Asperger's syndrome is not Autism. As for it being in the "spectrum" that is unproven; just because some outward traits overlap on the edge of both doesn't mean that they are indeed connected. Eventually it may be proven one is genetic and the other is biological or partially developmental. The connection between the two may not exist or it may be weak; but we must lump the whole group into 1 area for some reason. Perhaps it is because normal people are not that smart? Its one thing to not care about a subject and its another to over simplify it and perpetuate that.
Java applets needed better browser integration... Perhaps if SUN didn't mess up on java they'd not have sold out to Oracle?
Flash has become another virtual machine but has surpassed Java in client side features, ease of use, and installed base. While Java continues to be the superior environment... (well, Flash lets you compile things to it without having to write them in Java; perhaps SUN should have gone that route as well?)
Parent is spot on. I've always lived in the USA and I've seen it happening around me; somehow I'm not affected by the foolishness as nearly everybody else around me is. It is easier to see this from the outside.
Its much worse to see this stuff happen 1st hand and have everybody think you are some sort of fanatic nut if you speak out, protest or do anything that is not sanctioned by some powerful group. ACTIVIST IS A BAD WORD. Fact and opinion are blurred; the Rove strategy of creating alternative realities is now pervasive. Admitting you spend your nights watching TV reality shows is normal; you are a freak if you do anything else. Being actually informed is no different than somebody using only sound bites on the crap TV news - in fact, they'll feel you are less informed because you don't know about the latest BS issues in the mainstream news or celebrity gossip. They'll also feel they understand something because they heard the sound bites. Being kept busy working, buying, and consuming there isn't much time; plus it seems that the only reason many issues can be followed is because they've discovered that heavy obfuscation isn't necessary; keeping secrets isn't necessary either-- just exploit information overload.
Even the language is warped; it is hard to even discuss many issues because there is too many errors to correct first. To avoid being dismissed as a nut or creating confusion one has to severely limit conversation to such pointlessly tiny baby boring steps and work long term towards an actual issue... if you bump into some sacred cow then emotional blocks kick in and its a whole other mess. For example, both sides have been calling Social Security an entitlement.
Crisis / Fear games - is how it often works here; people who are worried bury their heads in TV; they can't handle it. Plans are made up in advance; then crisis opportunities are created or the plans are adapted to an actual crisis which is usually amplified. A higher level of terrorism goes on continually. The trick is old as mankind but the techniques have been refined.
There need not be some big-brother thought police (although some are bent on that angle so its coming) they have working control over the populace that produces decent results all on its own. Like some sort of social virus, it'll run, spread, and mutate on its own allowing the benefits of crowd sourcing. This modern sophisticated approach will eventually allow for all the things authoritarians have done in the past but without the black and white simplicity that leads to their downfall. Its smart social engineering at work; 1984 mirrored advanced conventions of the day (1940s) but it is just a short book with just 1 approach and things have progressed. Americans are ironically quite conformist all on their own.
EXACTLY. Unfortunately, being literal minded about things the lawyers have created technical loopholes by playing with words; ignoring intent. A "war" on terror is used as the excuse - yet we don't actually have wars anymore so we end up with the benefits of non-war (attacking people with drones not requiring congressional approval) while also using "war" as justification in other ways. Common sense (if used) makes these things stand out to a vast majority of people if they are informed and simply stop and THINK (thinking being a huge problem with the modern advances in propaganda.) What is the point of even listing such restrictions in the first place if large loopholes were the intent?
How long before they take your donations to a group the state dept decides is terrorist (which may be political or a minority subgroup or a change in the org) to say you are a terrorist as well and as soon as you leave the nation they can justify your execution. People have been treated badly already for such things and maybe that never gets to the point of assassinations--- remember, we consider money as speech... this guy talked while others provide money (unknowingly; remember the US gov gave them a ton of money over the years... makes you wonder if we could handle WW2 at our current state, the much smarter Nazi's would probably be funneling billions from the USA directly and with multinationals probably even more indirectly.)
If you raise the science bar that high then most science has to be thrown out; a great deal of it lacks that level of testability. "Soft" science would no longer be "science" in that nearly everything would not be able to reach your high threshold of proof.
Realistically, you study small amounts that can be tested then find differences between it and larger amounts then PREDICT best guesses based upon "all" available human knowledge/skill -- and that is the best we can possibly do in many situations. So... you go with the best possible answers you have and put resources towards improving the quality of your answers going forward. This still will not help people like the parent because we can't have a controlled experiment.... Even if this was possible, then some other stupid excuse would be created by powerful corporate interests to create doubt.
STOCK OPTIONS. Supposedly they pay the board and CEO in stock to try to get them to think of the company... CEOs run corps into the ground all the time... look at HP.... I'd rather the inventors have some of that power-- they need not remain employees... they have a stake in the company. Sure, they can help run it in the ground - what is new with that??
Greedy business people will always find a way to make more money--- if you regulate and ban too much they just become organized crime. If you do too little, you lose most the organized crime and they then become "legitimate" greedy bastards. People act like the all mighty economy god will smite us if we change anything (except giving the rich more money, somehow they have become the high priests and idols.) Making things more difficult as far as "IP" laws won't end the world; they are a rather new development.
The TIME DOES NOT MATTER it picked a slightly clever but meaningless date without thought about actually when it would happen; surely not in 1984...
Written in 1948 (hint: flip the 48,) Orwell was merely thinking of the result of progress about how realistically we may achieve "Utopia" (which is almost always the excuse) as his response to the much more naive book he read years before called "Brave New World."
Both authors do the same thing as far as how technology and psychology will change the world but Orwell saw that control was obtained by negative feedback for the greater good (his experience, history's lessons, etc.) as opposed to working control obtained by positive feedback and too much self gratification as "Brave New World" fixated upon... that story was on the premise of us getting all we wanted with technology; the "Utopia" of that time. One can draw parallels between the USA for "Brave New World" and China or Brittan for "1984". The two approaches will hybrid quite possibly coming from the UK who is doing the most 1984 technologies while giving people a lot of what they want to placate them (instead of "beating" them into submission, brainwashing of a sort is in effect; its far less authoritarian.) Classes will exist, upward mobility will not exist - either approach - human problems will emerge no matter how much technology (until the technology replaces humans....)
Any issues with 1 become issues with all 3 if it is integrated. I've had storms kill my router but the other gear kept working. I upgraded the switch for more speed and I've upgraded the router to a real computer and file server (pfsense.) The wifi device is the 2nd one I've had which has needed upgrades and reboots all on it's own.
Some new Wifi standard?? Well, I just get another wifi device instead of a whole new all-in-one device.
Sure it may use more power; it might cost more-- for me, it has been cheaper long term to separate the functions.
Class warfare has been made a taboo topic and spun by clever P.R. people so that the masses can't openly and intelligently discuss the class warfare being waged against them for decades. It has gotten so bad that a lot of people are just now becoming aware of it... Anybody who talked about it was attacked, called names and marginalized. It is difficult to do today because it draws attention to the idea which at this phase is bad strategy; the next phase is to blame scapegoats which has been underway for a while. I don't think there is a single plan for the next phase other than to create confusion.
Millionaires don't make their money on their own; they require more public resources than somebody on food stamps. People like Trump take big risks for huge gains and go bankrupt OFTEN (as Trump has) and the losses are burdened by the public they claim to have not needed and shouldn't pay for. Corporate welfare costs us more than anything else. No, welfare does not include social security, medicare, or unemployment insurance - they are separate programs that WE PAY for in every paycheck; sure they don't pay out exactly what you pay in, but neither does private insurance does it?? Hell, social security is as close as we've ever come to a FLAT TAX (if you just made it fully "FLAT" it would have too much money; you see, it is basically flat but has a low ceiling so well off people don't put in anything, you don't have to be "rich" to avoid it.) The social security trust fund isn't as individual as an actual trust fund...even then, if the selfish are upset by this, the solution would be a 1:1 ratio and that might make them happy; however, the republicans would still want to kill it because their REAL opposition to social security is that their banker masters want all that investment money to gamble with (along with protections so you suffer for their losses and not them... as usual.)
Trickle down is a bad label today; instead they say "rich provide jobs" which suckers the simpletons who can't see how this is another label for THE SAME THING. Again, DEMAND creates jobs, not supply the rich boss is not going to higher more people because he gets more money, he is going to hire more people to meet increased DEMAND... his GOAL is to cut as much overhead as possible so he can get richer and more powerful. YOU ARE OVERHEAD!!! "Human resource" dehumanizes you to just another material resource-- and the less resources, the lower the cost and the higher the profits. Over produce -- over supply and you drive down prices, profit etc. Yeah, give the rich money so they can hire people to produce more that doesn't sell at an ideal profit ratio... with no public backing of that risk why should they?? They may as well keep the handout themselves and put in no effort or risk.
Why not restrict patents to only humans? Then we don't have corps screwing over their inventors and instead pay to keep them... which would encourage inventors instead of just the greedy CEO wannabees.
Why shouldn't another company be able to hire employees from the competition to gain experience? There is NO REASON for anybody to be loyal to their employer today so the corps move to take away even more of our liberties. The argument shouldn't be about restricting liberties and harming a former employee's career just to protect themselves because they mistreat them; it shouldn't even be a question. If they want to leave and help the competition that is their RIGHT, if you don't want them to screw you, STOP MOTIVATING THEM!
Its somewhat like feudalism vs democracy played out on a different board game.
Government and academic institution do a great deal of work even today; but in the past they did more. The R&D can be moved to them instead of depending upon outsourcing (private R&D) to handle it. Even today, we have shifted heavily to government backed loans to industries where not enough capital exists with the hope of jump starting an industry. That tiny solar firm being made into a scandal lately was just one of those things (which is being totally misreported BTW, but what can 1 expect with today's media...)
There ARE (used to be more) people outside of private industry who are motivated by contributing to mankind instead of merely for increasing their own income. In fact, intrinsic motivation comes out on top for most people - clever companies try to exploit this in various ways (like making employees feel like their worthless job contributes to mankind in some contrived a beneficial way.) Modern American society may promote selfishness and only pay lip service to a few things beyond oneself, there are still people who haven't bought it and many more clueless people who don't know what it is that is missing from their life - the lies don't completely fill the void... like any addiction, the lack of full resolution keeps it going.
Invention happened BEFORE patents existed. Economic incentives exist without patents. Inventors just keep things much more secret than before to hold on to it longer; which is probably more effective than any patent China just ignores after reading the publicly published details-- not even that hard, they make it already so they just take of your brand name and sell another one from the same factory.
A great deal of progress was done outside the for-profit R&D world; it never gets the level of credit because it doesn't advertize and sell it's results. This still happens today to a lesser degree. Perhaps instead of corporate welfare (which arguably is larger than any welfare program) we put that money into R&D for whole industries have the government laboratories work to give the local business an edge (along with tariffs and making outsourcing companies pay back all that free infrastructure they use when they betray their country.)
Most these school shootings involve kids on legal drugs instead of real treatment of their mental conditions (likely cultural and parental factors are involved as well or even exclusively.) Notice how we suddenly had shooting problems and how rare it was previously?? The drugged kids started around then and shortly afterwards the media also made it into the BEST way to get your message the most attention you could ever want-- instead of just killing yourself you can make people HEAR your last words and give them added emphasis by some crazy act... still... most of them were/are on legal drugs. These days it seems that its just nutters getting ideas from the media... plus the hard times drives those closer to the edge as well.
There are payoffs from invention besides patents; some provide a market advantage until the competition copies it; some bolster the brands image providing something REAL in the mountain of advertizing BS.
Without patents, many things would still have happened. Companies would hold onto secrets more than they do today... A HUGE amount of actual influential inventions come from outside private industry; we foolishly undermine all of those under the misconception it all comes from business when it did not. They take credit for a great deal of work by others -- national laboratories or NASA for example do not get the recognition for most of their work upon which others profit and build whole industries. Universities and governments as well... Even now with far more privatization the government FUNDS a ton of R&D but doesn't seem to much in return anymore (before they were as corrupt as they are today.) Today it is all about public risk and private gain.
Before patent law, a great deal was invented. Music existed before copyright.
The empire is going down; this large train is headed for bigger crashes and despite some of us seeing it coming it can't stop in time even when the clueless people take notice.
It really does not matter what bill you come up with-- the broken system will output garbage; adapting to they system isn't going to help but that is what is being tried.
It is rather simple, the terrorist religious fanatics have won this decade; on both sides over here and in the middle east. They continue to win. Our nuts are rising to new extremes (ironically also holding Fascist ideologies) if the debt limit phoney crisis and the GOP debates don't illustrate that then you probably are not cut out for politics. Obama is negotiating with terrorists; the reason you don't negotiate with them is because they have leverage; once you implement a non-negotiation policy you remove that leverage and put the blame onto them. This "Jobs bill" is easily 60% GOP concepts that have poor or miserable track records; they won't pass it if it is 99% if the politics help Obama. period. The hostages can die, they don't care (or are bluffing) and so they have leverage... Not that the Dems are that far off in their viewpoints these days; they've shifted towards the GOP slowly for decades... working for those corporate dollars.
Your statements about the USPS are way off; you don't know what you are talking about-- when you overreach you risk undermining your credibility. FedEx? ha!
An interstate highway bridge collapsed just a few years ago; remember?? That was a shared mistake between MN and the feds. Roads last a long time and that system has been equally mismanaged.
Again we have a case where people blame the crackers/hackers for pointing out security flaws and instead of focusing on the flaws which are the actual threat. So much MORE harm can be caused but when somebody exploits that in a relatively harmless way it is a constructive lesson akin to the master smacking you down (but not easily killing you.) This blame the messenger crap has got to stop!
They are not a real national security threat; however, they are a big threat to the corrupt and greedy... Even the more pointless attacks are not a real threat in that they do not cause great harm - like a REAL national security threat would cause. I don't care if they cause some big company to go broke (like sony) because if they can it shows there is something fundamentally wrong they are pointing out. If you assume we don't learn from mistakes, then one might think like the feds do...
The Chinese and other governments (including the USA) with any brains are exploiting and learning without disclosing what they find so that they can further infiltrate and pose a REAL security threat. Naturally, Anonymous becomes a great front with which to conduct constructive attacks... (the best probably being further intrusion until a truly devastating attack can be made.)
Stupid Americans... always trying to have a simple authoritarian villain. You'd think they'd tend to see things as democratic like groups instead of singular dictatorships.... Any decentralized group is going to have moments where some individuals will have a popular vision or best communicate or best organize RISE TO THE TOP but that does not make them leaders. If everybody was the leader the group wouldn't function; there is no formal leadership just those who take up positions needing to be filled - the highly successful or popular end up becoming leaders but such groups are not built upon those individuals and can sustain the loss. MLK wasn't the leader of the civil rights movement, he didn't start it either; he was just one who rose up above the others because of his communication skills to grab the nation's attention. Useful but non-essential and he himself knew this; despite the warped monument seems to project...(he'd not want it focused so much upon him...again, we repeat the mistake...)
Hey, now while I'm no fan of either stimulus plan I object to the "wealth redistribution" class warfare rhetoric. We can't discuss class unless it is to defend the wealthy!
To be more serious, the wealthy have been waging a PR driven class war against everybody else for decades; both of Obama's plans give in heavily to the ruling class and still had/have a big uphill battle for the tiny portion that is ok. This current one will not pass for multiple reasons; one of the big ones being that tax loopholes the wealthy use to CHEAT are being closed to help fund tax cuts for the rest who've been picking up the bill for the wealthy --- the wealth HAS been redistributed upwards at increasing amounts for decades; their pay goes up while the rest are lucky to keep up with inflation (and most do not; including myself... I've never had a job that kept up with inflation.)
Tax derivatives less than 1% and you pretty much fix our budget issues. "Business" which does not benefit the real economy should be taxed like the gambling it is. Instead, we continue to let them expand their addiction to our retirement funds and soon our social security funds.
Rob a bank and its a despicable crime; rob nations and its just a statistic. With enough money anybody can buy all the praise they desire.
Read this insider report on the state of the republicans in the USA (the dems are just behind them; but we must not think about lesser evils because that gives too many a SLOW path to recovery... which is why we only are allowed 2 parties... )
If FOX NEWS decided to take up this issue it wouldn't matter how much evidence you have or how many scientists agree. FOX NEWS helped give credence to the conspiracy in the late 90s, almost like an experiment in how much they could do. I bet a sizable number of these people come from back in those days; just imagine how much harm they could cause if they continued putting such idiocy on their "news" channel... This was my thinking when I was introduced to the fake moon landings on Fox in the late 90s. We've been seeing that out on meaningful issues ever since.
Humans are complex social creatures. When we over populate some people will not notice or care while others will suffer. Going even further, we will create methods by which more people can feel at ease and even some of the suffering people can create an incorrect context to feel better about it. We can lower statistical thresholds on just how bad poverty is... among other things.
We still have an influential amount of people who refuse to admit and another who refuse to adapt to the climate crisis we are in-- which is CAUSED by over population... sure, blame technology for it-- if there were fewer people wasting and polluting the climate could handle it better.
If you think a quality of life on par with the EU is a good goal, then you've already picked something impossible because the planet can only sustain about 2 billion people at those living standards; and possibly over the longer term the climate may not handle that either (but likely it would be slow enough we could adapt?)
JOBS: the big deal is jobs. there may be enough food to go around even today and we can ignore the fact it'll not keep up with population growth; because we don't have economically viable means to distribute the food / resources to WORKING peoples of the world who deserve equal right of access. We don't have enough gainful employment for the world; we have far far less meaningful jobs because we must create consumerism in order to prop up pointless jobs; this increases the resource consumption at a higher rate than population growth in order to maintain continual economic growth (which isn't sustainable either.) After we remove the cheap exploited labor and replace it with robotics there will be even more people unable to find work and we will have to invent even more meaningless jobs... something which seems unsustainable as well.
No, computers don't help in most cases. Sure, I'm talking from my experience but also somebody who studies education and teaches computers in college. Plus my whole family were/are educators of K-12. I was the computer geek of the group, into tech for the sake of it and I've come around to realize its just a fad and it never had much going for it.
For some areas, like CS the computer is quite useful. K-12 is about the basics everybody should know and understand for a modern democracy (the real purpose was not jobs-- free press is useless without literacy... remember we used to put in 3% of GDP to subsidize a real free press...) Not to produce worker drones like a factory or even produce college students. Reading, Writing, Math, CIVICS, and science are what K-12 should be all about today and those do not require computers.
General computers should be prohibited from school for kids! Specialized software has its place. They should be locked down something like an iPad-- and ONLY do their limited job; just as a textbook can only do its job. ebook readers etc only save money in their flexibility but we are not benefiting when they are too flexible and over extend their purpose. NO COMPUTERS but instead non-computer devices (specialized limited ability computers... like my oven which has a micro controller that somebody probably could run linux on.)
Test scores are idiotic on multiple levels and ANY simplistic rigid system will be easily HACKED by a human; it also doesn't help that people now think more like the machines/lawyers. I don't care if you have +1 over the limit if its obvious you are just gaming the rules it doesn't fool me and you won't get away with it--- but the culture today is totally ok with any intentions as long as they fit within simple rules; the purpose behind any rule is too much work to think about.
We have an MBA run everything these days; its gone into the school and college system-- the MBAs didn't make the 1st world nations great but they are contributing to their downfall; we somehow think their "success" means we should apply that thinking to EVERYTHING.
Taking it to extremes? Ok, fine, lets do that: Do you think wars would be easy to start when the propaganda and lies used in almost ALL wars would be exposed?
At least then the wars would be more clear, the intentions far better known. Since nearly every war is a lie (or at least made up largely of lies) you'd have a much better situation with no secrets. Would also make corruption more difficult.
The USA could debate wars for Oil openly instead of lies about national security etc.
False equivalency. The level and kinds of corruption or impropriety differ between the parties, cities, etc. its not equal between the two parties; or locations. Texas is a good home to corruption, Chicago is too - either party.
A group of fairly like minded people - Anonymous - is going to have a bias against Authoritarian groups. Today's GOP is extremely authoritarian, more than Democrats (who are not far behind but they are about where the GOP used to be.) Economic anarchy and Authoritarianism are the GOP direction in the USA (and its increasing in that trajectory;) the Dems are as well but are between the GOP and the center. So in a sense, they do follow along a general trend line when you analyze it. So the left/right line either reflects this trend or is the reason it exists in the 1st place; over simplification causing the results to skew to that limited model.
Learn something; think outside the linear paradigm: politicalcompass.org
Any of us can buy some old laptop cheap from somebody who doesn't know much about computers. Somebody who knows little of computers, probably doesn't realize how old the laptop is to know just how great of a deal it is. It may be too good to be true, but how is an average consumer supposed to know that??
Are they supposed to research it? People don't research cheap purchases that much; even many geeks do not if its outside their interests. Plus you have rationalization; it might seem shady but its so cheap why bother to question it? That is, a threshold exists where bias can extend the safe zone a little further simply because the person themselves gain-- which would show if you asked their opinion about another's deal vs one offered to them-- the numbers are likely to differ because of such a bias kicking in. If the item looks used and battered a little... an ignorant customer might assume its worth less by appearance.... Bet power tools would be a good example here-- I'd take the really old beaten up ugly one over the new shiny plastic one - but a typical consumer will think the pretty new one is more valuable.
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Asperger's syndrome is not Autism. As for it being in the "spectrum" that is unproven; just because some outward traits overlap on the edge of both doesn't mean that they are indeed connected. Eventually it may be proven one is genetic and the other is biological or partially developmental. The connection between the two may not exist or it may be weak; but we must lump the whole group into 1 area for some reason. Perhaps it is because normal people are not that smart? Its one thing to not care about a subject and its another to over simplify it and perpetuate that.
Java applets needed better browser integration... Perhaps if SUN didn't mess up on java they'd not have sold out to Oracle?
Flash has become another virtual machine but has surpassed Java in client side features, ease of use, and installed base. While Java continues to be the superior environment... (well, Flash lets you compile things to it without having to write them in Java; perhaps SUN should have gone that route as well?)
Parent is spot on. I've always lived in the USA and I've seen it happening around me; somehow I'm not affected by the foolishness as nearly everybody else around me is. It is easier to see this from the outside.
Its much worse to see this stuff happen 1st hand and have everybody think you are some sort of fanatic nut if you speak out, protest or do anything that is not sanctioned by some powerful group. ACTIVIST IS A BAD WORD. Fact and opinion are blurred; the Rove strategy of creating alternative realities is now pervasive. Admitting you spend your nights watching TV reality shows is normal; you are a freak if you do anything else. Being actually informed is no different than somebody using only sound bites on the crap TV news - in fact, they'll feel you are less informed because you don't know about the latest BS issues in the mainstream news or celebrity gossip. They'll also feel they understand something because they heard the sound bites. Being kept busy working, buying, and consuming there isn't much time; plus it seems that the only reason many issues can be followed is because they've discovered that heavy obfuscation isn't necessary; keeping secrets isn't necessary either-- just exploit information overload.
Even the language is warped; it is hard to even discuss many issues because there is too many errors to correct first. To avoid being dismissed as a nut or creating confusion one has to severely limit conversation to such pointlessly tiny baby boring steps and work long term towards an actual issue... if you bump into some sacred cow then emotional blocks kick in and its a whole other mess. For example, both sides have been calling Social Security an entitlement.
Crisis / Fear games - is how it often works here; people who are worried bury their heads in TV; they can't handle it. Plans are made up in advance; then crisis opportunities are created or the plans are adapted to an actual crisis which is usually amplified. A higher level of terrorism goes on continually. The trick is old as mankind but the techniques have been refined.
There need not be some big-brother thought police (although some are bent on that angle so its coming) they have working control over the populace that produces decent results all on its own. Like some sort of social virus, it'll run, spread, and mutate on its own allowing the benefits of crowd sourcing. This modern sophisticated approach will eventually allow for all the things authoritarians have done in the past but without the black and white simplicity that leads to their downfall. Its smart social engineering at work; 1984 mirrored advanced conventions of the day (1940s) but it is just a short book with just 1 approach and things have progressed. Americans are ironically quite conformist all on their own.
EXACTLY. Unfortunately, being literal minded about things the lawyers have created technical loopholes by playing with words; ignoring intent. A "war" on terror is used as the excuse - yet we don't actually have wars anymore so we end up with the benefits of non-war (attacking people with drones not requiring congressional approval) while also using "war" as justification in other ways. Common sense (if used) makes these things stand out to a vast majority of people if they are informed and simply stop and THINK (thinking being a huge problem with the modern advances in propaganda.) What is the point of even listing such restrictions in the first place if large loopholes were the intent?
How long before they take your donations to a group the state dept decides is terrorist (which may be political or a minority subgroup or a change in the org) to say you are a terrorist as well and as soon as you leave the nation they can justify your execution. People have been treated badly already for such things and maybe that never gets to the point of assassinations--- remember, we consider money as speech... this guy talked while others provide money (unknowingly; remember the US gov gave them a ton of money over the years... makes you wonder if we could handle WW2 at our current state, the much smarter Nazi's would probably be funneling billions from the USA directly and with multinationals probably even more indirectly.)
If you raise the science bar that high then most science has to be thrown out; a great deal of it lacks that level of testability. "Soft" science would no longer be "science" in that nearly everything would not be able to reach your high threshold of proof.
Realistically, you study small amounts that can be tested then find differences between it and larger amounts then PREDICT best guesses based upon "all" available human knowledge/skill -- and that is the best we can possibly do in many situations. So... you go with the best possible answers you have and put resources towards improving the quality of your answers going forward. This still will not help people like the parent because we can't have a controlled experiment.... Even if this was possible, then some other stupid excuse would be created by powerful corporate interests to create doubt.
STOCK OPTIONS. Supposedly they pay the board and CEO in stock to try to get them to think of the company... CEOs run corps into the ground all the time... look at HP.... I'd rather the inventors have some of that power-- they need not remain employees... they have a stake in the company. Sure, they can help run it in the ground - what is new with that??
Greedy business people will always find a way to make more money--- if you regulate and ban too much they just become organized crime. If you do too little, you lose most the organized crime and they then become "legitimate" greedy bastards. People act like the all mighty economy god will smite us if we change anything (except giving the rich more money, somehow they have become the high priests and idols.) Making things more difficult as far as "IP" laws won't end the world; they are a rather new development.
The TIME DOES NOT MATTER it picked a slightly clever but meaningless date without thought about actually when it would happen; surely not in 1984...
Written in 1948 (hint: flip the 48,) Orwell was merely thinking of the result of progress about how realistically we may achieve "Utopia" (which is almost always the excuse) as his response to the much more naive book he read years before called "Brave New World."
Both authors do the same thing as far as how technology and psychology will change the world but Orwell saw that control was obtained by negative feedback for the greater good (his experience, history's lessons, etc.) as opposed to working control obtained by positive feedback and too much self gratification as "Brave New World" fixated upon... that story was on the premise of us getting all we wanted with technology; the "Utopia" of that time. One can draw parallels between the USA for "Brave New World" and China or Brittan for "1984". The two approaches will hybrid quite possibly coming from the UK who is doing the most 1984 technologies while giving people a lot of what they want to placate them (instead of "beating" them into submission, brainwashing of a sort is in effect; its far less authoritarian.) Classes will exist, upward mobility will not exist - either approach - human problems will emerge no matter how much technology (until the technology replaces humans....)
Any issues with 1 become issues with all 3 if it is integrated. I've had storms kill my router but the other gear kept working. I upgraded the switch for more speed and I've upgraded the router to a real computer and file server (pfsense.) The wifi device is the 2nd one I've had which has needed upgrades and reboots all on it's own.
Some new Wifi standard?? Well, I just get another wifi device instead of a whole new all-in-one device.
Sure it may use more power; it might cost more-- for me, it has been cheaper long term to separate the functions.
Class warfare has been made a taboo topic and spun by clever P.R. people so that the masses can't openly and intelligently discuss the class warfare being waged against them for decades. It has gotten so bad that a lot of people are just now becoming aware of it... Anybody who talked about it was attacked, called names and marginalized. It is difficult to do today because it draws attention to the idea which at this phase is bad strategy; the next phase is to blame scapegoats which has been underway for a while. I don't think there is a single plan for the next phase other than to create confusion.
The chart everybody must see before talking about this mess AT ALL: (a few screens down)
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/the-chart-that-should-accompany-all-discussions-of-the-debt-ceiling/242484
Millionaires don't make their money on their own; they require more public resources than somebody on food stamps. People like Trump take big risks for huge gains and go bankrupt OFTEN (as Trump has) and the losses are burdened by the public they claim to have not needed and shouldn't pay for. Corporate welfare costs us more than anything else. No, welfare does not include social security, medicare, or unemployment insurance - they are separate programs that WE PAY for in every paycheck; sure they don't pay out exactly what you pay in, but neither does private insurance does it?? Hell, social security is as close as we've ever come to a FLAT TAX (if you just made it fully "FLAT" it would have too much money; you see, it is basically flat but has a low ceiling so well off people don't put in anything, you don't have to be "rich" to avoid it.) The social security trust fund isn't as individual as an actual trust fund...even then, if the selfish are upset by this, the solution would be a 1:1 ratio and that might make them happy; however, the republicans would still want to kill it because their REAL opposition to social security is that their banker masters want all that investment money to gamble with (along with protections so you suffer for their losses and not them... as usual.)
Trickle down is a bad label today; instead they say "rich provide jobs" which suckers the simpletons who can't see how this is another label for THE SAME THING. Again, DEMAND creates jobs, not supply the rich boss is not going to higher more people because he gets more money, he is going to hire more people to meet increased DEMAND... his GOAL is to cut as much overhead as possible so he can get richer and more powerful. YOU ARE OVERHEAD!!! "Human resource" dehumanizes you to just another material resource-- and the less resources, the lower the cost and the higher the profits. Over produce -- over supply and you drive down prices, profit etc. Yeah, give the rich money so they can hire people to produce more that doesn't sell at an ideal profit ratio... with no public backing of that risk why should they?? They may as well keep the handout themselves and put in no effort or risk.
Why not restrict patents to only humans? Then we don't have corps screwing over their inventors and instead pay to keep them... which would encourage inventors instead of just the greedy CEO wannabees.
Why shouldn't another company be able to hire employees from the competition to gain experience? There is NO REASON for anybody to be loyal to their employer today so the corps move to take away even more of our liberties. The argument shouldn't be about restricting liberties and harming a former employee's career just to protect themselves because they mistreat them; it shouldn't even be a question. If they want to leave and help the competition that is their RIGHT, if you don't want them to screw you, STOP MOTIVATING THEM!
Its somewhat like feudalism vs democracy played out on a different board game.
Government and academic institution do a great deal of work even today; but in the past they did more. The R&D can be moved to them instead of depending upon outsourcing (private R&D) to handle it. Even today, we have shifted heavily to government backed loans to industries where not enough capital exists with the hope of jump starting an industry. That tiny solar firm being made into a scandal lately was just one of those things (which is being totally misreported BTW, but what can 1 expect with today's media...)
There ARE (used to be more) people outside of private industry who are motivated by contributing to mankind instead of merely for increasing their own income. In fact, intrinsic motivation comes out on top for most people - clever companies try to exploit this in various ways (like making employees feel like their worthless job contributes to mankind in some contrived a beneficial way.) Modern American society may promote selfishness and only pay lip service to a few things beyond oneself, there are still people who haven't bought it and many more clueless people who don't know what it is that is missing from their life - the lies don't completely fill the void... like any addiction, the lack of full resolution keeps it going.
Invention happened BEFORE patents existed. Economic incentives exist without patents. Inventors just keep things much more secret than before to hold on to it longer; which is probably more effective than any patent China just ignores after reading the publicly published details-- not even that hard, they make it already so they just take of your brand name and sell another one from the same factory.
A great deal of progress was done outside the for-profit R&D world; it never gets the level of credit because it doesn't advertize and sell it's results. This still happens today to a lesser degree. Perhaps instead of corporate welfare (which arguably is larger than any welfare program) we put that money into R&D for whole industries have the government laboratories work to give the local business an edge (along with tariffs and making outsourcing companies pay back all that free infrastructure they use when they betray their country.)
Most these school shootings involve kids on legal drugs instead of real treatment of their mental conditions (likely cultural and parental factors are involved as well or even exclusively.) Notice how we suddenly had shooting problems and how rare it was previously?? The drugged kids started around then and shortly afterwards the media also made it into the BEST way to get your message the most attention you could ever want-- instead of just killing yourself you can make people HEAR your last words and give them added emphasis by some crazy act... still... most of them were/are on legal drugs. These days it seems that its just nutters getting ideas from the media... plus the hard times drives those closer to the edge as well.
There are payoffs from invention besides patents; some provide a market advantage until the competition copies it; some bolster the brands image providing something REAL in the mountain of advertizing BS.
Without patents, many things would still have happened. Companies would hold onto secrets more than they do today... A HUGE amount of actual influential inventions come from outside private industry; we foolishly undermine all of those under the misconception it all comes from business when it did not. They take credit for a great deal of work by others -- national laboratories or NASA for example do not get the recognition for most of their work upon which others profit and build whole industries. Universities and governments as well... Even now with far more privatization the government FUNDS a ton of R&D but doesn't seem to much in return anymore (before they were as corrupt as they are today.) Today it is all about public risk and private gain.
Before patent law, a great deal was invented. Music existed before copyright.
Free Trade is not free.
The empire is going down; this large train is headed for bigger crashes and despite some of us seeing it coming it can't stop in time even when the clueless people take notice.
It really does not matter what bill you come up with-- the broken system will output garbage; adapting to they system isn't going to help but that is what is being tried.
It is rather simple, the terrorist religious fanatics have won this decade; on both sides over here and in the middle east. They continue to win. Our nuts are rising to new extremes (ironically also holding Fascist ideologies) if the debt limit phoney crisis and the GOP debates don't illustrate that then you probably are not cut out for politics. Obama is negotiating with terrorists; the reason you don't negotiate with them is because they have leverage; once you implement a non-negotiation policy you remove that leverage and put the blame onto them. This "Jobs bill" is easily 60% GOP concepts that have poor or miserable track records; they won't pass it if it is 99% if the politics help Obama. period. The hostages can die, they don't care (or are bluffing) and so they have leverage... Not that the Dems are that far off in their viewpoints these days; they've shifted towards the GOP slowly for decades... working for those corporate dollars.
Your statements about the USPS are way off; you don't know what you are talking about-- when you overreach you risk undermining your credibility. FedEx? ha!
An interstate highway bridge collapsed just a few years ago; remember?? That was a shared mistake between MN and the feds. Roads last a long time and that system has been equally mismanaged.
Again we have a case where people blame the crackers/hackers for pointing out security flaws and instead of focusing on the flaws which are the actual threat. So much MORE harm can be caused but when somebody exploits that in a relatively harmless way it is a constructive lesson akin to the master smacking you down (but not easily killing you.) This blame the messenger crap has got to stop!
They are not a real national security threat; however, they are a big threat to the corrupt and greedy... Even the more pointless attacks are not a real threat in that they do not cause great harm - like a REAL national security threat would cause. I don't care if they cause some big company to go broke (like sony) because if they can it shows there is something fundamentally wrong they are pointing out. If you assume we don't learn from mistakes, then one might think like the feds do...
The Chinese and other governments (including the USA) with any brains are exploiting and learning without disclosing what they find so that they can further infiltrate and pose a REAL security threat. Naturally, Anonymous becomes a great front with which to conduct constructive attacks... (the best probably being further intrusion until a truly devastating attack can be made.)
Stupid Americans... always trying to have a simple authoritarian villain. You'd think they'd tend to see things as democratic like groups instead of singular dictatorships....
Any decentralized group is going to have moments where some individuals will have a popular vision or best communicate or best organize RISE TO THE TOP but that does not make them leaders. If everybody was the leader the group wouldn't function; there is no formal leadership just those who take up positions needing to be filled - the highly successful or popular end up becoming leaders but such groups are not built upon those individuals and can sustain the loss. MLK wasn't the leader of the civil rights movement, he didn't start it either; he was just one who rose up above the others because of his communication skills to grab the nation's attention. Useful but non-essential and he himself knew this; despite the warped monument seems to project...(he'd not want it focused so much upon him...again, we repeat the mistake...)
Hey, now while I'm no fan of either stimulus plan I object to the "wealth redistribution" class warfare rhetoric. We can't discuss class unless it is to defend the wealthy!
To be more serious, the wealthy have been waging a PR driven class war against everybody else for decades; both of Obama's plans give in heavily to the ruling class and still had/have a big uphill battle for the tiny portion that is ok. This current one will not pass for multiple reasons; one of the big ones being that tax loopholes the wealthy use to CHEAT are being closed to help fund tax cuts for the rest who've been picking up the bill for the wealthy --- the wealth HAS been redistributed upwards at increasing amounts for decades; their pay goes up while the rest are lucky to keep up with inflation (and most do not; including myself... I've never had a job that kept up with inflation.)
Tax derivatives less than 1% and you pretty much fix our budget issues. "Business" which does not benefit the real economy should be taxed like the gambling it is. Instead, we continue to let them expand their addiction to our retirement funds and soon our social security funds.
Rob a bank and its a despicable crime; rob nations and its just a statistic.
With enough money anybody can buy all the praise they desire.
Read this insider report on the state of the republicans in the USA (the dems are just behind them; but we must not think about lesser evils because that gives too many a SLOW path to recovery... which is why we only are allowed 2 parties... )
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779
If FOX NEWS decided to take up this issue it wouldn't matter how much evidence you have or how many scientists agree.
FOX NEWS helped give credence to the conspiracy in the late 90s, almost like an experiment in how much they could do. I bet a sizable number of these people come from back in those days; just imagine how much harm they could cause if they continued putting such idiocy on their "news" channel... This was my thinking when I was introduced to the fake moon landings on Fox in the late 90s. We've been seeing that out on meaningful issues ever since.
Humans are complex social creatures. When we over populate some people will not notice or care while others will suffer. Going even further, we will create methods by which more people can feel at ease and even some of the suffering people can create an incorrect context to feel better about it. We can lower statistical thresholds on just how bad poverty is... among other things.
We still have an influential amount of people who refuse to admit and another who refuse to adapt to the climate crisis we are in-- which is CAUSED by over population... sure, blame technology for it-- if there were fewer people wasting and polluting the climate could handle it better.
If you think a quality of life on par with the EU is a good goal, then you've already picked something impossible because the planet can only sustain about 2 billion people at those living standards; and possibly over the longer term the climate may not handle that either (but likely it would be slow enough we could adapt?)
JOBS: the big deal is jobs. there may be enough food to go around even today and we can ignore the fact it'll not keep up with population growth; because we don't have economically viable means to distribute the food / resources to WORKING peoples of the world who deserve equal right of access. We don't have enough gainful employment for the world; we have far far less meaningful jobs because we must create consumerism in order to prop up pointless jobs; this increases the resource consumption at a higher rate than population growth in order to maintain continual economic growth (which isn't sustainable either.) After we remove the cheap exploited labor and replace it with robotics there will be even more people unable to find work and we will have to invent even more meaningless jobs... something which seems unsustainable as well.
No, computers don't help in most cases. Sure, I'm talking from my experience but also somebody who studies education and teaches computers in college. Plus my whole family were/are educators of K-12. I was the computer geek of the group, into tech for the sake of it and I've come around to realize its just a fad and it never had much going for it.
For some areas, like CS the computer is quite useful. K-12 is about the basics everybody should know and understand for a modern democracy (the real purpose was not jobs-- free press is useless without literacy... remember we used to put in 3% of GDP to subsidize a real free press...) Not to produce worker drones like a factory or even produce college students. Reading, Writing, Math, CIVICS, and science are what K-12 should be all about today and those do not require computers.
General computers should be prohibited from school for kids! Specialized software has its place. They should be locked down something like an iPad-- and ONLY do their limited job; just as a textbook can only do its job. ebook readers etc only save money in their flexibility but we are not benefiting when they are too flexible and over extend their purpose. NO COMPUTERS but instead non-computer devices (specialized limited ability computers... like my oven which has a micro controller that somebody probably could run linux on.)
Test scores are idiotic on multiple levels and ANY simplistic rigid system will be easily HACKED by a human; it also doesn't help that people now think more like the machines/lawyers. I don't care if you have +1 over the limit if its obvious you are just gaming the rules it doesn't fool me and you won't get away with it--- but the culture today is totally ok with any intentions as long as they fit within simple rules; the purpose behind any rule is too much work to think about.
We have an MBA run everything these days; its gone into the school and college system-- the MBAs didn't make the 1st world nations great but they are contributing to their downfall; we somehow think their "success" means we should apply that thinking to EVERYTHING.
Taking it to extremes? Ok, fine, lets do that:
Do you think wars would be easy to start when the propaganda and lies used in almost ALL wars would be exposed?
At least then the wars would be more clear, the intentions far better known. Since nearly every war is a lie (or at least made up largely of lies) you'd have a much better situation with no secrets. Would also make corruption more difficult.
The USA could debate wars for Oil openly instead of lies about national security etc.
False equivalency. The level and kinds of corruption or impropriety differ between the parties, cities, etc. its not equal between the two parties; or locations. Texas is a good home to corruption, Chicago is too - either party.
A group of fairly like minded people - Anonymous - is going to have a bias against Authoritarian groups. Today's GOP is extremely authoritarian, more than Democrats (who are not far behind but they are about where the GOP used to be.) Economic anarchy and Authoritarianism are the GOP direction in the USA (and its increasing in that trajectory;) the Dems are as well but are between the GOP and the center. So in a sense, they do follow along a general trend line when you analyze it. So the left/right line either reflects this trend or is the reason it exists in the 1st place; over simplification causing the results to skew to that limited model.
Learn something; think outside the linear paradigm:
politicalcompass.org
Any of us can buy some old laptop cheap from somebody who doesn't know much about computers. Somebody who knows little of computers, probably doesn't realize how old the laptop is to know just how great of a deal it is. It may be too good to be true, but how is an average consumer supposed to know that??
Are they supposed to research it? People don't research cheap purchases that much; even many geeks do not if its outside their interests. Plus you have rationalization; it might seem shady but its so cheap why bother to question it? That is, a threshold exists where bias can extend the safe zone a little further simply because the person themselves gain-- which would show if you asked their opinion about another's deal vs one offered to them-- the numbers are likely to differ because of such a bias kicking in. If the item looks used and battered a little... an ignorant customer might assume its worth less by appearance.... Bet power tools would be a good example here-- I'd take the really old beaten up ugly one over the new shiny plastic one - but a typical consumer will think the pretty new one is more valuable.
try reading for a change:
http://www.johnperkins.org/?page_id=52
Not the only source, stuff like this has been getting out for decades; but its extremely rare to have people who were involved speak out.