You are saying the same thing I am but in a different way. I am saying that economics is junk science because it has no cause and effect. You are also saying that but in a very round about way.
The govt is the largest employer in the economy, it's also the largest lender, the largest spender, and the most powerful force as it can interest rates, money flows, etc. You simply dismiss it as completely inconsequential. There is nothing that the govt can do that can effect the economy. What an odd thing to say.
Saying that economics is social science and that it's "very hard, if not impossible to predict" is the exact same thing as saying it's a "less predictable subset of psychology".
My point stands. If an economist tells me that X will lead to Y it's exactly the same thing as a hippie telling me that crytals prevent computer crashes. Neither one has a clue, both of them are telling me how they think the world ought to work, and neither one can point any scientifically rigorous study that backs them up.
And you want somebody who has never put together two pipes working on your plumbing? You want who has never opened up a refrig to work on your heating?
Associations are unions. They have members, they pay dues, they set standards, they lobby. Same thing.
You talk as if economics was anything other then pure junk science and that there were things like cause and effect in economics. There isn't. economics is a less predicatble subset of psychology.
Let me illustrate. When Clinton was president the US had a surplus. Over the next handful of years the govt not only squandered that surplus but got itself into massive debt. On top of all that there were terrorist attacks, two wars, and a long and painful occupation of a another country costing 300 billion dollars (which is surely under accounted).
Now you might think that something like would have had some effect on the economy. Maybe it would effect unemployment, maybe the stock market, maybe the strength of the dollar, maybe the interest rates, maybe the rate of savings, maybe consumer spending, maybe business spending. Some effect, any effect at all.
Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. You can spend money like a drunken sailor, grow the size of the govt, wage war, squander your savings and dig yourself into debt, spend hundreds of billions of dollars one non productive warfare and there is no effect whatsoever.
You see. Economics is junk science. It's no different then a hippie who places crystals on a computer to prevent it from crashing.
Maybe the open source advocates ought to join in that crowd too. After all if a corporation is spending 50,000 auditing vacations maybe they will try to save money by migrating to linux.
At least they get stuff for their taxes like healthcare, medicine, crime free streets etc. All we get is shiny bombers and invasion of a couple of a countries. No, No Mr. President. I didn't really need that 300 billion plus for better schools or pothole free streets, you go ahead and invade iraq. Hell here is another 300 billion for Iran while you are at it.
Re:I find arguing with idealists pointless
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"H-Prize" Announced
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You will either change your mind or die a sad lonely man. I am rooting for the latter myself, seems more just. I figure you will screw hundreds of people you get old to die in the meantime.
"Oh yeah, real good idea. Make people live in the already overcrowded, crime riddled cities. "
Most people already live in cities. As for crime ridden that's true in the US by and large. Not so true in other countries where even large cities like tokyo, montreal, auckland, sydney etc don't suffer nearly as much from crime as NY or LA.
"Here's what really just bothers me about you socialists. You think that you know what is best for other people, and you are willing to screw with them to make them change to the way you think it ought to be."
Republicans tax gasoline too. Whats your point?
"Why not let the market sort it all out instead of you needing to poke your fingers in it."
Because the market isn't always right either.
"See, the price of oil/gas goes up and people will adapt naturally. Eventually either a) another energy alternative will become more viable that oil and the market will seize on it or b) people will move to the cities just like you predict will happen and mass transit will become a more productive endeavor."
Right. It's just speeding up what the market will do anyway. Gas prices are going to keep going up because god isn't making it faster then we are using it. Why not speed up the process a little.
"Why do you feel the need to hasten your preferred approach? Arrogance? Because you're right and therefore because people disagree with you they are wrong?"
Same reason why you want to implement your preferred aproach. Because I feel it would be better for the country, future generations and mankind.
We both want to implement our vision, we just have different visions.
There has been a systematic busting of unions for the last couple of decades. So yes once weakened they were no longer able to effectively lobby the govt to prevent the offshoring of these jobs. Much to the detriment of the employees of course.
Yes those lazy cops and firemen just sat around all day long when disasters struck. Oh and those lazy teachers getting paid the big bucks to do nothing at shcool all day.
"Unions are great at representing manual workers who perform repetitive tasks and who have a very horizontal organisation structure."
Bullshit. The American Medical Association, the American Bar Association are unions. Professionals now form "associations" which they pay membership fees do just like unions.
The purpose of a union isn't "just" to level the playing field. It's also to lobby for your members. AMA gets legislation passed, hell they write legislation and demand that politicians vote for it.
Where is your mojo? Did quitting that last job because your company sucked prevent the DMCA from becoming law? Did it reform the patent system?
If we moved the price of gasoline to 10 dollars an hour then less people would live in the suburbs. The country would adapt to bring people closer to work and vice versa. If we moved it to 20 dollars a gallon then even the upper middle class would give up their suburban lifestyle. The rich will continue to live far away from everybody else no matter what you do so lets take them out of the equation.
If gasoline were to be very expensive we would adopt. Suburbia would be turned into farmland so that we don't have to truck our food so far. People would live in higher density cities so they don't have to drive to work. More people would take public transportation and public transportation would be more prevelant.
It's going to happen sooner or later anyway. It's not like the price of oil is going to drop significantly again.
"If these taxes had "worked" -- that is, been directed at the problem / issue they were originally implemented to address -- I'd probably be inclined to agree with you. But they haven't."
I don't know you mean by "worked". Farm subsidies have been around for decades and nobody, not even the most conservative republican politician has called for their ending. Same with road taxes, logging, mining, ranching etc.
Sure there is the occational "liberterian" who makes a call to end these things but liberterians are by and large ignorable because they too know that what they are calling for is impossible. A liberterian calling to an end to farm subsidies is like me calling for rivers of honey and ice cream sundaes every meal. It's easy to call for something you know will never happen.
"Government (from the Feds down to municipal) has shown us time and again how wasteful it is with our tax money. Just as we're asked to make due with less gas, the government should be forced to do more with less tax revenue. Necessity is the mother of invention."
The rich make the rules. The govt exists to make them richer. You are not going to change anything until the rich want less. As I said nobody is selfless enough.
It's obvious to anybody who reads your posts how much you love Microsoft and how much you can't stand anybody saying anything negative about them.
I don't know if you work for them or if you are shilling out of some adolescent desire to align yourself with a big and powerful company but the end result is the same.
You are a shill. Some people are paid shills, others are unpaid shills.
"Yeah, that's what we need -- more artificial controls by the government on commodities."
Why not? The govt already controls the prices of everything buy subsidising virtually every industry in the nation. Everything you eat has been subsidized, every piece of paper or scrap of wood, every mineral, everything. There is already a tax on gasoline too.
"Your plan won't work for several reasons:"
Seven reasons boil down to these two. Nobody is brave enough, nobody is selfless enough.
The main benefit of hydrogen as a fuel is that it's clean. That alone makes it worthwhile to pursue.
You can also think of it as a battery of sorts. You can use solar enerygy, geothermal energy, and yes even oil, nuclear, or coal energy and use it to make hydrogen that you can put into a fuel cell and power a car. It's more convenient then an electrib motor and lots of batteries.
Iceland for example is planning on making use of all their geothermal energy to create a hydrogen economy. Sunny countries can do the same thing with solar enegery.
Is it perfect? Of course not. Is it worth pursuing? Damned right.
I still don't see how the kernel developers are "hurting themselves". Your point was that freezing the API would help the developers because it would provide more proprietary drivers. That argument was shot down very handiliy by other people. Then you went on to say that they are hurting themselves but not freezing the API.
Sure you are entitled to your opinion but it's nonsensical.
It's clear that you are shill for MS. Every time the topic is anywhere close to MS or office you charge into action defending your favorite corporation.
What I am really curious about is why you have chosen to attach yourself to this corporation. When I was in high school people used to argue over fords or chevyies or nike vs addidas. I always thought that as a high school kid maybe it helped people feel more powerful if they aligned themselves with a large corporation.
Seems like some people never get past that stage. Do you wear MS T-shirts and have a bumper sticker with a calvin pissing on a penguin?
"In all fairness, if you're going to post articles about MS doing this, you should post about other companies doing this as well."
Why?
I'll put it another way. Whats it to you? Why do you care so much about MS? Why are you offended if somebody says something bad about MS? Why are you not offended when somebody says something bad about another company?
Well with shills like you around those zealots are not going to get far are they!. Hooray for you kind sir. You have taken it upon yourself to defend the honor of MS from the unwashed masses!.
Alas more corporations need people like you. Is there somebody someplace critizising maytag? Nissan? or Bic? Quick let's all rush to their defense by calling the malcontents zealots!
"It's not hard to read between the lines and realize that even the stalwart Linux advocates don't believe in the product on it's own merits."
Given that every person who uses linux today used windows at one point I'd say you were full of shit. But then again anybody who has read your posts already knows that.
I have no idea what your rant was about. None at all. Are you upset at linux and open source developers because they are not handing you shiny toys fast enough? It sure seems like it.
What is pissing on them accomlishing anyway? Is that working out for you? Pissing on people who give you free stuff because it's not as good as the stuff you buy?
Open source only works when YOU contribute. It's not enough to yell and scream at people who are working because they are not working fast enough for you. You have to roll your sleeves up and help.
I know, I know, you don't know how to program, you can't be bothered to write documentation, you can't be bothered to hang out at IRC and answer questions and god forbid you dig into your pocket and throw some spare change anybodies way. Hell you can't even be bothered to join the FSF.
You are doing your bit by pissing on people who are working.
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But they are just lazy teachers. Who cares what they think. All union members are lazy.
You are saying the same thing I am but in a different way. I am saying that economics is junk science because it has no cause and effect. You are also saying that but in a very round about way.
The govt is the largest employer in the economy, it's also the largest lender, the largest spender, and the most powerful force as it can interest rates, money flows, etc. You simply dismiss it as completely inconsequential. There is nothing that the govt can do that can effect the economy. What an odd thing to say.
Saying that economics is social science and that it's "very hard, if not impossible to predict" is the exact same thing as saying it's a "less predictable subset of psychology".
My point stands. If an economist tells me that X will lead to Y it's exactly the same thing as a hippie telling me that crytals prevent computer crashes. Neither one has a clue, both of them are telling me how they think the world ought to work, and neither one can point any scientifically rigorous study that backs them up.
Where I come from that's called junk science.
And you want somebody who has never put together two pipes working on your plumbing? You want who has never opened up a refrig to work on your heating?
Associations are unions. They have members, they pay dues, they set standards, they lobby. Same thing.
You talk as if economics was anything other then pure junk science and that there were things like cause and effect in economics. There isn't. economics is a less predicatble subset of psychology.
Let me illustrate. When Clinton was president the US had a surplus. Over the next handful of years the govt not only squandered that surplus but got itself into massive debt. On top of all that there were terrorist attacks, two wars, and a long and painful occupation of a another country costing 300 billion dollars (which is surely under accounted).
Now you might think that something like would have had some effect on the economy. Maybe it would effect unemployment, maybe the stock market, maybe the strength of the dollar, maybe the interest rates, maybe the rate of savings, maybe consumer spending, maybe business spending. Some effect, any effect at all.
Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. You can spend money like a drunken sailor, grow the size of the govt, wage war, squander your savings and dig yourself into debt, spend hundreds of billions of dollars one non productive warfare and there is no effect whatsoever.
You see. Economics is junk science. It's no different then a hippie who places crystals on a computer to prevent it from crashing.
Maybe the open source advocates ought to join in that crowd too. After all if a corporation is spending 50,000 auditing vacations maybe they will try to save money by migrating to linux.
At least they get stuff for their taxes like healthcare, medicine, crime free streets etc. All we get is shiny bombers and invasion of a couple of a countries. No, No Mr. President. I didn't really need that 300 billion plus for better schools or pothole free streets, you go ahead and invade iraq. Hell here is another 300 billion for Iran while you are at it.
You will either change your mind or die a sad lonely man. I am rooting for the latter myself, seems more just. I figure you will screw hundreds of people you get old to die in the meantime.
"Oh yeah, real good idea. Make people live in the already overcrowded, crime riddled cities. "
Most people already live in cities. As for crime ridden that's true in the US by and large. Not so true in other countries where even large cities like tokyo, montreal, auckland, sydney etc don't suffer nearly as much from crime as NY or LA.
"Here's what really just bothers me about you socialists. You think that you know what is best for other people, and you are willing to screw with them to make them change to the way you think it ought to be."
Republicans tax gasoline too. Whats your point?
"Why not let the market sort it all out instead of you needing to poke your fingers in it."
Because the market isn't always right either.
"See, the price of oil/gas goes up and people will adapt naturally. Eventually either a) another energy alternative will become more viable that oil and the market will seize on it or b) people will move to the cities just like you predict will happen and mass transit will become a more productive endeavor."
Right. It's just speeding up what the market will do anyway. Gas prices are going to keep going up because god isn't making it faster then we are using it. Why not speed up the process a little.
"Why do you feel the need to hasten your preferred approach? Arrogance? Because you're right and therefore because people disagree with you they are wrong?"
Same reason why you want to implement your preferred aproach. Because I feel it would be better for the country, future generations and mankind.
We both want to implement our vision, we just have different visions.
There has been a systematic busting of unions for the last couple of decades. So yes once weakened they were no longer able to effectively lobby the govt to prevent the offshoring of these jobs. Much to the detriment of the employees of course.
"I want their hands in another cookie jar."
It's already in that jar. That's my point.
Yes those lazy cops and firemen just sat around all day long when disasters struck. Oh and those lazy teachers getting paid the big bucks to do nothing at shcool all day.
"Unions are great at representing manual workers who perform repetitive tasks and who have a very horizontal organisation structure."
Bullshit. The American Medical Association, the American Bar Association are unions. Professionals now form "associations" which they pay membership fees do just like unions.
The purpose of a union isn't "just" to level the playing field. It's also to lobby for your members. AMA gets legislation passed, hell they write legislation and demand that politicians vote for it.
Where is your mojo? Did quitting that last job because your company sucked prevent the DMCA from becoming law? Did it reform the patent system?
If we moved the price of gasoline to 10 dollars an hour then less people would live in the suburbs. The country would adapt to bring people closer to work and vice versa. If we moved it to 20 dollars a gallon then even the upper middle class would give up their suburban lifestyle. The rich will continue to live far away from everybody else no matter what you do so lets take them out of the equation.
If gasoline were to be very expensive we would adopt. Suburbia would be turned into farmland so that we don't have to truck our food so far. People would live in higher density cities so they don't have to drive to work. More people would take public transportation and public transportation would be more prevelant.
It's going to happen sooner or later anyway. It's not like the price of oil is going to drop significantly again.
"If these taxes had "worked" -- that is, been directed at the problem / issue they were originally implemented to address -- I'd probably be inclined to agree with you. But they haven't."
I don't know you mean by "worked". Farm subsidies have been around for decades and nobody, not even the most conservative republican politician has called for their ending. Same with road taxes, logging, mining, ranching etc.
Sure there is the occational "liberterian" who makes a call to end these things but liberterians are by and large ignorable because they too know that what they are calling for is impossible. A liberterian calling to an end to farm subsidies is like me calling for rivers of honey and ice cream sundaes every meal. It's easy to call for something you know will never happen.
"Government (from the Feds down to municipal) has shown us time and again how wasteful it is with our tax money. Just as we're asked to make due with less gas, the government should be forced to do more with less tax revenue. Necessity is the mother of invention."
The rich make the rules. The govt exists to make them richer. You are not going to change anything until the rich want less. As I said nobody is selfless enough.
It's obvious to anybody who reads your posts how much you love Microsoft and how much you can't stand anybody saying anything negative about them.
I don't know if you work for them or if you are shilling out of some adolescent desire to align yourself with a big and powerful company but the end result is the same.
You are a shill. Some people are paid shills, others are unpaid shills.
"Yeah, that's what we need -- more artificial controls by the government on commodities."
Why not? The govt already controls the prices of everything buy subsidising virtually every industry in the nation. Everything you eat has been subsidized, every piece of paper or scrap of wood, every mineral, everything. There is already a tax on gasoline too.
"Your plan won't work for several reasons:"
Seven reasons boil down to these two. Nobody is brave enough, nobody is selfless enough.
That's it.
The main benefit of hydrogen as a fuel is that it's clean. That alone makes it worthwhile to pursue.
You can also think of it as a battery of sorts. You can use solar enerygy, geothermal energy, and yes even oil, nuclear, or coal energy and use it to make hydrogen that you can put into a fuel cell and power a car. It's more convenient then an electrib motor and lots of batteries.
Iceland for example is planning on making use of all their geothermal energy to create a hydrogen economy. Sunny countries can do the same thing with solar enegery.
Is it perfect? Of course not. Is it worth pursuing? Damned right.
I still don't see how the kernel developers are "hurting themselves". Your point was that freezing the API would help the developers because it would provide more proprietary drivers. That argument was shot down very handiliy by other people. Then you went on to say that they are hurting themselves but not freezing the API.
Sure you are entitled to your opinion but it's nonsensical.
I don't understand why you want to use software you don't like written by people you don't like.
As for ethics that's up to you. It's always hard to turn down shiny toys to lead a more virtous life. Ethical behavior always demands sacrifice.
Look if you are using you mac then be happy and use your mac. Don't run gimp on your mac, just buy photoshop and be happy.
You are not a linux user, the only people who have to listen to you are people at apple. You are their customer.
I just don't understand your desire to go yell at people who are coding an operating system you don't use.
Does that make any sense?
It's clear that you are shill for MS. Every time the topic is anywhere close to MS or office you charge into action defending your favorite corporation.
What I am really curious about is why you have chosen to attach yourself to this corporation. When I was in high school people used to argue over fords or chevyies or nike vs addidas. I always thought that as a high school kid maybe it helped people feel more powerful if they aligned themselves with a large corporation.
Seems like some people never get past that stage. Do you wear MS T-shirts and have a bumper sticker with a calvin pissing on a penguin?
"In all fairness, if you're going to post articles about MS doing this, you should post about other companies doing this as well."
Why?
I'll put it another way. Whats it to you? Why do you care so much about MS? Why are you offended if somebody says something bad about MS? Why are you not offended when somebody says something bad about another company?
Linux is good enough and it's cheaper still.
Well with shills like you around those zealots are not going to get far are they!. Hooray for you kind sir. You have taken it upon yourself to defend the honor of MS from the unwashed masses!.
Alas more corporations need people like you. Is there somebody someplace critizising maytag? Nissan? or Bic? Quick let's all rush to their defense by calling the malcontents zealots!
"It's not hard to read between the lines and realize that even the stalwart Linux advocates don't believe in the product on it's own merits."
Given that every person who uses linux today used windows at one point I'd say you were full of shit. But then again anybody who has read your posts already knows that.
I have no idea what your rant was about. None at all. Are you upset at linux and open source developers because they are not handing you shiny toys fast enough? It sure seems like it.
What is pissing on them accomlishing anyway? Is that working out for you? Pissing on people who give you free stuff because it's not as good as the stuff you buy?
Open source only works when YOU contribute. It's not enough to yell and scream at people who are working because they are not working fast enough for you. You have to roll your sleeves up and help.
I know, I know, you don't know how to program, you can't be bothered to write documentation, you can't be bothered to hang out at IRC and answer questions and god forbid you dig into your pocket and throw some spare change anybodies way. Hell you can't even be bothered to join the FSF.
You are doing your bit by pissing on people who are working.