Quite possibly for the same reason many other people who can afford to pay someone else to do something but instead choose to do it on their own: they enjoy doing so more than they value spending the excess time elsewhere in their life.
The difference between public and private is essentially the difference between a contractor and an employee, and in that regard some specific tasks of government are "sort-of" privatized. If the outcome, but not the method of achieving it, is controlled by the Federal government then it's essentially private. If the government controls the method, it is not private.
The Post Office is a part of the Executive branch of the US government. The fact that it is required to balance its books without accepting general funding from the Treasury does not make it private. It's not even a Federal corporation, which would at least provide some semblance of a basis to consider a Federal entity to not be directly controlled by the Federal government. Post Office policy, function, and operation is directly controlled by Federal law or directive through the Board of Governors. All but two members of that board are appointed the exact same way Cabinet members or members of the Federal judiciary are, while the last two are chosen by those appointed. This right here leads me to believe you have a vastly different definition of "private" than I do, which probably makes the rest of this moot. If the Post Office is private, an argument based on the same logic can be made that every other aspect of the US government is private as well, thus erasing any distinction between "public" and "private."
Medicare can be rolled into a private insurance package, but the rates paid by the Federal government are the same. The only difference is the payments not covered by Medicare but offered by the private insurer. All of the aspects of Medicare offered through a private insurance plan are controlled by Federal policy, and not subject to the desires of the company offering the plan.
State insurance is a relatively new phenomenon in the context of US history. It was not an essential government function which was privatized; it was a private function which has been partially socialized (to varying degrees, depending on the state).
There are a handful of private prisons, but having capacity of less than 10% of the entire prison population hardly constitutes "privatization of the prison industry."
About the only aspect of government that is largely private is arms production. Here, companies meet stated goals but control the bulk of the development and method by which the goal is met.
I don't know of a government service that's actually been privatized, so I would agree I've never seen it save money.
Sure, there's a lot of lip service to "privatization," but I've never actually seen it happen. Maybe I missed something though. Medicare, prisons, and the Post Office have not been privatized, unless it's some bastardized definition which amounts to "not actually privatized."
Sure, there have been lots of layers of kickbacks added to ensure the revolving door between corporate boardrooms and wall street spins as fast as ever, but I wouldn't call any of it "privatization."
Privatization requires privatizing both risk and reward. What we have is privatized reward and publicized risk. Not, in any way, the same thing.
I'd disagree. I would suggest they possess slightly less conscience on average given that they voluntarily choose to engage in highly dangerous work which requires training in violent/hostile/confrontational positions. Their training is to take command of any situation through means of psychological and physical intimidation, followed by force if necessary. Positions which involve power and control attract people who desire power and control for their own sake, and those people are usually the last ones who should actually have it and the first to abuse it when they do.
Positions where the members who hold them are held to far less account than they otherwise would in general attract those who are more likely to abuse power if they have the opportunity. It's hard to make a case that, in general, police are held to higher standards of accountability than the average person. It doesn't matter if you're talking about speeding or murder, police have a network which will seek to protect them, even in cases where it is crystal clear they have exceeded their authority. Your average person on the street has no such support network, so the situational pressures that work against abusive behavior act more strongly on the average person than on the average police officer.
Police work does not primarily involve protecting other people. That is a secondary effect of how modern police organizations operate, almost universally. Their primary purpose is to investigate crimes after the fact, and courts have routinely held that police officers have no duty, whatsoever, to protect anyone. Their secondary objective, in practice if not in theory, is revenue production. This can clearly be seen by looking at organizational and funding choices of police departments across the country (talking from a US-centric point of view here). Those are: traffic fines and civil asset forfeiture. The departments which focus on those items are almost never cut.
This outcome always seemed like common sense to me, but then I've never studied wave theory so I could be completely off.
If you're traveling faster than a wave propagates, you compress it until something goes boom. That happens in stages, and the one people are most familiar with is the sonic boom. I'd imagine an optical boom would be seriously devastating.
I don't think the general amount of laziness has changed. What's changed is that the landing for those who crash due to their own laziness is much softer these days. Prior to the modern era there were strong disincentives to not "figuring it out." Even as hard as times are now economically, the disincentives are far easier to deal with for those who choose not to look beyond their narrow worldview of what is and is not "possible."
This BTW does not mean that they are bad from a policy basis -- however, the correct solution is to amend the law.
It's too bad so many people believe the ends justify the means. That's usually the reason the above caveat is necessary, and I myself have certainly encountered the sort of knee-jerk outrage that stems from not putting up such a disclaimer. So many people assume I'm a left-wing or right-wing fanatic (depending on what I'm disagreeing with at the time) simply because I disagree with the method, usually despite saying I don't necessarily disagree with the outcome (well, the intended outcome, since the two are rarely the same thing in politics).
Pretty much any artificial medium of trade must be backed up by guns unless it is sufficiently hard to counterfeit or not accepted widely enough to be worth counterfeiting.
I think you'll find that, in many places, marijuana is easier to get than alcohol if you're under age.
I have to agree with the comment above yours in terms of usage increases. Nobody I know who uses marijuana is constrained by the cost or availability of it. Since those are not constraints, the decrease of the former and increase of the latter are unlikely to result in increased usage. If increased usage was desired, it would have already increased due to the absence of meaningful barriers to acquisition. Of those I know who do not use the drug, none would have reason to start. They do not refrain because it is illegal, they refrain because they have no interest in it.
Marijuana is no more a gateway to meth, cocaine, or heroin than speeding is a gateway to intentional vehicular homicide.
My views are, of course, anecdotal. However, I've lived through a lot of drug-related shit (resulting in my being extremely anti-drug) which has exposed me to a large number of aspects of drug use, abuse, addiction, trafficking, and more. Despite my overwhelmingly anti-drug and -alcohol personal bias, my experience has lead me to the conclusion that prohibition is thoroughly destructive and serves very little constructive purpose.
There's certainly a lot to agree with there. Unfortunately, there's not really any cure to the problem of sociopaths and narcissists being attracted to political power.
I wasn't trying to represent my comment as a fix, simply that I would indeed be curious to see the effect in an otherwise (relatively) free and open election. Of course, in a coercive political environment such as the USSR, no voting method would "work," because the only thing that mattered at the end of the day was the outcome desired by those "counting" the ballots.
There are a lot of caveats to the exclusionary rule. If the police act in good faith, evidence acquired through technically illegal means will, in fact, be allowed as admissible.
Would be an interesting case to see. In certain circumstances it would be easy. In others, I'd imagine it would pose a great deal of difficulty for the penal system to comply fast enough (given a low enough interval on the auto-destruct).
Another issue would be if you set it up so the destruction revocation had to be done from a specific system or IP address using a machine that has a specific SSH access key file on it (presumably one they've already confiscated and entered into the evidence system). You could make it so many departments would be unable to comply with their own regulatory process in time to arrange the circumstances under which you could preserve the evidence.
For surfing, I much prefer the simplicity. For searching, it's no more trouble to type it into a keyboard on a machine already running at home. Only time the tablet is used is if it's a spur-of-the-moment thing that comes up in conversation or for actually watching video on the tablet.
It would be interesting to see the result if it was mandated that a candidate take a majority of registered voters. Of course, you'd have to change the election to some sort of IRV system to make it practical.
Not enough voters participating in a particular district? Elections are re-run until one person takes a majority. Until that time, the district gets no representation.
Even 10 years ago most universal remotes came with directional buttons and an enter/select button. I don't think I have a remote, universal or not, which doesn't have directional control and selection functions. Sometimes they're dual-function channel/volume buttons, sometimes not, but they're there, and they're dead simple to use for both lists and matrices.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the "of" is an implicit acknowledgement that the part preceding it is a subset of something greater.
If you're going to be a pedant, at least get it right.
Yup, unfortunately when the SS become involved you no longer have any rights.
Umm, if you're so rich ...
Quite possibly for the same reason many other people who can afford to pay someone else to do something but instead choose to do it on their own: they enjoy doing so more than they value spending the excess time elsewhere in their life.
The difference between public and private is essentially the difference between a contractor and an employee, and in that regard some specific tasks of government are "sort-of" privatized. If the outcome, but not the method of achieving it, is controlled by the Federal government then it's essentially private. If the government controls the method, it is not private.
The Post Office is a part of the Executive branch of the US government. The fact that it is required to balance its books without accepting general funding from the Treasury does not make it private. It's not even a Federal corporation, which would at least provide some semblance of a basis to consider a Federal entity to not be directly controlled by the Federal government. Post Office policy, function, and operation is directly controlled by Federal law or directive through the Board of Governors. All but two members of that board are appointed the exact same way Cabinet members or members of the Federal judiciary are, while the last two are chosen by those appointed. This right here leads me to believe you have a vastly different definition of "private" than I do, which probably makes the rest of this moot. If the Post Office is private, an argument based on the same logic can be made that every other aspect of the US government is private as well, thus erasing any distinction between "public" and "private."
Medicare can be rolled into a private insurance package, but the rates paid by the Federal government are the same. The only difference is the payments not covered by Medicare but offered by the private insurer. All of the aspects of Medicare offered through a private insurance plan are controlled by Federal policy, and not subject to the desires of the company offering the plan.
State insurance is a relatively new phenomenon in the context of US history. It was not an essential government function which was privatized; it was a private function which has been partially socialized (to varying degrees, depending on the state).
There are a handful of private prisons, but having capacity of less than 10% of the entire prison population hardly constitutes "privatization of the prison industry."
About the only aspect of government that is largely private is arms production. Here, companies meet stated goals but control the bulk of the development and method by which the goal is met.
Freedom dies not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I don't know of a government service that's actually been privatized, so I would agree I've never seen it save money.
Sure, there's a lot of lip service to "privatization," but I've never actually seen it happen. Maybe I missed something though. Medicare, prisons, and the Post Office have not been privatized, unless it's some bastardized definition which amounts to "not actually privatized."
Sure, there have been lots of layers of kickbacks added to ensure the revolving door between corporate boardrooms and wall street spins as fast as ever, but I wouldn't call any of it "privatization."
Privatization requires privatizing both risk and reward. What we have is privatized reward and publicized risk. Not, in any way, the same thing.
I'd disagree. I would suggest they possess slightly less conscience on average given that they voluntarily choose to engage in highly dangerous work which requires training in violent/hostile/confrontational positions. Their training is to take command of any situation through means of psychological and physical intimidation, followed by force if necessary. Positions which involve power and control attract people who desire power and control for their own sake, and those people are usually the last ones who should actually have it and the first to abuse it when they do.
Positions where the members who hold them are held to far less account than they otherwise would in general attract those who are more likely to abuse power if they have the opportunity. It's hard to make a case that, in general, police are held to higher standards of accountability than the average person. It doesn't matter if you're talking about speeding or murder, police have a network which will seek to protect them, even in cases where it is crystal clear they have exceeded their authority. Your average person on the street has no such support network, so the situational pressures that work against abusive behavior act more strongly on the average person than on the average police officer.
Police work does not primarily involve protecting other people. That is a secondary effect of how modern police organizations operate, almost universally. Their primary purpose is to investigate crimes after the fact, and courts have routinely held that police officers have no duty, whatsoever, to protect anyone. Their secondary objective, in practice if not in theory, is revenue production. This can clearly be seen by looking at organizational and funding choices of police departments across the country (talking from a US-centric point of view here). Those are: traffic fines and civil asset forfeiture. The departments which focus on those items are almost never cut.
This outcome always seemed like common sense to me, but then I've never studied wave theory so I could be completely off.
If you're traveling faster than a wave propagates, you compress it until something goes boom. That happens in stages, and the one people are most familiar with is the sonic boom. I'd imagine an optical boom would be seriously devastating.
I don't think the general amount of laziness has changed. What's changed is that the landing for those who crash due to their own laziness is much softer these days. Prior to the modern era there were strong disincentives to not "figuring it out." Even as hard as times are now economically, the disincentives are far easier to deal with for those who choose not to look beyond their narrow worldview of what is and is not "possible."
The education system needs to require results not just apply money and expect education to happen due to exposure.
Fixed that for you*.
*For all the /.ers out there with no sense of humor, this is a joke.
This BTW does not mean that they are bad from a policy basis -- however, the correct solution is to amend the law.
It's too bad so many people believe the ends justify the means. That's usually the reason the above caveat is necessary, and I myself have certainly encountered the sort of knee-jerk outrage that stems from not putting up such a disclaimer. So many people assume I'm a left-wing or right-wing fanatic (depending on what I'm disagreeing with at the time) simply because I disagree with the method, usually despite saying I don't necessarily disagree with the outcome (well, the intended outcome, since the two are rarely the same thing in politics).
Pretty much any artificial medium of trade must be backed up by guns unless it is sufficiently hard to counterfeit or not accepted widely enough to be worth counterfeiting.
Very true. :)
I think you'll find that, in many places, marijuana is easier to get than alcohol if you're under age.
I have to agree with the comment above yours in terms of usage increases. Nobody I know who uses marijuana is constrained by the cost or availability of it. Since those are not constraints, the decrease of the former and increase of the latter are unlikely to result in increased usage. If increased usage was desired, it would have already increased due to the absence of meaningful barriers to acquisition. Of those I know who do not use the drug, none would have reason to start. They do not refrain because it is illegal, they refrain because they have no interest in it.
Marijuana is no more a gateway to meth, cocaine, or heroin than speeding is a gateway to intentional vehicular homicide.
My views are, of course, anecdotal. However, I've lived through a lot of drug-related shit (resulting in my being extremely anti-drug) which has exposed me to a large number of aspects of drug use, abuse, addiction, trafficking, and more. Despite my overwhelmingly anti-drug and -alcohol personal bias, my experience has lead me to the conclusion that prohibition is thoroughly destructive and serves very little constructive purpose.
I've know a couple reputable criminals in my life. Failing to obey certain laws does not automatically equate one with being untrustworthy.
There's certainly a lot to agree with there. Unfortunately, there's not really any cure to the problem of sociopaths and narcissists being attracted to political power.
I wasn't trying to represent my comment as a fix, simply that I would indeed be curious to see the effect in an otherwise (relatively) free and open election. Of course, in a coercive political environment such as the USSR, no voting method would "work," because the only thing that mattered at the end of the day was the outcome desired by those "counting" the ballots.
There are a lot of caveats to the exclusionary rule. If the police act in good faith, evidence acquired through technically illegal means will, in fact, be allowed as admissible.
Would be an interesting case to see. In certain circumstances it would be easy. In others, I'd imagine it would pose a great deal of difficulty for the penal system to comply fast enough (given a low enough interval on the auto-destruct).
Another issue would be if you set it up so the destruction revocation had to be done from a specific system or IP address using a machine that has a specific SSH access key file on it (presumably one they've already confiscated and entered into the evidence system). You could make it so many departments would be unable to comply with their own regulatory process in time to arrange the circumstances under which you could preserve the evidence.
For surfing, I much prefer the simplicity. For searching, it's no more trouble to type it into a keyboard on a machine already running at home. Only time the tablet is used is if it's a spur-of-the-moment thing that comes up in conversation or for actually watching video on the tablet.
To each their own though...
That's about what I expected, but doesn't stop me from hoping I'll get something other than a faith-based argument.
It would be interesting to see the result if it was mandated that a candidate take a majority of registered voters. Of course, you'd have to change the election to some sort of IRV system to make it practical.
Not enough voters participating in a particular district? Elections are re-run until one person takes a majority. Until that time, the district gets no representation.
Gives a whole new meaning to "O Canada!"
Damn, I wish I hadn't posted already so I could mod this thing up.
Even 10 years ago most universal remotes came with directional buttons and an enter/select button. I don't think I have a remote, universal or not, which doesn't have directional control and selection functions. Sometimes they're dual-function channel/volume buttons, sometimes not, but they're there, and they're dead simple to use for both lists and matrices.
Yup, that's what I want out of a TV too, right down to volume control being optional.
Having an adjustable backlight can be useful sometimes too.
Everything else is a waste of programming and hardware engineering time which could be put to better use elsewhere.