Fact: if you set up an institution that concentrates power (and which has large buckets of money lying around with poor oversight) you attract degenerate psychotypes: megalomaniacs, bullshit artists and sociopaths. How have you lived this long without working that out?
Research shows that these people are more likely to seek positions of power, but still the majority of politicians are normal people. So this is really just a hypotheses about why the system doesn't work.
I think that the system probably wouldn't work even if all the people in office were acting in good faith. Red Green once said that his preferred method of navigation is democracy. He figured that everybody on the boat should have an engine, and whichever way the most people pointed their engine is the way it would end up going. Obviously, that's a horrible idea and it would never work. I think running the government this way would be much the same.
The tools are already in place. But the citizenry is still in the process of accepting the new order of things. Governmental power is derived heavily from consent. If they were to spring the trap all at once, people would rebel. But as long as they make the changes slowly enough, and make sure that enough people live in the right balance of satisfaction and despeartion, everything should come off without a hitch. That's the idea anyway.
I'm not sure you fully realize what you are proposing. Citizens United is a supreme court ruling upholding the first amendment for corporations based on the idea that corporations are simply organized groups of people. Overturning it means passing a constitutional amendment to overturn part of the first amendment (such as the right to freely associate) or adding exceptions (such as saying that the amendment does not apply to limited liability corporations) in order to allow the federal government to regulate corporate political speech.
The reason you want to do this is because you believe the government is corrupt and you believe these changes will lead to reform. All I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense to trust a government which you believe is corrupt with regulating political speech, corporate or otherwise.
It's important to recognize, also, that a corporation is simply an organization made up of people. That's what people mean when they say "corporations are people". Overturning Citizens United would likely mean that any organization could be subject to federal regulation.
And, any effective system of regulation would need to monitor all speech, and all affiliations to the various regulated orginizations to determine whether rules are being followed. Otherwise corporations could easily get around the regulations by clandestinely paying journalists to write opinion pieces or do documentaries. That is startling proposition, to say the least.
Question: We've given way too much power to the government and we are about to be trapped in a dystopian police state. What can we do to stop it before tos too late?
Answer: Give the government control over campaign finance as well.
No my friend, the system hopelessly flawed. If your solution is that the vast majority of the population needs to change the way they think, that's really no solution at all.
Even Ron Paul would go to war with Iran over this. No pollitical leader in th US would consider backing down. And most of the people here would not consider it either.
What people fail to realize here is that this is fairly normal. This is the way marketing people think about the customers of their clients. It's really a job requirement.
Apple Care is better though, in that they don't make it hard to use the plan. They have stores all over the world where you can bring your computer for support, and if you are supported, they an tell you that. This is based on my experience with friends who have it, I've never paid for it. But it seems like a good idea for someone who isn't tech savvy and doesn't want to bother their friends for help.
Since it sounds like the tool would be web based, there would be no need to maintain the code for years, if it were properly written. But the vast majority (80%?+) of developers write shit code, and coders who've picked it up are much worse.
But what's the longest trip the "average" driver expects to make in their car? Much more than 150 miles. Much more than 300 miles even. Electric cars won't be adequate for the average user until they can be recharged in a reasonable amount of time during a road-trip.
In my experience it is more like justifying their purchase to themselves.
The iPhone is equivalently priced to other phones, and there is no important feature that it's missing. I makes no sense at all that they'd need to justify their purchase in such a way.
I don't think any other purchasing decision makes people so defensive.
And yet here you are basically claiming that many iPhone users are suffering from a form Stockholm syndrome. I think maybe you're the defensive one.
States in the union used to be much more autonomous, and still are if you take the constitution at face value. It make sense they are called states given the historical and legal context, but in the real world, it is quite strange.
If this is the way you think about your wife, and talk about her, you should probably consider what effect that behavior may be having on your relationship.
If someone does succumb easily to peer pressure, then that's a real issue that should be addressed. But buying an iPhone really doesn't qualify all on it's own, because it is actually a perfectly good phone, and iPhone users tend to make more of an effort to help their friends see all the good things an iPhone can do. I would know, I've encouraged many of my friends to buy them.
It looks to me like rather than actually trying to understand why people would want an iPhone, you are simply saying that since you don't want one, the only reason that anyone else could want one is that they are influenced by peer pressure, while you are not. And regardless of how you think you meant it, being susceptible to peer pressure is not a good thing, so you are basically saying that you are better than iPhone users because they give in to peer pressure and you don't.
Not only are you over-simplyfing, but you are making basically no effort to understand the alternative point of view. That's even more troubling, because the alternative point of view happens to belong to your wife.
But maybe it's peer pressure. I've always been rather resistant to it, while my wife is at the other end of the spectrum.
Wow, so not only are you a condescending asshole, but you're married and you think you're a whole lot better and smarter than your wife. You were quite the catch. I'm sure she's not experiencing any buyers remorse, for her iPhone, I mean.
Hopefully future environmentalists will be able to learn something from this. You can't just set a target for number to go down and impose fines if it doesn't happen. You have to take the bigger picture into account, and attack the problem at it's source. If you are going to impose fines, they'd better be spent in the country they were imposed.
Better yet, just secure an agreement to build new power, transportation, and flood control infrastructure across the world. Is it too much to ask that an agreement actually have something directly to do with the problem.
It would look just like any other building project, since you always have to dig a hole in the ground for your foundation. Sure, they'd be removing more dirt, but it's not hard to conceal that.
Also, this tunnel as used for moving cocaine, which also should not be illegal.
There are several types of drill rigs that do not require a working fluid. Probably the best one for this application is a cable tool rig which drops a bit suspend by a cable to break up the rock, and then a bailer to remove the broken rock. This is a very slow process, but depths of 3.7 km have been achieved with it and it doesn't require a drilling fluid so I think it could get the job done.
Slashdot Mirror
Someday, people will wonder why we ever felt compelled to hide so much of our lives from each other.
Research shows that these people are more likely to seek positions of power, but still the majority of politicians are normal people. So this is really just a hypotheses about why the system doesn't work.
I think that the system probably wouldn't work even if all the people in office were acting in good faith. Red Green once said that his preferred method of navigation is democracy. He figured that everybody on the boat should have an engine, and whichever way the most people pointed their engine is the way it would end up going. Obviously, that's a horrible idea and it would never work. I think running the government this way would be much the same.
This is good news, since many of us live in areas which would be covered with glaciers.
The tools are already in place. But the citizenry is still in the process of accepting the new order of things. Governmental power is derived heavily from consent. If they were to spring the trap all at once, people would rebel. But as long as they make the changes slowly enough, and make sure that enough people live in the right balance of satisfaction and despeartion, everything should come off without a hitch. That's the idea anyway.
I'm not sure you fully realize what you are proposing. Citizens United is a supreme court ruling upholding the first amendment for corporations based on the idea that corporations are simply organized groups of people. Overturning it means passing a constitutional amendment to overturn part of the first amendment (such as the right to freely associate) or adding exceptions (such as saying that the amendment does not apply to limited liability corporations) in order to allow the federal government to regulate corporate political speech.
The reason you want to do this is because you believe the government is corrupt and you believe these changes will lead to reform. All I'm saying is that it doesn't make sense to trust a government which you believe is corrupt with regulating political speech, corporate or otherwise.
It's important to recognize, also, that a corporation is simply an organization made up of people. That's what people mean when they say "corporations are people". Overturning Citizens United would likely mean that any organization could be subject to federal regulation.
And, any effective system of regulation would need to monitor all speech, and all affiliations to the various regulated orginizations to determine whether rules are being followed. Otherwise corporations could easily get around the regulations by clandestinely paying journalists to write opinion pieces or do documentaries. That is startling proposition, to say the least.
If the government is corrupt, why would that corruption not extend to campaign finance reform?
All this time people thought we were setteng a double standard. In reality we were looking ahead.
Question: We've given way too much power to the government and we are about to be trapped in a dystopian police state. What can we do to stop it before tos too late?
Answer: Give the government control over campaign finance as well.
Puzzler: Why do I have a bad feeling about this?
No my friend, the system hopelessly flawed. If your solution is that the vast majority of the population needs to change the way they think, that's really no solution at all.
Even Ron Paul would go to war with Iran over this. No pollitical leader in th US would consider backing down. And most of the people here would not consider it either.
What people fail to realize here is that this is fairly normal. This is the way marketing people think about the customers of their clients. It's really a job requirement.
Apple Care is better though, in that they don't make it hard to use the plan. They have stores all over the world where you can bring your computer for support, and if you are supported, they an tell you that. This is based on my experience with friends who have it, I've never paid for it. But it seems like a good idea for someone who isn't tech savvy and doesn't want to bother their friends for help.
This is a silly thing to say. All important data should be backed up. mySQL is as good as anything.
Since it sounds like the tool would be web based, there would be no need to maintain the code for years, if it were properly written. But the vast majority (80%?+) of developers write shit code, and coders who've picked it up are much worse.
But what's the longest trip the "average" driver expects to make in their car? Much more than 150 miles. Much more than 300 miles even. Electric cars won't be adequate for the average user until they can be recharged in a reasonable amount of time during a road-trip.
Why say "not to take sides" immediatly before taking sides?
The iPhone is equivalently priced to other phones, and there is no important feature that it's missing. I makes no sense at all that they'd need to justify their purchase in such a way.
And yet here you are basically claiming that many iPhone users are suffering from a form Stockholm syndrome. I think maybe you're the defensive one.
States in the union used to be much more autonomous, and still are if you take the constitution at face value. It make sense they are called states given the historical and legal context, but in the real world, it is quite strange.
If this is the way you think about your wife, and talk about her, you should probably consider what effect that behavior may be having on your relationship.
If someone does succumb easily to peer pressure, then that's a real issue that should be addressed. But buying an iPhone really doesn't qualify all on it's own, because it is actually a perfectly good phone, and iPhone users tend to make more of an effort to help their friends see all the good things an iPhone can do. I would know, I've encouraged many of my friends to buy them.
It looks to me like rather than actually trying to understand why people would want an iPhone, you are simply saying that since you don't want one, the only reason that anyone else could want one is that they are influenced by peer pressure, while you are not. And regardless of how you think you meant it, being susceptible to peer pressure is not a good thing, so you are basically saying that you are better than iPhone users because they give in to peer pressure and you don't.
Not only are you over-simplyfing, but you are making basically no effort to understand the alternative point of view. That's even more troubling, because the alternative point of view happens to belong to your wife.
Wow, so not only are you a condescending asshole, but you're married and you think you're a whole lot better and smarter than your wife. You were quite the catch. I'm sure she's not experiencing any buyers remorse, for her iPhone, I mean.
There's an app for that.
Just so you know, Allen originally funded space ship one, so it's more like Branson copied him.
Hopefully future environmentalists will be able to learn something from this. You can't just set a target for number to go down and impose fines if it doesn't happen. You have to take the bigger picture into account, and attack the problem at it's source. If you are going to impose fines, they'd better be spent in the country they were imposed.
Better yet, just secure an agreement to build new power, transportation, and flood control infrastructure across the world. Is it too much to ask that an agreement actually have something directly to do with the problem.
It would look just like any other building project, since you always have to dig a hole in the ground for your foundation. Sure, they'd be removing more dirt, but it's not hard to conceal that.
Also, this tunnel as used for moving cocaine, which also should not be illegal.
There are several types of drill rigs that do not require a working fluid. Probably the best one for this application is a cable tool rig which drops a bit suspend by a cable to break up the rock, and then a bailer to remove the broken rock. This is a very slow process, but depths of 3.7 km have been achieved with it and it doesn't require a drilling fluid so I think it could get the job done.