The problem with the people for whom "willpower is not enough" is that they have spent years developing their current lifestyle habits. That is years of repeatedly giving in to their cravings, years of valuing instant gratification. In order to rebuild their willpower, they will have to spend years overcoming their urges, building different habits. Once you have trained yourself to react to instant gratification, restructuring your reward systems to value long term incremental benefits is a large task. Not only is it hard for these people to say no to their cravings for a bad diet, it is hard for them, at the necessary fundamental level, to value the benefit of putting forth that effort. They literally lack the willpower to begin developing the willpower to deny their food cravings.
Very few people have the courage to live by the set of principles which made America a great Country to begin with.
Uh, like self-centered obsession with getting ahead personally regardless of the expense to others? Not that there haven't been some few stellar individuals that stood out, but the overall history of America is voracious greed thinly disguised as "individualism" or "manifest destiny". There are no longer free resources that are easily taken from the natives, or an endless supply of desperate newcomers to step on; we can't even overtly loot Central and South America now, thanks to global international relations. So now, we have turned inward and are eating ourselves. Very few stood on principle when it was every one else being digested, especially since the American middle class got the scraps. Don't pretend that now that it is the middle class that is the entree that somehow the principle of the matter has changed.
they are by and large legally sound (granted: they are lawyers, so they're good at rationalizing most anything).
And that's the problem. You can occasionally see the cracks in their rationale, like here. I'm not certain this is the Supreme Court, but it serves as a good example of a Federal court deciding what it wants to happen, then rationalizing how the desired outcome is legal. These instances serve to cast doubt on the courts even when their legal logic IS sound. Especially in cases where the issue is complex, necessitating a complex decision. We know they are sometimes willing to pretend the most absurd legal theories are legitimate as long as they advance a desired agenda; this opens ALL decisions (except the trivial) open to accusations of "legislating from the bench". Destroying the credibility of the courts as an impartial arbiter is another giant step towards the sort of social unrest that topples empires. People as a whole tend to demand what they see as justice; if people are firmly convinced they will not receive justice within the system, you will see more and more people seeking "justice" outside the system.
Funny, I have the exact opposite reaction. I am suspicious whenever I hear someone claiming that a complex system, such as economies and human societies, can be explained simply. The real world is not composed of spherical, frictionless cows.
Waving away concerns about income inequality and its detrimental impact on the economy as "envying the rich" is exactly as stupid as claiming that my concerns about the large muscular man punching me in the face is simply "envying the strong". I am not upset that he is strong (or rich), I am upset that he uses that strength (or wealth) in a manner that negatively impacts me (or my society). Particularly when he can utilize his power to game the system in ways the majority can not - you know, like this article discusses.
, so my dollars go to the most efficient and cost effective source that meets my requirements for quality, selection, availability and price
If you limit efficiency and cost effectiveness to just yourself, that's fine. Myself, I prefer to know the entire cost of a product, not just the cost to me, to the extent possible. I find it easier to obtain greater knowledge about goods and services at a local level than at a multi-national level. If, for instance, my local farmer is polluting the local river with industrial farm runoff, I will almost certainly find out about it. If BigNameChickenCo is doing the same to a river in Nowhere, Other side of the County, I am much less likely to find out about it. Locally, I can be more confident my savings are not being passed along as external costs to some poor sap somewhere else.
The specifics would obviously vary on a case-by-case basis, but we already do that. Every time someone is convicted of murder rather than manslaughter, the legal system is asserting intent.
No, but we can establish "beyond a reasonable doubt" what it is, sometimes. In those instances, having a more severe penalty for attempting to terrorize an entire class of people (where that class is protected) seems reasonable to me. It's unfortunately true that this is not always the bar the legal system requires be set, but I blame that on implementation by flawed humans more than any underlying moral/philosophical flaw in the legal theory.
The theory behind "hate crime" laws is similar to that behind "terrorism". Killing a black man b/c he pissed you off is a crime; killing a black man for being black in an effort to keep other black men "in their place" is certainly a different crime. How hate crime laws are implemented may fall quite short of the theory, but that is true of many laws. Why shouldn't crime be judged on both action and intent?
Democrats promise handouts. The country has more takers than makers: Game Over. Maybe Republicans should be blamed for failing to recognize that the USA is done, but it's a bitter fate to accept.
It's exactly shit like this that is eating the Republican party alive, from the inside out. "Over half of my fellow Americans are greedy lazy assholes (and not True Americans). I hate the public so much. If only they'd elect me, I'd make them pay!"
Oddly enough, there are those of us that think life is about more than money. Yes, money (and by extension the deficit) is very important. It's just not the only (or even most important) thing. Why should it be the only thing I care about?
Yes, protect people from harm, not claim "you're too big" by some arbitrarily set definition and then punish a company for success. That is a power the government shouldn't have.
Nor does it. Are there any other limits under which government currently exists that you agree with and think we should discuss?
What we need is a government strong enough to protect the people from abuses, internal and external, and no more
You say that like you think you are arguing for limited government there. You are not. In order to "protect the people from abuses", the government must be able to prevent industries from acting in ways that abuse the people, i.e. dumping their waste products into public waterways. This gives government a HUGE amount of power over the corporate entities that comprise any industry. If I can tell you "You must spend $X to properly clean up after yourself", I have just given you incentive to spend $X-1 to corrupt the oversight process. Fast forward a bit, and you get what we have here.
A company also can't legally execute you for challenging it.
Not today. They could yesterday (look up the history of the railroads and mines and Pinkertons). They might be able to again tomorrow. Only government prevents that. The only reason government is currently the greatest threat to individual liberty is b/c our ancestors decided that was preferable to having any person with enough money and dudes with weapons willing to follow orders being a threat to whatever they felt like threatening. If you want to reevaluate that trade-off, fine. Just be aware it IS a trade-off; there is no magical fairy dust that will prevent the powerful from taking advantage of the weak.
I don't want the police deciding what people can or can't get into trouble for.
Of course they don't decide what people can get in trouble for. They just decide who gets in trouble. Which turns out to be almost the same thing, since almost anyone can be found to be guilty of something, depending on how motivated the police are to find you guilty of something. And since the police can't pursue all of the crimes, someone has to prioritize which crimes they pursue. Just like any other business has to prioritize which projects to pursue. And just like any other business, the rank and file don't give much of a shit about the over-arching goals, they just want to put in their 8 hours, avoid too much hassle and go home. It isn't some malicious conspiracy, it's just police being lazy shits (like most people) that carry guns and aren't held accountable for their actions (unlike most people).
What is the point of the treaty, and election observers, if local law is allowed to define how much oversight the observers are allowed? I kind of assume the point of observers is to identify and call out corruption of the election process. If the local political process is corrupt enough that the elections are corrupted, how hard could it be to pass laws hindering the observers ability to identify fraud?
Speaking of XBox, I recently decided to cancel my Live subscription. I went online, logged into my account. Before I could access the cancellation screen, I was required to agree to their new terms of service! I of course did not, and instead called them on the phone to cancel, but I found that particularly egregious.
There is a very large difference between supporting someone's speech and supporting that person's right to speak. I can both think that this guy is an asshat AND think he should have the legal right to be an asshat. What if I were offended by the word fucktard? Should you be arrested and prosecuted b/c you said something someone didn't like?
If all advertisers need is a half-assed excuse like this to publicly ignore DNT, then "do not track" had a very limited lifespan in terms of helping anyone anyway.
Dude, that's the third time (thus far, I've not made it through all the comments yet) you've posted that jobs be all about the money. Sure, being poor sucks, but there comes a point where the marginal utility of increasing income is less than the accompanying decrease in quality of life. As a very simple example, say you are currently working a job you somewhat enjoy, getting paid $250K/year. Would you allow yourself to be raped by donkeys 60 hours/week for $500K/year? More money doesn't always mean better.
The difference is that bugs are specifically instances where programming breaks-down, doesn't work as intended. Grant writing is a part of how research is designed to work. An academic researcher who doesn't like to write grants is more like a programmer that doesn't like to type - it's not the point of the job, but it IS a necessary task to do the job.
thinking there 'must have been some back room deal"
At no point did I suggest there "must have been some back room deal"; I was very careful to say more than once that Ford quite plausibly could have acted for the exact reasons he publicly stated - to put an end to an ugly mess and allow the nation to move on. I think it was a mistake even so, but not an actual betrayal. My initial post was in response to your assertion that Ford "paid the price" for his rather unpopular pardon of Nixon's (allegedly, most likely, whatever weasel words you prefer) criminal actions by being voted out of office. To reiterate: Ford was never voted INTO the office. He was appointed. The first time the American people were asked, they said "Nope, don't want Ford as President". You stated that you felt that was a sufficient penalty for his acting contrary to what the people wanted. For a duly elected official, that is correct. In this unique situation, where we NEVER had any say in giving him his authority, taking his authority away doesn't rise to any level of penalty at all. Even if everything happened as it appeared on the surface, it smacks of the political elite protecting their cronies b/c they can. If there WAS a backroom deal, it rises to the level of, well, I don't know what the appropriate laws would be, but it would certainly qualify as a monumental betrayal of the American people. Removing him from the office he (possibly, maybe, who knows) essentially stole would, in that case, not even rise to the level of a slap on the wrist. I DON"T KNOW THAT THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED. But it isn't at all the preposterous scenario you assert it is. Even given the investigations, who would know other than Ford and Nixon? And they certainly wouldn't tell.
And even if Nixon was removed from office, Ford would still get the presidency
Well, yeah. The deal, if there was one, no proof there was, maybe never happened, would have been for the appointment of Ford to Vice President. Once that happened, his Presidency was all but assured, as you note.
The alternative would have been Nixon being removed from office, which certainly could not be considered a good thing for the country.
And there's the crux of the matter. Some of us feel that criminals that hold high office should be held MORE accountable than the peons, not less. Allowing a criminal to go unprosecuted because of his political position is a terrible precedent to set - look where we are now in terms of political figures and their lack of accountability. NOT holding Nixon accountable for his crimes furthered the destruction of the American peoples' faith in their leaders that his criminal actions began. You can pretend that Ford's appointment and subsequent pardon of Nixon were in no way a suspicious turn of events, but a lot of people disagreed (at the time, as you say it was 40 years ago). And the distrust of the populace today towards our political leadership is in part due to the legacy that appearance of possible collusion left in the minds of the people.
I dunno, seems like the worst job ever to me, but there never seems to be a shortage of people that want it. Insisting that the only reason Ford could possibly have wanted the job is out of a benevolent desire to serve his country strikes me as incredibly naive. I'm not saying it's necessarily an incorrect belief, it's just not the only plausible belief. If you believe the possibility of a back room deal is ludicrous based solely on your assumption of Ford's noble motivations, you either know the man personally or are a fool.
Ford was unique in that he was never voted IN to office, at least not one in the White House. He was appointed Vice President after Agnew resigned. Appointed by Nixon. Then when Nixon resigned a half-step ahead of facing criminal charges, Ford automatically assumed the Presidency. Which authority he then used to pardon Nixon. While Ford may have been sincere in his professed motivations for the pardon, it doesn't take a conspiracy theory nut to find the idea of a deal offering Ford the presidency in exchange for a pardon plausible. If that is what happened, Ford "paying the price" for his part in the conspiracy by being removed from the office he was given in exchange for the pardon, an office which he may never have been able to obtain any other way, is the lightest slap on the wrist for high-level conspiracy since Grossman's $1 fine.
Mine were just the first off the top of my head, with no thought given to whether they were stupid or not. Well, piling everything in the corner is so obviously stupid that it doesn't even take thought to identify. But I was pointing out that there really are lots and lots of other ways to lay out a store - tables and shelves is just the known one that works. As for what Tom's point was, I guess only he could say for sure. He did say it was a copy, but I thought he meant it in the same way as your hammer comment; I would say hammer manufacturers are copying the original design. I mean, it's not like Stanley had a R&D department that independently came up with their hammer. Similarly, someone had to be the first person to lay out a store like this; I find it doubtful that whoever designed the Samsung store independently came to this design without ever seeing a similar store. Same thing for whoever designed the first Apple store, though. The whole "controversy", if it rises to that level, is stupid.
My mom said no cookies, it would spoil my appetite:(
Not all of them. I believe this is the fundamental disagreement we have. You receive many benefits from society that you do not pay for, could not pay for without the aid of everyone else. To bring it back to the article, you benefit from herd immunity and the lack of disease it brings. There is simply no way for you to "pay" for that benefit; it requires a group effort. And unfortunately, things like this simply won't work if we allow people to approach society like an a la carte menu. That is in fact the entire point of the article - allowing you the freedom to abstain puts ME at risk. So yes, your freedom is limited in order to provide health to all the people that are not you out there. It is me, and my neighbors, acting in our own best interest as a group. Yes, if this sort of behavior goes too far, it will be a problem. Too much abuse of the individual by society harms the fabric of society (and of course, the abused individual). Alternately, allowing each individual to contribute exactly as he wishes, and no more, to society will also harm society. Which harms ME and my neighbors, and we don't like that. So we all struggle to find the balance between individualism and being a member of society. Of course I wish I could do just exactly as I please and no more, but I see the advantage in sacrificing some personal liberty towards a shared goal. You clearly don't, and think life would be better if you were allowed to do exactly as you please and no more. You're wrong, and luckily it's a self-defeating philosophy. Ironically, you'd have to get enough other individualists to work together to impose YOUR philosophy on me and those others that see a benefit to having a society. We have a natural advantage there, since we already believe in and appreciate the idea of working together towards a goal.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with the people for whom "willpower is not enough" is that they have spent years developing their current lifestyle habits. That is years of repeatedly giving in to their cravings, years of valuing instant gratification. In order to rebuild their willpower, they will have to spend years overcoming their urges, building different habits. Once you have trained yourself to react to instant gratification, restructuring your reward systems to value long term incremental benefits is a large task. Not only is it hard for these people to say no to their cravings for a bad diet, it is hard for them, at the necessary fundamental level, to value the benefit of putting forth that effort. They literally lack the willpower to begin developing the willpower to deny their food cravings.
Very few people have the courage to live by the set of principles which made America a great Country to begin with.
Uh, like self-centered obsession with getting ahead personally regardless of the expense to others? Not that there haven't been some few stellar individuals that stood out, but the overall history of America is voracious greed thinly disguised as "individualism" or "manifest destiny". There are no longer free resources that are easily taken from the natives, or an endless supply of desperate newcomers to step on; we can't even overtly loot Central and South America now, thanks to global international relations. So now, we have turned inward and are eating ourselves. Very few stood on principle when it was every one else being digested, especially since the American middle class got the scraps. Don't pretend that now that it is the middle class that is the entree that somehow the principle of the matter has changed.
they are by and large legally sound (granted: they are lawyers, so they're good at rationalizing most anything).
And that's the problem. You can occasionally see the cracks in their rationale, like here. I'm not certain this is the Supreme Court, but it serves as a good example of a Federal court deciding what it wants to happen, then rationalizing how the desired outcome is legal. These instances serve to cast doubt on the courts even when their legal logic IS sound. Especially in cases where the issue is complex, necessitating a complex decision. We know they are sometimes willing to pretend the most absurd legal theories are legitimate as long as they advance a desired agenda; this opens ALL decisions (except the trivial) open to accusations of "legislating from the bench". Destroying the credibility of the courts as an impartial arbiter is another giant step towards the sort of social unrest that topples empires. People as a whole tend to demand what they see as justice; if people are firmly convinced they will not receive justice within the system, you will see more and more people seeking "justice" outside the system.
Funny, I have the exact opposite reaction. I am suspicious whenever I hear someone claiming that a complex system, such as economies and human societies, can be explained simply. The real world is not composed of spherical, frictionless cows.
Waving away concerns about income inequality and its detrimental impact on the economy as "envying the rich" is exactly as stupid as claiming that my concerns about the large muscular man punching me in the face is simply "envying the strong". I am not upset that he is strong (or rich), I am upset that he uses that strength (or wealth) in a manner that negatively impacts me (or my society). Particularly when he can utilize his power to game the system in ways the majority can not - you know, like this article discusses.
, so my dollars go to the most efficient and cost effective source that meets my requirements for quality, selection, availability and price
If you limit efficiency and cost effectiveness to just yourself, that's fine. Myself, I prefer to know the entire cost of a product, not just the cost to me, to the extent possible. I find it easier to obtain greater knowledge about goods and services at a local level than at a multi-national level. If, for instance, my local farmer is polluting the local river with industrial farm runoff, I will almost certainly find out about it. If BigNameChickenCo is doing the same to a river in Nowhere, Other side of the County, I am much less likely to find out about it. Locally, I can be more confident my savings are not being passed along as external costs to some poor sap somewhere else.
The specifics would obviously vary on a case-by-case basis, but we already do that. Every time someone is convicted of murder rather than manslaughter, the legal system is asserting intent.
No, but we can establish "beyond a reasonable doubt" what it is, sometimes. In those instances, having a more severe penalty for attempting to terrorize an entire class of people (where that class is protected) seems reasonable to me. It's unfortunately true that this is not always the bar the legal system requires be set, but I blame that on implementation by flawed humans more than any underlying moral/philosophical flaw in the legal theory.
The theory behind "hate crime" laws is similar to that behind "terrorism". Killing a black man b/c he pissed you off is a crime; killing a black man for being black in an effort to keep other black men "in their place" is certainly a different crime. How hate crime laws are implemented may fall quite short of the theory, but that is true of many laws. Why shouldn't crime be judged on both action and intent?
Democrats promise handouts. The country has more takers than makers: Game Over. Maybe Republicans should be blamed for failing to recognize that the USA is done, but it's a bitter fate to accept.
It's exactly shit like this that is eating the Republican party alive, from the inside out. "Over half of my fellow Americans are greedy lazy assholes (and not True Americans). I hate the public so much. If only they'd elect me, I'd make them pay!"
There should be only one issue. The deficit.
Oddly enough, there are those of us that think life is about more than money. Yes, money (and by extension the deficit) is very important. It's just not the only (or even most important) thing. Why should it be the only thing I care about?
Yes, protect people from harm, not claim "you're too big" by some arbitrarily set definition and then punish a company for success. That is a power the government shouldn't have.
Nor does it. Are there any other limits under which government currently exists that you agree with and think we should discuss?
What we need is a government strong enough to protect the people from abuses, internal and external, and no more
You say that like you think you are arguing for limited government there. You are not. In order to "protect the people from abuses", the government must be able to prevent industries from acting in ways that abuse the people, i.e. dumping their waste products into public waterways. This gives government a HUGE amount of power over the corporate entities that comprise any industry. If I can tell you "You must spend $X to properly clean up after yourself", I have just given you incentive to spend $X-1 to corrupt the oversight process. Fast forward a bit, and you get what we have here.
A company also can't legally execute you for challenging it.
Not today. They could yesterday (look up the history of the railroads and mines and Pinkertons). They might be able to again tomorrow. Only government prevents that. The only reason government is currently the greatest threat to individual liberty is b/c our ancestors decided that was preferable to having any person with enough money and dudes with weapons willing to follow orders being a threat to whatever they felt like threatening. If you want to reevaluate that trade-off, fine. Just be aware it IS a trade-off; there is no magical fairy dust that will prevent the powerful from taking advantage of the weak.
I don't want the police deciding what people can or can't get into trouble for.
Of course they don't decide what people can get in trouble for. They just decide who gets in trouble. Which turns out to be almost the same thing, since almost anyone can be found to be guilty of something, depending on how motivated the police are to find you guilty of something. And since the police can't pursue all of the crimes, someone has to prioritize which crimes they pursue. Just like any other business has to prioritize which projects to pursue. And just like any other business, the rank and file don't give much of a shit about the over-arching goals, they just want to put in their 8 hours, avoid too much hassle and go home. It isn't some malicious conspiracy, it's just police being lazy shits (like most people) that carry guns and aren't held accountable for their actions (unlike most people).
What is the point of the treaty, and election observers, if local law is allowed to define how much oversight the observers are allowed? I kind of assume the point of observers is to identify and call out corruption of the election process. If the local political process is corrupt enough that the elections are corrupted, how hard could it be to pass laws hindering the observers ability to identify fraud?
Speaking of XBox, I recently decided to cancel my Live subscription. I went online, logged into my account. Before I could access the cancellation screen, I was required to agree to their new terms of service! I of course did not, and instead called them on the phone to cancel, but I found that particularly egregious.
There is a very large difference between supporting someone's speech and supporting that person's right to speak. I can both think that this guy is an asshat AND think he should have the legal right to be an asshat. What if I were offended by the word fucktard? Should you be arrested and prosecuted b/c you said something someone didn't like?
If all advertisers need is a half-assed excuse like this to publicly ignore DNT, then "do not track" had a very limited lifespan in terms of helping anyone anyway.
Dude, that's the third time (thus far, I've not made it through all the comments yet) you've posted that jobs be all about the money. Sure, being poor sucks, but there comes a point where the marginal utility of increasing income is less than the accompanying decrease in quality of life. As a very simple example, say you are currently working a job you somewhat enjoy, getting paid $250K/year. Would you allow yourself to be raped by donkeys 60 hours/week for $500K/year? More money doesn't always mean better.
The difference is that bugs are specifically instances where programming breaks-down, doesn't work as intended. Grant writing is a part of how research is designed to work. An academic researcher who doesn't like to write grants is more like a programmer that doesn't like to type - it's not the point of the job, but it IS a necessary task to do the job.
thinking there 'must have been some back room deal"
At no point did I suggest there "must have been some back room deal"; I was very careful to say more than once that Ford quite plausibly could have acted for the exact reasons he publicly stated - to put an end to an ugly mess and allow the nation to move on. I think it was a mistake even so, but not an actual betrayal. My initial post was in response to your assertion that Ford "paid the price" for his rather unpopular pardon of Nixon's (allegedly, most likely, whatever weasel words you prefer) criminal actions by being voted out of office. To reiterate: Ford was never voted INTO the office. He was appointed. The first time the American people were asked, they said "Nope, don't want Ford as President". You stated that you felt that was a sufficient penalty for his acting contrary to what the people wanted. For a duly elected official, that is correct. In this unique situation, where we NEVER had any say in giving him his authority, taking his authority away doesn't rise to any level of penalty at all. Even if everything happened as it appeared on the surface, it smacks of the political elite protecting their cronies b/c they can. If there WAS a backroom deal, it rises to the level of, well, I don't know what the appropriate laws would be, but it would certainly qualify as a monumental betrayal of the American people. Removing him from the office he (possibly, maybe, who knows) essentially stole would, in that case, not even rise to the level of a slap on the wrist. I DON"T KNOW THAT THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED. But it isn't at all the preposterous scenario you assert it is. Even given the investigations, who would know other than Ford and Nixon? And they certainly wouldn't tell.
And even if Nixon was removed from office, Ford would still get the presidency
Well, yeah. The deal, if there was one, no proof there was, maybe never happened, would have been for the appointment of Ford to Vice President. Once that happened, his Presidency was all but assured, as you note.
The alternative would have been Nixon being removed from office, which certainly could not be considered a good thing for the country.
And there's the crux of the matter. Some of us feel that criminals that hold high office should be held MORE accountable than the peons, not less. Allowing a criminal to go unprosecuted because of his political position is a terrible precedent to set - look where we are now in terms of political figures and their lack of accountability. NOT holding Nixon accountable for his crimes furthered the destruction of the American peoples' faith in their leaders that his criminal actions began. You can pretend that Ford's appointment and subsequent pardon of Nixon were in no way a suspicious turn of events, but a lot of people disagreed (at the time, as you say it was 40 years ago). And the distrust of the populace today towards our political leadership is in part due to the legacy that appearance of possible collusion left in the minds of the people.
What great prize was the presidency?
I dunno, seems like the worst job ever to me, but there never seems to be a shortage of people that want it. Insisting that the only reason Ford could possibly have wanted the job is out of a benevolent desire to serve his country strikes me as incredibly naive. I'm not saying it's necessarily an incorrect belief, it's just not the only plausible belief. If you believe the possibility of a back room deal is ludicrous based solely on your assumption of Ford's noble motivations, you either know the man personally or are a fool.
Ford was unique in that he was never voted IN to office, at least not one in the White House. He was appointed Vice President after Agnew resigned. Appointed by Nixon. Then when Nixon resigned a half-step ahead of facing criminal charges, Ford automatically assumed the Presidency. Which authority he then used to pardon Nixon. While Ford may have been sincere in his professed motivations for the pardon, it doesn't take a conspiracy theory nut to find the idea of a deal offering Ford the presidency in exchange for a pardon plausible. If that is what happened, Ford "paying the price" for his part in the conspiracy by being removed from the office he was given in exchange for the pardon, an office which he may never have been able to obtain any other way, is the lightest slap on the wrist for high-level conspiracy since Grossman's $1 fine.
Mine were just the first off the top of my head, with no thought given to whether they were stupid or not. Well, piling everything in the corner is so obviously stupid that it doesn't even take thought to identify. But I was pointing out that there really are lots and lots of other ways to lay out a store - tables and shelves is just the known one that works. As for what Tom's point was, I guess only he could say for sure. He did say it was a copy, but I thought he meant it in the same way as your hammer comment; I would say hammer manufacturers are copying the original design. I mean, it's not like Stanley had a R&D department that independently came up with their hammer. Similarly, someone had to be the first person to lay out a store like this; I find it doubtful that whoever designed the Samsung store independently came to this design without ever seeing a similar store. Same thing for whoever designed the first Apple store, though. The whole "controversy", if it rises to that level, is stupid.
:(
My mom said no cookies, it would spoil my appetite
You see, I actually PAY for services I need
Not all of them. I believe this is the fundamental disagreement we have. You receive many benefits from society that you do not pay for, could not pay for without the aid of everyone else. To bring it back to the article, you benefit from herd immunity and the lack of disease it brings. There is simply no way for you to "pay" for that benefit; it requires a group effort. And unfortunately, things like this simply won't work if we allow people to approach society like an a la carte menu. That is in fact the entire point of the article - allowing you the freedom to abstain puts ME at risk. So yes, your freedom is limited in order to provide health to all the people that are not you out there. It is me, and my neighbors, acting in our own best interest as a group. Yes, if this sort of behavior goes too far, it will be a problem. Too much abuse of the individual by society harms the fabric of society (and of course, the abused individual). Alternately, allowing each individual to contribute exactly as he wishes, and no more, to society will also harm society. Which harms ME and my neighbors, and we don't like that. So we all struggle to find the balance between individualism and being a member of society. Of course I wish I could do just exactly as I please and no more, but I see the advantage in sacrificing some personal liberty towards a shared goal. You clearly don't, and think life would be better if you were allowed to do exactly as you please and no more. You're wrong, and luckily it's a self-defeating philosophy. Ironically, you'd have to get enough other individualists to work together to impose YOUR philosophy on me and those others that see a benefit to having a society. We have a natural advantage there, since we already believe in and appreciate the idea of working together towards a goal.