You are a perfect candidate for the Not-Bush crowd. It is not the evidence of Kerry's skill in military and foreign policy which would make you vote for him. It is the thought that ANYONE could do better.
Ok, fine.
Now please tell me what you would do to fight global terrorism? If anyone is better, you are too, right?
And please don't use vague terms.
For instance, how do you deal with Iran, whose dictatorial government is most likely seeking WMD, and also support the student movements for democracy?
How would you effectively deal with Saudi Arabia's fanatical Islamic schooling, without causing global economic turmoil by interrupting the oil supply?
How do you bring balance to Israel/Palestine, when the terrorist-supporting Arafat refuses moderate deals and refuses to hold a single legitimate election?
How do you bring accountability to the UN for the oil-for-food scandal while making them more involved in Iraq?
How do you align our goals with the EU powerhouse nations looking more to country our sphere of influence then help out with our problems?
These aren't easy problems. The situation on the ground is not as bad as you claim, we are making progress with the militants, and we will be victorious. The millions of hard choices made on this road are not to be taken lightly.
Note that if you don't have an answer to any one of these, you shouldn't complain about strategy.
I love the way lock-step rhetoric gets modded up to 5, Interesting, just because it bashes the administration.
Does anyone here really think an entrenched 2 party system can be solved by this sort of blasting? Or better yet, the Not-Bush roadies think that anyone who isn't that particular Texan is the solution to our problems.
With the exception of mentioning in passing private retirement account, choice in health care, and maybe school choice, there is little or no meaningful difference for a person who thinks that more government rarely solves things better than markets.
I personally don't think that the worst parts of the patriot act will last long. Barriers to communication between government agencies must be broken down, and fast action must be allowed. Yet, there must be oversight.
The main issues, as far as I'm concerned, are the following: 1) Who will win in Iraq? Given the UN's failure to act pro-humanity and pro-democracy in Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Rwanda, N. Korea, Iran, Cuba, Israel/Palestine, etc., I don't see Kerry's "plan" to internationalize and apologize to the world as effective. Besides, his pandering to both moderates who want to stay the course and lefties who demand to pull out is disgusting.
2) Who will block free trade the least? Bush did it a bit for steel, and got burned. Kerry wants "fair trade" whatever that means. Barriers on the market rarely help the people they intended to help, and people complaining about extremely low-priced goods shipping into America on a massive scale have it backwards. There is nothing wrong with a trade deficit. Read "Free to Choose" for more along this discussion.
3) Who will save America from its unfunded obligation of tens of Trillions of dollars for Social Security? The pay-as-you-go system was known from the beginning to be bunk, but no one touches it. For those concerned about deficits, the current deficit is 5% of the GDP and around 3% of the implicit debt for future obligations to social Security, so you should put things into perspective.
All 3 of these issues have multi trillion dollar consequences. Everything thing else pails in comparison.
You really need to appreciate what is going on here...
Face detection, as any detection task, requires that a class of object be identified. This doesn't mean we have a picture, and ask, "is it a face?". It means we have a 640x480 image, say, and 5 scales, and want to ask which of the ~1,500,000 possible locations is a face.
To say that there are a few false detections means that this detector has a false positive rate of O(1)/O(10^6), which is awesome.
There is a natural trade off between detection rate and false positive rate. You can imagine that just saying everything is a face yields a perfect detection rate, and a horrible false positive rate.
Plotting detection rate vs false positive rate yields a receiver-operator-curve, which is really what you are looking for to compare face detectors. It would be hard to find a better one than what they have done at the Robotics Institute.
You can't get away without the following: discrete math (combinatorics, graph theory, etc.) linear algebra basic probability.
Calculus, I don't think you actually need it to be a programmer.
For Anything AI related, there has been a large migration from symbolic representations to probabilistic representations. Anything in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, data mining, even network theory, will require a strong and advanced Statistics and Probability class.
I have found that the fundamentals of computer systems are greatly advanced with a Theory of Computation course, which is basically math, with FSMs through turing machines represented.
Again, the question is one of application. If there is a target in the area you would like to work, make sure to learn about it. Also, more math only helps programming, as far as I'm concerned.
I want to install a minimal install of Linux on a compactflash card serving as a hard disk on an embedded system. The system will be on a higly-mobile robot, where anything but sold-state is bound to fail(though I'm testing the new Seagate drives).
Anyway, I want a minimal install because the capacity is a mere 2GB, and I'm new to Linux & Debian.
I'm working with a 1GHz PIII -- what type of iso should I get for the install? I see choices like "alpha," "hppa," "i386," and "powerPC".
What do all these mean. I would guess my pentium is i386, right?
One huge effect of our information revolution is the drastic reduction in costs for creating a product.
For under a few hundred dollars, you could have a complete development platform. If you have a way to prove a technology, you are good to go.
If you don't want to reduce your unemployment benefits, get an under-the-table job as a waiter. I always thought the current set-up reduced incentive for people to find work. I think a negative income tax would work better: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Negati veIncomeT ax.html
A non-disclosure agreement stops a person from producing something that was your idea. It is a very basic contract.
As for the rest, all I can say is that I have made commercial-level software from my apartment. I get paid less than minimum wage to working as a graduate student, but I've found the time to make it.
Finding buyers entirely depends on the market you are going for, and it would be hard for me to comment on general procedures.
I agree, taxes, and other issues add up. It is negative for business, but still better than other countries, here in America.
Considering the number of businesses that grow to be large, you are dead wrong if you think it is impossible.
Also considering the number of good ideas that fail, there is something more complicated going on here.
THe basic problem is that you can't control the business world. You can reduce risk, but in the end, you will make it or not depending on how well you know your market, and how well you solve that market's pain.
Your failure is not evidence against generally accepted processes. It might just mean there is no way, given your team, approach, the market, and your idea is feasible.
Almost all business start small, with no more than a 1/2 to 3 million for initial funding. If you can't even get that, I doubt your idea is viable.
it is in the interest of markets related to trust to self regulate. How many people would invest in teh NYSE, if it were rife with corruption, if the accounting principles weren't GAAP.
Again, there are some areas where intervention is good, but anyone who owns a business will tell you that they would rather the government be less involved, and be taxed less, than the other way.
Unions have only ever been illegal because of governmental action. Machine politics is a failing of the late 19th century, and only proves my point about the dangers of governmental involvement.
It governments only worked to counter criminal acts of violence or negligence (such as pollution or slavery), trusts in labor or monopoly, and to encourage standard accounting principles, we would be better off.
you needn't do the entire operation. consulting services are readily available. Also, the there are innumberable types of semiconductors - surely you have a service to give to any of them?
also, learn about business. You get an idea, even for a service, you do a market analysis and feasibility study. You see if your idea is actually a market opportunity. You draw up a business plan.
Then you try to get funding - and it needed be from VCs. It could be from your customers! Or, the government, with small business grants, or your relatives, or angel investors, or other sources.
There is a process to starting a business, and no business is un-enterable. Learn the process, and get started
Ok, let's say you're right. It is the government's job to secure employment for as many people as possible.
BUT, here the obvious next question: what is the best way to do this? Have you noticed the unemployment rates in our socialist neighbors' back yards? Germany, where you can live off the dole for years and so many people are on the dole that it is unlikely a democratic process will change it. The entire EU is so rife with regulation, business is almost entirely turned off by the government's actions, and the net effect is worse than before.
Look at Ireland, where business has been booming after the government greatly reduced regulation and corporate taxes. They are better off than before.
If you look into it a bit further, you'll find most, if not all, cases of an economy improving occur in spite of, and not because of, governmental intervention. The one exception is war.
Things like WPA after the great depression (which was caused by negative governmental manipulation of the supply of money) improved confidence more than anything else, but at a huge cost. Programs like that rarely evaporate.
post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy: because an effect happened after an event, the first event was the cause of the effect. Our system has been successful, but just because government has taken action, doesn't mean that this is the cause. If you actually look as what is different about the United States you'll find: 1) An extremely high value of personal liberty 2) A huge distrust for governmental action
The government has taken a great deal of liberties in acting to "correct" the market. Situations have improved. Don't label the cause of the improvement as government.
Neighborhood effects, such as pollution, are probably an exception. Also, anti-trust legislation makes sense. Both are correct because they counter choices made by agents which infringe upon the choices of others.
Labor markets have only been hurt by government intervention, except in the cases where the labor was not voluntary. The minimum wage is a perfect example. Thank god companies have found international trade, where the laborers get locally above average pay, and products are made for below average prices. This is a god send.
Maybe you should read the constitution, by the way, before you go spouting profanities. You say, "the government's job to do whatever the majority wants without harming the minority."
This simply isn't true. The government is limited by the functional definition in the constitution, and items not explicitly granted are forbidden.
The main reason government intervention is bad is because it takes responsibility from the hands of individuals. People don't act because they think the government will.
The second main reason why intervention is bad is because government also NEVER contracts, only expands. This is the road to serfdom so often lamented.
What a compelling argument. I'm totally convinced. Thank you for improving the collective consciousness and moving us toward progress...
...dipshit.
Now, please explain to me how you can choose to be exploited? How are you subjugated by free will? Maybe you're thinking of systems where you don't really have a choice.
Why do you expect employees to train and retrain themselves at a cost to them but on the other hand believe that corporations should not have to pay to develop the products and services that they profit from?
I think corporations should cover their own costs. BUT, if it were between paying corporations for R&D vs. paying people, which was the argument you presented, I will choose the former.
Why is Barrett complaining about teachers being incompetent when the education system is paying them wages that could only attract people who are incompetent or find it their life's calling?
The fault is not with a teacher's salary, it is the structure of government funded and administered education. The system is failing to work as well as it could, but not because teachers are "under-funded", but because they have no incentive to improve. Look at Massachusetts, a liberal haven where teachers and schools get far above the average in pay and funding, but the schools are failing. How do you explain that, if the only issue is teachers pay and funding? Clearly the cause is more fundamental.
Why do people parrot ignorant bullshit they heard someone else parrot?
Becaues we've had the past century to prove that command economies fail, and free markets (of labor and corporations) make a country thrive. Because we've read Hayek and Friedman and Rand and Postrel, and you apparently haven't. Because I have come to these conclusions from personal experience, where as the system you would like has never been achieved. This means both that it is probably unattainable and also that you have the luxury of living in an ivory tower, where your ideas needn't be demonstrated as successful to be given credit in the real world.
Why am I so pissed at ignorance when it's as abundant as the air we breathe?
Because you are impatient and not really listening. Read the authors above, and maybe you'll calm down.
the benefit of subsidizing an individual: one happy individual, and the company he works for.
the benefit of subsidizing new research, at the university level or at a corporation: everyone who uses that research.
Yes, the benefits should be cut, but one is more usefull (and cheaper actually) than the other.
What is the government's allocation for funding research? Inisignificant.
What does the government spend on other business subsidies that don't fund research? A lot. What about direct payments to people? at least 25% of the 2 Trillion budget.
It's only going to get worse.
Also, you can't exploit voluntary labor. If you are being exploited at a job, leave it. Any other thought is trying to put the words in the mouth of labor, and is in itself, exploitive.
The fact is that people here need to work harder to compete. People abroad who are working at these jobs are thankful because they are far, far better than their old jobs.
Since when is it the government's job to secure your own employment?
If you did well in school, have a good education, but can't find a job, why not start your own business and follow the advice: Compete!
I want to fight the nanny-state mentality that the government 1) Should 2) Can, even if it wanted to, control the economy and my economic well being.
As for failing K-12 schools, clearly more volunteerism by parents and intelligent people, along with more incentive for competition among schools, is the solution.
Again, if you are unemployed, maybe you should fix that situation. Try inventing something in your garage while working at McDonalds. They are always hiring.
Privacy is an important concern, but people need to understand the power of computers. Specifically, data-mining bots are not the same as snot-nosed FBI interns. Having a judging human look at your private information, from an inevitably biased view, is unnerving to most -- understandably. Not wanting some program to scan your file for something abnormal or wrong, i.e. criminal, is good for society and not a threat. The article has a perfect paragraph:
"Courts have ruled that in a public area, you have no expectation of privacy," said Walker, one of 11 sworn officers who protects Manalapan's 321 residents. Still, Walker says Manalapan's data will be destroyed every three months.
As I've said before, let's have cameras everywhere in public, bots reading our emails and seeing our financial transactions, and a large number of humans to oversee any such operation. Then we could actually have a much more open society
check out my blog for some related material:
while_true
I agree. Brain's essays are lacking, alarmist, and blinded by a devotion to current modalities of labor.
Just because change is fast, doesn't mean it's bad. Consider the amazingly rapid rise in the percentage of people going to college. They need it to compete, and they are getting the education required.
He also fails to grasp supply & demand. Anything in a market that yields 50% unemployment will self-correct. Are you telling me robotics companies want their customers to lack the money to buy their products?
Also he lacks the ability to understand the value of human service. Something virtually 100% ignored today is the rise of personal service industries, small and entrepreneurial, like a masseuse, hairdresser, personal trainer, tutors for all subjects, nanny, etc. The human contact IS the product, which the rich will be able to afford.
It is just like "Diamond Age" -- a world without scarcity for material wealth still demands proper upbringing, which is mainly based on human interaction.
But the WORST thing about robotic nation is the friction it places on robots coming to fruition. We need to embrace the future, and this premature, negative PR is quite counterproductive. It's like screaming about the potential for genetic crops to cause havoc years in the future, when there are thousands starving NOW.
Look to my blog about robotics and politics for more: http://while-true.blogspot.com/
I'm getting the feeling that strange forces, "dark" energy, 13D branes of string theory, etc. all have something in common.
They remind me of the epicycles astronomers observed so many years ago.
Simply put, our knowledge case seems not to be expanding, but diversifying, with many theories, and few ways to prove them.
Take a physicist from 1900; tell them about a meteor about to hit the earth. He'd say we're screwed. Take one today; she'd say "deflect it with a nuke".
The point: the entropy death of the universe is a very very very very very long way away. To say we won't be able to do something about it is depressing, and hopefully wrong.
I think Ray Kurzweil had this idea first. Consciousness may well be something in the universe which directly counters entropy. Evolution does seem to go against the grain.
Actually, I suggest to everyone that you read at least the first few chapters of "Age of Spiritual Machines" where he describes the accelerating pace of salient events.
I can't wait until photon based displays are more common. The idea is simple: rather than blasting electrons onto a florescent surface to produce different colored light, you blast photons directly onto the retina to layer over what you normally see.
I would love to have a heads-up-display in almost everything I do. There are a few obvious benefits: o A traditional florescent surface blocks your view of the world behind it, while only the "photon projector" would be in the way in this case. The point is that is needn't be directly in front of your eye, so it doesn't block what you foveate upon.
o It is embedded the 3D real world, so 3D modes of interaction would boost productivity and functionality of software.
o It would involve detecting information from your environment, which will either be done by ubiquitous computing or passive computer vision, both of which I would love to see come to fruition.
o The ability to drown-out "ugly" artifacts in an environment, or enhance them, would lead to new levels of personal aesthetics. Unanimity of aesthetics without conformity to standard definitions.
BUT, this is way in the future, unfortunately. sigh...
note this post in my blog: http://while-true.blogspot.com/
Purchasing power is a good measure. the diversity of products on the markets, the availability of advanced services (e.g. the quality of health care can be put in plain quantitative terms from infant mortality, life expectancy, and the availability to the masses.
Singapore is rich. There is a great deal of wealth in Saudi Arabia, but mainly in the hands of a large royal family. This is not an advanced economy; rather, it more resembles a banana republic, where the bananas are actually oil.
But to your first question, it is very clear that the US "supports and bolsters non-free states" in order for those states to improve economically. The basic misunderstanding about international trade is that it is NOT a zero-sum game. Talk of trade deficits is actually quite meaningless, and represents backward mercantile thinking.
Out interaction with China is almost purely economical, and we would love for the standard of living to improve. This is the source of the "most favored nation" trading status.
So it is the exact opposite of your statement. We support bad governments so we can interact (and, yes, compete) economically, because it is in everyone's best interest. Boats in rising tides indeed.
To prove the point, look to Cuba. America doesn't have much to gain from trading with Cuba, and we would love to see that bastard regime toppled. So we actively crush progress there in the form of sanctions and limitations on immigration, in hopes of a revolution. We can't (or don't want to) afford to do this with China, even if the suppression of the people is worse.
Now, US's support of other nations is the opposite. Rather than benefit from trade, we wish to keep certain things the same and stable. This is old cold-war thinking, and it should be changing soon. For instance, we tolerate dictatorship in Saudi Arabia because we relish the cheap, abundant oil that comes from there.
So I guess all policy, though it seems hypocritical at times, is based on money, and our economic security. Actually, the only exception is direct threats to national security, but those events are few and far between, i.e. the war in Iraq takes all our attention, but a war costing $200B and under a few thousand lives every few years isn't that big of a deal, compared to the numbers from WWI&II.
As for your statement: '"A wealthy country only comes from open markets" seems ridiculously oversimplified to me.'
Give me a single example that contradicts this. Autocratic governments only count if they have command economies. Singapore has free trade, to a huge degree. There is a one-to-one correlation between the amount that a government intervenes into an economy and the poor performance of the economy.
I assure you the policies of China are no exception. Something needs to change in order for China to match the standard of living in, say, Japan.
I have an active blog. It's about politics & robotics: http://while-true.blogspot.com/
Thankfully, I'm considered an "active blogger", and I just signed up for Gmail.
I agree that privacy is not the issue here. It's usability, in a number of respects. I've just done everything I normally do in email, in the span of 5 minutes, to test the system. It's great, and I don't know how I'd improve the interface.
The hot-keys are indeed hot. The conversation listing is perfect. The max attachment(30Mb?) adds entirely new dimensions of functionality. The 1 big gig is awesome. I hope for a small fee, I can get 2-5GB. Compare this to yahoo, where you get 4Mb for free, and some not-so-great amount for a service fee.
I love it. You should all join. If you are a tin-foil-hat privacy fanatic, you better get some self-help tapes, because omnipresent information access is only achieved by automated examination of the information.
Google doesn't have the time, resources, or interests in having a human read your mail. The resources part could change with the IPO, but the situation is the same;)
Slashdot Mirror
You are a perfect candidate for the Not-Bush crowd. It is not the evidence of Kerry's skill in military and foreign policy which would make you vote for him. It is the thought that ANYONE could do better.
Ok, fine.
Now please tell me what you would do to fight global terrorism? If anyone is better, you are too, right?
And please don't use vague terms.
For instance, how do you deal with Iran, whose dictatorial government is most likely seeking WMD, and also support the student movements for democracy?
How would you effectively deal with Saudi Arabia's fanatical Islamic schooling, without causing global economic turmoil by interrupting the oil supply?
How do you bring balance to Israel/Palestine, when the terrorist-supporting Arafat refuses moderate deals and refuses to hold a single legitimate election?
How do you bring accountability to the UN for the oil-for-food scandal while making them more involved in Iraq?
How do you align our goals with the EU powerhouse nations looking more to country our sphere of influence then help out with our problems?
These aren't easy problems. The situation on the ground is not as bad as you claim, we are making progress with the militants, and we will be victorious. The millions of hard choices made on this road are not to be taken lightly.
Note that if you don't have an answer to any one of these, you shouldn't complain about strategy.
I love the way lock-step rhetoric gets modded up to 5, Interesting, just because it bashes the administration.
Does anyone here really think an entrenched 2 party system can be solved by this sort of blasting? Or better yet, the Not-Bush roadies think that anyone who isn't that particular Texan is the solution to our problems.
With the exception of mentioning in passing private retirement account, choice in health care, and maybe school choice, there is little or no meaningful difference for a person who thinks that more government rarely solves things better than markets.
I personally don't think that the worst parts of the patriot act will last long. Barriers to communication between government agencies must be broken down, and fast action must be allowed. Yet, there must be oversight.
The main issues, as far as I'm concerned, are the following:
1) Who will win in Iraq? Given the UN's failure to act pro-humanity and pro-democracy in Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Rwanda, N. Korea, Iran, Cuba, Israel/Palestine, etc., I don't see Kerry's "plan" to internationalize and apologize to the world as effective. Besides, his pandering to both moderates who want to stay the course and lefties who demand to pull out is disgusting.
2) Who will block free trade the least? Bush did it a bit for steel, and got burned. Kerry wants "fair trade" whatever that means. Barriers on the market rarely help the people they intended to help, and people complaining about extremely low-priced goods shipping into America on a massive scale have it backwards. There is nothing wrong with a trade deficit. Read "Free to Choose" for more along this discussion.
3) Who will save America from its unfunded obligation of tens of Trillions of dollars for Social Security? The pay-as-you-go system was known from the beginning to be bunk, but no one touches it. For those concerned about deficits, the current deficit is 5% of the GDP and around 3% of the implicit debt for future obligations to social Security, so you should put things into perspective.
All 3 of these issues have multi trillion dollar consequences. Everything thing else pails in comparison.
You really need to appreciate what is going on here...
Face detection, as any detection task, requires that a class of object be identified. This doesn't mean we have a picture, and ask, "is it a face?". It means we have a 640x480 image, say, and 5 scales, and want to ask which of the ~1,500,000 possible locations is a face.
To say that there are a few false detections means that this detector has a false positive rate of O(1)/O(10^6), which is awesome.
There is a natural trade off between detection rate and false positive rate. You can imagine that just saying everything is a face yields a perfect detection rate, and a horrible false positive rate.
Plotting detection rate vs false positive rate yields a receiver-operator-curve, which is really what you are looking for to compare face detectors. It would be hard to find a better one than what they have done at the Robotics Institute.
You can't get away without the following:
discrete math (combinatorics, graph theory, etc.)
linear algebra
basic probability.
Calculus, I don't think you actually need it to be a programmer.
For Anything AI related, there has been a large migration from symbolic representations to probabilistic representations. Anything in machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, data mining, even network theory, will require a strong and advanced Statistics and Probability class.
I have found that the fundamentals of computer systems are greatly advanced with a Theory of Computation course, which is basically math, with FSMs through turing machines represented.
Again, the question is one of application. If there is a target in the area you would like to work, make sure to learn about it. Also, more math only helps programming, as far as I'm concerned.
Hi.
I want to install a minimal install of Linux on a compactflash card serving as a hard disk on an embedded system. The system will be on a higly-mobile robot, where anything but sold-state is bound to fail(though I'm testing the new Seagate drives).
Anyway, I want a minimal install because the capacity is a mere 2GB, and I'm new to Linux & Debian.
I'm working with a 1GHz PIII -- what type of iso should I get for the install? I see choices like "alpha," "hppa," "i386," and "powerPC".
What do all these mean. I would guess my pentium is i386, right?
Also, what does "NONUS" mean?
Thanks!
this reminds me a lot of another company, for consumer PC applications:
White Box Robotics
http://www.whiteboxrobotics.com/
One huge effect of our information revolution is the drastic reduction in costs for creating a product.
i veIncomeT ax.html
For under a few hundred dollars, you could have a complete development platform. If you have a way to prove a technology, you are good to go.
If you don't want to reduce your unemployment benefits, get an under-the-table job as a waiter. I always thought the current set-up reduced incentive for people to find work. I think a negative income tax would work better:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Negat
A non-disclosure agreement stops a person from producing something that was your idea. It is a very basic contract.
As for the rest, all I can say is that I have made commercial-level software from my apartment. I get paid less than minimum wage to working as a graduate student, but I've found the time to make it.
Finding buyers entirely depends on the market you are going for, and it would be hard for me to comment on general procedures.
I agree, taxes, and other issues add up. It is negative for business, but still better than other countries, here in America.
Considering the number of businesses that grow to be large, you are dead wrong if you think it is impossible.
Also considering the number of good ideas that fail, there is something more complicated going on here.
THe basic problem is that you can't control the business world. You can reduce risk, but in the end, you will make it or not depending on how well you know your market, and how well you solve that market's pain.
Your failure is not evidence against generally accepted processes. It might just mean there is no way, given your team, approach, the market, and your idea is feasible.
Almost all business start small, with no more than a 1/2 to 3 million for initial funding. If you can't even get that, I doubt your idea is viable.
it is in the interest of markets related to trust to self regulate. How many people would invest in teh NYSE, if it were rife with corruption, if the accounting principles weren't GAAP.
Again, there are some areas where intervention is good, but anyone who owns a business will tell you that they would rather the government be less involved, and be taxed less, than the other way.
Unions have only ever been illegal because of governmental action. Machine politics is a failing of the late 19th century, and only proves my point about the dangers of governmental involvement.
It governments only worked to counter criminal acts of violence or negligence (such as pollution or slavery), trusts in labor or monopoly, and to encourage standard accounting principles, we would be better off.
you needn't do the entire operation.
consulting services are readily available. Also, the there are innumberable types of semiconductors - surely you have a service to give to any of them?
also, learn about business. You get an idea, even for a service, you do a market analysis and feasibility study. You see if your idea is actually a market opportunity. You draw up a business plan.
Then you try to get funding - and it needed be from VCs. It could be from your customers! Or, the government, with small business grants, or your relatives, or angel investors, or other sources.
There is a process to starting a business, and no business is un-enterable. Learn the process, and get started
Ok, let's say you're right. It is the government's job to secure employment for as many people as possible.
BUT, here the obvious next question: what is the best way to do this? Have you noticed the unemployment rates in our socialist neighbors' back yards? Germany, where you can live off the dole for years and so many people are on the dole that it is unlikely a democratic process will change it. The entire EU is so rife with regulation, business is almost entirely turned off by the government's actions, and the net effect is worse than before.
Look at Ireland, where business has been booming after the government greatly reduced regulation and corporate taxes. They are better off than before.
If you look into it a bit further, you'll find most, if not all, cases of an economy improving occur in spite of, and not because of, governmental intervention. The one exception is war.
Things like WPA after the great depression (which was caused by negative governmental manipulation of the supply of money) improved confidence more than anything else, but at a huge cost. Programs like that rarely evaporate.
post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy: because an effect happened after an event, the first event was the cause of the effect. Our system has been successful, but just because government has taken action, doesn't mean that this is the cause. If you actually look as what is different about the United States you'll find:
1) An extremely high value of personal liberty
2) A huge distrust for governmental action
The government has taken a great deal of liberties in acting to "correct" the market. Situations have improved. Don't label the cause of the improvement as government.
Neighborhood effects, such as pollution, are probably an exception. Also, anti-trust legislation makes sense. Both are correct because they counter choices made by agents which infringe upon the choices of others.
Labor markets have only been hurt by government intervention, except in the cases where the labor was not voluntary. The minimum wage is a perfect example. Thank god companies have found international trade, where the laborers get locally above average pay, and products are made for below average prices. This is a god send.
Maybe you should read the constitution, by the way, before you go spouting profanities. You say, "the government's job to do whatever the majority wants without harming the minority."
This simply isn't true. The government is limited by the functional definition in the constitution, and items not explicitly granted are forbidden.
The main reason government intervention is bad is because it takes responsibility from the hands of individuals. People don't act because they think the government will.
The second main reason why intervention is bad is because government also NEVER contracts, only expands. This is the road to serfdom so often lamented.
farm susidies are corporate welfare. I was talking about corporate R&D. Of course farm subsidies should be eliminated.
w hile-tr ue_archive.html#108211753084982396
I've posted on my blog about this:
http://while-true.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_
Hit that nail right on the head, man :)
You are a dipshit. You know that? A total retard.
...dipshit.
What a compelling argument. I'm totally convinced. Thank you for improving the collective consciousness and moving us toward progress...
Now, please explain to me how you can choose to be exploited? How are you subjugated by free will? Maybe you're thinking of systems where you don't really have a choice.
But that would be a real argument...
Why do you expect employees to train and retrain themselves at a cost to them but on the other hand believe that corporations should not have to pay to develop the products and services that they profit from?
I think corporations should cover their own costs. BUT, if it were between paying corporations for R&D vs. paying people, which was the argument you presented, I will choose the former.
Why is Barrett complaining about teachers being incompetent when the education system is paying them wages that could only attract people who are incompetent or find it their life's calling?
The fault is not with a teacher's salary, it is the structure of government funded and administered education. The system is failing to work as well as it could, but not because teachers are "under-funded", but because they have no incentive to improve. Look at Massachusetts, a liberal haven where teachers and schools get far above the average in pay and funding, but the schools are failing. How do you explain that, if the only issue is teachers pay and funding? Clearly the cause is more fundamental.
Why do people parrot ignorant bullshit they heard someone else parrot?
Becaues we've had the past century to prove that command economies fail, and free markets (of labor and corporations) make a country thrive. Because we've read Hayek and Friedman and Rand and Postrel, and you apparently haven't. Because I have come to these conclusions from personal experience, where as the system you would like has never been achieved. This means both that it is probably unattainable and also that you have the luxury of living in an ivory tower, where your ideas needn't be demonstrated as successful to be given credit in the real world.
Why am I so pissed at ignorance when it's as abundant as the air we breathe?
Because you are impatient and not really listening. Read the authors above, and maybe you'll calm down.
the benefit of subsidizing an individual: one happy individual, and the company he works for.
the benefit of subsidizing new research, at the university level or at a corporation: everyone who uses that research.
Yes, the benefits should be cut, but one is more usefull (and cheaper actually) than the other.
What is the government's allocation for funding research? Inisignificant.
What does the government spend on other business subsidies that don't fund research? A lot.
What about direct payments to people? at least 25% of the 2 Trillion budget.
It's only going to get worse.
Also, you can't exploit voluntary labor. If you are being exploited at a job, leave it. Any other thought is trying to put the words in the mouth of labor, and is in itself, exploitive.
The fact is that people here need to work harder to compete. People abroad who are working at these jobs are thankful because they are far, far better than their old jobs.
Since when is it the government's job to secure your own employment?
If you did well in school, have a good education, but can't find a job, why not start your own business and follow the advice: Compete!
I want to fight the nanny-state mentality that the government
1) Should
2) Can, even if it wanted to,
control the economy and my economic well being.
As for failing K-12 schools, clearly more volunteerism by parents and intelligent people, along with more incentive for competition among schools, is the solution.
Again, if you are unemployed, maybe you should fix that situation. Try inventing something in your garage while working at McDonalds. They are always hiring.
As I've said before, let's have cameras everywhere in public, bots reading our emails and seeing our financial transactions, and a large number of humans to oversee any such operation. Then we could actually have a much more open society
check out my blog for some related material:
while_true
I agree. Brain's essays are lacking, alarmist, and blinded by a devotion to current modalities of labor.
Just because change is fast, doesn't mean it's bad. Consider the amazingly rapid rise in the percentage of people going to college. They need it to compete, and they are getting the education required.
He also fails to grasp supply & demand. Anything in a market that yields 50% unemployment will self-correct. Are you telling me robotics companies want their customers to lack the money to buy their products?
Also he lacks the ability to understand the value of human service. Something virtually 100% ignored today is the rise of personal service industries, small and entrepreneurial, like a masseuse, hairdresser, personal trainer, tutors for all subjects, nanny, etc. The human contact IS the product, which the rich will be able to afford.
It is just like "Diamond Age" -- a world without scarcity for material wealth still demands proper upbringing, which is mainly based on human interaction.
But the WORST thing about robotic nation is the friction it places on robots coming to fruition. We need to embrace the future, and this premature, negative PR is quite counterproductive. It's like screaming about the potential for genetic crops to cause havoc years in the future, when there are thousands starving NOW.
Look to my blog about robotics and politics for more:
http://while-true.blogspot.com/
I'm getting the feeling that strange forces, "dark" energy, 13D branes of string theory, etc. all have something in common.
They remind me of the epicycles astronomers observed so many years ago.
Simply put, our knowledge case seems not to be expanding, but diversifying, with many theories, and few ways to prove them.
Take a physicist from 1900; tell them about a meteor about to hit the earth. He'd say we're screwed. Take one today; she'd say "deflect it with a nuke".
The point: the entropy death of the universe is a very very very very very long way away. To say we won't be able to do something about it is depressing, and hopefully wrong.
I think Ray Kurzweil had this idea first. Consciousness may well be something in the universe which directly counters entropy. Evolution does seem to go against the grain.
Actually, I suggest to everyone that you read at least the first few chapters of "Age of Spiritual Machines" where he describes the accelerating pace of salient events.
http://while-true.blogspot.com/
I can't wait until photon based displays are more common. The idea is simple: rather than blasting electrons onto a florescent surface to produce different colored light, you blast photons directly onto the retina to layer over what you normally see.
I would love to have a heads-up-display in almost everything I do. There are a few obvious benefits:
o A traditional florescent surface blocks your view of the world behind it, while only the "photon projector" would be in the way in this case. The point is that is needn't be directly in front of your eye, so it doesn't block what you foveate upon.
o It is embedded the 3D real world, so 3D modes of interaction would boost productivity and functionality of software.
o It would involve detecting information from your environment, which will either be done by ubiquitous computing or passive computer vision, both of which I would love to see come to fruition.
o The ability to drown-out "ugly" artifacts in an environment, or enhance them, would lead to new levels of personal aesthetics. Unanimity of aesthetics without conformity to standard definitions.
BUT, this is way in the future, unfortunately. sigh...
note this post in my blog:
http://while-true.blogspot.com/
Purchasing power is a good measure. the diversity of products on the markets, the availability of advanced services (e.g. the quality of health care can be put in plain quantitative terms from infant mortality, life expectancy, and the availability to the masses.
Singapore is rich. There is a great deal of wealth in Saudi Arabia, but mainly in the hands of a large royal family. This is not an advanced economy; rather, it more resembles a banana republic, where the bananas are actually oil.
But to your first question, it is very clear that the US "supports and bolsters non-free states" in order for those states to improve economically. The basic misunderstanding about international trade is that it is NOT a zero-sum game. Talk of trade deficits is actually quite meaningless, and represents backward mercantile thinking.
Out interaction with China is almost purely economical, and we would love for the standard of living to improve. This is the source of the "most favored nation" trading status.
So it is the exact opposite of your statement. We support bad governments so we can interact (and, yes, compete) economically, because it is in everyone's best interest. Boats in rising tides indeed.
To prove the point, look to Cuba. America doesn't have much to gain from trading with Cuba, and we would love to see that bastard regime toppled. So we actively crush progress there in the form of sanctions and limitations on immigration, in hopes of a revolution. We can't (or don't want to) afford to do this with China, even if the suppression of the people is worse.
Now, US's support of other nations is the opposite. Rather than benefit from trade, we wish to keep certain things the same and stable. This is old cold-war thinking, and it should be changing soon. For instance, we tolerate dictatorship in Saudi Arabia because we relish the cheap, abundant oil that comes from there.
So I guess all policy, though it seems hypocritical at times, is based on money, and our economic security. Actually, the only exception is direct threats to national security, but those events are few and far between, i.e. the war in Iraq takes all our attention, but a war costing $200B and under a few thousand lives every few years isn't that big of a deal, compared to the numbers from WWI&II.
As for your statement:
'"A wealthy country only comes from open markets" seems ridiculously oversimplified to me.'
Give me a single example that contradicts this. Autocratic governments only count if they have command economies. Singapore has free trade, to a huge degree. There is a one-to-one correlation between the amount that a government intervenes into an economy and the poor performance of the economy.
I assure you the policies of China are no exception. Something needs to change in order for China to match the standard of living in, say, Japan.
just performed a test...
it looks just like a page loading, with a progress bar in IE's status bar.
it would have been nicer to see something that was more pretty
I have an active blog. It's about politics & robotics:
;)
http://while-true.blogspot.com/
Thankfully, I'm considered an "active blogger", and I just signed up for Gmail.
I agree that privacy is not the issue here. It's usability, in a number of respects. I've just done everything I normally do in email, in the span of 5 minutes, to test the system. It's great, and I don't know how I'd improve the interface.
The hot-keys are indeed hot.
The conversation listing is perfect.
The max attachment(30Mb?) adds entirely new dimensions of functionality.
The 1 big gig is awesome. I hope for a small fee, I can get 2-5GB. Compare this to yahoo, where you get 4Mb for free, and some not-so-great amount for a service fee.
I love it. You should all join. If you are a tin-foil-hat privacy fanatic, you better get some self-help tapes, because omnipresent information access is only achieved by automated examination of the information.
Google doesn't have the time, resources, or interests in having a human read your mail. The resources part could change with the IPO, but the situation is the same
Embrace the future.
[maybe i'm a bit to excited about this...]