I've noticed that theatrical releases are moving more towards simultaneous distribution in all countries. I'm sure the show producers will still want to use regional price-fixing, as they do now with DVD region coding, but I suspect that, as media conglomerates continue to consolidate around the globe, the delays in distribution will be shortened. Once they start making real money with online distribution, they'll speed things up in order to take your money that much faster.
Re:15 Reasons to boycott IMDb
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IMDb Turns 15
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· Score: 2, Insightful
>IMDb has given nothing back to the community
Nothing? Nothing at all? Not even a free ad-supported site that gives you information on every movie you've ever heard of, and a hundred times more that you've never heard of?
I use it all the time, and have never given them anything, except a bit of information here or there over the years.
I've always thought of IMDB as precisely the kind of information resource the web was made for. Each of hundreds of thousands of contributors spends a small amount of time entering what they know, and everyone gets the benefit of all that information, 24x7, for free. What do you expect from them?
My fear was always that they'd take the information away by making it a subscription site, but they haven't done that. They may be Amazon (whom I don't like either), but give them a break already. Would you have sold for $20 mil?
I drive all I want and I still don't spend as much on gas prices as I do on insurance. What high gas prices? When they become double their current level in America, then maybe we'll see habits change. Not to say that they won't be double soon, but I welcome higher prices. It will force people (me included) to do better.
The Bible already has a built-in clause that we fundies can use.
John 10:16 -- "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold." There are many ideas on what this could mean -- non-Jews? people living on other continents at the time? extra-terrestrials?
There is no Biblical requirement that earth is either the center of creation, or the sole location of living things. This is why, if they do find life on other planets, I'll be quite excited to learn more -- but it won't cause me to question what I already know about God's kingdom.
Yeah, this is precisely the kind of system I've seen described before on slashdot, and which I would pay extra for if an American bank would offer it. Maybe I'll have to start keeping an account on a European bank, finally. Hmmm, I hadn't thought of it before, but it might be the best thing all around. The way the Dollar is looking against the Euro...
I always enjoy a stimulating discussion between honest individuals who can continue the debate beyond one or two rounds despite their differences. Let me just add in a link to an interesting article, an answer to those who don't think that speciation has occurred. Zphbeeblbrox, if you haven't read it before now, you really ought to.
Besides being great reading, it's appropriate here because of an important point made in the article: there are very few scientific reports about speciation events, and they are not well organized, and it ISN'T because they don't exist; it's because "it appears that the biological community considers this a settled question." The majority of scientists don't bother reporting these things, because they don't see the need -- even though it's precisely this kind of evidence that a thinking fundamentalist needs to make any headway in seeing some degree of truth in evolutionist thinking. So there is a gaping divide between the two camps, and as usual in American society these days, neither side really wants to reach any kind of compromise or detente; they both want to obliterate their opponent.
I think the reason that Americans get hung up on "macroevolution" is this: although any thinking person can understand the observable processes of variation and selective pressure, it does require a logical leap to claim that those processes are sufficient to explain ALL of what we now see, and a separate leap to conclude that it did in fact occur that way. Most people whose ideas about human origins come from an evolutionary standpoint in school (say, the majority of Europeans) don't even see that any leap is needed. However, in America the religious fundamentalists are many and vocal, and their children are educated to see a dichotomy between the origin story presented at school and the one presented at church.
king-manic, it's interesting that you keep on bringing up the idea of aliens delivering human DNA to the planet from outside. As an intellectual concept, it seems almost equivalent to the idea of a God shaping humans out of dirt. It doesn't say anything more than the God theory about where the contents of the meteorite (or whatever) might have come from, it just posits that "one day, it wasn't here, the next day, it was." To the degree that evolution is compatible with alien delivery of DNA, it (a) is similarly compatible with Intelligent Design and Creation by Divine Fiat, and (b) isn't really proving anything about what actually did happen.
"more and more identification hoops"? You must not be using an American bank. All the ones I know of here have far too few hoops, and they are quite ineffective. I want a system where, even if I give my account number AND a password to someone, it still doesn't give them access to my account. If that means a bank charging me for a key fob, or a stack of time-limited one-time codes, or whatever, that would be bare minimum. As it is, the last time I opened an account I found out they automatically provide online banking (which I didn't really need) with the last four digits of my SSN as the initial password. I was flabbergasted, and almost decided to cancel the account when I found out they'd do such a dumb thing. But in the end, I found that it's par for the course. Banks need to wise up, and Bruce is right.
One of the reasons they don't wise up is that with our closed-source methods of system development, all the banks have to pony up the development costs separately and it's less costly for them to just pay for the fraud with increased fees. What needs to happen is for just a few competing security models to be developed, which banks can easily integrate into their systems, so the costs are shared. And it isn't going to happen until customers demand it. You know, maybe I should go cancel my account after all! That's really the only way we have of "demanding" anything. Go to 5 banks, open accounts, then close them with specific complaint about poor security and how they should improve -- if enough people do that, then they'll listen.
Wow! First time I've ever been called a Marxist. You're telling me that life is fine for everybody? That everyone who wants to make an upward change in their lifestyle, can do so?
And I'm not even saying they deserve a break, or have a right to a better life. I'm only saying that eventually, if you ignore them, they will break you.
All the wealthy people I know pay very little in taxes. They do things like have their S corporations buy them an SUV, and use its price as an offset to their tax liability as a "business cost". And these people, the ones I know, are peanuts compared to people who have real money -- people like corporate CEO's, whom I will never meet. THOSE people are the ones I'm talking about who change the rules. They "suggest" changes to corporate governance and tax laws that will allow them to rake off millions at a time, and back up their suggestions with campaign contributions. Why else do you think they make those contributions? Because they have a soft spot for an old friend who has gone into politics?
>Just because some people are really, really rich doesn't mean that life is hell for everyone else.
Time to jump in. This is a really interesting back-and forth, but I think you both missed a couple of germane points.
Neither of you will dispute that life is hell for a whole lot of Americans, right? I'm talking about the people who live in dirty strip motels, pay more in rent than I do because they don't have enough for a security deposit and don't have a credit rating, and work for minimum wage if that. There are lots of these people. I don't know how they got that way, but a major point was made by one of you early on: when the number of have-nots gets large enough, and the disparity is large enough, they will turn to violence. If you say "well, life's not fair", they'll only yell louder as they cut you off at the knees. If you see injustice, and don't do anything about it because YOU aren't being unduly affected by it, what kind of society will you get?
The other thing I'll mention is, if it were just about money, and who has it and who doesn't, it would be fairly easy to deal with through redistribution of wealth, both voluntary (charity, etc.) and involuntary (welfare, publicly funded education, earned income credit, lots of other things we already have).
The problem is that having money or a good job buys you into healthcare, and good attorneys, and several other things. If you can't buy into these things, then American society treats you like dirt. Don't get sick, and don't make any mistakes, and don't tick off any corporations, otherwise you get taken to the cleaners. And at the top end, if you have a lot of money, YOU GET TO CHANGE THE RULES TO SUIT YOURSELF. This is, in the end, counterproductive because the people on top will find themselves hated and targeted by people who are entirely willing to do violence. It'll be like the South American countries where the rich live in walled compounds, with security guards. (Well, we have that in America, too, but it isn't all that widespread.)
All the rich would have to do is set up a system where poor people continue to do all the work, continue to zone out in front of the TV, their kids have a reasonable shot at wealth and a comfortable life, and they know they'll have a place to live and something to eat, and nobody would rock the boat. Poor people are unbelievably willing to put up with a bad lot. But the rich in this country won't be satisfied until they hold the ENTIRE pie, and can treat the rest as slaves. That will be their downfall. My prediction: it'll happen in under 100 years, maximum.
I think it's obvious that changes in law are what's required.
Ideally, the overall size of the law would go down. But it has little to do with the size of government. In fact, I believe that if the law were changed, many government regulators could be laid off.
What kinds of changes?
1. Corporations should lose their status as "persons", and to the extent they need to exist at all, have a vastly-reduced set of rights established.
2. Corporations should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to give money or goods or favors to politicians, their political parties, and their election campaigns.
3. Corporations should have publicly-viewable by-laws that specify precisely what business activities they are allowed to engage in.
4. Corporations should have different rules under which they are allowed to bring suit against individuals, depending on how big they are. The idea of a team of corporate lawyers descending on a private individual for years, blasting away at them, needs to stop (among other things).
I can think of several more, but I don't know how far to go. I think we need drastic changes to start off with, though.
I agree this capability must be considered a threat to privacy. The article you linked was very interesting -- the ruling "was not based on privacy grounds at all".
It was the right decision based on the wrong reasoning, and besides that, court decisions can be overturned. The real focus should be on what the system allows, and how it works.
If I had such a system in my car, I'd want a physical switch I could flip to interrupt the mic and GPS circuits, along with an LED that glows whenever the listening function is being used. Anything less, and I'd disable it. But eventually they'll probably make it a crime to do that, too.
There's no reason it has to send the click log back to HQ in order to rate shows according to your preferences.
I'm not sure how they actually do it, but they COULD process the program guide data on the box itself, fitting it to a model that's kept on the local box. The simple fact is, though, that the usage data is useful to them, so they collect it. Even if they do use it on the backend for analysing preferences, it's a sure bet they use it for many other things besides.
If I don't want my usage data collected, I should have the option to turn it off. And the precise data they collect, and how it's used, should be spelled out in the service contract. (I don't have a TiVo, maybe it is.)
>Just remember, the president is privy to more information than most of us even want to know.
That was the line they used to justify invading Iraq. It was weak when they used it, but now that we all know what they found (nothing) and what the President was being told (there's not enough clear evidence to go to war), it's clear that the president was pursuing an agenda, not acting on some body of secret information. If this isn't clear to you, you've got blinders on.
"You can't handle the truth"
Yes, I can. Not only can I handle it, I demand it. A government of the people can't work if "the people" aren't informed. It becomes an oligarchy, or a dictatorship.
> I trust that he has our best interests in mind
I did too, when I voted for him in 2000. I was wrong, absolutely wrong. He has no interest in the opinions of little people, none at all. He has made that crystal clear. Haven't you been watching for the last 3 years?
Step entry is great, it's what I've used (not being a good keyboardist). But absent the ability to sight-read, everything slows way down. This is the instance when scanning can beat keyboard entry.
Sorry I can't remember what software we used (it was too long ago), otherwise I'd recommend it.
And I bought a modest, off-brand system for $300 a year ago with a fraction of these requirements. I should what, pay $1000+ for upgrades just to run an OPERATING SYSTEM? No thanks. I want my OS to stay out of the way and let my apps use the resources. I can run Maya on this $300 computer, for crying out loud.
I don't care what OS we're talking about, if it takes hundreds of megabytes of disk, RAM, and video memory just to run at all, it's designed badly. And I know how it got there: the vendor gave their developers high-end machines and no resource budget. Software development companies have been doing this for decades. They will never learn until we stop buying the product. Will Vista really offer people a reason to lay out all that money? I can't imagine what they've got that would induce me to quintuple my hardware budget. Eye candy? Give me a break.
>Save yourself time and money. Get a good keyboard, synth module, and a sequencer
Maybe you haven't looked at the price of scanners lately? Buying all that other gear won't save any money. She already has the software.
It will probably save a lot of time, except if his sister: (1) is not a skilled keyboard musician, (2) does not sight-read, and (3) the music she's scanning is not overly complex, then the software conversion can save time. I speak from experience,
as a geek who has worked with studio musicians and in the publishing arena -- if a sight-reading musician is available, they'll play the music faster and more accurately than any scanning process. But anyone who can't sight-read and just has the occasional bunch of music to convert to MIDI for some purpose may do well with a scanner.
Personally, I'd rather err on the side of caution, and use what blood we have, instead of making that decision for another person.
I agree. People make value judgements about surgery with the assumption that a blood transfusion is safe, or at least as safe as we can make it. Changing that would require a re-appraisal of risk across the board by doctors and patients. I know that the blood supply is perennially low, but I think the current balance is about right (and I do donate blood).
One of my children had a condition for which surgery was the only possible treatment, and there was a good chance that a transfusion would be required. We elected surgery (rather than not treating the condition) partly because I know that the local blood bank goes to great lengths to ensure quality. If I knew there was a pantheon of problems in the blood supply that they chose not to pay attention to, my child would probably not have had surgery and would have had to just live with the condition for the rest of his life. A tough call, and the risks of infection from hospital and blood transfusion were really the most important criteria in the decision.
Most people do not "make" society, they just live day-to-day and hope they'll have peace and some measure of prosperity. I say this as someone who is now waking up from this slumber, as I learn all the history and politics that they never taught in school.
The only time the masses wake up and do something is when some basic need is threatened, then they tend to form ranks behind some few leaders and go crashing through the status quo.
And what will they do when the corporate masters send millions to the unemployment office? They will demand basic services for free, and we'll have a welfare state where the managers decide what level of services to provide based on what the majority will accept.
Your choice: be one of the managers -- be an activist for social change -- emigrate and delay the inevitable -- or be one of the masses.
In America, we are lucky. We have food, space, raw materials, low population growth, technology, capital. With these, the equilibrium living standard could be relatively comfortable as long as the managers apply an even hand. But if they blow it, or if other countries try to force our hand?
Far better for us to effect social change, with near-100% employment (e.g. by lowering the student-teacher ratio from 25:1 to 4:1 or so, and whatever else it takes) and lower-cost housing. It will require legislation, technology directed to people instead of profit, a change in the rights of corporations, many things. I consider it highly unlikely at this point. The change would have to have already started, just like with energy. The population is just too used to having things as they are to make a timely change, instead they'll wait until the crisis and then react. Most won't know what hit them because they were too busy watching TV, professional sports, and the price of their mutual funds.
> Part of me is tired of this whole "search for life on Mars" saga.
I was tired of it when it started. I think it's just a dodge for the media networks to get ratings, for NASA to get a bigger slice of tax dollars, and for people looking for fuel in the creation vs. evolution debate.
If it was science, they'd do the work, and then tell whether they found anything significant. And if they did, then the world would care. Instead, the media are HOPING they'll find something, and talking up the significance of scientific results that have not yet occurred. Mainly I guess I have a beef with reporters telling us what might happen in the future, instead of just telling us facts. It has the same feel as CNN feeding live video of tanks in the desert, waiting for them to blow something up. While Aaron blathered on, you could almost hear the producers thinking: "SHOOT something! Anything!" They weren't reporting facts, they were pandering to the public's desire for some sort of stimulation.
> a rate of 1 prescription every 7 seconds?
Your math is wrong. There are 86,400 seconds in a day, so 72,000 prescriptions every 7 seconds would have taken less than a week. Admittedly, his hand would be cramped at that rate...
but 72,000 in 11 months works out to about 27 per hour (working 8 hours per day), a rate I think most of us could comfortably sustain if someone was paying six or seven figures. Heck, I'd do it for five figures; except I can't because I'm not a physician, and if I were, I'd expect to get thrown in jail right alongside my spammer friend if I did it.
In other words, I think this scum-sucking doctor is at least as due for "due process" as the spammer. The spammer is annoying, the doctor is putting peoples' lives at risk. Well, OK, they both are. Throw the book at them.
Far from it. That would be the perfect way to recognize letters, if you instituted a Graffiti-like set of rules for how to write letters.
It would be easy to learn, and then you'd have a nearly-indestructible device that could do silent text input. I think such a device would be very clever -- in fact that's what the article summary made me think of, I'm disappointed to hear they didn't do that.
I envision an actual ballpoint pen, that writes, with a calculator-like LCD display along the spine and a couple of buttons up near the top (along with a pressure-sensitive tip that you could use as a button). I've often thought that my MP3 player has plenty of processing power to do a lot of interesting things, it just lacks an input interface -- this could be it.
(I suppose one would want to be able to turn off the ink, though, to avoid keeping a written record of EVERYTHING you do with it.)
By this logic, if my child is a pain in the neck I ought to be able to cut his throat and burn him in the wood stove. And if you discover that I have done so, I should say "mind your own business!"
I violently disagree with the idea that all people should keep their damn noses out of all the affairs of other people.
Unless, of course, you claim that "a fetus is not a human being" and has the same rights as, say, a fly. But if you say that, then we can have a meaningful discourse about the nature of life, man, and society. But I don't think you want that.
It's much more complicated than that, and it's not a cover-up. Abortion is not murder, but it is killing a human being. A mother is the one person who should go to the greatest lengths to protect her offspring, so the idea of the mother deciding to kill her offspring is anathema.
You're right that the "sex [outside monogamous marriage] is sinful" issue is an important facet of my viewpoint, but it can be viewed without religious bigotry on either side. Let's say the woman electing an abortion is covered under the same health insurance group with me -- then the cost of her abortion is spread over my paycheck. I strongly disagree with her decision and yet I'm forced to help pay for it. This is not hypothetical at all, I'm sure that among my thousands of co-workers there are a few at least who have opted to abort because they felt they already had too many kids, or because they had a career and now wasn't "a good time for a child". Privacy laws rightly prohibit me from knowing about their decisions, so if I have a beef, I have to support legislation up front that will let me have a say in the matter.
And the "sinful" part of sex is really not the overriding consideration at all. Not everyone who believes abortion is "murder" automatically believes that sex is sinful. It's perfectly plausible for someone to deny the sinfulness of sex (thus disagreeing with me), and yet accept the gift of life and either raise a child or give it up for adoption. It's even possible for people to change their minds as the whole chain of events unfolds.
Pro-Life means just that: FOR LIFE. Once the life is there, keep it. Don't dispose of it. If you don't want it in the first place, I say act responsibly...but even if you choose to act irresponsibly, you can still decide to act nobly.
True, if a complete and absolute ban were enacted, that would lead to disaster of a different sort. The problem in this country is that we have no way of finding a reasonable middle ground between two (or more) very opposed groups.
We can't even agree on a set of moral principles that can guide our conclusions about the various cases. Rape? Genetic defects discovered in the womb? Minors living under their parents' authority and responsibility? Mentally retarded parents? Prostitution? The list is long, and legislating these things case-by-case is impossible. I also believe federal legislation is counterproductive, and that individual states should have different rules. But that's just me.
You say that a mother should have rights equal to or greater than those of the unborn fetus. That's acceptable. But what precise rights does she have? And what rights does the fetus have? In our nation right now, the she is all-powerful and the fetus has essentially no rights. I think this balance is very wrong.
>The only possible way to be even remotely consistent is to leave the choice up to the one person...
I disagree. I think there are lots of options, and both the law and medical practice should me more specific about navigating among them. Roe-vs-Wade and the Bush-supreme-court-nomination are both clubs used to bludgeon our society, and we need much finer control than either.
>So where do you stand on the issue of sex education for schools?
Excellent question, one I haven't fully thought out. I think sex ed should start no sooner than 6th grade, and should be a mandatory part of a larger health curriculum (the same one that helps kids understand how to deal with food so they don't get obese). I think it should be set down in print that the best way to avoid pregnancy and STD's is... not to have sex. Condoms are not the best way to achieve either. Also, when I was in high school I think a lot more people thought their friends were having sex -- that it was acceptable and desirable behavior -- than was actually the case, and that education (real education, involving student discussion and role-playing and what-not) could have helped debunk the myth. I have no idea what the climate is in today's high school, though.
"making condoms freely available" -- this phraseology has a catch. In one sense, they already are freely available, anyone can buy them at the grocery store. You don't need a prescription, and neither does a 14-year-old boy. But I remember the first time I bought one, and I realize that hardly any 14-year-olds are going to do so even if they think they ought to. So, much as it pains me to say so, they need to be available at the school health office or wherever. I have a big problem with the idea of paying my tax dollars to support the sexual escapades of some pimply-faced teenager, but a much bigger problem with abortion.
(Something inside me still says "if they're old enough to be having sex, they're old enough to be taking responsibility for themselves." But reality trumps my personal morality on this one.)
>All joking aside, the fact is that nobody wants abortion.
But most of your post is predicated on a joke. That South Park episode is specifically poking fun into the debate, but it isn't a realistic scenario.
Few will go get pregnant in order to make money (although you can't claim NOBODY would do this). The relevant question is whether, once someone gets pregnant, do they have an abortion or keep the child? Take the 19-year-old college student who becomes pregnant, and suddenly realizes that the consequence of her sleeping around is that her life and career is going to become orders of magnitude more difficult and complex with a child around.
If someone like that told me she was thinking of not raising the child, I'd respond that the ethical thing to do would be to give birth and let someone else raise the child. But that's a hard road -- it carries risk. Instead, if the research institute on campus is willing to pay her $500 and all medical expenses to abort the fetus, that makes the abortion option (the unethical one, in my view) much more attractive.
In short, I believe you're wrong. If nobody wanted abortion, then we wouldn't have nearly so many. The simple fact is that MANY people choose abortion. I want to get people to choose it less often, and so paying them to have abortions is counterproductive.
> The stem cell research industry will not need to pay people to have abortions.
Initially, no. But if there's money to be made on a commercial process that requires live, healthy cells from a newly-harvested fetus, you know there will be money offered. I don't know enough about the science to know how soon we'll get beyond the need for a fetus (today's announcement is great, because it brings hope that we can get around that), but I don't hold out a lot of hope. What I am sure of is that there are lots of people, scientists and businessmen included, who will take the short cut if that's where the profit is.
Slashdot Mirror
I've noticed that theatrical releases are moving more towards simultaneous distribution in all countries. I'm sure the show producers will still want to use regional price-fixing, as they do now with DVD region coding, but I suspect that, as media conglomerates continue to consolidate around the globe, the delays in distribution will be shortened.
Once they start making real money with online distribution, they'll speed things up in order to take your money that much faster.
Nothing? Nothing at all? Not even a free ad-supported site that gives you information on every movie you've ever heard of, and a hundred times more that you've never heard of? I use it all the time, and have never given them anything, except a bit of information here or there over the years.
I've always thought of IMDB as precisely the kind of information resource the web was made for. Each of hundreds of thousands of contributors spends a small amount of time entering what they know, and everyone gets the benefit of all that information, 24x7, for free. What do you expect from them?
My fear was always that they'd take the information away by making it a subscription site, but they haven't done that. They may be Amazon (whom I don't like either), but give them a break already. Would you have sold for $20 mil?
I drive all I want and I still don't spend as much on gas prices as I do on insurance. What high gas prices? When they become double their current level in America, then maybe we'll see habits change. Not to say that they won't be double soon, but I welcome higher prices. It will force people (me included) to do better.
There is no Biblical requirement that earth is either the center of creation, or the sole location of living things. This is why, if they do find life on other planets, I'll be quite excited to learn more -- but it won't cause me to question what I already know about God's kingdom.
Yeah, this is precisely the kind of system I've seen described before on slashdot, and which I would pay extra for if an American bank would offer it. Maybe I'll have to start keeping an account on a European bank, finally. Hmmm, I hadn't thought of it before, but it might be the best thing all around. The way the Dollar is looking against the Euro...
Besides being great reading, it's appropriate here because of an important point made in the article: there are very few scientific reports about speciation events, and they are not well organized, and it ISN'T because they don't exist; it's because "it appears that the biological community considers this a settled question." The majority of scientists don't bother reporting these things, because they don't see the need -- even though it's precisely this kind of evidence that a thinking fundamentalist needs to make any headway in seeing some degree of truth in evolutionist thinking. So there is a gaping divide between the two camps, and as usual in American society these days, neither side really wants to reach any kind of compromise or detente; they both want to obliterate their opponent.
I think the reason that Americans get hung up on "macroevolution" is this: although any thinking person can understand the observable processes of variation and selective pressure, it does require a logical leap to claim that those processes are sufficient to explain ALL of what we now see, and a separate leap to conclude that it did in fact occur that way. Most people whose ideas about human origins come from an evolutionary standpoint in school (say, the majority of Europeans) don't even see that any leap is needed. However, in America the religious fundamentalists are many and vocal, and their children are educated to see a dichotomy between the origin story presented at school and the one presented at church.
king-manic, it's interesting that you keep on bringing up the idea of aliens delivering human DNA to the planet from outside. As an intellectual concept, it seems almost equivalent to the idea of a God shaping humans out of dirt. It doesn't say anything more than the God theory about where the contents of the meteorite (or whatever) might have come from, it just posits that "one day, it wasn't here, the next day, it was." To the degree that evolution is compatible with alien delivery of DNA, it (a) is similarly compatible with Intelligent Design and Creation by Divine Fiat, and (b) isn't really proving anything about what actually did happen.
One of the reasons they don't wise up is that with our closed-source methods of system development, all the banks have to pony up the development costs separately and it's less costly for them to just pay for the fraud with increased fees. What needs to happen is for just a few competing security models to be developed, which banks can easily integrate into their systems, so the costs are shared. And it isn't going to happen until customers demand it. You know, maybe I should go cancel my account after all! That's really the only way we have of "demanding" anything. Go to 5 banks, open accounts, then close them with specific complaint about poor security and how they should improve -- if enough people do that, then they'll listen.
And I'm not even saying they deserve a break, or have a right to a better life. I'm only saying that eventually, if you ignore them, they will break you.
All the wealthy people I know pay very little in taxes. They do things like have their S corporations buy them an SUV, and use its price as an offset to their tax liability as a "business cost". And these people, the ones I know, are peanuts compared to people who have real money -- people like corporate CEO's, whom I will never meet. THOSE people are the ones I'm talking about who change the rules. They "suggest" changes to corporate governance and tax laws that will allow them to rake off millions at a time, and back up their suggestions with campaign contributions. Why else do you think they make those contributions? Because they have a soft spot for an old friend who has gone into politics?
Time to jump in. This is a really interesting back-and forth, but I think you both missed a couple of germane points. Neither of you will dispute that life is hell for a whole lot of Americans, right? I'm talking about the people who live in dirty strip motels, pay more in rent than I do because they don't have enough for a security deposit and don't have a credit rating, and work for minimum wage if that. There are lots of these people. I don't know how they got that way, but a major point was made by one of you early on: when the number of have-nots gets large enough, and the disparity is large enough, they will turn to violence. If you say "well, life's not fair", they'll only yell louder as they cut you off at the knees. If you see injustice, and don't do anything about it because YOU aren't being unduly affected by it, what kind of society will you get?
The other thing I'll mention is, if it were just about money, and who has it and who doesn't, it would be fairly easy to deal with through redistribution of wealth, both voluntary (charity, etc.) and involuntary (welfare, publicly funded education, earned income credit, lots of other things we already have).
The problem is that having money or a good job buys you into healthcare, and good attorneys, and several other things. If you can't buy into these things, then American society treats you like dirt. Don't get sick, and don't make any mistakes, and don't tick off any corporations, otherwise you get taken to the cleaners. And at the top end, if you have a lot of money, YOU GET TO CHANGE THE RULES TO SUIT YOURSELF. This is, in the end, counterproductive because the people on top will find themselves hated and targeted by people who are entirely willing to do violence. It'll be like the South American countries where the rich live in walled compounds, with security guards. (Well, we have that in America, too, but it isn't all that widespread.)
All the rich would have to do is set up a system where poor people continue to do all the work, continue to zone out in front of the TV, their kids have a reasonable shot at wealth and a comfortable life, and they know they'll have a place to live and something to eat, and nobody would rock the boat. Poor people are unbelievably willing to put up with a bad lot. But the rich in this country won't be satisfied until they hold the ENTIRE pie, and can treat the rest as slaves. That will be their downfall. My prediction: it'll happen in under 100 years, maximum.
What kinds of changes?
1. Corporations should lose their status as "persons", and to the extent they need to exist at all, have a vastly-reduced set of rights established.
2. Corporations should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to give money or goods or favors to politicians, their political parties, and their election campaigns.
3. Corporations should have publicly-viewable by-laws that specify precisely what business activities they are allowed to engage in.
4. Corporations should have different rules under which they are allowed to bring suit against individuals, depending on how big they are. The idea of a team of corporate lawyers descending on a private individual for years, blasting away at them, needs to stop (among other things).
I can think of several more, but I don't know how far to go. I think we need drastic changes to start off with, though.
If I had such a system in my car, I'd want a physical switch I could flip to interrupt the mic and GPS circuits, along with an LED that glows whenever the listening function is being used. Anything less, and I'd disable it. But eventually they'll probably make it a crime to do that, too.
If I don't want my usage data collected, I should have the option to turn it off. And the precise data they collect, and how it's used, should be spelled out in the service contract. (I don't have a TiVo, maybe it is.)
That was the line they used to justify invading Iraq. It was weak when they used it, but now that we all know what they found (nothing) and what the President was being told (there's not enough clear evidence to go to war), it's clear that the president was pursuing an agenda, not acting on some body of secret information. If this isn't clear to you, you've got blinders on.
"You can't handle the truth"
Yes, I can. Not only can I handle it, I demand it. A government of the people can't work if "the people" aren't informed. It becomes an oligarchy, or a dictatorship.
> I trust that he has our best interests in mind
I did too, when I voted for him in 2000. I was wrong, absolutely wrong. He has no interest in the opinions of little people, none at all. He has made that crystal clear. Haven't you been watching for the last 3 years?
Step entry is great, it's what I've used (not being a good keyboardist). But absent the ability to sight-read, everything slows way down. This is the instance when scanning can beat keyboard entry. Sorry I can't remember what software we used (it was too long ago), otherwise I'd recommend it.
I don't care what OS we're talking about, if it takes hundreds of megabytes of disk, RAM, and video memory just to run at all, it's designed badly. And I know how it got there: the vendor gave their developers high-end machines and no resource budget. Software development companies have been doing this for decades. They will never learn until we stop buying the product. Will Vista really offer people a reason to lay out all that money? I can't imagine what they've got that would induce me to quintuple my hardware budget. Eye candy? Give me a break.
Maybe you haven't looked at the price of scanners lately? Buying all that other gear won't save any money. She already has the software.
It will probably save a lot of time, except if his sister: (1) is not a skilled keyboard musician, (2) does not sight-read, and (3) the music she's scanning is not overly complex, then the software conversion can save time. I speak from experience, as a geek who has worked with studio musicians and in the publishing arena -- if a sight-reading musician is available, they'll play the music faster and more accurately than any scanning process. But anyone who can't sight-read and just has the occasional bunch of music to convert to MIDI for some purpose may do well with a scanner.
I agree. People make value judgements about surgery with the assumption that a blood transfusion is safe, or at least as safe as we can make it. Changing that would require a re-appraisal of risk across the board by doctors and patients. I know that the blood supply is perennially low, but I think the current balance is about right (and I do donate blood).
One of my children had a condition for which surgery was the only possible treatment, and there was a good chance that a transfusion would be required. We elected surgery (rather than not treating the condition) partly because I know that the local blood bank goes to great lengths to ensure quality. If I knew there was a pantheon of problems in the blood supply that they chose not to pay attention to, my child would probably not have had surgery and would have had to just live with the condition for the rest of his life. A tough call, and the risks of infection from hospital and blood transfusion were really the most important criteria in the decision.
Most people do not "make" society, they just live day-to-day and hope they'll have peace and some measure of prosperity. I say this as someone who is now waking up from this slumber, as I learn all the history and politics that they never taught in school. The only time the masses wake up and do something is when some basic need is threatened, then they tend to form ranks behind some few leaders and go crashing through the status quo.
And what will they do when the corporate masters send millions to the unemployment office? They will demand basic services for free, and we'll have a welfare state where the managers decide what level of services to provide based on what the majority will accept.
Your choice: be one of the managers -- be an activist for social change -- emigrate and delay the inevitable -- or be one of the masses.
In America, we are lucky. We have food, space, raw materials, low population growth, technology, capital. With these, the equilibrium living standard could be relatively comfortable as long as the managers apply an even hand. But if they blow it, or if other countries try to force our hand? Far better for us to effect social change, with near-100% employment (e.g. by lowering the student-teacher ratio from 25:1 to 4:1 or so, and whatever else it takes) and lower-cost housing. It will require legislation, technology directed to people instead of profit, a change in the rights of corporations, many things. I consider it highly unlikely at this point. The change would have to have already started, just like with energy. The population is just too used to having things as they are to make a timely change, instead they'll wait until the crisis and then react. Most won't know what hit them because they were too busy watching TV, professional sports, and the price of their mutual funds.
I was tired of it when it started. I think it's just a dodge for the media networks to get ratings, for NASA to get a bigger slice of tax dollars, and for people looking for fuel in the creation vs. evolution debate.
If it was science, they'd do the work, and then tell whether they found anything significant. And if they did, then the world would care. Instead, the media are HOPING they'll find something, and talking up the significance of scientific results that have not yet occurred. Mainly I guess I have a beef with reporters telling us what might happen in the future, instead of just telling us facts. It has the same feel as CNN feeding live video of tanks in the desert, waiting for them to blow something up. While Aaron blathered on, you could almost hear the producers thinking: "SHOOT something! Anything!" They weren't reporting facts, they were pandering to the public's desire for some sort of stimulation.
Your math is wrong. There are 86,400 seconds in a day, so 72,000 prescriptions every 7 seconds would have taken less than a week. Admittedly, his hand would be cramped at that rate... but 72,000 in 11 months works out to about 27 per hour (working 8 hours per day), a rate I think most of us could comfortably sustain if someone was paying six or seven figures. Heck, I'd do it for five figures; except I can't because I'm not a physician, and if I were, I'd expect to get thrown in jail right alongside my spammer friend if I did it.
In other words, I think this scum-sucking doctor is at least as due for "due process" as the spammer. The spammer is annoying, the doctor is putting peoples' lives at risk. Well, OK, they both are. Throw the book at them.
I envision an actual ballpoint pen, that writes, with a calculator-like LCD display along the spine and a couple of buttons up near the top (along with a pressure-sensitive tip that you could use as a button). I've often thought that my MP3 player has plenty of processing power to do a lot of interesting things, it just lacks an input interface -- this could be it. (I suppose one would want to be able to turn off the ink, though, to avoid keeping a written record of EVERYTHING you do with it.)
I violently disagree with the idea that all people should keep their damn noses out of all the affairs of other people.
Unless, of course, you claim that "a fetus is not a human being" and has the same rights as, say, a fly. But if you say that, then we can have a meaningful discourse about the nature of life, man, and society. But I don't think you want that.
You're right that the "sex [outside monogamous marriage] is sinful" issue is an important facet of my viewpoint, but it can be viewed without religious bigotry on either side. Let's say the woman electing an abortion is covered under the same health insurance group with me -- then the cost of her abortion is spread over my paycheck. I strongly disagree with her decision and yet I'm forced to help pay for it. This is not hypothetical at all, I'm sure that among my thousands of co-workers there are a few at least who have opted to abort because they felt they already had too many kids, or because they had a career and now wasn't "a good time for a child". Privacy laws rightly prohibit me from knowing about their decisions, so if I have a beef, I have to support legislation up front that will let me have a say in the matter.
And the "sinful" part of sex is really not the overriding consideration at all. Not everyone who believes abortion is "murder" automatically believes that sex is sinful. It's perfectly plausible for someone to deny the sinfulness of sex (thus disagreeing with me), and yet accept the gift of life and either raise a child or give it up for adoption. It's even possible for people to change their minds as the whole chain of events unfolds.
Pro-Life means just that: FOR LIFE. Once the life is there, keep it. Don't dispose of it. If you don't want it in the first place, I say act responsibly...but even if you choose to act irresponsibly, you can still decide to act nobly.
True, if a complete and absolute ban were enacted, that would lead to disaster of a different sort. The problem in this country is that we have no way of finding a reasonable middle ground between two (or more) very opposed groups. We can't even agree on a set of moral principles that can guide our conclusions about the various cases. Rape? Genetic defects discovered in the womb? Minors living under their parents' authority and responsibility? Mentally retarded parents? Prostitution? The list is long, and legislating these things case-by-case is impossible. I also believe federal legislation is counterproductive, and that individual states should have different rules. But that's just me.
You say that a mother should have rights equal to or greater than those of the unborn fetus. That's acceptable. But what precise rights does she have? And what rights does the fetus have? In our nation right now, the she is all-powerful and the fetus has essentially no rights. I think this balance is very wrong.
>The only possible way to be even remotely consistent is to leave the choice up to the one person ...
I disagree. I think there are lots of options, and both the law and medical practice should me more specific about navigating among them. Roe-vs-Wade and the Bush-supreme-court-nomination are both clubs used to bludgeon our society, and we need much finer control than either.
>So where do you stand on the issue of sex education for schools?
Excellent question, one I haven't fully thought out. I think sex ed should start no sooner than 6th grade, and should be a mandatory part of a larger health curriculum (the same one that helps kids understand how to deal with food so they don't get obese). I think it should be set down in print that the best way to avoid pregnancy and STD's is ... not to have sex. Condoms are not the best way to achieve either. Also, when I was in high school I think a lot more people thought their friends were having sex -- that it was acceptable and desirable behavior -- than was actually the case, and that education (real education, involving student discussion and role-playing and what-not) could have helped debunk the myth. I have no idea what the climate is in today's high school, though.
"making condoms freely available" -- this phraseology has a catch. In one sense, they already are freely available, anyone can buy them at the grocery store. You don't need a prescription, and neither does a 14-year-old boy. But I remember the first time I bought one, and I realize that hardly any 14-year-olds are going to do so even if they think they ought to. So, much as it pains me to say so, they need to be available at the school health office or wherever. I have a big problem with the idea of paying my tax dollars to support the sexual escapades of some pimply-faced teenager, but a much bigger problem with abortion. (Something inside me still says "if they're old enough to be having sex, they're old enough to be taking responsibility for themselves." But reality trumps my personal morality on this one.)
But most of your post is predicated on a joke. That South Park episode is specifically poking fun into the debate, but it isn't a realistic scenario. Few will go get pregnant in order to make money (although you can't claim NOBODY would do this). The relevant question is whether, once someone gets pregnant, do they have an abortion or keep the child? Take the 19-year-old college student who becomes pregnant, and suddenly realizes that the consequence of her sleeping around is that her life and career is going to become orders of magnitude more difficult and complex with a child around. If someone like that told me she was thinking of not raising the child, I'd respond that the ethical thing to do would be to give birth and let someone else raise the child. But that's a hard road -- it carries risk. Instead, if the research institute on campus is willing to pay her $500 and all medical expenses to abort the fetus, that makes the abortion option (the unethical one, in my view) much more attractive.
In short, I believe you're wrong. If nobody wanted abortion, then we wouldn't have nearly so many. The simple fact is that MANY people choose abortion. I want to get people to choose it less often, and so paying them to have abortions is counterproductive.
> The stem cell research industry will not need to pay people to have abortions.
Initially, no. But if there's money to be made on a commercial process that requires live, healthy cells from a newly-harvested fetus, you know there will be money offered. I don't know enough about the science to know how soon we'll get beyond the need for a fetus (today's announcement is great, because it brings hope that we can get around that), but I don't hold out a lot of hope. What I am sure of is that there are lots of people, scientists and businessmen included, who will take the short cut if that's where the profit is.