Well, this is what you get when the govt. is fully *bought* and paid for by interests other than the "people".
But even that's making the assumption there was ever some innocence to be corrupted, which could perhaps be restored. In reality, while money's certainly changed hands it's mostly just a matter people liking those similar to themselves. A CEO and a senator understand each other since they both pursue and wield power. They're part of the ruling class. Even if they were both full of honest, incorruptible pure pureness and good will towards man, they'd still have much more in common with one another than with Joe Average.
This is true everywhere. Of course the bigger the pyramid of power the farther the top is from the bottom, so it shows up especially badly at EU and US federal level. However, Joe Average looks down on Joe Unemployed with exactly similar attitude his betters look at him. It's the hierarchy itself that needs to go. Democracy was a good start, but as this very article demonstrates, it's not sufficient. It makes the pyramid lower, but it's still there. I imagine the next step would need to be to guarantee economic independence for everyone; we'll likely have to resort to citizen pay anyway to keep the economy from crumbling as automation eliminates jobs, and money is the single greatest manifestation of inequality of power in all Western societies, so it makes a good next target.
And why should it be? What business does the FBI have asking law abiding citizens what they do with their money?
What law abiding citizens? We're talking about a child molester here. And one who's trying to silence his victim with money. That sounds very much like the 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. If anything, those balances are currently far too weak to prevent plutocracy.
That would seem pretty unlikely to anyone that thinks about it since I have taken a pretty consistent stand against Russian aggression and Soviet Communism.
And that's another talking point Putin would probably want discredited. So it's perfectly consistent with you being on Kremlin's payroll.
In case you aren't, I suggest you take a long hard look at what kind of service you're actually doing to your country.
Ah yes, the infamous "authoritarianism" of limited government.
Limited government? As far as I can tell, your ideal is the exact opposite: a government not bound by any rules, laws or ethics whatsoever, trusted with limitless power over its own citizens and everyone else, wielded with no oversight or regard for consequences.
Or are you confusing the ability of a free people to defend themselves with authoritarianism?
No, I simply don't think that people who are being spied on by their government are free. And frankly, I don't think Americans control the American Government anymore. I don't think anyone does. The whole thing acts too much like an animal reacting to its instincts, with no rational will at charge. That's what happens when you let an organization escape human control, and why non-democracies typically require a single strong leader who can force at least some of his will on them. Democracies make do with the voters giving feedback, but that fails if the organization gains power over them, for example with a total, paranoid surveillance system.
I just don't think those tactics would work all that well within the US. It seems like whenever an organization DOES try an astroturfing campaign ("Citizens for Enhanced Comcast Monopoly") it gets spotted so quickly for what it is that it seems to achieve negative results.
Russians aren't idiots, they simply think things will get better if they pretend to believe the lies and let their country and its leaders engage in one immoral act after another - just like Americans, or really anyone. And their reward is the same, too.
The professional Russian trolls are about as subtle.
Do we know Cold Fjord is not a Russian troll? After all, he's making American patriotism look bad by associating it with authoritarianism.
Thing is, you don't need to be very good at trolling if you are working full time at it. You will always get the last word against people who has better things to do than to argue with paid trolls.
You will always get the last word, and then what? The point of such trolling is to disrupt, to keep people arguing over stupid shit forever so they're too busy to discuss Putin's failures or what to do about him; if other posters ignore him, he has failed.
Whilst the proliferation of easy credit shoulders a lot of the blame, a significant amount still falls onto the shoulders of the credit addled. They could say "no" when the bank offers them an easy loan. They could say "no" I dont need an expensive car. They could say "no" to credit and pay cash/debit at the store.
They could say "no" to credit, live miserly, and then get in debt anyway due to, say, medical bills. Or they could use credit and at least have good memories on their deathbed.
No, but he has to anyway, since the car manufacturers bought up and destroyed public transport and city planners make sure it's almost impossible to live near work and services.
The fact they were working at CMU suggests they were already paying them market value.
The fact they aren't working there anymore suggest they weren't.
What I think actually happened is that Uber treated the Robotics Engineering Center as a startup with a set of internal working relationships and expertise that they wanted. Since they couldn't actually buy the Center they just hired away all the researchers.
So the employees rather than shareholders, managers or the CEO got a fat paycheck for being good at their jobs. That's communism!
If we could thrawl space for dissipated matter and energy and thus create new stars, wouldn't the stop the heat death?
That particular method won't work, since stars "burn" fuel and eventually all will be gone. However, combining general relativity with quantum physics might allow us to control the shape of spacetime in a way that basically amounts to creating new "baby" universes.
Alternatively, an expanding universe can not actually experience heat death, since the expansion itself causes the ambient temperature to fall. However, taking advantage of this fact would require giving up anything resembling our current fleshy forms. Of course, we'll probably end up doing that anyway, since mind uploading has obvious advantages once we leave the only known environment - Earth - where our bodies are actually convenient. And of course, it might turn out mind uploading is actually impossible, in which case we have problems.
And of course, it's always possible that the Laws of Thermodynamics are not, in fact, absolute, or more likely, don't mean what we think they mean. It wouldn't be the first time people jumped to conclusions without thinking of all the implications.
There are times i wonder if WW2 was facists vs facists about who was to run the circus.
Fighting fascists on their own terms will, of course, make you more like them. Just like the Cold War led to the committee of counter-revolutionary - excuse me, anti-American - activities, War on Drugs led to police behaving like a criminal cartel, War on Terror in practice means assassinations and bombings, and so forth. You cannot wield power without yielding to it; you can sit on a throne but it'll be the logic of the throne which dictates your actions, not the other way around.
"Even if we lose this war, we still win, for our spirit will have penetrated our enemies' hearts." --Goebbels
âoeWhoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.â --Nietzsche
Goebbels was smarter than Nietzsche, at least in this regard; he saw the process as inevitable. An evil regime might be crushed by force of arms, but the spirit it embodies can't be. And of course the same works the other way too, thus for example the Baltic states popped right back into existence as soon as Soviet oppression slipped. Humans aren't really sapient yet; we simply have some of our instincts dictated by memes rather than genes, and the process is unconscious. Becoming fully aware of it is likely the next big step forward, assuming we survive our current troubled childhood.
We all do, but there aren't enough resources to provide luxuries for 6 billion people.
He didn't ask for "luxuries" (what does that even mean? running potable water would be luxury in third world), he asked for security. There's enough resources to feed, clothe, house, and connect everyone, even if you assume most companies are so economically inefficient they'll have to close doors once their employees have any options besides destitution.
No, the real reason those on top will fight tooth and nail any changes is that they'd lose their power if those under them could flip them the bird and walk away in reality, not just in theory. But they don't ultimately have options: they can't provide enough jobs at sufficient pay level to keep the current system going, since then their competitors will undercut them and/or the shareholders will oust them, and they can't stop using more and more automation, which will make the situation worse and worse. The change is coming, with the same logic of marketplace that rised them up corroding the foundations of their power. The only questions that remain open are where we'll end up, and how many people get killed on the way there.
No, they hadn't. As the judge noted, the company had not fulfilled its contractual obligations towards them.
They were stamping their feet and demanding severance money from a company that didn't have the money, and not caring if they destroyed the company and the lives of the superior employees who still worked there.
They were demanding money that the company owned them. If the company had accumulated debts it couldn't pay that's the CEOs fault.
But your comment about "superior employees" piques my interest: do you think someone who's "inferior" in some way should not only lose, but internalize their defeat so they'll be submissive to their "superiors"? Is that the world you authoritarian libertarians - for a lack of better description - want to see?
Nasty, stupid children acting just as expected.
Do you also make such comments when the bank or other company demands you pay your debts? Or is it just the peons who have obligations to their liege lords?
Yes, I think I understand you now. Authoritarian libertarian. Didn't think it was possible, but I guess human creativity is truly boundless, especially when you wouldn't want it to be.
Unless the government pays them on behalf of the bankrupt company,
Sure, why not? Seems to me like that would be an excellent way to stimulate economy, letting people working for startups concentrate on their jobs rather than whether it's time to jump ship. And as a nice side bonus it'd help make "unofficial" employment less attractive.
You could even take it a step further and have the state pay the entire payroll for a startup, and deduct it from any money you take out of the company or get from selling it. Sure, you'd lose some to fraud, but it would still be a step up from the current method of giving money to banks and large companies who then pay every single cent as dividends and bonuses.
Isn't "enlightened self interest" the whole fucking point of capitalism?
No, making as much money as possible is the whole point of capitalism. And if you screw over others to make more profits said profits are yours, while the costs are public. It's a classic tragedy of the commons, and it's slowly but surely destroying the entire system. A welfare state could manage the damage, but is currenly unfashionable, and frankly it seems the society is going - if it hasn't already - over the tipping point where the vicious circle of poverty leading to damaged infrastructure leading to economic problems and more poverty can't be stopped anymore.
That only works once. You get yours (maybe), nobody else will have the opportunity to get anything. In this case it appears the terminated employees will get less than they would have if they had compromised rather than taking down the company.
Compromises require trust: you have to be able to trust the other party to be negotiating in good faith, rather than just buying time while they're hiding the valuables. There's been too many instances of the latter for any such trust to exist. And no system can work once people lose faith in it.
If they don't know what they are doing, then why are they the leaders?
Because they have access to the biggest club. They claim Earth's resources as their own, and can back that claim with (outsourced) violence, so everyone else either obeys or starves. Actual competence in using those resources is irrelevant.
Besides, it's not like they're actually in charge - market logic or the "Invisible Hand" is. They have some leeway in interpreting its will, and particularly competent ones can sometimes even suggest a course of action, but ultimately they are just pampered slaves.
An executive's job is a purely ritualistic one: they're posing for the public while interpreting orders from high. The only real difference between them and, say, an Aztec high priest is that the Invisible Hand wants its victims starved rather than TempleofDoomed, which is less messy. Well, currently they victims are mostly just made destitute rather than outright killed, but born-again InvisibleHanders are working hard to change that.
Of course, the real problem with this scenario is that the Invisible Hand is not self-aware and can't think ahead, so the end result is that no one is in charge. Explains a lot, eh?
The reporting on this is very muddled, but at least one article says that the car was not in "self-parking" mode, so the pedestrian detection would not have been active even if this car had it.
So does this mean Volvo sells a configuration that 1) has a computer control the car in small, enclosed spaces and 2) doesn't hae said computer look for obstacles, and specifically not humans?
If licenses weren't numbered, the proliferation of taxis would render city streets unnavigable.
...Taxis carrying who? The same people who are now using their own cars? Why would that make things any worse? If anything, they should get better when more drivers are professionals.
That said, if the license system is abolished, then the government should reimburse the current license holders. After all, having had to pay for a license when newcomers don't puts them at an unfair competitive disadvantage due to opportunity costs.
Spoken just like someone who doesn't actually have to deal with that situation...
Okay, time for the facts of life: I, who work for a living, pay taxes too. For all intents and purposes that's an investment of time and effort, rather than money. So what happens if I'm not satisfied with my level of return and choose to cease investing - that is, quit? Why, I don't get paid, of course.
Perhaps you've never had to deal with that situation. Good for you. But don't except those who do to have much sympathy for your plight.
Don't attribute to malice that which can be blamed on stupidity.
The problem is, stupidity is sufficient. The police don't need to be actively malicious if their institutional culture - "the brainwashing they've been given" - constantly prompts them to perform unfair and destructive actions.
Also, you're wrong. "Naturally enough, when they realized they fucked up they looked around for a way to cover their ass and saw the guy had a revoked license." Yes, it's perfectly natural to sacrifice a bystander to save your own skin. It's also not something you can blame on stupidity. It's deliberate, selfish cowardice.
As you say, the Guardian wants us to believe that the chemical industry is some cigar-smoking shades-wearing embodiment of corporate evil here, which is unlikely.
Of course not. It's a "nothing personal, just good business" embodiment of corporate evil. Someone wants a bonus and is somehow able to convince himself the resuls of the means used to get it aren't really his fault. Just like every other group of monsters in human history managed to convince themselves that their ends justified their means. The only difference is that corporate ends tend to be pettier.
It seems to be more like a dispute over the costs and benefits of enacting a ban before harm is conclusively established.
It's a matter of a few people getting all the benefits and everyone sharing costs - a known failure mode of capitalism. Or "success mode" if all you care about is maximizing profits or economic indicators.
You mean cultural suicide. After all, it violates the freedom of religion, which is absolutely vital for the marketplace of ideas to exist. That marketplace is the essence of Western Culture, underlaying every currently reigning local ideas.
The only thing mosques do is give the local populace a chance to copy whatever good ideas Islam might have, and of course the other way around. And the only ones it threatens are those who are on top in current status quo and wish it to remain.
Slashdot Mirror
But even that's making the assumption there was ever some innocence to be corrupted, which could perhaps be restored. In reality, while money's certainly changed hands it's mostly just a matter people liking those similar to themselves. A CEO and a senator understand each other since they both pursue and wield power. They're part of the ruling class. Even if they were both full of honest, incorruptible pure pureness and good will towards man, they'd still have much more in common with one another than with Joe Average.
This is true everywhere. Of course the bigger the pyramid of power the farther the top is from the bottom, so it shows up especially badly at EU and US federal level. However, Joe Average looks down on Joe Unemployed with exactly similar attitude his betters look at him. It's the hierarchy itself that needs to go. Democracy was a good start, but as this very article demonstrates, it's not sufficient. It makes the pyramid lower, but it's still there. I imagine the next step would need to be to guarantee economic independence for everyone; we'll likely have to resort to citizen pay anyway to keep the economy from crumbling as automation eliminates jobs, and money is the single greatest manifestation of inequality of power in all Western societies, so it makes a good next target.
What law abiding citizens? We're talking about a child molester here. And one who's trying to silence his victim with money. That sounds very much like the 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. If anything, those balances are currently far too weak to prevent plutocracy.
And that's another talking point Putin would probably want discredited. So it's perfectly consistent with you being on Kremlin's payroll.
In case you aren't, I suggest you take a long hard look at what kind of service you're actually doing to your country.
Limited government? As far as I can tell, your ideal is the exact opposite: a government not bound by any rules, laws or ethics whatsoever, trusted with limitless power over its own citizens and everyone else, wielded with no oversight or regard for consequences.
No, I simply don't think that people who are being spied on by their government are free. And frankly, I don't think Americans control the American Government anymore. I don't think anyone does. The whole thing acts too much like an animal reacting to its instincts, with no rational will at charge. That's what happens when you let an organization escape human control, and why non-democracies typically require a single strong leader who can force at least some of his will on them. Democracies make do with the voters giving feedback, but that fails if the organization gains power over them, for example with a total, paranoid surveillance system.
Russians aren't idiots, they simply think things will get better if they pretend to believe the lies and let their country and its leaders engage in one immoral act after another - just like Americans, or really anyone. And their reward is the same, too.
Do we know Cold Fjord is not a Russian troll? After all, he's making American patriotism look bad by associating it with authoritarianism.
You will always get the last word, and then what? The point of such trolling is to disrupt, to keep people arguing over stupid shit forever so they're too busy to discuss Putin's failures or what to do about him; if other posters ignore him, he has failed.
They could say "no" to credit, live miserly, and then get in debt anyway due to, say, medical bills. Or they could use credit and at least have good memories on their deathbed.
No, but he has to anyway, since the car manufacturers bought up and destroyed public transport and city planners make sure it's almost impossible to live near work and services.
The fact they aren't working there anymore suggest they weren't.
So the employees rather than shareholders, managers or the CEO got a fat paycheck for being good at their jobs. That's communism!
So... Hitler was reborn as Slashdot? That explains why this place is so obsessed with karma.
That particular method won't work, since stars "burn" fuel and eventually all will be gone. However, combining general relativity with quantum physics might allow us to control the shape of spacetime in a way that basically amounts to creating new "baby" universes.
Alternatively, an expanding universe can not actually experience heat death, since the expansion itself causes the ambient temperature to fall. However, taking advantage of this fact would require giving up anything resembling our current fleshy forms. Of course, we'll probably end up doing that anyway, since mind uploading has obvious advantages once we leave the only known environment - Earth - where our bodies are actually convenient. And of course, it might turn out mind uploading is actually impossible, in which case we have problems.
And of course, it's always possible that the Laws of Thermodynamics are not, in fact, absolute, or more likely, don't mean what we think they mean. It wouldn't be the first time people jumped to conclusions without thinking of all the implications.
There are times i wonder if WW2 was facists vs facists about who was to run the circus.
Fighting fascists on their own terms will, of course, make you more like them. Just like the Cold War led to the committee of counter-revolutionary - excuse me, anti-American - activities, War on Drugs led to police behaving like a criminal cartel, War on Terror in practice means assassinations and bombings, and so forth. You cannot wield power without yielding to it; you can sit on a throne but it'll be the logic of the throne which dictates your actions, not the other way around.
"Even if we lose this war, we still win, for our spirit will have penetrated our enemies' hearts." --Goebbels
âoeWhoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.â --Nietzsche
Goebbels was smarter than Nietzsche, at least in this regard; he saw the process as inevitable. An evil regime might be crushed by force of arms, but the spirit it embodies can't be. And of course the same works the other way too, thus for example the Baltic states popped right back into existence as soon as Soviet oppression slipped. Humans aren't really sapient yet; we simply have some of our instincts dictated by memes rather than genes, and the process is unconscious. Becoming fully aware of it is likely the next big step forward, assuming we survive our current troubled childhood.
He didn't ask for "luxuries" (what does that even mean? running potable water would be luxury in third world), he asked for security. There's enough resources to feed, clothe, house, and connect everyone, even if you assume most companies are so economically inefficient they'll have to close doors once their employees have any options besides destitution.
No, the real reason those on top will fight tooth and nail any changes is that they'd lose their power if those under them could flip them the bird and walk away in reality, not just in theory. But they don't ultimately have options: they can't provide enough jobs at sufficient pay level to keep the current system going, since then their competitors will undercut them and/or the shareholders will oust them, and they can't stop using more and more automation, which will make the situation worse and worse. The change is coming, with the same logic of marketplace that rised them up corroding the foundations of their power. The only questions that remain open are where we'll end up, and how many people get killed on the way there.
No, they hadn't. As the judge noted, the company had not fulfilled its contractual obligations towards them.
They were demanding money that the company owned them. If the company had accumulated debts it couldn't pay that's the CEOs fault.
But your comment about "superior employees" piques my interest: do you think someone who's "inferior" in some way should not only lose, but internalize their defeat so they'll be submissive to their "superiors"? Is that the world you authoritarian libertarians - for a lack of better description - want to see?
Do you also make such comments when the bank or other company demands you pay your debts? Or is it just the peons who have obligations to their liege lords?
Yes, I think I understand you now. Authoritarian libertarian. Didn't think it was possible, but I guess human creativity is truly boundless, especially when you wouldn't want it to be.
Sure, why not? Seems to me like that would be an excellent way to stimulate economy, letting people working for startups concentrate on their jobs rather than whether it's time to jump ship. And as a nice side bonus it'd help make "unofficial" employment less attractive.
You could even take it a step further and have the state pay the entire payroll for a startup, and deduct it from any money you take out of the company or get from selling it. Sure, you'd lose some to fraud, but it would still be a step up from the current method of giving money to banks and large companies who then pay every single cent as dividends and bonuses.
No, making as much money as possible is the whole point of capitalism. And if you screw over others to make more profits said profits are yours, while the costs are public. It's a classic tragedy of the commons, and it's slowly but surely destroying the entire system. A welfare state could manage the damage, but is currenly unfashionable, and frankly it seems the society is going - if it hasn't already - over the tipping point where the vicious circle of poverty leading to damaged infrastructure leading to economic problems and more poverty can't be stopped anymore.
Compromises require trust: you have to be able to trust the other party to be negotiating in good faith, rather than just buying time while they're hiding the valuables. There's been too many instances of the latter for any such trust to exist. And no system can work once people lose faith in it.
Every massless thing not only can, but must, go at c. That's the very reason light does.
Because they have access to the biggest club. They claim Earth's resources as their own, and can back that claim with (outsourced) violence, so everyone else either obeys or starves. Actual competence in using those resources is irrelevant.
Besides, it's not like they're actually in charge - market logic or the "Invisible Hand" is. They have some leeway in interpreting its will, and particularly competent ones can sometimes even suggest a course of action, but ultimately they are just pampered slaves.
An executive's job is a purely ritualistic one: they're posing for the public while interpreting orders from high. The only real difference between them and, say, an Aztec high priest is that the Invisible Hand wants its victims starved rather than TempleofDoomed, which is less messy. Well, currently they victims are mostly just made destitute rather than outright killed, but born-again InvisibleHanders are working hard to change that.
Of course, the real problem with this scenario is that the Invisible Hand is not self-aware and can't think ahead, so the end result is that no one is in charge. Explains a lot, eh?
Aw, did someone publish something less than flattering about your favorite demagogue again?
So does this mean Volvo sells a configuration that 1) has a computer control the car in small, enclosed spaces and 2) doesn't hae said computer look for obstacles, and specifically not humans?
...Taxis carrying who? The same people who are now using their own cars? Why would that make things any worse? If anything, they should get better when more drivers are professionals.
That said, if the license system is abolished, then the government should reimburse the current license holders. After all, having had to pay for a license when newcomers don't puts them at an unfair competitive disadvantage due to opportunity costs.
Okay, time for the facts of life: I, who work for a living, pay taxes too. For all intents and purposes that's an investment of time and effort, rather than money. So what happens if I'm not satisfied with my level of return and choose to cease investing - that is, quit? Why, I don't get paid, of course.
Perhaps you've never had to deal with that situation. Good for you. But don't except those who do to have much sympathy for your plight.
The problem is, stupidity is sufficient. The police don't need to be actively malicious if their institutional culture - "the brainwashing they've been given" - constantly prompts them to perform unfair and destructive actions.
Also, you're wrong. "Naturally enough, when they realized they fucked up they looked around for a way to cover their ass and saw the guy had a revoked license." Yes, it's perfectly natural to sacrifice a bystander to save your own skin. It's also not something you can blame on stupidity. It's deliberate, selfish cowardice.
Of course not. It's a "nothing personal, just good business" embodiment of corporate evil. Someone wants a bonus and is somehow able to convince himself the resuls of the means used to get it aren't really his fault. Just like every other group of monsters in human history managed to convince themselves that their ends justified their means. The only difference is that corporate ends tend to be pettier.
It's a matter of a few people getting all the benefits and everyone sharing costs - a known failure mode of capitalism. Or "success mode" if all you care about is maximizing profits or economic indicators.
You mean cultural suicide. After all, it violates the freedom of religion, which is absolutely vital for the marketplace of ideas to exist. That marketplace is the essence of Western Culture, underlaying every currently reigning local ideas.
The only thing mosques do is give the local populace a chance to copy whatever good ideas Islam might have, and of course the other way around. And the only ones it threatens are those who are on top in current status quo and wish it to remain.