If a woman was going around bragging about her conquests she'd be labelled a slut and people would talk shit on her, while the dude, after being called a pig, is applauded.
The actual truth (study exists, I don't have a link ready, Google Scholar is your friend) is that there is a small difference in the number of "acceptable" sex partners for males and females. The study was looking for how many sex partners people judge as "too few" in someone else (as in they're considered inexperienced, etc.) and how many people judge as "too many" in others (as in being slutty or fucking everything that moves) and thus the range of a "good" amount of partners you've had.
The number is indeed higher for man. However, it is nowhere near as extreme as the quote above makes it.
You don't see the impact of patriarchal society because you don't experience the effects.
That's nonsense. By definitions, members of the patriarch "class" would have to experience the effects. If your theory is that one type of people lords over and oppresses the other, then both types necessarily are affected by this interaction. You can claim that the oppressors have brainwashed themselves into considering their actions as normal, but you can't claim they don't experience them.
The same way that many white people feel that there is no such thing as institutionalized racism in North America because they don't experience it.
That's nonsense, too. Most of the white people who seriously think racism doesn't exist live in areas with very few blacks, so they are not exposed to racism not by being white, but by there simply not being a lot of racism around to be experienced.
Females, on the other hand, are neither a minority nor are they especially unevenly distributed. You don't have whole states with very few women.
If the comment in the code were 'slanty eyes' nobody would be disputing it's racist nature, but because this is an issue of sexism it's ignored. There is a societal bias against women, the same as there's one against minorities.
There's a difference between denying women the right to vote and picking a variable name in a childish manner, and if you don't see that then I feel very sorry for you, because you will be fighting a lot of pointless battles and miss the important ones.
Just like institutionalized racism isn't a lynch mob lookin' to hang someone any more, it's being watched by security in a store for being black.
Which a good security guard will do, because crime statistics do in fact indicate a slightly higher rate depending on race (i.e. not just blacks, but also whites, asians, etc. have slightly but statistically significant different rates).
Racism (just like the oppression of women) has long-term consequences that in parts form self-fulfilling prophecies. Due to racism, blacks - on average - get worse education, worse jobs and worse pay, three important factors impacting crime. Same is true of women - many of the current gender inequalities are not caused by active, current patriarchal oppression, but are the lingering after-effects of former such. Female student numbers in professions that have been considered "typical male" have been increasing constantly for decades. But even if you were to somehow make them 50/50 (or 49/51, considering the actual gender distribution in most western countries) today, it would be many years until the number of people holding those jobs would equal out. Half a decade, roughly.
That people pick on tiny, unimportant, boring transgressions like a variable name is to my eyes solid evidence that there is nothing more important left to do on the gender equality issue. If that is the impression you want to create, then go ahead and whine about variable names.
Seriously, grow up. If you think this is worth a patch, you're retarded. Yeah, it's a bit childish, but it harms nobody, because everyone who feels offended by this already has issues far, far worse.
What ever came of tolerance? You know, the word that once applied to more than just minorities and people who make a living whining for whatever pet issue?
That's the whole point of the US's system of limited, distributed powers.
You do realize that one of the reason most of the rest of the world doesn't particularily like the US is this way of talking? As if you were the only people who had this brilliant insight and everyone else is still living in the middle ages.
I tend to say things like "in the western world", which probably offends some asians (like the japanese) who have pretty much the same rights and freedoms we do. But at least I don't name one specific country.
Anyways, to the point: No, government is not a miracle cure, and I never said that. What I did say is that if the choice is between a psychopathic (i.e. all of them, there are studies on this) corporation and a corrupt but theoretically controllable government, I still prefer the government.
The job of gov't isn't to fix the market so that the "right outcome" (no monopoly) happens.
The world disagrees with you. Almost every country has some kind of law that allows the government to step in for anti-trust reasons.
What you don't seem to realize is that all the arguments you bring against government are equally true for the magical invisble unicorn, sorry invisible hand of the market - which is not a real force, but nothing but the sum actions of flawed, imperfect humans.
Gov't abuse in this arena directly threatens the livelihoods of all citizens.
Really? Directly? Aer you sure you know what you are writing? The EU has just fined Google some amount. I happen to be the owner and CEO of a small company. Please tell me how their actions have directly threatened my livelihood.
Attack the problem before it becomes unmanageable
We don't even agree on what the problem is. Maybe we can hold the artillery until we have agreed on the target?
It seemed obvious to me that the IPO was simply to cash in while the going was good, rather than to move on from there.
Of course it was. Everyone who believed otherwise is an idiot. Facebook did not urgently need cash and had no known expansion plans that would require massive amounts of capital right now. It was large enough to take on Google because it is large enough to make the rules.
In my experience, the rules for Internet companies are still that you do an IPO either early in your growth phase, when things are looking good but not guaranteed, to distribute the risk and get the cash you need for your growth - i.e. on the verge of your breakthrough. Or you do it after the breakthrough, to cash out, selling to people who believe your business will still last long enough for them to make a profit on their original investment and/or find another idiot later on who pays even more.
So any company doing an IPO after it has become the #1 in its segment is cashing out. Doesn't mean it's a bad investment, but investors who think they are investing in a Star and not a Cash Cow are very likely kidding themselves. If you have a star on your hands and believe in it, you'd be stupid to cash out. Even if you're bored and want to do something else, keeping it around will give you the capital for the next ten failed startups.
There's no sustainability in social networking, and I imagine the smart money knew that already.
I do think there is sustainability - but exponential growth on a limited resource base simply can't work. Sooner or later, everyone who wants to be on Facebook, is. But you can then keep the user base, the way some European companies have been around for one or two hundred years without much growth. Smart money (i.e. not Wall Street) knows that "growth" is a buzzword outside a certain (short) period of a company's lifecycle. Part of what caused the financial crisis is this fanatical, quasi-religious belief in growth. People needed to grow in markets that didn' have room for growth at the time, so they had to cook the books, invent new financial fake products, everything to shift the same money around in a way that generated pseudo-profits and fake growth.
I can install whatever fucking software I want. It's called a developer license.
Seriously, WTF is your problem at all? I've yet to find a software outside the App Store (i.e. available only for jailbroken iPhones or iPads) that I really need.
So, for all practical purposes, there is no issue here. I do see the philosophical argument, which is why my heart is with the jailbreakers. But for my day-to-day usage, I don't need it, and neither do millions of other people. So why are you so angry?
Bribery scandals in the western world regularily astonish people in the 3rd world - not for the fact that the west is corrupt, too, but because you can buy a senator or other high-ranking officials for sums that anyone of any importance in, say, Africa, would laugh about.
The US bribed someone to get him out of the way so they can get a more acquiescent judge who won't give a damn about what the law says and about all the laws the FBI violated in either country.
[supporting evidence needed]
Really. Or maybe aliens abducted him and this is a cover story so what they did to his nose does not make national headlines because it would unravel the inner earth conspiracy that the aliens are protecting in their alliance with the secret nazi government that is pulling the strings of the UN.
Oh dear, I fear this will show up on Google and some poor idiot actually believes it.
Yes, but catch-22 - by recusing, he demonstrated his integrity and should stay, but if he stays, then he lacks the show of integrity.
No, by recusing himself, he has demonstrated that he will be the perfect one to judge other cases of similar nature. This one should be judged by someone who has not made a public statement that could be interpreted as having a personal interest in the outcome.
Instead of hiring a cook, you can make a fancy italian dinner by heating a frozen packet in the skillet for 10 minutes
If there is no cook available and I'm starving, I will gladly take the frozen food. Just like I'll be happy to be bandaged by a fellow trooper when no medic is around and I'm bleeding to death.
But TFA spoke about them not being necessary anymore and that's just bullshit. The fact that cooks still find jobs even though we have frozen food should be enough proof that they are still necessary, otherwise nobody would be willing to pay for them.
What you call a hindrance is not inherent in specialisation, but an artifact of overspecialisation. There is such a thing as cutting a piece of work into too many too tiny pieces - as was learnt the hard way in early industrialisation.
And the reason for specialisation is very much its utility. A farmer and a hunter working together by each engaging in their field and sharing the results will produce more output than a farmer who also hunts for his meat and a hunter who also plows a field for his vegetables.
no one wants to take x months off their current high paying job to go sit a public office.
Not that it was exactly voluntary in ancient Athens.
Nor does today's level of specialization (even in public jobs) allow for that.
Yes, that's a real issue. It does, however, beg the question how much of that specialization is really necessary and how much is job security.
But I guess a system where I'm taken and used somewhere according to my skills and to my current salary could be investigated.
That would solve much of the problem, though there are a few qualifications that you would rarely find outside the public sector, and some qualifications people will have that the public sector has no use for.
Indeed, and that's because monopolies cannot protect their own existence purely with market power. As far as they charge high prices and "steal" high profits, they create huge incentives for people to find alternatives and for other businesses to compete for those profits.
Which is why the monopoly price settles somewhere - the optimum price plus the monopoly rent, which consists of the two main factors a) Demand Cut-Off (people don't buy at all, and look for entirely different products, e.g. if you have a monopoly on bread, they stop eating bread and switch to other food) and b) entry costs into the market that would allow competitors to arise.
the "business" of government.
Theoretically, government isn't a business because it is not for-profit. Unfortunately, many politicians have turned it into a business for their personal profit.
Who should I fear more, the US gov't or Microsoft?
Depends on your threat scenario. One of the key points is whether or not you buy into the idea that empowering government oversight in one area magically enlarges the whole government in all areas.
You talk as if the government were some kind of remote thing that you have no power over. While I agree that politicians have done a lot to progress towards that, it is not quite true, yet. There's a good part of you and me in "the government", and more if we want to and are poltically active. I've contributed to the founding of an NGO and I'm a very early member of my countries Pirate Party, which is shaking things up and has begun entering local parliaments. "The government" is not immune to our influence, just as it is not immune to lobbyism and corruption.
So can they be trusted with that power? No, they can't. But someone needs to and they are the best candidates around because every other choice is worse.
Do you realize that the gov't claims a monopoly on violence?
Strawman. The term "monopoly on violence" is a figure of speech, not an economic term, as there is no "violence market" in which you'd buy a nice smack to the face because you feel like getting one today and then get upset to find that there's only one seller who would smack you.
Tyranny is much worse than monopoly,
Geekiness has come a long way since Neuromancer. Have we already forgotten just because it hasn't happened (yet)?
I share all of your anti-government sentiments, though maybe not as strongly. However, I would rather be ruled by an incompetent, corrupt parliament than by any corporation.
It's often the "great reveal" in a relationship... Most men are intimidated by smart women, and so most women who are smart try to conceal it.
Most intelligent men are desperately looking for an equally intelligent woman, so stop fucking hiding!
Unless you want a stupid git as a boyfriend. But if you're half as smart as you think you are, then you certainly don't, because he'd be boring as hell after the initial thrill is gone.
You don't have the whole picture, so you shouldn't judge.
People like the Gottmans (John and Julie), Helen Fisher, etc. have a much better idea of things, because they've been studying love and relationships for decades.
I've only read a couple of their books and seen some of their talks. But I can give you the summary: The mark of a good relationship is not in never saying anything bad about each other, nor even in the number of bad things said - it is in the relation between the number of good and the number of bad things said. According to Gottman, as long as the ratio stays above 5:1, the relationship is sound. That's data from actual long-term experiments.
So you may just be in the place where the bad parts get vented and back at home everything is just fine. Then again, you may not, and it may be different for each of your co-workers. You don't know.
If you fine a company because of a bug in their software this is really not understanding how software development works.
If you don't, then it is really not understanding how companies work, or the law.
If you went over the speed limit, then you went over the speed limit. Nobody cares why, if it was intentional or if you didn't look at the speedometer. It is your responsibility to not go over the speed limit, and if you did it by mistake then too bad - your mistake, your ticket.
Same here. Their mistake, their ticket. It really is as simple as that.
If you deviate from that legal principle by a single inch, then everyone will start to claim "it was a software bug" for everything, because that is how lawyers work - they always include every possible defense that has the slightest chance of being successful.
Fining them is 100% the correct decision, absolutely no doubt about that.
The correct answer to her question, of course, is that the user interface designers at MS are total fucktards who think the user is an idiot and needs to be hand-held all the way, on both hands and then some. They don't believe in getting out of your way and letting you get your work done, they want to shove all their cool new features into your face.
Slightly different angle, same idea of short-term rentals: I've become a fan of a service in my home town where you can rent a car, get billed by the minute, and don't have to worry about gas or anything else, as everything is included in the rental price.
It's perfect for driving in the city, costs about half as much as a taxi would, and they have an iPhone App that tells you where around your current location the nearest available car is.
Concepts like these will change mobility, especially in cities. I don't need a car of my own, haven't needed one for years, but every now and then I have something to transport or whatever. Lots of people aren't so different.
That's where the idea of a parliament (or similar institution) comes from. You're supposed to have your interests represented by people with knowledge, leadership skills, vision and desire to serve the community. Then again, we also know how that turns out:)
The idea of parliament is brilliant. Unfortunately, the current implementation just plain sucks.
My personal belief is that we have two historic examples of parliament working very well. One is the (old, not the current) british constitutional monarchy, with the two very different houses serving different purposes, working on different principles (inherited vs. elected) with different interests (long-term vs. short-term) and keeping each other in check. It worked because for every shortcoming of one house, the other had a balancing factor. The other is the old athenian democracy, in which representation was limited to the educated class and the system was set up so that everyone was constantly involved with the public good - for example, there was a civil service that had no fixed staff, but every athenian had to serve as a public servant for a fixed time every few years. Imagine how much more friendly the public servants must've been, if only because they were on the other side of that desk most of the time.
Monopolies are less efficient markets, so we've added gov't regulations to try to make things more efficient.
Close, but no cigar.
The government is the guardian of the free market, because only in batshit crazy neoliberal fantasy does a free market magically work all by itself. In the real world, whoever has the biggest guns comes in and sets the price for anything he needs, and his optimal price point is slightly below the cost of the bullets he'd need to just shoot you and take your stuff.
Likewise in a monopoly situation, the government should not (this is the theory) regulate the market (there isn't much of a market left to regulate anyways). It should restore the market by smashing the monopoly and ensuring that it is replaced by many.
For practical reasons, that rarely happens so bluntly, but basically that's the idea: When we notice that a market stops to function, we take steps to restore it. Those are sometimes more complicated and may include several years of oversight, aka regulation.
I personally was for smashing MS into tiny pieces, letting them all compete against each other with a penalty-of-corporate-death order of not working together for at least 10 years. The minimum amount of regulation you need to ensure that your actions don't simply turn the monopoly into an oligopoly.
Your question is valid, government doesn't come for free (aka taxes) and adds inefficiencies. However, keep in mind that the pure efficiency of a free market is also pure theory because it assumes a perfect market - unlimited sellers, unlimited buyers, total transparency for everyone. Something that will never happen in the real world. Some theoretical inefficiencies are actually adding efficiency in the real world. Example, regulations regarding how the price or quantity need to be displayed, or industry standards (often enforced by law). They make comparisons between products easier or even possible for the consumers, aiding the "transparency" part of the market.
At best, that is a legal definition, as opposed to the economic one. But even then, a company gets in trouble for abusive monopolistic ("monopoly-like") practices, not its status as a monopoly.
Correct. Monopolies can come into existence legally, and punishing the act itself would not work well. Most importantly, it would be trivial to circumvent - all you need to do is split yourself into two companies and turn it into an oligopoly.
Abusing your market position is the correct step in the legal framework, because you punish the act that does the damage to others. Just like hitting someone isn't illegal - hurting him without his consent is. It's a small difference sometimes, but an important one.
Every single company can be categorized as a monopoly if you narrow down the market until they're the "single seller".
they don't even have specialists: everyone tends the wounded, not just some designated medical corps,
Do not sign me up then. When my life is on the line, I prefer a trained medic, thank you very much.
There's a reason specialization has won the culture wars some 10,000 years ago: It works. Everyone who did Economics 101 knows that, it's called "division of labour" there. Basically, you do what you're good at, I do what I'm good at, and we share the spoils, which results in both of us having more than if we had to both do everything ourselves.
And the more complex things get, the more specializiation is required and useful. In a hunter-gatherer society, in a bind the primary deer hunter can also skin the beast and the primary cook can also catch a rabbit. But that was 50,000 years ago. How many medical doctors have even a basic competence in programming? And how many of us geeks here could make even the simplest operation without killing the patient?
So, interesting vision from the sound of it, but already from the summary I can tell that someone hasn't thought hard enough about the consequences.
Slashdot Mirror
If a woman was going around bragging about her conquests she'd be labelled a slut and people would talk shit on her, while the dude, after being called a pig, is applauded.
The actual truth (study exists, I don't have a link ready, Google Scholar is your friend) is that there is a small difference in the number of "acceptable" sex partners for males and females. The study was looking for how many sex partners people judge as "too few" in someone else (as in they're considered inexperienced, etc.) and how many people judge as "too many" in others (as in being slutty or fucking everything that moves) and thus the range of a "good" amount of partners you've had.
The number is indeed higher for man. However, it is nowhere near as extreme as the quote above makes it.
You don't see the impact of patriarchal society because you don't experience the effects.
That's nonsense. By definitions, members of the patriarch "class" would have to experience the effects. If your theory is that one type of people lords over and oppresses the other, then both types necessarily are affected by this interaction.
You can claim that the oppressors have brainwashed themselves into considering their actions as normal, but you can't claim they don't experience them.
The same way that many white people feel that there is no such thing as institutionalized racism in North America because they don't experience it.
That's nonsense, too. Most of the white people who seriously think racism doesn't exist live in areas with very few blacks, so they are not exposed to racism not by being white, but by there simply not being a lot of racism around to be experienced.
Females, on the other hand, are neither a minority nor are they especially unevenly distributed. You don't have whole states with very few women.
If the comment in the code were 'slanty eyes' nobody would be disputing it's racist nature, but because this is an issue of sexism it's ignored. There is a societal bias against women, the same as there's one against minorities.
There's a difference between denying women the right to vote and picking a variable name in a childish manner, and if you don't see that then I feel very sorry for you, because you will be fighting a lot of pointless battles and miss the important ones.
Just like institutionalized racism isn't a lynch mob lookin' to hang someone any more, it's being watched by security in a store for being black.
Which a good security guard will do, because crime statistics do in fact indicate a slightly higher rate depending on race (i.e. not just blacks, but also whites, asians, etc. have slightly but statistically significant different rates).
Racism (just like the oppression of women) has long-term consequences that in parts form self-fulfilling prophecies. Due to racism, blacks - on average - get worse education, worse jobs and worse pay, three important factors impacting crime.
Same is true of women - many of the current gender inequalities are not caused by active, current patriarchal oppression, but are the lingering after-effects of former such. Female student numbers in professions that have been considered "typical male" have been increasing constantly for decades. But even if you were to somehow make them 50/50 (or 49/51, considering the actual gender distribution in most western countries) today, it would be many years until the number of people holding those jobs would equal out. Half a decade, roughly.
That people pick on tiny, unimportant, boring transgressions like a variable name is to my eyes solid evidence that there is nothing more important left to do on the gender equality issue. If that is the impression you want to create, then go ahead and whine about variable names.
If Linus refuses the patch because it neither fixes a bug nor does it add functionality, would it be sexist to say he has balls?
Seriously, grow up. If you think this is worth a patch, you're retarded. Yeah, it's a bit childish, but it harms nobody, because everyone who feels offended by this already has issues far, far worse.
What ever came of tolerance? You know, the word that once applied to more than just minorities and people who make a living whining for whatever pet issue?
That's the whole point of the US's system of limited, distributed powers.
You do realize that one of the reason most of the rest of the world doesn't particularily like the US is this way of talking? As if you were the only people who had this brilliant insight and everyone else is still living in the middle ages.
I tend to say things like "in the western world", which probably offends some asians (like the japanese) who have pretty much the same rights and freedoms we do. But at least I don't name one specific country.
Anyways, to the point: No, government is not a miracle cure, and I never said that. What I did say is that if the choice is between a psychopathic (i.e. all of them, there are studies on this) corporation and a corrupt but theoretically controllable government, I still prefer the government.
The job of gov't isn't to fix the market so that the "right outcome" (no monopoly) happens.
The world disagrees with you. Almost every country has some kind of law that allows the government to step in for anti-trust reasons.
What you don't seem to realize is that all the arguments you bring against government are equally true for the magical invisble unicorn, sorry invisible hand of the market - which is not a real force, but nothing but the sum actions of flawed, imperfect humans.
Gov't abuse in this arena directly threatens the livelihoods of all citizens.
Really? Directly? Aer you sure you know what you are writing? The EU has just fined Google some amount. I happen to be the owner and CEO of a small company. Please tell me how their actions have directly threatened my livelihood.
Attack the problem before it becomes unmanageable
We don't even agree on what the problem is. Maybe we can hold the artillery until we have agreed on the target?
It seemed obvious to me that the IPO was simply to cash in while the going was good, rather than to move on from there.
Of course it was. Everyone who believed otherwise is an idiot. Facebook did not urgently need cash and had no known expansion plans that would require massive amounts of capital right now. It was large enough to take on Google because it is large enough to make the rules.
In my experience, the rules for Internet companies are still that you do an IPO either early in your growth phase, when things are looking good but not guaranteed, to distribute the risk and get the cash you need for your growth - i.e. on the verge of your breakthrough. Or you do it after the breakthrough, to cash out, selling to people who believe your business will still last long enough for them to make a profit on their original investment and/or find another idiot later on who pays even more.
So any company doing an IPO after it has become the #1 in its segment is cashing out. Doesn't mean it's a bad investment, but investors who think they are investing in a Star and not a Cash Cow are very likely kidding themselves. If you have a star on your hands and believe in it, you'd be stupid to cash out. Even if you're bored and want to do something else, keeping it around will give you the capital for the next ten failed startups.
There's no sustainability in social networking, and I imagine the smart money knew that already.
I do think there is sustainability - but exponential growth on a limited resource base simply can't work. Sooner or later, everyone who wants to be on Facebook, is. But you can then keep the user base, the way some European companies have been around for one or two hundred years without much growth. Smart money (i.e. not Wall Street) knows that "growth" is a buzzword outside a certain (short) period of a company's lifecycle. Part of what caused the financial crisis is this fanatical, quasi-religious belief in growth. People needed to grow in markets that didn' have room for growth at the time, so they had to cook the books, invent new financial fake products, everything to shift the same money around in a way that generated pseudo-profits and fake growth.
I can install whatever fucking software I want. It's called a developer license.
Seriously, WTF is your problem at all? I've yet to find a software outside the App Store (i.e. available only for jailbroken iPhones or iPads) that I really need.
So, for all practical purposes, there is no issue here. I do see the philosophical argument, which is why my heart is with the jailbreakers. But for my day-to-day usage, I don't need it, and neither do millions of other people. So why are you so angry?
Parent is correct, unfortunately.
Bribery scandals in the western world regularily astonish people in the 3rd world - not for the fact that the west is corrupt, too, but because you can buy a senator or other high-ranking officials for sums that anyone of any importance in, say, Africa, would laugh about.
The US bribed someone to get him out of the way so they can get a more acquiescent judge who won't give a damn about what the law says and about all the laws the FBI violated in either country.
[supporting evidence needed]
Really. Or maybe aliens abducted him and this is a cover story so what they did to his nose does not make national headlines because it would unravel the inner earth conspiracy that the aliens are protecting in their alliance with the secret nazi government that is pulling the strings of the UN.
Oh dear, I fear this will show up on Google and some poor idiot actually believes it.
He absolutely is, which is why he should have shut the fuck up about her personal opinions.
You can't seriously ask experts on a topic to shut up about it, it would be a loss for all of us.
In the greater picture, the interview might be many times more influential and important than the one case that will now be judged by someone else.
Yes, but catch-22 - by recusing, he demonstrated his integrity and should stay, but if he stays, then he lacks the show of integrity.
No, by recusing himself, he has demonstrated that he will be the perfect one to judge other cases of similar nature. This one should be judged by someone who has not made a public statement that could be interpreted as having a personal interest in the outcome.
Yes, except when someone whom you spoke out against is party - directly or indirectly - to a court case you are presiding over.
Recusing himself was absolutely the right thing to do, and a good show of integrity.
Instead of hiring a cook, you can make a fancy italian dinner by heating a frozen packet in the skillet for 10 minutes
If there is no cook available and I'm starving, I will gladly take the frozen food. Just like I'll be happy to be bandaged by a fellow trooper when no medic is around and I'm bleeding to death.
But TFA spoke about them not being necessary anymore and that's just bullshit. The fact that cooks still find jobs even though we have frozen food should be enough proof that they are still necessary, otherwise nobody would be willing to pay for them.
What you call a hindrance is not inherent in specialisation, but an artifact of overspecialisation. There is such a thing as cutting a piece of work into too many too tiny pieces - as was learnt the hard way in early industrialisation.
And the reason for specialisation is very much its utility. A farmer and a hunter working together by each engaging in their field and sharing the results will produce more output than a farmer who also hunts for his meat and a hunter who also plows a field for his vegetables.
no one wants to take x months off their current high paying job to go sit a public office.
Not that it was exactly voluntary in ancient Athens.
Nor does today's level of specialization (even in public jobs) allow for that.
Yes, that's a real issue. It does, however, beg the question how much of that specialization is really necessary and how much is job security.
But I guess a system where I'm taken and used somewhere according to my skills and to my current salary could be investigated.
That would solve much of the problem, though there are a few qualifications that you would rarely find outside the public sector, and some qualifications people will have that the public sector has no use for.
Indeed, and that's because monopolies cannot protect their own existence purely with market power. As far as they charge high prices and "steal" high profits, they create huge incentives for people to find alternatives and for other businesses to compete for those profits.
Which is why the monopoly price settles somewhere - the optimum price plus the monopoly rent, which consists of the two main factors a) Demand Cut-Off (people don't buy at all, and look for entirely different products, e.g. if you have a monopoly on bread, they stop eating bread and switch to other food) and b) entry costs into the market that would allow competitors to arise.
the "business" of government.
Theoretically, government isn't a business because it is not for-profit. Unfortunately, many politicians have turned it into a business for their personal profit.
Who should I fear more, the US gov't or Microsoft?
Depends on your threat scenario. One of the key points is whether or not you buy into the idea that empowering government oversight in one area magically enlarges the whole government in all areas.
You talk as if the government were some kind of remote thing that you have no power over. While I agree that politicians have done a lot to progress towards that, it is not quite true, yet. There's a good part of you and me in "the government", and more if we want to and are poltically active. I've contributed to the founding of an NGO and I'm a very early member of my countries Pirate Party, which is shaking things up and has begun entering local parliaments.
"The government" is not immune to our influence, just as it is not immune to lobbyism and corruption.
So can they be trusted with that power? No, they can't. But someone needs to and they are the best candidates around because every other choice is worse.
Do you realize that the gov't claims a monopoly on violence?
Strawman. The term "monopoly on violence" is a figure of speech, not an economic term, as there is no "violence market" in which you'd buy a nice smack to the face because you feel like getting one today and then get upset to find that there's only one seller who would smack you.
Tyranny is much worse than monopoly,
Geekiness has come a long way since Neuromancer. Have we already forgotten just because it hasn't happened (yet)?
I share all of your anti-government sentiments, though maybe not as strongly. However, I would rather be ruled by an incompetent, corrupt parliament than by any corporation.
It's often the "great reveal" in a relationship... Most men are intimidated by smart women, and so most women who are smart try to conceal it.
Most intelligent men are desperately looking for an equally intelligent woman, so stop fucking hiding!
Unless you want a stupid git as a boyfriend. But if you're half as smart as you think you are, then you certainly don't, because he'd be boring as hell after the initial thrill is gone.
You don't have the whole picture, so you shouldn't judge.
People like the Gottmans (John and Julie), Helen Fisher, etc. have a much better idea of things, because they've been studying love and relationships for decades.
I've only read a couple of their books and seen some of their talks. But I can give you the summary: The mark of a good relationship is not in never saying anything bad about each other, nor even in the number of bad things said - it is in the relation between the number of good and the number of bad things said. According to Gottman, as long as the ratio stays above 5:1, the relationship is sound. That's data from actual long-term experiments.
So you may just be in the place where the bad parts get vented and back at home everything is just fine. Then again, you may not, and it may be different for each of your co-workers. You don't know.
There wasn't for a long time, but "never" is simply factually incorrect. There are a couple browsers for iOS now, including Chrome, for example.
If you fine a company because of a bug in their software this is really not understanding how software development works.
If you don't, then it is really not understanding how companies work, or the law.
If you went over the speed limit, then you went over the speed limit. Nobody cares why, if it was intentional or if you didn't look at the speedometer. It is your responsibility to not go over the speed limit, and if you did it by mistake then too bad - your mistake, your ticket.
Same here. Their mistake, their ticket. It really is as simple as that.
If you deviate from that legal principle by a single inch, then everyone will start to claim "it was a software bug" for everything, because that is how lawyers work - they always include every possible defense that has the slightest chance of being successful.
Fining them is 100% the correct decision, absolutely no doubt about that.
The correct answer to her question, of course, is that the user interface designers at MS are total fucktards who think the user is an idiot and needs to be hand-held all the way, on both hands and then some. They don't believe in getting out of your way and letting you get your work done, they want to shove all their cool new features into your face.
Basically, windows is like a hyperactive child.
Slightly different angle, same idea of short-term rentals: I've become a fan of a service in my home town where you can rent a car, get billed by the minute, and don't have to worry about gas or anything else, as everything is included in the rental price.
It's perfect for driving in the city, costs about half as much as a taxi would, and they have an iPhone App that tells you where around your current location the nearest available car is.
Concepts like these will change mobility, especially in cities. I don't need a car of my own, haven't needed one for years, but every now and then I have something to transport or whatever. Lots of people aren't so different.
That's where the idea of a parliament (or similar institution) comes from. You're supposed to have your interests represented by people with knowledge, leadership skills, vision and desire to serve the community. :)
Then again, we also know how that turns out
The idea of parliament is brilliant. Unfortunately, the current implementation just plain sucks.
My personal belief is that we have two historic examples of parliament working very well. One is the (old, not the current) british constitutional monarchy, with the two very different houses serving different purposes, working on different principles (inherited vs. elected) with different interests (long-term vs. short-term) and keeping each other in check. It worked because for every shortcoming of one house, the other had a balancing factor.
The other is the old athenian democracy, in which representation was limited to the educated class and the system was set up so that everyone was constantly involved with the public good - for example, there was a civil service that had no fixed staff, but every athenian had to serve as a public servant for a fixed time every few years. Imagine how much more friendly the public servants must've been, if only because they were on the other side of that desk most of the time.
Monopolies are less efficient markets, so we've added gov't regulations to try to make things more efficient.
Close, but no cigar.
The government is the guardian of the free market, because only in batshit crazy neoliberal fantasy does a free market magically work all by itself. In the real world, whoever has the biggest guns comes in and sets the price for anything he needs, and his optimal price point is slightly below the cost of the bullets he'd need to just shoot you and take your stuff.
Likewise in a monopoly situation, the government should not (this is the theory) regulate the market (there isn't much of a market left to regulate anyways). It should restore the market by smashing the monopoly and ensuring that it is replaced by many.
For practical reasons, that rarely happens so bluntly, but basically that's the idea: When we notice that a market stops to function, we take steps to restore it. Those are sometimes more complicated and may include several years of oversight, aka regulation.
I personally was for smashing MS into tiny pieces, letting them all compete against each other with a penalty-of-corporate-death order of not working together for at least 10 years. The minimum amount of regulation you need to ensure that your actions don't simply turn the monopoly into an oligopoly.
Your question is valid, government doesn't come for free (aka taxes) and adds inefficiencies. However, keep in mind that the pure efficiency of a free market is also pure theory because it assumes a perfect market - unlimited sellers, unlimited buyers, total transparency for everyone. Something that will never happen in the real world.
Some theoretical inefficiencies are actually adding efficiency in the real world. Example, regulations regarding how the price or quantity need to be displayed, or industry standards (often enforced by law). They make comparisons between products easier or even possible for the consumers, aiding the "transparency" part of the market.
At best, that is a legal definition, as opposed to the economic one. But even then, a company gets in trouble for abusive monopolistic ("monopoly-like") practices, not its status as a monopoly.
Correct. Monopolies can come into existence legally, and punishing the act itself would not work well. Most importantly, it would be trivial to circumvent - all you need to do is split yourself into two companies and turn it into an oligopoly.
Abusing your market position is the correct step in the legal framework, because you punish the act that does the damage to others. Just like hitting someone isn't illegal - hurting him without his consent is. It's a small difference sometimes, but an important one.
Every single company can be categorized as a monopoly if you narrow down the market until they're the "single seller".
That's a strawman and you know it.
they don't even have specialists: everyone tends the wounded, not just some designated medical corps,
Do not sign me up then. When my life is on the line, I prefer a trained medic, thank you very much.
There's a reason specialization has won the culture wars some 10,000 years ago: It works. Everyone who did Economics 101 knows that, it's called "division of labour" there. Basically, you do what you're good at, I do what I'm good at, and we share the spoils, which results in both of us having more than if we had to both do everything ourselves.
And the more complex things get, the more specializiation is required and useful. In a hunter-gatherer society, in a bind the primary deer hunter can also skin the beast and the primary cook can also catch a rabbit. But that was 50,000 years ago. How many medical doctors have even a basic competence in programming? And how many of us geeks here could make even the simplest operation without killing the patient?
So, interesting vision from the sound of it, but already from the summary I can tell that someone hasn't thought hard enough about the consequences.
Oh, also: Even Anonymous has specialists.