At least Americans can express hateful views and criticize their government without (much, if any) fear of retribution.
Say that about the EU w.r.t. the former, or China or N. Korea w.r.t. the latter...
Yes, the DMCA is a retarded piece of legislation, and I'm all for its repeal. But the EU was working on their own version anyway. Assuming it passed (couldn't find a link re: whether it did or not, but IIRC, it did), where's the EU's comparative advantage in free-speech law again?
Oh yeah, nudity. OK, you beat us on that. I'd *love* to see us surpass the EU though.;-)
You jest, I know, but just in case anyone thinks this is a serious point I should point out that the people who prepare your returns at the IRS don't care one whit how much you owe.
That's a half-truth.
Would you be saying the same if a privately-owned tax firm were doing the tax prep? I doubt it. Private firms have an interest in doing 2 things:
1) finding as many loopholes as are available to you 2) charging you for the time it takes to find those loopholes, to the extent that it doesn't cost you so much that you go to a competitor offering faster/better service
But the IRS agents don't make any explicit profit off of doing your taxes. So there are 2 possible arguments, hence the "half-truth" nature of your claim:
1) if they *don't* care what you owe, then they're not going to care much whether you get the loopholes available to you 2) if they *do* care what you owe, then the question is "why? Aren't they working for free?" The answer to that question is "no, they don't work for free - our taxes pay for their service."
The problem then is that if we pay IRS agents based on performance, then they wind up demanding more money as their performance increases, which winds up costing more to the taxpaying public.
The preparing folks want to do a good job and prepare a good return for you. Their performance is graded not only on accuracy but on the customers perception of the service provided,
I suppose these 500,000 people who went to the free IRS help got quality service? Or maybe the 19 out of 23 IRS preparers (also mentioned at that URL) were wrongfully-accused of making mistakes?:-)
If they're graded on performance, then I suspect they're not getting A's (maybe with grade-inflation though). I mean, I know people who have had IRS agents call up and say they made a mistake on their return, only to eventually discover that the IRS agent made mistakes in analyzing the return - and in some cases, find that the person was owed a bigger refund than was originally thought!
You get what you pay for, and that goes for tax help as well... (I do my own taxes. Basic arithmetic doesn't exactly scare me...)
so IRS return preparers have no motivation whatsoever to prepare a return any way except accurately and with the best interest of the taxpayer in mind.
...except to take in more revenue for the government, thereby being able to help ensure the govn't gets more money, and then later have their agency leader press Congress for increased salaries for the "poor, overworked and underpaid" IRS employees.
Don't laugh, public school teachers do it (I know, because I know a family of public school teachers).
Ultimately, the problem with your argument comes back to the classic problem of "following the money." No matter how you slice it, either the IRS agents have no incentive to care about the work they're doing for "free" (and remember, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch"), or else their pay increases based on performance (at dealing with an insanely-complex tax code) will start to cost the taxpayers more. Sadly, it's a lose-lose situation.
The thing that you screw up is that you assume "ALL" analysts do one thing, that is, assuming all jobs equal.
*Good* economists don't make that assumption unless: 1) they have a political bone to pick (e.g. they're part of the Bush admin, trying to quell worries about offshoring) 2) they work for the government
With #2 in mind, the Dept. of Labor makes that kind of assumption in its reports of unemployment rates, as do most college economics profs teaching undergrad economics courses (talking to them myself, however, some of them will readily admit they don't actually look at real-world trends. This is rather shocking for a professor of a *social* science).
Heck, go to your closest walk-in IRS office during tax season and an IRS employee will do your taxes for you, for free.
I have an idea! Let's go up to everybody who wants to take our money, and ask them how much we should pay them! Bloody brilliant!
I agree doing the 1040EZ or 1040A is pretty darn easy; why people get so intimidated by them is beyond me. Maybe it's the crappy arithmetic education in our public schools. But you'd be a fool to go to the IRS and ask them how much you owe them... Let's not have foxes guard henhouses, k?:-)
Just what time period are you looking at? Let's look at the 5 year history of the DOW: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^DJI&t=5y
Through 1999 and until about June of 2001, it was hovering around 10,500 or so. Sept. 11, 2001 caused the dive to near 8000. DOW goes back up again to around 10,000 until about June 2002. Then another dive, this time down to about 7,200 in Sept. 2002. Goes back up to around 8,700 through X-Mas 2002, takes another dive through Q1 2003 (when we were gettin' our war on), then rises steadily to around 10,800 until it starts to flatten out around 10,100 starting in about Feb. 2004.
That's the short-term analysis -- a rather cyclical approach. Look at it long-term. Where were we 5 years ago? Around 10,800. Where are we now? 10,100, with no reasonable assurance that we are not headed for another dive in the coming months, particularly since the bond markets will strengthen once the Federal Reserve gets around to raising interest rates near the end of the summer.
IOW, it's been a rough ride for the DOW over the Bush Presidential administration's lifespan, and will continue to be through election day.
To quote a great and famous Republican who at least *tried* to cut government spending and waste, "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?"
No, we are not. And that's not only because the stock market is down from where it was when Clinton was in office.
Clinton screwed an intern; Bush screwed America. Vote Libertarian.:)
Still, all of this assumes that free-market capitalism works as well in practice as it does in theory. That is also up for debate.
Oh really? What's the alternative? Socialism? Communism?
The Berlin Wall fell, Russia lost - learn it and get used to it. Socialism has failed to produce healthy societies in the long-run. Witness the nations of North Korea, China, Vietnam, Russia, Laos -- they remain shithole socialist/communist nations. Modern socialist economies, such as Sweden, aren't classifiable as "shitholes," but in per-capita income -- the average amount of income per-person -- socialist economies still by a significant margin trail their capitalist, free-market counterparts, such as America and Switzerland and pre-Chinese-handover Hong Kong.
Even Canada and France, which tend to be socialist-leaning mixed economies, do better than the more-socialist nations, but they still trail the less-socialist nations.
Notice what China's been doing lately -- they've been liberalizing (in case you've never taken an econ. course beyond basic micro/macro: "liberalizing" means "opening up," not "becoming more American-liberal [read: socialist] in style") their trade and ever-so-slowly opening their nation to capitalism. And guess what? Their GDP growth -- at 10% in recent quarters -- is so high as to be unsustainable. They have an economy that *wants* to grow because it is so backwards compared to the rest of the world that woke up and realized that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a failed (and fundamentally-flawed) ideal.
The fact that the wall fell, Russia's economy collapsed, and China is slowly moving towards a market economy are not coincidences.
You are right on one thing, however -- a properly-functioning free-market system requires that people give a damn about the undesirable traits of their businessmen, and more-importantly, have the self-discipline and individual responsibility to do something about it - even if that means giving up some level of comfort - in order to force the hand of the businessman. And that is where the American economy has fallen on its face -- we now have an "entitlement mentality," a disease inflicted by "The Greatest Generation" and the various Kennedy-lovers who now run the country. Americans no longer have a sense of responsibility and principle; without those factors, people act like children. And it is then that the socialists and Democrats have a case for treating them as children by creating a "nanny state"...
What's so wrong about biasing our news towards that which affects us? Why should we care about people in foreign countries unless they affect us?
We worry about that which is in our self-interest -- no more, no less. Not that I wouldn't like to see more news from around the world just out of curiosity, but it's not a necessity for me unless it affects me -- and 99.9% of the time, world news doesn't affect me, so why report it?
I live in the USA; I cannot comment directly on the state of healthcare in Europe. Rumor has it that France generally has the best healthcare of any of the European countries, and the number of people who leave the UK to go to France for surgery seems to substantiate this rumor, but as I noted earlier, the French still wait roughly a month for attention, whereas I wait roughly a week. So I'm still better off here.
You asked a question that can be easily answered (like most questions, it seems) by Google. If it was an honest question, then I apologize for my intentionally-snide conclusion, but I typically don't get honest responses to my posts, I get responses typically along the lines of "capitalizm sux, communism rulez! Go stuff yourself Mr. Capitalist pig-dude! And give me all your sourcez!!" So then I post a few URLs and either the person asking for sources doesn't bother to read them, or they say "you're biased dude! Find bad articles from the World Socialist Web Site, then I'll believe you!" At that point, I might as well ignore the person.
So Pavlov strikes again -- I've been conditioned to respond to idiots, I suppose, and just figured you were yet-another one of them. Again, I apologize if you were asking an honest question, because most people don't... I do emphasize though that I found all my links via about 3 or 4 Google searches, total...
Canada lags even further behind in access to high-tech equipment, including machines used for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed axial tomography (CAT) scans. This shortage affects wait time for diagnostic assessments, which in provinces such as Saskatchewan can run well over three months.
Total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, rose from 13.11 weeks in 1999 to 16.2 weeks in 2000-01.
Under European Community law E112 rule, any EU citizen suffering so-called "undue delays" in receiving treatment in their home country can apply to have the operation in another member state.
Mrs Watts required a hip replacement operation, and was initially told that the wait would be 12 months.
She shortened that time by paying for a private consultation and putting pressure on the hospital to move her up the list, but was still offered an eight month wait.
When she applied for authorisation to go abroad for treatment under the European Community rule, Bedford Primary Care Trust told her it was not necessary because it was meeting the Government's then target waiting time of 15 months for in-patient treatment.
It was at this point that she decided to book the operation abroad in a hospital in Abbeville, northern France.
Following this decision, the trust reviewed her case, decided it was more urgent and offered to carry out Mrs Watts' hip replacement within three to four months, despite a general in-patient waiting list of 12 months.
Health authorities have been ordered to cut waiting lists
Some patients in England are having to wait up to four years for an outpatient appointment in hospital, according to new research.
A study has shown that waiting times after referral by a GP are up to four years - or 208 weeks - for one orthopaedic surgeon.
The research by the charity, the College of Health, also shows patients are waiting 147 weeks and 145 weeks to see foot specialists in two separate hospitals.
The worst waiting time for an out-patient appointment in neurology was 126 weeks, with one example of a 95-week wait to see an eye specialist, the study showed.
Friday, 28 June 2002 15:28 Edinburgh Evening News www.edinburghnews.com 'FOUR-YEAR WAIT' FOR MS DIAGNOSIS
A single mother crippled by multiple sclerosis claims it took Edinburgh doctors four years to tell her she had the illness because of an "unacceptable" breakdown in communications.
Rebecca Jones, 32, underwent an MRI scan at the Western General Hospital in 1997 after suffering a series of inexplicable collapses and blinding headaches.
But although the scan revealed signs that she could have MS she was not informed of the results.
Doctors conducted further tests over the next few years as her condition fluctuated and eventually diagnosed MS in 2001.
But Ms Jones was still not told immediately because a letter she should have received was not sent out at the time, further delaying much-needed treatment for the now unemployed mother, who has a nine-year-old daughter, Natasha.
To add insult to injury, when Ms Jones complained about her treatment to hospit
Hey, that doesn't look too bad (better than nothing, at least!)... What about GUI apps though, considering the Z's 240x320 screen size?
Desktop vs. laptop vs. Zaurus vs. PDA...
on
Zaurus SL-6000 Review
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I would *love* to own a Zaurus (I'd kill for a 6000 especially) as a powerful, portable complement to a powerful, sit-on-the-floor desktop box, but having owned an 8MB Handspring Visor Deluxe for the last few years and given that I write a lot (both code and regular text messages), I compromised between a PDA's portability and my desktop's power and got a laptop recently for primarily the following 2 reasons:
1) Can't really develop on a PDA. Got *full* compilers for Java, C++, C#, etc.? Nope. [1]
2) Keyboard. Do I really want to write code on the Zaurus' small keyboard - or worse, via handwriting recognition or the on-screen software keyboard? No way. Emails, short (less than 1000 words) messages, sure, but code? No. That said, the Zaurus 6000's USB host capability means I could plug in a USB keyboard and use that instead. That would help alleviate the problem quite a bit IMO.
The above ignores the problem of PDAs having a necessarily-small screen size. My Visor can only display about 10 lines of text at a time, though maybe the Zaurus is better here... But my laptop, at 1024x768 res. can display about 35 lines (the more code on screen without needing to squint, the better of course).
PDAs are great for what they're designed for - storing and displaying contact info, notes, books, etc., but for serious computing (i.e. that which requires lots of user input, CPU-usage, storage space, etc.), unfortunately we're not quite up to laptop levels yet, even if something like the Zaurus' USB host feature allows connecting to external HDDs...
I have to admit though, the USB host capability theoretically offers a *lot* of potential for expansion, and I think that's probably a slightly-underplayed advantage of the Zaurus 6000...
[1] I know GCC has been ported to the Zaurus, and if you have a CF or SD card to run it off of, you can actually do your compiles on the Zaurus. Admittedly, that's pretty close to what I'd like to do. And Perl is available for the Zaurus too, albeit, at a hefty 34MB (again, need a CF or SD card). But again, what about Java? I think the best one could do is to use gcj, which AFAIK is not really a serious alternative to the Sun or Blackdown javac's...
And then there's the mere 400MHz CPU speed vs. my laptop's 2.4GHz, although, running distcc (if you have network access to distcc-running systems) would help immensely...:)
There is also an increase in laziness in the US. Kids today don't want to work hard for anything. Just take the easy road. I know because they are my friends. They think I am nuts for reading and working hard at things.
THANK YOU! I'm glad I'm not the only one who's experienced this effect!:)
I'm in the same situation. All but 2 or 3 of my friends seem to think the world owes them a living.
It most certainly does not.
It truly amazes (and frightens) me how lazy some people at current high school and college age are. I suspect it's due to the last 35 years of the Civil Rights movement's liberals forcing "political correctness," "non-judgmentalism," "feelings over facts," and other such real-world nonsense in public schools. Why do I suspect it? Well, I went to public K-12 school, and even now in a public university I get the same old "diversity! Wow!!" crap I was tired of 10 years ago.
I have nothing against people of other races, religions, etc., but for god's sake, don't try to ram it down my throat because frankly, I don't give a damn. That crap matters not one iota in the dog-eat-dog world of global capitalism.
The "Greatest Generation" has boned America's educational system. That's what happens when you let the hippies take over.
Business is a high-risk venture. Always has been. And that's why...
Most wealth is horded by the top few percentiles.
Higher risks mean higher reward. As the British SAS say, "those who dare, win."
Those who have dared, are most-likely to win. They are the most-likely to have the most money. Some people bet their net worth on a company, ony to go broke. Others become billionaires.
Such is the case in a dynamic, capitalist society. There are no guarantees except the promise of being able to take risk yourself, hoping that you too may strike it rich.
For the majority, most real incomes have been stagnant since the 1960s.
Are they rising as much as the 530% rise for the executive class? Clearly not. That's where thrift-minded, cost-cutting, efficiency-zealot shareholder activists need to come into play in publicly-traded companies, realizing that executives are too much of a drain on profits and need to either take a pay cut or take a hike.
Our communities and workforces have been devastated by two decades of rapacious mergers, corporate accounting scams, and stock inflation.
Walmart's done a good bit to run small business out of business, yes.
Mergers? Perhaps, although the biggest merger of them all -- AOL/Time-Warner -- has been an utter dud the last few years, with talk of even breaking up again! Hasn't happened yet though.
Millions upon millions of Americans have no health care.
Those that do, get it promptly however. In other countries (Canada, France, etc.) you have to wait perhaps 3 months or more for medical service.
Consider the problem of the "Tragedy of the Commons." That is, if everybody had "FREE! click here!! FREE! click here!! FREE!!!" healthcare, the number of people seeing the doctor would rise, because there's no incentive *not* to go to the doctor. There's no incentive *not* to use that "FREE!," now-communal resource known as a Medical Doctor...
That sort of system leads to the problems found in Canada and France. A better system, IMO, would be for government-sponsored "catastrophe" healthcare, such that people with expensive, life-threatening conditions (leukemia, needing a heart-transplant, etc.) can get it without worrying about its affordability, while more-routine checkups are paid for by individuals and/or their healthcare plans.
This would lower the cost of healthcare for individuals, because the healthcare company would no longer have to worry about extreme expenses, while it would prevent the "tragedy of the commons" problem I explained above by removing the "third-party" aspect of payment from the individual. As it stands now, we rely on other people to spend money on us. That money would be more wisely-spent if we spent it ourselves.
Millions are so overextended in debt that they're only a couple of paychecks away from the street, even as home foreclosures have hit a 30-year high.
Whose fault is it that those individuals got into debt?
Did Joe Sixpack have his credit cards stolen by Stealing Sixpack and have huge bills run up in his name? Or did Joe use those cards and run up his own bills?
Did Joe Sixpack take out loans for which he failed to determine whether he could repay (with interest)?
Being in debt is almost never somebody else's fault. Barring unusual, not-normally-planned-for circumstances (extreme medical bills, acts of God (which tend to be covered by insurance), etc.) or the illegal actions of another person (fraud, theft, etc.), blame can almost always be placed on the spender, despite his/her attempts to plac
"Statist" isn't a term I'm going to take seriously. It's a libertarian insult
Just like "capitalist" is the communist's "insult" of libertarians. Except it's usually preceded by the terms "baby-eating, corporate-whoring, fascist retard dickhead"...
It's quite amusing to hear a libertarian accusing someone else of whininess; whining is all libertarians do.
Communists/socialists/Greens/left-leaning Democrats are any different?
Martin Luther King wasn't a whiner? Or Ralph Nader? Or Howard Dean? Or Dennis Kucinich? Or Paul Krugman?
How about all those people on various government entitlement programs, whining about how their welfare checks aren't big enough -- that they need more money to spend at McD's to make their ass bigger?
Constant snivelling about how the big bad government is keeping them down, how they're just victims of the big, mean, statists.
...and yet statists like you fail to look at the history of statist societies, don't you?
You still haven't researched my list. Get to work smarty-pants!
It doesn't surprise me you haven't finished college, it's an ideology for the young and ignorant.
Like Harry Browne or Ron Paul, or uber-economist Milton Friedman (who is now over 90 years old)? They're all old farts, and they're some of the deepest, staunchest libertarians you'll find.
And as for your accusations of "ad hominem attacks", if you'll look at the thread again you'll note that you're the one who started it.
Cynical, smart-ass replies like yours (which started all this), which read:
Because we've read... Rand
Hahahahaha...oh wait, you were serious. My bad.
...are well-deserving of whatever attack they receive. Such a response as yours is an ad-homenem attack in itself, as it strives to not-so-subtly paint your opponent as stupid; the only difference is you're not actually saying the word "stupid," you're hiding it in a none-too-clever taunt. So no, in fact, YOU are the one who started the ad-hominem attacks.
Regardless, you have still failed to come up with a single cogent, well-thought-out, reasoned argument for your economic view. You have failed to research the economic histories of the nations I have presented you.
So I'm an undergrad. So what? There are people twice my age who haven't a clue about economics. Hell, I have a 40-50-something PhD engineering prof. this semester who has repeatedly proven he doesn't understand even Econ. 101, based on the grossly-wrong things he has said in class; things which run completely-counter to the express teachings of my Econ. profs.
You haven't described your position in life relative to mine. Frankly, it doesn't matter either, because you could just as easily be a 15 year-old claiming to be a 50 year old PhD professor. Such is life on the net.
Look, I was once (not all that long ago, either) a statist too. I railed against businessmen everywhere, and the corporations which every good statist loves to tout -- Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Global Crossing, etc. for their corporate frauds. And to be sure, the execs from such companies should be tried for their crimes, and personally, I believe they *are* paid too much (I'd like to see more shareholder activism against executive pay, since such extravegant pay is ultimately a drain on corporate efficiency).
But then I realized that their power -- great as it seems -- is still FAR LESS than if we centralized it all within our government. Take China or North Korea, for instance. Are those nations worth emulating?
Go read John Stossel's latest book, "Give Me a Break!" He too is a former leftie, a consumer advocacy journalist dredging up the slime from
I'm a CS major nearing graduation with an Economics minor - and I need only 1 more course to complete that minor. I'm doing quite well in my Econ. study as well.
I've also taken several history courses. A's in all of them.
In short, I've studied more Econ. than you probably have, and that study is partly why I hold libertarian views. Care to try again?
Do you know what the word "statist" means? It means you promote state -- i.e. government -- control. Why can't you take that seriously? Can you comprehend what that means? All of the bloodiest, most-violent governments in history have been supported by people with statist views -- like yours.
I have combatted your whininess and ignorance with facts and sources. You've argued with ad-hominem attacks ("little libertarian") - which is no argument at all. You sound like the typical high school communist -- bitching about the Korporate Konspiracy and name-calling on your opponents without ever presenting a cogent argument.
I maintain the same standpoint -- you are an idiot. You probably are still in high school.
Take your own advice and go to a community college when you graduate. FOAD.
You're an idiot. You take a section of his post as though it's comical.
Rand was a bitch and not one I take seriously. Friedman, OTOH, has more economic clue in one of his dick-hairs than you have in your whole body.
Show me a successful command economy. Is there one? Prove it.
Here's a list you can research, some better than others: USSR Russia China North Korea Vietnam Argentina Sweden Denmark Norway Finland India, 1948-1990 Cuba Brazil East Germany Yugoslavia
Go look them up in the CIA World Factbook. Compare those still-existing nations to the United States or Canada or Switzerland. Pay particular attention to per-capita GDP.
Sweden is going to probably be your best pro-socialist argument.
For almost every leftist, there is a corresponding ignorance of economics and even of fundamental recent world history. I know, because I used to be a leftist myself...
But look at the list I've presented above. Every one of those nations has a lower per-capita GDP than market-oriented countries. This is not a coincidence.
Milton Friedman wrote in "Free to Choose" that the starkest example of the problems of command economies could be seen by comparing West Germany and East Germany (the book was written in 1980, 9 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall). West Germany was a thriving market economy, where people were free to do generally as they please and sell what the please. East Germany was a wasteland with buildings which hadn't been rebuilt since their destruction in WWII.
Why else would the East Germans have been so happy to see the wall torn down? Why else would they be the ones tearing it down? If command economies work so well, why are people so unhappy in them?
The closest thing to homosexuality you'll find in MGS is the elevator area where Otacon and Snake are discussing "love on the battlefield." And yes, that was pretty damn homoerotic-sounding (as is the Otacon game ending, to a lesser-extent), I'll admit.
But both express distinct attractions for women in the game -- Snake for Meryl, Otacon for Sniper Wolf. And Snake seems straight as an arrow, IMO, though I could definitely see Otacon as bisexual.
That's probably the closest to homosexuality you'll find in MGS, unless I missed something... Now, MGS2, with the naked Raiden running around with his hands over his nuts as he kicks his enemies? Er, well, that's pushing things... I still have nightmares about the thought of a naked Raiden. It's bad enough he was a pussy wimp crybaby, especially compared to the badass Snake. But Raiden without clothes? Give me a break, I don't want to see his ass!
MGS and MGS2 are still 2 of my favorite games though, just not for the above reasons.:)
MGS2 was great for that very reason. It made you *think* about the world around you, the context that the Metal Gear games play in the real world e.g. "a virtual grunt of the digital age - just great!" (Snake/Plisskin commenting on how military training on a computer can never be as good as training outdoors, in a field, etc.). Or take his comment of "what better way to insulate you from the harsh realities of war than using a computer simulation?" (a none-too-subtle reference to MGS2 itself promoting warlike violence).
True, the plot in MGS2 got too-convoluted to make much sense after a while, and MGS2 wasn't as realistic in terms of "easily-realizable near-future battlefield reality" as MGS or the original Metal Gear. But was still an utterly amazing game.
The Sons of Liberty were -- in modern terms -- a domestic terrorist organization: they used force in order to achieve their goal of eliminating the Stamp Act. That follows the definition of terrorism. Fortunately for us, the "terrorists" won...
What's the relation to MGS2? Snake and Raiden are part of a "fringe" NGO which uses force to destroy Metal Gears because they pose such a great threat to world stability. That too follows the definition of terrorism. Thus, you play either a terrorist or a freedom-fighter in MGS2 -- it depends on your POV. Personally, I prefer the freedom-fighter view.
It's connections like those that make the MGS games so damn cool.
Yes, because lord knows the thousands of nukes the U.S., Russia, and other nations have are a complete non-threat to the stability of the world... *rolls eyes*
I played the game through 4 or 5 times. What "eco-nonsense" are you referring to? Colonel Campbell complained of "the damned bleeding-heart liberals" at one point, and Campbell is on *your* side...
I'm certainly no eco-troll, but I don't recall much in the way of environmentalism in that game. No Greenpeace ads, no PETA nuts trying to stop you from eating your rations (which might have meat in them!) or ELF crazies trying to blow up your escape jeep at the end of the game because it pollutes too much, no "buy solar now!" silliness, etc.
I recall *especially* the philosophy and to a lesser-degree, the nuclear-weapons political information far more (and personally, that's a large part of what makes MGS one of my top 3 all-time favorite games, along with Deus Ex (largely for the same reason as MGS, but it was a damn-fun game even without the conspiratorial atmosphere, and there were definitely no eco-crazies in DX) and the SNES Super Mario Kart).
If all games were like MGS, MGS2 (or hell, the entire Metal Gear series going back to 1987), the original Deus Ex, and so on, I'd have no time for work, I'd just play video games all day.:)
You know, the sad thing is there really are people who would think I have a double-standard there - that the FBI should be able to be politically-active too (nevermind that it's a government agency, one that has a repressive history at that)... *sigh*
I don't know how businesses have received it, but ask yourself, "why does PJ not like JDS?"
It's because Sun has (wisely) chosen not to ram the GPL down your throat when you use JDS. PJ, like most Slashdotters, wants the GPL in-your-face when you install JDS and any other app.
Personally, I don't, and I don't know anybody who is likely to want to waste their time reading the GPL's legalese.
PJ, however, has made it her job (as a paralegal) and hobby (as a blogger of legal issues) to read legalese.
So then, should we be surprised when she complains that it's not all over the place when she starts using everybody's favorite "rebel" OS? Hardly.
But do her views likely represent the majority of geeks' views? I highly, HIGHLY doubt it, and moreover, I doubt even moreso that her opinion reflects that of business users and/or regular, non-techie end-users. Think about it: how often do you just click-through a license without reading it? All the time, right? Me too.
Why would things be any different for the GPL?
So, to return to the main issue, bringing up PJ's opinion of JDS, frankly, is pointless because her views aren't representative of anybody who really matters. She represents a small minority of views, not the majority.
Working for free is not thievery, much to the dissent of Randroids (Ayn Rand cultists) everywhere. It is the *coercion* of working for free (as in a socialist or communist society) that is evil.
But we live in a generally free-market system. That means you are free to charge whatever price for your services you wish -- including $0.00. That is your choice as a supplier of goods/services.
But as that supplier (in this case, of labor), you must also realize what you get in return for your time/money spent working for free -- nothing. Unless you get joy out of your work, regardless of what any tangibles (money, other peoples' code, etc.) you receive in return, but that's awfully rare.
That's how a free-market, social-freedom-embracing society works. I wouldn't have it any other way.
That said, IMO only a complete fool works for zero return.
The only software I give away for free (under BSD license, at that) is that which I am certain I couldn't make any money selling, because it's not valuable enough; programs which I happen to have written originally only for my own purposes. I don't write *any* software for other people which I don't realize significant gain (to me). I don't work for free, period, and I won't add a single line of code to my apps unless I get something out of it (money, a feature I personally want, etc.). So, what little I freely-release (and mostly to friends, not the public-at-large) are small apps, short scripts, etc...
Slashdot Mirror
At least Americans can express hateful views and criticize their government without (much, if any) fear of retribution.
;-)
Say that about the EU w.r.t. the former, or China or N. Korea w.r.t. the latter...
Yes, the DMCA is a retarded piece of legislation, and I'm all for its repeal. But the EU was working on their own version anyway. Assuming it passed (couldn't find a link re: whether it did or not, but IIRC, it did), where's the EU's comparative advantage in free-speech law again?
Oh yeah, nudity. OK, you beat us on that. I'd *love* to see us surpass the EU though.
You jest, I know, but just in case anyone thinks this is a serious point I should point out that the people who prepare your returns at the IRS don't care one whit how much you owe.
:-)
That's a half-truth.
Would you be saying the same if a privately-owned tax firm were doing the tax prep? I doubt it. Private firms have an interest in doing 2 things:
1) finding as many loopholes as are available to you
2) charging you for the time it takes to find those loopholes, to the extent that it doesn't cost you so much that you go to a competitor offering faster/better service
But the IRS agents don't make any explicit profit off of doing your taxes. So there are 2 possible arguments, hence the "half-truth" nature of your claim:
1) if they *don't* care what you owe, then they're not going to care much whether you get the loopholes available to you
2) if they *do* care what you owe, then the question is "why? Aren't they working for free?" The answer to that question is "no, they don't work for free - our taxes pay for their service."
The problem then is that if we pay IRS agents based on performance, then they wind up demanding more money as their performance increases, which winds up costing more to the taxpaying public.
The preparing folks want to do a good job and prepare a good return for you. Their performance is graded not only on accuracy but on the customers perception of the service provided,
I suppose these 500,000 people who went to the free IRS help got quality service? Or maybe the 19 out of 23 IRS preparers (also mentioned at that URL) were wrongfully-accused of making mistakes?
If they're graded on performance, then I suspect they're not getting A's (maybe with grade-inflation though). I mean, I know people who have had IRS agents call up and say they made a mistake on their return, only to eventually discover that the IRS agent made mistakes in analyzing the return - and in some cases, find that the person was owed a bigger refund than was originally thought!
You get what you pay for, and that goes for tax help as well... (I do my own taxes. Basic arithmetic doesn't exactly scare me...)
so IRS return preparers have no motivation whatsoever to prepare a return any way except accurately and with the best interest of the taxpayer in mind.
...except to take in more revenue for the government, thereby being able to help ensure the govn't gets more money, and then later have their agency leader press Congress for increased salaries for the "poor, overworked and underpaid" IRS employees.
Don't laugh, public school teachers do it (I know, because I know a family of public school teachers).
And no, the IRS is not immune to corruption and political manipulation...
Ultimately, the problem with your argument comes back to the classic problem of "following the money." No matter how you slice it, either the IRS agents have no incentive to care about the work they're doing for "free" (and remember, "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch"), or else their pay increases based on performance (at dealing with an insanely-complex tax code) will start to cost the taxpayers more. Sadly, it's a lose-lose situation.
The thing that you screw up is that you assume "ALL" analysts do one thing, that is, assuming all jobs equal.
*Good* economists don't make that assumption unless:
1) they have a political bone to pick (e.g. they're part of the Bush admin, trying to quell worries about offshoring)
2) they work for the government
With #2 in mind, the Dept. of Labor makes that kind of assumption in its reports of unemployment rates, as do most college economics profs teaching undergrad economics courses (talking to them myself, however, some of them will readily admit they don't actually look at real-world trends. This is rather shocking for a professor of a *social* science).
Heck, go to your closest walk-in IRS office during tax season and an IRS employee will do your taxes for you, for free.
:-)
I have an idea! Let's go up to everybody who wants to take our money, and ask them how much we should pay them! Bloody brilliant!
I agree doing the 1040EZ or 1040A is pretty darn easy; why people get so intimidated by them is beyond me. Maybe it's the crappy arithmetic education in our public schools. But you'd be a fool to go to the IRS and ask them how much you owe them... Let's not have foxes guard henhouses, k?
I am all in favor of putting anti-liberty traitors like you away in Gitmo for life.
The stock markets are moving up.
:)
Just what time period are you looking at? Let's look at the 5 year history of the DOW: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^DJI&t=5y
Through 1999 and until about June of 2001, it was hovering around 10,500 or so. Sept. 11, 2001 caused the dive to near 8000. DOW goes back up again to around 10,000 until about June 2002. Then another dive, this time down to about 7,200 in Sept. 2002. Goes back up to around 8,700 through X-Mas 2002, takes another dive through Q1 2003 (when we were gettin' our war on), then rises steadily to around 10,800 until it starts to flatten out around 10,100 starting in about Feb. 2004.
That's the short-term analysis -- a rather cyclical approach. Look at it long-term. Where were we 5 years ago? Around 10,800. Where are we now? 10,100, with no reasonable assurance that we are not headed for another dive in the coming months, particularly since the bond markets will strengthen once the Federal Reserve gets around to raising interest rates near the end of the summer.
IOW, it's been a rough ride for the DOW over the Bush Presidential administration's lifespan, and will continue to be through election day.
To quote a great and famous Republican who at least *tried* to cut government spending and waste, "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?"
No, we are not. And that's not only because the stock market is down from where it was when Clinton was in office.
Clinton screwed an intern; Bush screwed America. Vote Libertarian.
Still, all of this assumes that free-market capitalism works as well in practice as it does in theory. That is also up for debate.
Oh really? What's the alternative? Socialism? Communism?
The Berlin Wall fell, Russia lost - learn it and get used to it. Socialism has failed to produce healthy societies in the long-run. Witness the nations of North Korea, China, Vietnam, Russia, Laos -- they remain shithole socialist/communist nations. Modern socialist economies, such as Sweden, aren't classifiable as "shitholes," but in per-capita income -- the average amount of income per-person -- socialist economies still by a significant margin trail their capitalist, free-market counterparts, such as America and Switzerland and pre-Chinese-handover Hong Kong.
Even Canada and France, which tend to be socialist-leaning mixed economies, do better than the more-socialist nations, but they still trail the less-socialist nations.
Notice what China's been doing lately -- they've been liberalizing (in case you've never taken an econ. course beyond basic micro/macro: "liberalizing" means "opening up," not "becoming more American-liberal [read: socialist] in style") their trade and ever-so-slowly opening their nation to capitalism. And guess what? Their GDP growth -- at 10% in recent quarters -- is so high as to be unsustainable. They have an economy that *wants* to grow because it is so backwards compared to the rest of the world that woke up and realized that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a failed (and fundamentally-flawed) ideal.
The fact that the wall fell, Russia's economy collapsed, and China is slowly moving towards a market economy are not coincidences.
You are right on one thing, however -- a properly-functioning free-market system requires that people give a damn about the undesirable traits of their businessmen, and more-importantly, have the self-discipline and individual responsibility to do something about it - even if that means giving up some level of comfort - in order to force the hand of the businessman. And that is where the American economy has fallen on its face -- we now have an "entitlement mentality," a disease inflicted by "The Greatest Generation" and the various Kennedy-lovers who now run the country. Americans no longer have a sense of responsibility and principle; without those factors, people act like children. And it is then that the socialists and Democrats have a case for treating them as children by creating a "nanny state"...
What's so wrong about biasing our news towards that which affects us? Why should we care about people in foreign countries unless they affect us? We worry about that which is in our self-interest -- no more, no less. Not that I wouldn't like to see more news from around the world just out of curiosity, but it's not a necessity for me unless it affects me -- and 99.9% of the time, world news doesn't affect me, so why report it?
Personal experience?
I live in the USA; I cannot comment directly on the state of healthcare in Europe. Rumor has it that France generally has the best healthcare of any of the European countries, and the number of people who leave the UK to go to France for surgery seems to substantiate this rumor, but as I noted earlier, the French still wait roughly a month for attention, whereas I wait roughly a week. So I'm still better off here.
You asked a question that can be easily answered (like most questions, it seems) by Google. If it was an honest question, then I apologize for my intentionally-snide conclusion, but I typically don't get honest responses to my posts, I get responses typically along the lines of "capitalizm sux, communism rulez! Go stuff yourself Mr. Capitalist pig-dude! And give me all your sourcez!!" So then I post a few URLs and either the person asking for sources doesn't bother to read them, or they say "you're biased dude! Find bad articles from the World Socialist Web Site, then I'll believe you!" At that point, I might as well ignore the person.
So Pavlov strikes again -- I've been conditioned to respond to idiots, I suppose, and just figured you were yet-another one of them. Again, I apologize if you were asking an honest question, because most people don't... I do emphasize though that I found all my links via about 3 or 4 Google searches, total...
Canada again - average wait time up to 16.2 weeks:
United Kingdom
The UK again...
The UK has some long wait times, alrighty...
Hey, that doesn't look too bad (better than nothing, at least!)... What about GUI apps though, considering the Z's 240x320 screen size?
I would *love* to own a Zaurus (I'd kill for a 6000 especially) as a powerful, portable complement to a powerful, sit-on-the-floor desktop box, but having owned an 8MB Handspring Visor Deluxe for the last few years and given that I write a lot (both code and regular text messages), I compromised between a PDA's portability and my desktop's power and got a laptop recently for primarily the following 2 reasons:
:)
1) Can't really develop on a PDA. Got *full* compilers for Java, C++, C#, etc.? Nope. [1]
2) Keyboard. Do I really want to write code on the Zaurus' small keyboard - or worse, via handwriting recognition or the on-screen software keyboard? No way. Emails, short (less than 1000 words) messages, sure, but code? No. That said, the Zaurus 6000's USB host capability means I could plug in a USB keyboard and use that instead. That would help alleviate the problem quite a bit IMO.
The above ignores the problem of PDAs having a necessarily-small screen size. My Visor can only display about 10 lines of text at a time, though maybe the Zaurus is better here... But my laptop, at 1024x768 res. can display about 35 lines (the more code on screen without needing to squint, the better of course).
PDAs are great for what they're designed for - storing and displaying contact info, notes, books, etc., but for serious computing (i.e. that which requires lots of user input, CPU-usage, storage space, etc.), unfortunately we're not quite up to laptop levels yet, even if something like the Zaurus' USB host feature allows connecting to external HDDs...
I have to admit though, the USB host capability theoretically offers a *lot* of potential for expansion, and I think that's probably a slightly-underplayed advantage of the Zaurus 6000...
[1] I know GCC has been ported to the Zaurus, and if you have a CF or SD card to run it off of, you can actually do your compiles on the Zaurus. Admittedly, that's pretty close to what I'd like to do. And Perl is available for the Zaurus too, albeit, at a hefty 34MB (again, need a CF or SD card). But again, what about Java? I think the best one could do is to use gcj, which AFAIK is not really a serious alternative to the Sun or Blackdown javac's...
And then there's the mere 400MHz CPU speed vs. my laptop's 2.4GHz, although, running distcc (if you have network access to distcc-running systems) would help immensely...
My $0.02.
There is also an increase in laziness in the US. Kids today don't want to work hard for anything. Just take the easy road. I know because they are my friends. They think I am nuts for reading and working hard at things.
:)
THANK YOU! I'm glad I'm not the only one who's experienced this effect!
I'm in the same situation. All but 2 or 3 of my friends seem to think the world owes them a living.
It most certainly does not.
It truly amazes (and frightens) me how lazy some people at current high school and college age are. I suspect it's due to the last 35 years of the Civil Rights movement's liberals forcing "political correctness," "non-judgmentalism," "feelings over facts," and other such real-world nonsense in public schools. Why do I suspect it? Well, I went to public K-12 school, and even now in a public university I get the same old "diversity! Wow!!" crap I was tired of 10 years ago.
I have nothing against people of other races, religions, etc., but for god's sake, don't try to ram it down my throat because frankly, I don't give a damn. That crap matters not one iota in the dog-eat-dog world of global capitalism.
The "Greatest Generation" has boned America's educational system. That's what happens when you let the hippies take over.
In our system, most businesses fail.
Business is a high-risk venture. Always has been. And that's why...
Most wealth is horded by the top few percentiles.
Higher risks mean higher reward. As the British SAS say, "those who dare, win."
Those who have dared, are most-likely to win. They are the most-likely to have the most money. Some people bet their net worth on a company, ony to go broke. Others become billionaires.
Such is the case in a dynamic, capitalist society. There are no guarantees except the promise of being able to take risk yourself, hoping that you too may strike it rich.
For the majority, most real incomes have been stagnant since the 1960s.
These folks say real income rose - even for the poorest 20% - by 12.9% between 1982-1989. Other time periods have risen less, true, but the point is that real incomes are rising.
Are they rising as much as the 530% rise for the executive class? Clearly not. That's where thrift-minded, cost-cutting, efficiency-zealot shareholder activists need to come into play in publicly-traded companies, realizing that executives are too much of a drain on profits and need to either take a pay cut or take a hike.
Our communities and workforces have been devastated by two decades of rapacious mergers, corporate accounting scams, and stock inflation.
Walmart's done a good bit to run small business out of business, yes.
Mergers? Perhaps, although the biggest merger of them all -- AOL/Time-Warner -- has been an utter dud the last few years, with talk of even breaking up again! Hasn't happened yet though.
Millions upon millions of Americans have no health care.
Those that do, get it promptly however. In other countries (Canada, France, etc.) you have to wait perhaps 3 months or more for medical service.
Consider the problem of the "Tragedy of the Commons." That is, if everybody had "FREE! click here!! FREE! click here!! FREE!!!" healthcare, the number of people seeing the doctor would rise, because there's no incentive *not* to go to the doctor. There's no incentive *not* to use that "FREE!," now-communal resource known as a Medical Doctor...
That sort of system leads to the problems found in Canada and France. A better system, IMO, would be for government-sponsored "catastrophe" healthcare, such that people with expensive, life-threatening conditions (leukemia, needing a heart-transplant, etc.) can get it without worrying about its affordability, while more-routine checkups are paid for by individuals and/or their healthcare plans.
This would lower the cost of healthcare for individuals, because the healthcare company would no longer have to worry about extreme expenses, while it would prevent the "tragedy of the commons" problem I explained above by removing the "third-party" aspect of payment from the individual. As it stands now, we rely on other people to spend money on us. That money would be more wisely-spent if we spent it ourselves.
Millions are so overextended in debt that they're only a couple of paychecks away from the street, even as home foreclosures have hit a 30-year high.
Whose fault is it that those individuals got into debt?
Did Joe Sixpack have his credit cards stolen by Stealing Sixpack and have huge bills run up in his name? Or did Joe use those cards and run up his own bills?
Did Joe Sixpack take out loans for which he failed to determine whether he could repay (with interest)?
Being in debt is almost never somebody else's fault. Barring unusual, not-normally-planned-for circumstances (extreme medical bills, acts of God (which tend to be covered by insurance), etc.) or the illegal actions of another person (fraud, theft, etc.), blame can almost always be placed on the spender, despite his/her attempts to plac
"Statist" isn't a term I'm going to take seriously. It's a libertarian insult
Just like "capitalist" is the communist's "insult" of libertarians. Except it's usually preceded by the terms "baby-eating, corporate-whoring, fascist retard dickhead"...
It's quite amusing to hear a libertarian accusing someone else of whininess; whining is all libertarians do.
Communists/socialists/Greens/left-leaning Democrats are any different?
Martin Luther King wasn't a whiner? Or Ralph Nader? Or Howard Dean? Or Dennis Kucinich? Or Paul Krugman?
How about all those people on various government entitlement programs, whining about how their welfare checks aren't big enough -- that they need more money to spend at McD's to make their ass bigger?
Maybe statists are just hypocritical? FIGHT THE POWER! STICK IT TO THE MAN! (by drinking Coke)
Constant snivelling about how the big bad government is keeping them down, how they're just victims of the big, mean, statists.
...and yet statists like you fail to look at the history of statist societies, don't you?
You still haven't researched my list. Get to work smarty-pants!
It doesn't surprise me you haven't finished college, it's an ideology for the young and ignorant.
Like Harry Browne or Ron Paul, or uber-economist Milton Friedman (who is now over 90 years old)? They're all old farts, and they're some of the deepest, staunchest libertarians you'll find.
And as for your accusations of "ad hominem attacks", if you'll look at the thread again you'll note that you're the one who started it.
Cynical, smart-ass replies like yours (which started all this), which read:
Because we've read... Rand
Hahahahaha...oh wait, you were serious. My bad.
...are well-deserving of whatever attack they receive. Such a response as yours is an ad-homenem attack in itself, as it strives to not-so-subtly paint your opponent as stupid; the only difference is you're not actually saying the word "stupid," you're hiding it in a none-too-clever taunt. So no, in fact, YOU are the one who started the ad-hominem attacks.
Regardless, you have still failed to come up with a single cogent, well-thought-out, reasoned argument for your economic view. You have failed to research the economic histories of the nations I have presented you.
So I'm an undergrad. So what? There are people twice my age who haven't a clue about economics. Hell, I have a 40-50-something PhD engineering prof. this semester who has repeatedly proven he doesn't understand even Econ. 101, based on the grossly-wrong things he has said in class; things which run completely-counter to the express teachings of my Econ. profs.
You haven't described your position in life relative to mine. Frankly, it doesn't matter either, because you could just as easily be a 15 year-old claiming to be a 50 year old PhD professor. Such is life on the net.
Look, I was once (not all that long ago, either) a statist too. I railed against businessmen everywhere, and the corporations which every good statist loves to tout -- Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Global Crossing, etc. for their corporate frauds. And to be sure, the execs from such companies should be tried for their crimes, and personally, I believe they *are* paid too much (I'd like to see more shareholder activism against executive pay, since such extravegant pay is ultimately a drain on corporate efficiency).
But then I realized that their power -- great as it seems -- is still FAR LESS than if we centralized it all within our government. Take China or North Korea, for instance. Are those nations worth emulating?
Go read John Stossel's latest book, "Give Me a Break!" He too is a former leftie, a consumer advocacy journalist dredging up the slime from
Now if only their server had power to match that...
Keep talking, you're proving your ignorance.
I'm a CS major nearing graduation with an Economics minor - and I need only 1 more course to complete that minor. I'm doing quite well in my Econ. study as well.
I've also taken several history courses. A's in all of them.
In short, I've studied more Econ. than you probably have, and that study is partly why I hold libertarian views. Care to try again?
Do you know what the word "statist" means? It means you promote state -- i.e. government -- control. Why can't you take that seriously? Can you comprehend what that means? All of the bloodiest, most-violent governments in history have been supported by people with statist views -- like yours.
I have combatted your whininess and ignorance with facts and sources. You've argued with ad-hominem attacks ("little libertarian") - which is no argument at all. You sound like the typical high school communist -- bitching about the Korporate Konspiracy and name-calling on your opponents without ever presenting a cogent argument.
I maintain the same standpoint -- you are an idiot. You probably are still in high school.
Take your own advice and go to a community college when you graduate. FOAD.
So if the people of a country want to nuke the people of another country, the government should do it?
It'll provoke global nuclear war, but hey! The almighty demos wanted it. Hooray for mobocracy!
If the majority want to make rape legal, should it be so?
It'll provoke vastly more murder, disease, and social chaos, but hey! The almighty majority wanted it. Hooray again for mobocracy!
What is democracy? It's 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.
You're an idiot. You take a section of his post as though it's comical.
y
Rand was a bitch and not one I take seriously. Friedman, OTOH, has more economic clue in one of his dick-hairs than you have in your whole body.
Show me a successful command economy. Is there one? Prove it.
Here's a list you can research, some better than others:
USSR
Russia
China
North Korea
Vietnam
Argentina
Sweden
Denmark
Norwa
Finland
India, 1948-1990
Cuba
Brazil
East Germany
Yugoslavia
Go look them up in the CIA World Factbook. Compare those still-existing nations to the United States or Canada or Switzerland. Pay particular attention to per-capita GDP.
Sweden is going to probably be your best pro-socialist argument.
But even there, they are trying market-oriented ideas that even America is afraid of, such as a school voucher system.
For almost every leftist, there is a corresponding ignorance of economics and even of fundamental recent world history. I know, because I used to be a leftist myself...
But look at the list I've presented above. Every one of those nations has a lower per-capita GDP than market-oriented countries. This is not a coincidence.
Milton Friedman wrote in "Free to Choose" that the starkest example of the problems of command economies could be seen by comparing West Germany and East Germany (the book was written in 1980, 9 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall). West Germany was a thriving market economy, where people were free to do generally as they please and sell what the please. East Germany was a wasteland with buildings which hadn't been rebuilt since their destruction in WWII.
Why else would the East Germans have been so happy to see the wall torn down? Why else would they be the ones tearing it down? If command economies work so well, why are people so unhappy in them?
Don't be an idiot. Go read works besides those on statist websites like Commondreams and the World Socialist Web Site.
A link to the AFL-CIO about the myths of unions?
Gosh, let me go find this study done by Microsoft on how much better-performing Windows is than Linux...
At least you aren't claiming to be objective.
Politics, perhaps, but homosexuality?
:)
The closest thing to homosexuality you'll find in MGS is the elevator area where Otacon and Snake are discussing "love on the battlefield." And yes, that was pretty damn homoerotic-sounding (as is the Otacon game ending, to a lesser-extent), I'll admit.
But both express distinct attractions for women in the game -- Snake for Meryl, Otacon for Sniper Wolf. And Snake seems straight as an arrow, IMO, though I could definitely see Otacon as bisexual.
That's probably the closest to homosexuality you'll find in MGS, unless I missed something... Now, MGS2, with the naked Raiden running around with his hands over his nuts as he kicks his enemies? Er, well, that's pushing things... I still have nightmares about the thought of a naked Raiden. It's bad enough he was a pussy wimp crybaby, especially compared to the badass Snake. But Raiden without clothes? Give me a break, I don't want to see his ass!
MGS and MGS2 are still 2 of my favorite games though, just not for the above reasons.
MGS2 was great for that very reason. It made you *think* about the world around you, the context that the Metal Gear games play in the real world e.g. "a virtual grunt of the digital age - just great!" (Snake/Plisskin commenting on how military training on a computer can never be as good as training outdoors, in a field, etc.). Or take his comment of "what better way to insulate you from the harsh realities of war than using a computer simulation?" (a none-too-subtle reference to MGS2 itself promoting warlike violence).
True, the plot in MGS2 got too-convoluted to make much sense after a while, and MGS2 wasn't as realistic in terms of "easily-realizable near-future battlefield reality" as MGS or the original Metal Gear. But was still an utterly amazing game.
Interestingly, the title - "Sons of Liberty" - was the name of a group of opponents of Britain's Stamp Act imposed on the United States. While the Founding Fathers were sympathetic to the SoL's cause, they couldn't be taken seriously by other politicians if they had been associated with the SoL's violence...
The Sons of Liberty were -- in modern terms -- a domestic terrorist organization: they used force in order to achieve their goal of eliminating the Stamp Act. That follows the definition of terrorism. Fortunately for us, the "terrorists" won...
What's the relation to MGS2? Snake and Raiden are part of a "fringe" NGO which uses force to destroy Metal Gears because they pose such a great threat to world stability. That too follows the definition of terrorism. Thus, you play either a terrorist or a freedom-fighter in MGS2 -- it depends on your POV. Personally, I prefer the freedom-fighter view.
It's connections like those that make the MGS games so damn cool.
Yes, because lord knows the thousands of nukes the U.S., Russia, and other nations have are a complete non-threat to the stability of the world... *rolls eyes*
:)
I played the game through 4 or 5 times. What "eco-nonsense" are you referring to? Colonel Campbell complained of "the damned bleeding-heart liberals" at one point, and Campbell is on *your* side...
I'm certainly no eco-troll, but I don't recall much in the way of environmentalism in that game. No Greenpeace ads, no PETA nuts trying to stop you from eating your rations (which might have meat in them!) or ELF crazies trying to blow up your escape jeep at the end of the game because it pollutes too much, no "buy solar now!" silliness, etc.
I recall *especially* the philosophy and to a lesser-degree, the nuclear-weapons political information far more (and personally, that's a large part of what makes MGS one of my top 3 all-time favorite games, along with Deus Ex (largely for the same reason as MGS, but it was a damn-fun game even without the conspiratorial atmosphere, and there were definitely no eco-crazies in DX) and the SNES Super Mario Kart).
If all games were like MGS, MGS2 (or hell, the entire Metal Gear series going back to 1987), the original Deus Ex, and so on, I'd have no time for work, I'd just play video games all day.
You know, the sad thing is there really are people who would think I have a double-standard there - that the FBI should be able to be politically-active too (nevermind that it's a government agency, one that has a repressive history at that)... *sigh*
You're thinking of yesterday's post.
I don't know how businesses have received it, but ask yourself, "why does PJ not like JDS?"
It's because Sun has (wisely) chosen not to ram the GPL down your throat when you use JDS. PJ, like most Slashdotters, wants the GPL in-your-face when you install JDS and any other app.
Personally, I don't, and I don't know anybody who is likely to want to waste their time reading the GPL's legalese.
PJ, however, has made it her job (as a paralegal) and hobby (as a blogger of legal issues) to read legalese.
So then, should we be surprised when she complains that it's not all over the place when she starts using everybody's favorite "rebel" OS? Hardly.
But do her views likely represent the majority of geeks' views? I highly, HIGHLY doubt it, and moreover, I doubt even moreso that her opinion reflects that of business users and/or regular, non-techie end-users. Think about it: how often do you just click-through a license without reading it? All the time, right? Me too.
Why would things be any different for the GPL?
So, to return to the main issue, bringing up PJ's opinion of JDS, frankly, is pointless because her views aren't representative of anybody who really matters. She represents a small minority of views, not the majority.
Working for free is not thievery, much to the dissent of Randroids (Ayn Rand cultists) everywhere. It is the *coercion* of working for free (as in a socialist or communist society) that is evil.
But we live in a generally free-market system. That means you are free to charge whatever price for your services you wish -- including $0.00. That is your choice as a supplier of goods/services.
But as that supplier (in this case, of labor), you must also realize what you get in return for your time/money spent working for free -- nothing. Unless you get joy out of your work, regardless of what any tangibles (money, other peoples' code, etc.) you receive in return, but that's awfully rare.
That's how a free-market, social-freedom-embracing society works. I wouldn't have it any other way.
That said, IMO only a complete fool works for zero return.
The only software I give away for free (under BSD license, at that) is that which I am certain I couldn't make any money selling, because it's not valuable enough; programs which I happen to have written originally only for my own purposes. I don't write *any* software for other people which I don't realize significant gain (to me). I don't work for free, period, and I won't add a single line of code to my apps unless I get something out of it (money, a feature I personally want, etc.). So, what little I freely-release (and mostly to friends, not the public-at-large) are small apps, short scripts, etc...