The simple minds around here love catchphrase answers like "young people are delicate snowflakes" and "millennials are all lazy". The fact is that the Baby Boomers are in fact the wealthiest human beings who ever lived on average, and in large part that was because of a series of post-WWII economic booms, particularly in North America. My old man literally quit school when he was 15 and was hired at a local sawmill, and worked for the same company until his retirement at 55. I had a teacher when I was in high school telling me that in my town some of the teenagers who working at the mills were driving nicer cars than he was.
The theory here apparently is that you put either complete incompetents or people whose views are completely opposed to what they're managing in the highest positions. Apparently this will lead to better government, somehow.
For fuck's sake, local governments already running sewer pipes and water lines, why not just run conduit for fiber as well, and then lease it out? I think the idea is genius.
The Nazis didn't come out of nowhere. Their anti Semitism was merely a more extreme form if anti Jewish sentiment to be found from Ireland to the Urals. They were also a home grown menace, not alien invaders into Germany. As to invading neighbors, Germany had been plotting that while Hitler was working as a government mole in the nascent National Socialist movement.
Islamic terrorism does not represent an existential threat to the West
It is the potential threat of massive destruction in a highly populated area that makes it important we are vigilent against terrorism.
And the only people that can meaningfully make that kind of a threat are major military powers. The best ISIS and al Qaeda can do with their resources is kill a few dozens or hundred at a time.
I'm not arguing that terrorism isn't a threat, but it does not represent an existential threat.
Even if that someone has almost no chance at all of effecting anything beyond the tiniest percentage of the population? So you think vast amounts of money should be redirected from where they actually could save lives in an attempt to simply make people feel better? I'd wager the money would be better spent sending every citizen of voting age to a beginner's statistics and risk assessment course.
Our brains, like probably all brains, are wired to recognize immediate threat. On that score we are very good at assessing risk; a dark alley may hold unspoken menace, an angry man in a crowd represents an obvious threat, and so forth. Where our wiring falls short is less immediate threats. That's how the media and politicians, either intentionally or inadvertently, can trick our brains into very piss poor risk assessment, and why the solution to bad risk assessment is an actual understanding of threat.
Want to talk to someone who can tell you the most likely ways you're going to die, don't talk to a cop, don't talk to a NSA employee or CIA agent, don't even talk to your doctor. Go talk to an insurance actuary. That is an entire profession based on actual statistical analysis of risk to determine which risks are actually more likely than others, which risks are certain, which risks are likely, and which risks are very small indeed.
Probably the greatest example of humans native inability to assess risk is child abuse. All the "run from stranger" programs out there are based on the false premise that the greatest threat of molestation of your child lies with strange men in parks, washrooms and outside schools. And of course this is fueled by the fact that, with a several hundred million people in North America, that there will always be a number of these kinds of attacks per year. But statistically, what your child has to worry about the most as far as sexual abuse goes isn't shifty eyed perverts outside their school, it's close family members and friends.
I'm going to come out and say it. I am not concerned about Muslim terrorists. That's not to say that I or someone close to me being killed or injured by one. But then again, there's nothing to say that I don't walk out my front door tomorrow and get struck by a bus or tomorrow at lunch choking on a chicken wing, or that as we speak a tumor is growing in my prostrate. There are a near infinite number of ways to die, and I'll be blunt, a terrorist attack is very very very very very very very very very very low on that list.
Exactly. Treating terrorism like some great geopolitical threat is like a doctor saying he has to amputate your arm because you have a paper cut on your finger. I'm not saying we don't take measures to keep ourselves safe, but the insanity that terrorism creates among politicians and the general populace is completely out of proportion to the threat that it actually represents. Like the War on Drugs, the War on Terror seems to be more about creating the illusion of government action and keeping law enforcement agencies' budgets big and fat. You'd probably save more lives in a year doubling the number of speed traps on your average freeway than in all the anti-terror measures that have been put in place.
Treat terrorists like what they are, criminals. You don't have a fucking War on the Mafia, you have the FBI and other international, federal and state law enforcement agencies actively working to break them up. To my mind, the worst thing that the West has ever done is overestimate the threat of terrorism. It's given the terrorists what they want, an air of menace that far outstrips the actual threat. I wonder if there would even be an ISIS if the West hadn't spent so much energy making terrorism seem like the greatest threat against mankind.
You are orders of a magnitude more likely to die from heart disease than from a terror attack. If you're talking about threats to society, then I'd argue your bigger threat is your nearest McDonalds or Burger King. For fucks sake, the sugar industry probably kills or harms more people in a month with its now-revealed war on dietary science than all the terror attacks in the US, Canada and Western Europe in the last half century. If you want to find evil villains, I'd argue you'll find more in a half mile stretch of Wall Street than in half the hell holes of the world.
You've proven my point very well, when you define things by grades of evil, rather than by actual statistical likelihood, you end up believing there are child molesters in every alley and every shopping mall is about to explode in a hail of nail bombs. Meanwhile, companies are adding vast amounts of sugar to many foods we buy, leading to obesity and diabetes rates that will harm and even kill millions of people.
Well yes, solar power isn't going to do you too much good for a part of the year if you're at very high latitudes, but, in fact, the number of humans that live at those latitudes represent a fairly small percentage of the population.
I think the more salient point is whether or not terror attacks represent any significant risk at all. Now I'll admit when someone Jihadi drives a truck into a crowd of people, that certainly creates some casualties, and by consequence creates a significant amount of fear. But what are the real odds of any resident of a Western country dying in a terrorist attack. In reality, the odds are infinitesimal. Now dying from a heart attack or stroke, or hell, even choking or highway fatalities, those represent massive killers, with huge numbers of casualties with huge costs for society. And yet, here we are, with our stupid Savannah ape brains, unable to discern a meaningful and present threat to our person from a threat that's unlikely to harm you or anyone you know even to the second or third degree ever.
Jurors complain of similar effects from some of the evidence they're provided, and they are only exposed to horrifying images for fairly limited periods of time in most cases. I don't mean to denigrate your experiences, but if you think PTSD is limited to combat, then you don't dick-all about human psychology.
I was pretty much done at 2 Girls 1 Cup. Actually, I was done after Goatse. It's bad enough when that kind of shit creeps up on you, but to actually go looking for it... yikes.
That's a claim that has already been attacked in multiple jurisdictions, and for reasons heavily covered on Slashdot. Just signing a contract does not make you a contractor; if it sufficiently resembles an employer-employee relationship, in many jurisdictions it will be deemed as such, meaning minimum wage laws, working standards and withholding tax rules apply.
When you consider that it's unlikely that the business model as it stands is likely to even work in many jurisdictions, due to the growing number of jurisdictions that are rejecting Uber's argument that its drivers are private contractors, I don't actually see a long term view here. Yes, they have the app, and that IP may be worth something, but the business model where you weasel your way out of paying minimum wages and withholding taxes doesn't look very optimistic.
Exactly. Services like Netflix suit me just fine. I don't watch sports, have little interest in most network TV offerings, so cable, in whatever form they try to deliver it, simply is of no interest to me.
It's hard to call a business model that has thus far lost hundreds of millions of dollars a "good" business model. About the only way it is a good business model is that the guys at the top are probably taking in a pretty tidy salary, and will be walking away from the wreckage of Uber's bankruptcy with millions.
I find the idea that someone can make anecdotal claims on the Internet and pass them off as a comprehensive study probably the oddest part of the parent's claims.
"Oh well, fuck employment law, because sometimes I take an Uber ride, and the drivers seem totally cool with it!"
Slashdot Mirror
The simple minds around here love catchphrase answers like "young people are delicate snowflakes" and "millennials are all lazy". The fact is that the Baby Boomers are in fact the wealthiest human beings who ever lived on average, and in large part that was because of a series of post-WWII economic booms, particularly in North America. My old man literally quit school when he was 15 and was hired at a local sawmill, and worked for the same company until his retirement at 55. I had a teacher when I was in high school telling me that in my town some of the teenagers who working at the mills were driving nicer cars than he was.
The theory here apparently is that you put either complete incompetents or people whose views are completely opposed to what they're managing in the highest positions. Apparently this will lead to better government, somehow.
It's so cute you think Rudy got the job because he's qualified.
For fuck's sake, local governments already running sewer pipes and water lines, why not just run conduit for fiber as well, and then lease it out? I think the idea is genius.
No matter how you try to form your argument, Islamic extremism does not represent an existential threat in the West.
The Nazis didn't come out of nowhere. Their anti Semitism was merely a more extreme form if anti Jewish sentiment to be found from Ireland to the Urals. They were also a home grown menace, not alien invaders into Germany. As to invading neighbors, Germany had been plotting that while Hitler was working as a government mole in the nascent National Socialist movement.
Islamic terrorism does not represent an existential threat to the West
It is the potential threat of massive destruction in a highly populated area that makes it important we are vigilent against terrorism.
And the only people that can meaningfully make that kind of a threat are major military powers. The best ISIS and al Qaeda can do with their resources is kill a few dozens or hundred at a time.
I'm not arguing that terrorism isn't a threat, but it does not represent an existential threat.
Even if that someone has almost no chance at all of effecting anything beyond the tiniest percentage of the population? So you think vast amounts of money should be redirected from where they actually could save lives in an attempt to simply make people feel better? I'd wager the money would be better spent sending every citizen of voting age to a beginner's statistics and risk assessment course.
Our brains, like probably all brains, are wired to recognize immediate threat. On that score we are very good at assessing risk; a dark alley may hold unspoken menace, an angry man in a crowd represents an obvious threat, and so forth. Where our wiring falls short is less immediate threats. That's how the media and politicians, either intentionally or inadvertently, can trick our brains into very piss poor risk assessment, and why the solution to bad risk assessment is an actual understanding of threat.
Want to talk to someone who can tell you the most likely ways you're going to die, don't talk to a cop, don't talk to a NSA employee or CIA agent, don't even talk to your doctor. Go talk to an insurance actuary. That is an entire profession based on actual statistical analysis of risk to determine which risks are actually more likely than others, which risks are certain, which risks are likely, and which risks are very small indeed.
Probably the greatest example of humans native inability to assess risk is child abuse. All the "run from stranger" programs out there are based on the false premise that the greatest threat of molestation of your child lies with strange men in parks, washrooms and outside schools. And of course this is fueled by the fact that, with a several hundred million people in North America, that there will always be a number of these kinds of attacks per year. But statistically, what your child has to worry about the most as far as sexual abuse goes isn't shifty eyed perverts outside their school, it's close family members and friends.
I'm going to come out and say it. I am not concerned about Muslim terrorists. That's not to say that I or someone close to me being killed or injured by one. But then again, there's nothing to say that I don't walk out my front door tomorrow and get struck by a bus or tomorrow at lunch choking on a chicken wing, or that as we speak a tumor is growing in my prostrate. There are a near infinite number of ways to die, and I'll be blunt, a terrorist attack is very very very very very very very very very very low on that list.
Exactly. Treating terrorism like some great geopolitical threat is like a doctor saying he has to amputate your arm because you have a paper cut on your finger. I'm not saying we don't take measures to keep ourselves safe, but the insanity that terrorism creates among politicians and the general populace is completely out of proportion to the threat that it actually represents. Like the War on Drugs, the War on Terror seems to be more about creating the illusion of government action and keeping law enforcement agencies' budgets big and fat. You'd probably save more lives in a year doubling the number of speed traps on your average freeway than in all the anti-terror measures that have been put in place.
Treat terrorists like what they are, criminals. You don't have a fucking War on the Mafia, you have the FBI and other international, federal and state law enforcement agencies actively working to break them up. To my mind, the worst thing that the West has ever done is overestimate the threat of terrorism. It's given the terrorists what they want, an air of menace that far outstrips the actual threat. I wonder if there would even be an ISIS if the West hadn't spent so much energy making terrorism seem like the greatest threat against mankind.
You are orders of a magnitude more likely to die from heart disease than from a terror attack. If you're talking about threats to society, then I'd argue your bigger threat is your nearest McDonalds or Burger King. For fucks sake, the sugar industry probably kills or harms more people in a month with its now-revealed war on dietary science than all the terror attacks in the US, Canada and Western Europe in the last half century. If you want to find evil villains, I'd argue you'll find more in a half mile stretch of Wall Street than in half the hell holes of the world.
You've proven my point very well, when you define things by grades of evil, rather than by actual statistical likelihood, you end up believing there are child molesters in every alley and every shopping mall is about to explode in a hail of nail bombs. Meanwhile, companies are adding vast amounts of sugar to many foods we buy, leading to obesity and diabetes rates that will harm and even kill millions of people.
Well yes, solar power isn't going to do you too much good for a part of the year if you're at very high latitudes, but, in fact, the number of humans that live at those latitudes represent a fairly small percentage of the population.
I think the more salient point is whether or not terror attacks represent any significant risk at all. Now I'll admit when someone Jihadi drives a truck into a crowd of people, that certainly creates some casualties, and by consequence creates a significant amount of fear. But what are the real odds of any resident of a Western country dying in a terrorist attack. In reality, the odds are infinitesimal. Now dying from a heart attack or stroke, or hell, even choking or highway fatalities, those represent massive killers, with huge numbers of casualties with huge costs for society. And yet, here we are, with our stupid Savannah ape brains, unable to discern a meaningful and present threat to our person from a threat that's unlikely to harm you or anyone you know even to the second or third degree ever.
You actually have no fucking idea how solar power works, do you? In fact, average cloud cover is a larger obstacle to efficiency that latitude.
Oh for chrissakes, PTSD has been around forever. Ever heard of "shell shock"?
Jurors complain of similar effects from some of the evidence they're provided, and they are only exposed to horrifying images for fairly limited periods of time in most cases. I don't mean to denigrate your experiences, but if you think PTSD is limited to combat, then you don't dick-all about human psychology.
I was pretty much done at 2 Girls 1 Cup. Actually, I was done after Goatse. It's bad enough when that kind of shit creeps up on you, but to actually go looking for it... yikes.
That's a claim that has already been attacked in multiple jurisdictions, and for reasons heavily covered on Slashdot. Just signing a contract does not make you a contractor; if it sufficiently resembles an employer-employee relationship, in many jurisdictions it will be deemed as such, meaning minimum wage laws, working standards and withholding tax rules apply.
When you consider that it's unlikely that the business model as it stands is likely to even work in many jurisdictions, due to the growing number of jurisdictions that are rejecting Uber's argument that its drivers are private contractors, I don't actually see a long term view here. Yes, they have the app, and that IP may be worth something, but the business model where you weasel your way out of paying minimum wages and withholding taxes doesn't look very optimistic.
Exactly. Services like Netflix suit me just fine. I don't watch sports, have little interest in most network TV offerings, so cable, in whatever form they try to deliver it, simply is of no interest to me.
My apologies. Hadn't had my first cup of coffee
It's hard to call a business model that has thus far lost hundreds of millions of dollars a "good" business model. About the only way it is a good business model is that the guys at the top are probably taking in a pretty tidy salary, and will be walking away from the wreckage of Uber's bankruptcy with millions.
The problem with Slashdot these days is that 4chan trolls like yourself are here. There's should be a "-100000 4chan scumbag".
I find the idea that someone can make anecdotal claims on the Internet and pass them off as a comprehensive study probably the oddest part of the parent's claims.
"Oh well, fuck employment law, because sometimes I take an Uber ride, and the drivers seem totally cool with it!"