If something happens to a CD you pruchase from a store that causes it to be unreadable/playable will the store freely give you another copy? having had to replace a CD or 2 in my life I know that the store doesn't care what happened to your CD and they will most likely not replace it. If they did you could get endless copies for free just by claiming it was damaged, or you lost it (which is after all what you are claiming if you want to replace your music that was on a hard drive that crashed).
Oh I should point out I have never purchased songs from any online music store (I happen to like physical media), and don't own an MP3 player, but I do have something like 5 days worth of music on my PC and I'm not worried about losing any of it.
Simply because your "empire" once held that territory does not entitle you to do so indefinitely, particularly considering that both then and now, said occupation is completely against the wishes of the people who actually live there.
All members of current nations please feel free to form your own nations if you would like too. Native Americans, you nolonger have to be members of the US and are free to take any land you would like with you when you seperate (this goes for Texas too).
Control of nations is not granted, it's taken, it always has been (though some seem to think buying and taking are different). Just because a bunch of dissidents live in the same area doesn't mean that they are no longer under the rule of the country that claims them, that is after all what civil wars are all about. I'm not saying that forcing your way on other people is the right thing, but that is how most of the leaders of the world define a nation. I mean I live in a country where the founding document, the Constitution, specifically gaurantees the rights of individual states, but that hasn't stopped the federal governement from inacting laws and overriding state decisions
In a few years the map will probably show Iraq(US province) as it rightfully should (I mean we are colonizing it after all).
I don't mind an opposing point of view, which I think stated pretty clearly and have had long coversations with people who disagree with me. On the topic used product sales I love opposing points of view, even if I disagree. I would really like it if someone could show me that buying used does not hurt the original creator/artist, because I too would like to benifit from the lower costs of used products. And just so you don't appear as a hypocrit, I will make it perfectly clear that I only buy used products when there is no other way of getting the product. I also go out of my way to purchase directly from an artist when ever possible (which I know hurts distributors and I'm willing to discuss that as well). I have even taken to sending money directly to an artist, if I can find them, when I do purchase used products.
The only reason I stooped to "baseless insults" (though I do find a fair amount of base for those particular insults) was do to comments that are simply "I'm better then you are" comments addressed towards people that chose to work with their hands rather than their heads. This does not personally attack me, being a software engineer, but I think that it is important that those that do hard physical labor are appriciated by atleast a few of us that do not.
To put it simply, just because someone picks up what I throw away does not make them any less a person than myself, and anyone that thinks otherwise is a vile and disgusting waste of life, regardless of what they think about the purchasing of used products.
You may not believe it but only one other time was I pushed to the need for name calling (that was when some one was trying to say that parents are not responsible for thier children and the government should be). I love opposing points of view, but there are a few things I just don't put up with. The idea that a person is somehow more important that any other or have some skill others could not achive disgusts me. I feel people like you are only out for themselves (I know this because I have been there) and don't care one bit for the rest of humanity. And it gets even worse when your attituted actually makes me want to lose faith in humanity. I knew I would get a flamebait rating, for that previous post (and maybe for this one) but seriously you make me want to vomit. Hopefully next time you will remember my screen name and ignore the thread so I can spend a little time talking with intelligent, compasionate human beings.
You are a disgusting waste of life. It is people like you that allow me to continue to beleive there is no such thing as a benevolent higher power. My only hope is that someday you end up destitute due to no act of your own, and that you may walk even a mile in the shoes of the hard working humans that you obviouslly shit upon day in and day out. Your so called "brain" is obviouslly getting very little use if you can continue to spew such rediculous claims that you are some how more imporant than anyone else. I only wonder if you wipe your own ass or if you pay someone an illegally low amount to do your dirty work for you.
Continue to rape your fellow man, by taking what they worked so hard for, and not returning even a thank you if you must, but please let me be there the day you have to come crying to someone "with two legs and two arms" to pull your ass out of the fire.
Heck you are probably one of those people that think it's right to download and share music, movies and other digital media.
Allow me to provide a somewhat exreem example (which is only fair since you brought up Ayn Rand) that illustrates what can go wrong with alowing resale of non-depriciating products such as digital media (yes they are monetarily depriciated do too demand, not due to actual usability).
Lets take for example a video game (which is after all the topic of discussion) that requires 2 years and 40 employees (and this does not include people such as building maintance and janitorial services that are need by the employees) to produce, (this number includes developer, and publisher) which works out to be about 160,000 man hours (give or take, just accept it for the example, you might get the point). That same game retails new for $60, of which the publisher/developer make a fair share of say $30 (which is probably high). Lets say NO other gamer is willing to pay the full price for the game, knowing that after the 10-20 hours of game play the person get out of it the will sell it back to be resold at a lower price. Now we will say that the reseller only makes $2 a sale on the resale of used games (we ALL know it's way higher than that). In the end a million people play the game but only one new copy is ever purchased. The developer/publisher has now made exactly 30 dollars (or approximately.02 cents per hour) which is not nearly enough to feed all the people involved in the project. The reseller on the other hand has made 2,000,000 dollars (approximately 24 dollars per hour if each restock and sale takes 5 minutes total).
Yes it is an extreem case and probably will not happen, but it clearly illustrates what the problem is. I susspect that because of this problem ALL games will either be licensed in a way that does not allow resale (as car manufactures/dealers are starting to do with leases) or they will all require an on going service fee (such as is done with online games, which happen to be ones that are not resold as much). I don't know about you but I personally don't what to pay 5 cents per minute to play a video game, but it will happen. Already modern computer software hase End User Licenses that state very clearly that your are licensed to use the product but do not actually own it.
Your example of lemonade is absolutly useless and does not apply. Lemonade can only be used once, so the price is based on a single use. Cars can be used for an extended period of time but do depriciate in quality and have an effective life span. Digital media, binary data, has no limit to it's usefullnes, this has been prove through the use of emulation, so even long after the hardware and the physical media is gone the digital media has value.
As for the obvious anti-communist stance I would like to see if you can find me an example of a non-Stalinistic Communism that has be attempted let alone one that failed. I can show you at least a few examples of successful socialized societies. But hey if you like living a world where the rich (You want to talk about people getting paid to do nothing) get richer and the poor (those this country can not do with out, like ditch diggers and sanitation workers, whom I am sure bust their ass more than you do) get poorer, then so be it. If only you know how badly you are shit on, unless you happen to be in the top 5% of wealth holders. There are 300 million people in the US (which may not be where you are from and I appologize for the assumption) do you have 1/300 millionth of the wealth, I seriously doubt it.
OK, I've been well corrected that it is possible for the hardware to have logic gates specifically combined for the purpose of addition, subtraction and probably even other mathmatical computations.
My point was that, though it may not be necessary for programmers to know this, we may have more advancement in technology, more specifically in software, if just a few more developers took the time understand things as simple as logic gates, hardware adders or at the very least knew what opperations the processors they use actually support. Expecting a compiler to be able to optimize a program as well or better than a knowledeable human who understands what the program is actually trying to do.
The only place I can think of that might still do a LOT of assembly are mass produced consumer devices where they can save 15 cents per unit if all the code can fit in a 16k (which strikes me as a pretty boring job - but each to their own).
Yes, this might be boring to some, but I take pride in performance and think every nanosecond, every clock cycle and every bit is sacred. I would love to have my nose to the grind stone hour after hour seeking the single optimization that will save just one Op, or how to keep every register and every byte of memory full at all times, or how to make sure that a process ends at the exact moment a drive is in position to read the next block of data (true there really is no need for this now days, but I still find it enjoyable). But because of my lack of corprate experince or so called education I have been stuck doing buisness development or application development or some other bullshit that a monkey could do given enough training.
Atleast I have finally found a job that has some care about performance, and I might get to write some code as low level as some C (through the wonderful invention called Java Native Interface). Don't get me wrong I like OO/AO programing (beyond assembly ECMAScript is probably my favorite language and you can't get much higher level than that) I just don't think it's the answer to our problems.
It's probably really hard to shift into such a job area w/o experience in it (and, to a lesser degree, without a BSc or better) - of course one way to get experience is to work deep in the Linux kernel - and if you can get something accepted into the code base, that would give a lot of credentials on the resume!
Thanks for the advice. I only wish I could get there without having to go back to school and hear a bunch of bullshit I already know, Invite some new amazing peice of hardware I have to write my own controller for, or get into the linux thing (being a BSD/Darwin/OSX or Amiga guy after all, which I guess I could dig into all of those as well). Maybe I'll take this as the inspiration to actually invest some time into relearning assembly or C and try and make a name in the OSS area.
I didn't mean to come off enlightened, it just happens that way.
The hardware/software interface is the software engineers link to the hardware and so an important topic. I did continue later in the thread to discuss, briefly logic gates, which are very hardware oriented (no real reason to make software logic gates after all). And it could be my perspective is wrong, but I have always considered registers and memory locations to be part of the hardware. There will always differing opinions on how deep your knowledge about a subject needs to be, and my current opinion is that Software Engineers better start learning about native Ops and memory management before we destroy our own industry but not advancing like we should.
Most kids these days think a monostable multivibrator is a sex toy (Actually, it's the opposite). In the end, does it really matter?
If you are designing somthing that uses it, I would assume you should know atleast what it does on some level. I hope the guy that designed the controlls for the breaks on my car knew what the brakes did!
The good news is that some geeks will continue to learn this stuff and get to work only on the "hard" (aka, "interesting") problems and get paid well for it.
Where are these Jobs? And can I get one without a masters degree or higher (no degree actually). No one assembles any more (ok very few). I personally hate the idea that I have to hope a compiler knows what it's doing.
A bit too narrow - surely you would consider the 4004 to be a microprocesser (it certainly is in common usage) and even it could add/subtract IIRC.
I guess that is a matter of perspective. To me just because it can be done in a single clock cycle (or less) doesn't mean the processer can do it in one step. I'm not a hardware expert but as far as I know you can't add 10001 + 1011 with out using a comparison or incriments at the microprocessor level. Processors are still made up of logica gates and I don't recall there being an ADD logic gate (but I'm not an EE)
What amazes me is how few "kids" today - those under 30 - have a clue how their cars work...
That doesn't amaze me. I only know because my big brother is a mechanic. I don't expect the common man to know what I do about computers, just other IT profesionals.
I guess in a way I am an "old geezer" if you count when I starte programing. Personally I started programing when I was 8 (though I typed my first lines of code a few years before that. Yes, before I could effectively read), which puts it back in the early 80's. But I did not become a profesional software engineer untill the 90's which makes me a "young blood." Most programmers my age (early thirties) don't have a clue what the hardware does, specially in the buisness application field. When I mention that microprocessors only do three things (incriment,decriment and compare) or that all programing languages do the exact same thing in the end (store/retrieve data and control opperation flow), must people laugh at me. I personally consider the "old geezers" to be people that programmed in the 70's or earlier.
So I guess I'm young by age and old by experience and attitude.
I have always been of the beleif that the seperation or hardware and software has actually been holding the computer industry back. I am one of the few "young bloods" that actually have a good understanding of the hardware (most of the people I work with don't even know what a register is, let alone how to use it). This lack of knowledge by newer software engineer has caused many programs to be much slower and more memory intensive than they need to.
A classic example of this shows up in Java alot, where large amounts of data are loaded into memory (undoubtedly swap) for manipulation later. Those of use with good understanding of the underlying system realizes it's a pretty big waste to read from disk only to have it swap right back to it and instead maintain references to portions of the data that we need to rereference. This is a basic example, but a fairly solid one. That fact that many modern languages do not even allow you access to the underlying registers, operations and other processing structures (excpet through other languages like using JNI in Java) makes true optimization pointless.
Most modern software is highly pessimized, using layers of abstraction for development convenience rather than optimized for performance (include system requirements). The idea that you can always through more hardware at a problem has lead to software bloat and this unneeded pessimization. The only bright side is that there are atleast a few people out there still considering the hardware and how it can be used by the software, leading to things such as the use of GPUs for general vector processing and not just graphics. If we loose the few of us that do have knowledge of both ends of a system we will run into a stagnation of technology. When I began programing on commodore machines many years ago I had to learn how to use the processing power of each sub component and not just hope that a pre existing library knew what it was doing and could some how optimize for what I am trying to do exactly.
I would like to see more people try and teach the values of understand what your system can actually do and not allow the inner workings to behiden by unneeded abstraction.
Why would enyone want a come back in web applications. Web applications served a purpose a few years ago in making a booming economy in US, only to later see it all come crashing to an end. Web applications, as they are to day, are a good example of using the wrong technology for wrong purpose. No mater how hard you try, most web apps are writen in languages designed for the transportation and display of static documents. By overlaying this simple technology with scripting languages like ECMAScript (which I do beleive is one of the best languages ever created) we only add complication to confusion. The Web browser was not intended to run rich applications, and even with all the bandages placed on top of the aging technology we have been unable to effectively produce true applications through the web.
AJAX as it is called now (I worked with this technology years before it was known as AJAX among the general populous) is not a cure to a problem but more a symptom of a growing disease. Most people who are browsing the web or using web applications do so on general purpose micro computers. These computers are capable of far more than browsing semi-dynamic documents, yet we have relegated them to this exact position. Rather than move forward and use the ideas of distributed computing power we have gone back to the days of dumb terminals, letting servers take on the full responsibility of everything except rendering of display data.
If remote applications is what the people want (I am not convinced it is), then there must be a better solution. With the creation of an Application Browser we may beable to bring this idea of functional web applications to actual usage. Tacking on extensions to web technologies, such as XUL and XAML, are fair starts but there needs to be a ground up approach to the growing problem. In what little free time I have I do personal spend time working on this problem, but untill a major company (even through the Open Source community) is willing to take the risk and promote such ideas I think it is mostly doomed. We will continue to repeat past failures and show the populous that the computers we love are truelly usless machines being supported by geeks with neat ideas, but in the end turning out nothing truely usefull to the general public.
We have come so far these days that my modern PC uses little more power than the terminals of 20 years. Beyond the higher resolutions there is little if any thing new. We got where we are with different OSes and different producers of software and hardware for a reason, so that the best would win, not so we would use a dumbed down inferior technology to bring them all the an equal (but different) playing field.
I think your problem may be that you live in Ohio.
Some serious advice would be to brush up on your interviewing skills, drop one or the other of your titles and work on the one you keep, and don't send out resumes, push your way in to see the heads of the IT departments at what ever companies you want to work at. Find a company you actually WANT to work at and they WILL higher you, if you have the skills.
I am a self educate software engineer and somehow I have never had trouble finding work. The longest I have been out of work after joinging the software industry has been 3 months and that was by choice both times. I have taken the time to move a little if I needed to, but have only had to do that twice (once to DC and once back to AZ). I also have a realistic expectation of income, which I know alot of tech profesionals don't.
I beleive in the rating system that is in place, though I do think it should not be necessary. Why can we not spend a little more time educating people and in general being better people to each other. Violence in games, in the US specifically, is out of hand, but only because we are a violent culture and we eat it up. I wish I had a solution that didn't include legislation, but beyond me being able to legally beat the piss out of stupid parents, I can't really think of a decent solution. I feel for the children, they should not have to be subjected to such stupidity. You will also find out that most children playing these games at a young and impresionable age are being raised by parent's that are either violent themselves or just don't take the time to teach their children about the good things in life. And I say this even though I have a brother who lets his 10 year old son play violent games, thank god not GTA.
The excuse that he will play it at is friends house is just down right idiotic. I have never heard (though I am sure it happens) a parent say, "he'll just do it at his friends house or on the street" after handing their child a dose of heroine. I should also clarify that violent games don't make violent people, violent people play violent games.
My interpretation, since recent rereading, has been that Marx, in the Communist Manifesto atleast, did not so much beleive that the Bourgeois were not so much oppressor as much as they were taking advantage of a situation allowed them by the working class. I admit this comes from my personal view, which is typical self centered American, that people are responsible for their own actions and own lot in life. I know this from personal experience having chosen the harder path on many occasions.
The idea of lumping me specificaly in with the bourgeois is pretty humorous, if you new a few things. I do not work for a company that supplies pensions, which is typical reserved for union controlled labor now days, and I do not own property, I would find it hypocritical to speaking of the benifits of socialsim and not atleast try and live the life. I have no employees that work under me, though I have in the past, and I work hard for my living. Most importantly, and this is, in my opinion, what makes most of us proletariat rather than bourgeois (which are after all outdated and mostly inapplicable terms), is that I am in a percentage of the US population that maintains less than 1% of the countries wealth, therefor putting us below where we should be if things where equal (as best I can descern my particular percentage maintains a mere.34% and this is probably a high estimate).
The working class (which I equate to proletariate and you see as a sub set) as referenced in the CM and other socialist writings were not the most down trodden people in history. They where not slaves, they actually earned livings which they could survive on. This is why there was a need for socialist revolt, rather than typical revolution of prior societies. Marx explains this fairly clearly, that people have to look past the survival they have and realize that they are deserving of a larger peice of the pie.
You, I and the rest of us are shit upon by the upper class, but not enough that we will stop giving them our money, or forcefully take their wealth away from them. But in the end it is still our own fault if with chose to live in poverty and do not make ends meet. I realize it may be hard for the average american to own a BMW but, to bring it back to my original original point, Getting a bus ticket cost 5 hours of work at McDonalds, and they will higher pretty much anyone. And if you are one of the significant number of poor who, rather than changing their lot, spends even a minor portion of their income on Drug or Alcohol, then I have no sympathy for you.
hitherto - Until this time
-The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
"The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones."
- Samuel Moore's 1888 english translation.
This is only one reference where Marx implies that the bourgeois is not a class but something else. Classes exist, but it has been changed, so that the struggle between classes is not as clear as one would expect. Instead of relying on class revolt Marx had to seperate people in a new way. How else can you bring to people to revolution when even among the "proletariate" there are large class difference. As I have tried to explain in the past, many of the people in the world today are Middle Class and Working Class.
"it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons -- the modern working class -- the proletarians."
- Samuel Moore's 1888 english translation.
There are also 16 other references to the "working class" in the Communist Manifesto. I only wish I had a german version handy to see what words are being translated into "working class" because the translation seems to leave other references to "proletatiat" intact.
We are in agreement that the US follows much closer the Smith's philosophy than Marx's. Smith's "Wealth of Nations" did after all quantify the concept that Self-Intrest was some how service to society. It is this kind of thought that has lead to the "Culture of Narcissim" (See the writtings of Christopher Lasch) and what certainly makes the US more Capitalist than socialist to say the least.
Marxist taught (I can't say I know what he did or did not believe) that a person can not sit idealy by and expect that those more privillage than themselves will some how take care of them, and that it is the responsibility of the "working class" (see my quote above) to change their own lot in life. "The Communist Manifesto" and other writings attributed to Marx and his contemporaries are target at the lower class, not the bourgeoisie. This makes it clear to me that the idea's of socialism and communism.
I don't know that Marx was as much of a pesimist as you make him out to be. There are some of us that beleive that people as a whole are capable of working and creating on the bassis of accomplishment and the betterment of society and human life as a whole.
I am not an expert on Marxist Communism, I know a little about all forms of socialism (and yes I include anarchism and fascism under the larger concept of socialism). I'm always glad to hear apposing points of view from articulate intelligent people. I guess that is the problem with concepts as old as socialism, as different people get ahold of them they change and grow into larger concepts.
I wish AndersOSU had chimed in a few messages ago, since I am sure the previous comment will be the begining of the end of this thread. The way in which Anders articulated his view of socialism shows he is atleast knowledgeable on the subject and even if I do disagree to some extent I can atleas respect it.
I conceed the idea of socalled socialist programs and that some countries can be socialistic without the need for there to be pure socialism. The medical system in Canada comes to mind, being close to home and a fairly pure socialistic program. Even though I conceed my black and white view may be extreem I would like to address just a couple points.
Since it is often the Communist Manifesto and Marxism that is considered the origin of Socialistic thought I feel a couple things need to be pointed out. In the CM and Marxism as a whole there is no concern with classes but instead with the struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. In Marxism ALL people to be considered fit into one of these two groups. The upper class of america is Bourgeoisie not royalty. Marx's issue with the bourgeoisie are many fold, but the most obvious is that the ideas of th bourgeoisie cause a state in which the proletariat will not be driven to rise up against more obvious fuedal leaders. Part of Marx's issue was that the working class was not revolting as was done by prior underprivilaged classes of the past. Today in the US at least, determining where the working class begins and ends is some what difficult to decern. I qualify as middle class based upon income, but I am of the working class because my means of income is based upon the sale of my services.
The intersting thing you get out of the Marxist class struggle is that the lowest class is the working class. Notice carefully that in the term working class (taking directly from the Communist Manifesto, though admittedly translated) contians the word working. Many of the social programs of the US are actually targeted at the non-working, which does not, in my interpretation seem to be part of socialist ideal (not just Marxist). Marx himself believed and wrote that poverty is a self imposed condition and only through revolution will the working class bring themselves out of poverty. I chose to "revolt" at a personal level and bring myself to a state of equlity rather than accepting that society as a whole has some how worked to keep me down.
The one thing I don't understand is how a person who obviously has a decent understanding and respect for socialism, such as Anders, can somehow think that a country where in 60% of the wealth is held by less than 5% of the people and that the overwhelming majority share in less than 5% of the wealth (with 40% of the population sharing less than 2/10ths%, which I think I miss quoted earlier).
After reading threw all of this I now think that while the US is not pure capitalist it does have more capilistic ideals than socialist and most of the social programs are aimed, though not necessarily intentionaly, to maintain the status quo so as to not cause a proletariate revolution.
My defenition comes from the original writings on socialism and socialistic ideals. Examples of my bases of socialism a Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia, Karl Marx's Commuist Manifesto and The Rerum Novarum. Socialism uses income redistribution as a means to an end not as the core of the idiology. Income only has to redistributed at the begining of a socialist society because the income is not distributed equally, once a society is socialist there is not need for income distribution, because there is after all no income. Income is a capitalist idea. Oh and by the way what you are refering to is Redistribution of Wealth not income. In a socialist society even stock holds of wealth would be used to equally supply all citizens.
In the US the majority of the Wealth is held by a small minority. The top 5% (bassed on monitary value) of the populous maintains nearly 60% of the wealth in the United States. The bottom 40% of the populous maintain less than.2% of the wealth. This means that for every dollar in the US The top 5% share 60 cents and the bottom 40% share 1/20th of a cent. If you can some how argue that this is a redistribution of wealth I would be amazed.
I'm not sure that the original commentor was meaning to get into the difference between download vs in store purchase. This is simply a mater of preference. I happen to prefere having tangible material in my hands before I let go of my well earned cash. My wife purchase alot of her music on iTunes music store. There are other big trade offs between online purchase and physical media purchase. As far as I know you can not get enhanced media from an online download, such as interviews, history and music videos. I rarely ever look at those on the media I do buy but it is a nice to have and many people like it. There is also the benifit to the artist, who would receive more royalties from an entire album pruchase (this is why I rarely buy used CDs and probably should stop doing that). If you actually like the music you listen to you should wnat to artist to be succesful and able to produce more (only the few super stars live like pro sports stars, most actually have to work for a living)
I personally don't buy into the purchasing of just one song and can't imagine listening to a band who's not worth an entire album.
In the end it's like gasoline. If the people are willing to pay for the convenience of being able to download music even without the additions you get with physical media, then companies will charge. Apple is a company like any other and they are not keeping prices low out of any sort of fairness but because they beleive it is the optimal price point (99 cents a song appears to be significantly less than say $1.19).
It becomes socialist when the state does it by taxing you and then giving your money to the poor. State enforced giving to the poor is socialist.
Upon starting this thread I have recently review all the writings I can find that make easy summation of socialism possible, and in doing so I have not come upon anything say that stealing is socialistic, no matter who reaps the benifit. In socialism there are no rich to take from, and in the US we take from the middle class not the rich. Most of the ultra rich avoid 90% of their tax debt through misdirection of funds or other more insidious tactics. Most socialist doctrines avoid the topic of taxation all togther.
One can not be denied social security, k-12 education or medicare.
Wrong again on 3 points. I can not personally partake of any of those benifits. Once I do meet the requirments for these programs I will not receive the same benifits as everyone else (I may receive more or less). Many children are expelled from K-12 education (myself included). Our system even does a wonderful job of hiding the few pseudo social programs we do have, making it difficult for un or under educated people to benifit from these benifits.
Take a quick look around the federal governments web sites for the Eligibility for these services. You will quickly realize they are not given equally to all people, and therefore not socialist.
I see that most succesful countries (and all of the first world ones) are practising socialism to some degree or another.
Most first world countries also send citizens to die to maintain the success of the country yet I would doubt you would say they practice human sacrifice. To quote Fight Club "sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken"
We are more socialist then capitalist simply by the virtue of our spending patterns.
Well now I know why this conversation is not going anywhere. I have never met anyone who thought that the US was not capitalist. Our Constitution protects free trade and capitalism, it does not grant and social benifit. Read your constitution (you should really carry a copy with you at all times) and it's ammendments, you will see economic freedom is well protected. Luckily so are many social freedoms, but there is nothing about economic equality. The forth ammendment specifically restricts the government from being able to seize personal assets.
We are a socialist country, we have laws on the books that dictate that the federal govt help dying poor people. They are indeed socialist. They are at the core of income redistribution. THey take from those that have and give to those that need.
Giving to the poor or the needy is not socialist. As a matter of fact that is a very "republican" view of socialism. Socialism is not actually about giving at all, it is the idea of no personaly wealth, therefor there is nothing to give or take. Without personal wealth all people are in the same economic standing. All services are provided free of any charge and no incomes are provided because all resources are that of the nation (or people depending) and not of the individual. Countries such as the US use redistribution of wealth as a way to placate the underprivilaged masses so as to avoid any possible workers revolution. In reality the US takes from the Have Somes and gives to the Have Nots who in turn give the Have Lots! We steal from the middle class to give to the poor to spend on services that benifit rich.
One can not be denied benifits is a socialist system (expect with the possible excpetion of not being a productive member of society, but that is really a seperate ideal than socialism).
Nope, social security is not based income...
Intersting then that my yearly SS statement shows me being eligeable for more benifit than those that make less than me.
...and neither is medicaid
This is just a flat out lie. Medicade is Income based, just to a quick comparison of Medicade vs Medicare. Medicade is income based while medicare is not, but medicare is taken from your SS which is income based. They are both also based on other descriminatory elements such as age and health.
...more socialist countries too.
Either you allow for personal property or you do not. There is no such thing as "more socialist." Even if you don't use personal property as your basis for socialism (some do not, I take a more utopian view) you will see that socialism is not a thing that hase levels there of. Socialism either is or is not.
Somehow you have bought into the american propaganda that "we" somehow treat people equally or make attempts at equality. I repeat the united states is a Constitutional, Republican, Capitialist state. We have a selecct few who are supposed to act in the best intrest of ALL citizens, not just the rich or the poor, and in turn maintaining the possibility of a society based on free trade and personal property.
Things are either sold or given/thrown away. If all the person owns are things that no one will buy then they have nothing to lose because they can aquire those items for free elsewhere. Plus in this country the government will pay you if you don't have any money (and no, wellfare is not socialist)
Alas that's seen as a socialist idea and this govt is not in favor of it so much.
[The US] which spends more money on social welfare programs then any other program is a socialist country by any definition of the word.
First you say the US does not support socialist ideas, then you say that we are socialist by definition. Um, either we are or we are not socialist, you can't have it both ways. There is no such thing as socialist enough.
Social security, Medicare, wellfare and other so called social programs are not socialist. They are discriminatory, and based on income and personal property which are capitalist ideas. Subsides are not socialist and our schools are not free, and those so called free schools do not compare to the quality of schools that are only available to the privilaged rich. I am an upper middle class professional, I work hard for a living. I have received NO governmental spending (I was even denied Unemployment Insurance payments because I "didn't file in a timely manner"). I have more than the poor and less than the rich. I own personal property. I believe in socialist (actually fascist because I beleive in the good of a government and not that it is just a necessary evil) Ideals, but I do not live in a socialist country. It's not how much is spent that makes a government socialist but how that money is spent. Giving money to a select few IS NOT socialist, even if the select few are the underprivillage (which you can't have in a productive socialist society).
Socialism is not the only way to have a succesful government. Any form of governing can work if it governs the right people and is run without corruption (meaning the document practises are upheld through the life of the government). Pure Capitalsm (which there are no examples of) "works", but it would be those not able to be deemed productive members of society would not survive. I personally prefer Socialism, but would be a fool to believe it is the ONLY way to govern a country succesfully (the longest lasting nations in history where not socialist).
Leaving takes much more then a bus ticket. Like I said most people can not afford to leave everything they own behind. The upper class can because they are insured, they live in neighborhoods that are less likely to suffer from looting and theft, and worst comes to worst they make enough money to get back all their belonging given enough time.
I'm trying to figure out how you own anything, yet can't afford anything. Sell half of what you own and use the proceeds to move to a better location. I also beleive there is no reason for being poor beyond personal choice. I'm not saying getting out of destitution is easy, it's not, and neither are most of the better things in life. So rather than spend billions of US tax dollars of rebuilding a poor city, we should (if we are going to spend it) educate the peope so that they do not need to live in such poor conditions.
By the way congratulations. If you are a socialist they you must be proud that it is the only succesful form of govt. Every single country in the first world and vast majority of the second world countries are socialist. Only the most dismal and rotten third world countries have no socialist policies in place and as a result are a festering breeding grounds of crime, disease and terrorism.
I can't say about the rest of the world, but the US is not socialist, though there are a few psuedo socialist programs. Socalism is commonly seen as Economic control in exchange for Social/Moral freedom. The US is very much to opposite where where economic freedom has lead to the differences in classes, and where social controls has caused even intimate acts between consenting adults to be scrutized and in some cases outlawed. Other socialist ideals are equality, and inability for ownership of personal property, two things we do not have in the US. I'd like to get further into this but this is not the place. Look around you'll see more of my socialist ideals in other posts.
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If something happens to a CD you pruchase from a store that causes it to be unreadable/playable will the store freely give you another copy? having had to replace a CD or 2 in my life I know that the store doesn't care what happened to your CD and they will most likely not replace it. If they did you could get endless copies for free just by claiming it was damaged, or you lost it (which is after all what you are claiming if you want to replace your music that was on a hard drive that crashed).
Oh I should point out I have never purchased songs from any online music store (I happen to like physical media), and don't own an MP3 player, but I do have something like 5 days worth of music on my PC and I'm not worried about losing any of it.
Simply because your "empire" once held that territory does not entitle you to do so indefinitely, particularly considering that both then and now, said occupation is completely against the wishes of the people who actually live there.
All members of current nations please feel free to form your own nations if you would like too. Native Americans, you nolonger have to be members of the US and are free to take any land you would like with you when you seperate (this goes for Texas too).
Control of nations is not granted, it's taken, it always has been (though some seem to think buying and taking are different). Just because a bunch of dissidents live in the same area doesn't mean that they are no longer under the rule of the country that claims them, that is after all what civil wars are all about. I'm not saying that forcing your way on other people is the right thing, but that is how most of the leaders of the world define a nation. I mean I live in a country where the founding document, the Constitution, specifically gaurantees the rights of individual states, but that hasn't stopped the federal governement from inacting laws and overriding state decisions
In a few years the map will probably show Iraq(US province) as it rightfully should (I mean we are colonizing it after all).
I don't mind an opposing point of view, which I think stated pretty clearly and have had long coversations with people who disagree with me. On the topic used product sales I love opposing points of view, even if I disagree. I would really like it if someone could show me that buying used does not hurt the original creator/artist, because I too would like to benifit from the lower costs of used products. And just so you don't appear as a hypocrit, I will make it perfectly clear that I only buy used products when there is no other way of getting the product. I also go out of my way to purchase directly from an artist when ever possible (which I know hurts distributors and I'm willing to discuss that as well). I have even taken to sending money directly to an artist, if I can find them, when I do purchase used products.
The only reason I stooped to "baseless insults" (though I do find a fair amount of base for those particular insults) was do to comments that are simply "I'm better then you are" comments addressed towards people that chose to work with their hands rather than their heads. This does not personally attack me, being a software engineer, but I think that it is important that those that do hard physical labor are appriciated by atleast a few of us that do not.
To put it simply, just because someone picks up what I throw away does not make them any less a person than myself, and anyone that thinks otherwise is a vile and disgusting waste of life, regardless of what they think about the purchasing of used products.
You may not believe it but only one other time was I pushed to the need for name calling (that was when some one was trying to say that parents are not responsible for thier children and the government should be). I love opposing points of view, but there are a few things I just don't put up with. The idea that a person is somehow more important that any other or have some skill others could not achive disgusts me. I feel people like you are only out for themselves (I know this because I have been there) and don't care one bit for the rest of humanity. And it gets even worse when your attituted actually makes me want to lose faith in humanity. I knew I would get a flamebait rating, for that previous post (and maybe for this one) but seriously you make me want to vomit. Hopefully next time you will remember my screen name and ignore the thread so I can spend a little time talking with intelligent, compasionate human beings.
You are a disgusting waste of life. It is people like you that allow me to continue to beleive there is no such thing as a benevolent higher power. My only hope is that someday you end up destitute due to no act of your own, and that you may walk even a mile in the shoes of the hard working humans that you obviouslly shit upon day in and day out. Your so called "brain" is obviouslly getting very little use if you can continue to spew such rediculous claims that you are some how more imporant than anyone else. I only wonder if you wipe your own ass or if you pay someone an illegally low amount to do your dirty work for you.
Continue to rape your fellow man, by taking what they worked so hard for, and not returning even a thank you if you must, but please let me be there the day you have to come crying to someone "with two legs and two arms" to pull your ass out of the fire.
Heck you are probably one of those people that think it's right to download and share music, movies and other digital media.
Allow me to provide a somewhat exreem example (which is only fair since you brought up Ayn Rand) that illustrates what can go wrong with alowing resale of non-depriciating products such as digital media (yes they are monetarily depriciated do too demand, not due to actual usability).
.02 cents per hour) which is not nearly enough to feed all the people involved in the project. The reseller on the other hand has made 2,000,000 dollars (approximately 24 dollars per hour if each restock and sale takes 5 minutes total).
Lets take for example a video game (which is after all the topic of discussion) that requires 2 years and 40 employees (and this does not include people such as building maintance and janitorial services that are need by the employees) to produce, (this number includes developer, and publisher) which works out to be about 160,000 man hours (give or take, just accept it for the example, you might get the point). That same game retails new for $60, of which the publisher/developer make a fair share of say $30 (which is probably high). Lets say NO other gamer is willing to pay the full price for the game, knowing that after the 10-20 hours of game play the person get out of it the will sell it back to be resold at a lower price. Now we will say that the reseller only makes $2 a sale on the resale of used games (we ALL know it's way higher than that). In the end a million people play the game but only one new copy is ever purchased. The developer/publisher has now made exactly 30 dollars (or approximately
Yes it is an extreem case and probably will not happen, but it clearly illustrates what the problem is. I susspect that because of this problem ALL games will either be licensed in a way that does not allow resale (as car manufactures/dealers are starting to do with leases) or they will all require an on going service fee (such as is done with online games, which happen to be ones that are not resold as much). I don't know about you but I personally don't what to pay 5 cents per minute to play a video game, but it will happen. Already modern computer software hase End User Licenses that state very clearly that your are licensed to use the product but do not actually own it.
Your example of lemonade is absolutly useless and does not apply. Lemonade can only be used once, so the price is based on a single use. Cars can be used for an extended period of time but do depriciate in quality and have an effective life span. Digital media, binary data, has no limit to it's usefullnes, this has been prove through the use of emulation, so even long after the hardware and the physical media is gone the digital media has value.
As for the obvious anti-communist stance I would like to see if you can find me an example of a non-Stalinistic Communism that has be attempted let alone one that failed. I can show you at least a few examples of successful socialized societies. But hey if you like living a world where the rich (You want to talk about people getting paid to do nothing) get richer and the poor (those this country can not do with out, like ditch diggers and sanitation workers, whom I am sure bust their ass more than you do) get poorer, then so be it. If only you know how badly you are shit on, unless you happen to be in the top 5% of wealth holders. There are 300 million people in the US (which may not be where you are from and I appologize for the assumption) do you have 1/300 millionth of the wealth, I seriously doubt it.
Yeah I get alot of crap for my spelling.. maybe that's why I prefere assemly, a lot less words to remember and spell.
OK, I've been well corrected that it is possible for the hardware to have logic gates specifically combined for the purpose of addition, subtraction and probably even other mathmatical computations.
My point was that, though it may not be necessary for programmers to know this, we may have more advancement in technology, more specifically in software, if just a few more developers took the time understand things as simple as logic gates, hardware adders or at the very least knew what opperations the processors they use actually support. Expecting a compiler to be able to optimize a program as well or better than a knowledeable human who understands what the program is actually trying to do.
The only place I can think of that might still do a LOT of assembly are mass produced consumer devices where they can save 15 cents per unit if all the code can fit in a 16k (which strikes me as a pretty boring job - but each to their own).
Yes, this might be boring to some, but I take pride in performance and think every nanosecond, every clock cycle and every bit is sacred. I would love to have my nose to the grind stone hour after hour seeking the single optimization that will save just one Op, or how to keep every register and every byte of memory full at all times, or how to make sure that a process ends at the exact moment a drive is in position to read the next block of data (true there really is no need for this now days, but I still find it enjoyable). But because of my lack of corprate experince or so called education I have been stuck doing buisness development or application development or some other bullshit that a monkey could do given enough training.
Atleast I have finally found a job that has some care about performance, and I might get to write some code as low level as some C (through the wonderful invention called Java Native Interface). Don't get me wrong I like OO/AO programing (beyond assembly ECMAScript is probably my favorite language and you can't get much higher level than that) I just don't think it's the answer to our problems.
It's probably really hard to shift into such a job area w/o experience in it (and, to a lesser degree, without a BSc or better) - of course one way to get experience is to work deep in the Linux kernel - and if you can get something accepted into the code base, that would give a lot of credentials on the resume!
Thanks for the advice. I only wish I could get there without having to go back to school and hear a bunch of bullshit I already know, Invite some new amazing peice of hardware I have to write my own controller for, or get into the linux thing (being a BSD/Darwin/OSX or Amiga guy after all, which I guess I could dig into all of those as well). Maybe I'll take this as the inspiration to actually invest some time into relearning assembly or C and try and make a name in the OSS area.
I didn't mean to come off enlightened, it just happens that way.
The hardware/software interface is the software engineers link to the hardware and so an important topic. I did continue later in the thread to discuss, briefly logic gates, which are very hardware oriented (no real reason to make software logic gates after all). And it could be my perspective is wrong, but I have always considered registers and memory locations to be part of the hardware. There will always differing opinions on how deep your knowledge about a subject needs to be, and my current opinion is that Software Engineers better start learning about native Ops and memory management before we destroy our own industry but not advancing like we should.
Most kids these days think a monostable multivibrator is a sex toy (Actually, it's the opposite). In the end, does it really matter?
If you are designing somthing that uses it, I would assume you should know atleast what it does on some level. I hope the guy that designed the controlls for the breaks on my car knew what the brakes did!
The good news is that some geeks will continue to learn this stuff and get to work only on the "hard" (aka, "interesting") problems and get paid well for it.
Where are these Jobs? And can I get one without a masters degree or higher (no degree actually). No one assembles any more (ok very few). I personally hate the idea that I have to hope a compiler knows what it's doing.
A bit too narrow - surely you would consider the 4004 to be a microprocesser (it certainly is in common usage) and even it could add/subtract IIRC.
I guess that is a matter of perspective. To me just because it can be done in a single clock cycle (or less) doesn't mean the processer can do it in one step. I'm not a hardware expert but as far as I know you can't add 10001 + 1011 with out using a comparison or incriments at the microprocessor level. Processors are still made up of logica gates and I don't recall there being an ADD logic gate (but I'm not an EE)
What amazes me is how few "kids" today - those under 30 - have a clue how their cars work...
That doesn't amaze me. I only know because my big brother is a mechanic. I don't expect the common man to know what I do about computers, just other IT profesionals.
I guess in a way I am an "old geezer" if you count when I starte programing. Personally I started programing when I was 8 (though I typed my first lines of code a few years before that. Yes, before I could effectively read), which puts it back in the early 80's. But I did not become a profesional software engineer untill the 90's which makes me a "young blood." Most programmers my age (early thirties) don't have a clue what the hardware does, specially in the buisness application field. When I mention that microprocessors only do three things (incriment,decriment and compare) or that all programing languages do the exact same thing in the end (store/retrieve data and control opperation flow), must people laugh at me. I personally consider the "old geezers" to be people that programmed in the 70's or earlier.
So I guess I'm young by age and old by experience and attitude.
I have always been of the beleif that the seperation or hardware and software has actually been holding the computer industry back. I am one of the few "young bloods" that actually have a good understanding of the hardware (most of the people I work with don't even know what a register is, let alone how to use it). This lack of knowledge by newer software engineer has caused many programs to be much slower and more memory intensive than they need to.
A classic example of this shows up in Java alot, where large amounts of data are loaded into memory (undoubtedly swap) for manipulation later. Those of use with good understanding of the underlying system realizes it's a pretty big waste to read from disk only to have it swap right back to it and instead maintain references to portions of the data that we need to rereference. This is a basic example, but a fairly solid one. That fact that many modern languages do not even allow you access to the underlying registers, operations and other processing structures (excpet through other languages like using JNI in Java) makes true optimization pointless.
Most modern software is highly pessimized, using layers of abstraction for development convenience rather than optimized for performance (include system requirements). The idea that you can always through more hardware at a problem has lead to software bloat and this unneeded pessimization. The only bright side is that there are atleast a few people out there still considering the hardware and how it can be used by the software, leading to things such as the use of GPUs for general vector processing and not just graphics. If we loose the few of us that do have knowledge of both ends of a system we will run into a stagnation of technology. When I began programing on commodore machines many years ago I had to learn how to use the processing power of each sub component and not just hope that a pre existing library knew what it was doing and could some how optimize for what I am trying to do exactly.
I would like to see more people try and teach the values of understand what your system can actually do and not allow the inner workings to behiden by unneeded abstraction.
Why would enyone want a come back in web applications. Web applications served a purpose a few years ago in making a booming economy in US, only to later see it all come crashing to an end. Web applications, as they are to day, are a good example of using the wrong technology for wrong purpose. No mater how hard you try, most web apps are writen in languages designed for the transportation and display of static documents. By overlaying this simple technology with scripting languages like ECMAScript (which I do beleive is one of the best languages ever created) we only add complication to confusion. The Web browser was not intended to run rich applications, and even with all the bandages placed on top of the aging technology we have been unable to effectively produce true applications through the web.
AJAX as it is called now (I worked with this technology years before it was known as AJAX among the general populous) is not a cure to a problem but more a symptom of a growing disease. Most people who are browsing the web or using web applications do so on general purpose micro computers. These computers are capable of far more than browsing semi-dynamic documents, yet we have relegated them to this exact position. Rather than move forward and use the ideas of distributed computing power we have gone back to the days of dumb terminals, letting servers take on the full responsibility of everything except rendering of display data.
If remote applications is what the people want (I am not convinced it is), then there must be a better solution. With the creation of an Application Browser we may beable to bring this idea of functional web applications to actual usage. Tacking on extensions to web technologies, such as XUL and XAML, are fair starts but there needs to be a ground up approach to the growing problem. In what little free time I have I do personal spend time working on this problem, but untill a major company (even through the Open Source community) is willing to take the risk and promote such ideas I think it is mostly doomed. We will continue to repeat past failures and show the populous that the computers we love are truelly usless machines being supported by geeks with neat ideas, but in the end turning out nothing truely usefull to the general public.
We have come so far these days that my modern PC uses little more power than the terminals of 20 years. Beyond the higher resolutions there is little if any thing new. We got where we are with different OSes and different producers of software and hardware for a reason, so that the best would win, not so we would use a dumbed down inferior technology to bring them all the an equal (but different) playing field.
I think your problem may be that you live in Ohio.
Some serious advice would be to brush up on your interviewing skills, drop one or the other of your titles and work on the one you keep, and don't send out resumes, push your way in to see the heads of the IT departments at what ever companies you want to work at. Find a company you actually WANT to work at and they WILL higher you, if you have the skills.
I am a self educate software engineer and somehow I have never had trouble finding work. The longest I have been out of work after joinging the software industry has been 3 months and that was by choice both times. I have taken the time to move a little if I needed to, but have only had to do that twice (once to DC and once back to AZ). I also have a realistic expectation of income, which I know alot of tech profesionals don't.
I beleive in the rating system that is in place, though I do think it should not be necessary. Why can we not spend a little more time educating people and in general being better people to each other. Violence in games, in the US specifically, is out of hand, but only because we are a violent culture and we eat it up. I wish I had a solution that didn't include legislation, but beyond me being able to legally beat the piss out of stupid parents, I can't really think of a decent solution. I feel for the children, they should not have to be subjected to such stupidity. You will also find out that most children playing these games at a young and impresionable age are being raised by parent's that are either violent themselves or just don't take the time to teach their children about the good things in life. And I say this even though I have a brother who lets his 10 year old son play violent games, thank god not GTA.
The excuse that he will play it at is friends house is just down right idiotic. I have never heard (though I am sure it happens) a parent say, "he'll just do it at his friends house or on the street" after handing their child a dose of heroine. I should also clarify that violent games don't make violent people, violent people play violent games.
My interpretation, since recent rereading, has been that Marx, in the Communist Manifesto atleast, did not so much beleive that the Bourgeois were not so much oppressor as much as they were taking advantage of a situation allowed them by the working class. I admit this comes from my personal view, which is typical self centered American, that people are responsible for their own actions and own lot in life. I know this from personal experience having chosen the harder path on many occasions.
.34% and this is probably a high estimate).
The idea of lumping me specificaly in with the bourgeois is pretty humorous, if you new a few things. I do not work for a company that supplies pensions, which is typical reserved for union controlled labor now days, and I do not own property, I would find it hypocritical to speaking of the benifits of socialsim and not atleast try and live the life. I have no employees that work under me, though I have in the past, and I work hard for my living. Most importantly, and this is, in my opinion, what makes most of us proletariat rather than bourgeois (which are after all outdated and mostly inapplicable terms), is that I am in a percentage of the US population that maintains less than 1% of the countries wealth, therefor putting us below where we should be if things where equal (as best I can descern my particular percentage maintains a mere
The working class (which I equate to proletariate and you see as a sub set) as referenced in the CM and other socialist writings were not the most down trodden people in history. They where not slaves, they actually earned livings which they could survive on. This is why there was a need for socialist revolt, rather than typical revolution of prior societies. Marx explains this fairly clearly, that people have to look past the survival they have and realize that they are deserving of a larger peice of the pie.
You, I and the rest of us are shit upon by the upper class, but not enough that we will stop giving them our money, or forcefully take their wealth away from them. But in the end it is still our own fault if with chose to live in poverty and do not make ends meet. I realize it may be hard for the average american to own a BMW but, to bring it back to my original original point, Getting a bus ticket cost 5 hours of work at McDonalds, and they will higher pretty much anyone. And if you are one of the significant number of poor who, rather than changing their lot, spends even a minor portion of their income on Drug or Alcohol, then I have no sympathy for you.
hitherto - Until this time
-The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
"The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones."
- Samuel Moore's 1888 english translation.
This is only one reference where Marx implies that the bourgeois is not a class but something else. Classes exist, but it has been changed, so that the struggle between classes is not as clear as one would expect. Instead of relying on class revolt Marx had to seperate people in a new way. How else can you bring to people to revolution when even among the "proletariate" there are large class difference. As I have tried to explain in the past, many of the people in the world today are Middle Class and Working Class.
"it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons -- the modern working class -- the proletarians."
- Samuel Moore's 1888 english translation.
There are also 16 other references to the "working class" in the Communist Manifesto. I only wish I had a german version handy to see what words are being translated into "working class" because the translation seems to leave other references to "proletatiat" intact.
We are in agreement that the US follows much closer the Smith's philosophy than Marx's. Smith's "Wealth of Nations" did after all quantify the concept that Self-Intrest was some how service to society. It is this kind of thought that has lead to the "Culture of Narcissim" (See the writtings of Christopher Lasch) and what certainly makes the US more Capitalist than socialist to say the least.
Marxist taught (I can't say I know what he did or did not believe) that a person can not sit idealy by and expect that those more privillage than themselves will some how take care of them, and that it is the responsibility of the "working class" (see my quote above) to change their own lot in life. "The Communist Manifesto" and other writings attributed to Marx and his contemporaries are target at the lower class, not the bourgeoisie. This makes it clear to me that the idea's of socialism and communism.
I don't know that Marx was as much of a pesimist as you make him out to be. There are some of us that beleive that people as a whole are capable of working and creating on the bassis of accomplishment and the betterment of society and human life as a whole.
I am not an expert on Marxist Communism, I know a little about all forms of socialism (and yes I include anarchism and fascism under the larger concept of socialism). I'm always glad to hear apposing points of view from articulate intelligent people. I guess that is the problem with concepts as old as socialism, as different people get ahold of them they change and grow into larger concepts.
I wish AndersOSU had chimed in a few messages ago, since I am sure the previous comment will be the begining of the end of this thread. The way in which Anders articulated his view of socialism shows he is atleast knowledgeable on the subject and even if I do disagree to some extent I can atleas respect it.
I conceed the idea of socalled socialist programs and that some countries can be socialistic without the need for there to be pure socialism. The medical system in Canada comes to mind, being close to home and a fairly pure socialistic program. Even though I conceed my black and white view may be extreem I would like to address just a couple points.
Since it is often the Communist Manifesto and Marxism that is considered the origin of Socialistic thought I feel a couple things need to be pointed out. In the CM and Marxism as a whole there is no concern with classes but instead with the struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. In Marxism ALL people to be considered fit into one of these two groups. The upper class of america is Bourgeoisie not royalty. Marx's issue with the bourgeoisie are many fold, but the most obvious is that the ideas of th bourgeoisie cause a state in which the proletariat will not be driven to rise up against more obvious fuedal leaders. Part of Marx's issue was that the working class was not revolting as was done by prior underprivilaged classes of the past. Today in the US at least, determining where the working class begins and ends is some what difficult to decern. I qualify as middle class based upon income, but I am of the working class because my means of income is based upon the sale of my services.
The intersting thing you get out of the Marxist class struggle is that the lowest class is the working class. Notice carefully that in the term working class (taking directly from the Communist Manifesto, though admittedly translated) contians the word working. Many of the social programs of the US are actually targeted at the non-working, which does not, in my interpretation seem to be part of socialist ideal (not just Marxist). Marx himself believed and wrote that poverty is a self imposed condition and only through revolution will the working class bring themselves out of poverty. I chose to "revolt" at a personal level and bring myself to a state of equlity rather than accepting that society as a whole has some how worked to keep me down.
The one thing I don't understand is how a person who obviously has a decent understanding and respect for socialism, such as Anders, can somehow think that a country where in 60% of the wealth is held by less than 5% of the people and that the overwhelming majority share in less than 5% of the wealth (with 40% of the population sharing less than 2/10ths%, which I think I miss quoted earlier).
After reading threw all of this I now think that while the US is not pure capitalist it does have more capilistic ideals than socialist and most of the social programs are aimed, though not necessarily intentionaly, to maintain the status quo so as to not cause a proletariate revolution.
My defenition comes from the original writings on socialism and socialistic ideals. Examples of my bases of socialism a Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia, Karl Marx's Commuist Manifesto and The Rerum Novarum. Socialism uses income redistribution as a means to an end not as the core of the idiology. Income only has to redistributed at the begining of a socialist society because the income is not distributed equally, once a society is socialist there is not need for income distribution, because there is after all no income. Income is a capitalist idea. Oh and by the way what you are refering to is Redistribution of Wealth not income. In a socialist society even stock holds of wealth would be used to equally supply all citizens.
.2% of the wealth. This means that for every dollar in the US The top 5% share 60 cents and the bottom 40% share 1/20th of a cent. If you can some how argue that this is a redistribution of wealth I would be amazed.
In the US the majority of the Wealth is held by a small minority. The top 5% (bassed on monitary value) of the populous maintains nearly 60% of the wealth in the United States. The bottom 40% of the populous maintain less than
I'm not sure that the original commentor was meaning to get into the difference between download vs in store purchase. This is simply a mater of preference. I happen to prefere having tangible material in my hands before I let go of my well earned cash. My wife purchase alot of her music on iTunes music store. There are other big trade offs between online purchase and physical media purchase. As far as I know you can not get enhanced media from an online download, such as interviews, history and music videos. I rarely ever look at those on the media I do buy but it is a nice to have and many people like it. There is also the benifit to the artist, who would receive more royalties from an entire album pruchase (this is why I rarely buy used CDs and probably should stop doing that). If you actually like the music you listen to you should wnat to artist to be succesful and able to produce more (only the few super stars live like pro sports stars, most actually have to work for a living)
I personally don't buy into the purchasing of just one song and can't imagine listening to a band who's not worth an entire album.
In the end it's like gasoline. If the people are willing to pay for the convenience of being able to download music even without the additions you get with physical media, then companies will charge. Apple is a company like any other and they are not keeping prices low out of any sort of fairness but because they beleive it is the optimal price point (99 cents a song appears to be significantly less than say $1.19).
Take a quick look around the federal governments web sites for the Eligibility for these services. You will quickly realize they are not given equally to all people, and therefore not socialist. Most first world countries also send citizens to die to maintain the success of the country yet I would doubt you would say they practice human sacrifice. To quote Fight Club "sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken" Well now I know why this conversation is not going anywhere. I have never met anyone who thought that the US was not capitalist. Our Constitution protects free trade and capitalism, it does not grant and social benifit. Read your constitution (you should really carry a copy with you at all times) and it's ammendments, you will see economic freedom is well protected. Luckily so are many social freedoms, but there is nothing about economic equality. The forth ammendment specifically restricts the government from being able to seize personal assets.
Oh, and Socialist Spending is an Oxymoron.
One can not be denied benifits is a socialist system (expect with the possible excpetion of not being a productive member of society, but that is really a seperate ideal than socialism). Nope, social security is not based income... Intersting then that my yearly SS statement shows me being eligeable for more benifit than those that make less than me. This is just a flat out lie. Medicade is Income based, just to a quick comparison of Medicade vs Medicare. Medicade is income based while medicare is not, but medicare is taken from your SS which is income based. They are both also based on other descriminatory elements such as age and health. Either you allow for personal property or you do not. There is no such thing as "more socialist." Even if you don't use personal property as your basis for socialism (some do not, I take a more utopian view) you will see that socialism is not a thing that hase levels there of. Socialism either is or is not.
Somehow you have bought into the american propaganda that "we" somehow treat people equally or make attempts at equality. I repeat the united states is a Constitutional, Republican, Capitialist state. We have a selecct few who are supposed to act in the best intrest of ALL citizens, not just the rich or the poor, and in turn maintaining the possibility of a society based on free trade and personal property.
Social security, Medicare, wellfare and other so called social programs are not socialist. They are discriminatory, and based on income and personal property which are capitalist ideas. Subsides are not socialist and our schools are not free, and those so called free schools do not compare to the quality of schools that are only available to the privilaged rich. I am an upper middle class professional, I work hard for a living. I have received NO governmental spending (I was even denied Unemployment Insurance payments because I "didn't file in a timely manner"). I have more than the poor and less than the rich. I own personal property. I believe in socialist (actually fascist because I beleive in the good of a government and not that it is just a necessary evil) Ideals, but I do not live in a socialist country. It's not how much is spent that makes a government socialist but how that money is spent. Giving money to a select few IS NOT socialist, even if the select few are the underprivillage (which you can't have in a productive socialist society).
Socialism is not the only way to have a succesful government. Any form of governing can work if it governs the right people and is run without corruption (meaning the document practises are upheld through the life of the government). Pure Capitalsm (which there are no examples of) "works", but it would be those not able to be deemed productive members of society would not survive. I personally prefer Socialism, but would be a fool to believe it is the ONLY way to govern a country succesfully (the longest lasting nations in history where not socialist).