Like water, government is mostly transparent in smaller amounts, but turn it into a lake or an ocean and it gets a lot more murky.
Very apt.
I like the "fire" analogy I've used before as well.
"Government is like fire, and should be treated very much the same, and for nearly identical reasons. Both are extremely useful, but at the same time extremely destructive, dangerous, swift-spreading, and hard to control, particularly the larger either grows. Both governments and fire, once either has grown to a certain size, becomes impossible for the ones who started it to control and morphs from a useful force for good and champion for freedom and the Rule of Law, to a force for tyranny, evil, and the capricious rule of men."
Sounds like a case of "Gee Citizen, you're fighting us legally and winning. It's too bad that now we'll just have to go after your pregnant wife, and possibly force her to give birth in jail. It's not very safe in those places. We certainly hope she doesn't get shanked! We also hope the prison doctor doesn't "accidentally" drop your son/daughter on their head.
Why don't you fire those bothersome and expensive lawyers, stop fighting our charges, and we can sit down and have a cozy little chat about it? If you sign this little piece of paper for us confessing to your evil deeds, we won't be forced to do something to your family and friends we'd rather not be forced to do. You can keep your wife and unborn child safe and be out of prison in practically no time at all if you'll just cooperate. Ve Haff Vays of making you [cough-cough] sorry, don't know where that came from..."
Though the bomber described in TFA could certainly be used in the way you describe, I expect the UAVs already in service or soon to go into service to be even better suited for that role. I'm far more concerned about thousands of small surveillance and/or strike drones than a few tens of B1 or B2-sized planes. This new bomber will be far too expensive to build and operate in large numbers whether they're flown with humans aboard or not while small UAVs already cost tiny fractions of traditional strike aircraft to build and operate.
I too would be more worried about smaller autonomous strike drones. Currently, I'm only aware of armed autonomous drones of the size of a small fighter plane or larger. I'm sure much smaller armed autonomous drones aren't far off, however.
We're just about at the point technologically where some of the science-fiction dystopian-themed "killer drone" tech from movies and novels is becoming not only possible, but economical.
Considering the ever-more totalitarian/authoritarian direction that the US and other Western governments are going, this worries me.
The capability for the top military brass to launch weapons to hit anywhere on the globe with minimal intervention from lower ranks has existed for several decades. There are still personnel in missile silos and submarines that have to hit the buttons to launch the ICBMs, but their responsibility is very similar to what you describe. I wouldn't be surprised if cruise missiles launched from bombers or ships can be handled in a similar way. I'm not saying your concerns aren't valid. I'm saying they might as well be realized today.
Of course, there have been weapons systems that have had a minimal enough chain of humans with the ability to know the actual targets, etc. However, the systems of the past were for the most part things like nuclear missiles, which are very wide-area, total-destruction, extremely "blunt instruments" not ideally-suited to domestic rebellions/uprisings/civil wars.
This would provide, among other things, an extremely-enhanced ability to keep lower ranks "out of the loop" while also being capable of a much more precise and "surgical" strike capability. This is much better suited to suppressing rebellions and uprisings while maintaining some level of deny-ability, particularly in the early stages, than missiles and other older weapons systems.
You think current heavy bomber crews see their victims? They have been completely removed from the death they cause on the ground since WWII. This is how it works: A heavy bomber crew is given a target to bomb, then take off, cruise to the target, release their weapons and go home. Do you really think a remote operator would behave much differently given the same orders?
This works when the mission is over a foreign country. The crew would probably twig to something not being right if their flight plan puts the target area within 15 minutes flight time from their base in Nebraska, for example.
As to remote operators, the newest thing in military drone tech is autonomous drones and fighter/bomber aircraft systems that do not require a remote operator. Ground crew simply loads encrypted flight plan/mission data that they receive on an encrypted portable storage device without any clue as to what the mission may be, outside of what weapons/bomb and fuel payload is specified for the particular mission.
With such a system, the ground crew could be launching bombing missions on their own families without realizing it. Suspect that too many military personnel at one of your domestic military bases is sympathetic to civilians attempting to rebel against your decree of martial law? Have them effectively bomb themselves without even knowing it!
I'm sure the "optionally manned" part is to allow future military leaders to choose the appropriate tradeoffs.
It's also a great feature to enable removing final say from human pilots/crew on whether or not to actually drop those JDAMs on those pesky civilian women and children attempting to rise up against the government-mandated domestic food shortages, mass roundups of "dangerous dissidents", and mass internment programs when the shit hits the fan.
These guys aren't stupid. They've seen "Running Man". They're just not confident in the ratings numbers and advertising revenue that the "Running Man" solution could garner.
The *PROBLEM* is that Rumblefish is claiming copyright on other people's work. That's completely unacceptable--it's piracy. And that's what needs to be stopped.
1> Find a Federal prosecutor that's hungry for PR and/or needs a big case for some other reason.
2> Convince him/her to file against Rumblefish under RICO (this will be the hardest part) and have all their records and assets seized.
3> Simultaneously file a class-action civil suit for damages.
It is not the size of government, but what they're pushing. Here in Canada we now have a government that totally believes in smaller government so what they're doing is getting rid of the parts of the government that protects people while pushing a totalitarian state. A small government can still have enough power to stomp on its citizens faces while a large government can be there to help its citizens and protect their rights.
I agree, and I did not exclude that a relatively-smaller government is perfectly capable of being totalitarian.
However, the larger a government becomes, the more totalitarian it becomes, and the more power it has to enforce it's will upon the people.
Government is like fire, and should be treated very much the same, and for nearly identical reasons. Both are extremely useful, but at the same time extremely destructive, dangerous, swift-spreading, and hard to control, particularly the larger either grows. Both governments and fire, once either has grown to a certain size, becomes impossible for the ones who started it to control and morphs from a useful force for good and champion for freedom and the Rule of Law, to a force for tyranny, evil, and the capricious rule of men.
There is no "right" to free health care, as nobody has the right to make a slave of people by making another person's labor, like the doctors and nurses that provide care, your right. It's just as wrong and for the exact same reasons as slavery was in pre-Civil-War America.
Really? You're a slave? If you don't go to work tomorrow, someone's coming to take you there with a whip?
Try not paying what the IRS (which is the gov. entity that will enforce the individual mandate provisions of Obamacare) thinks is due them. They will send many large, armed men to put you in a cage or kill you if you resist for not turning over the fruits of your labor.
Also, just out of curiosity, does your opinion also extend to soldiers?
Of course not, as you well know and understand, military service is necessarily different by it's very nature. You are not free in the military...any military. That is part of the very nature of a military and has nothing to do with the rights and freedoms that are inherent to free citizens.
The reason the government began to redistribute wealth in the first place is that people didn't give anywhere near enough to charitable organizations on their own, resulting in constant strife.
This is pure and utter horseshit.
Government redistributes wealth to increase politician's power and garner support and votes with "bread and circuses".
The Utopian schemes of re-distribution of the wealth...are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. - Samuel Adams
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy. - Thomas Jefferson
...I suggest you start reigning in your fellow libertarians to stop them flapping their mouths.
Only that would be against your principles, wouldn't it?
Yes, it would.
Only Leftists/Statists (as they're the same thing for all intents and purposes) want to pass laws & regulations to shut people up and censor and forbid competing speech and ideas, as the ideas of the Left cannot compete in a free & open marketplace of ideas, and must silence opposing ideas and destroy those who espouse them as examples.
As my sig points out, Liberal/Progressive ideas must be mandatory laws, rules, and regulations, where small-"L" libertarian ideas start from the natural state of human freedom. As I pointed out in my post above, "imposing" libertarian principles has no meaning, whereas imposing Leftist/Statist ideas has historically caused hundreds of millions of deaths and the suffering of millions more under despotic, totalitarian regimes.
I know which I prefer.
The other posters who replied to you are perfectly correct. Small government/= no government. There are those on the Left that say they want strict eugenics policies enforced and expect to send about a quarter to a third of the population to death camps if they gained power. Yet, painting them as representing your views would be equally as unfair and inaccurate as what you've done here concerning those with libertarian views.
It might behoove you to stop and actually think critically about what you've been told by others, rather than simply parrot other people's views and ideological dogmas that sound good on the outside, without seriously thinking them through yourself.
Two more principles for you to consider that are true regardless of nation or government:
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The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. - Thomas Jefferson
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy. - Thomas Jefferson
I stopped reading right there, as there is no such thing, nor have libertarians proposed or suggested such a thing. You're starting with a strawman. Nothing else after that means anything, as it's all a construction of your imagination.
I'll tell you what.
I'm going to unilaterally IMPOSE libertarian principles on you RIGHT NOW!!!!!
I shall FORCE YOU to...
Well, nothing at all, really.
Whatever you do or don't want to do that doesn't actively affect me negatively, like commit unjustified violence or rob someone.
There!
I've unilaterally imposed libertarian values on you.
Like police, courts, affordable medical care, an army to defend our borders, someone to enforce minimum driving standards, minimum safety standards in the workplace, no child labour, no slave labour and all the million other things the free market has never and will never provide. We need better government, not a free for all that will take us back to feudalism.
We could have police, courts, a top-notch modern national army, minimal workplace standards regarding safety and abusive practices, as well as basic marketplace laws and most all the other essentials for a relatively well-functioning society with a small fraction of what the governments in either country spends and with a fraction of the laws and regulations on the books. Very few laws are ever repealed. There are more than anyone could possibly read and understand. The police can always find a law you've broken if they look hard enough. It's next to impossible to *not* be a lawbreaker and still have a pulse.
There is no "right" to free health care, as nobody has the right to make a slave of people by making another person's labor, like the doctors and nurses that provide care, your right. It's just as wrong and for the exact same reasons as slavery was in pre-Civil-War America. Same with free housing and free food. That's what charitable organizations, groups, and churches are for, and if the government didn't confiscate so much wealth, people would have much more money to give to those charitable organizations, groups, and churches.
It would be great if all we had to do is just turn government loose to provide all these wonderful-seeming things. It's just that whenever a government has been given anywhere near that much power, control of that much of the nation's wealth and economy, and has constructed a large & powerful enough bureaucracy to manage all those things, money, and people, it has always resulted in loss of individual freedom and eventually collapsed, typically into an authoritarian/totalitarian or anarchic, feudal hellhole.
I know TFA concerns the UK, but these principles (among others) espoused below are true regardless of nation.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have. - Thomas Jefferson
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
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By the way TfL has APPLIED for this ridiculous thing. They haven't been GRANTED it. See the all important difference. Come back in a few months when the judge has told them to fuck off.
Great! I hope the judge tells them right off. The problem is that such things are even being seriously proposed, and all the other things that already HAVE been granted or otherwise permitted to occur. It's not like either the UK or the US has a lack of unjust, unfair, and just plain wrong laws and regulations that destroy freedom and wealth being passed/enacted nearly every day, it seems.
I thought it referred to laws regarding dead balls in cricket.
Sort of the same, but the "dead balls" in the kind of game the government is playing in TFA is the type inflicted upon anyone that annoys or embarrasses the government. Except an ice-pack won't help in many cases.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
I don't like that game. We've been playing it in the US since at least the 1930s.
So, people who just want to be left alone and not have the government constantly interfering with their lives, taking their earnings away for things they don't agree with and didn't vote for, and (in the case of the US) want it to honor & obey the limitations to the government's powers set out in plain language in the Constitution, without trying to control and regulate everything down to monitoring all our communications, watching us with drones, telling friends they can't talk to each other (UK) and that children can't set up a lemonade stand in their driveway (US) are "hard line" or somehow "extreme"?
Are you freaking kidding me?
I feel almost like I'm in a psychotic and twisted version of that Capital One TV ad, the one where Jimmy Fallon is talking to a baby in a highchair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9CjeZ1Mod0
---
Fallon: "Our surveys show everyone likes more freedom and money... [looks at pie chart with tiny sliver marked] Well, almost everyone."
Fallon [Talking To Baby In Highchair]: "Don't you WANT more freedom and money?"
Baby: No!
Fallon: "But, it's MORE FREEDOM AND MONEY!"
Baby: NO!! [Throws Cereal At Fallon]
Fallon [Closeup]: "How much freedom and money has the government taken from YOU?"
Baby: [Off Camera - Throws Fire Extinguisher At Fallon In-Camera]
There are a hundred and one ways to talk to people in this modern age and many of those are anonymous and not easily tracked or monitored.
Ah, but the *individuals themselves* are relatively easy to track & monitor. Besides, I'm sure that if the government is willing to inflict such an Orwellian and illogical/impractical punishment in the first place, I'm sure that, if one or more of these people begin using some anonymous communication method, the government would be more than willing to prohibit them from legally engaging in anonymous communication.
This just seems like one of those sentences which is "harsh" to make a point but doesn't actually make any difference to how these men will communicate. That said, it's also completely ridiculous that these people with no ill intent were made such an example of, and that they were given a punishment which is illogical and far too much trouble than it's worth to enforce.
No surprise. What else would one expect from an authoritarian police state? That's what the UK has become, with the US hot on it's heels in a race to see which country can remove the most privacy, rights, & freedoms from their citizens the fastest.
It's what has always happened throughout history when a government grows too large and powerful. But of course, anyone suggesting smaller government in either nation is painted as a lunatic-fringe extremist that hates the poor, and is probably a racist to boot.
Those pushing for total government power and control over a helpless, powerless, and dependent-on-government-for-basic-survival population see their goals figuratively only inches away from fruition, while citizens who are intelligent and engaged enough to see what's happening and value their and their children's continuing and future freedom are awakening and rising up in opposition.
Hang on boys and girls, because it's going to get VERY nasty and bloody in the next few years in both the UK and the US.
We do more harm to the earth by damage to the filter(s) that should clean harmful substances from the air and water than all the cars on earth.
Feed lots on major rivers, that flow into salt water, that become "dead zones", no longer able to filter the air, or sustain sea life..
Clear cutting rain forests..
Ignoring the decertification of large areas of Africa and Asia.
You could strip the emission controls off of every car on earth and still not equal the harm done by the damage we are doing to the natural filtering mechanisms...
Cars are an easy, LAZY, target.. Almost everyone has one in their driveway, or can see one nearby.. Not everyone has a feedlot between their home and workplace.. Add to that that the industrial food complex seems to have much more lobbying money behind it than the auto industry...
I'm in no way denying global warming. I'm just saying we need to target the actual sources of continuing environmental damage, and not copy the "security theater" we see in our airports.. This is too important an issue to play politics with...
I think you're getting way too excited. Sure, we could do better at not "soiling our own nest", so to speak. I totally agree that reasonable and sane protections against such things as dangerous air pollution levels and the harmful polluting of rivers, lakes, streams, and the oceans with dangerous chemicals and toxins are only reasonable, sensible, and wise. Part of that equation also has to be costs in relation to the results, both as a matter of raw wealth taken from society, and as a matter of loss of individual rights and freedom to government.
Equally prudent is a wise forest and wildlife management program that also is reasonable and sane, following the rough guidelines I outlined above.
Attempting any large scale active-type climate-control plans or "terra-forming" (like pumping something into the atmosphere to actively modify climate) would be extremely ill-advised at this point in the development of our understanding of global climate systems. "Climate science" has only existed in the modern form for what? Thirty years? Forty years? And people really are confident that humans understand enough about such a massive and massively-complex semi-chaotic system as that of the Earth's global climate system that mucking about with it is a good idea? And we're also sure that political forces aren't involved with throwing weight behind certain conclusions and plans while discrediting opposing views to skew results and scientific community opinion to further certain agendas of the politically ambitious and powerful?
Advocating for large, rapid, destabilizing, and economically damaging measures that would negatively affect the standard of living of hundreds of millions of people or more, while contributing to more poverty, suffering, and death among the poorest people is not the way forward. Such plans have been advocated-for by many on the extreme Liberal/Progressive Left that desire the increased central government powers and control, with the subsequent loss of individual freedoms, privacy, decreased living standards, and increased taxes/fees/fines and other costs imposed on people and businesses that it would require to manage and enforce such plans, as a way to advance their particular ideology and increase their personal power, control, and wealth.
The Earth is currently on the upward swing of a warming period after the relatively-recent ice age. If this cycle follows previous cycles to any significant degree, we still have a good way to go to reach the peak of the current warming cycle.
This will happen pretty much no matter what man does.
Yeah, shutting down off shore drilling is insane. I mean, it's not like anything happened.
No, Obama and his administration did NOT shut down offshore drilling, not even in the area of the doomed Deep Horizon platform in the Gulf.
He simply turned it over to people he likes better than US oil companies.
The oil company Petrobras of Brazil that George Soros heavily invested in just prior to Obama's decision. Obama even announced that the US was going to start engaging in more oil business with Brazil like it was a great thing.
But, I'm sure that having Brazil's oil company do the drilling rather than US companies will turn out to be much safer and better for the environment
Safer for Obama, his corrupt cronies, and the Left's agenda, not the Gulf of Mexico's environment. Of course, the environmental groups all ignore his actions, which just proves that the majority of the environmental movement organizations are simply partisan political action groups.
Why block GPS? What do criminals gain from it? Genuine Queston.
What I'm surprised by is the apparent lack of incidents involving criminals using broad-banded jammers to kill ALL radio-based communications in a certain area.
For instance, in the case of police conducting a taskforce drug-sweep through a gang-controlled neighborhood/apartment complex/etc, I could easily imagine the gang's lookouts giving the sign when the cops & SWAT starts to roll into the area, the gangsters then start up the jammers, killing all police radios as well as cell phones, GPS, and anything else depending on radio.
That would remove an absolutely enormous tactical advantage from the police if they are unable to call for assistance or relay information about suspect activities, whereabouts, direction of travel, or even that an officer (or many) has/have been shot and is/are bleeding out in the alley behind the target building while the suspects safely escape.
A mobile version in a criminal's vehicle would also be a great help in losing or ambushing pursuing officers.
As a former amateur radio operator and RF electronics technician, it really wouldn't take much in material costs to rig up a series of car battery powered broadband jammers able to block any radio or GPS use within a couple-block area. You could probably pick up everything one would need to construct such a jamming system for less than a couple hundred dollars (depending on your haggling skills) from the typical amateur radio "hamfest" used electronics buy/sell/trade event and not leave a paper trail.
Now, THAT should send chills down LE spines! Without his/her radio/cellphone, a cop is just another asshole with a gun, and dies just as easily. Hopefully, the uniforms and shiny bits should make them stand out and easily enough sorted from bystanders by the gang's snipers to avoid most collateral casualties.
Hmm. Maybe I should work up some schematic drawings and layouts, and post them online if I get some spare time. I wonder if DHS/ICE would have the drawings taken off the 'net?
You just present a point of view in the most light and easy to read way. Ever tried comedy? (no joke here)
Seriously, thanks! Comes from decades of playing in club/bar bands and having to keep crowds entertained in between sets/songs/broken-string-replacements/equipment failures/band changes/etc. The ability to make people laugh is a matter of survival when playing a gig in a bar-full of drunk & rowdy patched-up outlaw bikers, where the smallest biker still resembles Mongo's bigger and angrier brother packing a semi-auto pistol.
Apparently, however, someone with mod points doesn't appreciate my sense of humor (my OP was modded "Troll").
At any rate, exascale computing systems are what's required to analyze even the amount of data they already collect, never mind what they're pushing to collect in the near future, which will grow the analysis problem by orders of magnitude.
Why is everyone pushing for exascale computing? What is such a super computer used for? Couldn't a massive distributed system work just as well?
No, not for what they really intend such a system for.
How exactly do you think that the governments are going to perform threat/intelligence analysis of all that data, video, and audio they're collecting both on the internet and from all the CCTV cams, cellphones, and those 30,000 new government drones that will be patrolling the US domestic skies, especially with all the recent data-retention and snooping laws nearly all the Western governments have been, or trying to, implement? Especially for analysis done on anything approaching real-time.
The Digital Police State requires serious computing power, Citizen! Now, go change that shirt! We know you've worn that one for 2 days, and you just bought a new blue shirt at Walmart last week on your way back from seeing that hooker. Also, we've noted you've not gotten enough fiber lately. Please have at least 3 bowls of that new fiber cereal this week. It's in the top right-hand cabinet above the sink.
And stop cursing at your dog when he gets hair on your work pants in the morning. A child may walk past your window. Note - Please wash your windows. The camera on the pole down the block is detecting smudges. You may be subject to fines or secret imprisonment for interfering with or avoiding police observation under the recent and secretly-passed anti-terrorism Nothing To Hide Because I'm Not A Dirty File-Trading Pedo-Terrorist Act.
Remember! We watch you because we love & trust you, and we have your best interests at heart!
If there were actually cheaper less destructive technologies, that would be a huge opportunity for profit, and somebody would be stepping up to cash in on the gravy train. The only way any of these alternatives are "cheaper" is in the sense that the government uses money taken from taxpayers to subsidize them. At some point, you run out of other people's money.
The oil industry can do just fine without subsidies and I support taking them off the government teat. However, alternate energy sources require huge subsidies just to exist. They simply aren't mature enough yet because human knowledge and technology levels are not yet high enough. Replicators and transporters would be great too, but we haven't advanced that far there, either.
Once the technology is mature enough that someone can make money from it, no government subsidies will be needed. Even Germany, which President Obama recently praised for "green" energy initiatives, has just implemented massive cuts to such government initiatives, as they've seen by the results that it's throwing money down a rathole at this point in time.
However I would argue that Greece's woes stem not from large government debt but from not having control of their currency.
Having control of their currency enables a nation to inflate it's money to ease debt, as the US has been doing of late with "quantitative easing", a fancy name for running the money presses without wealth to back the money up. This takes wealth away from anyone holding that currency. It's a not-so-hidden tax on everyone that holds that currency. It's one of a number of things that drives up inflation. The US (and I believe Britain) have changed the way they calculate inflation numbers along with a slew of other important economic health indicator numbers to try to avoid panic.
Britain has had a debt exceeding GDP for 81 of the last 170 years, much of that during a time in which living standards rose drastically.
Britain is also now at the mercy of foreign nations, banks, and lending institutions. It suffered greatly as a result of Black Wednesday (although currency speculators like George Soros who made ~$1B) and has endured frightening inflation rates. It sacrificed it's place among the most powerful nations on the planet to finance an elevated lifestyle beyond their means. Britain is also becoming increasingly economically unstable. The EU is on the verge of economic collapse as well.
Sorry, but the Krugman/NYT cite is a non-starter for me. Krugman has seldom been proven correct, and the NYT has become a partisan rag with all the credibility of The Onion.
When a group of nations are tied financially so tightly and running large debts as many/most in the West are now, it's a situation of Mutually Assured Economic Destruction. Any one nation (if large enough) or subset of nations which acts irresponsibly can start an economic chain reaction that will collapse the economies of the other nations.
Also, at a certain point, such countries will not be able to borrow money to operate on at interest rates that are realistic. Once that happens, the money printing goes into overdrive and inflation skyrockets. Other countries eventually stop trading with them, at least in fiat currency.
Greece went too far into debt to provide public entitlements and public-union wages & pensions. Public unions (unions of government employees) are horrid and extremely unfair institutions because they bargain with politicians to spend other people's money. Nothing wrong with private sector unions, but government unions are an abomination and have played central roles in the collapse of many nations and were key to ushering in totalitarian/Socialist/Communist/Fascist governments many times through modern history.
The politicians in Greece were buying votes with public money the same as has been occurring in the US. That was one of my points in my above posts. The US will share Greece's fate if drastic measures to reduce government spending and debt are not enacted, and soon. If the US economy collapses, Britain and many other nations will be driven close to collapse as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Like water, government is mostly transparent in smaller amounts, but turn it into a lake or an ocean and it gets a lot more murky.
Very apt.
I like the "fire" analogy I've used before as well.
"Government is like fire, and should be treated very much the same, and for nearly identical reasons. Both are extremely useful, but at the same time extremely destructive, dangerous, swift-spreading, and hard to control, particularly the larger either grows. Both governments and fire, once either has grown to a certain size, becomes impossible for the ones who started it to control and morphs from a useful force for good and champion for freedom and the Rule of Law, to a force for tyranny, evil, and the capricious rule of men."
Strat
Sounds like a case of "Gee Citizen, you're fighting us legally and winning. It's too bad that now we'll just have to go after your pregnant wife, and possibly force her to give birth in jail. It's not very safe in those places. We certainly hope she doesn't get shanked! We also hope the prison doctor doesn't "accidentally" drop your son/daughter on their head.
Why don't you fire those bothersome and expensive lawyers, stop fighting our charges, and we can sit down and have a cozy little chat about it? If you sign this little piece of paper for us confessing to your evil deeds, we won't be forced to do something to your family and friends we'd rather not be forced to do. You can keep your wife and unborn child safe and be out of prison in practically no time at all if you'll just cooperate. Ve Haff Vays of making you [cough-cough] sorry, don't know where that came from..."
Strat
You want to change how we use Fuel, increase the price of gas to $10 a gallon. That will cause people to make changes, I guarantee it!
Yes, it sure will!
They'll change Washington, D.C. into a smoking crater and the politicians into low-grade organic fertilizer.
I guarantee it!
Strat
http://www.falstad.com/circuit/ is nicer; it simulates in real time and isn't as clunky because it runs as an applet instead of javascript hackery.
Well, the falstad java app doesn't run under PC-BSD 8.1/FF 8.0 with Java JRE 1.6.0.07.02_6, but the CircuitLab javascript app works perfectly.
Seeing as most of the people I would intend to share circuits with run non-MS operating systems, many using FreeBSD, I'll have to go with CircuitLab.
Strat
Though the bomber described in TFA could certainly be used in the way you describe, I expect the UAVs already in service or soon to go into service to be even better suited for that role. I'm far more concerned about thousands of small surveillance and/or strike drones than a few tens of B1 or B2-sized planes. This new bomber will be far too expensive to build and operate in large numbers whether they're flown with humans aboard or not while small UAVs already cost tiny fractions of traditional strike aircraft to build and operate.
I too would be more worried about smaller autonomous strike drones. Currently, I'm only aware of armed autonomous drones of the size of a small fighter plane or larger. I'm sure much smaller armed autonomous drones aren't far off, however.
We're just about at the point technologically where some of the science-fiction dystopian-themed "killer drone" tech from movies and novels is becoming not only possible, but economical.
Considering the ever-more totalitarian/authoritarian direction that the US and other Western governments are going, this worries me.
Strat
The capability for the top military brass to launch weapons to hit anywhere on the globe with minimal intervention from lower ranks has existed for several decades. There are still personnel in missile silos and submarines that have to hit the buttons to launch the ICBMs, but their responsibility is very similar to what you describe. I wouldn't be surprised if cruise missiles launched from bombers or ships can be handled in a similar way. I'm not saying your concerns aren't valid. I'm saying they might as well be realized today.
Of course, there have been weapons systems that have had a minimal enough chain of humans with the ability to know the actual targets, etc. However, the systems of the past were for the most part things like nuclear missiles, which are very wide-area, total-destruction, extremely "blunt instruments" not ideally-suited to domestic rebellions/uprisings/civil wars.
This would provide, among other things, an extremely-enhanced ability to keep lower ranks "out of the loop" while also being capable of a much more precise and "surgical" strike capability. This is much better suited to suppressing rebellions and uprisings while maintaining some level of deny-ability, particularly in the early stages, than missiles and other older weapons systems.
Strat
You think current heavy bomber crews see their victims? They have been completely removed from the death they cause on the ground since WWII. This is how it works: A heavy bomber crew is given a target to bomb, then take off, cruise to the target, release their weapons and go home. Do you really think a remote operator would behave much differently given the same orders?
This works when the mission is over a foreign country. The crew would probably twig to something not being right if their flight plan puts the target area within 15 minutes flight time from their base in Nebraska, for example.
As to remote operators, the newest thing in military drone tech is autonomous drones and fighter/bomber aircraft systems that do not require a remote operator. Ground crew simply loads encrypted flight plan/mission data that they receive on an encrypted portable storage device without any clue as to what the mission may be, outside of what weapons/bomb and fuel payload is specified for the particular mission.
With such a system, the ground crew could be launching bombing missions on their own families without realizing it. Suspect that too many military personnel at one of your domestic military bases is sympathetic to civilians attempting to rebel against your decree of martial law? Have them effectively bomb themselves without even knowing it!
What's not for a tyrant to like?
Strat
I'm sure the "optionally manned" part is to allow future military leaders to choose the appropriate tradeoffs.
It's also a great feature to enable removing final say from human pilots/crew on whether or not to actually drop those JDAMs on those pesky civilian women and children attempting to rise up against the government-mandated domestic food shortages, mass roundups of "dangerous dissidents", and mass internment programs when the shit hits the fan.
These guys aren't stupid. They've seen "Running Man". They're just not confident in the ratings numbers and advertising revenue that the "Running Man" solution could garner.
Strat
The *PROBLEM* is that Rumblefish is claiming copyright on other people's work. That's completely unacceptable--it's piracy. And that's what needs to be stopped.
1> Find a Federal prosecutor that's hungry for PR and/or needs a big case for some other reason.
2> Convince him/her to file against Rumblefish under RICO (this will be the hardest part) and have all their records and assets seized.
3> Simultaneously file a class-action civil suit for damages.
4> Profit?
Strat
It is not the size of government, but what they're pushing. Here in Canada we now have a government that totally believes in smaller government so what they're doing is getting rid of the parts of the government that protects people while pushing a totalitarian state. A small government can still have enough power to stomp on its citizens faces while a large government can be there to help its citizens and protect their rights.
I agree, and I did not exclude that a relatively-smaller government is perfectly capable of being totalitarian.
However, the larger a government becomes, the more totalitarian it becomes, and the more power it has to enforce it's will upon the people.
This falls back to something I posted here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2679831&cid=39091503
Government is like fire, and should be treated very much the same, and for nearly identical reasons. Both are extremely useful, but at the same time extremely destructive, dangerous, swift-spreading, and hard to control, particularly the larger either grows. Both governments and fire, once either has grown to a certain size, becomes impossible for the ones who started it to control and morphs from a useful force for good and champion for freedom and the Rule of Law, to a force for tyranny, evil, and the capricious rule of men.
Strat
Try not paying what the IRS (which is the gov. entity that will enforce the individual mandate provisions of Obamacare) thinks is due them. They will send many large, armed men to put you in a cage or kill you if you resist for not turning over the fruits of your labor.
Also, just out of curiosity, does your opinion also extend to soldiers?
Of course not, as you well know and understand, military service is necessarily different by it's very nature. You are not free in the military...any military. That is part of the very nature of a military and has nothing to do with the rights and freedoms that are inherent to free citizens.
The reason the government began to redistribute wealth in the first place is that people didn't give anywhere near enough to charitable organizations on their own, resulting in constant strife.
This is pure and utter horseshit.
Government redistributes wealth to increase politician's power and garner support and votes with "bread and circuses".
The Utopian schemes of re-distribution of the wealth...are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. - Samuel Adams
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy. - Thomas Jefferson
Strat
...I suggest you start reigning in your fellow libertarians to stop them flapping their mouths.
Only that would be against your principles, wouldn't it?
Yes, it would.
Only Leftists/Statists (as they're the same thing for all intents and purposes) want to pass laws & regulations to shut people up and censor and forbid competing speech and ideas, as the ideas of the Left cannot compete in a free & open marketplace of ideas, and must silence opposing ideas and destroy those who espouse them as examples.
As my sig points out, Liberal/Progressive ideas must be mandatory laws, rules, and regulations, where small-"L" libertarian ideas start from the natural state of human freedom. As I pointed out in my post above, "imposing" libertarian principles has no meaning, whereas imposing Leftist/Statist ideas has historically caused hundreds of millions of deaths and the suffering of millions more under despotic, totalitarian regimes.
I know which I prefer.
The other posters who replied to you are perfectly correct. Small government /= no government. There are those on the Left that say they want strict eugenics policies enforced and expect to send about a quarter to a third of the population to death camps if they gained power. Yet, painting them as representing your views would be equally as unfair and inaccurate as what you've done here concerning those with libertarian views.
It might behoove you to stop and actually think critically about what you've been told by others, rather than simply parrot other people's views and ideological dogmas that sound good on the outside, without seriously thinking them through yourself.
Two more principles for you to consider that are true regardless of nation or government:
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The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. - Thomas Jefferson
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy. - Thomas Jefferson
---
Strat
A libertarian utopia...
I stopped reading right there, as there is no such thing, nor have libertarians proposed or suggested such a thing. You're starting with a strawman. Nothing else after that means anything, as it's all a construction of your imagination.
I'll tell you what.
I'm going to unilaterally IMPOSE libertarian principles on you RIGHT NOW!!!!!
I shall FORCE YOU to...
Well, nothing at all, really.
Whatever you do or don't want to do that doesn't actively affect me negatively, like commit unjustified violence or rob someone.
There!
I've unilaterally imposed libertarian values on you.
Do you feel "dirty"?
Strat
Like police, courts, affordable medical care, an army to defend our borders, someone to enforce minimum driving standards, minimum safety standards in the workplace, no child labour, no slave labour and all the million other things the free market has never and will never provide. We need better government, not a free for all that will take us back to feudalism.
We could have police, courts, a top-notch modern national army, minimal workplace standards regarding safety and abusive practices, as well as basic marketplace laws and most all the other essentials for a relatively well-functioning society with a small fraction of what the governments in either country spends and with a fraction of the laws and regulations on the books. Very few laws are ever repealed. There are more than anyone could possibly read and understand. The police can always find a law you've broken if they look hard enough. It's next to impossible to *not* be a lawbreaker and still have a pulse.
There is no "right" to free health care, as nobody has the right to make a slave of people by making another person's labor, like the doctors and nurses that provide care, your right. It's just as wrong and for the exact same reasons as slavery was in pre-Civil-War America. Same with free housing and free food. That's what charitable organizations, groups, and churches are for, and if the government didn't confiscate so much wealth, people would have much more money to give to those charitable organizations, groups, and churches.
It would be great if all we had to do is just turn government loose to provide all these wonderful-seeming things. It's just that whenever a government has been given anywhere near that much power, control of that much of the nation's wealth and economy, and has constructed a large & powerful enough bureaucracy to manage all those things, money, and people, it has always resulted in loss of individual freedom and eventually collapsed, typically into an authoritarian/totalitarian or anarchic, feudal hellhole.
I know TFA concerns the UK, but these principles (among others) espoused below are true regardless of nation.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have. - Thomas Jefferson
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
---
By the way TfL has APPLIED for this ridiculous thing. They haven't been GRANTED it. See the all important difference. Come back in a few months when the judge has told them to fuck off.
Great! I hope the judge tells them right off. The problem is that such things are even being seriously proposed, and all the other things that already HAVE been granted or otherwise permitted to occur. It's not like either the UK or the US has a lack of unjust, unfair, and just plain wrong laws and regulations that destroy freedom and wealth being passed/enacted nearly every day, it seems.
Strat
I thought it referred to laws regarding dead balls in cricket.
Sort of the same, but the "dead balls" in the kind of game the government is playing in TFA is the type inflicted upon anyone that annoys or embarrasses the government. Except an ice-pack won't help in many cases.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
I don't like that game. We've been playing it in the US since at least the 1930s.
Time to change the rules...and the rulers.
Strat
"...hard-line libertarianism..."
Seriously?
So, people who just want to be left alone and not have the government constantly interfering with their lives, taking their earnings away for things they don't agree with and didn't vote for, and (in the case of the US) want it to honor & obey the limitations to the government's powers set out in plain language in the Constitution, without trying to control and regulate everything down to monitoring all our communications, watching us with drones, telling friends they can't talk to each other (UK) and that children can't set up a lemonade stand in their driveway (US) are "hard line" or somehow "extreme"?
Are you freaking kidding me?
I feel almost like I'm in a psychotic and twisted version of that Capital One TV ad, the one where Jimmy Fallon is talking to a baby in a highchair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9CjeZ1Mod0
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Fallon: "Our surveys show everyone likes more freedom and money... [looks at pie chart with tiny sliver marked] Well, almost everyone."
Fallon [Talking To Baby In Highchair]: "Don't you WANT more freedom and money?"
Baby: No!
Fallon: "But, it's MORE FREEDOM AND MONEY!"
Baby: NO!! [Throws Cereal At Fallon]
Fallon [Closeup]: "How much freedom and money has the government taken from YOU?"
Baby: [Off Camera - Throws Fire Extinguisher At Fallon In-Camera]
Fallon [Ducks] WHOA!
---
Thanks, now I have that stuck in my head!
Strat
There are a hundred and one ways to talk to people in this modern age and many of those are anonymous and not easily tracked or monitored.
Ah, but the *individuals themselves* are relatively easy to track & monitor. Besides, I'm sure that if the government is willing to inflict such an Orwellian and illogical/impractical punishment in the first place, I'm sure that, if one or more of these people begin using some anonymous communication method, the government would be more than willing to prohibit them from legally engaging in anonymous communication.
This just seems like one of those sentences which is "harsh" to make a point but doesn't actually make any difference to how these men will communicate. That said, it's also completely ridiculous that these people with no ill intent were made such an example of, and that they were given a punishment which is illogical and far too much trouble than it's worth to enforce.
No surprise. What else would one expect from an authoritarian police state? That's what the UK has become, with the US hot on it's heels in a race to see which country can remove the most privacy, rights, & freedoms from their citizens the fastest.
It's what has always happened throughout history when a government grows too large and powerful. But of course, anyone suggesting smaller government in either nation is painted as a lunatic-fringe extremist that hates the poor, and is probably a racist to boot.
Those pushing for total government power and control over a helpless, powerless, and dependent-on-government-for-basic-survival population see their goals figuratively only inches away from fruition, while citizens who are intelligent and engaged enough to see what's happening and value their and their children's continuing and future freedom are awakening and rising up in opposition.
Hang on boys and girls, because it's going to get VERY nasty and bloody in the next few years in both the UK and the US.
Strat
We do more harm to the earth by damage to the filter(s) that should clean harmful substances from the air and water than all the cars on earth.
Feed lots on major rivers, that flow into salt water, that become "dead zones", no longer able to filter the air, or sustain sea life..
Clear cutting rain forests..
Ignoring the decertification of large areas of Africa and Asia.
You could strip the emission controls off of every car on earth and still not equal the harm done by the damage we are doing to the natural filtering mechanisms...
Cars are an easy, LAZY, target.. Almost everyone has one in their driveway, or can see one nearby.. Not everyone has a feedlot between their home and workplace.. Add to that that the industrial food complex seems to have much more lobbying money behind it than the auto industry...
I'm in no way denying global warming. I'm just saying we need to target the actual sources of continuing environmental damage, and not copy the "security theater" we see in our airports.. This is too important an issue to play politics with...
I think you're getting way too excited. Sure, we could do better at not "soiling our own nest", so to speak. I totally agree that reasonable and sane protections against such things as dangerous air pollution levels and the harmful polluting of rivers, lakes, streams, and the oceans with dangerous chemicals and toxins are only reasonable, sensible, and wise. Part of that equation also has to be costs in relation to the results, both as a matter of raw wealth taken from society, and as a matter of loss of individual rights and freedom to government.
Equally prudent is a wise forest and wildlife management program that also is reasonable and sane, following the rough guidelines I outlined above.
Attempting any large scale active-type climate-control plans or "terra-forming" (like pumping something into the atmosphere to actively modify climate) would be extremely ill-advised at this point in the development of our understanding of global climate systems. "Climate science" has only existed in the modern form for what? Thirty years? Forty years? And people really are confident that humans understand enough about such a massive and massively-complex semi-chaotic system as that of the Earth's global climate system that mucking about with it is a good idea? And we're also sure that political forces aren't involved with throwing weight behind certain conclusions and plans while discrediting opposing views to skew results and scientific community opinion to further certain agendas of the politically ambitious and powerful?
Advocating for large, rapid, destabilizing, and economically damaging measures that would negatively affect the standard of living of hundreds of millions of people or more, while contributing to more poverty, suffering, and death among the poorest people is not the way forward. Such plans have been advocated-for by many on the extreme Liberal/Progressive Left that desire the increased central government powers and control, with the subsequent loss of individual freedoms, privacy, decreased living standards, and increased taxes/fees/fines and other costs imposed on people and businesses that it would require to manage and enforce such plans, as a way to advance their particular ideology and increase their personal power, control, and wealth.
The Earth is currently on the upward swing of a warming period after the relatively-recent ice age. If this cycle follows previous cycles to any significant degree, we still have a good way to go to reach the peak of the current warming cycle.
This will happen pretty much no matter what man does.
Perhaps this will help put it into perspective a little: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0aFPXr4n4
Strat
Well, a British company caused the biggest spill in history (BP/Deepwater Horizon)
Yes, after which Obama halted all US offshore drilling, just as I said in my OP. See those words? *ALL US* offshore drilling?
Do you think BP (BRITISH Petroleum) is an American company? Or are you referring to Halliburton? Or Transocean?
Oh, you were trying to imply (lie) that Obama was taking business away from American companies to give them to Brazilian ones.
Ohhhh. I get it now. You're a partisan apologist.
Thought for a few moments there you actually had something serious to bring to the discussion.
Sorry, carry on.
Strat
Yeah, shutting down off shore drilling is insane. I mean, it's not like anything happened.
No, Obama and his administration did NOT shut down offshore drilling, not even in the area of the doomed Deep Horizon platform in the Gulf.
He simply turned it over to people he likes better than US oil companies.
The oil company Petrobras of Brazil that George Soros heavily invested in just prior to Obama's decision. Obama even announced that the US was going to start engaging in more oil business with Brazil like it was a great thing.
But, I'm sure that having Brazil's oil company do the drilling rather than US companies will turn out to be much safer and better for the environment
Safer for Obama, his corrupt cronies, and the Left's agenda, not the Gulf of Mexico's environment. Of course, the environmental groups all ignore his actions, which just proves that the majority of the environmental movement organizations are simply partisan political action groups.
Strat
Why block GPS? What do criminals gain from it? Genuine Queston.
What I'm surprised by is the apparent lack of incidents involving criminals using broad-banded jammers to kill ALL radio-based communications in a certain area.
For instance, in the case of police conducting a taskforce drug-sweep through a gang-controlled neighborhood/apartment complex/etc, I could easily imagine the gang's lookouts giving the sign when the cops & SWAT starts to roll into the area, the gangsters then start up the jammers, killing all police radios as well as cell phones, GPS, and anything else depending on radio.
That would remove an absolutely enormous tactical advantage from the police if they are unable to call for assistance or relay information about suspect activities, whereabouts, direction of travel, or even that an officer (or many) has/have been shot and is/are bleeding out in the alley behind the target building while the suspects safely escape.
A mobile version in a criminal's vehicle would also be a great help in losing or ambushing pursuing officers.
As a former amateur radio operator and RF electronics technician, it really wouldn't take much in material costs to rig up a series of car battery powered broadband jammers able to block any radio or GPS use within a couple-block area. You could probably pick up everything one would need to construct such a jamming system for less than a couple hundred dollars (depending on your haggling skills) from the typical amateur radio "hamfest" used electronics buy/sell/trade event and not leave a paper trail.
Now, THAT should send chills down LE spines! Without his/her radio/cellphone, a cop is just another asshole with a gun, and dies just as easily. Hopefully, the uniforms and shiny bits should make them stand out and easily enough sorted from bystanders by the gang's snipers to avoid most collateral casualties.
Hmm. Maybe I should work up some schematic drawings and layouts, and post them online if I get some spare time. I wonder if DHS/ICE would have the drawings taken off the 'net?
Strat
You just present a point of view in the most light and easy to read way. Ever tried comedy? (no joke here)
Seriously, thanks! Comes from decades of playing in club/bar bands and having to keep crowds entertained in between sets/songs/broken-string-replacements/equipment failures/band changes/etc. The ability to make people laugh is a matter of survival when playing a gig in a bar-full of drunk & rowdy patched-up outlaw bikers, where the smallest biker still resembles Mongo's bigger and angrier brother packing a semi-auto pistol.
Apparently, however, someone with mod points doesn't appreciate my sense of humor (my OP was modded "Troll").
At any rate, exascale computing systems are what's required to analyze even the amount of data they already collect, never mind what they're pushing to collect in the near future, which will grow the analysis problem by orders of magnitude.
Strat
Why is everyone pushing for exascale computing? What is such a super computer used for? Couldn't a massive distributed system work just as well?
No, not for what they really intend such a system for.
How exactly do you think that the governments are going to perform threat/intelligence analysis of all that data, video, and audio they're collecting both on the internet and from all the CCTV cams, cellphones, and those 30,000 new government drones that will be patrolling the US domestic skies, especially with all the recent data-retention and snooping laws nearly all the Western governments have been, or trying to, implement? Especially for analysis done on anything approaching real-time.
The Digital Police State requires serious computing power, Citizen! Now, go change that shirt! We know you've worn that one for 2 days, and you just bought a new blue shirt at Walmart last week on your way back from seeing that hooker. Also, we've noted you've not gotten enough fiber lately. Please have at least 3 bowls of that new fiber cereal this week. It's in the top right-hand cabinet above the sink.
And stop cursing at your dog when he gets hair on your work pants in the morning. A child may walk past your window. Note - Please wash your windows. The camera on the pole down the block is detecting smudges. You may be subject to fines or secret imprisonment for interfering with or avoiding police observation under the recent and secretly-passed anti-terrorism Nothing To Hide Because I'm Not A Dirty File-Trading Pedo-Terrorist Act.
Remember! We watch you because we love & trust you, and we have your best interests at heart!
Honest!
Strat
instead of cheaper less destructive technologies.
If there were actually cheaper less destructive technologies, that would be a huge opportunity for profit, and somebody would be stepping up to cash in on the gravy train. The only way any of these alternatives are "cheaper" is in the sense that the government uses money taken from taxpayers to subsidize them. At some point, you run out of other people's money.
The oil industry can do just fine without subsidies and I support taking them off the government teat. However, alternate energy sources require huge subsidies just to exist. They simply aren't mature enough yet because human knowledge and technology levels are not yet high enough. Replicators and transporters would be great too, but we haven't advanced that far there, either.
Once the technology is mature enough that someone can make money from it, no government subsidies will be needed. Even Germany, which President Obama recently praised for "green" energy initiatives, has just implemented massive cuts to such government initiatives, as they've seen by the results that it's throwing money down a rathole at this point in time.
However I would argue that Greece's woes stem not from large government debt but from not having control of their currency.
Having control of their currency enables a nation to inflate it's money to ease debt, as the US has been doing of late with "quantitative easing", a fancy name for running the money presses without wealth to back the money up. This takes wealth away from anyone holding that currency. It's a not-so-hidden tax on everyone that holds that currency. It's one of a number of things that drives up inflation. The US (and I believe Britain) have changed the way they calculate inflation numbers along with a slew of other important economic health indicator numbers to try to avoid panic.
Britain has had a debt exceeding GDP for 81 of the last 170 years, much of that during a time in which living standards rose drastically.
Britain is also now at the mercy of foreign nations, banks, and lending institutions. It suffered greatly as a result of Black Wednesday (although currency speculators like George Soros who made ~$1B) and has endured frightening inflation rates. It sacrificed it's place among the most powerful nations on the planet to finance an elevated lifestyle beyond their means. Britain is also becoming increasingly economically unstable. The EU is on the verge of economic collapse as well.
Sorry, but the Krugman/NYT cite is a non-starter for me. Krugman has seldom been proven correct, and the NYT has become a partisan rag with all the credibility of The Onion.
When a group of nations are tied financially so tightly and running large debts as many/most in the West are now, it's a situation of Mutually Assured Economic Destruction. Any one nation (if large enough) or subset of nations which acts irresponsibly can start an economic chain reaction that will collapse the economies of the other nations.
Also, at a certain point, such countries will not be able to borrow money to operate on at interest rates that are realistic. Once that happens, the money printing goes into overdrive and inflation skyrockets. Other countries eventually stop trading with them, at least in fiat currency.
Greece went too far into debt to provide public entitlements and public-union wages & pensions. Public unions (unions of government employees) are horrid and extremely unfair institutions because they bargain with politicians to spend other people's money. Nothing wrong with private sector unions, but government unions are an abomination and have played central roles in the collapse of many nations and were key to ushering in totalitarian/Socialist/Communist/Fascist governments many times through modern history.
The politicians in Greece were buying votes with public money the same as has been occurring in the US. That was one of my points in my above posts. The US will share Greece's fate if drastic measures to reduce government spending and debt are not enacted, and soon. If the US economy collapses, Britain and many other nations will be driven close to collapse as well.
Strat