> Because they believe it's actually our fear of fraud that's hurting their response rates.
I know this is flame bait, but in most first-degree murders and sexual abuse (or at least sexual abuse ) cases, the victim knew and trusted the perpetrator...
> If the wealthy person wasn't around, the poor person would have to earn the right to stay alive somehow.
A bunch of those poor people could do you job better than you ever hope to do it. Thats what scares you so much. If you don't believe it, it scares you into not believing it.
What you say is only one level below what much writing and prose by the wealthy elite in the 17th and 18th free-market UK economy said: "It would be difficult to be rich if the poor were not around to do all the jobs the rich don't want to do!"
By the way, India has the fastest growing GDP in the world, and Japan did a very good job of ressurecting their economy before the free-markets hit.. and how did they do it? High taxation, heavy government intervention in trade and development. Just a parting thought.
Jebus buddy. You're giving the typical elite answer: "Sure, the numbers are bad, but in the long run, just trust us, it'll pay off." How do you think you'd take that if you were in, say, Argentina, or Uguanda, and you'd seen the cost of water rise, wages plummet, and your countries GDP (a terrible measure, but it seems to speak to capitalists) drop 15% in the last 20 years. Or if the IMF lent your country money on the condition that you privatize your water system and contract its management out (while tripling the cost) to 2 or 3 mutlinational American companies? It's not paying off. The gap actually started in the UK in the 15th century, when the feudal system started taking away common land from the people. Capitalism involved removing the rights to resources from people. Now, like I said, I'm not bashing capitalism, I'm bashing the free-market. You say the gap has been widening.. well, it's been widening faster and far more readically since the drive for free-market capitalism has been pushed onto the world state. Look, even the WTO, the champion of this movement, admits it (although not readily or easily.)
> There are plenty of people
Man, you can say whatever you like to make you feel good about working hard. Really now, you're not saying anything that most other people who work hard and suspect the poor are nothing but lazy people. Plenty, in this case, is pittance to the number of people who don't escape poverty.
Anyhow man, I'm just saying, the gap is growing ever fast. If you want to take the "wait and see" approach, well, fine, but thats the same stance thats been thrown around since the 15th century. Nobody buys it except those who have already benifited from it, which is a smaller and smaller amount of people earning a disproportionately larger and larger amount. I'm in that basket, you're in that basket.. and so while it's tough to see or admit, it is my view that those who cannot see it or refuse to are simply too dependant on your kind of mind set to justify working the longest hours in the world with one of the highest levels of emotional and psycological distress. Evolution will manifest protest in the form of violence. It's funny, cause the elite are always caught standing with their pants down, going "Hey, whats wrong? Nothing wrong! What are you doing?! Nothing's wrong! Okay, you're poor, but c'mon, just wait, you won't be.. well, or maybe your grandkids won't be. Well, if they arn't lazy asses." while posts like mine are routinely ignored by those with wealth for no other reason than it would infer that sacrifice and voluntary distribution of wealth and power is the only way to make this world work. A frightening proposition for any sufficiently well-conditioned capitalist.
> Ya know, this is a pet peeve of mine. We keep hearing about this increasing gap between the rich and poor. But we never see any real numbers to back it up. What is the rate of increase of that gap? Where are the statistics that show the gap, and trace its fluctuation over time? There was a pretty significant gap between the rich and poor in, say, Victorian England. You're telling me that the gap has worsened since then? Prove it. Because I have to tell you, my feeling (based purely on anecdotal evidence, because I haven't done the research either) is that the gap is actually decreasing as the developed world flattens into "the great middle class", and the third world gradually becomes developed.
Here's one stat (Banko Milanovic, economist at WTO): In 1988, the richest 5 percent of the people in the world had incomes that were 78 teims as big as those of the pporest 5 percent. By 1993, the top 5 percent had incomes 114 times as big as those of the bottom 5 percent. If you make 35,000$ Canadian a year (I make double, and I'm 23 years old), you are richer than 98 percent of the world's population.
Think of post communist Russia. From 2 million poor to 60 million post-communism. (Not that I'm in any way advertising communism.. just, they got a free-market, supposedly)
Nations like sub-Saharan Africa grew their GDP 36%from about 1950 to 1980 (representing the post-war regulated market economy), but have fallen by 15 percent in the last 20 years (as the free-market has been pressured onto the world economy stage). Other nations are similar.
From a WTO report: "Indeed, growth in the developing world has been disappointing, with the typical country registering negligible growth."
Mexican wages have fallen about 20 percent in 1994.
All of this notwithstanding the question: is all of this really making the people in these other countries very happy?:)
The numbers are there. It is an actual falsehood to believe otherwise, even according to the pro-free-market capitalist WTO. The gap has an continues to grow. It's simply not in the best interest of the most powerful interests to look at them, or present them in that little ad they call the news. How do you think the bearer of news like this could explain it to their shareholders or investors?;)
Anyhow, thats just sad about saying doing work. Other people want to do work. It is you who do not see that there are mechanisms in place to keep the poor down, as manifested in how the wealthy perceive them. I understand that it is difficult to feel good about being in this system, but it is important to know what it does.
Nice post. Well thought out and presented. For the sake of this argument, a wealthy person is anyone who can afford a house and car. What we might call the lower-middle class.
Three comments:
1. I didn't say this was the/only/ purpose of taxes.:P Yes, I didn't qualify my statement, but you yourself admit that this is at least one of the purposes of taxes. Also note that I never said that this wealth was distributed in cash form (although it is, through some programs, obviously). This redistribution goes towards many things: education, support, training, whatever. That's still a redistribution of wealth in my opinion.
2. Your argument regarding the fact that people who get this money (the poor) are being rewarded for being sloth is based on the assumption that motivation comes from wealth. Ie, that money/is/ a reward, and that the freeloaders (the poor, the stupid) are perfectly happy to live off the backs of others. While we don't have time to debate such an axiom, it is not the axiom under under which I base my viewpoints. I believe people's primary motivation in life is to attain a social status by way of participating and contributing to the society they live in. Note that I'm not talking about material status, although in the world we live in, this is one of the only ways to attain and advertise one's position within the social heirarchy. Many an economist and phycologist have promoted the goal to contibute to one's society as the primary motivator of humans. I tend to agree.. while we equate money as reward in this society, the poor people I know are not as interested in money as they are to have the ability to have the resources required to begin contributing to their society. While the church of today is money, I'm of the opinion that it is only the sufficiently conditioned who has come to believe that people are only after enough weath to exist and/or to spend on consumption rather than self-betterment. Note, exceptions are abound, but I suppose I'm just saying that I believe the numbers fall more in the favour of those who wish to contribute rather than those who are truely content with receiving state-distributed welfare of various sorts. It is, in my opinion, only the widening gap in incomes and standards of living that are contributing to the increasing number of people who are so unhappy regarding their relative lack of wealth that they cannot focus on their desire to contribute to society in the first place. Ironically, most of the wealthy people I know (I work in that world) value money as reward FAR more than the poor people I know (I socialize in a very bohemian social circle). It's frusterating to see wealthy people suggest that poor people are driven by the same things they are, and then/withhold/ that very value to the point where these poor people can't afford the things that they both value.. food, water, rent, and cultural opportunities such as socializing. Consider the disproportionate amount of people in this society that wish to contribute in a vain that is unsupported by big business (arts, culture, non-quantitative branches of medicine, etc, etc.. whatever the wealthy elite don't value.) Essentially I am saying that withholding the redistribution of wealth, at least within a society that does not go to the ends of the earth to promote material gain as the primary human motivator, results in more people unwilling to contribute rather than people freeloading off the system.
3. > would it not make sense for taxes to benefit those who create them
Programs for the common good includes the poor. It's an obvious enough point that, certainly, those who create taxes should see a reasonable (by reasonable, this is set by the social barometer of the society the taxes are collected in) return in the form of programs and services that help them. I suppose that the relative contention to my point simply illustrates where that barometer is.
All of this is notwithstanding the most sacreligious viewpoint I hold: that much of the opposition to taxes is not due to those who 'freeload' on it, but rather the disproportionate and unhealthy value that those with wealth place on it. If only they could 'let go' a little and made poor people happier (and thus far more likely to re-enter society as a contributing member), they might come to realize that freeloading is, for all intents and purposes, a creation of the very populous who is so disagreeable with the idea of redistributing their priviledged earnings. And of course.. some can, and do! But not enough, yet...
4. Back to the real issue at hand. Free-market capitalism is touted as the system that leads to the most efficient use of available resources (be they material, or effort). It would appear that squashing investment fraud is one such way to ensure that those resources are fed back into the fast-and-furious system, much to the delight of the big business types, rather than to the shady ones who don't feed back into the system. Therefore, I charge that, if you are into the free-market capitalist school of thought, you'd believe that this does benifit everyone in so far as it ensures that all generated value goes back to the proper religion (if you will).
Obstinately is a good word, but please don't forget that nothing is a top-down system. The more people that perceive that taxes go to the fat cats, the more likely fat-cats will feel that their self-interest isn't as likely to hurt them in terms of their public relations. There are many ways to buck that trend (and it is getting worse), but being reluctant to contribute to the taxation system is a protest that ends up more on the backs of the already unfortunate (and, as you point out, all of us) than the well-off polician who, really, at the end of the day, could live with less financial perks to his job. Also, it's somewhat of a skewered viewpoint, as it relates back to my first point, and that part of this viewpoint is promoted by big business to swing your trust from the public sector to the private one. And if you don't believe all that... well, do a little reading from schools of thought that are vohemently opposed to by our current social and economic system.
But really, good argument. I see your views, but I choose to believe that part of your axioms are resonsible for these 'freeloaders' we (well, you and others, not I) are so loathe to support through taxes.
Good point, although I'd charge that you don't neccessarily know better ways to help your country than your government. I'm just saying that it's a pretty unfounded complaint given the scope of the purpose of taxes, and the complexities inherent in distributing them in such a way that the government won't be the recipiant of glib remarks like the parent post.
I realize, of course, that this is an extremely unpopular point of view these days...:)
I'd be intersted to see ya throw up some numbers or supporting arguments in terms of how much money the SEC gets from public taxes, and how they go about spending that money.
BTW, stopping investment fraud is pretty paramount to an efficient capitalist system, so if you're down with fast-n-furious capitalism (a system who's sole purpose is to promote and motivate the efficient use of resources), the goal of this project is in everyone's interest, not just the dumb (or gullible, or whatever) people.
Then again, if you're down for regulated markets, I agree that the money could be better spent on developing laws that would cut down on the ease of committing investment fraud in the first place.
We're not likely to see it, as such regulations slow trade and business (gasp!), but it would certainly result in less buyers having to beware, IMHO.
Money I pay to my government that I'd better be paid back in full for.
Dummy. Taxes are to distribute the wealth of your economy to those less fortunate. Yes, people with less brains than you constitutes those less fortunate.
Doesn't anyone think it's worth mentioning that wall street continues to rely on pro forma earnings reports to euphamize the lack of a real profit?
Also, as it was already pointed out, the 4th quarter is the most profitable.. they are unlikely to have a (pro forma) profit in the next few quarters, from what I understand.
And it's a profit on a pro forma earnings (sp?)... hardly a true profit.
More spin. I can hear the suits now... "Go, confidence, go! Here's some more pro-e-commerce redderick for you all!"
One wonders where Wall Street would be right now were it not for the fairy tales of pro forma earnings and the distored reality of earnings reports. It's like this sick joke we all have to "believe in", otherwise our world (and dependance on wall street to bring love, peave, and freedom to the world) isn't quite so rosy.:)
Studied like a NORMAL ECONOMY? CRY ....
on
EverQuest and the UN
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· Score: 3, Insightful
> Castronova says that EverQuest's economy can be studied like any normal economy, even though Norrath is a fantasy world. This is because of the social importance attached to the game by its players.
Castronova believes that virtual worlds like Norrath could eventually become more closely linked with the real world. "Virtual worlds may be the future of e-commerce, and perhaps the internet itself," he says. "Ordinary people, who seem to have become bored and frustrated by ordinary web commerce, engage energetically and enthusiastically in avatar-based online markets."
Jesus christ. I feel sick to my stomach. Can be studied like a normal economy? Hello? Can we start killing off the players when they run out of virtual water and food? Can we cut a few of their virtual legs off and then tell them they cant play the part in EQ that they want to?
I mean, does anyone actually believe this? Are we all so wealthy that we can't understand the significance of scarcity, poverty, inequality, yadda yadda in the (earth to Castronova) real world? The idea that when you can't get your next meal, you're unlikely to be fit enough to run the capitast race?
> I bet that they were sending malformed email in the first place. (Invalid To: or From: headers, etc.) Then they ran to the courts so that voluntary use of anti-spam software could be made illegal, so their invalid mail would get through.
This is what it's come to, huh? I provide a link to Blue Mountain's website, and you provide me with an assumption of why you think Blue Mountain is evil. You're kidding, right? You could still filter Blue Mountain mail yourself if you wanted (unless you'd like to actually support your thesis).. the point was that MS included in the 'grey area' of spammers (as it really is a grey area), and they had to fight tooth and nail to get them to put them in the whitehats bucket. You could still filter their mail.. you'd just actually know you were getting it before you decided to start filtering it.
I feel sorry for ACs.. it's hard to believe they actually feel they can back up their penetance to the churches of big business when they always seem to post the juiciest naysaying under an AC.
Re:Noteriety in an alternate universe
on
EverQuest and the UN
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Bang on. Another major difference is that, if you run out of money, you don't die or not eat or whatever. I totally agree that this represents the driving forces behind our material gains as social status, but little else. I surely hope EQ doesn't end up being some sort of malformed poster child for the neo-liberal free-market movement...
> The differance, is that they generally don't do it with widely interoperable standards like POP
*ROFL* Or HTML? Or XML? Or writable DVD? Holy crap, I can't believe you said that. Hahaha. Oh my. You arn't a programmer, are you?
> exactly what moral principles is this this guy defending?
Uh, that Outlook does many disservices to the uninformed masses, and that the only way to get them to switch grazing fields is to whip them? He might be doing Linux a disservice, but tough crap.
People use broken stuff all the time; this I understand. However, if they really are too lazy to switch to a mailer than can handle these *really simple* borks, they've got larger problems to deal with than to not participate in some guy's opt-in community or read his posts. I use Outlook, but I certainly don't feel any ill will towards this guy for demonstrating that my decision leaves some room for improvement.
> an unfortunate loss of faith for public
Believe me, Linux ain't gunna be the saviour of the public at large. I'm more interested in showing them that we've built a very deedply ingrained social dependance on our entrenched technology paths rather than attempt to woo them to the light. People arn't interested in the light. The uninformed masses only move when you get out the cattle prod; which is both the mandate of companies, and, for some reason, a much poo-poo'd action if done by an individual.
http://free.bluemountain.com/home/ImportantNotic e. html
There is evidence that MS has actually done something along the lines of what this gentleman did on purpose as a means of retribution to a company that opposed being bought out (or some other interest of MS's.. )
It's unfair that large companies can do it, on purpose, all the time, and claim "business accumen" and "responsibity to shareholders". But some guy does it for principals (which, I know, should never come before money and maturity, heaven forbid.. ), and you're villified.
Would you consider him in the right if we was doing this to make money for people?
Hehe, okay, because I missed a qualifier (certain, some,.. is it most, or a very small amount?), my points regarding the fact that your card isn't doing any work, and that the PowerPC-optimized filters are significantly faster on the powerPC platform than on the Pentium platform makes my point non-informative?:)
I'd say the slashdot crowd is getting tougher than ever, although I think its just that the bloated user base has left us with more nitpickers...
When you run your filters (which is where most photoshoppers are able to judge the 'speed' of their platform compared to past experiences or other platforms), the PowerPC-optimized version of Photoshop screams. I've seen it first hand, the G4 beside a higher-clocked P3, and the G4 simply obliterates the P3.
Now, I'm a PC guy, but I respect that when it comes to raw performance given a properly optimized and compiled app, the PowerPC chips just scream.
But most important lesson, geez, your videocard is not doing your calcs in a hardcore photoshop session... your CPU is.
Actually, it's hard to pull that argument these days with the amount of money at stake. Considering that slashdot is running a story (today, Jan 27th) about scientists withholding information from each other for exacly that reason, the innovators of yesteryear were not priviledged to such large carrots, and thus were much more likely to be able to provide information up front about their discoveries. These days, if you think science really operates like this unless you already have a huge company and team of lawyers lined up behind you, I'd totally understand why you'd want to be secret. To say nothing about how much more media there is these days, etc, etc... We read these stories about HP and IBM making crazy advances in science, but you'd have as much luck getting the details required to reproduce their experiments as you would from the (likely) hoaxer in the above story.
You can bring this offline with me (I'm interested in where you're coming from) at gthomson@NOSPAMzaq.com
The email addy associated with my account is dead until next week.
One last public point. Please don't confuse being anti-free-market with anti-capitalism. They are not the same thing, and you cannot compare being against one as being against the other.
I wasn't saying that the public has been responsible for chipping away at governments, but for the most part, they've stood by and let it happen (or just been to disinterested in existance to care).
> I also think that when for any particular industry the term "government" is replaced by "Microsoft", or any "X Company" that effectively regulates the market as a government (with an electorate of shareholders) it's just as bad.
Agreed, and thats what I'm most interested in avoiding (although I am fully prepared to say that certain countries are very near this situation, if not in it.)
However, I have faith in government (I'm in Canada). I have seen it do many stupid things, but also many good things, which is pretty much no worse or better off than even my 'favorite' companies. And if I ever run out of money, at least I still have a way of expressing my confiendece in the current captains of that boat with my vote, as opposed to the private-interest authority who can and will only listen to those members of scociety who are already in a position of personal security.
The government is my firewall. It may slow things down and cause me problems once in awhile, but I value a last line of defence over unfettered technological advancement and trade any day of the week.
>Limit Congress to their constitutional limits, and soft donations won't matter.
Oh my.
I take it then, that MS is a gifted child rather than a spoiled brat, in your free-market utopia? And that you'd never, ever, have to rely on your government taking a stand against private interests? (Even if they started killing people a la Firestone, Nesle, and one zillion and one chemical companies?) You're willing to bet your, and your childrens futures, on the belief that private interests will never spiral so out of control such that you end up with, for all intents and purposes, the kind of massive self-interested authority that government exists to control?
a) a better understanding of the world around us
b) increased levels of personal happiness and an increased sense of self-worth
Of course, the juggernaut is way to fast and powerful now to allow for those definitions to stand alone. Why innovation neccessarily involves convincing a popular vote that something is worth it is beyond me, as I always assumed the people truely making a difference were so far ahead of everyone else that you couldn't rely on a public to validate a true advancement in human progress.
Slashdot Mirror
> Because they believe it's actually our fear of fraud that's hurting their response rates.
...
I know this is flame bait, but in most first-degree murders and sexual abuse (or at least sexual abuse ) cases, the victim knew and trusted the perpetrator
> If the wealthy person wasn't around, the poor person would have to earn the right to stay alive somehow.
.. and how did they do it? High taxation, heavy government intervention in trade and development. Just a parting thought.
A bunch of those poor people could do you job better than you ever hope to do it. Thats what scares you so much. If you don't believe it, it scares you into not believing it.
What you say is only one level below what much writing and prose by the wealthy elite in the 17th and 18th free-market UK economy said: "It would be difficult to be rich if the poor were not around to do all the jobs the rich don't want to do!"
By the way, India has the fastest growing GDP in the world, and Japan did a very good job of ressurecting their economy before the free-markets hit
Jebus buddy. You're giving the typical elite answer: "Sure, the numbers are bad, but in the long run, just trust us, it'll pay off." How do you think you'd take that if you were in, say, Argentina, or Uguanda, and you'd seen the cost of water rise, wages plummet, and your countries GDP (a terrible measure, but it seems to speak to capitalists) drop 15% in the last 20 years. Or if the IMF lent your country money on the condition that you privatize your water system and contract its management out (while tripling the cost) to 2 or 3 mutlinational American companies? It's not paying off. The gap actually started in the UK in the 15th century, when the feudal system started taking away common land from the people. Capitalism involved removing the rights to resources from people. Now, like I said, I'm not bashing capitalism, I'm bashing the free-market. You say the gap has been widening .. well, it's been widening faster and far more readically since the drive for free-market capitalism has been pushed onto the world state. Look, even the WTO, the champion of this movement, admits it (although not readily or easily.)
.. and so while it's tough to see or admit, it is my view that those who cannot see it or refuse to are simply too dependant on your kind of mind set to justify working the longest hours in the world with one of the highest levels of emotional and psycological distress. Evolution will manifest protest in the form of violence. It's funny, cause the elite are always caught standing with their pants down, going "Hey, whats wrong? Nothing wrong! What are you doing?! Nothing's wrong! Okay, you're poor, but c'mon, just wait, you won't be .. well, or maybe your grandkids won't be. Well, if they arn't lazy asses." while posts like mine are routinely ignored by those with wealth for no other reason than it would infer that sacrifice and voluntary distribution of wealth and power is the only way to make this world work. A frightening proposition for any sufficiently well-conditioned capitalist.
> There are plenty of people
Man, you can say whatever you like to make you feel good about working hard. Really now, you're not saying anything that most other people who work hard and suspect the poor are nothing but lazy people. Plenty, in this case, is pittance to the number of people who don't escape poverty.
Anyhow man, I'm just saying, the gap is growing ever fast. If you want to take the "wait and see" approach, well, fine, but thats the same stance thats been thrown around since the 15th century. Nobody buys it except those who have already benifited from it, which is a smaller and smaller amount of people earning a disproportionately larger and larger amount. I'm in that basket, you're in that basket
> Ya know, this is a pet peeve of mine. We keep hearing about this increasing gap between the rich and poor. But we never see any real numbers to back it up. What is the rate of increase of that gap? Where are the statistics that show the gap, and trace its fluctuation over time? There was a pretty significant gap between the rich and poor in, say, Victorian England. You're telling me that the gap has worsened since then? Prove it. Because I have to tell you, my feeling (based purely on anecdotal evidence, because I haven't done the research either) is that the gap is actually decreasing as the developed world flattens into "the great middle class", and the third world gradually becomes developed.
.. just, they got a free-market, supposedly)
:)
;)
Here's one stat (Banko Milanovic, economist at WTO): In 1988, the richest 5 percent of the people in the world had incomes that were 78 teims as big as those of the pporest 5 percent. By 1993, the top 5 percent had incomes 114 times as big as those of the bottom 5 percent. If you make 35,000$ Canadian a year (I make double, and I'm 23 years old), you are richer than 98 percent of the world's population.
Think of post communist Russia. From 2 million poor to 60 million post-communism. (Not that I'm in any way advertising communism
Nations like sub-Saharan Africa grew their GDP 36%from about 1950 to 1980 (representing the post-war regulated market economy), but have fallen by 15 percent in the last 20 years (as the free-market has been pressured onto the world economy stage). Other nations are similar.
From a WTO report: "Indeed, growth in the developing world has been disappointing, with the typical country registering negligible growth."
Mexican wages have fallen about 20 percent in 1994.
All of this notwithstanding the question: is all of this really making the people in these other countries very happy?
The numbers are there. It is an actual falsehood to believe otherwise, even according to the pro-free-market capitalist WTO. The gap has an continues to grow. It's simply not in the best interest of the most powerful interests to look at them, or present them in that little ad they call the news. How do you think the bearer of news like this could explain it to their shareholders or investors?
Anyhow, thats just sad about saying doing work. Other people want to do work. It is you who do not see that there are mechanisms in place to keep the poor down, as manifested in how the wealthy perceive them. I understand that it is difficult to feel good about being in this system, but it is important to know what it does.
Nice post. Well thought out and presented. For the sake of this argument, a wealthy person is anyone who can afford a house and car. What we might call the lower-middle class.
/only/ purpose of taxes. :P Yes, I didn't qualify my statement, but you yourself admit that this is at least one of the purposes of taxes. Also note that I never said that this wealth was distributed in cash form (although it is, through some programs, obviously). This redistribution goes towards many things: education, support, training, whatever. That's still a redistribution of wealth in my opinion.
/is/ a reward, and that the freeloaders (the poor, the stupid) are perfectly happy to live off the backs of others. While we don't have time to debate such an axiom, it is not the axiom under under which I base my viewpoints. I believe people's primary motivation in life is to attain a social status by way of participating and contributing to the society they live in. Note that I'm not talking about material status, although in the world we live in, this is one of the only ways to attain and advertise one's position within the social heirarchy. Many an economist and phycologist have promoted the goal to contibute to one's society as the primary motivator of humans. I tend to agree .. while we equate money as reward in this society, the poor people I know are not as interested in money as they are to have the ability to have the resources required to begin contributing to their society. While the church of today is money, I'm of the opinion that it is only the sufficiently conditioned who has come to believe that people are only after enough weath to exist and/or to spend on consumption rather than self-betterment. Note, exceptions are abound, but I suppose I'm just saying that I believe the numbers fall more in the favour of those who wish to contribute rather than those who are truely content with receiving state-distributed welfare of various sorts. It is, in my opinion, only the widening gap in incomes and standards of living that are contributing to the increasing number of people who are so unhappy regarding their relative lack of wealth that they cannot focus on their desire to contribute to society in the first place. Ironically, most of the wealthy people I know (I work in that world) value money as reward FAR more than the poor people I know (I socialize in a very bohemian social circle). It's frusterating to see wealthy people suggest that poor people are driven by the same things they are, and then /withhold/ that very value to the point where these poor people can't afford the things that they both value .. food, water, rent, and cultural opportunities such as socializing. Consider the disproportionate amount of people in this society that wish to contribute in a vain that is unsupported by big business (arts, culture, non-quantitative branches of medicine, etc, etc .. whatever the wealthy elite don't value.) Essentially I am saying that withholding the redistribution of wealth, at least within a society that does not go to the ends of the earth to promote material gain as the primary human motivator, results in more people unwilling to contribute rather than people freeloading off the system.
.. some can, and do! But not enough, yet ...
... well, do a little reading from schools of thought that are vohemently opposed to by our current social and economic system.
Three comments:
1. I didn't say this was the
2. Your argument regarding the fact that people who get this money (the poor) are being rewarded for being sloth is based on the assumption that motivation comes from wealth. Ie, that money
3. > would it not make sense for taxes to benefit those who create them
Programs for the common good includes the poor. It's an obvious enough point that, certainly, those who create taxes should see a reasonable (by reasonable, this is set by the social barometer of the society the taxes are collected in) return in the form of programs and services that help them. I suppose that the relative contention to my point simply illustrates where that barometer is.
All of this is notwithstanding the most sacreligious viewpoint I hold: that much of the opposition to taxes is not due to those who 'freeload' on it, but rather the disproportionate and unhealthy value that those with wealth place on it. If only they could 'let go' a little and made poor people happier (and thus far more likely to re-enter society as a contributing member), they might come to realize that freeloading is, for all intents and purposes, a creation of the very populous who is so disagreeable with the idea of redistributing their priviledged earnings. And of course
4. Back to the real issue at hand. Free-market capitalism is touted as the system that leads to the most efficient use of available resources (be they material, or effort). It would appear that squashing investment fraud is one such way to ensure that those resources are fed back into the fast-and-furious system, much to the delight of the big business types, rather than to the shady ones who don't feed back into the system. Therefore, I charge that, if you are into the free-market capitalist school of thought, you'd believe that this does benifit everyone in so far as it ensures that all generated value goes back to the proper religion (if you will).
Obstinately is a good word, but please don't forget that nothing is a top-down system. The more people that perceive that taxes go to the fat cats, the more likely fat-cats will feel that their self-interest isn't as likely to hurt them in terms of their public relations. There are many ways to buck that trend (and it is getting worse), but being reluctant to contribute to the taxation system is a protest that ends up more on the backs of the already unfortunate (and, as you point out, all of us) than the well-off polician who, really, at the end of the day, could live with less financial perks to his job. Also, it's somewhat of a skewered viewpoint, as it relates back to my first point, and that part of this viewpoint is promoted by big business to swing your trust from the public sector to the private one. And if you don't believe all that
But really, good argument. I see your views, but I choose to believe that part of your axioms are resonsible for these 'freeloaders' we (well, you and others, not I) are so loathe to support through taxes.
Good point, although I'd charge that you don't neccessarily know better ways to help your country than your government. I'm just saying that it's a pretty unfounded complaint given the scope of the purpose of taxes, and the complexities inherent in distributing them in such a way that the government won't be the recipiant of glib remarks like the parent post.
... :)
I realize, of course, that this is an extremely unpopular point of view these days
I'd be intersted to see ya throw up some numbers or supporting arguments in terms of how much money the SEC gets from public taxes, and how they go about spending that money.
BTW, stopping investment fraud is pretty paramount to an efficient capitalist system, so if you're down with fast-n-furious capitalism (a system who's sole purpose is to promote and motivate the efficient use of resources), the goal of this project is in everyone's interest, not just the dumb (or gullible, or whatever) people.
Then again, if you're down for regulated markets, I agree that the money could be better spent on developing laws that would cut down on the ease of committing investment fraud in the first place.
We're not likely to see it, as such regulations slow trade and business (gasp!), but it would certainly result in less buyers having to beware, IMHO.
Lol. I love people who define taxes as:
Money I pay to my government that I'd better be paid back in full for.
Dummy. Taxes are to distribute the wealth of your economy to those less fortunate. Yes, people with less brains than you constitutes those less fortunate.
ba-dum ching!
> My favorite is Victoria, who actually has a pretty seductive voice.
:)
.. I'm a big Mac man. =)
I concurr! In fact, I'm having a hard time dating women who don't resemble futuristic lamps or quiet translucent cubes these days!
(Not a troll
My bad. I'll be the first to admit it.
Doesn't anyone think it's worth mentioning that wall street continues to rely on pro forma earnings reports to euphamize the lack of a real profit?
.. they are unlikely to have a (pro forma) profit in the next few quarters, from what I understand.
Also, as it was already pointed out, the 4th quarter is the most profitable
And it's a profit on a pro forma earnings (sp?) ... hardly a true profit.
... "Go, confidence, go! Here's some more pro-e-commerce redderick for you all!"
:)
More spin. I can hear the suits now
One wonders where Wall Street would be right now were it not for the fairy tales of pro forma earnings and the distored reality of earnings reports. It's like this sick joke we all have to "believe in", otherwise our world (and dependance on wall street to bring love, peave, and freedom to the world) isn't quite so rosy.
> Castronova says that EverQuest's economy can be studied like any normal economy, even though Norrath is a fantasy world. This is because of the social importance attached to the game by its players.
Castronova believes that virtual worlds like Norrath could eventually become more closely linked with the real world. "Virtual worlds may be the future of e-commerce, and perhaps the internet itself," he says. "Ordinary people, who seem to have become bored and frustrated by ordinary web commerce, engage energetically and enthusiastically in avatar-based online markets."
Jesus christ. I feel sick to my stomach. Can be studied like a normal economy? Hello? Can we start killing off the players when they run out of virtual water and food? Can we cut a few of their virtual legs off and then tell them they cant play the part in EQ that they want to?
I mean, does anyone actually believe this? Are we all so wealthy that we can't understand the significance of scarcity, poverty, inequality, yadda yadda in the (earth to Castronova) real world? The idea that when you can't get your next meal, you're unlikely to be fit enough to run the capitast race?
> I bet that they were sending malformed email in the first place. (Invalid To: or From: headers, etc.) Then they ran to the courts so that voluntary use of anti-spam software could be made illegal, so their invalid mail would get through.
.. the point was that MS included in the 'grey area' of spammers (as it really is a grey area), and they had to fight tooth and nail to get them to put them in the whitehats bucket. You could still filter their mail .. you'd just actually know you were getting it before you decided to start filtering it.
.. it's hard to believe they actually feel they can back up their penetance to the churches of big business when they always seem to post the juiciest naysaying under an AC.
This is what it's come to, huh? I provide a link to Blue Mountain's website, and you provide me with an assumption of why you think Blue Mountain is evil. You're kidding, right? You could still filter Blue Mountain mail yourself if you wanted (unless you'd like to actually support your thesis)
I feel sorry for ACs
Bang on. Another major difference is that, if you run out of money, you don't die or not eat or whatever. I totally agree that this represents the driving forces behind our material gains as social status, but little else. I surely hope EQ doesn't end up being some sort of malformed poster child for the neo-liberal free-market movement ...
> The differance, is that they generally don't do it with widely interoperable standards like POP
*ROFL* Or HTML? Or XML? Or writable DVD? Holy crap, I can't believe you said that. Hahaha. Oh my. You arn't a programmer, are you?
> exactly what moral principles is this this guy defending?
Uh, that Outlook does many disservices to the uninformed masses, and that the only way to get them to switch grazing fields is to whip them? He might be doing Linux a disservice, but tough crap.
People use broken stuff all the time; this I understand. However, if they really are too lazy to switch to a mailer than can handle these *really simple* borks, they've got larger problems to deal with than to not participate in some guy's opt-in community or read his posts. I use Outlook, but I certainly don't feel any ill will towards this guy for demonstrating that my decision leaves some room for improvement.
> an unfortunate loss of faith for public
Believe me, Linux ain't gunna be the saviour of the public at large. I'm more interested in showing them that we've built a very deedply ingrained social dependance on our entrenched technology paths rather than attempt to woo them to the light. People arn't interested in the light. The uninformed masses only move when you get out the cattle prod; which is both the mandate of companies, and, for some reason, a much poo-poo'd action if done by an individual.
BTW, read this:
c e. html
.. )
http://free.bluemountain.com/home/ImportantNoti
There is evidence that MS has actually done something along the lines of what this gentleman did on purpose as a means of retribution to a company that opposed being bought out (or some other interest of MS's
> Stupid stunts like this
.. ), and you're villified.
It's unfair that large companies can do it, on purpose, all the time, and claim "business accumen" and "responsibity to shareholders". But some guy does it for principals (which, I know, should never come before money and maturity, heaven forbid
Would you consider him in the right if we was doing this to make money for people?
Hehe, okay, because I missed a qualifier (certain, some, .. is it most, or a very small amount?), my points regarding the fact that your card isn't doing any work, and that the PowerPC-optimized filters are significantly faster on the powerPC platform than on the Pentium platform makes my point non-informative? :)
...
I'd say the slashdot crowd is getting tougher than ever, although I think its just that the bloated user base has left us with more nitpickers
> a 3d card runs a 2d app 72 percent faster?
... your CPU is.
When you run your filters (which is where most photoshoppers are able to judge the 'speed' of their platform compared to past experiences or other platforms), the PowerPC-optimized version of Photoshop screams. I've seen it first hand, the G4 beside a higher-clocked P3, and the G4 simply obliterates the P3.
Now, I'm a PC guy, but I respect that when it comes to raw performance given a properly optimized and compiled app, the PowerPC chips just scream.
But most important lesson, geez, your videocard is not doing your calcs in a hardcore photoshop session
Actually, it's hard to pull that argument these days with the amount of money at stake. Considering that slashdot is running a story (today, Jan 27th) about scientists withholding information from each other for exacly that reason, the innovators of yesteryear were not priviledged to such large carrots, and thus were much more likely to be able to provide information up front about their discoveries. These days, if you think science really operates like this unless you already have a huge company and team of lawyers lined up behind you, I'd totally understand why you'd want to be secret. To say nothing about how much more media there is these days, etc, etc ... We read these stories about HP and IBM making crazy advances in science, but you'd have as much luck getting the details required to reproduce their experiments as you would from the (likely) hoaxer in the above story.
> anti-capitalists
You can bring this offline with me (I'm interested in where you're coming from) at gthomson@NOSPAMzaq.com
The email addy associated with my account is dead until next week.
One last public point. Please don't confuse being anti-free-market with anti-capitalism. They are not the same thing, and you cannot compare being against one as being against the other.
I wasn't saying that the public has been responsible for chipping away at governments, but for the most part, they've stood by and let it happen (or just been to disinterested in existance to care).
> I also think that when for any particular industry the term "government" is replaced by "Microsoft", or any "X Company" that effectively regulates the market as a government (with an electorate of shareholders) it's just as bad.
Agreed, and thats what I'm most interested in avoiding (although I am fully prepared to say that certain countries are very near this situation, if not in it.)
However, I have faith in government (I'm in Canada). I have seen it do many stupid things, but also many good things, which is pretty much no worse or better off than even my 'favorite' companies. And if I ever run out of money, at least I still have a way of expressing my confiendece in the current captains of that boat with my vote, as opposed to the private-interest authority who can and will only listen to those members of scociety who are already in a position of personal security.
The government is my firewall. It may slow things down and cause me problems once in awhile, but I value a last line of defence over unfettered technological advancement and trade any day of the week.
>Limit Congress to their constitutional limits, and soft donations won't matter.
Oh my.
I take it then, that MS is a gifted child rather than a spoiled brat, in your free-market utopia? And that you'd never, ever, have to rely on your government taking a stand against private interests? (Even if they started killing people a la Firestone, Nesle, and one zillion and one chemical companies?) You're willing to bet your, and your childrens futures, on the belief that private interests will never spiral so out of control such that you end up with, for all intents and purposes, the kind of massive self-interested authority that government exists to control?
I would argue that innvation leads to:
a) a better understanding of the world around us
b) increased levels of personal happiness and an increased sense of self-worth
Of course, the juggernaut is way to fast and powerful now to allow for those definitions to stand alone. Why innovation neccessarily involves convincing a popular vote that something is worth it is beyond me, as I always assumed the people truely making a difference were so far ahead of everyone else that you couldn't rely on a public to validate a true advancement in human progress.