If there are too many laws for legislators to keep renewing, there are too many laws for people to follow.
While I agree there are many stupid/unnecessary/bad laws, I'm not sure this is the solution. Think of all the niche areas of law. I have no need to be aware of or follow the regulations concerning the production and disposal of nuclear waste, but I really really want these regulations to exist. Multiply this scenario by 100s, and suddenly you have too many necessary laws for regulators to effectively renew on a regular basis. So then you get huge bills renewing huge swaths of law in a practically automated manner. Which is practically the same as the current situation.
To be fair, many people DID resist the Iraq war here in the US. Well, protested it, held rallies, etc. It's just that their...resistance was futile (sorry, I'm weak). Resistance might be more effective at a more local level, giving people more of an incentive.
Or maybe not. Meh, what do I care, I don't live in Mass. nor do I gamble online:-)
One of the issues is that I can lobby with the clear statement "My corporation made $X last year off of our IP. Therefore, IP (of your preferred flavor) extension by 10 years will clearly result in $10X profit for our company. This increases your tax base blah blah blah." You lobby with the much less clear "Shorter copyright will produce culture. Culture is good." I'm not saying the first statement is logically robust, but it has the advantage of being more concrete. Policy makers at all levels like to be able to point to clear benchmarks that demonstrate the wisdom of their decisions. Fuzzier benefits, while possibly greater, are harder to point to as a success for them.
What if you cut down your neighbor's trees, and hired mercenaries to make sure he doesn't squawk too loudly about it? That is also "unrestricted capitalism". What if instead of hiring workers at a "fair wage", you own their houses and threaten to evict them if they don't come work for you at a subsistence level? That is also "unrestricted capitalism". Do you find these historically accurate examples to acceptable situations? Portraying real world capitalism as identical to it's theoretic ideal is no more useful than portraying socialism as identical to it's theoretic ideal. In reality, both systems have flaws that require patching outside their default states. Capitalism just has either A) flaws that are more easily patched or B) flaws that take longer to crash the system. Only time will really tell which case is true.
Turns out, Marx wasn't much of an economist. You look at any industry, and with few exceptions they all survive on the tiniest of profit margins.
And you apparently aren't much of a historian. Look at the state of capitalism at the time in which Marx existed, and you'll find that most industry did not have tiny margins, payroll was not their largest concern, and unionizing was the only way workers could do things like force companies not to work them to an early death, poorer than when they started. There is a reason the early, successful capitalists were known as Robber Barons.
I'm not saying Marx had the answers, but the problems he saw were very real flaws in the capitalist system.
I have more than once been talking to a person that said "LOL". Out loud, using a mouth/tongue/larynx combination. I would be less angry if they just kicked me.
AS Jedi Alec implies, most wars in history have been motivated by the desire of those in power to increase their power or secure their power (feel free to substitute wealth for power, just like in the real world). Religion is a great tool for manipulating others, and as such has been used to convince the masses to participate or excuse the war effort. I assure you, if religion were abolished tomorrow, a different manipulation tool of choice would rise up to take its place.
"Cheese eating surrender monkeys" is a quote from The Simpsons' character Groundskeeper Willie, who is Scottish. I have my doubts that The Simpsons accurately portray Scotsmen in Willie's character, but the quote is still pretty funny. If it makes you feel better, I also enjoy jokes that poke fun of Americans, US Southerners (I are one) and dead babies (I'm not one). I'm equal opportunity.
And as a just-slightly older white male, I realize that 40 year old black wino was quite possibly born to parents that were actively denied education, political voice, employment opportunities, etc. by society b/c of their race. If you think this active repression of his parents had no effect on his life, you're delusional.
Of course, I don't feel guilty - I didn't do it, my parents (both grew up on small family farms) didn't do it, etc. There is, however, a large middle ground between feeling personal guilt over every poor person out there and just shrugging off the undeniable effects societal discrimination against people that are still alive has had on them and their children. Just b/c someone didn't have the incredible talent and luck necessary to overcome a (possibly) horrifically disadvantaged birth doesn't mean they're a lazy worthless sack. Sure, some are; some are just average people that started out way below average and stayed there.
As an American that is aware that French military history is pretty fucking impressive (as well as their role in our Revolutionary War), I have to say I still find it hilarious to refer to them as "cheese eating surrender monkeys". I think it's the accent. And mimes, I blame them for mimes.
You supported a religious viewpoint. Militant atheists (which there are several roaming around/.) find anything other than mockery and dismissal of religion to be unacceptable. Just FYI, I agree that your post was well written, obviously on topic and perfectly respectful of the opposing viewpoint.
I think #14 is incorrect, tho. How is it rude for me to post whatever the hell picture I want on MY facebook profile? If YOU find it inappropriate, and are concerned it might pop up at the wrong moment on your phone, don't sync to it. It's absurd to expect ME to conform to YOUR standards in an aspect of my life that you can choose to have nothing to do with if it offends you. Hell, how do I even know what you might find inappropriate?
If big interests are "buying off" politicians (that is not the issue that even came before the Supreme Court, read the article!) then perhaps voters are electing the wrong one.
What, you mean humans? It's all well and fine to say that politicians should not be influenced by campaign contributions, but they are. If you allow entities (people, corporations, foreign governments) to give a human being large amounts of money, it will influence their behavior. Full stop. The choices are to figure out a political system that accounts for this, design a different breed of human being, or allow money to become a large determining factor in our politicians' behavior.
But of course, voters don't want to take any responsibility themselves.
Again, you can complain all you want that the system isn't broken, the participants are. And you might have a point (although there is certainly a discussion to be had there). It's just irrelevant, assuming the goal is to design a system of government that doesn't emphasize the interests of those entities with the most wealth beyond any other interests. B/c you will not change the participants to fit the idealized rules.
But only in this one, narrowly defined area, that happens to be convenient for corporations. If money REALLY equaled speech, there is no legal difference between paying a woman for sex and talking her into it, no difference between making a persuasive argument to a jury and paying them to find in your favor, etc. Seems obvious to me that money does not legally equal speech. You argue that it is money's ability to provide a broader platform for my speech that makes this an equivalence. Yet freedom of speech has never anywhere else been interpreted to be a guarantee of a platform for your speech. So why does money's obvious ability to guarantee that platform suddenly make it an integral part of political speech?
Why is that a screwy situation? Say the situation were reversed, and YOU owned the only extant copy of some public domain work. Should you have a legal obligation to let CBS borrow your VHS tape and make a copy? Just b/c others have a right to copy a work doesn't impose an obligation on you to help facilitate that act, it merely means you can't legally prevent them.
It's a miracle that I can manage to hold down a software development job too, in which my undeniable superiority rakes in 70% as much as the man in the other cube. Thank God for that old school women's lib thing that is obviously no longer necessary.
Old school women's lib IS no longer necessary. There are no laws or societal standards in place that prevent women from achieving as much as their male counterparts. Suffrage, equal pay, hiring discrimination, etc. are all legally equal. It is socially unacceptable for an organization (with a few exceptions in BOTH directions) to even hint at discriminatory practices. Frankly, there is nothing a feminist movement can accomplish that has not already been accomplished.
Which is not to say there is not discrimination - there almost certainly is. It is simply all on an individual level, mostly amongst a generation that was born into a culture of inequality. You can't change these people's assumptions (which are sometimes unconscious). You can only wait for them to die. At which point there will still be men that think women are inferior. Just as there are women that think men are inferior. There will always be assholes out there. But sexism as a societal institution, yeah, that's pretty much gone.
Amen, brother! It seems like the atheists bring up religion WAAAAY more than the religious these days. I find people that try to convince me their stand on $DEITY is correct and everyone elses' is stupid to be annoying REGARDLESS of their actual stance on $DEITY.
A religious person must accept contradictions or avoid thinking about things that challenge his beliefs.
While many religious people tend to take this view as well, it is not necessarily true. The core of most religions is some sort of supernatural deity/force/what have you. Belief in such an entity requires, well, belief in something that is unlikely, but thus far, does not require ignoring any evidence to the contrary. Such evidence has never been presented. It is possible to hold religious beliefs that in no way contradict a single known fact.
I think the aspect of the natives' need for the hero that you missed is that none of the natives really believed in the power or brutality the humans were capable of unleashing. They didn't need the hero to lead them in war b/c they didn't understand it (although, as the other poster pointed out, his intimate knowledge of the humans' strengths and tactics were uniquely useful). They needed the hero b/c he was the only one that recognized the approaching danger and the massive mobilization effort necessary to respond effectively.
Except he didn't sue for libel in the applicable court system, presumably b/c he knew he would lose. He tried to get WIPO to grant him ownership of the site based on trademark infringement. B/c the site name included his name, which he has apparently not even trademarked. Strikes me as a desperate attempt to censor something he didn't like, but knew was perfectly legal.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that's an idea I like!
If there are too many laws for legislators to keep renewing, there are too many laws for people to follow.
While I agree there are many stupid/unnecessary/bad laws, I'm not sure this is the solution. Think of all the niche areas of law. I have no need to be aware of or follow the regulations concerning the production and disposal of nuclear waste, but I really really want these regulations to exist. Multiply this scenario by 100s, and suddenly you have too many necessary laws for regulators to effectively renew on a regular basis. So then you get huge bills renewing huge swaths of law in a practically automated manner. Which is practically the same as the current situation.
To be fair, many people DID resist the Iraq war here in the US. Well, protested it, held rallies, etc. It's just that their...resistance was futile (sorry, I'm weak). Resistance might be more effective at a more local level, giving people more of an incentive.
:-)
Or maybe not. Meh, what do I care, I don't live in Mass. nor do I gamble online
One of the issues is that I can lobby with the clear statement "My corporation made $X last year off of our IP. Therefore, IP (of your preferred flavor) extension by 10 years will clearly result in $10X profit for our company. This increases your tax base blah blah blah." You lobby with the much less clear "Shorter copyright will produce culture. Culture is good." I'm not saying the first statement is logically robust, but it has the advantage of being more concrete. Policy makers at all levels like to be able to point to clear benchmarks that demonstrate the wisdom of their decisions. Fuzzier benefits, while possibly greater, are harder to point to as a success for them.
What if you cut down your neighbor's trees, and hired mercenaries to make sure he doesn't squawk too loudly about it? That is also "unrestricted capitalism". What if instead of hiring workers at a "fair wage", you own their houses and threaten to evict them if they don't come work for you at a subsistence level? That is also "unrestricted capitalism". Do you find these historically accurate examples to acceptable situations? Portraying real world capitalism as identical to it's theoretic ideal is no more useful than portraying socialism as identical to it's theoretic ideal. In reality, both systems have flaws that require patching outside their default states. Capitalism just has either A) flaws that are more easily patched or B) flaws that take longer to crash the system. Only time will really tell which case is true.
Turns out, Marx wasn't much of an economist. You look at any industry, and with few exceptions they all survive on the tiniest of profit margins.
And you apparently aren't much of a historian. Look at the state of capitalism at the time in which Marx existed, and you'll find that most industry did not have tiny margins, payroll was not their largest concern, and unionizing was the only way workers could do things like force companies not to work them to an early death, poorer than when they started. There is a reason the early, successful capitalists were known as Robber Barons.
I'm not saying Marx had the answers, but the problems he saw were very real flaws in the capitalist system.
I have more than once been talking to a person that said "LOL". Out loud, using a mouth/tongue/larynx combination. I would be less angry if they just kicked me.
AS Jedi Alec implies, most wars in history have been motivated by the desire of those in power to increase their power or secure their power (feel free to substitute wealth for power, just like in the real world). Religion is a great tool for manipulating others, and as such has been used to convince the masses to participate or excuse the war effort. I assure you, if religion were abolished tomorrow, a different manipulation tool of choice would rise up to take its place.
"Cheese eating surrender monkeys" is a quote from The Simpsons' character Groundskeeper Willie, who is Scottish. I have my doubts that The Simpsons accurately portray Scotsmen in Willie's character, but the quote is still pretty funny. If it makes you feel better, I also enjoy jokes that poke fun of Americans, US Southerners (I are one) and dead babies (I'm not one). I'm equal opportunity.
And as a just-slightly older white male, I realize that 40 year old black wino was quite possibly born to parents that were actively denied education, political voice, employment opportunities, etc. by society b/c of their race. If you think this active repression of his parents had no effect on his life, you're delusional.
Of course, I don't feel guilty - I didn't do it, my parents (both grew up on small family farms) didn't do it, etc. There is, however, a large middle ground between feeling personal guilt over every poor person out there and just shrugging off the undeniable effects societal discrimination against people that are still alive has had on them and their children. Just b/c someone didn't have the incredible talent and luck necessary to overcome a (possibly) horrifically disadvantaged birth doesn't mean they're a lazy worthless sack. Sure, some are; some are just average people that started out way below average and stayed there.
As an American that is aware that French military history is pretty fucking impressive (as well as their role in our Revolutionary War), I have to say I still find it hilarious to refer to them as "cheese eating surrender monkeys". I think it's the accent. And mimes, I blame them for mimes.
You supported a religious viewpoint. Militant atheists (which there are several roaming around /.) find anything other than mockery and dismissal of religion to be unacceptable. Just FYI, I agree that your post was well written, obviously on topic and perfectly respectful of the opposing viewpoint.
I think #14 is incorrect, tho. How is it rude for me to post whatever the hell picture I want on MY facebook profile? If YOU find it inappropriate, and are concerned it might pop up at the wrong moment on your phone, don't sync to it. It's absurd to expect ME to conform to YOUR standards in an aspect of my life that you can choose to have nothing to do with if it offends you. Hell, how do I even know what you might find inappropriate?
"I'd like to be in Congress in order to shrink the government" isn't a contradiction in terms
No, but it's almost always a lie...
If big interests are "buying off" politicians (that is not the issue that even came before the Supreme Court, read the article!) then perhaps voters are electing the wrong one.
What, you mean humans? It's all well and fine to say that politicians should not be influenced by campaign contributions, but they are. If you allow entities (people, corporations, foreign governments) to give a human being large amounts of money, it will influence their behavior. Full stop. The choices are to figure out a political system that accounts for this, design a different breed of human being, or allow money to become a large determining factor in our politicians' behavior.
But of course, voters don't want to take any responsibility themselves.
Again, you can complain all you want that the system isn't broken, the participants are. And you might have a point (although there is certainly a discussion to be had there). It's just irrelevant, assuming the goal is to design a system of government that doesn't emphasize the interests of those entities with the most wealth beyond any other interests. B/c you will not change the participants to fit the idealized rules.
So yes, speech definitely equals money.
But only in this one, narrowly defined area, that happens to be convenient for corporations. If money REALLY equaled speech, there is no legal difference between paying a woman for sex and talking her into it, no difference between making a persuasive argument to a jury and paying them to find in your favor, etc. Seems obvious to me that money does not legally equal speech. You argue that it is money's ability to provide a broader platform for my speech that makes this an equivalence. Yet freedom of speech has never anywhere else been interpreted to be a guarantee of a platform for your speech. So why does money's obvious ability to guarantee that platform suddenly make it an integral part of political speech?
Why is that a screwy situation? Say the situation were reversed, and YOU owned the only extant copy of some public domain work. Should you have a legal obligation to let CBS borrow your VHS tape and make a copy? Just b/c others have a right to copy a work doesn't impose an obligation on you to help facilitate that act, it merely means you can't legally prevent them.
How is "Y chromosome evolves more rapidly than X" different than "Men evolve more rapidly than women"?
It's a miracle that I can manage to hold down a software development job too, in which my undeniable superiority rakes in 70% as much as the man in the other cube. Thank God for that old school women's lib thing that is obviously no longer necessary.
Old school women's lib IS no longer necessary. There are no laws or societal standards in place that prevent women from achieving as much as their male counterparts. Suffrage, equal pay, hiring discrimination, etc. are all legally equal. It is socially unacceptable for an organization (with a few exceptions in BOTH directions) to even hint at discriminatory practices. Frankly, there is nothing a feminist movement can accomplish that has not already been accomplished.
Which is not to say there is not discrimination - there almost certainly is. It is simply all on an individual level, mostly amongst a generation that was born into a culture of inequality. You can't change these people's assumptions (which are sometimes unconscious). You can only wait for them to die. At which point there will still be men that think women are inferior. Just as there are women that think men are inferior. There will always be assholes out there. But sexism as a societal institution, yeah, that's pretty much gone.
Amen, brother! It seems like the atheists bring up religion WAAAAY more than the religious these days. I find people that try to convince me their stand on $DEITY is correct and everyone elses' is stupid to be annoying REGARDLESS of their actual stance on $DEITY.
A religious person must accept contradictions or avoid thinking about things that challenge his beliefs.
While many religious people tend to take this view as well, it is not necessarily true. The core of most religions is some sort of supernatural deity/force/what have you. Belief in such an entity requires, well, belief in something that is unlikely, but thus far, does not require ignoring any evidence to the contrary. Such evidence has never been presented. It is possible to hold religious beliefs that in no way contradict a single known fact.
I think the aspect of the natives' need for the hero that you missed is that none of the natives really believed in the power or brutality the humans were capable of unleashing. They didn't need the hero to lead them in war b/c they didn't understand it (although, as the other poster pointed out, his intimate knowledge of the humans' strengths and tactics were uniquely useful). They needed the hero b/c he was the only one that recognized the approaching danger and the massive mobilization effort necessary to respond effectively.
See, I interpret that as "it's no secret that higher education leads people to develop liberal philosophies".
Why wouldn't they just prevent me from modding my own comments? That seems like it would be more straightforward to code than the current system.
Except he didn't sue for libel in the applicable court system, presumably b/c he knew he would lose. He tried to get WIPO to grant him ownership of the site based on trademark infringement. B/c the site name included his name, which he has apparently not even trademarked. Strikes me as a desperate attempt to censor something he didn't like, but knew was perfectly legal.