It is again an example of inability to perform under stress. This only shows that people who can plan ahead cannot neccesserily think on their feet when the situation calls for it. It doesn't show inability to ineroperate... They did have trucks standing by and available. What I was saying is that if this was handled by a motley of private corporations they'd be suing each other over who should pay for buying the trucks and the trucks would never get bought.
I asked for an example of a more decentralized country with better broadband service. Clearly, I have to define what I mean by "decentralized". Specifically, I need to clarify how it is different from having low population density. I will define centralized country as the one where the density of population is proportionately high in the dense minicipal centers vs less dense municipal centers. More precisely, if municipal centers are ordered by the density of population, The more centralized country would be with the one higher H/L ratio, where H would be the people living in the cities in the top 35% in that order and L would be the number of people living in the towns in the lowest 35% of that order. I am claiming that US would be one of the least centralized countries. While even Canada would be more centralized. To put it simply, more people live in the cities in other places than do in the US.
On a different note, people site all kinds of anecdotal evidence about broadband available in some small towns in Canada, but that is not a statement about the availability of broadband in in all small towns of Canada.
Katrina is a non-example. It doesn't say anything about how government handles long-term infrastructure projects. It only says something about how government handles security and emergency situations.
The country wasn't realy settled until the 20th century. That is to say to urban centers appeared (off of east coast). The prime targets for internet infrastructure are the dense population centers. Most of the people in this country live outside of them because they can reach their services in reasonable time by cars.
Russia had horses, it had more land and it had comparable population. It is mostly urban. People settled close to services in the 20th century. Cheap gas allowed the distance from the services to be further while maintaining the time it took to reach them.
But you wouldn't mind having it ran as well as US interstate system, would you? For all it's troubles it's better than the roads in any country in the world (with the possible exception of Germany). And it's built by slacking unionized labor. Government sucks at building and maintaining infrastructure, but it doesn't suck at making it interoperate. Private interests are good at building and maintaining infrastructure, but they suck at interoperating with each other.
Here's a ridiculous sci fi scenario for you to consider. An electro-chemical device that can analize and synthesize tiny variations in electromagnetic spectrum to form a coherent view of objects it never comes in contact with. This is, of course, your visual system. If you can have a device sensitive to small variations in electromagnetic wave patterns, why not a device doing the same for small variations in magnetic wave patterns? And, of course, changes in electrical charge always produce magnetic fields... So your brain does produce a visible and signature on the real outside of it. If a device can be constructed that sees e.m. wave differences, why not magnetic wave differences? Extra sensory just means not detectable by senses we have right now. But there are other physical phenomena to detect. Sharks have an organ that can detect elctrical variations from a distance... But their sensitivity is to coarse. Sort of like the visual sensitivity of flies... only worse. But what is to say that Sharks' sensitivity cannot be refined? Why is this not a subject worth academic research?
Umm... no, gmail allows you to send and receive. As a matter of fact, I use it as my outgoing server. Very conveniently this allows me to not have to reconfigure my laptop all the time. Now spammers can hope accounts by creating one gmail account for every mass spamming they create. Before (when google knew who the root of the tree was) this could have been easily stopped.
By invitation only was a perfect way to protect against spammers signing up quickly. Well, not perfect, but at least you could always know who the root of the spam tree was and could handle the whole tree. Now they (at Google) destroyed the reason for their own success.
Ignorance of the law, indeed, does not excuse one from guilt for its infraction. This is was a very well known principle in the Soviet Union. It was a commonly repeated phrase. So a school teacher certainly knew that. But this doesn't matter. Gorbachev is asking for mercy -- not justice.
You assume that the end-effect of any process is absolute. Which is not the case. The show goes on. One company gets a temporary advantage and then another medium-sized player comes in. But by the nature of the fact that they keep fighting an honest (market-efficient) price emerges. I don't think killing competition is honest or dishonest. I certainly think it is the only ethical thing to try to do from the business stand-point. Dishonesty is would be launchin of a false-advertisement and such. The direct sense of the word.... rather than the sense that everyone wants to attach to it when they want to describe someone who is not playing "nice". Those who play "nice" are acting unethical. If both competitors play "nice", they are, in effect, colluding. If one of the competitors plays "nice" in the hopes that the others will, he is counting on some deranged idea of altruism in the hopes to encourage collusion. This is how mafia is ran. Mafia emerges to suppress ruthless behavior by competitors. As long as you don't steal (in the traditional sense of the word -- take something that doesn't already belong to you and that the owner hasn't given to you), don't cheat (again, in the traditional sense of the word -- promise one thing and deliver another), and don't lie, you are being honest. I'll repeat again, the only ethical thing to do during a competition is to ruthlessly do what is self-serving except when doing what is self-serving requires dishonesty.
I still don't buy the claim that it hurts the customers. I am pretty sure I addressed that point. And you don't have an obligation to be nice to your competition when you are in business. One could argue that the only ethical think in any competing situation is ruthlessness moderated by honesty.
Sorry, first of all (even if it's true) the squizeeing of the middle-class does not in any way follow from your argument. You are just taking the word middle and trasfering it from one context to another while borrowing the implications in the old context to make your point in the new one. It does not, however, follow.
To address your main point, however, so what? The alternative to a market where non-monopolists are free to compete however rough they want is a market that is government regulated. That is the market in which beuracrats rather than interpreneurs make decisions. That creates a less efficient market than any anti-competive behavior by non-monopolists. If you have to choose from two evils, why would you not choose freedom instead of a totalitarian system? Both governments and monopolies are totalitarian systems.
Further, this market is naturally limited to million dollar companies since the nature of the product is too complicated to be attempted by players with lesser capital. The only question, then, that reamains is fair to punish a company for attempting to increase its customer base with incentives. No doubt, one company increasing its customer base will mean another company loosing its customer base, but that is the nature of competition. This is HOW a free market establishes the most efficient price. It's A GOOD THING (TM).
Well, no, it's not bad. Because as soon as they jack up the price to $200, someone will come to the market and sell this product for $120 again. Anti-competitive behavior cannot be called that unless it is practiced by an established monopolist. While multiple players are competing for a dominant place without a single one of them being clearly dominant, any pricing practice is just excercising of free will... it's called freedom. Government that supresses that... well, supresses free markets and gives a relative advantage ALL other countries. Even the countries with less free markets get an advantage because the said country becomes less competivive in relation to them.
Well, predatory pricing is a ridiculous concept and Supreme Court has made it difficult (or next to impossible) to prove for a good reason. If it's YOUR product in a free country you should be able to sell it for any amount of money YOU deem appropriate. Well, try to sell... whether you actually do sell it at that price depends on whether you'll find a buyer who agrees.
This is not "insider trading". Publicly traded companies do not have to reveal deals in progress... That would ridiculous. The only way to comply with these kinds of demands would be to have cameras following every business executive of the company and have that broadcast real life. They only have to report on deals after they are completed. Discussing a deal in progress and even making it a part of a larger deal with a 3rd party is not insider trading. It's a legitimate way of doing business.
What is that supposed to mean? They are two companies free to negotiate whatever price they want with each other. It's their business and their right to do so. What the f**k?
Without getting too much into brain chemistry, anything that one is addicted to fools one into thinking that they receive more benefit from taking it than they actually do. That is actually by definition of the word "addiction". Microsoft has provided access to computers to people who are too stupid or to busy to learn to use a different system. These people have more free time because they can do tasks they could not do before because they can use computers. Most businesses that choose to use Microsoft do so because they have figured out way to be more efficient by using MS despite its shortcommings. Fast food is known to cause severe health problems with digestive and cardiovascular system. Better nourishment can be gained from less addictive food products. This is a long debate. It would be perfect for flame war. But I just wanted to make a general economic point and I wanted to be precise while doing it. The point was that was that if you create something that makes billions is used by millions and harms few, you are most likely making the world better for everyone, extending everyones lifespan directly or indirectly and deserve the huge compensation that you end up with. Money as the universal exhcange of "thank you" is a pretty good tool.
While the connection is tenuous at best, the logic is that SOMEONE always pays. Otherwise, the organization maintaining it can't afford to keep the lights on. So it must be fully paid for by the government in either a direct or indirect form. Whenever the government is the sole client, they have the ability to dictate the terms. This is why Soviet Union never had any Computer Science research. Because in the Soviet Union all research was government sponsored and Chrustchev decided that Computer Science was a "pseudoscience". I guess, to distill the argument, you'd have to say that ragardless of who pays for the research, the direction and validity of the research is either decided by the peer review or by a lay beuracracy. The professional journals are advocating the former while the likes of the Wikipedia advocate the latter.
Slashdot Mirror
It is again an example of inability to perform under stress. This only shows that people who can plan ahead cannot neccesserily think on their feet when the situation calls for it. It doesn't show inability to ineroperate... They did have trucks standing by and available. What I was saying is that if this was handled by a motley of private corporations they'd be suing each other over who should pay for buying the trucks and the trucks would never get bought.
I asked for an example of a more decentralized country with better broadband service. Clearly, I have to define what I mean by "decentralized". Specifically, I need to clarify how it is different from having low population density. I will define centralized country as the one where the density of population is proportionately high in the dense minicipal centers vs less dense municipal centers. More precisely, if municipal centers are ordered by the density of population, The more centralized country would be with the one higher H/L ratio, where H would be the people living in the cities in the top 35% in that order and L would be the number of people living in the towns in the lowest 35% of that order. I am claiming that US would be one of the least centralized countries. While even Canada would be more centralized. To put it simply, more people live in the cities in other places than do in the US.
On a different note, people site all kinds of anecdotal evidence about broadband available in some small towns in Canada, but that is not a statement about the availability of broadband in in all small towns of Canada.
Can you give an example of a more decentralized country that has better broadband access?
I am afraid that this one is even funnier because it's true. Soviet Russia did force large population re-settlements.
Katrina is a non-example. It doesn't say anything about how government handles long-term infrastructure projects. It only says something about how government handles security and emergency situations.
The country wasn't realy settled until the 20th century. That is to say to urban centers appeared (off of east coast). The prime targets for internet infrastructure are the dense population centers. Most of the people in this country live outside of them because they can reach their services in reasonable time by cars.
Russia had horses, it had more land and it had comparable population. It is mostly urban. People settled close to services in the 20th century. Cheap gas allowed the distance from the services to be further while maintaining the time it took to reach them.
But you wouldn't mind having it ran as well as US interstate system, would you? For all it's troubles it's better than the roads in any country in the world (with the possible exception of Germany). And it's built by slacking unionized labor. Government sucks at building and maintaining infrastructure, but it doesn't suck at making it interoperate. Private interests are good at building and maintaining infrastructure, but they suck at interoperating with each other.
Most of the contry was settled with the cheap gas in mind. So a large part of the population is decentralized.
esp does not mean seeing the future, so i don't see why one would assume that.
Here's a ridiculous sci fi scenario for you to consider. An electro-chemical device that can analize and synthesize tiny variations in electromagnetic spectrum to form a coherent view of objects it never comes in contact with. This is, of course, your visual system. If you can have a device sensitive to small variations in electromagnetic wave patterns, why not a device doing the same for small variations in magnetic wave patterns? And, of course, changes in electrical charge always produce magnetic fields... So your brain does produce a visible and signature on the real outside of it. If a device can be constructed that sees e.m. wave differences, why not magnetic wave differences? Extra sensory just means not detectable by senses we have right now. But there are other physical phenomena to detect. Sharks have an organ that can detect elctrical variations from a distance... But their sensitivity is to coarse. Sort of like the visual sensitivity of flies... only worse. But what is to say that Sharks' sensitivity cannot be refined? Why is this not a subject worth academic research?
Umm... no, gmail allows you to send and receive. As a matter of fact, I use it as my outgoing server. Very conveniently this allows me to not have to reconfigure my laptop all the time. Now spammers can hope accounts by creating one gmail account for every mass spamming they create. Before (when google knew who the root of the tree was) this could have been easily stopped.
By invitation only was a perfect way to protect against spammers signing up quickly. Well, not perfect, but at least you could always know who the root of the spam tree was and could handle the whole tree. Now they (at Google) destroyed the reason for their own success.
Ignorance of the law, indeed, does not excuse one from guilt for its infraction. This is was a very well known principle in the Soviet Union. It was a commonly repeated phrase. So a school teacher certainly knew that. But this doesn't matter. Gorbachev is asking for mercy -- not justice.
You assume that the end-effect of any process is absolute. Which is not the case. The show goes on. One company gets a temporary advantage and then another medium-sized player comes in. But by the nature of the fact that they keep fighting an honest (market-efficient) price emerges. I don't think killing competition is honest or dishonest. I certainly think it is the only ethical thing to try to do from the business stand-point. Dishonesty is would be launchin of a false-advertisement and such. The direct sense of the word.... rather than the sense that everyone wants to attach to it when they want to describe someone who is not playing "nice". Those who play "nice" are acting unethical. If both competitors play "nice", they are, in effect, colluding. If one of the competitors plays "nice" in the hopes that the others will, he is counting on some deranged idea of altruism in the hopes to encourage collusion. This is how mafia is ran. Mafia emerges to suppress ruthless behavior by competitors. As long as you don't steal (in the traditional sense of the word -- take something that doesn't already belong to you and that the owner hasn't given to you), don't cheat (again, in the traditional sense of the word -- promise one thing and deliver another), and don't lie, you are being honest. I'll repeat again, the only ethical thing to do during a competition is to ruthlessly do what is self-serving except when doing what is self-serving requires dishonesty.
I still don't buy the claim that it hurts the customers. I am pretty sure I addressed that point. And you don't have an obligation to be nice to your competition when you are in business. One could argue that the only ethical think in any competing situation is ruthlessness moderated by honesty.
Sorry, first of all (even if it's true) the squizeeing of the middle-class does not in any way follow from your argument. You are just taking the word middle and trasfering it from one context to another while borrowing the implications in the old context to make your point in the new one. It does not, however, follow.
To address your main point, however, so what? The alternative to a market where non-monopolists are free to compete however rough they want is a market that is government regulated. That is the market in which beuracrats rather than interpreneurs make decisions. That creates a less efficient market than any anti-competive behavior by non-monopolists. If you have to choose from two evils, why would you not choose freedom instead of a totalitarian system? Both governments and monopolies are totalitarian systems.
Further, this market is naturally limited to million dollar companies since the nature of the product is too complicated to be attempted by players with lesser capital. The only question, then, that reamains is fair to punish a company for attempting to increase its customer base with incentives. No doubt, one company increasing its customer base will mean another company loosing its customer base, but that is the nature of competition. This is HOW a free market establishes the most efficient price. It's A GOOD THING (TM).
Well, no, it's not bad. Because as soon as they jack up the price to $200, someone will come to the market and sell this product for $120 again. Anti-competitive behavior cannot be called that unless it is practiced by an established monopolist. While multiple players are competing for a dominant place without a single one of them being clearly dominant, any pricing practice is just excercising of free will... it's called freedom. Government that supresses that... well, supresses free markets and gives a relative advantage ALL other countries. Even the countries with less free markets get an advantage because the said country becomes less competivive in relation to them.
Well, predatory pricing is a ridiculous concept and Supreme Court has made it difficult (or next to impossible) to prove for a good reason. If it's YOUR product in a free country you should be able to sell it for any amount of money YOU deem appropriate. Well, try to sell... whether you actually do sell it at that price depends on whether you'll find a buyer who agrees.
This is not "insider trading". Publicly traded companies do not have to reveal deals in progress... That would ridiculous. The only way to comply with these kinds of demands would be to have cameras following every business executive of the company and have that broadcast real life. They only have to report on deals after they are completed. Discussing a deal in progress and even making it a part of a larger deal with a 3rd party is not insider trading. It's a legitimate way of doing business.
What is that supposed to mean? They are two companies free to negotiate whatever price they want with each other. It's their business and their right to do so. What the f**k?
just buy the guy out? His service sounds like something they would like to provide anyway.
May be they think it's a truck.
Without getting too much into brain chemistry, anything that one is addicted to fools one into thinking that they receive more benefit from taking it than they actually do. That is actually by definition of the word "addiction". Microsoft has provided access to computers to people who are too stupid or to busy to learn to use a different system. These people have more free time because they can do tasks they could not do before because they can use computers. Most businesses that choose to use Microsoft do so because they have figured out way to be more efficient by using MS despite its shortcommings. Fast food is known to cause severe health problems with digestive and cardiovascular system. Better nourishment can be gained from less addictive food products. This is a long debate. It would be perfect for flame war. But I just wanted to make a general economic point and I wanted to be precise while doing it. The point was that was that if you create something that makes billions is used by millions and harms few, you are most likely making the world better for everyone, extending everyones lifespan directly or indirectly and deserve the huge compensation that you end up with. Money as the universal exhcange of "thank you" is a pretty good tool.
While the connection is tenuous at best, the logic is that SOMEONE always pays. Otherwise, the organization maintaining it can't afford to keep the lights on. So it must be fully paid for by the government in either a direct or indirect form. Whenever the government is the sole client, they have the ability to dictate the terms. This is why Soviet Union never had any Computer Science research. Because in the Soviet Union all research was government sponsored and Chrustchev decided that Computer Science was a "pseudoscience". I guess, to distill the argument, you'd have to say that ragardless of who pays for the research, the direction and validity of the research is either decided by the peer review or by a lay beuracracy. The professional journals are advocating the former while the likes of the Wikipedia advocate the latter.