You just made my friends lists (as if that would be important to you, heheheh). You appear to be rational and capable of evaluating outcomes in a non-hysterical manner. The world needs more people like you.
I just thought of something... maybe I am not the "I" that I think I am... when I stop trying to control myself, I sure feel a lot more relaxed. I wonder how intelligent I am when I do not try to be intelligent. Hehehe. I also wonder if this makes any sense.
I have read the tons of replies that you have received regarding this post so I won't cover anything that has already been discussed other than to say: Me too (as far as names go) but it applies to me less often concerning objects.
What I am going to add is that if I stop trying and just totaly uncensor myself, I can get a name right by "guessing" most of the time. Very weird. I can also "guess" the time accurately to within a minute even after hours of not looking at a clock. It seems as if my brain has its own life and I just merely think I am in control of it. Thankfully, it allows me to use it every now and then.:)
On AFN (American Forces Network) they have a "commercial" featuring the Secretary of the Air Force stating that we have been at war for 15 years... WTF?
What is up with the current Chuck Norris thing going on here? Some other guy has a Chuck Norris sig and I have seen several postings recently by various people concerning him. Does he have a new show on TV or something? (I am not in America currently so I wouldn't know)
Realisticly though, Bruce Lee kicked Chuck Norris' ass all over the place so why not idolize Bruce Lee? Is it because Bruce Lee is dead now?
FISA was written in 1978, before throw-away cell phones and the idea that terrorism would ever be a threat to Americans. We are at war with a stateless enemy that exists in every nation of the globe and is sworn to our destruction.
We are at "war" with an idea. There will ALWAYS be terrorists, some of them right here at home. It is a war that can NEVER be won. NEVER, as in infinity is not long enough... at least until there is only one person left alive in the whole universe.
Furthermore, this enemy can NOT destroy us. Only we can destroy us. Terrorism is not something that we can legitimately be at war with because it can not wage war with us. Terrorism is a job for the CIA/FBI and not the military.
Do you decline to use your badge to open the building door at work?
My god! If RFID is that unreliable, why is anyone using it and why would anyone be afraid of the privacy implications? I routinely had to swipe my card 3 or 4 times just to get the damned door to open.
If you aren't passionate or competant enough in any field offered anywhere, well, you're better served getting started on your french-frying career
The problem is that being a french fry chef doesn't pay very well... and many people will lie, cheat, and steal to get money. If a degree promises more money, they will cheat to get it rather than opting for the less lucrative career at mcdonalds.
Metamoderation used to have a great feature where if you disagreed with more than 2 moderations, it subtracted karma from the meta-moderator.
I disagree. I think that is a negative feature. There have been many times that I have seen more than two abuses of the moderation system in a single metamod session. Taking my karma for attempting to repair those abuses is a bad thing.
I think any illusion that Slashdot Moderation is designed to provoke a balanced discussion is absolutely wrong.
The moderation system is useful in that it promotes interesting talking points. I read those interesting talking points and when I think there might be interesting replies, I follow those at -1. I get to read lots of interesting discussions without wading through tons of crap.
I can not tell you how many times I have read some other forum and wished there were a moderation system. Honestly, I believe that the moderation system is far from perfect but it is far far better than nothing at all.
It is true that "overrated" can not be metamod'ed. I agree that it is a loophole.
To your other point, in the long rant that I mentioned that I had deleted, I described how I thoroughly investigate each negative moderation. I read parents, children, and sibling posts to get a feel for what is going on. I frequently metamod as unfair posts that are mod'ed as troll or flamebait. I imagine quite a few mods hate me because of it, but I try to allow the widest lattitude in expression. Many times, when it is clear that a comment was meant to insightful but failed and was mod'ed falmebait, I just refuse to metamod it. I also mod as fair when the post was clearly flamebait or trollish.
What I am trying to get at is that many posts get negative mod points when the person making the comment was not trying to troll or otherwise be negative. Some mods get offended at the harsh way things are worded. Others, at a sentence that they disagree with. Regardless, I see through these things and metamod (or mod!) to reverse their unfairness.
In conclusion (as ungraceful as my post has been), negative moderations are investigated thoroughly by myself and "wry wit" and other such things get evaluated IN CONTEXT.
Positive moderations are not investigated as thoroughly by me though so some insightful or interesting mods get rated as fair even though they may not be. Informative is an easy moderation to metamod though.:)
There is no denial on my part of anything except the attempt to make me feel panic. I read the links that you provided and evaluated them with my own free mind. While I do not dispute any of the facts that were presented, I do dispute the conclusions that were leapt to. Seriously, I am a pessimist and even I do not believe that the end of the world is nigh... but maybe, I have too much experience now to believe such absurdities. When I was young, it was the nuclear bomb that was going to end the world. It has not happened yet; although to be fair, some nasty nuclear stuff could still happen. Which brings us to:
Iran. I fully expect Iran to be invaded by American forces within the next 3-5 years. Honestly, it is the only invasion that I wish would would happen immediately. Beyond the fact that Iran has oil, the Iranian president has gone on record as saying that Israel should be destroyed. Iran is also working with uranium in such a way as to permit the building of a nuclear weapon. Put the two facts together and it is fully reasonable to expect Iran to be invaded BEFORE they can cause damage. If their President had not claimed that Israel (or any other country) should be destroyed, then my feelings towards their nuclear ambition would be far more ambivalent.
As for Venezuela, even Bush can not get America to attack openly; although I do expect more CIA backed coup attempts. I think it sucks, but it is clear that America will do whatever it can, even unethical acts, to secure its oil based energy future. For the record, I not only voted against Bush, I voted for the person who I wanted to win... maybe if I had voted for Kerry instead...
Ultimately, our discussion is totally masturbatory in nature unless you have a proposal for action. I can not think of anything useful that I can do other than manage my own affairs to my own best advantage in an ethical manner.
hm. I just deleted a long rant that I had typed in. Let's make this more concise:
I metamod twice a day, every day. I metamod as unfair many negative mods, one or more of which, you have been a victim of.
I get mod points only about once every two weeks nowadays. I have had one of my moderations overturned. I have only negatively mod'ed goatse and gnaa posts. All other moderations I perform are positive mods. I have probably positively mod'ed you when you have levelled reasonable criticism against Apple.
The moderations system should NOT be used to further someones personal agenda. I dislike Microsoft and most of their products intensely. I am strong enough to not attempt to prevent others from displaying their enjoyment of Microsoft products. I have a 17 inch Powerbook. I like it a lot, but I am secure enough in myself to allow others to expose the warts that do exist in that Apple product.
Honestly, you sound like a reasonable person. I am writing this so you will feel comfortable knowing that their are other reasonable people who are working within the moderation system. If you have metamoderated, you should see that the majority of mods are reasonable as well.
The intense amount of noise created by the small minority who are haters (of whatever camp) is incredibly annoying. It gets so loud, that it can persuade you to believe that almost everyone is a hater. Don't fall for it. Be positive and I will be positive with you. Be negative, and you will be negative by yourself.
Concerning the bio-diesel link, the "reporter" seems just as alarmist as the enviro whackos out there, but in the opposite direction. There is no reason to necessarily "rape" the forests in Borneo. There are many different sources, and government can restrict imports from those sources that are biologically disasterous. Furthermore, he takes the tack of insisting that bio-diesel can not replace ALL of our energy needs. Nobody said that it needed to. Bio-diesel can provide energy for some transportation needs such as trucking. Nuclear reactors can provide electricity for personal electric vehicles. As much as I am a pessimist by nature, I think the report you are quoting is too outrageous to bothered about.
As to your link about the American dollar, it uses wording that is intended to provoke extreme alarmist feelings too. While many of his facts are correct, he is missing the point: America is being systematicly robbed. America produces more than any other nation on the planet. America does it more efficiently. Where is all of this generated wealth going? We come back to the distribution/hoarding problem that I spoke of previously. We, Europeans, Americans, and most everyone else on this planet, need to take our money back from this select few who war amongst themselves for primacy. It really is that simple. Yes, bad things can happen if we don't fix this issue. No, being alarmed and full of panic does not help.
Again, your Peak Oil link starts out with: "Dear Reader,
Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon."
Man, what is up with these people? Civilization is about how people act, not any particular technology or lack of it. Ultimately, for people such as you or me, we act civilized regardless of our circumstances. For example, I am currently living in a place with no running water, TV, etc. and I am still civilized. Are these people trying to say that we won't have gasoline powered cars polluting our atmospheres anymore? That is a far cry from saying civilization as we know it is about to end.
My god man, you have got to get off the doomsday kick. Yes, I am the most pessimistic person that I know. No, I do not believe these doomsday scenarios. Things are going to change. Stop whining about it. Stop screaming about how the world is going to end. Seriously, it sounds like a bunch of 5 year olds talking about how the whole world is going to change just because they are moving to a different house.
Things will be different. Will they be be worse than they are now? Possibly. Will they ever get better again? You bet your ass they will. We may have to kill off a few folks when we are done following the money trail, but life WILL get better. If not for us, then our kids. Think of the kids. (lol)
I have no doubt that many social programs will be cut. Since Social Security is already bought and paid for, I will damn well hold the politicians accountable for the hundred thousand plus dollars that I have paid into it. I already feel raped, but that kind of theft calls for extreme counter-measures. The only problem is the politicians who gave the go ahead for this kind of theft are mostly already dead, so there is no way to hold them accountable. I was so angry when I saw this happening as a child.:(
I think you are still underestimating the vast reserves of resources we have here in the states. There is a reason we import oil and it is not because we do not have any. The reason we import oil rather than use our own is so we are the last ones with oil when the worlds oil fields start running out. Let the middle east suck down obscene amounts of cash now. They will be starving later.
Regardless, we have other ways to generate power while utilising the small amounts of that are left for plastics and such. Bio-Diesel is quite economical once gas gets upwards of $9/gallon. Nuclear power will be considered again once coal becomes scarce (in a thousand years). I am fully confident that the world will not fall apart once we start running out of oil. I am pretty certain that the middle east will become even more of hotspot than it is now though.:)
you say: One thing is one hundred percent certain - nobody in the world will ever again enjoy a standard of living like we in the US and Europe do now.
I completely disagree. I think we will all have a much higher standard of living in the future regardless of the status of oil in the world. We might have to kill off some folks who are holding us back, but I am certain that there is more than enough energy around us to elevate everyone to better standards of living than we have now.
I think your doomsday scenario is a bit overboard. Did Russia experience what you just described? How about Iraq, whose money is totally worthless now? Yes, things could very well get pretty bad, but a fiscally responsible government could keep things on the level while still meetings its obligations. I do not think you understand how much wealth the United States still has. Alaska alone is quite literally a gold mine. We still have vast amounts of resources. Just because the government is fucking up the economy right now, that does not necessarily mean that we are all going to crash and burn.
On another note, I am suprised at how I hear so many complaining about the great standard of living that the middle class enjoys. Why is it that so many people think that only the very wealthy can enjoy a good lifestyle? There is more than enough wealth for most of the world to enjoy a great lifestyle. The reason most of us do not enjoy a great lifestyle boils down to distribution and hoarding problems. Instead of trying to claim we should all be poor, how about claiming that we should all be wealthy?
You totally missed my point and you also have one other thing wrong in your post as well. My point was that dissolving Social Security is outright theft. Every penny that is owed in Social Security has ALREADY BEEN PAID FOR by you and me.
You are totally correct in that the budget needs to be balanced... but you are dead wrong in how to do it. Raising taxes is total bullshit. How about this concept: SMALLER government. Seriously, government is far too invasive as it is. It is complete bullshit that I have to worry about being put on some list because I am making this kind of a public statement. Are they going to stop allowing me to fly now? Will I end up in Guantanomo bay? Will I get framed for some unsolved crime?
Seriously, when a government scares its citizens like that, it is time to scale back on the government. Less government means smaller budgets. Smaller budgets means less (or none!) deficit spending. How about instead of stealing the money that people were forced to pay for Social Security, we stop spending $20k+ per year keeping marijuana smokers in prison? How about we take a few hundred billion from the defense budget and balance our budget? Why not get rid of some of the pork barrel projects and save a few billion dollars?
I do not think that nuclear bombs would/could wipe out the entire human race. What you should be afraid of, if you were inclined to be fearful, would be biological warfare. A single "bug" could eradicate almost 100% (or even 100%!) of the human race within months. Nuclear warfare is very nasty, but not as dangerous as biological warfare.
Um... pardon me for being ignorant here, but to me, all of these technologies are stupid. I really do not care how easy it is to draw some friggin GUI elements to make it "easier" for a program to make a useful program. All these things do is "bloat" code and waste extreme amounts of CPU cycles.
Seriously, what benefit do *I* see as an end user? Do these technologies make Photoshop render transformations faster? Do these technologies make my games run at a higher framerate? Do these technologies make amazing new types of programs available to me? No!
I was pretty happy with my Amiga. Higher resolutions, more colors, more ram, bigger hard disks, and faster CPUs were all I really wanted. I honestly do not see any need at all for these "great" new technologies.
So um... you are advocating stealing more money from American citizens? You do realize that EVERY penny owed by the government to the people was originally PAID to the government by the people. Right? So you are advocating taking all that money that people were forced to pay for their own retirements and spending it on something else...
The government gets off easy enough with Social Security as it is: I pay $100 in tax and 40 years later, I get $100 back... but that $100 is now worth about $30 in current dollars. And you want to steal my $30 that I was forced to put aside in a government "bank" for my retirement? I think you are ignorant of what Social Security is and how it works.
I knew this kind of crisis was going to occur. I remember back in the 80s, I recall hearing about Congress yelling and screaming about how there were all these billions or trillions of dollars sitting around doing nothing in the Social Security fund. The solution was to allow the Social Security funds to mingle with the general funds. Congress put it up to a vote, and even I as a child, could see how bad of idea it was... and even I as a child knew that they were going to pass it into law.:(
Now, we have the current situation where Social Security does not have enough funds and ignorant folks like you and the parent poster saying that the government should finish looting those funds so that there is nothing left at all. I have news for you: If you are paying taxes, that little line called FICA is money that you are paying into the Social Security fund. It is being taken from you by force because you are not trusted to save enough for your own retirement.
Do you see now why your views on Social Security are so absurd? You have been viewing it as a drain on government finances when in reality, the money needed for Social Security has already been taken from you and me. The problem is that Social Security funds are being accounted for within the context of the general fund.
One major problem though is that people love to be in direct control of those who are working for them. Furthermore, they do not trust what they can not see. If they can not walk by your cubicle and physically see that you are working, then to them, you are NOT working.
This pretty much cuts out hourly or salary work. There is contract work though...
I would find it an interesting challenge to gather up cheap (pricewise) but quality talent gleaned from people who are living in their version of paradise and create a contracting company based upon this premise. Happy people generally make great quality code. There are two very large show stoppers still.
I would need to write contracts that were highly prejudiced against the worker in order to protect myself from slackers and thieves. What this means is that I would be able to cut you at any time and deny you pay for time worked. Would you trust me enough to sign a contract like that? Of course, I would be honorable and continue paying all of those who come through; otherwise my business would falter... but seriously, I wouldn't trust a boss with that kind of control so I really do not expect you to either.
The other big show stopper is bandwidth. You would need a high quality, low latency, high bandwidth connection in order to do video conferencing. I have done projects through IRC before and it works relatively well as far as low impact programming goes. For serious projects, voice communication is an absolute necessity. Adding video on top of that is more of a requirement than a bonus; although whiteboard programs and such do somewhat alleviate the need for video.
Really, this is a great idea and I would love to participate, either as a business owner or a subcontractor. I think the first show stopper kills it though. Trust... *sigh*
You say you were checking your balance. I would assume that this is your bank. Have you considered writing/calling them and letting them exactly how annoying a full-blast sound is? I am sure they would not tolerate such loud sounds inside of their bank, so I really do not think they would approve of such loud sounds coming from their website. The website was likely designed by an external company with little oversight by the bank.
Of course, this only fixes one sight. Have you thought of writing a plug-in for Mozilla/Firefox similar to the wonderful flash-block plugin?
Slashdot Mirror
You just made my friends lists (as if that would be important to you, heheheh). You appear to be rational and capable of evaluating outcomes in a non-hysterical manner. The world needs more people like you.
strike
I just thought of something... maybe I am not the "I" that I think I am... when I stop trying to control myself, I sure feel a lot more relaxed. I wonder how intelligent I am when I do not try to be intelligent. Hehehe. I also wonder if this makes any sense.
strike
I have read the tons of replies that you have received regarding this post so I won't cover anything that has already been discussed other than to say: Me too (as far as names go) but it applies to me less often concerning objects.
:)
What I am going to add is that if I stop trying and just totaly uncensor myself, I can get a name right by "guessing" most of the time. Very weird. I can also "guess" the time accurately to within a minute even after hours of not looking at a clock. It seems as if my brain has its own life and I just merely think I am in control of it. Thankfully, it allows me to use it every now and then.
strike
On AFN (American Forces Network) they have a "commercial" featuring the Secretary of the Air Force stating that we have been at war for 15 years... WTF?
strike
Your post made me smile... but this theory is only a hypothesis at this point. :)
strike
What is up with the current Chuck Norris thing going on here? Some other guy has a Chuck Norris sig and I have seen several postings recently by various people concerning him. Does he have a new show on TV or something? (I am not in America currently so I wouldn't know)
Realisticly though, Bruce Lee kicked Chuck Norris' ass all over the place so why not idolize Bruce Lee? Is it because Bruce Lee is dead now?
strike
or maybe some people shouldn't be forced to learn? Let education be for those who want it. The rest can live off the land or be a french fry chef.
strike
FISA was written in 1978, before throw-away cell phones and the idea that terrorism would ever be a threat to Americans. We are at war with a stateless enemy that exists in every nation of the globe and is sworn to our destruction.
We are at "war" with an idea. There will ALWAYS be terrorists, some of them right here at home. It is a war that can NEVER be won. NEVER, as in infinity is not long enough... at least until there is only one person left alive in the whole universe.
Furthermore, this enemy can NOT destroy us. Only we can destroy us. Terrorism is not something that we can legitimately be at war with because it can not wage war with us. Terrorism is a job for the CIA/FBI and not the military.
strike
Do you decline to use your badge to open the building door at work?
My god! If RFID is that unreliable, why is anyone using it and why would anyone be afraid of the privacy implications? I routinely had to swipe my card 3 or 4 times just to get the damned door to open.
strike
If you aren't passionate or competant enough in any field offered anywhere, well, you're better served getting started on your french-frying career
The problem is that being a french fry chef doesn't pay very well... and many people will lie, cheat, and steal to get money. If a degree promises more money, they will cheat to get it rather than opting for the less lucrative career at mcdonalds.
strike
Metamoderation used to have a great feature where if you disagreed with more than 2 moderations, it subtracted karma from the meta-moderator.
I disagree. I think that is a negative feature. There have been many times that I have seen more than two abuses of the moderation system in a single metamod session. Taking my karma for attempting to repair those abuses is a bad thing.
I think any illusion that Slashdot Moderation is designed to provoke a balanced discussion is absolutely wrong.
The moderation system is useful in that it promotes interesting talking points. I read those interesting talking points and when I think there might be interesting replies, I follow those at -1. I get to read lots of interesting discussions without wading through tons of crap.
I can not tell you how many times I have read some other forum and wished there were a moderation system. Honestly, I believe that the moderation system is far from perfect but it is far far better than nothing at all.
strike
It is true that "overrated" can not be metamod'ed. I agree that it is a loophole.
:)
To your other point, in the long rant that I mentioned that I had deleted, I described how I thoroughly investigate each negative moderation. I read parents, children, and sibling posts to get a feel for what is going on. I frequently metamod as unfair posts that are mod'ed as troll or flamebait. I imagine quite a few mods hate me because of it, but I try to allow the widest lattitude in expression. Many times, when it is clear that a comment was meant to insightful but failed and was mod'ed falmebait, I just refuse to metamod it. I also mod as fair when the post was clearly flamebait or trollish.
What I am trying to get at is that many posts get negative mod points when the person making the comment was not trying to troll or otherwise be negative. Some mods get offended at the harsh way things are worded. Others, at a sentence that they disagree with. Regardless, I see through these things and metamod (or mod!) to reverse their unfairness.
In conclusion (as ungraceful as my post has been), negative moderations are investigated thoroughly by myself and "wry wit" and other such things get evaluated IN CONTEXT.
Positive moderations are not investigated as thoroughly by me though so some insightful or interesting mods get rated as fair even though they may not be. Informative is an easy moderation to metamod though.
strike
You are quite welcome. :)
strike
There is no denial on my part of anything except the attempt to make me feel panic. I read the links that you provided and evaluated them with my own free mind. While I do not dispute any of the facts that were presented, I do dispute the conclusions that were leapt to. Seriously, I am a pessimist and even I do not believe that the end of the world is nigh... but maybe, I have too much experience now to believe such absurdities. When I was young, it was the nuclear bomb that was going to end the world. It has not happened yet; although to be fair, some nasty nuclear stuff could still happen. Which brings us to:
Iran. I fully expect Iran to be invaded by American forces within the next 3-5 years. Honestly, it is the only invasion that I wish would would happen immediately. Beyond the fact that Iran has oil, the Iranian president has gone on record as saying that Israel should be destroyed. Iran is also working with uranium in such a way as to permit the building of a nuclear weapon. Put the two facts together and it is fully reasonable to expect Iran to be invaded BEFORE they can cause damage. If their President had not claimed that Israel (or any other country) should be destroyed, then my feelings towards their nuclear ambition would be far more ambivalent.
As for Venezuela, even Bush can not get America to attack openly; although I do expect more CIA backed coup attempts. I think it sucks, but it is clear that America will do whatever it can, even unethical acts, to secure its oil based energy future. For the record, I not only voted against Bush, I voted for the person who I wanted to win... maybe if I had voted for Kerry instead...
Ultimately, our discussion is totally masturbatory in nature unless you have a proposal for action. I can not think of anything useful that I can do other than manage my own affairs to my own best advantage in an ethical manner.
strike
hm. I just deleted a long rant that I had typed in. Let's make this more concise:
I metamod twice a day, every day. I metamod as unfair many negative mods, one or more of which, you have been a victim of.
I get mod points only about once every two weeks nowadays. I have had one of my moderations overturned. I have only negatively mod'ed goatse and gnaa posts. All other moderations I perform are positive mods. I have probably positively mod'ed you when you have levelled reasonable criticism against Apple.
The moderations system should NOT be used to further someones personal agenda. I dislike Microsoft and most of their products intensely. I am strong enough to not attempt to prevent others from displaying their enjoyment of Microsoft products. I have a 17 inch Powerbook. I like it a lot, but I am secure enough in myself to allow others to expose the warts that do exist in that Apple product.
Honestly, you sound like a reasonable person. I am writing this so you will feel comfortable knowing that their are other reasonable people who are working within the moderation system. If you have metamoderated, you should see that the majority of mods are reasonable as well.
The intense amount of noise created by the small minority who are haters (of whatever camp) is incredibly annoying. It gets so loud, that it can persuade you to believe that almost everyone is a hater. Don't fall for it. Be positive and I will be positive with you. Be negative, and you will be negative by yourself.
respect.
strike
Concerning the bio-diesel link, the "reporter" seems just as alarmist as the enviro whackos out there, but in the opposite direction. There is no reason to necessarily "rape" the forests in Borneo. There are many different sources, and government can restrict imports from those sources that are biologically disasterous. Furthermore, he takes the tack of insisting that bio-diesel can not replace ALL of our energy needs. Nobody said that it needed to. Bio-diesel can provide energy for some transportation needs such as trucking. Nuclear reactors can provide electricity for personal electric vehicles. As much as I am a pessimist by nature, I think the report you are quoting is too outrageous to bothered about.
As to your link about the American dollar, it uses wording that is intended to provoke extreme alarmist feelings too. While many of his facts are correct, he is missing the point: America is being systematicly robbed. America produces more than any other nation on the planet. America does it more efficiently. Where is all of this generated wealth going? We come back to the distribution/hoarding problem that I spoke of previously. We, Europeans, Americans, and most everyone else on this planet, need to take our money back from this select few who war amongst themselves for primacy. It really is that simple. Yes, bad things can happen if we don't fix this issue. No, being alarmed and full of panic does not help.
Again, your Peak Oil link starts out with: "Dear Reader,
Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon."
Man, what is up with these people? Civilization is about how people act, not any particular technology or lack of it. Ultimately, for people such as you or me, we act civilized regardless of our circumstances. For example, I am currently living in a place with no running water, TV, etc. and I am still civilized. Are these people trying to say that we won't have gasoline powered cars polluting our atmospheres anymore? That is a far cry from saying civilization as we know it is about to end.
My god man, you have got to get off the doomsday kick. Yes, I am the most pessimistic person that I know. No, I do not believe these doomsday scenarios. Things are going to change. Stop whining about it. Stop screaming about how the world is going to end. Seriously, it sounds like a bunch of 5 year olds talking about how the whole world is going to change just because they are moving to a different house.
Things will be different. Will they be be worse than they are now? Possibly. Will they ever get better again? You bet your ass they will. We may have to kill off a few folks when we are done following the money trail, but life WILL get better. If not for us, then our kids. Think of the kids. (lol)
strike
I have no doubt that many social programs will be cut. Since Social Security is already bought and paid for, I will damn well hold the politicians accountable for the hundred thousand plus dollars that I have paid into it. I already feel raped, but that kind of theft calls for extreme counter-measures. The only problem is the politicians who gave the go ahead for this kind of theft are mostly already dead, so there is no way to hold them accountable. I was so angry when I saw this happening as a child. :(
:)
I think you are still underestimating the vast reserves of resources we have here in the states. There is a reason we import oil and it is not because we do not have any. The reason we import oil rather than use our own is so we are the last ones with oil when the worlds oil fields start running out. Let the middle east suck down obscene amounts of cash now. They will be starving later.
Regardless, we have other ways to generate power while utilising the small amounts of that are left for plastics and such. Bio-Diesel is quite economical once gas gets upwards of $9/gallon. Nuclear power will be considered again once coal becomes scarce (in a thousand years). I am fully confident that the world will not fall apart once we start running out of oil. I am pretty certain that the middle east will become even more of hotspot than it is now though.
you say:
One thing is one hundred percent certain - nobody in the world will ever again enjoy a standard of living like we in the US and Europe do now.
I completely disagree. I think we will all have a much higher standard of living in the future regardless of the status of oil in the world. We might have to kill off some folks who are holding us back, but I am certain that there is more than enough energy around us to elevate everyone to better standards of living than we have now.
strike
I think your doomsday scenario is a bit overboard. Did Russia experience what you just described? How about Iraq, whose money is totally worthless now? Yes, things could very well get pretty bad, but a fiscally responsible government could keep things on the level while still meetings its obligations. I do not think you understand how much wealth the United States still has. Alaska alone is quite literally a gold mine. We still have vast amounts of resources. Just because the government is fucking up the economy right now, that does not necessarily mean that we are all going to crash and burn.
On another note, I am suprised at how I hear so many complaining about the great standard of living that the middle class enjoys. Why is it that so many people think that only the very wealthy can enjoy a good lifestyle? There is more than enough wealth for most of the world to enjoy a great lifestyle. The reason most of us do not enjoy a great lifestyle boils down to distribution and hoarding problems. Instead of trying to claim we should all be poor, how about claiming that we should all be wealthy?
strike
You totally missed my point and you also have one other thing wrong in your post as well. My point was that dissolving Social Security is outright theft. Every penny that is owed in Social Security has ALREADY BEEN PAID FOR by you and me.
You are totally correct in that the budget needs to be balanced... but you are dead wrong in how to do it. Raising taxes is total bullshit. How about this concept: SMALLER government. Seriously, government is far too invasive as it is. It is complete bullshit that I have to worry about being put on some list because I am making this kind of a public statement. Are they going to stop allowing me to fly now? Will I end up in Guantanomo bay? Will I get framed for some unsolved crime?
Seriously, when a government scares its citizens like that, it is time to scale back on the government. Less government means smaller budgets. Smaller budgets means less (or none!) deficit spending. How about instead of stealing the money that people were forced to pay for Social Security, we stop spending $20k+ per year keeping marijuana smokers in prison? How about we take a few hundred billion from the defense budget and balance our budget? Why not get rid of some of the pork barrel projects and save a few billion dollars?
strike
I do not think that nuclear bombs would/could wipe out the entire human race. What you should be afraid of, if you were inclined to be fearful, would be biological warfare. A single "bug" could eradicate almost 100% (or even 100%!) of the human race within months. Nuclear warfare is very nasty, but not as dangerous as biological warfare.
strike
Um... pardon me for being ignorant here, but to me, all of these technologies are stupid. I really do not care how easy it is to draw some friggin GUI elements to make it "easier" for a program to make a useful program. All these things do is "bloat" code and waste extreme amounts of CPU cycles.
Seriously, what benefit do *I* see as an end user? Do these technologies make Photoshop render transformations faster? Do these technologies make my games run at a higher framerate? Do these technologies make amazing new types of programs available to me? No!
I was pretty happy with my Amiga. Higher resolutions, more colors, more ram, bigger hard disks, and faster CPUs were all I really wanted. I honestly do not see any need at all for these "great" new technologies.
strike
So um... you are advocating stealing more money from American citizens? You do realize that EVERY penny owed by the government to the people was originally PAID to the government by the people. Right? So you are advocating taking all that money that people were forced to pay for their own retirements and spending it on something else...
:(
The government gets off easy enough with Social Security as it is: I pay $100 in tax and 40 years later, I get $100 back... but that $100 is now worth about $30 in current dollars. And you want to steal my $30 that I was forced to put aside in a government "bank" for my retirement? I think you are ignorant of what Social Security is and how it works.
I knew this kind of crisis was going to occur. I remember back in the 80s, I recall hearing about Congress yelling and screaming about how there were all these billions or trillions of dollars sitting around doing nothing in the Social Security fund. The solution was to allow the Social Security funds to mingle with the general funds. Congress put it up to a vote, and even I as a child, could see how bad of idea it was... and even I as a child knew that they were going to pass it into law.
Now, we have the current situation where Social Security does not have enough funds and ignorant folks like you and the parent poster saying that the government should finish looting those funds so that there is nothing left at all. I have news for you: If you are paying taxes, that little line called FICA is money that you are paying into the Social Security fund. It is being taken from you by force because you are not trusted to save enough for your own retirement.
Do you see now why your views on Social Security are so absurd? You have been viewing it as a drain on government finances when in reality, the money needed for Social Security has already been taken from you and me. The problem is that Social Security funds are being accounted for within the context of the general fund.
strike
Disgruntled Defence Signals Directorate employee. Will no longer offer secrets in exchange for diet coke. (Officially)
I used to read your sig and wonder if it were true... I find myself wondering now why you have changed it.
strike
Oh man, I would dearly love to do this.
One major problem though is that people love to be in direct control of those who are working for them. Furthermore, they do not trust what they can not see. If they can not walk by your cubicle and physically see that you are working, then to them, you are NOT working.
This pretty much cuts out hourly or salary work. There is contract work though...
I would find it an interesting challenge to gather up cheap (pricewise) but quality talent gleaned from people who are living in their version of paradise and create a contracting company based upon this premise. Happy people generally make great quality code. There are two very large show stoppers still.
I would need to write contracts that were highly prejudiced against the worker in order to protect myself from slackers and thieves. What this means is that I would be able to cut you at any time and deny you pay for time worked. Would you trust me enough to sign a contract like that? Of course, I would be honorable and continue paying all of those who come through; otherwise my business would falter... but seriously, I wouldn't trust a boss with that kind of control so I really do not expect you to either.
The other big show stopper is bandwidth. You would need a high quality, low latency, high bandwidth connection in order to do video conferencing. I have done projects through IRC before and it works relatively well as far as low impact programming goes. For serious projects, voice communication is an absolute necessity. Adding video on top of that is more of a requirement than a bonus; although whiteboard programs and such do somewhat alleviate the need for video.
Really, this is a great idea and I would love to participate, either as a business owner or a subcontractor. I think the first show stopper kills it though. Trust... *sigh*
strike
You say you were checking your balance. I would assume that this is your bank. Have you considered writing/calling them and letting them exactly how annoying a full-blast sound is? I am sure they would not tolerate such loud sounds inside of their bank, so I really do not think they would approve of such loud sounds coming from their website. The website was likely designed by an external company with little oversight by the bank.
Of course, this only fixes one sight. Have you thought of writing a plug-in for Mozilla/Firefox similar to the wonderful flash-block plugin?
strike