The problem with the lottery is not people buying tickets... instead it is buying TOO MUCH... if you only buy a ticket once in a while, it's nothing. But if you spend thousands of dollars each year (like many "addicts" do), it is undesirable...
Cidade de Deus (City of God) is one of my favourite films of all time (it's in my top 5). I recommend it to everyone who is ok with violence. It is very stylish...
I agree that there are more liberals in Hollywood (although only a few are left of left (i.e. left to far-left)). Most of these liberals are hypocrities. BUT do keep in mind that the OWNERS of Hollywood are mostly conservative. The corporations that run everything can hardly be considered liberal.
FYI, some conservatives are Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwazenegger:)... a Liberatarian (aka liberatarian-conservative) would be Clint Eastwood...
Someone correct me if I got the above people wrong...
CNN liberal? Maybe when the planets are aligned properly... ABC? Depends... BUT there is no WAY NBC & MSNBC can be considered liberal. If anything they are conservative. How can you call MSNBC liberal when it has Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, and others?
The problem with conservatives is that they need a scapegoat. Just like how they can't survive without blaming all problems on communists...
Bored philosophy major? Isn't that an oxymoron. I mean, shouldn't you be developing a philosophy to explain the meaning of life? There is no such thing as a boredom when it comes to philosophy:)
That's not really correct. Yes, the decline of Europe worked in USA's favour. HOWEVER, USA was a superpower (when it comes to economics) in the LATE 1800's!!! People think USA was a superpower after WWWWII but that's not true. By the last 1800's USA already had a bigger GDP than any European country, including colonialists like Britain.
People fail to realize that USA became wealthy BEFORE it started practicing IMPERIALISM. If anything, US imperialism will be its downfall... USA probably has more enemies than anyone else in the world and this does not bode well for the country...
Whatever happens will take a LONG TIME. Enough people don't have high-speed for this to work. To really get it going, you need millions of people. With music (MP3s, whatever) the files are small but with movies you really need high speed. Most people who have high speed right now are computer-oriented people and it is questionable whether these people watch movies (I do, but I am not normal;) )
Why buy a sub-standard movie in the first place? Ever been married and/or have kids??
If you are leftist like me, you should consider voting for some other party. Perhaps the Greens.
As far as I'm concerned, the Republicans and Democrats are the SAME party. They each claim one thing but in the end, they are the same: imperialists controlled by plutocrats. The Democrats claim to support the workers yet they are in bed with corporations. The Republicans claim to be fiscally conservative yet they have a habit of increasing the military (and it associated bureacracy that goes with it), and carrying out massive tax cuts which increases the deficit.
Americans have been DUPED for far too long... but then again, so has everyone else from other countries. I wonder if there is a politician or a political party anywhere in the WORLD that actually carried out what they said they would do....
I won't have time to discuss much this week, for obvious reasons.
That's cool... just respond when you feel like... if you feel like...
I'm going to quote all over the place. I am NOT going to be quoting chronologically. I think it is best to divide up up argument into different topics.
Democracy & Media
I'm not arguing that capitalist democracies are perfect, only that they are the best thing we have found.
First of all, I am not arguing against capitalist DEMOCRACY; I'm arguing against capitalism. Capitalism has nothing to do with democracy. If anything, pure capitalism and pure democracy are contradictory. You can just look around to see why this is so. As a matter of fact, democracy can even be traced back to Roman and Greek societies. Those societies were hardly capitalist. In addition, no country is a democracy. I refer to countries like USA as a PLUTOCRACY. Capitalists like yourself don't like to admit it but that's how I see it.
USA isn't a democracy? NY Times and Washington Post seems to unearth more scandals in the US president administration than the rest of the world's media do in all of the world's governments.
Do you think the intellectual elite created no scandals when monarchs ruled? You can even find the media reporting on "scandals" in a totalitarian country like China of all places!
Washington Post is a mouthpiece of the government. One day it is pro-Democrat; the next day it is pro-Republican. Its opinions and words are based on who is in power.
Although better than others, New York Times is an establishment paper. Sure it unearths hidden issues. But how many of these are important? Figure out how many US media covers the atrocities committed by right wing forces allied with the Colombian goverment, which is supported by USA! Or, try to find an article that talks about "iraqgate" ( another here). How about the Waco atrocity? I mean, people STILL have no idea what happened to President Kennedy! Or better yet, how come the media has said nothing about the Anthrax Assasin? The Anthrax Assasin killed more Americans than than Saddam Hussein! Where is your "democratic and free" media?
The problem is that you have no idea what is going on. It's not just you but the VAST MAJORITY of people are like that. They just take what is fed to them. When the media just regurgitates White House press releases, you just accept it. You also fall for propaganda and disinformation. It's just too bad that you don't realize that the New York Times (or for that matter, most media) are controlled by the government. How many US media had anti-war commentators or activists in the run-up to the war? Almost ZERO! That's not a free media! That's not a fair media! And it certainly isn't democratic either!
Just because the media is supposedly free, doesn't mean all is well. Similarly, just because someone can vote doesn't mean it is democratic. I mean, citizens were able to vote as far back as 150 years ago yet no one in their right mind would consider these countries very democratic at that time. In fact, if you went to government propaganda, almost 70% of the countries are democratic. Of course, nothing is further from the truth.
Premanent War for permanent Peace
Personally, I don't really care that much about the rights of dictatorships. The Iraq invasion was stupid -- but good for Iraq, I guess, since it was a Stalin-like dictatorship and probably couldn't have been overthrown in any other way.
So let me ask you this. If I invaded your country and killed 10,000 people to kill a dictator, it's ok with you? What if one of your loved ones--or even you--were killed? You live in a black & white world driven by the propagandists. To you, only the d
Japan has been a lapdog of USA since WWII. You can safely assume that Japan does not have an independent foreign policy. I notice that you simply refereed to economics. If you just look at economics, yeah, Japan is fairly independent. But if you look at politics, it is anything but. In fact, Japan has been ruled by one party for almost 50 years! Is that unusual for a democracy-like goverment or what?
Most so-called loans are never ever going to be paid back. USA is owed billions by a ton of countries but we can safely assume no one is going to pay it back. Except for the capitalists who brainwash people into believing these will actually be paid back, everyone knows that rich countries are not going to be paid back. One just needs to look at Indonesia, Argentina, etc...
Isreal would be significantly worse off without foreign help (and I'm not even talking about political help). Most aid to Isreal is military but Isreal would have to pay it out of its OWN pockets. On top of that, Isreal's weapon industry is a key component of its economy. If USA cuts military "aid", Isreal's military industry would almost die off.
As far as giving aid to Egypt, it is done for a reason... the same reason USA gave aid to Turkey when the Turks were killing the Kurds... the same reason USA gives aid to Colombia, when the Colombian kills a ton of innocent people with the right-wing militias/bounty hunters/bodyguards... It is a political decision...
So in summary, Isreal would be FAR worse off without US help... but then again, it would FAR better off with Mideast peace too... All I can say is that USA will cut off aid to Isreal (and other countries) at some point in the future (especially since I predict that USA will face massive fiscal problems within 50 years). Isreal better be prepared to suvive without much US backing when that time comes... For now, aid is totally irrelevant since Americans can do whatever they want to do with their money (I'm not American), and so-called aid is nothing more than a carrot on the stick to carry out foreign policy...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
my first PC: 286
on
First Computers
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· Score: 2, Insightful
My first PC (it was a late model 286 so it wasn't as sucky as the original ones):
Best PC I ever owned
286 20Mhz(!)
1024k RAM (but most things only used 640k so the extra was usless unless the game supported extended/expanded memory)
13"(?) SVGA monitor
2400 baud modem (got it a bit later)
20-something(?) MB HD
3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives
3 button wheel mouse that never really worked well
ahh... the best PC I ever had:) Brings back good memories...
Fondest memories:
Trying to free up enough conventional memory so that I can play games with all the sound effects/music. Spent quite a lot of time hunting on BBSes for mouse drivers that used the least amount of memory possible. Unless a game supported extended/expanded memory (not the early ones), you needed a ton of conventional memory.
GW-BASIC. Spent a ton of time typing up BASIC games from books I signed out at the public library:) I even tried creating a "simple" RPG game but it never went anywhere because my brother wouldn't play it. Since I designed the game, I knew where the secret keys/doors/etc were--no point of me playing it:(... It is truly sad that modern PCs don't ship with a compiler. I wonder what little kids these days do. Do they even do any programming? Yes, you can download free compilers (gcc for example) but how many little kids would know of them?
Best game moment: Dune II. Dune II also happens to be my favourite game of all time (although I have spent 50x more time playing games like Starcraft). Favourite "race": Ordos. Favourite vehicle/weapon: Sonic Tank. I can still vaguely remember being scared every time the Harkonnen Death Hands are launched:)
Other games: Test Drive II (anyone remember it?)... Might & Magic V (one of my favourite RPGs of all time)... Eye of the Beholder II (never finished it; hard game)... Another one of my favourites (which I found online as abandonware) is Stoneage. Anyone played it?... Red Baron (possibly the best flight simulation game I played--more action oriented than anything)... many many more...
Wordperfect 5.1... I still remember some keys like F6 and F8... can't remember but I think they are for bold and underline?? Shift-F5 for print or maybe center?? I can still remember the blue screen with document infomration on the bottom right...
I think my computer is my first love, like women are for some men, or cars are for others. My life is totally fucked up now but thinking of the 286 brings back good memories:):):) Rest in Peace my beloved 286... The Pentiums might be faster and more flashy, but I'll always love you more;)
I guess that pretty much confirms that I'm a geek:) All I need next is a job in the field:(
The Terroist, as recommened above, is a good film. It's very artistic though--not sure if you are into it. There is very little speech but the cinematography is nice:)
Another film I would recommend is The Bandit Queen. It's a highly controversial film and I'm not sure if it counts as Bollywood (it's co-produced in Britain).
Bollywood sucks. That's not an exaggeration. Take the worst parts of Bollywood and multiply it by 100 and you get Bollywood. Unless you watch films simply for escapism, you will not like anything coming out of Bollywood, just like you would not like most films coming out of Hollywood.
The best films from Asia are always independent non-mainstream films. Indie films from Iran and China/Hong Kong are pretty good. All the good Indian films are independent and not from Bollywood.
On top of all that, Asian films (particularly from China and India) are HEAVILY censored. Yes, USA censors them too but it's commercial censorship. In Asia, it's government censorship. A lot of critically acclaimed films from China/HK and India are not shown in their homelands...
Such situations arise regularly without intervention; often enough that all countries with some form of market economy have laws forbidding such behavior.
What you are describing is collusion. It's against the laws. You have to ask a capitalist about that, but I believe capitalists claim that you will never end up in the situation you are describing. Many capitalists claim that monopolies and oligopolies are created by government intervention. For instance, when I say that the media is an oligopoly (5 companies control 80% of media in USA), capitalists say it is due to government intervention. I don't buy it but they are the ones that rule the earth.
Get back to me when China allows Bank of America or Wells Fargo the same access to China that the US gives to the Chinese companies building DVD players.
Banking is a bad examnple because every country protects their banks--sort of. Anyway, China IS opening up its industries. Who is selling all the cellphones in China? How about the telecommunications infrastructure? And so on.
First of all, I wasn't talking about locking up money that you may need in the near future. I was mainly thinking about "extra" money you had. You know...stuff that you don't really need for 10+ years. You should never lock up money that you might need in the near future (either because you might lose your job, or to purchase a car, house, etc). So, assuming we are dealing with money that you don't need right away...
I still don't buy your argument. Inflation is a real phenomenon. It has happened for 100+ years. You DO have a point about deflation. BUT which has a higher probability: deflation or inflation? I would say inflation. Therefore, that should be more worrisome. You don't have to lock up stuff. How about short term investments? What's wrong with putting it in a bank? I'm not talking about mutual funds or other stuff you have no control over. I'm just speaking about holding it as cash in your, say, savings account. I don't know the exact rules but I believe you can withdraw your bank accounts at "any time" (i.e. any time other than when the bank is about to collapse;) ).
Or how about a short term government bond? I don't know what the shortest is but looking at Canada Savings Bond, it seems that you can redeem it at any time. Inflation in Canada in November was 1.6%. If you pick the Canada Savings Bond, you will get 1.65%. So you'll get 0.05% for free. You will get almost nothing but it will be enough to cover inflation. A more realistic scenario is if you invest in the Canada Premium Bond, which pays 2.35% in the first year but can only be redeemed on a particular date each year (or within 30 days of that date). (note: all these are issued in April (I think) so the figures make more sense if you bought the bond in April). So, interestReceived-inflation=2.35%-1.6%=0.75%. So you get 0.75% in the first year. That's on top of the inflation. For a Canadian, the Canada bonds pay the least but are the safest. If you want a slightly higher return you can invest in provincial bonds (they return a little bit more because provincial debt is more riskier than federal government debt).
I just picked this as an example. I'm sure you can find a similar one in your area. The point is.... investing in a government bond is very safe. Chance of the government bankrupting is very slim in the near future. In any case, you can redeem these bonds each year. Since these are safe, the returns are horrible. But they are enough to cover inflation. In contrast, keeping cash at home will lose its value. If I put $10,000 in the Premium Bond (above) and you didn't, I would end up with $10,235 ($235 more), while you still have $10,000. I would have $75 more than inflation while you have nothing.
What I described is the inflation case (which I think is more likely). In the deflation case, you would NOT do what I said above. Instead, you would convert your assets into something tangible such as gold. If I thought the economy was going to collapse, I would convert my hypothetical $10,000 into gold--at least in theory. In practice, there are problems with this. You may not be able to find $10,000 in gold. Criminals may break into your house and steal the gold. And so forth. But that's kind of what I would do.
DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert in finance. Do not base any of your decisions on my advice. In other words, I am dumb and don't know what I'm talking about so I'm not liable for anything:) Besides, I'm unemployed and poor and have nothing to give to the lawsuit-happy people out there;)
I think the key word is "drive...competition out of business". It is hard to prove that. And companies generally don't drive others out of business. They simply reduce their market share...
BTW, I'm not a capitalist. I'm just making some observations. My theory is that free markets lead to oligopolies and monopolies. Capitalists disagree with that. I just think it is my theory coming true...
Progress comes from testing new ways of doing things. Experience shows that most new ideas fail. (Consider -- for most problem areas, there are an infinite number of ways to be very wrong than close to correct.)
Yes things fail but so what? As I said, we wouldn't be where we are without trying and failing. Being scared of failure will simply result in no progress at all.
tried. The left non-capitalist methods have repeatedly had the same results as nazism, only worse...
Clearly a right-winger such as yourself (if you are indeed one) considers the so-called Communism worse than Nazism. But I'll bet that most people would consider Nazism to be worse.
(The left-wing people explain this like the christians explain all the horrors of religion, "it is not an error in the religion, only what men do when implementing it! Please ignore that part about eternal torture (/dictatorship by the 'people'), by the way!".)
But the difference is that WE learn from our past mistakes. Religion, on the other hand, doesn't. The difference is that religion is static while left wing thought is not.
I am, of course, willing to happily embrace a better way of doing things -- when a working society has been implemented, worked for a few decades and there are good arguments why it will continue to work. There are none now.
If you don't want to try changing society, that's fine. You'll just lag others. The day will come when others DO succeed. If you are a conservative and want to live in Plato's cave, that's fine.
I think it is difficult for you to see what change is necessary. You live in Sweden and it is one of hte top countries in the world. So the status-quo is very attractive to you. On top of it, it has some socialist ideals so the country isn't as badly off as USA (how many homeless are there in Sweden?). Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the majority of the world's population. The vast majority of people on earth are simply economic slaves! Visit or read up on South America and see if the status quo there is good enough.
A "fun" fact is that all idealist (religious and political) theories I've seen on how to organize a society make assumptions on human nature and behaviour -- something we don't know enough about to predict(!) and most of which seems to change in a random fashion with the culture in each generation!!
That's not entirely true. In some cases it's true; in others it's not. Some people like to seperate econopolitical systems (like socialism, capitalism, fascism, etc) into two categories. One are UTOPIAN systems. The other is called (I forget the name so let's just call it) "pragmatic" systems. Utopian systems involve coming up with a notion of utopia and then building a system from that. The other systems involve no advanced conceptions but instead involve coming up with ideals on-the-fly. What you are referring to are utopian systems. An example of a utopian system is communism. This system assumes certain things about the world. An example of a non-utopian system is anarchism. Anarchism, for example, does not assume as much as you imagine. I'm not saying one is better than the other. All I'm saying is that not all econopolitical systems have built-in assumptions.
There are minimum levels of education and wealth to have a functioning democracy. I'd put the date for modern democracy somewhere after the first world war (women got the vote here in Sweden about then).
You DO NOT need minimum levels of ANYTHING for democracy!!! If you believe such a thing, you are nothing more than an elitist. Your argument is the same as those used by aristocrats several hundread years ago, and imperialists rul
I'm not a capitalist but this my understading of capitalism...
The stuff you are talking about are all anti-capitalist measures. Pure capitalism would simply be a situation where the government is very tiny and simply enforces laws relating to commerce (like private property, etc). There would be no government intervention and everything would be a free market. Things like anti-trust laws, taxes, minimum wage, etc are all against capitalism. You can get the full details on (pure) capitalism here.
You don't sound like a capitalist to me. You seem more like someone who supports mixed economies (probably a social democrat (if left leaning) or paleoconservative (if right leaning), or something similar to those).
I actually read the grandparent comment to mean that the author looked at places like India and China and did not see free markets -- US companies did not have the same access to those markets that India and China have to the US.
Actually US companies DO have the same access although it isn't that great when it comes to China. Ask anyone in Latin America how things are going. If anything, USA preaches free trade and practices protectionism, while Latin American countries fall for the free trade mantra. The difference with China, however, is that it does EXACTLY the same thing USA does. Namely, it preaches free trade but uses protectionist measures. All this time, US corporations have been hurting many poor countries (mostly in Latin America and to a small extent in Africa) but now China isn't falling for that. India isn't THAT protectionist but its policies are closer to China than say Brazil. This is why China and India are actually doing well when other countries who "benefitted" from outsourcing (like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, etc) aren't doing so well. USA has finally met an opponent who is just as formidable because they use the same technique it does...
Thank you for your considerate response. Now I must bat you around the ears for your errors. You seem like a nice enough person, so I apologize for firing double-aught buckshot in your direction.
Nah, that's cool. I'm open to criticism and what you have said is not really an attack on me. Besides, *I* am much harsher than you:)
I'm actually not who you think I am. I'm not a capitalist at all. All I was saying is that you need to ensure that your assets don't lose value. Stuffing it under the mattress is not necessarily the best thing to do (unless you are doing it for an ideological reason, as some leftists).
Battle with Inflation
When I said invest, I didn't really mean stock markets. You can keep it in your bank if you want. Or you can buy government bonds (low risk and give back almost nothing but is enough to cover inflation). Or in theory, you can hold assets like gold. Hodling gold is better than money but is often impractical. I think one needs to get a return higher than inflation or else they will seriously lose. Inflation over a period of one or two years is nothing but it can add up. If you hold cash for 30 years, you WILL lose a significant amount of its value. Just buying a government bond may be good enough (just make sure you cash it out before the government collapses as in Argentina and Ecuador).
Stock Markets
I agree with you that the stock market is a money-making scheme. It cannot be relied upon to provide anything. Some governments who invested in the stock market lost A LOT of money. The last thing we need are governments risking healthcare, educational, or other public service money.
Boom&Bust
Karl Marx predicted the boom/recession cycle more than 150 years ago! Most booms are pure speculation and hype (as the dot-com boom was). Anything that goes up usually comes back down. It has been happening for ages. Anyone remember the derivatives trading losses in the 80's?
Socialism
USA is the most capitalist country in the world (ignoring small states like Singapore, etc) so forget about socialism. Also, most Americans are conservative (hence won't support any socialist ideals*). The only time you are going to get anything resembling socialist ideals are when USA collapses or goes into a deflation (or depression). Only two times in US history have any socialist ideals been implemented: (i)FDR's New Deal during the Great Depression, and (ii) Bill of Rights when USA was founded (mostly due to Alexander Hamilton et al). Until you get an Alexander Hamilton (who I don't like THAT much) or a Franklin Delano Roosevelt rolls around, forget this...
(*Ironically, religion is closer to socialism than capitalism. Socialism is very communal and deals with taking care of others (usually the poor) and religion is similar to that. Capitalism is very individualistic and religions don't lend themselves to that. If socialists and the religious crowd can avoid the "God issues", you would find that they would get along).
By the way, are you an economist? (you won't like what I'm about to say:| )
This criticism from the idealists (religious and political) assumes that all the researchers are either intellectually dishonest (in a conspiracy)...
It's not so much that researchers are dishonest but that their value system differs. For example, I, being a leftist, considers most economists to be a bunch of fools (yeah strong language but bear with me). To me, they are nothing more than the modern day alchemists. What people call economics is nothing more than CAPITALISTIC economics. I don't claim that the economists make up stuff. My problem is that I don't agree with their whole field. Economics should ask the question 'what is best for humanity?' Instead, modern day capitalistic economics asks 'Given capitalism, what is best?' So, it's not so much that I think they make up stuff. It's just that I don't agree with the underlying field. To me, the way economics is nowadays, it should be part of the Faculty of Business and not the Faculty of Social Science.
Societies rotten with corruption (like Argentina) don't work well no matter how they are organized...
That sounds like an excuse more than anything. Why did you guys then try to implement neo-liberal economics there? If it wasn't going to work then why not let them do whatever they wanted? Why push "neo-liberalism" onto them? It looks like you are trying to use that as an excuse afterwards...
The standard answer here is that capitalist societies are disgusting places -- and that the only thing worse are the alternatives. You have certainly heard that argument multiple times.
With that sort of reasoning, the world will never improve. How can you be sure the alternatives aren't better? The reasoning you are using was common throughout time. Fortunately people didn't follow your thinking. I mean, a couple of hundreads of years ago, the intellectual elites were pretty sure that democracy will never work because the masses were too stupid (nearly all were uneducated), too unskilled (all worked as labourers, peasents, etc), and couldn't organize anything. You can find the best thinkers of that time saying that. Were they right?
The world can ALWAYS get better. I might be an idealist but we wouldn't be where we are without some idealism...
What is your point regarding Japan?
I can't remember what my point was exactly... maybe it was that Japan can be thought of as being under the watch of imperialism, whereas China and India aren't... I don't remember my point.
There is no historical example of war between democracies.
This depends on your definition of democracy. Many European countries were at war with each other even though they were all democracies. Perhaps the best example is the war between Britain and France. These two countries were warring for a long time. I'm not sure if you count them as democracies at that time (are they?) How about Nazi German invasion of Poland(?)? Germany for all intensive purposes was a democracy* so that might be an example. Other classic examples include US imperialism such as invasions of Panama, Chile, Nicaragua, Vietnam (not sure if this counts as a war between democracies), and so forth. Clearly the invasion of Panama is a good example.
(* I say Nazi Germany was "democratic" because Hitler had MASSIVE support. Even if Germany had open democratic elections (monitored by the UN), Hitler would have won with a massive vote).
It do sound like a normal leftwing conspiracy theory (everything bad on the planet is because of USA).
Unfortunately for you, a lot of these conspiracy theories turn out to be true. Consider the recent Iraqi mess. Wasn't it the leftists that were predicting that support of Saddam Hussein (in the 80's) was going to be total disaster? Wasn't it also the leftists who said US support of the mujahedeen could backfire (and it did, with Usama bin L
Ultimately what is best for the worker is if the companies themselves drive these programs and end up hiring people (workers can pay for it but the real issue is getting a job). As long as companies don't want to hire people without experience or the perfect skills (both tough to overcome), things won't work out so well...
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with the lottery is not people buying tickets... instead it is buying TOO MUCH... if you only buy a ticket once in a while, it's nothing. But if you spend thousands of dollars each year (like many "addicts" do), it is undesirable...
Like all things in life, moderation...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
No wonder you never made it to the NHL ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Cidade de Deus (City of God) is one of my favourite films of all time (it's in my top 5). I recommend it to everyone who is ok with violence. It is very stylish...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I agree that there are more liberals in Hollywood (although only a few are left of left (i.e. left to far-left)). Most of these liberals are hypocrities. BUT do keep in mind that the OWNERS of Hollywood are mostly conservative. The corporations that run everything can hardly be considered liberal.
:)... a Liberatarian (aka liberatarian-conservative) would be Clint Eastwood...
FYI, some conservatives are Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwazenegger
Someone correct me if I got the above people wrong...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
CNN liberal? Maybe when the planets are aligned properly... ABC? Depends... BUT there is no WAY NBC & MSNBC can be considered liberal. If anything they are conservative. How can you call MSNBC liberal when it has Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, and others?
The problem with conservatives is that they need a scapegoat. Just like how they can't survive without blaming all problems on communists...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Bored philosophy major? Isn't that an oxymoron. I mean, shouldn't you be developing a philosophy to explain the meaning of life? There is no such thing as a boredom when it comes to philosophy :)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
How about these... not exactly the same but kind of close...
:) The other two aren't exactly there but kind of close... I LOVE the last film BTW :)
Double Impact
A River Runs Through it
Legends of the Fall
The first one is kind of close to the original joke post
Sivaram Velauthapillai
That's not really correct. Yes, the decline of Europe worked in USA's favour. HOWEVER, USA was a superpower (when it comes to economics) in the LATE 1800's!!! People think USA was a superpower after WWWWII but that's not true. By the last 1800's USA already had a bigger GDP than any European country, including colonialists like Britain.
People fail to realize that USA became wealthy BEFORE it started practicing IMPERIALISM. If anything, US imperialism will be its downfall... USA probably has more enemies than anyone else in the world and this does not bode well for the country...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Whatever happens will take a LONG TIME. Enough people don't have high-speed for this to work. To really get it going, you need millions of people. With music (MP3s, whatever) the files are small but with movies you really need high speed. Most people who have high speed right now are computer-oriented people and it is questionable whether these people watch movies (I do, but I am not normal ;) )
Why buy a sub-standard movie in the first place? Ever been married and/or have kids??
huh? What do you mean? I don't get that at all...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
If you are leftist like me, you should consider voting for some other party. Perhaps the Greens.
As far as I'm concerned, the Republicans and Democrats are the SAME party. They each claim one thing but in the end, they are the same: imperialists controlled by plutocrats. The Democrats claim to support the workers yet they are in bed with corporations. The Republicans claim to be fiscally conservative yet they have a habit of increasing the military (and it associated bureacracy that goes with it), and carrying out massive tax cuts which increases the deficit.
Americans have been DUPED for far too long... but then again, so has everyone else from other countries. I wonder if there is a politician or a political party anywhere in the WORLD that actually carried out what they said they would do....
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I won't have time to discuss much this week, for obvious reasons.
That's cool... just respond when you feel like... if you feel like...
I'm going to quote all over the place. I am NOT going to be quoting chronologically. I think it is best to divide up up argument into different topics.
Democracy & Media
I'm not arguing that capitalist democracies are perfect, only that they are the best thing we have found.
First of all, I am not arguing against capitalist DEMOCRACY; I'm arguing against capitalism. Capitalism has nothing to do with democracy. If anything, pure capitalism and pure democracy are contradictory. You can just look around to see why this is so. As a matter of fact, democracy can even be traced back to Roman and Greek societies. Those societies were hardly capitalist. In addition, no country is a democracy. I refer to countries like USA as a PLUTOCRACY. Capitalists like yourself don't like to admit it but that's how I see it.
USA isn't a democracy? NY Times and Washington Post seems to unearth more scandals in the US president administration than the rest of the world's media do in all of the world's governments.
Do you think the intellectual elite created no scandals when monarchs ruled? You can even find the media reporting on "scandals" in a totalitarian country like China of all places!
Washington Post is a mouthpiece of the government. One day it is pro-Democrat; the next day it is pro-Republican. Its opinions and words are based on who is in power.
Although better than others, New York Times is an establishment paper. Sure it unearths hidden issues. But how many of these are important? Figure out how many US media covers the atrocities committed by right wing forces allied with the Colombian goverment, which is supported by USA! Or, try to find an article that talks about "iraqgate" ( another here). How about the Waco atrocity? I mean, people STILL have no idea what happened to President Kennedy! Or better yet, how come the media has said nothing about the Anthrax Assasin? The Anthrax Assasin killed more Americans than than Saddam Hussein! Where is your "democratic and free" media?
The problem is that you have no idea what is going on. It's not just you but the VAST MAJORITY of people are like that. They just take what is fed to them. When the media just regurgitates White House press releases, you just accept it. You also fall for propaganda and disinformation. It's just too bad that you don't realize that the New York Times (or for that matter, most media) are controlled by the government. How many US media had anti-war commentators or activists in the run-up to the war? Almost ZERO! That's not a free media! That's not a fair media! And it certainly isn't democratic either!
Just because the media is supposedly free, doesn't mean all is well. Similarly, just because someone can vote doesn't mean it is democratic. I mean, citizens were able to vote as far back as 150 years ago yet no one in their right mind would consider these countries very democratic at that time. In fact, if you went to government propaganda, almost 70% of the countries are democratic. Of course, nothing is further from the truth.
Premanent War for permanent Peace
Personally, I don't really care that much about the rights of dictatorships. The Iraq invasion was stupid -- but good for Iraq, I guess, since it was a Stalin-like dictatorship and probably couldn't have been overthrown in any other way.
So let me ask you this. If I invaded your country and killed 10,000 people to kill a dictator, it's ok with you? What if one of your loved ones--or even you--were killed? You live in a black & white world driven by the propagandists. To you, only the d
Why would India conquer Michigan when Canada would have conquered it by then? :)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Japan has been a lapdog of USA since WWII. You can safely assume that Japan does not have an independent foreign policy. I notice that you simply refereed to economics. If you just look at economics, yeah, Japan is fairly independent. But if you look at politics, it is anything but. In fact, Japan has been ruled by one party for almost 50 years! Is that unusual for a democracy-like goverment or what?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Most so-called loans are never ever going to be paid back. USA is owed billions by a ton of countries but we can safely assume no one is going to pay it back. Except for the capitalists who brainwash people into believing these will actually be paid back, everyone knows that rich countries are not going to be paid back. One just needs to look at Indonesia, Argentina, etc...
... It is a political decision...
Isreal would be significantly worse off without foreign help (and I'm not even talking about political help). Most aid to Isreal is military but Isreal would have to pay it out of its OWN pockets. On top of that, Isreal's weapon industry is a key component of its economy. If USA cuts military "aid", Isreal's military industry would almost die off.
As far as giving aid to Egypt, it is done for a reason... the same reason USA gave aid to Turkey when the Turks were killing the Kurds... the same reason USA gives aid to Colombia, when the Colombian kills a ton of innocent people with the right-wing militias/bounty hunters/bodyguards
So in summary, Isreal would be FAR worse off without US help... but then again, it would FAR better off with Mideast peace too... All I can say is that USA will cut off aid to Isreal (and other countries) at some point in the future (especially since I predict that USA will face massive fiscal problems within 50 years). Isreal better be prepared to suvive without much US backing when that time comes... For now, aid is totally irrelevant since Americans can do whatever they want to do with their money (I'm not American), and so-called aid is nothing more than a carrot on the stick to carry out foreign policy...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Best PC I ever owned
286 20Mhz(!)
1024k RAM (but most things only used 640k so the extra was usless unless the game supported extended/expanded memory)
13"(?) SVGA monitor
2400 baud modem (got it a bit later)
20-something(?) MB HD
3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives
3 button wheel mouse that never really worked well
ahh... the best PC I ever had
Fondest memories:
I think my computer is my first love, like women are for some men, or cars are for others. My life is totally fucked up now but thinking of the 286 brings back good memories
I guess that pretty much confirms that I'm a geek
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The Terroist, as recommened above, is a good film. It's very artistic though--not sure if you are into it. There is very little speech but the cinematography is nice :)
Another film I would recommend is The Bandit Queen. It's a highly controversial film and I'm not sure if it counts as Bollywood (it's co-produced in Britain).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Bollywood sucks. That's not an exaggeration. Take the worst parts of Bollywood and multiply it by 100 and you get Bollywood. Unless you watch films simply for escapism, you will not like anything coming out of Bollywood, just like you would not like most films coming out of Hollywood.
The best films from Asia are always independent non-mainstream films. Indie films from Iran and China/Hong Kong are pretty good. All the good Indian films are independent and not from Bollywood.
On top of all that, Asian films (particularly from China and India) are HEAVILY censored. Yes, USA censors them too but it's commercial censorship. In Asia, it's government censorship. A lot of critically acclaimed films from China/HK and India are not shown in their homelands...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Such situations arise regularly without intervention; often enough that all countries with some form of market economy have laws forbidding such behavior.
What you are describing is collusion. It's against the laws. You have to ask a capitalist about that, but I believe capitalists claim that you will never end up in the situation you are describing. Many capitalists claim that monopolies and oligopolies are created by government intervention. For instance, when I say that the media is an oligopoly (5 companies control 80% of media in USA), capitalists say it is due to government intervention. I don't buy it but they are the ones that rule the earth.
Get back to me when China allows Bank of America or Wells Fargo the same access to China that the US gives to the Chinese companies building DVD players.
Banking is a bad examnple because every country protects their banks--sort of. Anyway, China IS opening up its industries. Who is selling all the cellphones in China? How about the telecommunications infrastructure? And so on.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
First of all, I wasn't talking about locking up money that you may need in the near future. I was mainly thinking about "extra" money you had. You know...stuff that you don't really need for 10+ years. You should never lock up money that you might need in the near future (either because you might lose your job, or to purchase a car, house, etc). So, assuming we are dealing with money that you don't need right away...
;) ).
:) Besides, I'm unemployed and poor and have nothing to give to the lawsuit-happy people out there ;)
I still don't buy your argument. Inflation is a real phenomenon. It has happened for 100+ years. You DO have a point about deflation. BUT which has a higher probability: deflation or inflation? I would say inflation. Therefore, that should be more worrisome. You don't have to lock up stuff. How about short term investments? What's wrong with putting it in a bank? I'm not talking about mutual funds or other stuff you have no control over. I'm just speaking about holding it as cash in your, say, savings account. I don't know the exact rules but I believe you can withdraw your bank accounts at "any time" (i.e. any time other than when the bank is about to collapse
Or how about a short term government bond? I don't know what the shortest is but looking at Canada Savings Bond, it seems that you can redeem it at any time. Inflation in Canada in November was 1.6%. If you pick the Canada Savings Bond, you will get 1.65%. So you'll get 0.05% for free. You will get almost nothing but it will be enough to cover inflation. A more realistic scenario is if you invest in the Canada Premium Bond, which pays 2.35% in the first year but can only be redeemed on a particular date each year (or within 30 days of that date). (note: all these are issued in April (I think) so the figures make more sense if you bought the bond in April). So, interestReceived-inflation=2.35%-1.6%=0.75%. So you get 0.75% in the first year. That's on top of the inflation. For a Canadian, the Canada bonds pay the least but are the safest. If you want a slightly higher return you can invest in provincial bonds (they return a little bit more because provincial debt is more riskier than federal government debt).
I just picked this as an example. I'm sure you can find a similar one in your area. The point is.... investing in a government bond is very safe. Chance of the government bankrupting is very slim in the near future. In any case, you can redeem these bonds each year. Since these are safe, the returns are horrible. But they are enough to cover inflation. In contrast, keeping cash at home will lose its value. If I put $10,000 in the Premium Bond (above) and you didn't, I would end up with $10,235 ($235 more), while you still have $10,000. I would have $75 more than inflation while you have nothing.
What I described is the inflation case (which I think is more likely). In the deflation case, you would NOT do what I said above. Instead, you would convert your assets into something tangible such as gold. If I thought the economy was going to collapse, I would convert my hypothetical $10,000 into gold--at least in theory. In practice, there are problems with this. You may not be able to find $10,000 in gold. Criminals may break into your house and steal the gold. And so forth. But that's kind of what I would do.
DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert in finance. Do not base any of your decisions on my advice. In other words, I am dumb and don't know what I'm talking about so I'm not liable for anything
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I think the key word is "drive...competition out of business". It is hard to prove that. And companies generally don't drive others out of business. They simply reduce their market share...
BTW, I'm not a capitalist. I'm just making some observations. My theory is that free markets lead to oligopolies and monopolies. Capitalists disagree with that. I just think it is my theory coming true...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Progress comes from testing new ways of doing things. Experience shows that most new ideas fail. (Consider -- for most problem areas, there are an infinite number of ways to be very wrong than close to correct.)
Yes things fail but so what? As I said, we wouldn't be where we are without trying and failing. Being scared of failure will simply result in no progress at all.
tried. The left non-capitalist methods have repeatedly had the same results as nazism, only worse...
Clearly a right-winger such as yourself (if you are indeed one) considers the so-called Communism worse than Nazism. But I'll bet that most people would consider Nazism to be worse.
(The left-wing people explain this like the christians explain all the horrors of religion, "it is not an error in the religion, only what men do when implementing it! Please ignore that part about eternal torture (/dictatorship by the 'people'), by the way!".)
But the difference is that WE learn from our past mistakes. Religion, on the other hand, doesn't. The difference is that religion is static while left wing thought is not.
I am, of course, willing to happily embrace a better way of doing things -- when a working society has been implemented, worked for a few decades and there are good arguments why it will continue to work. There are none now.
If you don't want to try changing society, that's fine. You'll just lag others. The day will come when others DO succeed. If you are a conservative and want to live in Plato's cave, that's fine.
I think it is difficult for you to see what change is necessary. You live in Sweden and it is one of hte top countries in the world. So the status-quo is very attractive to you. On top of it, it has some socialist ideals so the country isn't as badly off as USA (how many homeless are there in Sweden?). Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the majority of the world's population. The vast majority of people on earth are simply economic slaves! Visit or read up on South America and see if the status quo there is good enough.
A "fun" fact is that all idealist (religious and political) theories I've seen on how to organize a society make assumptions on human nature and behaviour -- something we don't know enough about to predict(!) and most of which seems to change in a random fashion with the culture in each generation!!
That's not entirely true. In some cases it's true; in others it's not. Some people like to seperate econopolitical systems (like socialism, capitalism, fascism, etc) into two categories. One are UTOPIAN systems. The other is called (I forget the name so let's just call it) "pragmatic" systems. Utopian systems involve coming up with a notion of utopia and then building a system from that. The other systems involve no advanced conceptions but instead involve coming up with ideals on-the-fly. What you are referring to are utopian systems. An example of a utopian system is communism. This system assumes certain things about the world. An example of a non-utopian system is anarchism. Anarchism, for example, does not assume as much as you imagine. I'm not saying one is better than the other. All I'm saying is that not all econopolitical systems have built-in assumptions.
There are minimum levels of education and wealth to have a functioning democracy. I'd put the date for modern democracy somewhere after the first world war (women got the vote here in Sweden about then).
You DO NOT need minimum levels of ANYTHING for democracy!!! If you believe such a thing, you are nothing more than an elitist. Your argument is the same as those used by aristocrats several hundread years ago, and imperialists rul
I'm not a capitalist but this my understading of capitalism...
The stuff you are talking about are all anti-capitalist measures. Pure capitalism would simply be a situation where the government is very tiny and simply enforces laws relating to commerce (like private property, etc). There would be no government intervention and everything would be a free market. Things like anti-trust laws, taxes, minimum wage, etc are all against capitalism. You can get the full details on (pure) capitalism here.
You don't sound like a capitalist to me. You seem more like someone who supports mixed economies (probably a social democrat (if left leaning) or paleoconservative (if right leaning), or something similar to those).
I actually read the grandparent comment to mean that the author looked at places like India and China and did not see free markets -- US companies did not have the same access to those markets that India and China have to the US.
Actually US companies DO have the same access although it isn't that great when it comes to China. Ask anyone in Latin America how things are going. If anything, USA preaches free trade and practices protectionism, while Latin American countries fall for the free trade mantra. The difference with China, however, is that it does EXACTLY the same thing USA does. Namely, it preaches free trade but uses protectionist measures. All this time, US corporations have been hurting many poor countries (mostly in Latin America and to a small extent in Africa) but now China isn't falling for that. India isn't THAT protectionist but its policies are closer to China than say Brazil. This is why China and India are actually doing well when other countries who "benefitted" from outsourcing (like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, etc) aren't doing so well. USA has finally met an opponent who is just as formidable because they use the same technique it does...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Thank you for your considerate response. Now I must bat you around the ears for your errors. You seem like a nice enough person, so I apologize for firing double-aught buckshot in your direction.
:)
Nah, that's cool. I'm open to criticism and what you have said is not really an attack on me. Besides, *I* am much harsher than you
I'm actually not who you think I am. I'm not a capitalist at all. All I was saying is that you need to ensure that your assets don't lose value. Stuffing it under the mattress is not necessarily the best thing to do (unless you are doing it for an ideological reason, as some leftists).
Battle with Inflation
When I said invest, I didn't really mean stock markets. You can keep it in your bank if you want. Or you can buy government bonds (low risk and give back almost nothing but is enough to cover inflation). Or in theory, you can hold assets like gold. Hodling gold is better than money but is often impractical. I think one needs to get a return higher than inflation or else they will seriously lose. Inflation over a period of one or two years is nothing but it can add up. If you hold cash for 30 years, you WILL lose a significant amount of its value. Just buying a government bond may be good enough (just make sure you cash it out before the government collapses as in Argentina and Ecuador).
Stock Markets
I agree with you that the stock market is a money-making scheme. It cannot be relied upon to provide anything. Some governments who invested in the stock market lost A LOT of money. The last thing we need are governments risking healthcare, educational, or other public service money.
Boom&Bust
Karl Marx predicted the boom/recession cycle more than 150 years ago! Most booms are pure speculation and hype (as the dot-com boom was). Anything that goes up usually comes back down. It has been happening for ages. Anyone remember the derivatives trading losses in the 80's?
Socialism
USA is the most capitalist country in the world (ignoring small states like Singapore, etc) so forget about socialism. Also, most Americans are conservative (hence won't support any socialist ideals*). The only time you are going to get anything resembling socialist ideals are when USA collapses or goes into a deflation (or depression). Only two times in US history have any socialist ideals been implemented: (i)FDR's New Deal during the Great Depression, and (ii) Bill of Rights when USA was founded (mostly due to Alexander Hamilton et al). Until you get an Alexander Hamilton (who I don't like THAT much) or a Franklin Delano Roosevelt rolls around, forget this...
(*Ironically, religion is closer to socialism than capitalism. Socialism is very communal and deals with taking care of others (usually the poor) and religion is similar to that. Capitalism is very individualistic and religions don't lend themselves to that. If socialists and the religious crowd can avoid the "God issues", you would find that they would get along).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
By the way, are you an economist? (you won't like what I'm about to say :| )
This criticism from the idealists (religious and political) assumes that all the researchers are either intellectually dishonest (in a conspiracy)...
It's not so much that researchers are dishonest but that their value system differs. For example, I, being a leftist, considers most economists to be a bunch of fools (yeah strong language but bear with me). To me, they are nothing more than the modern day alchemists. What people call economics is nothing more than CAPITALISTIC economics. I don't claim that the economists make up stuff. My problem is that I don't agree with their whole field. Economics should ask the question 'what is best for humanity?' Instead, modern day capitalistic economics asks 'Given capitalism, what is best?' So, it's not so much that I think they make up stuff. It's just that I don't agree with the underlying field. To me, the way economics is nowadays, it should be part of the Faculty of Business and not the Faculty of Social Science.
Societies rotten with corruption (like Argentina) don't work well no matter how they are organized...
That sounds like an excuse more than anything. Why did you guys then try to implement neo-liberal economics there? If it wasn't going to work then why not let them do whatever they wanted? Why push "neo-liberalism" onto them? It looks like you are trying to use that as an excuse afterwards...
The standard answer here is that capitalist societies are disgusting places -- and that the only thing worse are the alternatives. You have certainly heard that argument multiple times.
With that sort of reasoning, the world will never improve. How can you be sure the alternatives aren't better? The reasoning you are using was common throughout time. Fortunately people didn't follow your thinking. I mean, a couple of hundreads of years ago, the intellectual elites were pretty sure that democracy will never work because the masses were too stupid (nearly all were uneducated), too unskilled (all worked as labourers, peasents, etc), and couldn't organize anything. You can find the best thinkers of that time saying that. Were they right?
The world can ALWAYS get better. I might be an idealist but we wouldn't be where we are without some idealism...
What is your point regarding Japan?
I can't remember what my point was exactly... maybe it was that Japan can be thought of as being under the watch of imperialism, whereas China and India aren't... I don't remember my point.
There is no historical example of war between democracies.
This depends on your definition of democracy. Many European countries were at war with each other even though they were all democracies. Perhaps the best example is the war between Britain and France. These two countries were warring for a long time. I'm not sure if you count them as democracies at that time (are they?) How about Nazi German invasion of Poland(?)? Germany for all intensive purposes was a democracy* so that might be an example. Other classic examples include US imperialism such as invasions of Panama, Chile, Nicaragua, Vietnam (not sure if this counts as a war between democracies), and so forth. Clearly the invasion of Panama is a good example. (* I say Nazi Germany was "democratic" because Hitler had MASSIVE support. Even if Germany had open democratic elections (monitored by the UN), Hitler would have won with a massive vote).
It do sound like a normal leftwing conspiracy theory (everything bad on the planet is because of USA).
Unfortunately for you, a lot of these conspiracy theories turn out to be true. Consider the recent Iraqi mess. Wasn't it the leftists that were predicting that support of Saddam Hussein (in the 80's) was going to be total disaster? Wasn't it also the leftists who said US support of the mujahedeen could backfire (and it did, with Usama bin L
Ultimately what is best for the worker is if the companies themselves drive these programs and end up hiring people (workers can pay for it but the real issue is getting a job). As long as companies don't want to hire people without experience or the perfect skills (both tough to overcome), things won't work out so well...
Sivaram Velauthapillai