One gets a feeling one's in the wrong crowd after seeing what happened to his comment thread after Slashdot reported this: a genteel and thoughtful chat becomes filled with increasingly crude, uninformed and insulting remarks.
I considered this when I chose the example. Alchemy included a lot of wasted effort. It 'became' chemistry as a kind of by-product. A lot of wasteful research generates useful by-products of knowledge, and I suspect that if we devoted a massive percentage of our resources and effort to a failed attempt to colonize another system, we would probably still get some useful inventions and discoveries on the side. It probably wouldn't be the best use of our resources.
The author is a science fiction writer. Many people ascribe their choices of careers and fields of research to the science fiction they've read. The result of his essay may be this: someone is discouraged from a career in space exploration, and instead chooses one in nanotechnology or the bio-sciences, which could offer significant benefits now and later. The cost of not have a certain amount of naysaying would have been a huge opportunity cost: instead, this skepticism gives us a bright mind directed toward more promising lines of research. I don't think that's a bad thing.
You can also visit history and see the immense resources squandered on dead-ends, misconceptions, and wishful thinking: everything from alchemy to Stalinism. Having voices say "this is not nearly is viable a path as you think it is" can be very helpful when it comes to allocating resources and making choices for immediate research. Other voices that chime in, later, "maybe this is more possible than we thought in the past" are also helpful. I don't think it's possible to have a field of thought populated just by the "happy medium," either: the adversarial relationship between skeptics and dreamers might be far more productive.
You know, there are worse things than being forced, even if due to excessive regulations, to move away from a non-renewable resource-extraction economy. The sooner that South Americans (disclaimer: I'm half-South American and have lived there on and off) are forced to find more viable economic options, the better for them.
If you want more information about that, just research the the "Dutch disease" for a start.
What's important is that the excuses are the same: the USSR had nothing against the hard-working fellow comrade, it was the enemies of socialism that were the problem. And, there really were enemies of socialism, very well-organized, funded and armed ones supported by the West, from the very earliest days of the Russian revolution. Just as in the US, the excuse happened to be based on a truth.
Something I've always admired about Brazil: they have a policy of reciprocity that makes it just as big a pain in the ass for Americans to go to Brazil as it is for Brazilians to go to America.
Some international academic organizations that I'm involved with, which move their conferences from one country to another, have begun skipping the US and choosing to host their North American conferences in Canada instead. I expect this trend to continue: I'm going to encourage conferences in Brazil.
Humans are "hardwired" for both altruism and selfishness, for rape and for courtesy, for monogamy and for promiscuity. What expressions these drives and instincts take is based on history, society and culture. "Selfishness" means something completely different in a nomadic livestock-herding society than it does in a pre-modern agricultural one, and both mean something very different in a modern, technological society in which you work for money which you spend on housing and manufactured goods.
Appeals to "human nature" fail when closely analyzed. We are all capable of acts of remarkable sacrifice and remarkable selfishness, and through various semantic games, we can interpret each through the lens of the other.
Also, describing a call for a worldwide regulatory system in response to climate change as "communism" is incorrect. "Capitalism" in modernity has, and has always had, an extensive governmental system to support it: to control borders (which keeps markets, especially labor markets, in place), to protect property, to print currency and enforce monetary and trade policy, and so forth. It is not as if there is currently a "Wild West"-like free market that policies against climate change is going to shut down: intelligent and responsive regulation is firmly established as a requirement for successful capitalism. (Just think what would happen if we didn't regulate, for example, the printing of currency.)
In this regard, I am an unapologetic (that word is getting used a lot, isn't it?) snob, though I appreciate the defense. I think the difference is as stark as that between a Brittney Spears album and the works of J.S. Bach. Simply calling it a difference of taste minimizes other important differences.
I have my not-very-sophisticated pleasures as well. I just recognize them for what they are: spiritual junk food.
Actually, I think that the ending brings the question back to the viewer, and the viewer's desire for a just or balanced moral universe, at least in fictions. We want closure in our stories because we despair of having it in our lives. I unapologetically believe that tragedy, and narrative that denies that kind of closure, is more grown-up and artistically viable than stories which satisfy that itch to see wrongs righted, the meek inheriting the earth, and everyone living happily every after (or at least stewing in their just desserts.)
Kudos to the creators of Soprano for refusing that kind of pablum.
In this case, "California" refers to the entire UC system: Google's arrangement gives it access to the full MELVYL catalog, which extends across all the UC campuses.
When referring to sports teams and such, however, "Cal" or "California" does denote the Berkeley campus.
If you are paid in something other than US currency, backed by something other than the US treasury, and protected by something other than publicly funded law enforcement, then I'll have more sympathy with your crying over being taxed. Somehow, I doubt this is the case.
The biggest absurdity with your position is that it naturalizes all aspects of the economy that don't involve the state, assumes (ahistorically) that they are somehow prior to the state, and then bring the state in the final act as if it wasn't completely involved in the shape of the economy (from money to labor and beyond) to begin with. It's ridiculous.
"Tolerance" isn't just some blanket value which lets everything go. It goes hand-in-hand with a kind of skepticism about dogmatic claims and the absence of a moral teleology (that is, the idea that there is one way people were "meant" to live.) It doesn't mean you have to accept absurd or contradictory ideas, or lifestyles that are actively hostile and dangerous to your own.
In this case, the Wikipedia links contain a wealth of other references that your site (which lists no references) and you would have seen that the Seitz petition is, indeed, the very same as the Oregon petition. It is a fraud.
You have numbers for those claims? A couple of minutes of googling hasn't found anything, but I recall that the US has off-shored more of it manufacturing base than the EU has, and largely to China at that.
I'm in the UK now, and the clothes, food and various goods that I buy here seem to have more "made in Germany," "made in Italy", "made in UK" or "made in Turkey" stickers than "made in China" ones. Back in the US, it's "made in China" all over the place.
Ah, you cited the "10,000 climatologists" of the Heidelberg appeal.
First, that's not what the Heidelberg appeal was about. It was signed by 4,000 self-described "scientists," not climatologists, and was essentially a position piece arguing against the idea of a "natural state," not a critique of climate change theory itself. It was written about 10 years ago, and many of its signatories have since gone on record as recognizing the reality of human causes to climate change.
You may be confusing it with the "Oregon petition." It is now recognized, generally, as a fraud. The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine is run from a small warehouse in the middle of rural Oregon. It is not a reputable scientific institute.
The truth of the matter is that these statements are motivated by forces who enjoy considerable prosperity based on practices which are threatened by responsible environmental policy. They know that they can't really win the debate on scientific grounds: instead, they want to create enough doubt and dissension that they can continue to enjoy maximal profits for as long as possible. Your "growing economy" is irresponsible and selfish.
A protest campaign is never the way to deal with a business you don't like (look at what protesting "Deep Throat" and "Baise Moire" did in the US and Australia respectively).
These "just move your business" type of posts whenever there's any story about a company behaving badly with regards to its customers or employees puzzle me a little. Are you saying that they shouldn't be complaining? Just meekly folding up their journals, transcribing or exporting all the data, and finding another service and then hope that the new service behaves no differently?
I think raising a big fuss about it is actually a better response, accompanied by or followed by a move to another provider. The bigger a noise is made about, the bigger the message that is given to the industry as a whole.
"Socialists" believe no such thing as "the government is inherently good." Rather, they believe that it is the only institution currently extant in which all citizens are equally enfranchised just by virtue of being citizens. This isn't true for any other institution, and certainly not for businesses. This doesn't it make it "inherently good." It makes the instrument of the public interest.
The problem if there is nothing restricting someone from shopping/paying taxes in a low tax/low service state and enjoying benefits, better public education and health services in a high tax/high services state. There already is some of that in areas in which a state with low property taxes but high sales or income taxes borders a state with high property tax but low sales or income taxes.
Slashdot Mirror
One gets a feeling one's in the wrong crowd after seeing what happened to his comment thread after Slashdot reported this: a genteel and thoughtful chat becomes filled with increasingly crude, uninformed and insulting remarks.
Maybe I don't want to be here....
I considered this when I chose the example. Alchemy included a lot of wasted effort. It 'became' chemistry as a kind of by-product. A lot of wasteful research generates useful by-products of knowledge, and I suspect that if we devoted a massive percentage of our resources and effort to a failed attempt to colonize another system, we would probably still get some useful inventions and discoveries on the side. It probably wouldn't be the best use of our resources.
The author is a science fiction writer. Many people ascribe their choices of careers and fields of research to the science fiction they've read. The result of his essay may be this: someone is discouraged from a career in space exploration, and instead chooses one in nanotechnology or the bio-sciences, which could offer significant benefits now and later. The cost of not have a certain amount of naysaying would have been a huge opportunity cost: instead, this skepticism gives us a bright mind directed toward more promising lines of research. I don't think that's a bad thing.
You can also visit history and see the immense resources squandered on dead-ends, misconceptions, and wishful thinking: everything from alchemy to Stalinism. Having voices say "this is not nearly is viable a path as you think it is" can be very helpful when it comes to allocating resources and making choices for immediate research. Other voices that chime in, later, "maybe this is more possible than we thought in the past" are also helpful. I don't think it's possible to have a field of thought populated just by the "happy medium," either: the adversarial relationship between skeptics and dreamers might be far more productive.
You know, there are worse things than being forced, even if due to excessive regulations, to move away from a non-renewable resource-extraction economy. The sooner that South Americans (disclaimer: I'm half-South American and have lived there on and off) are forced to find more viable economic options, the better for them.
If you want more information about that, just research the the "Dutch disease" for a start.
What's important is that the excuses are the same: the USSR had nothing against the hard-working fellow comrade, it was the enemies of socialism that were the problem. And, there really were enemies of socialism, very well-organized, funded and armed ones supported by the West, from the very earliest days of the Russian revolution. Just as in the US, the excuse happened to be based on a truth.
Something I've always admired about Brazil: they have a policy of reciprocity that makes it just as big a pain in the ass for Americans to go to Brazil as it is for Brazilians to go to America.
Some international academic organizations that I'm involved with, which move their conferences from one country to another, have begun skipping the US and choosing to host their North American conferences in Canada instead. I expect this trend to continue: I'm going to encourage conferences in Brazil.
Humans are "hardwired" for both altruism and selfishness, for rape and for courtesy, for monogamy and for promiscuity. What expressions these drives and instincts take is based on history, society and culture. "Selfishness" means something completely different in a nomadic livestock-herding society than it does in a pre-modern agricultural one, and both mean something very different in a modern, technological society in which you work for money which you spend on housing and manufactured goods.
Appeals to "human nature" fail when closely analyzed. We are all capable of acts of remarkable sacrifice and remarkable selfishness, and through various semantic games, we can interpret each through the lens of the other.
Also, describing a call for a worldwide regulatory system in response to climate change as "communism" is incorrect. "Capitalism" in modernity has, and has always had, an extensive governmental system to support it: to control borders (which keeps markets, especially labor markets, in place), to protect property, to print currency and enforce monetary and trade policy, and so forth. It is not as if there is currently a "Wild West"-like free market that policies against climate change is going to shut down: intelligent and responsive regulation is firmly established as a requirement for successful capitalism. (Just think what would happen if we didn't regulate, for example, the printing of currency.)
It's like a potato, because I like potatoes, and lobsters crawl the depths of the sea.
In this regard, I am an unapologetic (that word is getting used a lot, isn't it?) snob, though I appreciate the defense. I think the difference is as stark as that between a Brittney Spears album and the works of J.S. Bach. Simply calling it a difference of taste minimizes other important differences.
I have my not-very-sophisticated pleasures as well. I just recognize them for what they are: spiritual junk food.
Actually, I think that the ending brings the question back to the viewer, and the viewer's desire for a just or balanced moral universe, at least in fictions. We want closure in our stories because we despair of having it in our lives. I unapologetically believe that tragedy, and narrative that denies that kind of closure, is more grown-up and artistically viable than stories which satisfy that itch to see wrongs righted, the meek inheriting the earth, and everyone living happily every after (or at least stewing in their just desserts.)
Kudos to the creators of Soprano for refusing that kind of pablum.
In this case, "California" refers to the entire UC system: Google's arrangement gives it access to the full MELVYL catalog, which extends across all the UC campuses.
When referring to sports teams and such, however, "Cal" or "California" does denote the Berkeley campus.
If you are paid in something other than US currency, backed by something other than the US treasury, and protected by something other than publicly funded law enforcement, then I'll have more sympathy with your crying over being taxed. Somehow, I doubt this is the case.
The biggest absurdity with your position is that it naturalizes all aspects of the economy that don't involve the state, assumes (ahistorically) that they are somehow prior to the state, and then bring the state in the final act as if it wasn't completely involved in the shape of the economy (from money to labor and beyond) to begin with. It's ridiculous.
"Tolerance" isn't just some blanket value which lets everything go. It goes hand-in-hand with a kind of skepticism about dogmatic claims and the absence of a moral teleology (that is, the idea that there is one way people were "meant" to live.) It doesn't mean you have to accept absurd or contradictory ideas, or lifestyles that are actively hostile and dangerous to your own.
Look at history, rebels always win in the end
Meet the Diggers, the Albigensians, the Luddites, the Branch Davidians, the Tupac Amaristus, the Paris Communards....
In this case, the Wikipedia links contain a wealth of other references that your site (which lists no references) and you would have seen that the Seitz petition is, indeed, the very same as the Oregon petition. It is a fraud.
You have numbers for those claims? A couple of minutes of googling hasn't found anything, but I recall that the US has off-shored more of it manufacturing base than the EU has, and largely to China at that.
I'm in the UK now, and the clothes, food and various goods that I buy here seem to have more "made in Germany," "made in Italy", "made in UK" or "made in Turkey" stickers than "made in China" ones. Back in the US, it's "made in China" all over the place.
Ah, you cited the "10,000 climatologists" of the Heidelberg appeal.
First, that's not what the Heidelberg appeal was about. It was signed by 4,000 self-described "scientists," not climatologists, and was essentially a position piece arguing against the idea of a "natural state," not a critique of climate change theory itself. It was written about 10 years ago, and many of its signatories have since gone on record as recognizing the reality of human causes to climate change.
You may be confusing it with the "Oregon petition." It is now recognized, generally, as a fraud. The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine is run from a small warehouse in the middle of rural Oregon. It is not a reputable scientific institute.
The truth of the matter is that these statements are motivated by forces who enjoy considerable prosperity based on practices which are threatened by responsible environmental policy. They know that they can't really win the debate on scientific grounds: instead, they want to create enough doubt and dissension that they can continue to enjoy maximal profits for as long as possible. Your "growing economy" is irresponsible and selfish.
That's not design. That's implementation.
(Ob. car metaphor:) The guy who designed your car was probably not a mechanical engineer.
You mean, the late 70s, don't you?
Noob.
Please remind me to kill myself should I ever be considered "normal".
Such a fear of normalcy is completely... normal. Nothing is more typical than the belief in one's uniqueness.
My condolences to your loved ones for their loss.
A protest campaign is never the way to deal with a business you don't like (look at what protesting "Deep Throat" and "Baise Moire" did in the US and Australia respectively).
Look what the anti-Nestle protests did.
They worked.
Look what the Digg revolt did.
It worked.
These "just move your business" type of posts whenever there's any story about a company behaving badly with regards to its customers or employees puzzle me a little. Are you saying that they shouldn't be complaining? Just meekly folding up their journals, transcribing or exporting all the data, and finding another service and then hope that the new service behaves no differently?
I think raising a big fuss about it is actually a better response, accompanied by or followed by a move to another provider. The bigger a noise is made about, the bigger the message that is given to the industry as a whole.
"Socialists" believe no such thing as "the government is inherently good." Rather, they believe that it is the only institution currently extant in which all citizens are equally enfranchised just by virtue of being citizens. This isn't true for any other institution, and certainly not for businesses. This doesn't it make it "inherently good." It makes the instrument of the public interest.
The problem if there is nothing restricting someone from shopping/paying taxes in a low tax/low service state and enjoying benefits, better public education and health services in a high tax/high services state. There already is some of that in areas in which a state with low property taxes but high sales or income taxes borders a state with high property tax but low sales or income taxes.
I agree - with the proviso that we have immigration policies between states.