I have read many of the theories, but they lack factual evidence. Since the early 1900s we have some facts, but even those don't survive well. Main stories do, like Jeckle Island, but much of the side evidence either does not exist or has been lost/destroyed.
As to right after the founding, again probably correct. The founding fathers were against central banks for example, and it took very little time for central bank bills to start being introduced. Claiming it was intentional to undermine the USA as opposed to power grabbing is certainly plausible, but again lacks evidence.
I beg to differ, as do tens of thousands of South Americans that were slaughtered by Dole goons. That is just one of the few we know about, so there are plenty just as bad and probably worse today.
Your point probably should have been the difference between a consumer boycott and a government whim, like the US Government has become so good at. I agree with you but will extrapolate a bit on the difference.
I boycott Microsoft and have for decades, I think they have poor business practices and cheat people out of money in various ways very intentionally. My boycott means that I persuade others not to purchase their products, including businesses. This is the power of the consumer under a Capitalist economy, and it was well defined by Adam Smith as a tool for maintaining balance in the economy.
Governments acting without legal basis is harmful to the economy and is not part of the capitalist economy nor is it within it's Constitutional Rights when it does. (Note the 'legal basis' there) This was done in the US, and today our economy is still in a shamble from the effects. The "Stimulus" to banks is my primary argument there, and the bailout was a reaction to deregulation which should have prevented banks from becoming large enough to have catastrophic impact on our society. The FDIC can not guarantee these mega banks, so has lost much of it's purpose as well. None of these things have been corrected, because our Government is completely out of control currently and acting beyond their lawful abilities as defined by the US Constitution.
In other words, there is no provision in the US Constitution to protect or harm any private business for any reason other than violation of Federal law. If a law does not exist the Government can not (or should not be able to) arbitrarily take action, such as forcing the sale of the LA Clippers or Chik-Fillet.
Be a good consumer and boycott when you believe a corporation/company needs to be sent a message. In fact you are failing to perform a primary duty of consumers in the economy if you don't.
Personally, I think this difference is due to religious thinking, where the great majority of Americans believe in a "soul", and that a 60 year old man can and should be held responsible for what a 20 year old did. Add that justice is largely revenge based (an eye for an eye), and there must always be someone to punish, even after the world has moved on.
Absolute nonsense! The US used to believe in rehabilitation, which is actually a Christian belief. We used to believe that double jeopardy was unjust too, but now it's common place for people to be tried for the same crime twice, once in criminal court and again in civil court (verdict in either court does not sway the other court). We used to believe in innocence before guilt, and we thought mens rea was required for a crime.
Like most of Europe and the UK, US courts and laws were based on Christian Law and Philosophy.
If anything we have lost our sense of justice as the US has become anti-Christian, and yes the US has become very anti Christian.
For posterity, I am claiming you are wrong about the reasons we have lost our sense of justice. I am not claiming someone's Religion is right or wrong. Look at the lying scum that sits in a huge number of political offices and it's obvious that they are corrupt and immoral. US Culture lacks morality and faith, media has done a great job of removing both of those things.
I agree with everything except your time line. The process has been breaking more and more every year since Nixon. I'm sure it has been deteriorating longer, but I lack hard evidence to back that. I can assure you that even Reagan was a turd, just look at his executive orders and "accomplishments". Outside of the Soviet break up (which would have happened anyway) he did more damage than Nixon could ever have dreamed of. The joke called "Trickle Down" being one of the most asinine things, I have every heard anyone say (and sadly idiots fall for this trash).
You are confusing a type of Government with what someone chooses to call themselves. I'd suggest starting at reading the US Constitution followed by the definition of a Republican type of Government. Long ago we were a Republic, which if you really want to learn something go read Plato's book by the same name. We were very much formed in the image Socrates gives in that book for a perfect form of Government. Corruption happens, and by definition we are now either an Oligarchy or Despotism (depending on which scholars you read)
I'm not just being pedantic, this is very basic information that people _should_ be learning in elementary school along with critical thinking skills. You know, skill like being able to realize that someone is bullshitting you by calling themselves a Republic while acting like a Dictatorship... *sigh*
Wait, so you mean to tell me that everything will be disclosed? If it's all going to be disclosed then the negotiations should be available for public scrutiny. Waiting for something like this to be voted on before review is shear idiocy (just like the Patriot Act where all the politicians yell "Surprise! Now bend over!").
I do hope the peasants get their pitchforks out and start hanging politicians for this kind of thing. I mean, it's not like the politicians livelihoods are getting shafted, they continue to rake in more and more money every year due to deregulation and even open bribery. And "No!" I'm not referring just to the US.
Any and all of the countries involved in TTIP should have concerned citizens. Unfortunately it's not just the US that is "out of control" currently, because everyone in the EU and "Friendly" countries are playing the same game at the expense of their own people too. I do realize that many people in the UK realize they are just as corrupt as the US today.
and I assure you that they change less than any group of people I have yet met.
I never saw that one coming did I? No, don't answer that rhetorical question. If you can not see bias when it's spelled out for you at least have the courtesy of keeping your thoughts to yourself. No, you are not better than someone else even if you own the latest gizmo.
Please provide a reference of anyone calling any section of The Republic as The Allegory of the Artisan.
Read the book, this is what Socrates calls the section. I don't care that you can't google it, and no I will not make a citation of 40 pages of small print (This is a low estimate, my copies of the book are at home and I'm at work.).
If you have to point someone to the words written by someone else, it is usually because you don't really understand your own argument
So if I say "Read Einstein for an easy way of working with numbers in your head instead of on paper." your answer is that I either have to recite 30 pages of material or I don't know the information. Shear Brilliance! No, not really. That's about the most idiotic thing I have heard in a long time. Wisdom does not come in 100 word sniplets on a web site, and if you truly believe what you just stated you are evenn more mentally handicapped than I estimated previously.
No more, I'm done wasting my time with either a troll or complete idiot.
There is a difference between keeping society going and actually advancing it to become something better. My dad is a farmer, and he is the hardest working person I know, but he does the exact same job now that he did in the 70s.
Read your first sentence, which is absolute nonsense and more bias (either ignorant or willful). If your dad is really a farmer, I mean a real farmer not a guy with nice garden, then he should be laughing at you and feeling ashamed of raising such a person. Farmers do not make the latest greatest wizzbang game for idiots, or plugin to social media, the changes made are much more gradual. Agriculture is not some arcane process that never received improvements. Farmers have increased each the quality and quantity of food harvested, in addition to increasing our ability to store and gather this food. A piece of code dos so much less for society, so stop trying to self grandiose your job. You are not better than a farmer, and I would wager that your job in the grand scheme of things is actually pretty useless to society. (A fair speculation based on the biases and ignorance you have argued with thus far, in addition to the narcissistic tendency to increase self value based on incorrect generalizations and demeaning others with those same generalizations.)
If you are trying to blame how executives have stopped farmers from doing agricultural work and abused "executive" offices to stop agriculture growth as a whole then you are not just a fool, but an ignorant fool.
By "Allegory of the Artisan" I assume you mean the city allegory in books II through V of the Republic (after googling I only see the term Allegory of the Artisan in Slashdot posts by you and some ACs who I assume are you).
Nope, there is a long series in "The Republic" referred to as "The Allegory of the Artisan" and it relates to jobs in society. If you try to google an answer you don't get wisdom, so read the book. Without all of the groundwork laid in defining all of the precursors for a society, like justice, you will just misinterpret the words (as people frequently do when they falsely believe a quick search makes them knowledgeable).
I've shown you your bias twice now, and pointed you to Socrates' words twice. It's your choice to fix such obvious ignorant bias, not mine. I'm guessing you won't, and guessing that you will still argue that you are so much better than a farmer. Not because it's true.
This is not "new" and should not be a top story. Here is a forum post started June 13, 2013 regarding this same issue. That same article discusses pretty much everything I have seen here, and gives the same fixes. Vodafone has a video posted from August 8th 2013 for how to fix the most common causes of this problem which can be found here.
Slashdot has had discussion on this same topic, and nope I am not going to google that for people too.
Pretty much, but I think it goes beyond this. If you are going to college and going to end up with a 6 figure pile of debt, how many of those people want to keep that millstone around their neck for longer than possible? Again, this is a society issue. It could be more cost effective to get a CS degree, there could be tons of grants for an eduction that people claim society needs. We don't see them.
But plenty of people who are interested in advancing society want more of them.
Farmers do nothing to advance society? Welders? Carpenters? Your bias is showing.
Compensation is the factor they have the least control over, so it is rarely part of their solutions (even though it would have the most effect).
Compensation is the factor that most intelligent people are looking for, especially when you consider that many of these graduates are starting their careers with large debt hanging over their heads. If "Society" needed more programmers they would be paying them the same compensation they would a business major, assuming equivalent education and experience. They don't.
Your definition of "Society" is seems to be horribly distorted. I gave the Allegory of the Artisan as definition of society, and your retort is that society does not have very much control over compensation. That would only be true if society revolved around executives, and it doesn't. They are "part" of society, not the "whole" or even most important part of society. Socrates explains this very well, and I have yet to see a better definition.
My major was in Math, but what an awful career I saw that as. Luckily I learned lots of programming in the process of getting my Math degree. Helps too that I had a minor in Philosophy so learned a whole lot about logic, rhetoric, debate, etc.. or at least I think it helped.
Sure, some things in CS are very left brained, other things are very right brained. Find your niche and go with it. The way HR works today as long as you can play buzzword bingo you can get an interview. Most hiring managers bring you in for a technical interview. If you know your stuff and can make a good impression during the technical interview, you have a chance at landing the job.
I think the hard thing today is that coming out of school you can't really play buzzword bingo with your resume yet. Kind of sad that the hiring process has become what it is today.
Please don't take this as an argument against you, it's meant to argue against this chronic message that we see every month or so that everyone in the US needs to be a programmer. I agree that it takes a certain mindset to be a programmer, just like it takes a certain mindset to be a Fireman, or Soldier, or Doctor, or Plumber, etc... I'm not a programmer for a living for the same reason I'm not a graphics designer. Doing either of those things for a living requires the ability to remain in abstract thought for long periods of time, very much like an artist.
Honestly though, I don't see the big deal. If everyone in the US was a programmer we'd be naked and starve to death in short order. Our houses would burn down and our country would be invaded and taken over. The Allegory of the Artisan is very fitting here, and as with most things Socrates explains this dilemma very well.
A secondary issue is that the a large portion of the population does not want to work any more than necessary to survive. It's not laziness for most, this is a normal and rational way of thinking. I have food on the table and a roof is over my head, life is good. It's takes exceptions to move beyond that, thankfully we have always had those types of people to spare.
I agree with your points, and am more disagreeing with this latest "everyone needs to be a programmer" message. Society needs all kinds of people thinking all kinds of ways in order to function. I'm just fine with that.
If society really wanted to change things then there would be incentives to do so. Who does society compensate better, a Lawyer or a Lead Developer? Lead Graphic Artist or Politician? Technical writer or Paralegal? I could go on and on with that one all day, so will get to the point. People that are above average tend to try and get the most compensation for their abilities. If being a Lawyer has better compensation than being a Lead Developer, guess where most people will gravitate? Society does not want change, or at least executives in companies don't. If they did, they would be paying programmers with 6 years experience more money than their latest marketing "Rock Start" who just got his MBA. They don't! If you want to make the big bucks you go into the business side of the house, period.
I agree with you completely on all accounts. I try to be careful not to give information that can be doubted, at the same time I can not possibly cite decades worth of reading materials. So people will do the homework, or not. Makes no difference to me and my knowledge personally. As the old proverb says "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink".
Where I believe many people go wrong arguing against US policy is to build straw man arguments. I don't think Gaddafi for example was a great guy, he had decades of reputation built as a rebel that didn't care about foreigners to the point of killing them on occasion. No matter how he was behaving before the 'arab spring' that was a hard one for him to overcome.
Why however did the US wait until they did to take action against the guy? When I was in the Military in the 1980s we dropped a bomb on the guys house and killed several of his relatives in retaliation for him attacking a Navy ship. If he was really such a bad guy, we should have and could have finished the job then. But we didn't, so.. people should be looking at why all of a sudden we wanted him out and helped people revolt in his country. There are plenty of reasons related to money which have nothing to do with him being a bad guy.
I also agree that lies get manufactured when needed, but the issue with propaganda is that the best propaganda is not a lie. It's too easy to get caught in those. The best propaganda is a distortion of truth and giving out just enough so that people believe the line you are trying to sell them. The US learned this the hard way when claiming Saddam was ready to dirty bomb the world, and tactics changed pretty quickly. During the Kennedy years they would have just kept up the lies because they controlled all of the media at the time. The internet has forced them to change tactics.
Perhaps you are confusing me with another poster. I never made the claim that Assad is committing genocide.
No, I'm not confusing you with a different poster. You ignored the summary of my post and chose to try and nitpick. If you are nitpicking and ignoring the purpose of my post (which has the word genocide all over it) you are either defending the person making a false claim or attempting to subvert the topic.
I think you need to learn to read better, and understand that if you make claims, people are going to check them and hold you to them.
I think you should be more courteous in conversations you butt in to, and expect criticism when you are rude. I can read just fine, and it was not me attempting to hijack your post.
Extraordinary claims require at leas some evidence, and I never saw Assad persecute anyone for their Religion. In fact when he first took office he prosecuted people that discriminated. His dad was much the same, so if you want to claim he's committing genocide show me some facts.
Facts speak to me, not opinion based largely on fallacy and false information.
Though they were occasionally subjected to violence by Palestinian protesters, the Syrian government took measures to protect them. There was a Jewish primary school for religious studies, and Hebrew was allowed to be taught in some schools. Every two or three months, a rabbi from Istanbul visited the community to oversee the preparation of kosher meat, which residents froze and used until his next visit.[45]
I'm not sure you read the article you linked very well. Or perhaps you were just ignoring the whole of my post where I was claiming that Assad is not accused of genocide by anyone sane.
When UN evidence has repeatedly shown that Rebels are the ones using chemical agents, and sects of the FSA admit to making, smuggling, and using the chemical agents, I perceive your claims as simple bullshit.
That's not to claim Assad is innocent, but rather we have no evidence that he has used any chemical weapons on his own people. We have hearsay from the same people that claimed Saddam was creating WMDs and going to dirty bomb every city in the US.
I don't trust US propaganda any more than I trust someone else' propaganda. I don't trust known liars, and think anyone that does is a fool. I look at facts, and facts don't back your claim.
Immigration is broken. The VA is broken. Congress is broken.
Can we please stop labeling everything as being "broken."
I don't mine the label if people actually took it seriously and started trying to fix all this broken stuff. Yeah, really is all broken. Lets get workin!!
If you are referring to Adam Smith you had best read him again. Adam Smith was very very clear that regulation was essential for a functional economy. Smith attributes much of the failure of mercantilism to not having regulation which caused monopolization of nearly everything.
Wait a second, analogy time and I'll even use a car analogy.
Any time 2 more more cars are driving down a street, there is the potential for one person to cut the other off, crash into them, or slam on their brakes in front of them. When it's critical that you can commute from point A to point B, and assuming you own point A and point B you make a private road to reduce the chances of a shithead messing up your commute. If you don't own both points and are forced onto public roads, you expect that there may be a shithead. Cops can stop them, but maybe not before your day gets ruined.
Claiming automatic driving cars are the answer is a crock. I can break an automatic driving car and make it manual, or even better I could even build a mini-bike and mess up a whole Freeway really fast. I can even stand near a Freeway and throw bricks into people's path, so I don't have to be on the Freeway to mess your day up.. just close.
This is human nature, documented long before we had cars or even roads (read Plato's The Republic if you are a doubter, it'll change your life).
Cars above is obviously your data and computers, roads are networks, private roads are VPNs, and Cops are Firewalls. I could have gone into more detail about traffic lights and such but no need.
Considering my amazing car analogy, why would you think you could possibly design a set of public roads without a shithead driving on them? Seriously, I want to know.
Up until US propaganda started, which was during the Libyan revolution (which we paid a lot of money for, and even bombed quite a few people) Syria was known as the most modern and open society in the Middle East. These are not "stories", go read pretty much anything prior to the Libya revolt. Women in Syria could work and drive, they were not force to wear coverings. There is and was no "State" Religion, which for the Middle East is unheard of (including our 'allies' Saudi Arabia and Israel). There were plenty of Christians and Jews and yes several varieties of Muslims.
Claiming Assad is genocidal requires a new definition of the word! The people revolting have actually been "revolting" since at least the 1980s attempting to over throw the Government of Syria primarily to convert the country to Sharia Law under 1 Islamic Religion. Again, that is a fact not a "story". Syria is no more Islamic as a Country than Russia is Christian. People make that false claim based on the President's beliefs, but that would be like claiming that the US was Catholic under Kennedy and Quaker under Nixon.
Assad has been against US policy of imperialism for as long as he's been in office. He wants to remove Syria from the US Petrol Dollar (quite like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi) but of course you may not see the significance. His plans to do so started around the same time as Libya, and suddenly the revolutionaries in his country gained a lot more people, money, and weapons. Kind of like Libya, wow!
If you want to say that "he's a dictator so we should hate him" then you had best look at our primary ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia. Then take a close look at Israel and what they do to Palestinians. If you want to claim someone is "X" at least do the friggin homework to back it instead of taking someone's word for it.
Computerworld is not even considered a trade rag anymore, it's generally considered a Microsoft advertisement. Hell, even the Windows geeks I work with hate that magazine. When factoring in the writer, the magazine, and the rhetoric used in the article, I can't help but wonder if this is a ploy by the propaganda machine to start drumming up for war with Syria again.
Fifty years ago, maybe. Today, not a chance. All of the bullshit wars going on currently are due to the removal of regulations that are required for any economic system to function in addition to the greed of a select few. The fall of Mercantilism was not due to wars, it was due to the fact that it was not regulated. This caused huge disparities in wealth and income and people started revolting and stealing. Imperialism is different because it's not a system of economics but a system of border expansion.
Adam Smith repeatedly warns that regulation is required or _any_ economic system put into play will fail. Control by the few ends up with false scarcity, reduced wages for 'common' workers, and bribes and incentives to politicians to expand the wealth and power of that same few. Up until the 1970s we had countless regulations and taxes to keep society balanced in terms of wealth disparity. LBJ and Nixon tossed the personal income tax regulations in the shitter, and started the deregulation which was massively expanded under the following presidents. Reagan, as much as he is touted this great "conservative" destroyed countless regulations and increased the wealth of the few by claiming "trickle down" would be some great savior (He never read a history book?). The Dole Pineapple wars and another great area to study.
Consider that 2 decades ago it was illegal for a bank to have influence outside of one State. These regulations were meant to maintain stability. Today, a couple massive banks own nearly everything in the country, and the collapse of any of these would cause the end of the US as we know it because 1/3rd of everyone's money would vanish in the blink of an eye. Imagine if 2 banks collapsed.
For anyone trying to justify the US doing so well by waging wars (or paying for 'revolutions') in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Ukraine, Georgia, Egypt, Syria, etc.. etc.. please tell me how much the average American's wealth has increased in the last 20 years as opposed to say GW Bush. How much have _you_ been making from these wars compared to Dick Chaney or David Rockefeller. You have probably lost wealth, because as George Carlin said long ago "It's a club, and _you_ are not in it."
Slashdot Mirror
I have read many of the theories, but they lack factual evidence. Since the early 1900s we have some facts, but even those don't survive well. Main stories do, like Jeckle Island, but much of the side evidence either does not exist or has been lost/destroyed.
As to right after the founding, again probably correct. The founding fathers were against central banks for example, and it took very little time for central bank bills to start being introduced. Claiming it was intentional to undermine the USA as opposed to power grabbing is certainly plausible, but again lacks evidence.
No modern corporation even comes close.
I beg to differ, as do tens of thousands of South Americans that were slaughtered by Dole goons. That is just one of the few we know about, so there are plenty just as bad and probably worse today.
Your point probably should have been the difference between a consumer boycott and a government whim, like the US Government has become so good at. I agree with you but will extrapolate a bit on the difference.
I boycott Microsoft and have for decades, I think they have poor business practices and cheat people out of money in various ways very intentionally. My boycott means that I persuade others not to purchase their products, including businesses. This is the power of the consumer under a Capitalist economy, and it was well defined by Adam Smith as a tool for maintaining balance in the economy.
Governments acting without legal basis is harmful to the economy and is not part of the capitalist economy nor is it within it's Constitutional Rights when it does. (Note the 'legal basis' there) This was done in the US, and today our economy is still in a shamble from the effects. The "Stimulus" to banks is my primary argument there, and the bailout was a reaction to deregulation which should have prevented banks from becoming large enough to have catastrophic impact on our society. The FDIC can not guarantee these mega banks, so has lost much of it's purpose as well. None of these things have been corrected, because our Government is completely out of control currently and acting beyond their lawful abilities as defined by the US Constitution.
In other words, there is no provision in the US Constitution to protect or harm any private business for any reason other than violation of Federal law. If a law does not exist the Government can not (or should not be able to) arbitrarily take action, such as forcing the sale of the LA Clippers or Chik-Fillet.
Be a good consumer and boycott when you believe a corporation/company needs to be sent a message. In fact you are failing to perform a primary duty of consumers in the economy if you don't.
Personally, I think this difference is due to religious thinking, where the great majority of Americans believe in a "soul", and that a 60 year old man can and should be held responsible for what a 20 year old did. Add that justice is largely revenge based (an eye for an eye), and there must always be someone to punish, even after the world has moved on.
Absolute nonsense! The US used to believe in rehabilitation, which is actually a Christian belief. We used to believe that double jeopardy was unjust too, but now it's common place for people to be tried for the same crime twice, once in criminal court and again in civil court (verdict in either court does not sway the other court). We used to believe in innocence before guilt, and we thought mens rea was required for a crime.
Like most of Europe and the UK, US courts and laws were based on Christian Law and Philosophy.
If anything we have lost our sense of justice as the US has become anti-Christian, and yes the US has become very anti Christian.
For posterity, I am claiming you are wrong about the reasons we have lost our sense of justice. I am not claiming someone's Religion is right or wrong. Look at the lying scum that sits in a huge number of political offices and it's obvious that they are corrupt and immoral. US Culture lacks morality and faith, media has done a great job of removing both of those things.
I agree with everything except your time line. The process has been breaking more and more every year since Nixon. I'm sure it has been deteriorating longer, but I lack hard evidence to back that. I can assure you that even Reagan was a turd, just look at his executive orders and "accomplishments". Outside of the Soviet break up (which would have happened anyway) he did more damage than Nixon could ever have dreamed of. The joke called "Trickle Down" being one of the most asinine things, I have every heard anyone say (and sadly idiots fall for this trash).
You are confusing a type of Government with what someone chooses to call themselves. I'd suggest starting at reading the US Constitution followed by the definition of a Republican type of Government. Long ago we were a Republic, which if you really want to learn something go read Plato's book by the same name. We were very much formed in the image Socrates gives in that book for a perfect form of Government. Corruption happens, and by definition we are now either an Oligarchy or Despotism (depending on which scholars you read)
I'm not just being pedantic, this is very basic information that people _should_ be learning in elementary school along with critical thinking skills. You know, skill like being able to realize that someone is bullshitting you by calling themselves a Republic while acting like a Dictatorship... *sigh*
Wait, so you mean to tell me that everything will be disclosed? If it's all going to be disclosed then the negotiations should be available for public scrutiny. Waiting for something like this to be voted on before review is shear idiocy (just like the Patriot Act where all the politicians yell "Surprise! Now bend over!"). I do hope the peasants get their pitchforks out and start hanging politicians for this kind of thing. I mean, it's not like the politicians livelihoods are getting shafted, they continue to rake in more and more money every year due to deregulation and even open bribery. And "No!" I'm not referring just to the US.
Any and all of the countries involved in TTIP should have concerned citizens. Unfortunately it's not just the US that is "out of control" currently, because everyone in the EU and "Friendly" countries are playing the same game at the expense of their own people too. I do realize that many people in the UK realize they are just as corrupt as the US today.
and I assure you that they change less than any group of people I have yet met.
I never saw that one coming did I? No, don't answer that rhetorical question. If you can not see bias when it's spelled out for you at least have the courtesy of keeping your thoughts to yourself. No, you are not better than someone else even if you own the latest gizmo.
Please provide a reference of anyone calling any section of The Republic as The Allegory of the Artisan.
Read the book, this is what Socrates calls the section. I don't care that you can't google it, and no I will not make a citation of 40 pages of small print (This is a low estimate, my copies of the book are at home and I'm at work.).
If you have to point someone to the words written by someone else, it is usually because you don't really understand your own argument
So if I say "Read Einstein for an easy way of working with numbers in your head instead of on paper." your answer is that I either have to recite 30 pages of material or I don't know the information. Shear Brilliance! No, not really. That's about the most idiotic thing I have heard in a long time. Wisdom does not come in 100 word sniplets on a web site, and if you truly believe what you just stated you are evenn more mentally handicapped than I estimated previously.
No more, I'm done wasting my time with either a troll or complete idiot.
There is a difference between keeping society going and actually advancing it to become something better. My dad is a farmer, and he is the hardest working person I know, but he does the exact same job now that he did in the 70s.
Read your first sentence, which is absolute nonsense and more bias (either ignorant or willful). If your dad is really a farmer, I mean a real farmer not a guy with nice garden, then he should be laughing at you and feeling ashamed of raising such a person. Farmers do not make the latest greatest wizzbang game for idiots, or plugin to social media, the changes made are much more gradual. Agriculture is not some arcane process that never received improvements. Farmers have increased each the quality and quantity of food harvested, in addition to increasing our ability to store and gather this food. A piece of code dos so much less for society, so stop trying to self grandiose your job. You are not better than a farmer, and I would wager that your job in the grand scheme of things is actually pretty useless to society. (A fair speculation based on the biases and ignorance you have argued with thus far, in addition to the narcissistic tendency to increase self value based on incorrect generalizations and demeaning others with those same generalizations.)
If you are trying to blame how executives have stopped farmers from doing agricultural work and abused "executive" offices to stop agriculture growth as a whole then you are not just a fool, but an ignorant fool.
By "Allegory of the Artisan" I assume you mean the city allegory in books II through V of the Republic (after googling I only see the term Allegory of the Artisan in Slashdot posts by you and some ACs who I assume are you).
Nope, there is a long series in "The Republic" referred to as "The Allegory of the Artisan" and it relates to jobs in society. If you try to google an answer you don't get wisdom, so read the book. Without all of the groundwork laid in defining all of the precursors for a society, like justice, you will just misinterpret the words (as people frequently do when they falsely believe a quick search makes them knowledgeable).
I've shown you your bias twice now, and pointed you to Socrates' words twice. It's your choice to fix such obvious ignorant bias, not mine. I'm guessing you won't, and guessing that you will still argue that you are so much better than a farmer. Not because it's true.
This is not "new" and should not be a top story. Here is a forum post started June 13, 2013 regarding this same issue. That same article discusses pretty much everything I have seen here, and gives the same fixes. Vodafone has a video posted from August 8th 2013 for how to fix the most common causes of this problem which can be found here.
Slashdot has had discussion on this same topic, and nope I am not going to google that for people too.
Pretty much, but I think it goes beyond this. If you are going to college and going to end up with a 6 figure pile of debt, how many of those people want to keep that millstone around their neck for longer than possible? Again, this is a society issue. It could be more cost effective to get a CS degree, there could be tons of grants for an eduction that people claim society needs. We don't see them.
But plenty of people who are interested in advancing society want more of them.
Farmers do nothing to advance society? Welders? Carpenters? Your bias is showing.
Compensation is the factor they have the least control over, so it is rarely part of their solutions (even though it would have the most effect).
Compensation is the factor that most intelligent people are looking for, especially when you consider that many of these graduates are starting their careers with large debt hanging over their heads. If "Society" needed more programmers they would be paying them the same compensation they would a business major, assuming equivalent education and experience. They don't.
Your definition of "Society" is seems to be horribly distorted. I gave the Allegory of the Artisan as definition of society, and your retort is that society does not have very much control over compensation. That would only be true if society revolved around executives, and it doesn't. They are "part" of society, not the "whole" or even most important part of society. Socrates explains this very well, and I have yet to see a better definition.
I don't get it either, I'm assuming a translation to English issue. The "insightful" score just makes it more confusing.
My major was in Math, but what an awful career I saw that as. Luckily I learned lots of programming in the process of getting my Math degree. Helps too that I had a minor in Philosophy so learned a whole lot about logic, rhetoric, debate, etc.. or at least I think it helped.
Sure, some things in CS are very left brained, other things are very right brained. Find your niche and go with it. The way HR works today as long as you can play buzzword bingo you can get an interview. Most hiring managers bring you in for a technical interview. If you know your stuff and can make a good impression during the technical interview, you have a chance at landing the job.
I think the hard thing today is that coming out of school you can't really play buzzword bingo with your resume yet. Kind of sad that the hiring process has become what it is today.
Please don't take this as an argument against you, it's meant to argue against this chronic message that we see every month or so that everyone in the US needs to be a programmer. I agree that it takes a certain mindset to be a programmer, just like it takes a certain mindset to be a Fireman, or Soldier, or Doctor, or Plumber, etc... I'm not a programmer for a living for the same reason I'm not a graphics designer. Doing either of those things for a living requires the ability to remain in abstract thought for long periods of time, very much like an artist.
Honestly though, I don't see the big deal. If everyone in the US was a programmer we'd be naked and starve to death in short order. Our houses would burn down and our country would be invaded and taken over. The Allegory of the Artisan is very fitting here, and as with most things Socrates explains this dilemma very well.
A secondary issue is that the a large portion of the population does not want to work any more than necessary to survive. It's not laziness for most, this is a normal and rational way of thinking. I have food on the table and a roof is over my head, life is good. It's takes exceptions to move beyond that, thankfully we have always had those types of people to spare.
I agree with your points, and am more disagreeing with this latest "everyone needs to be a programmer" message. Society needs all kinds of people thinking all kinds of ways in order to function. I'm just fine with that.
If society really wanted to change things then there would be incentives to do so. Who does society compensate better, a Lawyer or a Lead Developer? Lead Graphic Artist or Politician? Technical writer or Paralegal? I could go on and on with that one all day, so will get to the point. People that are above average tend to try and get the most compensation for their abilities. If being a Lawyer has better compensation than being a Lead Developer, guess where most people will gravitate? Society does not want change, or at least executives in companies don't. If they did, they would be paying programmers with 6 years experience more money than their latest marketing "Rock Start" who just got his MBA. They don't! If you want to make the big bucks you go into the business side of the house, period.
I agree with you completely on all accounts. I try to be careful not to give information that can be doubted, at the same time I can not possibly cite decades worth of reading materials. So people will do the homework, or not. Makes no difference to me and my knowledge personally. As the old proverb says "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink".
Where I believe many people go wrong arguing against US policy is to build straw man arguments. I don't think Gaddafi for example was a great guy, he had decades of reputation built as a rebel that didn't care about foreigners to the point of killing them on occasion. No matter how he was behaving before the 'arab spring' that was a hard one for him to overcome.
Why however did the US wait until they did to take action against the guy? When I was in the Military in the 1980s we dropped a bomb on the guys house and killed several of his relatives in retaliation for him attacking a Navy ship. If he was really such a bad guy, we should have and could have finished the job then. But we didn't, so.. people should be looking at why all of a sudden we wanted him out and helped people revolt in his country. There are plenty of reasons related to money which have nothing to do with him being a bad guy.
I also agree that lies get manufactured when needed, but the issue with propaganda is that the best propaganda is not a lie. It's too easy to get caught in those. The best propaganda is a distortion of truth and giving out just enough so that people believe the line you are trying to sell them. The US learned this the hard way when claiming Saddam was ready to dirty bomb the world, and tactics changed pretty quickly. During the Kennedy years they would have just kept up the lies because they controlled all of the media at the time. The internet has forced them to change tactics.
Perhaps you are confusing me with another poster. I never made the claim that Assad is committing genocide.
No, I'm not confusing you with a different poster. You ignored the summary of my post and chose to try and nitpick. If you are nitpicking and ignoring the purpose of my post (which has the word genocide all over it) you are either defending the person making a false claim or attempting to subvert the topic.
I think you need to learn to read better, and understand that if you make claims, people are going to check them and hold you to them.
I think you should be more courteous in conversations you butt in to, and expect criticism when you are rude. I can read just fine, and it was not me attempting to hijack your post.
Extraordinary claims require at leas some evidence, and I never saw Assad persecute anyone for their Religion. In fact when he first took office he prosecuted people that discriminated. His dad was much the same, so if you want to claim he's committing genocide show me some facts.
Facts speak to me, not opinion based largely on fallacy and false information.
Though they were occasionally subjected to violence by Palestinian protesters, the Syrian government took measures to protect them. There was a Jewish primary school for religious studies, and Hebrew was allowed to be taught in some schools. Every two or three months, a rabbi from Istanbul visited the community to oversee the preparation of kosher meat, which residents froze and used until his next visit.[45]
I'm not sure you read the article you linked very well. Or perhaps you were just ignoring the whole of my post where I was claiming that Assad is not accused of genocide by anyone sane.
When UN evidence has repeatedly shown that Rebels are the ones using chemical agents, and sects of the FSA admit to making, smuggling, and using the chemical agents, I perceive your claims as simple bullshit.
That's not to claim Assad is innocent, but rather we have no evidence that he has used any chemical weapons on his own people. We have hearsay from the same people that claimed Saddam was creating WMDs and going to dirty bomb every city in the US.
I don't trust US propaganda any more than I trust someone else' propaganda. I don't trust known liars, and think anyone that does is a fool. I look at facts, and facts don't back your claim.
Immigration is broken. The VA is broken. Congress is broken.
Can we please stop labeling everything as being "broken."
I don't mine the label if people actually took it seriously and started trying to fix all this broken stuff. Yeah, really is all broken. Lets get workin!!
If you are referring to Adam Smith you had best read him again. Adam Smith was very very clear that regulation was essential for a functional economy. Smith attributes much of the failure of mercantilism to not having regulation which caused monopolization of nearly everything.
Wait a second, analogy time and I'll even use a car analogy.
Any time 2 more more cars are driving down a street, there is the potential for one person to cut the other off, crash into them, or slam on their brakes in front of them. When it's critical that you can commute from point A to point B, and assuming you own point A and point B you make a private road to reduce the chances of a shithead messing up your commute. If you don't own both points and are forced onto public roads, you expect that there may be a shithead. Cops can stop them, but maybe not before your day gets ruined.
Claiming automatic driving cars are the answer is a crock. I can break an automatic driving car and make it manual, or even better I could even build a mini-bike and mess up a whole Freeway really fast. I can even stand near a Freeway and throw bricks into people's path, so I don't have to be on the Freeway to mess your day up.. just close.
This is human nature, documented long before we had cars or even roads (read Plato's The Republic if you are a doubter, it'll change your life).
Cars above is obviously your data and computers, roads are networks, private roads are VPNs, and Cops are Firewalls. I could have gone into more detail about traffic lights and such but no need.
Considering my amazing car analogy, why would you think you could possibly design a set of public roads without a shithead driving on them? Seriously, I want to know.
Up until US propaganda started, which was during the Libyan revolution (which we paid a lot of money for, and even bombed quite a few people) Syria was known as the most modern and open society in the Middle East. These are not "stories", go read pretty much anything prior to the Libya revolt. Women in Syria could work and drive, they were not force to wear coverings. There is and was no "State" Religion, which for the Middle East is unheard of (including our 'allies' Saudi Arabia and Israel). There were plenty of Christians and Jews and yes several varieties of Muslims.
Claiming Assad is genocidal requires a new definition of the word! The people revolting have actually been "revolting" since at least the 1980s attempting to over throw the Government of Syria primarily to convert the country to Sharia Law under 1 Islamic Religion. Again, that is a fact not a "story". Syria is no more Islamic as a Country than Russia is Christian. People make that false claim based on the President's beliefs, but that would be like claiming that the US was Catholic under Kennedy and Quaker under Nixon.
Assad has been against US policy of imperialism for as long as he's been in office. He wants to remove Syria from the US Petrol Dollar (quite like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi) but of course you may not see the significance. His plans to do so started around the same time as Libya, and suddenly the revolutionaries in his country gained a lot more people, money, and weapons. Kind of like Libya, wow!
If you want to say that "he's a dictator so we should hate him" then you had best look at our primary ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia. Then take a close look at Israel and what they do to Palestinians. If you want to claim someone is "X" at least do the friggin homework to back it instead of taking someone's word for it.
Computerworld is not even considered a trade rag anymore, it's generally considered a Microsoft advertisement. Hell, even the Windows geeks I work with hate that magazine. When factoring in the writer, the magazine, and the rhetoric used in the article, I can't help but wonder if this is a ploy by the propaganda machine to start drumming up for war with Syria again.
Fifty years ago, maybe. Today, not a chance. All of the bullshit wars going on currently are due to the removal of regulations that are required for any economic system to function in addition to the greed of a select few. The fall of Mercantilism was not due to wars, it was due to the fact that it was not regulated. This caused huge disparities in wealth and income and people started revolting and stealing. Imperialism is different because it's not a system of economics but a system of border expansion.
Adam Smith repeatedly warns that regulation is required or _any_ economic system put into play will fail. Control by the few ends up with false scarcity, reduced wages for 'common' workers, and bribes and incentives to politicians to expand the wealth and power of that same few. Up until the 1970s we had countless regulations and taxes to keep society balanced in terms of wealth disparity. LBJ and Nixon tossed the personal income tax regulations in the shitter, and started the deregulation which was massively expanded under the following presidents. Reagan, as much as he is touted this great "conservative" destroyed countless regulations and increased the wealth of the few by claiming "trickle down" would be some great savior (He never read a history book?). The Dole Pineapple wars and another great area to study.
Consider that 2 decades ago it was illegal for a bank to have influence outside of one State. These regulations were meant to maintain stability. Today, a couple massive banks own nearly everything in the country, and the collapse of any of these would cause the end of the US as we know it because 1/3rd of everyone's money would vanish in the blink of an eye. Imagine if 2 banks collapsed.
For anyone trying to justify the US doing so well by waging wars (or paying for 'revolutions') in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Ukraine, Georgia, Egypt, Syria, etc.. etc.. please tell me how much the average American's wealth has increased in the last 20 years as opposed to say GW Bush. How much have _you_ been making from these wars compared to Dick Chaney or David Rockefeller. You have probably lost wealth, because as George Carlin said long ago "It's a club, and _you_ are not in it."