Who do you think enlisted first in the "new" iraqi army? Yup. You guessed it. The "old" iraqi army pros, those who've been solidering all their lives and couldn't get a decent civil sector job if they tried.
Y'know, that might not be such a bad idea. Already, there are ways for candidates to get money and the one who gets the most money (almost) invariably wins the elections. It already looks like an IPO... Perhaps those who own stock in the winning candidate should get a say in how the country is run? It would look something like a cleptocracy, only it'd be above-board and you'd have the SEC as guardians of the political system. Want a war in Afghanistan? Issue common stock to pay for more tanks. Of course, it may be that your stock trades so low already that you simply can't afford it.
Why would it? Pass the rights to the software to a third party - the FSF maybe? Perhaps a smart lawyer would have the ways to make such a transaction effectively anonymous, but verifiable in court?
What's this I hear about 4-space tabs and n-space tabs? A tab is a tab is ONE character. If you have a retarded text editor that substitutes whitespace for tabs according to some rule you set, stop using it.
Where does Occam's razor come in, pray tell? You can bet your bottom dollar that a diplomat, any sort of diplomat, who's wandering around in the PRC is under constant surveillance. Even if the whore he was with stole it with no ulterior motive other than cash, his "tail" must have noticed the incident in like, two seconds flat and taken steps to recover the device.
No, it isn't. People will flock to large cities again, pushed from behind by the Allmighty Buck. Do not mistake the booming trade in luxury homes for a mass trend.
We, the people... You the people hold shares in these monopolistic corporations you deplore. You the people made Walmart (a publicly-held and-traded company, i.e. an organisation owned and bankrolled by the public) the biggest US employer. What you want is already here, except it doesn't quite meet your needs, does it?
Sometimes this collusion of consumers you speak of actually happens, and you get Wallmart - a monopsony, which is worse, but bad for different reasons.
"Build a service of your own" is simply creating a new economic entity, which in the embodiment you propose is, quite simply, a corporation (board of directors is subject to shareholder vote). If you're successful, it eventually turns into a monopoly.
Knowledge my lilly ass. Availability of alternatives is the issue. It is a well known fact of life that a free market in any commodity will naturally evolve towards a momopoly/oligopoly status. Once that happens, the monopolist/oligopolists entrench their positions, simply killing off competitors before they become real threats and so the monopoly perpetuates. Textbook example: it took the might of the federal government to split up Standard Oil - yet the resulting companies have acted in collusion ever since, finally to merge again.
The "additional" parties would be under enormous pressure to merge with one of the two big ones... that's what happened in the US and UK, and it's not good.
But how do we get from the "secret police rounding up dissidents" stage to the "armed uprising" stage?
Oh man, read a little, will ya? Malaparte, Trotsky, Mao, heck even Lenin. The way to do it is by creating even more discontent. The way to do _that_ is to start provoking the police/military so that they overreact, and begin killing/disappearing innocents and radicalizing the otherwise-passive masses.
This kind of a strategy cannot work, however, if the masses can't be armed. The Russian revolution only "succeeded" because of the (armed) army desertors and mutinous sailors (who, in turn, got crushed by the emerging Red army a shor few months later, but that's another story).
The thinking goes that at some point you have enough isolated incidents like Waco that a significant minority of the population becomes angry enough to take up arms. I keep wondering if that'll ever happen.
Exactly the same powers, you moron. Syria, Iran, Irak, Saudi Arabia (oh, yes, they would, but ever so stealthily). Also Russia, Venezuela, possibly even Mexico.
You were aiming for an insightful there. I can tell. But riddle me this: are there any powers that would be willing and able to support a popular uprising on US soil?
Iran would, just for the heck of it. So would Russia, possibly in exchange for Alaska, so would Venezuela, Cuba and all their lil' oppressed Latin American buddies... heck even Mexico might step in to reclaim some land.
The minute the US military gets pinned down suppressing an armed insurrection at home would be the minute the US cease to exist and North America begins looking a lot like South America: a collection of small states with a common history, lots of common culture, but diverging political and economic interests.
Nor do they produce anything of any use. "Oooh I'm so wise and adult! Let's all of you concentrate on eating less, travelling less, learning less and having less children while I go smoke some pot with my uber-intelligent buddies!"
Slashdot Mirror
And that is all I had to say about that.
Wish I had mod points. Informative, at least.
Who do you think enlisted first in the "new" iraqi army? Yup. You guessed it. The "old" iraqi army pros, those who've been solidering all their lives and couldn't get a decent civil sector job if they tried.
Y'know, that might not be such a bad idea. Already, there are ways for candidates to get money and the one who gets the most money (almost) invariably wins the elections. It already looks like an IPO... Perhaps those who own stock in the winning candidate should get a say in how the country is run? It would look something like a cleptocracy, only it'd be above-board and you'd have the SEC as guardians of the political system. Want a war in Afghanistan? Issue common stock to pay for more tanks. Of course, it may be that your stock trades so low already that you simply can't afford it.
Why would it? Pass the rights to the software to a third party - the FSF maybe? Perhaps a smart lawyer would have the ways to make such a transaction effectively anonymous, but verifiable in court?
What's this I hear about 4-space tabs and n-space tabs? A tab is a tab is ONE character. If you have a retarded text editor that substitutes whitespace for tabs according to some rule you set, stop using it.
Wish I had mod points. +1 Funny.
Where does Occam's razor come in, pray tell? You can bet your bottom dollar that a diplomat, any sort of diplomat, who's wandering around in the PRC is under constant surveillance. Even if the whore he was with stole it with no ulterior motive other than cash, his "tail" must have noticed the incident in like, two seconds flat and taken steps to recover the device.
No, it isn't. People will flock to large cities again, pushed from behind by the Allmighty Buck. Do not mistake the booming trade in luxury homes for a mass trend.
Think more along the lines of drop-in power source - battery pack for in-city, gas turbine generator for those long trips.
No, s/he won't. The Puppy is retarded, what with running everything as root and all.
We, the people... You the people hold shares in these monopolistic corporations you deplore. You the people made Walmart (a publicly-held and-traded company, i.e. an organisation owned and bankrolled by the public) the biggest US employer. What you want is already here, except it doesn't quite meet your needs, does it?
Amber on black is THE solution for spending countless hours at a stretch in front of your monitor.
Word recognition is best, yes. Different kettle of fish
Sometimes this collusion of consumers you speak of actually happens, and you get Wallmart - a monopsony, which is worse, but bad for different reasons.
"Build a service of your own" is simply creating a new economic entity, which in the embodiment you propose is, quite simply, a corporation (board of directors is subject to shareholder vote). If you're successful, it eventually turns into a monopoly.
Because you'd get slaughtered by the incumbents - a price drop here, a refusal of peer agreement there and pretty soon you're out of business.
Knowledge my lilly ass. Availability of alternatives is the issue. It is a well known fact of life that a free market in any commodity will naturally evolve towards a momopoly/oligopoly status. Once that happens, the monopolist/oligopolists entrench their positions, simply killing off competitors before they become real threats and so the monopoly perpetuates. Textbook example: it took the might of the federal government to split up Standard Oil - yet the resulting companies have acted in collusion ever since, finally to merge again.
The "additional" parties would be under enormous pressure to merge with one of the two big ones... that's what happened in the US and UK, and it's not good.
Huge holes. Like, say, the idea that there should be just two political parties.
But how do we get from the "secret police rounding up dissidents" stage to the "armed uprising" stage?
Oh man, read a little, will ya? Malaparte, Trotsky, Mao, heck even Lenin. The way to do it is by creating even more discontent. The way to do _that_ is to start provoking the police/military so that they overreact, and begin killing/disappearing innocents and radicalizing the otherwise-passive masses.
This kind of a strategy cannot work, however, if the masses can't be armed. The Russian revolution only "succeeded" because of the (armed) army desertors and mutinous sailors (who, in turn, got crushed by the emerging Red army a shor few months later, but that's another story).
Learned helplessness, your attitude is called.
The thinking goes that at some point you have enough isolated incidents like Waco that a significant minority of the population becomes angry enough to take up arms. I keep wondering if that'll ever happen.
Exactly the same powers, you moron. Syria, Iran, Irak, Saudi Arabia (oh, yes, they would, but ever so stealthily). Also Russia, Venezuela, possibly even Mexico.
You were aiming for an insightful there. I can tell. But riddle me this: are there any powers that would be willing and able to support a popular uprising on US soil?
Iran would, just for the heck of it. So would Russia, possibly in exchange for Alaska, so would Venezuela, Cuba and all their lil' oppressed Latin American buddies... heck even Mexico might step in to reclaim some land.
The minute the US military gets pinned down suppressing an armed insurrection at home would be the minute the US cease to exist and North America begins looking a lot like South America: a collection of small states with a common history, lots of common culture, but diverging political and economic interests.
Nor do they produce anything of any use. "Oooh I'm so wise and adult! Let's all of you concentrate on eating less, travelling less, learning less and having less children while I go smoke some pot with my uber-intelligent buddies!"