So, in 1998 (and the previous 11 years too; I'm ignoring them in my sample for simplicity's sake, since the sample still falls within the 1987-1998 range for which the figure was claimed) 16.9% were living at or below a level which was still nearly twice the poverty line? These hardly seem like dire straits...
And yet, in that study (or rather, a more-recent version) (warning: fat, nasty, big PDF), the "50% of median income" level in each OECD nation is considered to be the "poverty line". It's not *too* bad of a normalizing estimate, except that it makes the logical fallacy of assuming that the situations in all nations is equal, and thus that the figure is somehow accurate to the conditions of the individual nations. Whether that is true depends on how far the individual nations' poverty lines actually deviate from the 50% level; in America's case, it's off by 43%.
Notice too that of all the nations ranking higher than the U.S., only Iceland has a better long-term unemployment rate (and the difference is pretty negligible: 0.5% vs. 0.4%).
Just because the U.S. has a less-equal distribution of wealth doesn't make the U.S. a less-developed nation than its European competitors. Moreover, our GDP growth rate exceeds that of every major European nation (approx. 3.2% here vs. 1.6% or so, at best, in the European nations. Some, like Switzerland (IIRC), actually have seen negative growth recently, indicating potentially recessionary times there.)
Compare this to Norway and Sweden, where the same statistic reaches only 6.9% and 6.6% respectively.
In the HPI-2 index, we find that the US is ranked 17th. This is an obvious indicator of income inequality. This takes much of the sheen off the USA's high GDP per capita and exposes the reality of a skewed distribution of income.
Indeed, I never argued that the U.S. had as equal a distribution of wealth as, say, Sweden. Nor am I convinced that would be a good thing either.
As far as the HPI-2 index, according to the UNDP, we've moved up to 8th -- above considerably more-socialist countries like Germany, France, Finland, and the UK, for example. Sweden and Norway still take the top 2 spots, however.
In any case, let's look at the description of the HPI-2 index:
A composite index measuring deprivations in the three basic dimensions captured in the human development index-- a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living--and also capturing social exclusion.
Poverty as measured by one's lifespan? That's necessarily a relative measure. Clearly we prefer people to live longer (except those people worried about world overpopulation), but developing a ranking system based off the notion that a short lifespan means living in poverty (as if this is a reasonable conclusion; if I die in a car crash at age 23, did I live a life of extreme poverty? Certainly not!) makes the measure a relative one. The index, therefore, is one which tends to favor equalization of lifespans, and thus, equalizations of the factors which may promote equal lifespans, such as education, healthcare, and yes -- income, which enables the purchase of all these factors.
Knowledge? How does one measure that, and to what degree of relevance? The knowledge of the African bushmen is irrelevant to me, yet they are far more knowledgeable in that r
Long involved subject, and eventually I think russia and china will go at each other as well, but I think this century will be the century for wars over planetary resources, because there's only "enough" for x- very small number billions of people, say 2 maybe, not 6-10 billion. Just the data that's available I think shows that to be highly probable.
I agree. I'm no historian, but no century I'm aware of -- certainly not in American history -- has gone without some major wars occurring. The 20th century, of course, witnessed 2 "world" wars involving a variety of nations. There's no reason in my mind why a third world war shouldn't happen sometime this century. Based on history, it would appear the probability of a third world war occurring in my lifetime (at the age of 23 here in 2005) is more likely than not.
Should that war involve nuclear launches, which is entirely possible, despite MAD strategies, I often seriously wonder how the hell the human race will survive this century...
Dig a shelter in the Rockies and stock up on MRE's, hmmm?:-/ Or maybe move to a non-developed continent in the southern hemisphere (S. America, Africa, etc.) altogether...
The top 1% of Americans may skew the figure somewhat. But the last time I checked, the per-capita GDP of the U.S. was about $38,000, whereas most European nations had a per-capita GDP around $26,000.
If the top 1% of Americans skew the per-capita GDP figure by 46%, then I would be *greatly* shocked...
And even so, the wealth generated in this country does still go to them; were that wealth to be distributed amongst all Americans, the per-capita GDP figure in the U.S. would still be $38,000 (after all, as you say, it's an average).
Hence, the per-capita output of the U.S. in dollar value is *still* higher than that of European market-socialist nations.
Re:How Israeli Companies Are Succeeding...
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Business Under Fire
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Even at the worst times of anti-communist paranoia, the USSR (as it is now clearly apparent from documents which became available after its fall) was always in a defensive stance to a belligerent US military preasure.
Ah, like the Cuban missile crisis, during JFK's administration!
Clearly the U.S. was being belligerant and arrogant when Russia put its nukes on Cuba. Silly Americans.
I just think that when powerful individuals such as Gates (or CEOs of Big Corporations) make these kind of anti-egalitarian, neoliberal statements, they ought to be tried for treason in a court of law and if guilty, hung by their necks (publicly) until they are dead.
Fine. At the same time, let's try socialists and communists for treason for their pro-egalitarian, neocommunist statements, and if found guilty, hang them by their necks publicly until they're dead.
We could start w/ Noam Chomsky!
(The above is satire. Being a "neoliberal", I don't condone acts violence like Cryofan does just because somebody else has worked for their wealth. I support individual freedom, whether economic or non-economic, whereas Cryofan and other socialists, communists, and Marxists -- as he has proven here -- do not. Neoliberal policy avoids killing people; collectivist policy promotes it, just as it did in the USSR, and still does in China and North Korea.
Unlike the collectivists, neoliberals support your right to promote socialism, communism, etc. -- even if it's a stupid and wrong idea, because the marketplace of ideas is better than forcing ideas down other peoples' throats. Again, freedom is better than slavery.)
Capitalism has to fail, and that hasn't happened yet, not fully at least.
Funny thing that... In the 228 years the U.S. has existed, our largely-capitalist system is still mostly intact, the ravages of the FDR administration and various other Presidencies since then (including, and perhaps in particular, the GW Bush admin) notwithstanding.
We're still waiting for capitalism to crumble... LOL.
...but yeah, the Soviet Union WAS really practicing "real communism".
With their massive government? Hardly. Communism, in theory, requires no government; in theory, socialist governments should dissolve into a communist utopia.
Socialism, by contrast, requires a large government; hence, the USSR was titled the "United Soviet Socialist Republics". Socialism was Marx's intermediate step towards communism - a step beyond which no nation (AFAIK) has ever proceeded.
Of course, totalitarianism and socialism go hand-in-hand, but you'd never hear the socialist pinkos say that... Nor would they admit that communism fails for the same reason socialism does: lack of incentive on the part of the individual to do work...
And statist 'communism' as practiced in places like the USSR and China has very little to do with real communist/socialist theory.
And in fact, there is no "communist/socialist" theory, because communism and socialism are 2 different theories.
Communism = no government, no private property, everybody owns all property equally, everybody works together cooperatively
Socialism = big government, property owned by government instead of private citizens, government manages the cooperation between citizens in employment
Socialism was predicted by Karl Marx to be an intermediate step towards the final end result of communism; hence, it became popular to see nations *promoting* communism, when in fact they were *practicing* socialism.
As evidence, consider the USSR -- "United Soviet Socialist Republics". That was not a communist nation, as America has so often stated, but was, as its name suggests, socialist. Same goes for modern-day N. Korea and China, except without the word "socialist" hidden in an acronym for their nations' names...
One could argue they practice(d) "statist communism", but by definition, that's a logical contradiction; communist theory requires that no state exist. Socialism, by contrast, necessarily requires that the state exist.
(Disclaimer: I am a staunch free marketeer and occasional economics student.)
* I believe the world will end tomorrow! -- will it? * I believe that Jesus will save you from tomorrow's end! -- will he?
Take any prediction of the future. Until that event occurs, it is only a prediction; it is unproveable. We can make guesses -- even educated guesses -- about whether they will or will not occur, but because they have not yet occurred, they are still guesses.
Beliefs in future events, then, are guesses. Guesses as to whether event X does or does not occur. "I believe the DJIA level will rise by 300 points tomorrow" is just as much a belief/guess as "I believe the DJIA level will fall by 300 points tomorrow". Neither is true, YET, because they haven't occurred.
Hence, all one can do until the reality of events occurs, is believe -- or guess -- that those events will or will not occur.
So predictions of future events amount to nothing more than beliefs/guesses, based on whatever evidence and information one wants, and in whatever quantity they deem necessary, to use to back up those beliefs/guesses. What about things which could conceivably be proven in the present?
Take for instance these beliefs:
* I believe the sky is falling! -- is it really happening? * I believe that there is a hole in the ozone! -- is there? * I believe that the grass is greener in my neighbor's yard! -- is it? * I believe my child's school performs more poorly than does the school in the next town over! -- does it?
These are beliefs which can, at least theoretically, be determined factually -- as long as you believe in the truthfulness of the instruments you use to determine these facts.
For example, take the last one: school performance. How does one measure this?
We could measure it by ACT/SAT scores. On those grounds, perhaps the next school over is doing better. But what if we measure by the types of learning which is occurring -- perhaps the "better" school emphasizes rote-memorization over thinking through general processes. Which one is better now? That's a subjective question, determined by what exactly you want out of the education. Suppose we try, thirdly, measuring by the number of high school students who go on to college. Is this an indicator of success? Typically, yes. But are there not highly-successful people who have never gone on to college, or graduated from it? Sure -- Bill Gates is the richest man alive, and he is a Harvard dropout.
How about greener grass in the neighbor's yard? Is it greener? That depends on one's eyes -- to a colorblind person, the very concept of the color "green" doesn't exist, b/c they don't know what "green" looks like. And even among normally-sighted people, the perceptions of colors differ. My family has a bag which my mother and I say is "black", but my father says is "dark blue". Who is right? That depends on your perception. So do you trust the sightedness of the person speaking to say they "believe" the grass is greener? Surely not. Now, we could perhaps use a spectrometer to measure the color of the light given off from samples of grass from each yard -- but do we trust that method? Are there not errors possible in those methods too?
Or let's take the sky-is-falling scenario. Now, virtually nobody believes this one anymore. Can we prove that the sky is not falling? Sure -- depending on how one defines the "sky". Do we define it as limited to the level at which clouds occur? Or do we limit it to the stars in far-out galaxies? By the former definition, the sky raises and falls all the time, depending on weather conditions; by the latter definition, the sky is always expanding, because the universe, so far as we know, is always expanding. But without knowing these things, we would not be able to prove that these facts are true.
To believe, then, that they *are* true would be as equally-irra
That's true; the console market definitely overshadows the PC gaming market...
But then, the original question at-hand was essentially that of Linux desktop gaming vs. Windows desktop gaming, i.e., "why hasn't Linux taken off as a gaming OS?"
So in the original comparison, the console is irrelevant, at least until a Linux-running console arrives. That said, IIRC, the next Playstation is supposed to run Linux as its OS, and if so, that could (possibly, theoretically) be huge for the Linux gaming world...
Of course, MSFT using DirectX on Xbox or Xbox2 would be pretty significant as well.
Ok, maybe Direct3D is the main GUI on windows but it is of no relevance anywhere else. Not on Linux. Not on BSD. Not on MacOS. Not on the PS2. Not even Windows-CE and therefore not on PDAs and Mobile Phones. Nowhere except Wintel.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Direct3D is also used on the XBox, since that's basically a Wintel PC w/ an Nvidia chipset.
Anyway, onto my main point. People play games primarily on 3 platforms: consoles, desktop PCs, and cellphones.
Consoles are typically proprietary designs with their own graphics APIs (the PS2 is the best and most-common example); hence, Direct3D's supposed "minority" status in the console world is irrelevant.
Likewise, cellphones have their own APIs too. J2ME might make this easier, but AFAIK, the 3D support -- in the few instances so far in which it's available -- doesn't include OpenGL or Direct3D.
Hence, we're left largely with desktop PC gaming.
And so, we have to define the word "minority". Currently, roughly at least 90% of the worldwide desktop userbase runs Windows. Not Linux. Not BSD. Not MacOS. Not PS2. Not even WinCE, and therefore, not PDAs or mobile phones.
As a result, 90% of the world's userbase has Direct3D libs immediately-available as part of Win9x/ME/NT/2k/XP, ready-to-run.
Linux doesn't have these libs, although, they can be run (slowly) via WINE. But Linux is irrelevant, because even now, it has, by the most-optimistic estimates, perhaps 3-4% of the worldwide desktop market share. The only worthy competitor Direct3D has on Linux is the combination of OpenGL and some other graphics libs, such as SDL.
Regardless, we've boiled down the argument of "minority" status of Direct3D to the space of desktop PCs, and as any Slashdotter knows, MSFT has nearly total control in that space. So, to say that Direct3D is a "minority" player is not only silly, but it's wrong...
Now, as for future development, I agree w/ you: it'd be wise for developers to look ahead to the trends of increased gaming on cellphones and consoles, etc., away from their PCs, and on those grounds, Direct3D is definitely a more-questionable choice compared to relatively-portable libs like SDL...
Oh boo hoo, the airline workers were selfish -- as if that's a bad thing.
As a businessman, if you want people to work when you demand them to work, then pay them a better rate than they can get elsewhere. If you don't agree to the employee's demands for time off, then fire him and hire another, more cooperative person.
Of course the employees are selfish, just as the businessman who hired them is selfish. All people -- even the most community-minded people -- are selfish, whether they care to admit it or not, and that is a *good* thing. Welcome to the human race.
Open source software is nothing more than a libertarian flavor of capitalism implemented within the software market.
That is, essentially, lots of private individuals are contributing -- not for profit -- to a privately-organized collection of code which is re-released back to the public under a set of rules (defined in the license) by a private entity's terms.
In essence, nearly the entire operation is privately-run. Is there an exchange of money for software? No.
But the software is developed mostly privately, without the assistance of the government -- meaning it's largely non-socialist. And because property rights -- in the form of copyrights -- are retained by private holders, the so-called "communism" of the open-source system is privately-held -- meaning it's not communism at all, but rather, capitalism of an intellectual-property variety. The property rights backing copyrighht law, on which even the GPL relies, ensures that this system is based on property rights -- rights which are fundamental to any capitalist system, and purely antithetical to communism in any form, as communism rejects private property rights.
Hence, open source is actually a very capitalistic system, contrary to the beliefs of both some propoents and detractors...
There are exceptions. The NSA's security contributions are a socialist contribution to Linux. Contributions to Linux or FreeBSD from NASA or DARPA are socialist contributions. But by and large, most code is written by private individuals, and in any case, the decision as to whether the code is included into the source tree is made usually, if not entirely (as with Linus Torvalds) by 1 or more private entities.
Thus, the developement of open-source software is largely a private -- and therefore, non-communist, non-socialist, and therefore, by elimination of all other current economic models, capitalist -- affair.
So long as the rights of copyright remain in private hands, OSS is a largely-private, capitalist affair. Change the rights of copyright to a more community-oriented set of rights, and then we'll talk...
Now, does open-source require money to operate? It surely requires money or time. But OSS tends to receive one of those 2 resources from private individuals, just as it always has, and nothing under a privately-owned system of individually-controlled capitalist economics prevents this from occurring. Ayn Rand would disapprove, but she disapproved of anybody who worked for free, calling them a "slave" to charitable causes. Most sane people -- even staunch free-marketeers like myself -- would disagree with that view, seeing such work as the product of the emotions of the individual felt for another person... Rand's failure was to factor in the non-objective, debateably less-rational parts of human behavior into her system of worldview...
Thirty years from now, we'll use bionic eyes giving us 'zoom vision' for faster reactions.
Yeah, for the wealthy, and even then, only *maybe*.
I LOL in your general direction on that prediction generally, though, because most people haven't any directly-obvious use for "zoom vision." People in the military, yes; most civilians, no.
Nanobots injected in our bloodstream will complement our immune system.
More believable than the first, but again, still unlikely. It's possible for very basic medical problems, but otherwise, the AI and robotics engineering required for such nanobots would be beyond affordability for most people, even the rich. Hence, such technology is likely to be still in the trial phases at that point.
Artificial muscles built with electroactive polymers will help us to be stronger and faster.
Oh? And who exactly has a need for this technology?
Sports players and those in physical-security sectors (i.e., police, military, and private security) -- that's it. Does Joe Coder in the cubicle need to be able to intercept a pass 0.2 sec. faster? No. Does Joe Steelworker need to shoot a 3-pointer 0.1 sec. faster? Hardly.
You have a (predicted) solution in search of a need. History proves that unless the demand is directly-attributable to the supply, the demand meeting that supply is not as strong as the predictions had suggested. For example, few people predicted the rapid expansion of MP3 usage until Napster came along, but by that time, the genie was out of the bottle; any dumbass could see that MP3s were the way of the future in terms of music file formats. Prior to that, most people thought RealAudio or.WAVs were the way to go (OK, a few hardcore BBS dudes still thought.MODs and.S3Ms were going to make it) -- now we laugh in their general direction.
Hence, today, people continue to be amazed at the ease and convenience of MP3s and the fruits of the services which sell MP3-quality audio for around $1 a song. Such "wonders" would almost certainly never have been predicted 10 years ago.
So you think it's science fiction?
Like flying cars, the shorter work-week enabled by ever-advancing computer technology, and so forth, largely-speaking, yes, I do.
You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"
Just because techno-ideologues are convinced of something doesn't make them correct, any more than the ideologues of any political view make them right.
History, in fact, proves futurists to be morons. They have nice ideas, but inevitably, the inconveniences of reality -- the laws of economics which demand that there be a need for a dreamed technology, the laws of politics which demand that a given technology not cause religious wackos to believe it the sign of the devil, and the laws of a particular technology itself, which limit the growth of that technology -- all prevent the dreams of techno-ideologues from becoming reality within the specified timeframes.
My advice to the futurists of the world is to study economics and look for a strong demand for their dreams. Only then will they have a credible case for their arguments that people will adopt their dreams at X point in time. In any case, I encourage futurists to lag their dreams by at least 100% -- most techno-dreams tend to come later than predicted, often twice as long as predicted, if that.
Duke Nukem Forever, for instance, was supposed to arrive in 1997 or 1998 by PC Gamer's watch, after Duke Nukem 3D was released in 1996; now it's 2005 and where is DNF? Still in development, to be released "when it's done."
I avoid using IM for months at a time, only signing on when some situation requires it or makes it extremely convenient. But getting IM'd while I'm trying to write code makes writing code basically impossible.
I'm also finding myself taking an increasingly Tyler Durden-esque attitude towards phones -- don't answer it, just let the voicemail/answering machine handle the call. If it's important, I'll call the person back, if not, then screw 'em.
I'm still working on kicking the "must check email every hour" habit, but I'm getting better.
The paradox of being overly-connected to other people is that we are not necessarily more efficient; rather, to me it seems we're made less-efficient because we have to deal with more inputs from those people (often more-trivial inputs too), rather than dealing with the processing tasks (programming, statistics, writing books, etc.) which we would otherwise be doing...
The problem is that our brains spend too much time on I/O and not enough on processing. This needs to change, and keeping interruptions in moderation is the best way of doing this...
Isn't it possible that people who use the Internet more often have a tendency not to watch TV?
For example, I think TV is packed with brain-dead shows and loads of tripe, save for the occasional gems like The Sopranos or the Chappelle Show. But I'm not a fan of media pushed onto me either; I prefer my entertainment at my pace - hence, my propensity is to surf the 'net more than watch TV.
The question is this: what did people do before the Internet?
Prior to getting into the BBS scene in 1993 and on the 'net in 1995, I personally played video games. LOTS of video games. I probably spent as much time playing video games as I did surfing the 'net now, and all this time, my TV watching time has really been fairly-minimal.
I think it's entirely possible that people who surf the 'net simply have a tendency to dislike watching TV -- *not* that the 'net is causing people to stop watching so much TV.
But that's a broad generalization; the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle (i.e., some peoples' time has shifted from TV watching to Internet use, whereas other peoples' TV watching time hasn't changed in response to the popularization of the Internet). Still, it undoubtedly takes more brain cells to get and do things online than it does to watch TV...
Your argument in the last paragraph is one against laws in general. It is directly equivalent to 'since no law works perfectly, we might as well have no laws at all.' Why don't you start your own country, give it a try, and let the rest of us know how well it works.
Some laws work better than others though, and this is usually due to their (necessarily) higher priority over others. Laws against murder and rape, although violated often enough, are also punished relatively severely and instances of these actions in-progress are typically given higher priority than most any other crime (e.g. which will a cop find more important: busting kids smoking weed, or a guy shooting up a coffee shop?).
Some things -- such as smoking weed or playing violent or sexually-graphic video games -- are far more socially-acceptable (and therefore, less-punished by law) than other things, again, such as murder or rape. That acceptability means that the public isn't as concerned w/ those issues, and thus, they're not as strongly enforced, leading to increased levels of breaking of that law (e.g. weed-smoking). Speed limits are another example. Again, it's a matter of priority.
All that said, there is one example in history of a nation without even a prison or a police force: Iceland.
Also, the U.S. started off as a nation with very few laws, and in many ways, we were better for it. In terms of foreign relations, the 1800s were relatively-peaceful (domestically, of course, the Civil War was not). Our economy grew by leaps and bounds compared to the 1900s and current economic growth (this can arguably be attributed to America's development from basically a third-world nation to a first-world nation, during which in most nations, such transitions involve more-rapid growth than at any other time). People were freer to do as they pleased; gambling was less frowned-upon, people could buy whatever medicines (snake oil or not) they pleased, and so forth.
The rise of the "my morals and religion must be shoved down everybody elses' throats" mentality of modern-day Republicans and the "steal from the rich to feed the poor and middle-class" Robin Hood socialist mentality of modern-day Democrats has worked in tandem to restrict such freedoms and growth.
I'm far from an advocate of anarchy and seriously doubt the Iceland example I cited could work in the U.S. (our culture has always been far too violent to be feasible), but the idea that we should restrict the rights of the many for the benefit of the few is abhorrent and dangerous where the issue doesn't involve force against those few (and somebody else's playing GTA certainly does not restrict your freedom not to play it or to disallow your children from playing it, just as somebody else's worship of Allah or Buddha doesn't restrict your freedom to worship God or be an athiest, because these are all negative rights).
Is it just me, or will 12-year-olds inevitably get a hold of the world's most popular video game?
If this conclusion is inevitable, as you say it is, then logically even a government ban won't stop 12 year-olds from getting hold of the game.
So, then, what's the point of a government ban if it is ineffective?
Government bans on the sale of any product are, and always have been, well-meaning but flawed and failed policies. We've banned the sales of certain drugs, various weapons, and so forth; yet those transactions continue to occur...
Slashdot Mirror
The U.S. median income in 1998 for a family of 4 was about $56,000.
50% of that, then, would mean $28,000 for a family of 4.
Yet, the poverty level for a family of 4 in 1998 was $16,600.
So, in 1998 (and the previous 11 years too; I'm ignoring them in my sample for simplicity's sake, since the sample still falls within the 1987-1998 range for which the figure was claimed) 16.9% were living at or below a level which was still nearly twice the poverty line? These hardly seem like dire straits...
And yet, in that study (or rather, a more-recent version) (warning: fat, nasty, big PDF), the "50% of median income" level in each OECD nation is considered to be the "poverty line". It's not *too* bad of a normalizing estimate, except that it makes the logical fallacy of assuming that the situations in all nations is equal, and thus that the figure is somehow accurate to the conditions of the individual nations. Whether that is true depends on how far the individual nations' poverty lines actually deviate from the 50% level; in America's case, it's off by 43%.
Notice too that of all the nations ranking higher than the U.S., only Iceland has a better long-term unemployment rate (and the difference is pretty negligible: 0.5% vs. 0.4%).
Just because the U.S. has a less-equal distribution of wealth doesn't make the U.S. a less-developed nation than its European competitors. Moreover, our GDP growth rate exceeds that of every major European nation (approx. 3.2% here vs. 1.6% or so, at best, in the European nations. Some, like Switzerland (IIRC), actually have seen negative growth recently, indicating potentially recessionary times there.)
Compare this to Norway and Sweden, where the same statistic reaches only 6.9% and 6.6% respectively.
In the HPI-2 index, we find that the US is ranked 17th. This is an obvious indicator of income inequality. This takes much of the sheen off the USA's high GDP per capita and exposes the reality of a skewed distribution of income.
Indeed, I never argued that the U.S. had as equal a distribution of wealth as, say, Sweden. Nor am I convinced that would be a good thing either.
As far as the HPI-2 index, according to the UNDP, we've moved up to 8th -- above considerably more-socialist countries like Germany, France, Finland, and the UK, for example. Sweden and Norway still take the top 2 spots, however.
In any case, let's look at the description of the HPI-2 index:
Poverty as measured by one's lifespan? That's necessarily a relative measure. Clearly we prefer people to live longer (except those people worried about world overpopulation), but developing a ranking system based off the notion that a short lifespan means living in poverty (as if this is a reasonable conclusion; if I die in a car crash at age 23, did I live a life of extreme poverty? Certainly not!) makes the measure a relative one. The index, therefore, is one which tends to favor equalization of lifespans, and thus, equalizations of the factors which may promote equal lifespans, such as education, healthcare, and yes -- income, which enables the purchase of all these factors.
Knowledge? How does one measure that, and to what degree of relevance? The knowledge of the African bushmen is irrelevant to me, yet they are far more knowledgeable in that r
That said, I think the idea that we don't have enough resources for everybody is probably wrong. Julian Simon's famous bet with Paul Ehrlich suggests as much.
But that doesn't mean our military-wielding politicians would realize that view or understand the arguments in that vein...
Long involved subject, and eventually I think russia and china will go at each other as well, but I think this century will be the century for wars over planetary resources, because there's only "enough" for x- very small number billions of people, say 2 maybe, not 6-10 billion. Just the data that's available I think shows that to be highly probable.
:-/ Or maybe move to a non-developed continent in the southern hemisphere (S. America, Africa, etc.) altogether...
I agree. I'm no historian, but no century I'm aware of -- certainly not in American history -- has gone without some major wars occurring. The 20th century, of course, witnessed 2 "world" wars involving a variety of nations. There's no reason in my mind why a third world war shouldn't happen sometime this century. Based on history, it would appear the probability of a third world war occurring in my lifetime (at the age of 23 here in 2005) is more likely than not.
Should that war involve nuclear launches, which is entirely possible, despite MAD strategies, I often seriously wonder how the hell the human race will survive this century...
Dig a shelter in the Rockies and stock up on MRE's, hmmm?
The top 1% of Americans may skew the figure somewhat. But the last time I checked, the per-capita GDP of the U.S. was about $38,000, whereas most European nations had a per-capita GDP around $26,000.
If the top 1% of Americans skew the per-capita GDP figure by 46%, then I would be *greatly* shocked...
And even so, the wealth generated in this country does still go to them; were that wealth to be distributed amongst all Americans, the per-capita GDP figure in the U.S. would still be $38,000 (after all, as you say, it's an average).
Hence, the per-capita output of the U.S. in dollar value is *still* higher than that of European market-socialist nations.
Even at the worst times of anti-communist paranoia, the USSR (as it is now clearly apparent from documents which became available after its fall) was always in a defensive stance to a belligerent US military preasure.
Ah, like the Cuban missile crisis, during JFK's administration!
Clearly the U.S. was being belligerant and arrogant when Russia put its nukes on Cuba. Silly Americans.
I just think that when powerful individuals such as Gates (or CEOs of Big Corporations) make these kind of anti-egalitarian, neoliberal statements, they ought to be tried for treason in a court of law and if guilty, hung by their necks (publicly) until they are dead.
Fine. At the same time, let's try socialists and communists for treason for their pro-egalitarian, neocommunist statements, and if found guilty, hang them by their necks publicly until they're dead.
We could start w/ Noam Chomsky!
(The above is satire. Being a "neoliberal", I don't condone acts violence like Cryofan does just because somebody else has worked for their wealth. I support individual freedom, whether economic or non-economic, whereas Cryofan and other socialists, communists, and Marxists -- as he has proven here -- do not. Neoliberal policy avoids killing people; collectivist policy promotes it, just as it did in the USSR, and still does in China and North Korea.
Unlike the collectivists, neoliberals support your right to promote socialism, communism, etc. -- even if it's a stupid and wrong idea, because the marketplace of ideas is better than forcing ideas down other peoples' throats. Again, freedom is better than slavery.)
Capitalism has to fail, and that hasn't happened yet, not fully at least.
Funny thing that... In the 228 years the U.S. has existed, our largely-capitalist system is still mostly intact, the ravages of the FDR administration and various other Presidencies since then (including, and perhaps in particular, the GW Bush admin) notwithstanding.
We're still waiting for capitalism to crumble... LOL.
With their massive government? Hardly. Communism, in theory, requires no government; in theory, socialist governments should dissolve into a communist utopia.
Socialism, by contrast, requires a large government; hence, the USSR was titled the "United Soviet Socialist Republics". Socialism was Marx's intermediate step towards communism - a step beyond which no nation (AFAIK) has ever proceeded.
Of course, totalitarianism and socialism go hand-in-hand, but you'd never hear the socialist pinkos say that... Nor would they admit that communism fails for the same reason socialism does: lack of incentive on the part of the individual to do work...
And statist 'communism' as practiced in places like the USSR and China has very little to do with real communist/socialist theory.
And in fact, there is no "communist/socialist" theory, because communism and socialism are 2 different theories.
Communism = no government, no private property, everybody owns all property equally, everybody works together cooperatively
Socialism = big government, property owned by government instead of private citizens, government manages the cooperation between citizens in employment
Socialism was predicted by Karl Marx to be an intermediate step towards the final end result of communism; hence, it became popular to see nations *promoting* communism, when in fact they were *practicing* socialism.
As evidence, consider the USSR -- "United Soviet Socialist Republics". That was not a communist nation, as America has so often stated, but was, as its name suggests, socialist. Same goes for modern-day N. Korea and China, except without the word "socialist" hidden in an acronym for their nations' names...
One could argue they practice(d) "statist communism", but by definition, that's a logical contradiction; communist theory requires that no state exist. Socialism, by contrast, necessarily requires that the state exist.
(Disclaimer: I am a staunch free marketeer and occasional economics student.)
The more socialist systems... are guarenteed have a higher general standard of living accross the board.
Oh? Is that why per-capita GDP is higher in the U.S. than it is in the various "market-socialist" European nations?
I agree w/ the grandparent's stereotype about 4.0's being stubborn and arrogant.
They may not *all* be stubborn and arrogant, but the reason the stereotype persists is because, more often than not, the stereotype is true.
Serious question from a senior in CS at a school which still teaches S/390 assembler:
Do you still write S/390 ASM professionally? (or personally, for that matter?)
I've yet to hear of even a single person who does... COBOL, yes, but not ASM.
OK. If I say the following:
* I believe the world will end tomorrow! -- will it?
* I believe that Jesus will save you from tomorrow's end! -- will he?
Take any prediction of the future. Until that event occurs, it is only a prediction; it is unproveable. We can make guesses -- even educated guesses -- about whether they will or will not occur, but because they have not yet occurred, they are still guesses.
Beliefs in future events, then, are guesses. Guesses as to whether event X does or does not occur. "I believe the DJIA level will rise by 300 points tomorrow" is just as much a belief/guess as "I believe the DJIA level will fall by 300 points tomorrow". Neither is true, YET, because they haven't occurred.
Hence, all one can do until the reality of events occurs, is believe -- or guess -- that those events will or will not occur.
So predictions of future events amount to nothing more than beliefs/guesses, based on whatever evidence and information one wants, and in whatever quantity they deem necessary, to use to back up those beliefs/guesses. What about things which could conceivably be proven in the present?
Take for instance these beliefs:
* I believe the sky is falling! -- is it really happening?
* I believe that there is a hole in the ozone! -- is there?
* I believe that the grass is greener in my neighbor's yard! -- is it?
* I believe my child's school performs more poorly than does the school in the next town over! -- does it?
These are beliefs which can, at least theoretically, be determined factually -- as long as you believe in the truthfulness of the instruments you use to determine these facts.
For example, take the last one: school performance. How does one measure this?
We could measure it by ACT/SAT scores. On those grounds, perhaps the next school over is doing better. But what if we measure by the types of learning which is occurring -- perhaps the "better" school emphasizes rote-memorization over thinking through general processes. Which one is better now? That's a subjective question, determined by what exactly you want out of the education. Suppose we try, thirdly, measuring by the number of high school students who go on to college. Is this an indicator of success? Typically, yes. But are there not highly-successful people who have never gone on to college, or graduated from it? Sure -- Bill Gates is the richest man alive, and he is a Harvard dropout.
How about greener grass in the neighbor's yard? Is it greener? That depends on one's eyes -- to a colorblind person, the very concept of the color "green" doesn't exist, b/c they don't know what "green" looks like. And even among normally-sighted people, the perceptions of colors differ. My family has a bag which my mother and I say is "black", but my father says is "dark blue". Who is right? That depends on your perception. So do you trust the sightedness of the person speaking to say they "believe" the grass is greener? Surely not. Now, we could perhaps use a spectrometer to measure the color of the light given off from samples of grass from each yard -- but do we trust that method? Are there not errors possible in those methods too?
Or let's take the sky-is-falling scenario. Now, virtually nobody believes this one anymore. Can we prove that the sky is not falling? Sure -- depending on how one defines the "sky". Do we define it as limited to the level at which clouds occur? Or do we limit it to the stars in far-out galaxies? By the former definition, the sky raises and falls all the time, depending on weather conditions; by the latter definition, the sky is always expanding, because the universe, so far as we know, is always expanding. But without knowing these things, we would not be able to prove that these facts are true.
To believe, then, that they *are* true would be as equally-irra
What?! Scientists believe in things they can't prove (like global warming)? You mean to say that scientists can sometimes be -- *gasp* -- irrational?
I'm shocked, *shocked* I tell you!
That's true; the console market definitely overshadows the PC gaming market...
But then, the original question at-hand was essentially that of Linux desktop gaming vs. Windows desktop gaming, i.e., "why hasn't Linux taken off as a gaming OS?"
So in the original comparison, the console is irrelevant, at least until a Linux-running console arrives. That said, IIRC, the next Playstation is supposed to run Linux as its OS, and if so, that could (possibly, theoretically) be huge for the Linux gaming world...
Of course, MSFT using DirectX on Xbox or Xbox2 would be pretty significant as well.
The sad thing is, I agree with you. I have no idea why that particular post was modded as "Insightful".
It wasn't insightful at all, nor was it meant to be...
Ok, maybe Direct3D is the main GUI on windows but it is of no relevance anywhere else. Not on Linux. Not on BSD. Not on MacOS. Not on the PS2. Not even Windows-CE and therefore not on PDAs and Mobile Phones. Nowhere except Wintel.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Direct3D is also used on the XBox, since that's basically a Wintel PC w/ an Nvidia chipset.
Anyway, onto my main point. People play games primarily on 3 platforms: consoles, desktop PCs, and cellphones.
Consoles are typically proprietary designs with their own graphics APIs (the PS2 is the best and most-common example); hence, Direct3D's supposed "minority" status in the console world is irrelevant.
Likewise, cellphones have their own APIs too. J2ME might make this easier, but AFAIK, the 3D support -- in the few instances so far in which it's available -- doesn't include OpenGL or Direct3D.
Hence, we're left largely with desktop PC gaming.
And so, we have to define the word "minority". Currently, roughly at least 90% of the worldwide desktop userbase runs Windows. Not Linux. Not BSD. Not MacOS. Not PS2. Not even WinCE, and therefore, not PDAs or mobile phones.
As a result, 90% of the world's userbase has Direct3D libs immediately-available as part of Win9x/ME/NT/2k/XP, ready-to-run.
Linux doesn't have these libs, although, they can be run (slowly) via WINE. But Linux is irrelevant, because even now, it has, by the most-optimistic estimates, perhaps 3-4% of the worldwide desktop market share. The only worthy competitor Direct3D has on Linux is the combination of OpenGL and some other graphics libs, such as SDL.
Regardless, we've boiled down the argument of "minority" status of Direct3D to the space of desktop PCs, and as any Slashdotter knows, MSFT has nearly total control in that space. So, to say that Direct3D is a "minority" player is not only silly, but it's wrong...
Now, as for future development, I agree w/ you: it'd be wise for developers to look ahead to the trends of increased gaming on cellphones and consoles, etc., away from their PCs, and on those grounds, Direct3D is definitely a more-questionable choice compared to relatively-portable libs like SDL...
A better question: does Tom's webserver have game?
It was a very, very selfish thing to do
Oh boo hoo, the airline workers were selfish -- as if that's a bad thing.
As a businessman, if you want people to work when you demand them to work, then pay them a better rate than they can get elsewhere. If you don't agree to the employee's demands for time off, then fire him and hire another, more cooperative person.
Of course the employees are selfish, just as the businessman who hired them is selfish. All people -- even the most community-minded people -- are selfish, whether they care to admit it or not, and that is a *good* thing. Welcome to the human race.
Open source software is nothing more than a libertarian flavor of capitalism implemented within the software market.
That is, essentially, lots of private individuals are contributing -- not for profit -- to a privately-organized collection of code which is re-released back to the public under a set of rules (defined in the license) by a private entity's terms.
In essence, nearly the entire operation is privately-run. Is there an exchange of money for software? No.
But the software is developed mostly privately, without the assistance of the government -- meaning it's largely non-socialist. And because property rights -- in the form of copyrights -- are retained by private holders, the so-called "communism" of the open-source system is privately-held -- meaning it's not communism at all, but rather, capitalism of an intellectual-property variety. The property rights backing copyrighht law, on which even the GPL relies, ensures that this system is based on property rights -- rights which are fundamental to any capitalist system, and purely antithetical to communism in any form, as communism rejects private property rights.
Hence, open source is actually a very capitalistic system, contrary to the beliefs of both some propoents and detractors...
There are exceptions. The NSA's security contributions are a socialist contribution to Linux. Contributions to Linux or FreeBSD from NASA or DARPA are socialist contributions. But by and large, most code is written by private individuals, and in any case, the decision as to whether the code is included into the source tree is made usually, if not entirely (as with Linus Torvalds) by 1 or more private entities.
Thus, the developement of open-source software is largely a private -- and therefore, non-communist, non-socialist, and therefore, by elimination of all other current economic models, capitalist -- affair.
So long as the rights of copyright remain in private hands, OSS is a largely-private, capitalist affair. Change the rights of copyright to a more community-oriented set of rights, and then we'll talk...
Now, does open-source require money to operate? It surely requires money or time. But OSS tends to receive one of those 2 resources from private individuals, just as it always has, and nothing under a privately-owned system of individually-controlled capitalist economics prevents this from occurring. Ayn Rand would disapprove, but she disapproved of anybody who worked for free, calling them a "slave" to charitable causes. Most sane people -- even staunch free-marketeers like myself -- would disagree with that view, seeing such work as the product of the emotions of the individual felt for another person... Rand's failure was to factor in the non-objective, debateably less-rational parts of human behavior into her system of worldview...
Thirty years from now, we'll use bionic eyes giving us 'zoom vision' for faster reactions.
.WAVs were the way to go (OK, a few hardcore BBS dudes still thought .MODs and .S3Ms were going to make it) -- now we laugh in their general direction.
Yeah, for the wealthy, and even then, only *maybe*.
I LOL in your general direction on that prediction generally, though, because most people haven't any directly-obvious use for "zoom vision." People in the military, yes; most civilians, no.
Nanobots injected in our bloodstream will complement our immune system.
More believable than the first, but again, still unlikely. It's possible for very basic medical problems, but otherwise, the AI and robotics engineering required for such nanobots would be beyond affordability for most people, even the rich. Hence, such technology is likely to be still in the trial phases at that point.
Artificial muscles built with electroactive polymers will help us to be stronger and faster.
Oh? And who exactly has a need for this technology?
Sports players and those in physical-security sectors (i.e., police, military, and private security) -- that's it. Does Joe Coder in the cubicle need to be able to intercept a pass 0.2 sec. faster? No. Does Joe Steelworker need to shoot a 3-pointer 0.1 sec. faster? Hardly.
You have a (predicted) solution in search of a need. History proves that unless the demand is directly-attributable to the supply, the demand meeting that supply is not as strong as the predictions had suggested. For example, few people predicted the rapid expansion of MP3 usage until Napster came along, but by that time, the genie was out of the bottle; any dumbass could see that MP3s were the way of the future in terms of music file formats. Prior to that, most people thought RealAudio or
Hence, today, people continue to be amazed at the ease and convenience of MP3s and the fruits of the services which sell MP3-quality audio for around $1 a song. Such "wonders" would almost certainly never have been predicted 10 years ago.
So you think it's science fiction?
Like flying cars, the shorter work-week enabled by ever-advancing computer technology, and so forth, largely-speaking, yes, I do.
You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"
Just because techno-ideologues are convinced of something doesn't make them correct, any more than the ideologues of any political view make them right.
History, in fact, proves futurists to be morons. They have nice ideas, but inevitably, the inconveniences of reality -- the laws of economics which demand that there be a need for a dreamed technology, the laws of politics which demand that a given technology not cause religious wackos to believe it the sign of the devil, and the laws of a particular technology itself, which limit the growth of that technology -- all prevent the dreams of techno-ideologues from becoming reality within the specified timeframes.
My advice to the futurists of the world is to study economics and look for a strong demand for their dreams. Only then will they have a credible case for their arguments that people will adopt their dreams at X point in time. In any case, I encourage futurists to lag their dreams by at least 100% -- most techno-dreams tend to come later than predicted, often twice as long as predicted, if that.
Duke Nukem Forever, for instance, was supposed to arrive in 1997 or 1998 by PC Gamer's watch, after Duke Nukem 3D was released in 1996; now it's 2005 and where is DNF? Still in development, to be released "when it's done."
In short: welcome to real life, techno-dreamer.
Amen!
I avoid using IM for months at a time, only signing on when some situation requires it or makes it extremely convenient. But getting IM'd while I'm trying to write code makes writing code basically impossible.
I'm also finding myself taking an increasingly Tyler Durden-esque attitude towards phones -- don't answer it, just let the voicemail/answering machine handle the call. If it's important, I'll call the person back, if not, then screw 'em.
I'm still working on kicking the "must check email every hour" habit, but I'm getting better.
The paradox of being overly-connected to other people is that we are not necessarily more efficient; rather, to me it seems we're made less-efficient because we have to deal with more inputs from those people (often more-trivial inputs too), rather than dealing with the processing tasks (programming, statistics, writing books, etc.) which we would otherwise be doing...
The problem is that our brains spend too much time on I/O and not enough on processing. This needs to change, and keeping interruptions in moderation is the best way of doing this...
Isn't it possible that people who use the Internet more often have a tendency not to watch TV?
For example, I think TV is packed with brain-dead shows and loads of tripe, save for the occasional gems like The Sopranos or the Chappelle Show. But I'm not a fan of media pushed onto me either; I prefer my entertainment at my pace - hence, my propensity is to surf the 'net more than watch TV.
The question is this: what did people do before the Internet?
Prior to getting into the BBS scene in 1993 and on the 'net in 1995, I personally played video games. LOTS of video games. I probably spent as much time playing video games as I did surfing the 'net now, and all this time, my TV watching time has really been fairly-minimal.
I think it's entirely possible that people who surf the 'net simply have a tendency to dislike watching TV -- *not* that the 'net is causing people to stop watching so much TV.
But that's a broad generalization; the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle (i.e., some peoples' time has shifted from TV watching to Internet use, whereas other peoples' TV watching time hasn't changed in response to the popularization of the Internet). Still, it undoubtedly takes more brain cells to get and do things online than it does to watch TV...
Your argument in the last paragraph is one against laws in general. It is directly equivalent to 'since no law works perfectly, we might as well have no laws at all.' Why don't you start your own country, give it a try, and let the rest of us know how well it works.
Some laws work better than others though, and this is usually due to their (necessarily) higher priority over others. Laws against murder and rape, although violated often enough, are also punished relatively severely and instances of these actions in-progress are typically given higher priority than most any other crime (e.g. which will a cop find more important: busting kids smoking weed, or a guy shooting up a coffee shop?).
Some things -- such as smoking weed or playing violent or sexually-graphic video games -- are far more socially-acceptable (and therefore, less-punished by law) than other things, again, such as murder or rape. That acceptability means that the public isn't as concerned w/ those issues, and thus, they're not as strongly enforced, leading to increased levels of breaking of that law (e.g. weed-smoking). Speed limits are another example. Again, it's a matter of priority.
All that said, there is one example in history of a nation without even a prison or a police force: Iceland.
Also, the U.S. started off as a nation with very few laws, and in many ways, we were better for it. In terms of foreign relations, the 1800s were relatively-peaceful (domestically, of course, the Civil War was not). Our economy grew by leaps and bounds compared to the 1900s and current economic growth (this can arguably be attributed to America's development from basically a third-world nation to a first-world nation, during which in most nations, such transitions involve more-rapid growth than at any other time). People were freer to do as they pleased; gambling was less frowned-upon, people could buy whatever medicines (snake oil or not) they pleased, and so forth.
The rise of the "my morals and religion must be shoved down everybody elses' throats" mentality of modern-day Republicans and the "steal from the rich to feed the poor and middle-class" Robin Hood socialist mentality of modern-day Democrats has worked in tandem to restrict such freedoms and growth.
I'm far from an advocate of anarchy and seriously doubt the Iceland example I cited could work in the U.S. (our culture has always been far too violent to be feasible), but the idea that we should restrict the rights of the many for the benefit of the few is abhorrent and dangerous where the issue doesn't involve force against those few (and somebody else's playing GTA certainly does not restrict your freedom not to play it or to disallow your children from playing it, just as somebody else's worship of Allah or Buddha doesn't restrict your freedom to worship God or be an athiest, because these are all negative rights).
Is it just me, or will 12-year-olds inevitably get a hold of the world's most popular video game?
If this conclusion is inevitable, as you say it is, then logically even a government ban won't stop 12 year-olds from getting hold of the game.
So, then, what's the point of a government ban if it is ineffective?
Government bans on the sale of any product are, and always have been, well-meaning but flawed and failed policies. We've banned the sales of certain drugs, various weapons, and so forth; yet those transactions continue to occur...