> There will be pain switching, but the new system will be more efficient > in the long run. There were pains moving from horses to cars, from gas > to electricity, from wood to coal. But they all got ironed out.
You do realize we're talking about people's health here, right? It's not a fscking faster way to get from Detroit to Orlando.
What are you talking about? It proves that the system does not replace traditional communication. You only need one example for that. The anecdotal part is that it may even encourage poor treatment.
I agree with you. But, again, this practice the government has of mandating profit is anti-free-market. If shareholders don't agree with a company's practices, then they shouldn't invest in it. If I want profit!profit!profit!, then I need to invest with a company that is only concerned with profit. If I want corporate responsibility, then I need to invest with a company whose philosophy aligns with that.
> Here in the real world, it isn't "every citizen" who's receiving "free > ice cream" it's the corporate "elite" who squandered enormous gains > in productive ability on over-leveraged speculative "investments" -- > put simply, they pissed it all away on high stakes gambling -- then got > bailed out by the larger collective, the nation.
Which is ridiculous and is, again, central economic planning. If the market were permitted to work, these asshats would be out of business right now, and their worthwhile assets would have been purchased by those who still have credit and capital in this economic crisis (ie, the competent).
> If any collectivist model has failed, it's corporate business model and > the perversion of democratic government financed by corporate lobbying.
This is precisely why central economic planning doesn't work (for countless examples, see: all of history). Corporate lobbying exists because politicians are greedy and are concerned about their careers, not the "common good". If they weren't, lobbying would be ineffective or overly costly and corporations would never spend millions doing it.
I think you're saying "the free market doesn't work because of x, y, and z", but "x, y, and z" have nothing to do with the free market. They have to do with corporate asshats being protected from free market competition (that's why they lobby for *regulations*) from other entrants who would otherwise be able to easily enter the market and drive down profit margins with competition.
(You'll probably counter with the "repeal" of lending standards, allowing 30-1 ratios, but I will again say that is central economic planning and anti-free-market; anything but a 1-1 ratio is a market being manipulated by government and its agents. Established players in the market do NOT want a free market, because they're already established and the only thing a free market means is more competition and less profit share.)
Have you been involved in the process of applying for government grants? It doesn't sound like it. I have (neuroscience) and it's a fscking mess. Government has zero motivation to "consult" scientists (that's not what happens anyway; the process is a review of 100 grant applications for the 1 that gets funded), especially when their grant application doesn't align with their boss's or their favorite company's agenda.
Talk to me about "bias" when you have something other than armchair experience.
Talk to me about "bias" after you've looked up the definition of "profit" and stop relying on the 4-letter-word version used by the mainstream media.
Talk about bias...
It's a non-sequitur because (again) just because something is a problem with A doesn't mean it will be solved by B.
When companies in private industry pulls the shenanigans that you're talking about, they will eventually LOSE (that is, if we ever let companies be unprofitable again), because someone more competent will take their market share.
You want to exchange that for a government monopoly run by incompetents, and you think that somehow solves problems that are "unsolvable" in private industry.
> Private industry has a proven track record of sacrificing the future > while they loot the present.
Where have you been? Politicians only do things that align with their re-election schedule. That's why no one gives a fsck about deficit spending and the rising national debt. It's not their problem, and handing out free ice cream to every citizen at the expense of our grandchildren is better for their re-election campaign than being fiscally responsible.
> Profit should NOT be required to be the top priority for a company.
And what should be?
> Legally, there is no such thing as enough profit. That must change.
What is "enough profit" and who gets to decide it? You're talking about central economic planning.
> Whatever happened to the common good?
There is no such thing; it's a myth. That's why communism doesn't work. Capitalism is the idea that instead of living in a fantasy world where everyone cares about the common good, we're going to be honest and admit that people are hardwired for certain instincts, one of which (survival) manifests itself in current society as 'greed'. Instead of having a system like communism that is DESTROYED by greed, we have a system like capitalism that thrives on it.
Are there problems? Of course. But it's a hell of a lot better than the alternatives, and that's what I see us forgetting in recent times...
I go back to my original point: how do government bureaucrats know long-term benefits better than scientists? The logical error in your point is that you say there are problems with private industry, therefore public is better. Non sequitur.
Yes, Obama, the answer is more market disruption. We are all too stupid to identify research opportunities that will likely provide benefit outweighing than the costs. I'm tired of relying on scientists to determine what should be researched. I completely believe that government bureaucrats with little or no formal training in science are best suited to make these decisions for our country.
The point of the comment is that a crime scene is not a public area and the police can take photos that the general public cannot. Saying that if the area is in the open and you can see it from 200 yards away then it's a public place... that's not really relevant. We're talking about the photos that the police are taking, which are substantially different than the photos the general public can take.
You are completely right, but that does not justify the police department leaking those photos. For as much as we whine about privacy and justice here, we should be urging this family to sue the fucking pants off of the department. What they did was wrong and inhumane. That doesn't change just because we're pissed off that they have more money than us. My tax dollars do not go to taking photos of dead daughters and sending them to the grieving parents. Fucking ridiculous.
> These shock campaigns do *zero* to prevent young people from repeating > the mistakes. Most youth believe they are invincible, and act accordingly. > Showing them stuff like this just makes them say "oh, gross" as they > repeat the mistakes, believing that it will never happen to them.
The other way to look at it is that these consequences that you're fearmongering are statistically unlikely and children are therefore reacting to them rationally. The "young people think they're invincible" is a silly oversimplification, because there are hundreds of things you CAN explain to them that have a higher risk of injury that children will then avoid.
Estimate and compare these two ratios: instances of unsafe sex / likelihood of contracting an STD instances of driving over 100mph / likelihood of crashing
If you have estimated two values that are similar, then you've found my point.
Your idea is awesome. By the way, how can the government provide free Internet? Seems like the companies should take the same approach so that their income is 100% profit.
> Sometimes yes and sometimes no. In this case, yes. Municipal internet is > a great idea just like municipal water, fire, police, trash collection, > etc. I like my utilities to be provisioned at cost. Private enterprise > won't do that.
You either pay for a company's profit or a public entity's administrative overhead, ineptness, and corruption.
You have it all wrong. Businesses want to make money. They don't give a shit about free markets. They only care about making money. If one business believes their best chance to make money is a free market (usually smaller companies who want low barrier to entry), then they will cry for free markets. If the business believes their best chance to make money is to lobby a central authority and be blessed with profits from those on high (usually existing big players in the market), then they will lobby for market regulation. Existing players DON'T WANT competition because it ALWAYS reduces their profit margins.
It is not a hypocrisy. It's different businesses having different paths to profit.
Free markets are what's good for CONSUMERS because competition reduces profit margins and therefore prices, which in the end is bad for an individual company in the short term but better for everyone in the long term.
(This is also why the cries of the Fed for how awesome they are by maintaining a low rate of inflation of 3-4% are just ridiculous. In a competitive economy, there should be slow, gradual, and constant DEFLATION, so an inflation rate of 3-4% is really a failure of 7-10%, because the starndard is not 0% price change but maybe -4% price change).
Great comment; you articulated reality well. You can't centralize all power and then wonder why corporations are targeting their efforts on that central location. If you distribute power across many, many nodes, then it makes it cost ineffective to target any one node.
Does this sound familiar to anyone here on/.??? Sometimes I am shocked at how people here will list a hundred reasons supporting decentralization when it comes to tech, but don't think it applies to anything else.
> No, my fried, the problem is not allowing the government to provide services. > The problem is allowing the government to NOT oversee and regulate monolithic > corporate entities.
Sir, you're not making any sense. Before this, you just said this:
> by failure to exercise due diligence in electing officials, and the failure > to practice due diligence in overseeing the actions of their elected officials. > Largely this is an issue of scale -- on average, a US Representative is > responsible for something like 560,000 constituents. There is no way to have > personal accountability.
The above basically says: corporations have too much power because government is too big for the people to control. You have pointed out the very important question of "who watches the watchmen".
So how can you possibly conclude that big government is NOT the problem?
And then you say this:
> Even if we had a small government that didn't get involved so much, we'd > still have the problem of the government being bought by corporations... it > would be even worse than now, since in some cases the government can and does > provide cheaper and better service than private entities would.
What? If the government is smaller, meaning they have less MONEY and less POWER, then why would corporations want even more to control government? The reason lobbying works is because it costs $1 million of lobbying to get $10 million of benefit. If the government does not have the authority to grant the company $10 million in benefit, then the company is less likely to decide that spending $1 million is worth it.
Take your argument the other way. If government controlled everything and has infinite wealth, you're saying corruption wouldn't increase? How about if government controlled nothing in private industry and didn't collect any tax revenue? I'm not suggesting that is the answer, but I think your conclusions don't even match the evidence you list!
> However adoption of the standard is optional, and healthcare IT is > very very slow to update technologies.
You say that so matter-of-fact, as if there's no reason. The reason is that it is incredibly costly to convert legacy systems. You can't change that with legislation.
I know we're all supposed to cheer this legislation because it has the words "open source" in it, but the real question is: if this is the right decision from a cost-benefit perspective, then why aren't companies already making it?
Slashdot Mirror
> There will be pain switching, but the new system will be more efficient
> in the long run. There were pains moving from horses to cars, from gas
> to electricity, from wood to coal. But they all got ironed out.
You do realize we're talking about people's health here, right? It's not a fscking faster way to get from Detroit to Orlando.
What are you talking about? It proves that the system does not replace traditional communication. You only need one example for that. The anecdotal part is that it may even encourage poor treatment.
I agree with you. But, again, this practice the government has of mandating profit is anti-free-market. If shareholders don't agree with a company's practices, then they shouldn't invest in it. If I want profit!profit!profit!, then I need to invest with a company that is only concerned with profit. If I want corporate responsibility, then I need to invest with a company whose philosophy aligns with that.
> Here in the real world, it isn't "every citizen" who's receiving "free
> ice cream" it's the corporate "elite" who squandered enormous gains
> in productive ability on over-leveraged speculative "investments" --
> put simply, they pissed it all away on high stakes gambling -- then got
> bailed out by the larger collective, the nation.
Which is ridiculous and is, again, central economic planning. If the market were permitted to work, these asshats would be out of business right now, and their worthwhile assets would have been purchased by those who still have credit and capital in this economic crisis (ie, the competent).
> If any collectivist model has failed, it's corporate business model and
> the perversion of democratic government financed by corporate lobbying.
This is precisely why central economic planning doesn't work (for countless examples, see: all of history). Corporate lobbying exists because politicians are greedy and are concerned about their careers, not the "common good". If they weren't, lobbying would be ineffective or overly costly and corporations would never spend millions doing it.
I think you're saying "the free market doesn't work because of x, y, and z", but "x, y, and z" have nothing to do with the free market. They have to do with corporate asshats being protected from free market competition (that's why they lobby for *regulations*) from other entrants who would otherwise be able to easily enter the market and drive down profit margins with competition.
(You'll probably counter with the "repeal" of lending standards, allowing 30-1 ratios, but I will again say that is central economic planning and anti-free-market; anything but a 1-1 ratio is a market being manipulated by government and its agents. Established players in the market do NOT want a free market, because they're already established and the only thing a free market means is more competition and less profit share.)
Have you been involved in the process of applying for government grants? It doesn't sound like it. I have (neuroscience) and it's a fscking mess. Government has zero motivation to "consult" scientists (that's not what happens anyway; the process is a review of 100 grant applications for the 1 that gets funded), especially when their grant application doesn't align with their boss's or their favorite company's agenda.
Talk to me about "bias" when you have something other than armchair experience.
Talk to me about "bias" after you've looked up the definition of "profit" and stop relying on the 4-letter-word version used by the mainstream media.
Talk about bias...
It's a non-sequitur because (again) just because something is a problem with A doesn't mean it will be solved by B.
When companies in private industry pulls the shenanigans that you're talking about, they will eventually LOSE (that is, if we ever let companies be unprofitable again), because someone more competent will take their market share.
You want to exchange that for a government monopoly run by incompetents, and you think that somehow solves problems that are "unsolvable" in private industry.
> Private industry has a proven track record of sacrificing the future
> while they loot the present.
Where have you been? Politicians only do things that align with their re-election schedule. That's why no one gives a fsck about deficit spending and the rising national debt. It's not their problem, and handing out free ice cream to every citizen at the expense of our grandchildren is better for their re-election campaign than being fiscally responsible.
> Profit should NOT be required to be the top priority for a company.
And what should be?
> Legally, there is no such thing as enough profit. That must change.
What is "enough profit" and who gets to decide it? You're talking about central economic planning.
> Whatever happened to the common good?
There is no such thing; it's a myth. That's why communism doesn't work. Capitalism is the idea that instead of living in a fantasy world where everyone cares about the common good, we're going to be honest and admit that people are hardwired for certain instincts, one of which (survival) manifests itself in current society as 'greed'. Instead of having a system like communism that is DESTROYED by greed, we have a system like capitalism that thrives on it.
Are there problems? Of course. But it's a hell of a lot better than the alternatives, and that's what I see us forgetting in recent times...
I go back to my original point: how do government bureaucrats know long-term benefits better than scientists? The logical error in your point is that you say there are problems with private industry, therefore public is better. Non sequitur.
Yes, Obama, the answer is more market disruption. We are all too stupid to identify research opportunities that will likely provide benefit outweighing than the costs. I'm tired of relying on scientists to determine what should be researched. I completely believe that government bureaucrats with little or no formal training in science are best suited to make these decisions for our country.
Why would someone wait to pay for research if the benefits outweigh the costs?
Sorry, have you not been paying attention to what happens when your credit worthiness rating is downgraded?
The point of the comment is that a crime scene is not a public area and the police can take photos that the general public cannot. Saying that if the area is in the open and you can see it from 200 yards away then it's a public place... that's not really relevant. We're talking about the photos that the police are taking, which are substantially different than the photos the general public can take.
You're being disingenuous. The police would certainly not allow the general public to photograph the crime scene.
Oh really? So I would have been allowed to photograph the scene?
You are completely right, but that does not justify the police department leaking those photos. For as much as we whine about privacy and justice here, we should be urging this family to sue the fucking pants off of the department. What they did was wrong and inhumane. That doesn't change just because we're pissed off that they have more money than us. My tax dollars do not go to taking photos of dead daughters and sending them to the grieving parents. Fucking ridiculous.
> These shock campaigns do *zero* to prevent young people from repeating
> the mistakes. Most youth believe they are invincible, and act accordingly.
> Showing them stuff like this just makes them say "oh, gross" as they
> repeat the mistakes, believing that it will never happen to them.
The other way to look at it is that these consequences that you're fearmongering are statistically unlikely and children are therefore reacting to them rationally. The "young people think they're invincible" is a silly oversimplification, because there are hundreds of things you CAN explain to them that have a higher risk of injury that children will then avoid.
Estimate and compare these two ratios:
instances of unsafe sex / likelihood of contracting an STD
instances of driving over 100mph / likelihood of crashing
If you have estimated two values that are similar, then you've found my point.
Your idea is awesome. By the way, how can the government provide free Internet? Seems like the companies should take the same approach so that their income is 100% profit.
> Sometimes yes and sometimes no. In this case, yes. Municipal internet is
> a great idea just like municipal water, fire, police, trash collection,
> etc. I like my utilities to be provisioned at cost. Private enterprise
> won't do that.
You either pay for a company's profit or a public entity's administrative overhead, ineptness, and corruption.
So implement a real free market with small government and your complaint goes away.
You have it all wrong. Businesses want to make money. They don't give a shit about free markets. They only care about making money. If one business believes their best chance to make money is a free market (usually smaller companies who want low barrier to entry), then they will cry for free markets. If the business believes their best chance to make money is to lobby a central authority and be blessed with profits from those on high (usually existing big players in the market), then they will lobby for market regulation. Existing players DON'T WANT competition because it ALWAYS reduces their profit margins.
It is not a hypocrisy. It's different businesses having different paths to profit.
Free markets are what's good for CONSUMERS because competition reduces profit margins and therefore prices, which in the end is bad for an individual company in the short term but better for everyone in the long term.
(This is also why the cries of the Fed for how awesome they are by maintaining a low rate of inflation of 3-4% are just ridiculous. In a competitive economy, there should be slow, gradual, and constant DEFLATION, so an inflation rate of 3-4% is really a failure of 7-10%, because the starndard is not 0% price change but maybe -4% price change).
Great comment; you articulated reality well. You can't centralize all power and then wonder why corporations are targeting their efforts on that central location. If you distribute power across many, many nodes, then it makes it cost ineffective to target any one node.
Does this sound familiar to anyone here on /.??? Sometimes I am shocked at how people here will list a hundred reasons supporting decentralization when it comes to tech, but don't think it applies to anything else.
> No, my fried, the problem is not allowing the government to provide services.
> The problem is allowing the government to NOT oversee and regulate monolithic
> corporate entities.
Sir, you're not making any sense. Before this, you just said this:
> by failure to exercise due diligence in electing officials, and the failure
> to practice due diligence in overseeing the actions of their elected officials.
> Largely this is an issue of scale -- on average, a US Representative is
> responsible for something like 560,000 constituents. There is no way to have
> personal accountability.
The above basically says: corporations have too much power because government is too big for the people to control. You have pointed out the very important question of "who watches the watchmen".
So how can you possibly conclude that big government is NOT the problem?
And then you say this:
> Even if we had a small government that didn't get involved so much, we'd
> still have the problem of the government being bought by corporations... it
> would be even worse than now, since in some cases the government can and does
> provide cheaper and better service than private entities would.
What? If the government is smaller, meaning they have less MONEY and less POWER, then why would corporations want even more to control government? The reason lobbying works is because it costs $1 million of lobbying to get $10 million of benefit. If the government does not have the authority to grant the company $10 million in benefit, then the company is less likely to decide that spending $1 million is worth it.
Take your argument the other way. If government controlled everything and has infinite wealth, you're saying corruption wouldn't increase? How about if government controlled nothing in private industry and didn't collect any tax revenue? I'm not suggesting that is the answer, but I think your conclusions don't even match the evidence you list!
Research? How about starting with reading the fucking bills before voting on them?
Well, hey, if anyone can do it, it's the government.
> However adoption of the standard is optional, and healthcare IT is
> very very slow to update technologies.
You say that so matter-of-fact, as if there's no reason. The reason is that it is incredibly costly to convert legacy systems. You can't change that with legislation.
I know we're all supposed to cheer this legislation because it has the words "open source" in it, but the real question is: if this is the right decision from a cost-benefit perspective, then why aren't companies already making it?
What?
If everyone builds applications that store their shit on Amazon, then Amazon becomes "too big to fail".
That's the point.