This is a rediculous notion as the left-right scale only applies to whatever country you live in. While Slashdot is US-centric, it has a large international following. "Left" for you might mean social liberal (individualists who believe in positive freedom), while "left" for me is democratic socialist (get elected and practice marxism-leninism) -- two completely seperate ideologies which hardly are similar.
By the way, Slashdot is by far neoliberal/liberterian dominated. Rights to privacy and property-stories are wildly popular, whereas many comments that critique the government effectiveness in everything frequently get positively moderated. This says something.
We all know that calling right-wing liberalism as "left wing" is ludacris since usually it's the economic principles which dictate the left/right position, so I believe I can safely state to you that your premise is quite false.
Freedom and democracy mean that the people are able to choose whatever they choose, including communism, capitalism, something in between, or something very stupid.
Neither of those things will make your health care affordable though, the only way it will be affordable is if you tax wealthy Americans more and use their money to pay for it. Which to me, just seems a bit too socialist.
I hate it when just because you want to tax those who have more that you're "socialist". It's stupid poo-flinging arguments like that which've made it so that 45 million Americans are uninsured. Let me quote myself in a post I made earlier on/.:
Just look at the Toyota plant in Ontario [harpers.org]; The company turned down hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies in the United States because, when compared to Canadians, U.S. workers are too hard to train, often illiterate, and expensive to insure. Also according to General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr. the American car manufacturers are losing [washingtonpost.com] their ability to compete in the global marketplace in large measure because of the crushing burden of health care costs. The US is the only industrial country without a national healthcare system. We're the most dissatisfied [umaine.edu] out of the top ten. Pay almost twice as much [newsbatch.com] as number two. Yet still 45 millions are uninsured [census.gov].
You're saying to me that it's not in the best interest of the rich to have insured Americans? As Adam Smith said; it's justified to take from the rich as it's them who benefit the most from the smooth functioning of the state.
No thanks; I don't want any government anywhere near my connection.
Why? It's worked inSouth Korea. High-speed internet is a crucial piece of infrastructure, sorely needed for the future if the US is going to have to be competitive in the global economy. Making sure 100% of American homes have broadband gives a HUGE possibility for the market to invent products and services that take advantage of it.
This country has more government regulation and restrictions in healthcare than even Cuba does (and Cuba is communist!)
Privatization leads to regulation. It's a simple fact. An example would be that in Sweden they have no campaign finance laws because they have public campaign financing. They also have no minimum wage laws as it's the unions who have the power on that.
I do allow the federal government to have a interstate highway system
Why? I thought because the government was the only entity that is allowed to use deadly force its functions must be minimized. An interstate highway seems to me that it's a sign from you that you agree there has to be some form of security provided by the government. Maybe if you extended the reasoning for supporting an interstate highway in to education and healthcare, you'll come to understand that the government can provide you freedom to develop as an individual isn't that bad after all.
One very fallacious error that leftists make is that they claim that government should be "compassionate" and forcibly take money from the most successful in society and give it to the poor because all rich people are selfish (or some other theme). (Mind you, it's Progressives/Social Democrats and populists who like to dish out at the rich. True Liberals don't).
Why should we take from the rich and give to the poor?
Just look at the Toyota plant in Ontario; The company turned down hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies in the United States because, when compared to Canadians, U.S. workers are too hard to train, often illiterate, and expensive to insure. Also according to General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr. the American car manufacturers are losing their ability to compete in the global marketplace in large measure because of the crushing burden of health care costs. The US is the only industrial country without a national healthcare system. We're the most dissatisfied out of the top ten. Pay almost twice as much as number two. Yet still 45 millions are uninsured.
You're saying to me that it's not in the best interest of the rich to have insured Americans? As Adam Smith said; it's justified to take from the rich as it's them who benefit the most from the smooth functioning of the state.
I'm a small-l libertarian who votes Libertarian simply because no one else stands up for individual liberty.
The Democratic Party believe in individual liberty, except the fact that they focus on individual development; the idea that the state can grant security and let people prosper. What use is freedom if it's not being used?
When I ask libertarians stance they always say "Privatize everything except the police and military". and you can't get any more bare bones than that. Regardless of what libertarian you are, you have to agree that you'll have to pay taxes for those two government services. They have to get funding from somewhere. And why do they specifically say just the military and police? Because they provide security so that you can continue on with your life.
So in essence, what you're doing is paying taxes for security, and that security provides you freedom to develop as an individual. So why with that logic not extend that in to, let's say, security from poverty? Security from disease and illness? Security from joblessness?
Good grief, can we whore some liberal blogs a little more? Why not just link to the original Minnesota Public Radio article? Public radio isn't frothing at the mouth liberal enough for Slashdot now?
This means nothing. How many times has Slashdot linked to CNN, New York Times or USA Today who've just copy-pasted a Reuters, Xinhuan or AP articles?
Atheism and communism has nothing to do with social conservatism! They're all *completely* different things!
I've been to China, and I'd say that they're more conservative there than here! It's considered 'bad' if you have a girlfriend under the age of 21. Everything that has to do with sex is an extremely sensitive area and which must be kept out of the open sphere as much as possible. I told a Rodney Dangefield-joke at a dinner once ("I was so poor growing up, if I wasn't born a boy I'd have nothing to play with") and nobody thought it was funny; they thought it was disgusting.
There are even more examples than this, but I think you get the idea.
I mean, if the games connect to my wireless router and hotspots anyway, how hard would it have been to include a wireless browser in the interface outside of games?
...it's usually the right-wingers who insist you can't have morality without religion.
As an off-topic tip for people who get caught in a debate with that argument, here's what you answer to that: Just say "My morals are based on Utilitarianism", i.e. the greatest happiness of the greatest number (keep in mind that "based on" is important to say because hardcore utilitarianists advocate for the right of suicide for example).
You don't like the EU pushing the free market, yet this article says that regulating the free market with an independent institution has proven to be good, whereas in countries where it's not been independent (such as France and Germany) the former state-run corporation could abuse its size to bully the marketplace. So I don't see how you can say that this study comes five years too late when it more or less speaks against your own opinion.
I'm in the middle of moving with my family from Europe to the United States. Besides the fact that things with electrical outlets won't work as everybody knows -- the very idea that I can't view my purchased movies I bought in this European country to play on my DVD player in the United States is absolutely ludicrous. It's not in a different "voltage", it's just a simple friggin' MPEG-file on a piece of plastic!
Worse is that if I would ask around where to make my American DVD player region free they wouldn't help me due to the DMCA.
Region codes were flawed from the start: It's not the discs that should be region locked, it ought be the DVD player. And it's not the DVD player that you should have changeable regions, it ought be the discs. We'd still have regions just like the movie companies want us to have -- but at least we'd be able to move from one continent to another and still use our completely legitimately purchased wares.
But alas, since this is impossible due to obvious technological limitations, we ended up with this half-assed excuse we have today.
If Blizzard's going to continue to do these things as an effort of trying to garner publicity and please their audience, at least treat the people with dignity. Because, as we're seeing now, it's biting back -- and this is completely justified. The honesty of the Slashdot community, especially CmdrTaco, amazes me. There's plenty of websites who would find that they even responded sufficient enough to be pleased with their PR-tunneled answers.
Jens is the founder of the company Jens of Sweden, a company that mainly imports and resells Asian mp3/music players under their own brand. It's a business that has made Jens a millionaire in a really short time. I consider their products to be so-so, but a lot of my friends own one. I've also heard that he's quote "an ass" in real life, but nevertheless he's a pretty smart one.
A couple of months ago in Sweden there was a large public debate regarding copyrights and illegal downloading over the internet because the government was was setting in the motion of banning it "once and for all". And that's when I got respect for Jens: Because of his popular company and respect in the business world, he got a lot of media attention. He used it to criticize the current music industry, telling them to push and advance their business instead of trying to patch up a stone age one. I remember a debate on public television where it was Jens with a couple of other pro-Internet people versus a bunch industry henchmen. It was some exciting television!
Regardless of what you think of him as person, he's been a very important figure in this country, and he's fighting on our side. Too bad for example there isn't a "Jens of the United States" that can do the same for the Americans.
In the PR-movie you can see a guy who is using two controllers to simulate the act of playing live drums. So it's definetly possible that certain games could be designed with a pair in mind.
IIRC, the average time between doing something Nobel worthy and being nominated for it is ~20 years.
This is not "a bug, but a feature", so to speak. Egas Moniz who invented lobotomy in 1935 (aka Psychosurgery) got the Nobel Prize in 1949. Which, the committee now think in retrospect was quite a blunder. Quoting Wikipedia "The era of lobotomy is now generally regarded as a barbaric episode in psychiatric history".
...which is a part of the many reasons why they take such a long time to nominate.
Slashdot Mirror
while Slashdot as a whole leans to the left
This is a rediculous notion as the left-right scale only applies to whatever country you live in. While Slashdot is US-centric, it has a large international following. "Left" for you might mean social liberal (individualists who believe in positive freedom), while "left" for me is democratic socialist (get elected and practice marxism-leninism) -- two completely seperate ideologies which hardly are similar.
By the way, Slashdot is by far neoliberal/liberterian dominated. Rights to privacy and property-stories are wildly popular, whereas many comments that critique the government effectiveness in everything frequently get positively moderated. This says something.
We all know that calling right-wing liberalism as "left wing" is ludacris since usually it's the economic principles which dictate the left/right position, so I believe I can safely state to you that your premise is quite false.
Freedom and democracy mean that the people are able to choose whatever they choose, including communism, capitalism, something in between, or something very stupid.
I recently learned that Benito Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra Mussolini (who is also a fascist) has a seat in the European Parliament.
In a free society you can't prevent people from being assholes; even elected to democratic institutions.
Neither of those things will make your health care affordable though, the only way it will be affordable is if you tax wealthy Americans more and use their money to pay for it. Which to me, just seems a bit too socialist.
/.:
I hate it when just because you want to tax those who have more that you're "socialist". It's stupid poo-flinging arguments like that which've made it so that 45 million Americans are uninsured. Let me quote myself in a post I made earlier on
Just look at the Toyota plant in Ontario [harpers.org]; The company turned down hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies in the United States because, when compared to Canadians, U.S. workers are too hard to train, often illiterate, and expensive to insure. Also according to General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr. the American car manufacturers are losing [washingtonpost.com] their ability to compete in the global marketplace in large measure because of the crushing burden of health care costs.
The US is the only industrial country without a national healthcare system. We're the most dissatisfied [umaine.edu] out of the top ten. Pay almost twice as much [newsbatch.com] as number two. Yet still 45 millions are uninsured [census.gov].
You're saying to me that it's not in the best interest of the rich to have insured Americans? As Adam Smith said; it's justified to take from the rich as it's them who benefit the most from the smooth functioning of the state.
No thanks; I don't want any government anywhere near my connection.
Why? It's worked in South Korea. High-speed internet is a crucial piece of infrastructure, sorely needed for the future if the US is going to have to be competitive in the global economy. Making sure 100% of American homes have broadband gives a HUGE possibility for the market to invent products and services that take advantage of it.
This country has more government regulation and restrictions in healthcare than even Cuba does (and Cuba is communist!)
Privatization leads to regulation. It's a simple fact. An example would be that in Sweden they have no campaign finance laws because they have public campaign financing. They also have no minimum wage laws as it's the unions who have the power on that.
We need free-market medicine
We have tha already and, it pretty darn seems like it's not working right. I think a couple of days ago someone summed it up nicely on Slashdot; "Libertarianism always seems to leave out the concept of the big-power players, who obviously will always exist and will always work to build their power at the expense of the masses."
I do allow the federal government to have a interstate highway system
Why? I thought because the government was the only entity that is allowed to use deadly force its functions must be minimized. An interstate highway seems to me that it's a sign from you that you agree there has to be some form of security provided by the government. Maybe if you extended the reasoning for supporting an interstate highway in to education and healthcare, you'll come to understand that the government can provide you freedom to develop as an individual isn't that bad after all.
One very fallacious error that leftists make is that they claim that government should be "compassionate" and forcibly take money from the most successful in society and give it to the poor because all rich people are selfish (or some other theme).
(Mind you, it's Progressives/Social Democrats and populists who like to dish out at the rich. True Liberals don't).
Why should we take from the rich and give to the poor?
Just look at the Toyota plant in Ontario; The company turned down hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies in the United States because, when compared to Canadians, U.S. workers are too hard to train, often illiterate, and expensive to insure. Also according to General Motors Corp. chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr. the American car manufacturers are losing their ability to compete in the global marketplace in large measure because of the crushing burden of health care costs.
The US is the only industrial country without a national healthcare system. We're the most dissatisfied out of the top ten. Pay almost twice as much as number two. Yet still 45 millions are uninsured.
You're saying to me that it's not in the best interest of the rich to have insured Americans? As Adam Smith said; it's justified to take from the rich as it's them who benefit the most from the smooth functioning of the state.
I maintain that the military exists to protect our country from foreign invaders.
As not being able to use your liberty or property is not feasible under an insecure condition, you want the military to secure the country.
The police exist to enfoce the law
Laws which guarantee you security from the state of anarchy.
I'm a small-l libertarian who votes Libertarian simply because no one else stands up for individual liberty.
The Democratic Party believe in individual liberty, except the fact that they focus on individual development; the idea that the state can grant security and let people prosper. What use is freedom if it's not being used?
When I ask libertarians stance they always say "Privatize everything except the police and military". and you can't get any more bare bones than that. Regardless of what libertarian you are, you have to agree that you'll have to pay taxes for those two government services. They have to get funding from somewhere. And why do they specifically say just the military and police? Because they provide security so that you can continue on with your life.
So in essence, what you're doing is paying taxes for security, and that security provides you freedom to develop as an individual. So why with that logic not extend that in to, let's say, security from poverty? Security from disease and illness? Security from joblessness?
Good grief, can we whore some liberal blogs a little more? Why not just link to the original Minnesota Public Radio article? Public radio isn't frothing at the mouth liberal enough for Slashdot now?
This means nothing. How many times has Slashdot linked to CNN, New York Times or USA Today who've just copy-pasted a Reuters, Xinhuan or AP articles?
Atheism and communism has nothing to do with social conservatism! They're all *completely* different things!
I've been to China, and I'd say that they're more conservative there than here! It's considered 'bad' if you have a girlfriend under the age of 21. Everything that has to do with sex is an extremely sensitive area and which must be kept out of the open sphere as much as possible. I told a Rodney Dangefield-joke at a dinner once ("I was so poor growing up, if I wasn't born a boy I'd have nothing to play with") and nobody thought it was funny; they thought it was disgusting.
There are even more examples than this, but I think you get the idea.
It's an interesting observation done by many, and the truth is that they are similar is by no coincidence.
I mean, if the games connect to my wireless router and hotspots anyway, how hard would it have been to include a wireless browser in the interface outside of games?
The answer to that is "four megabytes of ram".
...it's usually the right-wingers who insist you can't have morality without religion.
As an off-topic tip for people who get caught in a debate with that argument, here's what you answer to that: Just say "My morals are based on Utilitarianism", i.e. the greatest happiness of the greatest number (keep in mind that "based on" is important to say because hardcore utilitarianists advocate for the right of suicide for example).
You don't like the EU pushing the free market, yet this article says that regulating the free market with an independent institution has proven to be good, whereas in countries where it's not been independent (such as France and Germany) the former state-run corporation could abuse its size to bully the marketplace. So I don't see how you can say that this study comes five years too late when it more or less speaks against your own opinion.
He travels through time and space?
*ducks*
Did it suck as much as last year?
I'm in the middle of moving with my family from Europe to the United States. Besides the fact that things with electrical outlets won't work as everybody knows -- the very idea that I can't view my purchased movies I bought in this European country to play on my DVD player in the United States is absolutely ludicrous. It's not in a different "voltage", it's just a simple friggin' MPEG-file on a piece of plastic!
Worse is that if I would ask around where to make my American DVD player region free they wouldn't help me due to the DMCA.
Region codes were flawed from the start: It's not the discs that should be region locked, it ought be the DVD player. And it's not the DVD player that you should have changeable regions, it ought be the discs. We'd still have regions just like the movie companies want us to have -- but at least we'd be able to move from one continent to another and still use our completely legitimately purchased wares.
But alas, since this is impossible due to obvious technological limitations, we ended up with this half-assed excuse we have today.
Looks like Blizzard doesn't like people talking about this, because the thread regarding this on their official forum has been deleted as well.
Worldofwar.net let it's forum goers do the exact same thing as CmdrTaco did with Slashdot. It was even promoted it as a "developer interview"!
The responses brought back? A bunch of saggy PR responses that contained nothing out of any value at all. Basically worth nobody's time if you were already up to date with the WoW community happenings. I don't even think the developers even read the questions. Even many of the most devoted Blizzard-fans were displeased, as voiced on their forum.
If Blizzard's going to continue to do these things as an effort of trying to garner publicity and please their audience, at least treat the people with dignity. Because, as we're seeing now, it's biting back -- and this is completely justified. The honesty of the Slashdot community, especially CmdrTaco, amazes me. There's plenty of websites who would find that they even responded sufficient enough to be pleased with their PR-tunneled answers.
Jens is the founder of the company Jens of Sweden, a company that mainly imports and resells Asian mp3/music players under their own brand. It's a business that has made Jens a millionaire in a really short time. I consider their products to be so-so, but a lot of my friends own one. I've also heard that he's quote "an ass" in real life, but nevertheless he's a pretty smart one.
A couple of months ago in Sweden there was a large public debate regarding copyrights and illegal downloading over the internet because the government was was setting in the motion of banning it "once and for all". And that's when I got respect for Jens: Because of his popular company and respect in the business world, he got a lot of media attention. He used it to criticize the current music industry, telling them to push and advance their business instead of trying to patch up a stone age one. I remember a debate on public television where it was Jens with a couple of other pro-Internet people versus a bunch industry henchmen. It was some exciting television!
Regardless of what you think of him as person, he's been a very important figure in this country, and he's fighting on our side. Too bad for example there isn't a "Jens of the United States" that can do the same for the Americans.
In the PR-movie you can see a guy who is using two controllers to simulate the act of playing live drums. So it's definetly possible that certain games could be designed with a pair in mind.
IIRC, the average time between doing something Nobel worthy and being nominated for it is ~20 years.
This is not "a bug, but a feature", so to speak. Egas Moniz who invented lobotomy in 1935 (aka Psychosurgery) got the Nobel Prize in 1949. Which, the committee now think in retrospect was quite a blunder. Quoting Wikipedia "The era of lobotomy is now generally regarded as a barbaric episode in psychiatric history".
...which is a part of the many reasons why they take such a long time to nominate.
I remember when I saw this exact thing as a flash-made joke, where every time you tried to press Kerry it wouldn't work.
It's a sad state when reality mimics fiction like this.
The first one was much funnier, but this one has a much more important message. I really appreciate this one because it encourages people to go vote.