If I'm a woman and you're a male coworker who likes to describe in detail to me, every day, how he jerked off to bigtittedbitches.com the night before, how is that my responsibility? Why should having to listen to you be a condition of doing my job? How am I supposed to walk away when you're in the next cubicle to me, or you're my boss?
If you think you have to walk on eggshells now, that's probably because you're a complete asshole in the workplace who has trouble comprehending why people get offended. Me, I've never worried about walking on eggshells in my Fortune 500 workplaces. I just don't say stupid shit that's likely to offend, and I still manage to have a rich and interesting social life in my workplace.
Where were the personal owners of firearms when the government was burning children at Waco, or shooting babies at Ruby Ridge? Where were they when American citizens were being detained without trial for years on end, in the U.S.? Where were they when the NSA was monitoring every communication in the U.S., without warrant or oversight? When the FBI was handing out National Security Letters like candy to local libraries and ISPs? When the government was using eminent domain to seize an old woman's house so that a mall could be built in Ohio?
In what possible sense is a personally owned firearm an actual defense against tyranny? Because for all the NRA members who loudly bleat about how their guns are the best defense against tyranny, I don't actually see a lot of defending going on.
I don't disagree that voting in Canada works reasonably well, but the old #2 machine is still prone to manipulation. I was in Montreal during the 1995 referendum, and voted in the riding of Outrement. In that riding and several others that were dominated by English speakers (who were expected to vote overwhelmingly "No", meaning against separation), the "Yes" scrutineers were exceptionally strict across the board, for both yes and no votes. When you're talking about pencil marks on paper, pushing a very strict standard allows you to disqualify many votes that a more reasonable interpretation would allow. One that made the news had the X in the circle failing to reach the edges, as in the demonstration box. But the Yes scrutineers were being evenhanded in their standard, so there was no cause for complaint individually.
However, the statistical effect due to the location was to throw out a larger number of no votes than yes votes. The only procedural strategy that would have countered that would have been for the no scrutineers to be deliberately obstructionist in heavily French ridings--which is technically legal but obviously contrary to the spirit of an election, where counting as many clear votes as possible is the general idea.
You've done a fine job rationalizing not getting off your ass to vote or actually do anything that matters, yet still reserving the right to moan about how shitty things are.
No, your example is not apt, because the problems in Somalia are not necessarily due to a lack of "government," and I don't necessarily oppose "rules" or "laws" so much as they are not agreed to by voluntary consent and no nation lets people gather and live peacefully, instead subjecting peoples to its rule whether or not they want to be ruled by that body.
Whether or not a lack of government is the *cause*, it's not hard to imagine that a government could deal with those problems going forward. Look at South Africa, which seems to be well on its way to overcoming the history of Apartheid without tearing the nation apart, and has the kind of civil society that sustains the economy you rightly identify as being crucial.
Actually, Somalia has one of the best economies in Africa, if not the best.
South Africa's GDP (total/per capita): $300 billion/$10,000; Egypt: $442 billion/$5,900; Nigeria: $315 billion/$2,100; Ethiopia $71 billion/$896; Somalia: $6 billion/$600. Somalia is around 150th on a list of 179 nations worldwide. There are worse places in Africa, but Somalia is far from the best.
But you are just going to claim that the problems can just be fixed with the *right kind* of government, which is exactly like saying that I can get a pet unicorn if I just wish hard enough.
The difference between my asserting that 'the right kind of government' would address a lot of their problems, and you wishing for a unicorn, is that I can point to a lot of governments that preside over nations where they don't have malaria epidemics or inter-tribal warfare or private militias guarding convoys of basic foodstuffs, and that's because of what the government has done; nations where things run reasonably well and provide a pretty decent level of social and civil security. Nations that, in the past, have been in a tumultuous or tyrannical state where Somalia would actually be a better choice from a quality-of-life perspective.
You're never going to get your unicorn, though.
It's exactly the reason why Democracy in Iraq or Afghanistan is going to fail--government isn't a magical entity outside the system. It's part of it, and will always suffer the flaws of the people within it.
This is a strawman. I haven't been arguing that government as a set of offices and procedures for filling them are the be-all and end-all of a good society. But it seems obvious to me that government can play a role in shaping society for the better: witness the role that truth commissions played in South Africa, when everyone expected that the fall of Apartheid regime would lead to a bloody massacre of whites by justifiably angry blacks.
"decent government," if you look around the world, doesn't exist.
I live in Canada, and I'll happily assert that our government is at least decent. I have access to high quality health care for a very reasonable price in taxes. I'm virtually unconcerned with being the victim of violent crime. I'm well educated. I live in a society with infrasture to support an economy that allows me to live a very good life working less than full time at work that isn't manual labour. I have broad access to arts and culture, and to technology that requires very advanced science to develop. And its my government that is largely responsible for either providing these things to me, or guarantees the conditions under which others can do so. I'd say that's at least "decent", even if I'm explicitly costing those benefits as not having the right to smoke pot.
Basically, it's a pretty cheap argument to compare a western country that has infrastructure to a place that never really did. Nobody is saying that governments make growth impossible, just that they impede it, and Somalia's growth is actually some evidence for that.
More seriously, what I'd like you to do is justify the idea that absolute freedom (or something close to it) is something that I should want, that without it I live in a "shit" country, that having (near) absolute freedom would be a better life for me than the pleasant, middle class lifestyle I have now in Canada
Well, please enlighten us by giving us an example of a "no-government" country that isn't a shithole. I don't think my example betrays my argument, I think it illustrates it quite nicely, because I think that any country without a government will turn into Somalia--which isn't a bad place in some respects (it has astonishingly broad penetration of cellular and wifi services, for example), but overall it's a terrible place to live.
Africa may have problems that aren't rooted in government, but those are problems that could be mitigated to tolerable levels with decent government. Malaria could be addressed by public health programs; inter-tribal warfare could be minimized, if not stamped out, by an effective power sharing arrangement. These are problems that have been handled successfully elsewhere, so there's no reason they couldn't be handled in Africa.
The west is far better than the east but that's no more to the point that some shit stinks worse than others.
"With all this shit in here, there's got to be a pony somewhere!"
Seriously, does that amount of infringement upon your freedoms in the West rise to calling this place "shit", especially in light of the practical benefits our current societies offer us?
The problem with Vancouver (where I live now) is that it's a pretty sleepy large city, compared to Toronto or Montreal. If night life is the OP's thing, he won't enjoy it here. The main activities are outdoor (skiing, hiking, watersports, rock climbing), and the social life tends to revolve around those. Large tech community, mountains within an hour drive, easy access by road or air to interesting destinations. And actually quite a large British population.
What a totally useless answer, as if there's no practical difference in freedom between New Hampshire and North Korea. "You're not perfectly free, so you're not free at all," is that it?
You want to live in Libertopia? I understand Somalia has lax immigration controls.
At my last job I worked quite a bit with Walmart IT guys in Bentonville. Most of them were quite smart and competent, and no one seemed unhappy to be where they were.
I'm absolutely sure the government would have a better run system that costs less.
Actually, the medical systems in countries with socialized medicine or socialized medical insurance do run better and cost less. Steve Jobs wouldn't be able to buy himself a new liver like he just did, but the aggregate health outcomes would be vastly superior. There's a reason that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the first world.
When I worked at RSA Security several years ago, the primary metric for support calls was the customer satisfaction survey. They deliberately avoided paying much attention to time-to-close because they were very aware that measuring that leads to support techs playing games with the system and rushing customers to close a ticket rather than sending them away happy and problem resolved.
Your point about dating services and costs of entry is undercut by various scandals at places like match.com, where it was demonstrated that female employees were creating profiles and going on dates as part of their job, in order to balance the male/female ratio and keep men paying the monthly fee.
Right, exactly, because obviously it takes less than four months to check what every single part of every single department of the U.S. government is doing, and either approve it or stop it.
Seriously, does every day in the White House start with a nap?
What doesn't apply? An untouchable caste, or a greater cultural concern with lineage? I'm not aware of the effects of castes in other Asian countries, but Korea and China both attach much more concern to ancestry than is common in the U.S.
In Japan (and most Asian countries), lineage is considered much more important than it is in the U.S. If your daughter is marrying someone, it's common to check their lineage, and expected of you to offer it up under the right circumstances.
The complaint against Google is that they've made it easy to identify someone whose lineage goes back to these "scum towns" where only members of this untouchable caste could live. It doesn't matter that you're the youngest vice president at Toyota, your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather comes from a scumtown, so you're scum too to your fiance's father.
There was an episode of the Simpsons where Springfield is going to be destroyed by a meteor. Congress meets to quickly pass legislation to fund the evacuation of the city. At the last moment, a Congressman steps up to the podium and says "I'd like to add a rider providing $30 million for the perverted arts". The bill is defeated.
Slashdot Mirror
If I'm a woman and you're a male coworker who likes to describe in detail to me, every day, how he jerked off to bigtittedbitches.com the night before, how is that my responsibility? Why should having to listen to you be a condition of doing my job? How am I supposed to walk away when you're in the next cubicle to me, or you're my boss?
If you think you have to walk on eggshells now, that's probably because you're a complete asshole in the workplace who has trouble comprehending why people get offended. Me, I've never worried about walking on eggshells in my Fortune 500 workplaces. I just don't say stupid shit that's likely to offend, and I still manage to have a rich and interesting social life in my workplace.
You should find a new job.
Well, I guess I'll just take your word for it, then...
Where were the personal owners of firearms when the government was burning children at Waco, or shooting babies at Ruby Ridge? Where were they when American citizens were being detained without trial for years on end, in the U.S.? Where were they when the NSA was monitoring every communication in the U.S., without warrant or oversight? When the FBI was handing out National Security Letters like candy to local libraries and ISPs? When the government was using eminent domain to seize an old woman's house so that a mall could be built in Ohio?
In what possible sense is a personally owned firearm an actual defense against tyranny? Because for all the NRA members who loudly bleat about how their guns are the best defense against tyranny, I don't actually see a lot of defending going on.
I don't disagree that voting in Canada works reasonably well, but the old #2 machine is still prone to manipulation. I was in Montreal during the 1995 referendum, and voted in the riding of Outrement. In that riding and several others that were dominated by English speakers (who were expected to vote overwhelmingly
"No", meaning against separation), the "Yes" scrutineers were exceptionally strict across the board, for both yes and no votes. When you're talking about pencil marks on paper, pushing a very strict standard allows you to disqualify many votes that a more reasonable interpretation would allow. One that made the news had the X in the circle failing to reach the edges, as in the demonstration box. But the Yes scrutineers were being evenhanded in their standard, so there was no cause for complaint individually.
However, the statistical effect due to the location was to throw out a larger number of no votes than yes votes. The only procedural strategy that would have countered that would have been for the no scrutineers to be deliberately obstructionist in heavily French ridings--which is technically legal but obviously contrary to the spirit of an election, where counting as many clear votes as possible is the general idea.
You've done a fine job rationalizing not getting off your ass to vote or actually do anything that matters, yet still reserving the right to moan about how shitty things are.
Whether or not a lack of government is the *cause*, it's not hard to imagine that a government could deal with those problems going forward. Look at South Africa, which seems to be well on its way to overcoming the history of Apartheid without tearing the nation apart, and has the kind of civil society that sustains the economy you rightly identify as being crucial.
South Africa's GDP (total/per capita): $300 billion/$10,000; Egypt: $442 billion/$5,900; Nigeria: $315 billion/$2,100; Ethiopia $71 billion/$896; Somalia: $6 billion/$600. Somalia is around 150th on a list of 179 nations worldwide. There are worse places in Africa, but Somalia is far from the best.
The difference between my asserting that 'the right kind of government' would address a lot of their problems, and you wishing for a unicorn, is that I can point to a lot of governments that preside over nations where they don't have malaria epidemics or inter-tribal warfare or private militias guarding convoys of basic foodstuffs, and that's because of what the government has done; nations where things run reasonably well and provide a pretty decent level of social and civil security. Nations that, in the past, have been in a tumultuous or tyrannical state where Somalia would actually be a better choice from a quality-of-life perspective.
You're never going to get your unicorn, though.
This is a strawman. I haven't been arguing that government as a set of offices and procedures for filling them are the be-all and end-all of a good society. But it seems obvious to me that government can play a role in shaping society for the better: witness the role that truth commissions played in South Africa, when everyone expected that the fall of Apartheid regime would lead to a bloody massacre of whites by justifiably angry blacks.
I live in Canada, and I'll happily assert that our government is at least decent. I have access to high quality health care for a very reasonable price in taxes. I'm virtually unconcerned with being the victim of violent crime. I'm well educated. I live in a society with infrasture to support an economy that allows me to live a very good life working less than full time at work that isn't manual labour. I have broad access to arts and culture, and to technology that requires very advanced science to develop. And its my government that is largely responsible for either providing these things to me, or guarantees the conditions under which others can do so. I'd say that's at least "decent", even if I'm explicitly costing those benefits as not having the right to smoke pot.
Growth is easy when you're starti
More seriously, what I'd like you to do is justify the idea that absolute freedom (or something close to it) is something that I should want, that without it I live in a "shit" country, that having (near) absolute freedom would be a better life for me than the pleasant, middle class lifestyle I have now in Canada
Well, please enlighten us by giving us an example of a "no-government" country that isn't a shithole. I don't think my example betrays my argument, I think it illustrates it quite nicely, because I think that any country without a government will turn into Somalia--which isn't a bad place in some respects (it has astonishingly broad penetration of cellular and wifi services, for example), but overall it's a terrible place to live.
Africa may have problems that aren't rooted in government, but those are problems that could be mitigated to tolerable levels with decent government. Malaria could be addressed by public health programs; inter-tribal warfare could be minimized, if not stamped out, by an effective power sharing arrangement. These are problems that have been handled successfully elsewhere, so there's no reason they couldn't be handled in Africa.
"With all this shit in here, there's got to be a pony somewhere!"
Seriously, does that amount of infringement upon your freedoms in the West rise to calling this place "shit", especially in light of the practical benefits our current societies offer us?
From the last link: "Canada: Freedom of speech eroded by Muslims, homosexuals". I think that tells you all you need to know about it.
The problem with Vancouver (where I live now) is that it's a pretty sleepy large city, compared to Toronto or Montreal. If night life is the OP's thing, he won't enjoy it here. The main activities are outdoor (skiing, hiking, watersports, rock climbing), and the social life tends to revolve around those. Large tech community, mountains within an hour drive, easy access by road or air to interesting destinations. And actually quite a large British population.
What a totally useless answer, as if there's no practical difference in freedom between New Hampshire and North Korea. "You're not perfectly free, so you're not free at all," is that it?
You want to live in Libertopia? I understand Somalia has lax immigration controls.
At my last job I worked quite a bit with Walmart IT guys in Bentonville. Most of them were quite smart and competent, and no one seemed unhappy to be where they were.
I'm absolutely sure the government would have a better run system that costs less.
Actually, the medical systems in countries with socialized medicine or socialized medical insurance do run better and cost less. Steve Jobs wouldn't be able to buy himself a new liver like he just did, but the aggregate health outcomes would be vastly superior. There's a reason that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the first world.
When I worked at RSA Security several years ago, the primary metric for support calls was the customer satisfaction survey. They deliberately avoided paying much attention to time-to-close because they were very aware that measuring that leads to support techs playing games with the system and rushing customers to close a ticket rather than sending them away happy and problem resolved.
It's obviously not faith... the scientist didn't donate money to the solution, and the solution didn't molest his children.
The current mortality rate seems to be around 0.75%--for 35K cases, there've been just under 300 deaths.
Your point about dating services and costs of entry is undercut by various scandals at places like match.com, where it was demonstrated that female employees were creating profiles and going on dates as part of their job, in order to balance the male/female ratio and keep men paying the monthly fee.
Hyperventilate much?
Right, exactly, because obviously it takes less than four months to check what every single part of every single department of the U.S. government is doing, and either approve it or stop it.
Seriously, does every day in the White House start with a nap?
What doesn't apply? An untouchable caste, or a greater cultural concern with lineage? I'm not aware of the effects of castes in other Asian countries, but Korea and China both attach much more concern to ancestry than is common in the U.S.
In Japan (and most Asian countries), lineage is considered much more important than it is in the U.S. If your daughter is marrying someone, it's common to check their lineage, and expected of you to offer it up under the right circumstances.
The complaint against Google is that they've made it easy to identify someone whose lineage goes back to these "scum towns" where only members of this untouchable caste could live. It doesn't matter that you're the youngest vice president at Toyota, your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather comes from a scumtown, so you're scum too to your fiance's father.
There was an episode of the Simpsons where Springfield is going to be destroyed by a meteor. Congress meets to quickly pass legislation to fund the evacuation of the city. At the last moment, a Congressman steps up to the podium and says "I'd like to add a rider providing $30 million for the perverted arts". The bill is defeated.
It's funny because it's true.
Mod parent +1 cluestick.
How many people actually vet the Linux source code, or would recognize various weaknesses and backdoors if they were staring at them?