I agree with your view that the patent (or whatever) system is too complex and costly for small players. In fact, I hold the same view towards the whole legal system (but that's another story). The issue, however, is the legal system. You are trying to correct the system by literally killing the artists in the hope of solving the problem. It just does not work.
What you are saying is equivalent to how conservatives want to fix the tax system (i.e. eliminate loopholes, prevent the wealthy from having off-shore tax shelters, etc), yet they end up cutting taxes in order to fix the system instead of actually fixing it. They end up destroying all the good as well as the bad along with it. That's what you are proposing. eliminate the whole system (copyright laws) because the system is too complicated and elitist. That's NOT how the 'art problem' should be solved.
In the process of declaring war on the "rich bastards", you'll end up killing all the innocents (content creators). I havent' seen anything that seems to help the artists AND destroy the elites who have the power. All the recommendations by people on Slashdot amount to killing the artists.
I am not saying taxing the media is the way to go either (as my country, Canada, is doing). I'm a socialist and I'm ok with taxes/tariffs/whatever but if Canada forces me to pay for media then I should get the music for free.
What you are saying makes no sense (first paragraph only). What's the impact on musicians WITH copyrights and WITHOUT? You are saying there would be more amateur musicians involved in producing great works. How does the lack of copyright affect this? What does MP3.com have to do with anything?
If a lack of copyright helped musicians, they would just do it RIGHT NOW. For instance, one of your amateur musicians can create stuff without copyright (it's their choice after all) and beat the others. No one is forcing people to copyright their stuff. Yet it doesn't happen. The reason it doesn't happen is because copyrights are better for the content creators. Regardless of whether it's a song, or a movie, or a book, it's all the same. Copyright helps these people.
The good is that ANYONE can succeed in the field. Becoming a software "engineer" is as easy as..well...taking a bunch of 1 year courses. This increases competition and enables people in other fields to enter the computer field.
The bad is that it makes university degrees next to useless. Take it from me. I graduated from university and haven't really found anything for several years now. There is just way too much competition. I am basically competiting with those that just took a short course or perhaps got some designation from Microsoft, Cisco, Novell, or something. In the past, a computer degree meant something. It didn't mean you were going to get a great job, but it did mean that you would at least have an advantage when it comes to entry level jobs. Nowadays, it doesn't matter. Also, the seniority of the profession was more rigid back then. Nowadays, literally anyone is a senior something.
If you are in the field, or graduated from university, or spent a lot of money on school, the bad outweighs the good. In essence, the computer field is not a professional field anymore. Since employers hire anyone that can do the job and the line between engineer/technologist/etc is blurred, they/we really aren't professionals. The reason doctors and lawyers are considered professionals is not because their job is hard. Their job is no more difficult than any other job, and certainly isn't different from a computer engineer designing an operating system. Instead, those fields limit the number of people that can work in the field (either by limiting the size of schools, or by forcing only a certain percentage of people to be certified). Computer industry isn't like...
The way I look at it, young people will benefit from the present system (although I'm somewhat young and my career is fucked up). Old people will likely be worse off because there really isn't such a thing as seniority. You talk about the mentoring approach or the path from junior programmer->analyst->designer, and this is nothing more that seniority. They certainly don't exist anymore (at least not in many cases).
I see another problem emerging in the field (although others may disagree with me). Due to the blurring of the various jobs in the field, I think a lot of people are overpaid. Yes, I work in this field too (I'm unemployed now though:( ). I don't see how people can be commanding $80k+ for typical analyst positions (I'm not talking about high cost of living areas like California or New York). If you compare to other engineering or science, it doesn't make much sense. Look at say civil engineering or chemistry. How many people make $80k+ (ignore high cost of living areas)? I just have this horrible feeling that one day companies are going to wake up and realize that they are paying too much for computer "professionals". They will probably kill a lot of jobs or drive wages down (taking down the jobs that SHOULD be paying well)...(and no, I'm not talking about threats from outsourcing, which is purely a capitalist phenomenon)...
I disagree with that thesis. That point supposes that people are not equal. This is clearly a point that I completely disagree (with me being egalitarian and all). A small number of people don't just keep society functioning, they profit from it.
Two of the best RPGs in the last 10 years came out of Black Isle. Fallout is considered by some (not me though) to be the best RPG of all time. Planescape:Torment is another excellent game (although a game bug prevented me from finishing it:( I went through 80% of it and had to quit:( ).
I think the problem is that these SDKs (DirectX, etc) aren't supported perfectly by hardware manufacturers. From stuff that I have read, game developers always complain that video card manufacturers implement things differently, claim to support a feature when they don't do it properly, etc.
I'm not going to address your efficiency issue. It's just going to get into the typical socialist vs capitalist debate with neither side agreeing on anything. Suffice to say, I WILL agree with your view that socialist entities (like public schools, public healthcare, public roads, public police, etc) are inefficienty from a capitalist point of view.
You are overvaluing the significance of the FCC. First of all, it isn't THAT expensive to run say a radio station. This is why there are still many independent, small, or college radio stations. In fact, entering say the car market is much tougher (due to restricutions enforcing safety requirements, etc).
Second, the FCC rules (especially regarding on-air stuff eg. radio) haven't changed THAT much over the years. If anything, the rules are pretty similar to the past. Given this, you'll note that there are more oligopolies and monopolies now than ever. If what you are saying were true, there would have been very little competition from day one. Yet it wasn't like that. There are far more radio stations, television stations, newspapers, etc in the past than now. The FCC hasn't changed so what has?
As far as musicians not making money, you are being hypocritical like most quasi-capitalists (this makes me think you are not a capitalist but a quasi-capitalist--someone that supports capitalism but doesn't truly believe in it). The market pays whatever it wants--that's capitalism. You can't go around claiming someone is not making enough money. There is no such thing as "fair wages" under the capitalist view. The fact that I can go to some poor country and get people to work 12 hours a day without any washroom breaks for $1/day is perfectly ok under capitalism.
My theory is that capitalism results in oligopolies and monopolies. No, it isn't because of govt intervention. It happens in ALL industries. Even in a relatively free market, you'll end up with an oligopoly or monopoly. There are several reasons this happens but the most improtant is economies of scale and profit-maximization. Large corporations have huge economies of scale. Therefore, it is in their interest to merge and create even larger entities. No one is forcing companies to merge! They are doing it themselves. The other thing is that a monopoly generates the most profit for a business (in contrast, the best thing for consumers is perfect competition). This essentially means that a private business attempts to create a monopoly (or at worst an oligopoly). This happens all the time whether people realize it or not. If YOU were a business owner, you will attempt to monopolize your market.
BTW, if you are fired, did they give a reason? I mean, firing usually means you were terminated for something YOU did. Whereas, lay-offs means you lost your job for something THEY did. You can't really fire someone without a reason.
No wonder the government folks said that he could export his creation to Iran...
That's disinformation. There is no way a country like Iran, or for that matter anyone, would want civilian built stuff. They will just get some other country (eg. former Soviet states, Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, China, etc) to build stuff for them. Besides, do you think the scientists in Iran with resources can't build something better than this person (if this person just built his rocket using public information)?
Don't fall for govt disinformation... Before you know it, they are going to start claming people shouldn't encrypt e-mails because terrorists might be sending messages... oh wait, they already say that...my bad...
I think software standards WILL happen. All it takes is for some major catastrophe to occur. Modern software has so many bugs that it's amazing that some companies get away with it.
This is terrible news (workers losing jobs is never good--take it from someone who is unemployed) but this lay-off was almost inevitable. AOL simply is overvalued and doesn't even make much money. It simply became so large due to the Time-Warner merger. Since that fizzled (there wasn't even a case for the merger in the first place), AOL is in a sad state... It wouldn't surprise me if even more AOL employees are laid off within 3 quarters...
As a side note, notice how the CEOs that WASTED billions with the merger (yes, stockholders lost BILLIONS) were never ever fired. AOL CEO stepped down (never fired) but well after making his money. I'm sure Steve Chase "resigned" with massive bonus payments and perks...
BTW, there is some guy who is blaming problems like on Communist propaganda. lol... pretty soon, these guys are going to blame communism for the Iraqi war boondoggle...
lol... I find your post hilarious. You are blaming everything on communism? Get real... I just love how capitalists always blame government regulation for EVERYTHING. Once upon a time, job losses were never blamed on communism (since socialist entites are "inefficient" and keep people around). Now it seems job losses are fair game.
It seems like you are in complete denial of the system that you worship... Don't worry... you'll get hired in another industry with little government regulation...and you'll get fired. Then, you'll stop worshipping the God of capitalism... you'll become a disaffected worker. Mark my words...
I mean no ill towards you. I wish you weren't fired, just like I wish no worker is ever fired (unless they carried out some harm)... but it's just too funny how you blame "Communist Propaganda" for it...
Yes I know that not all console games are perfect, but the extra testing they go through from the console maker as well as from the company making them help out a lot.
It's not necessarily the testing that helps the console games (although it DOES matter). Perhaps the most important thing is that console games are targetted for one specific hardware system. The problem with PCs is that there are too many combinations and hence harder to test. Everything might be fine on the test system but when you change the video card, the fog effect all of a sudden is messed up (because some old cards do it differently). Or the sound effects are lagging because some sound cards implement echoing differently. And so on. On a console, it either works or it doesn't. If it works on your test system, it likely works on every other console. Not only does this mean that there are less issues to worry about, it also means that your QA resources can be spent testing game flaws (instead of hardware bugs).
This is not to take away from your point. Yes, companies go with the patch mentality. BUT the fact that PCs are so diverse means that they will always have more bugs. Even when consoles have hard drives and internet patching capability, they will still be FAR better than the PCs (when it comes to bugs).
I haven't tried VOIP or anything like that but POTS is more reliable than cable in my area. My "low-speed cable" goes down once in a while. Maybe it might be my area but I have certainly noticed it. Having said that, I have no idea how DSL is. I have not had DSL for long periods of time.
Also, one other thing... I use the internet a lot. I am pretty much on it many hours (especially since I'm unemployed:( ). Telephone on the other hand is only used occasionally (a few calls once in a while). So maybe I am just noticing the cable problem more because I use it more. The ideal case would be to compare DSL to cable (but as I said, I haven't had DSL for long enough to make any worthwhile comment).
Actually the problem is that there is an overlap between computer engineer, computer scientist, computer technologist, and computer operator. Employers treat everyone who graduates from a technlogy school as the same. Someone who takes a few computer courses is a professional all of a sudden. Traditionally, only those that graduate from universities were considered computer professionals. The dot-com boom made it even worse. Due to a shortage of labour, anyone was hired without any regard for qualifications or skills. Someone who took a course on C/C++ got the same job (during the dot-com boom) that was tradionarlly reserved for people out of universities. People like me, who were/are graduates, really had huge problems over the last 3 years:(
The way I look at it, those that graduate from engineering are considered engineers (even for computer and electrical engineering). When I was in school that was what they told me (this depends on the location though). According to the PEO (Professional Engineers of Ontario, an oversight body for engineers similar to what lawyers and doctors have), only those graduating from engineering can call themselves engineers. Someone from colleges, or even computer science cannot legally call themselves engineers...at least in Ontario. However, employers don't care so computer engineering is totally irrelevant. YOU should be considered an engineer.
Then you have computer science, which is well almost hte same as computer engineering. People who graduate from comp sci aren't engineers but are still professionals.
Finally, you have others (who have takes courses and stuff) and technically aren't professionals. But employers consider them professionals.
Everyone who works in the computer field is apparently a professional. The dot-com boom certainly didn't help matters.
You are not using the right word. Egalitarianism has nothing to do with this. If anything, workers revolting against the establishment is egalitarian. Censoring that is against egalitarianism.
Censorship of alcohol also cannot be counted as egalitarianism. What does egalitarianism has to do with it? If anything, egalitarianism takes no position on alcohol prohibition.
The closest thing egalitarianism comes to censorship is with political correctness. However, the examples you cited have nothing to do with that. One certainly cannot consider banning images with alchohol politically correct anymore than banning drug usage in the present.
The robots are already doing many jobs, and they're getting better. I feel you are wildly optomistic.
What robots? The automated systems in USA and Canada? Are you talking about the scenario where workers are not needed because robots can do most things humans can? This scenario, although plausible, is unlikely in the near term (by near term, I mean up to 150 years or so). Humans are still CHEAPER than any automated system. It will likely remain this way for a while. Due to the massive inequality in wealth and the desperation of some people, you can literally go to another region/country/etc and find cheaper labour--cheaper than any robot. I can probably list 50 countries where YOU can go to find workers that will work 12 hours per day without any washroom breaks, without any benefits, for wages that simply keep them alive.
On top of all this, capitalism requires people to buy stuff. This is why I like to call myself a worker-consumer ant. Note the latter part: consumer. Robots, last time I checked, don't buy stuff;)
Perhaps no rational government would be as bad, but we can't count on rationality.
Isn't a rational government an oxymoron? I mean, governments are one of the most irrational entities. The politicians act in their interest. If they do seem to be interested in you, it is a temporary side-effect of them needing your votes;)
??? You appear to be serious, but you don't appear to have studied history. People don't start civil wars because the economy has collapsed until they get quite desperate. And in most of the cases I can think of it's only made the problems worse. A class war, while possible, is only an answer if you like gotterdamerung.
What's gotterdamerung?
Anyway, I am not saying we should all revolt right now. All I'm saying is that I THINK capitalism will collapse under a class war. The factors driving this could be numerous but it will primarily be economic. The poor will one day wake up and revolt against the minority wealthy elite. This has nothing to do with socialism or communism. It's simply the behaviour of humans. Just like the French Revolution (and the American Revolution) overthrew the monarchy, a class war will result. The French Revolution, if you note, is simply a class war: the peasents vs the monarchs. The same thing will happen now. When 75% of the population lives below poverty (as in many Latin, Asian, and African countries), there is no reason for them to support the status quo. The status quo happens to be capitalism. A class war in countries like USA and Canada are unlikely but nothing is out of hte question. If the middle class dissapears (as is happening in Argentina), watch out. Remember: there was almost a revolution in USA in the 30's during the Great Depression. It was so close to a total collapse.
On the superficial level I agree that there are many differences between the US and Rome. But there are also deep similarities, and they keep moving forwards along similar trajectories. (The increasing centralization of power, e.g.) To say that the US is only an economic empire is to ignore the recent "war"s (to be a real war, it needs the approval of 2/3 of the Senate...notice how we pay attention to the constitution).
I think the Iraqi war was approved by Congress and Senate(?). Was it not? In any case, I wouldn't hold much hope for politicians. I mean, these are the guys who UNANIMOUSLY endorsed the Orweillian-sounding Patriot Act.
Anyway, I am not saying USA will not collapse like Rome. What I am saying is that the economic reasons are different from imperial ones. I like to seperate the two because they ARE different.
Power politics is only partially about economics. It's about economics to the extent that money is a form of power. But governments, and those who control them, have lots of other kinds of power. So any analysis which focuses solely on economics is doomed to irrelevancy be
Speech was most definitely not free in Nazi Germany; the Nazi Party had complete freedom of speech, and everyone else had it right up to the point that they disagreed with the party line on Jews and world conquest and... well, just about anything else...
But the point is that people did have free speech BEFORE the Nazis took over. That's all that matters. Who cares about what happens after someone came to power. The reason Nazis were popular was because they influenced the population because freedom of speech was permitted. The argument against full freedom of speech is exactly that: if you never let the Nazis use their speech, it is unlikely that the Germans would have supported Nazism and their philosophies. I don't really support the argument but I'm not as naive as many others here to think that "hate speech" does not incite violence and can lead to crazy things.
Those Germans who did speak up early during Hitler's rise to power were disposed of, because Hitler, like great tyrants throughout history, understood the power of words very well.
Yes, Hitler understood words, in particular propaganda, well. He even said that Germans lost WWI because of propaganda. But your point is moot. The Nazis gained popularity via a mostly peaceful ascent. Most of their atrocities and suppression of dissent came after they came to power (after all, they didn't have the power to suppress dissent before they got the power).
Full freedom of speech would have meant giving a voice to those truly patriotic Germans -- and there were a lot of them -- who wanted to say, "No, you will not haul my friends and neighbors off to death camps because of their religion; no, you will not watch my every move and put my country into a climate of fear; no, you will not send my children off to die in a fruitless war that will bring the wrath of the world down on my home." But they couldn't.
Actually, the patriotic Germans were the ones supporting the Nazis. The ones that you refer to were deemed enemies of the state.
Your example with Nazis proves the exact opposite point. Your example helps the dissenting view (that full freedoms can be bad). Nazis came to power through the use of freedom of speech. This was mostly a non-violent (relatively speaking) ascent. They only implemented their policies after securing power. Most Germans supported the Nazis. If Germany held free elections, they would have won. This tragedy in history, like the Rwanda one, proves that freedom of speech can be used for atrocities. The problem is that one side can "win" with freedom of speech.
Having said all this, I support full freedom of speech even though I realize that the atrocities in Germany and Rwanda were caused by it.
You accuse me of elitism for suggesting that every webpage isn't useful, enlightening or even necessary. And you top it off with a bash at my opinion on socialism and a claim that I'm a loser.
You ARE an elitist if you want to keep information in the hands of a few--those that you deem worthy.
As far as the loser comment is concerned, I didn't mean to imply that you are a loser in the sense that you inferior/unworthy/etc. By loser, I mean to say that your system will fail. You will lose. Even though you are my opponent, I have no disrespect for you. I'm just saying you will lose in the end.
The results of socialism in this world has been nothing but tragedy, murder and poverty. Every attempt to create the utopian society dictated by your ideology has resulted in failure and human suffering. USSR, China, East Germany, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam; North Korea, Nicaragua etc.
What happened in these countries is hardly socialist. It may have started out as socialism but it went off the tracks. USSR during its "peak" had nothing to do with socialism, communism, marxism, or trotskyism. It was nothing more than a bureacratic state controlled by a dictatorship. Many of the other countries you list have nothing to do with communism (eg. North Korea,Nicaragua, Vietnam). Some are nothing more than nationalist movements that have nothing to do with communism (eg. Nepal, Libya, Iraq, "Kurds"). The closest one to communism would be Cuba.
I find it interesting that you list Nicaragua as communist and imply that its problems were somehow related to communism. Does this mean that you support all the atrocities committed by the US-backed contras?
Capitalism, and other right wing systems like fascism, have committed serious crimes as well. I'm not excusing the atrocities commited by the left, but you don't stand so high up either. The thing I would like to point out, especially about capitalism (assuming you are a capitalist), is that 70%+ of the world is capitalist. Yet how come you ignore all the problems in the world. There are many poor people struggling. Things like free trade have simply made it worse for them. Even a country like Cuba, which does commit atrocities, is far better than 50% of Latin America. Cuba may suppress dissent but you don't think Colombia is any better? How about capitalist countries like Kuwait, Singapore, etc?
I'm just going to post my thoughts on your problems with socialist effects. I don't think you will agree with anything I say, just like I don't agree with you. We just have different value systems.
- low incomes pay roughly 40% in taxes, "rich" people pay more than 60%. Car taxes are between 130% and 225%.
So? A socialist does not consider redistribution of wealth to be evil. I support taxes. Even if I were wealthy and living in your country, I would be ok with it. This is an ideological thing. Clearly, you don't want to pay any taxes.
- almost 50% of the work force not employed, because the welfare is too big, which means it doesnt pay off to get a job.
So? As long as the government is not running deficits to support the workforce, it is ok. Contrary to your views, humans are not worker-consumer ants. We don't need to work. If you are jealous of these people, you could do the same. Why don't YOU go on welfare? I'm not saying you should but socialists are ok with this.
- lots of tax fraud, because people are punished for working by our huge taxes.
I'll bet you tax "fraud" (depends what you mean by this) is greater in countries like USA or Canada. There are many wealthy people who dodge their taxes here. The only difference is that, unlike your country, people here actually use legal means to avoid paying taxes. Corporations, for example, have off-shore tax shelters. Rich people hold off-shore assets, live part of the year in the country (as opposed to full), declare themselves corporations, etc.
I'm not going to read that. Can you just summarize the point? Mass mindless consumers controlled by technocrats? Is that your point? What's the difference from now? Right now, the masses are controlled by elites (not technocrats but still).... The reason for this is precisely because information is limited to the elites.
People should think a bit before they hook up hundreds of millions of dollars to an automated machine, especially one that does things like "sell if I'm down 5%." Then they should think again. And if they handle that much money, we should be able to rely that they are sophisticated entities that should absorb their own errors.
I don't think you can reasonably expect people not to use automated systems. Financial markets are all automated and your argument that people shouldn't rely on them is kind of like saying 'I should always use postal mail (i.e. snail mail) because there is a probabiliyt of failure with e-mail.' Yes, one can avoid e-mail but it is such an inherent part of the system that you can't expect anyone to avoid it.
As far as people absorbing errors, I'm not really sure what to say about that. I'm not even sure what you consider to be a sophisticated entity. I mean, if *I*, a normal person, put an order through, should *I* be expected to absorb errors like that? I hope not. No one would even get into the market if that were the case. If you are talking about brokerages absorbing it, you may have a point.
I agree that this is a VERY SERIOUS issue. However, I'm not sure how it would work out. I'm assuming that NASDAQ will probably make its members sign contracts saying they are not responsible for things like this. I don't know. Maybe they will interpret this as an "Act of God", which is generally included in contracts.
Financial systems are the heart of capitalism. Therefore, they are extremely efficient. There are a ton of resources that go into it, and there is a ton of money that they make. Even in poor countries, the financial systems are very good.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with your view that the patent (or whatever) system is too complex and costly for small players. In fact, I hold the same view towards the whole legal system (but that's another story). The issue, however, is the legal system. You are trying to correct the system by literally killing the artists in the hope of solving the problem. It just does not work.
What you are saying is equivalent to how conservatives want to fix the tax system (i.e. eliminate loopholes, prevent the wealthy from having off-shore tax shelters, etc), yet they end up cutting taxes in order to fix the system instead of actually fixing it. They end up destroying all the good as well as the bad along with it. That's what you are proposing. eliminate the whole system (copyright laws) because the system is too complicated and elitist. That's NOT how the 'art problem' should be solved.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
In the process of declaring war on the "rich bastards", you'll end up killing all the innocents (content creators). I havent' seen anything that seems to help the artists AND destroy the elites who have the power. All the recommendations by people on Slashdot amount to killing the artists.
I am not saying taxing the media is the way to go either (as my country, Canada, is doing). I'm a socialist and I'm ok with taxes/tariffs/whatever but if Canada forces me to pay for media then I should get the music for free.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What you are saying makes no sense (first paragraph only). What's the impact on musicians WITH copyrights and WITHOUT? You are saying there would be more amateur musicians involved in producing great works. How does the lack of copyright affect this? What does MP3.com have to do with anything?
If a lack of copyright helped musicians, they would just do it RIGHT NOW. For instance, one of your amateur musicians can create stuff without copyright (it's their choice after all) and beat the others. No one is forcing people to copyright their stuff. Yet it doesn't happen. The reason it doesn't happen is because copyrights are better for the content creators. Regardless of whether it's a song, or a movie, or a book, it's all the same. Copyright helps these people.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
There is good and bad in that...
:( ). I don't see how people can be commanding $80k+ for typical analyst positions (I'm not talking about high cost of living areas like California or New York). If you compare to other engineering or science, it doesn't make much sense. Look at say civil engineering or chemistry. How many people make $80k+ (ignore high cost of living areas)? I just have this horrible feeling that one day companies are going to wake up and realize that they are paying too much for computer "professionals". They will probably kill a lot of jobs or drive wages down (taking down the jobs that SHOULD be paying well)...(and no, I'm not talking about threats from outsourcing, which is purely a capitalist phenomenon)...
The good is that ANYONE can succeed in the field. Becoming a software "engineer" is as easy as..well...taking a bunch of 1 year courses. This increases competition and enables people in other fields to enter the computer field.
The bad is that it makes university degrees next to useless. Take it from me. I graduated from university and haven't really found anything for several years now. There is just way too much competition. I am basically competiting with those that just took a short course or perhaps got some designation from Microsoft, Cisco, Novell, or something. In the past, a computer degree meant something. It didn't mean you were going to get a great job, but it did mean that you would at least have an advantage when it comes to entry level jobs. Nowadays, it doesn't matter. Also, the seniority of the profession was more rigid back then. Nowadays, literally anyone is a senior something.
If you are in the field, or graduated from university, or spent a lot of money on school, the bad outweighs the good. In essence, the computer field is not a professional field anymore. Since employers hire anyone that can do the job and the line between engineer/technologist/etc is blurred, they/we really aren't professionals. The reason doctors and lawyers are considered professionals is not because their job is hard. Their job is no more difficult than any other job, and certainly isn't different from a computer engineer designing an operating system. Instead, those fields limit the number of people that can work in the field (either by limiting the size of schools, or by forcing only a certain percentage of people to be certified). Computer industry isn't like...
The way I look at it, young people will benefit from the present system (although I'm somewhat young and my career is fucked up). Old people will likely be worse off because there really isn't such a thing as seniority. You talk about the mentoring approach or the path from junior programmer->analyst->designer, and this is nothing more that seniority. They certainly don't exist anymore (at least not in many cases).
I see another problem emerging in the field (although others may disagree with me). Due to the blurring of the various jobs in the field, I think a lot of people are overpaid. Yes, I work in this field too (I'm unemployed now though
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I disagree with that thesis. That point supposes that people are not equal. This is clearly a point that I completely disagree (with me being egalitarian and all). A small number of people don't just keep society functioning, they profit from it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Two of the best RPGs in the last 10 years came out of Black Isle. Fallout is considered by some (not me though) to be the best RPG of all time. Planescape:Torment is another excellent game (although a game bug prevented me from finishing it :( I went through 80% of it and had to quit :( ).
Black Isle will live on in our memories...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I think the problem is that these SDKs (DirectX, etc) aren't supported perfectly by hardware manufacturers. From stuff that I have read, game developers always complain that video card manufacturers implement things differently, claim to support a feature when they don't do it properly, etc.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not going to address your efficiency issue. It's just going to get into the typical socialist vs capitalist debate with neither side agreeing on anything. Suffice to say, I WILL agree with your view that socialist entities (like public schools, public healthcare, public roads, public police, etc) are inefficienty from a capitalist point of view.
You are overvaluing the significance of the FCC. First of all, it isn't THAT expensive to run say a radio station. This is why there are still many independent, small, or college radio stations. In fact, entering say the car market is much tougher (due to restricutions enforcing safety requirements, etc).
Second, the FCC rules (especially regarding on-air stuff eg. radio) haven't changed THAT much over the years. If anything, the rules are pretty similar to the past. Given this, you'll note that there are more oligopolies and monopolies now than ever. If what you are saying were true, there would have been very little competition from day one. Yet it wasn't like that. There are far more radio stations, television stations, newspapers, etc in the past than now. The FCC hasn't changed so what has?
As far as musicians not making money, you are being hypocritical like most quasi-capitalists (this makes me think you are not a capitalist but a quasi-capitalist--someone that supports capitalism but doesn't truly believe in it). The market pays whatever it wants--that's capitalism. You can't go around claiming someone is not making enough money. There is no such thing as "fair wages" under the capitalist view. The fact that I can go to some poor country and get people to work 12 hours a day without any washroom breaks for $1/day is perfectly ok under capitalism.
My theory is that capitalism results in oligopolies and monopolies. No, it isn't because of govt intervention. It happens in ALL industries. Even in a relatively free market, you'll end up with an oligopoly or monopoly. There are several reasons this happens but the most improtant is economies of scale and profit-maximization. Large corporations have huge economies of scale. Therefore, it is in their interest to merge and create even larger entities. No one is forcing companies to merge! They are doing it themselves. The other thing is that a monopoly generates the most profit for a business (in contrast, the best thing for consumers is perfect competition). This essentially means that a private business attempts to create a monopoly (or at worst an oligopoly). This happens all the time whether people realize it or not. If YOU were a business owner, you will attempt to monopolize your market.
BTW, if you are fired, did they give a reason? I mean, firing usually means you were terminated for something YOU did. Whereas, lay-offs means you lost your job for something THEY did. You can't really fire someone without a reason.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
No wonder the government folks said that he could export his creation to Iran...
That's disinformation. There is no way a country like Iran, or for that matter anyone, would want civilian built stuff. They will just get some other country (eg. former Soviet states, Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, China, etc) to build stuff for them. Besides, do you think the scientists in Iran with resources can't build something better than this person (if this person just built his rocket using public information)?
Don't fall for govt disinformation... Before you know it, they are going to start claming people shouldn't encrypt e-mails because terrorists might be sending messages... oh wait, they already say that...my bad...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I think software standards WILL happen. All it takes is for some major catastrophe to occur. Modern software has so many bugs that it's amazing that some companies get away with it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
That's crazy man... what happened to your "employer"?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
This is terrible news (workers losing jobs is never good--take it from someone who is unemployed) but this lay-off was almost inevitable. AOL simply is overvalued and doesn't even make much money. It simply became so large due to the Time-Warner merger. Since that fizzled (there wasn't even a case for the merger in the first place), AOL is in a sad state... It wouldn't surprise me if even more AOL employees are laid off within 3 quarters...
As a side note, notice how the CEOs that WASTED billions with the merger (yes, stockholders lost BILLIONS) were never ever fired. AOL CEO stepped down (never fired) but well after making his money. I'm sure Steve Chase "resigned" with massive bonus payments and perks...
BTW, there is some guy who is blaming problems like on Communist propaganda. lol... pretty soon, these guys are going to blame communism for the Iraqi war boondoggle...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
oops... mistake in my post...
I should not have referred to anyone being "fired". Instead, we are talking about lay-offs. So, replace fired with laid off...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What propaganda from Stalin talks about profit?
lol... I find your post hilarious. You are blaming everything on communism? Get real... I just love how capitalists always blame government regulation for EVERYTHING. Once upon a time, job losses were never blamed on communism (since socialist entites are "inefficient" and keep people around). Now it seems job losses are fair game.
It seems like you are in complete denial of the system that you worship... Don't worry... you'll get hired in another industry with little government regulation...and you'll get fired. Then, you'll stop worshipping the God of capitalism... you'll become a disaffected worker. Mark my words...
I mean no ill towards you. I wish you weren't fired, just like I wish no worker is ever fired (unless they carried out some harm)... but it's just too funny how you blame "Communist Propaganda" for it...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Yes I know that not all console games are perfect, but the extra testing they go through from the console maker as well as from the company making them help out a lot.
It's not necessarily the testing that helps the console games (although it DOES matter). Perhaps the most important thing is that console games are targetted for one specific hardware system. The problem with PCs is that there are too many combinations and hence harder to test. Everything might be fine on the test system but when you change the video card, the fog effect all of a sudden is messed up (because some old cards do it differently). Or the sound effects are lagging because some sound cards implement echoing differently. And so on. On a console, it either works or it doesn't. If it works on your test system, it likely works on every other console. Not only does this mean that there are less issues to worry about, it also means that your QA resources can be spent testing game flaws (instead of hardware bugs).
This is not to take away from your point. Yes, companies go with the patch mentality. BUT the fact that PCs are so diverse means that they will always have more bugs. Even when consoles have hard drives and internet patching capability, they will still be FAR better than the PCs (when it comes to bugs).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I haven't tried VOIP or anything like that but POTS is more reliable than cable in my area. My "low-speed cable" goes down once in a while. Maybe it might be my area but I have certainly noticed it. Having said that, I have no idea how DSL is. I have not had DSL for long periods of time.
:( ). Telephone on the other hand is only used occasionally (a few calls once in a while). So maybe I am just noticing the cable problem more because I use it more. The ideal case would be to compare DSL to cable (but as I said, I haven't had DSL for long enough to make any worthwhile comment).
Also, one other thing... I use the internet a lot. I am pretty much on it many hours (especially since I'm unemployed
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You are an engineer-wannabe ;) ...just kidding... ;)
:(
Actually the problem is that there is an overlap between computer engineer, computer scientist, computer technologist, and computer operator. Employers treat everyone who graduates from a technlogy school as the same. Someone who takes a few computer courses is a professional all of a sudden. Traditionally, only those that graduate from universities were considered computer professionals. The dot-com boom made it even worse. Due to a shortage of labour, anyone was hired without any regard for qualifications or skills. Someone who took a course on C/C++ got the same job (during the dot-com boom) that was tradionarlly reserved for people out of universities. People like me, who were/are graduates, really had huge problems over the last 3 years
The way I look at it, those that graduate from engineering are considered engineers (even for computer and electrical engineering). When I was in school that was what they told me (this depends on the location though). According to the PEO (Professional Engineers of Ontario, an oversight body for engineers similar to what lawyers and doctors have), only those graduating from engineering can call themselves engineers. Someone from colleges, or even computer science cannot legally call themselves engineers...at least in Ontario. However, employers don't care so computer engineering is totally irrelevant. YOU should be considered an engineer.
Then you have computer science, which is well almost hte same as computer engineering. People who graduate from comp sci aren't engineers but are still professionals.
Finally, you have others (who have takes courses and stuff) and technically aren't professionals. But employers consider them professionals.
Everyone who works in the computer field is apparently a professional. The dot-com boom certainly didn't help matters.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You are not using the right word. Egalitarianism has nothing to do with this. If anything, workers revolting against the establishment is egalitarian. Censoring that is against egalitarianism.
Censorship of alcohol also cannot be counted as egalitarianism. What does egalitarianism has to do with it? If anything, egalitarianism takes no position on alcohol prohibition.
The closest thing egalitarianism comes to censorship is with political correctness. However, the examples you cited have nothing to do with that. One certainly cannot consider banning images with alchohol politically correct anymore than banning drug usage in the present.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The robots are already doing many jobs, and they're getting better. I feel you are wildly optomistic.
;)
;)
What robots? The automated systems in USA and Canada? Are you talking about the scenario where workers are not needed because robots can do most things humans can? This scenario, although plausible, is unlikely in the near term (by near term, I mean up to 150 years or so). Humans are still CHEAPER than any automated system. It will likely remain this way for a while. Due to the massive inequality in wealth and the desperation of some people, you can literally go to another region/country/etc and find cheaper labour--cheaper than any robot. I can probably list 50 countries where YOU can go to find workers that will work 12 hours per day without any washroom breaks, without any benefits, for wages that simply keep them alive.
On top of all this, capitalism requires people to buy stuff. This is why I like to call myself a worker-consumer ant. Note the latter part: consumer. Robots, last time I checked, don't buy stuff
Perhaps no rational government would be as bad, but we can't count on rationality.
Isn't a rational government an oxymoron? I mean, governments are one of the most irrational entities. The politicians act in their interest. If they do seem to be interested in you, it is a temporary side-effect of them needing your votes
??? You appear to be serious, but you don't appear to have studied history. People don't start civil wars because the economy has collapsed until they get quite desperate. And in most of the cases I can think of it's only made the problems worse. A class war, while possible, is only an answer if you like gotterdamerung.
What's gotterdamerung?
Anyway, I am not saying we should all revolt right now. All I'm saying is that I THINK capitalism will collapse under a class war. The factors driving this could be numerous but it will primarily be economic. The poor will one day wake up and revolt against the minority wealthy elite. This has nothing to do with socialism or communism. It's simply the behaviour of humans. Just like the French Revolution (and the American Revolution) overthrew the monarchy, a class war will result. The French Revolution, if you note, is simply a class war: the peasents vs the monarchs. The same thing will happen now. When 75% of the population lives below poverty (as in many Latin, Asian, and African countries), there is no reason for them to support the status quo. The status quo happens to be capitalism. A class war in countries like USA and Canada are unlikely but nothing is out of hte question. If the middle class dissapears (as is happening in Argentina), watch out. Remember: there was almost a revolution in USA in the 30's during the Great Depression. It was so close to a total collapse.
On the superficial level I agree that there are many differences between the US and Rome. But there are also deep similarities, and they keep moving forwards along similar trajectories. (The increasing centralization of power, e.g.) To say that the US is only an economic empire is to ignore the recent "war"s (to be a real war, it needs the approval of 2/3 of the Senate...notice how we pay attention to the constitution).
I think the Iraqi war was approved by Congress and Senate(?). Was it not? In any case, I wouldn't hold much hope for politicians. I mean, these are the guys who UNANIMOUSLY endorsed the Orweillian-sounding Patriot Act.
Anyway, I am not saying USA will not collapse like Rome. What I am saying is that the economic reasons are different from imperial ones. I like to seperate the two because they ARE different.
Power politics is only partially about economics. It's about economics to the extent that money is a form of power. But governments, and those who control them, have lots of other kinds of power. So any analysis which focuses solely on economics is doomed to irrelevancy be
Speech was most definitely not free in Nazi Germany; the Nazi Party had complete freedom of speech, and everyone else had it right up to the point that they disagreed with the party line on Jews and world conquest and ... well, just about anything else...
But the point is that people did have free speech BEFORE the Nazis took over. That's all that matters. Who cares about what happens after someone came to power. The reason Nazis were popular was because they influenced the population because freedom of speech was permitted. The argument against full freedom of speech is exactly that: if you never let the Nazis use their speech, it is unlikely that the Germans would have supported Nazism and their philosophies. I don't really support the argument but I'm not as naive as many others here to think that "hate speech" does not incite violence and can lead to crazy things.
Those Germans who did speak up early during Hitler's rise to power were disposed of, because Hitler, like great tyrants throughout history, understood the power of words very well.
Yes, Hitler understood words, in particular propaganda, well. He even said that Germans lost WWI because of propaganda. But your point is moot. The Nazis gained popularity via a mostly peaceful ascent. Most of their atrocities and suppression of dissent came after they came to power (after all, they didn't have the power to suppress dissent before they got the power).
Full freedom of speech would have meant giving a voice to those truly patriotic Germans -- and there were a lot of them -- who wanted to say, "No, you will not haul my friends and neighbors off to death camps because of their religion; no, you will not watch my every move and put my country into a climate of fear; no, you will not send my children off to die in a fruitless war that will bring the wrath of the world down on my home." But they couldn't.
Actually, the patriotic Germans were the ones supporting the Nazis. The ones that you refer to were deemed enemies of the state.
Your example with Nazis proves the exact opposite point. Your example helps the dissenting view (that full freedoms can be bad). Nazis came to power through the use of freedom of speech. This was mostly a non-violent (relatively speaking) ascent. They only implemented their policies after securing power. Most Germans supported the Nazis. If Germany held free elections, they would have won. This tragedy in history, like the Rwanda one, proves that freedom of speech can be used for atrocities. The problem is that one side can "win" with freedom of speech.
Having said all this, I support full freedom of speech even though I realize that the atrocities in Germany and Rwanda were caused by it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You accuse me of elitism for suggesting that every webpage isn't useful, enlightening or even necessary. And you top it off with a bash at my opinion on socialism and a claim that I'm a loser.
You ARE an elitist if you want to keep information in the hands of a few--those that you deem worthy.
As far as the loser comment is concerned, I didn't mean to imply that you are a loser in the sense that you inferior/unworthy/etc. By loser, I mean to say that your system will fail. You will lose. Even though you are my opponent, I have no disrespect for you. I'm just saying you will lose in the end.
The results of socialism in this world has been nothing but tragedy, murder and poverty. Every attempt to create the utopian society dictated by your ideology has resulted in failure and human suffering. USSR, China, East Germany, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam; North Korea, Nicaragua etc.
What happened in these countries is hardly socialist. It may have started out as socialism but it went off the tracks. USSR during its "peak" had nothing to do with socialism, communism, marxism, or trotskyism. It was nothing more than a bureacratic state controlled by a dictatorship. Many of the other countries you list have nothing to do with communism (eg. North Korea,Nicaragua, Vietnam). Some are nothing more than nationalist movements that have nothing to do with communism (eg. Nepal, Libya, Iraq, "Kurds"). The closest one to communism would be Cuba.
I find it interesting that you list Nicaragua as communist and imply that its problems were somehow related to communism. Does this mean that you support all the atrocities committed by the US-backed contras?
Capitalism, and other right wing systems like fascism, have committed serious crimes as well. I'm not excusing the atrocities commited by the left, but you don't stand so high up either. The thing I would like to point out, especially about capitalism (assuming you are a capitalist), is that 70%+ of the world is capitalist. Yet how come you ignore all the problems in the world. There are many poor people struggling. Things like free trade have simply made it worse for them. Even a country like Cuba, which does commit atrocities, is far better than 50% of Latin America. Cuba may suppress dissent but you don't think Colombia is any better? How about capitalist countries like Kuwait, Singapore, etc?
I'm just going to post my thoughts on your problems with socialist effects. I don't think you will agree with anything I say, just like I don't agree with you. We just have different value systems.
- low incomes pay roughly 40% in taxes, "rich" people pay more than 60%. Car taxes are between 130% and 225%.
So? A socialist does not consider redistribution of wealth to be evil. I support taxes. Even if I were wealthy and living in your country, I would be ok with it. This is an ideological thing. Clearly, you don't want to pay any taxes.
- almost 50% of the work force not employed, because the welfare is too big, which means it doesnt pay off to get a job.
So? As long as the government is not running deficits to support the workforce, it is ok. Contrary to your views, humans are not worker-consumer ants. We don't need to work. If you are jealous of these people, you could do the same. Why don't YOU go on welfare? I'm not saying you should but socialists are ok with this.
- lots of tax fraud, because people are punished for working by our huge taxes.
I'll bet you tax "fraud" (depends what you mean by this) is greater in countries like USA or Canada. There are many wealthy people who dodge their taxes here. The only difference is that, unlike your country, people here actually use legal means to avoid paying taxes. Corporations, for example, have off-shore tax shelters. Rich people hold off-shore assets, live part of the year in the country (as opposed to full), declare themselves corporations, etc.
In any case, if ther
I'm not going to read that. Can you just summarize the point? Mass mindless consumers controlled by technocrats? Is that your point? What's the difference from now? Right now, the masses are controlled by elites (not technocrats but still).... The reason for this is precisely because information is limited to the elites.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
People should think a bit before they hook up hundreds of millions of dollars to an automated machine, especially one that does things like "sell if I'm down 5%." Then they should think again. And if they handle that much money, we should be able to rely that they are sophisticated entities that should absorb their own errors.
I don't think you can reasonably expect people not to use automated systems. Financial markets are all automated and your argument that people shouldn't rely on them is kind of like saying 'I should always use postal mail (i.e. snail mail) because there is a probabiliyt of failure with e-mail.' Yes, one can avoid e-mail but it is such an inherent part of the system that you can't expect anyone to avoid it.
As far as people absorbing errors, I'm not really sure what to say about that. I'm not even sure what you consider to be a sophisticated entity. I mean, if *I*, a normal person, put an order through, should *I* be expected to absorb errors like that? I hope not. No one would even get into the market if that were the case. If you are talking about brokerages absorbing it, you may have a point.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I agree that this is a VERY SERIOUS issue. However, I'm not sure how it would work out. I'm assuming that NASDAQ will probably make its members sign contracts saying they are not responsible for things like this. I don't know. Maybe they will interpret this as an "Act of God", which is generally included in contracts.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Financial systems are the heart of capitalism. Therefore, they are extremely efficient. There are a ton of resources that go into it, and there is a ton of money that they make. Even in poor countries, the financial systems are very good.
Sivaram Velauthapillai