Dude, do you live in Portugal? That's exactly what they've been doing over here.
As a screaming example, our few transportation companies that are still public: Every time there's strike, there's hate stories in every media about how they should be privatised and all those workers fired, because they are leeches, they make too much money, don't want to work, etc. etc. etc. All those companies are technically bankrupt and the workers are blamed for running the company into the ground with too many benefits, bla, bla, bla.
However the story is pretty different. Our governments in the latest decades, being right-wing or Socialists (which is right transvestite as left), have been holding the transfers of money from ticketing, forcing the companies to make bank loans to keep operations running. After all these years, the companies are spending a lot more in loan interests than wages.
The solution to this? Easy. The government will take over all those companies' debt and privatise them really cheap (because nobody wants an "unprofitable" company full of "lazy" employees). The private groups that buy them will fire half of the staff, treat the remaining staff like cattle, increase tariffs to sky high levels, reduce the service to ridiculous minimums and then demand huge subsidies from the government because they are running such a "ingrate and unprofitable" public service.
Supreme irony, the privatised companies receive money from the state for every passenger they carry and also for the others they've lost due to their shitty service and excruciating tariffs.
That pretty much describes it. Every public service that was privatised here in Portugal followed the same route. They used to be public services, now they're huge private monopolies that make gigantic profits, bully customers like they're shit and crush any shred of competition that may arise.
We have the most fanatic neoliberal government of all times. They should hang pictures of Rand, Hayek and Friedman over their desks and salute them when they enter the office every morning, in the (not so unfamiliar) Fascist style.
The supreme irony: They recently privatised what was left of our state electricity company. Guess who bought it? A state-owned Chinese company! So, according to the Supreme Dogma of the Holy Free Market, our state can't have a presence in our economy, but the Chinese state can!
Most people you know find a false parable funny? You must hang with idiots. I suppose their is a little meta-humor in the people who think that simplistically.
Ad hominem. Best sign of lack of arguments.
Regarding reds, look at the third world nations in the worst state and getting worse. e.g. Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Venezuela and Zimbabwe are Communist? And in what parallel universe are those the nations in the worst state? And what does one have to do with the other?
You do realize that Marx was completely wrong about the whole 'society evolving towards communism' thing? I still haven't heard a single accurate prediction from his theories. Despite repeated challenges to/. reds.
You're right. Our economic model is completely perfect and we should never ever do anything but sit on our asses and let it be. After all, the IMF keeps telling me that everything's gonna be alright. And when did the IMF ever fail a prediction?
GMO crops may have poorly understood unintended consequences. They cross-reproduce with other plants and spread their genes throughout the environment.
They are proprietary, turning farmers into corporate patent slaves.
They encourage monoculture, at the expense of biodiversity and food safety.
They discourage a varied diet, to the expense of public health.
This case, if it goes forward, will create a precedent and encourage the generalisation of GMO throughout the world, posing as a panacea to world hunger. This allows world leaders to continue ignoring the real problem, which is unfair distribution, not food scarcity.
Most people I know find it funny. Maybe you are the problem.
What's wrong with making a shitload of money? The people that built the space pen did well for themselves, NASA and the Ruskys.
Strawman.
Through most of history most people were starch eaters. Until capitalism lifted up the economy, Europe was full of peasants that ate nothing but starch.
Non-sequitur. But since we're at it, the Roman Empire was the cause of great economic, social and technical progress in Europe, Asia and Africa. It was so great we should have stuck to it forever! Why evolve to anything else? But don't worry, again thanks to Capitalism, a lot of Europeans are going back to starch eaters.
Throwing the Reds out of power in the third world would definitely be a better long term solution, but good luck with that.
If that's the best argument you can come up with for not using technology to improve people's lives, it's not good enough.
I'm all for technology improving people's lives. But many times, technology is overkill and used only because of corporate interests. There are simpler solutions, but then someone would not be making a shitload of money from them, so they're not used.
The real problem is this kind of complicated, expensive and dangerous "solution" when simply introducing other crops that naturally provide vitamin D would fix the issue.
Reminds me of that old joke about the US spending millions of dollars to develop a pen which can write in space, and the Soviet cosmonauts simply using a pencil.
The Tea Party? Arrests? Really? I read about them being spied on, but never heard of arrests. Why would your government want to piss off the billionaires behind the movement, the ones that basically rule the USA?
I got plenty of news about infiltrations and police brutality against OWS, however. Not in the mass media, of course. Here on the other side of the Atlantic, our media is as much as corrupt as yours. They pretended OWS never existed or, at most, was just a gang of anarchists doing vandalism.
I couldn't care less if Assange or Snowden are nice guys. That's completely irrelevant for the matter if they're sweet little cherubs or like to fuck sheep on their spare time. Nobody does what they did by being that nice guy everybody wants to have a beer with.
The hateful crimes they exposed are the true stars, here. If you focus on the messenger, you miss the message. That's what the governments, corporations and their global propaganda machine (a.k.a. mass media) badly, badly, badly want you to do. Quite successfully.
Just wait until the character assassination begins for Schneier too. He's been taking very strong positions, I'm waiting for a photoshopped picture of him fucking a sheep to be released on the Internet for the whole world to see.
Pretty soon, he'll be living in a South American country's embassy.
I'm from another European country.
Our electricity used to be supplied by a State-owned company. A few decades ago, the neoliberals in the European Union told the neoliberals in my government that states shouldn't have a presence in the economy, because it goes against the Holy Dogmas of His Sanctity the Free Market. So the company was split in shares and privatised.
The pundits and politicians on TV always told us that the whole purpose was to create "competition". This would magically drop the costs to the consumer and bring better service, blah, blah, blah. 20 years gone by, and instead of buying electricity from a state company, we buy it from a bullyish private-owned monopolistic behemoth. The only "advantage" we got from the privatisation were skyrocketing prices. And a lot less money going into the State coffers to be reinvested in infrastructure, or education, or health care, whatever. Instead, it's being funnelled to private pockets, to be "reinvested" in yachts, whores and coke. Not only our state is not taking any money from the company, it pays it huge rents for all kinds of bullshit services, like "guaranteed power" and whatever.
It seems pretty obvious to any sane person what was going to happen. I mean, it's electricity. What competition can you get from that? I get home, I flick a switch, lights are on. I don't want to think about it, I don't even care who the fuck supplies my electricity. I don't even understand the business model. What happens if I change supplier? Does a guy come to my apartment with a huge reel of cable and sets up a direct connection to a power plant? My country is fucking tiny! What kind competition is possible?
Recently a Chinese company, detained 100% by the Chinese State, came and bought a big participation in the electricity company, getting to control it. And, voilà! According to the neoliberals, our State can't own our companies. But apparently, the Chinese State can! So, one of the most critical and strategic sectors in our economy is owned by a foreign country, and we're their bitches, now. I can't make up my mind if it's better or worse to be the bitch of private corporations but, at least, it would be less hypocritical.
Now they're seeking to privatise water. Go ahead. What can possibly go wrong?
You're mistaking "state" for "government". It's a pretty common fallacy in English speaking people, I wonder why...
Your vision is quite myopic. If work is so badly needed, when work is not useful any more, what will have to be invented for people to do? And who will employ people to do useless work?
That's why the current capitalist system is unsustainable.
If people are replaced by machines, can't find a job and don't have any income, they won't be able to pay the owner of the machines for the things the machines make.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, do you live in Portugal? That's exactly what they've been doing over here.
As a screaming example, our few transportation companies that are still public: Every time there's strike, there's hate stories in every media about how they should be privatised and all those workers fired, because they are leeches, they make too much money, don't want to work, etc. etc. etc. All those companies are technically bankrupt and the workers are blamed for running the company into the ground with too many benefits, bla, bla, bla.
However the story is pretty different. Our governments in the latest decades, being right-wing or Socialists (which is right transvestite as left), have been holding the transfers of money from ticketing, forcing the companies to make bank loans to keep operations running. After all these years, the companies are spending a lot more in loan interests than wages.
The solution to this? Easy. The government will take over all those companies' debt and privatise them really cheap (because nobody wants an "unprofitable" company full of "lazy" employees). The private groups that buy them will fire half of the staff, treat the remaining staff like cattle, increase tariffs to sky high levels, reduce the service to ridiculous minimums and then demand huge subsidies from the government because they are running such a "ingrate and unprofitable" public service.
Supreme irony, the privatised companies receive money from the state for every passenger they carry and also for the others they've lost due to their shitty service and excruciating tariffs.
Whooooooosh!
I eat two donuts at a time, you insensitive clod!
That pretty much describes it. Every public service that was privatised here in Portugal followed the same route. They used to be public services, now they're huge private monopolies that make gigantic profits, bully customers like they're shit and crush any shred of competition that may arise.
We have the most fanatic neoliberal government of all times. They should hang pictures of Rand, Hayek and Friedman over their desks and salute them when they enter the office every morning, in the (not so unfamiliar) Fascist style.
The supreme irony: They recently privatised what was left of our state electricity company. Guess who bought it? A state-owned Chinese company! So, according to the Supreme Dogma of the Holy Free Market, our state can't have a presence in our economy, but the Chinese state can!
Try wiping your hands between eating a donut and using your phone.
Take it easy, just kidding...
50,000 gallons isn't that much water. It was a 10,000 gallon-per-day spill. That's garden-hose territory.
I'd like to see your garden. Looks like it may make a great football field.
Most people you know find a false parable funny? You must hang with idiots. I suppose their is a little meta-humor in the people who think that simplistically.
Ad hominem. Best sign of lack of arguments.
Regarding reds, look at the third world nations in the worst state and getting worse. e.g. Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Venezuela and Zimbabwe are Communist? And in what parallel universe are those the nations in the worst state? And what does one have to do with the other?
You do realize that Marx was completely wrong about the whole 'society evolving towards communism' thing? I still haven't heard a single accurate prediction from his theories. Despite repeated challenges to /. reds.
You're right. Our economic model is completely perfect and we should never ever do anything but sit on our asses and let it be. After all, the IMF keeps telling me that everything's gonna be alright. And when did the IMF ever fail a prediction?
Jokes, true of false, are supposed to be funny.
Most people I know find it funny. Maybe you are the problem.
What's wrong with making a shitload of money? The people that built the space pen did well for themselves, NASA and the Ruskys.
Strawman.
Through most of history most people were starch eaters. Until capitalism lifted up the economy, Europe was full of peasants that ate nothing but starch.
Non-sequitur. But since we're at it, the Roman Empire was the cause of great economic, social and technical progress in Europe, Asia and Africa. It was so great we should have stuck to it forever! Why evolve to anything else? But don't worry, again thanks to Capitalism, a lot of Europeans are going back to starch eaters.
Throwing the Reds out of power in the third world would definitely be a better long term solution, but good luck with that.
WTF? What Reds are you talking about?
Which, as it turns out, is completely false.
I know it's false. That's why I called it a joke.
If that's the best argument you can come up with for not using technology to improve people's lives, it's not good enough.
I'm all for technology improving people's lives. But many times, technology is overkill and used only because of corporate interests. There are simpler solutions, but then someone would not be making a shitload of money from them, so they're not used.
Golden rice is licensed freely to small farmers and they are free to re-use seed so there's no typical lock-in risk.
Drug dealer business practice: the first fix is always free.
Fix: I wrote "vitamin D", I meant "vitamin A". I keep confusing them all the time.
The real problem is this kind of complicated, expensive and dangerous "solution" when simply introducing other crops that naturally provide vitamin D would fix the issue.
Reminds me of that old joke about the US spending millions of dollars to develop a pen which can write in space, and the Soviet cosmonauts simply using a pencil.
Besides, if people stop dying, what will they make Soylent Green from? There will be famine!
The Tea Party? Arrests? Really? I read about them being spied on, but never heard of arrests. Why would your government want to piss off the billionaires behind the movement, the ones that basically rule the USA?
I got plenty of news about infiltrations and police brutality against OWS, however. Not in the mass media, of course. Here on the other side of the Atlantic, our media is as much as corrupt as yours. They pretended OWS never existed or, at most, was just a gang of anarchists doing vandalism.
Self-driving public buses, of course.
So what happens when a light has a communication error and the car ends up in a bad crash?
You mean, like what happens every day with people at the wheel?
In the US, union workersplay golf? That explains a lot about the US labour policies. I don't think you grasped the concept very well...
I couldn't care less if Assange or Snowden are nice guys. That's completely irrelevant for the matter if they're sweet little cherubs or like to fuck sheep on their spare time. Nobody does what they did by being that nice guy everybody wants to have a beer with.
The hateful crimes they exposed are the true stars, here. If you focus on the messenger, you miss the message. That's what the governments, corporations and their global propaganda machine (a.k.a. mass media) badly, badly, badly want you to do. Quite successfully.
Just wait until the character assassination begins for Schneier too. He's been taking very strong positions, I'm waiting for a photoshopped picture of him fucking a sheep to be released on the Internet for the whole world to see. Pretty soon, he'll be living in a South American country's embassy.
I'm from another European country. Our electricity used to be supplied by a State-owned company. A few decades ago, the neoliberals in the European Union told the neoliberals in my government that states shouldn't have a presence in the economy, because it goes against the Holy Dogmas of His Sanctity the Free Market. So the company was split in shares and privatised.
The pundits and politicians on TV always told us that the whole purpose was to create "competition". This would magically drop the costs to the consumer and bring better service, blah, blah, blah. 20 years gone by, and instead of buying electricity from a state company, we buy it from a bullyish private-owned monopolistic behemoth. The only "advantage" we got from the privatisation were skyrocketing prices. And a lot less money going into the State coffers to be reinvested in infrastructure, or education, or health care, whatever. Instead, it's being funnelled to private pockets, to be "reinvested" in yachts, whores and coke. Not only our state is not taking any money from the company, it pays it huge rents for all kinds of bullshit services, like "guaranteed power" and whatever.
It seems pretty obvious to any sane person what was going to happen. I mean, it's electricity. What competition can you get from that? I get home, I flick a switch, lights are on. I don't want to think about it, I don't even care who the fuck supplies my electricity. I don't even understand the business model. What happens if I change supplier? Does a guy come to my apartment with a huge reel of cable and sets up a direct connection to a power plant? My country is fucking tiny! What kind competition is possible?
Recently a Chinese company, detained 100% by the Chinese State, came and bought a big participation in the electricity company, getting to control it. And, voilà! According to the neoliberals, our State can't own our companies. But apparently, the Chinese State can! So, one of the most critical and strategic sectors in our economy is owned by a foreign country, and we're their bitches, now. I can't make up my mind if it's better or worse to be the bitch of private corporations but, at least, it would be less hypocritical.
Now they're seeking to privatise water. Go ahead. What can possibly go wrong?
I'm European. What are mph? Why would my card need that? And why 70?
It's called capitalism. Love it or leave it.
You're mistaking "state" for "government". It's a pretty common fallacy in English speaking people, I wonder why...
Your vision is quite myopic. If work is so badly needed, when work is not useful any more, what will have to be invented for people to do? And who will employ people to do useless work?
That's why the current capitalist system is unsustainable.
If people are replaced by machines, can't find a job and don't have any income, they won't be able to pay the owner of the machines for the things the machines make.