Fail to value what makes a company strong or unique, or desirable in the first place, and you end up with another dumb animal whose only function is to hunt and kill.
Hunting and killing... isn't that what all corporations want? Destroy everyone and everything by any means necessary, so as to maximize profits... Do you know what a perfect corporation is? A monopoly!
I'm not an economist... and I'm not a capitalist either. Anyway, here are my thoughts...
Wealth IS concentrated in a select few. Something like 50% of the US population owns shares in the stock market. But people fail to point out that these people own a tiny fraction of the wealth. Something like 80% of Americans control only 20% of the wealth. This gap is actually widening, EVEN THOUGH there are more Americans investing in the stock market now than ever.
The siutation in Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/etc are very different from USA. Those countries are running a monarchy and the most likely thing to happen there would be the overthrow of the monarchy (which will happen IMO).
The scenario that you mentioned will never transpire in USA. The reason is because USA is capitalistic (ie. it is elitist). I really can't see USA increasing taxes for corporations or wealthy individuals. It could happen in other countries and it does (like in Europe) but let's just stick with USA. Also, the fact that USA is conservative means that the chances of it turning into a welfare state are slim (conservatives are strongly against universal healthcare/education, centralized electricity/transporation, etc).
I think what may happen is that capitalism will collapse. Karl Marx said that capitalism will collapse due to a class war. Some of the stuff that described are prerequisites for a class war. For example, if the vast majority of hte population is lower class, they will overthrow the wealthy elites, who are numerically smaller. If that happens then anything is game. You can easily get the welfare state that you are talking about, or even end up with a fascist state (which kills all immigrants, etc). Hard to predict what will happen after a revolution...
Of course, there is also the possibility that USA may start wars and invade other countries in order to pump up its economy. This is actually what Germany did around 1930's. Germany's economy was so bad that invading other countries boosted it. Most people think of Nazi Germany as a horrible place (which it was, if you were a Jew, communist, homosexual, etc). BUT most Germans benefitted immensely from the wars. USA is already an imperialist and taking it one notch higher shouldn't be too difficult.
Another possibility is that USA may just decline. Instead of being the top economy, it'll drop a few places. It won't turn into a poor country but it won't be as rich. The probability of this happening is quite high IMO. All the indicators seem to indicate this (assuming you can ignore the capitalistic propaganda put forth by modern day economists). For example, USA has MASSIVE trade deficits with nearly every country it trades! Americans simply consume more than they should. This is totally unstable IMO.
Or perhaps USA will prosper and become even richer as the capitalists are predicting. Outsourcing and lower costs will take USA closer towards pure capitalism. And most economists (who incidentally are capitalists) consider pure capitalism to be a paradise.
You take your pick... whatever YOU think is right is just as likely as something an economist says...
You're claiming that seperating the axis by economic/social doesn't work because they're intertwined, and give a better solution as political/economic, which is even MORE intertwined.
THe political vs economic dimensions aren't intertwined. You can happily practice capitalism (economic) while running a fascist society, for example. Similarly, you can easily practice socialism while practicing totalitarianism. The seperation between politics and economics is FAR more obvious than from social and economic.
...I tend to support more Democrat social policies than Republican economic, simply because the Reps don't actually think these things out.
I don't even know what this means. How can you say that the Republicans don't think it through? They actuallly DO think hard about their policies. It's just that their agenda doesn't seem to coincide with your desires...Besides, as I mentioned before, there is no evidence to show that the Democrats support civil liberties more than Republicans. How many Democrats voted against The Patriot Act? How about Guantanamo Bay? And so on...
1) Democrats are very close to socialists as far as social policies go. Their moderate instincts show up on the economic scale more frequantly....2) Democrats don't really support capitalist principles. A quick glance over what they tend to present for bills confirms that. Welfare? Yep. Required health care? Yep. Restrictions on corporate conglomerates? More than the Reps. A lot more...3) Financial left is the 'mommy knows best' attitude. 'You don't know what's best to do with your money, let mommy take care of it'. Redistribution of wealth through welfare, central health care, etc. are a financial left topics.*
Very few people in the world would consider the Democrats to be leftists or supporting any left-wing philosophy. Democrats seem to be socialists to you because you are comparing them to the Republicans. Look at the points you made; nearly all of them were (indirect) comparisons to the Republicans. For example, you say Democrats are left-leaning because their bills are more likely to be against businesses. Do you really believe that? How many laws have the Democrats passed that were in favour of corporations? More than you imply. Democrats are major supporters of large corporations (sure, not as much as Republicans but they still are).
And for that matter, social policies are not fully dictated by economic concerns. Things like welfare, sure. But the government shouldn't be handling that, anyway. The social aspect is about liberties.
See...the world doesn't look at social policies as you do. You are basically saying things like welfare, universal healthcare/education, environmental protection, etc, are NOT social policies. The fact of the matter is, they ARE social policies. Your liberatarian instincts (of seeing govt not get involved in social policies) is clouding your views. The vast majority of people on earth will consider the stuff I mentioned as social issues. Since you don't think govt should touch these issues you are assuming that they don't even enter politics. However politics isn't like that. Since there are no true liberatarian parties in USA (except for The Liberatarian Party which is too small to count), the social issues I MENTIONED play a far greater role than you think. According to your interpretation, social issues shouldn't even enter the political spectrum--but they do (one can even argue that most of the elections are won or lost on these issues).
And authoritarianism is social right, financial left, BTW.
I still don't like your classification system. But anyway, here is a question. Where would you put Nazism? Social-right/financial-right? How about Communism? Social-left/financial-left? Both Communism and Fascism are very authoratarian (in fact totalitarian, if they are successful). But authoratarian governemnts aren't consisent in your classification system.
Only on SlashDot would you see a comparison of politics to monitor resolution...and by someone who hates slashdot:)
The question still remains: what is a good number? Is having 1 politician per 500,000 people reasonable? Or 1 per 100,000? How do you figure out what is resonable?
In the US, boosting the House won't really do much. The senate is equally represented by the states so it can't really approach true democracy.
You are right in saying that USA is kind of different from other countries in that the States have a lot of power. Nevertheless, when people look at a country, they look at the what is common or something that is unacceptable.
When history or other countries judge USA for its segregation policy, they will see that USA was segregating people. Yes, there were some states that weren't at that time, but that's not what the rest of the world sees.
As far as the UN resolution is concerned, I'm sure it had something to do with the wording. But that is beside the point. USA voted against it while the rest of the world didn't--that's what we see. It's just like how USA voted against banning biological weapons. Maybe the wording impact the vote but USA still voted against it.
Let's wait and see how long before homosexuals are given equal rights. I know some states have been progressive but many still lag behind (actually most of the world lags behind too but when most of Europe, Asia, etc have allowed it, let's see the progress in USA).
As far as executions are concerned, it is considered to be inhumane. Whether you agree is another issue. BUT most of the world has banned executions. This should be a serious issue, given that the legal systems are imperfect and influenced by governments, corporations, and wealthy elite. If I had a million dollars and you didn't, I'll be almost guaranteed that I'll get better sentence than you.
Let me preface my comment by saying that I consider most economists to be a bunch of fools.
Anyway, governments DO have a MAJOR impact on the economy. Even modern economists, who are all capitalists, admit as much. For instance, it has clearly been shown that wars have an impact on economies (usually positive). Large govt spending also impacts the economy. And so forth...
This is totally debatable but I don't subscribe to your view of how to classfify econopolitical stances. I go with the two dimensional view put forth by sites such as politicalcompass.org. Basically, there are two dimensions: economics and politics. At the extremes axes you would have a totalitarian (+politics) vs liberatarian (-politics), and socialist (-economics) vs capitalist (+economics) (NOTE: + and - signs don't mean anything). That is the system I find is most accurate.
Some people, like you, like to seperate issues into social vs economic but that is completely meaningless. The reason is bcause social issues and economic issues are intertwined. You can't realistically take a position on one without impacting the other. This is why I find the whole notion of a 'social democrat' to be meaningless.
Anyway, if you go with my system, you WILL have liberatarian-left and liberatarian-right. There will have to be a split because the two sides have very different underlying philosophies. Liberatarian left is also called anarchism, which is also called liberatarian socialism. The official anarchist party in USA even says that. In contrast, the official Liberatarian Party of USA (which is really liberatarian-right) doesn't subscribe to any leftist views.
If you still don't believe anything I say, observe marches and protests that occur. You will find that there are ZERO liberatarians (ie. liberatarian-right) that march with the leftists, but there may be anarchists that march with the left.
Let me critique some of your points...
A 'libitarian-left' would, by a huge stretch, mean that you were social left, financial left. That's DEMOCRAT.
Democrats (ie. Democratic Party of USA and not the general notion of 'democrats') are nowhere near the left. Here are some reasons why:
Democrats are not socialists. They might seem to support SOME social policies but they don't support many of the key ones or any socialist philosophy.
Democrats are in bed with corporations. Everyone that is left of left (ie. left to far-left) are generally anti-corporate.
Any sort of leftist party is anti-capitalist. Democrats are actually capitalists and support capitalist principles.
Sort of related to the previous points... you say financial-left would be Democrats. What exactly is financially LEFT? Centralized control of the economy? I don't see the Democrats carrying out any anti-capitalist actions. Contrast the US Democrats with leftist parties in Canada, Europe, and elsewhere.
I don't really know what you mean by your classification but I think the Green Party is closest to what you are saying. Democrats are very close to the centre.
libitarianism isn't anarchism. It's not that far along the scale, and there's an implicit understanding that some laws and government are necessary.
Liberatarianism is a characteristic (ie. total freedom--roughly speaking). Anarchism is an econopolitical system based on liberatarianism. I think you are wrong when you say that there is an IMPLICIT understanding by liberatarians that govt is required. Can you say what laws are actually required? How "much" govt is needed? Pure liberatarianism calls for now laws and no govt as well (this is required because laws will always limit freedoms and the only way to reach full freedoms is by eliminating these). You may not be a pure (100%) liberatarian but pure liberatarianism is as "extremist" as anarchism is. The only difference is that anarchism is an econopolitical system (ie. it actually puts forth a system that describes economics as well as politics) and is left-wing. Anarchism has its roots in left-wing ideologies and some people event interpret it to be the final state after communism (i.e. no govt).
You define whether they are more concerned with financial or social matters. i.e. do they prefer to concentrate on less gov, or more freedom?
I don't think you can really seperate financial from social matter
Comparing CD to DVD is kind of pointless at this point. DVDs (or movies) are not being pirated that much. Very few people have the bandwidth to download a full DVD, whereas most people can download MP3s. Keep in mind that the largest segment of downloaders are on low bandwdith connections (to verify, just check Kazaa or any other service and see how many people are downloading at slow rates).
On top of this, the structure of the movie industry is different. Movie THEATERS generate most of the money--not DVD sales (although DVDs are gaining significance). In contrast, most music revenue comes from CD sales (rather than concerts or radio play).
Lastly, the movie audience is FAR MORE diverse than the music audience. Most music listeners are young people whereas you can't really say that youngsters generate the money for movies. All the major (movie) blockbusters are watched by older people, etc. In contrast, the top music sales are all very specific (often under 25 yr old segment).
I think you can only compare MPAA to RIAA when movies are being pirated at the same rate as music...and the industry structure are similar...
I don't think Republicans spend more. The problem for them is that they often cut taxes which creates massive deficits of all sorts. It's really funny how it all works out. Left-leaning parties (Democrats in USA; Labour in UK; Liberals in Canada; etc) are supposed to be BAD at managing the economy. They are have socialist ideals (like avoiding privatization, centralized medicare/education/welfare/etc) so they suck at capitalism. YET they end up doing better with the economy than right-leaning parties. Really weird. Democrats are supposed to suck at managing economy but if they came to power, I'll bet the economic situation in USA will be better...
Are you the original poster (the guy who was a liberatarian)? If yes, then why aren't you voting for the Liberatarian Party (if you are liberatarian-right) or voting for an anarchist party (if liberatarian-left)?
I'm not even going to address the dictator situation because you know I'm not talking about extreme cases like that:)
As far as having large members of parliament is concerned, I still don't think it matters THAT MUCH. I'm not an expert on politics but each MP is still limited. Everyone can't speak all the time and how can you ensure that these people don't group themselves together and collude. For example, in many cases, the so-called "backbenchers" (under British style system) don't really have much voice...
If we go with your proposal, what is a good number? Are you saying that we need a really high number of MPs. Does this imply that infinite MPs=true democracy? Is that what you are saying?
I think the only system that will even come close would a theocracy. Religious systems are the only ones that put some notion of "good" above other concepts. Needless to say, even then, there would be massive flaws (one person's notion of good might be bad for another eg. invasion of Iraq=good according to most Americans but it is bad according to most non-Americans).
In any case, what you are proposing is impossible simply by definition. I mean, if you get rich you are basically getting wealth that could have been spent elsewhere. In other words, a rich person who is "good" will donate that money to a cause. In essence, that rich "good" person will never be rich.
How about Civil Rights (ie. equality for non-whites)? I may be wrong but didn't that lag behind others? In fact, USA kept vetoeing UN resolutions reaffirming blacks in South Africa as equals as little as 15(?) years ago. Furthermore, USA is will likely keep its execution of criminals for a while. And I'll bet granting equality for homosexuals will lag others...
Most liberatarians in USA are liberatarian-right (as opposed to liberatarian-left which is the same thing as anarchism). Therefore, most of them vote for Republicans since they are on the right. For example, Liberatarians want small government. But both Democrats and Republicans are in favour of large governments so it is a whitewash in their eyes. The same thing applies to many other issues, where the Democrats and REpublicans will take similar stances.
So this leaves the left vs right issues as the main determinant of their voting pattern. When you look at that dimension, Republicans are closer to most liberatarians (who are really right wingers). For instance, Democrats are left-leaning (eg. they take care of the poor, workers, environment, etc often by government intervention and imposing taxes) and this is detested by liberatarian-right. Therefore they vote Republican.
The reason it is so clear-cut (in my eyes) is because USA only has two parties AND both parties are almost the same (they are literally clones of each other). If there were more parties (like under British-style systems) I can't see liberatarians (ie. liberatarian-right) voting for either the Democrats or the Republicans. As a side note, a true liberatarian would only vote for the Liberatarian Party of USA (4th biggest party in USA I think), just like how a true leftist will only vote for the Green Party.
No one in the US government would seriously call for world government. It would not fit with the constitution, and trying to assimilate the rest of the world would be overstepping our bounds.
Obviously you haven't been paying attention to the neo-cons in power. People like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and other neo-cons have basically been calling for a system which is for all intensive purposes a world "government" shaped by USA. I'll let you do the research (I don't have any articles bookmarked).
The neocons DO want a world government.. it's just that the government is going to be USA and no one else...
How is increasing the size of parliament going to help? I look around the world and I don't really see what the size of the members of parliament has to do with anything. I don't think the size is related to democracy.
The problem with the US system (IMO) is that there are only two parties. Sure there are others but for all intesive purposes, they don't count. As long as the Democrats and Republicans control everything, I don't see anything happening in USA. The greatest thing USA can do is to get more parties into the game.
I hope to see you all at the poll booth. Perhaps it's an empty gesture but the democratic process is all we've got left.
I'm not an American (in fact I'm considered anti-American) but anyway... I hope you do realize that the so-called democratic process is an illusion... The fact that the parties initiate mass propaganda campaigns (to the tune of tens of millions of dollars) and that the corporate media is in collusion with the major parties ensures that the democratic process is nothing more than an illusion.
Forget the school system... I'm waiting to see when USA privatizes their police forces. Nothing better than one corporate owned officer duking it out with another corporate cop in the name of efficiency:(
You shouldn't leave a country because you don't like what's happening (unless it is a life and death situation or something eg. if you need marijuana for medical reasons, come to Canada for sure). It would be far more preferable for you to stay in your country and CHANGE it. The world would be far better if people attempted to change their societies...
There is one major limitation with improvision. You will see it if you think of the cases where improvs are used and are common...doesn't it seem like improv is mainly used in comedies? Why?
Well, the problem with improv is that it doesn't really work well for many things other than comedies or something like that. Dramas with a lot of emotion (crying, anger, etc) are hard to improvise. The actors and everyone else basically have to be in a particular mindset. Comedies, in contrast, simply require that the content be funny. I think this is why you see a lot of improv comedy and very few (if any) improv dramas. This doesn't mean that it won't work but just that it isn't very effective...
As far as movies not being in the hands of large corporations... well, my theory is that capitalism with its false God, the free market, will always result in oligopolies and monopolies. Regardless of what happens, large corporations will dominate a particular industry. It is in the interest of a company to monopolize an industry. This is what happens in the real world and this is what business schools teach you: steal market share, lock out competition, erect barriers to entry, etc. If you were running a movie company, you would try to create a monopoly too. If you succeed, you will end up with a monopoly (or at least an oligopoly); if you fail, someone else will end up with monopoly (or oligopoly)...
Waking Life is one of my favourite films of all time as well (it's in my top 20):) I love plotless films AND I love philosophical films:)
Anyway, as others have pointed out, Waking Life uses rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is basically filming live characters and then animating over them. This is in contrast to pure animation. Rotoscoping isn't new (apparently it was done as early as 60's(??)) but the way Waking Life did it is new (ie. using computer animation). In case you are curious, they basically filmed the characters and then used some MACs to paint over them. (As a side note, there was some controversy over rotoscoping. The controversy centered on whether Waking Life should be nominated or even considered as animation. Should animating live action be considered as animation? I think the decision that was made was that it isn't animation).
You mention the diverse scenes. It's interesting how the film turned out. Each scene was animated by a different person. This ended up having an interesting result. Each scene ends up being unique and different. At first, it seemed weird but after a short while, I liked it a lot. Not only are the philosophical ideas and ramblings different but also the scene and the animation.
I haven't really seen any film like it--before or after. Too bad many people haven't seen it:(
Making a realistic looking CG film will take a while. I would guess 10 more years. The graphics (ie. visual aspects) can be replicated soon but the movement and other human behaviours will be difficult. For example, when a CG character walks or talks, it looks fake. People still haven't mimicked human walking and talking is the same thing. When we talk, we have all these facial expressions and head movement. Most CG characters hardly ever move their head in any realistic manner.
Asking whether a completely CG movie is economical is irrelevant. Movies are very expensive and CG films aren't going to be any different. Nowadays, a blockbuster costs around $100million and a full CG film can be made for that much.
The real question is whether they will be accepted and how much their popularity will be. The way I see it, CG films (realistic ones, not cartoonish) will probably become popular for genres like action, science fiction, fantasy, and so on. But I don't see it replacing genres like drama, romance, etc. Human characters can simply behvae more like human:) and it will be tough for CG to replace that. For instance, consider the fact that a lot of emotion on film is NOT scripted. The script doesn't say exactly how to cry or shout or whatever and even the director doesn't know how it is going to turn out. A lot of these things are spontaneous and I'm not sure how you will replicate these with CG.
There were always bad movies but I would say that the number of "bad movies" (totally subjective) to "good movies" has increased in the last two decades. If you look at all the top films of the last few decades, hardly any of them are from the 80's or 90's. Sure there were horrible films in the 70's. But the good ones from that time is FAR better than some of the best now.
Slashdot Mirror
Fail to value what makes a company strong or unique, or desirable in the first place, and you end up with another dumb animal whose only function is to hunt and kill.
Hunting and killing... isn't that what all corporations want? Destroy everyone and everything by any means necessary, so as to maximize profits... Do you know what a perfect corporation is? A monopoly!
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not an economist... and I'm not a capitalist either. Anyway, here are my thoughts...
Wealth IS concentrated in a select few. Something like 50% of the US population owns shares in the stock market. But people fail to point out that these people own a tiny fraction of the wealth. Something like 80% of Americans control only 20% of the wealth. This gap is actually widening, EVEN THOUGH there are more Americans investing in the stock market now than ever.
The siutation in Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/etc are very different from USA. Those countries are running a monarchy and the most likely thing to happen there would be the overthrow of the monarchy (which will happen IMO).
The scenario that you mentioned will never transpire in USA. The reason is because USA is capitalistic (ie. it is elitist). I really can't see USA increasing taxes for corporations or wealthy individuals. It could happen in other countries and it does (like in Europe) but let's just stick with USA. Also, the fact that USA is conservative means that the chances of it turning into a welfare state are slim (conservatives are strongly against universal healthcare/education, centralized electricity/transporation, etc).
I think what may happen is that capitalism will collapse. Karl Marx said that capitalism will collapse due to a class war. Some of the stuff that described are prerequisites for a class war. For example, if the vast majority of hte population is lower class, they will overthrow the wealthy elites, who are numerically smaller. If that happens then anything is game. You can easily get the welfare state that you are talking about, or even end up with a fascist state (which kills all immigrants, etc). Hard to predict what will happen after a revolution...
Of course, there is also the possibility that USA may start wars and invade other countries in order to pump up its economy. This is actually what Germany did around 1930's. Germany's economy was so bad that invading other countries boosted it. Most people think of Nazi Germany as a horrible place (which it was, if you were a Jew, communist, homosexual, etc). BUT most Germans benefitted immensely from the wars. USA is already an imperialist and taking it one notch higher shouldn't be too difficult.
Another possibility is that USA may just decline. Instead of being the top economy, it'll drop a few places. It won't turn into a poor country but it won't be as rich. The probability of this happening is quite high IMO. All the indicators seem to indicate this (assuming you can ignore the capitalistic propaganda put forth by modern day economists). For example, USA has MASSIVE trade deficits with nearly every country it trades! Americans simply consume more than they should. This is totally unstable IMO.
Or perhaps USA will prosper and become even richer as the capitalists are predicting. Outsourcing and lower costs will take USA closer towards pure capitalism. And most economists (who incidentally are capitalists) consider pure capitalism to be a paradise.
You take your pick... whatever YOU think is right is just as likely as something an economist says...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You're claiming that seperating the axis by economic/social doesn't work because they're intertwined, and give a better solution as political/economic, which is even MORE intertwined.
...I tend to support more Democrat social policies than Republican economic, simply because the Reps don't actually think these things out.
THe political vs economic dimensions aren't intertwined. You can happily practice capitalism (economic) while running a fascist society, for example. Similarly, you can easily practice socialism while practicing totalitarianism. The seperation between politics and economics is FAR more obvious than from social and economic.
I don't even know what this means. How can you say that the Republicans don't think it through? They actuallly DO think hard about their policies. It's just that their agenda doesn't seem to coincide with your desires...Besides, as I mentioned before, there is no evidence to show that the Democrats support civil liberties more than Republicans. How many Democrats voted against The Patriot Act? How about Guantanamo Bay? And so on...
1) Democrats are very close to socialists as far as social policies go. Their moderate instincts show up on the economic scale more frequantly....2) Democrats don't really support capitalist principles. A quick glance over what they tend to present for bills confirms that. Welfare? Yep. Required health care? Yep. Restrictions on corporate conglomerates? More than the Reps. A lot more...3) Financial left is the 'mommy knows best' attitude. 'You don't know what's best to do with your money, let mommy take care of it'. Redistribution of wealth through welfare, central health care, etc. are a financial left topics.*
Very few people in the world would consider the Democrats to be leftists or supporting any left-wing philosophy. Democrats seem to be socialists to you because you are comparing them to the Republicans. Look at the points you made; nearly all of them were (indirect) comparisons to the Republicans. For example, you say Democrats are left-leaning because their bills are more likely to be against businesses. Do you really believe that? How many laws have the Democrats passed that were in favour of corporations? More than you imply. Democrats are major supporters of large corporations (sure, not as much as Republicans but they still are).
And for that matter, social policies are not fully dictated by economic concerns. Things like welfare, sure. But the government shouldn't be handling that, anyway. The social aspect is about liberties.
See...the world doesn't look at social policies as you do. You are basically saying things like welfare, universal healthcare/education, environmental protection, etc, are NOT social policies. The fact of the matter is, they ARE social policies. Your liberatarian instincts (of seeing govt not get involved in social policies) is clouding your views. The vast majority of people on earth will consider the stuff I mentioned as social issues. Since you don't think govt should touch these issues you are assuming that they don't even enter politics. However politics isn't like that. Since there are no true liberatarian parties in USA (except for The Liberatarian Party which is too small to count), the social issues I MENTIONED play a far greater role than you think. According to your interpretation, social issues shouldn't even enter the political spectrum--but they do (one can even argue that most of the elections are won or lost on these issues).
And authoritarianism is social right, financial left, BTW.
I still don't like your classification system. But anyway, here is a question. Where would you put Nazism? Social-right/financial-right? How about Communism? Social-left/financial-left? Both Communism and Fascism are very authoratarian (in fact totalitarian, if they are successful). But authoratarian governemnts aren't consisent in your classification system.
I ALW
Only on SlashDot would you see a comparison of politics to monitor resolution...and by someone who hates slashdot :)
The question still remains: what is a good number? Is having 1 politician per 500,000 people reasonable? Or 1 per 100,000? How do you figure out what is resonable?
In the US, boosting the House won't really do much. The senate is equally represented by the states so it can't really approach true democracy.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You are right in saying that USA is kind of different from other countries in that the States have a lot of power. Nevertheless, when people look at a country, they look at the what is common or something that is unacceptable.
When history or other countries judge USA for its segregation policy, they will see that USA was segregating people. Yes, there were some states that weren't at that time, but that's not what the rest of the world sees.
As far as the UN resolution is concerned, I'm sure it had something to do with the wording. But that is beside the point. USA voted against it while the rest of the world didn't--that's what we see. It's just like how USA voted against banning biological weapons. Maybe the wording impact the vote but USA still voted against it.
Let's wait and see how long before homosexuals are given equal rights. I know some states have been progressive but many still lag behind (actually most of the world lags behind too but when most of Europe, Asia, etc have allowed it, let's see the progress in USA).
As far as executions are concerned, it is considered to be inhumane. Whether you agree is another issue. BUT most of the world has banned executions. This should be a serious issue, given that the legal systems are imperfect and influenced by governments, corporations, and wealthy elite. If I had a million dollars and you didn't, I'll be almost guaranteed that I'll get better sentence than you.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Let me preface my comment by saying that I consider most economists to be a bunch of fools.
Anyway, governments DO have a MAJOR impact on the economy. Even modern economists, who are all capitalists, admit as much. For instance, it has clearly been shown that wars have an impact on economies (usually positive). Large govt spending also impacts the economy. And so forth...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Some people, like you, like to seperate issues into social vs economic but that is completely meaningless. The reason is bcause social issues and economic issues are intertwined. You can't realistically take a position on one without impacting the other. This is why I find the whole notion of a 'social democrat' to be meaningless.
Anyway, if you go with my system, you WILL have liberatarian-left and liberatarian-right. There will have to be a split because the two sides have very different underlying philosophies. Liberatarian left is also called anarchism, which is also called liberatarian socialism. The official anarchist party in USA even says that. In contrast, the official Liberatarian Party of USA (which is really liberatarian-right) doesn't subscribe to any leftist views. If you still don't believe anything I say, observe marches and protests that occur. You will find that there are ZERO liberatarians (ie. liberatarian-right) that march with the leftists, but there may be anarchists that march with the left.
Let me critique some of your points...
A 'libitarian-left' would, by a huge stretch, mean that you were social left, financial left. That's DEMOCRAT.
Democrats (ie. Democratic Party of USA and not the general notion of 'democrats') are nowhere near the left. Here are some reasons why:
I don't really know what you mean by your classification but I think the Green Party is closest to what you are saying. Democrats are very close to the centre.
libitarianism isn't anarchism. It's not that far along the scale, and there's an implicit understanding that some laws and government are necessary.
Liberatarianism is a characteristic (ie. total freedom--roughly speaking). Anarchism is an econopolitical system based on liberatarianism. I think you are wrong when you say that there is an IMPLICIT understanding by liberatarians that govt is required. Can you say what laws are actually required? How "much" govt is needed? Pure liberatarianism calls for now laws and no govt as well (this is required because laws will always limit freedoms and the only way to reach full freedoms is by eliminating these). You may not be a pure (100%) liberatarian but pure liberatarianism is as "extremist" as anarchism is. The only difference is that anarchism is an econopolitical system (ie. it actually puts forth a system that describes economics as well as politics) and is left-wing. Anarchism has its roots in left-wing ideologies and some people event interpret it to be the final state after communism (i.e. no govt).
You define whether they are more concerned with financial or social matters. i.e. do they prefer to concentrate on less gov, or more freedom?
I don't think you can really seperate financial from social matter
Comparing CD to DVD is kind of pointless at this point. DVDs (or movies) are not being pirated that much. Very few people have the bandwidth to download a full DVD, whereas most people can download MP3s. Keep in mind that the largest segment of downloaders are on low bandwdith connections (to verify, just check Kazaa or any other service and see how many people are downloading at slow rates).
On top of this, the structure of the movie industry is different. Movie THEATERS generate most of the money--not DVD sales (although DVDs are gaining significance). In contrast, most music revenue comes from CD sales (rather than concerts or radio play).
Lastly, the movie audience is FAR MORE diverse than the music audience. Most music listeners are young people whereas you can't really say that youngsters generate the money for movies. All the major (movie) blockbusters are watched by older people, etc. In contrast, the top music sales are all very specific (often under 25 yr old segment).
I think you can only compare MPAA to RIAA when movies are being pirated at the same rate as music...and the industry structure are similar...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't think Republicans spend more. The problem for them is that they often cut taxes which creates massive deficits of all sorts. It's really funny how it all works out. Left-leaning parties (Democrats in USA; Labour in UK; Liberals in Canada; etc) are supposed to be BAD at managing the economy. They are have socialist ideals (like avoiding privatization, centralized medicare/education/welfare/etc) so they suck at capitalism. YET they end up doing better with the economy than right-leaning parties. Really weird. Democrats are supposed to suck at managing economy but if they came to power, I'll bet the economic situation in USA will be better...
Are you the original poster (the guy who was a liberatarian)? If yes, then why aren't you voting for the Liberatarian Party (if you are liberatarian-right) or voting for an anarchist party (if liberatarian-left)?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not even going to address the dictator situation because you know I'm not talking about extreme cases like that :)
As far as having large members of parliament is concerned, I still don't think it matters THAT MUCH. I'm not an expert on politics but each MP is still limited. Everyone can't speak all the time and how can you ensure that these people don't group themselves together and collude. For example, in many cases, the so-called "backbenchers" (under British style system) don't really have much voice...
If we go with your proposal, what is a good number? Are you saying that we need a really high number of MPs. Does this imply that infinite MPs=true democracy? Is that what you are saying?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
It is a group of people elected by the whole. They represent the intrest of the majority, not just you.
Where does corporate influence and govt propaganda comes into this? Or are governments perfect and only concern themselves with their citizens?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I think the only system that will even come close would a theocracy. Religious systems are the only ones that put some notion of "good" above other concepts. Needless to say, even then, there would be massive flaws (one person's notion of good might be bad for another eg. invasion of Iraq=good according to most Americans but it is bad according to most non-Americans).
In any case, what you are proposing is impossible simply by definition. I mean, if you get rich you are basically getting wealth that could have been spent elsewhere. In other words, a rich person who is "good" will donate that money to a cause. In essence, that rich "good" person will never be rich.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't know what's worse: the fact that you don't care or the fact that you trust the courts will be on your side...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
How about Civil Rights (ie. equality for non-whites)? I may be wrong but didn't that lag behind others? In fact, USA kept vetoeing UN resolutions reaffirming blacks in South Africa as equals as little as 15(?) years ago. Furthermore, USA is will likely keep its execution of criminals for a while. And I'll bet granting equality for homosexuals will lag others...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Here is my leftist oberservation...
Most liberatarians in USA are liberatarian-right (as opposed to liberatarian-left which is the same thing as anarchism). Therefore, most of them vote for Republicans since they are on the right. For example, Liberatarians want small government. But both Democrats and Republicans are in favour of large governments so it is a whitewash in their eyes. The same thing applies to many other issues, where the Democrats and REpublicans will take similar stances.
So this leaves the left vs right issues as the main determinant of their voting pattern. When you look at that dimension, Republicans are closer to most liberatarians (who are really right wingers). For instance, Democrats are left-leaning (eg. they take care of the poor, workers, environment, etc often by government intervention and imposing taxes) and this is detested by liberatarian-right. Therefore they vote Republican.
The reason it is so clear-cut (in my eyes) is because USA only has two parties AND both parties are almost the same (they are literally clones of each other). If there were more parties (like under British-style systems) I can't see liberatarians (ie. liberatarian-right) voting for either the Democrats or the Republicans. As a side note, a true liberatarian would only vote for the Liberatarian Party of USA (4th biggest party in USA I think), just like how a true leftist will only vote for the Green Party.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
No one in the US government would seriously call for world government. It would not fit with the constitution, and trying to assimilate the rest of the world would be overstepping our bounds.
Obviously you haven't been paying attention to the neo-cons in power. People like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and other neo-cons have basically been calling for a system which is for all intensive purposes a world "government" shaped by USA. I'll let you do the research (I don't have any articles bookmarked).
The neocons DO want a world government.. it's just that the government is going to be USA and no one else...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
How is increasing the size of parliament going to help? I look around the world and I don't really see what the size of the members of parliament has to do with anything. I don't think the size is related to democracy.
The problem with the US system (IMO) is that there are only two parties. Sure there are others but for all intesive purposes, they don't count. As long as the Democrats and Republicans control everything, I don't see anything happening in USA. The greatest thing USA can do is to get more parties into the game.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I hope to see you all at the poll booth. Perhaps it's an empty gesture but the democratic process is all we've got left.
I'm not an American (in fact I'm considered anti-American) but anyway... I hope you do realize that the so-called democratic process is an illusion... The fact that the parties initiate mass propaganda campaigns (to the tune of tens of millions of dollars) and that the corporate media is in collusion with the major parties ensures that the democratic process is nothing more than an illusion.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Forget the school system... I'm waiting to see when USA privatizes their police forces. Nothing better than one corporate owned officer duking it out with another corporate cop in the name of efficiency :(
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You shouldn't leave a country because you don't like what's happening (unless it is a life and death situation or something eg. if you need marijuana for medical reasons, come to Canada for sure). It would be far more preferable for you to stay in your country and CHANGE it. The world would be far better if people attempted to change their societies...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol hehe :)
Dictators on CNN and FOX?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
There is one major limitation with improvision. You will see it if you think of the cases where improvs are used and are common...doesn't it seem like improv is mainly used in comedies? Why?
Well, the problem with improv is that it doesn't really work well for many things other than comedies or something like that. Dramas with a lot of emotion (crying, anger, etc) are hard to improvise. The actors and everyone else basically have to be in a particular mindset. Comedies, in contrast, simply require that the content be funny. I think this is why you see a lot of improv comedy and very few (if any) improv dramas. This doesn't mean that it won't work but just that it isn't very effective...
As far as movies not being in the hands of large corporations... well, my theory is that capitalism with its false God, the free market, will always result in oligopolies and monopolies. Regardless of what happens, large corporations will dominate a particular industry. It is in the interest of a company to monopolize an industry. This is what happens in the real world and this is what business schools teach you: steal market share, lock out competition, erect barriers to entry, etc. If you were running a movie company, you would try to create a monopoly too. If you succeed, you will end up with a monopoly (or at least an oligopoly); if you fail, someone else will end up with monopoly (or oligopoly)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Waking Life is one of my favourite films of all time as well (it's in my top 20) :) I love plotless films AND I love philosophical films :)
:(
Anyway, as others have pointed out, Waking Life uses rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is basically filming live characters and then animating over them. This is in contrast to pure animation. Rotoscoping isn't new (apparently it was done as early as 60's(??)) but the way Waking Life did it is new (ie. using computer animation). In case you are curious, they basically filmed the characters and then used some MACs to paint over them. (As a side note, there was some controversy over rotoscoping. The controversy centered on whether Waking Life should be nominated or even considered as animation. Should animating live action be considered as animation? I think the decision that was made was that it isn't animation).
You mention the diverse scenes. It's interesting how the film turned out. Each scene was animated by a different person. This ended up having an interesting result. Each scene ends up being unique and different. At first, it seemed weird but after a short while, I liked it a lot. Not only are the philosophical ideas and ramblings different but also the scene and the animation.
I haven't really seen any film like it--before or after. Too bad many people haven't seen it
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Making a realistic looking CG film will take a while. I would guess 10 more years. The graphics (ie. visual aspects) can be replicated soon but the movement and other human behaviours will be difficult. For example, when a CG character walks or talks, it looks fake. People still haven't mimicked human walking and talking is the same thing. When we talk, we have all these facial expressions and head movement. Most CG characters hardly ever move their head in any realistic manner.
:) and it will be tough for CG to replace that. For instance, consider the fact that a lot of emotion on film is NOT scripted. The script doesn't say exactly how to cry or shout or whatever and even the director doesn't know how it is going to turn out. A lot of these things are spontaneous and I'm not sure how you will replicate these with CG.
Asking whether a completely CG movie is economical is irrelevant. Movies are very expensive and CG films aren't going to be any different. Nowadays, a blockbuster costs around $100million and a full CG film can be made for that much.
The real question is whether they will be accepted and how much their popularity will be. The way I see it, CG films (realistic ones, not cartoonish) will probably become popular for genres like action, science fiction, fantasy, and so on. But I don't see it replacing genres like drama, romance, etc. Human characters can simply behvae more like human
Sivaram Velauthapillai
There were always bad movies but I would say that the number of "bad movies" (totally subjective) to "good movies" has increased in the last two decades. If you look at all the top films of the last few decades, hardly any of them are from the 80's or 90's. Sure there were horrible films in the 70's. But the good ones from that time is FAR better than some of the best now.
Sivaram Velauthapillai