Lets see.. they seem to be makign a couple of points...
- Skype is not standards-compliant, allowing it and any vulnerability to pass through corporate firewalls.
Skype is difficult to bloick unless you have a 'pass only what I know and approved' type of firewall setup, which youy should have anyway if such things are a concern, in other words, BS argument.
- Skype's encryption is closed source and prone to man-in-the-middle attacks. There are also some unanswered questions about how well the keys are managed.
There are questions indeed about the encryption implementation. I find it interesting that on one side this tech research group claims that noone can look at how it owrks, and on the other side they make a claim about how it works (or actually fails).
- Enterprises using Skype risk a communication barrier with countries and institutions that have already banned the service.
In other news, companies risk a communications barrier with countries not implementing a surface mail system, or a telephony system etc etc. Yes, from choices there may come limitations.. But it is not like using Skype prevents you using a normal phone or such.. In other words, more BS.
- Skype is undetectable, untraceable, and unauditable, putting organizations that are subject to compliance laws at risk.
Maybe... but I think that tech research or whatever they are called just did not look very well..
- The question of whether VoIP calls constitute a business record is a legal quagmire. Throwing Skype into the communications mix further clouds the issue.
Ok.. and now they owe me a new keyboard. This one is just too good to be true.
Comments Armstrong, "The bottom line is that even a mediocre hacker could take advantage of a Skype vulnerability. If you are going to use Skype within enterprise, manage it as you would any other IT service: with policy and diligence."
Sure, even a mediacore hacker can break it easily, but a payed for research group cannot figure out how the encryption is implemented.
Mr. Armstrong, you are full of shit.
Yes, there are issues with Skype, and I'd indeed advice peopel to consider if they want to use it at all. That is even related to one of the points Armstron and company are making, the closed source nature of it, and it being non-standard. The first major issue is privacy. Ebay has shown to not care shit about people and their privacy, and since we cannot verify what they are doing with Skype, there is a reason I believe to distrust Skype now. It not using standards makes it harder to integrate into an organisation that already has a telecommunications infrastructure, and hence it is just not very suitable there.
You can quite well patent an invention that builds on other patented inventions. The one problem here is that the holder(s) of the patented inventions you build upon can prevent you from actually using your own invention.
and you'll see that while NTSC allows for up to 525 scan lines, only 480 are used due to their use for specific purposes (i.e. sync, vertical retrace)
That should be 486, you are correct about why it is less then the full 525 scanlines.
For the horizontal resolution, the limit is really how small the dots that can be made, but in practice, that amouts to 440
That depends a lot on what you are using for transfering the signal between devices. On a 'crappy' composite connection you are lucky to get anything beyond 360 horizontal pixels. y/c (s-video) hets you closer to those 440 pixels you mention, and that is indeed a practical limit to horizontal resolution in many low-end video display systems. With proper component video cabling, you can get a lot closer to the 'native' resolution of 711x486.
Take a look at this nice video conversion table. You will see that while 720x480 is a workable approximation of ntsc resolution, it is not exactly the same.
For most practical purposes, ntsc is approx 711x486. Video captured at 720x480 is indeed having some black pixels on the sides, and is missing a total of 6 lines from top and/or bottom.
This all depends on what sampling frequency you are using for digitizing video of course, slightly different sampling frequency results in the often used 640x480 resolution.
A scholar, if he isn't overworked, will presumably be as talented, if not more so, as he gets older. So there's really no need,
Maybe so, but when getting older, it becomes less easy to learn new things, while it becomes easier to apply the things you know, so it is still time limited in a way, or at least far less efficient to not use those early years for learning.
OK, so I'm being hard on the lad, but some guy being impressed by what he had to say about the Schrodinger equation? Physics is a pretty tough field to be anybody in, let alone be newsworthy,
I agree, but it seems he already managed the newsworthy part (else we woudl not be talking about him here now)... Also, while I do not know his professors, I'd assume they are not that easily impressed.
On a GNU-Linux system, checking the OS version gets you a kernel version number plus some distro-specific gobbledygook-- almost meaningless. It doesn't even tell you if a GUI is present never mind what 3D capabilities exist. And Linux distros don't even identify to programs whether they are LSB compliant!
A substantial part of the usability and power of systems like Linux comes from the fact that it can be installed in the exact way that is needed for a specific purpose. That indeed results in that you have to check if the specific components you need are there. Not desirable for a 'one size fits all' approach indeed.
The lack of committment to a standard for desktop functionality manifests as strangeness and problems to coders and end-users in many ways, both large and subtle; They get scared away from a landscape that looks like rapidly-shifting sand. As much as I like APT and Debian 'universe' as a power user, it is not an appropriate software management model for a personal computer. RPM-Yast-Urpmi-whatever doubly so.
Rather, we need a desktop specific distribution that addresses those needs. Linux itself won't. It serves thousands of other needs that conflict with this idea.
Just like websites check for "Mozilla 5.0" compliance, basic Linux GUI/game programs should be able to check ONE dependency like "LSB 3.0" and have done with it.
Might be nice, but also will stop development right in its tracks. Linux and similar systems develop because many people can do their won thing, and then other people pickup whatever they like. Seeing how difficult it is to get even a few people agree on a standard within a very short time, this is never going to work without at least severely hindering the pase of development.
Heh, I have an i860 based machine here that uses 16mb sram for its main memory. When it was new in the late 80s, just the memory made it cost a small fortune.
You mean the tons of yellow-cake discovered in Iraq?
Which tons of yellow-cake? where are the news items on this from verifiable and independent sources?
Or the sarin-filled artillery shells the terrorists were using against the Iraqi people?
First of all they were the legal and recognized government of the country (helped to power and supported by the USA for a long time)
Seconmd, that is about 1 1/2 decade ago
Third, the ingredients for this were provided by the west.
This does not change that it was horrible and evil what the officially recognized Iraqi government did there (and in many other cases) of course.
What about the mobile weapons lab?
What mobile weapons lab? Noone ever showed undisputable proof of those existing. Speculation about the use of specific trucks, which could indeed have been mobile weapons labs, and could as well have been many completely valid and non weapons related things are all anypne ever produced. Where are they? why didn't we get a huge amount of press coverage when there was this undisputable proof for them?
Or the buried MiG fighters?
I was not aware that Iraq was banned from havign jet fighters. Thery were banned from using them over specific areas of the country after the first gulf war. There is nothing weird or illegal about a country trying to protect its property.
Or the satellite photos of Russian trucks leaving key installations known to house WMDs for Syria before the invasion?
If those were 'known to house WMDs' why weren't they destroyed? With all their cruise missiles and long range bombers, smart bombs and all, it would have been pretty easy to do so. There were also no legal obstacles to doing so, considering that the Clinton administration spent 8 years doing exactly that, bomb installations that were known to have been involved with WMD production in the past. This could be done easily and legally due to the first gulf war.
None of the things you claim have been proven other then the use of chemical weapons 15+ years ago. Many of the claims have been disproven however.
Do you know what it is to actually think instead of just repeating the nonsense your favorite politican spoon feds you?
If you were arguing that Saddam is a very evil dude and that it was good to remove him from power I can agree, but if you can't see the lies from your government for what they are then you are a complete and utter idiot uncapable of any critical thought. The lies are too clear and obvious to miss unless you desperately want to miss them or are mentally retarded.
I hear you but I don't think you've quite tuned into my channel yet. Please give me an open mind for just a moment and follow the line of reasoning.
Let me start by saying that for quite some time I have been reasoning along similar lines as you.
Any government is just another institution. An important one... certainly...
yes...
but still only a club of people with all other kinds of clubs within a society that do all sorts of different tasks that may or may not conform to the alleged "papa" ideology.....
Government does not have any natural rights beyond that which the people give them.
That is a matter of belief. I happen to agree with you, but there are quite a few who don't, and there are quite a few examples of beliefs that grant government natural rights independent of the people. Large religions like christianity and islam are among those (and basing themselves on the same old testament texts for that).
Even a dictator gets power from the people (his soldiers) and his soldiers get power from the people (through fear). By its very definition--no man, party or ideology can take hold on a government level without others to support him/her--- the people. In other words, government is just a bunch of middlemen going about accomplishing some task. Politics is what determines who's task that is.
It is difficult to rule without active support from people, but it is possible as long as people allow it to happen (passive support).
Comming to power without support is a different matter.
I agree that Democracy is used this way by the general public. This conversation is a little out of kilter though. You do grasp that language changes but I don't think you've really contemplated what that means to the technical aspects of communication.
I definitely contemplated that. As long as we are talking about the general concept, the details are absolutely irrelevant. They become relevant when you and I are trying to discuss the exact solution to a specific situation, trying to establish a 'democracy' in a country together and such. When discussing about this on a more general level, many details are not very relevant because they do not change the underlying idea at all.
I can say "SillyNickName4ME" is a nice, intelligent and thoughtful person. And twenty other people can say the same thing. Most people therefore conclude it's a no-brainer you represent these traits.
Its irrelevant to the discussion I believe. If we were to discuss the exact implementation of 'democracy' in the American system on a detailed level, it would be relevant, but the original statement from me that started our discussion applies to any democratic system, wether direct or indirect, representative, pure or such. As long as the system requires people to make choices (about plans, leaders or whatever), people need access to the information regarding those choices. The exact implementation of a 'democratic system' really does not matter for that at all.
I used the word Deconstruct and "dead text" as a clue to my perspective of the imperfections on language (since this is a definition issue) but let me be more explicit. Derrida is tough reading (even I can't follow all his reasoning lines) but he makes some great points if you spend some time on it without rushing to snap judgements. Some O'Reilly types like to pound on him (because he was a socialist) but his Deconstruction work really has nothing to do with politics.
Those who dismiss statements because of who made the statement and do not look at the merrits of the statement itself have a lot to learn still. In the specific case you point at, fear is an important factor.
The example is interesting because it points at why I do not believe direct democracy will do anything to remove 'politics' from government. As long as you can make people fear things and make them ignore reason, you can easily influence the outcome of any vot
The only point of difference between evolutionists and ID (different from creationism) is macro-evolution. We actually don't have substantial evidence (fossil or otherwise) that mutation ever caused inter-species changes, just the assumption that it could occur, given that intra-species changes occur. This is the 'flaw' in evolution that IDers seek to have pointed out - macro-evolution _isn't consistent with the scientific method_.
It seems that by large the scientific community disagrees with you there. What is more, most christian churges disagree with you.
Also, putting underscores around the text you want people to believe is not making it more believable, especially when you do not give any argument for your statement whatsoever.
Maybe you should go talk to your ID believing fellows because it is them who cause most people to see ID the way they do. It is the people who are vocal about their belief in ID who come up with extremely far fetched examples of why there must be an intelligence involved in 'evolution'.
At any rate, ID is a belief, it is a religiously inspired 'explanation' of how species came to be. As such it has nothing whatsoever to do with science and does not belong in science classes. As part of religious and filosophical classes it is quite fine.
~ I've said a great deal here because you spent the effort to reply thoughfully without resorting to flames. Please accept my apologies in advance if I sound patronizing. Just offering my perspective
I appreciate such discussions, listenign to, and thinking about opinions different from my own are usually an enrichment imo.
I have no time right now to reply to the content of your post, I will do so a bit later, but let me say you make a few interesting points that are worth thinking about.
By how I'm reading your reply--I didn't mean to suggest the rest of the world are republics-- but they certainly are not direct democracies. My original point was only to point out that the US is NOT a democracy and is a Republic by their own LEGAL (keyword) definitions
Yes, and the DDR was both democratic and a republic in their own legal definition. That is NOT how people generally understand those words.
Ultimately the word democracy is just dead text. We can deconstruct that word from here to eternity. Therefore the sensical approach (to me) is to look at the source (the Athenians)-- not every tom-dick-and-harry wish-it-were-so opinion. Perhaps this is arbitrary but without a neutral definition we can agree on--we may as well be debating apples and oranges.
Looking at the other responses and moderation, I really don't think people had any problem understanding what I was saying and what I intended with it, even if the use of words was not scientifically correct. Democracy is not dead text at all, it is just used in a much broader way then denotign the pure direct democracy of Athens.
I personally don't like using the word democracy to define current governments as I feel it paints a false picture of the world to the common man. Every time I see someone use the word, I cringe and make a point of clarifing the subject because in (again my eyes) it is very important to distinguish. Whatever you want to call it--I like to think that is the ultimate form of government as it eliminates political inequalities completely.
The problem with that reasoning is clear imho:
- The word has gotten a much broader meaning then it had in Athens. That words change in such a way is normal and is part of how language develops. As long as everyone has a good picture of what is intended with the word, that is completely and perfectly fine.
- For a long time, systems like the one in Athens have been called *direct* democracy to make clear the difference when it is relevant.
Since it becomes pretty chaotic and unworkable when you have to ask a few hundred milion people for their opinion each time you want to decide something, I don't believe direct democracy is a viable system beyond the scale of a city or very tiny country (Luxemborg, Zwitserland etc). Ultimate? well, where it works it definitely has its advantages, but it is far from perfect even then. As long as it is possible to manipulate people by means of changing the wordig of a question, a direct democracy can be politisized as well.
Democracies (TM ancient Athens) citizens vote on issues.
Pure democracy, usually only works with a small group, alltho in Switserland they still use it to some level.
Democracy is not the same as a democratically elected government.
Modern Republics (also called "Indirect" democracies) citizens vote on politicians. Politicians then do basically whatever they want for their term. This "freedom" is lessoned even further in effectively a two party system that aren't ideologically too dissimilar.
The USA may be a 2 party system, but that is the exception, not the rule. Many modern 'republics' have more then 2 parties (and at least 3 that are relevant) Besides, republic has more to do with having an appointed head of state then with how that person is appointed. It can use 'indirect democracy' but it does not have to. Also, there are many (constitutional) monarchies that are virtually similar to modern republics except for their head of state which plays a mostly ceremonial role and is not appointed or elected.
The definitions you are using are pretty specific to the American system and are not used in that way thorughout most of the world.
You are free to speak your mind sure. And your government is free to capture that information for future use. I'm not making the news here. Just reporting it objectively without patriotic pompoms.
You are trying to be objective I can see that, but you are looking at this from 'within the system', and hence are missing the birdseye view of an outsider.
One of the very first modern republics was the 'batavian republic' (late 1600s, early 1700s in roughly the area that is now called the Netherlands), predating both the French and American revolutions. As you might know it later became a monarchy (early 1796) and then a constitutional monarchy (1848). In its early form as a republic, there was no elected government, it was appointed. From 1796 there was a (French instituted) monarch, but we also got a parliament (tho without any real power). In 1848 when it changed to a constitutional monarchy, the parliament did get 'real' power, and the king was reduced to a ceremonial role and has no political function (and is actually not allowed to perform political functions or make political statements except for 2 very specific cases).
What this means is that having gone from republic to constitutional monarchy, we went from an apponted government and head of state to a non political head of state and an indirectly elected government.
Why am I writing this? to show why the definitions for republic and democracy as you are using them simply do not work in those parts of the world that have a system different from that of the USA.
Hence it makes a lot more sense to define 'republic' as 'the head of state is an appointed official' and as the opposite of a monarchy. This is completely seperate from being a 'democracy' (either pure/direct or indirect). The alternative here is some form of 'dictatorship', being it by a president (which would make it a republic again) or by a king or such (making it a monarchy).
If you prefer to use a different word for democracy to denote the difference with the pure democracy of Athens, that is fine with me. From the things I said above it should be clear however that republic is really not the correct word to use for that.
but what happens when microsoft turns off all the service packs/security updates?
Well, according to my logs, about every Windows machine there is already infected by zombies and relaying spam like nothing.. so I doubt it would matter;)
Consider this: Would you rather live under a peaceful monarchy that respects your natural rights as a human being, or a coercive democracy that exploits you and relegates you to state servitude?
A 'coercive' democracy got beyond the point of actually beign democratic, so that choice is not a realistic one.
I live in a constitutional monarchy btw, and that is fine, but we do get a democratically elected government. Note that for getting a democratically elected government you do not have to be a democracy (and I very explicitly chose that specific wording because the USA is not a democracy.
My point is that the process or structure of government is irrelevant; what matters is the outcome, i.e. the "peace factor" and the "human rights factor".
Democracy is about the possibility to change things when a majority of the peopel wants something changed. That is rather desirable, and is actually 'outcome'.
Democracy isn't a goal in itself -- contrary to what the power elite in this country would have you believe
I am not American, and the current American government has no fucking clue about what democratic means. That makes them a danger to the country.
-- but only one possible means to achieve the goal. The goal, obviously, is peace and respect for human rights. Right?
Wrong. The goal is to allow people to create and shape society in a way to works well for them. Human rights are an important ingredient, but by far not the only ingredient.
Also, democracy is just one way to achieve that goal, but in the last 25 centuries we did not manage to come up with a way that gets anywhere near, so I think it is reasonable to claim that it is by far the best way that we know about.
I suggest reading before postign an answer. I explicitly did not call it a democracy, I said it supposedly has a democratic elected government.
But well, since you had to mention the USA beign a republic, for the rest of the world (those outside the USA) a republic says a lot about the head of state, and very little about how a government is chosen/assigned.
Ie, the former DDR (Eastern Germany) was a republic, the USA is a republic, so is France. Some of those have elected governments, one did not.
The UK and the Netherlands are monarchies, yet have elected governments.
Does this mean that what is being kept secret *needs* to be? Not always... but it is better safe than sorry.
The USA has a supposedly democratically elected government.
Virtually everything that government tries to keep secret somewhat undermines the ability of the people of the USA to judge what their government is doing with their money, and hence undermines their ability to make a good choice on whom to vote for next time.
So, keeping secrets undermines democracy, which to me means that while you need them in specific cases, it is a very good idea to limit that to situations where it is really really needed.
The 'better be safe then sorry' should be applied to this in an entirely different way then you did, better be safe and not undermine the voters then be sorry that you lost democracy.
Okay, let me see if I can put this in terms you understand. I'm trying to establish that the minimum wage (i.e., legal price floor on per-unit-time price of labor) does not accomplish the goals you have outlined. I have explained a simple reason why: if a law can increase the real compensation of a worker, why stop at $10/hour? Why not $100/hour? You declined to answer this at least three times.
I answered it as many times by saying that you do not know how minimum wage works in practise, that while it is a legal price floor, that legal price floor is not entirely arbitrary, AND ONLY APPLIES TO THE MINIMUM.
So why stop there? because in all other cases it is no longer minimum wage (tho it may e in your definition, it is not for the rest of the world)
What I want you to do is, (like I asked you three times) explain why a $100/hour minimum wage would be a bad idea. Then explain why that exact argument does not apply to the minimum wage you advocate. If you can't do that, all your grandstanding about how, golly gee, shouldn't we have a law that makes employers PAY SOMEONE ENOUGH TO LIVE FROM is seen as irrelevant.
If you cannot understand why something can work when used with moderation while it won't work when taken into the extreme then that is your problem.
Just to show how much you know of what you are talking about:
You claim the minimum wage is working "quite well" wherever it is that you happen to live. I dispute this. You see the workers get raises from increases in the minimum wage (er... at least until the employer rides out the employment contract and moves the jobs elsewhere). You do not see the jobs that never get offered in the first place like internships that would give "risky" workers a foot in the door and a chance to earn money.
Internships here are not covered by minimum wage laws, so those internships exist and the risky people do get a foot in the door. An internship is actually how I landed my first job at IBM.
Like, the Google Summer of Code project that would not have happened if people like you were in the California legislature. "Hey! Pay a fair wage!" "That is a fair wage... the coders certainly like it." "No! You pay what we say you pay... if you hire at all." "Okay, then we will do something else with the funds." "Yeah! That's right! Take that, Google! That's what you get for trying to give people jobs! Good riddance."
Grants like given by Google are not a wage, and hence are not covered by minimum wage laws. This is only the third time I point that out to you, and I am not the only one who pointed this out to you either.
So, again what you are arguing is not true and again it shows that you really have no fucking clue whatsoever what you are talking about.
Now, regarding your other point about the "justification" of the minimum wage... is this really a road you want to go down? Did you know that the original OFFICIAL justification of the original minimum wage in America was keep industry from fleeing from the North to the South? Or what if I told you it was also originally justified on eugenics grounds. Don't believe me? Read this:
Progressives wanted to make women and other groups (you know, the blacks and disabled people you claim to care about) unemployable. Their chosen tool: the minimum wage.
Ah yes, someone a long long time ago tried to use this for their own purposes. Now, maybe just maybe you might consider this to be an incident, an annecdote, and,maybe you should look at the feew dozen countries around that have a minimum age, and just notice how on average they have much less poverty.
For the rest, stop making assumptions about my political preferences. I am not what you americans would call a liberal, and I have nothign whatseever to do with the democrat party other then just agreeing with a few specific ideas they also happen to agree with.
Do you understand what a minimum wage law says? It prohibits an exchange. It does not say "you must hire this person, and at this wage". It says, "IF you hire this person, it must be for this wage". Understand the difference? See why it makes people not worth hiring?
I understand what it says, I also understand I am living in a country that has minimum wage laws. You are correct in what suhc a law says, even correct that in specific cases it makes it not worth hiring people for certain jobs, all that means is that those jobs are obviously not important enough to you, no big problem there. Ah, for the person who does lack a job now, yes, that is too bad, and a good incentive to go do something else.
What does happen is that indeed things that people do not want to pay the minimum price for don't get done. That noweher implies that the people who could have done such jobs are without a job now however. You try to imply that connection, about any place that actually has such a system shows that you are mistaken.
If the minimum wage law actually relieved that situation, that comment would be relevant.
Which minimum wage law are you talking about anyway. WHere I live it does that perfectly well. You don't seem to get it into your head that the minimum wage in almost all versions is directly linked (but not the same) to the cost of living?
It's "irrelevant" because you don't see the cause and effect. Hong Kong has "better chances than anywhere near that place" because of it's free, dynamic economy, in which you don't have to worry that you'll be forced to give someone a raise some day if you contract for their labor. But more importantly, it puts paid your notion that the nation would totally descend into poverty if there were no minimum wage laws, so even in that respect it's relevant. Please, wake up.
Have you ever been there? I have, actually, I worked there.
Have you seen how the average person lives there? You believe that there is not a very substantial amount of poverty there? Heh, go look there, or even better, work and live there.
Ah, but that's the kicker, isn't it: you have to show why your position doesn't generalize to higher minimum wages (and I saw in your other post about the minimum wage being defined as "the minimum a person needs to live"... sorry, learn English. It's a legal price floor on the price of labor. It can be above or below whatever you consider subsistence).
You obviously have not ever looked at the many places on this planet that happen to have a 'minimum wage' and how most are implemented. You came up with a very nice definition, but that is one that is 1. ignoring the purpose of minimum wage, and 2. not how it got implemented anywhere where it has been succesfull.
One more thing, your arbitrary raises argument might apply to a minimum wage worker indeed, but you are being ridiculous when believign this applies to everyone.
About the rest of your post.. well, you are right, I did not properly read that you in fact think diplomas etc are BS as well, but the rest of your rant about why they are needed is a bit off. You are bringing in lots of other things (mandatory pay raise, impossibility to fire people etc etc) which are completely unrelated to at least PAYING SOMEONE ENOUGH TO LIVE FROM. Many such things do not exist in the USA, and yet the demand for diplomas and certifications there is a lot bigger then where I live (where we do in fact have many of the things you mentioned). Two anecdotes maybe, but they do suggest that even if it were relevant, your argument might not hold.
Now, let me repeat what this is about:
AT LEAST PAY SOMEONE ENOUGH TO LIVE FROM
The argument is that requiring that by law is a good idea.
Now, what again was your problem with that? Something that is actually related to such a suggestion? Or do you just have an opinion that simply has no relation whatsoever to reality in any place where such a law has been impklemented?
For people who have some Linux knowledge, I'd suggest looking into OpenWRT with Chilispot.
It basicly provides you with all you need for running a hotspot without bothering your users with new software or different settings. User connects, is directed to a webpage where they have to login, and everything works..
You tell me the minimum wage always works and don't even consider what would happen if you made the minimum wage arbitrarily high?
If you make it arbitrary high then it won't work, but the only one arguing to make it arbitrary high is you. FOr as far as I am concerned it should provide enough to live above the poverty line and a little bit, but no more. the word MINIMUM sortof implies that, it is not just the lowest wage that can be payed legally, it is also the minimym a person would need to live. Now, every minimum wage system that I ever encountered more or less follows that idea.
So, it just seems to me that you don't really know what minimum wage means.
Yes, that's what you have to believe to support the notion that it's effects are as minimal as you claim. But since I missed it, explain precisely why a $100/hour minimum wage would not raise every current worker's wage to $100/hour. Then explain why that argument does not apply to the minimum wage law you do advocate.
I never said the effects were minimal, just that they were not bad or destructive.
Since your idea of what minimum wage means has nothing to do with how minimum wage gets implemented by those who have it, you are also not having a very good picture of the consequences. Yes, it means that everyone will at least get amount of money/hur for their work. I never implied it did not do that. I also never implied, what is more, even agreed that it will make some jobs unaffordable. WHat that accomplishes is that society stops doing things it cannot afford and looks for something else to do instead. So no, it does not mean everyone is goign to ge at a min $100 or whatever absurd number you have in your mind, but it does mean that work gets done only when pay is enough to live from. If society needs the work to be done then that will be no problem.
Guess what: "feeling good" about a policy doesn't mean it accomplishes anything. It can make intellectually lazy people more dangerous.
If you would just bother to look at some places around the world that actually have a minimum wage you'd see that it accomplishes something. But, don't take my word on it, go look for yourself in places where they have a minimum wage, go talk to the people, go study the economies if you like, but be sure to pick a few places so you actually end up with a somewhat balanced idea instead of annecdotal evidence.
A weakness is revealed.
Uh?
It could not be that: 1. your argument is idiotic becuase Google did not pay any wages and living wage laws in California simply have nothing to say about this whole thing whatsoever. 2. you have no clue whatsoever about what minimum wage means.
They already do pay enough so that someone can reasonably do the job: it's called the market wage. If it's not worth that much to them, the job doesn't get done. If you prohibit such exchanges (i.e., your position), you eliminate that opportunity, meaning the person has to go find another opportunity. But since that was his best option (else why would you have to prohibit the exchange), he has to take an even worse option, i.e., a lower wage. If there were better wages out there, he would have already taken them.
No, if you prohibit this then you enforce that things you cannot afford doing keep being done. 'Addord' in this is not just a matter of having the direct financial means, but also of longer term cost and benefit to society.
If you believe that having to depend on food stamps while working 40+ hours/week is reasonable then you and I have a compketely different definition of reasonable.
The opposite would mean no minimum wage, not implementing slavery.
THe opposite of having a minimum wage is not having one obviously. The opposite of your 'why not pay them $50/hour, why not $100/hour' absurdity is taking no minimum wage to the extreme and implementing slavery. (not to mention that many people consider working while not even gettign payed enough to live from slavery)
It would result in such bastions of poverty as min-wage-free Hong Kong (you know, the place workers flock to to be oppressed or something).
People go there because they have better chances then anywhere near that place, not because the places around it have a minimum wage. Completely irrelevant argument.
You know why you get paid what you do? Because of competition for labor, not because your employer likes you or because the laws says he has to. You know why it's hard to find a job? Because employers have to hire you without getting a chance to see if you're a good fit, so they only hire "sure things". Really. Otherwise, why the fuck would they care if you've gone to college if you know the skill?
Well, where to start..
I did not finish college, yet I worked for IBM for 12 years, have been working for a development firm during the dot-com era till they went down, and have been running a business for myself since. It was not that hard at all for me. For others it is, why? because they lack the skills.
Now, go back to your nice theoretical world of paper assurances (like certificates, diplomas etc). Those who are succesfull in the real world care about result however and not about theoretical certification.
For the rest, havign worked for a 'little while', I know why people want or do not want to hire me. Pay has virtually nothing to do with it.
Reduction to absurdity is a valid rhetorical technique. If I can show your position implies something you disagree with, I have refuted it.
If you have to go into absurdity to get anywhere near a consequence I might eventually disagree with, then you have shown that you opposing it is exactly that, absurd.
Yes, it is a valid technique, but not in the way you are using it, and it is a technique that is pretty much regarded as a sign of not having a real argument.
I'm against "living wage" laws because it means workers who aren't worth hiring at under that don't get paid at all, not that they are paid more for the same jobs.
No, it means that if society wants a certain hob done, they have to pay enough for it so that someoone can reasonably do that job. If it is not worth it then the job won't be done. That does nowhere mean that the person who'd have taken that job does not get payed in another job however.
Why not a minimum wage of $20/hour? $50/hour? $100/hour? If we can increase compensation for work just by passing a law, why be so miserly?
In the style of that argument, why not solve the issue completely and reintroduce slavery? Makes sure that those jobs get done with the lowest direct cost to society...
Would it be possible for you to make an argument here without resorting to absurdities?
Slashdot Mirror
Lets see.. they seem to be makign a couple of points...
- Skype is not standards-compliant, allowing it and any vulnerability to pass through corporate firewalls.
Skype is difficult to bloick unless you have a 'pass only what I know and approved' type of firewall setup, which youy should have anyway if such things are a concern, in other words, BS argument.
- Skype's encryption is closed source and prone to man-in-the-middle attacks. There are also some unanswered questions about how well the keys are managed.
There are questions indeed about the encryption implementation. I find it interesting that on one side this tech research group claims that noone can look at how it owrks, and on the other side they make a claim about how it works (or actually fails).
- Enterprises using Skype risk a communication barrier with countries and institutions that have already banned the service.
In other news, companies risk a communications barrier with countries not implementing a surface mail system, or a telephony system etc etc. Yes, from choices there may come limitations.. But it is not like using Skype prevents you using a normal phone or such.. In other words, more BS.
- Skype is undetectable, untraceable, and unauditable, putting organizations that are subject to compliance laws at risk.
Maybe... but I think that tech research or whatever they are called just did not look very well..
- The question of whether VoIP calls constitute a business record is a legal quagmire. Throwing Skype into the communications mix further clouds the issue.
Ok.. and now they owe me a new keyboard. This one is just too good to be true.
Comments Armstrong, "The bottom line is that even a mediocre hacker could take advantage of a Skype vulnerability. If you are going to use Skype within enterprise, manage it as you would any other IT service: with policy and diligence."
Sure, even a mediacore hacker can break it easily, but a payed for research group cannot figure out how the encryption is implemented.
Mr. Armstrong, you are full of shit.
Yes, there are issues with Skype, and I'd indeed advice peopel to consider if they want to use it at all. That is even related to one of the points Armstron and company are making, the closed source nature of it, and it being non-standard. The first major issue is privacy. Ebay has shown to not care shit about people and their privacy, and since we cannot verify what they are doing with Skype, there is a reason I believe to distrust Skype now. It not using standards makes it harder to integrate into an organisation that already has a telecommunications infrastructure, and hence it is just not very suitable there.
You can quite well patent an invention that builds on other patented inventions. The one problem here is that the holder(s) of the patented inventions you build upon can prevent you from actually using your own invention.
and you'll see that while NTSC allows for up to 525 scan lines, only 480 are used due to their use for specific purposes (i.e. sync, vertical retrace)
That should be 486, you are correct about why it is less then the full 525 scanlines.
For the horizontal resolution, the limit is really how small the dots that can be made, but in practice, that amouts to 440
That depends a lot on what you are using for transfering the signal between devices. On a 'crappy' composite connection you are lucky to get anything beyond 360 horizontal pixels. y/c (s-video) hets you closer to those 440 pixels you mention, and that is indeed a practical limit to horizontal resolution in many low-end video display systems. With proper component video cabling, you can get a lot closer to the 'native' resolution of 711x486.
Take a look at this nice video conversion table. You will see that while 720x480 is a workable approximation of ntsc resolution, it is not exactly the same.
For most practical purposes, ntsc is approx 711x486. Video captured at 720x480 is indeed having some black pixels on the sides, and is missing a total of 6 lines from top and/or bottom.
This all depends on what sampling frequency you are using for digitizing video of course, slightly different sampling frequency results in the often used 640x480 resolution.
A scholar, if he isn't overworked, will presumably be as talented, if not more so, as he gets older. So there's really no need,
Maybe so, but when getting older, it becomes less easy to learn new things, while it becomes easier to apply the things you know, so it is still time limited in a way, or at least far less efficient to not use those early years for learning.
Fascinating. This joke, and the obvious response to it, were duplicated!
Maybe the poster is interested in becomming a Slashdot editor?
OK, so I'm being hard on the lad, but some guy being impressed by what he had to say about the Schrodinger equation? Physics is a pretty tough field to be anybody in, let alone be newsworthy,
I agree, but it seems he already managed the newsworthy part (else we woudl not be talking about him here now)... Also, while I do not know his professors, I'd assume they are not that easily impressed.
On a GNU-Linux system, checking the OS version gets you a kernel version number plus some distro-specific gobbledygook-- almost meaningless. It doesn't even tell you if a GUI is present never mind what 3D capabilities exist. And Linux distros don't even identify to programs whether they are LSB compliant!
A substantial part of the usability and power of systems like Linux comes from the fact that it can be installed in the exact way that is needed for a specific purpose. That indeed results in that you have to check if the specific components you need are there. Not desirable for a 'one size fits all' approach indeed.
The lack of committment to a standard for desktop functionality manifests as strangeness and problems to coders and end-users in many ways, both large and subtle; They get scared away from a landscape that looks like rapidly-shifting sand. As much as I like APT and Debian 'universe' as a power user, it is not an appropriate software management model for a personal computer. RPM-Yast-Urpmi-whatever doubly so.
Rather, we need a desktop specific distribution that addresses those needs. Linux itself won't. It serves thousands of other needs that conflict with this idea.
Just like websites check for "Mozilla 5.0" compliance, basic Linux GUI/game programs should be able to check ONE dependency like "LSB 3.0" and have done with it.
Might be nice, but also will stop development right in its tracks. Linux and similar systems develop because many people can do their won thing, and then other people pickup whatever they like. Seeing how difficult it is to get even a few people agree on a standard within a very short time, this is never going to work without at least severely hindering the pase of development.
Heh, I have an i860 based machine here that uses 16mb sram for its main memory. When it was new in the late 80s, just the memory made it cost a small fortune.
Lets see..
You mean the tons of yellow-cake discovered in Iraq?
Which tons of yellow-cake? where are the news items on this from verifiable and independent sources?
Or the sarin-filled artillery shells the terrorists were using against the Iraqi people?
First of all they were the legal and recognized government of the country (helped to power and supported by the USA for a long time)
Seconmd, that is about 1 1/2 decade ago
Third, the ingredients for this were provided by the west.
This does not change that it was horrible and evil what the officially recognized Iraqi government did there (and in many other cases) of course.
What about the mobile weapons lab?
What mobile weapons lab? Noone ever showed undisputable proof of those existing. Speculation about the use of specific trucks, which could indeed have been mobile weapons labs, and could as well have been many completely valid and non weapons related things are all anypne ever produced. Where are they? why didn't we get a huge amount of press coverage when there was this undisputable proof for them?
Or the buried MiG fighters?
I was not aware that Iraq was banned from havign jet fighters. Thery were banned from using them over specific areas of the country after the first gulf war. There is nothing weird or illegal about a country trying to protect its property.
Or the satellite photos of Russian trucks leaving key installations known to house WMDs for Syria before the invasion?
If those were 'known to house WMDs' why weren't they destroyed? With all their cruise missiles and long range bombers, smart bombs and all, it would have been pretty easy to do so. There were also no legal obstacles to doing so, considering that the Clinton administration spent 8 years doing exactly that, bomb installations that were known to have been involved with WMD production in the past. This could be done easily and legally due to the first gulf war.
None of the things you claim have been proven other then the use of chemical weapons 15+ years ago. Many of the claims have been disproven however.
Do you know what it is to actually think instead of just repeating the nonsense your favorite politican spoon feds you?
If you were arguing that Saddam is a very evil dude and that it was good to remove him from power I can agree, but if you can't see the lies from your government for what they are then you are a complete and utter idiot uncapable of any critical thought. The lies are too clear and obvious to miss unless you desperately want to miss them or are mentally retarded.
I hear you but I don't think you've quite tuned into my channel yet. Please give me an open mind for just a moment and follow the line of reasoning.
....
Let me start by saying that for quite some time I have been reasoning along similar lines as you.
Any government is just another institution. An important one... certainly...
yes...
but still only a club of people with all other kinds of clubs within a society that do all sorts of different tasks that may or may not conform to the alleged "papa" ideology.
Government does not have any natural rights beyond that which the people give them.
That is a matter of belief. I happen to agree with you, but there are quite a few who don't, and there are quite a few examples of beliefs that grant government natural rights independent of the people. Large religions like christianity and islam are among those (and basing themselves on the same old testament texts for that).
Even a dictator gets power from the people (his soldiers) and his soldiers get power from the people (through fear). By its very definition--no man, party or ideology can take hold on a government level without others to support him/her--- the people. In other words, government is just a bunch of middlemen going about accomplishing some task. Politics is what determines who's task that is.
It is difficult to rule without active support from people, but it is possible as long as people allow it to happen (passive support).
Comming to power without support is a different matter.
I agree that Democracy is used this way by the general public. This conversation is a little out of kilter though. You do grasp that language changes but I don't think you've really contemplated what that means to the technical aspects of communication.
I definitely contemplated that. As long as we are talking about the general concept, the details are absolutely irrelevant. They become relevant when you and I are trying to discuss the exact solution to a specific situation, trying to establish a 'democracy' in a country together and such. When discussing about this on a more general level, many details are not very relevant because they do not change the underlying idea at all.
I can say "SillyNickName4ME" is a nice, intelligent and thoughtful person. And twenty other people can say the same thing. Most people therefore conclude it's a no-brainer you represent these traits.
Its irrelevant to the discussion I believe. If we were to discuss the exact implementation of 'democracy' in the American system on a detailed level, it would be relevant, but the original statement from me that started our discussion applies to any democratic system, wether direct or indirect, representative, pure or such. As long as the system requires people to make choices (about plans, leaders or whatever), people need access to the information regarding those choices. The exact implementation of a 'democratic system' really does not matter for that at all.
I used the word Deconstruct and "dead text" as a clue to my perspective of the imperfections on language (since this is a definition issue) but let me be more explicit. Derrida is tough reading (even I can't follow all his reasoning lines) but he makes some great points if you spend some time on it without rushing to snap judgements. Some O'Reilly types like to pound on him (because he was a socialist) but his Deconstruction work really has nothing to do with politics.
Those who dismiss statements because of who made the statement and do not look at the merrits of the statement itself have a lot to learn still. In the specific case you point at, fear is an important factor.
The example is interesting because it points at why I do not believe direct democracy will do anything to remove 'politics' from government. As long as you can make people fear things and make them ignore reason, you can easily influence the outcome of any vot
The only point of difference between evolutionists and ID (different from creationism) is macro-evolution. We actually don't have substantial evidence (fossil or otherwise) that mutation ever caused inter-species changes, just the assumption that it could occur, given that intra-species changes occur. This is the 'flaw' in evolution that IDers seek to have pointed out - macro-evolution _isn't consistent with the scientific method_.
It seems that by large the scientific community disagrees with you there. What is more, most christian churges disagree with you.
Also, putting underscores around the text you want people to believe is not making it more believable, especially when you do not give any argument for your statement whatsoever.
Maybe you should go talk to your ID believing fellows because it is them who cause most people to see ID the way they do. It is the people who are vocal about their belief in ID who come up with extremely far fetched examples of why there must be an intelligence involved in 'evolution'.
At any rate, ID is a belief, it is a religiously inspired 'explanation' of how species came to be. As such it has nothing whatsoever to do with science and does not belong in science classes. As part of religious and filosophical classes it is quite fine.
~ I've said a great deal here because you spent the effort to reply thoughfully without resorting to flames. Please accept my apologies in advance if I sound patronizing. Just offering my perspective
I appreciate such discussions, listenign to, and thinking about opinions different from my own are usually an enrichment imo.
I have no time right now to reply to the content of your post, I will do so a bit later, but let me say you make a few interesting points that are worth thinking about.
By how I'm reading your reply--I didn't mean to suggest the rest of the world are republics-- but they certainly are not direct democracies. My original point was only to point out that the US is NOT a democracy and is a Republic by their own LEGAL (keyword) definitions
Yes, and the DDR was both democratic and a republic in their own legal definition. That is NOT how people generally understand those words.
Ultimately the word democracy is just dead text. We can deconstruct that word from here to eternity. Therefore the sensical approach (to me) is to look at the source (the Athenians)-- not every tom-dick-and-harry wish-it-were-so opinion. Perhaps this is arbitrary but without a neutral definition we can agree on--we may as well be debating apples and oranges.
Looking at the other responses and moderation, I really don't think people had any problem understanding what I was saying and what I intended with it, even if the use of words was not scientifically correct. Democracy is not dead text at all, it is just used in a much broader way then denotign the pure direct democracy of Athens.
I personally don't like using the word democracy to define current governments as I feel it paints a false picture of the world to the common man. Every time I see someone use the word, I cringe and make a point of clarifing the subject because in (again my eyes) it is very important to distinguish.
Whatever you want to call it--I like to think that is the ultimate form of government as it eliminates political inequalities completely.
The problem with that reasoning is clear imho:
- The word has gotten a much broader meaning then it had in Athens. That words change in such a way is normal and is part of how language develops. As long as everyone has a good picture of what is intended with the word, that is completely and perfectly fine.
- For a long time, systems like the one in Athens have been called *direct* democracy to make clear the difference when it is relevant.
Since it becomes pretty chaotic and unworkable when you have to ask a few hundred milion people for their opinion each time you want to decide something, I don't believe direct democracy is a viable system beyond the scale of a city or very tiny country (Luxemborg, Zwitserland etc). Ultimate? well, where it works it definitely has its advantages, but it is far from perfect even then. As long as it is possible to manipulate people by means of changing the wordig of a question, a direct democracy can be politisized as well.
Democracies (TM ancient Athens) citizens vote on issues.
Pure democracy, usually only works with a small group, alltho in Switserland they still use it to some level.
Democracy is not the same as a democratically elected government.
Modern Republics (also called "Indirect" democracies) citizens vote on politicians. Politicians then do basically whatever they want for their term. This "freedom" is lessoned even further in effectively a two party system that aren't ideologically too dissimilar.
The USA may be a 2 party system, but that is the exception, not the rule. Many modern 'republics' have more then 2 parties (and at least 3 that are relevant) Besides, republic has more to do with having an appointed head of state then with how that person is appointed. It can use 'indirect democracy' but it does not have to. Also, there are many (constitutional) monarchies that are virtually similar to modern republics except for their head of state which plays a mostly ceremonial role and is not appointed or elected.
The definitions you are using are pretty specific to the American system and are not used in that way thorughout most of the world.
You are free to speak your mind sure. And your government is free to capture that information for future use. I'm not making the news here. Just reporting it objectively without patriotic pompoms.
You are trying to be objective I can see that, but you are looking at this from 'within the system', and hence are missing the birdseye view of an outsider.
One of the very first modern republics was the 'batavian republic' (late 1600s, early 1700s in roughly the area that is now called the Netherlands), predating both the French and American revolutions. As you might know it later became a monarchy (early 1796) and then a constitutional monarchy (1848). In its early form as a republic, there was no elected government, it was appointed. From 1796 there was a (French instituted) monarch, but we also got a parliament (tho without any real power). In 1848 when it changed to a constitutional monarchy, the parliament did get 'real' power, and the king was reduced to a ceremonial role and has no political function (and is actually not allowed to perform political functions or make political statements except for 2 very specific cases).
What this means is that having gone from republic to constitutional monarchy, we went from an apponted government and head of state to a non political head of state and an indirectly elected government.
Why am I writing this? to show why the definitions for republic and democracy as you are using them simply do not work in those parts of the world that have a system different from that of the USA.
Hence it makes a lot more sense to define 'republic' as 'the head of state is an appointed official' and as the opposite of a monarchy. This is completely seperate from being a 'democracy' (either pure/direct or indirect). The alternative here is some form of 'dictatorship', being it by a president (which would make it a republic again) or by a king or such (making it a monarchy).
If you prefer to use a different word for democracy to denote the difference with the pure democracy of Athens, that is fine with me. From the things I said above it should be clear however that republic is really not the correct word to use for that.
but what happens when microsoft turns off all the service packs/security updates?
;)
Well, according to my logs, about every Windows machine there is already infected by zombies and relaying spam like nothing.. so I doubt it would matter
Consider this: Would you rather live under a peaceful monarchy that respects your natural rights as a human being, or a coercive democracy that exploits you and relegates you to state servitude?
A 'coercive' democracy got beyond the point of actually beign democratic, so that choice is not a realistic one.
I live in a constitutional monarchy btw, and that is fine, but we do get a democratically elected government. Note that for getting a democratically elected government you do not have to be a democracy (and I very explicitly chose that specific wording because the USA is not a democracy.
My point is that the process or structure of government is irrelevant; what matters is the outcome, i.e. the "peace factor" and the "human rights factor".
Democracy is about the possibility to change things when a majority of the peopel wants something changed. That is rather desirable, and is actually 'outcome'.
Democracy isn't a goal in itself -- contrary to what the power elite in this country would have you believe
I am not American, and the current American government has no fucking clue about what democratic means. That makes them a danger to the country.
-- but only one possible means to achieve the goal. The goal, obviously, is peace and respect for human rights. Right?
Wrong. The goal is to allow people to create and shape society in a way to works well for them. Human rights are an important ingredient, but by far not the only ingredient.
Also, democracy is just one way to achieve that goal, but in the last 25 centuries we did not manage to come up with a way that gets anywhere near, so I think it is reasonable to claim that it is by far the best way that we know about.
I suggest reading before postign an answer. I explicitly did not call it a democracy, I said it supposedly has a democratic elected government.
But well, since you had to mention the USA beign a republic, for the rest of the world (those outside the USA) a republic says a lot about the head of state, and very little about how a government is chosen/assigned.
Ie, the former DDR (Eastern Germany) was a republic, the USA is a republic, so is France. Some of those have elected governments, one did not.
The UK and the Netherlands are monarchies, yet have elected governments.
Does this mean that what is being kept secret *needs* to be? Not always... but it is better safe than sorry.
The USA has a supposedly democratically elected government.
Virtually everything that government tries to keep secret somewhat undermines the ability of the people of the USA to judge what their government is doing with their money, and hence undermines their ability to make a good choice on whom to vote for next time.
So, keeping secrets undermines democracy, which to me means that while you need them in specific cases, it is a very good idea to limit that to situations where it is really really needed.
The 'better be safe then sorry' should be applied to this in an entirely different way then you did, better be safe and not undermine the voters then be sorry that you lost democracy.
Okay, let me see if I can put this in terms you understand. I'm trying to establish that the minimum wage (i.e., legal price floor on per-unit-time price of labor) does not accomplish the goals you have outlined. I have explained a simple reason why: if a law can increase the real compensation of a worker, why stop at $10/hour? Why not $100/hour? You declined to answer this at least three times.
... if you hire at all." "Okay, then we will do something else with the funds." "Yeah! That's right! Take that, Google! That's what you get for trying to give people jobs! Good riddance."
o rk.pdf
,maybe you should look at the feew dozen countries around that have a minimum age, and just notice how on average they have much less poverty.
I answered it as many times by saying that you do not know how minimum wage works in practise, that while it is a legal price floor, that legal price floor is not entirely arbitrary, AND ONLY APPLIES TO THE MINIMUM.
So why stop there? because in all other cases it is no longer minimum wage (tho it may e in your definition, it is not for the rest of the world)
What I want you to do is, (like I asked you three times) explain why a $100/hour minimum wage would be a bad idea. Then explain why that exact argument does not apply to the minimum wage you advocate. If you can't do that, all your grandstanding about how, golly gee, shouldn't we have a law that makes employers PAY SOMEONE ENOUGH TO LIVE FROM is seen as irrelevant.
If you cannot understand why something can work when used with moderation while it won't work when taken into the extreme then that is your problem.
Just to show how much you know of what you are talking about:
You claim the minimum wage is working "quite well" wherever it is that you happen to live. I dispute this. You see the workers get raises from increases in the minimum wage (er... at least until the employer rides out the employment contract and moves the jobs elsewhere). You do not see the jobs that never get offered in the first place like internships that would give "risky" workers a foot in the door and a chance to earn money.
Internships here are not covered by minimum wage laws, so those internships exist and the risky people do get a foot in the door. An internship is actually how I landed my first job at IBM.
Like, the Google Summer of Code project that would not have happened if people like you were in the California legislature. "Hey! Pay a fair wage!" "That is a fair wage... the coders certainly like it." "No! You pay what we say you pay
Grants like given by Google are not a wage, and hence are not covered by minimum wage laws. This is only the third time I point that out to you, and I am not the only one who pointed this out to you either.
So, again what you are arguing is not true and again it shows that you really have no fucking clue whatsoever what you are talking about.
Now, regarding your other point about the "justification" of the minimum wage... is this really a road you want to go down? Did you know that the original OFFICIAL justification of the original minimum wage in America was keep industry from fleeing from the North to the South? Or what if I told you it was also originally justified on eugenics grounds. Don't believe me? Read this:
http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/Womensw
Progressives wanted to make women and other groups (you know, the blacks and disabled people you claim to care about) unemployable. Their chosen tool: the minimum wage.
Ah yes, someone a long long time ago tried to use this for their own purposes. Now, maybe just maybe you might consider this to be an incident, an annecdote, and
For the rest, stop making assumptions about my political preferences. I am not what you americans would call a liberal, and I have nothign whatseever to do with the democrat party other then just agreeing with a few specific ideas they also happen to agree with.
Do you understand what a minimum wage law says? It prohibits an exchange. It does not say "you must hire this person, and at this wage". It says, "IF you hire this person, it must be for this wage". Understand the difference? See why it makes people not worth hiring?
I understand what it says, I also understand I am living in a country that has minimum wage laws. You are correct in what suhc a law says, even correct that in specific cases it makes it not worth hiring people for certain jobs, all that means is that those jobs are obviously not important enough to you, no big problem there. Ah, for the person who does lack a job now, yes, that is too bad, and a good incentive to go do something else.
What does happen is that indeed things that people do not want to pay the minimum price for don't get done. That noweher implies that the people who could have done such jobs are without a job now however. You try to imply that connection, about any place that actually has such a system shows that you are mistaken.
If the minimum wage law actually relieved that situation, that comment would be relevant.
Which minimum wage law are you talking about anyway. WHere I live it does that perfectly well. You don't seem to get it into your head that the minimum wage in almost all versions is directly linked (but not the same) to the cost of living?
It's "irrelevant" because you don't see the cause and effect. Hong Kong has "better chances than anywhere near that place" because of it's free, dynamic economy, in which you don't have to worry that you'll be forced to give someone a raise some day if you contract for their labor. But more importantly, it puts paid your notion that the nation would totally descend into poverty if there were no minimum wage laws, so even in that respect it's relevant. Please, wake up.
Have you ever been there? I have, actually, I worked there.
Have you seen how the average person lives there? You believe that there is not a very substantial amount of poverty there? Heh, go look there, or even better, work and live there.
Ah, but that's the kicker, isn't it: you have to show why your position doesn't generalize to higher minimum wages (and I saw in your other post about the minimum wage being defined as "the minimum a person needs to live"... sorry, learn English. It's a legal price floor on the price of labor. It can be above or below whatever you consider subsistence).
You obviously have not ever looked at the many places on this planet that happen to have a 'minimum wage' and how most are implemented. You came up with a very nice definition, but that is one that is 1. ignoring the purpose of minimum wage, and 2. not how it got implemented anywhere where it has been succesfull.
One more thing, your arbitrary raises argument might apply to a minimum wage worker indeed, but you are being ridiculous when believign this applies to everyone.
About the rest of your post.. well, you are right, I did not properly read that you in fact think diplomas etc are BS as well, but the rest of your rant about why they are needed is a bit off. You are bringing in lots of other things (mandatory pay raise, impossibility to fire people etc etc) which are completely unrelated to at least PAYING SOMEONE ENOUGH TO LIVE FROM. Many such things do not exist in the USA, and yet the demand for diplomas and certifications there is a lot bigger then where I live (where we do in fact have many of the things you mentioned). Two anecdotes maybe, but they do suggest that even if it were relevant, your argument might not hold.
Now, let me repeat what this is about:
AT LEAST PAY SOMEONE ENOUGH TO LIVE FROM
The argument is that requiring that by law is a good idea.
Now, what again was your problem with that? Something that is actually related to such a suggestion? Or do you just have an opinion that simply has no relation whatsoever to reality in any place where such a law has been impklemented?
You seem
For people who have some Linux knowledge, I'd suggest looking into OpenWRT with Chilispot.
It basicly provides you with all you need for running a hotspot without bothering your users with new software or different settings. User connects, is directed to a webpage where they have to login, and everything works..
You tell me the minimum wage always works and don't even consider what would happen if you made the minimum wage arbitrarily high?
If you make it arbitrary high then it won't work, but the only one arguing to make it arbitrary high is you. FOr as far as I am concerned it should provide enough to live above the poverty line and a little bit, but no more. the word MINIMUM sortof implies that, it is not just the lowest wage that can be payed legally, it is also the minimym a person would need to live. Now, every minimum wage system that I ever encountered more or less follows that idea.
So, it just seems to me that you don't really know what minimum wage means.
Yes, that's what you have to believe to support the notion that it's effects are as minimal as you claim. But since I missed it, explain precisely why a $100/hour minimum wage would not raise every current worker's wage to $100/hour. Then explain why that argument does not apply to the minimum wage law you do advocate.
I never said the effects were minimal, just that they were not bad or destructive.
Since your idea of what minimum wage means has nothing to do with how minimum wage gets implemented by those who have it, you are also not having a very good picture of the consequences. Yes, it means that everyone will at least get amount of money/hur for their work. I never implied it did not do that. I also never implied, what is more, even agreed that it will make some jobs unaffordable. WHat that accomplishes is that society stops doing things it cannot afford and looks for something else to do instead. So no, it does not mean everyone is goign to ge at a min $100 or whatever absurd number you have in your mind, but it does mean that work gets done only when pay is enough to live from. If society needs the work to be done then that will be no problem.
Guess what: "feeling good" about a policy doesn't mean it accomplishes anything. It can make intellectually lazy people more dangerous.
If you would just bother to look at some places around the world that actually have a minimum wage you'd see that it accomplishes something. But, don't take my word on it, go look for yourself in places where they have a minimum wage, go talk to the people, go study the economies if you like, but be sure to pick a few places so you actually end up with a somewhat balanced idea instead of annecdotal evidence.
A weakness is revealed.
Uh?
It could not be that:
1. your argument is idiotic becuase Google did not pay any wages and living wage laws in California simply have nothing to say about this whole thing whatsoever.
2. you have no clue whatsoever about what minimum wage means.
They already do pay enough so that someone can reasonably do the job: it's called the market wage. If it's not worth that much to them, the job doesn't get done. If you prohibit such exchanges (i.e., your position), you eliminate that opportunity, meaning the person has to go find another opportunity. But since that was his best option (else why would you have to prohibit the exchange), he has to take an even worse option, i.e., a lower wage. If there were better wages out there, he would have already taken them.
No, if you prohibit this then you enforce that things you cannot afford doing keep being done.
'Addord' in this is not just a matter of having the direct financial means, but also of longer term cost and benefit to society.
If you believe that having to depend on food stamps while working 40+ hours/week is reasonable then you and I have a compketely different definition of reasonable.
The opposite would mean no minimum wage, not implementing slavery.
THe opposite of having a minimum wage is not having one obviously. The opposite of your 'why not pay them $50/hour, why not $100/hour' absurdity is taking no minimum wage to the extreme and implementing slavery. (not to mention that many people consider working while not even gettign payed enough to live from slavery)
It would result in such bastions of poverty as min-wage-free Hong Kong (you know, the place workers flock to to be oppressed or something).
People go there because they have better chances then anywhere near that place, not because the places around it have a minimum wage. Completely irrelevant argument.
You know why you get paid what you do? Because of competition for labor, not because your employer likes you or because the laws says he has to. You know why it's hard to find a job? Because employers have to hire you without getting a chance to see if you're a good fit, so they only hire "sure things". Really. Otherwise, why the fuck would they care if you've gone to college if you know the skill?
Well, where to start..
I did not finish college, yet I worked for IBM for 12 years, have been working for a development firm during the dot-com era till they went down, and have been running a business for myself since. It was not that hard at all for me. For others it is, why? because they lack the skills.
Now, go back to your nice theoretical world of paper assurances (like certificates, diplomas etc). Those who are succesfull in the real world care about result however and not about theoretical certification.
For the rest, havign worked for a 'little while', I know why people want or do not want to hire me. Pay has virtually nothing to do with it.
Reduction to absurdity is a valid rhetorical technique. If I can show your position implies something you disagree with, I have refuted it.
If you have to go into absurdity to get anywhere near a consequence I might eventually disagree with, then you have shown that you opposing it is exactly that, absurd.
Yes, it is a valid technique, but not in the way you are using it, and it is a technique that is pretty much regarded as a sign of not having a real argument.
I'm against "living wage" laws because it means workers who aren't worth hiring at under that don't get paid at all, not that they are paid more for the same jobs.
No, it means that if society wants a certain hob done, they have to pay enough for it so that someoone can reasonably do that job. If it is not worth it then the job won't be done. That does nowhere mean that the person who'd have taken that job does not get payed in another job however.
Why not a minimum wage of $20/hour? $50/hour? $100/hour? If we can increase compensation for work just by passing a law, why be so miserly?
In the style of that argument, why not solve the issue completely and reintroduce slavery? Makes sure that those jobs get done with the lowest direct cost to society...
Would it be possible for you to make an argument here without resorting to absurdities?