Dunno, but I'm sure those redundant, pointless jobs will be added under someone's "and he created X jobs in 2011..." political campaign slogans. After all jobs with no purpose outside the job itself is the whole point of government, unlike economic efficiency where the jobs actually have to contribute something society deems as worthwhile.
Of course, the very fact that creating X jobs gives such political gain should tell you something about where private-sector economic efficiency has led.
You know, it's odd for a country with so many vocal opponents of socialism endorsing this bizarre situation of private defense/aerospace companies being funded by the taxpayer with very little in the way of end results.
Not really. Opposition to socialism is usually the result of propaganda by the rich and the powerful who are trying to keep their privileges. Of course these people aren't opposed to being given even more money and power. A good example is Wal-Mart not paying its employees enough to live on, so the taxpayers end up subsidising Wal-Mart through food stamps for its employees.
Remember, "capitalism" doesn't mean "fair" competition, it means using your property to get more. The main difference between medieval times and industrial revolution with its robber barons is what the primary means of production were: land versus factories. This, of course, means that the philosophy of privatizing everything is just the Divine Right of Kings all over again, repackaged to fit a new wording and philosophical background - and, perfectly coincidentally, again justifying why all wealth and power is gathered in few hands while the rest get scraps.
So, the choice is not between Socialism and Capitalism; the choice is between Socialism and Feudalism. Capitalism is just Feudalism 2.0. And you are a serf.
Judging by history, it will take anywhere from a few centuries to a few millenia until people wise up and overthrow their overlords, atfer which they'll return with Feudalism 3.0. Unless, of course, you wish to count this delusional "service economy" which magically inflating GDP without any actual increase in production - indeed, the real amount of production is shrinking, which is the ultimate reason why poverty is increasing. Oh well, I'm sure a libertarian or two will pop up and tell me how property rights are everything, assuming of course they don't mod me down in an attempt to censor my message in the name of freedom.
The joke used to be that the Democrats should come out against raping children, and see what the Republicans do. Horrifically, twp weeks ago, they did, and the Republicans, indeed, came in favor of it. Or at least not against it.
The Right has not made it any secret that they care nothing about anyone once they're out of womb. Talk with any Republican, Libertarian etc. and you're invariably hear the lines "taxes are stealing", "why should I have to pay for X" and "people shouldn't have had children if they can't take care of them". In short, this should not shock or surprise you, since it's exactly what Right-wing people have always said they're about: lift yourself by your bootstraps, or die.
Republicans and the rest of the Right are only concerned with the rich, and, well, a 13-year old sex slave is unlikely to be rich. That's all there is to it.
What a wuss. Ever heard of a "winter jacket"? Or a "hat"? No wonder we're running out of oil: we insist on wearing short sleeves in subfreezing conditions and burning oil to change the environment to be comfortable, instead of just using the remarkable inventions created by prehistoric man, called "clothes".
Keeping the windshield warm enough so that your breath doesn't freeze on it goes beyond mere comfort. Also, the more you're wearing, the harder it is to move; and since most people already suck at driving...
But beyond that, the root problem comes down to networks not transitioning quickly enough.
Not really. The root problem is the Internet has gone big, so any large-scale change will likely result in commercial and governmental interests trying to turn it into a glorified shopping channel. Free exchange of information is, after all, a bad thing for powers that be.
... "If it's not being tested or measured, it's not worth doing".
That's a great way. I wish more people - especially politicians - would require actual measurable results, rather than simply latching onto an ideology and basing all their decisions on that, no matter what the results are.
There's finite volume and energy, hence finite capabilities in the brain. Depending on fetal and early life development this capacity is apportioned to various functions. If it was possible to be highly functioning in all areas, we'd have evolved to do that.
This rises an interesting question: given modern near-unlimited energy diet combined with C-section births, what will happen to head - and thus brain - size?
It wasn't that somebody just decided "You know, we should just not have fun!", but there are reasons why these things are considered bad.
Are considered bad by some. Please do not use the passive in trying to imply this is an universal or even widely-held attitude.
The first hint is your conscience, but the reason behind it is that they are simply, as the Bible explains, inconvenient.
My conscience condemns neither sex, drugs or any other source of pleasure. It only condemns hurting or harming people. The Bible condemns adultery, but neither sex, alcohol nor pleasure in general.
Sex, for instance, is perfectly fine within the lifelong bond of marriage. However, when we use it as a source of pleasure, we find ourselves in all sorts of painful and distracting situations.
Interesting contrast. Are you implying that sex is not pleasurable with a lifelong partner, or did you simply not think your post through? And even if you are promiscuous, that doesn't mean that you will not use your brains in sexual matters, and thus succesfully avoid "painful and distracting" situations.
Also, no partner is lifelong, unless you happen to die in the same airplane crash or something.
As for intoxication, there are several problems. Other than the fact that you are out of control (depending on the intoxicant),
Like Hell you are. You simply get an excuse for bad behaviour.
you also have the tendency to get wrapped up in it and become less productive.
You mean my overlords get less profit from me if I enjoy life occasionally? Oh noes!
One may argue that there are drugs that are not adictive and cause no lasting damage. That may be the case, so they may not be so bad. The real problem is trying to define your life by pleasure, which is fleeting. It is one of the things, such as money, fame, etc. that people set their sites on that have no lasting benefit. In that sense, it is inconvenient at best.
Define "benefit". No matter how hard you try, it eventually reduces down to getting pleasure and/or avoiding pain.
Also, I can't help but remember a book on "christian sexual ethics" I once read. It had a chapter on masturbation, which first used rather tortured logic to condemn it as sin, then spent the next 20 pages describing how to center your life around not masturbating: do not take hot showers, never be alone in a room, etc.
Even the most obsessive pervert occasionally thinks of something besides the pleasures of the flesh, but a puritan never will. The book made me realize that, no matter how worthless it otherwise was. It's better to simply satisfy your desires and then go do something else than to spend every waking hour fighting against them. And, as it happens, the Bible - specifically, Paul's letters - say the same:).
I'm just saying that they are a potential snare, and I thank God that He loves and forgives even the worst and will remove them from the things they can't leave on their own.
Yeah, he even forgives people who say "they" when talking of those caught by tempting snares. Here, have a link; may you reflect on it and this and gain insight.
Ok, its an interesting read, but not every realistic.
What, a fictional scare story submitted by an anonymous guy which just happens to align with the interests of some Big Corporations is unrealistic? How can that be?!?
She should send a detailed letter telling them why their admissions process is fucked up, giving the colon WTF as an example.
You do realize that said letter will be trashed after a low-pay secretary gets a single glance on it, possibly sooner, right?
Finish off saying that since they obviously prefer less read candidates, she won't miss them.
Nor will they miss her. US colleges are businesses, and thus only care of how much money they can extract from you. A less read candidate may well be preferable, since he is more likely to simply follow the herd.
The preamble to the Constitution authorizes the State to provide police protection and assist commerce in some ways, which is different than direct subsidies.
The grandparent counted roads as subsidies. If they count, then all infrastructure, either social or physical, does.
At best, direct subsidies are in the gray area. Interstates and other infrastructure are obviously authorized, tax breaks or subsidies (like to Monsanto and farmers) are not so obvious.
Frankly, I care not. I'm not a lawyer. All I care for is how the economy seems to work less and less well each year, as manufacturing flees to China, which could easily be stopped by protectionism if only the political will was there.
I think we would be better off if we spent more on infrastructure and less on farmer (actually Monsanto) welfare.
Well, obviously you'd be better off spending more on infrastructure and less on paying for CEO bonuses. Duh!
This would be simple silliness if it weren't for the fact that organizations (companies and governments) have been known to file charges against web sites that merely link to some infringing material. Google and other search sites have been hit with this, and it's the basis of the bogus charges against piratebay. So we should be objecting publicly to the attempts to blur the distinction between actually publishing something and merely telling people where the publishers or distributors can be found.
To be fair, in the Internet these actions are pretty much equivalent: in either case, you're helping spread information. Mind you, that should not be illegal. There are very good reasons for freedom of speech - namely, the entire preceding human history - and very few reasons to deny it - namely, corporate profits.
It was fairly sane in that respect, I just don't think CNG stands a chance of taking off in the US. It's extremely hard to transition to a new transportation fuel due to the well modeled chicken/egg problems with fueling stations.
Natural gas is made of hydrocarbon chains, just as gasoline and diesel are. They're just shorter chains. It's entirely possible to turn those into longer chains to get regular fuels.
And if we're going to try to transition to a new fuel, better to pick something more long term than CNG.
Well, in the long term, if we get fusion power and all that, it would be best to simply stay at hydrocarbons. They're easy to handle, safe - harder to ignite, much less explode, than either lithium batteries or hydrogen - and the infrastructure to handle them exists already. They can also be manufactured from atmospheric carbon dioxide and water, given enough energy - that's what plants are doing all the time.
Electricity is a luxury, not a necessity for life. We can live without electricity, life isn't as comfortable. If you do not have water, you can die in days, if not hours.
Guess what happens to water and sewage pumps once electricity stops flowing? Or gas pumps, or refrigeration systems, or subways/trams, or...
Human body can survive without electricity. Human civilization can't survive at anything beyond agricultural level without energy. And agricultural civilization can't feed but a fraction of modern populace. So, for most people, sustained lack of electricity means death, and for the rest it means return to medieval times at best - except medieval times required iron, which takes lots of fuel to refine, which is why we got deforestation long before Industrial Age, so I guess we'd fall straight back to Bronze Age.
Maybe you consider civilization to be a luxury, but I don't.
To be fair, automobiles would be a money loser if government hadn't built roads and made the other subsidies necessary to make autos a tenable technology.
By this logic all business is subsidized by the State, since the State maintains law and order necessary to conduct any of it. Which means that the State has a right and duty to regulate them to the advantage of its residents, We the People, since we're paying part (or all - all costs get passed onto the customer, remember?) of the cost making it possible for them to function.
America's strength used lie in an immense manufacturing culture, and that's given way to "intellectual property". Instead of dealing with tangibles, America is content to sit behind a desk and let the Chinese labour.
The problem is not "intellectual property", the problem is service economy. Manufacturing, no matter what you're producing, be it cars or blueprints for them, creates value. Service jobs don't. That's why they pay so badly. As economy increasingly gets all of its growth from services, rather than industry, the amount of stuff - also known as wealth - circulating does not grow. That is why we are seeing so much economic problems.
The Western world is de-industrializing as all manufacturing jobs are moved to China, and design jobs are following since few people can actually do them well. We are simply returning to the pre-industrial situation where the only ones who have significant amount of wealth are the nobles, and they are so much richer than everyone else that they have a practical monopoly on power as well. Whether this was by design or by accident I can't say, but whichever the reason, the increasing poverty and destruction of Western civilization is in the best interests of our overlords, so it will continue.
Oh well, another few millenias under ruthless Chinese dictators. When they take over I at least hope they reward our traitors as a traitor deserves. A pity for the children, thought; good thing I don't have them.
Maybe there is an issue with size, at what point does an organization become so large and powerful that it's detrimental to society?
Well, seeing how an organization exists in the first place because at least one person thought he could accomplish more together with someone else than on his own, I'd say that organization of any size is potentially dangerous. However, we humans can't live without them, so that leaves the option of trying to leash and regulate them to limit the harm they can do. Democracy is such a leash on government, as is the Bill of Rights; but unfortunately, corporations are pretty much unleashed at the moment, which leads to the constant problems with them.
That's beginning to sound eerily like a bad series of porno flicks.
It is. The whole "War on X" meme exists because it gets people excited enough to stop thinking. Of course, it's getting just as tired and cliched as most porn movies; still, it will get milked as long as people keep buying it.
Is that why they registered "bankofamericasupportstyrants.com"
It's nice of Bank of America to provide an index to the coming revelations ahead of time. It should make the first pieces of dirt hit the headlines faster, since you know what to look for.
Also, I wonder if you could get another major organization to reveal their shady actions in this way simply by spreading a rumour that Wikileaks is onto them?
Finally, this is interesting from purely psychological point of view: It proves that the leadership of BoA understands that their actions would be considered evil by common people; thus it seems unlikely that they are psychopaths, as common theories hold, but rather simply evil.
There is a big difference between a naked pipe and Internet service.
Of course there is. Namely, a naked pipe lets you do whatever you want and buy additional services wherever you want, while an "Internet service" bundles unnecessary crap and has incentives to hinder the usage of outside services to sell their own "extra" ones.
There is no reason whatsoever of why you should pay for email and web space to the same guy who you are paying for actual connectivity, and plenty of reasons not to.
All built on leasing access to the last mile to get to to their customers from a regulated utility. Some of those suggested providers would probably end up failing and other I didn't think of in a minute or two of pondering might pop up and thrive.Can YOU say which ONE set of services the government should provide to everyone?
Yes: packet delivery. There is no reason to bundle anything else on it. If you want email, buy that from a private provider. If you want web space, buy that from the same or another provider. But there's no reason whatsoever why any of these service providers should get a single burnt wooden penny for connectivity, since they aren't providing that. They are simply renting lines, then renting those same lines to you at a higher cost, contributing nothing.
Do you really believe that if the government did decide that you would like their choice?
That's the beauty of it: in my model, you buy whatever services you want, and pay for them, and only them. You don't pay a bunch of stockholders a lease to use wires that were build with taxpayer money in the first place. You don't end up paying third parties with connectivity they have no part in delivering, and thus also don't end up subject to their whims with port blocking, traffic shaping, etc (you are, of course, subject to the government's whims, but you would be anyway, even if there were middlemen).
That is one way. A better way would be to revisit the AT&T breakup and this time do it right. A regulated monopoly with the part that is a natural monopoly, the physical plant comprising the CO and the wires/fibers/right of ways and the rest a totally unregulated entity who buys access to an equal footing with as many additional players wish to enter the market.
I have an even better idea: keep the physical lines as government-owned utility, and sell access to anyone who pays (or just finance the whole thing from taxes, but that's socialism). No wholesale prices, no middlemen - a bit per second of bandwidth costs 1/1000000th of what 1 megabit per second does. Of course, this still requires some way of handling bandwidth scalpers.
There's no benefit to be had from having companies act as middlemen between a regulated monopoly and users.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, the very fact that creating X jobs gives such political gain should tell you something about where private-sector economic efficiency has led.
Not really. Opposition to socialism is usually the result of propaganda by the rich and the powerful who are trying to keep their privileges. Of course these people aren't opposed to being given even more money and power. A good example is Wal-Mart not paying its employees enough to live on, so the taxpayers end up subsidising Wal-Mart through food stamps for its employees.
Remember, "capitalism" doesn't mean "fair" competition, it means using your property to get more. The main difference between medieval times and industrial revolution with its robber barons is what the primary means of production were: land versus factories. This, of course, means that the philosophy of privatizing everything is just the Divine Right of Kings all over again, repackaged to fit a new wording and philosophical background - and, perfectly coincidentally, again justifying why all wealth and power is gathered in few hands while the rest get scraps.
So, the choice is not between Socialism and Capitalism; the choice is between Socialism and Feudalism. Capitalism is just Feudalism 2.0. And you are a serf.
Judging by history, it will take anywhere from a few centuries to a few millenia until people wise up and overthrow their overlords, atfer which they'll return with Feudalism 3.0. Unless, of course, you wish to count this delusional "service economy" which magically inflating GDP without any actual increase in production - indeed, the real amount of production is shrinking, which is the ultimate reason why poverty is increasing. Oh well, I'm sure a libertarian or two will pop up and tell me how property rights are everything, assuming of course they don't mod me down in an attempt to censor my message in the name of freedom.
The Right has not made it any secret that they care nothing about anyone once they're out of womb. Talk with any Republican, Libertarian etc. and you're invariably hear the lines "taxes are stealing", "why should I have to pay for X" and "people shouldn't have had children if they can't take care of them". In short, this should not shock or surprise you, since it's exactly what Right-wing people have always said they're about: lift yourself by your bootstraps, or die.
Republicans and the rest of the Right are only concerned with the rich, and, well, a 13-year old sex slave is unlikely to be rich. That's all there is to it.
Nobody values sewers until they stop working.
Keeping the windshield warm enough so that your breath doesn't freeze on it goes beyond mere comfort. Also, the more you're wearing, the harder it is to move; and since most people already suck at driving...
You people have it easy. Around here it's -40 Kelvin in summer.
Not really. The root problem is the Internet has gone big, so any large-scale change will likely result in commercial and governmental interests trying to turn it into a glorified shopping channel. Free exchange of information is, after all, a bad thing for powers that be.
That's a great way. I wish more people - especially politicians - would require actual measurable results, rather than simply latching onto an ideology and basing all their decisions on that, no matter what the results are.
This rises an interesting question: given modern near-unlimited energy diet combined with C-section births, what will happen to head - and thus brain - size?
And yet you still felt the need to comment on it.
How's it feel like being a geek LOSER, loser?
Are considered bad by some. Please do not use the passive in trying to imply this is an universal or even widely-held attitude.
My conscience condemns neither sex, drugs or any other source of pleasure. It only condemns hurting or harming people. The Bible condemns adultery, but neither sex, alcohol nor pleasure in general.
Interesting contrast. Are you implying that sex is not pleasurable with a lifelong partner, or did you simply not think your post through? And even if you are promiscuous, that doesn't mean that you will not use your brains in sexual matters, and thus succesfully avoid "painful and distracting" situations.
Also, no partner is lifelong, unless you happen to die in the same airplane crash or something.
Like Hell you are. You simply get an excuse for bad behaviour.
You mean my overlords get less profit from me if I enjoy life occasionally? Oh noes!
Define "benefit". No matter how hard you try, it eventually reduces down to getting pleasure and/or avoiding pain.
Also, I can't help but remember a book on "christian sexual ethics" I once read. It had a chapter on masturbation, which first used rather tortured logic to condemn it as sin, then spent the next 20 pages describing how to center your life around not masturbating: do not take hot showers, never be alone in a room, etc.
Even the most obsessive pervert occasionally thinks of something besides the pleasures of the flesh, but a puritan never will. The book made me realize that, no matter how worthless it otherwise was. It's better to simply satisfy your desires and then go do something else than to spend every waking hour fighting against them. And, as it happens, the Bible - specifically, Paul's letters - say the same :).
Yeah, he even forgives people who say "they" when talking of those caught by tempting snares. Here, have a link; may you reflect on it and this and gain insight.
What, a fictional scare story submitted by an anonymous guy which just happens to align with the interests of some Big Corporations is unrealistic? How can that be?!?
You do realize that said letter will be trashed after a low-pay secretary gets a single glance on it, possibly sooner, right?
Nor will they miss her. US colleges are businesses, and thus only care of how much money they can extract from you. A less read candidate may well be preferable, since he is more likely to simply follow the herd.
The grandparent counted roads as subsidies. If they count, then all infrastructure, either social or physical, does.
Frankly, I care not. I'm not a lawyer. All I care for is how the economy seems to work less and less well each year, as manufacturing flees to China, which could easily be stopped by protectionism if only the political will was there.
Well, obviously you'd be better off spending more on infrastructure and less on paying for CEO bonuses. Duh!
To be fair, in the Internet these actions are pretty much equivalent: in either case, you're helping spread information. Mind you, that should not be illegal. There are very good reasons for freedom of speech - namely, the entire preceding human history - and very few reasons to deny it - namely, corporate profits.
Well, from what I've understood, the banks don't get various late-payment fees with debit cards which they do with credit cards.
Natural gas is made of hydrocarbon chains, just as gasoline and diesel are. They're just shorter chains. It's entirely possible to turn those into longer chains to get regular fuels.
Well, in the long term, if we get fusion power and all that, it would be best to simply stay at hydrocarbons. They're easy to handle, safe - harder to ignite, much less explode, than either lithium batteries or hydrogen - and the infrastructure to handle them exists already. They can also be manufactured from atmospheric carbon dioxide and water, given enough energy - that's what plants are doing all the time.
Guess what happens to water and sewage pumps once electricity stops flowing? Or gas pumps, or refrigeration systems, or subways/trams, or...
Human body can survive without electricity. Human civilization can't survive at anything beyond agricultural level without energy. And agricultural civilization can't feed but a fraction of modern populace. So, for most people, sustained lack of electricity means death, and for the rest it means return to medieval times at best - except medieval times required iron, which takes lots of fuel to refine, which is why we got deforestation long before Industrial Age, so I guess we'd fall straight back to Bronze Age.
Maybe you consider civilization to be a luxury, but I don't.
By this logic all business is subsidized by the State, since the State maintains law and order necessary to conduct any of it. Which means that the State has a right and duty to regulate them to the advantage of its residents, We the People, since we're paying part (or all - all costs get passed onto the customer, remember?) of the cost making it possible for them to function.
Coming to think of it, I like that logic :)!
The problem is not "intellectual property", the problem is service economy. Manufacturing, no matter what you're producing, be it cars or blueprints for them, creates value. Service jobs don't. That's why they pay so badly. As economy increasingly gets all of its growth from services, rather than industry, the amount of stuff - also known as wealth - circulating does not grow. That is why we are seeing so much economic problems.
The Western world is de-industrializing as all manufacturing jobs are moved to China, and design jobs are following since few people can actually do them well. We are simply returning to the pre-industrial situation where the only ones who have significant amount of wealth are the nobles, and they are so much richer than everyone else that they have a practical monopoly on power as well. Whether this was by design or by accident I can't say, but whichever the reason, the increasing poverty and destruction of Western civilization is in the best interests of our overlords, so it will continue.
Oh well, another few millenias under ruthless Chinese dictators. When they take over I at least hope they reward our traitors as a traitor deserves. A pity for the children, thought; good thing I don't have them.
Well, seeing how an organization exists in the first place because at least one person thought he could accomplish more together with someone else than on his own, I'd say that organization of any size is potentially dangerous. However, we humans can't live without them, so that leaves the option of trying to leash and regulate them to limit the harm they can do. Democracy is such a leash on government, as is the Bill of Rights; but unfortunately, corporations are pretty much unleashed at the moment, which leads to the constant problems with them.
It is. The whole "War on X" meme exists because it gets people excited enough to stop thinking. Of course, it's getting just as tired and cliched as most porn movies; still, it will get milked as long as people keep buying it.
It's nice of Bank of America to provide an index to the coming revelations ahead of time. It should make the first pieces of dirt hit the headlines faster, since you know what to look for.
Also, I wonder if you could get another major organization to reveal their shady actions in this way simply by spreading a rumour that Wikileaks is onto them?
Finally, this is interesting from purely psychological point of view: It proves that the leadership of BoA understands that their actions would be considered evil by common people; thus it seems unlikely that they are psychopaths, as common theories hold, but rather simply evil.
Of course there is. Namely, a naked pipe lets you do whatever you want and buy additional services wherever you want, while an "Internet service" bundles unnecessary crap and has incentives to hinder the usage of outside services to sell their own "extra" ones.
There is no reason whatsoever of why you should pay for email and web space to the same guy who you are paying for actual connectivity, and plenty of reasons not to.
Yes: packet delivery. There is no reason to bundle anything else on it. If you want email, buy that from a private provider. If you want web space, buy that from the same or another provider. But there's no reason whatsoever why any of these service providers should get a single burnt wooden penny for connectivity, since they aren't providing that. They are simply renting lines, then renting those same lines to you at a higher cost, contributing nothing.
That's the beauty of it: in my model, you buy whatever services you want, and pay for them, and only them. You don't pay a bunch of stockholders a lease to use wires that were build with taxpayer money in the first place. You don't end up paying third parties with connectivity they have no part in delivering, and thus also don't end up subject to their whims with port blocking, traffic shaping, etc (you are, of course, subject to the government's whims, but you would be anyway, even if there were middlemen).
I have an even better idea: keep the physical lines as government-owned utility, and sell access to anyone who pays (or just finance the whole thing from taxes, but that's socialism). No wholesale prices, no middlemen - a bit per second of bandwidth costs 1/1000000th of what 1 megabit per second does. Of course, this still requires some way of handling bandwidth scalpers.
There's no benefit to be had from having companies act as middlemen between a regulated monopoly and users.