for instance, in a free market, there would be no monopolies-- because the only way monopolies can exist is when government creates them.
Right. Lets see. How many protections do you see preventing an oil production cartel from forming which would own most of the production fields and distribution? Hmm? Or a system of interlocking companies which would essentially own the entire towns in which their workers live? Do names like Carnegie, Mellon and others ring a bell? How about the Bell Telephone company? You sir, should read a book or two on some rather recent history.
Hell, even opec wasn't able to keep pricing power.
That is why we have a $15 per barrel oil today, thankfully, no?
Libertarians don't want to seize power-- because doing so would be to violate others rights.
Ok so you have 10 libertarians with regular guns and 5 non-libertarians (lets call them anarcho-capitalists) with really big guns. Since we have no police or government (no taxes), fast forward to 2 days later and we have 5 happy dudes served by 10 unhappy but well chained former libertarian bitches. Get the picture?
Libertarians in the area would be in New Orleans right now sellign food at cost and water at cost and getting people fed and hydrated...
Selling?! Selling at cost?! Those people have no money, you barely coherent cretin.
In a libertarian society, there would be massive amounts of aid there.
Right, the same libertarians who want everything to be run for profit would cheerfully abandon everything to lose their shirts and possibly lives by personally investing vast sums of money in the rescue effort. Perheaps you did not hear that private citizens are abandoning the rescue effort because of the cost of gas and shortage thereof (here is free market for you) and the bullets whizzing by.
Their busses, which they had paid for, were commandered. And not to pick up people who needed them-- there are thousands standing outside the superdome, who have been there for 3 days, and have gotten ZERO busses. No, the police just stole them, and forced the tourists back into the city at gunpoint.
Yes and the busses were used to organize a sight-seeing excursion for the police. Complete with a BBQ and a recreational boat tour, following which they took off for Disney Land. You are raving mad, but being such, you probably do not know that.
You socialists want people disarmed and dependant on the state-- and this is what you get.
We get our state to help us out in need. Our Canadian government handled many a disaster with no problems, including the "flood of the century". Curiously, in all prior instances, when FEMA was not run by Libertarians, it never failed. Only after Bush appointed a Libertarian it cant seem to find its ass. I do wonder.
You're a fucking idiot, and you know everything you say is a lie, but you are so fucking pathetic all you can do is run around and smear your betters because your bullshit theories don't play in the real world. Fortunately, reality is pretty good at keeping score, and all the pain you're spewing in this thread is well earned. Try being a decent human sometime.
Err, and your point, besides the foam and spittle, was what exactly?
In a free market the natural equilibrum is no profit. While there is goverment interferece, monopolies, barriers to trade there will be profit. Remove these and there is no profit. We all benefit
Really? You are a land-owner. You sit on your ass, while miners labour in a mine on your land to extract, say, uranium. You dont own the mine, you just lease the land. Until the uranum runs out or becomes obsolete, you have profit and no related expense. Please explain to me again how does that balance thing work...
Libertarians don't believe in raiding high ground or infrastructure, and they don't believe in slavery (they believe it is a violation of one's freedom; remember, libertarianism has the philosophy of freedom and of non-coercion).
While I understand that to be the philosophy, it is also my understanding that when applied to real life, those things I mentioned would be the outcome, as most Libertarians I spoke to are of a belief that free-market economics is a form of a religion and therefore flawless and universally applicable with no checks or balances. The resulting monopolies and concentration of wealth would quickly create some sort of corporate-feudal warlord society. Slavery would not be far behind. This has little to do with the ideals of Libertarianism, very much so as ideals of Marxism had very little to do with the Soviet Union or Mao's China. They were merely an ill-coceived system of concepts ripe to be abused in order to sieze power by some.
but somebody must have taught you that all libertarians are cold, apathetic, greedy, and selfish individuals.
Err, it was my personal experience with them which lead me to that conclusiom. Curiously enough, you and the other poster on this thread are apparently of a different variety, at least at the first glance.
Many libertarians support helping others, and many libertarians are filling the government's shoes and helping donate to Red Cross and other organizations. (Libertarians love private charity).
The arguments I had in the past were revolving around the contention that charity was all that was needed and the governments should butt out, partially because the proper size of a government are the dimentions of a telephone booth. Or something to that effect.
A libretarian view is that the private sector does most things better than the government does (with the exeception of military and police). The government should stay out of these areas and let the private sector take care of them, since the private sector does things more efficently, more cheaply, and over all better than the government does.
That only works as long as there is profit to me made. Then it all falls apart.
Also, as per Adam Smith, an uregulated free-market will devolve into a set of monopolies or oligopolies in many non-ideal circumstances (finite geographical supply of materials for example).
A libretarian believes in a limited government - a government that stays out of people's private lives (so long as they're not harming other people) and that stays out of the market place, because free markets function best.
See above. I do not have an issue with government staying out of people's lives but out of the market... even Smith saw that as a recipe for disaster.
Altrusim in not a libretarian no-no. I don't know where you pulled that bullshit from.
One Ayn Rand claimed so. Isn't she one of the pillars of the Libertarian thought? Although, as I am being informed by others, that is merely the most popular version of Libertarian variety, or at least of those who claim to be Libertarians.
... remember that not all libertarians think alike on different topics. All libertarians generally believe that government should be shrank, that people should have personal freedom and rely on personal responsibility, and that free-market economics is the optimal economic method and a useful tool for solving some societal issues, but libertarians disagree with how much government should be limited.
Well, I am being educated here as to variants of Libertarianism, although I must admit that the "anarcho-capitalist" or as some other poster claimed "objectivist" branches of Libertarianism are what I am running into nearly constantly. I would venture to say that you are in a tiny minority of the Libertarians as these other, far more narcisstic varieties, seem to be staking the claim to the label "Libertarian" (hence your pre-emptive defense and my presumption).
Now as to your definition, that basically covers nearly everyone sane I know, of all political orientations, as even the most rabid of the "socialist" lefty types I personally know, are these days for "efficient", "fiscally responsible" and "minimalistic" government, as long as it is capable of providing certain core services. The list of those services, for us, "lefties" (if that term means anything) includes medical care and education. Leaving these two aside, your definition is misleading because, as I understand it, at the core of the Libertarian position is limiting of government regulations and other intrusions into private life. The trouble starts when one realizes that the "free-market economics" is incapable of self-tuning in many areas, which even Adam Smith warned against. And it is there, not in these other areas, where the main battle is fought, as the proponents of Free-Market Religion (in contrast to free-market economic mechanism) are determined to mis-apply that system onto everything, including the very social fabric itself.
If your mom did not bring you cocoa in 48 hours you too would be resorting to barbarism.
Oh, I know, specially if the marshmellows have gone missing too.
Look, I am not going to do dumb moralizing or anything of the sort about the situation in the South. Only those people on the ground can tell what is going on and I am in no position to make judgments. I am not in any way condemning them or their actions but only the opinions of the parent poster, who was the one bringing politics into this thread.
So, people in the tragic circumstances = I stay away from passing opinions. Moronic posters and politicians, on the other hand, as far as I am concerned are fair game. Do you agree?
Now, while there is some overlap between Objectivists and libertarians, it is by no means true that all libertarians are Objectivists
It is so hard to keep track of the far out wacko social theories. But I would posit that vast majority of Libertarians I run into so far would be of the, as you defined it, objectivist-libertarian-selfish-ass type, and of the I-am-too-sexy-for-my-shit class and the gimme-gimme-screw-everyone-else sub-variety. But I will concede that potential other viarieties of that species of loon exist, I heard a rumour that there is even an extra-rare and endangered species of "Lefty" Libertarian, although I cannot fathom how that could possibly work.
In a libertarian society, there would be massive amounts of aid there.
Sir, you have your ideologies mixed up. As far as I know, as per Ayn Rand, "altruism is a folly". Ergo, in a Libertarian society, following the sacred rules, there would be no aid. You see, all those poeple down there brought that disaster onto themselves by being... I guess black, poor or the combination of thereof. Or something.
On the other hand, it is us, the "bleeding heart" pinko-commie libruls, who are evilly ploting to do those treasonous "social safety net" and "disaster relief" things. Which seems to work for us here in Canada, as the 1997 flood experience showed, but hey, we are all beavers up here anyhow, so thats probably why, eh?
I dont know, I always thought that is what a Libertarian society would look like. On second thought... nah, not enough machine gun crossfire. The rescuers are not charging a fee before they lift you of the roof (remember, altruism = a Libertarian no-no). Warlords did not take charge of the high ground and critical infrastructure so far. Slave traders haven't made an appearance yet. So not quite "extreme Libertarian" yet. Let's call it, say, "moderately Libertarian". How is that?
That link's a load of communist claptrap. References from the 70s? Come back with something relevent. The things on that list are complete non-stories.Specially the child labour shit dated 2003.
In that sort of job you don't need to be complicit to anything, just running the computers.
"In that sort of job you don't need to be complicit to anything, just making sure the supply of Cyclon-B is adequate..."
It is in my books. In order to ascend so high in the ranks, he has to be complicit in what Unilever does. And that company, like virtually all companies of its size, has an abysmal record of exploitation and abuse all over the globe.
Can you tell me what 'costs' this CIO has spent in order to get to his position? Come on, anything. Anything solid, at all. Can you do it?
Are you calling the CIO of Unilever a thief? What exactly has he done wrong other than turning down your pet piece of software?
He is a CIO of a company sufficiently large for politics being the dominant form of ascention in the ranks. This has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with how the corporate "society" works.
No point throwing mindless anti-capitalist insults around just because someone else had the balls to make something of his life rather than just sit in a cubicle printing out Dilbert cartoons.
Oh, I know, balls of brass all of these heros of yours have. Like, say, Bernie Ebberts or the Enron crew (how is grandma Millie?). Or Halliburton. Or Unilever who makes some of its shit in places like Nepal. But then again it is all probably sounding good to a worshipper of greed and "get-on-top-at-any-cost" type of "making something of one's life".
"You know nothing about THE CIO, and are in no position to determine if HE HAS ANY OF THE TRAITS YOU HAVE SO CARELESSLY ASSIGNED TO HIM"
I know that because I do know the internal workings of many large corporations first hand. There is no other way for him to get where he is. Pure and simple.
And some of US find pathetic, bitter people who hate others for their success very tiring. (that would be you in case you were confused)
You know nothing about me, and are in no position to determine if I "hate" anyone. In fact nothing of the sort. What I despise is the nature of that success. You see, if you become famous and wealthy because you contributed to the society at large in some meaningful way, either by producing science, art or a useful product, I have no problem whatsoever. But if your "success" is the result of political manouvering and climbing over backs of others, a process which brings nothing to the society and robs it of resources which you consume, then I have an issue with it. Large multi-nationals and their internal apparatchicks are not in a position to contribute in any way. They are an abberration of capitalist society and successfully evade the "invisible hand" which is supposed to guide them towards societal benefit.
But appologists of "success-at-any-cost", like you, are far too blind to see it. Blinded by glitter of outward appearances and short term gain, even if it costs everyone, and themselves eventually, dearly in the long term.
And clearly you are someone who shuns success because of an inability to accept your own feelings of inferiority.
Right. You could not get more shallow and selfish then this statement. So if I wish for the society to function in a way which benefits most people instead of a few lucky manipulators, that saddles me with an inferiority complex? Instead, what I can clearly see is that you fancy yourself to be one of those "winners" of corporate ladder climbing and thus wish to defend "your future self" from any possible assault now. Which is precisely one of the main mechanisms by which those people escape societal norms. Because of self-deluded wannabies like you.
LOL. Never mind. Somehow my automatic Slashdot post reply email notification thing pointed me to your post, indicating that it was reply to mine. Which is why I could not understand you as you were replying to someone else who replied to me. Now your post makes sense.
Slashdot seems to be falling appart under load recently, Sigh.
It's not the success. It's the nature of the success.
THAT is what you like to so shallowly gloss over.
I am not sure what do you mean. Yes it is the nature of "success" in large corporations and in politics. And it is a pitiful state of affairs which does not serve neither the society nor in the long term the very pricks engaged in this. But the fact that this is going on, is in major part because we as a society tolerate this behaviour as socially acceptable and do not punish it severely.
Many of us just don't value excessive politics, backstabbing and other shenanigans that you might have read about in The Prince or The Art of War
I do not. Again I am not sure why are you trying to insinuate that I do.
What makes you think that the life of a CIO is sommething to be envied in the first place?
That is irrelevant. He is still engaging in this behaviour (out of "necessity", most likely, since thats the only way to the top) and thus contributing to the general problem of decay of the societal norms.
Jeez, most people at least try to mask their jealousy at least a little bit...
You confused jealousy with disdain. Some of us find being a successful thief far less appealing then having integrity and clear conscience. It is all in the system of values we subscribe to. Clearly, you are one of those who see selfish, destructive, anti-social greed as something to admire.
My guess is that this guy didn't get his job because he's an idiot.
No, he got there because of his impeccable political instincts, ability to brown-nose when needed, take credit for co-workers' or sub-ordinates' work when convenient and shift blame to them when expedient, knowing the right people on the first name basis and playing squash with just the right crowd.
And this concludes the abbreviated Lesson 1 of "Corporate Ladder Climbing for The Utterly Clueless 101".
I'd listen to what this guy has to say over an academian, any day.
And that is how we get "More Tax Breaks Will Fix Everything!" industry policy, "Supply Side" economics, poliferation of bastardized standars designed for vendor lock-in, "for-profit private enterprise can always do better at everything then anyone, including charity" line of thinking, etc, and so on. I hope you will remember your own piece of lobotomized advice when the thieves are finally done with the economy, your hero CIO laughs at you in his Bahama mansion while the nation's standard of living goes to shits and you stand in line to get that interview for the "hamburger assembly technician" position, with 725 applicants ahead of you.
Thank goodness for the ACLU. Seriously, if a 2 billion dollar corporation decided to sue my ass, and I had a case, but could not defend it, I am fairly sure that the ACLU or some other organization would be more than willing to help out.
Isn't this why O'Reilly on FOX wants ACLU declared an anti-american "terrorist organization" or something to that effect?
You determine it's falseness by whether it's untrue or n
This sounds good in theory and is reasonably easy when it comes to, say, laws of physics. Try the same for an accusation of "Corp X is a thief, they used political influence to get law L enacted, they should be investigated..." etc.
Freenet does have its uses in free, democratic countries. For example, it probably makes a good early warning sign - if the government starts clamping down on its use,
I hope you have you ammo boxes handy as this is bound to happen rather soon. Freenet use is at this point nearly completely restricted to child pornography and a small number of die-hard believers in the concept of Freenet, since the supposed target audience, the dissidents, would be nuts to use it, for the reasons I described. This distribution of contents makes Freenet a sitting duck for the "Think Of The Children" political charlatans, and it also makes any defense of Freenet impossible in a typical political context. I really think that Freenet is such a wrong-headed implementation of a sounds-good-on-paper idea that it does far more harm than good to the struggle for preservation of Freedom of Speech and other Liberties.
1. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.
And how do you determine its falseness? Court trial? A trial initiated by, say, a 2 billion dollars a year corp against your basement-dwelling (hypotetically) ass. Result: no freedom of speech whatsoever as the court costs alone will utterly ruin you before you even get to the actual trial proper. For practical example, check out the "RIAA vs. teenagers" circus. Result: no freedom of speech against those powerful enough to shut you up.
I am not sure, but I dont think this is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind. Specially that some of them were great believers in anonymous speech, publishing under pseudonyms themselves. See "Publius".
Actually, Ian Clarke is - but unfortunately, he rarely gets much support... any mention of Freenet here, for example, turns into "You don't care about Chinese dissidents, you're just enabling child pornographers".
That's because he is going about it the wrong way. Freenet simply is not capable of delivering what he claims its design goals are (and spare me links to fake Chinese dissident's sites please which cannot be accessed by them using the Web). In oppressive countries, as soon as you are found to be using Freenet (i.e. your PC has Freenet packets coming in/out) your ass is crass for "anti-government" activities. You see, there is no "but I am entitled to sending encrypted data!" defense there. So for that purpose, unless some radical stealth system is put in place involving magic and pixie dust, Freenet is useless for these dissidents.
It can be useful in the West, where you do enjoy these rights to privacy (somewhat) but then, instead of fighting for your rights, you are simply giving in and for every encroachement on your freedoms, you simply try to hide deeper in the grasses of the Internet to escape the "man" and his laws. Wrong strategy, because if you keep it up, sooner or later you will find yourself in jail just for having Freenet client installed as the laws become repressive enough to match these less-then-civilized countries of the so called "axis of evil".
Freenet is a curious technological idea but it is completely wrong-headed and impractical, and in fact extremely dangerous to the not-quite-technical-savvy dissidents who might get a false sense of security by trying to use the damn thing and find themselves in the slammer shortly afterwards.
Slashdot Mirror
Right. Lets see. How many protections do you see preventing an oil production cartel from forming which would own most of the production fields and distribution? Hmm? Or a system of interlocking companies which would essentially own the entire towns in which their workers live? Do names like Carnegie, Mellon and others ring a bell? How about the Bell Telephone company? You sir, should read a book or two on some rather recent history.
Hell, even opec wasn't able to keep pricing power.
That is why we have a $15 per barrel oil today, thankfully, no?
Libertarians don't want to seize power-- because doing so would be to violate others rights.
Ok so you have 10 libertarians with regular guns and 5 non-libertarians (lets call them anarcho-capitalists) with really big guns. Since we have no police or government (no taxes), fast forward to 2 days later and we have 5 happy dudes served by 10 unhappy but well chained former libertarian bitches. Get the picture?
Libertarians in the area would be in New Orleans right now sellign food at cost and water at cost and getting people fed and hydrated...
Selling?! Selling at cost?! Those people have no money, you barely coherent cretin.
Right, the same libertarians who want everything to be run for profit would cheerfully abandon everything to lose their shirts and possibly lives by personally investing vast sums of money in the rescue effort. Perheaps you did not hear that private citizens are abandoning the rescue effort because of the cost of gas and shortage thereof (here is free market for you) and the bullets whizzing by.
Their busses, which they had paid for, were commandered. And not to pick up people who needed them-- there are thousands standing outside the superdome, who have been there for 3 days, and have gotten ZERO busses. No, the police just stole them, and forced the tourists back into the city at gunpoint.
Yes and the busses were used to organize a sight-seeing excursion for the police. Complete with a BBQ and a recreational boat tour, following which they took off for Disney Land. You are raving mad, but being such, you probably do not know that.
You socialists want people disarmed and dependant on the state-- and this is what you get.
We get our state to help us out in need. Our Canadian government handled many a disaster with no problems, including the "flood of the century". Curiously, in all prior instances, when FEMA was not run by Libertarians, it never failed. Only after Bush appointed a Libertarian it cant seem to find its ass. I do wonder.
Err, and your point, besides the foam and spittle, was what exactly?
Really? You are a land-owner. You sit on your ass, while miners labour in a mine on your land to extract, say, uranium. You dont own the mine, you just lease the land. Until the uranum runs out or becomes obsolete, you have profit and no related expense. Please explain to me again how does that balance thing work...
While I understand that to be the philosophy, it is also my understanding that when applied to real life, those things I mentioned would be the outcome, as most Libertarians I spoke to are of a belief that free-market economics is a form of a religion and therefore flawless and universally applicable with no checks or balances. The resulting monopolies and concentration of wealth would quickly create some sort of corporate-feudal warlord society. Slavery would not be far behind. This has little to do with the ideals of Libertarianism, very much so as ideals of Marxism had very little to do with the Soviet Union or Mao's China. They were merely an ill-coceived system of concepts ripe to be abused in order to sieze power by some.
but somebody must have taught you that all libertarians are cold, apathetic, greedy, and selfish individuals.
Err, it was my personal experience with them which lead me to that conclusiom. Curiously enough, you and the other poster on this thread are apparently of a different variety, at least at the first glance.
Many libertarians support helping others, and many libertarians are filling the government's shoes and helping donate to Red Cross and other organizations. (Libertarians love private charity).
The arguments I had in the past were revolving around the contention that charity was all that was needed and the governments should butt out, partially because the proper size of a government are the dimentions of a telephone booth. Or something to that effect.
That only works as long as there is profit to me made. Then it all falls apart.
Also, as per Adam Smith, an uregulated free-market will devolve into a set of monopolies or oligopolies in many non-ideal circumstances (finite geographical supply of materials for example).
A libretarian believes in a limited government - a government that stays out of people's private lives (so long as they're not harming other people) and that stays out of the market place, because free markets function best.
See above. I do not have an issue with government staying out of people's lives but out of the market... even Smith saw that as a recipe for disaster.
Altrusim in not a libretarian no-no. I don't know where you pulled that bullshit from.
One Ayn Rand claimed so. Isn't she one of the pillars of the Libertarian thought? Although, as I am being informed by others, that is merely the most popular version of Libertarian variety, or at least of those who claim to be Libertarians.
Well, I am being educated here as to variants of Libertarianism, although I must admit that the "anarcho-capitalist" or as some other poster claimed "objectivist" branches of Libertarianism are what I am running into nearly constantly. I would venture to say that you are in a tiny minority of the Libertarians as these other, far more narcisstic varieties, seem to be staking the claim to the label "Libertarian" (hence your pre-emptive defense and my presumption).
Now as to your definition, that basically covers nearly everyone sane I know, of all political orientations, as even the most rabid of the "socialist" lefty types I personally know, are these days for "efficient", "fiscally responsible" and "minimalistic" government, as long as it is capable of providing certain core services. The list of those services, for us, "lefties" (if that term means anything) includes medical care and education. Leaving these two aside, your definition is misleading because, as I understand it, at the core of the Libertarian position is limiting of government regulations and other intrusions into private life. The trouble starts when one realizes that the "free-market economics" is incapable of self-tuning in many areas, which even Adam Smith warned against. And it is there, not in these other areas, where the main battle is fought, as the proponents of Free-Market Religion (in contrast to free-market economic mechanism) are determined to mis-apply that system onto everything, including the very social fabric itself.
Oh, I know, specially if the marshmellows have gone missing too.
Look, I am not going to do dumb moralizing or anything of the sort about the situation in the South. Only those people on the ground can tell what is going on and I am in no position to make judgments. I am not in any way condemning them or their actions but only the opinions of the parent poster, who was the one bringing politics into this thread.
So, people in the tragic circumstances = I stay away from passing opinions. Moronic posters and politicians, on the other hand, as far as I am concerned are fair game. Do you agree?
It is so hard to keep track of the far out wacko social theories. But I would posit that vast majority of Libertarians I run into so far would be of the, as you defined it, objectivist-libertarian-selfish-ass type, and of the I-am-too-sexy-for-my-shit class and the gimme-gimme-screw-everyone-else sub-variety. But I will concede that potential other viarieties of that species of loon exist, I heard a rumour that there is even an extra-rare and endangered species of "Lefty" Libertarian, although I cannot fathom how that could possibly work.
Sir, you have your ideologies mixed up. As far as I know, as per Ayn Rand, "altruism is a folly". Ergo, in a Libertarian society, following the sacred rules, there would be no aid. You see, all those poeple down there brought that disaster onto themselves by being ... I guess black, poor or the combination of thereof. Or something.
On the other hand, it is us, the "bleeding heart" pinko-commie libruls, who are evilly ploting to do those treasonous "social safety net" and "disaster relief" things. Which seems to work for us here in Canada, as the 1997 flood experience showed, but hey, we are all beavers up here anyhow, so thats probably why, eh?
I dont know, I always thought that is what a Libertarian society would look like. On second thought ... nah, not enough machine gun crossfire. The rescuers are not charging a fee before they lift you of the roof (remember, altruism = a Libertarian no-no). Warlords did not take charge of the high ground and critical infrastructure so far. Slave traders haven't made an appearance yet. So not quite "extreme Libertarian" yet. Let's call it, say, "moderately Libertarian". How is that?
In that sort of job you don't need to be complicit to anything, just running the computers.
"In that sort of job you don't need to be complicit to anything, just making sure the supply of Cyclon-B is adequate ..."
It is in my books. In order to ascend so high in the ranks, he has to be complicit in what Unilever does. And that company, like virtually all companies of its size, has an abysmal record of exploitation and abuse all over the globe.
Can you tell me what 'costs' this CIO has spent in order to get to his position? Come on, anything. Anything solid, at all. Can you do it?
How does child labour sound?
Perhaps you should learn how to use a search engine prior to posting a retarded challenge like that.
Thought not, you're just a common troll.
In light of the above, you did label yourself quite accurately.
He is a CIO of a company sufficiently large for politics being the dominant form of ascention in the ranks. This has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with how the corporate "society" works.
No point throwing mindless anti-capitalist insults around just because someone else had the balls to make something of his life rather than just sit in a cubicle printing out Dilbert cartoons.
Oh, I know, balls of brass all of these heros of yours have. Like, say, Bernie Ebberts or the Enron crew (how is grandma Millie?). Or Halliburton. Or Unilever who makes some of its shit in places like Nepal. But then again it is all probably sounding good to a worshipper of greed and "get-on-top-at-any-cost" type of "making something of one's life".
I know that because I do know the internal workings of many large corporations first hand. There is no other way for him to get where he is. Pure and simple.
You know nothing about me, and are in no position to determine if I "hate" anyone. In fact nothing of the sort. What I despise is the nature of that success. You see, if you become famous and wealthy because you contributed to the society at large in some meaningful way, either by producing science, art or a useful product, I have no problem whatsoever. But if your "success" is the result of political manouvering and climbing over backs of others, a process which brings nothing to the society and robs it of resources which you consume, then I have an issue with it. Large multi-nationals and their internal apparatchicks are not in a position to contribute in any way. They are an abberration of capitalist society and successfully evade the "invisible hand" which is supposed to guide them towards societal benefit.
But appologists of "success-at-any-cost", like you, are far too blind to see it. Blinded by glitter of outward appearances and short term gain, even if it costs everyone, and themselves eventually, dearly in the long term.
And clearly you are someone who shuns success because of an inability to accept your own feelings of inferiority.
Right. You could not get more shallow and selfish then this statement. So if I wish for the society to function in a way which benefits most people instead of a few lucky manipulators, that saddles me with an inferiority complex? Instead, what I can clearly see is that you fancy yourself to be one of those "winners" of corporate ladder climbing and thus wish to defend "your future self" from any possible assault now. Which is precisely one of the main mechanisms by which those people escape societal norms. Because of self-deluded wannabies like you.
Slashdot seems to be falling appart under load recently, Sigh.
I am not sure what do you mean. Yes it is the nature of "success" in large corporations and in politics. And it is a pitiful state of affairs which does not serve neither the society nor in the long term the very pricks engaged in this. But the fact that this is going on, is in major part because we as a society tolerate this behaviour as socially acceptable and do not punish it severely.
Many of us just don't value excessive politics, backstabbing and other shenanigans that you might have read about in The Prince or The Art of War
I do not. Again I am not sure why are you trying to insinuate that I do.
What makes you think that the life of a CIO is sommething to be envied in the first place?
That is irrelevant. He is still engaging in this behaviour (out of "necessity", most likely, since thats the only way to the top) and thus contributing to the general problem of decay of the societal norms.
You confused jealousy with disdain. Some of us find being a successful thief far less appealing then having integrity and clear conscience. It is all in the system of values we subscribe to. Clearly, you are one of those who see selfish, destructive, anti-social greed as something to admire.
No, he got there because of his impeccable political instincts, ability to brown-nose when needed, take credit for co-workers' or sub-ordinates' work when convenient and shift blame to them when expedient, knowing the right people on the first name basis and playing squash with just the right crowd.
And this concludes the abbreviated Lesson 1 of "Corporate Ladder Climbing for The Utterly Clueless 101".
I'd listen to what this guy has to say over an academian, any day.
And that is how we get "More Tax Breaks Will Fix Everything!" industry policy, "Supply Side" economics, poliferation of bastardized standars designed for vendor lock-in, "for-profit private enterprise can always do better at everything then anyone, including charity" line of thinking, etc, and so on. I hope you will remember your own piece of lobotomized advice when the thieves are finally done with the economy, your hero CIO laughs at you in his Bahama mansion while the nation's standard of living goes to shits and you stand in line to get that interview for the "hamburger assembly technician" position, with 725 applicants ahead of you.
Isn't this why O'Reilly on FOX wants ACLU declared an anti-american "terrorist organization" or something to that effect?
This sounds good in theory and is reasonably easy when it comes to, say, laws of physics. Try the same for an accusation of "Corp X is a thief, they used political influence to get law L enacted, they should be investigated ..." etc.
I hope you have you ammo boxes handy as this is bound to happen rather soon. Freenet use is at this point nearly completely restricted to child pornography and a small number of die-hard believers in the concept of Freenet, since the supposed target audience, the dissidents, would be nuts to use it, for the reasons I described. This distribution of contents makes Freenet a sitting duck for the "Think Of The Children" political charlatans, and it also makes any defense of Freenet impossible in a typical political context. I really think that Freenet is such a wrong-headed implementation of a sounds-good-on-paper idea that it does far more harm than good to the struggle for preservation of Freedom of Speech and other Liberties.
And how do you determine its falseness? Court trial? A trial initiated by, say, a 2 billion dollars a year corp against your basement-dwelling (hypotetically) ass. Result: no freedom of speech whatsoever as the court costs alone will utterly ruin you before you even get to the actual trial proper. For practical example, check out the "RIAA vs. teenagers" circus. Result: no freedom of speech against those powerful enough to shut you up.
I am not sure, but I dont think this is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind. Specially that some of them were great believers in anonymous speech, publishing under pseudonyms themselves. See "Publius".
That's because he is going about it the wrong way. Freenet simply is not capable of delivering what he claims its design goals are (and spare me links to fake Chinese dissident's sites please which cannot be accessed by them using the Web). In oppressive countries, as soon as you are found to be using Freenet (i.e. your PC has Freenet packets coming in/out) your ass is crass for "anti-government" activities. You see, there is no "but I am entitled to sending encrypted data!" defense there. So for that purpose, unless some radical stealth system is put in place involving magic and pixie dust, Freenet is useless for these dissidents.
It can be useful in the West, where you do enjoy these rights to privacy (somewhat) but then, instead of fighting for your rights, you are simply giving in and for every encroachement on your freedoms, you simply try to hide deeper in the grasses of the Internet to escape the "man" and his laws. Wrong strategy, because if you keep it up, sooner or later you will find yourself in jail just for having Freenet client installed as the laws become repressive enough to match these less-then-civilized countries of the so called "axis of evil".
Freenet is a curious technological idea but it is completely wrong-headed and impractical, and in fact extremely dangerous to the not-quite-technical-savvy dissidents who might get a false sense of security by trying to use the damn thing and find themselves in the slammer shortly afterwards.