Don't be bashful. Guys like that think that there are no consequences to exposing themselves to decent folk. Show him that decent folk still get remarkably pissed off. To wit:
You should invite him to a public park to discuss the matter.
Then knock him out with a taser and then ether.
Then pile him into a car trunk.
Then take the car to a cash-only motel. Unload him into the room you rented for a couple of hours.
Then make some cuts on each back/side of his body right by his kidneys. Stich them up as if they were real wounds that were sutured closed.
Then place him in the bathtub with cold water (not ice -- we don't want him to die of hypothermia).
Then leave a large note that says:
YOUR KIDNEYS HAVE BEEN REMOVED. YOU WERE PACKED IN ICE TO DELAY THE ONSET OF BLOOD POISONING. PLEASE CALL 911 OR YOU WILL DIE! HAVE A NICE DAY.
It's funny that you mention professors. Aren't those the tens of thousands of people who have the LEAST in common with the tens of millions of blue collar workers displaced by their philosophies and so-called arguments?
Fuck them.
It's funny you quote an article about "turning back the clock", because we're busy turning back the century on the American worker. Current socio-economic policy does NOT represent the American worker. Such policy intends to use the capital gains of the 20th Century to return the workforce to the 19th Century, while using the margin saved to push the elite into the 21st Century. It's feudalism all over again.
Of course, we'll see a whole lot more warfare and civil unrest before that sick little process finishes. It's the logical consequence.
If you think it's a bad idea feel then free to point out why it will not work.
What part of 50 YEARS WITHOUT A RESULT don't you fucking understand? Are you really this dense?
I'm not saying "it won't work". I'm CLEARLY saying:
"You PhD pukes have had 50 fucking years to produce even ONE joule of consumer power from fusion, and you've so obviously failed in that task that to even dare ask for more money for YOUR research is a world's record in chutzpah. Spend your OWN money on fusion from now on, you welfare queens!"
If you don't believe in RESULTS, then nothing I say on this topic will make sense. Fusion is supposed to be producing consumer power... not PhD theses. Nothing else sufficies.
Fusion is well understood it's been demonstrated and has been used to create energy.
Sure, you can always spend a couple of megawatts to generate a couple of kilowatts. What's your point? IT'S NOT PRODUCTIVE.
(blah-de-blah about solar power)
If you really think that placing a panel out in the sun is a loser, then you truly ARE a retard. The only point about solar is that the price of the panels is ARTIFICIALLY HIGH. It is HIGH since the "smart money" (often guided by chumps like yourself) is chasing BOONDOGGLES like fusion, DECLINING SOURCES like oil, and of course the old Western-civilization systemic failure: too much investment money is chasing FIDUCIARY SCHEMES and not REAL ENERGY DEVELOPMENT WORK.
It's been well said before that America needs to enact an "Apollo Program" for alternative energy sources. Yes, even YOU would like that, since there would also be funding for fusion. But the point is that the massive investment would finally push society over the edge of marginal technologies like freakin' solar panels. These technologies are ONLY marginal since the investment in them is so pathetic.
If we would have thrown fusion's investment dollars into solar, we'd have panels covering millions of homes by now.
(blah-de-blah about wind power)
Utilities are finding out that your sentiments are full of shit. The ONLY thing keeping wind off the shelf now is the NIMBYs. In fact, the NIMBYs are the major problem here for the idea of distributed generation... we have to in fact DESTROY the NIMBYs since they have no right whatsoever to deny the positive public benefits of the placement of a distributed energy network.
(Even worse than the NIMBYs are the BANANAs - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Nor Anytime (or something like that). These people are on a mission to deny the basic energy infrastructure that Western civilization requires to operate.)
I'll think warmly of your stupid-assed comments the next time I pass the wind-powered generators about 30 miles south of where I am now. There's wind most everywhere, twit. Just put up a generator in the way and collect free power. Of course, it helps to NOT run the electric utility as some sort of dotcom investment engine. Distributed energy networks are the strongest arguments for breaking up the electric utilities and making them NPOs, co-ops, and in general PUBLIC assets. So, having a generator on a tower take 20 years to amortize will be more palatable than have the thing being under pressure to amortize in 3 years under a fucking for-profit system.
Power is the right of the Western civilization. Power makes our civilization work on so many levels that it's impossible to remove it. And the funny thing is, the West is so wealthy that it can afford to make the investment in distributed generation to prepare for the coming oil shock. SO LET'S INVEST.
(But not fusion. Fusion has had 50 years to prove itself. It's failed. Fuck it. Let's pour the vast majority of those billions into solar now.)
If labor wasn't so spineless and did understand that they have to enforce their involvement in the process of production, they'd see that yes, the introduction of robots should have been more restricted. Robots were inevitable. What was NOT inevitable was the wholesale replacement of so many workers that we've decimated the blue collars... undermining America's middle class and creating a new class of "working poor".
With restrictions, robots could have been introduced at a sustainable rate that allowed displaced workers much more time to find new niches. Instead, we just tossed these saps out in the street. As you may note, we took the welfare hit, as if that was somehow a better investment.
As for creating challenges for businesses... no, I can hardly call it a "challenge" if we stop the government from promoting and assisting native corporations from taking the commonwealth and moving it overseas. WE created that wealth for everyone to take advantage of, not just 10 thousand well-heeled stockholders and executives.
In the past 50 years the size of the largest stable reactions has grown over 100,000x. Calling that a failure is silly.
In 50 fucking years, no power has been produced for consumers. Calling that NOT a failure is silly. I've already said this, but in typical brainless fashion, you continue to harp on hope with a hopeless investment.
Donate your own money towards fusion. Leave MY money out of it (i.e. taxes as expressed by government grants). The Rest Of Us should be free of that for energy technologies that are much more likely to produce... like solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc. Even better, these technologies are not only distributed but will take significant investments of native labor to exploit.
I fully agree that if fusion does take off (hah, fat chance) then you as the investor are entitled to share in the profits thereby.
The USA is a "capitalistic democracy" without "socalistic ideas"? DO TELL! I must have been reading Missus Tate's Book of Liberal American Myths for the last 20 years.
Please explain the existence of the following items in such a non-socalistic society:
minimum wage laws
labor laws in general
unemployment insurance
food stamps
social security system
medicare system
wealth taxes (corporate income, inheritance, savings, dividend, excise (in certain areas), etc.)
Would you rather have a living wage if it meant there were far fewer jobs available?
Call me a nut, but YES, since it would also mean that while unemployed for long periods, I wouldn't have to face losing my home (as I did here in America) during the recent period of "personnel conservatism". A living wage is a concept that should go hand in hand with a responsible welfare state. (After all, if Boeing can get money out of the Export-Import Bank to promote its sales in Europe, then why can't I get money out of the state of Ohio when I'm unemployed? Does Boeing have more right to exist than I do?)
Capitalism is a great thing... once you moderate its sheer viciousness with Socialism.
Add to that fusion for almost unlimited energy... why, this kind of brainless faith this reminds me of:
1. Create immense energy shortage by unrestrained growth.
2. ???
3. Profit!
How pathetic of us to have missed the obvious solution to #2, that being your "add fusion for almost unlimited energy"! What a keen insight you have! If only we had seen such a fulfilling answer with such ease!
Sarcasm aside, people who believe in fusion are like Catholics: they believe in something that not only is there no evidence for, but that there is a large body of evidence AGAINST it. Fusion research has had at least 4 solid decades to produce a net energy gain from any sustainable reaction. It has not. Hence, it is a boondoggle and the government should stop sinking public money into that fucking PhD welfare program (like the Superconducting Superexpensive Supercollider, which apparently accelerated investment-grade coins to relativistic speeds so that PhDs could read their "publish or perish" articles by the light of dying platinum and gold atoms).
The future of energy management (as more than suggested by ex-President Carter) is in conservation and exploration of a diverse range of energy alternatives, such as solar. Those who continue to bet on a massive-influx technology like fusion are still livin' the 1950s dream -- the heyday of Our God Oil (blessedbehisname). Conservation and distributed generation do not fit into this hyperkinetic, elite vision of the future (after all, remember those flying cars?).
Robotics and automation lead to cheaper goods for everyone and free up a portion of the workforce to do other things.
That's some fine parrotting. Too bad for you that many of the people "freed up" in such a fashion are not similarly "freed up" from their debt loads, current bills, and all the costs coming down the pipe from an increased price of energy.
Get real and stop participating in the Republican Echo Chamber. If all those people made "free" in the last 5 years really produced a benefit, we'd have seen one by now.
And about those cheap goods... obviously they have drained America of her manufacturing base. There will always be regional changes for economic forces, but the entire 290-million-person nation of America is a wee bit large for a "regional" change, don't you think?
Manufacturing of capital equipment is the ONLY basis of wealth. If you don't make it, you are a slave to those who do... and that is the entire point of America's scheduled degradation. (You DO know what capital equipment is, right? After all, you seem familiar with a "book on basic economics", right?)
Soooo... you want the distributed power of denying centralized power? Why, the next thing you'll demand is a democratic Republic governed by a body of law derived from a Constitution and common law. YOU RADICAL! He hee!
"the inevitable outcome [...] a robotic worldwide factory force, owned by just a few, with nothing left for the rest of us [...] But it will happen."
Welcome to a world of perpetual warfare and criminality, then. Such a future is highly unstable. As such, then, I don't expect it to happen... since the mechanisms of production and distribution will be destroyed and change hands from all the warfare and "terrorist" attacks (in reality, disenfranchised natives trying to get their economic rights back).
If I'm forced to choose, I prefer the private (in reality, public) corporations, since crossing them does not invoke the vengeance of the state in perpetuity (as is the case if you resist the government).
Succinctly, I anticipate that shooting a representative of Consolidated Megacorp would be less risky for me than shooting a representative of the state of Ohio.
In America, we HAD the "better system" (regulated capitalism under a democratic Republic). We cashed that out in order to mint more millionaires at the expense of the middle class (in unregulated capitalism under a fascist Empire).
Stop worshipping wealth. Once that happens, everything else will follow. People will return to saving money (since once you remove the wealth-worship, they don't anticipate becoming another stock millionaire), living frugally (since once you remove the wealth-worship, they don't live beyond their means), and in general start living their own lives with the modest time and modest wealth that is THEIRS.
I certainly hope so. A history book fell out of a time warp the other day, and it said that those guys were the first up against the wall when the revolution came. Something to look forward to, eh?
I consider your reply too short for all the issues it raises. Allow me to expand.
Free Market systems will choose the best course.
That's probably true, but it's hard to find anything even close to a "free market" system anywhere. What you generally find is that you are dealing with a free market (i.e. unprotected transactions) for the consumer, socialism (i.e. protected transactions) for the producer, and all watched over by a parasitical organism called government.
I'll believe market freedom applies to this Slashdot story when the consumers band together and negotiate terms with the producer... other than those put forth by the producer as "click to accept these terms to open your comment account".
Naturally, a website cannot simply sit around making no money and expect to continue providing content.
Of course it can. It's called a support function if you want to call it an "expense", even a "loss leader" if you want to dress it up as a loss. It's all too likely that the magazine is holding onto as much reader base as it has, simply because it has an associated website. Loss leaders are investments in sustaining your business. It seems that the Cult of Growth has blinded us to understanding this truth.
The producers -- actually, this is a misnomer, since the consumers are on the website also produce content, but I digress -- can decide at any time to charge for the support function, loss leader, expense, necessary evil, or whatever you'd like to call it. This is just a tactic embedded in a larger strategy that can succeed or fail depending upon the dynamics of the relationship, and of course upon your definition of "success".
The real problem is the people who have come to expect a "free as in I'm too cheap to pay" community on the web.
Well, that's part of the larger problem, as well as the things I expressed above.
But overall I do agree. Some percentage of forums can survive better by obtaining about $20/yr from each of their participants. Twenty bucks is not too much to ask (note: not demand, but ask) from an involved reader. The more savvy operators try to stratify content in order to convince participants to pay that modest amount.
This is a system that will work if we let prosperous people make informed decisions without the overly-heavy hand of government getting involved. After all, it's just a discussion forum, and an alternative to those that already exist in purely topical terms -- not a necessity of life like food, heat and shelter.
Yes, I'd have to agree. Let their business suffer for the alienation produced by such an unnecessary monthly charge... even if it DOESN'T suffer for it.
It's funny how thousands of users can't organize themselves and come up with an alternative when they are hit with such demands. Anyone can make a website now with the payment of the appropriate fees. What's lacking in this equation is the term of willpower.
I'm talking about deciding what code gets used in the next kernel. That is the choice of a select few.
Well, DUH. I already poo-poohed your concern by stating that I believed that the kernal maintainers would probably welcome some GPL'd code from Mr. Gates. You must have missed THAT in my response, you were so hot on your pointless point.
Yes, Linux has centralized control. No one is denying that. I'm clearly stating here that UNLIKE someone like Bill Gates, these maintainers seem to be people who are prone to rate merit, not position. After all, unlike Gates, the Linux kernal maintainers have to uphold their reputations in order to retain position. Gates and his corporate cronies have billions of dollars -- they don't need reputation like the Linuxers do.
I don't mind those who don't own guns. I DO mind those who don't own guns and not only expect me to do the same, but they also push for "legislation from the bench" to enforce their view. Those people are more than worthy of belittling.
I also don't buy the myth of "there's no point in rebelling since we'll never win". That sentiment leads to gun bans -- after all, you can never win against the government anyway, right? Why keep guns when you can never successfully revolt with them, right? Pfah.
Like I implied, if the Democratic Party wants to have me aboard, they should respect the US Constitution -- ALL OF IT. Neither major party wants to do that; they just vary on which part of the Bill of Rights they wish to ignore. Which is probably why 60% of those who can vote, just DON'T.
The REAL majority party in America is the Non-voting Party. That's more than enough condemnation of the failure of the political system.
Nice false analogy. Gates is perfectly free to: examine the Linux kernal; discuss it online with other developers; submit code for the next release. (I'm not sure, but I'd wager that the code maintainer would relish the idea of letting Bill Gates submit his code into the Linux kernal if it passes muster, and also if it's submitted under the GPL.)
However, that type of forum is not what Gates is all about, since Gates deals with Microsoft Windows, closed source software, and Microsoft ownership of software IP. Hence, a person like Gates simply doesn't participate, of his own choice.
Nader and Perot are both insane nutjobs who would never win the popular or electoral vote.
Oh. I see. About Nader: If a man who has devoted his career to citizen service by his consumer advocacy is an "insane nutjob", then you have completely discredited your argument (not that "candidate X stole my candidate Y's votes!" ever had any validity whatsoever). Welcome to my foe list.
Clinton never would have been elected president if not for Perot. Perot stole 10% of the vote from Bush, giving Clinton the presidency. Some believe Ralph Nader took the election from Gore.
I'm sure you realize that Perot is still not responsible for Clinton's 1992 election -- Clinton's voters are. As well, Nader is not responsible for Bush II's 2000 election -- Bush II's voters are.
People tend to overreach their use of the word "stole" in the context you used it. Perot may well have "taken" Bush I votes, but once he took them, they were his. The same goes for Nader's earned votes in 2000.
But with a senate seat costs rising to 10 million a seat, who knows if Joe Sixpack will every get elected.
Joe Sixpack will never be elected again in the United States, and people like Jesse Ventura only put the truth of that rule to the test. On top of the outrageous elitism of the election system in the last 50 years, America has transformed itself into an Empire from a Republic, so there's no mechanism for putting in the common man -- since the common man now only has to die for the Empire, not rule it.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't be bashful. Guys like that think that there are no consequences to exposing themselves to decent folk. Show him that decent folk still get remarkably pissed off. To wit:
You should invite him to a public park to discuss the matter.
Then knock him out with a taser and then ether.
Then pile him into a car trunk.
Then take the car to a cash-only motel. Unload him into the room you rented for a couple of hours.
Then make some cuts on each back/side of his body right by his kidneys. Stich them up as if they were real wounds that were sutured closed.
Then place him in the bathtub with cold water (not ice -- we don't want him to die of hypothermia).
Then leave a large note that says:
YOUR KIDNEYS HAVE BEEN REMOVED. YOU WERE PACKED IN ICE TO DELAY THE ONSET OF BLOOD POISONING. PLEASE CALL 911 OR YOU WILL DIE! HAVE A NICE DAY.
Then get the fuck out of there.
It's funny that you mention professors. Aren't those the tens of thousands of people who have the LEAST in common with the tens of millions of blue collar workers displaced by their philosophies and so-called arguments?
Fuck them.
It's funny you quote an article about "turning back the clock", because we're busy turning back the century on the American worker. Current socio-economic policy does NOT represent the American worker. Such policy intends to use the capital gains of the 20th Century to return the workforce to the 19th Century, while using the margin saved to push the elite into the 21st Century. It's feudalism all over again.
Of course, we'll see a whole lot more warfare and civil unrest before that sick little process finishes. It's the logical consequence.
If you think it's a bad idea feel then free to point out why it will not work.
... not PhD theses. Nothing else sufficies.
... we have to in fact DESTROY the NIMBYs since they have no right whatsoever to deny the positive public benefits of the placement of a distributed energy network.
What part of 50 YEARS WITHOUT A RESULT don't you fucking understand? Are you really this dense?
I'm not saying "it won't work". I'm CLEARLY saying:
"You PhD pukes have had 50 fucking years to produce even ONE joule of consumer power from fusion, and you've so obviously failed in that task that to even dare ask for more money for YOUR research is a world's record in chutzpah. Spend your OWN money on fusion from now on, you welfare queens!"
If you don't believe in RESULTS, then nothing I say on this topic will make sense. Fusion is supposed to be producing consumer power
Fusion is well understood it's been demonstrated and has been used to create energy.
Sure, you can always spend a couple of megawatts to generate a couple of kilowatts. What's your point? IT'S NOT PRODUCTIVE.
(blah-de-blah about solar power)
If you really think that placing a panel out in the sun is a loser, then you truly ARE a retard. The only point about solar is that the price of the panels is ARTIFICIALLY HIGH. It is HIGH since the "smart money" (often guided by chumps like yourself) is chasing BOONDOGGLES like fusion, DECLINING SOURCES like oil, and of course the old Western-civilization systemic failure: too much investment money is chasing FIDUCIARY SCHEMES and not REAL ENERGY DEVELOPMENT WORK.
It's been well said before that America needs to enact an "Apollo Program" for alternative energy sources. Yes, even YOU would like that, since there would also be funding for fusion. But the point is that the massive investment would finally push society over the edge of marginal technologies like freakin' solar panels. These technologies are ONLY marginal since the investment in them is so pathetic.
If we would have thrown fusion's investment dollars into solar, we'd have panels covering millions of homes by now.
(blah-de-blah about wind power)
Utilities are finding out that your sentiments are full of shit. The ONLY thing keeping wind off the shelf now is the NIMBYs. In fact, the NIMBYs are the major problem here for the idea of distributed generation
(Even worse than the NIMBYs are the BANANAs - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Nor Anytime (or something like that). These people are on a mission to deny the basic energy infrastructure that Western civilization requires to operate.)
I'll think warmly of your stupid-assed comments the next time I pass the wind-powered generators about 30 miles south of where I am now. There's wind most everywhere, twit. Just put up a generator in the way and collect free power. Of course, it helps to NOT run the electric utility as some sort of dotcom investment engine. Distributed energy networks are the strongest arguments for breaking up the electric utilities and making them NPOs, co-ops, and in general PUBLIC assets. So, having a generator on a tower take 20 years to amortize will be more palatable than have the thing being under pressure to amortize in 3 years under a fucking for-profit system.
Power is the right of the Western civilization. Power makes our civilization work on so many levels that it's impossible to remove it. And the funny thing is, the West is so wealthy that it can afford to make the investment in distributed generation to prepare for the coming oil shock. SO LET'S INVEST.
(But not fusion. Fusion has had 50 years to prove itself. It's failed. Fuck it. Let's pour the vast majority of those billions into solar now.)
If labor wasn't so spineless and did understand that they have to enforce their involvement in the process of production, they'd see that yes, the introduction of robots should have been more restricted. Robots were inevitable. What was NOT inevitable was the wholesale replacement of so many workers that we've decimated the blue collars ... undermining America's middle class and creating a new class of "working poor".
... no, I can hardly call it a "challenge" if we stop the government from promoting and assisting native corporations from taking the commonwealth and moving it overseas. WE created that wealth for everyone to take advantage of, not just 10 thousand well-heeled stockholders and executives.
With restrictions, robots could have been introduced at a sustainable rate that allowed displaced workers much more time to find new niches. Instead, we just tossed these saps out in the street. As you may note, we took the welfare hit, as if that was somehow a better investment.
As for creating challenges for businesses
In the past 50 years the size of the largest stable reactions has grown over 100,000x. Calling that a failure is silly.
... like solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc. Even better, these technologies are not only distributed but will take significant investments of native labor to exploit.
In 50 fucking years, no power has been produced for consumers. Calling that NOT a failure is silly. I've already said this, but in typical brainless fashion, you continue to harp on hope with a hopeless investment.
Donate your own money towards fusion. Leave MY money out of it (i.e. taxes as expressed by government grants). The Rest Of Us should be free of that for energy technologies that are much more likely to produce
I fully agree that if fusion does take off (hah, fat chance) then you as the investor are entitled to share in the profits thereby.
Please explain the existence of the following items in such a non-socalistic society:
That's an excellent question, fraught with assumptions taken from the Republican Echo Chamber that we will have to deal with here:
Would you rather have a living wage if it meant there were far fewer jobs available?
... once you moderate its sheer viciousness with Socialism.
Call me a nut, but YES, since it would also mean that while unemployed for long periods, I wouldn't have to face losing my home (as I did here in America) during the recent period of "personnel conservatism". A living wage is a concept that should go hand in hand with a responsible welfare state. (After all, if Boeing can get money out of the Export-Import Bank to promote its sales in Europe, then why can't I get money out of the state of Ohio when I'm unemployed? Does Boeing have more right to exist than I do?)
Capitalism is a great thing
Add to that fusion for almost unlimited energy ... why, this kind of brainless faith this reminds me of:
1. Create immense energy shortage by unrestrained growth.
2. ???
3. Profit!
How pathetic of us to have missed the obvious solution to #2, that being your "add fusion for almost unlimited energy"! What a keen insight you have! If only we had seen such a fulfilling answer with such ease!
Sarcasm aside, people who believe in fusion are like Catholics: they believe in something that not only is there no evidence for, but that there is a large body of evidence AGAINST it. Fusion research has had at least 4 solid decades to produce a net energy gain from any sustainable reaction. It has not. Hence, it is a boondoggle and the government should stop sinking public money into that fucking PhD welfare program (like the Superconducting Superexpensive Supercollider, which apparently accelerated investment-grade coins to relativistic speeds so that PhDs could read their "publish or perish" articles by the light of dying platinum and gold atoms).
The future of energy management (as more than suggested by ex-President Carter) is in conservation and exploration of a diverse range of energy alternatives, such as solar. Those who continue to bet on a massive-influx technology like fusion are still livin' the 1950s dream -- the heyday of Our God Oil (blessedbehisname). Conservation and distributed generation do not fit into this hyperkinetic, elite vision of the future (after all, remember those flying cars?).
Robotics and automation lead to cheaper goods for everyone and free up a portion of the workforce to do other things.
... obviously they have drained America of her manufacturing base. There will always be regional changes for economic forces, but the entire 290-million-person nation of America is a wee bit large for a "regional" change, don't you think?
... and that is the entire point of America's scheduled degradation. (You DO know what capital equipment is, right? After all, you seem familiar with a "book on basic economics", right?)
That's some fine parrotting. Too bad for you that many of the people "freed up" in such a fashion are not similarly "freed up" from their debt loads, current bills, and all the costs coming down the pipe from an increased price of energy.
Get real and stop participating in the Republican Echo Chamber. If all those people made "free" in the last 5 years really produced a benefit, we'd have seen one by now.
And about those cheap goods
Manufacturing of capital equipment is the ONLY basis of wealth. If you don't make it, you are a slave to those who do
I didn't realize socialism and democracy were mutually exclusive. Please explain how this is true, again? Thanks.
Soooo ... you want the distributed power of denying centralized power? Why, the next thing you'll demand is a democratic Republic governed by a body of law derived from a Constitution and common law. YOU RADICAL! He hee!
"the inevitable outcome [...] a robotic worldwide factory force, owned by just a few, with nothing left for the rest of us [...] But it will happen."
... since the mechanisms of production and distribution will be destroyed and change hands from all the warfare and "terrorist" attacks (in reality, disenfranchised natives trying to get their economic rights back).
Welcome to a world of perpetual warfare and criminality, then. Such a future is highly unstable. As such, then, I don't expect it to happen
If I'm forced to choose, I prefer the private (in reality, public) corporations, since crossing them does not invoke the vengeance of the state in perpetuity (as is the case if you resist the government).
Succinctly, I anticipate that shooting a representative of Consolidated Megacorp would be less risky for me than shooting a representative of the state of Ohio.
In America, we HAD the "better system" (regulated capitalism under a democratic Republic). We cashed that out in order to mint more millionaires at the expense of the middle class (in unregulated capitalism under a fascist Empire).
Stop worshipping wealth. Once that happens, everything else will follow. People will return to saving money (since once you remove the wealth-worship, they don't anticipate becoming another stock millionaire), living frugally (since once you remove the wealth-worship, they don't live beyond their means), and in general start living their own lives with the modest time and modest wealth that is THEIRS.
time + no job security + poorly paid + service industy = no middle class
This isn't "sad", it's CRIMINAL.
I certainly hope so. A history book fell out of a time warp the other day, and it said that those guys were the first up against the wall when the revolution came. Something to look forward to, eh?
I consider your reply too short for all the issues it raises. Allow me to expand.
... other than those put forth by the producer as "click to accept these terms to open your comment account".
Free Market systems will choose the best course.
That's probably true, but it's hard to find anything even close to a "free market" system anywhere. What you generally find is that you are dealing with a free market (i.e. unprotected transactions) for the consumer, socialism (i.e. protected transactions) for the producer, and all watched over by a parasitical organism called government.
I'll believe market freedom applies to this Slashdot story when the consumers band together and negotiate terms with the producer
Naturally, a website cannot simply sit around making no money and expect to continue providing content.
Of course it can. It's called a support function if you want to call it an "expense", even a "loss leader" if you want to dress it up as a loss. It's all too likely that the magazine is holding onto as much reader base as it has, simply because it has an associated website. Loss leaders are investments in sustaining your business. It seems that the Cult of Growth has blinded us to understanding this truth.
The producers -- actually, this is a misnomer, since the consumers are on the website also produce content, but I digress -- can decide at any time to charge for the support function, loss leader, expense, necessary evil, or whatever you'd like to call it. This is just a tactic embedded in a larger strategy that can succeed or fail depending upon the dynamics of the relationship, and of course upon your definition of "success".
The real problem is the people who have come to expect a "free as in I'm too cheap to pay" community on the web.
Well, that's part of the larger problem, as well as the things I expressed above.
But overall I do agree. Some percentage of forums can survive better by obtaining about $20/yr from each of their participants. Twenty bucks is not too much to ask (note: not demand, but ask) from an involved reader. The more savvy operators try to stratify content in order to convince participants to pay that modest amount.
This is a system that will work if we let prosperous people make informed decisions without the overly-heavy hand of government getting involved. After all, it's just a discussion forum, and an alternative to those that already exist in purely topical terms -- not a necessity of life like food, heat and shelter.
Yes, I'd have to agree. Let their business suffer for the alienation produced by such an unnecessary monthly charge ... even if it DOESN'T suffer for it.
It's funny how thousands of users can't organize themselves and come up with an alternative when they are hit with such demands. Anyone can make a website now with the payment of the appropriate fees. What's lacking in this equation is the term of willpower.
I'm talking about deciding what code gets used in the next kernel. That is the choice of a select few.
Well, DUH. I already poo-poohed your concern by stating that I believed that the kernal maintainers would probably welcome some GPL'd code from Mr. Gates. You must have missed THAT in my response, you were so hot on your pointless point.
Yes, Linux has centralized control. No one is denying that. I'm clearly stating here that UNLIKE someone like Bill Gates, these maintainers seem to be people who are prone to rate merit, not position. After all, unlike Gates, the Linux kernal maintainers have to uphold their reputations in order to retain position. Gates and his corporate cronies have billions of dollars -- they don't need reputation like the Linuxers do.
I don't mind those who don't own guns. I DO mind those who don't own guns and not only expect me to do the same, but they also push for "legislation from the bench" to enforce their view. Those people are more than worthy of belittling.
I also don't buy the myth of "there's no point in rebelling since we'll never win". That sentiment leads to gun bans -- after all, you can never win against the government anyway, right? Why keep guns when you can never successfully revolt with them, right? Pfah.
Like I implied, if the Democratic Party wants to have me aboard, they should respect the US Constitution -- ALL OF IT. Neither major party wants to do that; they just vary on which part of the Bill of Rights they wish to ignore. Which is probably why 60% of those who can vote, just DON'T.
The REAL majority party in America is the Non-voting Party. That's more than enough condemnation of the failure of the political system.
Nice false analogy. Gates is perfectly free to: examine the Linux kernal; discuss it online with other developers; submit code for the next release. (I'm not sure, but I'd wager that the code maintainer would relish the idea of letting Bill Gates submit his code into the Linux kernal if it passes muster, and also if it's submitted under the GPL.)
However, that type of forum is not what Gates is all about, since Gates deals with Microsoft Windows, closed source software, and Microsoft ownership of software IP. Hence, a person like Gates simply doesn't participate, of his own choice.
Nader and Perot are both insane nutjobs who would never win the popular or electoral vote.
Oh. I see. About Nader: If a man who has devoted his career to citizen service by his consumer advocacy is an "insane nutjob", then you have completely discredited your argument (not that "candidate X stole my candidate Y's votes!" ever had any validity whatsoever). Welcome to my foe list.
Clinton never would have been elected president if not for Perot. Perot stole 10% of the vote from Bush, giving Clinton the presidency. Some believe Ralph Nader took the election from Gore.
I'm sure you realize that Perot is still not responsible for Clinton's 1992 election -- Clinton's voters are. As well, Nader is not responsible for Bush II's 2000 election -- Bush II's voters are.
People tend to overreach their use of the word "stole" in the context you used it. Perot may well have "taken" Bush I votes, but once he took them, they were his. The same goes for Nader's earned votes in 2000.
But with a senate seat costs rising to 10 million a seat, who knows if Joe Sixpack will every get elected.
Joe Sixpack will never be elected again in the United States, and people like Jesse Ventura only put the truth of that rule to the test. On top of the outrageous elitism of the election system in the last 50 years, America has transformed itself into an Empire from a Republic, so there's no mechanism for putting in the common man -- since the common man now only has to die for the Empire, not rule it.
Perhaps the American public needs to get a clue instead of a gun
It is perfectly legal to have a gun while you get a clue. Is that good enough for you?