Well, realistically, anyone who complains about the cost of these things is a fool of the highest calibre. Science represents a tiny, tiny fraction of the any nation's budget. An absolutely, amazingly small amount. Most money gets spent on war and beauracrats. Things like the ILC, the space program, ITER, welfare programs, protecting the environment, not letting psychopaths out of jail just to make space, snipers that shoot lobbyists and non-nude PETA activists on sight, are so inexpensive by contrast that to NOT to do them would be sheer insanity.
Watch CNN? Are you mad? I watch the CBC (or, to be more precise: I read the CBC). The CBC is consistently quite good. Not too much fear-mongering, a great science page, etc. And I love the Daily Show. I think Jon Stewart and company are American heroes. But you can become informed about the world watching SNL or Jeopardy -- simply providing information doesn't make something a news source. By contrast, the local free paper informs remarkably few people (most people grab it just for the super-easy crossword, a mildly inoffensive way to kill 45 minutes), but still qualifies as news. News isn't effectiveness, I'd say it's more about intent and format.
Heh, that would be a great public service poster to plaster around DC: "Just Say No to new laws". Too many politicians giving in to peer pressure to be like the "cool" kids and pass needless legislation.
I'd certainly agree that Clinton was way ahead of Bush in terms of unshittiness, but I think that unshittiness is way too low a goal to be shooting for. An adequate government would be a nice start, and a mildy positive one would be a world-shattering achievement.
It's funny: Clinton's election campaign was one of the first in America to really recognize that idea (Clinton apparently believed in it quite strongly). And it obviously worked, given the way Clinton was able to do basically nothing and yet maintain non-stop popularity. And yet subsequent democratic party campaigns ditched the idea completely, while the GOP totally embraced it (where it once again works wonders, election after election). What do you call a group of people that fail to learn from their successes, and then fail to learn from their mistakes?
Since when is the Daily Show news? I was under the impression that it was a comedy program. Given that they make up a great deal of stuff, they report on less actual news than the 5-page free paper that I pick up every day (just for the crossword), and don't report on ANYTHING unless they can derive a good laugh from it, I'd say that anyone trying to claim the Daily Show is a news program is off their rocker. It's a parody of news programs, not a news program itself.
Generally, the only people that actually think of the Daily Show as "news" are either
A) Stupid (that would be the "younger" viewers mentioned above), or
B) So deeply neoconservative that they've lost all connection with reality (the kind of people silly enough to ask Stephen Colbert to speak at a Whitehouse dinner and then act surprised when he mocks the president to his face).
Actually, aren't the guys at CNN under the impression that the Daily Show is a competing news program? How can people miss the joke so completely and totally? I mean, come on.
Well, photons do have momentum, and that momentum is proportional to their wavelength. If their wavelength increases, they lose momentum that can be transferred to something else.
Differing opinions are great. It's the people that oppose the existence of differing opinions that are a problem. They're the ones that need to go. And in general, I think most people agree on a jackass when they see it. For instance, the guy that steals a hundred bucks worth of gas from my work every couple of days. It's not like he can't afford gas: he drives a brand spanking new Ford Explorer. Needless theft -> jackass. Likewise, the suicide bomber that attacked some soldiers that were standing in a crowd of Afghani children. Blowing up children -> complete jackass. The guy that decided that Osama Bin Laden wasn't worth pursuing anymore and that inciting terrorism in Iraq would make America safer? Inciting terrorism -> absolute jackass. Letting the world's most notorious terrorist go free -> supreme jackass. They're pretty easy to spot once you know what to look for.
Normally I'm the first to criticize the US (well, not quite the first -- there's always that one super pissed-off guy that sees the USA hiding in every shadow), but the you're dead on here. The US exports vast numbers of weapons... to militaries and police forces. Some are no doubt sold to individual gun enthusiasts, people who live in rural areas and need them, collectors, etc. But it's the vast stockpiles of soviet weaponry that seem to end up in the hands of terrorists and rogue militias.
If anything, I'd say this stems from the fact that:
The US builds for quality as far as weapons go. This makes US weapons pricy (European-designed weapons are the same way). Actually, very pricey. For the cost of the pissiest US handgun, I could buy an MP3 player that I'll get a lot more use out of. I could also get a few dozen kilos of flour or rice. This says something quite telling about the availability of US weapons to the third-world. Soviet weapons are in many cases simply sitting in abandoned stockpiles.
US weapons are generally designed to have a trained operator who treats the weapon right. Soviet anythings were designed to be abuse-tolerant, since the pieces often didn't fit together well in the first place. They had to be ultra-rugged to function at all. This makes them ideal for people living in a cave without access to high quality parts and maintenance equipment.
There are other factors, like that the US normally doesn't trade weapons to dictatorships and other undesirables. After all, American weapon dealers do understand the consequences of having doctors fish bullets out of dead marines, and finding "Made in America" stamped on the back. That would suck. More so when you pull a chunk of missile casing out of downed airliner and find the Boeing logo on it. These things simply wouldn't do.
I don't know if you've noticed, but there are still well-armed enemies out there. From asian warlords (which have made a resurgence) to respectably armed organized crime groups, to dictatorships like Pakistan and Iran, to any old jackass militia that decides it doesn't like taxation and wants to overthrow the government.
Ultimately, there is no escape from the fact that the government must always have the greatest capacity for violence. It is the basis of orderly society. Otherwise, how could the government enforce the law or prevent itself from being replaced by a group with greater force at their disposal? And as weaponry evolves, populations grow, the government has to stay out ahead. And that means researching, developing, and buying new weapons and technology for the part of the government responsible for violence: the military and the police force(s).
It sucks. It sucks BAD. Militaries are the most contemptible organizations on the planet, followed shortly thereafter by police. But they're necessary, at least until we can develop a virus that exlusively kills jackasses.
I wouldn't call being nice a fanatasy. After all, being nice doesn't require that niceness is reciprocated. I was referring to it more as a personal behavioural and moral choice rather than trying to create some kind of "nice society". That is certainly impossible, although it must say it's cool that we live in an age where the reasons for that can be described and analyzed very unambiguously.
As for thinking? I totally disagree with you there. Most people don't think AT ALL. Try talking to someone about legalizing pot. Regardless of which side you have, the other person will amost definitely have some knee-jerk reaction and ignore any sort of reason whatsoever. For instance, if you are on the pro-legalization side, talking someone who is against it, they'll ignore any of the following reasonable arguments: pot is not addictive, less physically habituating than even coffee, it's easier for children to get illegal drugs than legal ones (more children smoke pot than cigarettes, for example). I'm sure there are at least a few flimsy arguments the other way, although I've never heard them. Most people you talk to will have a completely emotional response though, and not actually think about any of the facts you provide. Emotion is one of the alternatives to thinking. And it's the main way that people approach the world.
With governments, I do exaggerate somewhat. Still, corrupt, hishonest leadership is by far the most common situation in government of any kind.
It would be pretty surprising if such an obvious idea had just been conceived of now. I know that I've thought about balloon-launched rockets a few times, so it's a certainty that people who actually DO things with rockets are quite familiar with the idea. Most good ideas are were thought of long ago.
Really, if anything, the story is that someone is actually employing a good idea. That's where humans tend to fall down a bit. We've got all kinds of good ideas, but no one ever uses them. Like, this dude once had this idea about people being nice to each other, and yet only a handful of people have ever tried it. Another guy had this idea that it might be helpful to think sometimes. How many people do it? And a man once suggested that maybe, just maybe, we should let honest, intelligent people be our leaders rather than evil deceitful morons. No one has ever actually done so in all of recorded history. The youngest of those three ideas is already over 2000 years old.
I'm a little off-topic I think... Maybe I shouldn't read the CBC after 10pm. It just angries up the blood.
Well that's where the "competent" part comes in. Reasonable, competent governments are sufficiently rare as to not interfere with the creation of generalizations about the crumminess of government. Nevertheless, it has happened. With appropriate levels of voter awareness and the liberal tazering of political aspirants, it could happen again.
Yeah, but Chavez ain't in Mexico. And I'm not sure America has ever assasinated a Mexican president. What exactly is your point? Has America interfered with Mexico in some monstrous way that I'm not aware of? I thought the relationship there was fairly amicable, at least other than America's flagrant and continual violations of the free-trade agreements that AMERICANS wanted and pushed for.
Of course, like all markets in which competition isn't feasible, it needs to be heavily regulated. That's the part that often gets missed during privatization. A competent government will do one better and just run the business in question itself, and use the profits to offset taxes (which is so awesome that it hurts to think about). It's just that governments sufficiently competent are rare and fleeting.
An interesting example of this is the Canadian mint. It was, for a time, making a profit for the government by releasing collectors' coins and whatnot, enough so that they were able to cover their costs. I don't know if they're still managing this what with the change in management a few years back, but it's a testament to what a serious manager can do with a public company.
No big cities in the southern US? Are you mad? Maybe New York and LA through off Americans' sense of proportion, but a big city is generally considered anything with over 100,000 people. The presence of suburbs is a good indication that you're dealing with a big city. Dallas has 1.2 million people in it for god's sake. That's more than some states. More than some COUNTRIES.
Housing costs certainly vary a lot in cities, but there's always something one can afford. Cities wouldn't function if they didn't provide enough affordable housing for service-industry employees and other minimum wage earners. Of course, in areas that have embraced suburban sprawl, it's much harder to afford a home in the city. Sadly, this does represent a great deal of the USA. But cities than apply even a modicum of planning to their design can accomodate basically anyone who doesn't have a hard-on for lawn-mowing.
It's a reasonably assumption to make. 99% of Americans live in cities or their suburbs. It's on par with assuming that your dentist went to dental school. It's a tad embarassing when you're wrong, but you're correct so often that it more than makes up for it.
The answer should be obvious: tax gas to cover the cost of roads and their management, privatize transit, and let the transit company control the land surrounding bus stops and rail stations. This gives the transit company motivation to build lots of access points in convenient areas, develop the land in those areas to provide amenities to commuters as well as a healthy revenue stream. You turn transit from an inconvenient burden on the public into a tax-paying, job-creating, economy-building way of getting around cheaply.
Makes me glad I live in a city. Cheap public transit (privatized, incidentally, so it's paying taxes rather than costing taxes) saves me five to six thousand dollars a year on vehicle ownership. I can get anything I need within five minutes walking distance, and anything I want within 30 minutes transit time. Two universities and a dozen or so colleges within easy travel time. Three hospitals than I can get to with a $10 taxi ride, assuming I don't need an ambulance (which I've seen first hand arrive in about five minutes on average).
I seriously question the sanity of people who want to live in the suburbs, away from all the amenities cities offer, where the crime rate is significantly higher, the asses fatter (and who wants to see and/or have fat asses?), travel more expensive, and for culture you have to choose between bible study and a movie theatre that only shows Hollywood's most lackluster, big-budget flops. And all so that you can have some grass to mow. I hate to throw around the word stupid... actually that's not true. I use the word stupid rather liberally. But in this case, I think it's warranted.
Of course, if you want to talk about actual small towns (as opposed to suburbs of real cities), that's a slightly different story, and a much more positive one. But I digress.
You're aware, are you not, that people living in metropolitan areas are statistically much healthier than people living in suburbs? The odds of being the victim of a violent crime or a property crime are also much lower. Neither is as low as someone living in a small town (and before you get confused, a small town has a population of less than 5000 -- vastly less than where you live. The suburbs are, by and large, the most dangerous and unhealthy place that you can find any reasonably number of people living, short of an actual Warsaw-style ghetto or a warzone.
Suburbs are where the meth labs and grow-ops are, they're where everyone is becoming obese and asthmatic and placing strain on the health system, they're where no one walks, no one knows each other, there is a belligerent and fearful monoculture that breaks the spirit of the young while stupifying the old, and economic stagnation (why do you think people in suburbs drive to the real city to work?)
Um... you know that the "public" in "public transit systems" doesn't mean "publically-owned", right? Many of the world's transit systems are run completely privately (bus systems in particular). Even light rail systems are often run privately, and are funded the combination of income from fares and leasing out the real estate immediately surrounding the stations. This can be immensely profitable for the owning companies.
Not that I expect an American to understand basic economics. America is, after all, a nation that thinks that a president who vastly increases government spending and runs massive deficits is somehow going to bring about a decrease in taxation "any day now". A people who respond to increasing fuel prices by buying larger, less efficient vehicles. Truly, a people whose stupidity is rivalled only by their adiposity and belligerence.
Congratulations. You're almost as stupid as the people who call Chavez a communist dictator.
The majority of South Americans like democratic socialism, hate America for assassinating their elected leaders and organizing dictatorial military coups in their nations, and aren't moronic enough to wage war against plants that let people enjoy life slightly more than they would otherwise. Deal with it. Americans are never quite as stupd as when they express their ridiculous delusions about South America. Actually, maybe America's behaviour at election time is stupider. After all, voting for a "conservative" who doesn't repeal gun control laws, doesn't lower taxes, doesn't promote state power, and instigates massive government oversight of every aspect of American life, is so dumb that it is literally staggering. As is voting for a "liberal" who bombs aspirin factories, encourages pork-barrel healthcare programs that don't actually provide healthcare to anyone, and wages the war on drugs with more fervor than any other government in recent memory. Goddam Americans are fucking stupid!
So you're a coward... how's that working out for you?
How did Americans become gutless wimps so fast? Seriously -- lets ban EVERY technology that bears a superficial resemblance to a type of weapon that terrorists don't use anyway. Then lets start living in small cages that the government unlocks when its time to go to work in an approved citizen transport craft. Then we'll be safe (although I'm sure you'll still keep yourself worked up about something -- I hear that panicking about the evils of pornography or the dangers of universal heat death are both nice).
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Well, realistically, anyone who complains about the cost of these things is a fool of the highest calibre. Science represents a tiny, tiny fraction of the any nation's budget. An absolutely, amazingly small amount. Most money gets spent on war and beauracrats. Things like the ILC, the space program, ITER, welfare programs, protecting the environment, not letting psychopaths out of jail just to make space, snipers that shoot lobbyists and non-nude PETA activists on sight, are so inexpensive by contrast that to NOT to do them would be sheer insanity.
-- Douglas Adams, another man who thought that the universe could be a mistake.
Watch CNN? Are you mad? I watch the CBC (or, to be more precise: I read the CBC). The CBC is consistently quite good. Not too much fear-mongering, a great science page, etc. And I love the Daily Show. I think Jon Stewart and company are American heroes. But you can become informed about the world watching SNL or Jeopardy -- simply providing information doesn't make something a news source. By contrast, the local free paper informs remarkably few people (most people grab it just for the super-easy crossword, a mildly inoffensive way to kill 45 minutes), but still qualifies as news. News isn't effectiveness, I'd say it's more about intent and format.
I'd certainly agree that Clinton was way ahead of Bush in terms of unshittiness, but I think that unshittiness is way too low a goal to be shooting for. An adequate government would be a nice start, and a mildy positive one would be a world-shattering achievement.
It's funny: Clinton's election campaign was one of the first in America to really recognize that idea (Clinton apparently believed in it quite strongly). And it obviously worked, given the way Clinton was able to do basically nothing and yet maintain non-stop popularity. And yet subsequent democratic party campaigns ditched the idea completely, while the GOP totally embraced it (where it once again works wonders, election after election). What do you call a group of people that fail to learn from their successes, and then fail to learn from their mistakes?
Generally, the only people that actually think of the Daily Show as "news" are either
A) Stupid (that would be the "younger" viewers mentioned above), or
B) So deeply neoconservative that they've lost all connection with reality (the kind of people silly enough to ask Stephen Colbert to speak at a Whitehouse dinner and then act surprised when he mocks the president to his face).
Actually, aren't the guys at CNN under the impression that the Daily Show is a competing news program? How can people miss the joke so completely and totally? I mean, come on.
Well, photons do have momentum, and that momentum is proportional to their wavelength. If their wavelength increases, they lose momentum that can be transferred to something else.
Differing opinions are great. It's the people that oppose the existence of differing opinions that are a problem. They're the ones that need to go. And in general, I think most people agree on a jackass when they see it. For instance, the guy that steals a hundred bucks worth of gas from my work every couple of days. It's not like he can't afford gas: he drives a brand spanking new Ford Explorer. Needless theft -> jackass. Likewise, the suicide bomber that attacked some soldiers that were standing in a crowd of Afghani children. Blowing up children -> complete jackass. The guy that decided that Osama Bin Laden wasn't worth pursuing anymore and that inciting terrorism in Iraq would make America safer? Inciting terrorism -> absolute jackass. Letting the world's most notorious terrorist go free -> supreme jackass. They're pretty easy to spot once you know what to look for.
Ironically, on the occassions when I do troll (usually because of near-lethal caffeine deficiency), I often get insightful mods. What's up with that?
If anything, I'd say this stems from the fact that:
- The US builds for quality as far as weapons go. This makes US weapons pricy (European-designed weapons are the same way). Actually, very pricey. For the cost of the pissiest US handgun, I could buy an MP3 player that I'll get a lot more use out of. I could also get a few dozen kilos of flour or rice. This says something quite telling about the availability of US weapons to the third-world. Soviet weapons are in many cases simply sitting in abandoned stockpiles.
- US weapons are generally designed to have a trained operator who treats the weapon right. Soviet anythings were designed to be abuse-tolerant, since the pieces often didn't fit together well in the first place. They had to be ultra-rugged to function at all. This makes them ideal for people living in a cave without access to high quality parts and maintenance equipment.
There are other factors, like that the US normally doesn't trade weapons to dictatorships and other undesirables. After all, American weapon dealers do understand the consequences of having doctors fish bullets out of dead marines, and finding "Made in America" stamped on the back. That would suck. More so when you pull a chunk of missile casing out of downed airliner and find the Boeing logo on it. These things simply wouldn't do.Ultimately, there is no escape from the fact that the government must always have the greatest capacity for violence. It is the basis of orderly society. Otherwise, how could the government enforce the law or prevent itself from being replaced by a group with greater force at their disposal? And as weaponry evolves, populations grow, the government has to stay out ahead. And that means researching, developing, and buying new weapons and technology for the part of the government responsible for violence: the military and the police force(s).
It sucks. It sucks BAD. Militaries are the most contemptible organizations on the planet, followed shortly thereafter by police. But they're necessary, at least until we can develop a virus that exlusively kills jackasses.
As for thinking? I totally disagree with you there. Most people don't think AT ALL. Try talking to someone about legalizing pot. Regardless of which side you have, the other person will amost definitely have some knee-jerk reaction and ignore any sort of reason whatsoever. For instance, if you are on the pro-legalization side, talking someone who is against it, they'll ignore any of the following reasonable arguments: pot is not addictive, less physically habituating than even coffee, it's easier for children to get illegal drugs than legal ones (more children smoke pot than cigarettes, for example). I'm sure there are at least a few flimsy arguments the other way, although I've never heard them. Most people you talk to will have a completely emotional response though, and not actually think about any of the facts you provide. Emotion is one of the alternatives to thinking. And it's the main way that people approach the world.
With governments, I do exaggerate somewhat. Still, corrupt, hishonest leadership is by far the most common situation in government of any kind.
Really, if anything, the story is that someone is actually employing a good idea. That's where humans tend to fall down a bit. We've got all kinds of good ideas, but no one ever uses them. Like, this dude once had this idea about people being nice to each other, and yet only a handful of people have ever tried it. Another guy had this idea that it might be helpful to think sometimes. How many people do it? And a man once suggested that maybe, just maybe, we should let honest, intelligent people be our leaders rather than evil deceitful morons. No one has ever actually done so in all of recorded history. The youngest of those three ideas is already over 2000 years old.
I'm a little off-topic I think... Maybe I shouldn't read the CBC after 10pm. It just angries up the blood.
Sigh ... at least it's no worse than what America does to its own people.
Well that's where the "competent" part comes in. Reasonable, competent governments are sufficiently rare as to not interfere with the creation of generalizations about the crumminess of government. Nevertheless, it has happened. With appropriate levels of voter awareness and the liberal tazering of political aspirants, it could happen again.
Yeah, but Chavez ain't in Mexico. And I'm not sure America has ever assasinated a Mexican president. What exactly is your point? Has America interfered with Mexico in some monstrous way that I'm not aware of? I thought the relationship there was fairly amicable, at least other than America's flagrant and continual violations of the free-trade agreements that AMERICANS wanted and pushed for.
An interesting example of this is the Canadian mint. It was, for a time, making a profit for the government by releasing collectors' coins and whatnot, enough so that they were able to cover their costs. I don't know if they're still managing this what with the change in management a few years back, but it's a testament to what a serious manager can do with a public company.
Housing costs certainly vary a lot in cities, but there's always something one can afford. Cities wouldn't function if they didn't provide enough affordable housing for service-industry employees and other minimum wage earners. Of course, in areas that have embraced suburban sprawl, it's much harder to afford a home in the city. Sadly, this does represent a great deal of the USA. But cities than apply even a modicum of planning to their design can accomodate basically anyone who doesn't have a hard-on for lawn-mowing.
It's a reasonably assumption to make. 99% of Americans live in cities or their suburbs. It's on par with assuming that your dentist went to dental school. It's a tad embarassing when you're wrong, but you're correct so often that it more than makes up for it.
The answer should be obvious: tax gas to cover the cost of roads and their management, privatize transit, and let the transit company control the land surrounding bus stops and rail stations. This gives the transit company motivation to build lots of access points in convenient areas, develop the land in those areas to provide amenities to commuters as well as a healthy revenue stream. You turn transit from an inconvenient burden on the public into a tax-paying, job-creating, economy-building way of getting around cheaply.
I seriously question the sanity of people who want to live in the suburbs, away from all the amenities cities offer, where the crime rate is significantly higher, the asses fatter (and who wants to see and/or have fat asses?), travel more expensive, and for culture you have to choose between bible study and a movie theatre that only shows Hollywood's most lackluster, big-budget flops. And all so that you can have some grass to mow. I hate to throw around the word stupid ... actually that's not true. I use the word stupid rather liberally. But in this case, I think it's warranted.
Of course, if you want to talk about actual small towns (as opposed to suburbs of real cities), that's a slightly different story, and a much more positive one. But I digress.
Suburbs are where the meth labs and grow-ops are, they're where everyone is becoming obese and asthmatic and placing strain on the health system, they're where no one walks, no one knows each other, there is a belligerent and fearful monoculture that breaks the spirit of the young while stupifying the old, and economic stagnation (why do you think people in suburbs drive to the real city to work?)
Not that I expect an American to understand basic economics. America is, after all, a nation that thinks that a president who vastly increases government spending and runs massive deficits is somehow going to bring about a decrease in taxation "any day now". A people who respond to increasing fuel prices by buying larger, less efficient vehicles. Truly, a people whose stupidity is rivalled only by their adiposity and belligerence.
The majority of South Americans like democratic socialism, hate America for assassinating their elected leaders and organizing dictatorial military coups in their nations, and aren't moronic enough to wage war against plants that let people enjoy life slightly more than they would otherwise. Deal with it. Americans are never quite as stupd as when they express their ridiculous delusions about South America. Actually, maybe America's behaviour at election time is stupider. After all, voting for a "conservative" who doesn't repeal gun control laws, doesn't lower taxes, doesn't promote state power, and instigates massive government oversight of every aspect of American life, is so dumb that it is literally staggering. As is voting for a "liberal" who bombs aspirin factories, encourages pork-barrel healthcare programs that don't actually provide healthcare to anyone, and wages the war on drugs with more fervor than any other government in recent memory. Goddam Americans are fucking stupid!
How did Americans become gutless wimps so fast? Seriously -- lets ban EVERY technology that bears a superficial resemblance to a type of weapon that terrorists don't use anyway. Then lets start living in small cages that the government unlocks when its time to go to work in an approved citizen transport craft. Then we'll be safe (although I'm sure you'll still keep yourself worked up about something -- I hear that panicking about the evils of pornography or the dangers of universal heat death are both nice).