When you first talk about "massive wealth redistribution", "crippling industries and economies" and "massive lowering of lifestyle" it's a pretty sure bet that your objections are more ideological than scientific.
I'm simply stating the things that would necessarily have to happen as a consequence of enacting the measures that have been proposed to combat AGW. Just as Obama stated that electric power rates would "necessarily skyrocket" in order to implement a carbon cap and trade system.
"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." -- Barack Obama, January 17, 2008
Talk to real scientists: consensus among those most familiar with the field is all that is available to science.
My neighbor IS a scientist. He's a published physicist. I showed him your original post I first replied to. He laughed. That's where I got that about bunnies and unicorns, and consensus being a political state, not proof or disproof of a scientific theory. Those were his words, not mine.
Yes, it is possible that the few vocal critics are correct; if so, please pony up the extraordinary evidence to support your extraordinary claim so we may be convinced.
AGW believers first, since you're the ones that want massive wealth redistribution, crippling of industries and economies, and massive lowering of modern Western lifestyle quality.
So far, there hasn't been enough credible evidence to convince enough people. Until you can provide enough credible evidence (no, a software model won't do it) to convince most people, the AGW agenda ain't happening no matter how condescending and elitist you act or how many shrill diatribes you scream or how loud you scream them.
Consensus doesn't prove or disprove a scientific theory. Consensus has as much to do with scientific theory as do fluffy bunnies or unicorns. Only hard data and repeatable empiric experimental results do that. Consensus is a political state, not a scientific method. Consensus is how religions settle on their particular dogmas. Please stop pretending otherwise. You're destroying all public credibility in science and scientific research by persisting in spreading such misinformation.
No, it's pretty correct. The demonizing of the poor by the right wing shows that they truly have that "fuck the poor" attitude.
Wow. "Demonizing of the poor"? You liked the kool-aid so much you bought the whole factory, eh?
It's not that they have a "different idea". It's that they are actively trying to parrot shit that absolutely does not work, and are trying to bring about outcomes that have no basis in reality.
And of course your opinion, as that's what it is, is the only valid one. That's a lot of hubris, and typical elitist-think. Sorry to disappoint you but a whole lot of people, a whole lot smarter & better-informed and educated than you, disagree with you.
They want to remove funding for scholarships used by poor people, yet still expect those people to be able to go to college.
Wanting college loans to be done the way they've been done for decades, and not taken over by a bloated government bureaucracy, is NOT "removing funding" or preventing people from going to school. Or do you prefer to have the IRS perform armed SWAT team raids on those behind on their government student loans as has already happened, rather than a collections letter from the local bank?
"Well, you should have worked harder. Then you could have made something of yourself." All the while conveniently forgetting that YOU were the result of the same aid you would seek to deny others.
What aid? My family and I were poor. I worked my way through school. I paid my own tuition, bought my own books, materials, etc. I sacrificed and ate a lot of ramen. I didn't own a car. I didn't have cable. Or internet. As a result I valued my educational opportunity and worked and studied very hard, as I earned it myself. And before you complain that today's tuitions have grown too expensive to do that, the schools have raised their tuitions because they know the government will pay.
Why do people like you refuse to see that marriage is NOT a religious institution, it is a civil one? I can go down to the courthouse and get married, with absolutely no context of religion. How does that fit into your worldview that it's a religious institution.
Slavery was also a civil institution at one time. Slave owners registered their slaves down at the local courthouse. Just because something is or has been a "civil institution" is not a valid reason why it shouldn't be changed or abolished.
Pure demagoguery. Just because someone else has a different idea on how best to help the poor that you either disagree with or are incapable of understanding doesn't mean they don't genuinely care for those less fortunate. Please stop blindly following talking points and try a little mental effort on your part while applying intellectual honesty.
...and don't believe gay marriage is a civil right. By that, I mean they are perfectly fine with states banning gay marriage,...
Actually, they don't believe government should have anything to do with marriage, period. Marriage is a religious ceremony. Government should not be in the business of regulating religious ceremonies, whether they be straight, gay, or otherwise, any more than they believe that the government should regulate what days one may worship, the length of ceremonies, which texts may be read and distributed, or the type of candles to be burned.
They oppose gay marriage as an expansion of government power that shouldn't exist in the first place. Why is everyone on the left so opposed to government being involved in anything remotely religious *except* when it comes to the religious institution of marriage?
...one of the big problems with giving patients too much information is that they will take it and - lacking medical training - use it to jump to the wrong conclusions, imagining all kinds of ailments that they just don't have.
Or, they might discover what their real ailment is, or maybe that none exists, and/or that the doctor is simply prescribing whatever the big pharma sales reps are comping them the most for prescribing this quarter and not what's in the patient's best medical interests.
Expect a huge push-back against this idea from big pharma and those tied to them, along with those that share common interests and goals in government and the private sector.
You control people's health and healthcare, you control those people...period. That's a lot of power, and certain to be a target of anyone wishing to exert control over a population. The first goal in removing people's power over their own health and healthcare is removing the ability to know and own their own medical history and test/diagnosis/prognosis/treatment data.
It reminds me a bit of the medieval Catholic Church that didn't allow non-Latin bibles to be printed or services to be spoken in anything other than Latin. Some of the same motivations may be contributing to opposition to patients owning/possessing their medical data.
Don't make me admit that greaseball did something actually useful! Argh!
Maybe you have more in common with constitutional conservatives and the TEA Party than you think.
By the "TEA Party" I mean the individual local groups...not that group that attempts to paint itself as the "official national" TEA Party...it's not and never was either "official" or "national" and does not represent the views of the majority of the thousands of local TEA Party groups and their members. The TEA Party consists of thousands of relatively small local groups and intentionally has no national leaders.
The national group and certain individuals attempting to portray itself/themselves as the "official national" TEA Party leadership is nothing but a creation of the Republican Party "establishment" (with collusion from "establishment" Democrats) as an attempt to either co-opt or destroy the TEA Party, as the TEA Party is an existential threat to the political "establishment" of *both* major parties that has brought us Democrats and Republicans that are little different in their actions and policies once elected.
TSA finds 4 guns per day at airports [nydailynews.com]
Do you have anything to fix that?
Yes, a program to arm every willing, able, and competent aircraft passenger and aircraft crew member with a pistol loaded with low-velocity ammo.
Only 4 guns a day is a pathetic showing. We can do much better.
Maybe it's time to start up "Bring Your Gun To The Airport" flash mobs where hundreds and hundreds show up armed at every major airport in the US at the same time. Flood the system. A real-world "DDoS" attack.
Funny thing. You could substitute breast milk for a gun and have nearly the same effect. The TSA in it's infinite "wisdom" seems to consider both to be equal threats. I think somebody in charge of rule-making at the TSA was never breast-fed and still clings to the pain of their deprivation.
Are 100% of drone attacks done via a remote with a human at the other end?
Unknown. I'd think that information is probably classified. Although, I doubt they'd be buying UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle) if they didn't plan to use them, or are already using them.
Whether or not armed drones of either variety have been used domestically, I've not heard of any instances of that occurring.
Yet.
They are currently using unarmed remotely-piloted drones for domestic surveillance, so I have to believe that sooner or later the same people who let guns be sold to drug cartels and that raid Amish farms and Gibson Guitar Corp. with heavily-armed SWAT teams will try to expand armed drone and armed autonomous UCAV usage to domestic use. It is almost inevitable unless there are major reversals in the growth of government and government power, and not just a party change between political parties that both work to increase the government's size and power.
I suppose that distances the human pilot from the napalm, but I imagine that most sane pilots would still refuse to napalm a crowd of civilians.
Depends on the pilots. There are always those who will blindly follow orders and not ask questions. This is where autonomous drones can come in handy. No screening and testing pilots to find those who would napalm their own civilians needed. Just a TLA suit pulling up to the flight-line with orders/authorization papers, and carrying a sealed, ready-to-be-plugged-into-the-drone mission data module.
Well unity100, you may have me tagged as "Freak" in your "relationships" user settings, but here, lo and behold, we agree.
I actually am one of those artists, and if anything, you give the record labels and content cartels too much positive credit. Calling them larcenous rat-bastards is an insult to larcenous rat-bastards everywhere.
The poster you replied to is without clue, as you've shown.
You know these SOBs have to be *really* bad, when even political/ideological polar-opposites like unity100 and myself can find common ground in opposing their agendas and behaviors.
Drones may not object on humanitarian grounds, but they're basically just tricked out RC planes, and the people operating them are just as capable of refusing an order as a jet pilot or a member of the national guard or a cop.
Actually, the more important question is capability. I mean, I don't really care if it takes 3 drones to do the job of 1 manned aircraft if they can do the same job, and the drones cost less than 1/3 the cost of a manned aircraft. If you have cheap, "disposable" drones, you don't care if they get destroyed by the enemy - no pilot, no casualties.
Where a drone is of particular usefulness is in situations where your pilots might rebel and refuse to carry out your orders. Like launching a Hellfire or dropping some napalm into a crowd of your own nation's domestic civilian protesters.
Drones don't refuse to carry out orders or object on moral, humanitarian, or legal grounds. They don't leak mission details to reporters or investigators/prosecutors, even years later. What dictator or ruling elite wouldn't cream themselves over the idea of having a tame "Skynet" do most of the "heavy-lifting" of the suppression, enforcement, and punishment work of controlling a captive population under tyranny?
Drones (unarmed...for now) are already being used domestically. There are already calls from some in civilian law enforcement for armed drones for use against violent suspects. This is scary stuff. I can imagine only too easily how "mission creep" and incremental expansions in the laws could see widespread domestic civilian LE use of armed military drones in the relatively near future.
For that matter, seeing what the US government will already do and what lengths they will already go to openly, I would be shocked if there weren't already armed drones being used domestically by the military and/or one of the alphabet agencies, or a "we don't exist" special department that handles the tracking and elimination of "domestic civilian enemies of the state".
It's like I've always said, the system selects for people who are good at getting elected, which has little to do with how they will perform in office.
Agreed. It's like the old Groucho Marx quote; "I wouldn't want to join a club that would have me as a member!".
There seems to be an inverse relationship, when you get right down to it.
Of course. It makes perfect sense if one uses the actual names for who is being discussed, pitchmen and statesmen. One is an expert at sales & marketing, the other helps guide the fates of peoples and nations.
The qualities that make superior pitchmen versus statesmen are nearly polar opposites, if one accepts the premise that such things as being honest, truthful, competent, consistent, forthright, bold, visionary, and charitable are desirable qualities in a statesman.
I'm hoping that the internet helps people find the statesmen, elect them while helping keep them in check, and out the pitchmen. Which, of course, is precisely the reason pitchmen and those in power wish to control the internet, who is allowed to do what on it, and what can be published on it.
In the constant struggle of people against forever-encroaching government power, abuse, and corruption, the internet has seriously escalated the arms race between them in the people's favor. Of course government will have to respond. The threat to their corruption and lust for more power is too great to ignore.
Currently they respond with attempts at control because they believe they can control and use it to their advantage. Once it becomes clear that they cannot control it, they will attempt to destroy it, likely by carving it up into regional/national or even strictly local, heavily-monitored nets.
We *shifted* the majority of our carbon emissions involved in manufacturing to China. A lot of China's emissions should be charged to *us*.
If that means that the industrial manufacturing base with all the low and middle income jobs and real wealth generation that goes with it, that followed our carbon emissions to China, returns to the US with the "charges", I say "where do we sign"?
Don't get too happy. Raise it high enough and people will start doing what they do in S. America to obtain chemicals and fuel to operate jungle coke labs. They illegally tap oil pipelines and perform crude and extremely polluting jungle refining, killing huge tracts of rainforest and polluting ground water and rivers.
But there's already a computer in your car.
In my 1968 Ford F-100? Really?
When you go for your emissions control test, you get a multiplier and a bill comes in the mail.
No emissions testing or vehicle inspections here, sorry. Even if there were, "vintage" vehicles are exempt.
See? I'm good at this tyranny stuff.
Sorry, you're a rank beginner compared to those currently in power.
Especially when it comes to the destruction of the environment.
So you're OK with a police state as long as the air is clean when you're given permission to breathe? I know one shouldn't set impossibly-high standards for one's lifestyle, but c'mon!
If I go to the park and light a cigarette, I'm an enemy of the state...
I feel your pain.
but if you've got a locomotive-sized SUV and you're spending hours every day sucking up natural resources and spewing filth into the air, you're considered an a-number-one mom-loving American living free or making others die. Screw that.
But then you go and ruin the sympathy I was feeling for your smoker-discrimination pain with that. You're aware that the same fuel you plan to tax the crap out of is also the same high-cost fuel that businesses, doctors, and everyone else who drives will pay for and then pass those costs along not only to you and I, but also to the very poorest as well, right? And little wheelchair-bound Timmy and his wheelchair-adapted van can sit and rot. His parents can carry/drag him on the city bus or subway if he has to see a doctor or go to the next town over.
They already pay more taxes because they buy more gas. That is the magic of percentages.
Well, then it's time to introduce them to the magic of progressive taxation. The more gas you use carrying your butt from A to B, the higher percentage you should pay.
And we do that until their luxury liners start to shrink.
Hell yeah! We'll track everyone's vehicles with GPS and checkpoints to keep track of fuel usage/efficiency! Set up a travel permit system to eliminate unnecessary/undesirable travel! Maybe institute an electronic ration card system for fuel!
It's always been cheaper to eat good food than to buy junk food.
Not where I'm at in the Great Lakes area about halfway between Detroit and Chicago. Fresh produce and the healthier alternatives typically sell for a premium price. It's fairly standard supermarket/food industry practice to charge a premium price for items that carry what they consider to be marketing buzz-words to be monetized. Anything that can be labeled with (or could be said to naturally be) "fresh", "organic", "low fat", "all natural", "diet", "sugar free", "low cholesterol", "low sodium", etc etc always costs more than the less-"healthy" alternatives.
At typical food prices in this area and with what a poor person receives in food stamps, it's a struggle to simply get enough calories of any kind to last them all month. Eating a healthy diet as recommended by the FLOTUS and others would mean that this poor person would probably run out of food somewhere around the end of the third week of the month, maybe sooner. Either that, or be undernourished to some degree all month.
That's the reality many face; do they choose to eat unhealthy or go without eating some days, or not eat enough any day.
You assume that the inventor is a corporation that can continue a trend of innovation, and not instead you or me in a garage somewhere.
There are many independent individual inventors that have hundreds of patents and many successful products. Quantity (corporate cubical-farms of wage-slaves) doesn't always trump quality (a single individual with drive, talent, intellect, and ability). You may well get a higher number of patents from a cubical-farm, but the individual inventor is more likely IMHO to come up with something that is truly game-changing.
One big advantage a large business has is the marketing skills, capital, and ability to monetize an invention and/or patent. Sadly, even in situations where available capital isn't the issue, the single inventor suffers because most don't have the skills to develop and market their invention and/or use their patent(s) to best advantage.
One other point. The "Corporation(TM) VS Inventor" theme isn't always so pure and simple like the movies. Many corporations formed as a result of an inventor coming up with a product or idea and forming a corporation so as to gather people around to help with the development/marketing/monetization that he may not have the skills for, as I mentioned above. So, you may have a situation where a small inventor is selling his invention/patent to another, more-successful inventor who formed a corporation. Thus, the invention is more likely to see development and actual production than if it had languished in somebody's garage.
The problem isn't big corporations, it's corrupt government that's turned the patent/trademark/copyright systems into competition-suppression systems. History shows that in general, corruption in government tracks with the size of government, regardless of type of government, with few exceptions. Not how wealthy corporations or individuals are.
It's not the Internet that is the subject of our liberty but the access to it.
Reminds me of a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
It's the principle that you are guaranteed the unrestricted opportunity to get or do something as an individual, not that government must pay your expenses in doing so.
Slashdot Mirror
When you first talk about "massive wealth redistribution", "crippling industries and economies" and "massive lowering of lifestyle" it's a pretty sure bet that your objections are more ideological than scientific.
I'm simply stating the things that would necessarily have to happen as a consequence of enacting the measures that have been proposed to combat AGW. Just as Obama stated that electric power rates would "necessarily skyrocket" in order to implement a carbon cap and trade system.
"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." -- Barack Obama, January 17, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4
Is Obama being "more ideological than scientific"?
Strat
Talk to real scientists: consensus among those most familiar with the field is all that is available to science.
My neighbor IS a scientist. He's a published physicist. I showed him your original post I first replied to. He laughed. That's where I got that about bunnies and unicorns, and consensus being a political state, not proof or disproof of a scientific theory. Those were his words, not mine.
Strat
Yes, it is possible that the few vocal critics are correct; if so, please pony up the extraordinary evidence to support your extraordinary claim so we may be convinced.
AGW believers first, since you're the ones that want massive wealth redistribution, crippling of industries and economies, and massive lowering of modern Western lifestyle quality.
So far, there hasn't been enough credible evidence to convince enough people. Until you can provide enough credible evidence (no, a software model won't do it) to convince most people, the AGW agenda ain't happening no matter how condescending and elitist you act or how many shrill diatribes you scream or how loud you scream them.
Consensus doesn't prove or disprove a scientific theory. Consensus has as much to do with scientific theory as do fluffy bunnies or unicorns. Only hard data and repeatable empiric experimental results do that. Consensus is a political state, not a scientific method. Consensus is how religions settle on their particular dogmas. Please stop pretending otherwise. You're destroying all public credibility in science and scientific research by persisting in spreading such misinformation.
Strat
That is quite frankly the most asinine opinion regarding the topic I have ever read.
----- /. liberal/Progressive translation routine, please standby...
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Yes, it DID destroy your argument quite thoroughly, didn't it? :D
Strat
No, it's pretty correct. The demonizing of the poor by the right wing shows that they truly have that "fuck the poor" attitude.
Wow. "Demonizing of the poor"? You liked the kool-aid so much you bought the whole factory, eh?
It's not that they have a "different idea". It's that they are actively trying to parrot shit that absolutely does not work, and are trying to bring about outcomes that have no basis in reality.
And of course your opinion, as that's what it is, is the only valid one. That's a lot of hubris, and typical elitist-think. Sorry to disappoint you but a whole lot of people, a whole lot smarter & better-informed and educated than you, disagree with you.
They want to remove funding for scholarships used by poor people, yet still expect those people to be able to go to college.
Wanting college loans to be done the way they've been done for decades, and not taken over by a bloated government bureaucracy, is NOT "removing funding" or preventing people from going to school. Or do you prefer to have the IRS perform armed SWAT team raids on those behind on their government student loans as has already happened, rather than a collections letter from the local bank?
"Well, you should have worked harder. Then you could have made something of yourself." All the while conveniently forgetting that YOU were the result of the same aid you would seek to deny others.
What aid? My family and I were poor. I worked my way through school. I paid my own tuition, bought my own books, materials, etc. I sacrificed and ate a lot of ramen. I didn't own a car. I didn't have cable. Or internet. As a result I valued my educational opportunity and worked and studied very hard, as I earned it myself. And before you complain that today's tuitions have grown too expensive to do that, the schools have raised their tuitions because they know the government will pay.
Why do people like you refuse to see that marriage is NOT a religious institution, it is a civil one? I can go down to the courthouse and get married, with absolutely no context of religion. How does that fit into your worldview that it's a religious institution.
Slavery was also a civil institution at one time. Slave owners registered their slaves down at the local courthouse. Just because something is or has been a "civil institution" is not a valid reason why it shouldn't be changed or abolished.
Strat
Most of them are still "Fuck the poor!"
Pure demagoguery. Just because someone else has a different idea on how best to help the poor that you either disagree with or are incapable of understanding doesn't mean they don't genuinely care for those less fortunate. Please stop blindly following talking points and try a little mental effort on your part while applying intellectual honesty.
...and don't believe gay marriage is a civil right. By that, I mean they are perfectly fine with states banning gay marriage,...
Actually, they don't believe government should have anything to do with marriage, period. Marriage is a religious ceremony. Government should not be in the business of regulating religious ceremonies, whether they be straight, gay, or otherwise, any more than they believe that the government should regulate what days one may worship, the length of ceremonies, which texts may be read and distributed, or the type of candles to be burned.
They oppose gay marriage as an expansion of government power that shouldn't exist in the first place. Why is everyone on the left so opposed to government being involved in anything remotely religious *except* when it comes to the religious institution of marriage?
Strat
...one of the big problems with giving patients too much information is that they will take it and - lacking medical training - use it to jump to the wrong conclusions, imagining all kinds of ailments that they just don't have.
Or, they might discover what their real ailment is, or maybe that none exists, and/or that the doctor is simply prescribing whatever the big pharma sales reps are comping them the most for prescribing this quarter and not what's in the patient's best medical interests.
Expect a huge push-back against this idea from big pharma and those tied to them, along with those that share common interests and goals in government and the private sector.
You control people's health and healthcare, you control those people...period. That's a lot of power, and certain to be a target of anyone wishing to exert control over a population. The first goal in removing people's power over their own health and healthcare is removing the ability to know and own their own medical history and test/diagnosis/prognosis/treatment data.
It reminds me a bit of the medieval Catholic Church that didn't allow non-Latin bibles to be printed or services to be spoken in anything other than Latin. Some of the same motivations may be contributing to opposition to patients owning/possessing their medical data.
Strat
Don't make me admit that greaseball did something actually useful! Argh!
Maybe you have more in common with constitutional conservatives and the TEA Party than you think.
By the "TEA Party" I mean the individual local groups...not that group that attempts to paint itself as the "official national" TEA Party...it's not and never was either "official" or "national" and does not represent the views of the majority of the thousands of local TEA Party groups and their members. The TEA Party consists of thousands of relatively small local groups and intentionally has no national leaders.
The national group and certain individuals attempting to portray itself/themselves as the "official national" TEA Party leadership is nothing but a creation of the Republican Party "establishment" (with collusion from "establishment" Democrats) as an attempt to either co-opt or destroy the TEA Party, as the TEA Party is an existential threat to the political "establishment" of *both* major parties that has brought us Democrats and Republicans that are little different in their actions and policies once elected.
Strat
TSA finds 4 guns per day at airports [nydailynews.com]
Do you have anything to fix that?
Yes, a program to arm every willing, able, and competent aircraft passenger and aircraft crew member with a pistol loaded with low-velocity ammo.
Only 4 guns a day is a pathetic showing. We can do much better.
Maybe it's time to start up "Bring Your Gun To The Airport" flash mobs where hundreds and hundreds show up armed at every major airport in the US at the same time. Flood the system. A real-world "DDoS" attack.
Funny thing. You could substitute breast milk for a gun and have nearly the same effect. The TSA in it's infinite "wisdom" seems to consider both to be equal threats. I think somebody in charge of rule-making at the TSA was never breast-fed and still clings to the pain of their deprivation.
Strat
Are 100% of drone attacks done via a remote with a human at the other end?
Unknown. I'd think that information is probably classified. Although, I doubt they'd be buying UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle) if they didn't plan to use them, or are already using them.
Whether or not armed drones of either variety have been used domestically, I've not heard of any instances of that occurring.
Yet.
They are currently using unarmed remotely-piloted drones for domestic surveillance, so I have to believe that sooner or later the same people who let guns be sold to drug cartels and that raid Amish farms and Gibson Guitar Corp. with heavily-armed SWAT teams will try to expand armed drone and armed autonomous UCAV usage to domestic use. It is almost inevitable unless there are major reversals in the growth of government and government power, and not just a party change between political parties that both work to increase the government's size and power.
I suppose that distances the human pilot from the napalm, but I imagine that most sane pilots would still refuse to napalm a crowd of civilians.
Depends on the pilots. There are always those who will blindly follow orders and not ask questions. This is where autonomous drones can come in handy. No screening and testing pilots to find those who would napalm their own civilians needed. Just a TLA suit pulling up to the flight-line with orders/authorization papers, and carrying a sealed, ready-to-be-plugged-into-the-drone mission data module.
Strat
Well unity100, you may have me tagged as "Freak" in your "relationships" user settings, but here, lo and behold, we agree.
I actually am one of those artists, and if anything, you give the record labels and content cartels too much positive credit. Calling them larcenous rat-bastards is an insult to larcenous rat-bastards everywhere.
The poster you replied to is without clue, as you've shown.
You know these SOBs have to be *really* bad, when even political/ideological polar-opposites like unity100 and myself can find common ground in opposing their agendas and behaviors.
Strat
You do realize drones don't pilot themselves, right?
You're wrong, sorry. There are already autonomous armed drones in US military service. See my post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2613584&cid=38654478
Strat
You do realize that drones are still piloted by human pilots right?
You do realize that not all armed drones are remote-piloted, and that the X-47B autonomous drone is already in service, right?
See my post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2613584&cid=38654478
Strat
Except Armed Drones still require human intervention and guidance.
Sorry, that's not true of all armed US drones. The X-47B is autonomous. See my post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2613584&cid=38654478
Strat
The more you know: Drones have pilots, just not in the cockpit.
See my post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2613584&cid=38654478
Not all drones use remote piloting. Autonomous drones are already in use.
The more you know.
Strat
Drones may not object on humanitarian grounds, but they're basically just tricked out RC planes, and the people operating them are just as capable of refusing an order as a jet pilot or a member of the national guard or a cop.
See my comment here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2613584&cid=38654478
The X-47B is an autonomous drone. More and more will be coming online.
Strat
Drones still have to be piloted, they're just piloted remotely.
Not strictly true anymore. Say "hello" to the Northrop-Grumman X-47B. Say it nicely, though.
http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/nucasx47b/index.html
http://www.gizmag.com/x-47b-first-flight-the-era-of-the-autonomous-unmanned-combat-plane-approaches/17817/
Strat
Actually, the more important question is capability. I mean, I don't really care if it takes 3 drones to do the job of 1 manned aircraft if they can do the same job, and the drones cost less than 1/3 the cost of a manned aircraft. If you have cheap, "disposable" drones, you don't care if they get destroyed by the enemy - no pilot, no casualties.
Where a drone is of particular usefulness is in situations where your pilots might rebel and refuse to carry out your orders. Like launching a Hellfire or dropping some napalm into a crowd of your own nation's domestic civilian protesters.
Drones don't refuse to carry out orders or object on moral, humanitarian, or legal grounds. They don't leak mission details to reporters or investigators/prosecutors, even years later. What dictator or ruling elite wouldn't cream themselves over the idea of having a tame "Skynet" do most of the "heavy-lifting" of the suppression, enforcement, and punishment work of controlling a captive population under tyranny?
Drones (unarmed...for now) are already being used domestically. There are already calls from some in civilian law enforcement for armed drones for use against violent suspects. This is scary stuff. I can imagine only too easily how "mission creep" and incremental expansions in the laws could see widespread domestic civilian LE use of armed military drones in the relatively near future.
For that matter, seeing what the US government will already do and what lengths they will already go to openly, I would be shocked if there weren't already armed drones being used domestically by the military and/or one of the alphabet agencies, or a "we don't exist" special department that handles the tracking and elimination of "domestic civilian enemies of the state".
Strat
It's like I've always said, the system selects for people who are good at getting elected, which has little to do with how they will perform in office.
Agreed. It's like the old Groucho Marx quote; "I wouldn't want to join a club that would have me as a member!".
There seems to be an inverse relationship, when you get right down to it.
Of course. It makes perfect sense if one uses the actual names for who is being discussed, pitchmen and statesmen. One is an expert at sales & marketing, the other helps guide the fates of peoples and nations.
The qualities that make superior pitchmen versus statesmen are nearly polar opposites, if one accepts the premise that such things as being honest, truthful, competent, consistent, forthright, bold, visionary, and charitable are desirable qualities in a statesman.
I'm hoping that the internet helps people find the statesmen, elect them while helping keep them in check, and out the pitchmen. Which, of course, is precisely the reason pitchmen and those in power wish to control the internet, who is allowed to do what on it, and what can be published on it.
In the constant struggle of people against forever-encroaching government power, abuse, and corruption, the internet has seriously escalated the arms race between them in the people's favor. Of course government will have to respond. The threat to their corruption and lust for more power is too great to ignore.
Currently they respond with attempts at control because they believe they can control and use it to their advantage. Once it becomes clear that they cannot control it, they will attempt to destroy it, likely by carving it up into regional/national or even strictly local, heavily-monitored nets.
Strat
We *shifted* the majority of our carbon emissions involved in manufacturing to China. A lot of China's emissions should be charged to *us*.
If that means that the industrial manufacturing base with all the low and middle income jobs and real wealth generation that goes with it, that followed our carbon emissions to China, returns to the US with the "charges", I say "where do we sign"?
Strat
A simple tax per gallon gets the job done.
Don't get too happy. Raise it high enough and people will start doing what they do in S. America to obtain chemicals and fuel to operate jungle coke labs. They illegally tap oil pipelines and perform crude and extremely polluting jungle refining, killing huge tracts of rainforest and polluting ground water and rivers.
But there's already a computer in your car.
In my 1968 Ford F-100? Really?
When you go for your emissions control test, you get a multiplier and a bill comes in the mail.
No emissions testing or vehicle inspections here, sorry. Even if there were, "vintage" vehicles are exempt.
See? I'm good at this tyranny stuff.
Sorry, you're a rank beginner compared to those currently in power.
Especially when it comes to the destruction of the environment.
So you're OK with a police state as long as the air is clean when you're given permission to breathe? I know one shouldn't set impossibly-high standards for one's lifestyle, but c'mon!
If I go to the park and light a cigarette, I'm an enemy of the state...
I feel your pain.
but if you've got a locomotive-sized SUV and you're spending hours every day sucking up natural resources and spewing filth into the air, you're considered an a-number-one mom-loving American living free or making others die. Screw that.
But then you go and ruin the sympathy I was feeling for your smoker-discrimination pain with that. You're aware that the same fuel you plan to tax the crap out of is also the same high-cost fuel that businesses, doctors, and everyone else who drives will pay for and then pass those costs along not only to you and I, but also to the very poorest as well, right? And little wheelchair-bound Timmy and his wheelchair-adapted van can sit and rot. His parents can carry/drag him on the city bus or subway if he has to see a doctor or go to the next town over.
Strat
Hell yeah! We'll track everyone's vehicles with GPS and checkpoints to keep track of fuel usage/efficiency! Set up a travel permit system to eliminate unnecessary/undesirable travel! Maybe institute an electronic ration card system for fuel!
What a wonderful world to live in. /sarcasm
Strat
It's always been cheaper to eat good food than to buy junk food.
Not where I'm at in the Great Lakes area about halfway between Detroit and Chicago. Fresh produce and the healthier alternatives typically sell for a premium price. It's fairly standard supermarket/food industry practice to charge a premium price for items that carry what they consider to be marketing buzz-words to be monetized. Anything that can be labeled with (or could be said to naturally be) "fresh", "organic", "low fat", "all natural", "diet", "sugar free", "low cholesterol", "low sodium", etc etc always costs more than the less-"healthy" alternatives.
At typical food prices in this area and with what a poor person receives in food stamps, it's a struggle to simply get enough calories of any kind to last them all month. Eating a healthy diet as recommended by the FLOTUS and others would mean that this poor person would probably run out of food somewhere around the end of the third week of the month, maybe sooner. Either that, or be undernourished to some degree all month.
That's the reality many face; do they choose to eat unhealthy or go without eating some days, or not eat enough any day.
Strat
You assume that the inventor is a corporation that can continue a trend of innovation, and not instead you or me in a garage somewhere.
There are many independent individual inventors that have hundreds of patents and many successful products. Quantity (corporate cubical-farms of wage-slaves) doesn't always trump quality (a single individual with drive, talent, intellect, and ability). You may well get a higher number of patents from a cubical-farm, but the individual inventor is more likely IMHO to come up with something that is truly game-changing.
One big advantage a large business has is the marketing skills, capital, and ability to monetize an invention and/or patent. Sadly, even in situations where available capital isn't the issue, the single inventor suffers because most don't have the skills to develop and market their invention and/or use their patent(s) to best advantage.
One other point. The "Corporation(TM) VS Inventor" theme isn't always so pure and simple like the movies. Many corporations formed as a result of an inventor coming up with a product or idea and forming a corporation so as to gather people around to help with the development/marketing/monetization that he may not have the skills for, as I mentioned above. So, you may have a situation where a small inventor is selling his invention/patent to another, more-successful inventor who formed a corporation. Thus, the invention is more likely to see development and actual production than if it had languished in somebody's garage.
The problem isn't big corporations, it's corrupt government that's turned the patent/trademark/copyright systems into competition-suppression systems. History shows that in general, corruption in government tracks with the size of government, regardless of type of government, with few exceptions. Not how wealthy corporations or individuals are.
Strat
It's not the Internet that is the subject of our liberty but the access to it.
Reminds me of a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
It's the principle that you are guaranteed the unrestricted opportunity to get or do something as an individual, not that government must pay your expenses in doing so.
Strat