The populations that can afford to reproduce this way are already reproducing at near zero birth rates (or negative in many cases). Birth rates seem to be decreasing in the whole world as well. I think this is fine.
There's a bunch of stuff on wikiepedia about it, I'm referring mostly to stuff I've read or heard recently, but can't quote (don't remember the specific sources), so take it with a grain of salt.;-)
Putting many badly programmed scanner machines (all programmed the same way) all over the state does not help this problem. They can be programmed to simply miscount the bad pages, and spit out a message saying "confirmed".
There is no form of machine that can do justice to the vote counting process.
Only human hand counted ballots are acceptable, as these are the hardest to manipulate (meaning you need a lot of people to do it, instead of just a few programmers). Also it's cheaper. I just don't get this machine fetish we in the US seem to have for voting.
It's taking too long to respond point by point, so I'll just get to the meaty stuff:
1. We seem to have differing perspectives on what access to the market system means. I think the promise of the "free market" is always, you can enrich yourself through innovation. The problem is, if you take investment money to get something done (banks are usually not enough to go up against the huge players - you need VC money), then the investors get the profit - thus keeping the money in the same hands of the few. I just don't consider that fair access to the market - in other words, there is no freedom there, only another way to collect a paycheck (handout) from the already wealthy.
2. I'd have to look at Hong Kong more closely, but it's close proximity to Japan and other eastern markets makes me question it's disadvantage - as well as it's long standing access to international shipping lanes. Also, others in the region were able to do great, in a fraction of the time, with a different model market system (Japan, South Korea).
3. You seem to base your belief that the "free market" can work based on two things: a. there is enough access to the markets by smaller players, to get rid of the dominant players when they misbehave, b. those smaller players will always show up and take down the dominant players when they do misbehave. I reject both of those arguments for a number of reasons which I have already enumerated - not limited to the fact that the dominant players will usually try to influence and change the rules in their favor (which is why you never really get a "free market" system).
4. The reason to constantly put the term "free market" in quotes is because it is a marketing job. To my estimation, the "free market" is just laissez faire rebranded - and I work in media, so I'm a bit more media savvy than most in the U.S. (and especially in the U.S. where the population thinks that marketing and propaganda are two different things, when in reality they are not). Laissez faire has been try before a bunch of times (including after WWI, lots of demand, no economic boom), and it just never works (mostly because of it's volatility, which locks up investments and capital flow, but also because of it's lack of access to opportunity to the little guy). Calling it a "free market" (which invokes frames of freedom when you hear it) doesn't change that. In fact, in my view, it limits access to opportunity, and makes markets less free rather than more free.
5. I disagree that slashdot has any kind of monopoly at all. I get my tech news from a whole boat load of sites, as do most people I know (many of whom don't read slashdot regularly). We all use Microsoft products (Windows or Office) for various thing (that is changing though, I think largely because of both market forces, and law suits in the EU, which have opened to the door to competition). The internet is actually a perfect example of a market that in general (aside from some very narrow portions of that market) do not require any regulation at this point in time. ISPs are a perfect example of a set of companies that are starting to abuse their positions, and will require regulation to keep them from doing that (the net neutrality issue).
P.S. I appreciate your attempt to change the tone of this discussion. Civilized discourse is generally lacking in these kinds of discussions these days. Most of the time I end up smacking my head against marketing talking point after talking point. It's nice to get away from that sometimes.
Markets where anyone is free to enter and compete do not breed monopoly simply because anyone is free to enter and compete.
Anyone with money can enter and compete - are you suggesting that everyone has access to money in a market based system?
First: there isn't an "end"; time doesn't just stop - markets continue indefinitely. Part of your problem is that you're taking snapshots of market situations and saying that they're undesirable. This is not representative. Second; dominant players and monopolies aren't the actual problem. There isn't anything inherently wrong with success; the issue is when the success is used to increase market prices too far above natural price. This isn't an issue in a free market, because anyone can enter the market and cause competition. This idea that someone always "wins" is complete shit because markets change far to fast for anyone to win it, and even if they could, they'd have to continue winning over and over forever. The world "win" is so inapplicable that it completely clouds what little logic you have.
Again this is all premised on the assinign idea that anyone can enter the market - only people with money can enter the market. Don't you get that? There is no missed logic. Markets are competitions. Competitions have winners and losers. Most competitions have one winner - and history has shown, that in markets, there tends to be more losers than winners, and often times you end up with exactly 1 winner (we even have word for it - monopoly).
To prove your point you would have to point out a monopoly in a free market, and this is insanely hard.
Yes, it is insanely hard to point to a free market, because they are improbably to ever actually occur - and even better, when they have been attempted, they have always failed. So where is your model? Can it ever exist? It has been tried, that's for sure.
In this section, you leave logic behind completely. Your answer to the reason for regulation is "just because!".
The logic is there, if raw and unedited. You even hinted at that volatility part of my argument in your comments above. Really I think your rejection of this stuff is that it violates your faith in your ideal. Feeling it in your gut, doesn't mean it's logical.
Hong Kong is an area with almost zero natural resources, next to an enormous communist country which blockades them. Hong Kong had no history of wealth or infrastructure. Hong Kong is shockingly affluent considering the cards they hold.
Where are you getting this stuff? Hong Kong is the shining beacon according "free market" academics. If I had more time I'd provide more editing, and more references, but evidence and facts don't seem to matter much to ideologs, so it probably doesn't matter anyway.
Your post is a mixture of rhetorical speech (comparing free market advocates to religion is totally irrelevant), poor logic (the strange section on regulation reads like a rant from a tabloid newspaper column) and general ignorance of economics (there is nothing about a free market that stops dominant players arising, the whole point is it stops them abusing their position).
Sure use the old mime - attack my lack of editing and my writing style, misrepresent my comparisons and call that evidence that I don't know what I'm talking about. You have cited 0 sources, and offered very little in the way of evidence to support your position - and even when you did with the Hong Kong nonsense, you seem to be going directly against what even the progenitors and academic supporters of the "free market" are saying. Even worse for your position, you seem to actually have made my argument for me. You said, "there is nothing about a free market that stops dominant players arising" - is that what I've been saying. Sadly, when started the next word with, "the whole point is it
You can claim that I'm mistaken if you like, and cherry pick your industries all you want. What is your historical model to prove to me and others reading this that an unregulated market does not lead to monopoly? I can't say I agree that commodity consumables don't have a problem with monopolies and the ugly step sister of monopolies - cartels (and I'm sure I could find plenty of examples of commodities based monopolies too, but on with the modern cartels). Unregulated drug markets, and the oil markets are both run by such destructive - price gouging knuckle heads. I have a hard time believing that that backs up your position on commodities.
As for "market anarchy" not being interchangeable with "free market" - yeah ideologically you are correct. Practically though, you can't achieve a "free market" because, in a competitive market (commodities are not so competitive, though still seem to end up with dominant players who rig those markets unfairly too) you will get a winner, someone who at the end controls most of the market. I even gave you an example with Microsoft, but if you want more examples, you should simple google the word "monopoly" and find out why we have a word for that - there are plenty of examples.
Now I know I'm probably talking to one who I identified earlier as someone who believes in the "free market" the way Christians believe in Jesus, but I'll explain this here for anyone reasonable who may happen to read it. Here's the part that makes the "free market" ideology impractical for use on the entire market. It's volatile and no one wants it. That's right, no one wants it. The volatility, the constant ups and downs, new businesses coming and going rapidly, the complete lack of confidence in anyone to do anything would cripple any market.
Also, and maybe more importantly, it can't be implemented! The rule makers and enforcement - the government, the people People in charge, will always respond to that volatility - and they will usually do so with regulation - now that's the kicker. You're always going to get regulation, good or bad, you are going to get it. You can't have none - it's an ideological pipe dream (which even in the abstract wouldn't work anyway). If you go with a mixed market approach, you can at least have the benefits (that's the olive branch that the purists can't see or won't take) of less regulation, while also receiving the benefits of proper regulation - on a more appropriate industry by industry basis. There's even history to show that it works better. The post WWII period was an amazing economic boom for all the places in the world that utilized the mixed market approach. And it wasn't just the war increasing demand - that same thing didn't happen after WWI - I'm sure there was plenty of demand for new stuff after that too, but they had crappy economic systems, like laizzes faire which just isn't good enough to encourage participation. It didn't work then, it will not work now. And yeah, in that same time period, the grand poo bah of free markets was tried in Hong Kong, and they're big claim to fame is that it took _only_ 50 years to achieve some level of wealth! Funny that it took only a decade or two for everyone else to do it with a mixed market (including mixed international trade policy).
I can't wait to see the end of the dominant "free market" ideology in this country (and ideology in general). It's coming, and it won't be soon enough.
Right, I didn't mean to imply that a truly "free market" (as they define it - free from regulation - or rules and enforcement) was actually possible. I'm just trying to operate within established, if silly ideas. Many people seem to believe in a "free market" the way Christians believe in Jesus.
The truth is, markets are just a system with rules, and goals. The current model ("free market" if you will) seems to have rules designed to enrich the already wealthy, at the expense of the many. The rules are just pursuing that goal (and doing so affectively if you look at actual evidence).
I think it's appropriate that many of these "free market" cults are now calling their ideas "market anarchy". The term is more accurate, since without rules, you would only have anarchy anyway - and all that comes with it (including incentivized violence, I would imagine).
The best we can hope for against these silly ideas is to sort of take the definition of "free market" in a new directions. Maybe it can mean a market in which freedom is encouraged. This means establishing and enforcing a set of rules that enable access, instead of restricting it. Left unregulated too long, a market will develop a strong enough player, that can (and will) actually limit participation of everyone else, as in the case of Microsoft (it's not just government that can be over bearing - but yes, that can happen to).
While at it, Billy the Robber is as guilty of killing indigenous industries as anyone. He has made everything in his power to kill local competition everywhere he stepped.
That is a great point, and one that is constantly ignored by most free market capitalists' solutions to the problem of the poor. Fixing a broken aid system is only one part of the problem. On the other side, you have to acknowledge that "markets" mean competition, and in competition there are few winners, winners have the advantage - and everyone else are the loser. That's not to say that unregulated markets are always bad, or always wrong - they can be very useful. But a bit of oversight and regulation - especially of mature industries - is often necessary to provide fair access to those industries, to spur innovation in an industry that would normally stagnate by the crushing influence of a dominant monopoly - the winner of the last round of that competitive game of free market capitalism.
To clarify, I am arguing for a mixed market approach, one with leaves new and emerging industries unregulated (much of the internet), but seeks to provide some kind of reasonable rule set for mature industries (telecommunications, and internet service providers in general - it'll take regulation to achieve fair access with net neutrality.)
Why are the pundits so brain dead on this (even Keith Olberman, who I really want to like).
Scientific polls are very accurate all over the world - except in the US!? How could we possibly blaim the polls in that case. It's just ludicrous. I really hope the companies and institutions that do these polls start to get together with the Black Box Voting guys and start to take the electioneers on.
Appologies for the second post, it's just so frustrating to sit through such a complete lack of interest in just how abusive these machines can and will be (and you will never ever be able to rely on them - they are too easy to compromise). Maybe Iowans will take their votes seriously enough to actually do something about them, and insist on hand counted paper ballots - many eyes and many hands is the only way to go. It's the only way to make cheating hard enough to keep it's affect minimized.
I'm going to have to get all childish and give this a big old heart felt "Well Duh!"
When are going to admit that these, inefficient, impossible to audit, very expensive machines don't actually make elections better, as much as they simply make it easier to cheat for the politicians who seem to like them so much.
These machines should be banned outright, as there is simply not enough incentive for the very few people to make them actually work right. Hand counted paper ballots are the only way to go. They take an army of people all over the place to sway. These machines take just a few people with enough access to completely steel entire elections.
And access to source code is meaningless. Can you look and see the source code running on the machine? no you can't. And they are more expensive, thought I bet it's cheaper (less labor intensive) to steel elections once these ridiculous machines are in place.
It seems that at Corporations, human motivations are often overruled by group or hurd think. In other words, even if the CEO does not want to level the forest, or abuse the children of the third world, often his hands are tied by his bosses expectations that he make 30% every quarter. Would that CEO keep his job if he chooses a less profitable avenue, that's better for the neighbors kids? In the abstract perhaps, but what if the next company over makes that ever percentage point this quarter because they were willing to play a dirtier game. What happens to the CEO then?
CEOs are compelled to make decisions that will please their bosses (share holders), and usually that means "staying competitive" with the others in the field. Weak rules with no enforcement or oversight means the competitive aspects of human nature win out over compassion every time.
In that episode, they were trying to steel a very close election by tampering with a relatively small portion of the vote ballots. They didn't get away with it, precisely because of the number of sets of eyes and hands - and loose lips - that had to be involved in the counting process. That's exactly why hand counted ballots are the only way to go. If they had used networked computers, one individual could have skewed the results in a way that would not have been detectable by anyone, and their would have been far fewer loose lips. Even without networked computers, a single voting machine, or a set of them could have had tampered OS installed that was virtually untraceable (or even worse if the software comes from one source). In that case, the counts would simply be wrong - wrong enough, that no one bothers to check the paper receipts (most states have laws for recounts that say you need to have close results to warrant a recount - less than 3% and such).
The short of this is, you are never going to be able to disincentivize cheating in political voting. You are also never going to be able to create a 100% accurate and 100% uncheatable system. The best you can do is make it hard, and expensive to cheat, by creating a lot of different points of failure for the kinds of cheating that are likely to occur. Computers make it too easy, for too few to steal elections.
This is a similar argument to what would make voting machines ok. There is nothing stopping anyone who runs a machine from releasing code that isn't being used to run the machine. You can't look in the machine and verify that the code you have been given is the same as the compiled code running at the moment.
As long as that is the case, you will always have to trust your provider. That's why voting machines can't be trusted (there's too much incentive to tamper by various parties). It's the same with any security. There's always a level of trust involved.
I could see it used as a pretty spiffy media player/phone of some kind (it can do Voip and play music (mp3, ogg, m4a), and even some movies already, with the right homebrew software - even browse the net with either homebrew software or Opera browser), if you use a headset/mic like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-DS-Headset/dp/B000MXSP2K
Isn't this the same trick Enron and Co. used to use? Can't get regulators to loosen price controls (access controls in the net case)? No problem, create a capacity shortage, and blame the regulations/regulators. Anyone else see this as obvious?
I don't usually like to be this direct, since it usually doesn't win arguments, but here I think that your hope is beat by my reality. In Europe, exit polls routinely match up to voting tallies to a reasonable degree. In the U.S. in the last two presidential elections, the polls got it wrong by a margin of more than the pollsters' calculated margins of error in some cases (much more in some counties). I think polls can and should be used as a check on vote tally accuracy (you seemed to be suggesting something similar in your post, please correct me if I'm wrong).
You made an argument about many people deceiving or not participating in polls, and I really doubt that in the U.S. that would be a problem at this time, since not enough of us feel oppressed in a way that prevents us from speaking freely to pollsters (and they have ways to measure a margin of error).
Fact is, politics is a game of numbers, and participants will try to cheat. You can expect that, and you will even hear politicians champion the idea that voting is fair, but not accurate (which is of course flatly ridiculous). That is not a failure of democracy though, as that's just human nature. The failure comes from the systems that promise democracy, and voting machines as a way to run those systems, are indeed a failure. They cannot be run effectively, in a fair way. They should be banned for all but the most critical applications, of which I can think of only one example - an option for disabled voters, to generate printed ballots that get counted by hand along with the rest.
Paper trails are not enough. What is also needed is a verifiable counting procedures - or at the very least counting procedures that are difficult to tamper with. If you leave that up to a single machine (or a small number of machines all running the same code), then you have a very small target or even a single point of failure. Even worse, there is no way to look inside the machine and see how it is tallying votes. The only way to count votes fairly, is to have votes entered on paper, and then have them counted by many eyes and hands. This makes very difficult, due simply to the large number of people that must be involved with that tampering.
"That's one reason I could never make it as a regular reporter, because you're not allowed to insert your own voice into the story even to point out the crashingly obvious."
That's only a recent phenomenon. The truth is, reporters have a long history of finding facts, then drawing conclusions based on those facts - even in regular stories, not just editorials. Ever since the Regan years though, journalism has been under attack, and accused of being biased (which of course was true - bias toward the truth, as they saw it, and biased to the facts as they can be proved and disproved).
In the pursuit of "objectivity" journalists have lost all of the creditability they once had. Journalism should have a bias toward reality, and should be able to call torture, torture. But in the name of quieting critics (many of whom have been organized to achieve exactly what they have achieved), and in the name of objectivity, often giving voice to the side that says torture isn't torture. There is no place for the view that torture works, and that global warming isn't real. These are factually incorrect positions, opinions that deserve no platform, and journalists should just say so.
Everyone is entitle to their own opinion, and to their world view - they are not entitled to their own facts - or to a validating platform. At some point, a fact is known enough that it doesn't require a source to cite (at least not every time it's mentioned). It would be impossible to cite it, every time you say that torture doesn't work for example. It is simply so. Journalists should say so. Bloggers do exactly that. They are journalists in the finest tradition. They will will save that medium.
I have to disagree with your base premise, that the MS/Novel deal is the same as criminal behavior. What they are doing is in fact perfectly legal - and again, will not help MS achieve the goals laid out by Eben Moglen. However, I have a bit more respect for MS, and I'd bet they have more than one goal in mind, in addition to what Eben Moglen points out. That secondary goal might be to simply fracture that community that develops Linux et al, if not for fear of direct litigation from MS, then for the more vague fear about what Novell and others might do at some point in the future, or simple fear that they don't respect "community". So far, on that goal, they seem to have been quite successful. Their goal is to halt the development of Linux as a cohesive product. They don't care which fear works.
Novell is surely also playing a strategy that could have multiple possible outcomes. No big business boss would make a bet on a strategy with no contingencies. I believe they would be happy to exist in this new open source world, but the truth is, it hasn't been tested, and patents are a real outstanding issue for the open source business model. So they are hedging their bets, making deals that protect them in either outcome - whether software patents blow up, or fizzle out - legally speaking. I can't say I blaim them for that, especially since I believe, they will fizzle out in the US, just as they have in the EU. At that point, Novell will have beaten MS, with the help of MS's own money - and the community will have a great deal of truly free software to show for it.
To sum up, Novell gets, money from MS, legal safety net in the case that the US decides to shoot itself in the head, and allow the enforcement of software patents. It should in theory also continue to get reciprocal help from the OSS community that it contributes to so helpfully - though all sorts of vague fears of bogeymen seem to keep that from happening (though not to a terrible extent, again, I think this deal has really helped on most fronts, save a bit of negative sentiment from a few grass roots corners).
Here's hoping that software patents in the US got the way of the dodo and make this all moot.
I can't say I entirely agree that that strategy will work. I can't imagine too many developers getting all concerned over getting sued by MS for developing Linux (especially since many of them are in the EU). I would have thought the only ones that would not want to deal with the legal uncertainty are those big businesses, that MS is apparently trying to pay off with the Novel like deals.
I suppose an argument could be made that they are really looking to scare off startups, and their investors, and not necessarily "the developer community". I can't see how that would help them, and there are alternatives anyway. Get a threat against your use of Linux? Switch to a BSD, or OpenSolaris. Re-incorporate in the UK, and tell MS where it can go. I know it wouldn't be that easy, but there are options - but the most important thing is, I don't think most people are taking the MS bait - I think their FUD isn't really working that well for them here.
The way I see this whole thing, Novel is the one making out like bandits here. They know what MS is attempting to do with what is basically an ad campaign. They know it will not work anyway. So why not take the money, and laugh all the way to the bank?
That's fine, and if the data is collected in an open and transparent way - so that everyone know exactly what's being collected, I might actually be in support of some kind of database like this. The problems come in how you protect people from political attacks, and other forms of abuse. I'd also like to some some convincing evidence to show that databases like these can actually be used effectively to prevent crime, not just to hassle regular folks and political opponents.
I stand by my assertion that events like 9/11 are completely preventable with the old system, without the use of these kinds of very heavy handed, and very easily abused kinds of mass data collection techniques. Investigators should be required to get the same sorts of warrants that they would need today to invade the privacy of individuals and groups, to actually query these databases.
Basically, we need some real effective checks and balances (at least as effective as we've been able to achieve thus far, previous to databases). So far I haven't seen even an attempt create these checks.
That's less of a problem in the US, I believe because we do a better job of integrating immigrants into the rest of society, over the course of just a few generations (look at the Irish and the Italians a few decades ago vs. today, in the US).
I further believe the primary method we use in the US to integrate them, is our secular free public school system. We don't pay for Islamic schools, in Muslim communities. When an immigrant shows up in the US their kids have to go to the same public schools as everyone else (unless they can afford private school, which usually isn't the case). This means they are socialized with American values, and not their old world values (their most important cultural values are often allowed to integrate as well, over the course of just a few generations).
It seems (and I have to admit, I'm not as familiar with EU policy as I'd like to be) that in EU in general, the countries are more than willing to fund divisive institutions, like Islamic schools in Muslim neighborhoods, which only serve to keep communities un-integrated generation over generation.
Building strong middle and working classes (which is the only way to fight extremism) is all about effective, and fair public education, to prepare students to take advantage of the opportunities made available by the market systems (whichever kind of market exists - usually a mixed market, despite the rhetoric). Culturally separated school systems don't do that, which is why it's a shame that the damn big business market systems ("free market" which is really just code for "fixed" in favor of big business) are all about privatization of even school systems - despite how effective public/free schools have been historically in every rising nation (this rant of course applies more to the US and Canada than to the EU).
That's all fine and dandy, if they do that with a warrant in hand. Maybe you are comfortable trusting them to add the rest of those AND statements, but I'm not. I don't care if it's hard or inconvenient to get a warrant, they better well do it. Let's also remember, that the FBI asked for warrants for many of the hijackers that did 9/11 - so it's not like the old system couldn't work - it's just the participants in that system were too buys playing CYA politics, instead of protecting this country.
The reason they go on both of those shows is to raise awareness of their books/movies/whatever else - usually to sell more copies (admittedly, sometimes with the real intention of shedding light on whatever issue they wrote about).
Three minutes getting slammed by exaggerated right wing talking points, using the pundit playbook isn't going to hurt anyone, and most people that watch the Colbert show are already clued in. The rest, the right wing kool-aid drinkers will feel stupid when they realize the jokes on them.
Anyway you slice it, it's all good. Guests usually show up on these shows at the end of their promotional tours, so if you really want to hear what they have to say, you can almost always find something recent on Fresh-Air or the Book show or somewhere else.
Even if all the above were in place, and you could come up with the perfect system to run on voting machines, and make it decentralized, etc, etc. How would you know that what was in the source code is what's running on the machine?
If you can't see what's going on in the machine, when you cast your vote, you can't be sure of anything. Elections and voting are too important to leave up to these machines, which are too easy to tamper with, by a very small number of people. It only takes one guy in the right place, who tampers with the binaries that are sent to all voting machines for example - very easy to cheat with that kind of system. Compare that with a large number of individuals who all have to hand count paper ballots. You have to convince quite a few more people (or pay off, etc.) to get the vote tampered with in that kind of system.
The only reasonable effective voting system, involves a great number of people, hand checking paper ballots (possibly with the very limited exception of printing machines for the disabled), combined with very good checks and balances. There is nothing else that can do it fairly.
Slashdot Mirror
I know that was probably just a bad joke, but why would it matter? It's still a problem for us, either way.
The populations that can afford to reproduce this way are already reproducing at near zero birth rates (or negative in many cases). Birth rates seem to be decreasing in the whole world as well. I think this is fine.
There's a bunch of stuff on wikiepedia about it, I'm referring mostly to stuff I've read or heard recently, but can't quote (don't remember the specific sources), so take it with a grain of salt. ;-)
Putting many badly programmed scanner machines (all programmed the same way) all over the state does not help this problem. They can be programmed to simply miscount the bad pages, and spit out a message saying "confirmed".
There is no form of machine that can do justice to the vote counting process.
Only human hand counted ballots are acceptable, as these are the hardest to manipulate (meaning you need a lot of people to do it, instead of just a few programmers). Also it's cheaper. I just don't get this machine fetish we in the US seem to have for voting.
It's taking too long to respond point by point, so I'll just get to the meaty stuff:
1. We seem to have differing perspectives on what access to the market system means. I think the promise of the "free market" is always, you can enrich yourself through innovation. The problem is, if you take investment money to get something done (banks are usually not enough to go up against the huge players - you need VC money), then the investors get the profit - thus keeping the money in the same hands of the few. I just don't consider that fair access to the market - in other words, there is no freedom there, only another way to collect a paycheck (handout) from the already wealthy.
2. I'd have to look at Hong Kong more closely, but it's close proximity to Japan and other eastern markets makes me question it's disadvantage - as well as it's long standing access to international shipping lanes. Also, others in the region were able to do great, in a fraction of the time, with a different model market system (Japan, South Korea).
3. You seem to base your belief that the "free market" can work based on two things: a. there is enough access to the markets by smaller players, to get rid of the dominant players when they misbehave, b. those smaller players will always show up and take down the dominant players when they do misbehave. I reject both of those arguments for a number of reasons which I have already enumerated - not limited to the fact that the dominant players will usually try to influence and change the rules in their favor (which is why you never really get a "free market" system).
4. The reason to constantly put the term "free market" in quotes is because it is a marketing job. To my estimation, the "free market" is just laissez faire rebranded - and I work in media, so I'm a bit more media savvy than most in the U.S. (and especially in the U.S. where the population thinks that marketing and propaganda are two different things, when in reality they are not). Laissez faire has been try before a bunch of times (including after WWI, lots of demand, no economic boom), and it just never works (mostly because of it's volatility, which locks up investments and capital flow, but also because of it's lack of access to opportunity to the little guy). Calling it a "free market" (which invokes frames of freedom when you hear it) doesn't change that. In fact, in my view, it limits access to opportunity, and makes markets less free rather than more free.
5. I disagree that slashdot has any kind of monopoly at all. I get my tech news from a whole boat load of sites, as do most people I know (many of whom don't read slashdot regularly). We all use Microsoft products (Windows or Office) for various thing (that is changing though, I think largely because of both market forces, and law suits in the EU, which have opened to the door to competition). The internet is actually a perfect example of a market that in general (aside from some very narrow portions of that market) do not require any regulation at this point in time. ISPs are a perfect example of a set of companies that are starting to abuse their positions, and will require regulation to keep them from doing that (the net neutrality issue).
P.S. I appreciate your attempt to change the tone of this discussion. Civilized discourse is generally lacking in these kinds of discussions these days. Most of the time I end up smacking my head against marketing talking point after talking point. It's nice to get away from that sometimes.
Markets where anyone is free to enter and compete do not breed monopoly simply because anyone is free to enter and compete.
Anyone with money can enter and compete - are you suggesting that everyone has access to money in a market based system?
First: there isn't an "end"; time doesn't just stop - markets continue indefinitely. Part of your problem is that you're taking snapshots of market situations and saying that they're undesirable. This is not representative. Second; dominant players and monopolies aren't the actual problem. There isn't anything inherently wrong with success; the issue is when the success is used to increase market prices too far above natural price. This isn't an issue in a free market, because anyone can enter the market and cause competition. This idea that someone always "wins" is complete shit because markets change far to fast for anyone to win it, and even if they could, they'd have to continue winning over and over forever. The world "win" is so inapplicable that it completely clouds what little logic you have.
Again this is all premised on the assinign idea that anyone can enter the market - only people with money can enter the market. Don't you get that? There is no missed logic. Markets are competitions. Competitions have winners and losers. Most competitions have one winner - and history has shown, that in markets, there tends to be more losers than winners, and often times you end up with exactly 1 winner (we even have word for it - monopoly).
To prove your point you would have to point out a monopoly in a free market, and this is insanely hard.
Yes, it is insanely hard to point to a free market, because they are improbably to ever actually occur - and even better, when they have been attempted, they have always failed. So where is your model? Can it ever exist? It has been tried, that's for sure.
In this section, you leave logic behind completely. Your answer to the reason for regulation is "just because!".
The logic is there, if raw and unedited. You even hinted at that volatility part of my argument in your comments above. Really I think your rejection of this stuff is that it violates your faith in your ideal. Feeling it in your gut, doesn't mean it's logical.
Hong Kong is an area with almost zero natural resources, next to an enormous communist country which blockades them. Hong Kong had no history of wealth or infrastructure. Hong Kong is shockingly affluent considering the cards they hold.
Where are you getting this stuff? Hong Kong is the shining beacon according "free market" academics. If I had more time I'd provide more editing, and more references, but evidence and facts don't seem to matter much to ideologs, so it probably doesn't matter anyway.
Your post is a mixture of rhetorical speech (comparing free market advocates to religion is totally irrelevant), poor logic (the strange section on regulation reads like a rant from a tabloid newspaper column) and general ignorance of economics (there is nothing about a free market that stops dominant players arising, the whole point is it stops them abusing their position).
Sure use the old mime - attack my lack of editing and my writing style, misrepresent my comparisons and call that evidence that I don't know what I'm talking about. You have cited 0 sources, and offered very little in the way of evidence to support your position - and even when you did with the Hong Kong nonsense, you seem to be going directly against what even the progenitors and academic supporters of the "free market" are saying. Even worse for your position, you seem to actually have made my argument for me. You said, "there is nothing about a free market that stops dominant players arising" - is that what I've been saying. Sadly, when started the next word with, "the whole point is it
You can claim that I'm mistaken if you like, and cherry pick your industries all you want. What is your historical model to prove to me and others reading this that an unregulated market does not lead to monopoly? I can't say I agree that commodity consumables don't have a problem with monopolies and the ugly step sister of monopolies - cartels (and I'm sure I could find plenty of examples of commodities based monopolies too, but on with the modern cartels). Unregulated drug markets, and the oil markets are both run by such destructive - price gouging knuckle heads. I have a hard time believing that that backs up your position on commodities.
As for "market anarchy" not being interchangeable with "free market" - yeah ideologically you are correct. Practically though, you can't achieve a "free market" because, in a competitive market (commodities are not so competitive, though still seem to end up with dominant players who rig those markets unfairly too) you will get a winner, someone who at the end controls most of the market. I even gave you an example with Microsoft, but if you want more examples, you should simple google the word "monopoly" and find out why we have a word for that - there are plenty of examples.
Now I know I'm probably talking to one who I identified earlier as someone who believes in the "free market" the way Christians believe in Jesus, but I'll explain this here for anyone reasonable who may happen to read it. Here's the part that makes the "free market" ideology impractical for use on the entire market. It's volatile and no one wants it. That's right, no one wants it. The volatility, the constant ups and downs, new businesses coming and going rapidly, the complete lack of confidence in anyone to do anything would cripple any market.
Also, and maybe more importantly, it can't be implemented! The rule makers and enforcement - the government, the people People in charge, will always respond to that volatility - and they will usually do so with regulation - now that's the kicker. You're always going to get regulation, good or bad, you are going to get it. You can't have none - it's an ideological pipe dream (which even in the abstract wouldn't work anyway). If you go with a mixed market approach, you can at least have the benefits (that's the olive branch that the purists can't see or won't take) of less regulation, while also receiving the benefits of proper regulation - on a more appropriate industry by industry basis. There's even history to show that it works better. The post WWII period was an amazing economic boom for all the places in the world that utilized the mixed market approach. And it wasn't just the war increasing demand - that same thing didn't happen after WWI - I'm sure there was plenty of demand for new stuff after that too, but they had crappy economic systems, like laizzes faire which just isn't good enough to encourage participation. It didn't work then, it will not work now. And yeah, in that same time period, the grand poo bah of free markets was tried in Hong Kong, and they're big claim to fame is that it took _only_ 50 years to achieve some level of wealth! Funny that it took only a decade or two for everyone else to do it with a mixed market (including mixed international trade policy).
I can't wait to see the end of the dominant "free market" ideology in this country (and ideology in general). It's coming, and it won't be soon enough.
Right, I didn't mean to imply that a truly "free market" (as they define it - free from regulation - or rules and enforcement) was actually possible. I'm just trying to operate within established, if silly ideas. Many people seem to believe in a "free market" the way Christians believe in Jesus.
The truth is, markets are just a system with rules, and goals. The current model ("free market" if you will) seems to have rules designed to enrich the already wealthy, at the expense of the many. The rules are just pursuing that goal (and doing so affectively if you look at actual evidence).
I think it's appropriate that many of these "free market" cults are now calling their ideas "market anarchy". The term is more accurate, since without rules, you would only have anarchy anyway - and all that comes with it (including incentivized violence, I would imagine).
The best we can hope for against these silly ideas is to sort of take the definition of "free market" in a new directions. Maybe it can mean a market in which freedom is encouraged. This means establishing and enforcing a set of rules that enable access, instead of restricting it. Left unregulated too long, a market will develop a strong enough player, that can (and will) actually limit participation of everyone else, as in the case of Microsoft (it's not just government that can be over bearing - but yes, that can happen to).
That is a great point, and one that is constantly ignored by most free market capitalists' solutions to the problem of the poor. Fixing a broken aid system is only one part of the problem. On the other side, you have to acknowledge that "markets" mean competition, and in competition there are few winners, winners have the advantage - and everyone else are the loser. That's not to say that unregulated markets are always bad, or always wrong - they can be very useful. But a bit of oversight and regulation - especially of mature industries - is often necessary to provide fair access to those industries, to spur innovation in an industry that would normally stagnate by the crushing influence of a dominant monopoly - the winner of the last round of that competitive game of free market capitalism.
To clarify, I am arguing for a mixed market approach, one with leaves new and emerging industries unregulated (much of the internet), but seeks to provide some kind of reasonable rule set for mature industries (telecommunications, and internet service providers in general - it'll take regulation to achieve fair access with net neutrality.)
Why are the pundits so brain dead on this (even Keith Olberman, who I really want to like).
Scientific polls are very accurate all over the world - except in the US!? How could we possibly blaim the polls in that case. It's just ludicrous. I really hope the companies and institutions that do these polls start to get together with the Black Box Voting guys and start to take the electioneers on.
Appologies for the second post, it's just so frustrating to sit through such a complete lack of interest in just how abusive these machines can and will be (and you will never ever be able to rely on them - they are too easy to compromise). Maybe Iowans will take their votes seriously enough to actually do something about them, and insist on hand counted paper ballots - many eyes and many hands is the only way to go. It's the only way to make cheating hard enough to keep it's affect minimized.
I'm going to have to get all childish and give this a big old heart felt "Well Duh!"
When are going to admit that these, inefficient, impossible to audit, very expensive machines don't actually make elections better, as much as they simply make it easier to cheat for the politicians who seem to like them so much.
These machines should be banned outright, as there is simply not enough incentive for the very few people to make them actually work right. Hand counted paper ballots are the only way to go. They take an army of people all over the place to sway. These machines take just a few people with enough access to completely steel entire elections.
And access to source code is meaningless. Can you look and see the source code running on the machine? no you can't. And they are more expensive, thought I bet it's cheaper (less labor intensive) to steel elections once these ridiculous machines are in place.
It seems that at Corporations, human motivations are often overruled by group or hurd think. In other words, even if the CEO does not want to level the forest, or abuse the children of the third world, often his hands are tied by his bosses expectations that he make 30% every quarter. Would that CEO keep his job if he chooses a less profitable avenue, that's better for the neighbors kids? In the abstract perhaps, but what if the next company over makes that ever percentage point this quarter because they were willing to play a dirtier game. What happens to the CEO then?
CEOs are compelled to make decisions that will please their bosses (share holders), and usually that means "staying competitive" with the others in the field. Weak rules with no enforcement or oversight means the competitive aspects of human nature win out over compassion every time.
I love that show. :-)
In that episode, they were trying to steel a very close election by tampering with a relatively small portion of the vote ballots. They didn't get away with it, precisely because of the number of sets of eyes and hands - and loose lips - that had to be involved in the counting process. That's exactly why hand counted ballots are the only way to go. If they had used networked computers, one individual could have skewed the results in a way that would not have been detectable by anyone, and their would have been far fewer loose lips. Even without networked computers, a single voting machine, or a set of them could have had tampered OS installed that was virtually untraceable (or even worse if the software comes from one source). In that case, the counts would simply be wrong - wrong enough, that no one bothers to check the paper receipts (most states have laws for recounts that say you need to have close results to warrant a recount - less than 3% and such).
The short of this is, you are never going to be able to disincentivize cheating in political voting. You are also never going to be able to create a 100% accurate and 100% uncheatable system. The best you can do is make it hard, and expensive to cheat, by creating a lot of different points of failure for the kinds of cheating that are likely to occur. Computers make it too easy, for too few to steal elections.
This is a similar argument to what would make voting machines ok. There is nothing stopping anyone who runs a machine from releasing code that isn't being used to run the machine. You can't look in the machine and verify that the code you have been given is the same as the compiled code running at the moment.
As long as that is the case, you will always have to trust your provider. That's why voting machines can't be trusted (there's too much incentive to tamper by various parties). It's the same with any security. There's always a level of trust involved.
I could see it used as a pretty spiffy media player/phone of some kind (it can do Voip and play music (mp3, ogg, m4a), and even some movies already, with the right homebrew software - even browse the net with either homebrew software or Opera browser), if you use a headset/mic like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-DS-Headset/dp/B000MXSP2K
Isn't this the same trick Enron and Co. used to use? Can't get regulators to loosen price controls (access controls in the net case)? No problem, create a capacity shortage, and blame the regulations/regulators. Anyone else see this as obvious?
I don't usually like to be this direct, since it usually doesn't win arguments, but here I think that your hope is beat by my reality. In Europe, exit polls routinely match up to voting tallies to a reasonable degree. In the U.S. in the last two presidential elections, the polls got it wrong by a margin of more than the pollsters' calculated margins of error in some cases (much more in some counties). I think polls can and should be used as a check on vote tally accuracy (you seemed to be suggesting something similar in your post, please correct me if I'm wrong).
You made an argument about many people deceiving or not participating in polls, and I really doubt that in the U.S. that would be a problem at this time, since not enough of us feel oppressed in a way that prevents us from speaking freely to pollsters (and they have ways to measure a margin of error).
Fact is, politics is a game of numbers, and participants will try to cheat. You can expect that, and you will even hear politicians champion the idea that voting is fair, but not accurate (which is of course flatly ridiculous). That is not a failure of democracy though, as that's just human nature. The failure comes from the systems that promise democracy, and voting machines as a way to run those systems, are indeed a failure. They cannot be run effectively, in a fair way. They should be banned for all but the most critical applications, of which I can think of only one example - an option for disabled voters, to generate printed ballots that get counted by hand along with the rest.
Paper trails are not enough. What is also needed is a verifiable counting procedures - or at the very least counting procedures that are difficult to tamper with. If you leave that up to a single machine (or a small number of machines all running the same code), then you have a very small target or even a single point of failure. Even worse, there is no way to look inside the machine and see how it is tallying votes. The only way to count votes fairly, is to have votes entered on paper, and then have them counted by many eyes and hands. This makes very difficult, due simply to the large number of people that must be involved with that tampering.
"That's one reason I could never make it as a regular reporter, because you're not allowed to insert your own voice into the story even to point out the crashingly obvious."
That's only a recent phenomenon. The truth is, reporters have a long history of finding facts, then drawing conclusions based on those facts - even in regular stories, not just editorials. Ever since the Regan years though, journalism has been under attack, and accused of being biased (which of course was true - bias toward the truth, as they saw it, and biased to the facts as they can be proved and disproved).
In the pursuit of "objectivity" journalists have lost all of the creditability they once had. Journalism should have a bias toward reality, and should be able to call torture, torture. But in the name of quieting critics (many of whom have been organized to achieve exactly what they have achieved), and in the name of objectivity, often giving voice to the side that says torture isn't torture. There is no place for the view that torture works, and that global warming isn't real. These are factually incorrect positions, opinions that deserve no platform, and journalists should just say so.
Everyone is entitle to their own opinion, and to their world view - they are not entitled to their own facts - or to a validating platform. At some point, a fact is known enough that it doesn't require a source to cite (at least not every time it's mentioned). It would be impossible to cite it, every time you say that torture doesn't work for example. It is simply so. Journalists should say so. Bloggers do exactly that. They are journalists in the finest tradition. They will will save that medium.
I have to disagree with your base premise, that the MS/Novel deal is the same as criminal behavior. What they are doing is in fact perfectly legal - and again, will not help MS achieve the goals laid out by Eben Moglen. However, I have a bit more respect for MS, and I'd bet they have more than one goal in mind, in addition to what Eben Moglen points out. That secondary goal might be to simply fracture that community that develops Linux et al, if not for fear of direct litigation from MS, then for the more vague fear about what Novell and others might do at some point in the future, or simple fear that they don't respect "community". So far, on that goal, they seem to have been quite successful. Their goal is to halt the development of Linux as a cohesive product. They don't care which fear works.
Novell is surely also playing a strategy that could have multiple possible outcomes. No big business boss would make a bet on a strategy with no contingencies. I believe they would be happy to exist in this new open source world, but the truth is, it hasn't been tested, and patents are a real outstanding issue for the open source business model. So they are hedging their bets, making deals that protect them in either outcome - whether software patents blow up, or fizzle out - legally speaking. I can't say I blaim them for that, especially since I believe, they will fizzle out in the US, just as they have in the EU. At that point, Novell will have beaten MS, with the help of MS's own money - and the community will have a great deal of truly free software to show for it.
To sum up, Novell gets, money from MS, legal safety net in the case that the US decides to shoot itself in the head, and allow the enforcement of software patents. It should in theory also continue to get reciprocal help from the OSS community that it contributes to so helpfully - though all sorts of vague fears of bogeymen seem to keep that from happening (though not to a terrible extent, again, I think this deal has really helped on most fronts, save a bit of negative sentiment from a few grass roots corners).
Here's hoping that software patents in the US got the way of the dodo and make this all moot.
I can't say I entirely agree that that strategy will work. I can't imagine too many developers getting all concerned over getting sued by MS for developing Linux (especially since many of them are in the EU). I would have thought the only ones that would not want to deal with the legal uncertainty are those big businesses, that MS is apparently trying to pay off with the Novel like deals.
I suppose an argument could be made that they are really looking to scare off startups, and their investors, and not necessarily "the developer community". I can't see how that would help them, and there are alternatives anyway. Get a threat against your use of Linux? Switch to a BSD, or OpenSolaris. Re-incorporate in the UK, and tell MS where it can go. I know it wouldn't be that easy, but there are options - but the most important thing is, I don't think most people are taking the MS bait - I think their FUD isn't really working that well for them here.
The way I see this whole thing, Novel is the one making out like bandits here. They know what MS is attempting to do with what is basically an ad campaign. They know it will not work anyway. So why not take the money, and laugh all the way to the bank?
That's fine, and if the data is collected in an open and transparent way - so that everyone know exactly what's being collected, I might actually be in support of some kind of database like this. The problems come in how you protect people from political attacks, and other forms of abuse. I'd also like to some some convincing evidence to show that databases like these can actually be used effectively to prevent crime, not just to hassle regular folks and political opponents.
I stand by my assertion that events like 9/11 are completely preventable with the old system, without the use of these kinds of very heavy handed, and very easily abused kinds of mass data collection techniques. Investigators should be required to get the same sorts of warrants that they would need today to invade the privacy of individuals and groups, to actually query these databases.
Basically, we need some real effective checks and balances (at least as effective as we've been able to achieve thus far, previous to databases). So far I haven't seen even an attempt create these checks.
That's less of a problem in the US, I believe because we do a better job of integrating immigrants into the rest of society, over the course of just a few generations (look at the Irish and the Italians a few decades ago vs. today, in the US).
I further believe the primary method we use in the US to integrate them, is our secular free public school system. We don't pay for Islamic schools, in Muslim communities. When an immigrant shows up in the US their kids have to go to the same public schools as everyone else (unless they can afford private school, which usually isn't the case). This means they are socialized with American values, and not their old world values (their most important cultural values are often allowed to integrate as well, over the course of just a few generations).
It seems (and I have to admit, I'm not as familiar with EU policy as I'd like to be) that in EU in general, the countries are more than willing to fund divisive institutions, like Islamic schools in Muslim neighborhoods, which only serve to keep communities un-integrated generation over generation.
Building strong middle and working classes (which is the only way to fight extremism) is all about effective, and fair public education, to prepare students to take advantage of the opportunities made available by the market systems (whichever kind of market exists - usually a mixed market, despite the rhetoric). Culturally separated school systems don't do that, which is why it's a shame that the damn big business market systems ("free market" which is really just code for "fixed" in favor of big business) are all about privatization of even school systems - despite how effective public/free schools have been historically in every rising nation (this rant of course applies more to the US and Canada than to the EU).
That's all fine and dandy, if they do that with a warrant in hand. Maybe you are comfortable trusting them to add the rest of those AND statements, but I'm not. I don't care if it's hard or inconvenient to get a warrant, they better well do it. Let's also remember, that the FBI asked for warrants for many of the hijackers that did 9/11 - so it's not like the old system couldn't work - it's just the participants in that system were too buys playing CYA politics, instead of protecting this country.
The reason they go on both of those shows is to raise awareness of their books/movies/whatever else - usually to sell more copies (admittedly, sometimes with the real intention of shedding light on whatever issue they wrote about).
Three minutes getting slammed by exaggerated right wing talking points, using the pundit playbook isn't going to hurt anyone, and most people that watch the Colbert show are already clued in. The rest, the right wing kool-aid drinkers will feel stupid when they realize the jokes on them.
Anyway you slice it, it's all good. Guests usually show up on these shows at the end of their promotional tours, so if you really want to hear what they have to say, you can almost always find something recent on Fresh-Air or the Book show or somewhere else.
Even if all the above were in place, and you could come up with the perfect system to run on voting machines, and make it decentralized, etc, etc. How would you know that what was in the source code is what's running on the machine?
If you can't see what's going on in the machine, when you cast your vote, you can't be sure of anything. Elections and voting are too important to leave up to these machines, which are too easy to tamper with, by a very small number of people. It only takes one guy in the right place, who tampers with the binaries that are sent to all voting machines for example - very easy to cheat with that kind of system. Compare that with a large number of individuals who all have to hand count paper ballots. You have to convince quite a few more people (or pay off, etc.) to get the vote tampered with in that kind of system.
The only reasonable effective voting system, involves a great number of people, hand checking paper ballots (possibly with the very limited exception of printing machines for the disabled), combined with very good checks and balances. There is nothing else that can do it fairly.