Sheesh, did you write a screed like this about "The Web" in 1994 also? "Listen, people, it's not actually a spider web! It's actually just a simple SGML-based markup language underneath!" Calm down. I've never heard anybody advocate the so-called cloud with that much fervor.
The point is it's not being sold to an educated public (i.e. one that is expected to be) on the basis of its usefulness, cost-effectiveness, and technical merit. That's the way we could do things. It has the annoying (to the marketers) side-effect of encouraging scrutiny and critical thought. They'd rather use emotional appeals to get people caught up in the novelty and excitement of a thing. This is by no means limited to cloud computing.
It boils down to a choice between the low and the high whenever there are multiple methods of accomplishing the same thing. There's a certain cynicism among the profession of marketing. The cynicism says that they're all mindless sheeple who need the next bandwagon to get caught up in and will not go for an honest merit-based approach. I say that if you treat masses of people that way for generations, so that people are born into a world knowing little else and are expected to respond to it, you tend to get what you expect. We have not, in any serious and widespread manner, tried to falsify this cynicism. It remains a religious faith.
But in truth, I'd be more concerned about unbrided capitalism and monopolistic practices,
I guess I don't understand why capitalism is a dirty word around here. Isn't it a good thing that businesses are not run by the state? Does competition not spur innovation? Which economic system would you have in capitalism's place?
The problem is that the ISPs were not built on a model of capitalism. They were built on state-funded and state-granted monopolies. Capitalism is not perfect and the model does have weaknesses. One such weakness is when the barrier to entry is astronomically high so that new players cannot independently enter into the market and compete with established players. It was precisely for this reason that the tremendous cost of running lines to each individual home had to be state funded.
You cannot establish a monopoly with state money, suddenly decide to treat it as a purely capitalistic enterprise, and then expect healthy competition. This is doomed to fail simply because it is inconsistent with the nature of the situation. The reality is, we the taxpayers got these companies and systems off the ground and made their existence possible. We the taxpayers have a reasonable expectation that they behave in our interests. They are rightfully beholden to us and they have the option of changing careers if they don't like that.
So far the best solution we have created is to let them operate as a private corporation that holds a monopoly with reasonable regulations to prevent them from exploiting the fact that they are a monopoly. This includes requiring them to lease lines in such a way that competitors can enter the market without digging up thousands of miles of land to lay down their own lines. Your other option is to have no competition at all. This system has weaknesses that are easier to overcome because they are political problems, not economic problems. The political problem is to keep the monopolies in check so that their interests don't override ours.
But to talk about this as though it were a commodity like coffee, where any farmer can independently grow coffee and sell it on the open market and compete with the big boys, well that line of thought is getting us nowhere. It doesn't apply. It's a square peg that you're trying to drive into a round hole. This is a unique situation and the more general rules of capitalism only partially apply.
Perot is a counter-example to his claim......it shows that a motivated person can mount an independent campaign (and really, if you can't raise enough to hire a lawyer to help you get through all the pitfalls, you're not going to be able to afford a nationwide marketing campaign anyway). Perot lost, not because of the other two parties, but because he single-mindedly focused on issues that people didn't care so much about, especially the second time he ran (why would people care about the deficit when Clinton was shrinking it?)
Not everything that happens is a conspiracy.
Every explanation you happen to not like isn't a conspiracy theory. If you really believe that, you're engaging in the very sort of "either/or" thinking that the "left vs. right spectrum" pattern strongly encourages. Since it can be represented by two points and a line, it is quite literally one-dimensional thought. Your mind can do far better.
If you don't really believe that, you're using a very weak rhetorical device to try and weaken my position without even so much as your own serious counter-claim. These are not the actions of someone whose ideas are consistent with reality, nor do they belong to someone who has a point to make.
Those who are shall we say less than street-wise often throw around a term like "conspiracy" (oh noes!) to describe a really simple idea that requires no smoky back-room conspiracy complete with a cigar-smoking mysterious man: the idea that those with power and wealth (something to lose) will try to retain or expand their holdings. I'm sorry if that is incongruent with someone's idealistic view of the world, but I'm not too sorry because it happens to be the truth.
I'll give you an example of de facto collusion: the US cell phone carriers. All of them overcharge for text messages. There was a recent Slashdot story revealing that it costs less to send data to the International Space Station than what carriers charge for terrestrial SMS. Now, a naive person would think that this could not happen, because the very first company to charge a realistic rate for SMS (that actually reflects the marginal cost of delivery) would undercut all the competition and be rewarded in the marketplace. They'd call me a conspiracy theorist for suggesting otherwise. However, the reality, the facts, those pesky things that are the doom of many great worldviews, shows otherwise. All of the carriers benefit so much from all of them overcharging for SMS. They all make more money that way. None of them wants to rock the boat and drive down the market rate for SMS. So with no pre-arranged smoky back-room conspiracy at all, they all engage in de facto collusion and the customers lose.
That happens in a marketplace where only money is involved. If you seriously think nothing like that could ever possibly happen in politics where both money and power are involved, then I am sorry but that's just naive and I hope you grow out of it before some politician exploits it.
I think they just practice the same strategy - get into office, spend everything you can while cancelling anything the other team was doing, then sit back and take credit for whatever 21st century stuff happened while you were in.
Sorry to reply twice to you but it's vital that we get rid of this "gee I guess it just innocently worked out this way with no deliberate engineering and must reflect what the people want" mentality.
If they wanted to cancel anything the other team was doing, then why is Guantanamo Bay still in operation? This was something our current President promised to shut down during his campaign. Oh he also promised to bring the troops home from places like Iraq and Afghanistan. None of the above has happened. All of the above were initiated by a President from the other party.
I don't personally believe Obama ever had any intention of doing those things. I believe he has a strong talent for telling people what they want to hear. That's why he's so polished and charismatic and articulate -- you don't need those traits to tell the hard truth. You don't need to impress people to tell the hard truth. What that takes is guts, not showmanship.
But let's say Obama seriously, in his heart of hearts, really intended to carry out every promise he made. It wouldn't matter. Once he got into office what he found out was that Douglas Adams was right about the Presidency: its purpose is not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. I believe what Obama found out was that the sail which got him into office is not able to change the way the wind blows. Men who put people into the office of the Presidency decided that we will have things like Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition and warrantless wiretapping and there's little or nothing Obama is going to do to stop it.
I think they just practice the same strategy - get into office, spend everything you can while cancelling anything the other team was doing, then sit back and take credit for whatever 21st century stuff happened while you were in.
In that case, why the exclusivity? Have you ever actually read about what happens when any third party tries to even get on the ballot? Suddenly the most obscure laws and technical details become supremely important. It is not a straightforward process and it is not intended to be.
Then after getting on the ballot, there's the matter of funding your campaign so you even have a chance of election. Unless you're independently very wealthy like Ross Perot was, you either join one of the two major parties and play by their rules or you have no support. Even with his billionaire bankroll, Perot could do nothing more than split the Republican vote.
The two parties are different branches of a single organization. That organization's purpose is to do for modern politics what the guilds of old did for trade: to raise the barrier of entry in order to lock out competitors. Then the duopoly (really a monopoly, not that there's much difference) is maintained and can never be seriously challenged.
To see this purpose, this function of a guild, is crucial if you are to understand the actual nature and purpose of the USA's two-party system. Only a certain kind of politician will be vetted and accepted by it. That's why the government is going to grow in size and power no matter who wins the election. They're both puppets because both are afraid to bite the hands that feed them. They are not free to vote their conscience even if they do have one.
One party that uses two divisions to pretend to be two distinct parties is slightly more free than one party that drops the entire facade altogether.
Jesse Ventura gave a good explanation of how politics works. He said it's like pro wrestling. Sure, in the ring the wrestlers talk trash about each other and appear to be fighting each other. After the rigged match, they go out together and have a beer as friends. With wrestling it's the advertising money that does the rigging; with politics it's campaign funds.
Let me get this straight. You don't find anything weird with a book that the reviewer admits is poorly written, poorly edited and is apparently filled with "plenty of errata" yet they give it an 8/10? Any normal person would find something odd about that.
The old saying is that there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
I probably shouldn't bother challenging an AC, but I just don't understand your objections. The only useful reviews of Drupal books are going to be written by people who use Drupal. That doesn't make them "biased" in any meaningful way. Packt publishes a lot of Drupal books, so the fact that a reviewer might publish through the same company is not surprising or automatically some kind of conspiracy. It's frankly ridiculous say that it's a "conflict of interest" to review a book if you happen to have published a book with the same company.
I'm not the AC but I'm tired of the useless book reviews myself.
You sound like you want to see some kind of 3-story tall, crimson, illuminated, flashing red flag with blaring sirens and text stating "THIS REVIEW IS NOT LEGITIMATE" before you are willing to consider the idea. Problem is, biases and conflicts of interest tend to be subtle. It takes a bit of discernment to realize they are present.
To cut to the quick of it, riddle me this: if not all books are excellent, and therefore some books are below average, why are there no Slashdot book reviews that give scores lower than 5/10 and recommend against purchasing the book? With all the hundreds of reviews Slashdot has hosted throughout the years, you would think you could find just one fitting my criteria. As others have pointed out, why does this particular review criticize the book's content, usefulness, and editorial quality while STILL giving it a very good score of 8/10? None of this seems just a little strange to you? None of it is in need of explanation in your mind?
Even if you still disagree, can you at least understand why others would ask these questions? Especially in a cynical time where most people are in fact trying to sell you something and really have no qualms whatsoever about deceiving you so long as they don't technically break (the letter of) any of the laws against fraud? Please tell me you can see it.
I think it's a symptom of inflated opinion about the topic. I don't care about Drupal, although obviously the review author cares. Sort of a halo effect from drupal to the book.
Yes, there are people who are unaware of such tendencies as bias, favoritism, and the halo effect. It renders them unable to dispassionately apply objective criteria.
Such people also have no business writing book reviews and submitting them to a large audience.
Really, it's okay that someone isn't qualified to write a quality review. Not everyone can do everything and that's normal. I'm not qualified to perform brain surgery myself. The difference is, I don't insist on practicing neurosurgery because... wait for it... I'm not qualified! The reviewer can't handle this simple reasoning?
If your Content Management software requires A book to learn how to use it, it's an epic fail.
Likewise, if your book review "Slashvertisements" backfire every single time, producing discussions where 80-90% of all comments are complaints about the questionable nature of the review, and you continue to do these Slashvertisements without ever changing anything, that's an epic fail. That's a real epic fail.
That's a real "the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over, shocked and amazed it produces the same result" epic fail.
I really like this site but here's a thought: when something fails every time it is tried, it's time to move on. Here's a thought: let the success or failure of a venture decide whether it should be repeated. Apparently that's an advanced technique.
Like Bill Hicks said, these things become more clear when you talk them out.
Microsoft started it... at least that was my first exposure to it, in the context of application "consumers" of messages or services. But it's not correct, and I cringe every time I see it.
For one thing, the reason it isn't proper in the current context is that "consuming" implies that the thing being consumed is being used up. Obviously, someone who "consumes" web content in the context given, isn't using it up. Therefore "consuming" is not the correct word.
Not only that, it's a straight-up insult.
Ever notice how people parrot each other with no thought given whatsoever to what they are actually saying? If you're a self-aware individual who doesn't derive a phony sense of self-worth (the kind that won't be there when you really need it) from imitating others then there's no way you wouldn't notice. So while it may not be news to you personally, I will explain the origin of the term "consumer".
It comes from the broadcasting industry. It comes from radio and TV stations that broadcast over the airwaves at no charge to the people who listen and watch. You see, the advertisers who purchase airtime for commercials are the stations' customers. They are the ones paying the bills. They are the ones who might take their business elsewhere if they become dissatisfied.
The consumers are the ones who listen to the radio shows and watch the TV shows. Since they are not paying customers, it does make sense to describe them with a different term. For the broadcasters, their only function is to provide enough ears and eyeballs to convince the advertisers to purchase airtime. They only matter in large numbers. They have little power to negotiate with the station about programming and scheduling because they are not the customer. Any value they have is indirect, not inherent. They take what they are given and like it, or they get nothing at all.
It's belittling to refer to a paying customer as a "consumer". A paying customer really can take their business elsewhere. A paying customer really can make demands that must be met in order to do business. A paying customer really can try to negotiate, bargain, and bring complaints to management.
If you look carefully at this kind of Newspeak, it's always in the direction of belittling, never in the direction of empowering. There is no movement to refer to real consumers as customers and to treat them with the same importance. It's funny how people love to pretend that words and language have no meaning, that this trend has no deliberate purpose, that there is no psychological effect from using the lesser term to refer to the greater thing, that you should smile at people who insult your intelligence by regarding you as less than you are.
I for one say fuck that, and fuck the mindless drones who perpetuate any kind of Newspeak like this with no critical thought whatsoever.
I don't like having to explain to people that they didn't understand their own post, but...
Ah, you'll figure it out.
Apparently if you make a single honest mistake, half a dozen people will come out the woodwork to make sure you know it, or in the case of some, to tell you how much of a retard you are. By implication, I suppose they're also telling me that they never lost their train of thought. At any rate, your post actually explained something useful to me and that's appreciated. If I'm wrong, I hope you or somebody else does speak up to let me know.
The rest were all redundant, merely restating what you made clear. Of course I know a bit about the sort who delight in that, and I know they desperately need every little momentary pleasure they can find. I'm glad I could give them their fix.
Slashdot: gotta love it. It keeps me on my toes. I haven't been bored with it in years.
Oh, and I hate replying to myself, but I just looked on the Wikipedia page for Fair Tax Act and noticed that it indicates that taxes will go down for all married people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FairTax_married.png). So does that mean that taxes will go up for single people? They talk about "broadened tax base" but what does that mean?
I believe I can explain what that means.
The current income tax is based on US residency. All of the foreign tourists who visit this country (on vacation, business trips, etc.) pay no income tax because they are not US residents. The millions of illegal aliens in the US who work "under the table" also pay no income tax (only a few of them ever get a "tax ID", which is a placeholder Social Security number that starts with a '9' usable only for tax purposes). With a national sales tax, all of them would pay federal taxes because all of them are doing business here. They need not be listed as US residents.
The other plus of the Fair Tax Act is that it would be more difficult to cheat. If you go buy groceries at say, Wal-Mart, well, Wal-Mart is not going to help you cheat the federal sales tax for the same reasons they will not help you cheat the current state sales taxes. That's because they have to pay those taxes -- whether or not they pass them onto you. So they have every incentive to pass them onto you, in the form of an exclusive (i.e. separate line-item on your receipt) tax.
The rate needed is being pushed as a "23%" tax.
That figure was not pulled from thin air. Anything you buy right now, let's say a car for example... about 23% of the sticker price of that car is the embedded income tax. That comes from the direct income tax applied to US corporations. As I mentioned earlier, corporations do not really pay taxes. They just pass them on in the form of higher costs. Currently, that higher cost is about 23% of the purchase price of items you buy.
The only real difference is that the Fair Tax would be an exclusive tax (separately stated on your receipt) and not an inclusive tax like the income tax (part of the purchase price but not separately accounted for). Remember that the Fair Tax is designed to be revenue-neutral, so it aims at a percentage that is the same as the income tax it is replacing.
Why are the conservatives so pro-Fair Tax without mentioning the massive increase in costs to be able to collect and remit the money to the government?
Have you looked at the current compliance costs corporations and individuals pay right now for the income tax? That massive income tax code which is millions of lines of law not only requires specialists to understand it, but you can ask 10 specialists a specific question and receive 8 different answers (if you did not already know that, please research the topic -- your jaw will hit the floor when you read the studies). The annual compliance cost to business alone is measured in the tens of billions of dollars. Imagine removing all of that complexity.
The complaince costs businesses face for current state sales taxes are far smaller. A federal sales tax would be based on the same sales figures and would generally use the same infrastructure that is already in place. It would be far cheaper to comply with a much simpler tax code.
They want to throw out millions of lines of IRS code (maybe not millions, but more than a person could read in their lifetimes) and replace it with a "simple" tax. But they can't answer many questions I have, and there is apparently no real structure or leadership to the organization that allows for asking questions. The best I've gotten is connected with "local leaders" who are all apparently morons with temper issues. If that's the only response I'm going to get, it should be voted down on principle alone.
Again I think it's shameful that this is all you have en
"They" want to set the rebate at poverty level. I have been hung up on for asking why poverty level and not half poverty level or twice poverty level, and what studies were done to show that to be the appropriate level. The only coherent answer I ever got was "Because the federal government sets the poverty level." Didn't seem like an answer to me, so when I press for "what would happen to the tax burden if the rebate was instead based on twice poverty level, and what sales tax level would that correspond with" I would be yelled at and insulted.
I feel no need to insult you. You explain that you actually have looked into this and I believe you. It shows. That means we can have reasonable discussion about it, and that's really all I was asking. The only thing I was strongly against there was that a lot of people on this site want to form passionate positions concerning subjects they know little or nothing about, as revealed by questioning them. All that does is derail what could have been good conversation, and is generally an asshat thing to do anyway.
Personally, I have no problem admitting when I can't answer something. I have a good chance of learning something that way, which is much more important to me than trying to convince a bunch of strangers on the Internet that I always have all the answers (which I certainly don't). If I felt a need to insult someone who is civil and raises a legitimate objection or asks a decent question, that'd be a warning to myself that I have a character weakness I should do something about.
Back to your paragraph there. The Fair Tax Act is designed to be revenue-neutral when compared to the existing income tax code. I admit up front I have never seen anyone positively state "remaining revenue neutral is the purpose of setting the prebate at the poverty level". Having said that, it is logical that this would be the case. The Fair Tax Act is currently revenue-neutral by design. If the prebate were increased or decreased, that would change the net amount of tax collected by the federal government, causing it to no longer be revenue-neutral. I believe therefore that this is the simple answer that others have failed to give you.
It's shameful that they'd rather give you a hard time for no good reason instead of taking 3 minutes to use a little simple reasoning as I have just done. I deal with facts and reasoning and whether something withstands tests of truth, not credibility. Yet many people care a great deal about credibility even when they can verify the information themselves. Thus, the people you have dealt with are damaging the very Act they are trying to pass by being dicks about it. The unfortunate reality is that you might have the best law in the world that will feed all the hungry, bring about world peace, and make Santa Claus a real person; if the movement behind it is associated with a bunch of assholes, it will probably never get off the ground. You can witness the same thing when worst zealots attempt to perform Linux/Apple/Windows advocacy. Even when they have a solid point, no one wants to hear it.
Fair Tax, as presented, is as poorly thought out as the health care bill. It's just a bad bill from the other side. But the two party system leads to horrible legislation from both sides being passed in alternate administrations, so I look forward to the US legislating itself into 3rd world status.
I must disagree with you there (with that first sentence only!). The Fair Tax is claimed to be the single most well-researched piece of legislation in history. So far as I can tell, the claim is quite true.
Regarding the two-party system, you're absolutely right. It's a subject I have spoken against on many occasions, as you may have previously seen. I won't get into that here or else this is going to be a really long post, but for you I think that'd be redundant anyway. You seem well aware of the problems with it. The only part you might disagre
What irritates me, especially of US companies is that they make billions over the back of poor people that work for them and try to do anything to keep these people from getting at least fair payment.
In the last several decades corporate profits have grown tremendously while wages have been relatively stagnant. I don't see many good answers to this. Most laws intended to alter market forces produce horrible side-effects that no one wants to admit. An easy example is the shortages caused by imposing price controls. Another example not typically understood in terms of market forces is drug prohibition -- market forces are really quite difficult to declare by fiat.
What I'd personally like to see is the rise of co-ops and employee owned companies. I'd like to eventually see them replace standard corporations. Someone will probably scream bloody murder since globalism is our new holy of holies, but a little protectionism is not a bad thing either. Specifically, I'd like to see just enough that manufacturing jobs start returning to the US. This would be even more effective if we finally admit that corporations do not pay taxes; they merely pass them onto their customers by charging more. If most of their customers are not wealthy, this is actually the same kind of regressive taxation that "progressives" (progress towards what?) normally foam at the mouth about. Currently, more than 20% of the price tag of any item you buy is directly caused by the (inclusive) corporate income tax. Who do you think is most harmed by this? Bill Gates?
Not having the world's second highest corporate tax rate would also attract manufacturing jobs back to the US. If anyone doesn't understand this, perhaps they can take a few minutes (preferably before replying) to look into why the company is called Daimler-Chrysler and is not called Chrysler-Daimler. Replacing income tax with a consumption tax would be the easiest way to do this, and has the nice side-effect of transferring a large amount of power away from Congress since the only "advantage" (for them) of an income tax is that you can use carrot-and-stick incentives to manipulate behavior. Otherwise it's one of the most burdensome, least efficient, most-prone-to-cheating methods of attaining government revenue.
In a probably futile effort to save time, if your knee-jerk reaction is to scream about how consumption taxes are so horribly regressive, do yourself a favor and actually research the Fair Tax Act. Don't be the kind of self-congratulatory jackass who pretends like such concerns have not been addressed. That would only prove that complete ignorance of a subject doesn't stop you from forming an opinion about it. They have been addressed. If you disagree with the methods by which they have been addressed, in that case I welcome your views.
A bit more national self-sufficiency, more jobs, and a wider variety of long-term viable jobs would alter the completely lopsided "buyer's market" that is now the job market. Employers may have to go back to competing with one another for the most desirable talent, something that ultimately benefits everyone. Few benefit from a situation where each applicant to McDonalds is competing with hundreds of others, let alone for higher-paying jobs and "real" careers.
It's so ridiculously simple. Assuming a real love of truth, this is how it would play out:
"So there is no such thing as absolute truth?"
"That's correct."
"Are you absolutely sure?"
It isn't usually so simple. Usually, the need to win the argument gets in the way. I mean, it's not good enough to win. Someone else must lose, dammit. Right?
Wow. That seems harsh. What would you do to them if they lied?
They do lie. Do you really think they are so well-meaning that they simply "accidentally overlooked" all the indications that their data was fallacious? Prior to remitting that data to legislators? Did you suppose that you and I can easily know why their numbers are not even possible, even though we are not professionals, not members of the industry, and not about to present a finalized report to legislators, while they can miss all of this as an honest mistake?
I don't like having to ask people questions like this. I don't view online discussion as some kind of "hah, gotcha" game. I don't keep score. So, it seems like something I should not have to do, and is definitely something I don't enjoy doing, but I must ask... just how naive are you? Do you really think this is all an honest accident? Or do you suppose the theory of "they know they can try anything, throw whatever they want against the wall and capitalize on what sticks, with no risk and no consequences to themselves not even for lying through their teeth" is a better explanation of the facts? That's your call; far be it from me to tell you how you should view the situation.
Lobbyists don't simply lie. That's a vast understatement. We model realities. (At least the skilled ones.) [I say "we", because I try to do the same thing, to fight them. Not that I would be one of them.]
This only works, because people can't accept that reality is relative. So they can't accept that what they perceive as reality, might actually be bad for them and force them to act in a certain way not because that's how things are, but because it was specifically designed that way. Which means they will defend what they think is "absolute/objective reality" (something that doesn't exist) to their death.
Which means once they experienced your input as part of their reality, they will defend you to their death.
It's beautiful. Evil, but beautiful and elegant. But about the most evil thing one can do. I personally consider it more evil than mass-murder. Because those manipulated people in essence stop being an independent entity, but become part of you. Like a possessed zombie, dead, yet walking the earth and talking your views. At least the dead have their peace.
I doubt it will be widely appreciated but you actually do make a compelling observation. I actually wish you had posted with an account.
There's only one point where I would dispute you. Reality simply is. The only reason it may seem relative is that too many people don't have their own eyes to see. They do not know how to process and interpret information for themselves. They don't think critically. They don't understand reason, logical fallacies, bias, nor do they know how to test the objective truth of a thing. They think that's too hard. So they look to others, some trusted establishment like the government, or the media, or a charismatic leader, to tell them what they need to know and how they should feel about it. We call it advertising, propaganda, sound bites, debate framing, half-truths, agenda-driven reporting, whatever you like. If enough people are on board and agree with each other, they see no fault even when there are great faults.
It is the dependence on others to do for you what you should be well able to do for yourself that is the problem. That's why there are "gatekeepers" who get to decide what does and does not become what "everybody knows".
The hard truth is, most human beings are type-cast personalities. They are stamped from a few cookie cutters. They are individuals "just like everyone else" which means not at all. Their thoughts, beliefs, mannerisms, biases, values, ethics, principles, worldviews, perspectives, even those they would quite willingly fight for, are not their own. They are not genuinely theirs. Someone spent a lot of money, expended a lot of influence and political capital, and worked very hard to sell those ideas. It is actually a hypnotic state passionately governed by a sort of emotional logic.
The really funny thing about hyponosis is that people will always rationalize it. A professional hypnotist can look someone right in the eye, with that person's full attention, and tell them plainly "I am about to hypnotize you, and when I do, you will have an overwhelming urge to stand on your head because that is what I hypnotized you to do." Later, the person stands on their head. If you ask them why, they will always have an excuse like "this is my exercise regimen (though it never was before)" or "maybe this will fix my headache" (though they always took an aspirin before). They will never, ever admit that it was due to someone else's influence. Hypnosis works at the ego level, and the ego cannot admit that it has reigns and that someone else can hold them, that the strongest most polished influence gets to possess the reigns.
People easily become so identified with these labels and engineered perspectives that losing them would feel like a type of death. That's what drives the denial. It's the barrier to entry to waking up and realizing how much you're lied to and manipulated every day by people w
When has a Corporate Special Interest Group ever told the complete truth?
The more pressing question: when has there ever been any consequence for them after doing so?
I think revocation of the corporate charter, freezing of all assets, and selling all assets at auction with the proceeds going to charity would send the right message. You'd probably only have to do that once. The example would remain in the memories of all other such groups. They would know there is a line in the sand. It would be a bargain no matter what the cost.
The law requires that the image be intended to cause harm, and have absolutely no other purpose whatsoever at all. Newspapers are safe unless they start publishing pictures for no other purpose than to intimidate or threaten people (Oh, did you think the law said offend? that was made up by Ars Technica to get you offended!)
It's already illegal to threaten people. What does this law proscribe that was not already covered by existing laws?
Maybe not the Supreme Court, but how many tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees would it take to get that far? All for a $2500 fine?
Looks like Tennessee has a strong extortion racket going, so long as they don't get greedy and go after rotten.com or something.
That's why any citizen who wants to hire an attorney should automatically have standing to challenge the Constitutionality of any law.
Here's my logic. All citizens are expected to know and obey all laws that apply to their jurisdiction. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Since the law applies to all, and all are expected to obey it, all should have standing to challenge it. Why should someone need to be convicted under the law before they even have a chance to do that, when compliance to a bad law also has a cost and is also a type of damage?
These politicians value an imaginary right not found in the Constitution, namely the "right to never be offended", more than they value an enumerated natural right that is plainly protected by the Constitution. Bear in mind that the overwhelming plurality of politicians are lawyers -- it is not like they don't understand what the Constitution says. It's not like you would need to be a lawyer to understand the First Amendment. It's more like they know they can do this with impunity, so what's their incentive to honor their oath of office and the highest law of the land?
I'd love to see jail time for politicians who support this bullshit, no matter what other downside to that there may be. If that means politicians spend a great deal of their time trying to jail each other, that's fine with me -- there's more where those came from, time they spend doing that is time they can't spend doing damage to the People, and that would provide incentive for passing only laws that are obviously Constitutional. When I say jail time, I'm not talking a nice cushy vacation getaway type of prison either, I'm talking count them among the general inmate population and see how well they fare.
It's unjust that a few politicians can make millions suffer due to their idiocy, and when the law is finally defeated after great personal cost, financial cost, and possibly years of time, there is no penalty for the legislators who voted for it. This needs to be changed and they need to be reminded that they are our servants, not our masters. I've never heard of a single nation in history which had a legally "untouchable" ruling class that gave a damn about freedom and prosperity. I doubt we're going to be the first.
If you haven't guessed already, I don't think trials should be publicized until they are over. The media shouldn't get to cover the trial while in progress. It's not entertainment, it's justice.
No kidding. I feel that way every time there's some long drawn-out event that gets minute-by-minute play-by-play coverage for weeks.
I never liked the idea of hearing about each miniscule development each day for days or weeks. I'd much rather they wait until a trial or election or what-have-you is over, and then tell me what the result was, once. Not dozens of times. Few events warrant that kind of attention, and among those which do, the whole "media circus" phenomenon makes a mockery of them.
If all of your friends are using Facebook as the primary way keep people up to date... sometimes you find yourself being a little out of the loop. Not that I'm going to open a Facebook account... but sometimes it's hard not to notice this stuff.
Taking a stand based on your principles and your sincere beliefs usually does have a price tag. That's why most people would rather cave in and later rationalize that they did it of their own volition and not due to pressure of one kind or another.
Just appreciate how fortunate you are. Many times when someone stands behind their beliefs, against the grain of the prevailing consensus, the price tag is higher than the mere inconvenience you mention. It's true that your only real obligation is to be true to yourself.
It's nice to hear from others who have the courage to make their own decisions for themselves, and not merely because "everyone else is doing it". Even if your decision was to create a Facebook account, it's far better when it's actually your own, not merely the sum total of external influences that are stronger than your individuality and your values.
For not yielding to that, I salute you. The beauty is, if you understand and appreciate this for a relatively minor issue like whether to participate in Facebook, you also understand and appreciate it for much more important decisions. That's probably the least-understood aspect to this, that the behavior exhibited over relatively minor things like Facebook is a microcosm of much greater patterns. The underlying principle is the same. Individuality and free thought carry serious burdens and are not for the faint of heart, yet the freedom they provide is an incredible bargain at any cost.
Why do you need Facebook to keep up with your friends? You could try actually spending time with them, talking to them, etc.
I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it's not going to work.
What you're doing there is sort of like going back in time and trying to tell the Spanish Inquisition that maybe they shouldn't torture people to death on the basis of flimsy accusations with no evidence. Yes, you're right, but they're not likely to listen.
Slashdot Mirror
Sheesh, did you write a screed like this about "The Web" in 1994 also? "Listen, people, it's not actually a spider web! It's actually just a simple SGML-based markup language underneath!" Calm down. I've never heard anybody advocate the so-called cloud with that much fervor.
The point is it's not being sold to an educated public (i.e. one that is expected to be) on the basis of its usefulness, cost-effectiveness, and technical merit. That's the way we could do things. It has the annoying (to the marketers) side-effect of encouraging scrutiny and critical thought. They'd rather use emotional appeals to get people caught up in the novelty and excitement of a thing. This is by no means limited to cloud computing.
It boils down to a choice between the low and the high whenever there are multiple methods of accomplishing the same thing. There's a certain cynicism among the profession of marketing. The cynicism says that they're all mindless sheeple who need the next bandwagon to get caught up in and will not go for an honest merit-based approach. I say that if you treat masses of people that way for generations, so that people are born into a world knowing little else and are expected to respond to it, you tend to get what you expect. We have not, in any serious and widespread manner, tried to falsify this cynicism. It remains a religious faith.
I guess I don't understand why capitalism is a dirty word around here. Isn't it a good thing that businesses are not run by the state? Does competition not spur innovation? Which economic system would you have in capitalism's place?
The problem is that the ISPs were not built on a model of capitalism. They were built on state-funded and state-granted monopolies. Capitalism is not perfect and the model does have weaknesses. One such weakness is when the barrier to entry is astronomically high so that new players cannot independently enter into the market and compete with established players. It was precisely for this reason that the tremendous cost of running lines to each individual home had to be state funded.
You cannot establish a monopoly with state money, suddenly decide to treat it as a purely capitalistic enterprise, and then expect healthy competition. This is doomed to fail simply because it is inconsistent with the nature of the situation. The reality is, we the taxpayers got these companies and systems off the ground and made their existence possible. We the taxpayers have a reasonable expectation that they behave in our interests. They are rightfully beholden to us and they have the option of changing careers if they don't like that.
So far the best solution we have created is to let them operate as a private corporation that holds a monopoly with reasonable regulations to prevent them from exploiting the fact that they are a monopoly. This includes requiring them to lease lines in such a way that competitors can enter the market without digging up thousands of miles of land to lay down their own lines. Your other option is to have no competition at all. This system has weaknesses that are easier to overcome because they are political problems, not economic problems. The political problem is to keep the monopolies in check so that their interests don't override ours.
But to talk about this as though it were a commodity like coffee, where any farmer can independently grow coffee and sell it on the open market and compete with the big boys, well that line of thought is getting us nowhere. It doesn't apply. It's a square peg that you're trying to drive into a round hole. This is a unique situation and the more general rules of capitalism only partially apply.
Perot is a counter-example to his claim......it shows that a motivated person can mount an independent campaign (and really, if you can't raise enough to hire a lawyer to help you get through all the pitfalls, you're not going to be able to afford a nationwide marketing campaign anyway). Perot lost, not because of the other two parties, but because he single-mindedly focused on issues that people didn't care so much about, especially the second time he ran (why would people care about the deficit when Clinton was shrinking it?)
Not everything that happens is a conspiracy.
Every explanation you happen to not like isn't a conspiracy theory. If you really believe that, you're engaging in the very sort of "either/or" thinking that the "left vs. right spectrum" pattern strongly encourages. Since it can be represented by two points and a line, it is quite literally one-dimensional thought. Your mind can do far better.
If you don't really believe that, you're using a very weak rhetorical device to try and weaken my position without even so much as your own serious counter-claim. These are not the actions of someone whose ideas are consistent with reality, nor do they belong to someone who has a point to make.
Those who are shall we say less than street-wise often throw around a term like "conspiracy" (oh noes!) to describe a really simple idea that requires no smoky back-room conspiracy complete with a cigar-smoking mysterious man: the idea that those with power and wealth (something to lose) will try to retain or expand their holdings. I'm sorry if that is incongruent with someone's idealistic view of the world, but I'm not too sorry because it happens to be the truth.
I'll give you an example of de facto collusion: the US cell phone carriers. All of them overcharge for text messages. There was a recent Slashdot story revealing that it costs less to send data to the International Space Station than what carriers charge for terrestrial SMS. Now, a naive person would think that this could not happen, because the very first company to charge a realistic rate for SMS (that actually reflects the marginal cost of delivery) would undercut all the competition and be rewarded in the marketplace. They'd call me a conspiracy theorist for suggesting otherwise. However, the reality, the facts, those pesky things that are the doom of many great worldviews, shows otherwise. All of the carriers benefit so much from all of them overcharging for SMS. They all make more money that way. None of them wants to rock the boat and drive down the market rate for SMS. So with no pre-arranged smoky back-room conspiracy at all, they all engage in de facto collusion and the customers lose.
That happens in a marketplace where only money is involved. If you seriously think nothing like that could ever possibly happen in politics where both money and power are involved, then I am sorry but that's just naive and I hope you grow out of it before some politician exploits it.
I think they just practice the same strategy - get into office, spend everything you can while cancelling anything the other team was doing, then sit back and take credit for whatever 21st century stuff happened while you were in.
Sorry to reply twice to you but it's vital that we get rid of this "gee I guess it just innocently worked out this way with no deliberate engineering and must reflect what the people want" mentality.
If they wanted to cancel anything the other team was doing, then why is Guantanamo Bay still in operation? This was something our current President promised to shut down during his campaign. Oh he also promised to bring the troops home from places like Iraq and Afghanistan. None of the above has happened. All of the above were initiated by a President from the other party.
I don't personally believe Obama ever had any intention of doing those things. I believe he has a strong talent for telling people what they want to hear. That's why he's so polished and charismatic and articulate -- you don't need those traits to tell the hard truth. You don't need to impress people to tell the hard truth. What that takes is guts, not showmanship.
But let's say Obama seriously, in his heart of hearts, really intended to carry out every promise he made. It wouldn't matter. Once he got into office what he found out was that Douglas Adams was right about the Presidency: its purpose is not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. I believe what Obama found out was that the sail which got him into office is not able to change the way the wind blows. Men who put people into the office of the Presidency decided that we will have things like Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition and warrantless wiretapping and there's little or nothing Obama is going to do to stop it.
I think they just practice the same strategy - get into office, spend everything you can while cancelling anything the other team was doing, then sit back and take credit for whatever 21st century stuff happened while you were in.
In that case, why the exclusivity? Have you ever actually read about what happens when any third party tries to even get on the ballot? Suddenly the most obscure laws and technical details become supremely important. It is not a straightforward process and it is not intended to be.
Then after getting on the ballot, there's the matter of funding your campaign so you even have a chance of election. Unless you're independently very wealthy like Ross Perot was, you either join one of the two major parties and play by their rules or you have no support. Even with his billionaire bankroll, Perot could do nothing more than split the Republican vote.
The two parties are different branches of a single organization. That organization's purpose is to do for modern politics what the guilds of old did for trade: to raise the barrier of entry in order to lock out competitors. Then the duopoly (really a monopoly, not that there's much difference) is maintained and can never be seriously challenged.
To see this purpose, this function of a guild, is crucial if you are to understand the actual nature and purpose of the USA's two-party system. Only a certain kind of politician will be vetted and accepted by it. That's why the government is going to grow in size and power no matter who wins the election. They're both puppets because both are afraid to bite the hands that feed them. They are not free to vote their conscience even if they do have one.
Two parties are twice as free as one.
One party that uses two divisions to pretend to be two distinct parties is slightly more free than one party that drops the entire facade altogether.
Jesse Ventura gave a good explanation of how politics works. He said it's like pro wrestling. Sure, in the ring the wrestlers talk trash about each other and appear to be fighting each other. After the rigged match, they go out together and have a beer as friends. With wrestling it's the advertising money that does the rigging; with politics it's campaign funds.
Let me get this straight. You don't find anything weird with a book that the reviewer admits is poorly written, poorly edited and is apparently filled with "plenty of errata" yet they give it an 8/10? Any normal person would find something odd about that.
The old saying is that there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
I probably shouldn't bother challenging an AC, but I just don't understand your objections. The only useful reviews of Drupal books are going to be written by people who use Drupal. That doesn't make them "biased" in any meaningful way. Packt publishes a lot of Drupal books, so the fact that a reviewer might publish through the same company is not surprising or automatically some kind of conspiracy. It's frankly ridiculous say that it's a "conflict of interest" to review a book if you happen to have published a book with the same company.
I'm not the AC but I'm tired of the useless book reviews myself.
You sound like you want to see some kind of 3-story tall, crimson, illuminated, flashing red flag with blaring sirens and text stating "THIS REVIEW IS NOT LEGITIMATE" before you are willing to consider the idea. Problem is, biases and conflicts of interest tend to be subtle. It takes a bit of discernment to realize they are present.
To cut to the quick of it, riddle me this: if not all books are excellent, and therefore some books are below average, why are there no Slashdot book reviews that give scores lower than 5/10 and recommend against purchasing the book? With all the hundreds of reviews Slashdot has hosted throughout the years, you would think you could find just one fitting my criteria. As others have pointed out, why does this particular review criticize the book's content, usefulness, and editorial quality while STILL giving it a very good score of 8/10? None of this seems just a little strange to you? None of it is in need of explanation in your mind?
Even if you still disagree, can you at least understand why others would ask these questions? Especially in a cynical time where most people are in fact trying to sell you something and really have no qualms whatsoever about deceiving you so long as they don't technically break (the letter of) any of the laws against fraud? Please tell me you can see it.
Yes, there are people who are unaware of such tendencies as bias, favoritism, and the halo effect. It renders them unable to dispassionately apply objective criteria.
Such people also have no business writing book reviews and submitting them to a large audience.
Really, it's okay that someone isn't qualified to write a quality review. Not everyone can do everything and that's normal. I'm not qualified to perform brain surgery myself. The difference is, I don't insist on practicing neurosurgery because ... wait for it ... I'm not qualified! The reviewer can't handle this simple reasoning?
If your Content Management software requires A book to learn how to use it, it's an epic fail.
Likewise, if your book review "Slashvertisements" backfire every single time, producing discussions where 80-90% of all comments are complaints about the questionable nature of the review, and you continue to do these Slashvertisements without ever changing anything, that's an epic fail. That's a real epic fail.
That's a real "the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over, shocked and amazed it produces the same result" epic fail.
I really like this site but here's a thought: when something fails every time it is tried, it's time to move on. Here's a thought: let the success or failure of a venture decide whether it should be repeated. Apparently that's an advanced technique.
Like Bill Hicks said, these things become more clear when you talk them out.
Microsoft started it... at least that was my first exposure to it, in the context of application "consumers" of messages or services. But it's not correct, and I cringe every time I see it.
For one thing, the reason it isn't proper in the current context is that "consuming" implies that the thing being consumed is being used up. Obviously, someone who "consumes" web content in the context given, isn't using it up. Therefore "consuming" is not the correct word.
Not only that, it's a straight-up insult.
Ever notice how people parrot each other with no thought given whatsoever to what they are actually saying? If you're a self-aware individual who doesn't derive a phony sense of self-worth (the kind that won't be there when you really need it) from imitating others then there's no way you wouldn't notice. So while it may not be news to you personally, I will explain the origin of the term "consumer".
It comes from the broadcasting industry. It comes from radio and TV stations that broadcast over the airwaves at no charge to the people who listen and watch. You see, the advertisers who purchase airtime for commercials are the stations' customers. They are the ones paying the bills. They are the ones who might take their business elsewhere if they become dissatisfied.
The consumers are the ones who listen to the radio shows and watch the TV shows. Since they are not paying customers, it does make sense to describe them with a different term. For the broadcasters, their only function is to provide enough ears and eyeballs to convince the advertisers to purchase airtime. They only matter in large numbers. They have little power to negotiate with the station about programming and scheduling because they are not the customer. Any value they have is indirect, not inherent. They take what they are given and like it, or they get nothing at all.
It's belittling to refer to a paying customer as a "consumer". A paying customer really can take their business elsewhere. A paying customer really can make demands that must be met in order to do business. A paying customer really can try to negotiate, bargain, and bring complaints to management.
If you look carefully at this kind of Newspeak, it's always in the direction of belittling, never in the direction of empowering. There is no movement to refer to real consumers as customers and to treat them with the same importance. It's funny how people love to pretend that words and language have no meaning, that this trend has no deliberate purpose, that there is no psychological effect from using the lesser term to refer to the greater thing, that you should smile at people who insult your intelligence by regarding you as less than you are.
I for one say fuck that, and fuck the mindless drones who perpetuate any kind of Newspeak like this with no critical thought whatsoever.
I don't like having to explain to people that they didn't understand their own post, but...
Ah, you'll figure it out.
Apparently if you make a single honest mistake, half a dozen people will come out the woodwork to make sure you know it, or in the case of some, to tell you how much of a retard you are. By implication, I suppose they're also telling me that they never lost their train of thought. At any rate, your post actually explained something useful to me and that's appreciated. If I'm wrong, I hope you or somebody else does speak up to let me know.
The rest were all redundant, merely restating what you made clear. Of course I know a bit about the sort who delight in that, and I know they desperately need every little momentary pleasure they can find. I'm glad I could give them their fix.
Slashdot: gotta love it. It keeps me on my toes. I haven't been bored with it in years.
I believe I can explain what that means.
The current income tax is based on US residency. All of the foreign tourists who visit this country (on vacation, business trips, etc.) pay no income tax because they are not US residents. The millions of illegal aliens in the US who work "under the table" also pay no income tax (only a few of them ever get a "tax ID", which is a placeholder Social Security number that starts with a '9' usable only for tax purposes). With a national sales tax, all of them would pay federal taxes because all of them are doing business here. They need not be listed as US residents.
The other plus of the Fair Tax Act is that it would be more difficult to cheat. If you go buy groceries at say, Wal-Mart, well, Wal-Mart is not going to help you cheat the federal sales tax for the same reasons they will not help you cheat the current state sales taxes. That's because they have to pay those taxes -- whether or not they pass them onto you. So they have every incentive to pass them onto you, in the form of an exclusive (i.e. separate line-item on your receipt) tax.
That figure was not pulled from thin air. Anything you buy right now, let's say a car for example ... about 23% of the sticker price of that car is the embedded income tax. That comes from the direct income tax applied to US corporations. As I mentioned earlier, corporations do not really pay taxes. They just pass them on in the form of higher costs. Currently, that higher cost is about 23% of the purchase price of items you buy.
The only real difference is that the Fair Tax would be an exclusive tax (separately stated on your receipt) and not an inclusive tax like the income tax (part of the purchase price but not separately accounted for). Remember that the Fair Tax is designed to be revenue-neutral, so it aims at a percentage that is the same as the income tax it is replacing.
Have you looked at the current compliance costs corporations and individuals pay right now for the income tax? That massive income tax code which is millions of lines of law not only requires specialists to understand it, but you can ask 10 specialists a specific question and receive 8 different answers (if you did not already know that, please research the topic -- your jaw will hit the floor when you read the studies). The annual compliance cost to business alone is measured in the tens of billions of dollars. Imagine removing all of that complexity.
The complaince costs businesses face for current state sales taxes are far smaller. A federal sales tax would be based on the same sales figures and would generally use the same infrastructure that is already in place. It would be far cheaper to comply with a much simpler tax code.
Again I think it's shameful that this is all you have en
I feel no need to insult you. You explain that you actually have looked into this and I believe you. It shows. That means we can have reasonable discussion about it, and that's really all I was asking. The only thing I was strongly against there was that a lot of people on this site want to form passionate positions concerning subjects they know little or nothing about, as revealed by questioning them. All that does is derail what could have been good conversation, and is generally an asshat thing to do anyway.
Personally, I have no problem admitting when I can't answer something. I have a good chance of learning something that way, which is much more important to me than trying to convince a bunch of strangers on the Internet that I always have all the answers (which I certainly don't). If I felt a need to insult someone who is civil and raises a legitimate objection or asks a decent question, that'd be a warning to myself that I have a character weakness I should do something about.
Back to your paragraph there. The Fair Tax Act is designed to be revenue-neutral when compared to the existing income tax code. I admit up front I have never seen anyone positively state "remaining revenue neutral is the purpose of setting the prebate at the poverty level". Having said that, it is logical that this would be the case. The Fair Tax Act is currently revenue-neutral by design. If the prebate were increased or decreased, that would change the net amount of tax collected by the federal government, causing it to no longer be revenue-neutral. I believe therefore that this is the simple answer that others have failed to give you.
It's shameful that they'd rather give you a hard time for no good reason instead of taking 3 minutes to use a little simple reasoning as I have just done. I deal with facts and reasoning and whether something withstands tests of truth, not credibility. Yet many people care a great deal about credibility even when they can verify the information themselves. Thus, the people you have dealt with are damaging the very Act they are trying to pass by being dicks about it. The unfortunate reality is that you might have the best law in the world that will feed all the hungry, bring about world peace, and make Santa Claus a real person; if the movement behind it is associated with a bunch of assholes, it will probably never get off the ground. You can witness the same thing when worst zealots attempt to perform Linux/Apple/Windows advocacy. Even when they have a solid point, no one wants to hear it.
I must disagree with you there (with that first sentence only!). The Fair Tax is claimed to be the single most well-researched piece of legislation in history. So far as I can tell, the claim is quite true.
Regarding the two-party system, you're absolutely right. It's a subject I have spoken against on many occasions, as you may have previously seen. I won't get into that here or else this is going to be a really long post, but for you I think that'd be redundant anyway. You seem well aware of the problems with it. The only part you might disagre
In the last several decades corporate profits have grown tremendously while wages have been relatively stagnant. I don't see many good answers to this. Most laws intended to alter market forces produce horrible side-effects that no one wants to admit. An easy example is the shortages caused by imposing price controls. Another example not typically understood in terms of market forces is drug prohibition -- market forces are really quite difficult to declare by fiat.
What I'd personally like to see is the rise of co-ops and employee owned companies. I'd like to eventually see them replace standard corporations. Someone will probably scream bloody murder since globalism is our new holy of holies, but a little protectionism is not a bad thing either. Specifically, I'd like to see just enough that manufacturing jobs start returning to the US. This would be even more effective if we finally admit that corporations do not pay taxes; they merely pass them onto their customers by charging more. If most of their customers are not wealthy, this is actually the same kind of regressive taxation that "progressives" (progress towards what?) normally foam at the mouth about. Currently, more than 20% of the price tag of any item you buy is directly caused by the (inclusive) corporate income tax. Who do you think is most harmed by this? Bill Gates?
Not having the world's second highest corporate tax rate would also attract manufacturing jobs back to the US. If anyone doesn't understand this, perhaps they can take a few minutes (preferably before replying) to look into why the company is called Daimler-Chrysler and is not called Chrysler-Daimler. Replacing income tax with a consumption tax would be the easiest way to do this, and has the nice side-effect of transferring a large amount of power away from Congress since the only "advantage" (for them) of an income tax is that you can use carrot-and-stick incentives to manipulate behavior. Otherwise it's one of the most burdensome, least efficient, most-prone-to-cheating methods of attaining government revenue.
In a probably futile effort to save time, if your knee-jerk reaction is to scream about how consumption taxes are so horribly regressive, do yourself a favor and actually research the Fair Tax Act. Don't be the kind of self-congratulatory jackass who pretends like such concerns have not been addressed. That would only prove that complete ignorance of a subject doesn't stop you from forming an opinion about it. They have been addressed. If you disagree with the methods by which they have been addressed, in that case I welcome your views.
A bit more national self-sufficiency, more jobs, and a wider variety of long-term viable jobs would alter the completely lopsided "buyer's market" that is now the job market. Employers may have to go back to competing with one another for the most desirable talent, something that ultimately benefits everyone. Few benefit from a situation where each applicant to McDonalds is competing with hundreds of others, let alone for higher-paying jobs and "real" careers.
It's so ridiculously simple. Assuming a real love of truth, this is how it would play out:
"So there is no such thing as absolute truth?"
"That's correct."
"Are you absolutely sure?"
It isn't usually so simple. Usually, the need to win the argument gets in the way. I mean, it's not good enough to win. Someone else must lose, dammit. Right?
Wow. That seems harsh. What would you do to them if they lied?
They do lie. Do you really think they are so well-meaning that they simply "accidentally overlooked" all the indications that their data was fallacious? Prior to remitting that data to legislators? Did you suppose that you and I can easily know why their numbers are not even possible, even though we are not professionals, not members of the industry, and not about to present a finalized report to legislators, while they can miss all of this as an honest mistake?
I don't like having to ask people questions like this. I don't view online discussion as some kind of "hah, gotcha" game. I don't keep score. So, it seems like something I should not have to do, and is definitely something I don't enjoy doing, but I must ask ... just how naive are you? Do you really think this is all an honest accident? Or do you suppose the theory of "they know they can try anything, throw whatever they want against the wall and capitalize on what sticks, with no risk and no consequences to themselves not even for lying through their teeth" is a better explanation of the facts? That's your call; far be it from me to tell you how you should view the situation.
Lobbyists don't simply lie. That's a vast understatement. We model realities. (At least the skilled ones.) [I say "we", because I try to do the same thing, to fight them. Not that I would be one of them.]
This only works, because people can't accept that reality is relative. So they can't accept that what they perceive as reality, might actually be bad for them and force them to act in a certain way not because that's how things are, but because it was specifically designed that way.
Which means they will defend what they think is "absolute/objective reality" (something that doesn't exist) to their death.
Which means once they experienced your input as part of their reality, they will defend you to their death.
It's beautiful. Evil, but beautiful and elegant. But about the most evil thing one can do.
I personally consider it more evil than mass-murder. Because those manipulated people in essence stop being an independent entity, but become part of you. Like a possessed zombie, dead, yet walking the earth and talking your views.
At least the dead have their peace.
I doubt it will be widely appreciated but you actually do make a compelling observation. I actually wish you had posted with an account.
There's only one point where I would dispute you. Reality simply is. The only reason it may seem relative is that too many people don't have their own eyes to see. They do not know how to process and interpret information for themselves. They don't think critically. They don't understand reason, logical fallacies, bias, nor do they know how to test the objective truth of a thing. They think that's too hard. So they look to others, some trusted establishment like the government, or the media, or a charismatic leader, to tell them what they need to know and how they should feel about it. We call it advertising, propaganda, sound bites, debate framing, half-truths, agenda-driven reporting, whatever you like. If enough people are on board and agree with each other, they see no fault even when there are great faults.
It is the dependence on others to do for you what you should be well able to do for yourself that is the problem. That's why there are "gatekeepers" who get to decide what does and does not become what "everybody knows".
The hard truth is, most human beings are type-cast personalities. They are stamped from a few cookie cutters. They are individuals "just like everyone else" which means not at all. Their thoughts, beliefs, mannerisms, biases, values, ethics, principles, worldviews, perspectives, even those they would quite willingly fight for, are not their own. They are not genuinely theirs. Someone spent a lot of money, expended a lot of influence and political capital, and worked very hard to sell those ideas. It is actually a hypnotic state passionately governed by a sort of emotional logic.
The really funny thing about hyponosis is that people will always rationalize it. A professional hypnotist can look someone right in the eye, with that person's full attention, and tell them plainly "I am about to hypnotize you, and when I do, you will have an overwhelming urge to stand on your head because that is what I hypnotized you to do." Later, the person stands on their head. If you ask them why, they will always have an excuse like "this is my exercise regimen (though it never was before)" or "maybe this will fix my headache" (though they always took an aspirin before). They will never, ever admit that it was due to someone else's influence. Hypnosis works at the ego level, and the ego cannot admit that it has reigns and that someone else can hold them, that the strongest most polished influence gets to possess the reigns.
People easily become so identified with these labels and engineered perspectives that losing them would feel like a type of death. That's what drives the denial. It's the barrier to entry to waking up and realizing how much you're lied to and manipulated every day by people w
This isn't incompetence, it's sickening greed.
It is a physical pathology of which greed, amongst other things, including criminal behavior, is a symptom.
Hypothetically speaking, do you think involuntary sterilization is too harsh? With or without anesthesia -- I'm not picky.
When has a Corporate Special Interest Group ever told the complete truth?
The more pressing question: when has there ever been any consequence for them after doing so?
I think revocation of the corporate charter, freezing of all assets, and selling all assets at auction with the proceeds going to charity would send the right message. You'd probably only have to do that once. The example would remain in the memories of all other such groups. They would know there is a line in the sand. It would be a bargain no matter what the cost.
The law requires that the image be intended to cause harm, and have absolutely no other purpose whatsoever at all. Newspapers are safe unless they start publishing pictures for no other purpose than to intimidate or threaten people (Oh, did you think the law said offend? that was made up by Ars Technica to get you offended!)
It's already illegal to threaten people. What does this law proscribe that was not already covered by existing laws?
Maybe not the Supreme Court, but how many tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees would it take to get that far? All for a $2500 fine?
Looks like Tennessee has a strong extortion racket going, so long as they don't get greedy and go after rotten.com or something.
That's why any citizen who wants to hire an attorney should automatically have standing to challenge the Constitutionality of any law.
Here's my logic. All citizens are expected to know and obey all laws that apply to their jurisdiction. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Since the law applies to all, and all are expected to obey it, all should have standing to challenge it. Why should someone need to be convicted under the law before they even have a chance to do that, when compliance to a bad law also has a cost and is also a type of damage?
These politicians value an imaginary right not found in the Constitution, namely the "right to never be offended", more than they value an enumerated natural right that is plainly protected by the Constitution. Bear in mind that the overwhelming plurality of politicians are lawyers -- it is not like they don't understand what the Constitution says. It's not like you would need to be a lawyer to understand the First Amendment. It's more like they know they can do this with impunity, so what's their incentive to honor their oath of office and the highest law of the land?
I'd love to see jail time for politicians who support this bullshit, no matter what other downside to that there may be. If that means politicians spend a great deal of their time trying to jail each other, that's fine with me -- there's more where those came from, time they spend doing that is time they can't spend doing damage to the People, and that would provide incentive for passing only laws that are obviously Constitutional. When I say jail time, I'm not talking a nice cushy vacation getaway type of prison either, I'm talking count them among the general inmate population and see how well they fare.
It's unjust that a few politicians can make millions suffer due to their idiocy, and when the law is finally defeated after great personal cost, financial cost, and possibly years of time, there is no penalty for the legislators who voted for it. This needs to be changed and they need to be reminded that they are our servants, not our masters. I've never heard of a single nation in history which had a legally "untouchable" ruling class that gave a damn about freedom and prosperity. I doubt we're going to be the first.
No kidding. I feel that way every time there's some long drawn-out event that gets minute-by-minute play-by-play coverage for weeks.
I never liked the idea of hearing about each miniscule development each day for days or weeks. I'd much rather they wait until a trial or election or what-have-you is over, and then tell me what the result was, once. Not dozens of times. Few events warrant that kind of attention, and among those which do, the whole "media circus" phenomenon makes a mockery of them.
Taking a stand based on your principles and your sincere beliefs usually does have a price tag. That's why most people would rather cave in and later rationalize that they did it of their own volition and not due to pressure of one kind or another.
Just appreciate how fortunate you are. Many times when someone stands behind their beliefs, against the grain of the prevailing consensus, the price tag is higher than the mere inconvenience you mention. It's true that your only real obligation is to be true to yourself.
It's nice to hear from others who have the courage to make their own decisions for themselves, and not merely because "everyone else is doing it". Even if your decision was to create a Facebook account, it's far better when it's actually your own, not merely the sum total of external influences that are stronger than your individuality and your values.
For not yielding to that, I salute you. The beauty is, if you understand and appreciate this for a relatively minor issue like whether to participate in Facebook, you also understand and appreciate it for much more important decisions. That's probably the least-understood aspect to this, that the behavior exhibited over relatively minor things like Facebook is a microcosm of much greater patterns. The underlying principle is the same. Individuality and free thought carry serious burdens and are not for the faint of heart, yet the freedom they provide is an incredible bargain at any cost.
Why do you need Facebook to keep up with your friends? You could try actually spending time with them, talking to them, etc.
I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it's not going to work.
What you're doing there is sort of like going back in time and trying to tell the Spanish Inquisition that maybe they shouldn't torture people to death on the basis of flimsy accusations with no evidence. Yes, you're right, but they're not likely to listen.