Yes, the DOJ supporting throwing this out comes as no surprise to me.
You don't seem to acknowledge that the attorney general is a named defendant in the case. IANAL but I would guess it is his job to defend the federal government from suits. He cannot just sit back and let the courts award whatever damages the plaintiffs ask for.
Considering using UTF-8 for export instead of direct Unicode.
UTF-8 is Unicode. It is one way of representing Unicode on disk. It is much Unicode as UTF-16 which is probably what you mean by "direct Unicode". They are just two different representations, like one's-complement or two's-complement integers. Both are integers!
Given the plummeting price of high density/small footprint hard drives, you could have both the volatile drive and the nonvolatile drive in a single low price unit, with backup to/recovery from the nonvolatile drive occuring automatically on startup and shutdown.
It needs to be more often than startup/shutdown! Many of us don't shutdown for weeks at a time. You would want it to continually copy things to the disk when there is idle time. But then you're essentially using the RAM as a really big disk cache which is where we are already today.
As I read the article, the whole point is to shift to RAM and save money at the same time. If you're buying the hard disk anyhow then you're shifting to RAM but not saving any money. And you may not be improving performance much over a massive RAM cache either. So I find it hard to be enthusiastic about this idea of backing up the RAM to hard disk.
I seem to recall that the DMCA was "justified" because it was written to be compliant with the WIPO / WTO treaties that the U.S. signed.
I've never heard of anything like the DMCA at the other 170 WIPO/WTO members. So it seems unlikely that the WIPO/WTO pushed this stuff on the US. The same goes for the SSSCA. Anyhow, who drives the rules making process at the WIPO/WTO...the Republic of Benin?
Because your ridiculously stupid consumption fucks up my world: it causes pollution,
Places with the worst environmental records are non-capitalist ones like the ex-Soviet Union and China. Your correlation of capitalism and environmental degradation is not just wrong, it is backwards.
it fucks up the economy,
Capitalism fucks up a capitalist economy. Brilliant.
it causes exploitation of people working in sweatshops abroad,
Right. There was no slavery before there was capitalism. And exploitation is worst in the most capitalist countries.
it fucks up my ability to seek a sane and reasonable balance of work/life (because you are willing to work 90 hours a week to by your 123131 fucking consumer-bit)
So he should adjust his hopes and dreams in order to help you achieve yours? If you want a 9-5 job there are lots of them out there.
, it generally fucks up my ability to live happily. By having 300 million selfish americans driving the worlds economy no one else can do anything other than bear down and adopt the system because if we DONT you'll eat everyone out of house and home (very fucking literally) -
That makes no sense. The US is agriculturally self-sufficient. Americans pay farmers not to farm because there is so much damn food around. You would deny this state of abundance to other countries in the world. Who is selfish?
leaving others with nothing and not caring a whit.
There was poverty in the world before there was capitalism. In fact, according to modern definitions of poverty, the whole world was poor until there was modern capitalism. Capitalist countries tend to be rich. Socialist (China, North Korea, USSR) countries tend to be poor. Socialists are the worst enemies of the poor. They think they are helping but they make the plight of the poor much worse.
People come to the West because they want what we have. We can give them what they want in their home countries by exporting democracy and capitalism. There are dozens of countries in the world that have made massive strides out of poverty by working according to democractic capitalist principles. Japan, Taiwan, all of post-war Europe, post-communist East Europe, much of central and South America. Please do not reverse the progress these countries have made by undermining the very technique that they are using to make progress.
A focused ban on unsightly billboards or spam is very different than a general ban on all "unsolicited commercial communication."
The original poster suggested the latter, not the former, and wrapped the suggestion in a bunch of half-thought-out socialist BS under the cover of environmentalism. It was a solution ("smash capitalism") in search of a problem("ugly billboards", "consumerist society", "trashing the environment").
That translates into real figures when we start talking about how much gas you are burning and how much garbage you are throwing out every week. You can't be completely unconscious of where all that styrofoam packing and cardboard filler goes after you're done taking it out of the box with your valuable stuff and putting it in your trash.
Do you really think that getting rid of billboards would have any meaningful impact on this? I'm ashamed as a leftist of what passes for critical thought on the left these days. Look: the market is a tool. If you want to reduce styrofoam consumption then you can do that in the capitalist system by imposing a tax on styrofoam.
You don't have to restrict people's right to free speech.
I propose banning all non-consentual commercial communication. That means public billboards, telephone calls and spam. etc etc.
Oh really? So my local pizza shop can't have a sign that says "pizza" because I haven't agreed to it in advance? Or maybe they can have a sign that says pizza, but not one that says "enjoy a Coke with this pizza." Or maybe they can have the sign but only if it is small. Give me a break.
Can the homeless guy ask me for money? Can a busker advertise his or her CD?
Why should the population have to endure a bombardment of unwanted messages when they almost universally detest them?
I don't detest billboards. I find them mildly ugly and occasionally useful.
Consumption (demand) drives capitalism, what are we going to do now that we understand the planet will never enable an equal opportunity (exploitation of the poor is the method that NorthAmericans and the G8 use to facilitate our own unreasonable waste and consumption)...
Capitalism gave you the computer you are typing on and the network we use to communicate. There is a pretty clear correlation between democratic capitalism and prosperity. How would it help the third world if we scaled back our lifestyle to be equivalent to theirs? We could shut down all of our sweatshops and they could have no jobs, rather than poor jobs, and no food, rather than little food.
Do you advocate an alternative to capitalism? If so, please name it. If you don't have an alternative then I'd suggest you stop trashing capitalism.
let alone that the planet is incapable of supporting 6 billion 'NorthAmerican lifestyles'.
The North American "lifestyle" is not a constant. It adjusts to fit the times. Many of our machines are much less resource intensive than they were fifty years ago. Non-polluting energy sources are on the horizon. Capitalism is the framework for discovering these solutions to problems. Have shares in a fuel-cell company because it helps me make money, it helps the environment and it helps feed the employees of the fuel-cell company. Capitalism is the solution, not the problem.
Polluting cars are a problem. But guess, what, non-capitalist countries have had polluting automobiles also. In fact they tend to pollute worse than ours! Once again, capitalism is the solution, not the problem. California's tough emission laws harnassed capitalism to funnel billions of dollars into alternative energy systems. Democractic capitalism offers the best hope of solutions to problems because it is a great mechanism for encouraging creativity and innovation.
If you want to be part of the solution you'll investigate ways to make capitalism compatible with the environment rather than trashing the only economic system that has ever been demonstrated to work consistently.
So, here is the problem, we allow* business to lie (market) in every way, using every channel at their own desire, to drive UP consumption - making our very real problem worse.
"We allow". Have you heard of rights? It is a fundamental human right for each individual or organization to communicate in almost any way with every other individual or organization. Although there are some limits at the margins (e.g. cigarette advertising is limited in many countries) the overall system is free. If you truly try to implement a system where unsolicited commercial communication is disallowed, you will need scores of draconian laws and thousands of policemen enforcing them every day.
The ironic thing is that you are quite open about your goal: you want to prevent corporations from encouraging certain patterns of thought. In other words you want to restrict free speech because you do not like what is being said. Does that sound right to you?
If you have a message that you want people to hear: shout it loud. But don't try to do so by shutting up your opponents through coercive laws.
You're compiling to Java bytecode and all the syntax structure of the language just isn't designed for the use.
Java wasn't designed for applets either. Java was largely designed for the Web was popularized. Jython applet/servlet code looks quite natural to me. In what sense do you think that the design does not fit?
Are there any Python scripts that have been turned into full fledged applets that are actually usable?
The goal is typically not to turn existing Python scripts into applets or servlets. Most often you want to benefit from Python's ease and speed of development while also leveraging the JVM's ubiquity. Many people just consider Python a much more productive language than Java and would prefer to use it.
That said, Jython is much more often used as a scripting language for otherwise-Java applications (server side or desktop). The ability to use it directly for applets and servlets is just a side benefit.
What code exactly are you going to trust? Without sandboxing you're left with the sort of security issues Microsoft gets bashed for ActiveX over.
I don't really know what you are saying that is different than what I said. You should only use client-side Python with XPCOM under the same circumstances you would use Active-X: when you trust the code you are running. I don't know how to say it any more clearly.
This isn't really a security "hole" anymore than RPM is. You should only use either when you trust the code you are installing with the permissions of the user you are running as. If you want to use Python in a client-side sandbox, you should use Jython.
Also considering no one programs anything in "jython" for the client side it isn't more convenient then using Java or Shockwave which people actually use in the real world.
The user asked about alternate languages to Java. Shockwave is not really a programming language and the embedded scripting language in it isn't really appropriate for many kinds of programs. I'm not sure why you are disparaging the existence of the option of Jython. If you personally don't have a project it is appropriate for, then just don't use it!
With Jython it is possible to make "Java" applets in Python. The first time you use a Jython applet, it downloads the Jython runtime which is slow. But it is much faster and more convenient than downloading a Java, Flash, Acrobat or ShockWave runtime, which many people do without complaint.
Standard Python could also be used in Mozilla through XPCOM but you would have to be careful from a security point of view. You could only really run trusted code.
You seem to be making several different and to my mind, unrelated points here. In other words you've lumped everything you hate about operating systems into one rant.
First you distinguish between the OS kernel and all of the other user-interface features that we typically call the "OS". Okay, that's fine. It's just terminological futzing but whatever makes you happy.
Next you start to rant: If you use a computer, you want it to do what you want. Most of the time, you want it to help you manage information. Most users don't even know that their computer *has* an operating system. Most users know that it's a really useful typewriter with an 'undo' facility.
This has nothing to do with your earlier terminology and it is just plain wrong. Most users can tell the difference between DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and KDE with Linux. Whenever you upgrade a user's OS you'll hear them say things like: "Where did that menu item go?." "These icons are different." and so forth. If you want to claim that what they are complaining about is the "shell" and not the "OS" -- whatever -- more terminological futzing.
What OS does your fridge run? your car? your microwave oven? your alarm system?
These systems have user interfaces that are substantially simpler than a computer. Computers do thousands of things and even relatively naive users want to do BOTH MP3 ripping AND email AND web surfing. So right off the bat you're talking about three interfaces that need to be somewhat consistent and you need a way to move information between them. That's where the OS comes in! It is the common substrate that they build upon. A toaster doesn't need any such thing.
If you know that you are running an operating system, you are either an OS hacker, or the OS hackers have failed to protect you from their work.
Call it an OS. Call it a shell. Call it a framework. Call it a runtime. Call it a VM. Whatever you call it, desktop computers need it to manage the flow of information between applications and toasters do not. So what's your point???
I was hoping that someone with more info would jump in. I know for sure that Python has been used for AI and scripting of PS2 games. And I know that there is a Python Game writing API (mostly used so far for old-style arcade games) called PyGame. I do now know whether PyGame itself is available on the PS2.
If not, I do not know how rich the Python APIs for the PS2 are. You'd better check with one of the guys who have done it (links in parent)!
Python has been used for commercial games on the PlayStation 2. I don't think that the development tools are on the Web because of Sony licensing. But if you know who to talk to and where to look, you can probably find them.
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There are many democratic countries that emply communist and/or
socialist principles to the great benefit of their people.
I'd appreciate an example of a communist country that has produced
great benefit for its people.
(Meanwhile, people in the US actually believe that socailized
medicine is a threat to democracy.)
I think the vast majority believe it is just not effective. The jury
is still out on that question. I wouldn't call health care provision in
any part of the world clearly "effective." There are trade-offs to be
made.
I am not suggesting that most communist regimes are not
totalitarian. They are. However, I think that our stance towards
totalitarian China now that they have warmed up to capitalism belies our
true motives.
There is a theory -- only a theory, but a credible one -- that says
that encouraging a capitalist market place also encourages
accountability, transparency and power sharing. There are a few
counter-examples like Singapore but the vast majority of countries with
a long capitalist tradition do seem to be fairly democratic and vice
versa.
Look around you. The world is getting to be a better place (last week excluded). The Chinese are getting richer. They are not as prone to random famines. They have more freedom. Money is flowing into India. Dictators like Marcos', Suhartos, Abacha and Pinochet are dieing off and being replaced by democractic leaders. Apartheid is dead. Just as the capitalists predicted, open markets and open societies are springing up around the globe.
It is no coincidence that the Middle East is one of the least globalized, most nationalistic parts of the world and at the same time is desperately poor and constantly in turmoil. The US could withdraw from the region but who would that really help? Who would it help when Syria and Lebanon invade Israel? When Saddam invades Saudia Arabia and then turns his eyes towards Iran?
I simply believe that they need to be bound to humanitarian
principles that are not currently inherent to their ideology. As long as
we agree that these systems have problems that need fixing, we need not
argue.
Fair enough.
Allow me also to point out that I presume to be no expert on the
conditions of sweatshop labor in the Third World. However, there are
sweat shops in the United States where people are held against their
will, forced to work without pay, and physically and sexually
victimized. I think it is a resonable assumption that conditions are at
least as bad in countries with weaker laws and human rights
protections.
Fine. But there is a huge gap between saying "there are slaves in
China" and saying "most Chinese people are slaves." The reports I get
from the Chinese people I see here are that most Chinese people are
not slaves. Nor most Mexicans or South Koreans or Cambodians or... we cannot by ourselves, prevent slavery throughout the world. But
before Chinese globalization/capitalism most Chinese people were
slaves in the sense that they were told what they must work on and had
no option of doing otherwise.
Finally, bin Laden considers us an enemy because of our military
presence in the Holy Lands of Islam and our support of a regime
considered corrupt becuase of their allowance of this affront. We are in
Saudi Ariabia to protect international trade and in furtherance short
sided energy policies that are paid for by multinationals.
No, I think that we are in Saudia Arabia because the Middle East is
an important and volatile part of the world for a variety of reasons.
One of them is energy policies which (short-sighted or not) are much
more demanded by the average joe on the street than by multinationals.
When the price of oil goes up average Americans start to talk
impeachment. A medium-length lack of oil could cause a worldwide
recession that would hurt poor people much more than rich. In the long
term maybe we would learn how to get by with less oil and everyone would
win but that is just a hope, not a guaranteed outcome.
I think most people agree that the major sticking point of
American-Arab relations is Israel, not Saudia Arabia. Bin Laden might be
able to whip himself into a suicidal frenzy about US bases soiling holy
land but his followers are surely much more concerned about the
Palenstinian situation.
To ignore this is to invite further retribution, and I consider
that to be an offense to the memory of those who have died in NY because
of our arrogance and greed.
America has done many things wrong in its day. If a Vietnamese blew
up an American plane in the seventies you could kind of understand. But
defending Saudia Arabia from Saddam Hussein -- no matter what the motive
-- is a righteous act. They have asked US troops to be there and America's goverment wants them to be there. They are within their rights.
The Israeli government has asked for help in avoiding the annilation that has been promised them over and over again by their neighbours and the US has agreed to defend them. The US is within its rights.
It is probably not hyperbole to compare Osama Bin Laden to Hitler because they both have messiah complexes, hatred of Jews and a fascist ideology. The fact that he hates the United States should be considered a badge of honour. It means America is doing the right things. America has brought this upon themselves in the same sense as a policeman who intervenes in a gun battle between two rival gangs.
If Americans start second-guessing the policies that protect Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from its neighbours, then OSAMA BIN
LADEN HAS WON. He will have cowed the most powerful nation on earth
into retreating from correct positions.
Since the end of the cold war, America has not attacked any country
that was not abusing its own citizens or those of another country. The US
has had no border wars in roughly 200 years. It is in these senses a
model (not perfect) world citizen. The Taliban is not. Iraq is
not. Just this once, the lines of good and evil are as clearly
drawn as they could be. Claiming otherwise is just sophistry.
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Not to sell products, no. But more often than not to protect markets and economic resources. Take the Gulf War as an example. Follow the money, you will be unpleasantly surprised.
The Gulf War is an abberation. Vietnam was not about protecting markets. Cambodia was not about markets. WWII was not about markets. WWI was not about markets. They were all about halting the spread of tolatarianism. The Gulf War was also conveniently a fight against a totalitarian dictator and was justified on those grounds no matter what the economic benefits were. My only concern is that US is not more consistent in applying this policy to, let's say, Africa. If commerce sometimes gets the US to do the right thing then that is better than nothing.
This freedom has always been a trojan horse, masking our self serving desire to aquire new markets and spheres of influence. In short, it is veiled Imperialism. We exported our "freeodom" to Japan (at gunpoint) in the late 19th century and it took less than fifty years for it to evolve into ruthless Imperialism.
For every pre-war Japan there is a post-war Japan. For every Columbia there is all of Western Europe. The world is moving towards democracy in fits and starts and capitalism helps rather than harms that move.
Co-incidence? Was that part of the solution for the rest of Asia? The fact is that we have a long record of turning a blind eye to anyone that does not contribute to our bottom line. Lets not forget the totalitarian regimes that we prop up whenever it makes economic sense. The fact is that freedom takes a back seat to economic expediency.
I agree that commerce usually takes precedence over democracy because we have direct control over commerce. We just agree to do it or not to do it. How can you enforce democracy from afar?
Third world citizens are are given no choice when it comes to globalization. They are sold out by their self-serving ruling classes.
This can only happen in countries where the citizens are literally slaves. If, as in India, Taiwan, South Korea, etc., they get to choose their jobs then they always have the right to choose otherwise. It is sad that they have to choose between working and starving but so do Americans. They would not choose to work in the sweatshops if they had some better option.
They receive none of the benefits of Global trade. Their politicians and bosses trade their labor for cash which they use to line their own pockets.
So does my boss. That's the system.
Globalism does nothing for these people other than encourage their further exploitation.
There are so many counter-examples. There are many third world countries with robust growth that have climbed up the value add ladder. Japan is a prime example. Taiwan is another. Poland's growth has been tremendous. Ireland. Really, all of post-war Europe. The United States had a thriving sweatshop economy for a long while. Are you familiar with the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire?
Africans are probably hoping that the other Asians make that climb sooner rather than later so they will have a shot at least at the sweatshop jobs.
Look: if we can reduce sweatshops through laws and careful buying then that's fine. But that isn't an argument against globalization. Sending money to those people in the form of wages is better than not sending them money and the only sustainable way of sending them money is through international commerce. If you want to fight sweatshops, fight sweatshops. Don't fight "multinationals" (as if they are all identical) or "globalization" (which is vaguely defined). And for God's sake, don't wage your vaguely defined campaign on the backs of those who died in New York City. It is offensive.
It turns their very lives into a commodity on a market over which they have no control. Corporations are not moving in to the Third World out of a desire to bring employment to desperate people. They are there to cash in on desperation.
Did I say otherwise? My boss cashes in on my (relatively less urgent) desperation also. I'll repeat that that's how the system works. Can we improve parts of the system? Without doubt. Should we abolish the system? No way!
Does this system have anything to do with the acts of these deranged fundamentalists? Not really. Afghanistan is not really very "globalized" and Saudia Arabia does not really have a sweatshop labour problem.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see how invading a nation and killing or subjugating its people for ecomic gain is any different than aiding an abetting this behavior by local allies.
So let me get this straight. You figure that living conditions and range of options in China, Mexico, South Korea and similar countries today are similar to those of the slaves in the old South. Okay fine. I give up. We have too little viewpoint in common for a useful conversation. Most people in the third world are NOT subjugated. They are poor. There is a tremendous difference.
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Who built Iraq into a regional superpower? Before we went to war with them we helped build them into the fourth largest military power in the world.
That has nothing to do with globalization. It has to do with geopolitics. Even if there were no Coca Cola or McDonald's, the world's greatest superpower would want allies and puppets around the world to help it promote its values. Today, as the US tries to figure out the logistics of retribution against Afghanistan it will be clear that friends in that part of the world are extremely helpful. Whether you agree with the retribution or not, the real reason the US has allies and puppets is for fighting wars, not for selling products. Globalization is not the enemy. I won't let anti-globalizers, er, hijack this tragedy to advance their anti-capitalist goals.
Of course the world has always been a fucked-up place. But America is most definiately a large part of the problem at this point in history.
I'm not naive enough to think it hasn't caused problems. But it is at least as large a part of the solution as part of the problem. It has been exporting freedom for centuries. I'm not even an American and I can appreciate that.
...
Your assumption that Globalism is too young a phenomenon to be responsible for current problems is lamentably naive. What substantive difference is there between Globalism and Imperialism.
Lemme see. In one you come in with guns and enslave the population. In the other you offer them products and offer them money in exchange for products and/or money in exchange for ownership of land and corporations. The difference is choice. If you were living in today's Congo you would wish you had the choice of buying and selling things internationally. My great grandparents were slaves in the Carribean. My cousins who are still there are impoverished consumers. There is a world of difference and really the comparison is offensive.
Globalism is just a more ambitious offshoot, characterised by a pernicious detatchemnt from its affects on humanity. At least the Imerialists of past centuries got into boats and did the dirty work of enslaving thier victims in person.
If you are so blind in your hatred of capitalism that you cannot distinguish between a) invading countries and killing those who oppose you and b) offering them the option of buying and selling things then we don't really have much common ground for discussion.
And once all of Africa and Asia reaches our standard of living, who is gonig to manufacture their goods for pennies an hour?
This is Slashdot. You should know the answer to that question. Corporations only delay automation while human labour is cheaper. As labour goes up in price, so does automation. You could make Nike shoes without either human interaction or particularly sophisticated robots.
And these social systems have always depended on exploitation. First of Native Americans, then African-Americans, then immigrants, and now the Third world.
That's bullshit. I'm looking around my desk. I have a a high-tech Cisco IP phone. That may have been made in the third world but certainly not in a sweatshop. I've got an IBM laptop. Not third-world stuff. I have a bunch of books. The paper for that stuff comes from here in Canada. The binding is done in the US. The value of the book is really in the knowledge which happens in this case to be from the US. There is some food. Except for exotic stuff, the food I eat is from North America. Except for exotic stuff I'm told that we are agriculturally self-sufficient.
There is a stuffed animal. That is probably from the third world. My clothes are likely from the third world. My shoes are from China.
Now I'm trying to understand what you would advocate. Next time I go to buy shoes, should I say to myself "hmmm. I'd better not send my money to those Chinese people. They'd be better off with it." Should I keep my money in North America to somehow help those elsewhere?
Much the same with technology. Factories made the wholesale exploitation of the working class possible. Later, automation made it possible to toss people out of the factories to starve.
So you admit that automation is an alterntative to cheap labour. There's the answer to your question about a rich-Asia/rich-Africa future. Also, what is this bullshit about people getting thrown out of the factory to starve? The US unemployement rate is extremely low by internationals standards. Can you demonstrate that it was even lower before there were automated factories? The way the economy works is that employment opportunities change. They don't go away.
Transportation and communication now make it possible to enslave people on the other side of the world to satisfy our appetites.
Offering people money for services is not enslavement. They started out poor. We all started out poor. The natural state of humanity is poverty. Look at how life spans have changed in the last few centuries. Look at how literacy has improved in the last few centuries. Look at how protection from the elements has improved.
Our methodology for achieving those improvements is well-known and well-documented. Now you would deny those in the third-world the same opportunity. And then you would claim you are doing them a favour.
You are quite right, the West didn't become prosperous overnight. Actually, in your grand view of wealth, learning and longevity, we still haven't. There are many within our borders, and the developed world in general, who are deprived of opportunity, education and health. Shouldn't we prove that our system works here before forcing it down someone elses throat?
The system works. The system is nowhere close to perfect. It leaves people behind. That is tragic and we should do whatever we can to fix that. I am a left-liberal: free education, free health-care, etc. But the basic system is better than the alternatives. I'd like to hear your alternative. North Korea? Maoist China? Pre-glastnost USSR? You show me an alternative and we can evaluate it.
If you are so concerned about the developing world, the least you could do is acknowlede the sacrifices they have made and the pain they have suffered so that you can enjoy your standard of living.
Suffering (in the sense of short life-span, and limited opportunities) is the natural state of human beings. When I offer my money to those in the third world I am offering them two things:
Resouces that they can use to improve their situation
A hook into the system that I benefit from myself.
I have no reason to feel guilty for that. Most of my relatives live in the developing world and our family history is about climbing the economic ladder thanks to commerce. It is extremely frustrating that there is a fuzzy-headed extremist faction of the liberal movement that would work against the goals of that movement in this manner.
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We are the ones doing the exploiting.
And here I thought that the dicators in places like the Congo and Iraq took some of the blame. It turns out that really it is McSociety. Self-flaggelation is an admirable American trait but self-aggrandizment is a little bit less appealing. If the US dropped off the face of the earth, it would continue to be a fucked-up planet because we are working out thousands of years of aggression, Imperialism and various forms of totalitarianism. That stuff doesn't work itself out overnight.
We already have the power to end it, but not the will. We would rather pretend that if people didn't have the crumbs that we toss them, they would have nothing. The fact is that these people were fine until we stepped in and sold the idea of urbaniztion and industry to agrarian populations.
What are you talking about? When was the last time that the Congo, for example, was "fine". When was Iraq a thriving agrarian population. I'm not claiming that Western society had nothing to do with the problems of those countries today. I'm claiming that nothing relating to the modern phenomenon called globalization can take the blame.
In our arrogance, we assume that anyone who does not have a TV and a car, or a shopping mall to visit is in desperate need of modernization. Thus, previously subsisting people were kicked off their land and hearded into slums to make way for cash crops and factories.
People move to cities because that is where the jobs are. It is a fundamental result of population growth. I would argue it is a law of sociology and economics. Who pushed us into our urbanized way of life? Aliens? No. It just happened. Population booms, farm technology improves and there just isn't enough work down home on the farm. This has nothing to do with globalization.
China is urbanizing. Do you think they looked across the ocean to us and said: "We'd rather be like them?" Hell no. Urbanization is a stage in the evolution of a society.
Most of the world will never be able to support the standard of living that people in the US enjoy.
That is merely a statement of pessimistic faith. We can, should and must help everyone in the world to achieve our levels of longevity and literacy. That is only possible by exporting our technology. It is incredibly cynical and defeatist to argue that we shouldn't even try to bring them up to our standards of living.
The only reason that we can enjoy our luxuries, is because they are built on the misery and deprivation of millions in the third world.
Absolutely not. Our luxury is primarily a result of our social systems which have evolved over hundreds of years and our technology which has evolved over thousands of years. Other parts of the world will get there also but it may not be quick because the West didn't become properous overnight and it may not be possible elsewhere either.
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It is one of the reasons he have explicitly mentioned for his declaration of war against the US.
Please provide a reference. Also, did he really use a word that is equivalent to globalization (i.e. a vague, newish phenomenon that has something to do with international capital flows, lack of transparency and democracy in international organization and the dominance of American brands). Or was he just talking about US economic imperialism which long predates the modern concept "globalization".
Big countries will try to control smaller countries around the world. That is how they project power into the world's various regions. This has nothing to do with globalization and everything to do with wanting to remake the whole world in the big country's image. That's how the world has worked for thousands of years.
Some people want to tie all of the excesses of capitalism and US imperialism together as if there is some common thread. Nike sweatshops, Nigerian dictators, war over oil in Kuwait. But these are specific problems that can be solved. In the absence of international trade there would be other specific problems -- there are dictators even where there is no oil. There are sweatshops even where there is no Nike.
Thanks to globalization we actually have a little influence over those doing the exploiting. We haven't "globalized" into Rwanda so we tragically didn't have enough "interests" there to get involved. I think we should have done something anyhow but had we had interests there we would have been forced to.
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I think that we agree on most points. But let's go back to the question that started it all. Is globalization to blame here? Let's define globalization as the increase in power of multinational companies without a corresponding growth in transparency and citizen control of multinational institutions. This is something so new that it can hardly be blamed for the problems of today's world.
The fundamental cause of the tension in the Middle East is here. Some would rather reapportion blame to a vague abstraction that they have a pre-existing problem with. I consider that obfuscatory rather than clarifying.
Those same people tend to present the "problem" without presenting a solution. "Smash global capitalism". "Destroy McDonald's" etc. Those are slogans, not solutions.
I have spent some of my time (not recently alas) fighting particularly abusive multinationals so I would be the last to claim that multinationals and globalization are onalloyed goods. But I fight specific evils in a specific way rather than attacking a meaningless abstraction or the concrete system which has benefited us so much.
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Thank you for pointing out this contradiction. I should write slower and think more. Saudia Arabia has strategic value from a geopolitical standpoint (as they proved in the Gulf War). They also obviously have financial value. This has nothing to do with any kind of recent phenomenon called "globalization" that involves trashing McDonald's and breaking down the doors at trade summits.
If anything, globalization would work against the Saudi monarchy because foreign companies who want to invest would like to know that that their investments are protected by laws and not subject to the whims of King's sons. Unfortunately Saudi Arabia has enough financial clout to dictate the rules. I highly doubt that Saudi Arabia is a very "globalized" country in the sense of a country where many important businesses are owned by outsiders and where insiders have substantial assets elsewhere.
I understand the problem but I think that it is somewhat self-limiting. What can a congressman do with the millions of dollars he gets from big Tobacco. He or she can't put it in his back pocket. He or she has to spend it on something that will get them re-elected (that's the whole point). No matter how much money you have, you will have trouble getting re-elected if you have been too obviously working against the interests of your constituents. There is a point of diminishing returns on financial investment. So there comes a time where you have to say that it is in your own self-interest to stand up to the corporations in order to save your own hide come election time. Why do you think that there are any laws on the sale of tobacco (for example) at all?
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This is an important point. Globalization is certainly not new. The amount of trade in material goods has not changed very significantly in the last century.
If the amount of trade is your measure of globalization and that hasn't changed very much then we aren't "globalizing" are we? We're maintaining our level of globalization. Do you want us to roll back to 19th century levels of trade? Is that what the protests are about? If this isn't your measure of globalization then why do you raise it?
What has changed, is the greatly increased importance of multinational corporations.
So is this "increased power of multinational corporations" globalization or not? Is amount of trade globalization? If not, why did you mention it? You give me your definition and we can work from there. Can you perhaps explain how the "multinationals" are at the bottom of all of these problems in the Middle East?
Pardon me for being blunt, but your first sentence here is terribly ignorant.
Fair enough. I was wrong. It really doesn't demonstrate anything about globalization. The US has bases in allied countries. That predates the "rise of multinationals" by many decades. The US does not have bases in the countries it has the most trade with (the "defending the profits" theory). It has bases in particular countries for historical reasons.
This is a common claim, but it demonstrably false. Large-scale international trade did not stop two world wars.
You're right. The essential links are democracy and capitalism. What two democractic, capitalist countries have fought a major war against each other?
Anyhow, it is very easy to swing sticks at strawmen. Globalization is an especially easy one because the "bad guys" are corporations. What are you proposing as an alternative? Cessation of trade? Outlawing of multinationals? Tobin tax?
Democratic caplitalism has solved more problems than it has caused and that is much more than can be said for competing systems. If you want to tweak the system, by all means, let's do so. But if you're going to argue against the whole thing you'll have to demonstrate that there is a deep problem and present an alternative that solves it.
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Yes, the DOJ supporting throwing this out comes as no surprise to me.
You don't seem to acknowledge that the attorney general is a named defendant in the case. IANAL but I would guess it is his job to defend the federal government from suits. He cannot just sit back and let the courts award whatever damages the plaintiffs ask for.
Considering using UTF-8 for export instead of direct Unicode.
UTF-8 is Unicode. It is one way of representing Unicode on disk. It is much Unicode as UTF-16 which is probably what you mean by "direct Unicode". They are just two different representations, like one's-complement or two's-complement integers. Both are integers!
Given the plummeting price of high density/small footprint hard drives, you could have both the volatile drive and the nonvolatile drive in a single low price unit, with backup to/recovery from the nonvolatile drive occuring automatically on startup and shutdown.
It needs to be more often than startup/shutdown! Many of us don't shutdown for weeks at a time. You would want it to continually copy things to the disk when there is idle time. But then you're essentially using the RAM as a really big disk cache which is where we are already today.
As I read the article, the whole point is to shift to RAM and save money at the same time. If you're buying the hard disk anyhow then you're shifting to RAM but not saving any money. And you may not be improving performance much over a massive RAM cache either. So I find it hard to be enthusiastic about this idea of backing up the RAM to hard disk.
I seem to recall that the DMCA was "justified" because it was written to be compliant with the WIPO / WTO treaties that the U.S. signed.
I've never heard of anything like the DMCA at the other 170 WIPO/WTO members. So it seems unlikely that the WIPO/WTO pushed this stuff on the US. The same goes for the SSSCA. Anyhow, who drives the rules making process at the WIPO/WTO...the Republic of Benin?
Python is not going to undergo a rewrite. That was the plan two years ago but Guido has since moved away from that idea.
Because your ridiculously stupid consumption fucks up my world: it causes pollution,
Places with the worst environmental records are non-capitalist ones like the ex-Soviet Union and China. Your correlation of capitalism and environmental degradation is not just wrong, it is backwards.
it fucks up the economy,
Capitalism fucks up a capitalist economy. Brilliant.
it causes exploitation of people working in sweatshops abroad,
Right. There was no slavery before there was capitalism. And exploitation is worst in the most capitalist countries.
it fucks up my ability to seek a sane and reasonable balance of work/life (because you are willing to work 90 hours a week to by your 123131 fucking consumer-bit)
So he should adjust his hopes and dreams in order to help you achieve yours? If you want a 9-5 job there are lots of them out there.
, it generally fucks up my ability to live happily. By having 300 million selfish americans driving the worlds economy no one else can do anything other than bear down and adopt the system because if we DONT you'll eat everyone out of house and home (very fucking literally) -
That makes no sense. The US is agriculturally self-sufficient. Americans pay farmers not to farm because there is so much damn food around. You would deny this state of abundance to other countries in the world. Who is selfish?
leaving others with nothing and not caring a whit.
There was poverty in the world before there was capitalism. In fact, according to modern definitions of poverty, the whole world was poor until there was modern capitalism. Capitalist countries tend to be rich. Socialist (China, North Korea, USSR) countries tend to be poor. Socialists are the worst enemies of the poor. They think they are helping but they make the plight of the poor much worse.
People come to the West because they want what we have. We can give them what they want in their home countries by exporting democracy and capitalism. There are dozens of countries in the world that have made massive strides out of poverty by working according to democractic capitalist principles. Japan, Taiwan, all of post-war Europe, post-communist East Europe, much of central and South America. Please do not reverse the progress these countries have made by undermining the very technique that they are using to make progress.
A focused ban on unsightly billboards or spam is very different than a general ban on all "unsolicited commercial communication." The original poster suggested the latter, not the former, and wrapped the suggestion in a bunch of half-thought-out socialist BS under the cover of environmentalism. It was a solution ("smash capitalism") in search of a problem("ugly billboards", "consumerist society", "trashing the environment").
That translates into real figures when we start talking about how much gas you are burning and how much garbage you are throwing out every week. You can't be completely unconscious of where all that styrofoam packing and cardboard filler goes after you're done taking it out of the box with your valuable stuff and putting it in your trash.
Do you really think that getting rid of billboards would have any meaningful impact on this? I'm ashamed as a leftist of what passes for critical thought on the left these days. Look: the market is a tool. If you want to reduce styrofoam consumption then you can do that in the capitalist system by imposing a tax on styrofoam. You don't have to restrict people's right to free speech.
I propose banning all non-consentual commercial communication. That means public billboards, telephone calls and spam. etc etc.
Oh really? So my local pizza shop can't have a sign that says "pizza" because I haven't agreed to it in advance? Or maybe they can have a sign that says pizza, but not one that says "enjoy a Coke with this pizza." Or maybe they can have the sign but only if it is small. Give me a break.
Can the homeless guy ask me for money? Can a busker advertise his or her CD?
Why should the population have to endure a bombardment of unwanted messages when they almost universally detest them?
I don't detest billboards. I find them mildly ugly and occasionally useful.
Consumption (demand) drives capitalism, what are we going to do now that we understand the planet will never enable an equal opportunity (exploitation of the poor is the method that NorthAmericans and the G8 use to facilitate our own unreasonable waste and consumption)...
Capitalism gave you the computer you are typing on and the network we use to communicate. There is a pretty clear correlation between democratic capitalism and prosperity. How would it help the third world if we scaled back our lifestyle to be equivalent to theirs? We could shut down all of our sweatshops and they could have no jobs, rather than poor jobs, and no food, rather than little food.
Do you advocate an alternative to capitalism? If so, please name it. If you don't have an alternative then I'd suggest you stop trashing capitalism.
let alone that the planet is incapable of supporting 6 billion 'NorthAmerican lifestyles'.
The North American "lifestyle" is not a constant. It adjusts to fit the times. Many of our machines are much less resource intensive than they were fifty years ago. Non-polluting energy sources are on the horizon. Capitalism is the framework for discovering these solutions to problems. Have shares in a fuel-cell company because it helps me make money, it helps the environment and it helps feed the employees of the fuel-cell company. Capitalism is the solution, not the problem.
Polluting cars are a problem. But guess, what, non-capitalist countries have had polluting automobiles also. In fact they tend to pollute worse than ours! Once again, capitalism is the solution, not the problem. California's tough emission laws harnassed capitalism to funnel billions of dollars into alternative energy systems. Democractic capitalism offers the best hope of solutions to problems because it is a great mechanism for encouraging creativity and innovation.
If you want to be part of the solution you'll investigate ways to make capitalism compatible with the environment rather than trashing the only economic system that has ever been demonstrated to work consistently.
So, here is the problem, we allow* business to lie (market) in every way, using every channel at their own desire, to drive UP consumption - making our very real problem worse.
"We allow". Have you heard of rights? It is a fundamental human right for each individual or organization to communicate in almost any way with every other individual or organization. Although there are some limits at the margins (e.g. cigarette advertising is limited in many countries) the overall system is free. If you truly try to implement a system where unsolicited commercial communication is disallowed, you will need scores of draconian laws and thousands of policemen enforcing them every day.
The ironic thing is that you are quite open about your goal: you want to prevent corporations from encouraging certain patterns of thought. In other words you want to restrict free speech because you do not like what is being said. Does that sound right to you?
If you have a message that you want people to hear: shout it loud. But don't try to do so by shutting up your opponents through coercive laws.
It takes a big man to admit that he can't hold his booze. Too bad the moderators didn't catch it!
You're compiling to Java bytecode and all the syntax structure of the language just isn't designed for the use.
Java wasn't designed for applets either. Java was largely designed for the Web was popularized. Jython applet/servlet code looks quite natural to me. In what sense do you think that the design does not fit?
Are there any Python scripts that have been turned into full fledged applets that are actually usable?
The goal is typically not to turn existing Python scripts into applets or servlets. Most often you want to benefit from Python's ease and speed of development while also leveraging the JVM's ubiquity. Many people just consider Python a much more productive language than Java and would prefer to use it.
That said, Jython is much more often used as a scripting language for otherwise-Java applications (server side or desktop). The ability to use it directly for applets and servlets is just a side benefit.
Paul PrescodWhat code exactly are you going to trust? Without sandboxing you're left with the sort of security issues Microsoft gets bashed for ActiveX over.
I don't really know what you are saying that is different than what I said. You should only use client-side Python with XPCOM under the same circumstances you would use Active-X: when you trust the code you are running. I don't know how to say it any more clearly.
This isn't really a security "hole" anymore than RPM is. You should only use either when you trust the code you are installing with the permissions of the user you are running as. If you want to use Python in a client-side sandbox, you should use Jython.
Also considering no one programs anything in "jython" for the client side it isn't more convenient then using Java or Shockwave which people actually use in the real world.
The user asked about alternate languages to Java. Shockwave is not really a programming language and the embedded scripting language in it isn't really appropriate for many kinds of programs. I'm not sure why you are disparaging the existence of the option of Jython. If you personally don't have a project it is appropriate for, then just don't use it!
-- Paul PrescodStandard Python could also be used in Mozilla through XPCOM but you would have to be careful from a security point of view. You could only really run trusted code.
You seem to be making several different and to my mind, unrelated points here. In other words you've lumped everything you hate about operating systems into one rant.
First you distinguish between the OS kernel and all of the other user-interface features that we typically call the "OS". Okay, that's fine. It's just terminological futzing but whatever makes you happy.
Next you start to rant: If you use a computer, you want it to do what you want. Most of the time, you want it to help you manage information. Most users don't even know that their computer *has* an operating system. Most users know that it's a really useful typewriter with an 'undo' facility.
This has nothing to do with your earlier terminology and it is just plain wrong. Most users can tell the difference between DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and KDE with Linux. Whenever you upgrade a user's OS you'll hear them say things like: "Where did that menu item go?." "These icons are different." and so forth. If you want to claim that what they are complaining about is the "shell" and not the "OS" -- whatever -- more terminological futzing.
What OS does your fridge run? your car? your microwave oven? your alarm system?
These systems have user interfaces that are substantially simpler than a computer. Computers do thousands of things and even relatively naive users want to do BOTH MP3 ripping AND email AND web surfing. So right off the bat you're talking about three interfaces that need to be somewhat consistent and you need a way to move information between them. That's where the OS comes in! It is the common substrate that they build upon. A toaster doesn't need any such thing.
If you know that you are running an operating system, you are either an OS hacker, or the OS hackers have failed to protect you from their work.
Call it an OS. Call it a shell. Call it a framework. Call it a runtime. Call it a VM. Whatever you call it, desktop computers need it to manage the flow of information between applications and toasters do not. So what's your point???
I was hoping that someone with more info would jump in. I know for sure that Python has been used for AI and scripting of PS2 games. And I know that there is a Python Game writing API (mostly used so far for old-style arcade games) called PyGame. I do now know whether PyGame itself is available on the PS2.
If not, I do not know how rich the Python APIs for the PS2 are. You'd better check with one of the guys who have done it (links in parent)!
Python has been used for commercial games on the PlayStation 2. I don't think that the development tools are on the Web because of Sony licensing. But if you know who to talk to and where to look, you can probably find them.
There are many democratic countries that emply communist and/or socialist principles to the great benefit of their people.
I'd appreciate an example of a communist country that has produced great benefit for its people.
(Meanwhile, people in the US actually believe that socailized medicine is a threat to democracy.)
I think the vast majority believe it is just not effective. The jury is still out on that question. I wouldn't call health care provision in any part of the world clearly "effective." There are trade-offs to be made.
I am not suggesting that most communist regimes are not totalitarian. They are. However, I think that our stance towards totalitarian China now that they have warmed up to capitalism belies our true motives.
There is a theory -- only a theory, but a credible one -- that says that encouraging a capitalist market place also encourages accountability, transparency and power sharing. There are a few counter-examples like Singapore but the vast majority of countries with a long capitalist tradition do seem to be fairly democratic and vice versa.
Look around you. The world is getting to be a better place (last week excluded). The Chinese are getting richer. They are not as prone to random famines. They have more freedom. Money is flowing into India. Dictators like Marcos', Suhartos, Abacha and Pinochet are dieing off and being replaced by democractic leaders. Apartheid is dead. Just as the capitalists predicted, open markets and open societies are springing up around the globe.
It is no coincidence that the Middle East is one of the least globalized, most nationalistic parts of the world and at the same time is desperately poor and constantly in turmoil. The US could withdraw from the region but who would that really help? Who would it help when Syria and Lebanon invade Israel? When Saddam invades Saudia Arabia and then turns his eyes towards Iran?
I simply believe that they need to be bound to humanitarian principles that are not currently inherent to their ideology. As long as we agree that these systems have problems that need fixing, we need not argue.
Fair enough.
Allow me also to point out that I presume to be no expert on the conditions of sweatshop labor in the Third World. However, there are sweat shops in the United States where people are held against their will, forced to work without pay, and physically and sexually victimized. I think it is a resonable assumption that conditions are at least as bad in countries with weaker laws and human rights protections.
Fine. But there is a huge gap between saying "there are slaves in China" and saying "most Chinese people are slaves." The reports I get from the Chinese people I see here are that most Chinese people are not slaves. Nor most Mexicans or South Koreans or Cambodians or ... we cannot by ourselves, prevent slavery throughout the world. But
before Chinese globalization/capitalism most Chinese people were
slaves in the sense that they were told what they must work on and had
no option of doing otherwise.
Finally, bin Laden considers us an enemy because of our military presence in the Holy Lands of Islam and our support of a regime considered corrupt becuase of their allowance of this affront. We are in Saudi Ariabia to protect international trade and in furtherance short sided energy policies that are paid for by multinationals.
No, I think that we are in Saudia Arabia because the Middle East is an important and volatile part of the world for a variety of reasons. One of them is energy policies which (short-sighted or not) are much more demanded by the average joe on the street than by multinationals. When the price of oil goes up average Americans start to talk impeachment. A medium-length lack of oil could cause a worldwide recession that would hurt poor people much more than rich. In the long term maybe we would learn how to get by with less oil and everyone would win but that is just a hope, not a guaranteed outcome.
I think most people agree that the major sticking point of American-Arab relations is Israel, not Saudia Arabia. Bin Laden might be able to whip himself into a suicidal frenzy about US bases soiling holy land but his followers are surely much more concerned about the Palenstinian situation.
To ignore this is to invite further retribution, and I consider that to be an offense to the memory of those who have died in NY because of our arrogance and greed.
America has done many things wrong in its day. If a Vietnamese blew up an American plane in the seventies you could kind of understand. But defending Saudia Arabia from Saddam Hussein -- no matter what the motive -- is a righteous act. They have asked US troops to be there and America's goverment wants them to be there. They are within their rights.
The Israeli government has asked for help in avoiding the annilation that has been promised them over and over again by their neighbours and the US has agreed to defend them. The US is within its rights.
It is probably not hyperbole to compare Osama Bin Laden to Hitler because they both have messiah complexes, hatred of Jews and a fascist ideology. The fact that he hates the United States should be considered a badge of honour. It means America is doing the right things. America has brought this upon themselves in the same sense as a policeman who intervenes in a gun battle between two rival gangs.
If Americans start second-guessing the policies that protect Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from its neighbours, then OSAMA BIN LADEN HAS WON. He will have cowed the most powerful nation on earth into retreating from correct positions.
Since the end of the cold war, America has not attacked any country that was not abusing its own citizens or those of another country. The US has had no border wars in roughly 200 years. It is in these senses a model (not perfect) world citizen. The Taliban is not. Iraq is not. Just this once, the lines of good and evil are as clearly drawn as they could be. Claiming otherwise is just sophistry.
Not to sell products, no. But more often than not to protect markets and economic resources. Take the Gulf War as an example. Follow the money, you will be unpleasantly surprised.
The Gulf War is an abberation. Vietnam was not about protecting markets. Cambodia was not about markets. WWII was not about markets. WWI was not about markets. They were all about halting the spread of tolatarianism. The Gulf War was also conveniently a fight against a totalitarian dictator and was justified on those grounds no matter what the economic benefits were. My only concern is that US is not more consistent in applying this policy to, let's say, Africa. If commerce sometimes gets the US to do the right thing then that is better than nothing.
This freedom has always been a trojan horse, masking our self serving desire to aquire new markets and spheres of influence. In short, it is veiled Imperialism. We exported our "freeodom" to Japan (at gunpoint) in the late 19th century and it took less than fifty years for it to evolve into ruthless Imperialism.
For every pre-war Japan there is a post-war Japan. For every Columbia there is all of Western Europe. The world is moving towards democracy in fits and starts and capitalism helps rather than harms that move.
Co-incidence? Was that part of the solution for the rest of Asia? The fact is that we have a long record of turning a blind eye to anyone that does not contribute to our bottom line. Lets not forget the totalitarian regimes that we prop up whenever it makes economic sense. The fact is that freedom takes a back seat to economic expediency.
I agree that commerce usually takes precedence over democracy because we have direct control over commerce. We just agree to do it or not to do it. How can you enforce democracy from afar?
Third world citizens are are given no choice when it comes to globalization. They are sold out by their self-serving ruling classes.
This can only happen in countries where the citizens are literally slaves. If, as in India, Taiwan, South Korea, etc., they get to choose their jobs then they always have the right to choose otherwise. It is sad that they have to choose between working and starving but so do Americans. They would not choose to work in the sweatshops if they had some better option.
They receive none of the benefits of Global trade. Their politicians and bosses trade their labor for cash which they use to line their own pockets.
So does my boss. That's the system.
Globalism does nothing for these people other than encourage their further exploitation.
There are so many counter-examples. There are many third world countries with robust growth that have climbed up the value add ladder. Japan is a prime example. Taiwan is another. Poland's growth has been tremendous. Ireland. Really, all of post-war Europe. The United States had a thriving sweatshop economy for a long while. Are you familiar with the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire?
Africans are probably hoping that the other Asians make that climb sooner rather than later so they will have a shot at least at the sweatshop jobs.
Look: if we can reduce sweatshops through laws and careful buying then that's fine. But that isn't an argument against globalization. Sending money to those people in the form of wages is better than not sending them money and the only sustainable way of sending them money is through international commerce. If you want to fight sweatshops, fight sweatshops. Don't fight "multinationals" (as if they are all identical) or "globalization" (which is vaguely defined). And for God's sake, don't wage your vaguely defined campaign on the backs of those who died in New York City. It is offensive.
It turns their very lives into a commodity on a market over which they have no control. Corporations are not moving in to the Third World out of a desire to bring employment to desperate people. They are there to cash in on desperation.
Did I say otherwise? My boss cashes in on my (relatively less urgent) desperation also. I'll repeat that that's how the system works. Can we improve parts of the system? Without doubt. Should we abolish the system? No way!
Does this system have anything to do with the acts of these deranged fundamentalists? Not really. Afghanistan is not really very "globalized" and Saudia Arabia does not really have a sweatshop labour problem.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see how invading a nation and killing or subjugating its people for ecomic gain is any different than aiding an abetting this behavior by local allies.
So let me get this straight. You figure that living conditions and range of options in China, Mexico, South Korea and similar countries today are similar to those of the slaves in the old South. Okay fine. I give up. We have too little viewpoint in common for a useful conversation. Most people in the third world are NOT subjugated. They are poor. There is a tremendous difference.
Who built Iraq into a regional superpower? Before we went to war with them we helped build them into the fourth largest military power in the world.
That has nothing to do with globalization. It has to do with geopolitics. Even if there were no Coca Cola or McDonald's, the world's greatest superpower would want allies and puppets around the world to help it promote its values. Today, as the US tries to figure out the logistics of retribution against Afghanistan it will be clear that friends in that part of the world are extremely helpful. Whether you agree with the retribution or not, the real reason the US has allies and puppets is for fighting wars, not for selling products. Globalization is not the enemy. I won't let anti-globalizers, er, hijack this tragedy to advance their anti-capitalist goals.
Of course the world has always been a fucked-up place. But America is most definiately a large part of the problem at this point in history.
I'm not naive enough to think it hasn't caused problems. But it is at least as large a part of the solution as part of the problem. It has been exporting freedom for centuries. I'm not even an American and I can appreciate that.
Your assumption that Globalism is too young a phenomenon to be responsible for current problems is lamentably naive. What substantive difference is there between Globalism and Imperialism.
Lemme see. In one you come in with guns and enslave the population. In the other you offer them products and offer them money in exchange for products and/or money in exchange for ownership of land and corporations. The difference is choice. If you were living in today's Congo you would wish you had the choice of buying and selling things internationally. My great grandparents were slaves in the Carribean. My cousins who are still there are impoverished consumers. There is a world of difference and really the comparison is offensive.
Globalism is just a more ambitious offshoot, characterised by a pernicious detatchemnt from its affects on humanity. At least the Imerialists of past centuries got into boats and did the dirty work of enslaving thier victims in person.
If you are so blind in your hatred of capitalism that you cannot distinguish between a) invading countries and killing those who oppose you and b) offering them the option of buying and selling things then we don't really have much common ground for discussion.
And once all of Africa and Asia reaches our standard of living, who is gonig to manufacture their goods for pennies an hour?
This is Slashdot. You should know the answer to that question. Corporations only delay automation while human labour is cheaper. As labour goes up in price, so does automation. You could make Nike shoes without either human interaction or particularly sophisticated robots.
And these social systems have always depended on exploitation. First of Native Americans, then African-Americans, then immigrants, and now the Third world.
That's bullshit. I'm looking around my desk. I have a a high-tech Cisco IP phone. That may have been made in the third world but certainly not in a sweatshop. I've got an IBM laptop. Not third-world stuff. I have a bunch of books. The paper for that stuff comes from here in Canada. The binding is done in the US. The value of the book is really in the knowledge which happens in this case to be from the US. There is some food. Except for exotic stuff, the food I eat is from North America. Except for exotic stuff I'm told that we are agriculturally self-sufficient.
There is a stuffed animal. That is probably from the third world. My clothes are likely from the third world. My shoes are from China.
Now I'm trying to understand what you would advocate. Next time I go to buy shoes, should I say to myself "hmmm. I'd better not send my money to those Chinese people. They'd be better off with it." Should I keep my money in North America to somehow help those elsewhere?
Much the same with technology. Factories made the wholesale exploitation of the working class possible. Later, automation made it possible to toss people out of the factories to starve.
So you admit that automation is an alterntative to cheap labour. There's the answer to your question about a rich-Asia/rich-Africa future. Also, what is this bullshit about people getting thrown out of the factory to starve? The US unemployement rate is extremely low by internationals standards. Can you demonstrate that it was even lower before there were automated factories? The way the economy works is that employment opportunities change. They don't go away.
Transportation and communication now make it possible to enslave people on the other side of the world to satisfy our appetites.
Offering people money for services is not enslavement. They started out poor. We all started out poor. The natural state of humanity is poverty. Look at how life spans have changed in the last few centuries. Look at how literacy has improved in the last few centuries. Look at how protection from the elements has improved.
Our methodology for achieving those improvements is well-known and well-documented. Now you would deny those in the third-world the same opportunity. And then you would claim you are doing them a favour.
You are quite right, the West didn't become prosperous overnight. Actually, in your grand view of wealth, learning and longevity, we still haven't. There are many within our borders, and the developed world in general, who are deprived of opportunity, education and health. Shouldn't we prove that our system works here before forcing it down someone elses throat?
The system works. The system is nowhere close to perfect. It leaves people behind. That is tragic and we should do whatever we can to fix that. I am a left-liberal: free education, free health-care, etc. But the basic system is better than the alternatives. I'd like to hear your alternative. North Korea? Maoist China? Pre-glastnost USSR? You show me an alternative and we can evaluate it.
If you are so concerned about the developing world, the least you could do is acknowlede the sacrifices they have made and the pain they have suffered so that you can enjoy your standard of living.
Suffering (in the sense of short life-span, and limited opportunities) is the natural state of human beings. When I offer my money to those in the third world I am offering them two things:
I have no reason to feel guilty for that. Most of my relatives live in the developing world and our family history is about climbing the economic ladder thanks to commerce. It is extremely frustrating that there is a fuzzy-headed extremist faction of the liberal movement that would work against the goals of that movement in this manner.
We are the ones doing the exploiting.
And here I thought that the dicators in places like the Congo and Iraq took some of the blame. It turns out that really it is McSociety. Self-flaggelation is an admirable American trait but self-aggrandizment is a little bit less appealing. If the US dropped off the face of the earth, it would continue to be a fucked-up planet because we are working out thousands of years of aggression, Imperialism and various forms of totalitarianism. That stuff doesn't work itself out overnight.
We already have the power to end it, but not the will. We would rather pretend that if people didn't have the crumbs that we toss them, they would have nothing. The fact is that these people were fine until we stepped in and sold the idea of urbaniztion and industry to agrarian populations.
What are you talking about? When was the last time that the Congo, for example, was "fine". When was Iraq a thriving agrarian population. I'm not claiming that Western society had nothing to do with the problems of those countries today. I'm claiming that nothing relating to the modern phenomenon called globalization can take the blame.
In our arrogance, we assume that anyone who does not have a TV and a car, or a shopping mall to visit is in desperate need of modernization. Thus, previously subsisting people were kicked off their land and hearded into slums to make way for cash crops and factories.
People move to cities because that is where the jobs are. It is a fundamental result of population growth. I would argue it is a law of sociology and economics. Who pushed us into our urbanized way of life? Aliens? No. It just happened. Population booms, farm technology improves and there just isn't enough work down home on the farm. This has nothing to do with globalization.
China is urbanizing. Do you think they looked across the ocean to us and said: "We'd rather be like them?" Hell no. Urbanization is a stage in the evolution of a society.
Most of the world will never be able to support the standard of living that people in the US enjoy.
That is merely a statement of pessimistic faith. We can, should and must help everyone in the world to achieve our levels of longevity and literacy. That is only possible by exporting our technology. It is incredibly cynical and defeatist to argue that we shouldn't even try to bring them up to our standards of living.
The only reason that we can enjoy our luxuries, is because they are built on the misery and deprivation of millions in the third world.
Absolutely not. Our luxury is primarily a result of our social systems which have evolved over hundreds of years and our technology which has evolved over thousands of years. Other parts of the world will get there also but it may not be quick because the West didn't become properous overnight and it may not be possible elsewhere either.
It is one of the reasons he have explicitly mentioned for his declaration of war against the US.
Please provide a reference. Also, did he really use a word that is equivalent to globalization (i.e. a vague, newish phenomenon that has something to do with international capital flows, lack of transparency and democracy in international organization and the dominance of American brands). Or was he just talking about US economic imperialism which long predates the modern concept "globalization".
Big countries will try to control smaller countries around the world. That is how they project power into the world's various regions. This has nothing to do with globalization and everything to do with wanting to remake the whole world in the big country's image. That's how the world has worked for thousands of years.
Some people want to tie all of the excesses of capitalism and US imperialism together as if there is some common thread. Nike sweatshops, Nigerian dictators, war over oil in Kuwait. But these are specific problems that can be solved. In the absence of international trade there would be other specific problems -- there are dictators even where there is no oil. There are sweatshops even where there is no Nike.
Thanks to globalization we actually have a little influence over those doing the exploiting. We haven't "globalized" into Rwanda so we tragically didn't have enough "interests" there to get involved. I think we should have done something anyhow but had we had interests there we would have been forced to.
I think that we agree on most points. But let's go back to the question that started it all. Is globalization to blame here? Let's define globalization as the increase in power of multinational companies without a corresponding growth in transparency and citizen control of multinational institutions. This is something so new that it can hardly be blamed for the problems of today's world.
The fundamental cause of the tension in the Middle East is here. Some would rather reapportion blame to a vague abstraction that they have a pre-existing problem with. I consider that obfuscatory rather than clarifying.
Those same people tend to present the "problem" without presenting a solution. "Smash global capitalism". "Destroy McDonald's" etc. Those are slogans, not solutions.
I have spent some of my time (not recently alas) fighting particularly abusive multinationals so I would be the last to claim that multinationals and globalization are onalloyed goods. But I fight specific evils in a specific way rather than attacking a meaningless abstraction or the concrete system which has benefited us so much.
Thank you for pointing out this contradiction. I should write slower and think more. Saudia Arabia has strategic value from a geopolitical standpoint (as they proved in the Gulf War). They also obviously have financial value. This has nothing to do with any kind of recent phenomenon called "globalization" that involves trashing McDonald's and breaking down the doors at trade summits.
If anything, globalization would work against the Saudi monarchy because foreign companies who want to invest would like to know that that their investments are protected by laws and not subject to the whims of King's sons. Unfortunately Saudi Arabia has enough financial clout to dictate the rules. I highly doubt that Saudi Arabia is a very "globalized" country in the sense of a country where many important businesses are owned by outsiders and where insiders have substantial assets elsewhere.
I understand the problem but I think that it is somewhat self-limiting. What can a congressman do with the millions of dollars he gets from big Tobacco. He or she can't put it in his back pocket. He or she has to spend it on something that will get them re-elected (that's the whole point). No matter how much money you have, you will have trouble getting re-elected if you have been too obviously working against the interests of your constituents. There is a point of diminishing returns on financial investment. So there comes a time where you have to say that it is in your own self-interest to stand up to the corporations in order to save your own hide come election time. Why do you think that there are any laws on the sale of tobacco (for example) at all?
This is an important point. Globalization is certainly not new. The amount of trade in material goods has not changed very significantly in the last century.
If the amount of trade is your measure of globalization and that hasn't changed very much then we aren't "globalizing" are we? We're maintaining our level of globalization. Do you want us to roll back to 19th century levels of trade? Is that what the protests are about? If this isn't your measure of globalization then why do you raise it?
What has changed, is the greatly increased importance of multinational corporations.
So is this "increased power of multinational corporations" globalization or not? Is amount of trade globalization? If not, why did you mention it? You give me your definition and we can work from there. Can you perhaps explain how the "multinationals" are at the bottom of all of these problems in the Middle East?
Pardon me for being blunt, but your first sentence here is terribly ignorant.
Fair enough. I was wrong. It really doesn't demonstrate anything about globalization. The US has bases in allied countries. That predates the "rise of multinationals" by many decades. The US does not have bases in the countries it has the most trade with (the "defending the profits" theory). It has bases in particular countries for historical reasons.
This is a common claim, but it demonstrably false. Large-scale international trade did not stop two world wars.
You're right. The essential links are democracy and capitalism. What two democractic, capitalist countries have fought a major war against each other?
Anyhow, it is very easy to swing sticks at strawmen. Globalization is an especially easy one because the "bad guys" are corporations. What are you proposing as an alternative? Cessation of trade? Outlawing of multinationals? Tobin tax?
Democratic caplitalism has solved more problems than it has caused and that is much more than can be said for competing systems. If you want to tweak the system, by all means, let's do so. But if you're going to argue against the whole thing you'll have to demonstrate that there is a deep problem and present an alternative that solves it.