I'm just saying I do think there are similarities as far as costs to society.
I think it's quite the opposite. Society benefits when inefficiencies are trimmed from an organization. Those 10,000 people may have a tough few months finding jobs, and maybe they'll end up taking a pay cut. But in theory they will end up in places where they are more beneficial to society, and the millions and millions of people who use IBM products will benefit. It sounds nice to say nobody should be fired, but society is in no way helped by having to pay people for work that isn't needed.
The question on my mind is, how can you have your conscious self be in two places at once? If it would ever be possible for this, then I would think that the real power would not be longevity of life but in being able to copying ones self and retaining a kind of collective consciousness over a large array of machines.
You must work at the Media Lab. Have you published this yet?
Just because a post has the f-word and/or some ideas you don't like doesn't make it flamebait. There were legitimate ideas in my post that were substantive, if not exactly PC. So let people decide for themselves before you go moderating stuff just because you don't like it, you small-minded shit.
By the way, THIS is flamebait, you stupid fuck. Notice how in addition to calling you names, I have no substantive ideas in this post. That's the difference. The parent post is just something that pisses you off. Hypocritical fucker, you probably flatter yourself by considering yourself a champion of dissent, while repressing posts that actually dissent from your views.
Let's quit acting as if companies are somehow organisms. This is the reason why people somehow think it's better if you tax a corporation as opposed to people.
Repeat after me in your best B-movie Charlton Heston voice: "It's peeeeeeeople! Corporations are people!!!" Maybe bad people, sometimes, but people. So the question you need to ask yourself is this: can you trust the couple of guys at AOL/TimeWarner who were responsible for the Trust Rating feature?
Yes, but why should any have to die? America and it's allies invaded Iraq on false pretences. There were no WMDs. Liberating the people of Iraq, while a noble goal, was also not the reason. It was about oil.
You are right about it being false pretense, and you are certainly right that nobody should have to die. But it wasn't about oil. It was about shaking up the dynamic in the middle east and drawing fire from home. Perhaps you're not as smart as you think you are, and Bush isn't as stupid. Nobody thought this would help the oil situation, and predictably, it has hurt it. Maybe you should get your opinions from somewhere other than a protest poster.
Your president is a moron and you are celebrating that fact. I do not approve of my prime minister, John Howard, but at least he is intelligent.
I didn't vote for Bush, I voted for the Libertarian candidate, so fuck off with your pretentious bullshit. Believe me, right or wrong, nobody of any backbone in America cares what you think. Even those of us who want a more respectable Republic which stays out of other nation's business want it because it's the right thing to do, not because we give a shit about your opinion. If anything, I'm sorry that doing the right thing would even give the hint that we care about what you think of us. Historically, people have respected America because we used to stand for some ideals. But nobody has ever liked or respected us because we were nice people who politely took suggestions from British penal colonies.
For all you Americans out there imagine that China or another country openly proposed space based weapons. Imagine your reaction at that.
More to the point, how the hell would you react when China makes that announcement? Because they will. My guess is you'll be thinking: "Shit, I wish it were the Americans making that announcement if somebody had to!"
Well, it does have to be somebody. And you'll be lucky if it's us. So think about the reality of the world before you go throwing your smug shit at us Americans. There are tons of other countries who would make your life a miserable hell had they risen to the level of power America has, and it's largely thanks to us that you can afford to be such an prick about your superior pacificm because you don't have to think about defending yourselves. As things go historically, we're pretty innocous for a hegemon.
Thanks for the excellent reply. Can't argue with much, except for the jet engine issue. My understanding was that the English had one in development in parallel with the Germans, but that the latter finished first. I'm fairly certain the Germans had the first working jet powered aircraft, near the end of the war. (Too late to do any good.)
Or they might not - hasn't this been the excuse for ever more destructive weapons since time immemorial 'they'll save more lives than they destroy'? It has never turned out to be true. The aim of war is never minimal loss of lives to both sides.
Oh, for christ's sake, if you're going to make shit up at least make up stuff that's hard to refute. Despite all the handwringing about Iraq, the entire war still hasn't resulted in total American casualties equal to one day of WWII. And if you make the more difficult estimate of civilian and enemy deaths, I'm still willing to bet the total still isn't up to one good day of carpet bombing in WWII. You can argue war is always too much, but you can't argue that there's no interest in the military on sparing lives. They spend huge amounts of their budget using smart weapons when the same job could be done for a tenth of the cost if they didn't care about collateral damage.
The agressive militarisation of a domain which all space-capable countries have explicitly agreed not to militarise is an insane, hubristic waste of money which will backfire when China, Europe, India et al decide they can't tolerate a US with space weapons and start to arm their satellites.
You're right, it is arrogant. Let's not have to be the first anymore. Let's wait until China develops military satellites before we start thinking about this. That way, the Europeans will think better of us, and we'll have that nice feeling of moral superiority. And that's what's important. Do you really think China gives a shit about anything we could get them to sign? Do you really think their efforts at human space flight have been anything other than military R&D?
The US has no need of a bigger, better, weapon - they already spend more on weapons than any other nation
True. So maybe our military really is sincere about wanting more precise weapons. It certainly makes more sense than the cynical conspiracy theories around here.
Yeah, they want us to lease everything, which is why we have the biggest housing ownership boom in history and a president fighting for us to own part of our own retirement plans. You may be right about a lot of that, but I think it's time to take off the tinfoil hat.
That all sounds rather nice, but is really rather hollow, reactionary thinking. Space-borne weapons might offer a way to fight conflicts with precision and minimal loss of life to both sides. The science involved will invariable trickle down. Do you have objections to the fact that airplanes benefitted from military research? Hell, we got the jet engine from the Nazis for the most part.
Finally, if we didn't develop nukes, they'd have been developed by all the countries you mention by now. Except maybe we'd all have been incinerated by the Russia by now, who would've been the first. Sometimes the hippy dippy shit that sounds so good is just a gloss coat on reality that makes you feel smug. But it comes at the cost of the complexity of the real world.
It seems all geeks can do these days is rant about esoteric security flaws and patch them as if every guy running Firefox had pentagon launch codes on his linux box. Let's just admit one thing: for every known security flaw, there are dozens that aren't, and probably a few that are by the wrong people. We continue as a viable species despite this fact not because of our ability to ensure perfect mathmatical security, but because most people really aren't evil. Maybe we should spend one day a week actually using computers and leave the rest of them to obsessing about security.
Hell, my cell phone has more memory the hard drive on my first computer. The first hard drives were around 5 MB. And I remember thinking at the time "When the hell am I going to need that much memory?"
Thanks for the response. I wasn't aware of the limit of the spectrum allocation. I thought they chose not to buy more because they felt they didn't need it. My (apparently false) assumption was that with satellites, I guess I was wrong.
My guess is that the cellular networks would be the providers of digital audio before WiFi networks. (We're already seeing this with video, oddly enough, before audio.) It just seems that WiFi was never designed for mobility and range. I'm not certain, but I just can't imagine that it would make economic sense to try to duplicate the coverage of cellular networks with WiFi. Even at that, I can't imagine any IP network would be able to handle the load if every commuter who now listens to radio started using the IP networks. And it just seems ludicrous to me to imagine a thousand drivers in a metropolitan area listening to the Howard Stern show, all using their own packet stream.
I think you're mistaking their engineering choice as a limit. They only have that right now because it's all they need to support the hundred or so channels they want to provide. In theory, a satellite can provide hundreds of MHz of bandwidth, allowing for more audio channels than you could ever want to have to sift through. Second, you don't need to limit yourself to just one satellite. In any event, a satellite is much more efficient for mobile broadcasting than a huge network of wireless access points. That's why you'll spend almost $100 to get unlimited wireless data but only $10 to get unlimited satellite radio.
When did I ever suggest "a central authority controlling half our lives?" Talk about a straw-man.
My point is that NOBODY ever suggests that. And yet it's what they implicity vote for. If you knew how much of your money went into the government, you'd be enraged. You have no fricking clue how much the government really costs us, because it's hidden in tax upon tax and fee upon fee everywhere in the production cycle. When you add it all up, though (people have tried) it looks like about half of your work output goes to the government. That's the definition of slavery (or half of it). That would piss most people off trememdously if they knew that, which is why the government is so smart about having the money come from so many little places.
So, why not demand accountability from the government, so this doesn't happen? Not paying taxes isn't going to stop this.
Of course it will. They can't abuse power if they don't have it. A limited government is a more accountable government. It's harder to fool people if all you're supposed to be doing is providing basic infrastructure and protecting people's property and rights. And it's harder to fool people if you don't have so much power with which to do it. The government would also be less of a target for corruption and influence if so much money wasn't involved. These aren't my ideas. They come from the enlightenment, something we've apparently forgotten about.
That's an entirely different issue, and you know it. We are talking about providing services, not telling people what they can do with their bodies. We're talking about money (issued by the government) - not human rights.
For the context if this discussion, it's COMPLETELY appropriate. You suggested that if the majority wants the government to do something, they should get it. You can't pick and choose when you want to be a democrat!
We're talking about money (issued by the government) - not human rights.
The government taxes your income even if you're paid in gold. And I consider having the fruits of my labor confiscated forcibly to be a human rights issue when it approaches the scale at which we currently find ourselves.
Wrong. I'm for accountability of all governments. I don't trust them either. So keep them on a short leash. Bush would not be able to get away with these things if there was transparency.
Nothing can be transparent or accountable when it has a multi-trillion dollar budget!!! You and I have no arguments about which political system is the best. We haven't even gotten there yet. I think you're probably right about parlimentary systems being better, for example. It's the SCOPE of government I'm talking about. That's gotten completely out of control. And it happened one well-meaning program at a time. No system of politics can save you once the government grows past a certain point. I don't know what that point is, but I think we've crossed it when a guy making $80,000 is presumed incapable of saving for his own retirement.
Having said all this I appreciate many of your arguments. I've had to temper my position a bit as a result of some of your points. So please don't take my retorts to those I disagree with as me not giving honest consideration to what you've written. It's obvious you've put a lot of thought into these issues. For the most part, I agree with a lot of what you've said, especially about government accountability and representation. It's just that we disagree on what said government should even be trying to do in the first place.
So, are you saying, that no other form of government could possibly work, except for that envisaged by Jefferson and co? That doesn't really make sense, as the US is having massive problems with its form of government, and disenfranchisement of voters. Other governments around the world are far more representational. The founders' system isn't exactly working.
I'd argue we're having those problems partly because we're going away from the original ideas of the founders. It's impossible for citizens to follow our government anymore. Of course people are disenfranchised: we produce thousands of pages of laws every year, mostly brought about by moneyed lobbies. People feel, quite correctly, that it's no longer their government. Things got out of hand because so much power and money is concentrated in DC that it became no longer prudent for people in power to leave things up to us. Once there becomes too much at stake, the people will always be taken out of the picture.
Sorry, you're the one buying the bullshit. The government has helped your standard of living so much that you can't even see it. How the heck do you think you get strong technological and service industries? Do you think it would have happened without public education? What about The New Deal? What about the massive infrastructure projects like the railways that helped make America what it is?
We seem to have an impasse regarding the BS assignment. You think the RRs wouldn't have happened if the barons hadn't fooled the US taxpayers into helping pay for them? The best schools and universities are private and you can have poor people educated without a public school system. Anyway, I'm not arguing a black and white position; I'm not saying we do away with government. Just suggesting maybe having about half our GDP go into the government isn't a great idea.
I'm not surprised you can't fathom it, because it wouldn't really make any difference. Most people would just spend the money on consumer crap.
Another great quote from a member of the Party of the People. Please explain something to me: why is it that you want to help society so much when you have such distrust and contempt for its people?
Uhhh, what the hell does this have to do with liberalism?
Nothing concrete, obviously, but it's an example that liberal politics is often not what it claims to be, and can often result in a reality opposite to its stated goals. Since my larger point was that despite good intentions government tends towards corruption and abuse, this is a perfect example. You won't find a more liberal place in America than Massachussetts, and yet you also won't find a worse governed. People here think government is the answer to everything, and in the end it became one of the biggest problems. I know that's not a proof, but nor do I think it's a complete coincidence.
Sorry, ASOT. You tried to appeal to something other than self-serving arguments of convenience on/.? That will teach you for suggesting people be honest. Geeks aren't exactly known for our high standards of morality. Doing the right thing is simple, and therefore not very fun. It's more satisfying to use market economics and the past transgressions of the target to explain why dishonesty is actually ok.
I myself was going to point out that the same logic would suggest it's ok to carjack Bill Gates if you could show that the extra press would be good for him, but I was smart enough to just let this issue lie.
No, because people a lot smarter than you or me discovered it through experience. (And we seem set on discovering it for ourselves.) I was hoping you'd recognize that guys like Jefferson and Adams would've agreed with the second phrase and abhorred the first.
Go and live in 1920 then. Living standards and general wealth are much higher these days, even with the government taking so much money. I'm sure there are plenty of places that charge little tax - but I'm not sure you would want to live in those places.
Hell, you go and live in France. They're already exactly what you're dreaming of. I've lived in places with low taxes (Golden, CO) and high as hell (Boston, MA) and there is no correlation between tax rate and quality of life. Everybody should be required to live in Boston at one point in their lives, because it is the most effective argument against liberal government I've ever seen. It pretty much gives you a glimpse of where we're headed as a country if we don't get our shit together and reign in the government. The whole nation would be full of Jeffersonian libertarians if we did this. The people in Boston are self absorbed and miserable to each other (so much for liberalism being the politics of niceness) the infrastructure is rotting (isn't that the main purpose of government?) and the cost of living is horrendous (liberals will only help the poor if it won't hurt their inflated home prices).
Don't fall for the statist BS about our standard of living having anything to do with our government. We have a high standard DESPITE our government, and only because of technology and scientific progress. As a geek, you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking a bunch of fucking lawyers had anything to do with our improved quality of life.
For many people it is not a luxury - it's a chance to get a step-up in life, and get some of the things that the privileged take for granted. For many people it could mean the difference between being educated and being uneducated or indoctrinated.
That's some seriously awesome WiFi you've got. I had to go to college for that. Anyway, I'm not arguing WiFi isn't the shit. I'm saying just because something is good doesn't mean we should use the government to mandate it. Your arguments here are the same arguments somebody else has used for every thing our government currently spends its yearly trillions on. I can't even fathom how many great things we could do if even a quarter of the overall government budgets were returned to the people, or how many problems the government currently "solves" wouldn't even exist without the government leaching off us in the first place.
If it were true that having 20 companies would be inefficient, the market will trim that down until it reaches a point of efficiency. Even if that turns out to be one company, it will still probably be cheaper to provide in the private sector. And more fair, since people will pay by use.
To be honest, of all the stupid shit we do with government, public WiFi actually is probably not a terrible idea. I just don't like the way people are so quick to suggest the government do everything. Having the government do something should be the last resort, not the first thought.
Why does something need to be a basic human right for the government to be allowed to provide it?
It's a good place to start unless you want to spend even more than half of your life working for the government. Just think about the fact that from January until about June, you're essentially working as a slave of sorts. Only after that do you get to keep and decide how to spend your income. We're headed towards unmanageable government. Only weak people would be happy having a central authority handle more than half of their lives. It's not that I have a problem with it inherently, it's just that whenever you give the government your money, they invariably use it in ways you didn't intend. It's best not to give it to them in the first place and put it up for political grabs.
It's supposed to be a device for the realization of a collective society. If people collectively want WiFi, why can't they vote to support it, just like the electorate does when they want other things? It doesn't really matter what government was "originally" intended to be - what matters is what people want today. The original founders are long dead and beyond caring.
That's a really scary thing to say. Would you feel the same way knowing the majority of people currently might like to impose religious laws, or outlaw abortion? I think you're thinking of another continent if you think whatever the majority wants is what should go. Our government is supposed to be constrained by its form to be limited in scope. The whole point of that was to avoid being destroyed by the transient whims of the people, who would tend to vote themselves benefits at the expense of the majority, creating a big power grab which we see today. You asked for it (or more likely, let it happen) and you get what you deserve every time you turn on the TV or take a peak at your withholding. Bush couldn't do the crazy shit you probably hate him for were it not for people like you why think of the government as the answer to so many things. You just complain when the government becomes controlled by people you disagree with, but don't see how having the government do everything is the flip side of the same coin.
If you think society needs to provide WiFi for everybody, I respect and even admire that. But start a foundation to install public WiFi and let everybody else who agrees with you (and I'd be in) donate money. What could be more democratic than that? Don't use the government to physically force everybody to go along with your idea of utopia. I have no respect for people who claim to want to better society but are only willing to do so if they can force everybody else to chip in. (Or more likely, force rich people to do the majority of it.) If, like you say, more than half the people want it, then you've easily got enough people to just do it without resorting to coersion.
Why not? It makes a lot more sense than pooling our money to pay for nuclear weapons and war, more freeways, or to bail-out failing airlines, or to subsidize pharmaceutical companies.
So, you're trying to convince me by giving me examples of other stupid things we've been complascent enough to let the government get away with?
Internet access is valuable to most people
Do the words "tyranny of the majority" mean anything to people anymore? We're supposed to be a republic, not a democratic free-for-all.
Well, governments around the world have been doing a better job than American industry in terms of providing health care and other infrastructure. Indeed, why not? the government could do this more efficiently than private companies.
You know, you can't just win an argument by making shit up. Many countries in Europe are about to collapse under the weight of their own inflexible beaurocracy while people over here are giddily allowing us to head full speed towards the same illconceived form of government.
I see your point. However, my thesis was that given the tendency towards disorder, having local order arise to the huge extent neccessary for BEC seems unlikely without intelligence. But, you're right. I'm just guessing. Just don't underestimate our power to go against the thermodynamic gradient. Humans are basically entropy pumps.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm just saying I do think there are similarities as far as costs to society.
I think it's quite the opposite. Society benefits when inefficiencies are trimmed from an organization. Those 10,000 people may have a tough few months finding jobs, and maybe they'll end up taking a pay cut. But in theory they will end up in places where they are more beneficial to society, and the millions and millions of people who use IBM products will benefit. It sounds nice to say nobody should be fired, but society is in no way helped by having to pay people for work that isn't needed.
If this had come out earlier, a lot of nerds wouldn't have wasted a perfectly good Saturday evening. http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/
You must work at the Media Lab. Have you published this yet?
Just because a post has the f-word and/or some ideas you don't like doesn't make it flamebait. There were legitimate ideas in my post that were substantive, if not exactly PC. So let people decide for themselves before you go moderating stuff just because you don't like it, you small-minded shit.
By the way, THIS is flamebait, you stupid fuck. Notice how in addition to calling you names, I have no substantive ideas in this post. That's the difference. The parent post is just something that pisses you off. Hypocritical fucker, you probably flatter yourself by considering yourself a champion of dissent, while repressing posts that actually dissent from your views.
Repeat after me in your best B-movie Charlton Heston voice: "It's peeeeeeeople! Corporations are people!!!" Maybe bad people, sometimes, but people. So the question you need to ask yourself is this: can you trust the couple of guys at AOL/TimeWarner who were responsible for the Trust Rating feature?
You are right about it being false pretense, and you are certainly right that nobody should have to die. But it wasn't about oil. It was about shaking up the dynamic in the middle east and drawing fire from home. Perhaps you're not as smart as you think you are, and Bush isn't as stupid. Nobody thought this would help the oil situation, and predictably, it has hurt it. Maybe you should get your opinions from somewhere other than a protest poster.
Your president is a moron and you are celebrating that fact. I do not approve of my prime minister, John Howard, but at least he is intelligent.
I didn't vote for Bush, I voted for the Libertarian candidate, so fuck off with your pretentious bullshit. Believe me, right or wrong, nobody of any backbone in America cares what you think. Even those of us who want a more respectable Republic which stays out of other nation's business want it because it's the right thing to do, not because we give a shit about your opinion. If anything, I'm sorry that doing the right thing would even give the hint that we care about what you think of us. Historically, people have respected America because we used to stand for some ideals. But nobody has ever liked or respected us because we were nice people who politely took suggestions from British penal colonies.
For all you Americans out there imagine that China or another country openly proposed space based weapons. Imagine your reaction at that.
More to the point, how the hell would you react when China makes that announcement? Because they will. My guess is you'll be thinking: "Shit, I wish it were the Americans making that announcement if somebody had to!"
Well, it does have to be somebody. And you'll be lucky if it's us. So think about the reality of the world before you go throwing your smug shit at us Americans. There are tons of other countries who would make your life a miserable hell had they risen to the level of power America has, and it's largely thanks to us that you can afford to be such an prick about your superior pacificm because you don't have to think about defending yourselves. As things go historically, we're pretty innocous for a hegemon.
Thanks for the excellent reply. Can't argue with much, except for the jet engine issue. My understanding was that the English had one in development in parallel with the Germans, but that the latter finished first. I'm fairly certain the Germans had the first working jet powered aircraft, near the end of the war. (Too late to do any good.)
Oh, for christ's sake, if you're going to make shit up at least make up stuff that's hard to refute. Despite all the handwringing about Iraq, the entire war still hasn't resulted in total American casualties equal to one day of WWII. And if you make the more difficult estimate of civilian and enemy deaths, I'm still willing to bet the total still isn't up to one good day of carpet bombing in WWII. You can argue war is always too much, but you can't argue that there's no interest in the military on sparing lives. They spend huge amounts of their budget using smart weapons when the same job could be done for a tenth of the cost if they didn't care about collateral damage.
The agressive militarisation of a domain which all space-capable countries have explicitly agreed not to militarise is an insane, hubristic waste of money which will backfire when China, Europe, India et al decide they can't tolerate a US with space weapons and start to arm their satellites.
You're right, it is arrogant. Let's not have to be the first anymore. Let's wait until China develops military satellites before we start thinking about this. That way, the Europeans will think better of us, and we'll have that nice feeling of moral superiority. And that's what's important. Do you really think China gives a shit about anything we could get them to sign? Do you really think their efforts at human space flight have been anything other than military R&D?
The US has no need of a bigger, better, weapon - they already spend more on weapons than any other nation
True. So maybe our military really is sincere about wanting more precise weapons. It certainly makes more sense than the cynical conspiracy theories around here.
Gaming for a +5 (Da, Comrade!) from a fellow pinko?
Yeah, they want us to lease everything, which is why we have the biggest housing ownership boom in history and a president fighting for us to own part of our own retirement plans. You may be right about a lot of that, but I think it's time to take off the tinfoil hat.
That all sounds rather nice, but is really rather hollow, reactionary thinking. Space-borne weapons might offer a way to fight conflicts with precision and minimal loss of life to both sides. The science involved will invariable trickle down. Do you have objections to the fact that airplanes benefitted from military research? Hell, we got the jet engine from the Nazis for the most part.
Finally, if we didn't develop nukes, they'd have been developed by all the countries you mention by now. Except maybe we'd all have been incinerated by the Russia by now, who would've been the first. Sometimes the hippy dippy shit that sounds so good is just a gloss coat on reality that makes you feel smug. But it comes at the cost of the complexity of the real world.
It seems all geeks can do these days is rant about esoteric security flaws and patch them as if every guy running Firefox had pentagon launch codes on his linux box. Let's just admit one thing: for every known security flaw, there are dozens that aren't, and probably a few that are by the wrong people. We continue as a viable species despite this fact not because of our ability to ensure perfect mathmatical security, but because most people really aren't evil. Maybe we should spend one day a week actually using computers and leave the rest of them to obsessing about security.
Hell, my cell phone has more memory the hard drive on my first computer. The first hard drives were around 5 MB. And I remember thinking at the time "When the hell am I going to need that much memory?"
Thanks for the response. I wasn't aware of the limit of the spectrum allocation. I thought they chose not to buy more because they felt they didn't need it. My (apparently false) assumption was that with satellites, I guess I was wrong.
My guess is that the cellular networks would be the providers of digital audio before WiFi networks. (We're already seeing this with video, oddly enough, before audio.) It just seems that WiFi was never designed for mobility and range. I'm not certain, but I just can't imagine that it would make economic sense to try to duplicate the coverage of cellular networks with WiFi. Even at that, I can't imagine any IP network would be able to handle the load if every commuter who now listens to radio started using the IP networks. And it just seems ludicrous to me to imagine a thousand drivers in a metropolitan area listening to the Howard Stern show, all using their own packet stream.
I think you're mistaking their engineering choice as a limit. They only have that right now because it's all they need to support the hundred or so channels they want to provide. In theory, a satellite can provide hundreds of MHz of bandwidth, allowing for more audio channels than you could ever want to have to sift through. Second, you don't need to limit yourself to just one satellite. In any event, a satellite is much more efficient for mobile broadcasting than a huge network of wireless access points. That's why you'll spend almost $100 to get unlimited wireless data but only $10 to get unlimited satellite radio.
What, did you look that up in an old english dictionary?
It could be from bad spelling. Women hate that.
My point is that NOBODY ever suggests that. And yet it's what they implicity vote for. If you knew how much of your money went into the government, you'd be enraged. You have no fricking clue how much the government really costs us, because it's hidden in tax upon tax and fee upon fee everywhere in the production cycle. When you add it all up, though (people have tried) it looks like about half of your work output goes to the government. That's the definition of slavery (or half of it). That would piss most people off trememdously if they knew that, which is why the government is so smart about having the money come from so many little places.
So, why not demand accountability from the government, so this doesn't happen? Not paying taxes isn't going to stop this.
Of course it will. They can't abuse power if they don't have it. A limited government is a more accountable government. It's harder to fool people if all you're supposed to be doing is providing basic infrastructure and protecting people's property and rights. And it's harder to fool people if you don't have so much power with which to do it. The government would also be less of a target for corruption and influence if so much money wasn't involved. These aren't my ideas. They come from the enlightenment, something we've apparently forgotten about.
That's an entirely different issue, and you know it. We are talking about providing services, not telling people what they can do with their bodies. We're talking about money (issued by the government) - not human rights.
For the context if this discussion, it's COMPLETELY appropriate. You suggested that if the majority wants the government to do something, they should get it. You can't pick and choose when you want to be a democrat!
We're talking about money (issued by the government) - not human rights.
The government taxes your income even if you're paid in gold. And I consider having the fruits of my labor confiscated forcibly to be a human rights issue when it approaches the scale at which we currently find ourselves.
Wrong. I'm for accountability of all governments. I don't trust them either. So keep them on a short leash. Bush would not be able to get away with these things if there was transparency.
Nothing can be transparent or accountable when it has a multi-trillion dollar budget!!! You and I have no arguments about which political system is the best. We haven't even gotten there yet. I think you're probably right about parlimentary systems being better, for example. It's the SCOPE of government I'm talking about. That's gotten completely out of control. And it happened one well-meaning program at a time. No system of politics can save you once the government grows past a certain point. I don't know what that point is, but I think we've crossed it when a guy making $80,000 is presumed incapable of saving for his own retirement.
Having said all this I appreciate many of your arguments. I've had to temper my position a bit as a result of some of your points. So please don't take my retorts to those I disagree with as me not giving honest consideration to what you've written. It's obvious you've put a lot of thought into these issues. For the most part, I agree with a lot of what you've said, especially about government accountability and representation. It's just that we disagree on what said government should even be trying to do in the first place.
I'd argue we're having those problems partly because we're going away from the original ideas of the founders. It's impossible for citizens to follow our government anymore. Of course people are disenfranchised: we produce thousands of pages of laws every year, mostly brought about by moneyed lobbies. People feel, quite correctly, that it's no longer their government. Things got out of hand because so much power and money is concentrated in DC that it became no longer prudent for people in power to leave things up to us. Once there becomes too much at stake, the people will always be taken out of the picture.
Sorry, you're the one buying the bullshit. The government has helped your standard of living so much that you can't even see it. How the heck do you think you get strong technological and service industries? Do you think it would have happened without public education? What about The New Deal? What about the massive infrastructure projects like the railways that helped make America what it is?
We seem to have an impasse regarding the BS assignment. You think the RRs wouldn't have happened if the barons hadn't fooled the US taxpayers into helping pay for them? The best schools and universities are private and you can have poor people educated without a public school system. Anyway, I'm not arguing a black and white position; I'm not saying we do away with government. Just suggesting maybe having about half our GDP go into the government isn't a great idea.
I'm not surprised you can't fathom it, because it wouldn't really make any difference. Most people would just spend the money on consumer crap.
Another great quote from a member of the Party of the People. Please explain something to me: why is it that you want to help society so much when you have such distrust and contempt for its people?
Uhhh, what the hell does this have to do with liberalism?
Nothing concrete, obviously, but it's an example that liberal politics is often not what it claims to be, and can often result in a reality opposite to its stated goals. Since my larger point was that despite good intentions government tends towards corruption and abuse, this is a perfect example. You won't find a more liberal place in America than Massachussetts, and yet you also won't find a worse governed. People here think government is the answer to everything, and in the end it became one of the biggest problems. I know that's not a proof, but nor do I think it's a complete coincidence.
Sorry, ASOT. You tried to appeal to something other than self-serving arguments of convenience on /.? That will teach you for suggesting people be honest. Geeks aren't exactly known for our high standards of morality. Doing the right thing is simple, and therefore not very fun. It's more satisfying to use market economics and the past transgressions of the target to explain why dishonesty is actually ok.
I myself was going to point out that the same logic would suggest it's ok to carjack Bill Gates if you could show that the extra press would be good for him, but I was smart enough to just let this issue lie.
No, because people a lot smarter than you or me discovered it through experience. (And we seem set on discovering it for ourselves.) I was hoping you'd recognize that guys like Jefferson and Adams would've agreed with the second phrase and abhorred the first.
Go and live in 1920 then. Living standards and general wealth are much higher these days, even with the government taking so much money. I'm sure there are plenty of places that charge little tax - but I'm not sure you would want to live in those places.
Hell, you go and live in France. They're already exactly what you're dreaming of. I've lived in places with low taxes (Golden, CO) and high as hell (Boston, MA) and there is no correlation between tax rate and quality of life. Everybody should be required to live in Boston at one point in their lives, because it is the most effective argument against liberal government I've ever seen. It pretty much gives you a glimpse of where we're headed as a country if we don't get our shit together and reign in the government. The whole nation would be full of Jeffersonian libertarians if we did this. The people in Boston are self absorbed and miserable to each other (so much for liberalism being the politics of niceness) the infrastructure is rotting (isn't that the main purpose of government?) and the cost of living is horrendous (liberals will only help the poor if it won't hurt their inflated home prices).
Don't fall for the statist BS about our standard of living having anything to do with our government. We have a high standard DESPITE our government, and only because of technology and scientific progress. As a geek, you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking a bunch of fucking lawyers had anything to do with our improved quality of life.
For many people it is not a luxury - it's a chance to get a step-up in life, and get some of the things that the privileged take for granted. For many people it could mean the difference between being educated and being uneducated or indoctrinated.
That's some seriously awesome WiFi you've got. I had to go to college for that. Anyway, I'm not arguing WiFi isn't the shit. I'm saying just because something is good doesn't mean we should use the government to mandate it. Your arguments here are the same arguments somebody else has used for every thing our government currently spends its yearly trillions on. I can't even fathom how many great things we could do if even a quarter of the overall government budgets were returned to the people, or how many problems the government currently "solves" wouldn't even exist without the government leaching off us in the first place.
If it were true that having 20 companies would be inefficient, the market will trim that down until it reaches a point of efficiency. Even if that turns out to be one company, it will still probably be cheaper to provide in the private sector. And more fair, since people will pay by use.
To be honest, of all the stupid shit we do with government, public WiFi actually is probably not a terrible idea. I just don't like the way people are so quick to suggest the government do everything. Having the government do something should be the last resort, not the first thought.
It's a good place to start unless you want to spend even more than half of your life working for the government. Just think about the fact that from January until about June, you're essentially working as a slave of sorts. Only after that do you get to keep and decide how to spend your income. We're headed towards unmanageable government. Only weak people would be happy having a central authority handle more than half of their lives. It's not that I have a problem with it inherently, it's just that whenever you give the government your money, they invariably use it in ways you didn't intend. It's best not to give it to them in the first place and put it up for political grabs.
It's supposed to be a device for the realization of a collective society. If people collectively want WiFi, why can't they vote to support it, just like the electorate does when they want other things? It doesn't really matter what government was "originally" intended to be - what matters is what people want today. The original founders are long dead and beyond caring.
That's a really scary thing to say. Would you feel the same way knowing the majority of people currently might like to impose religious laws, or outlaw abortion? I think you're thinking of another continent if you think whatever the majority wants is what should go. Our government is supposed to be constrained by its form to be limited in scope. The whole point of that was to avoid being destroyed by the transient whims of the people, who would tend to vote themselves benefits at the expense of the majority, creating a big power grab which we see today. You asked for it (or more likely, let it happen) and you get what you deserve every time you turn on the TV or take a peak at your withholding. Bush couldn't do the crazy shit you probably hate him for were it not for people like you why think of the government as the answer to so many things. You just complain when the government becomes controlled by people you disagree with, but don't see how having the government do everything is the flip side of the same coin.
If you think society needs to provide WiFi for everybody, I respect and even admire that. But start a foundation to install public WiFi and let everybody else who agrees with you (and I'd be in) donate money. What could be more democratic than that? Don't use the government to physically force everybody to go along with your idea of utopia. I have no respect for people who claim to want to better society but are only willing to do so if they can force everybody else to chip in. (Or more likely, force rich people to do the majority of it.) If, like you say, more than half the people want it, then you've easily got enough people to just do it without resorting to coersion.
So, you're trying to convince me by giving me examples of other stupid things we've been complascent enough to let the government get away with?
Internet access is valuable to most people
Do the words "tyranny of the majority" mean anything to people anymore? We're supposed to be a republic, not a democratic free-for-all.
Well, governments around the world have been doing a better job than American industry in terms of providing health care and other infrastructure. Indeed, why not? the government could do this more efficiently than private companies.
You know, you can't just win an argument by making shit up. Many countries in Europe are about to collapse under the weight of their own inflexible beaurocracy while people over here are giddily allowing us to head full speed towards the same illconceived form of government.
I see your point. However, my thesis was that given the tendency towards disorder, having local order arise to the huge extent neccessary for BEC seems unlikely without intelligence. But, you're right. I'm just guessing. Just don't underestimate our power to go against the thermodynamic gradient. Humans are basically entropy pumps.