Calling it inequality isn't giving it a political interpretation or spin. It's just saying that some sites are higher up the curve than others. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing. (Though in many human situations, we might say that it is.)
Umm... the point of this article was that this power difference and class separation can be explained purely mathematically, WITHOUT resorting to the idea that people naturally need someone to guide and direct their lives. People with lots of friends are more likely to meet new people (through their friends) than people with few friends. There doesn't have to be any innate "coolness" that the really popular people have; it's just that they already have lots of friends.
Actually, the popular people remain popular (if they keep doing what makes them popular, but even somewhat otherwise) and the unpopular people remain unpopular (unless they stop doing what makes them unpopular and really start doing something that would make them very popular).
The "content" of a web page is nearly worthless, the cost of delivering it is irrellevant to that.
Umm... if the "content" of a web page is nearly worthless, why do you waste your time looking at them? I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to pay 1/2 a cent per article I read on the New York Times, and probably something similar to see all the comments on a slashdot article. While I might be a bit less tempted to click on random links that come up on Google if they cost 1/2 a cent each time, I'd still click on a lot of them. The occasional totally great, totally random site would make me willing to pay for most of those others.
And also, this scheme is meant for corporate sites like the ones I've already mentioned, not so much for personal home pages. Plenty of small sites on the web are put there just because the person has a desire to share this information (like much of the free software movement), but things like news services, weather forecasts, map sites, and others could all be easily supported by micropayments for each usage.
Umm..., that "huge common market" you describe? We still have it. We're just trying to make it bigger.
50 soverign states that traded with each other, a slew of differing languages spoken but one language as the default business/governmental language.
Those states have never been terribly sovereign, and there's never been "a slew of differing languages spoken", at least not by the people with the money and power to be conducting interstate commerce.
We still had foreign trade but the sheer greed and stupidity hadn't taken over as bad as it is now. It was a system that "just worked" pretty much.... Here's just a basic law of economics, when you move a job away from your border, and the person who loses his job loses his spendable income, that money is lost to the tune of 7 to 1 roughly. If the replacement job-if it even exists-pays less, with less bennies, then it pays less with less bennies, that person and the economy is worse off, not better..
So is foreign trade a good thing or a bad thing? If we're losing the money 7 to 1, why should we be sending money out of state to have them make cars in Michigan? Doesn't that hurt the California economy? Shouldn't I have them made locally? Why am I letting the corporations hire cheap labor in southern and midwestern states, while people are still unemployed in California?
Anyway, while I agree with you that much of the process of globalization is just allowing companies to avoid paying taxes and abandon the American lower middle class while virtually enslaving the working classes of other countries, there's plenty of benefit to the whole world. The poor people of India benefit drastically whenever one of their relatives gets a (perhaps badly underpaid) tech job, while some upper-middle-class American college graduate has to settle for some secretarial work. The new money means so much more to the Indian family, and once enough of this money starts to flow, India will start being another source of value, productivity, and economic power in the world, buying enough American products to give that poor secretary a better job.
I don't mean to sound like too much of a neoliberal here; after all there are tons of problems with globalization as it's currently pursued. But cutting ourselves off from the world is not the solution either. North Korea and South Korea were in the same place 50 years ago, with foreign-backed dictators in charge. See where economic isolationism left the North today.
*raises eyebrows* Excuse me? We've "become" multi-tasking capable? Humans have been multi-tasking capable for thousands of years.
We've only "been" multi-tasking capable just as much as we've "been" capable of distinguishing mp3's from lp's from cd's from live performances. Apparently they used to travel around marketing gramophones by having a gramophone behind a curtain, and surprising the audience that it wasn't a real singer. Our hearing skills seem to get better (or at least get more refined practice) as our audio technology improves. Similarly, kids today seem to be able to input more sophisticated special moves in their video games than I (or my friends) ever could back on my super nintendo. And in the world of figure skating, back when Sonja Heine (I don't remember how to spell her name) was winning gold medals in the 1930's, even a single axel was a rare thing, while in the '80s triple axels became common, and Scott Hamilton landed the first quadruple jump in competition, and since then quads have become common, and even I've managed to land a single axel!
Slashdot Mirror
Calling it inequality isn't giving it a political interpretation or spin. It's just saying that some sites are higher up the curve than others. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing. (Though in many human situations, we might say that it is.)
Umm... the point of this article was that this power difference and class separation can be explained purely mathematically, WITHOUT resorting to the idea that people naturally need someone to guide and direct their lives. People with lots of friends are more likely to meet new people (through their friends) than people with few friends. There doesn't have to be any innate "coolness" that the really popular people have; it's just that they already have lots of friends.
Actually, the popular people remain popular (if they keep doing what makes them popular, but even somewhat otherwise) and the unpopular people remain unpopular (unless they stop doing what makes them unpopular and really start doing something that would make them very popular).
:-(
The political blog I post on (Cardinal Collective/a>) is growing relatively slowly right now because it has very few links. However, each new link that someone puts to it increases the chance of receiving future links. Unpopular people often remain unpopular through no fault of their own. If I have no friends, how will I meet new people?
The "content" of a web page is nearly worthless, the cost of delivering it is irrellevant to that.
Umm... if the "content" of a web page is nearly worthless, why do you waste your time looking at them? I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to pay 1/2 a cent per article I read on the New York Times, and probably something similar to see all the comments on a slashdot article. While I might be a bit less tempted to click on random links that come up on Google if they cost 1/2 a cent each time, I'd still click on a lot of them. The occasional totally great, totally random site would make me willing to pay for most of those others.
And also, this scheme is meant for corporate sites like the ones I've already mentioned, not so much for personal home pages. Plenty of small sites on the web are put there just because the person has a desire to share this information (like much of the free software movement), but things like news services, weather forecasts, map sites, and others could all be easily supported by micropayments for each usage.
Those states have never been terribly sovereign, and there's never been "a slew of differing languages spoken", at least not by the people with the money and power to be conducting interstate commerce.
So is foreign trade a good thing or a bad thing? If we're losing the money 7 to 1, why should we be sending money out of state to have them make cars in Michigan? Doesn't that hurt the California economy? Shouldn't I have them made locally? Why am I letting the corporations hire cheap labor in southern and midwestern states, while people are still unemployed in California?
Anyway, while I agree with you that much of the process of globalization is just allowing companies to avoid paying taxes and abandon the American lower middle class while virtually enslaving the working classes of other countries, there's plenty of benefit to the whole world. The poor people of India benefit drastically whenever one of their relatives gets a (perhaps badly underpaid) tech job, while some upper-middle-class American college graduate has to settle for some secretarial work. The new money means so much more to the Indian family, and once enough of this money starts to flow, India will start being another source of value, productivity, and economic power in the world, buying enough American products to give that poor secretary a better job.
I don't mean to sound like too much of a neoliberal here; after all there are tons of problems with globalization as it's currently pursued. But cutting ourselves off from the world is not the solution either. North Korea and South Korea were in the same place 50 years ago, with foreign-backed dictators in charge. See where economic isolationism left the North today.
*raises eyebrows* Excuse me? We've "become" multi-tasking capable? Humans have been multi-tasking capable for thousands of years. We've only "been" multi-tasking capable just as much as we've "been" capable of distinguishing mp3's from lp's from cd's from live performances. Apparently they used to travel around marketing gramophones by having a gramophone behind a curtain, and surprising the audience that it wasn't a real singer. Our hearing skills seem to get better (or at least get more refined practice) as our audio technology improves. Similarly, kids today seem to be able to input more sophisticated special moves in their video games than I (or my friends) ever could back on my super nintendo. And in the world of figure skating, back when Sonja Heine (I don't remember how to spell her name) was winning gold medals in the 1930's, even a single axel was a rare thing, while in the '80s triple axels became common, and Scott Hamilton landed the first quadruple jump in competition, and since then quads have become common, and even I've managed to land a single axel!