Re:Slashdot becoming fascist?
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The Jobs Crunch
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Most of the contributors to that site are fascist--and that's what I call them fascist. They don't just talk about immigration but also fascist issues of the past like eugenics (i.e. one race superior to others--guess which one is supposed to be superior?), and so forth. Most of their articles have little to do with the immigration issue and more to do with white supremacy. The are not against immigration per se; instead, they are just against immigration of certain etnic groups.
If you are a conservative, these guys may be up your alley... but if you are a liberal, these guys are closet fascists.
Re:Slashdot becoming fascist?
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The Jobs Crunch
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Why be so "diplomatic" about it?;) Why don't you just say I'm a fucking idiot?
Slashdot has been moving to the right for quite some time. The posters are mostly left-leaning but the site isn't. If you remove the libertarian influence, Slashdot will end up as nothing more than a right wing site with some tech news thrown in there for entertainment...
Re:Slashdot becoming fascist?
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The Jobs Crunch
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I'm not saying these guys shouldn't have the right to express their views or that they should be banned; all I'm saying is that a website like Slashdot shouldn't be posting stuff from there. OR if they want to post stuff like this, how about posting stuff from the far-left to "balance" it out?
As far as censorship is concerned, Slashdot is already heavily involved in censorship. I mean, picking a story involves censorship.
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I doubt it, because I know what advice they'd give and I think, from what I've studied, that it's right, and I know what the Governments in question were like, and I think it's much more likely they baulked at meaningful change, because reform simply doesn't happen. The only time real change occurs is when an externally imposed crisis happens."
Argentina used to be the poster boy of capitalism. They followed pretty much everything these guys said and it turned into a mess--so did every other country that followed them. That is not to say that these guys were fully responsible--they weren't. Clearly the insane levels of corruption didn't help, but nevertheless they deserve some blame. Here is an article that sort of talks about the events in question (although the article doesn't cover Latin America).
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Adam Smith wasn't against Government intervention *per se*, but he was against *improper* intervention, and the sad fact is Government almost always intervene improperly, because their self-interest differs from that of the economy, and because of incompetence.
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Adam Smith was also wary of the private interests of the businessowners/capitalists. He even mentions a scenario of businesspeople meeting in a smoky room to plot.
You can cling to your Milton Friedmanesque views (I have no idea how much you support him) but all of you will end up collapsing at some point. I predict this will happen when USA officially declares bankrupt and Alan Greenspan retires...
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Software QA I have had to work with are unseen until some huge stack of paperwork is needed just before release, where upon, all they do is point out spelling errors and the fact that the format of your requirements is wrong.
At a minimum, software QA should be working alongside the dev team making sure the papers are right, that things are progressing, that requirements and plans are being met, not being a hurdle."
That is more of a problem with YOUR QA team, than QA in general. I agree that QA should be working together or at least provide feedback along the way. Also, the results and functionality of the program is more important than the paperwork. It seems your QA team needs some improvment.
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I don't care what anyone says, software is an artform. Repeat ARTFORM. The trap is that it looks like a scientific, engineering exercise. Its not.
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I disagree. Some software is art but most is not. The vast majority of software simply implements some well-defined functionality (eg. calculate some equation; display something on screen; parse some input; etc). There is very little art in any of this. There are only a few finite ways of doing these things. The only art in software is with designing something new or innovative. If you were designing a new GUI, that would be art. Or if you were implementing some website. Or whatever. And clearly entertainment products can be considered art (eg. computer games).
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Besides, Japanese cars became popular for additional reasons, not the least of which was quality, including price, and fuel economy.
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Fuel efficiency definitely helped in the late 70's/early 80's but QA was key to the rest of those things. Why were Japanese cars cheaper? Why were their engines superior? Why did they last longer? It was because of QA. The Japanese companies implemented QA systems that resulted in massive increases in quality, lower defects, decreased repair costs, and so forth.
Having said that, software QA systems are very primitive nowadays (this is why even the best software has bugs). However, at some point the quality will improve simply due to better QA techniques...
Re:Slashdot becoming fascist?
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The Jobs Crunch
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· Score: 1
The article that was quoted isn't that bad. It's someone who calls himeself progressive when in fact he isn't one. But it's not THAT bad. Some of the other articles on VDare.com are really bad. These guys ARE fascists--just not the Nazi-type.
Milton Friedman and his buddies totally destroyed Latin America in the 90's. It's kind of funny how left-leaning politicians are running some of those countries (eg. Brazil) and they are doing a better job.
Adam Smith is good in my books. He was revolutionary and knew what he was talking about... but most of what he says is different now. In any case, Adam Smith wasn't in favour of pure free trade. If I'm not mistaken, he was wary of businesspeople and was ok with govt intervention...
In any case, what is happening has always happened and is inevitable. People may call it outsourcing, or globalization, or whatever, but it happened 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, and so forth.
I think USA will "lose" no matter what--just like how Britain lost. I think what will happen is that USA will devalue its currency (when China removes its peg, US$ will automatically decline 20%+). When USA devalues its currency, it will be more competitive but until then there is going to be suffering everywhere.
Re:Thats not the major problem
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Or a better question is... why is the population voting for these lamers?
Govt will be less corrupt because the dominant party will have less power. This is how British style systems are. The downside is that the govt is less stable and can collapse more often (but I consider that to be a good thing).
In many British-style systems, the smaller parties may not have total power but they actually influence the policies. For example, in some European countries (like Germany) the Greens have actually shaped key legislation over the last 10 years while just having a little bit of power. In Canada in the early 80's, the NDP (the 3rd biggest party) shaped how the Constitution was written even though they were the 3rd party (as a side note, one of the fingerprints of the NDP is that the Constitution that was written does not protect property rights as strongly as USA; generally left wing parties favour stronger worker rights and weaker property rights). Another example in Canada (late 80's to 90's) is how the Bloc Quebecois (#3 or #4 party in Canada, depending on year) have managed to shape a lot of the laws in the 90's even though they didn't have direct control.
So to sum up, don't underestimate minority parties. They may be extremist, weird, and weak, but nevertheless they will impact the laws. A Green Party in USA with only 20% of the seats will mean that environmental regulations will be stronger; or a Libertarian Party with 20% of the seats will mean that individual rights will be stronger (something like the Patrio Act will have a tougher time making it through).
It won't solve everything but campaign finance reforms (assuming this is not some watered down junk) can help. What this will do is to limit funding for the major parties. Right now, the Democrats and Republicans raise millions of dollars whereas the other parties would be lucky to raise 1 million. By limiting the money to the major parties, you'll limit their propaganda and media influence. It isn't a magical solution to fix all the problems but it'll weaken the Democrats and Republicans.... don't forget that the majority of the population are influenced by rhetoric, tv ads and stuff like that, than by the actual party platform...
" Perhaps instead of voting for President and the Congress we should draw for them randomly, like jury duty. Although we'd have to make it considerably harder to get out of than jury duty is."
What you describe is pure democracy. A few civilizations in the past have had dabbled with such systems. If I'm not mistaken, Athens had a govt where some random guy was elected to senate (or something like that). It wasn't truly egalitarian or supported equality since some people were excluded (like slaves) but it was still interesting.
Pure democracy calls for the government to be representative of the population, and the only way for that to happen is to either: (i) elect people randomly, or (ii) randomly allocate people fitting population characteristics by using a quota system (eg. 52% of politicians women; 15%(?) black; 40% old; 25%(?) single; 60%(?) married with 2 kids; etc). The first one (random picking) is the simplest and most elegant (quota systems are very complicated and cause all sorts of problems).
The present system is nowhere near pure democracy because the people who are elected are not generally representative of the population. For example, you pretty much need to be a millionaire to be the US president (or raise around $1 million on your own). This means most US presidents are wealthy (I can't think of anyone who was not a millionarie in the last 20 years). Another example is the fact that people who have connections/contacts have a greater chance of gaining power than someone off the street. A pure democratic system tries to be representative of the population... Unfortunately, pure democracy is thought to be impossible to implement now. Maybe in 200 or 300 years but now it is beyond the understanding of humans. Humans need to be far more advanced (socially) for it to have any chance...
I don't think he--or let's say me--want to take away that wealth. The point isn't that the billionaire is evil or bad or anything like that; instead, the point is that a society where such a huge discrepancy in wealth can materialize is an undesirable one.
I certainly don't think anyone should go and take the billionaire's money, any more than I should take yours. However, a society where 10% of the wealthy control 70%+ of the total wealth is undesirable--and severely FLAWED!
In essence, the production or output or wealth generated by the masses accrues to a small percentage of the people. That is not a good way to build society...
Very few realize that the growing discrepancy in wealth is one of the biggest problems facing USA. It is getting so bad that you might see class wars happening in the not-too-distant future. This is like a forgotten demon....
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2. Quality Assurance BS. All places I have worked that had more than 5 employees had all this QA, Total Quality, CMM Level X, "BULL4H!T". This always boils down to some 20-40% of the department employees who just suk up the overhead costs of a project. And contributed ZERO to any product being produced."
You don't think QA methodologies work? I don't know about your company or your industry but QA methods are what enabled the Japanese car companies to become dominant from almost nothing. QA may be a cost sink and produce nothing for the final product, but they usually lower costs, decrease defects, and so forth...
Slashdot becoming fascist?
on
The Jobs Crunch
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Someone wondered why Slashdot is right wing and this story proves it. How could Slashdot quote from a fascist site like vdare.com? What's next? An article from the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan? Or maybe Aryan Nation?
"Where does this perpetual fracturing of control end in its pursuit of maximized individual happiness? It would seem that we're unavoidably led to anarchism. However, I'm skeptical that it would ultimately end in that. At some point I would hope the valuing and fostering of a community would begin to outweigh the anarchic, hording hermit for which you envision at the end of the line."
American Libertarians are inherently conservatives (many in the Libertarian Party aren't even libertarians--you'll see this when you look at the bogus "war" on terrorism or individual rights due to security). I'm on the left and I"ll tell you how the left wing generall perceives libertarianism.
From a left wing point of view, there is little difference between anarchism and libertarianism. In fact, the Anarchist Party of USA considers itself as libertarian socialist. The right wing libertarians (Libertarian Party of USA is a right wing party) look at things differently. They view anarchism as seperate from Libertarianism. The key difference is that the right wing's key philosophy is capitalism. Anarchists would be against any govt (and more) but the (right-leaning) Libertarians are in favour of a govt (albeit a much smaller one). Right wing favours a govt because they need a govt to proect property rights--basically to have a legal system. Leftist libertarians don't see any difference because they don't care about the govt either way (they know that govt has done more harm and protects rights only when it suits it).
In the end, I have no idea what is going to happen. I don't think the US Libertarian Party will ever gain any foothold because very few on the left (including libertarians) vote for them. This is why the Green Party has more support than the Libertarian Party. Left-leaning libertarians parties may gain some influence in more liberal countries (say in Europe or something) but it will take a while. It's kind of hard for any libertarian party (whether left-leaning or right-leaning) to win when most of the population still won't support legalization of drugs or prostitution or things like that.
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Another issue I find myself uncomfortable with is the seeming dogmatic idea that if "propertizing" increases the conservation and efficiency of some consumable, and that's a good, than it must follow that the "propertizing" of any and all consumables must be much better. Rarely have I seen a reasonably thorough investigation of this issue. Perhaps someone on this board will point me to one.
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This is largely due to capitalism. Pure capitalists believe everything should be privatizied, including rivers, roads, schools, etc. Most of the reasons use to justify privatization are capitalist in nature (eg. govt inefficient; property managed better by private owners rather than by public; skews property in favour of the lower classes rather than letting the wealthy own more; etc). Check out the answers on a site like capitalism.org to get an idea. Here is a brief explanation of why environment should be privatized. A popular Libertarian site is mises.org. This is a pure capitalist site (basically Austrian economics) and they'll explain why they want to privatize everything or why the Federal Reserve needs to be eliminated, or stuff like that. I'm a leftist so I don't support these views but they may be more up your alley--don't know...BTW, you CAN justify privatizing everything but it all depends on what you support (You can justify anything including killing people is good (fascists can PROVE how country can be better by killing off the blind, deaf, disabled people, poor immigrants, drug addicts, etc)).
Most leftists see little difference between anarchism and libertarianism. In fact, anarchism is also called libertarian socialism. However, the right wing views libertarianism as something different. Most Americans who call themselves Libertarians (usually capital-L types) are conservatives and have your view in mind. Most leftists do not use capital-L Libertarianism and would not support your first paragraph. For instance, most leftists would claim that it is inconsistent to claim that govt can protect property rights (or any rights for that matter), while at the same time being against the govt. Historically it can be shown that the govt harms the citizens more than anyone else (including foreign invaders). Relying on the govt to protect property rights is not going to get far. In any case, most people on the right still want some government (usually a small govt). This is why most Americans who call themselves Libertarians aren't really true libertarians. For instance, these guys would call for privatizing the police while still calling for govt. Or call for federal govt power to be curbed while saying nothing about provincial/state or municipal govt.
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Also, like another reply to this said, read what he actually wrote. He said nothing about selling all lands on the market or auctioning them. "
That's implied. How are you going to sell the land without using a free market? If you don't use a free market, it would go against libertarianism. Even though the candidate didn't say it, I'm pretty sure they will use a free market.
"Even if that happened, we wouldn't end up with environmental disasters, because the immense costs that these lands (coupled with the loss of laws that shield corporations from liability) would require those companies to manage the lands they purchased sustainably, or face bankruptcy.
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How would corporations lose liability? It would pretty much be the same. Just look around. There are many poor countries where profit-seeking corporations destroy the land and just leave it. This also happens in rich countries. An example of this is clear-cutting forests.
As far as land being expensive, it is not! Land is only expensive in municipalities and highly populated areas. You can go to the middle of nowhere and it is dirt cheap (if you know what I mean). A lot of mining companies, oil companies, and so forth, own huge chunks of land and they cost very little. For example, I am pretty sure land in Alaska would be worth very little (away from the cities that is).
Well, you could possibly have something consistent. It's just that you wouldn't know now. Everything also depends on 'what is possible'.
For example, you go to the future and see the movie and afterwards while you are walking to your time machine (in order to get back to the present), an old man gives you a box. When you come to the present and open the box, that box contains the original movie. The movie that you saw in the future (say 50 years from now) was this movie in the box. In 50 years from now, this movie will be playing in a theater where a time-traveller (who happens to be you, although you may be dead from a present point of view) will watch the movie.
This is the closest to a plausible time travel scenario in my opinion. In essence, everything is determined by "fate". The future, present, and past will all be inter-linked, with the future determining the past and so forth. For instance, you taking the film from the future to the past was already pre-determined. The fact that you used time travel to watch a movie in the future means that you will take the film back to the present so that (time-travelling) you can watch it in the future.
Having said all that, there is still a flaw with this. The film will be in a time loop. It will keep going from the future to the past, completing a cycle (i.e. film will only exist between NOW and 50 years from now; in 52 years, the film won't exist because the time traveller would have taken it to the past at 50 years).
"... but I would remove its capacity to pass binding resolutions."
Name one thing that is binding. I can't think of any... Countries actually have to sign on... The only questionable area is the Security Council which "declares war" (they really don't and can't--since the UN doesn't have a military wing)...
No country has to follow anything the UN says unless they sign on to it. This is why it is "ok" for USA to ignore the Kyoto Treaty even though most of the world has signed on (many haven't ratified it in their home countries yet though)... This is also why a country like India and Pakistan "legally" tested nuclear weapons and own them (they never signed the NPT).
Having said that, you can argue that countries may have signed on 50 years ago but can't back out now. I admit that it would be preferable to have a clause for countries to exit their treaties. Of course, this would render the whole treaty meaningless but that's how most treaties are now anyway (eg. Nearly all the countries have signed treaties saying women are equal to men, yet not even 50% follow that; Nearly all countries have signed treaties banning child labour and sex slaves, yet it is common in many countries; and so forth).
But if they were to compete against oil companies, or mining companies, or logging companies, guess who is going to win? The only reason these organizations own large chunks of land is likely because the govt gives it to them at a cheap rate while preventing other companies from bidding on them. If the bidding was opened up, I'm sure Ducks Unlimited would be at the bottom of the list and something like ExonMobil will be near the top.
I'm not a Libertarian but I disagree. Libertarianism is against government of any type (for the most part). But it just so happens that attacking the federal govt is easier than the state or municipal govt. If the federal govt is dismantled, the next step would be to dismantle the state govt... Libertarianism is somewhat like anarchism...
You won't recoup the same amount by transferring it to the wealthy. First of all, there are few philantrophists; most people are selfish and stash their money in off-shore accounts. Second, the money may not be given to schools, so the philantrophists may decide to donate money to improve the area around their elite neighbourhoods, rather than say give to schools...
Slashdot Mirror
Most of the contributors to that site are fascist--and that's what I call them fascist. They don't just talk about immigration but also fascist issues of the past like eugenics (i.e. one race superior to others--guess which one is supposed to be superior?), and so forth. Most of their articles have little to do with the immigration issue and more to do with white supremacy. The are not against immigration per se; instead, they are just against immigration of certain etnic groups.
If you are a conservative, these guys may be up your alley... but if you are a liberal, these guys are closet fascists.
Why be so "diplomatic" about it? ;) Why don't you just say I'm a fucking idiot?
Slashdot has been moving to the right for quite some time. The posters are mostly left-leaning but the site isn't. If you remove the libertarian influence, Slashdot will end up as nothing more than a right wing site with some tech news thrown in there for entertainment...
I'm not saying these guys shouldn't have the right to express their views or that they should be banned; all I'm saying is that a website like Slashdot shouldn't be posting stuff from there. OR if they want to post stuff like this, how about posting stuff from the far-left to "balance" it out?
As far as censorship is concerned, Slashdot is already heavily involved in censorship. I mean, picking a story involves censorship.
" I doubt it, because I know what advice they'd give and I think, from what I've studied, that it's right, and I know what the Governments in question were like, and I think it's much more likely they baulked at meaningful change, because reform simply doesn't happen. The only time real change occurs is when an externally imposed crisis happens."
Argentina used to be the poster boy of capitalism. They followed pretty much everything these guys said and it turned into a mess--so did every other country that followed them. That is not to say that these guys were fully responsible--they weren't. Clearly the insane levels of corruption didn't help, but nevertheless they deserve some blame. Here is an article that sort of talks about the events in question (although the article doesn't cover Latin America).
" Adam Smith wasn't against Government intervention *per se*, but he was against *improper* intervention, and the sad fact is Government almost always intervene improperly, because their self-interest differs from that of the economy, and because of incompetence. "
Adam Smith was also wary of the private interests of the businessowners/capitalists. He even mentions a scenario of businesspeople meeting in a smoky room to plot.
You can cling to your Milton Friedmanesque views (I have no idea how much you support him) but all of you will end up collapsing at some point. I predict this will happen when USA officially declares bankrupt and Alan Greenspan retires...
" Software QA I have had to work with are unseen until some huge stack of paperwork is needed just before release, where upon, all they do is point out spelling errors and the fact that the format of your requirements is wrong. At a minimum, software QA should be working alongside the dev team making sure the papers are right, that things are progressing, that requirements and plans are being met, not being a hurdle."
That is more of a problem with YOUR QA team, than QA in general. I agree that QA should be working together or at least provide feedback along the way. Also, the results and functionality of the program is more important than the paperwork. It seems your QA team needs some improvment.
" I don't care what anyone says, software is an artform. Repeat ARTFORM. The trap is that it looks like a scientific, engineering exercise. Its not. "
I disagree. Some software is art but most is not. The vast majority of software simply implements some well-defined functionality (eg. calculate some equation; display something on screen; parse some input; etc). There is very little art in any of this. There are only a few finite ways of doing these things. The only art in software is with designing something new or innovative. If you were designing a new GUI, that would be art. Or if you were implementing some website. Or whatever. And clearly entertainment products can be considered art (eg. computer games).
" Besides, Japanese cars became popular for additional reasons, not the least of which was quality, including price, and fuel economy. "
Fuel efficiency definitely helped in the late 70's/early 80's but QA was key to the rest of those things. Why were Japanese cars cheaper? Why were their engines superior? Why did they last longer? It was because of QA. The Japanese companies implemented QA systems that resulted in massive increases in quality, lower defects, decreased repair costs, and so forth.
Having said that, software QA systems are very primitive nowadays (this is why even the best software has bugs). However, at some point the quality will improve simply due to better QA techniques...
The article that was quoted isn't that bad. It's someone who calls himeself progressive when in fact he isn't one. But it's not THAT bad. Some of the other articles on VDare.com are really bad. These guys ARE fascists--just not the Nazi-type.
Milton Friedman and his buddies totally destroyed Latin America in the 90's. It's kind of funny how left-leaning politicians are running some of those countries (eg. Brazil) and they are doing a better job.
Adam Smith is good in my books. He was revolutionary and knew what he was talking about... but most of what he says is different now. In any case, Adam Smith wasn't in favour of pure free trade. If I'm not mistaken, he was wary of businesspeople and was ok with govt intervention...
In any case, what is happening has always happened and is inevitable. People may call it outsourcing, or globalization, or whatever, but it happened 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, and so forth.
I think USA will "lose" no matter what--just like how Britain lost. I think what will happen is that USA will devalue its currency (when China removes its peg, US$ will automatically decline 20%+). When USA devalues its currency, it will be more competitive but until then there is going to be suffering everywhere.
Or a better question is... why is the population voting for these lamers?
Govt will be less corrupt because the dominant party will have less power. This is how British style systems are. The downside is that the govt is less stable and can collapse more often (but I consider that to be a good thing).
In many British-style systems, the smaller parties may not have total power but they actually influence the policies. For example, in some European countries (like Germany) the Greens have actually shaped key legislation over the last 10 years while just having a little bit of power. In Canada in the early 80's, the NDP (the 3rd biggest party) shaped how the Constitution was written even though they were the 3rd party (as a side note, one of the fingerprints of the NDP is that the Constitution that was written does not protect property rights as strongly as USA; generally left wing parties favour stronger worker rights and weaker property rights). Another example in Canada (late 80's to 90's) is how the Bloc Quebecois (#3 or #4 party in Canada, depending on year) have managed to shape a lot of the laws in the 90's even though they didn't have direct control.
So to sum up, don't underestimate minority parties. They may be extremist, weird, and weak, but nevertheless they will impact the laws. A Green Party in USA with only 20% of the seats will mean that environmental regulations will be stronger; or a Libertarian Party with 20% of the seats will mean that individual rights will be stronger (something like the Patrio Act will have a tougher time making it through).
It won't solve everything but campaign finance reforms (assuming this is not some watered down junk) can help. What this will do is to limit funding for the major parties. Right now, the Democrats and Republicans raise millions of dollars whereas the other parties would be lucky to raise 1 million. By limiting the money to the major parties, you'll limit their propaganda and media influence. It isn't a magical solution to fix all the problems but it'll weaken the Democrats and Republicans.... don't forget that the majority of the population are influenced by rhetoric, tv ads and stuff like that, than by the actual party platform...
" Perhaps instead of voting for President and the Congress we should draw for them randomly, like jury duty. Although we'd have to make it considerably harder to get out of than jury duty is."
What you describe is pure democracy. A few civilizations in the past have had dabbled with such systems. If I'm not mistaken, Athens had a govt where some random guy was elected to senate (or something like that). It wasn't truly egalitarian or supported equality since some people were excluded (like slaves) but it was still interesting.
Pure democracy calls for the government to be representative of the population, and the only way for that to happen is to either: (i) elect people randomly, or (ii) randomly allocate people fitting population characteristics by using a quota system (eg. 52% of politicians women; 15%(?) black; 40% old; 25%(?) single; 60%(?) married with 2 kids; etc). The first one (random picking) is the simplest and most elegant (quota systems are very complicated and cause all sorts of problems).
The present system is nowhere near pure democracy because the people who are elected are not generally representative of the population. For example, you pretty much need to be a millionaire to be the US president (or raise around $1 million on your own). This means most US presidents are wealthy (I can't think of anyone who was not a millionarie in the last 20 years). Another example is the fact that people who have connections/contacts have a greater chance of gaining power than someone off the street. A pure democratic system tries to be representative of the population... Unfortunately, pure democracy is thought to be impossible to implement now. Maybe in 200 or 300 years but now it is beyond the understanding of humans. Humans need to be far more advanced (socially) for it to have any chance...
I don't think he--or let's say me--want to take away that wealth. The point isn't that the billionaire is evil or bad or anything like that; instead, the point is that a society where such a huge discrepancy in wealth can materialize is an undesirable one.
I certainly don't think anyone should go and take the billionaire's money, any more than I should take yours. However, a society where 10% of the wealthy control 70%+ of the total wealth is undesirable--and severely FLAWED!
In essence, the production or output or wealth generated by the masses accrues to a small percentage of the people. That is not a good way to build society...
Very few realize that the growing discrepancy in wealth is one of the biggest problems facing USA. It is getting so bad that you might see class wars happening in the not-too-distant future. This is like a forgotten demon....
" 2. Quality Assurance BS. All places I have worked that had more than 5 employees had all this QA, Total Quality, CMM Level X, "BULL4H!T". This always boils down to some 20-40% of the department employees who just suk up the overhead costs of a project. And contributed ZERO to any product being produced."
You don't think QA methodologies work? I don't know about your company or your industry but QA methods are what enabled the Japanese car companies to become dominant from almost nothing. QA may be a cost sink and produce nothing for the final product, but they usually lower costs, decrease defects, and so forth...
Someone wondered why Slashdot is right wing and this story proves it. How could Slashdot quote from a fascist site like vdare.com? What's next? An article from the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan? Or maybe Aryan Nation?
"Where does this perpetual fracturing of control end in its pursuit of maximized individual happiness? It would seem that we're unavoidably led to anarchism. However, I'm skeptical that it would ultimately end in that. At some point I would hope the valuing and fostering of a community would begin to outweigh the anarchic, hording hermit for which you envision at the end of the line." American Libertarians are inherently conservatives (many in the Libertarian Party aren't even libertarians--you'll see this when you look at the bogus "war" on terrorism or individual rights due to security). I'm on the left and I"ll tell you how the left wing generall perceives libertarianism.
From a left wing point of view, there is little difference between anarchism and libertarianism. In fact, the Anarchist Party of USA considers itself as libertarian socialist. The right wing libertarians (Libertarian Party of USA is a right wing party) look at things differently. They view anarchism as seperate from Libertarianism. The key difference is that the right wing's key philosophy is capitalism. Anarchists would be against any govt (and more) but the (right-leaning) Libertarians are in favour of a govt (albeit a much smaller one). Right wing favours a govt because they need a govt to proect property rights--basically to have a legal system. Leftist libertarians don't see any difference because they don't care about the govt either way (they know that govt has done more harm and protects rights only when it suits it).
In the end, I have no idea what is going to happen. I don't think the US Libertarian Party will ever gain any foothold because very few on the left (including libertarians) vote for them. This is why the Green Party has more support than the Libertarian Party. Left-leaning libertarians parties may gain some influence in more liberal countries (say in Europe or something) but it will take a while. It's kind of hard for any libertarian party (whether left-leaning or right-leaning) to win when most of the population still won't support legalization of drugs or prostitution or things like that.
" Another issue I find myself uncomfortable with is the seeming dogmatic idea that if "propertizing" increases the conservation and efficiency of some consumable, and that's a good, than it must follow that the "propertizing" of any and all consumables must be much better. Rarely have I seen a reasonably thorough investigation of this issue. Perhaps someone on this board will point me to one. " This is largely due to capitalism. Pure capitalists believe everything should be privatizied, including rivers, roads, schools, etc. Most of the reasons use to justify privatization are capitalist in nature (eg. govt inefficient; property managed better by private owners rather than by public; skews property in favour of the lower classes rather than letting the wealthy own more; etc). Check out the answers on a site like capitalism.org to get an idea. Here is a brief explanation of why environment should be privatized. A popular Libertarian site is mises.org. This is a pure capitalist site (basically Austrian economics) and they'll explain why they want to privatize everything or why the Federal Reserve needs to be eliminated, or stuff like that. I'm a leftist so I don't support these views but they may be more up your alley--don't know...BTW, you CAN justify privatizing everything but it all depends on what you support (You can justify anything including killing people is good (fascists can PROVE how country can be better by killing off the blind, deaf, disabled people, poor immigrants, drug addicts, etc)).
Most leftists see little difference between anarchism and libertarianism. In fact, anarchism is also called libertarian socialism. However, the right wing views libertarianism as something different. Most Americans who call themselves Libertarians (usually capital-L types) are conservatives and have your view in mind. Most leftists do not use capital-L Libertarianism and would not support your first paragraph. For instance, most leftists would claim that it is inconsistent to claim that govt can protect property rights (or any rights for that matter), while at the same time being against the govt. Historically it can be shown that the govt harms the citizens more than anyone else (including foreign invaders). Relying on the govt to protect property rights is not going to get far. In any case, most people on the right still want some government (usually a small govt). This is why most Americans who call themselves Libertarians aren't really true libertarians. For instance, these guys would call for privatizing the police while still calling for govt. Or call for federal govt power to be curbed while saying nothing about provincial/state or municipal govt.
" Also, like another reply to this said, read what he actually wrote. He said nothing about selling all lands on the market or auctioning them. "
That's implied. How are you going to sell the land without using a free market? If you don't use a free market, it would go against libertarianism. Even though the candidate didn't say it, I'm pretty sure they will use a free market.
"Even if that happened, we wouldn't end up with environmental disasters, because the immense costs that these lands (coupled with the loss of laws that shield corporations from liability) would require those companies to manage the lands they purchased sustainably, or face bankruptcy. "
How would corporations lose liability? It would pretty much be the same. Just look around. There are many poor countries where profit-seeking corporations destroy the land and just leave it. This also happens in rich countries. An example of this is clear-cutting forests.
As far as land being expensive, it is not! Land is only expensive in municipalities and highly populated areas. You can go to the middle of nowhere and it is dirt cheap (if you know what I mean). A lot of mining companies, oil companies, and so forth, own huge chunks of land and they cost very little. For example, I am pretty sure land in Alaska would be worth very little (away from the cities that is).
Well, you could possibly have something consistent. It's just that you wouldn't know now. Everything also depends on 'what is possible'.
For example, you go to the future and see the movie and afterwards while you are walking to your time machine (in order to get back to the present), an old man gives you a box. When you come to the present and open the box, that box contains the original movie. The movie that you saw in the future (say 50 years from now) was this movie in the box. In 50 years from now, this movie will be playing in a theater where a time-traveller (who happens to be you, although you may be dead from a present point of view) will watch the movie.
This is the closest to a plausible time travel scenario in my opinion. In essence, everything is determined by "fate". The future, present, and past will all be inter-linked, with the future determining the past and so forth. For instance, you taking the film from the future to the past was already pre-determined. The fact that you used time travel to watch a movie in the future means that you will take the film back to the present so that (time-travelling) you can watch it in the future.
Having said all that, there is still a flaw with this. The film will be in a time loop. It will keep going from the future to the past, completing a cycle (i.e. film will only exist between NOW and 50 years from now; in 52 years, the film won't exist because the time traveller would have taken it to the past at 50 years).
lol... hilarious... one of the best comeback jokes :) ... Both jokes were funny :)
So killing hundreads of thousands of innocents in the process doesn't matter huh?
:(:(:(
You have no idea what freedom is... maybe you should understand it first before you start uttering that word
"... but I would remove its capacity to pass binding resolutions." Name one thing that is binding. I can't think of any... Countries actually have to sign on... The only questionable area is the Security Council which "declares war" (they really don't and can't--since the UN doesn't have a military wing)...
No country has to follow anything the UN says unless they sign on to it. This is why it is "ok" for USA to ignore the Kyoto Treaty even though most of the world has signed on (many haven't ratified it in their home countries yet though)... This is also why a country like India and Pakistan "legally" tested nuclear weapons and own them (they never signed the NPT).
Having said that, you can argue that countries may have signed on 50 years ago but can't back out now. I admit that it would be preferable to have a clause for countries to exit their treaties. Of course, this would render the whole treaty meaningless but that's how most treaties are now anyway (eg. Nearly all the countries have signed treaties saying women are equal to men, yet not even 50% follow that; Nearly all countries have signed treaties banning child labour and sex slaves, yet it is common in many countries; and so forth).
I don't mean to be rude but...
;) )
10 So Iraq is similar to Nazi Germany?
20 Study some history and learn the true details
30 Go to 10
(Yes, I realize I broke all the rules of programming... BASIC sucks... and goto statements suck even more
But if they were to compete against oil companies, or mining companies, or logging companies, guess who is going to win? The only reason these organizations own large chunks of land is likely because the govt gives it to them at a cheap rate while preventing other companies from bidding on them. If the bidding was opened up, I'm sure Ducks Unlimited would be at the bottom of the list and something like ExonMobil will be near the top.
I'm not a Libertarian but I disagree. Libertarianism is against government of any type (for the most part). But it just so happens that attacking the federal govt is easier than the state or municipal govt. If the federal govt is dismantled, the next step would be to dismantle the state govt... Libertarianism is somewhat like anarchism...
You won't recoup the same amount by transferring it to the wealthy. First of all, there are few philantrophists; most people are selfish and stash their money in off-shore accounts. Second, the money may not be given to schools, so the philantrophists may decide to donate money to improve the area around their elite neighbourhoods, rather than say give to schools...