Transformers detonate. They do it because the oil loses its dielectric property, or because an air space forms inside the transformer. The idea that linemen, who eventually would have seen an event like this take place as well as the injury/death that resulted (it's not all that rare, and used to be even more common, "back in the day") would cause such events just to get some overtime, sounds preposterous to me.
Not all psychopaths manage to make it to management. Some of them are going to be stuck at blue collar jobs. And I suppose not having underlings to torment would cause them more likely to act out their pathology in illegal ways.
Of course it's anyone's guess if grandparent's "friend's dad" actually was a psychopath (and dumb enough to let a couple of kids know what he was up to), or if it's yet another piece of propaganda for the ongoing War on Workers.
If it did, it wouldn't be crime, now would it? A state openly run by the Mafia would simply be your run-of-the-mill military dictatorship or warlord-ridden anarchy, depending on whether a single faction was supreme or not.
No, what we're seeing here is the difference between official and real culture. That is what corruption is, at its core: a culture tries to pretend it's something else - something better - than it actually is, a kind of "werewolf state" which mauls people by night and damns wolfs by day. Everyone goes along with the lie because when someone points out the hypocrisy, the mask of decency slips and the beast comes out.
But when the beast is out, it can be seen by all. That is its weakness. People can no longer pretend everything is fine; they must either openly submit to the wolf - and accept they're going to be devoured - or fight to rid themselves of it. And this beast has no claws of its own, only those lent to it by its slaves. Knowing that, it too must choose whether to strike back and risk breaking its spell entirely, or give up some of its malevolence and become less like a wolf and more like a human.
How often does an entire neighborhood in some city just depopulate, overnight? Some suspect comes to the police' attention, and everyone who has had any contact with him just disappears. Today, the FEMA camps still stand empty. We are dangerously close to becoming a full fledged police state, but if you think we are there already, then you lack understanding and imagination.
To put it bluntly, your government lets you speak because it has nothing to fear from anything you might say. Your fellow Americans aren't going to stop voting for DemoPublicans, no matter what horrible things might be revealed - so why would RepubliCrats bother silencing you? They simply record everything you say, and pick you up if it looks like you're about to resort to anything more.
US is a police state 2.0. And like with most things in human culture, here too the newer version lacks some of the murderous malevolence of the old.
Yes, as a white male you are automatically a racist sexist homophobe on the verge of a hate crime. Its in our DNA apparently...
No, it's in your internalized cultural values. An outdated institution is using you and the AC as meat puppets in a desperate struggle to pass on its memetic material. Let it go.
The US will be fine. It is largely working as intended and if anything serious did happen, congress would band together in a heartbeat. That is actually where we should be worried. Imagine the world today if congress had serious debate and opposition to the Iraq war or the patriot act when initially passed.
How do you expect the Congress to have a serious debate about anything if everyone there has been conditioned to simply react as they're told? People who are used to treating politics as a game played for their personal profit or the advancement of their political tribe (party) aren't going to magically change and treat it as a serious responsibility just because there happens to be something at stake this time. If anything, stress is going to cause them to give in to the dysfunctional organizational culture even more fully.
The federal government is not the same type of government that the UK's parliament is. They are limited in scope and abilities by the US constitution because even from the start the founders knew we were too diverse and needed most of the governance from state and local levels. Each colony was a nation in itself when the union was formed.
Right, so why do the states stick to the union? The threat of the British Empire reclaiming its property has long since passed and is unlikely to ever return. So what stops, say, Texas from severing its ties to the Federal government, if all it wants or can reasonably expect is non-interference with its local affairs?
The issue isn't what powers or tasks the Federal government has, the issue is that no one seems to have any faith in its ability to actually succesfully perform any.
Remember the true currency of politics is votes not money. As long as its one person one vote the 99% actually have the power, they just fail to use it. Party loyalty is one of various examples of how the 99% fails itself.
The 99% always have the power. No dictator can rule without the approval - however grudgingly given - of his subjects. So why do they give that approval to someone like Saddam? Because in their mind there is an internalized image of the nation they happen to identify with, which is constantly telling them how to act, speak and think, and which gets constantly reinforced by and synchronized to other people's actions and reactions.
So why do people vote against their own interests? Because they're a member of a Group (democrats, republicans, evangelicals, greens, communists, whatever), and members of a Group vote in a certain way. Or, put another way, a person is a part of a community but the community is also a part of a person. So people are actually voting according to their interests, just not their personal interests.
I suspect the next big leap in human evolution is becoming fully aware of this mechanism and bringing it under conscious control. Currently it isn't, which is why strong identification with a group - such as a particular nation, ideology or religion - tends to lead to highly irrational behavior. Such groups don't have brains of their own, after all, so if the members just blindly obey, the end result is that it can't evaluate its own actions. We need more patriots who are willing to criticize their nation/church/party/shady backroom club/whatever, to treat it as a sports team that needs to be whipped into shape rather than an idol to be worshipped.
Many of the Asian countries hate China. And not just "they are spying on me!" hate, this is personal. They joined the TPP trade talks as protection against China, so there is little chance they will join with China any time soon.
Finland hated Soviet Union with the hate of hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded and their kin, but that didn't stop it from making deals with them. Countries who let hate dictate their political decisions tend to go the way of Captain Ahab.
So long as the power stays split up (mostly) evenly in 1/3s, we have gridlock to expect, which is preferable to what you get when the power is less evenly spread.
It might seem preferable as long as everything is business as usual, but such effective paralysis rises serious questions whether the US can continue as a single nation. Sooner or later there will be a serious crisis, and gridlock will prevent any kind of effective response.
But even if there isn't, a gridlock is a symptom of a rather serious defect. As I see it, the US is on the brink of completely abandoning democracy because compromise is seen as a sign of weakness rather than the very core of the institution. Only swing states matter, and even those only swing between two parties. And of course, seeing gridlock as a positive means the system has lost its credibility, and will - and already is - increasingly rely on blunt force to stay alive.
In short, the US is collapsing, in slow motion for now, and arresting the fall would require reforms the country and its citizens are unlikely to be capable of.
The stores which own the legislatures of both Illinois and Texas should simply order them to change the laws.
Why bother? If you don't like local Wal-Mart's policy which considers entering the store to be a sign of consent, what are you going to do - drive to the next town and be faced with the same bullshit?
Consent can only exist between beings of at least roughly equal power. That is the justification for statutory rape laws, for example. Corporate America demanding you to "consent" to your shafting simply adds another layer of perversion and humiliation to an already awful situation. Which, of course, is the point: traumatized, broken people are easy to control, especially once they internalize the abuse heaped on them.
Admittedly, Slashdot has been "going down the tubes" almost since it launched, but this is particularly crap.
13,000,000,000 BC. Spacetime comes to existence and expands rapidly, setting into motion the chain of events that'll eventually lead to the formation of Earth, rise of life and the existence of Slashdot, thus ruining it forever.
Speaking of nukes, I wonder how many betrayals Germany needs to decide it has to re-arm and acquire its own arsenal since it obviously can't rely on the US anymore? Because it seems the NSA wonders too, and is determined to find out.
Parents will also sometimes get it wrong (as in the case of fundamentalist Christians choosing to teach creationism), but a minority teaching their kids stupid things is less harmful than a government, subject to lobbying and political pressures, imposing a curriculum on an entire state or the nation.
Sucks for those children, but they're just their parent's property anyway, so they're an acceptable sacrifice for your ideology, eh?
At what point do statements become so ridiculous that they should be ridiculed rather than people wasting time trying to refute them? Does someone who claims the Earth is flat deserve a (time consuming) detailed, rational argument with references to the science?
Never. If you are rational and your opponent is not, turning the debate into an irrational dirt-throwing contest is to your disadvantage. Either write a rational argument or pass, those are the winning options.
So, the lack of spine by employees, allows companies to benefit from screwing their employees.
Nah. Lack of strong unions is what allows employees to be screwed, in IT and in general. Divide and conquer practiced by the upper classes has been quite successfull, but they couldn't had done it without employees letting them. Ego and delusions of grandeur have their price, and I guess it'll keep being paid until the lesson sinks in: hang together or hang separately.
Which do you prefer? Freedom, Higher risks and higher reward? No risk, less freedom, but a lower standard of living?
And by "less freedom" you mean "higher taxes", which is not the common meaning of the word or concept.
Socialism has made many promises it cannot keep. Capitalism promises nothing, but can generate much more wealth.
Capitalists, however, demand the entire society be ordered for the sake of making that wealth, which they then pocket. Socialism rose as a counter-reaction to this abuse, and will continue existing as long as Capitalism will.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Not having to pay your share for the upkeep of the very society you live in is not essential liberty. But then again, the way things are going, I suppose we'll have another revolution before soon. I guess that will hammer the lesson home once again, until the generation that experienced it fades away and the cycle starts again. Just as happened after the World Wars and the rise of Communism.
They pay out the ass in taxes for that "free" education and over the course of their career, they'll pay more money than if they just took out loans and paid for it themselves.
That is entirely possible - not certain or even likely, since you didn't offer any evidence for your assertion, but possible. But what of it? Life is not business, it's purpose is not turning a profit. It's the quality of life that matters. And security, including financial security, is part of that.
I graduated college with no student loan debt; however, I sure would like forgiveness on my house that is worth 10% less than I paid for it. Do I deserve it? No. I chose to put on the rose colored, things will always be worth more in the future glasses.
Does it matter whether you deserve forgiveness, in some abstract sense of "deserve"? Not to the rest of us, no. What matters to us - assuming we're thinking rationally, of course - is how you getting forgiveness affects us. That is why banks got a bailout, and why consumers should get one, too. There's no point in investing if there's no consumer demand, and there's no consumer demand if they're busy paying back their debts.
So, simply have the government buy out all debt (eminem domain) and annul it, either immediately or, say, 10% per month. That will cause a massive injection of money to the very roots of economy, and should kickstart it. The cost is a pulse in inflation as money starts circulating, but it should even out soon.
Obviously there needs to be checks (especially on the still living) to make sure it's not abused but most poor people don't have life insurance and an extra 10k-100k at death could actually benefit their family greatly.
Yes, it could, and pretty soon it's expected you sell your organs first before seeking public assistance. This is a horrible idea that needs to be snipped in the bud.
Yes willingly, nobody has a fucking gun to your head to use this stuff, lack of willpower in a toy store is not "oppression".
The parent said Facebook is becoming a condition for employment. Employment is not voluntary in this economic system. It's not "willpower" in a "toy store" that's the issue, it's being able to pay for food and rent.
Bitching about the privacy costs of of a FB account is like bitching about the electricity bill while sitting in an air-conditioned room, it will always be modded up because people hate paying bills.
No, it's like bitching about the electricity bill when you have no other way to cook food and the utility company is charging what it will from a captive audience.
Of course government spying is a whole different ball of wax, nobody signed up for that!
Voting for surveillance-happy politicians is voluntary. At least for now, it's not a condition for employment.
The US Supreme Court has no jurisdiction outside of the USA.
So this isn't going to affect Klingons.
Google knows the Klingon Emperor's fetishes while Oracle helps keep his secret Ferenginar bank accounts organized. The US Supreme Court is a helpful referee so the two won't inflict contradictory blackmail on the helpless absolute ruler and leave him - and everyone below him - with no good options. Because it's so well-organized and considerate of consequences, corruption is hardly worthy of the name anymore, but simply another mechanism of society Worf Average doesn't really have to worry about - heck, it actually benefits him since it encourages solving various crises behind the scenes before they can cause serious disruption.
Or at least that's how it would work in the utopian Star Trek future.
Has he been convicted of child molestation? No. For all we know, this may simply have been a consensual gay affair with an adult.
"Now, Hastert stands accused of improper sexual contact with a boy he knew years ago while teaching high school and trying to hide that sordid history by paying the young man to keep quiet."
I concede we don't know for certain if he's guilty. However, investigating alleged child molestation still sounds very much like it is - and should be - FBI's business.
More generally, money is a form of power. Using money is wielding power. Wielding large amounts of power requires checks and balances to avoid degenerating into a tyranny.
Hitler and Stalin used the same excuses.
No, they didin't. Hitler used fear of communism to get businessmen behind him, and Stalin was trying to build Soviet Union into a superpower capable of withstanding their attack.
Yes, blocking encryption might make it easy to catch low hanging fruit, but it will win a battle or two and lose the war. ISIS and Al Qaeda do quite well in communications with just old fashioned courier services.
ISIS and Al Qaeda aren't the threats anti-encryption movement is intended to fight. As economy fares worse and worse, people are getting tired of watching the fat cats get richer while they're facing ever more severe austerity and insecurity. We're headed for another age of revolution, and the top dogs are building their bunkers.
Slashdot Mirror
Not all psychopaths manage to make it to management. Some of them are going to be stuck at blue collar jobs. And I suppose not having underlings to torment would cause them more likely to act out their pathology in illegal ways.
Of course it's anyone's guess if grandparent's "friend's dad" actually was a psychopath (and dumb enough to let a couple of kids know what he was up to), or if it's yet another piece of propaganda for the ongoing War on Workers.
If it did, it wouldn't be crime, now would it? A state openly run by the Mafia would simply be your run-of-the-mill military dictatorship or warlord-ridden anarchy, depending on whether a single faction was supreme or not.
No, what we're seeing here is the difference between official and real culture. That is what corruption is, at its core: a culture tries to pretend it's something else - something better - than it actually is, a kind of "werewolf state" which mauls people by night and damns wolfs by day. Everyone goes along with the lie because when someone points out the hypocrisy, the mask of decency slips and the beast comes out.
But when the beast is out, it can be seen by all. That is its weakness. People can no longer pretend everything is fine; they must either openly submit to the wolf - and accept they're going to be devoured - or fight to rid themselves of it. And this beast has no claws of its own, only those lent to it by its slaves. Knowing that, it too must choose whether to strike back and risk breaking its spell entirely, or give up some of its malevolence and become less like a wolf and more like a human.
"Police state is a term denoting government that exercises power arbitrarily through the police." Both the War on Drugs and War on Terror fit that to a t.
To put it bluntly, your government lets you speak because it has nothing to fear from anything you might say. Your fellow Americans aren't going to stop voting for DemoPublicans, no matter what horrible things might be revealed - so why would RepubliCrats bother silencing you? They simply record everything you say, and pick you up if it looks like you're about to resort to anything more.
US is a police state 2.0. And like with most things in human culture, here too the newer version lacks some of the murderous malevolence of the old.
No, it's in your internalized cultural values. An outdated institution is using you and the AC as meat puppets in a desperate struggle to pass on its memetic material. Let it go.
How do you expect the Congress to have a serious debate about anything if everyone there has been conditioned to simply react as they're told? People who are used to treating politics as a game played for their personal profit or the advancement of their political tribe (party) aren't going to magically change and treat it as a serious responsibility just because there happens to be something at stake this time. If anything, stress is going to cause them to give in to the dysfunctional organizational culture even more fully.
Right, so why do the states stick to the union? The threat of the British Empire reclaiming its property has long since passed and is unlikely to ever return. So what stops, say, Texas from severing its ties to the Federal government, if all it wants or can reasonably expect is non-interference with its local affairs?
The issue isn't what powers or tasks the Federal government has, the issue is that no one seems to have any faith in its ability to actually succesfully perform any.
If those thirsty people valued water they would simply pay the $68,000,000,000 from their own pocket, you damn commie.
The 99% always have the power. No dictator can rule without the approval - however grudgingly given - of his subjects. So why do they give that approval to someone like Saddam? Because in their mind there is an internalized image of the nation they happen to identify with, which is constantly telling them how to act, speak and think, and which gets constantly reinforced by and synchronized to other people's actions and reactions.
So why do people vote against their own interests? Because they're a member of a Group (democrats, republicans, evangelicals, greens, communists, whatever), and members of a Group vote in a certain way. Or, put another way, a person is a part of a community but the community is also a part of a person. So people are actually voting according to their interests, just not their personal interests.
I suspect the next big leap in human evolution is becoming fully aware of this mechanism and bringing it under conscious control. Currently it isn't, which is why strong identification with a group - such as a particular nation, ideology or religion - tends to lead to highly irrational behavior. Such groups don't have brains of their own, after all, so if the members just blindly obey, the end result is that it can't evaluate its own actions. We need more patriots who are willing to criticize their nation/church/party/shady backroom club/whatever, to treat it as a sports team that needs to be whipped into shape rather than an idol to be worshipped.
Finland hated Soviet Union with the hate of hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded and their kin, but that didn't stop it from making deals with them. Countries who let hate dictate their political decisions tend to go the way of Captain Ahab.
It might seem preferable as long as everything is business as usual, but such effective paralysis rises serious questions whether the US can continue as a single nation. Sooner or later there will be a serious crisis, and gridlock will prevent any kind of effective response.
But even if there isn't, a gridlock is a symptom of a rather serious defect. As I see it, the US is on the brink of completely abandoning democracy because compromise is seen as a sign of weakness rather than the very core of the institution. Only swing states matter, and even those only swing between two parties. And of course, seeing gridlock as a positive means the system has lost its credibility, and will - and already is - increasingly rely on blunt force to stay alive.
In short, the US is collapsing, in slow motion for now, and arresting the fall would require reforms the country and its citizens are unlikely to be capable of.
Why bother? If you don't like local Wal-Mart's policy which considers entering the store to be a sign of consent, what are you going to do - drive to the next town and be faced with the same bullshit?
Consent can only exist between beings of at least roughly equal power. That is the justification for statutory rape laws, for example. Corporate America demanding you to "consent" to your shafting simply adds another layer of perversion and humiliation to an already awful situation. Which, of course, is the point: traumatized, broken people are easy to control, especially once they internalize the abuse heaped on them.
13,000,000,000 BC. Spacetime comes to existence and expands rapidly, setting into motion the chain of events that'll eventually lead to the formation of Earth, rise of life and the existence of Slashdot, thus ruining it forever.
Speaking of nukes, I wonder how many betrayals Germany needs to decide it has to re-arm and acquire its own arsenal since it obviously can't rely on the US anymore? Because it seems the NSA wonders too, and is determined to find out.
Sucks for those children, but they're just their parent's property anyway, so they're an acceptable sacrifice for your ideology, eh?
Never. If you are rational and your opponent is not, turning the debate into an irrational dirt-throwing contest is to your disadvantage. Either write a rational argument or pass, those are the winning options.
Nah. Lack of strong unions is what allows employees to be screwed, in IT and in general. Divide and conquer practiced by the upper classes has been quite successfull, but they couldn't had done it without employees letting them. Ego and delusions of grandeur have their price, and I guess it'll keep being paid until the lesson sinks in: hang together or hang separately.
You were, until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on you.
And by "less freedom" you mean "higher taxes", which is not the common meaning of the word or concept.
Capitalists, however, demand the entire society be ordered for the sake of making that wealth, which they then pocket. Socialism rose as a counter-reaction to this abuse, and will continue existing as long as Capitalism will.
Not having to pay your share for the upkeep of the very society you live in is not essential liberty. But then again, the way things are going, I suppose we'll have another revolution before soon. I guess that will hammer the lesson home once again, until the generation that experienced it fades away and the cycle starts again. Just as happened after the World Wars and the rise of Communism.
That is entirely possible - not certain or even likely, since you didn't offer any evidence for your assertion, but possible. But what of it? Life is not business, it's purpose is not turning a profit. It's the quality of life that matters. And security, including financial security, is part of that.
Does it matter whether you deserve forgiveness, in some abstract sense of "deserve"? Not to the rest of us, no. What matters to us - assuming we're thinking rationally, of course - is how you getting forgiveness affects us. That is why banks got a bailout, and why consumers should get one, too. There's no point in investing if there's no consumer demand, and there's no consumer demand if they're busy paying back their debts.
So, simply have the government buy out all debt (eminem domain) and annul it, either immediately or, say, 10% per month. That will cause a massive injection of money to the very roots of economy, and should kickstart it. The cost is a pulse in inflation as money starts circulating, but it should even out soon.
Yes, it could, and pretty soon it's expected you sell your organs first before seeking public assistance. This is a horrible idea that needs to be snipped in the bud.
The parent said Facebook is becoming a condition for employment. Employment is not voluntary in this economic system. It's not "willpower" in a "toy store" that's the issue, it's being able to pay for food and rent.
No, it's like bitching about the electricity bill when you have no other way to cook food and the utility company is charging what it will from a captive audience.
Voting for surveillance-happy politicians is voluntary. At least for now, it's not a condition for employment.
Why should he be? Isn't screwing over everyone and everything while pursuing a get-rich-quick scheme the very essence of the American Dream?
This is just business as usual for a system where the only thing that matters is success.
Google knows the Klingon Emperor's fetishes while Oracle helps keep his secret Ferenginar bank accounts organized. The US Supreme Court is a helpful referee so the two won't inflict contradictory blackmail on the helpless absolute ruler and leave him - and everyone below him - with no good options. Because it's so well-organized and considerate of consequences, corruption is hardly worthy of the name anymore, but simply another mechanism of society Worf Average doesn't really have to worry about - heck, it actually benefits him since it encourages solving various crises behind the scenes before they can cause serious disruption.
Or at least that's how it would work in the utopian Star Trek future.
"Now, Hastert stands accused of improper sexual contact with a boy he knew years ago while teaching high school and trying to hide that sordid history by paying the young man to keep quiet."
I concede we don't know for certain if he's guilty. However, investigating alleged child molestation still sounds very much like it is - and should be - FBI's business.
No, they didin't. Hitler used fear of communism to get businessmen behind him, and Stalin was trying to build Soviet Union into a superpower capable of withstanding their attack.
ISIS and Al Qaeda aren't the threats anti-encryption movement is intended to fight. As economy fares worse and worse, people are getting tired of watching the fat cats get richer while they're facing ever more severe austerity and insecurity. We're headed for another age of revolution, and the top dogs are building their bunkers.