You retort impetuously. You explained that material income was a deciding influence on your choice of career. You then said "If our society continues to tilt toward valuing nothing but the self directed accumulation of wealth...", which I took to be criticism of the freely exercised will of other people.
Saying one thing and doing another. Failure to live by standards you set for other people. Hypocrisy, yes? I picked you up on this because many on the Left fail to notice the double standard. They labour under the misapprehension that they would behave altruistically if only everybody else would do the same (first).
Those on the Left direct their critisism at their misconstrued notion of 'society' as some kind of abstract entity independent of its consituent population, and therefore deny accusations of hypocrisy made by those who see 'society' and 'other people' as one and the same thing. They make the same mistake by imagining 'the government' to be some abstract organ of infinite benevolence, when in reality it is a bunch of unproductive self-serving greedy bureaucrats pampering their own egos with other people's money.
If you want to extract some advice the least tortured reading of my post would be that people should definately consider money very highly in american society when making life choices.
Again, I see an implicit criticism of American society for being 'materialistic'. All you see is other people's greed, but your salary-maximising choice of career betrays your own covetousness. Hypocrisy, yes?
My understanding of basic economics enables me to see things differently. The demand for consumer goods creates jobs. For the majority of people, this is by far their greatest contribution to society, and a substantial contribution it is. Think about it. Try to imagine how much work was involved in making all the goods that you buy each month. Vastly more than you could ever do for yourself, yes? This is how 'greedy' consumers create jobs for other people (including poor people), without even realising it. The more money they spend (or invest), the more jobs they create. This is why taxation is so destructive.
Once a person's material needs are satisfied, they seek other means of gratification: writing open source, writing novels, creating art, tinkering with new inventions, etc, etc, in pursuit of which they spend yet more money and create yet more jobs.
Actually I think everyone should do pretty much everything I do (they can exchange my flaws with equal value flaws of thier choosing, of course). The world would be a damned nice place if people were more like me!
How magnanimous of you to grant me my own choice of flaws! If you decide to change 'what you do', will you let me know? I will assume (hope?) that this was not what you meant, but here's my advice to you: live and let live. Can you see the reciprocal consistency of this statement, and the nobility of the sentiment? The only morally justifiable demand that can be made of other people is that they obey the law. Anything beyond that is unconscionable tyranny.
I did not decry people for attempting to accumulate personal wealth given our current society, I do decry people for attempting to alter the structure of society so that the accumulation of personal wealth is more and more important and the distribution of wealth more and more lopsided. Of course for the most part they do not realize that this is what they are doing, they are just stupid.
Another snipe at 'our current society'. Individuals cannot 'alter the structure of society', only governments can. Some large corporations (especially in America) can exert pressure on the government to legislate in their own interests to the detriment of the wider economy (ie everyone else), and that is a very bad thing. Who is to blame? Government bu
So, you made a life-changing decision (which course to study) based on nothing more than 'self directed accumulation of wealth', but you decry 'our society' (ie everybody else) for doing exactly the same thing. Such is the hypocrisy of the left.
I think you'll find that 1/2 the people are overweight. The other 1/2 are underweight.
That would be true if 'overweight' were defined to mean 'above median weight', which it not useful.
Overweight is generally taken to mean 'fat enough to be at a significantly increased risk of heart disease/diabetes/stroke/etc'. One can safely say that a person fat enough to conceal an object in the folds of their skin is likely to be overweight:).
It's not socialism that we're trying to aviod in Europe. It's American-style capitalism.
We need to avoid both. A corporation that can influence government policy in its own interests is essentially part of an enlarged state. We even speak of the M$ tax already.
Now's the time to flood the (soon-to-be) newly formed software division of the EU patent office with patent applications.
No don't. This is exactly what the bureaucrats want. More work for so-called civil 'servants' and administrators = more money for government departments = more power and influence for politicians = justification for higher taxes = socialism creeping in by the back door.
I didn't express my point with sufficient clarity. In your original post you stated and then maintained that the severity of punishment does not influence behaviour. To spell it out, my criticism should have been:
'Severity of punishment' should be 'subjective severity of punishment'.
The subjective severity of punishment cannot be ignored as a motivator. Perhaps a better extreme example would have been the complete absence of punishment, which would render the chance of getting caught irrelevant.
Therefore the chance of getting caught is only one factor in the decision-making process.
And to keep it vaguely on-topic:
To be effective, any punishment directed at a corporation must be targetted at those responsible for the offending behaviour, and its estimated cost to those individuals (taking into account the chance of getting caught) should be sufficient to counterbalance the positive motivations for said behaviour.
> the severity of a punishment has been disproven as an incentive to not commit crime.
Oh come on. With all due respect I have to call bullshit on that...
For one thing, the 'severity of punishment' is not objectively measurable. To some, going to prison for 6 months is practically a death sentence; to others it's a 6-month holiday at their home-from-home. To some, the threat of being hung from the ceiling on fishing hooks would serve as a brutal deterrant, whilst others do it voluntarily in their spare time anyway.
> Especially because most criminals don't stop to think of the consequences of their actions anyway
Common sense would suggest that 'most criminals' quite correctly estimate that the chance of being caught and punished is so slight as to be negligible, and the punishment will be outweighed by its value as a badge of honour in their own community anyway.
Estimating the tradeoff between risk and reward (or penalty) is a basic function of all brains, including human. Both factors are essential in making a decision, and both are assessed subjectively. The estimated cost of an action is something like: (risk of getting caught)x(cost of getting caught).
> You won't speed if you know that you have a near 100% certainty of a ticket, even if the fine isn't that high.
If the fine is the same absolute amount for everyone, then it will deter some from speeding, but others (eg the rich) will simply consider it as paying for the privilege of speeding. If the fine were a uniform $1, most people would just pay it and speed all they like.
If the chances of being caught are negligible, then the penalty must be much higher to compensate. To make an extreme example, if the chance of getting caught for speeding was small, but the penalty was public execution for you and your family, who would risk it then?
Slashdot Mirror
You retort impetuously. You explained that material income was a deciding influence on your choice of career. You then said "If our society continues to tilt toward valuing nothing but the self directed accumulation of wealth...", which I took to be criticism of the freely exercised will of other people.
Saying one thing and doing another. Failure to live by standards you set for other people. Hypocrisy, yes? I picked you up on this because many on the Left fail to notice the double standard. They labour under the misapprehension that they would behave altruistically if only everybody else would do the same (first).
Those on the Left direct their critisism at their misconstrued notion of 'society' as some kind of abstract entity independent of its consituent population, and therefore deny accusations of hypocrisy made by those who see 'society' and 'other people' as one and the same thing. They make the same mistake by imagining 'the government' to be some abstract organ of infinite benevolence, when in reality it is a bunch of unproductive self-serving greedy bureaucrats pampering their own egos with other people's money.
Again, I see an implicit criticism of American society for being 'materialistic'. All you see is other people's greed, but your salary-maximising choice of career betrays your own covetousness. Hypocrisy, yes?
My understanding of basic economics enables me to see things differently. The demand for consumer goods creates jobs. For the majority of people, this is by far their greatest contribution to society, and a substantial contribution it is. Think about it. Try to imagine how much work was involved in making all the goods that you buy each month. Vastly more than you could ever do for yourself, yes? This is how 'greedy' consumers create jobs for other people (including poor people), without even realising it. The more money they spend (or invest), the more jobs they create. This is why taxation is so destructive.
Once a person's material needs are satisfied, they seek other means of gratification: writing open source, writing novels, creating art, tinkering with new inventions, etc, etc, in pursuit of which they spend yet more money and create yet more jobs.
How magnanimous of you to grant me my own choice of flaws! If you decide to change 'what you do', will you let me know? I will assume (hope?) that this was not what you meant, but here's my advice to you: live and let live. Can you see the reciprocal consistency of this statement, and the nobility of the sentiment? The only morally justifiable demand that can be made of other people is that they obey the law. Anything beyond that is unconscionable tyranny.
Another snipe at 'our current society'. Individuals cannot 'alter the structure of society', only governments can. Some large corporations (especially in America) can exert pressure on the government to legislate in their own interests to the detriment of the wider economy (ie everyone else), and that is a very bad thing. Who is to blame? Government bu
So, you made a life-changing decision (which course to study) based on nothing more than 'self directed accumulation of wealth', but you decry 'our society' (ie everybody else) for doing exactly the same thing. Such is the hypocrisy of the left.
That would be true if 'overweight' were defined to mean 'above median weight', which it not useful.
Overweight is generally taken to mean 'fat enough to be at a significantly increased risk of heart disease/diabetes/stroke/etc'. One can safely say that a person fat enough to conceal an object in the folds of their skin is likely to be overweight :).
The parent AC gives an example that should have been in TFA.
It's not socialism that we're trying to aviod in Europe. It's American-style capitalism.
We need to avoid both. A corporation that can influence government policy in its own interests is essentially part of an enlarged state. We even speak of the M$ tax already.
Now's the time to flood the (soon-to-be) newly formed software division of the EU patent office with patent applications.
No don't. This is exactly what the bureaucrats want. More work for so-called civil 'servants' and administrators = more money for government departments = more power and influence for politicians = justification for higher taxes = socialism creeping in by the back door.
'Severity of punishment' should be 'subjective severity of punishment'.
The subjective severity of punishment cannot be ignored as a motivator. Perhaps a better extreme example would have been the complete absence of punishment, which would render the chance of getting caught irrelevant.
Therefore the chance of getting caught is only one factor in the decision-making process.
And to keep it vaguely on-topic:
To be effective, any punishment directed at a corporation must be targetted at those responsible for the offending behaviour, and its estimated cost to those individuals (taking into account the chance of getting caught) should be sufficient to counterbalance the positive motivations for said behaviour.
> the severity of a punishment has been disproven as an incentive to not commit crime.
Oh come on. With all due respect I have to call bullshit on that...
For one thing, the 'severity of punishment' is not objectively measurable. To some, going to prison for 6 months is practically a death sentence; to others it's a 6-month holiday at their home-from-home. To some, the threat of being hung from the ceiling on fishing hooks would serve as a brutal deterrant, whilst others do it voluntarily in their spare time anyway.
> Especially because most criminals don't stop to think of the consequences of their actions anyway
Common sense would suggest that 'most criminals' quite correctly estimate that the chance of being caught and punished is so slight as to be negligible, and the punishment will be outweighed by its value as a badge of honour in their own community anyway.
Estimating the tradeoff between risk and reward (or penalty) is a basic function of all brains, including human. Both factors are essential in making a decision, and both are assessed subjectively. The estimated cost of an action is something like: (risk of getting caught)x(cost of getting caught).
> You won't speed if you know that you have a near 100% certainty of a ticket, even if the fine isn't that high.
If the fine is the same absolute amount for everyone, then it will deter some from speeding, but others (eg the rich) will simply consider it as paying for the privilege of speeding. If the fine were a uniform $1, most people would just pay it and speed all they like.
If the chances of being caught are negligible, then the penalty must be much higher to compensate. To make an extreme example, if the chance of getting caught for speeding was small, but the penalty was public execution for you and your family, who would risk it then?