The dinosaurs ruled the earth for well over a hundred million years.
Personally, I think that once the human race develops the technology to change the orbits of near-earth asteroids, the probability of the earth getting hit by one of them will go *up*, not down.
Re:South Park episode display classic irony
on
Isn't It Ironic?
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· Score: 1
That would be a lot more believable if they had actually made fun of him on Southpark in the last couple of years. I don't recall them goofing on him at all, even before 9/11.
If it allows rich people to live forever, the laws of morality will change.
As for not allowing copies, well, if someone makes a copy of themself, and it's recognized as a legal entity, the person's assets will probably have to be split between the copies. The rich people wouldn't like that either.
Not trying to justify it, but I think it would be easy for people to rationalize the morality of it.
I've had pretty good luck at used book stores; have gotten five Banks novels in the last few months. Haven't gotten around to reading them yet though:(
Actually, Netflix started out renting out DVDs through the mail in the traditional manner. It was only when they were about to go belly up after nearly two years of struggling that they came up with the subscription model during a late-night barnstorming session in 1999.
After all, as Buckaroo Bonzai says, if it was obvious, everybody would be doing it. Nobody but Netflix has been doing what they've been doing for nearly four years.
If they hadn't patented the business method, somebody else would have, and then they'd be screwed blue and tattooed.
*Every* country pulls this crap. US isn't worse than the others, and is better than most. The US pushes for free trade a lot more than other nations do. WTO probably wouldn't exist if the US hadn't pushed for it.
Any democracy is going to have huge pressures put on its leaders for protectionist policies. It's going to take a lot of time and effort to create free trade.
Well, duh, why do you think the WTO exists? I doubt that the US will be the only nation imposing tariffs on them for this, too. It probably won't get overturned by the WTO, either, because it's pretty obvious they're engaging in unfair trade practices.
The other really big problem with the US steel industry is that there's about 5 retired steel workers for every current one (mostly due to decreased production and, like you said, improved productivity), and back in the day their unions negotiated really good pension and medical plans. The US govt is giving huge subsidies to the steel industry just to pay for that.
An even better idea: Put all the astronauts in a small capsule at the top of all the fuel. Give them an escape rocket that can pull them away in case of a problem. Use liquid fuel, so you can shut the pumps off so that in case of a problem, all the fuel stops accelerating while the capsule is pulled away from the fuel. And, we can name it after some ancient gods. It'd even be cheaper, too!
And by the way, even the Soviets weren't stupid enough to put SRBs on manned flights. Buran, their shuttle clone, had liquid fuel strap-on boosters. At least the Soviets were smart enough to only fly the beast once.
Do you really think it's better to ride on a pile of high explosives that you *can't* turn off than to ride on a pile that you *can* turn off?
They should focus on making an inexpensive, unmanned, reusable launcher. Maybe using microwave or laser propulsion. If they make it cheap, there's a market for launch services. If they make it reusable, it shouldn't be too difficult to evolve it into a man-rated version.
Forget lofty goals like JFK. The *only* reason the US went to the moon was it was about the only thing we could do in space where we had a chance in hell of doing it before the Russians did it.
Trade isn't meddling. Improving their standard of living by increased trade isn't meddling.
It wasn't too long ago when people in the US justified slavery by quoting the Bible. Abolishing slavery didn't destroy Christianity. Would you have objected if, 150 years ago, England or France had imposed trade sanctions on the US because we had slavery? Would you think it arrogant meddling?
The Hindu caste system exists, at its core, for economic reasons (castes are segregated by the job you have). And I never said to impose trade sanctions on India for having the caste system. However, increasing their standards of living will better enable the Untouchables to effect change on their own.
To withhold trade from other nations and keep them in poverty in the misquided belief that the world economy is a zero-sum game, now *that's* arrogance in its most extreme form.
It ain't just about the "corporate rape culture". It's about having clean water, sufficient food, health care, and the opportunity to improve the situations for themselves and for their kids.
The number one problem facing the world is overpopulation. The only way to prevent that is to get the nations of the world to get through the demographic transition. That means raising their standard of living. War, plague, pestilence, and famine aren't acceptable options, and, as can be seen in Africa, they don't reduce population, they just slow down the growth. You think you're going to stop a Brazilian from cutting down rain forest when his kids are starving?
And as far as "cultural identity" is concerned, funny you should mention that in a thread about India. Just read an article in National Geographic yesterday about the Untouchables in India. 160 million of them, and they're treated worse than blacks were in the US deep south in the 1930's.
Personally, I don't think American/Western culture is infesting the world nearly fast enough.
I guess you didn't understand what I was saying. When the US was a colony, the British used us for natural resources. It was illegal to have a loom in the colonies; we shipped them cotton, they shipped us finished cloth. They were preserving British textile worker jobs. Which is what you are proposing to do.
Read your history. Protectionism like you suggest was one of the main things that caused the Great Depression and WWII. A global free market *stabilizes* the world economy. The best hope for economic recovery in the US right now is the dollar dropping, which will increase exports and encourage foreign travel into the states. Do you think exports would increase if other countries were as protectionist as you would like the US to be? And believe me, if the US goes back to being protectionist, other countries will too.
Do you honestly believe the US can't compete internationally? Do you think we can't compete with Europe, with their bloated welfare state? Most countries are basket cases compared to the US.
It's in our interest to do what we do best, and sell to the world, and let other nations do what they do best, and buy from them. You can buy a $5000 cheapo car from Hyundia if you want, Chinese can buy Intel processors. Maybe you don't remember what American cars were like before the Japanese got into the biz. They sucked. Hard.
Taking your argument to the extreme, New Yorkers should be growing orange trees in greenhouses so they don't lose jobs to Florida.
What you're proposing would harm the US economy, not help it. Globalization *is* the USA taking care of its own. There's a lot more to the US economy than IT. It may suck for you (and me, by the way), but the benefit to the customers and the stockholders of the businesses that are doing what you so despise will more than make up for it.
And, guess what, in a few more years there'll be a couple hundred million more foreigners that can afford PCs, DVDs, etc. You know, the kind of stuff the US is good at making.
Why do you think they don't get paid? Where do you think Osama's money came from? Mowing lawns?
They can stop selling oil anytime they want. They have before. They can charge whatever the market can bear. They're the main guys in OPEC (if they were American citizens, they'd be sitting in jail for collusion and price-fixing).
Yeah, they're ruled by tyrants. About the only way to change that is to go in and overthrow them. Seem to recall a lot of the "civilized" world got their panties in a bind the last time that happened.
I guess the US could stop buying the 10 or 20% of their output that we buy, but I'm sure that France would be more than happy to step up to the plate and take our place.
And lastly, there's not a damn thing keeping them from developing their own oil extraction tech and from doing all the work themselves and keeping all that pay to themselves. Except for the fact that no self-respecting Saudi will tolerate being anything less than a mid-level manager.
What, you think that rich people are like Scrooge McDuck and keep all their wealth locked in a big vault? (I'm showing my age here . ..).
They spend the money, creating jobs.
According to *your* theory, over the last 50 years the US unemployment rate should now be at about 85%.
The average price of a new car has continually risen (above inflation).
The average size of a new home in the US is constantly increasing.
A higher percentage of the people in the US own their own home now than at any time in the last century.
More Americans are invested in the stock market now than at any time in the last century (well, maybe not counting the wimps who got out over the last few years).
Sounds to me like the average working stiff is doing a lot better than you think he is.
It's not a theory. He was stating facts. Facts that can be easily verified with google. I'm assuming you have internet access.
Check out the stock price for pretty much any high tech company over the last 15 years. Tell me you don't see a bunch of investors who were acting like retarded monkeys.
Which is why, I guess, it's a good idea to invest in those very same corporations, since they are (quite rightly) much more concerned about the stock price than with their employee. There's more than one way to "own" your own business.
And good luck with your future business. One of my friends started out as a mechanical engineer; he'd mow lawns after work and on the weekends. He eventually figured out he could make more money doing it full time. He now has four crews and takes home well over twice what he would be making if he was still an ME. And now he spends all his time calling on clients instead of pushing mowers.
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Get back to me when you turn 60. Or spend a summer in Texas. Or a winter in Minnesota.
The dinosaurs ruled the earth for well over a hundred million years.
Personally, I think that once the human race develops the technology to change the orbits of near-earth asteroids, the probability of the earth getting hit by one of them will go *up*, not down.
That would be a lot more believable if they had actually made fun of him on Southpark in the last couple of years. I don't recall them goofing on him at all, even before 9/11.
If it allows rich people to live forever, the laws of morality will change.
As for not allowing copies, well, if someone makes a copy of themself, and it's recognized as a legal entity, the person's assets will probably have to be split between the copies. The rich people wouldn't like that either.
Not trying to justify it, but I think it would be easy for people to rationalize the morality of it.
I've had pretty good luck at used book stores; have gotten five Banks novels in the last few months. Haven't gotten around to reading them yet though :(
Actually, Netflix started out renting out DVDs through the mail in the traditional manner. It was only when they were about to go belly up after nearly two years of struggling that they came up with the subscription model during a late-night barnstorming session in 1999.
6 43 ,49954,00.html
http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/print/0,1
After all, as Buckaroo Bonzai says, if it was obvious, everybody would be doing it. Nobody but Netflix has been doing what they've been doing for nearly four years.
If they hadn't patented the business method, somebody else would have, and then they'd be screwed blue and tattooed.
I'm expecting a check for $13 sometime soon because of, you guessed it, music companies colluding successfully.
And I haven't noticed the price of CDs going down since judgement was passed on them, either.
I can buy my gasoline from Texaco instead of Exxon, but I can only buy Radiohead from one label. Try comparing apples to apples.
*Every* country pulls this crap. US isn't worse than the others, and is better than most. The US pushes for free trade a lot more than other nations do. WTO probably wouldn't exist if the US hadn't pushed for it.
Any democracy is going to have huge pressures put on its leaders for protectionist policies. It's going to take a lot of time and effort to create free trade.
Well, duh, why do you think the WTO exists? I doubt that the US will be the only nation imposing tariffs on them for this, too. It probably won't get overturned by the WTO, either, because it's pretty obvious they're engaging in unfair trade practices.
There' smore than two memory manufacturers in the world, dude. They still have to compete with the other ones.
Tariffs are bad, but they are by far the best way to deal with foreign govt subsidies like this.
The other really big problem with the US steel industry is that there's about 5 retired steel workers for every current one (mostly due to decreased production and, like you said, improved productivity), and back in the day their unions negotiated really good pension and medical plans. The US govt is giving huge subsidies to the steel industry just to pay for that.
Punchline to the Best Joke Ever:
Yes, your Honor, I have two wives, and I think it's bigamy to admit it.
Do you know anybody who also has the extended FoTR DVD you can try on your XBox?
Did you read his post? He's got a girlfriend.
An even better idea: Put all the astronauts in a small capsule at the top of all the fuel. Give them an escape rocket that can pull them away in case of a problem. Use liquid fuel, so you can shut the pumps off so that in case of a problem, all the fuel stops accelerating while the capsule is pulled away from the fuel. And, we can name it after some ancient gods. It'd even be cheaper, too!
And by the way, even the Soviets weren't stupid enough to put SRBs on manned flights. Buran, their shuttle clone, had liquid fuel strap-on boosters. At least the Soviets were smart enough to only fly the beast once.
Do you really think it's better to ride on a pile of high explosives that you *can't* turn off than to ride on a pile that you *can* turn off?
They should focus on making an inexpensive, unmanned, reusable launcher. Maybe using microwave or laser propulsion. If they make it cheap, there's a market for launch services. If they make it reusable, it shouldn't be too difficult to evolve it into a man-rated version.
Forget lofty goals like JFK. The *only* reason the US went to the moon was it was about the only thing we could do in space where we had a chance in hell of doing it before the Russians did it.
I think you need to start taking your meds again.
Trade isn't meddling. Improving their standard of living by increased trade isn't meddling.
It wasn't too long ago when people in the US justified slavery by quoting the Bible. Abolishing slavery didn't destroy Christianity. Would you have objected if, 150 years ago, England or France had imposed trade sanctions on the US because we had slavery? Would you think it arrogant meddling?
The Hindu caste system exists, at its core, for economic reasons (castes are segregated by the job you have). And I never said to impose trade sanctions on India for having the caste system. However, increasing their standards of living will better enable the Untouchables to effect change on their own.
To withhold trade from other nations and keep them in poverty in the misquided belief that the world economy is a zero-sum game, now *that's* arrogance in its most extreme form.
It ain't just about the "corporate rape culture". It's about having clean water, sufficient food, health care, and the opportunity to improve the situations for themselves and for their kids.
The number one problem facing the world is overpopulation. The only way to prevent that is to get the nations of the world to get through the demographic transition. That means raising their standard of living. War, plague, pestilence, and famine aren't acceptable options, and, as can be seen in Africa, they don't reduce population, they just slow down the growth. You think you're going to stop a Brazilian from cutting down rain forest when his kids are starving?
And as far as "cultural identity" is concerned, funny you should mention that in a thread about India. Just read an article in National Geographic yesterday about the Untouchables in India. 160 million of them, and they're treated worse than blacks were in the US deep south in the 1930's.
Personally, I don't think American/Western culture is infesting the world nearly fast enough.
I guess you didn't understand what I was saying. When the US was a colony, the British used us for natural resources. It was illegal to have a loom in the colonies; we shipped them cotton, they shipped us finished cloth. They were preserving British textile worker jobs. Which is what you are proposing to do.
Read your history. Protectionism like you suggest was one of the main things that caused the Great Depression and WWII. A global free market *stabilizes* the world economy. The best hope for economic recovery in the US right now is the dollar dropping, which will increase exports and encourage foreign travel into the states. Do you think exports would increase if other countries were as protectionist as you would like the US to be? And believe me, if the US goes back to being protectionist, other countries will too.
Do you honestly believe the US can't compete internationally? Do you think we can't compete with Europe, with their bloated welfare state? Most countries are basket cases compared to the US.
It's in our interest to do what we do best, and sell to the world, and let other nations do what they do best, and buy from them. You can buy a $5000 cheapo car from Hyundia if you want, Chinese can buy Intel processors. Maybe you don't remember what American cars were like before the Japanese got into the biz. They sucked. Hard.
Taking your argument to the extreme, New Yorkers should be growing orange trees in greenhouses so they don't lose jobs to Florida.
What you're proposing would harm the US economy, not help it. Globalization *is* the USA taking care of its own. There's a lot more to the US economy than IT. It may suck for you (and me, by the way), but the benefit to the customers and the stockholders of the businesses that are doing what you so despise will more than make up for it.
And, guess what, in a few more years there'll be a couple hundred million more foreigners that can afford PCs, DVDs, etc. You know, the kind of stuff the US is good at making.
Believe it. There's about 22 million Saudis, and about 7 million foreign workers.
Saudi Arabia is home to Mecca and Messina. They're the keepers of the holy cities. Work is beneath them. Even other Muslim Arabs can't stand Saudis.
Google on saudi unemployment. The first hit says their unemployment rate is 30%. About as many foreign workers in their country.
I for one will not shed a tear when they run out of oil.
Why do you think they don't get paid? Where do you think Osama's money came from? Mowing lawns?
They can stop selling oil anytime they want. They have before. They can charge whatever the market can bear. They're the main guys in OPEC (if they were American citizens, they'd be sitting in jail for collusion and price-fixing).
Yeah, they're ruled by tyrants. About the only way to change that is to go in and overthrow them. Seem to recall a lot of the "civilized" world got their panties in a bind the last time that happened.
I guess the US could stop buying the 10 or 20% of their output that we buy, but I'm sure that France would be more than happy to step up to the plate and take our place.
And lastly, there's not a damn thing keeping them from developing their own oil extraction tech and from doing all the work themselves and keeping all that pay to themselves. Except for the fact that no self-respecting Saudi will tolerate being anything less than a mid-level manager.
What, you think that rich people are like Scrooge McDuck and keep all their wealth locked in a big vault? (I'm showing my age here . . .).
They spend the money, creating jobs.
According to *your* theory, over the last 50 years the US unemployment rate should now be at about 85%.
The average price of a new car has continually risen (above inflation).
The average size of a new home in the US is constantly increasing.
A higher percentage of the people in the US own their own home now than at any time in the last century.
More Americans are invested in the stock market now than at any time in the last century (well, maybe not counting the wimps who got out over the last few years).
Sounds to me like the average working stiff is doing a lot better than you think he is.
It's not a theory. He was stating facts. Facts that can be easily verified with google. I'm assuming you have internet access.
Check out the stock price for pretty much any high tech company over the last 15 years. Tell me you don't see a bunch of investors who were acting like retarded monkeys.
Which is why, I guess, it's a good idea to invest in those very same corporations, since they are (quite rightly) much more concerned about the stock price than with their employee. There's more than one way to "own" your own business.
And good luck with your future business. One of my friends started out as a mechanical engineer; he'd mow lawns after work and on the weekends. He eventually figured out he could make more money doing it full time. He now has four crews and takes home well over twice what he would be making if he was still an ME. And now he spends all his time calling on clients instead of pushing mowers.