Oh, maybe the utterly and ALWAYS (in all caps, no less). So you can't think of a single case where an honest, non-powerful person benefited from the free market?
I'll qualify that- not since 1876. Because there have been no powerful PEOPLE since 1876- the year that corporations became first rate citizens and the rest of us became slaves. The system seduces us, makes it look like we're doing well- as long as the continuation of the system benefits from our use. But the guy living in the $12 million mansion is even more of a slave than the guy who has to work three minimum wage jobs to survive; the well being of human beings is not the primary focus of capitalism and never has been.
I actually feel kind of sorry for you. You have trouble finding work because of your own issues, but you can't accept that it's your own fault and you blame everything on powerful bad people who you think exploited you. Instead of taking control over your own situation, you dream of a revolution. It's a pretty sad, vicious circle.
Well, I did take control over my own situation- I decided to become a bureaucrat instead. It pays a bit less, but at least they're required to pay me for work done- by law- and the money will be taken in taxes- at the point of a gun if neccessary. So I've solved my own situation. It took me 2 years to get my foot in the door, and another 3 years of hard work to get my foot in the door- but at least I'm here and safe from just about anything the corporations can do.
To a large extent, the difference between people who are successful in capitalist societies and those who fail isn't honesty and dishonesty; it's the choice between taking an attitude of self-improvement and control,
Which is dishonesty by and large- it's the lie of independance when in reality we're all interdependant.
and letting yourself sink into bitterness and disempowerment. Look at most poor ghettos. People there are convinced that rich people are going to exploit and crush them no matter what they do, so they can't muster the willpower to go to school and become wealthy themselves. It's not powerful people that are causing your problems; it's you.
The difference being that I went to school, I did all the right things, my skillset is wide and varied and most of all up to date. I spent those two years of unemployment studying and putting out resumes- I worked 16 hour days, putting out resumes during the day at a rate of 100 a month, studying at night to keep my skills up to date. Self-improvement counts for NOTHING- it's not what you know it's who you know. Once I figured that out- I got in touch. I went to political meetings and found a senator who was starting a work program in a state agency for outside consultants. I got myself on that list, got a contract. And a second contract, and a third, and a fourth. All the while I was watching the lists of retirees, waiting for an opening- and when one came, I removed myself from private industry forever.
But what those 5 years taught me is that capitalism benefits nobody- it's a choice between your body and your soul, and if you think you've benefited, you should count your fingers, your toes, your cousins...something will be missing somewhere. Capitalism is a lie- and when you think you're benefiting from it you're really just building a lifestyle that you won't be able to maintain when the ground shifts out from underneath you.
Can you point to a single statement in the above that was absolutist? I can't...and I'm the one who wrote it!
I'm open to your interpretation of the past, if you've got a benign explaination for the migratory patterns Oregon has seen in the last 250 years. But I think it's damned obvious that when you put profit above people, people get hurt.
Your political philosophy is completely determined by your personal experience?
As Thomas Jefferson said, all politics is local; what is more local to me than the well being of my own family? I utterly reject globalization on those terms alone, it's not local enough.
Ever hear of considering more than one data point?
Well, considering that I live in the Silicon Forest, which used to be Tualatin Kalapuya but then became White and is now turning Hindu and Mexican; all due to the bigotry of the rich, I think I have more than one data point. The litte guy ALWAYS gets destroyed by the free market- because the only people who like a free market are frauds and cheats.
Then you should actually like many of the older religions, which came to the same conclusion long ago.
For instance, in Roman Catholic Canon Law, we can never be absolutely certain about heaven, hell, or the existance of God; we can have moral certainty but absolute certainty is the mortal sin of Pride.
This is also the meaning of the Zen Koan- If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.
Likewise it's also accepted in the Tao- The certain man is the fool, the wise man always questions.
Kaballah Judaism has a similar saying- The Rabbi who claims all truth is a liar.
There are plenty of reasonable religions that have come to the same conclusion you have- they're just living in a slightly different probability than you are.
Mac, Amiga- and it still doesn't entirely work in Windows- just try running the latest Epson printer without installing a driver
Windows Themes? (yes you could customise other OS' but that made it far easier to share)
TONS of OSes had this before Windows- in portable formats. Amiga was first on this one.
Isn't Windows Mobile 5 the first portable OS to use XML for its shell?
Symbian is not as popular today, but they were first
Start menu?
X-Windows by Xerox Parc
not sure about this but wasn't Powerpoint pretty revolutionary?
Adobe did it long before- I did presentations in Adobe Photoshop on the Apple IIe+s in high school long before Powerpoint ever came out (Late 1980s).
No- the real key was packaging these "features" in such a way that they would sell to home users. Microsoft does nothing new- but they're damned good marketers.
This reminds me of a hand-generated flashlight we purchased this summer. The brand was the same as every other shake-and-get-light flashlight I had seen, but they had recently moved production to China. Sure enough, I couldn't get the flashlight to work when I needed it. Come daylight, I took a close look at the clear plastic case. Sure enough, the uninsulated wires on the coil that the permanent magnet passed through, were twisted together. The flashlight was completely sealed- no way to repair it except to take it back for exchange.
Well, Marxism isn't so popular now that we've got a bunch of dime-store Stalins running the US government. With that handle, you should consider it a success not to be in Bagram or Gitmo.
I took on the handle *after* my experience- or rather I should say, took the handle back on. I was a Marxist in college in the late 1980s- but got seduced by the dot com boom like every other techie in America. I was a hard core capitalist by 1999- and I thought, well on my way to at least achieving a modest version of the American Dream if not full blown. In October 2001, that ended- though I would not again become the "Marxist Hacker" until October 2003, the seeds were sown. I no longer trust the entire concept of the free market- and never will again.
To say that globalization is (anything) completely depends on where you're standing, and what you are/are not willing to give up in terms of standards of living and income.
You're completely correct- thus I prefer to look at it this way: Economics is national warfare, free traitors need to be executed, and free trade is a WMD attacking me and my way of life personally. We should respond with nukes.
Then again, I'm just a guy who's interested in making money...so maybe I'm trying to play you to my benefit?
I think that pretty much describes the entire US economy right now- there are those who are interested in making money, and those who just want enough security to achieve the "American Dream" and have a family. Unfortuneately, right now, the first group is in charge- and they're so interested in making money they fail to realize that they're stealing the "American Dream" from their neighbors in their greed.
This will continue until the second group wakes up and realizes that for the good of the species, and for reasons of evolution, the first group must die.
Yes. Bad as I think the Islamists are, a simple war of genocide with the same level of confidence we used in exterminating the Nazis would end their problem. Marxists have never been a danger, due to the fact that Marx's economic theories simply don't work in anonymous situations- thus limiting their practical usage to no more than 90 individuals. Corporations, though, work in anonymous situations, and can harm you even if you never sign a contract with the given corporation and never meet a representative thereof. They're the economic equivalent of a WMD.
Tariffs work when you control your borders- and sink boats/blow up trucks that don't pay the tariff. We haven't done that for 150 years or more- and so our tariffs don't work.
Unless you are willing to use deadly force to enforce your laws, your laws are worth NOTHING.
Have you ever thought that the American middle class might be shrinking because of excessive taxation (spurred by big government) and draconian business laws that make it difficult for companies to operate?
Taxation on what exactly? Payroll is tax free! That should make the middle class GROW rather than SHRINK!
The American tariff code has over 1000 pages!
And you don't have to deal with a single page of it if you make everything here that you market here- tariffs only deal with OTHER nations. If your company is patriotic, you'll have no problem.
And the "we" part does include shareholders but then I'm a shareholder too and so is anyone with a pension fund (ok I'm one of those sad people who worries about retirement when they're in their 20s).
Worker wages may not have increased but neither have prices (the flip side of productivity increases)- last 15 years we've seen very low price increases (except for gas prices but that's another story). What matters more is purchasing power. As far as I can see there has been no serious drop in purchasing power. IMHO the biggest impact to jobs and IT wages in the last 7 years was a massive Tech Bubble that burst.
In reality, inflation has been at about 4% average- and wages have been rising at about 1.5% average. That means yes, there is a serious drop in purchasing power overall, whether YOU can see it or not probably depends more on how patriotic you are with your purchasing power- do you buy American or do you buy from Uncle Mao's Great Wall Mart?
I graduated from school about 7 months ago buying this idea of no tech jobs because of outsourcing and offshoring, imagine my surprise when I found that this was complete nonsense. None of my ex-classmates have been out of work (except my best friend but she's decided to be a stay-at-home mom) longer than a couple of months. I personally am a people person and I was really excited when my first job involved working directly with customers. A few years ago, I would have been tied to a lab-bench but there are now Indians doing that part.
If you're a people person, you're better off in sales anyway. Have fun trying to live on commission.
Globalization creates change and a lot of it.
And here you hit the nail on the head.
It keeps prices down (cheap shoes etc. - which I totally appreciate) and it increases competition. Competition is good for all of us because it increases productivity, which in turn also keeps prices down - and gives us more interesting work. Go to 1930s America for the alternative and the Smoot Hawley act...
Actually, go to 1820s America for the REAL alternative- small shops, no corporations lasting longer than 40 years, and anybody who joins a bar association loses their citizenship.
Bundle your OS part with the purchase of any PC compatible machine, not just the hardware we built.
Apple and DEC did it first, in other areas (ProDOS on the Franklins, DEC on the Alphas).
Only license your core apps (Office, SQL Server) on non-threatening operating systems to prevent switching.
AppleWorks, anybody?
Bundle TCP/IP connectivity with the OS.
Unix.
Bundle a web browser with the OS.
What was that OS I saw back in Windows 3.1 days that booted up on any comodity hardware directly into a browser? NetOS I think it's name was.
Make LDAP accessible to mere mortals (AD).
I've yet to see a mere mortal who can handle ActiveDirectory; in fact I've got a non-profit radio station as a side customer that has yet to get one of their weed-smoking dopeheads to actually learn it enough to ADD USERS!
And this from somebody who knows Microsoft, makes money off of Microsoft Products, and actually kind of LIKES Microsoft products. NONE of these were original ideas, or even particularily brilliant. What was brilliant was this- licensing these ideas and budling them all together in one "easy for accountants" licensing scheme.
I can't name a single one that somebody else didn't do first- years earlier. Basic, disk based operating systems, GUIs, Office Suites, Flight Simulators- can you name a *single* one that was an original idea instead of a copy of what somebody else already did?
1. One can make economic sense and still be a traitor to patirotism; the health of a country does not always make economic sense. 2. Here's a restriction that WILL matter: If a company wants to do business outside of the United States, it can no longer do business inside the United States- and vice versa. I see NO reason to allow businesses to be multinational. How long will they stay in business if they've been cut off from their primary consumer market, and all of their directors stripped of their US assets and exiled? 3. Too friggin' bad, traitor- no self-respecting patriot would or should work for somebody who puts "economic sense" above taking care of one's neighbors and family. Go find somebody in India if you like India that much. Go sell your products there- stop selling to Americans if you can't stand to hire them. 4. I suppose then next you'll be looking for IT people in the Philipines- or better yet Africa where they only make $1/day. Better yet, go to China- where you can make a deal with the government to use political prisoners as slaves. All of those make "good economic sense" as well. 5. This is the first that I agree with.
I don't trust Thomas Friedman to know his head from his ass on this issue. He still believes that comparative advantage can exist between nations that have differing labor laws- a concept that as far as I'm concerned has been entirely disproven in the last 30 years.
Jan 1999 was not before the bubble- I could still get a job in under two weeks then. Jan 1992, maybe. But even then, as a comparison point- we've got 6x more jobs, but 1/6th of those has gone overseas instead of all technology jobs being in the United States.....
Disentangling the mess that religion has made of the terms faith and belief is a step further towards understanding.
To paraphrase my favorite modern Catholic movie, Dogma: Belief is what kills, I'd rather have a good idea.
If you're just replacing blind faith with belief, you're in the same boat as Mel Gibson even if you claim to be an athiest. You're claiming a power human beings simply don't have: the ability to be infalible.
So how do you explain Christians eating pork and expect to go to heaven? The OT was perfectly clear about it, but,... , God changed his mind?
Venal, not mortal, sin...for which the redemptive power of Christ is a bit of a cure-all. Of course, for some of us (like me) it's a bit more serious than that- but I pay for this particular sin within days of breaking it (quite litterally- sores on the skin and everything, I think partially due to my Jewish heritage). In other words, I have a tendency to think that the kosher rules were more about health than hell- and I wish I could afford to eat kosher because it is simply better food.
Reason without faith is perfectly reasonable. Reason with faith needs a bit of explanation.
And yet, almost every university in Europe started due to the application of Reason to Faith (theology).
Ya, ok. You seem to be confusing bias in research with bias as to how that research is applied. Oh, nevermind that you can run a power plant.
You don't need enriched anything to run a power plant; all you need is a significant difference in temperature. Normal, un-enriched radium with a siphon to several thousand feet deep in the ocean works just fine. But of course, that is overlooked by the bias that you can use enriched fuel for other purposes.
In other words, you can't separate the research from the intent of how the research is applied, the one motivates the other.
Again, nothing with the research itself. The crew of Apollo 13 were volunters.
The point is, due to the bias, angles in the research were missed- creating a dangerous situation. Just because the victims were volunteers is no excuse for shoddy research.
The predetermined conclusion that we can get to the moon?
More, the predetermined conclusion that we should beat the Soviet Union. The choice of data was not correct in any case.
So when science tells us a certain amount of force is required to leave the planet, you think you can come up with a different answer, and then use that answer to leave the planet as well?
Well, when you consider that a group of college students in England recently proved that you can leave the planet with a helium balloon, yes, other answers could and do exist. But that's not my point. My point is that shortcuts were taken in NASA's research for political purposes.
Yes, and I'm sure you'll be able to back up whatever you want via an experiment. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Plenty of experiements have shown the opposite of what was expected.
Only ones that didn't pick their data carefully enough.
Who said anything about greed?
You're the one who mentioned money as a motivator for doing experimentation.
Is there something inherently wrong with working for a living?
None of this is right or wrong, it simply exists.
The goal of science isn't to change the world around us, it is to learn about it.
Keep telling yourself that- it's completely wrong, but I'm sure it's a comforting lie to tell yourself.
The different between religions and science is that anyone can repeat the experiment to see for himself if the description of the world is accurate.
Anybody can repeat a religious experiment as well; one only needs to follow the proper traditions. Just as in science, one can repeat the experiment just fine- as long as the proper controls are in place.
Religions can't do that, they cannot offer any proof at all.
Obviously you don't know very much about religions.
You just have to 'have faith.' Science doesn't ask for faith, it says 'prove it to yourself.'
Proving it to yourself is how you build faith. It's the oldest con in the book.
So tell me, do you still believe the earth to be flat, or was Pythagoras 'setting up the data to force his conclusion?'
Whether the earth is flat or round is more about whether Ptolomey will be allowed to continue to rule Egypt than it is about the Earth. There are ALWAYS extenuating circumstances. Ignoring that fact is stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
The wife bought it on the way out of town for a camping trip- we didn't try it until we were in the tent.
Oh, maybe the utterly and ALWAYS (in all caps, no less). So you can't think of a single case where an honest, non-powerful person benefited from the free market?
I'll qualify that- not since 1876. Because there have been no powerful PEOPLE since 1876- the year that corporations became first rate citizens and the rest of us became slaves. The system seduces us, makes it look like we're doing well- as long as the continuation of the system benefits from our use. But the guy living in the $12 million mansion is even more of a slave than the guy who has to work three minimum wage jobs to survive; the well being of human beings is not the primary focus of capitalism and never has been.
I actually feel kind of sorry for you. You have trouble finding work because of your own issues, but you can't accept that it's your own fault and you blame everything on powerful bad people who you think exploited you. Instead of taking control over your own situation, you dream of a revolution. It's a pretty sad, vicious circle.
Well, I did take control over my own situation- I decided to become a bureaucrat instead. It pays a bit less, but at least they're required to pay me for work done- by law- and the money will be taken in taxes- at the point of a gun if neccessary. So I've solved my own situation. It took me 2 years to get my foot in the door, and another 3 years of hard work to get my foot in the door- but at least I'm here and safe from just about anything the corporations can do.
To a large extent, the difference between people who are successful in capitalist societies and those who fail isn't honesty and dishonesty; it's the choice between taking an attitude of self-improvement and control,
Which is dishonesty by and large- it's the lie of independance when in reality we're all interdependant.
and letting yourself sink into bitterness and disempowerment. Look at most poor ghettos. People there are convinced that rich people are going to exploit and crush them no matter what they do, so they can't muster the willpower to go to school and become wealthy themselves. It's not powerful people that are causing your problems; it's you.
The difference being that I went to school, I did all the right things, my skillset is wide and varied and most of all up to date. I spent those two years of unemployment studying and putting out resumes- I worked 16 hour days, putting out resumes during the day at a rate of 100 a month, studying at night to keep my skills up to date. Self-improvement counts for NOTHING- it's not what you know it's who you know. Once I figured that out- I got in touch. I went to political meetings and found a senator who was starting a work program in a state agency for outside consultants. I got myself on that list, got a contract. And a second contract, and a third, and a fourth. All the while I was watching the lists of retirees, waiting for an opening- and when one came, I removed myself from private industry forever.
But what those 5 years taught me is that capitalism benefits nobody- it's a choice between your body and your soul, and if you think you've benefited, you should count your fingers, your toes, your cousins...something will be missing somewhere. Capitalism is a lie- and when you think you're benefiting from it you're really just building a lifestyle that you won't be able to maintain when the ground shifts out from underneath you.
Can you point to a single statement in the above that was absolutist? I can't...and I'm the one who wrote it!
I'm open to your interpretation of the past, if you've got a benign explaination for the migratory patterns Oregon has seen in the last 250 years. But I think it's damned obvious that when you put profit above people, people get hurt.
Your political philosophy is completely determined by your personal experience?
As Thomas Jefferson said, all politics is local; what is more local to me than the well being of my own family? I utterly reject globalization on those terms alone, it's not local enough.
Ever hear of considering more than one data point?
Well, considering that I live in the Silicon Forest, which used to be Tualatin Kalapuya but then became White and is now turning Hindu and Mexican; all due to the bigotry of the rich, I think I have more than one data point. The litte guy ALWAYS gets destroyed by the free market- because the only people who like a free market are frauds and cheats.
Then you should actually like many of the older religions, which came to the same conclusion long ago.
For instance, in Roman Catholic Canon Law, we can never be absolutely certain about heaven, hell, or the existance of God; we can have moral certainty but absolute certainty is the mortal sin of Pride.
This is also the meaning of the Zen Koan- If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.
Likewise it's also accepted in the Tao- The certain man is the fool, the wise man always questions.
Kaballah Judaism has a similar saying- The Rabbi who claims all truth is a liar.
There are plenty of reasonable religions that have come to the same conclusion you have- they're just living in a slightly different probability than you are.
Plug'n'Play?
Mac, Amiga- and it still doesn't entirely work in Windows- just try running the latest Epson printer without installing a driver
Windows Themes? (yes you could customise other OS' but that made it far easier to share)
TONS of OSes had this before Windows- in portable formats. Amiga was first on this one.
Isn't Windows Mobile 5 the first portable OS to use XML for its shell?
Symbian is not as popular today, but they were first
Start menu?
X-Windows by Xerox Parc
not sure about this but wasn't Powerpoint pretty revolutionary?
Adobe did it long before- I did presentations in Adobe Photoshop on the Apple IIe+s in high school long before Powerpoint ever came out (Late 1980s).
No- the real key was packaging these "features" in such a way that they would sell to home users. Microsoft does nothing new- but they're damned good marketers.
This reminds me of a hand-generated flashlight we purchased this summer. The brand was the same as every other shake-and-get-light flashlight I had seen, but they had recently moved production to China. Sure enough, I couldn't get the flashlight to work when I needed it. Come daylight, I took a close look at the clear plastic case. Sure enough, the uninsulated wires on the coil that the permanent magnet passed through, were twisted together. The flashlight was completely sealed- no way to repair it except to take it back for exchange.
Well, Marxism isn't so popular now that we've got a bunch of dime-store Stalins running the US government. With that handle, you should consider it a success not to be in Bagram or Gitmo.
I took on the handle *after* my experience- or rather I should say, took the handle back on. I was a Marxist in college in the late 1980s- but got seduced by the dot com boom like every other techie in America. I was a hard core capitalist by 1999- and I thought, well on my way to at least achieving a modest version of the American Dream if not full blown. In October 2001, that ended- though I would not again become the "Marxist Hacker" until October 2003, the seeds were sown. I no longer trust the entire concept of the free market- and never will again.
To say that globalization is (anything) completely depends on where you're standing, and what you are/are not willing to give up in terms of standards of living and income.
You're completely correct- thus I prefer to look at it this way: Economics is national warfare, free traitors need to be executed, and free trade is a WMD attacking me and my way of life personally. We should respond with nukes.
Then again, I'm just a guy who's interested in making money...so maybe I'm trying to play you to my benefit?
I think that pretty much describes the entire US economy right now- there are those who are interested in making money, and those who just want enough security to achieve the "American Dream" and have a family. Unfortuneately, right now, the first group is in charge- and they're so interested in making money they fail to realize that they're stealing the "American Dream" from their neighbors in their greed.
This will continue until the second group wakes up and realizes that for the good of the species, and for reasons of evolution, the first group must die.
We'll see what China and Russia think about that.
Neither one represents a current threat- 1/3rd of their rockets go boom on the pad.
Yes. Bad as I think the Islamists are, a simple war of genocide with the same level of confidence we used in exterminating the Nazis would end their problem. Marxists have never been a danger, due to the fact that Marx's economic theories simply don't work in anonymous situations- thus limiting their practical usage to no more than 90 individuals. Corporations, though, work in anonymous situations, and can harm you even if you never sign a contract with the given corporation and never meet a representative thereof. They're the economic equivalent of a WMD.
Wouldn't your #7 make them an enemy of the constitution, domestic variety? And thus a traitor?
Tariffs work when you control your borders- and sink boats/blow up trucks that don't pay the tariff. We haven't done that for 150 years or more- and so our tariffs don't work.
Unless you are willing to use deadly force to enforce your laws, your laws are worth NOTHING.
Have you ever thought that the American middle class might be shrinking because of excessive taxation (spurred by big government) and draconian business laws that make it difficult for companies to operate?
Taxation on what exactly? Payroll is tax free! That should make the middle class GROW rather than SHRINK!
The American tariff code has over 1000 pages!
And you don't have to deal with a single page of it if you make everything here that you market here- tariffs only deal with OTHER nations. If your company is patriotic, you'll have no problem.
And the "we" part does include shareholders but then I'm a shareholder too and so is anyone with a pension fund (ok I'm one of those sad people who worries about retirement when they're in their 20s). Worker wages may not have increased but neither have prices (the flip side of productivity increases)- last 15 years we've seen very low price increases (except for gas prices but that's another story). What matters more is purchasing power. As far as I can see there has been no serious drop in purchasing power. IMHO the biggest impact to jobs and IT wages in the last 7 years was a massive Tech Bubble that burst.
In reality, inflation has been at about 4% average- and wages have been rising at about 1.5% average. That means yes, there is a serious drop in purchasing power overall, whether YOU can see it or not probably depends more on how patriotic you are with your purchasing power- do you buy American or do you buy from Uncle Mao's Great Wall Mart?
I graduated from school about 7 months ago buying this idea of no tech jobs because of outsourcing and offshoring, imagine my surprise when I found that this was complete nonsense. None of my ex-classmates have been out of work (except my best friend but she's decided to be a stay-at-home mom) longer than a couple of months. I personally am a people person and I was really excited when my first job involved working directly with customers. A few years ago, I would have been tied to a lab-bench but there are now Indians doing that part.
If you're a people person, you're better off in sales anyway. Have fun trying to live on commission.
Globalization creates change and a lot of it.
And here you hit the nail on the head.
It keeps prices down (cheap shoes etc. - which I totally appreciate) and it increases competition. Competition is good for all of us because it increases productivity, which in turn also keeps prices down - and gives us more interesting work. Go to 1930s America for the alternative and the Smoot Hawley act...
Actually, go to 1820s America for the REAL alternative- small shops, no corporations lasting longer than 40 years, and anybody who joins a bar association loses their citizenship.
Bundle your OS part with the purchase of any PC compatible machine, not just the hardware we built.
Apple and DEC did it first, in other areas (ProDOS on the Franklins, DEC on the Alphas).
Only license your core apps (Office, SQL Server) on non-threatening operating systems to prevent switching.
AppleWorks, anybody?
Bundle TCP/IP connectivity with the OS.
Unix.
Bundle a web browser with the OS.
What was that OS I saw back in Windows 3.1 days that booted up on any comodity hardware directly into a browser? NetOS I think it's name was.
Make LDAP accessible to mere mortals (AD).
I've yet to see a mere mortal who can handle ActiveDirectory; in fact I've got a non-profit radio station as a side customer that has yet to get one of their weed-smoking dopeheads to actually learn it enough to ADD USERS!
And this from somebody who knows Microsoft, makes money off of Microsoft Products, and actually kind of LIKES Microsoft products. NONE of these were original ideas, or even particularily brilliant. What was brilliant was this- licensing these ideas and budling them all together in one "easy for accountants" licensing scheme.
I can't name a single one that somebody else didn't do first- years earlier. Basic, disk based operating systems, GUIs, Office Suites, Flight Simulators- can you name a *single* one that was an original idea instead of a copy of what somebody else already did?
My answers to each of your points:
1. One can make economic sense and still be a traitor to patirotism; the health of a country does not always make economic sense.
2. Here's a restriction that WILL matter: If a company wants to do business outside of the United States, it can no longer do business inside the United States- and vice versa. I see NO reason to allow businesses to be multinational. How long will they stay in business if they've been cut off from their primary consumer market, and all of their directors stripped of their US assets and exiled?
3. Too friggin' bad, traitor- no self-respecting patriot would or should work for somebody who puts "economic sense" above taking care of one's neighbors and family. Go find somebody in India if you like India that much. Go sell your products there- stop selling to Americans if you can't stand to hire them.
4. I suppose then next you'll be looking for IT people in the Philipines- or better yet Africa where they only make $1/day. Better yet, go to China- where you can make a deal with the government to use political prisoners as slaves. All of those make "good economic sense" as well.
5. This is the first that I agree with.
I don't trust Thomas Friedman to know his head from his ass on this issue. He still believes that comparative advantage can exist between nations that have differing labor laws- a concept that as far as I'm concerned has been entirely disproven in the last 30 years.
40%? My time to find a job went up more than 5200%- from 2 weeks to 2 years.
Jan 1999 was not before the bubble- I could still get a job in under two weeks then. Jan 1992, maybe. But even then, as a comparison point- we've got 6x more jobs, but 1/6th of those has gone overseas instead of all technology jobs being in the United States.....
Disentangling the mess that religion has made of the terms faith and belief is a step further towards understanding.
To paraphrase my favorite modern Catholic movie, Dogma: Belief is what kills, I'd rather have a good idea.
If you're just replacing blind faith with belief, you're in the same boat as Mel Gibson even if you claim to be an athiest. You're claiming a power human beings simply don't have: the ability to be infalible.
So how do you explain Christians eating pork and expect to go to heaven? The OT was perfectly clear about it, but, ... , God changed his mind?
Venal, not mortal, sin...for which the redemptive power of Christ is a bit of a cure-all. Of course, for some of us (like me) it's a bit more serious than that- but I pay for this particular sin within days of breaking it (quite litterally- sores on the skin and everything, I think partially due to my Jewish heritage). In other words, I have a tendency to think that the kosher rules were more about health than hell- and I wish I could afford to eat kosher because it is simply better food.
Reason without faith is perfectly reasonable. Reason with faith needs a bit of explanation.
And yet, almost every university in Europe started due to the application of Reason to Faith (theology).
Ya, ok. You seem to be confusing bias in research with bias as to how that research is applied. Oh, nevermind that you can run a power plant.
You don't need enriched anything to run a power plant; all you need is a significant difference in temperature. Normal, un-enriched radium with a siphon to several thousand feet deep in the ocean works just fine. But of course, that is overlooked by the bias that you can use enriched fuel for other purposes.
In other words, you can't separate the research from the intent of how the research is applied, the one motivates the other.
Again, nothing with the research itself. The crew of Apollo 13 were volunters.
The point is, due to the bias, angles in the research were missed- creating a dangerous situation. Just because the victims were volunteers is no excuse for shoddy research.
The predetermined conclusion that we can get to the moon?
More, the predetermined conclusion that we should beat the Soviet Union. The choice of data was not correct in any case.
So when science tells us a certain amount of force is required to leave the planet, you think you can come up with a different answer, and then use that answer to leave the planet as well?
Well, when you consider that a group of college students in England recently proved that you can leave the planet with a helium balloon, yes, other answers could and do exist. But that's not my point. My point is that shortcuts were taken in NASA's research for political purposes.
Yes, and I'm sure you'll be able to back up whatever you want via an experiment. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Plenty of experiements have shown the opposite of what was expected.
Only ones that didn't pick their data carefully enough.
Who said anything about greed?
You're the one who mentioned money as a motivator for doing experimentation.
Is there something inherently wrong with working for a living?
None of this is right or wrong, it simply exists.
The goal of science isn't to change the world around us, it is to learn about it.
Keep telling yourself that- it's completely wrong, but I'm sure it's a comforting lie to tell yourself.
The different between religions and science is that anyone can repeat the experiment to see for himself if the description of the world is accurate.
Anybody can repeat a religious experiment as well; one only needs to follow the proper traditions. Just as in science, one can repeat the experiment just fine- as long as the proper controls are in place.
Religions can't do that, they cannot offer any proof at all.
Obviously you don't know very much about religions.
You just have to 'have faith.' Science doesn't ask for faith, it says 'prove it to yourself.'
Proving it to yourself is how you build faith. It's the oldest con in the book.
So tell me, do you still believe the earth to be flat, or was Pythagoras 'setting up the data to force his conclusion?'
Whether the earth is flat or round is more about whether Ptolomey will be allowed to continue to rule Egypt than it is about the Earth. There are ALWAYS extenuating circumstances. Ignoring that fact is stupid.
I'm so anti-NIMBY on RTGs that I'd like 3 buried in my foundation for my house.