iraq. Putting men, women, and children through a meatgrinder because the previous regime was putting men, women, and children through a meat grinder.
My point is that it seems like massive theft and murder on a grand scale are the result of almost every implementation of someone's grand theory.
I'm not saying that it's not interesting to discuss these theories, It just seems delusional to think that they represent "progress."
Robert Fripp (the worlds greatest guitar player IMO) said it best..."Quantitative action works by violence and breeds reaction. Qualitative action works by example and invites reciprocation."
It's common for "believers" to suggest that when an implementation of their political/economic philosophy or religion ends up in disaster that it was due to it being implemented incorrectly or... that not enough of their political/economic philosophy or religion was implemented.
Theft and murder seems to be what humans consistently do well...for thousands of years of recorded history...regardless of the political/economic philosophy or religion under which the crimes were committed.
This is an astute observation that gets missed by the Ayn Rand crowd that frequent this site.
Another way of putting it is that there is no role for the government in ensuring that food producers take adequate steps to ensure their food products do not contain poison because after enough people die, the public will switch to another safer brand and the company selling poisoned food will go out of business.
The Ford Pinto used to explode and incinerate it's occupants on a rear-end collision. The Pinto is gone...along with the men, women and children who burned-up in them....and cars are safer now as a result of market forces at work. Yup, gotta save us all from evil government intervention.
Bravo...If this guy had posted last night...I could have gone to bed a lot earlier.
I was also interested in a a response to this post where the person indicated that entry-level jobs are harder to get because they are looking for someone with experience. How does this position wash with the age discrimination folks...the ones who feel that if you are over 40 you doomed?
I've been in the business for 20 years and I have never been out of work for more than three months.
The reason, I believe, that this is the case is because early in my career, I read a paper by Fredrick P. Brooks called No Silver Bullet. Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering.
Coders are being outsourced. Software Engineers are not.
I understand that the government of India has created the population of Indian programmers by massively subsidizing their education. Should we compete "fairly" while other governments don't?
And BTW, 2 1/2 months out of work is nothing. You could easily be out of work for a full year before you find another programming job (that should give you plent of time to finish the rest of Ayn Rand's books.) I hope that does not happen but if it does, we working cowards will gladly pay our taxes to help you...and your children.
I presume you are against corporate welfare too? When the airlines have tough times...you are against helping them with corporate welfare. Let them fail right? And if YOU or your wife work for an airline and loose your job, followed by your car and home...and you can't find a job right away and your kids have no place to live then we're all supposed to ignore the fact that you are living in a dumpster?
Oh...I forgot how "tough" and "smart" you are and how this could NEVER happen to you. Because while you're working hard to move up in the airline you're simultaneously forseeing 9/11 and already planning your move to the next big career.
Right, so eventually an information-oriented workforce replaced it...20 years later. During the change, lots of suffering took place - and is still taking place. Some of us believe that effective government helps people through these times. Others, especially young people just starting out with lot's of energy and little to loose - feel like - hey...screw 'em it's their own fault. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
I read his stuff carefully 20 yeard ago when I was a member of the North Dakota Libertarian party working on the Ed Clark for President campaign. Probably befor your time.
I "believed" it then. It's seemed obvious and simple. The real world turned out to be a little more complicated in my view. If John Galt ran every international corporation perhaps I would still "believe." I have found that dangerous people are just as likely to be found in the board room as the Oval Office. Governments and markets are not perfect...as the theory goes. Plutocrats turned out to be just as dangerous as Bureaucrats.
Well I guess this guy has never heard of the Great Depression. Or all the other depressions and recessions that have occurred over time.
And don't try to tell me that the Great Depression occurred because we didn't have enough capitalism.
The industrialization of farming example doesn't help the cause either. Toxic chemicals entering the food supply cause cancer. Beef production is a documented horror. Runoff into the water supply and the loss of topsoil due to "advancements" in production techniques are well known and fully documented.
Capitalism does not care about cancer or the destruction of the planet that we ALL (greedy and non-greedy) have to live on.
Capitalism is about maximizing profits ONLY. Nothing else matters. Its about maximizing shareholder value...legally or illegally...morally or imorally. I'm not talking about small shopkeepers and tradesmen...I'm talking about the destructive concentration of wealth - and with it - the concentration of political power. One does not occur without the other.
And don't talk about how capitalism sparks innovation. Who makes the money from inventions? The inventor? This is almost NEVER the case. Inventors invent out of love of their field. Others (Bill Gates) get rich.
Capitalism works when there is a balance between opposing forces...buyers and sellers - each trying to get the most from each other and giving the least in return. When these two forces are in balance, good things happen. When they are out of balance, bad things happen. It's the role of democratic government to make sure the balance is somewhat maintained.
Naive attribution of the success of western society to capitalism ignores the Civil war, the Spanish-American war, the Mexican war, WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, and the Bush Oil wars.
These wars were not fought by fat-cats like George Bush and Dick Cheney, they were fought by the farmers the poster is talking about. These wars were not about ideology, they were about money and the power that comes with it. Lots of farmers died in those wars and lots of capitalists got stinking rich building tanks and planes and sewing uniforms, and making body-bags.
There is nothing noble in taking your army to a "less-advanced" country and looting their natural resources either. Without these natural resources...where would the engines of capitalism get their raw materials? There's a "big-picture" thing going on here that the poster does not seem to understand...one that the Austrian School of Economics ignores completely.
Put down Ayn Rand and read the Grapes of Wrath. It's all about balance.
I find it interesting that folks have issues with OSS because they can not figure out how to make money under that model. Since when is it OUR problem to figure out how some company is supposed to make money? I started life 20 years ago as a Pascal and C programmer. Today, I would not go by those job descriptions - though I still do lots of programming - because so much has changed in the industry. SQL, HTML, Object-oriented programming UML.....on and on....and at no time during my career can I remember anyone asking me if the changes they were about to make to their tool/system/etc... would be a problem because it makes it difficult for some software developers to continue to work and make money.
...see a possible relationship between what this guy is saying and Seth's notion of time? Something like - all possible states exist simultaneously and are alive. There is both independent existence AND wholeness without paradox. The entire system not only portrays constant growth, but IS growth itself. This bit of weirdness relates manifest reality to consciousness (uh...I think...). Seth says consiousness creates reality but - of course - they create each other...like the Escher print - two hands drawing each other.
No offense but his concern about "rebellion by the right wing" is a legitimate one as in the U.S. this group is indebted to evangelical Christians and appears to cater to their agenda to maintain their support. Not that there is anything wrong with that - but you should not dismiss his concern out of hand and without some sort of disclaimer on your part.
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Linux shows that cooperation of many individuals can be a cheaper and more effective way to create a product than unmanaged competition between large multi-national corps.
...but I think things like Linux stand-out and show that the world that it CAN operate differently - effectively.
The theories on the concentration of wealth have been written about by Marx et. al. Without government intervention (although libertarians would say BECAUSE of government intervention) history seems to indicate that wealth eventually accumulates at the top and a revolution is required to set things "right" again. A messy business.
As one can see from the mess in Iraq, there is little that can be done to escape greed and stupidity in its search for wealth and power.
I'm curious if the poster installed windows on their machine or if they were working from the version installed from the factory.
Maybe a Wal-Mart linux box would have been a better test.
Actually, I own the patent for representing an application state in 2 files. 3 is owned by a cambodian software engineer named Ng Feng. He's a really nice guy. 4,5,and 6 are owned by Haliburton. (I couldn't believe that!)
The rest, I think, are still available.
competition = the customer is always right
monopoly = the customer is always wrong
this is America, not a socialist state
Correct, thanks to Bush this is now a fascist state run by a posse insane billionaires.
Look at what Jesus Christ said vs. what Christianity has does in His name (from the Crusades to Jimmy Swaggart to Pedophile Priests.) Same with Marx and Engles. Same with Islam. Same with Adam Smith.
My suggestion is that implementation of these complex theories on how society should operate spun by the sages that created them always seem to fall way short of the ideal. On the other side, opponents of the sage's theory site the flawed implementations as evidence that the original theory itself is with out merit and use that as evidence that their theory is correct.
So I don't see any actual progress here. Look at our "final solution" for Iraq. Putting men, women, and children through a meatgrinder because the previous regime was putting men, women, and children through a meat grinder.
My point is that it seems like massive theft and murder on a grand scale are the result of almost every implementation of someone's grand theory.
I'm not saying that it's not interesting to discuss these theories, It just seems delusional to think that they represent "progress."
Robert Fripp (the worlds greatest guitar player IMO) said it best..."Quantitative action works by violence and breeds reaction. Qualitative action works by example and invites reciprocation."
It's common for "believers" to suggest that when an implementation of their political/economic philosophy or religion ends up in disaster that it was due to it being implemented incorrectly or... that not enough of their political/economic philosophy or religion was implemented.
Theft and murder seems to be what humans consistently do well...for thousands of years of recorded history...regardless of the political/economic philosophy or religion under which the crimes were committed.
This is an astute observation that gets missed by the Ayn Rand crowd that frequent this site.
Another way of putting it is that there is no role for the government in ensuring that food producers take adequate steps to ensure their food products do not contain poison because after enough people die, the public will switch to another safer brand and the company selling poisoned food will go out of business.
The Ford Pinto used to explode and incinerate it's occupants on a rear-end collision. The Pinto is gone...along with the men, women and children who burned-up in them....and cars are safer now as a result of market forces at work. Yup, gotta save us all from evil government intervention.
Bravo...If this guy had posted last night...I could have gone to bed a lot earlier.
I was also interested in a a response to this post where the person indicated that entry-level jobs are harder to get because they are looking for someone with experience. How does this position wash with the age discrimination folks...the ones who feel that if you are over 40 you doomed?
I've been in the business for 20 years and I have never been out of work for more than three months.
The reason, I believe, that this is the case is because early in my career, I read a paper by Fredrick P. Brooks called No Silver Bullet. Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering.
Coders are being outsourced. Software Engineers are not.
I understand that the government of India has created the population of Indian programmers by massively subsidizing their education. Should we compete "fairly" while other governments don't?
And BTW, 2 1/2 months out of work is nothing. You could easily be out of work for a full year before you find another programming job (that should give you plent of time to finish the rest of Ayn Rand's books.) I hope that does not happen but if it does, we working cowards will gladly pay our taxes to help you...and your children.
I presume you are against corporate welfare too? When the airlines have tough times...you are against helping them with corporate welfare. Let them fail right? And if YOU or your wife work for an airline and loose your job, followed by your car and home...and you can't find a job right away and your kids have no place to live then we're all supposed to ignore the fact that you are living in a dumpster?
Oh...I forgot how "tough" and "smart" you are and how this could NEVER happen to you. Because while you're working hard to move up in the airline you're simultaneously forseeing 9/11 and already planning your move to the next big career.
Great to be you...huh.
Right, so eventually an information-oriented workforce replaced it...20 years later. During the change, lots of suffering took place - and is still taking place. Some of us believe that effective government helps people through these times. Others, especially young people just starting out with lot's of energy and little to loose - feel like - hey...screw 'em it's their own fault. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
I read his stuff carefully 20 yeard ago when I was a member of the North Dakota Libertarian party working on the Ed Clark for President campaign. Probably befor your time.
I "believed" it then. It's seemed obvious and simple. The real world turned out to be a little more complicated in my view. If John Galt ran every international corporation perhaps I would still "believe." I have found that dangerous people are just as likely to be found in the board room as the Oval Office. Governments and markets are not perfect...as the theory goes. Plutocrats turned out to be just as dangerous as Bureaucrats.
Try pleading your case in Ukraine, Vietnam or even Mexico you commie, pinko dumbshit.
Hey Einstein, if you're looking for names to call me don't leave out U.S. Air Force Veteran.
Well I guess this guy has never heard of the Great Depression. Or all the other depressions and recessions that have occurred over time.
And don't try to tell me that the Great Depression occurred because we didn't have enough capitalism.
The industrialization of farming example doesn't help the cause either. Toxic chemicals entering the food supply cause cancer. Beef production is a documented horror. Runoff into the water supply and the loss of topsoil due to "advancements" in production techniques are well known and fully documented.
Capitalism does not care about cancer or the destruction of the planet that we ALL (greedy and non-greedy) have to live on.
Capitalism is about maximizing profits ONLY. Nothing else matters. Its about maximizing shareholder value...legally or illegally...morally or imorally. I'm not talking about small shopkeepers and tradesmen...I'm talking about the destructive concentration of wealth - and with it - the concentration of political power. One does not occur without the other.
And don't talk about how capitalism sparks innovation. Who makes the money from inventions? The inventor? This is almost NEVER the case. Inventors invent out of love of their field. Others (Bill Gates) get rich.
Capitalism works when there is a balance between opposing forces...buyers and sellers - each trying to get the most from each other and giving the least in return. When these two forces are in balance, good things happen. When they are out of balance, bad things happen. It's the role of democratic government to make sure the balance is somewhat maintained.
Naive attribution of the success of western society to capitalism ignores the Civil war, the Spanish-American war, the Mexican war, WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, and the Bush Oil wars.
These wars were not fought by fat-cats like George Bush and Dick Cheney, they were fought by the farmers the poster is talking about. These wars were not about ideology, they were about money and the power that comes with it. Lots of farmers died in those wars and lots of capitalists got stinking rich building tanks and planes and sewing uniforms, and making body-bags.
There is nothing noble in taking your army to a "less-advanced" country and looting their natural resources either. Without these natural resources...where would the engines of capitalism get their raw materials? There's a "big-picture" thing going on here that the poster does not seem to understand...one that the Austrian School of Economics ignores completely.
Put down Ayn Rand and read the Grapes of Wrath. It's all about balance.
SCO's head is so far up it's ass...that it can see Bill Gates.
I find it interesting that folks have issues with OSS because they can not figure out how to make money under that model. Since when is it OUR problem to figure out how some company is supposed to make money? I started life 20 years ago as a Pascal and C programmer. Today, I would not go by those job descriptions - though I still do lots of programming - because so much has changed in the industry. SQL, HTML, Object-oriented programming UML.....on and on....and at no time during my career can I remember anyone asking me if the changes they were about to make to their tool/system/etc... would be a problem because it makes it difficult for some software developers to continue to work and make money.
...see a possible relationship between what this guy is saying and Seth's notion of time? Something like - all possible states exist simultaneously and are alive. There is both independent existence AND wholeness without paradox. The entire system not only portrays constant growth, but IS growth itself. This bit of weirdness relates manifest reality to consciousness (uh...I think...). Seth says consiousness creates reality but - of course - they create each other...like the Escher print - two hands drawing each other.
The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
AOL retards (Score: 5, Redundant)
Continuing...
Throw me a friggin bone here I've been locked-up doing SMP kernel developer for the last 20 years...ok?
How about Dr. Evil with his pinky raised to the corner of his mouth saying "Three Billion Dollars!"
Thanks. I'm sure your additional comments will be helpful to the writer.
No offense but his concern about "rebellion by the right wing" is a legitimate one as in the U.S. this group is indebted to evangelical Christians and appears to cater to their agenda to maintain their support. Not that there is anything wrong with that - but you should not dismiss his concern out of hand and without some sort of disclaimer on your part.