this is almost the exact thing i would have written about my transition from gentoo to ubuntu. on the ubuntu forums is a thread asking what distro people used before ubuntu, and most of them used gentoo.
when me and my roomates are arguing about what to watch on tv, the least lazy of us just goes up to the tv, turns it to the channel they want, and put a book in front of the ir port thingy. then, unless we want to get up too, we're forced to watch.
this could be done here as well to circumvent any tv haters
it doesn't matter how smart you are when shit like
this happens
this may help stupid people to vote (which i have nothing against) but more importantly it stops corrupt election officials from derailing (even more so) the democratic process.
especially the suing part. last time in that florida fiasco some voters were told they had to have a driver's liscence to vote. an obvious lie that hopefully only some first time votors would believe.
at least in ohio the election officials will think twice before f*cking with someone's right to vote
what does it for me:
gentoo > debian
gentoo > typical easy distro
debian + easy distro > gentoo
like someone who posted above in response to your question, i also used gentoo and was perfectly happy with it. i thought i had everything configured correctly, but after trying ubuntu, i see i was wrong, since my ubuntu installation feels noticeably faster. now, i know that i *could* have done my gentoo configuration right, but i'm still a bit of a n00b with only about a year's worth of linux experience (almost all gentoo). so i still don't know what i could do to get my gentoo installation as optimized as my ubuntu. and there are a few other small things i've noticed i didn't do right with my gentoo installation (which ubuntu took care of automatically) which makes me think there may be more.
of course, this may not be an issue for you. if your gentoo box is optimized, then we're back to comparing gentoo and debian except that this distro is easier than debian.
last year when i was researching which distro to use i had to choose between debian and gentoo, and chose gentoo mostly because of the documentation and forums and the slight edge of portage over apt-get. if ubuntu had been around, the choice would have been easy (although i'm glad i used gentoo, as i learned alot about linux)
but this still doesn't answer your question i guess. for me there are two reasons i stayed with ubuntu over my gentoo install. one is the time it takes to install packages. i didn't mind compiling, and my computer is fast. but why not get the package even faster? this reason isn't that imortant to me.
the more important reason is that i got tired of fiddling with my system. i liked learning about linux, and actually enjoyed the installation (when things were working), and liked knowing where all the important configuration files were and everything. but now, in less than a year i've learned far more about linux than most casual users. and i think that's enough. now i'm ready for an easy distro. but unlike my first mandrake experience, i'm not shakled by the easy distro's lack of choices because, thanks to gentoo, i know how to go over the head of their precious gui and do whatever i want to my system. but unlike gentoo, i don't have to.
but still, i don't think these are very strong reasons to switch. in fact, i never really made a concious decision to switch. but i had wanted to try ubuntu. after using it for a couple of weeks, i just got used to it's ease and didn't see a reason to go back to gentoo.
yeah, you're the second person to point out to me that Libertarianism isn't Anarchy. And I'm glad to find that Libertarians are not against governent regulations of businesses. It's just that usually when I hear someone promote Libertarianism it's all about deregulation and free market.
But then how does the party decide what and how much government intervention is required? I would consider welfare a required intervention, but obviously most Libertarians would disagree. And some might say the environment needs no intervention by the government to protect it. I guess there's a range of beliefs just like any other political ideology.
I agree, getting land out of the governments hands and into private ownership is reducing the role that the government plays. But when the government tries to keep land out of the hands of certain companies that would not preserve it, then that, I say, is government intervention.
I was just thinking that after the land starts to be in some kind of free market, the government will find that it has to exert some control over who gets to own it in order to stop some companies from exploiting it and hurting our environment. This is what I thought went against Libertarian policies. But if this is one of the areas that Libertarians would consider to be an essential part of government, then I'm glad to be wrong. It's just that so much of what I hear about Libertarianism is 'no government control' and 'free market everything'.
Uh.. how is it more government interventiont to give the land to private groups than it is for the government to hold it themselves? Please, enlighten me..
I didn't say it was. Nor did I say I'm against government intervention. I merely pointed out that his response about the environment goes against his party's policies. Please enlighten me on how you can entirely miss the point of a simple post.
I'd also work to get wilderness lands into the hands of private groups who want to preserve them.
That sounds like government intervention. Who decides which private group really wants to preserve a wilderness? What if they are just lying about wanting to preserve it? What if the private group that does not want to preserve it offers the most money for it?
Looks like really preseving a wilderness area would require government intervention and regulation. Which goes against this party's policies.
it's a distro planned and financed by a very rich and somewhat famous man who is doing alot to promote open source in South Africa. It will probably have, if it doesn't already, the prominant local languages embedded in it.
so it may not be very well known here, but it will have an impact there. imagine one of America's most rich and famous men (besides gates) starting a distro with as much money behind it as they cared to spend, which in Shuttlesworth's case, is alot. so i wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be better than most community distros
AKA you send 100 bits I tell you the 50 bit's I saw mean while I send you 100 bits and you tell me the 50 bits you saw. Then I send data back and forth while keeping a copy of everything or even changing the data sent to each person.
the part of the key that the sender and the receiver compare to make sure nobody eavesdropped can be done over classic channels. so can the actual data transmission. it could be the sender and the receiver talking over the telephone, or in person. it does not have to be secure. are you going to intercept their calls and imitate their voices? or dress up to look like one of them?
But thanks for playing
maybe before you make anymore snide comments on this subject you should learn some of the physics
the encryption used for these are one-time encryptions. only one message is used for an encryption. every time a new message is sent, a new encryption code is made. i could send a message that i encoded by correlating the words with the pattern of freckles on my backside. and as long as i only use this encoding scheme once it can't be cracked. the important part is making sure that the key to this code gets to the receiver without anyone else getting it. so the key to this is not how good the encryption is, it's keeping the key out of eavesdroppers hands.
it's the key to the encryption that they have to make sure isn't tampered with or eavesdropped on. say the key is 100 bits long. after the transmission of the key, the sender and reciever compare, say, 50 of these bits publicly. if the receiver's bits are different than the sender's they know someone has tampered with it (since any measurement by an outsider will alter the state) and they throw that key away. if they are exactly the same, they know no one listened in and they can use the other 50 bits as the actual key. they send the encrypted data only after they are sure no one else has the key.
it's designed to stop sniffing of the key, not the data. the users will know if someone eavesdropped on the key *before* they send the encrypted data. the users can make sure no one else has the key with as close to 100% certainty as they want.
when the poster said 'the technology is working and 100% secure' they meant the technology of the transmission, not the computer using it.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war!
on
Assault Weapons Ban
·
· Score: 1
I'm not saying all Americans like to go around shooting each other. It's just that they do it so much more often than in some other countries like the ones mentioned in the parent post I was responding to. It's relative. But if you think that pointing out America's violence is anti-American you should hear how much I hate South Africa. I don't really hate South Africa, I like it alot, but they have a bad crime probem, and pointing that out (even coming to the conclusion that, on average, they are more apt to shoot someone) doesn't make me anti-South African either.
And I wasn't being anti-poor, although in hindsight, looking at my post I could see how someone who doesn't know me could see it as such. But it's no secret that poor neighborhoods (like the ones I've lived in) have more crime and more gun violence. Countries with less poverty have less crime and less gun violence. I'm of the opinion (which is a whole other debate) that if you get rid of poverty, you get rid of (the vast majority) of crime. I'm the kind of guy that would rather the state spend money on more social services for the poor than on more prisons (another whole other debate). So i'm definitely not anti-poor.
As for the gun laws, well I never said that there are or could be effective laws to keep guns out of criminals hands. It's a tough situation, and I wasn't pretending to have the answer.
What I'm saying is that we (I'm American too, although I only lived there for 23 years before leaving) have a problem with violence that other western countries don't seem to have. I don't know why this is. Given the correlation between poverty and crime I sometimes think poverty is the reason. I don't know. Maybe it's related to the culture we have where it's okay to show people get shot on primetime television, yet a woman's breast brings the scorn of the nation. But again, I don't know.
What I do know is that those countries mentioned in the post I was responding to have low crime rates, and it wouldn't matter if they had stringent gun laws or not. They would still have lower crime rates than in the States. So, it is a fautly argument to point to countries like that as evidence that relaxed gun laws lower crime. I could just as easily point to countries with lax gun laws that have more crime than the US. The last four sentences were the only point I was making.
And I have met gun owners who were apt to shoot people. No fun at all.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war!
on
Assault Weapons Ban
·
· Score: 1
About those low crime countries with lots of guns:
I agree, it's not the guns. But those countries don't have the violent culture that we seem to have developed. If less Americans were apt to shoot people then it would be fine to let them have all the guns they wanted like in Switzerland or New Zealand. Maybe it's that they have less poor people. Or maybe they just don't accept violence the way we often do. Regardess, we have serious problems with violence. And letting us all have guns is probably not going to help. It's certainly not going to get us the low crime rates of Switzerland or New Zealand.
In theory, I'm for the 2nd amendment. I've gotten in big arguments defending it. But often, especially when I lived in poor neighborhoods, I sure wished that guns were harder to get. And I know, the criminals are going to find their guns somehow, but why make it easy?
Now, I'm not saying I'm for a ban on guns. My point is that because of the violence we have in America, it's not really a fair argument to point to those low crime countries with lax gun laws and say things would be fine if our laws were the same.
because, yes we vote for a party. a party that has already elected it's leader who will become prime minister if that party wins. the same way Americans vote for a party that has already nominated a leader who will become president if that party wins.
and we have at least 3 viable parties (which have all ran the country in my lifetime) and 2 more with actual power. it's in no way a two party system
I take it back about you being a dick. But I don't feel like arguing anymore. We obviously have different values. I don't mind paying taxes to help the unfortunate. I don't care how someone has screwed up their life to make them homeless or poor. I believe everyone deserves health care for all medical problems. I believe everyone deserves shelter. These are opinions. You can not say they are wrong. You can call them ignorant or misguided all you want to, but it's not going change what I think is right. And fortunately most modern governments agree with me. I'll probably even be satisfied with America one day.
Labor Unions? Yes, because what they provide could not have been done without Labor Unions. *rolls eyes*. Labor Unions have basically become an instance where the worker gives up rights to a Union, and in turn, Union bureaucracy fattens its own pockets by doing very little for the worker.
Have you ever even been in a real union before? The only kinds of people I know who bash unions are ones who have never done a day's worth of real work (read: manual labor) in their life. I may not do that stuff anymore, but I have in the past, and my union helped. Your theories on the fat cat union bosses have no validity over my real world experience.
And you know, it's funny that you took my first post as being so gung-ho anti capitalist and pro socialist when the main point I was making was that America is not a true capitalist country (which you admitted, which makes me wonder why you even bothered me with your ignorant post) and that a true capitalist country does not exist today. If you can provide a counter example, then do so. If not then kindly STFU.
I usually don't respond to posts this way, but after reading your responses to danila, I see that you are a dick.
Mideival Icelandic villages, Ancient Ireland, and slightly less so, the America West (and early America) were all examples of capitalist societies. Ancient Ireland, probably the most libertarian, decentralized society ever, was quite stable and had little armed conflict, until invading Britons brought feudaeconomicslism to Eire's shores.
I'll admit I don't know much aeconomicsbout mideival Icelandic villages or ancient Ireland, but if they were so succesful, why haven't others adopted their methods? And the American west? Wow, was that ever a bastion of enlightenment. I don't buy it. And even if this is true, these small societies which no longer exist have nothing to do with modern countries consisting of tens of millions of people. I could just as easliy name some small communes of yesteryear that lived on socialist principles but it would have no relavence to real countries of today.
Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands might have the highest standards of living now, but they're going backrupt [just like the Soviet Union did]. It might just take a while longer, since the Scandinavian countries aren't being hurried to bankruptcy by a Space Race with the United States.
Even if I believed that these countries are running out of money (which I don't, I have family in the Netherlands, they are doing fine), are you implying that a country like America, with it's tremendous debt and budget deficit, is doing better? That is rediculous. At least their citizens have health care.
Actually, you did have to pay for school from Kindergarden until now, or at least your parents had to. It's called taxes, and in the long run, taxes end up costing a whole lot more than what you would have to pay for a private education, and with a private education, you're better off.
I'm well aware that taxes pay for education (and health care and other things I mentioned). Collecting taxes to pay for these things is something that a true capitalist country does not do. And you are making the mistaken assumption that if it were not for taxes I would have been able to afford a private education which is far from the truth. Myself and many others would never have been able to finish elementary school, let alone university, if it were not for publicly funded schools. How would those private schools have helped us at all?
Most science is done by private organizations, and are not funded by government subsidies.
I am a physicist. Everything in my lab, from pencil and papers to lasers and vacuum chambers are paid for by government subsidies. All blue sky resarch is. Only research with a possible immediate payoff is solely funded by private organizations. Slashdot's favorite science subjects such as quantum computing, gravity wave detection, Hawking's lost bet: all publicly funded by various governments.
Where did you get the idea that the jobless would be left to starve without State Welfare? Where has State Welfare actually helped? It's a temporary solution that gives off the illusion of being useful, and instead, ends up in a welfare culture where more and more people stop taking responsibility for their lives, and end up wanting freebies.
I was born on welfare. If it were not for welfare, I would have starved. Simple as that. No, welfare is not something someone should stay on, but it can help a person get back on their feet like it did for my mom, allowing her to eventually go back to grad school and later become a tax paying citizen. Maybe you would be more satisfied if you (or your parents) did not have to pay tax dollars those years and me and my family were in the gutter?
This is the same problem with Free Educations and Socialized Health Care. Private education and private health care is much, much better. It is cheaper in the short term and the long term, and government regulation keeps the cost from going down. (Don't believe me, do some research and unnecessary and often incredibly foolish government r
Where? Where has capitalism suceeded? In fact, where does a capitalist country even exist anywhere on the planet?
America is certainly not a fully capitalist country just as the countries with the highest standards of living, such as Denmark, Sweden, or the Netherlands are not fully communist. If america were capitalist, I'd have had to pay for school from kindergarden till now. Scientists would have to sell inventions to generate revenue for research instead of getting grants from the government. The jobless would be left to starve instead of getting welfare. That's succeeding?
True capitalism is just as brutal as communism could ever be. Lucky for us that we've adopted many socialist ideals like free education, subsidized health care, labor unions, child labor laws, limited hour work week, welfare, etc., all of which are in direct contradiction to capitalism. If the true capitalists of the previous two centuries had had their way we would have none of these things.
i forgot where i read this, probably linux today or here at slashdot. but apparently the guy who stalled the linux implementation because of the patent problem is in the Green Party which is very much for open source and against software patents. the article suggests that stopping the linux roll out and citing software patents as a roadblock was a way to wake up the government and public to get them to see why software patents is a bad idea
Slashdot Mirror
this is almost the exact thing i would have written about my transition from gentoo to ubuntu. on the ubuntu forums is a thread asking what distro people used before ubuntu, and most of them used gentoo.
i wonder what the connection is.
when me and my roomates are arguing about what to watch on tv, the least lazy of us just goes up to the tv, turns it to the channel they want, and put a book in front of the ir port thingy. then, unless we want to get up too, we're forced to watch.
this could be done here as well to circumvent any tv haters
it doesn't matter how smart you are when shit like this happens
this may help stupid people to vote (which i have nothing against) but more importantly it stops corrupt election officials from derailing (even more so) the democratic process.
especially the suing part. last time in that florida fiasco some voters were told they had to have a driver's liscence to vote. an obvious lie that hopefully only some first time votors would believe.
at least in ohio the election officials will think twice before f*cking with someone's right to vote
what does it for me:
gentoo > debian
gentoo > typical easy distro
debian + easy distro > gentoo
like someone who posted above in response to your question, i also used gentoo and was perfectly happy with it. i thought i had everything configured correctly, but after trying ubuntu, i see i was wrong, since my ubuntu installation feels noticeably faster. now, i know that i *could* have done my gentoo configuration right, but i'm still a bit of a n00b with only about a year's worth of linux experience (almost all gentoo). so i still don't know what i could do to get my gentoo installation as optimized as my ubuntu. and there are a few other small things i've noticed i didn't do right with my gentoo installation (which ubuntu took care of automatically) which makes me think there may be more.
of course, this may not be an issue for you. if your gentoo box is optimized, then we're back to comparing gentoo and debian except that this distro is easier than debian.
last year when i was researching which distro to use i had to choose between debian and gentoo, and chose gentoo mostly because of the documentation and forums and the slight edge of portage over apt-get. if ubuntu had been around, the choice would have been easy (although i'm glad i used gentoo, as i learned alot about linux)
but this still doesn't answer your question i guess. for me there are two reasons i stayed with ubuntu over my gentoo install. one is the time it takes to install packages. i didn't mind compiling, and my computer is fast. but why not get the package even faster? this reason isn't that imortant to me.
the more important reason is that i got tired of fiddling with my system. i liked learning about linux, and actually enjoyed the installation (when things were working), and liked knowing where all the important configuration files were and everything. but now, in less than a year i've learned far more about linux than most casual users. and i think that's enough. now i'm ready for an easy distro. but unlike my first mandrake experience, i'm not shakled by the easy distro's lack of choices because, thanks to gentoo, i know how to go over the head of their precious gui and do whatever i want to my system. but unlike gentoo, i don't have to.
but still, i don't think these are very strong reasons to switch. in fact, i never really made a concious decision to switch. but i had wanted to try ubuntu. after using it for a couple of weeks, i just got used to it's ease and didn't see a reason to go back to gentoo.
yeah, you're the second person to point out to me that Libertarianism isn't Anarchy. And I'm glad to find that Libertarians are not against governent regulations of businesses. It's just that usually when I hear someone promote Libertarianism it's all about deregulation and free market.
But then how does the party decide what and how much government intervention is required? I would consider welfare a required intervention, but obviously most Libertarians would disagree. And some might say the environment needs no intervention by the government to protect it. I guess there's a range of beliefs just like any other political ideology.
I agree, getting land out of the governments hands and into private ownership is reducing the role that the government plays. But when the government tries to keep land out of the hands of certain companies that would not preserve it, then that, I say, is government intervention.
I was just thinking that after the land starts to be in some kind of free market, the government will find that it has to exert some control over who gets to own it in order to stop some companies from exploiting it and hurting our environment. This is what I thought went against Libertarian policies. But if this is one of the areas that Libertarians would consider to be an essential part of government, then I'm glad to be wrong. It's just that so much of what I hear about Libertarianism is 'no government control' and 'free market everything'.
Ok, so based on that, and my political compass 'score' of -6.38 (left right), -3.9 (libral authoritarian) where should I be planning my move for??
Canada!
no wait, probably, er,
The Netherlands! that place seems to have everything you described.
but Canada is easier if you're American
Uh.. how is it more government interventiont to give the land to private groups than it is for the government to hold it themselves? Please, enlighten me..
I didn't say it was. Nor did I say I'm against government intervention. I merely pointed out that his response about the environment goes against his party's policies. Please enlighten me on how you can entirely miss the point of a simple post.
I'd also work to get wilderness lands into the hands of private groups who want to preserve them.
That sounds like government intervention. Who decides which private group really wants to preserve a wilderness? What if they are just lying about wanting to preserve it? What if the private group that does not want to preserve it offers the most money for it?
Looks like really preseving a wilderness area would require government intervention and regulation. Which goes against this party's policies.
it's a distro planned and financed by a very rich and somewhat famous man who is doing alot to promote open source in South Africa. It will probably have, if it doesn't already, the prominant local languages embedded in it.
so it may not be very well known here, but it will have an impact there. imagine one of America's most rich and famous men (besides gates) starting a distro with as much money behind it as they cared to spend, which in Shuttlesworth's case, is alot. so i wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be better than most community distros
AKA you send 100 bits I tell you the 50 bit's I saw mean while I send you 100 bits and you tell me the 50 bits you saw. Then I send data back and forth while keeping a copy of everything or even changing the data sent to each person.
the part of the key that the sender and the receiver compare to make sure nobody eavesdropped can be done over classic channels. so can the actual data transmission. it could be the sender and the receiver talking over the telephone, or in person. it does not have to be secure. are you going to intercept their calls and imitate their voices? or dress up to look like one of them?
But thanks for playing
maybe before you make anymore snide comments on this subject you should learn some of the physics
the encryption used for these are one-time encryptions. only one message is used for an encryption. every time a new message is sent, a new encryption code is made. i could send a message that i encoded by correlating the words with the pattern of freckles on my backside. and as long as i only use this encoding scheme once it can't be cracked.
the important part is making sure that the key to this code gets to the receiver without anyone else getting it. so the key to this is not how good the encryption is, it's keeping the key out of eavesdroppers hands.
it's the key to the encryption that they have to make sure isn't tampered with or eavesdropped on. say the key is 100 bits long. after the transmission of the key, the sender and reciever compare, say, 50 of these bits publicly. if the receiver's bits are different than the sender's they know someone has tampered with it (since any measurement by an outsider will alter the state) and they throw that key away. if they are exactly the same, they know no one listened in and they can use the other 50 bits as the actual key.
they send the encrypted data only after they are sure no one else has the key.
it's designed to stop sniffing of the key, not the data. the users will know if someone eavesdropped on the key *before* they send the encrypted data. the users can make sure no one else has the key with as close to 100% certainty as they want.
when the poster said 'the technology is working and 100% secure' they meant the technology of the transmission, not the computer using it.
I'm not saying all Americans like to go around shooting each other. It's just that they do it so much more often than in some other countries like the ones mentioned in the parent post I was responding to. It's relative. But if you think that pointing out America's violence is anti-American you should hear how much I hate South Africa. I don't really hate South Africa, I like it alot, but they have a bad crime probem, and pointing that out (even coming to the conclusion that, on average, they are more apt to shoot someone) doesn't make me anti-South African either.
And I wasn't being anti-poor, although in hindsight, looking at my post I could see how someone who doesn't know me could see it as such. But it's no secret that poor neighborhoods (like the ones I've lived in) have more crime and more gun violence. Countries with less poverty have less crime and less gun violence. I'm of the opinion (which is a whole other debate) that if you get rid of poverty, you get rid of (the vast majority) of crime. I'm the kind of guy that would rather the state spend money on more social services for the poor than on more prisons (another whole other debate). So i'm definitely not anti-poor.
As for the gun laws, well I never said that there are or could be effective laws to keep guns out of criminals hands. It's a tough situation, and I wasn't pretending to have the answer.
What I'm saying is that we (I'm American too, although I only lived there for 23 years before leaving) have a problem with violence that other western countries don't seem to have. I don't know why this is. Given the correlation between poverty and crime I sometimes think poverty is the reason. I don't know. Maybe it's related to the culture we have where it's okay to show people get shot on primetime television, yet a woman's breast brings the scorn of the nation. But again, I don't know.
What I do know is that those countries mentioned in the post I was responding to have low crime rates, and it wouldn't matter if they had stringent gun laws or not. They would still have lower crime rates than in the States. So, it is a fautly argument to point to countries like that as evidence that relaxed gun laws lower crime. I could just as easily point to countries with lax gun laws that have more crime than the US. The last four sentences were the only point I was making.
And I have met gun owners who were apt to shoot people. No fun at all.
About those low crime countries with lots of guns:
I agree, it's not the guns. But those countries don't have the violent culture that we seem to have developed. If less Americans were apt to shoot people then it would be fine to let them have all the guns they wanted like in Switzerland or New Zealand. Maybe it's that they have less poor people. Or maybe they just don't accept violence the way we often do. Regardess, we have serious problems with violence. And letting us all have guns is probably not going to help. It's certainly not going to get us the low crime rates of Switzerland or New Zealand.
In theory, I'm for the 2nd amendment. I've gotten in big arguments defending it. But often, especially when I lived in poor neighborhoods, I sure wished that guns were harder to get. And I know, the criminals are going to find their guns somehow, but why make it easy?
Now, I'm not saying I'm for a ban on guns. My point is that because of the violence we have in America, it's not really a fair argument to point to those low crime countries with lax gun laws and say things would be fine if our laws were the same.
are you reffering to the Canadian system?
because, yes we vote for a party. a party that has already elected it's leader who will become prime minister if that party wins. the same way Americans vote for a party that has already nominated a leader who will become president if that party wins. and we have at least 3 viable parties (which have all ran the country in my lifetime) and 2 more with actual power. it's in no way a two party system
a peta is a million gigs. might not be that unreasonable depending on how many people were in each hub.
seems odd though that one could get into the club with as little as one gig of stuff. who doesn't have over a gig of digital entertainment nowadays?
maybe some ipod users here could explain why they would be against one more digital music store's songs being compatible with their ipod?
just want to know
ok,
I take it back about you being a dick. But I don't feel like arguing anymore. We obviously have different values. I don't mind paying taxes to help the unfortunate. I don't care how someone has screwed up their life to make them homeless or poor. I believe everyone deserves health care for all medical problems. I believe everyone deserves shelter. These are opinions. You can not say they are wrong. You can call them ignorant or misguided all you want to, but it's not going change what I think is right. And fortunately most modern governments agree with me. I'll probably even be satisfied with America one day.
Yes, I have more.
Labor Unions? Yes, because what they provide could not have been done without Labor Unions. *rolls eyes*. Labor Unions have basically become an instance where the worker gives up rights to a Union, and in turn, Union bureaucracy fattens its own pockets by doing very little for the worker.
Have you ever even been in a real union before? The only kinds of people I know who bash unions are ones who have never done a day's worth of real work (read: manual labor) in their life. I may not do that stuff anymore, but I have in the past, and my union helped. Your theories on the fat cat union bosses have no validity over my real world experience.
And you know, it's funny that you took my first post as being so gung-ho anti capitalist and pro socialist when the main point I was making was that America is not a true capitalist country (which you admitted, which makes me wonder why you even bothered me with your ignorant post) and that a true capitalist country does not exist today. If you can provide a counter example, then do so. If not then kindly STFU.
I usually don't respond to posts this way, but after reading your responses to danila, I see that you are a dick.
Mideival Icelandic villages, Ancient Ireland, and slightly less so, the America West (and early America) were all examples of capitalist societies. Ancient Ireland, probably the most libertarian, decentralized society ever, was quite stable and had little armed conflict, until invading Britons brought feudaeconomicslism to Eire's shores.
I'll admit I don't know much aeconomicsbout mideival Icelandic villages or ancient Ireland, but if they were so succesful, why haven't others adopted their methods? And the American west? Wow, was that ever a bastion of enlightenment. I don't buy it. And even if this is true, these small societies which no longer exist have nothing to do with modern countries consisting of tens of millions of people. I could just as easliy name some small communes of yesteryear that lived on socialist principles but it would have no relavence to real countries of today.
Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands might have the highest standards of living now, but they're going backrupt [just like the Soviet Union did]. It might just take a while longer, since the Scandinavian countries aren't being hurried to bankruptcy by a Space Race with the United States.
Even if I believed that these countries are running out of money (which I don't, I have family in the Netherlands, they are doing fine), are you implying that a country like America, with it's tremendous debt and budget deficit, is doing better? That is rediculous. At least their citizens have health care.
Actually, you did have to pay for school from Kindergarden until now, or at least your parents had to. It's called taxes, and in the long run, taxes end up costing a whole lot more than what you would have to pay for a private education, and with a private education, you're better off.
I'm well aware that taxes pay for education (and health care and other things I mentioned). Collecting taxes to pay for these things is something that a true capitalist country does not do. And you are making the mistaken assumption that if it were not for taxes I would have been able to afford a private education which is far from the truth. Myself and many others would never have been able to finish elementary school, let alone university, if it were not for publicly funded schools. How would those private schools have helped us at all?
Most science is done by private organizations, and are not funded by government subsidies.
I am a physicist. Everything in my lab, from pencil and papers to lasers and vacuum chambers are paid for by government subsidies. All blue sky resarch is. Only research with a possible immediate payoff is solely funded by private organizations. Slashdot's favorite science subjects such as quantum computing, gravity wave detection, Hawking's lost bet: all publicly funded by various governments.
Where did you get the idea that the jobless would be left to starve without State Welfare? Where has State Welfare actually helped? It's a temporary solution that gives off the illusion of being useful, and instead, ends up in a welfare culture where more and more people stop taking responsibility for their lives, and end up wanting freebies.
I was born on welfare. If it were not for welfare, I would have starved. Simple as that. No, welfare is not something someone should stay on, but it can help a person get back on their feet like it did for my mom, allowing her to eventually go back to grad school and later become a tax paying citizen. Maybe you would be more satisfied if you (or your parents) did not have to pay tax dollars those years and me and my family were in the gutter?
This is the same problem with Free Educations and Socialized Health Care. Private education and private health care is much, much better. It is cheaper in the short term and the long term, and government regulation keeps the cost from going down. (Don't believe me, do some research and unnecessary and often incredibly foolish government r
Capitalism: It succeeds every time it's tried
Where? Where has capitalism suceeded? In fact, where does a capitalist country even exist anywhere on the planet?
America is certainly not a fully capitalist country just as the countries with the highest standards of living, such as Denmark, Sweden, or the Netherlands are not fully communist.
If america were capitalist, I'd have had to pay for school from kindergarden till now. Scientists would have to sell inventions to generate revenue for research instead of getting grants from the government. The jobless would be left to starve instead of getting welfare. That's succeeding?
True capitalism is just as brutal as communism could ever be. Lucky for us that we've adopted many socialist ideals like free education, subsidized health care, labor unions, child labor laws, limited hour work week, welfare, etc., all of which are in direct contradiction to capitalism. If the true capitalists of the previous two centuries had had their way we would have none of these things.
i forgot where i read this, probably linux today or here at slashdot. but apparently the guy who stalled the linux implementation because of the patent problem is in the Green Party which is very much for open source and against software patents.
the article suggests that stopping the linux roll out and citing software patents as a roadblock was a way to wake up the government and public to get them to see why software patents is a bad idea