Can you show me something that CAN be accurately modeled- to any degree of precision- with mathematics? I can't think of one. Estimated, sure. Close enough to achieve some great things, sure. But to any degree of precision? Not even close. And to most of the nuanced, grey scale problems in the average layman's life, hardly at all. Most lay people never need calculus- compound interest is the most complex calculus problem they ever use, and it's equally solvable by iteration. Your average person never has to deal with infinities on either side of the scale- infinitely small or infinitely large. Prime numbers are largely just a neat mental challenge- there's nothing in real life that you can model with primes. Heck, even integers are largely useless- nothing ever has a property that is exactly an integer unless it is in cyberspace. So, what form of higher mathematics do you think you know that can model the universe accurately enough for COMMON usage?
I disagree. There are many, many privately held companies that are very profitable for their owners - a very public example would be the Virgin Group, which is privately held and makes the chief shareholder very rich. There are many more smaller companies that neither of us have ever heard of that do that for their owners. Public companies also are profitable for their owners - the shareholders. That's what shareholders *are*. If you don't believe me, look at all the companies on the Public Exchanges that are reporting millions of dollars of net income for their shareholders. Even tech companies manage this!
Of course you disagree- I'm pointing out that there's ANOTHER meaning of the word profitable that DOESN'T include huge amounts of money for the shareholders. This comes from an entirely different set of axioms for the reason two humans trade items to begin with. As a Keynesian-Smith follower, I don't expect you to be familiar with the idea that the only reason a government should support having a stable money supply to begin with is to produce economic vitality as opposed to pure profit for stockholders- but the idea does exist. Under that model, a profitable busines IS NOT ONE THAT PRODUCES MONEY FOR SHAREHOLDERS. A profitable business under that model produces money for the workers in the business- the more workers able to earn a living, the more successfull the business is. A good example of one is Les Schwab Tire Centers here in the Pacific Northwest. It's never produced more than a $30,000/year income for it's owner (it's a sole proprietership with over 500 locations and $1 billion in sales). What it has produced is a huge opportunity for several hundred thousand Northwest families. And a great place to get tires for your car.
Like Homegrocer.com and the other home-delivery businesses, any woman can get free roadside assistance on her cell phone from Les Schwab- it's considered a part and parcel of the customer service. Because of that, people keep coming back to buy. If a large percentage of their customers were thrown out of work suddenly though, I'm sure you'd see the entire company go under rather quickly.
What really happened with Homegrocer and it's rivals isn't that their business model was unprofitable- it was in fact very profitable, as their quick expansion showed. What happened was that the 600,000 customers in this new and not very stable yet industry, all lost their jobs at once. Thus they became a loss leader in the more traditional grocery business- a side luxury for the few left who could pay. And since their customers could no longer afford them, people like you and I now have to waste our time when we could be inventing stuff- shopping instead.
Worse than that, because we were thrown out of work, so were the delivery drivers- and the ripple effect was far more enourmous than most people understand. Those 800,000 jobs lost to H-1b- along with the 50,000 jobs lost to L-1- along with the 500,000 jobs lost to business process outsourcing- had a ripple effect in the US economy that cost 8 million jobs when the totals were all done. It's a negative feedback loop: Lay off the very high tech workers who were the early adopters of the technology, and you lose sales. Because you've lost sales, you need to lay off more workers, who in turn do not buy, and cause you to lose more sales and have to lay off more workers. Eventually a correction is made in PREVAILING WAGES- lowering the wages and the standard of living to stop the cycle- but not before you've caused a HUGE amount of harm. Thus a few stingy Venture Capitalists and stockholders, by thinking that profit was for them alone, cause a reduction in profit across the board for everybody. Smith, Ricardo, and Keynes and the religion they started is not only bad science- it's downright dangerous.
Huh? Is this Vodoo Economics again? At the time the bubble burst, there was approx 800,000 H1-b holders in the US, out of a workforce of 110 *million*. less than one percent of the workforce. I think you are dramatically over-estimating the impact of H1 holders on the entire US economy. And despite the presence of some H1-B sweatshops, the *majority* of H1-b workers *were* paid 'prevailing wage' as required by the Department of Labor. I certainly was. And that money I earned? It all stayed in the US. All of it. So whether or not I earned it or the person born in the US who lived next door to me earned it was immaterial to the US economy.
That's because H-1b and outsourcing had a disportionate effect on high income earners. Nobody uses an H-1b to replace a janitor- they use them to replace the highest 1% of income earners. And you forget- you were paid 95% of the prevailing wage JUDGED ON AN ENTRY LEVEL POSITION, even if you were taking the position of a worker higher on the wage scale. Otherwise it wouldn't have been cost effective to hire you.
Again, I think you're dramatically over-estimating the impact of the tech sector on the average American.
And I think you're underestimating it- every dollar earned by an average American generates $8 worth of market movement for OTHER average Americans.
The median wage in the US in 2000 was around $28,000. The average American lived in a town of less than 50,000 people, and commuted few than 15 minutes to work. San Jose, Boston, the tech triangle - all these places are abnormal locations. High density, high salaries, higher cost of living, younger population, etc.
I lived in Silverton and commuted to Beaverton for my high tech job at one time- so what? That meant my high paycheck actually had an economic impact not just where I lived (in Silverton) or where I worked (in Beaverton) but also in Hubbard halfway home where I stopped for gas, in Woodburn where I stopped for dinner, etc. Most of the people I bought food, gas, supplies from, including the ones who brought me my groceries from HomeGrocer in Tualatin, earned far less than I did- but they were earning because I was a customer. Many of those places closed after people like me were laid off- and have NOT reopened. High tech was the economy base that was supposed to revive Oregon after the Timber Industry shut down- is it any wonder that we've been within the three highest unemployment states for the last 3 years running?
...and here you're just not making any sense at all. The government doesn't invest in infrastructure because the US isn't a Democracy? I don't even know where to begin. There may well be problems with how infrastructure in the US is maintained, but that isn't one of them. And quite how that impacts why Ma Jones doesn't use the internet to buy her groceries when she makes $10/hr at the local WalMart and doesn't even know what MS Word is, is beyond me.
Ah, but Wal*Mart is a large part of the problem as well- if they paid their people what they were WORTH then there'd be a higher standard of living, and such services would be more available. And most Americans under the age of 65 know what MS Word is and how to use a computer- so that's not a real problem. There's a reason why that same Wal*Mart that hires Ma Jones sells a Linux box for under $200.
The market for comprehensive home grocery delivery wasn't there. It wasn't the government's fault the market wasn't there. It wasn't the fault of immigrants that the market wasn't there. Some businesses with excellent funding tried to make it happen, and it failed. It has survived as a boutique service in certain densely populated urban areas of higher than average income earners. It will remain there until the wider market is ready for it. Again, this is not the fault of immigrants, non-immigrants, the government or the (lack of) democracy that is America.
If it wasn't for NIVs and the government, we could have all been highe
Big if- what if archive.org loses their domain name, or the city where their server is gets hit with a nuclear weapon (I think somebody already mentioned John Titor's predictions someplace recently). But thanks for the link- I was unaware this existed, and it reminded me where my e-mail address on my home page is hidden.
The lay person has only as much use for high level theoretical mathematics as high level theoretical mathematics is able to accurately model reality. In other words, not very much.
Depends on what you see as *profitable*. If you mean making millions for the owners, then very few business models are actually profitable. If you mean employing more people and keeping the movement of money going, this sort of thing is very profitable.
So let's take a look at your complaints in that light: There simply aren't enough people (and wouldn't be, even had the boom continued) who a) have broadband Actually, had the government stepped in like they did with electricity and provided a broadband infrastructure when it became obvious that one was required, we might all have broadband by now. As it was- in 1999 broadband customers were doubling yearly, and the potential market was sustainable as long as people earned money. There simply aren't enough people (and wouldn't be, even had the boom continued) who..snip..b) earn plenty of money Exactly the thing that the expansion of the H-1b visa program made sure of- that fewer people would earn enough money to support the higher standard of living. There simply aren't enough people (and wouldn't be, even had the boom continued)...snip...c) value their time enough to do their grocery shopping online rather than hit the store on the way back from work. People value their time when their time is valueable- which stopped when companies suddenly had access to a lot of cheap labor.
So 2/3rds of your complaints are ACTUALLY about labor surplus- and the third is about government investment in infrastructure. One would think that the labor surplus would have enabled the government to invest in the infrastructure- but it hasn't happened, largely because the United States is no longer a democracy.
Then perhaps I would suggest a deception free way to achieve your objectives. Perhaps it may have been more productive if you originally stated that "Just because a society CLAIMS to be free, doesn't mean that it actually is in all meanings of the word, or even from a purely practical point of view" from the very beginning? That would have conveyed your point, without tricking your audience.
However, such a long subject line does not work in Slashdot's system- it gets truncated. Plus, the original point was that immigrants come here expecting a "free" society- free as in speech and free as in beer from the way illegals use our welfare system- and it's important to point out that neither is quite true.
When you use deception and trickery to achieve your goals, you are just as bad as the corporations and politicians that you criticize.
Thank you for the complement- that's the point. You're willing to put up with it from the corporations and the politicians- so when somebody comes in telling you the truth you criticize them. Thanks for proving my point that you are brainwashed.
On the other hand, stating your points clearly from the beginning might elicit fewer responses. If that happened, that would actually imply that people either implicitly agree or already know and understand the lessons that you attempt to teach or that your ideas are not as revolutionary as one might think. Scary thought, eh?
That could be one indication of such a response. A far more likely indication, given your response and the responses of others to my ideas, is that there is a good deal of mental censorship going on; and that truthful ideas are unwelcome in this context. Far better to put down the guy fighting for freedom and stick with the old motto, correct?
Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what a JE is? Justifying Example?
You must not have been around slashdot very long if you don't recognize Journal Entry by now.
Though, could any optimism be expected from someone named the "Marxist Hacker"?
I'm optimistic when the scientific evidence points to the possibility of optimism. For instance, I'm very optimistic that due to advancements in Robotic Vision will create a situation unlike any before in this nation in the next 10 years: a situation where human labor is largely rendered redundant. This can result in one of two great accomplishments- America turning into the first truly socialist nation that works based on robotic slavery and leisure time for 80% of the population, OR a Brazil-like bannana republic based on robotic labor and 80% unemployment. In EITHER case, it will be an astounding achievement.
I get what you are saying, i dont like the media the way it is. Im conservative but i get sick of the spin on both sides, thats why i use the internet and use the news filter called the brain. I hate CNN because its just bush bashing, and for a true conservative, fox news tends to be like getting chocolate all the time. Seems like a good idea to have what you want all the time, but its empty calories.
I'm a Marxist largely because of my conservativism and my Catholicism- to me, Fox News is neoconservativism and CNN is neoliberalism- neither touch my world view at all.
Im not concerned about a lack of voter turnout, considering how uninvolved some people are. I get pissed when people vote because of how celebrities vote.
And I'm less concerned about voter turnout right now than the fact that voting doesn't seem to accomplish anything- it really is a contest between who can hack the tabulators first, not who actually got voted into anything. I don't trust that machines at all anymore.
E-voting might have problems as all new technology does (though, come on, how hard could it be to make right?), but i think in the end it will be ok. Internet voting just seems bad. We might end up with Cthulu as president, though i suppose from your POV we already have him.
Nah, we just have a minion of Cuthulu- and still would have a minion of Cuthulu if Kerry somehow steals Ohio (add together all the votes that Bush lost due to errors found in the hand recount so far, and the race becomes EXTREMELY close- they've already thrown out 119,000 votes for Bush and found several thousand votes for Kerry). Kerry is just as bad as Bush- which is why I will be runing on the Technocrat ticket in 2008.
I think America is working because people are able to disagree and still have a working relationship. I would be surprised if you and I had ANY common ground politically, but we both want the votes to be accurate and to mean something. Just as long as we can drop the fighting after the ballots are cast, America still has some life left in her.
I don't see that fighting stoping anytime soon- in fact, I see it getting WORSE as time goes on. Already, businesses in blue states are refusing to take orders from businesses in red states, and vice versa. To top it off, all this fighting has us ignoring some very real problems with our foreign trade- and China, India, Saudi Arabia, and France are getting a huge percentage of ownership in our banks because of it. Democracy is dead- and unless we deal with these problems, our economy will soon be dead too- but at least that will hasten the robotic takeover.
When your "standards" are requireing 80 hour workweeks for slave wages, it's no wonder that you can't find people. Try paying a GOOD wage instead, and people will appear out of the woodwork. Better yet- try picking people off the street and TRAINING them to write code in your own shop's way- if they're so needed you ought to be able to keep them for decades, right?
To a large extent Marxism WAS a scam. Not intended to be so by Marx himself- but as implemented by Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Castro it most certainly was a con job. HACKER is the greater part of my id- Marxism is a starting point, hacking economic systems is my game. I personally do feel it is possible to apply science & engineering to economics- and come up with something better.
Right now, I'm playing with laisez faire distributionism- in which local governments and cultures get to choose their own economic system, and everything down to a local neighborhood has the right to impose tarriffs. Local governments are isolated from each other and from foreign interests by $1/mile/shipping container national taxes on shipping.
I used Homeruns myself. But did you look at their financials? You'll find that they collapsed for one reason : their income exceeded their revenue. Their business plan was predicated on almost exponential growth, and they spent themselves into bankrupcy, relying on a huge IPO to get them more capital to expand. When the bubble burst, the huge IPO was out of the question, VC funds dried up, and Homegrocer and Homeruns went out of the market.
IF the job market hadn't burst, their exponential growth would have been realized- based upon the high paychecks of happy.com workers. Thus, nothing you've stated disproves the idea that when you decrease the number of consumers, otherwise viable business plans go bust.
I'm not a huge fan of economists myself, having studied it at college, but they're not *all* Smithies. Some of them like Keynes.:)
True enough- though Keynes was also a free traitor in his own right.
Anyway - duly noted that you think all economists are scam artists. I stand by my contention, however, that the prevailing opinion of economic 'professionals' is still more valid than those you'll find from most amateurs on single-issue forums.
If the professionals had a system that was a science instead of a religion, those amateurs on single-issue forums would not exist, because nobody would ever allow greed and profit to take over to the point of harming the nation.
That is called a 'definitions argument' - when an argument comes down to little more than the dictionary definition of the word. Saying that the majority of the population is brainwashed to have an incorrect dictionary definition of "a free society" is a very silly way to debate; especially when you know before hand that your definition is non-standard.
Who said that my purpose was debate, as opposed to education? My attempt is not to debate, but to get people to question their basic assumptions- non-standard defintions is a great way to do that.
Once people understand where you are coming from, your arguments end up being irrele^H^H^H^H^H^Hmoot.
True- but in the process of getting them to understand where I am coming from, I have achieved my greater purpose of getting them to think outside of the box- and realize things like "Just because a society CLAIMS to be free, doesn't mean that it actually is in all meanings of the word, or even from a purely practical point of view".
Next time you start a thread stating a society is not free, you might wish to make your criteria much more explicit so people can understand what you mean. Frankly, I do not find your definition of a "free society" to be very useful from a pragmatic perspective; simply because it is so hyperidealistic that nothing can possibly qualify. Its like saying that no substance on Earth is "cold" because the temperature happens to be above the boiling point of helium.
Funny- just answered a JE on that same idea. The basic point is you should aways aim for the best possible, or even impossible, target- for on the way there you will achieve far more than if you set your sights somewhat lower. OF COURSE a truly free society is hyperidealistic- that doesn't mean: A. It can't be done B. It shouldn't be done C. We can't aim for the stars and get the moon along the way.
The fact of the matter is, many examples of more free societies exist in some aspects, as well as many examples of how those other societies failed where ours succeeded. There's no reason AT ALL why we can't take the best of all societies and mix them together, that's where the strength of America lies. In the melting pot mixture of the best of all. It's also where the biggest danger to America lies- if instead of a melting pot, we have a salad bowl where the worst examples float to the top. That is what we are struggling with right now.
Near as I can tell, economists all worship at the altar of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, both of whose theories do not stand up under current economic facts. "Credible economic journals" are very much an oxymoron for me- I have NO faith left in any of those journals, who all told me that computer programming would be a great skill to learn and raise a family on (since manufacturing was already leaving the United States as I was growing up). Comparitive Advantage is a lie designed to allow "economists" to work as stock brokers and steal money that could otherwise be put to good use in the marketplace.
OCT-SEPT = Federal Fiscal Year. And yes- the queue for the quota was the reason. One could possibly make the argument that there is a true economic need even if it's just cheap labor demand rising to meet supply- the need is created by a world-wide economic system that puts far more emphasis on PROFIT than on NATIONAL SECURITY or even CONSUMER CONFIDENCE. There's a definate NEED, when profit is the ONLY ethical concern, for cheaper labor. American standard of living is far too high to be sustainable.
No, seriously. Huh? Are you saying that an oversupply of labor, specifically foreign labor, caused a market crash? Because you'll be the only person I've ever met who's claimed that.
It was a quite common theory in most of the anti-H-1b forums in 2002. You see, the theory goes something like this: The majority of high tech consumers are also high tech workers, especially for any given cutting edge technology or cultural methodology. As the labor surplus kicked any, anybody with an excessive salary in comparison to what they did were the first to go. As these people lost their paychecks for anywhere from 12-36 months, the artificial buying that was proping up the otherwise irrational business plans of the.com bubble burst- causing those plans to *become* failures in an environment that they might otherwise have been successfull. The big classic example was homegrocer.com- a complete luxury for the high tech worker who was pulling 70-hour weeks, whose clientele ENTIRELY went away as loads of Americans were laid off to make room for the labor surplus of H-1bs that came in. Heck, in 1999 and 2000, I was using homegrocer on a biweekly basis myself- in October 2001 when I got laid off paying an extra $20 for delivery of food just didn't make any sense anymore. As I remember, 2002 was the year when homegrocer went bankrupt completely.
Re:OFFTOPIC:Re:C&T Calendar? Why not Shire Rec
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You're right- I had my hours and minutes confused.....
Huh? Citations, please. I can find no evidence this bill was Shanghai'd through any part of Congress - especially when the leading proponents of many of the H1-b legislation were Democrats (Kennedy and Feinstein!). The closest I can find is HR4328, which was an Omnibus spending bill that had a revision of the H1-B code amended to it. That revision was a result of compromise between Democrats and Republicans, and all it really did was raise the yearly cap to 115,000. While your points may be valid, it may be a little much to ascribe the failings of the H1 program to a Vast Government Conspiracy.:)
I was talking about the October 2000 increase that directly caused the January 2001.Com crash. The actual bill was called the "American Competitiveness in the Twenty First Century Act"- quite the oxymoronic name since it reduced the ability of Americans to compete (though, I guess it can be argued that it increased the ability of American COMPANIES to compete). Before that, the H-1b was limited to 65,000 visas per year. When this sunseted in October, that number of visas was gone within the week.
You do realise that there are many classes of Green Card, right? The largest portion of cards go to relatives of US Citizens, followed by those who marry an American, followed by the Diversity Lottery. *Then* you get the 'skilled worker' green cards - a distant fourth of total cards granted each year. And I note that the first 3 categories don't care what your skills are (if any) or what language you speak. And while H1-B visas are not counted against the number of green cards issued, there *are* annual limits to the number of skilled worker green cards that can be issued.
Which is also a separate problem. We've got so many classes and categories, I don't think anybody has any idea which limits apply to what- or how to control the borders at all.
Very few people would use [ab]use the definition of "free" the way you do. Very deceptive of you; to make observations and point out facts that are 100% true, but use words and definitions that a minscule of portion of the populace would use.
Just because the majority of the population is brainwashed to see things a certain way does not mean that things ARE that way.
Is your terminology correct? Perhaps on some level. But did you knowingly make statements like "US is NOT a free society", knowing that 95%+ of the people do not interpret those words the way you do? Indefensibly yes. You should feel proud of yourself. Perhaps you should run for office? Your skills would come in handy.
Well ahead of you: http://technocrat.net/journal.pl?op=display&uid=70 8. Campaign is on hold for a couple of weeks as I deal with family holiday matters and finish the donation website, but I am running for President on a new third party in 2008.
Ah, but I don't think any of those things are irrelevant- just moot. There's a difference between irrelevant and moot. Irrelevant things don't affect our lives- moot things do but are not changeable.
Microsoft search beats Google at indexing pages hacked by this virus! MS Search turns up 39000 pages, google turns up zero on the same nonsense keyword!
An extension- since you never know when any given online service is going to go belly up, NEVER use one exclusively for everything. Keep local copies of anything important (what did you THINK that 80 GB hard drive was for, your music collection?) and multiple copies of anything you put online that you want to keep.
Slashdot Mirror
History has proven you wrong.
Can you show me something that CAN be accurately modeled- to any degree of precision- with mathematics? I can't think of one. Estimated, sure. Close enough to achieve some great things, sure. But to any degree of precision? Not even close. And to most of the nuanced, grey scale problems in the average layman's life, hardly at all. Most lay people never need calculus- compound interest is the most complex calculus problem they ever use, and it's equally solvable by iteration. Your average person never has to deal with infinities on either side of the scale- infinitely small or infinitely large. Prime numbers are largely just a neat mental challenge- there's nothing in real life that you can model with primes. Heck, even integers are largely useless- nothing ever has a property that is exactly an integer unless it is in cyberspace. So, what form of higher mathematics do you think you know that can model the universe accurately enough for COMMON usage?
I disagree. There are many, many privately held companies that are very profitable for their owners - a very public example would be the Virgin Group, which is privately held and makes the chief shareholder very rich. There are many more smaller companies that neither of us have ever heard of that do that for their owners. Public companies also are profitable for their owners - the shareholders. That's what shareholders *are*. If you don't believe me, look at all the companies on the Public Exchanges that are reporting millions of dollars of net income for their shareholders. Even tech companies manage this!
Of course you disagree- I'm pointing out that there's ANOTHER meaning of the word profitable that DOESN'T include huge amounts of money for the shareholders. This comes from an entirely different set of axioms for the reason two humans trade items to begin with. As a Keynesian-Smith follower, I don't expect you to be familiar with the idea that the only reason a government should support having a stable money supply to begin with is to produce economic vitality as opposed to pure profit for stockholders- but the idea does exist. Under that model, a profitable busines IS NOT ONE THAT PRODUCES MONEY FOR SHAREHOLDERS. A profitable business under that model produces money for the workers in the business- the more workers able to earn a living, the more successfull the business is. A good example of one is Les Schwab Tire Centers here in the Pacific Northwest. It's never produced more than a $30,000/year income for it's owner (it's a sole proprietership with over 500 locations and $1 billion in sales). What it has produced is a huge opportunity for several hundred thousand Northwest families. And a great place to get tires for your car.
Like Homegrocer.com and the other home-delivery businesses, any woman can get free roadside assistance on her cell phone from Les Schwab- it's considered a part and parcel of the customer service. Because of that, people keep coming back to buy. If a large percentage of their customers were thrown out of work suddenly though, I'm sure you'd see the entire company go under rather quickly.
What really happened with Homegrocer and it's rivals isn't that their business model was unprofitable- it was in fact very profitable, as their quick expansion showed. What happened was that the 600,000 customers in this new and not very stable yet industry, all lost their jobs at once. Thus they became a loss leader in the more traditional grocery business- a side luxury for the few left who could pay. And since their customers could no longer afford them, people like you and I now have to waste our time when we could be inventing stuff- shopping instead.
Worse than that, because we were thrown out of work, so were the delivery drivers- and the ripple effect was far more enourmous than most people understand. Those 800,000 jobs lost to H-1b- along with the 50,000 jobs lost to L-1- along with the 500,000 jobs lost to business process outsourcing- had a ripple effect in the US economy that cost 8 million jobs when the totals were all done. It's a negative feedback loop: Lay off the very high tech workers who were the early adopters of the technology, and you lose sales. Because you've lost sales, you need to lay off more workers, who in turn do not buy, and cause you to lose more sales and have to lay off more workers. Eventually a correction is made in PREVAILING WAGES- lowering the wages and the standard of living to stop the cycle- but not before you've caused a HUGE amount of harm. Thus a few stingy Venture Capitalists and stockholders, by thinking that profit was for them alone, cause a reduction in profit across the board for everybody. Smith, Ricardo, and Keynes and the religion they started is not only bad science- it's downright dangerous.
Huh? Is this Vodoo Economics again? At the time the bubble burst, there was approx 800,000 H1-b holders in the US, out of a workforce of 110 *million*. less than one percent of the workforce. I think you are dramatically over-estimating the impact of H1 holders on the entire US economy. And despite the presence of some H1-B sweatshops, the *majority* of H1-b workers *were* paid 'prevailing wage' as required by the Department of Labor. I certainly was. And that money I earned? It all stayed in the US. All of it. So whether or not I earned it or the person born in the US who lived next door to me earned it was immaterial to the US economy.
...and here you're just not making any sense at all. The government doesn't invest in infrastructure because the US isn't a Democracy? I don't even know where to begin. There may well be problems with how infrastructure in the US is maintained, but that isn't one of them. And quite how that impacts why Ma Jones doesn't use the internet to buy her groceries when she makes $10/hr at the local WalMart and doesn't even know what MS Word is, is beyond me.
That's because H-1b and outsourcing had a disportionate effect on high income earners. Nobody uses an H-1b to replace a janitor- they use them to replace the highest 1% of income earners. And you forget- you were paid 95% of the prevailing wage JUDGED ON AN ENTRY LEVEL POSITION, even if you were taking the position of a worker higher on the wage scale. Otherwise it wouldn't have been cost effective to hire you.
Again, I think you're dramatically over-estimating the impact of the tech sector on the average American.
And I think you're underestimating it- every dollar earned by an average American generates $8 worth of market movement for OTHER average Americans.
The median wage in the US in 2000 was around $28,000. The average American lived in a town of less than 50,000 people, and commuted few than 15 minutes to work. San Jose, Boston, the tech triangle - all these places are abnormal locations. High density, high salaries, higher cost of living, younger population, etc.
I lived in Silverton and commuted to Beaverton for my high tech job at one time- so what? That meant my high paycheck actually had an economic impact not just where I lived (in Silverton) or where I worked (in Beaverton) but also in Hubbard halfway home where I stopped for gas, in Woodburn where I stopped for dinner, etc. Most of the people I bought food, gas, supplies from, including the ones who brought me my groceries from HomeGrocer in Tualatin, earned far less than I did- but they were earning because I was a customer. Many of those places closed after people like me were laid off- and have NOT reopened. High tech was the economy base that was supposed to revive Oregon after the Timber Industry shut down- is it any wonder that we've been within the three highest unemployment states for the last 3 years running?
Ah, but Wal*Mart is a large part of the problem as well- if they paid their people what they were WORTH then there'd be a higher standard of living, and such services would be more available. And most Americans under the age of 65 know what MS Word is and how to use a computer- so that's not a real problem. There's a reason why that same Wal*Mart that hires Ma Jones sells a Linux box for under $200.
The market for comprehensive home grocery delivery wasn't there. It wasn't the government's fault the market wasn't there. It wasn't the fault of immigrants that the market wasn't there. Some businesses with excellent funding tried to make it happen, and it failed. It has survived as a boutique service in certain densely populated urban areas of higher than average income earners. It will remain there until the wider market is ready for it. Again, this is not the fault of immigrants, non-immigrants, the government or the (lack of) democracy that is America.
If it wasn't for NIVs and the government, we could have all been highe
Big if- what if archive.org loses their domain name, or the city where their server is gets hit with a nuclear weapon (I think somebody already mentioned John Titor's predictions someplace recently). But thanks for the link- I was unaware this existed, and it reminded me where my e-mail address on my home page is hidden.
The lay person has only as much use for high level theoretical mathematics as high level theoretical mathematics is able to accurately model reality. In other words, not very much.
Depends on what you see as *profitable*. If you mean making millions for the owners, then very few business models are actually profitable. If you mean employing more people and keeping the movement of money going, this sort of thing is very profitable.
So let's take a look at your complaints in that light:
There simply aren't enough people (and wouldn't be, even had the boom continued) who a) have broadband
Actually, had the government stepped in like they did with electricity and provided a broadband infrastructure when it became obvious that one was required, we might all have broadband by now. As it was- in 1999 broadband customers were doubling yearly, and the potential market was sustainable as long as people earned money.
There simply aren't enough people (and wouldn't be, even had the boom continued) who..snip..b) earn plenty of money
Exactly the thing that the expansion of the H-1b visa program made sure of- that fewer people would earn enough money to support the higher standard of living.
There simply aren't enough people (and wouldn't be, even had the boom continued)...snip...c) value their time enough to do their grocery shopping online rather than hit the store on the way back from work.
People value their time when their time is valueable- which stopped when companies suddenly had access to a lot of cheap labor.
So 2/3rds of your complaints are ACTUALLY about labor surplus- and the third is about government investment in infrastructure. One would think that the labor surplus would have enabled the government to invest in the infrastructure- but it hasn't happened, largely because the United States is no longer a democracy.
Then perhaps I would suggest a deception free way to achieve your objectives. Perhaps it may have been more productive if you originally stated that "Just because a society CLAIMS to be free, doesn't mean that it actually is in all meanings of the word, or even from a purely practical point of view" from the very beginning? That would have conveyed your point, without tricking your audience.
However, such a long subject line does not work in Slashdot's system- it gets truncated. Plus, the original point was that immigrants come here expecting a "free" society- free as in speech and free as in beer from the way illegals use our welfare system- and it's important to point out that neither is quite true.
When you use deception and trickery to achieve your goals, you are just as bad as the corporations and politicians that you criticize.
Thank you for the complement- that's the point. You're willing to put up with it from the corporations and the politicians- so when somebody comes in telling you the truth you criticize them. Thanks for proving my point that you are brainwashed.
On the other hand, stating your points clearly from the beginning might elicit fewer responses. If that happened, that would actually imply that people either implicitly agree or already know and understand the lessons that you attempt to teach or that your ideas are not as revolutionary as one might think. Scary thought, eh?
That could be one indication of such a response. A far more likely indication, given your response and the responses of others to my ideas, is that there is a good deal of mental censorship going on; and that truthful ideas are unwelcome in this context. Far better to put down the guy fighting for freedom and stick with the old motto, correct?
Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what a JE is? Justifying Example?
You must not have been around slashdot very long if you don't recognize Journal Entry by now.
Loved it- though the ending was a bit cheesy.
So? What's to stop Zaphod Beeblebrox The Nothingth from ALSO being the Great Green Arkelseizure?
Though, could any optimism be expected from someone named the "Marxist Hacker"?
I'm optimistic when the scientific evidence points to the possibility of optimism. For instance, I'm very optimistic that due to advancements in Robotic Vision will create a situation unlike any before in this nation in the next 10 years: a situation where human labor is largely rendered redundant. This can result in one of two great accomplishments- America turning into the first truly socialist nation that works based on robotic slavery and leisure time for 80% of the population, OR a Brazil-like bannana republic based on robotic labor and 80% unemployment. In EITHER case, it will be an astounding achievement.
I get what you are saying, i dont like the media the way it is. Im conservative but i get sick of the spin on both sides, thats why i use the internet and use the news filter called the brain. I hate CNN because its just bush bashing, and for a true conservative, fox news tends to be like getting chocolate all the time. Seems like a good idea to have what you want all the time, but its empty calories.
I'm a Marxist largely because of my conservativism and my Catholicism- to me, Fox News is neoconservativism and CNN is neoliberalism- neither touch my world view at all.
Im not concerned about a lack of voter turnout, considering how uninvolved some people are. I get pissed when people vote because of how celebrities vote.
And I'm less concerned about voter turnout right now than the fact that voting doesn't seem to accomplish anything- it really is a contest between who can hack the tabulators first, not who actually got voted into anything. I don't trust that machines at all anymore.
E-voting might have problems as all new technology does (though, come on, how hard could it be to make right?), but i think in the end it will be ok. Internet voting just seems bad. We might end up with Cthulu as president, though i suppose from your POV we already have him.
Nah, we just have a minion of Cuthulu- and still would have a minion of Cuthulu if Kerry somehow steals Ohio (add together all the votes that Bush lost due to errors found in the hand recount so far, and the race becomes EXTREMELY close- they've already thrown out 119,000 votes for Bush and found several thousand votes for Kerry). Kerry is just as bad as Bush- which is why I will be runing on the Technocrat ticket in 2008.
I think America is working because people are able to disagree and still have a working relationship. I would be surprised if you and I had ANY common ground politically, but we both want the votes to be accurate and to mean something. Just as long as we can drop the fighting after the ballots are cast, America still has some life left in her.
I don't see that fighting stoping anytime soon- in fact, I see it getting WORSE as time goes on. Already, businesses in blue states are refusing to take orders from businesses in red states, and vice versa. To top it off, all this fighting has us ignoring some very real problems with our foreign trade- and China, India, Saudi Arabia, and France are getting a huge percentage of ownership in our banks because of it. Democracy is dead- and unless we deal with these problems, our economy will soon be dead too- but at least that will hasten the robotic takeover.
When your "standards" are requireing 80 hour workweeks for slave wages, it's no wonder that you can't find people. Try paying a GOOD wage instead, and people will appear out of the woodwork. Better yet- try picking people off the street and TRAINING them to write code in your own shop's way- if they're so needed you ought to be able to keep them for decades, right?
To a large extent Marxism WAS a scam. Not intended to be so by Marx himself- but as implemented by Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Castro it most certainly was a con job. HACKER is the greater part of my id- Marxism is a starting point, hacking economic systems is my game. I personally do feel it is possible to apply science & engineering to economics- and come up with something better.
Right now, I'm playing with laisez faire distributionism- in which local governments and cultures get to choose their own economic system, and everything down to a local neighborhood has the right to impose tarriffs. Local governments are isolated from each other and from foreign interests by $1/mile/shipping container national taxes on shipping.
I used Homeruns myself. But did you look at their financials? You'll find that they collapsed for one reason : their income exceeded their revenue. Their business plan was predicated on almost exponential growth, and they spent themselves into bankrupcy, relying on a huge IPO to get them more capital to expand. When the bubble burst, the huge IPO was out of the question, VC funds dried up, and Homegrocer and Homeruns went out of the market.
.com workers. Thus, nothing you've stated disproves the idea that when you decrease the number of consumers, otherwise viable business plans go bust.
IF the job market hadn't burst, their exponential growth would have been realized- based upon the high paychecks of happy
I'm not a huge fan of economists myself, having studied it at college, but they're not *all* Smithies. Some of them like Keynes. :)
True enough- though Keynes was also a free traitor in his own right.
Anyway - duly noted that you think all economists are scam artists. I stand by my contention, however, that the prevailing opinion of economic 'professionals' is still more valid than those you'll find from most amateurs on single-issue forums.
If the professionals had a system that was a science instead of a religion, those amateurs on single-issue forums would not exist, because nobody would ever allow greed and profit to take over to the point of harming the nation.
That is called a 'definitions argument' - when an argument comes down to little more than the dictionary definition of the word. Saying that the majority of the population is brainwashed to have an incorrect dictionary definition of "a free society" is a very silly way to debate; especially when you know before hand that your definition is non-standard.
Who said that my purpose was debate, as opposed to education? My attempt is not to debate, but to get people to question their basic assumptions- non-standard defintions is a great way to do that.
Once people understand where you are coming from, your arguments end up being irrele^H^H^H^H^H^Hmoot.
True- but in the process of getting them to understand where I am coming from, I have achieved my greater purpose of getting them to think outside of the box- and realize things like "Just because a society CLAIMS to be free, doesn't mean that it actually is in all meanings of the word, or even from a purely practical point of view".
Next time you start a thread stating a society is not free, you might wish to make your criteria much more explicit so people can understand what you mean. Frankly, I do not find your definition of a "free society" to be very useful from a pragmatic perspective; simply because it is so hyperidealistic that nothing can possibly qualify. Its like saying that no substance on Earth is "cold" because the temperature happens to be above the boiling point of helium.
Funny- just answered a JE on that same idea. The basic point is you should aways aim for the best possible, or even impossible, target- for on the way there you will achieve far more than if you set your sights somewhat lower. OF COURSE a truly free society is hyperidealistic- that doesn't mean:
A. It can't be done
B. It shouldn't be done
C. We can't aim for the stars and get the moon along the way.
The fact of the matter is, many examples of more free societies exist in some aspects, as well as many examples of how those other societies failed where ours succeeded. There's no reason AT ALL why we can't take the best of all societies and mix them together, that's where the strength of America lies. In the melting pot mixture of the best of all. It's also where the biggest danger to America lies- if instead of a melting pot, we have a salad bowl where the worst examples float to the top. That is what we are struggling with right now.
Near as I can tell, economists all worship at the altar of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, both of whose theories do not stand up under current economic facts. "Credible economic journals" are very much an oxymoron for me- I have NO faith left in any of those journals, who all told me that computer programming would be a great skill to learn and raise a family on (since manufacturing was already leaving the United States as I was growing up). Comparitive Advantage is a lie designed to allow "economists" to work as stock brokers and steal money that could otherwise be put to good use in the marketplace.
OCT-SEPT = Federal Fiscal Year. And yes- the queue for the quota was the reason. One could possibly make the argument that there is a true economic need even if it's just cheap labor demand rising to meet supply- the need is created by a world-wide economic system that puts far more emphasis on PROFIT than on NATIONAL SECURITY or even CONSUMER CONFIDENCE. There's a definate NEED, when profit is the ONLY ethical concern, for cheaper labor. American standard of living is far too high to be sustainable.
No, seriously. Huh? Are you saying that an oversupply of labor, specifically foreign labor, caused a market crash? Because you'll be the only person I've ever met who's claimed that.
.com bubble burst- causing those plans to *become* failures in an environment that they might otherwise have been successfull. The big classic example was homegrocer.com- a complete luxury for the high tech worker who was pulling 70-hour weeks, whose clientele ENTIRELY went away as loads of Americans were laid off to make room for the labor surplus of H-1bs that came in. Heck, in 1999 and 2000, I was using homegrocer on a biweekly basis myself- in October 2001 when I got laid off paying an extra $20 for delivery of food just didn't make any sense anymore. As I remember, 2002 was the year when homegrocer went bankrupt completely.
It was a quite common theory in most of the anti-H-1b forums in 2002. You see, the theory goes something like this: The majority of high tech consumers are also high tech workers, especially for any given cutting edge technology or cultural methodology. As the labor surplus kicked any, anybody with an excessive salary in comparison to what they did were the first to go. As these people lost their paychecks for anywhere from 12-36 months, the artificial buying that was proping up the otherwise irrational business plans of the
You're right- I had my hours and minutes confused.....
Huh? Citations, please. I can find no evidence this bill was Shanghai'd through any part of Congress - especially when the leading proponents of many of the H1-b legislation were Democrats (Kennedy and Feinstein!). The closest I can find is HR4328, which was an Omnibus spending bill that had a revision of the H1-B code amended to it. That revision was a result of compromise between Democrats and Republicans, and all it really did was raise the yearly cap to 115,000. While your points may be valid, it may be a little much to ascribe the failings of the H1 program to a Vast Government Conspiracy. :)
.Com crash. The actual bill was called the "American Competitiveness in the Twenty First Century Act"- quite the oxymoronic name since it reduced the ability of Americans to compete (though, I guess it can be argued that it increased the ability of American COMPANIES to compete). Before that, the H-1b was limited to 65,000 visas per year. When this sunseted in October, that number of visas was gone within the week.
I was talking about the October 2000 increase that directly caused the January 2001
You do realise that there are many classes of Green Card, right? The largest portion of cards go to relatives of US Citizens, followed by those who marry an American, followed by the Diversity Lottery. *Then* you get the 'skilled worker' green cards - a distant fourth of total cards granted each year. And I note that the first 3 categories don't care what your skills are (if any) or what language you speak. And while H1-B visas are not counted against the number of green cards issued, there *are* annual limits to the number of skilled worker green cards that can be issued.
Which is also a separate problem. We've got so many classes and categories, I don't think anybody has any idea which limits apply to what- or how to control the borders at all.
Very few people would use [ab]use the definition of "free" the way you do. Very deceptive of you; to make observations and point out facts that are 100% true, but use words and definitions that a minscule of portion of the populace would use.
0 8. Campaign is on hold for a couple of weeks as I deal with family holiday matters and finish the donation website, but I am running for President on a new third party in 2008.
Just because the majority of the population is brainwashed to see things a certain way does not mean that things ARE that way.
Is your terminology correct? Perhaps on some level. But did you knowingly make statements like "US is NOT a free society", knowing that 95%+ of the people do not interpret those words the way you do? Indefensibly yes. You should feel proud of yourself. Perhaps you should run for office? Your skills would come in handy.
Well ahead of you: http://technocrat.net/journal.pl?op=display&uid=7
Ah, but I don't think any of those things are irrelevant- just moot. There's a difference between irrelevant and moot. Irrelevant things don't affect our lives- moot things do but are not changeable.
Microsoft search beats Google at indexing pages hacked by this virus! MS Search turns up 39000 pages, google turns up zero on the same nonsense keyword!
By not responding to the e-mail in a specified amount of time.
An extension- since you never know when any given online service is going to go belly up, NEVER use one exclusively for everything. Keep local copies of anything important (what did you THINK that 80 GB hard drive was for, your music collection?) and multiple copies of anything you put online that you want to keep.
Not even slashdot is forever, folks.