Well, presumably the waves pounding the shore does not actually destroy the energy. I don't know a lot about mass dynamics, but the earth is basically a planet worth of sloshing matter. The moon causes the water to slosh by rotating around the earth; presumably there is a feedback, as the water sloshes the moon is affected gravitationally. If you absorb the energy of the water sloshing (which the shore does not actually do...) with generators, will that affect the moon's orbit?
Frankly, I don't know. But it is a curious question.
The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
This is, in fact, a common misperception held by people in the northern, and in particular, north-western states, who already have a relatively clean energy mix - but in large part because their grids are built for it. It's easy to advocate for something you already have.
But you also seem to think there is no other alternative. There is. There are plenty of alternatives, in fact. The difficulty is actually that there is an ever-increasing demand due to ever increasing sources of energy demands and population increase. No one solution will meet this demand, period. Nuclear will be part of the solution, so will solar. Centralized generation will be part of the solution, so will decentralized local generation. Increase in power output will be part, as will an active pursuit of demand reduction through energy efficiency. Your fallacy is thinking that there is one true way, and that the 'governments' are 'realizing' it.
As a quick aside; solar energy has a lot more to do with how you build things than with how you turn sunlight into electricity. The facing of windows, the use of different materials, and paying attention to how the environment affects the building. Walmart, of all people, have done an amazing job of turning some of their stores into very energy efficient buildings in part using 'solar energy'. And it's not predicated on it being daylight all the time, or near the equator. Article here, and it's a very good example of how attacking the problem on multiple flanks is far more useful than shouting from the hilltops how there is only one possible solution, and everything else has drawbacks. Of course everything else has drawbacks. Everything has drawbacks. The trick is to balance them into something ultimately more useful, where the drawbacks cancel.
The actual problem is that having a competing botnet does little to diminish the problem botnet - especially in a context, such as the internet wherein 'resources' are basically infinite. Having two botnets - the Good and the Evil - does not diminish the power of either merely by the fact of their existence.
So what could a botnet do to attack another one? This is pretty unclear, without actually taking systems. Chewing off the infected arm seems to be counterproductive. At best you destroy part of your overall network. At worst, you have two (or more) distributed systems attacking each other; a war wherein we will surely lose. Nevermind the economic impact as people become enraged that random network attacks are taking out their machine because they don't spend all day in their basement protecting it.
As with nearly everything, the key here is transparency. As an individual owner of a machine, you have a right to know what is going into and coming out of your network connection. We should redouble our efforts to get to that end; tools that let us know, and shut down anything that we don't like. One might say - and be right - that many of these problems are created by bad operating system design choices. Those need to be fixed, and as with any infrastructural issue, we'd better spend the capital now, or be very, very sad later.
How many people who hang out on/. have friends who really like them? Quoth Office Space, "What would I do if I had a million dollars? Two chicks at the same time."
And, you know, if you had a million dollars you could probably hook that up. I mean, you can buy a lottery ticket, or put a buck in the panties of a stripper, and one of them actually gives you a decent chance of getting laid.
When you come up with a decent definition for 'not hurt others', you might have an argument there.
Might.
You still have to contend with the problem of when an issue does arise that the disenfranchised population would want a say in, and the necessary time lag they'd have to hurdle before they 'get' their say. And that's the problem with setting your default to false.
Our country is really fucked up. The reason it's fucked up is because there's a minority in power that keeps stealing the power, and the majority of people in this country are really, really fucking stupid (as in uneducated).
Wow, there are so many totally unsupported generalizations in this sentence I need to enumerate them: 1) Our country is really fucked up. 2) There is only one reason it's fucked up. 3) That reason is that there is a minority in power. 4) That minority keeps 'stealing' the power. 5) The majority of people are really, really fucking stupid.
It sounds like you don't have a particularly articulated understanding of the world. Perhaps why you posted AC?
There's nothing wrong with voter discrimination as long as it's based on good reasoning.
The thing you have to affirmatively prove, then, is that there is a good reason. You claim that not letting people without certain historical or present knowledge is a good practice that will benefit all of society. Do you have any proof of that? Any ability to affirmatively show that's the case? Any case-law? Prior research? Or is it a gut-instinct or so-called 'common knowledge'?
We should not instate an intelligence-based test. The reasons are numerous and there is no provable benefit. But the biggest reason is that we have yet to really have come up with a good intelligence test. We're always testing for something, yes, but 'intelligence' is an ephemeral quality that we don't have a grip on yet. As such, at best we'd be testing meaningless specific knowledge ("What is Bill Clinton's middle name?"), at worst we'd be testing for race - or far more likely, class. Because the one thing that the 'minority in power' you refer to has universally that much of the rest of the country does not is education.
First, I object to your underlying assumption that there are 'children' who are naturally incapable of being citizens. Why have an age 18 cut-off? It's my firm belief that the idea that "'at 18' we 'become adults'" is a culturally inculcated idea that is really not based in any sort of real empirical understanding at all. Plenty of fourteen year olds can probably pass any sort of test you come up with - why, then, should they be cut off until they're 18?
But this idea is in line with another erroneous idea you seem to hold; that tests, like age, might be a good predictor of citizenship (that is, citizenship-with-the-right-to-vote). Take two twins; identical in (nearly) every way. Smart, well-educated, from the same part of the country, wealthy. Both are capable of passing the hypothetical 'test'. One, however, is a total bastard. The other is not. The first will do anything, literally anything, to improve his own position - including voting for laws that are classically unwise, but might have a benefit for him.
How, then, is the test a good predictor that he is a good citizen? The fact of the matter is that most of the people you seem to be worried about - the uneducated, the unaware and the apathetic - are probably not voting anyway.
I don't know how, practically speaking, you can be for something that is not a good predictor of the outcome you want when it also stands a good chance of working counter to people who might have good qualities that you do want - such as regional understanding. (Do you really expect my friends from a backwater suburb in Oregon to understand the problems facing East-coast urban environments? Or vice versa?)
Never mind the potential you get once you start separating citizens for later amendments; oh, only second-class citizens pay taxes. You know, they're not doing anything else for the society like making decisions. Or only first-class citizens get to be on juries. Or whatever.
What ever happened to well educated (on multiple topics) politicians?
I am in support of a science debate for precisely this reason. There should be a *culture* of merit in our political system; politicians who are esteemed for their intelligence and contributions to thought. One has no way of knowing if a candidate is intelligent unless you get a real opportunity to observe them - preferably for more than a few sound bites or pre-ordained question-and-answers.
Seriously. Especially after the contents (inevitably) leak, and we have companies offering courses to 'pass the vote test', what does the test end up proving? That we can all recite a mantra? Like Maoists? Or Nazis?
I like the idea of keeping the ignorant and willfully stupid from wreaking damage
You should discard your affection for the idea. It presupposes both that there is a significant class of ignorant and/or stupid people, and that they 'wreak damage' - neither idea of which is particularly provable.
Arguably, the worst damage done to this country has not been done by the ignorant or dumb, but by the intelligent but misguided. Since you can't offer universal enlightenment to everyone automatically, you have to let people achieve on their own. You can't do that by shutting them out of the process until they meet your standards (assuming, of course, you yourself are somehow enlightened). You have to let them in, let them experiment and learn. And you have to suffer the consequences of the less-than-perfect result.
But that is the other thing that you presuppose; that there is a perfect result. There might be for any one individual person or even relatively small group of people, but not for everyone. If there was there would be no need for compromise - and more importantly, for economics.
Why just a week? I mean, surely a week is insufficient to learn the ins and outs of how *our* democracy works. Maybe they should give it a month, or a year. Or, better yet, maybe they should have to get a certification of some sort created by a government party that is, of course, in no way affected by politics.
The principle of "government by consent of the governed" means that regardless of whether the 'governed' know how everything works, they should have the right to consent to their government. To do otherwise is tyrannical. Let us say, for instance, you have a test to prove that someone grasps the basic concepts. That suddenly means that everyone who cannot read the test cannot give that proof and cannot therefore give their consent. They are enslaved to what, to them, becomes a fascism. (If you're very familiar with programming, think of it as an interface; it doesn't matter if the object implements the 'democracy' interface, if all I have access to are the methods from the 'facism' interface, it is acting in all regards as a fascism to me.)
You can, of course, get around not being able to read. But someone who cannot speak the language? Is blind? Autistic? An idiot savant? There is a spectrum of problems that start to arise and questions that must be answered; how far does the government go to aid people in determining whether or not they grasp the necessary concepts? For that matter, does any test really test that? Or is it testing their test-taking ability, or ability to answer the questions asked? (Which we are assuming to be unbiased.) Do we require a dissertation for everyone who wants to vote?
Ultimately speaking, the government is *not* a code base, and people are not transistors. If you treat transistors unfairly, making some work and letting others play, the oppressed ones don't really care. You don't really want people that interchangeable anyway. You want to maximize the agency of all people. The only way to do that is to give everyone an equal and fair say in the government. It is not a question of 'being bothered'. Everyone is contributing to society; is it necessary that everyone learn the answers to a particular test, so as to ensure some level of conformity? Is that even desired? I argue that it is not. What is desired is, as stated, their consent, and their faith that their consent was fairly given.
Simply because most people in the U.S. have at least some notion of U.S. history and government. Everyone has heard of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, and despite some pessimists claims to the contrary, have some clue as to what is in it - because they in all likelihood grew up here, but also because we talk about it a lot. I mean, *everyone* has a clue as to our right to bear arms, because it's all over the media.
I was not trying to say that educated people are unlikely in the US. (Easy there cheesy!) I was trying to say that the educated people in the United States are very very likely to have a clue as to how our government works. But an educated person in China, the Middle East or even possibly parts of Europe may not necessarily.
Unfortunately, there is little direct evidence to support that statement as a true generalization. I agree; Corporations exert undue influence over the political process in the United States. But it should not be allowed to have an impact on who is allowed to or not allowed to vote.
I don't see why a person who's never read the Constitution, and doesn't know the difference between the Bill of the Rights and the Ten Commandments, or has no understanding of the founding principles of the country, and what made it significantly different from the government we broke away from, should have an equal voice in running the nation.
For the simple reason that in order to be wise you need not have been exposed to a particular doctrine.
Suppose, for instance, one had absolutely no knowledge of the Constitution, but was well versed in philosophy; Sartre and Kant and Plato and so on. One could recite the Magna Carta from memory (which, despite being foundational to the US Constitution you fail to mention). One was versed in economics and math and biology and psychology and some parts of history - saving anything U.S. related. Let us further suppose that one is even secular. Such a person could easily exist in today's world - it's unlikely in the U.S., but there are many well-developed countries in the world for which all of that could be true.
But what you're saying is that such a person is unfit to have a say in their government, if they happened to, of a sudden, be a citizen here. Simply because even though they may have been exposed to the principles of a document, they're not familiar with that document. And it's simply not true.
In the end, I think what counts is the desire to learn, and the passion to make a difference. If you're going to have a dividing line, it should be one based on service, which is quantifiable, not on merit, which is qualitative. But we live in a democracy, under common rules, because those rules affect us all. It is a very dubious moral prospect to suggest someone should be governed by laws they have no say in. If you're not familiar with that concept, one wonders if you're actually familiar with the basis of the US form of government.
The movie industry continues to crank out pretty-but-stupid after pretty-but-stupid movie. The "hey-day" of special effects has come, and then come again. Visual art is not something that is ever going to reach an absolute apex; just look at the successful games out there that do *not* use as-real-as-possible graphics; World of Warcraft, for instance.
Gameplay is, unfortunately, a far more expensive investment than graphics, with less return. It's hard to market as well; what can you say in a few words about gameplay that isn't an anecdote that everyone has already heard a dozen times ("Best gameplay in years! - PC Gamer Magazine") or simply marketing copy that we disbelieve by force of experience ("Unlimited replay value!")? On the other hand, screenshots - remember, pictures say a thousand words - are easy and can genuinely distinguish you from the competition.
I think the upshot is that 90% of games will continue to have no redeeming value, and 10% will either do the graphics so right or have the gameplay elements we crave. The 90% is the price we pay to the industry gods.
Expect a serious religious schism to occur in most major religions when we run into another sentient life form; on the one side you'll have people who say, "Aliens have souls." and on the other you'll have people who say, "Aliens don't have souls." It is over such environmental newness that all religious fractioning has occurred.
Many were against going to war but like puppets the media downplayed them.
Everyone must take responsibility, however, or it will never be fixed. Regardless of the actions of the media, there was a vote, and the vote came down to electing people with a particular stance. Divorcing yourself from that reality by claiming it was the media's fault, or whatever else does not help.
Ignoring history won't help either.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was ignoring history. On the contrary; I'm embracing the idea that these things happened, and cannot be magically ignored. A government smaller - at least in many ways - than the one we have now is a good idea, because it's been demonstrated adequately that the other direction does not help.
However WWII didn't have much to do with it
Until you study the history of American debt, and it's strong correlation to maintaining the very large armed force developed by it in WWII in order to win that war. That development spurred America's economy, and our subsequent taking on of debt was to keep that economic stimulant in the system, producing an ever larger military.
Take, for instance, the page on the New Deal you cited; at what point did debt soar? (Hint; there is a helpful graph.) FDR was never a fan of deficit spending, and most of the programs he created were repealed once the Depression ended. (Unless you're calling out either Social Security or the SEC?) You cannot trace the idea of 'tax and spend' back to him. I think the numbers in that situation are pretty clear; Hoover before him and the War after him were the primary factors of American debt, which fueled the larger government we have.
But not the federal government; and note that progressively over the years voters have voted for a larger government - and one that goes to war to the tune of $900B. I'm not saying this is right, or I agree with it, but it is the case; and saying "Oh, we should have kept a small government and not racked up so much debt" is never going to help. We're in the hole - time to get out. You know, if you have the ability to make the sacrifices necessary.
It's interesting you mention Lincoln and the Civil War, though; that is generally regarded at the point in our history wherein the 'federalism' so espoused by the Founding Fathers stopped being a predominant policy, and we started to assert Federal rights over States rights. The other major jump was WWII.
How does it at all reflect badly on her? She didn't do anything! The only way you can make that argument is if you claim any association with a sexual situation reflects poorly on you. And that is patently unsupportable.
I'd hope that Meg White would try to remove references to her name in association with the sex tape or demand clarifications. But you'd call that "censorship" and call it morally wrong. How can it possibly be morally wrong to remove your name from sex tape that you didn't make?
This really is a knee-jerk response; how can it be morally right? Indeed, morality may not be involved at all. These are both good questions to ask, but there is an obvious essential truth; Meg White is a raging hottie. Nine out of ten guys would bang her, given the opportunity - and we'd all like to think a fair number of left-leaning girls, too. The intertubes have a hard on for her, and she isn't going to be able to deny that by trying to pull any or even all references to a possible sex tape.
Admit it, the whole idea of a sex tape fascinates you. You, and everybody else.
Meg trying to deny that this rumor existed is not only foolhardy, but disingenuous. If there is a sex tape, then you can't morally say there is not. If there is not a sex tape, it says nothing about you that there is a rumor that there is - only muddle headed thinking would suggest so. It only says something about the social zeitgeist. Which, I think we can all agree, really digs Meg White.
"And the message coming from my eyes says, 'Leave it alone.'"
Taking your example; what would be the point? Once your information is insecure, it's insecure. You have to change it. You have displace and retrench elsewhere. It sucks, but that is why security and secure processes are so important in the first place. In fact, I would rather that once my information is stolen, the entire internet knows. I want the companies and institutions that I deal with regarding sensitive matters to be actively looking for this, too.
Removing this information may well be censorship; but it's dead information (or should be). The actual problem with what you posit is that if that information is posted, it's predicated by a crime or series of crimes leading to identity theft. Removing the information at that juncture is simply a move made to make people feel better, as though nothing was wrong. But that's not the case. What's done is done, the consequences should be paid and most of all, it should be as transparent as possible.
First of all, 'Farmer Joe' should pay more, because it's harder per capita to get access feeds to him than to 'City Jake'. Secondly, who are we kidding? Farmer Joe's teenage daughter is *so* on Myspace 24/7, if you know what I mean. I bet you'll see that, as with house sizes, you tend to fill up the space you have, rather than get the space you need. If Farmer Joe is paying for a highspeed connection, chances are he's using it within an order of magnitude of 'City Jake'. But on the other end of that axis; City Jake isn't on it twelve hours a day. If you live in a city, you don't stay in your house all day - it's too expensive. Housing in cities are at a premium because they're close to things to do - so you tend to do them. City Jake is getting his 'live feed' on.
No, the actual heaviest users are probably the suburbs - where most people live anyway - and businesses. Suburbs because you're too far from anywhere interesting to go there, and yet can get all your amenities delivered to you, and businesses because it's an essential service these days, like having a telephone. I don't particularly have a problem taxing businesses, because so much government infrastructure is built to support them exclusively. But for that reason it's unlikely - look at Google and Verizon, in this case. I'm sure no dot com or computer manufacturer is thrilled either. I bet the Wall Street types aren't going to be thrilled that their uber-fast up-to-the-phemto-second T1000 line is being taxed, either.
In short, I don't think this is a problem of politicians being stupid. (And I'll refrain from commenting on your 'e-quip' (-pedness to pass judgment.)) This ban was placed to encourage use - it's been encouraged. The government would be within it's rights to tax it - as much as it ever is, anyway.
There is a case for it, too; the government needs money, badly. We are loaned one billion dollars a day by other countries, and our dollar is tanking as a result. We'll be paying higher costs on these things anyway if we don't get that under control. But I think it would be a poorly targeted tax; we want to encourage internet commerce because we're strong in it. We want to discourage oil use because we do it too much, and it's costing us untold money - and arguably lives. The reason not to pass the tax is because, needing to be hobbled, it's best to hobble the economy in an area where we can afford to be less competitive.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, presumably the waves pounding the shore does not actually destroy the energy. I don't know a lot about mass dynamics, but the earth is basically a planet worth of sloshing matter. The moon causes the water to slosh by rotating around the earth; presumably there is a feedback, as the water sloshes the moon is affected gravitationally. If you absorb the energy of the water sloshing (which the shore does not actually do...) with generators, will that affect the moon's orbit?
Frankly, I don't know. But it is a curious question.
I recognize that it's a VERY long-term concern, but wouldn't sucking energy from tidal forces sap the orbital velocity of the moon over time?
The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
This is, in fact, a common misperception held by people in the northern, and in particular, north-western states, who already have a relatively clean energy mix - but in large part because their grids are built for it. It's easy to advocate for something you already have.
But you also seem to think there is no other alternative. There is. There are plenty of alternatives, in fact. The difficulty is actually that there is an ever-increasing demand due to ever increasing sources of energy demands and population increase. No one solution will meet this demand, period. Nuclear will be part of the solution, so will solar. Centralized generation will be part of the solution, so will decentralized local generation. Increase in power output will be part, as will an active pursuit of demand reduction through energy efficiency. Your fallacy is thinking that there is one true way, and that the 'governments' are 'realizing' it.
As a quick aside; solar energy has a lot more to do with how you build things than with how you turn sunlight into electricity. The facing of windows, the use of different materials, and paying attention to how the environment affects the building. Walmart, of all people, have done an amazing job of turning some of their stores into very energy efficient buildings in part using 'solar energy'. And it's not predicated on it being daylight all the time, or near the equator. Article here, and it's a very good example of how attacking the problem on multiple flanks is far more useful than shouting from the hilltops how there is only one possible solution, and everything else has drawbacks. Of course everything else has drawbacks. Everything has drawbacks. The trick is to balance them into something ultimately more useful, where the drawbacks cancel.
The actual problem is that having a competing botnet does little to diminish the problem botnet - especially in a context, such as the internet wherein 'resources' are basically infinite. Having two botnets - the Good and the Evil - does not diminish the power of either merely by the fact of their existence.
So what could a botnet do to attack another one? This is pretty unclear, without actually taking systems. Chewing off the infected arm seems to be counterproductive. At best you destroy part of your overall network. At worst, you have two (or more) distributed systems attacking each other; a war wherein we will surely lose. Nevermind the economic impact as people become enraged that random network attacks are taking out their machine because they don't spend all day in their basement protecting it.
As with nearly everything, the key here is transparency. As an individual owner of a machine, you have a right to know what is going into and coming out of your network connection. We should redouble our efforts to get to that end; tools that let us know, and shut down anything that we don't like. One might say - and be right - that many of these problems are created by bad operating system design choices. Those need to be fixed, and as with any infrastructural issue, we'd better spend the capital now, or be very, very sad later.
How many people who hang out on /. have friends who really like them? Quoth Office Space, "What would I do if I had a million dollars? Two chicks at the same time."
And, you know, if you had a million dollars you could probably hook that up. I mean, you can buy a lottery ticket, or put a buck in the panties of a stripper, and one of them actually gives you a decent chance of getting laid.
When you come up with a decent definition for 'not hurt others', you might have an argument there.
Might.
You still have to contend with the problem of when an issue does arise that the disenfranchised population would want a say in, and the necessary time lag they'd have to hurdle before they 'get' their say. And that's the problem with setting your default to false.
Did we? I'm not sure that most Slashdot users believe that to be actually true.
Our country is really fucked up. The reason it's fucked up is because there's a minority in power that keeps stealing the power, and the majority of people in this country are really, really fucking stupid (as in uneducated).
Wow, there are so many totally unsupported generalizations in this sentence I need to enumerate them: 1) Our country is really fucked up. 2) There is only one reason it's fucked up. 3) That reason is that there is a minority in power. 4) That minority keeps 'stealing' the power. 5) The majority of people are really, really fucking stupid.
It sounds like you don't have a particularly articulated understanding of the world. Perhaps why you posted AC?
There's nothing wrong with voter discrimination as long as it's based on good reasoning.
The thing you have to affirmatively prove, then, is that there is a good reason. You claim that not letting people without certain historical or present knowledge is a good practice that will benefit all of society. Do you have any proof of that? Any ability to affirmatively show that's the case? Any case-law? Prior research? Or is it a gut-instinct or so-called 'common knowledge'?
We should not instate an intelligence-based test. The reasons are numerous and there is no provable benefit. But the biggest reason is that we have yet to really have come up with a good intelligence test. We're always testing for something, yes, but 'intelligence' is an ephemeral quality that we don't have a grip on yet. As such, at best we'd be testing meaningless specific knowledge ("What is Bill Clinton's middle name?"), at worst we'd be testing for race - or far more likely, class. Because the one thing that the 'minority in power' you refer to has universally that much of the rest of the country does not is education.
First, I object to your underlying assumption that there are 'children' who are naturally incapable of being citizens. Why have an age 18 cut-off? It's my firm belief that the idea that "'at 18' we 'become adults'" is a culturally inculcated idea that is really not based in any sort of real empirical understanding at all. Plenty of fourteen year olds can probably pass any sort of test you come up with - why, then, should they be cut off until they're 18?
But this idea is in line with another erroneous idea you seem to hold; that tests, like age, might be a good predictor of citizenship (that is, citizenship-with-the-right-to-vote). Take two twins; identical in (nearly) every way. Smart, well-educated, from the same part of the country, wealthy. Both are capable of passing the hypothetical 'test'. One, however, is a total bastard. The other is not. The first will do anything, literally anything, to improve his own position - including voting for laws that are classically unwise, but might have a benefit for him.
How, then, is the test a good predictor that he is a good citizen? The fact of the matter is that most of the people you seem to be worried about - the uneducated, the unaware and the apathetic - are probably not voting anyway.
I don't know how, practically speaking, you can be for something that is not a good predictor of the outcome you want when it also stands a good chance of working counter to people who might have good qualities that you do want - such as regional understanding. (Do you really expect my friends from a backwater suburb in Oregon to understand the problems facing East-coast urban environments? Or vice versa?)
Never mind the potential you get once you start separating citizens for later amendments; oh, only second-class citizens pay taxes. You know, they're not doing anything else for the society like making decisions. Or only first-class citizens get to be on juries. Or whatever.
Amen, brother!!!
What ever happened to well educated (on multiple topics) politicians?
I am in support of a science debate for precisely this reason. There should be a *culture* of merit in our political system; politicians who are esteemed for their intelligence and contributions to thought. One has no way of knowing if a candidate is intelligent unless you get a real opportunity to observe them - preferably for more than a few sound bites or pre-ordained question-and-answers.
Seriously. Especially after the contents (inevitably) leak, and we have companies offering courses to 'pass the vote test', what does the test end up proving? That we can all recite a mantra? Like Maoists? Or Nazis?
I like the idea of keeping the ignorant and willfully stupid from wreaking damage
You should discard your affection for the idea. It presupposes both that there is a significant class of ignorant and/or stupid people, and that they 'wreak damage' - neither idea of which is particularly provable.
Arguably, the worst damage done to this country has not been done by the ignorant or dumb, but by the intelligent but misguided. Since you can't offer universal enlightenment to everyone automatically, you have to let people achieve on their own. You can't do that by shutting them out of the process until they meet your standards (assuming, of course, you yourself are somehow enlightened). You have to let them in, let them experiment and learn. And you have to suffer the consequences of the less-than-perfect result.
But that is the other thing that you presuppose; that there is a perfect result. There might be for any one individual person or even relatively small group of people, but not for everyone. If there was there would be no need for compromise - and more importantly, for economics.
Why just a week? I mean, surely a week is insufficient to learn the ins and outs of how *our* democracy works. Maybe they should give it a month, or a year. Or, better yet, maybe they should have to get a certification of some sort created by a government party that is, of course, in no way affected by politics.
The principle of "government by consent of the governed" means that regardless of whether the 'governed' know how everything works, they should have the right to consent to their government. To do otherwise is tyrannical. Let us say, for instance, you have a test to prove that someone grasps the basic concepts. That suddenly means that everyone who cannot read the test cannot give that proof and cannot therefore give their consent. They are enslaved to what, to them, becomes a fascism. (If you're very familiar with programming, think of it as an interface; it doesn't matter if the object implements the 'democracy' interface, if all I have access to are the methods from the 'facism' interface, it is acting in all regards as a fascism to me.)
You can, of course, get around not being able to read. But someone who cannot speak the language? Is blind? Autistic? An idiot savant? There is a spectrum of problems that start to arise and questions that must be answered; how far does the government go to aid people in determining whether or not they grasp the necessary concepts? For that matter, does any test really test that? Or is it testing their test-taking ability, or ability to answer the questions asked? (Which we are assuming to be unbiased.) Do we require a dissertation for everyone who wants to vote?
Ultimately speaking, the government is *not* a code base, and people are not transistors. If you treat transistors unfairly, making some work and letting others play, the oppressed ones don't really care. You don't really want people that interchangeable anyway. You want to maximize the agency of all people. The only way to do that is to give everyone an equal and fair say in the government. It is not a question of 'being bothered'. Everyone is contributing to society; is it necessary that everyone learn the answers to a particular test, so as to ensure some level of conformity? Is that even desired? I argue that it is not. What is desired is, as stated, their consent, and their faith that their consent was fairly given.
Simply because most people in the U.S. have at least some notion of U.S. history and government. Everyone has heard of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, and despite some pessimists claims to the contrary, have some clue as to what is in it - because they in all likelihood grew up here, but also because we talk about it a lot. I mean, *everyone* has a clue as to our right to bear arms, because it's all over the media.
I was not trying to say that educated people are unlikely in the US. (Easy there cheesy!) I was trying to say that the educated people in the United States are very very likely to have a clue as to how our government works. But an educated person in China, the Middle East or even possibly parts of Europe may not necessarily.
Unfortunately, there is little direct evidence to support that statement as a true generalization. I agree; Corporations exert undue influence over the political process in the United States. But it should not be allowed to have an impact on who is allowed to or not allowed to vote.
I don't see why a person who's never read the Constitution, and doesn't know the difference between the Bill of the Rights and the Ten Commandments, or has no understanding of the founding principles of the country, and what made it significantly different from the government we broke away from, should have an equal voice in running the nation.
For the simple reason that in order to be wise you need not have been exposed to a particular doctrine.
Suppose, for instance, one had absolutely no knowledge of the Constitution, but was well versed in philosophy; Sartre and Kant and Plato and so on. One could recite the Magna Carta from memory (which, despite being foundational to the US Constitution you fail to mention). One was versed in economics and math and biology and psychology and some parts of history - saving anything U.S. related. Let us further suppose that one is even secular. Such a person could easily exist in today's world - it's unlikely in the U.S., but there are many well-developed countries in the world for which all of that could be true.
But what you're saying is that such a person is unfit to have a say in their government, if they happened to, of a sudden, be a citizen here. Simply because even though they may have been exposed to the principles of a document, they're not familiar with that document. And it's simply not true.
In the end, I think what counts is the desire to learn, and the passion to make a difference. If you're going to have a dividing line, it should be one based on service, which is quantifiable, not on merit, which is qualitative. But we live in a democracy, under common rules, because those rules affect us all. It is a very dubious moral prospect to suggest someone should be governed by laws they have no say in. If you're not familiar with that concept, one wonders if you're actually familiar with the basis of the US form of government.
The movie industry continues to crank out pretty-but-stupid after pretty-but-stupid movie. The "hey-day" of special effects has come, and then come again. Visual art is not something that is ever going to reach an absolute apex; just look at the successful games out there that do *not* use as-real-as-possible graphics; World of Warcraft, for instance.
Gameplay is, unfortunately, a far more expensive investment than graphics, with less return. It's hard to market as well; what can you say in a few words about gameplay that isn't an anecdote that everyone has already heard a dozen times ("Best gameplay in years! - PC Gamer Magazine") or simply marketing copy that we disbelieve by force of experience ("Unlimited replay value!")? On the other hand, screenshots - remember, pictures say a thousand words - are easy and can genuinely distinguish you from the competition.
I think the upshot is that 90% of games will continue to have no redeeming value, and 10% will either do the graphics so right or have the gameplay elements we crave. The 90% is the price we pay to the industry gods.
Expect a serious religious schism to occur in most major religions when we run into another sentient life form; on the one side you'll have people who say, "Aliens have souls." and on the other you'll have people who say, "Aliens don't have souls." It is over such environmental newness that all religious fractioning has occurred.
Many were against going to war but like puppets the media downplayed them.
Everyone must take responsibility, however, or it will never be fixed. Regardless of the actions of the media, there was a vote, and the vote came down to electing people with a particular stance. Divorcing yourself from that reality by claiming it was the media's fault, or whatever else does not help.
Ignoring history won't help either.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was ignoring history. On the contrary; I'm embracing the idea that these things happened, and cannot be magically ignored. A government smaller - at least in many ways - than the one we have now is a good idea, because it's been demonstrated adequately that the other direction does not help.
However WWII didn't have much to do with it
Until you study the history of American debt, and it's strong correlation to maintaining the very large armed force developed by it in WWII in order to win that war. That development spurred America's economy, and our subsequent taking on of debt was to keep that economic stimulant in the system, producing an ever larger military.
Take, for instance, the page on the New Deal you cited; at what point did debt soar? (Hint; there is a helpful graph.) FDR was never a fan of deficit spending, and most of the programs he created were repealed once the Depression ended. (Unless you're calling out either Social Security or the SEC?) You cannot trace the idea of 'tax and spend' back to him. I think the numbers in that situation are pretty clear; Hoover before him and the War after him were the primary factors of American debt, which fueled the larger government we have.
But not the federal government; and note that progressively over the years voters have voted for a larger government - and one that goes to war to the tune of $900B. I'm not saying this is right, or I agree with it, but it is the case; and saying "Oh, we should have kept a small government and not racked up so much debt" is never going to help. We're in the hole - time to get out. You know, if you have the ability to make the sacrifices necessary.
It's interesting you mention Lincoln and the Civil War, though; that is generally regarded at the point in our history wherein the 'federalism' so espoused by the Founding Fathers stopped being a predominant policy, and we started to assert Federal rights over States rights. The other major jump was WWII.
How does it at all reflect badly on her? She didn't do anything! The only way you can make that argument is if you claim any association with a sexual situation reflects poorly on you. And that is patently unsupportable.
I'd hope that Meg White would try to remove references to her name in association with the sex tape or demand clarifications. But you'd call that "censorship" and call it morally wrong. How can it possibly be morally wrong to remove your name from sex tape that you didn't make?
This really is a knee-jerk response; how can it be morally right? Indeed, morality may not be involved at all. These are both good questions to ask, but there is an obvious essential truth; Meg White is a raging hottie. Nine out of ten guys would bang her, given the opportunity - and we'd all like to think a fair number of left-leaning girls, too. The intertubes have a hard on for her, and she isn't going to be able to deny that by trying to pull any or even all references to a possible sex tape.
Admit it, the whole idea of a sex tape fascinates you. You, and everybody else.
Meg trying to deny that this rumor existed is not only foolhardy, but disingenuous. If there is a sex tape, then you can't morally say there is not. If there is not a sex tape, it says nothing about you that there is a rumor that there is - only muddle headed thinking would suggest so. It only says something about the social zeitgeist. Which, I think we can all agree, really digs Meg White.
"And the message coming from my eyes says, 'Leave it alone.'"
Taking your example; what would be the point? Once your information is insecure, it's insecure. You have to change it. You have displace and retrench elsewhere. It sucks, but that is why security and secure processes are so important in the first place. In fact, I would rather that once my information is stolen, the entire internet knows. I want the companies and institutions that I deal with regarding sensitive matters to be actively looking for this, too.
Removing this information may well be censorship; but it's dead information (or should be). The actual problem with what you posit is that if that information is posted, it's predicated by a crime or series of crimes leading to identity theft. Removing the information at that juncture is simply a move made to make people feel better, as though nothing was wrong. But that's not the case. What's done is done, the consequences should be paid and most of all, it should be as transparent as possible.
First of all, 'Farmer Joe' should pay more, because it's harder per capita to get access feeds to him than to 'City Jake'. Secondly, who are we kidding? Farmer Joe's teenage daughter is *so* on Myspace 24/7, if you know what I mean. I bet you'll see that, as with house sizes, you tend to fill up the space you have, rather than get the space you need. If Farmer Joe is paying for a highspeed connection, chances are he's using it within an order of magnitude of 'City Jake'. But on the other end of that axis; City Jake isn't on it twelve hours a day. If you live in a city, you don't stay in your house all day - it's too expensive. Housing in cities are at a premium because they're close to things to do - so you tend to do them. City Jake is getting his 'live feed' on.
No, the actual heaviest users are probably the suburbs - where most people live anyway - and businesses. Suburbs because you're too far from anywhere interesting to go there, and yet can get all your amenities delivered to you, and businesses because it's an essential service these days, like having a telephone. I don't particularly have a problem taxing businesses, because so much government infrastructure is built to support them exclusively. But for that reason it's unlikely - look at Google and Verizon, in this case. I'm sure no dot com or computer manufacturer is thrilled either. I bet the Wall Street types aren't going to be thrilled that their uber-fast up-to-the-phemto-second T1000 line is being taxed, either.
In short, I don't think this is a problem of politicians being stupid. (And I'll refrain from commenting on your 'e-quip' (-pedness to pass judgment.)) This ban was placed to encourage use - it's been encouraged. The government would be within it's rights to tax it - as much as it ever is, anyway.
There is a case for it, too; the government needs money, badly. We are loaned one billion dollars a day by other countries, and our dollar is tanking as a result. We'll be paying higher costs on these things anyway if we don't get that under control. But I think it would be a poorly targeted tax; we want to encourage internet commerce because we're strong in it. We want to discourage oil use because we do it too much, and it's costing us untold money - and arguably lives. The reason not to pass the tax is because, needing to be hobbled, it's best to hobble the economy in an area where we can afford to be less competitive.