"Telekinetics, most of whom have never tried anything bigger or heavier than a pinwheel, are required to levitate multiple pieces of furniture? Tough call." Bull. The people making the claim are allowed to specify exactly what they are claiming, but they have to back it up. When they fail, they always try to change the rules instead of admitting failure.
If you could only lift a pinwheel, that's all you would be asked to do. But the situation would be set up in such a way that it couldn't be faked.
Check out some of the linked examples here. Etta smith in particular had potential non-psychic access to the information she gave. Or Nancy Myere. The only time psychics are precise or accurate is when the knowledge is available some other way.
No where in that linked thread is an indication that the author's think it's bogus. There is an indication that the data sets they used are not wholly compatible. The article someone noted and that you responded to claimed that that a 10% increase was innacurate, and was actually more. After communication between Goddard and Meier, Goddard concluded that Meier was right that and that 2008 was only 10% larger. That's still an increase.
Oh for mod points. I agree wholeheartedly.. Can everyone say 'rent seeking'? I found it disturbing that the summary mentions 2 organizations who have gotten the law to explicitly protect them from competition as good examples to follow.
Wealth != money. Money is just a common unit of exchange. That widget you bought is also wealth. If the widget is worth $1 to me, and costs $.1, then i gained $.9 worth of wealth. That offshore trading company has to do something with that money it acquired, and some of it will make it's way back, as payment for services, some form of investing, or even purchases of things we produce cheaper than they do.
There is no way the fairness doctrine can be considered good censorship when applied to a medium with extremely low barriers to entry. It made a certain amount of sense when applied to the initially scarce public radio and tv channels. I still disagree with the concept, but I could at least comprehend the reasoning.
My original intent was mainly to point out that there are reasons behind American distrust of communism. But the followup was revealing. You dodged my question, possibly without realizing it. Your post consists of platitudes, with no specifics of any sort. How exactly would you handle people who don't agree with your philosophy? It's the answer to this question which has lead every attempt at widespread communism to authoritarianism. Consider individuals who for whatever reason are able to produce enough to take care of themselves plus produce a little extra. If they produce more, do you take it? If they decide not to bother because it's just going to be taken, do you engage in slavery and compel them? How about the individuals who could take care of themselves, but don't?
Allowing people the freedom to make their own choices inevitably produces unequal outcomes. You either have to accept it, or use force to try and change things. Voluntarily sharing and helping is good. Many people are a lot better off because of it. I have no qualms about it, and engage in it on occasion. But it will NOT lead to universal well being.
There's more to America's anti communism than just "It's evil!" without any thought. Communism is very focused on equality of outcome. Even your unusually loose version starts with a 'balanced and caring society'. Most pro freedom individuals accept that attempts to equalize outcome inherently require authoritarian control. See "The road to serfdom" for example. If you don't think communism requires authoritarian control, please detail how you will bring it about without some sort of government force. Every historical attempt has become authoritarian.
Define astroturfing as opposed to grassroots. I clearly have a different definition than you do. Then please explain how providing snippets of rhetoric for individuals to use to make their point changes the fact that it is private individuals making the point as opposed to actual employees of the campaign. This is no more than fertilizer (perhaps of bovine origins) for the grassroots to utilize. It's the difference between a random commentator who agrees with them quoting an AEI publication, and someone who is actually one of their employees doing so.
You missed a bit. USAF: We like your program. We'll promote you if you hand over the source code! GUY: I'd rather make you pay a third party instead, and make way more money! Pay up! USAF: Ha! We're the Government you moron. You should have taken our offer.
To be fair, perhaps there's some inner politics that triggered the mess. The article didn't indicate the nature of the promotion. It could have been a promotion to an entirely unrelated outfit because the programmers who wrote the original program were protecting their turf. It's not clear why he sold it to a third party. It's possible he wanted to also be able to sell it outside the air-force instead of making it a pure in house project. Did they want to own the copyright, or just access to the source code to search for hidden exploits?
I believe the public takings clause would be more apropriate here. Although I think in principal that copyrights aren't property, the courts have generally treated them as such.
Beta testing is part of the development process. Testing a program and providing feedback does not create any ownership of the copyright to that program.
And yet, the people who are so set against the 'stop snitchin' movement have been maintaining a Blue Code of Silence for a long time. There is no real difference, except that society hasn't actually entrusted criminals with authority.
Which current position strikes you as unlibertarian? I read his campaign page and didn't see anything offensive, but he probably wouldn't post anything that would be a deal breaker there. Some of his former positions back when he was a republican were bad, but as near as I can tell he's been moving libertarian for the last few years, to the point of lobbying to repeal the Barr Amendment.
I dont think that your idea that current ways and habits, can be sustained in their current form, or that technologies to replace these will magically appear. Furthermore, if we can be more efficient, we should eb done so now rather than just going on business as usual.
I didn't say we should or would maintain current ways an habits indefinitely. By promoting technological improvements, I'm explicitly saying it won't happen. Your suggestion that we be more efficient now implicitly assumes a freeze in technological progress.
Population growth simply adds to demand
That is simply wrong, it's necessary for your doomsday predictions, but population growth is not instantaneous. More people spark more new developments which tend to reduce per capita demand for raw resources, and may in some cases reduce absolute demand.
You assume we are limited to the earth, when any number of current projects aim to change exactly that. You say the earth isn't getting bigger, but changing livable area is precisely what multi-story building do. If I have a condo 20 stories up, someone created the structure to turn that into a liveable space. You picture people 100 feet deep, I picuture skyscrappers a thousand feet tall, leaving untouched areas while allowing for more and more people to share a smaller physical footprint. Your projection is ridiculus, as you intended, because it ignores any number of feedback issues which kick in long before that point without any government intervention whatsoever.
Technology in agriculture has been a net boon for the environment, by reducing the amount of land necessary to farm, and for the quality, by slectively breeding only the tastiest plants. You think natural corn was anything remotely like the huge ears we have today? You think it won't help reduce our footprint if we learn to clone meat?
You point to technology using up resources, but those resources (metals at least) are overwhelmingly still around. They aren't as efficient to gather from existing items as from raw ore at this point in time, but it can be done. One of the big pushes is to miniaturize, which means you can do more and more with the same material. And we can get materials from off planet.
Your fundamental misunderstanding is this: You can not treat non-constants as constant and achieve anything resembling an accurate prediction. Extending one trend, while assuming current values for other, is meaningless.
You are making the malthusian mistake of treating technology as static and people solely as consumers. We will never completely run out of raw material. We will, at most, asymptotically approach running out some particular raw material. At some point, dumps may become cost effective as mines for some of these materials, other materials will be found, other sources will be found, more efficient methods of utilization will be found, or completely alternate products will be found to displace demand for them.
Basically, usage patterns and needs are NOT some constant C times the size of the population. C is itself a function of time and population. Almost invariably doomsday scenarios assume that doubling the population will double demand, which is not what actually happens. If you examine general human wealth rather than some particular item, then things are consistently improving on average. As a particular resource becomes harder and harder to get, prices will rise, making it economical to switch.
There's a prisoners dilemma there that you may have missed. If everyone fought instead of acquiescing to muggers, there would be fewer muggers, and people on average would be better off. However, in each individual mugging, you personally are better off acquiescing.
I loved planetside overall, but there were some issues which guaranteed it wouldn't last. Charging full MMO price for a game which didn't have full MMO personal development for instance. Buggy code, with weird decisions like using a timer when you quit, which you then had to click ok at the end of the timer and couldn't possibly do anything else. After the timer, it was faster to alt-tab and kill the process than to actually click that ok. Just little things like that always bugged me.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the trick though... Unless both accounts are outside the state's email system, it's not really getting around any public records issues.
"Telekinetics, most of whom have never tried anything bigger or heavier than a pinwheel, are required to levitate multiple pieces of furniture? Tough call." Bull. The people making the claim are allowed to specify exactly what they are claiming, but they have to back it up. When they fail, they always try to change the rules instead of admitting failure.
If you could only lift a pinwheel, that's all you would be asked to do. But the situation would be set up in such a way that it couldn't be faked.
Check out some of the linked examples here. Etta smith in particular had potential non-psychic access to the information she gave. Or Nancy Myere. The only time psychics are precise or accurate is when the knowledge is available some other way.
Beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond a shadow of a doubt. There is a huge difference there.
I prefer 'lawyer pays'.
No where in that linked thread is an indication that the author's think it's bogus. There is an indication that the data sets they used are not wholly compatible. The article someone noted and that you responded to claimed that that a 10% increase was innacurate, and was actually more. After communication between Goddard and Meier, Goddard concluded that Meier was right that and that 2008 was only 10% larger. That's still an increase.
Oh for mod points. I agree wholeheartedly.. Can everyone say 'rent seeking'? I found it disturbing that the summary mentions 2 organizations who have gotten the law to explicitly protect them from competition as good examples to follow.
Wealth != money. Money is just a common unit of exchange. That widget you bought is also wealth. If the widget is worth $1 to me, and costs $.1, then i gained $.9 worth of wealth. That offshore trading company has to do something with that money it acquired, and some of it will make it's way back, as payment for services, some form of investing, or even purchases of things we produce cheaper than they do.
Bull. Not one person was arrested just for making those exact arguments, and those arguments were made.
There is no way the fairness doctrine can be considered good censorship when applied to a medium with extremely low barriers to entry. It made a certain amount of sense when applied to the initially scarce public radio and tv channels. I still disagree with the concept, but I could at least comprehend the reasoning.
My original intent was mainly to point out that there are reasons behind American distrust of communism. But the followup was revealing. You dodged my question, possibly without realizing it. Your post consists of platitudes, with no specifics of any sort. How exactly would you handle people who don't agree with your philosophy? It's the answer to this question which has lead every attempt at widespread communism to authoritarianism. Consider individuals who for whatever reason are able to produce enough to take care of themselves plus produce a little extra. If they produce more, do you take it? If they decide not to bother because it's just going to be taken, do you engage in slavery and compel them? How about the individuals who could take care of themselves, but don't?
Allowing people the freedom to make their own choices inevitably produces unequal outcomes. You either have to accept it, or use force to try and change things. Voluntarily sharing and helping is good. Many people are a lot better off because of it. I have no qualms about it, and engage in it on occasion. But it will NOT lead to universal well being.
There's more to America's anti communism than just "It's evil!" without any thought. Communism is very focused on equality of outcome. Even your unusually loose version starts with a 'balanced and caring society'. Most pro freedom individuals accept that attempts to equalize outcome inherently require authoritarian control. See "The road to serfdom" for example. If you don't think communism requires authoritarian control, please detail how you will bring it about without some sort of government force. Every historical attempt has become authoritarian.
I think he meant that 'from' should have been 'for', not that you needed complete sentences.
Define astroturfing as opposed to grassroots. I clearly have a different definition than you do. Then please explain how providing snippets of rhetoric for individuals to use to make their point changes the fact that it is private individuals making the point as opposed to actual employees of the campaign. This is no more than fertilizer (perhaps of bovine origins) for the grassroots to utilize. It's the difference between a random commentator who agrees with them quoting an AEI publication, and someone who is actually one of their employees doing so.
You missed a bit.
USAF: We like your program. We'll promote you if you hand over the source code!
GUY: I'd rather make you pay a third party instead, and make way more money! Pay up!
USAF: Ha! We're the Government you moron. You should have taken our offer.
To be fair, perhaps there's some inner politics that triggered the mess. The article didn't indicate the nature of the promotion. It could have been a promotion to an entirely unrelated outfit because the programmers who wrote the original program were protecting their turf. It's not clear why he sold it to a third party. It's possible he wanted to also be able to sell it outside the air-force instead of making it a pure in house project. Did they want to own the copyright, or just access to the source code to search for hidden exploits?
I believe the public takings clause would be more apropriate here. Although I think in principal that copyrights aren't property, the courts have generally treated them as such.
Beta testing is part of the development process. Testing a program and providing feedback does not create any ownership of the copyright to that program.
And yet, the people who are so set against the 'stop snitchin' movement have been maintaining a Blue Code of Silence for a long time. There is no real difference, except that society hasn't actually entrusted criminals with authority.
Which current position strikes you as unlibertarian? I read his campaign page and didn't see anything offensive, but he probably wouldn't post anything that would be a deal breaker there. Some of his former positions back when he was a republican were bad, but as near as I can tell he's been moving libertarian for the last few years, to the point of lobbying to repeal the Barr Amendment.
No proof that this was actually said. The only source for this supposed statement was Doug Thompson of Capital Hill Blue.
I dont think that your idea that current ways and habits, can be sustained in their current form, or that technologies to replace these will magically appear. Furthermore, if we can be more efficient, we should eb done so now rather than just going on business as usual.
I didn't say we should or would maintain current ways an habits indefinitely. By promoting technological improvements, I'm explicitly saying it won't happen. Your suggestion that we be more efficient now implicitly assumes a freeze in technological progress.
Population growth simply adds to demand
That is simply wrong, it's necessary for your doomsday predictions, but population growth is not instantaneous. More people spark more new developments which tend to reduce per capita demand for raw resources, and may in some cases reduce absolute demand.
You assume we are limited to the earth, when any number of current projects aim to change exactly that. You say the earth isn't getting bigger, but changing livable area is precisely what multi-story building do. If I have a condo 20 stories up, someone created the structure to turn that into a liveable space. You picture people 100 feet deep, I picuture skyscrappers a thousand feet tall, leaving untouched areas while allowing for more and more people to share a smaller physical footprint. Your projection is ridiculus, as you intended, because it ignores any number of feedback issues which kick in long before that point without any government intervention whatsoever.
Technology in agriculture has been a net boon for the environment, by reducing the amount of land necessary to farm, and for the quality, by slectively breeding only the tastiest plants. You think natural corn was anything remotely like the huge ears we have today? You think it won't help reduce our footprint if we learn to clone meat?
You point to technology using up resources, but those resources (metals at least) are overwhelmingly still around. They aren't as efficient to gather from existing items as from raw ore at this point in time, but it can be done. One of the big pushes is to miniaturize, which means you can do more and more with the same material. And we can get materials from off planet.
Your fundamental misunderstanding is this: You can not treat non-constants as constant and achieve anything resembling an accurate prediction. Extending one trend, while assuming current values for other, is meaningless.
You are making the malthusian mistake of treating technology as static and people solely as consumers. We will never completely run out of raw material. We will, at most, asymptotically approach running out some particular raw material. At some point, dumps may become cost effective as mines for some of these materials, other materials will be found, other sources will be found, more efficient methods of utilization will be found, or completely alternate products will be found to displace demand for them.
Basically, usage patterns and needs are NOT some constant C times the size of the population. C is itself a function of time and population. Almost invariably doomsday scenarios assume that doubling the population will double demand, which is not what actually happens. If you examine general human wealth rather than some particular item, then things are consistently improving on average. As a particular resource becomes harder and harder to get, prices will rise, making it economical to switch.
There's a prisoners dilemma there that you may have missed. If everyone fought instead of acquiescing to muggers, there would be fewer muggers, and people on average would be better off. However, in each individual mugging, you personally are better off acquiescing.
Perhaps by blasting more smog into the air, they are attempting to use CO2 fertilization to boost the life cycle of the trees in the rainforest... :)
I loved planetside overall, but there were some issues which guaranteed it wouldn't last. Charging full MMO price for a game which didn't have full MMO personal development for instance. Buggy code, with weird decisions like using a timer when you quit, which you then had to click ok at the end of the timer and couldn't possibly do anything else. After the timer, it was faster to alt-tab and kill the process than to actually click that ok. Just little things like that always bugged me.