"And a doctor worked their entire life to have the knowledge and skillset to cure a patient... but a doctor doesn't get paid every time the patient's heart beats."
Your analogy is wrong. Doctors do get paid every time they work on you.
Right... that's like a musician getting paid every time they perform.
And a doctor worked their entire life to have the knowledge and skillset to cure a patient... but a doctor doesn't get paid every time the patient's heart beats.
Listen, I'm all for a fair compensation for the artists, and against copyright infringement... but your specific argument doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny.
I have found a common cold virus that can be used as a biological weapon with minimal manipulation. It's highly transmissible and lethal. I contacted the CDC and they told me they weren't interested in developing treatments for it. As a consequence, I have no option but to publicly disclose the methods used in preparing and purifying this reagent (below).
So... you assume that everyone who is successful got there by virtue of luck... and should thus sacrifice their success for those who haven't. Correct?
I pulled my own weight... went to public school... got my own scholarships... and now you want me to pay taxes on the money I earned after growing a hump from studying and working >80 hours a week... to subsidize someone whose sole qualification is "lack of education" because they either didn't work hard or couldn't care any less about doing well in school?
As I see it, one of the major reasons for the "disappearing middle class" is that the Slashdot attitude towards professionals is now widespread.
The middle class is not magically-disappearing just because of stupid politicians and greedy rich people. It's disappearing because someone who makes $50k/year will strongly support changing the economical and legislative framework to make it impossible for someone earning $150k/year to continue making that money... regardless of the amount of effort that went into attaining their qualifications.
I've noticed quite a trend of people on Slashdot being anti-money. Is there a problem with people who work hard and earn more than $40k/year (or 50, 60; whatever the waterline may be) or something? Or must one suffer and live in one's parents' basement earning paltry sums in order to maintain credibility?
Let me walk you through this douchebag argument as it applies to musicians:
"Musicians are supposed to love the music, not money. That's why they should be happy if they get paid enough to finance their tour bus and a few pop-tarts. That's why $5-10 is the most anyone should pay for a ticket."
I get to hear this a lot, all over the Internet (and unfortunately more and more in real life): "Why should doctors make money? They're supposed to be in it to help people, so they should not expect to be able to buy a house or have a nice car. They should be happy with whatever they get. If they wanted money they should not have gone into medicine, and should instead have done X (where X is whatever profession the speaker doesn't belong to and despises for making money)."
There has to be a term for this argument, because I hear it a lot, and it seems very consistent across many enterprises. But familiarity with it doesn't make me want to punch whoever said it in the face any less...
Either way, expect legislation from the committee later this year.
A better prediction would be: "either way, expect everyone you don't want to, to have access to your location data without a court order or notification later this year".
Why implant tracking devices into the population, if you can get them to willingly carry the tracking devices with them.
Now, just ensure that the cell phones can be remotely turned on to listen to people's conversations, and you can start building the kind of government from which there is no escape at all.
I think that within the next 10 years, we either have to learn to live with the idea that EVERYTHING we do or say EVERYWHERE is recorded for subsequent analysis, and WILL be available to the worst of people at the worst of times... or we have to consider that we might need to perform a fairly substantial shakeup of our society in order to avoid it.
My prediction: we'll learn to live with it. Those who won't, will not be part of the living group.
Let's not kid ourselves - the real reason those gifted enough to excel shy away from science is that this path is not conducive to having a life. It requires working long hours, frequently 7 days per week, for little pay (NIH stipends for graduate students are around $20'000), and in a highly stressful environment (those who've done research know how emotionally crushing doing scientific research can often be), just to become a sub-$40k post-doc for another decade thereafter, and then desperately search for a faculty position, to spend the next 20 years stressing over grant deadlines that threaten to destroy whatever little autonomy you've managed to gain, in an environment where something like 5% of the projects get funded.
In an environment, where most work to the limit of their bodily ability, and get paid less than their intelligence and time commitment would yield them elsewhere, young men and women find it difficult to acquire and hold onto a mate, and those who want to have families find themselves unable to support them, as well as spend adequate time with them.
And people wonder why in many top-tier institutions 75% of the graduate students in science are foreign-born?
"Speed kills" is the mother of a slippery slope argument.
If 50mph is better than 70, then surely 30mph is better than 50.
Why not just set all the limits to 30, and city limits at 15? Surely that would stop fatal accidents due to drunk people who are not obeying the law... oh wait...
It's like gun control - the population that is screwed, are the people who respectfully obey the law already.
The reason for the objection by the AMA is that this rule would designate doctors as creditors, by virtue of them billing for their services. This would require a torrent of new paperwork to be handled by the doctors' offices. Ultimately, the time and staff cost of compliance would be extremely high, while there aren't likely to be any benefits in terms of reduction of personal data theft from medical practices, since HIPAA regulations are already very strict regarding personal information.
Since many hospitals and practices already operate on rather thin margins (3% is considered excellent for a hospital), the last thing medical institutions need is more staff to handle paperwork. They already outnumber doctors...
This is complete and utter BS and really needs to be stopped. My suggestion - if they fail to show in the required window, for Any reason, they are liable to you for a days pay at whatever your current rate is. To document that they did , ideed show up, in the event that the customer truly is not there (a very small probability, IMHO) they would need to show a timed photograph of the door to the residence
They'll just take the photo and leave.
Actually, what they should have is the client's signature. No signature = no visit.
My favorite is being on the phone with the cable company after the 4-hour window: "Hi, I had an appointment, but nobody came" "It says here nobody was home." "Listen to me, I took a day off work, in order to sit here and wait for someone who didn't come. A day I could've used to make a 3-day weekend and go somewhere warm. I certainly was in my god damn house" "Would you like to reschedule?" "Can I schedule it so that I don't have to take a full day?" "We can offer you 12pm-4pm or 11am-3pm" "Will the technician come this time?" "The technician will arrive within 30 minutes of the 4-hour window" "So you mean it's a 5 hour window" "And you need to be at home"/slams the receiver.
And, given the other story on Slashdot today, he'll soon be able to have his office look up the DNA records of the people once he identifies them.
"Hello, Somebusiness Inc? Hi, this is the Attorney General's office. We're very interested in one of your employees, Mr. X. No sorry can't tell you - it's an active investigation. But you know what's interesting... he's pretty likely to get heart disease, his insurance payments and absences are going to go way up. Oh, and his son has ALS, did you know that? He's probably going to take lots of time off soon to take care of him. Yeah, it's tough to have an employee like him, even without a criminal investigation. Oh, did we say criminal investigation? We weren't supposed to mention it. Oh well, bye"
All that says is that either Jesus isn't as revered an icon in your neighbourhood than Mohammed is in a Muslim one.
So what you are saying is that the appropriate course of action to take when someone offends you is to kill the person.
No, actually what it says is that people here understand that there is a big step between emotion and action.
And let's pretend while you're walking down the street, a Muslim person runs up to you, pointing at you and accusing you of being a pedophile, say. By your argument, you'd not be allowed to take offence at that...
I'm allowed to take as much offense as I please. I am not, however, allowed to behead him (or do any harm to him/her) for doing so.
The fact that you can't perceive the difference makes you one or more of the following:
Let us not become so tolerant, that we tolerate intolerance.
There is nothing I could possibly add to that.
Grow up, boy.
Join the real world, take your head out of your ass and looking around you - if you do that you'll see most Muslims are normal people like you and me just getting on with their day who don't give a toss about insignificant little bigots like you.
So asserting my constitutional rights makes me a bigot now?
What does the rant above make you?
Oh, and while we're on the subject of religious violence, just how many gun-toting Christians are there in the US?
Plenty. Yet if I draw a Jesus taking a load in the face, I can walk down the street reasonably sure that I'm not going to get shot.
My parents taught me that sticking my hand into a fire was hot, that I'd get hurt and that I shouldn't do it. Surely these Facebook taunters learned that too?
That's not being prudent. That's being a coward.
Surely you're not suggesting that we relinquish our right to draw WHATEVER THE FUCK WE PLEASE, because someone is threatening us with bodily harm if we draw something that displeases them.
It is only natural for people to resist when their most basic right of self-expression is violated.
At this point, western democracies need to make a stand against the violence of radical Islam, even if it takes such comical form. If we fold any time they threaten us with violence, then we will live according to THEIR rules in no time.
Slashdot Mirror
"And a doctor worked their entire life to have the knowledge and skillset to cure a patient... but a doctor doesn't get paid every time the patient's heart beats."
Your analogy is wrong. Doctors do get paid every time they work on you.
Right... that's like a musician getting paid every time they perform.
And a doctor worked their entire life to have the knowledge and skillset to cure a patient... but a doctor doesn't get paid every time the patient's heart beats.
Listen, I'm all for a fair compensation for the artists, and against copyright infringement... but your specific argument doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny.
I wish I had mod points, because the parent is deeply Insightful.
Analogy:
I have found a common cold virus that can be used as a biological weapon with minimal manipulation. It's highly transmissible and lethal. I contacted the CDC and they told me they weren't interested in developing treatments for it. As a consequence, I have no option but to publicly disclose the methods used in preparing and purifying this reagent (below).
Being mean spirited, I actually often wish they would get a bit of bad luck and find themselves at the bottom again for a while.
Thanks for confirming everything I've asserted all along.
Your "philosophies" are little more than justification for a jealous hatred of people who are more successful than you.
Given your opinions, it's really no wonder.
So... you assume that everyone who is successful got there by virtue of luck... and should thus sacrifice their success for those who haven't. Correct?
Basically, you're a fan of equality of condition.
Congratulations on using a red herring to move the debate from discussing fair compensation to nonexistent realm of debating the merits of taxation.
"Lack of education"? Seriously?
I pulled my own weight... went to public school... got my own scholarships... and now you want me to pay taxes on the money I earned after growing a hump from studying and working >80 hours a week... to subsidize someone whose sole qualification is "lack of education" because they either didn't work hard or couldn't care any less about doing well in school?
How about some fairness for a change...
Add to that the disappearing middle class,
As I see it, one of the major reasons for the "disappearing middle class" is that the Slashdot attitude towards professionals is now widespread.
The middle class is not magically-disappearing just because of stupid politicians and greedy rich people. It's disappearing because someone who makes $50k/year will strongly support changing the economical and legislative framework to make it impossible for someone earning $150k/year to continue making that money... regardless of the amount of effort that went into attaining their qualifications.
I've noticed quite a trend of people on Slashdot being anti-money. Is there a problem with people who work hard and earn more than $40k/year (or 50, 60; whatever the waterline may be) or something? Or must one suffer and live in one's parents' basement earning paltry sums in order to maintain credibility?
Let me walk you through this douchebag argument as it applies to musicians:
"Musicians are supposed to love the music, not money. That's why they should be happy if they get paid enough to finance their tour bus and a few pop-tarts. That's why $5-10 is the most anyone should pay for a ticket."
I get to hear this a lot, all over the Internet (and unfortunately more and more in real life):
"Why should doctors make money? They're supposed to be in it to help people, so they should not expect to be able to buy a house or have a nice car. They should be happy with whatever they get. If they wanted money they should not have gone into medicine, and should instead have done X (where X is whatever profession the speaker doesn't belong to and despises for making money)."
There has to be a term for this argument, because I hear it a lot, and it seems very consistent across many enterprises. But familiarity with it doesn't make me want to punch whoever said it in the face any less...
Either way, expect legislation from the committee later this year.
A better prediction would be: "either way, expect everyone you don't want to, to have access to your location data without a court order or notification later this year".
Why implant tracking devices into the population, if you can get them to willingly carry the tracking devices with them.
Now, just ensure that the cell phones can be remotely turned on to listen to people's conversations, and you can start building the kind of government from which there is no escape at all.
I think that within the next 10 years, we either have to learn to live with the idea that EVERYTHING we do or say EVERYWHERE is recorded for subsequent analysis, and WILL be available to the worst of people at the worst of times... or we have to consider that we might need to perform a fairly substantial shakeup of our society in order to avoid it.
My prediction: we'll learn to live with it. Those who won't, will not be part of the living group.
"school", "deserve all they get", "crack", "blow"
I think we've got enough isolated words out of that post to charge you as a terrorist.
Please pack your bags and wait for a knock on the door,
Sincerely,
FBI
Junior (and even some senior) faculty in the US will spend something like 50% of their time writing grants.
Let's not kid ourselves - the real reason those gifted enough to excel shy away from science is that this path is not conducive to having a life. It requires working long hours, frequently 7 days per week, for little pay (NIH stipends for graduate students are around $20'000), and in a highly stressful environment (those who've done research know how emotionally crushing doing scientific research can often be), just to become a sub-$40k post-doc for another decade thereafter, and then desperately search for a faculty position, to spend the next 20 years stressing over grant deadlines that threaten to destroy whatever little autonomy you've managed to gain, in an environment where something like 5% of the projects get funded.
In an environment, where most work to the limit of their bodily ability, and get paid less than their intelligence and time commitment would yield them elsewhere, young men and women find it difficult to acquire and hold onto a mate, and those who want to have families find themselves unable to support them, as well as spend adequate time with them.
And people wonder why in many top-tier institutions 75% of the graduate students in science are foreign-born?
"Speed kills" is the mother of a slippery slope argument.
If 50mph is better than 70, then surely 30mph is better than 50.
Why not just set all the limits to 30, and city limits at 15? Surely that would stop fatal accidents due to drunk people who are not obeying the law... oh wait...
It's like gun control - the population that is screwed, are the people who respectfully obey the law already.
Could be worse, he could be observing Uranus.
The reason for the objection by the AMA is that this rule would designate doctors as creditors, by virtue of them billing for their services. This would require a torrent of new paperwork to be handled by the doctors' offices. Ultimately, the time and staff cost of compliance would be extremely high, while there aren't likely to be any benefits in terms of reduction of personal data theft from medical practices, since HIPAA regulations are already very strict regarding personal information.
Since many hospitals and practices already operate on rather thin margins (3% is considered excellent for a hospital), the last thing medical institutions need is more staff to handle paperwork. They already outnumber doctors...
It is if you're a socialist.
I think you mean "it is if you're a Bolshevik".
This is complete and utter BS and really needs to be stopped. My suggestion - if they fail to show in the required window, for Any reason, they are liable to you for a days pay at whatever your current rate is. To document that they did , ideed show up, in the event that the customer truly is not there (a very small probability, IMHO) they would need to show a timed photograph of the door to the residence
They'll just take the photo and leave.
Actually, what they should have is the client's signature. No signature = no visit.
My favorite is being on the phone with the cable company after the 4-hour window: /slams the receiver.
"Hi, I had an appointment, but nobody came"
"It says here nobody was home."
"Listen to me, I took a day off work, in order to sit here and wait for someone who didn't come. A day I could've used to make a 3-day weekend and go somewhere warm. I certainly was in my god damn house"
"Would you like to reschedule?"
"Can I schedule it so that I don't have to take a full day?"
"We can offer you 12pm-4pm or 11am-3pm"
"Will the technician come this time?"
"The technician will arrive within 30 minutes of the 4-hour window"
"So you mean it's a 5 hour window"
"And you need to be at home"
They make everything in convenient container sizes now:
- servers
- internet cafes
- anti-ship missiles
- nuclear reactors
- nuclear bombs
Shipping containers are the "in" thing to do nowadays.
And, given the other story on Slashdot today, he'll soon be able to have his office look up the DNA records of the people once he identifies them.
"Hello, Somebusiness Inc? Hi, this is the Attorney General's office. We're very interested in one of your employees, Mr. X. No sorry can't tell you - it's an active investigation. But you know what's interesting... he's pretty likely to get heart disease, his insurance payments and absences are going to go way up. Oh, and his son has ALS, did you know that? He's probably going to take lots of time off soon to take care of him. Yeah, it's tough to have an employee like him, even without a criminal investigation. Oh, did we say criminal investigation? We weren't supposed to mention it. Oh well, bye"
All that says is that either Jesus isn't as revered an icon in your neighbourhood than Mohammed is in a Muslim one.
So what you are saying is that the appropriate course of action to take when someone offends you is to kill the person.
No, actually what it says is that people here understand that there is a big step between emotion and action.
And let's pretend while you're walking down the street, a Muslim person runs up to you, pointing at you and accusing you of being a pedophile, say. By your argument, you'd not be allowed to take offence at that...
I'm allowed to take as much offense as I please. I am not, however, allowed to behead him (or do any harm to him/her) for doing so.
The fact that you can't perceive the difference makes you one or more of the following:
1. stupid
2. sociopath
One word... tolerance.
Bill Maher said it best on that one.
Let us not become so tolerant, that we tolerate intolerance.
There is nothing I could possibly add to that.
Grow up, boy.
Join the real world, take your head out of your ass and looking around you - if you do that you'll see most Muslims are normal people like you and me just getting on with their day who don't give a toss about insignificant little bigots like you.
So asserting my constitutional rights makes me a bigot now?
What does the rant above make you?
Oh, and while we're on the subject of religious violence, just how many gun-toting Christians are there in the US?
Plenty. Yet if I draw a Jesus taking a load in the face, I can walk down the street reasonably sure that I'm not going to get shot.
How 'bout that?
My parents taught me that sticking my hand into a fire was hot, that I'd get hurt and that I shouldn't do it. Surely these Facebook taunters learned that too?
That's not being prudent. That's being a coward.
Surely you're not suggesting that we relinquish our right to draw WHATEVER THE FUCK WE PLEASE, because someone is threatening us with bodily harm if we draw something that displeases them.
It is only natural for people to resist when their most basic right of self-expression is violated.
At this point, western democracies need to make a stand against the violence of radical Islam, even if it takes such comical form. If we fold any time they threaten us with violence, then we will live according to THEIR rules in no time.