My feeling is that people would behave in the way you describe, because where the State has, for their entire lives, always taken care of long term selfish spending, they have absolutely no experience or thought about behaving in that way.
We have *created* a culture and a population who are psychologically dependent on the State to provide long term selfish behaviour.
There is, though, I think, nothing *fundamental* about this. We are not like this because we cannot be otherwise.
> Governments have the opportunity to invest in the common welfare. That's the whole reason we enabled their > power in the preamble to the Constitution.
The goal is *common welfare*. Subsidies, however, require increased taxation (a direct reduction of common welfare) and distort or break the free market - which is ultimately the ONLY source of common welfare, because Government actually *makes no money*. All it does it take money and spend it.
> Not all governments take the opportunity seriously, but those that have an aware, directed, and involved > populace tend to make startlingly good investment decisions, and in fact, institutional investors such as > governments statistically beat out rates of returns compared to individual investors, and even compared > to financial investment institutions (e.g. mutual funds).
Hang on. We've been talking about Government regulation of telecoms. You now seem to be talking about Government investment of tax revenue into, into what? stocks and shares? property?
What's more, the Government has instrinct advantages over private investors, for example, the assumption that they will be backed up by the Fed - e.g. the Government will, if necesssary, print money to meet their obligations. This enables them to borrow at lower rates, due to their lower risk - which is the problem with Fannie May.
Also, which "individual investors" do you mean? I hope you don't mean private individuals who don't work in the industry, because they ALWAYS get hammered. Beating them means nothing.
> You do realize the market has been steadily deregulated as the prices have increased and quality has > dropped, no?
No so much, no.
I used to pay 150 dollars a month for pay-per-minute 56k access.
I now pay 25 dollars a month for 4 mbit/sec cable, no bandwidth limit.
British Telecom, while they had the monopoly, fought off broadband because they were making money hand over fist from ISDN. It was deregulation which brought in companies who wanted to beat BT and *they* started offering broadband to achieve that, which forced BT to do so as well.
> So posit this: you have Comcast, who currently has to support all of the users in a municipality, urban > and rural both. AT&T comes in, and builds out in the most profitable areas (wealthy/dense) only, and > starts providing a choice in digital television service.
This is the crux of the problem.
Comcast is being forced by the State to behave in ways it would not otherwise behave. It makes no sense to offer a service in a location where it loses you money.
Comcast is forced to do this, AT&T apparently isn't, naturally, AT&T wins.
This is harmful State intervention and interference in the market.
Comcast, AT&T, etc, are privately owned. They belong to people, just like you and me. There is no obligation upon them do *anything*. If they just wanted to offer cable in the middle of Kansas, then they could; it's a free country. The State however has, on behalf of the selfish voter, *forced* them to spend - to lose, in fact - their money. This is wrong. It is a violation of freedom and liberty.
If the State passes a *law* saying Rural Farmer *will have* cable, then the State has passed a law which says Cable Provider *will spend -their- money thus*. It is *absolutely and catagorically wrong*.
> The smaller the price cut, the smaller the number of switchers, so you need a big price cut to get enough > to make it worthwhile.
This makes no sense. Changing price is trivial - you simply change what you charge. If reducing your price increases your profit (which it will do if someone else is undercutting you), then you will do so, because you will make more money.
The idea that you'll shrug your shoulders and go "I can't be bothered" isn't there.
> > > In which case they make larger profits. > > Which is bad how, exactly? > At the expense of equal access, public infrastructure, and realistic phone rates to go along with those > benefits.
You need to think into the future.
If in a given field, a company is making excessive profits, the fact that that field is so profitable naturally leads it to draw in other companies. These new companies then undercut - just a little - the existing companies, to steal their customers. This is the beginning of the virtuous (for the customer) cycle of price cutting until companies cannot reduce prices any more.
Markets are not static entities - they are dynamic. They self-correct, in the absence of State regulation, which permanently distorts markets and either increase prices or restrict supply. (New York renting laws, for example).
> You seem to imply that they will lower their prices or something. I don't see why they would. In which > case they make larger profits.
If you have two or more companies selling much the same product and people can choose between them, the companies are both tempted (unless they form a cartel, which is both illegal and unstable) to lower their prices "just a bit" to make their product cheaper and so win more sales and make more money.
Eventually, both companies reach the point where they cannot reduce prices any more.
Neither company can increase prices, since to do so would lose customers to their competition.
I'm amazed that this isn't obvious. Surely you do really know this?
Expressing an opinion in favour of the free market is NOT flamebait.
Marking this *as* flamebait is the suppression of free speech; "I dislike your opinion, so I will make sure it is modded down, which means others will be less likely to read it".
> Infrastructure investment through government mandate then leads to an effective subsidy on better > communication.
People have n money available to them. They spend it optimally - at least, more optimally than anyone else can spend that money on their behalf, because they know most about themselves, more than anyone else.
When the State appropriates money and decides what to spend it on, that money is AT BEST spend as efficiently as it would have been otherwise (in the case where the State spends it exactly at the individual would have).
However, of course, what actually happens is the State spends is less - and usually far less - efficiently, by spending it on things that are way down the list of efficient uses of money for that person.
So, the State comes along and appropriates your money and spends it on telecoms.
Let's say for the sake of argument it actually works okay out, no corruption, political football, bad decisions, porkbarrelling, etc, and we actually *get* telecoms from this.
So now, here I am, when I need badly need cheaper winter heating and building materials because my house is in disrepair, and what have I got? well the State took the money I would have spent on that and bought me telecoms instead.
That's a pedagogical example to describe the concept; we, as a mass of individuals, direct our money towards the things we need most. We, individually, know best of all, what we need. We, as a mass, therefore provide a demand for a range of services and goods. The finite resources available chase this money and provide these services and goods.
Trying to shortcircuit this process is utter madness, because it is as optimal as we can get.
When the State gets involved, it's always *awful* - the wrong demand is created, the right demand is therefore unmet, the State generally chooses a *single* service and provides it to everyone (e.g. you will all use the State medical service) where the normal market provides a range of companies and so people have choice to suit their needs and preferences, and of course there's also the administrative cost overhead of State (another layer using up money to decide how to spend the money), and the deadly issue of State spending being corrupt, badly chosen, porkbarrelled and bounced around as a political football.
I think that's a mis-use of the moderation system.
As I understand it, the mod system is designed such that it does not express the readers *opinion* about the *subject in hand*.
It expresses an opinion about the *post itself*.
So over-rated means what it means - and to use it for something else is actually to subvert the mod system and perhaps use it to express your opinion about the matter in hand.
That mis-use happens chronically with the troll/flamebait mods.
How exactly is my article over-rated, when there are no ratings on it?
It's a shame the meta-moderation process doesn't let you know the article score when the moderation was given, so you can catch out improper uses like this.
The difference between a cat and a human is that the cat has no choice in his behaviour; we do.
It's an obvious answer and the fact you've missed it, and the insult you've given, clearly show you cannot be trusted in this matter, since you're pro-hunting and are only interested in ignoring or suppressing disagreement.
> Ok... because raising animals just to slaughter them is less unethical than hunting them yourself.
It seems that way to me, because if you attempt to kill them yourself in the wild, the animal is being running the risk of being wounded but escaping, or requiring multiple shots to kill; after all, how often does a clean kill occur, where one shot instantly kills a totally unsuspecting animal? I would expect - and it certainly *ought* to be so - that being slaughtered is zero stress and zero risk for animals. I suspect of course, people being people - nasty, short, brutish, etc - there are places where it's done without consideration for the animals, in a cruel and horrific way. But that doesn't change the underlying principle.
> No, hunting is about gathering food for most people,
That's an significant assertation which bears directly on this discussion. A source should be provided.
> and also people serving the role of predators that have declined - deer populations are rising > dramatically, and they are actually destroying habitat for other animals which leads to far more painful > deaths. The aspect of wandering around in the woods in recreation, but for most people the killing is > not.
Sounds reasonable to me. Not recreational as an end in itself.
> Also, hunters are always trying for a clean kill that does not cause suffering to the animal involved.
That's good and well, but being shot is always a risky business. What happens when you *don't* get the clean kill? what happens when the animal is shot but escapes?
Wouldn't it be better to shoot the animal with a tranquilizer, let it fold, and then walk up to it and kill it?
That way, you only need one hit, and the whole issuing of wounding the animal doesn't come into it, and the animal experiences far less pain.
> It's a lot better for the animal than the cows that go to slaghterhouses, so if you eat meat at all > hunters are at least one step above you ethically - at least they look at what they are eating in the > eye.
I have no problems with killing animals for food. Beef steak raw, please!
> Also a hunter killing an animal is going to be a lot less painful than a natural death at the hands (or > claws) of a predator.
Well, if he gets a clean kill. If not, I don't see much difference between escaping with a bullet wound and escape with some claw wounds, except maybe you have a better chance to survive with the latter.
First off, by the lights of my initial post, not a problem; I was talking about recreational hunting, and what you've described seems to be done to obtain food, as opposed to enjoy hunting as an end in itself.
However, the thought occurs; do we really need to hunt food in the wild? when we have supermarkets?
> I wanted to mod you flamebait, but figured a response would be better.
Flamebait is the correct characterization for a post deliberately made to incite anger.
I've posted what I actually believe.
The troll and flamebait mods are used a lot to indicate *dislike* of a post, which is *not* what they are for.
> Game hunting is about putting food on the table.
That's fine.
> On the other hand, varmint hunting
Can also be justified.
However, I was talking about recreational hunting.
> And before you whine about them suffering, EVERY hunter's goal (be it game hunting or varmint hunting) > is to make a humane shot (aka a shot that kills the animal with little or no pain involved)
That as it may be, the fact is, the animal is being *shot*. It's going to cause suffering and in plenty of cases it won't be a clean kill. I find the notion of shooting a creature with little or no pain rather fake. It seems to me the only way that can be done is to kill the creature instantly with one shot, and that without a pursuit, which itself is going to stress the creature.
> "whether Craig Newmark and CraigsList.org are missing out"
Of course they're missing out on making tons of money.
However, whether they're missing out in a sense which matters to them personally, presumably not, since they've obviously chosen to do what they wish to do; so MarketWatch is basically contemplating its own navel.
> No word on whether that income is enough to pay 24 salaries and data center fees for > hosting a major Internet site.
Apparently it must be, or they wouldn't still have jobs and the sites would have closed down.
Security is hard to get right because you have to get *everything* right.
Make one mistake and you've got no security.
As such, it is problematic to have vast databases of highly valuable information protected by "security".
The result will be a constant flow of database violations.
Unfortunately, by and large, the a database provides a large and ongoing bureaucratic benefit to an organisation, whereas the pain of data loss is primarily born by the people described by the database.
The only response we have as individuals is to keep our details as secret as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
My feeling is that people would behave in the way you describe, because where the State has, for their entire lives, always taken care of long term selfish spending, they have absolutely no experience or thought about behaving in that way.
We have *created* a culture and a population who are psychologically dependent on the State to provide long term selfish behaviour.
There is, though, I think, nothing *fundamental* about this. We are not like this because we cannot be otherwise.
> Governments have the opportunity to invest in the common welfare. That's the whole reason we enabled their
> power in the preamble to the Constitution.
The goal is *common welfare*. Subsidies, however, require increased taxation (a direct reduction of common welfare) and distort or break the free market - which is ultimately the ONLY source of common welfare, because Government actually *makes no money*. All it does it take money and spend it.
> Not all governments take the opportunity seriously, but those that have an aware, directed, and involved
> populace tend to make startlingly good investment decisions, and in fact, institutional investors such as
> governments statistically beat out rates of returns compared to individual investors, and even compared
> to financial investment institutions (e.g. mutual funds).
Hang on. We've been talking about Government regulation of telecoms. You now seem to be talking about Government investment of tax revenue into, into what? stocks and shares? property?
What's more, the Government has instrinct advantages over private investors, for example, the assumption that they will be backed up by the Fed - e.g. the Government will, if necesssary, print money to meet their obligations. This enables them to borrow at lower rates, due to their lower risk - which is the problem with Fannie May.
Also, which "individual investors" do you mean? I hope you don't mean private individuals who don't work in the industry, because they ALWAYS get hammered. Beating them means nothing.
> You do realize the market has been steadily deregulated as the prices have increased and quality has
> dropped, no?
No so much, no.
I used to pay 150 dollars a month for pay-per-minute 56k access.
I now pay 25 dollars a month for 4 mbit/sec cable, no bandwidth limit.
British Telecom, while they had the monopoly, fought off broadband because they were making money hand over fist from ISDN. It was deregulation which brought in companies who wanted to beat BT and *they* started offering broadband to achieve that, which forced BT to do so as well.
> So posit this: you have Comcast, who currently has to support all of the users in a municipality, urban
> and rural both. AT&T comes in, and builds out in the most profitable areas (wealthy/dense) only, and
> starts providing a choice in digital television service.
This is the crux of the problem.
Comcast is being forced by the State to behave in ways it would not otherwise behave. It makes no sense to offer a service in a location where it loses you money.
Comcast is forced to do this, AT&T apparently isn't, naturally, AT&T wins.
This is harmful State intervention and interference in the market.
Comcast, AT&T, etc, are privately owned. They belong to people, just like you and me. There is no obligation upon them do *anything*. If they just wanted to offer cable in the middle of Kansas, then they could; it's a free country. The State however has, on behalf of the selfish voter, *forced* them to spend - to lose, in fact - their money. This is wrong. It is a violation of freedom and liberty.
If the State passes a *law* saying Rural Farmer *will have* cable, then the State has passed a law which says Cable Provider *will spend -their- money thus*. It is *absolutely and catagorically wrong*.
> The smaller the price cut, the smaller the number of switchers, so you need a big price cut to get enough
> to make it worthwhile.
This makes no sense. Changing price is trivial - you simply change what you charge. If reducing your price increases your profit (which it will do if someone else is undercutting you), then you will do so, because you will make more money.
The idea that you'll shrug your shoulders and go "I can't be bothered" isn't there.
> > > In which case they make larger profits.
> > Which is bad how, exactly?
> At the expense of equal access, public infrastructure, and realistic phone rates to go along with those
> benefits.
You need to think into the future.
If in a given field, a company is making excessive profits, the fact that that field is so profitable naturally leads it to draw in other companies. These new companies then undercut - just a little - the existing companies, to steal their customers. This is the beginning of the virtuous (for the customer) cycle of price cutting until companies cannot reduce prices any more.
Markets are not static entities - they are dynamic. They self-correct, in the absence of State regulation, which permanently distorts markets and either increase prices or restrict supply. (New York renting laws, for example).
> You seem to imply that they will lower their prices or something. I don't see why they would. In which
> case they make larger profits.
If you have two or more companies selling much the same product and people can choose between them, the companies are both tempted (unless they form a cartel, which is both illegal and unstable) to lower their prices "just a bit" to make their product cheaper and so win more sales and make more money.
Eventually, both companies reach the point where they cannot reduce prices any more.
Neither company can increase prices, since to do so would lose customers to their competition.
I'm amazed that this isn't obvious. Surely you do really know this?
Moderation abuse.
Expressing an opinion in favour of the free market is NOT flamebait.
Marking this *as* flamebait is the suppression of free speech; "I dislike your opinion, so I will make sure it is modded down, which means others will be less likely to read it".
> Infrastructure investment through government mandate then leads to an effective subsidy on better
> communication.
People have n money available to them. They spend it optimally - at least, more optimally than anyone else can spend that money on their behalf, because they know most about themselves, more than anyone else.
When the State appropriates money and decides what to spend it on, that money is AT BEST spend as efficiently as it would have been otherwise (in the case where the State spends it exactly at the individual would have).
However, of course, what actually happens is the State spends is less - and usually far less - efficiently, by spending it on things that are way down the list of efficient uses of money for that person.
So, the State comes along and appropriates your money and spends it on telecoms.
Let's say for the sake of argument it actually works okay out, no corruption, political football, bad decisions, porkbarrelling, etc, and we actually *get* telecoms from this.
So now, here I am, when I need badly need cheaper winter heating and building materials because my house is in disrepair, and what have I got? well the State took the money I would have spent on that and bought me telecoms instead.
That's a pedagogical example to describe the concept; we, as a mass of individuals, direct our money towards the things we need most. We, individually, know best of all, what we need. We, as a mass, therefore provide a demand for a range of services and goods. The finite resources available chase this money and provide these services and goods.
Trying to shortcircuit this process is utter madness, because it is as optimal as we can get.
When the State gets involved, it's always *awful* - the wrong demand is created, the right demand is therefore unmet, the State generally chooses a *single* service and provides it to everyone (e.g. you will all use the State medical service) where the normal market provides a range of companies and so people have choice to suit their needs and preferences, and of course there's also the administrative cost overhead of State (another layer using up money to decide how to spend the money), and the deadly issue of State spending being corrupt, badly chosen, porkbarrelled and bounced around as a political football.
This is why we need a "Twat (-1)" mod...
I think that's a mis-use of the moderation system.
As I understand it, the mod system is designed such that it does not express the readers *opinion* about the *subject in hand*.
It expresses an opinion about the *post itself*.
So over-rated means what it means - and to use it for something else is actually to subvert the mod system and perhaps use it to express your opinion about the matter in hand.
That mis-use happens chronically with the troll/flamebait mods.
If 200dpi is so good, how come regular LCD monitors are *not* 200 dpi, when a 100 USD *entire laptop* can have such a screen?
How exactly is my article over-rated, when there are no ratings on it?
It's a shame the meta-moderation process doesn't let you know the article score when the moderation was given, so you can catch out improper uses like this.
(I await this post being marked off-topic...)
I paid 700 quid for my monitor. The entire laptop is 100 USD. How exactly is the screen "stunning", in the slightly breathless tone of the article?
> Either way, it appears to be a profitable advertising model.
So is putting crack cocaine in your cola drink.
Which brings us neatly onto cigarette sales.
The difference between a cat and a human is that the cat has no choice in his behaviour; we do.
It's an obvious answer and the fact you've missed it, and the insult you've given, clearly show you cannot be trusted in this matter, since you're pro-hunting and are only interested in ignoring or suppressing disagreement.
> Ok... because raising animals just to slaughter them is less unethical than hunting them yourself.
It seems that way to me, because if you attempt to kill them yourself in the wild, the animal is being running the risk of being wounded but escaping, or requiring multiple shots to kill; after all, how often does a clean kill occur, where one shot instantly kills a totally unsuspecting animal? I would expect - and it certainly *ought* to be so - that being slaughtered is zero stress and zero risk for animals. I suspect of course, people being people - nasty, short, brutish, etc - there are places where it's done without consideration for the animals, in a cruel and horrific way. But that doesn't change the underlying principle.
> No, hunting is about gathering food for most people,
That's an significant assertation which bears directly on this discussion. A source should be provided.
> and also people serving the role of predators that have declined - deer populations are rising
> dramatically, and they are actually destroying habitat for other animals which leads to far more painful
> deaths. The aspect of wandering around in the woods in recreation, but for most people the killing is
> not.
Sounds reasonable to me. Not recreational as an end in itself.
> Also, hunters are always trying for a clean kill that does not cause suffering to the animal involved.
That's good and well, but being shot is always a risky business. What happens when you *don't* get the clean kill? what happens when the animal is shot but escapes?
Wouldn't it be better to shoot the animal with a tranquilizer, let it fold, and then walk up to it and kill it?
That way, you only need one hit, and the whole issuing of wounding the animal doesn't come into it, and the animal experiences far less pain.
> It's a lot better for the animal than the cows that go to slaghterhouses, so if you eat meat at all
> hunters are at least one step above you ethically - at least they look at what they are eating in the
> eye.
I have no problems with killing animals for food. Beef steak raw, please!
> Also a hunter killing an animal is going to be a lot less painful than a natural death at the hands (or
> claws) of a predator.
Well, if he gets a clean kill. If not, I don't see much difference between escaping with a bullet wound and escape with some claw wounds, except maybe you have a better chance to survive with the latter.
Well, two thoughts.
First off, by the lights of my initial post, not a problem; I was talking about recreational hunting, and what you've described seems to be done to obtain food, as opposed to enjoy hunting as an end in itself.
However, the thought occurs; do we really need to hunt food in the wild? when we have supermarkets?
> I wanted to mod you flamebait, but figured a response would be better.
Flamebait is the correct characterization for a post deliberately made to incite anger.
I've posted what I actually believe.
The troll and flamebait mods are used a lot to indicate *dislike* of a post, which is *not* what they are for.
> Game hunting is about putting food on the table.
That's fine.
> On the other hand, varmint hunting
Can also be justified.
However, I was talking about recreational hunting.
> And before you whine about them suffering, EVERY hunter's goal (be it game hunting or varmint hunting)
> is to make a humane shot (aka a shot that kills the animal with little or no pain involved)
That as it may be, the fact is, the animal is being *shot*. It's going to cause suffering and in plenty of cases it won't be a clean kill. I find the notion of shooting a creature with little or no pain rather fake. It seems to me the only way that can be done is to kill the creature instantly with one shot, and that without a pursuit, which itself is going to stress the creature.
Killing creatures for *recreation* is fundamentally unethical because the hunter is inflicting suffering as a part of merely obtaining recreation.
> "whether Craig Newmark and CraigsList.org are missing out"
Of course they're missing out on making tons of money.
However, whether they're missing out in a sense which matters to them personally, presumably not, since they've obviously chosen to do what they wish to do; so MarketWatch is basically contemplating its own navel.
> No word on whether that income is enough to pay 24 salaries and data center fees for
> hosting a major Internet site.
Apparently it must be, or they wouldn't still have jobs and the sites would have closed down.
Security is hard to get right because you have to get *everything* right.
Make one mistake and you've got no security.
As such, it is problematic to have vast databases of highly valuable information protected by "security".
The result will be a constant flow of database violations.
Unfortunately, by and large, the a database provides a large and ongoing bureaucratic benefit to an organisation, whereas the pain of data loss is primarily born by the people described by the database.
The only response we have as individuals is to keep our details as secret as possible.
Try changing your image viewer application.
Try deleting system files you don't want any more.
I can't remember other annoying things, it's been a long time.
Won't save you from a big meteorite strike, though.