And there's no scenario where you can help them restructure their infrastructure so they can stand on their own, while providing the bare necessities (and I mean _bare_) so they don't flat-out die?
Granted, it doesn't help that those kinds of countries often have corrupt power-brokers (including some of those infamous companies you've mentioned) which have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in their country, but in that situation part of "restructuring the infrastructure" would have to include prying control of the country loose from the grasp of those types of people.
You are presenting a false choice of solutions. There ARE potential solutions which don't involve "giving up" on large population segments. The only thing missing is the will of the societies that have the resources to implement such solutions - which brings me back to my initial point about a lack of compassion.
The only effective solution will be to completely defund whatever department (or entire agency) where it pops up. After half of the government has gone bye-bye, the remaining agencies will be a little leery about accepting the program into their control.
You mean the Republican who was knowingly trolling for gay sex while hypocritically denouncing homosexuals & Bill Clinton's escapades, or the out-of-the-closet Democrat who didn't know his personal assistant was running the prostitution ring out of the DC apartment, fired him as soon as he found out, and deliberately asked the House ethics committee to investigate the relationship (which they cleared)?
The Democrats could still deny funding to neo-con favored-programs, and that's a tactic which the minority party can't do anything about. They might even impress a few "small government" proponents in doing so.
That implies, of course, that the Democrats have the courage to fight the resultant propaganda war and/or aren't so addicted to their own pork to use such a tactic.
Well, in theory the majority party in Congress could also refuse to provide any funding for any organization that didn't let them see what they were doing. _THAT_ wouldn't take a 2/3 majority and couldn't be blocked by the minority party.
This kind of tactic, however, require that the majority party have a spine and/or testicular fortitude - something which is quite lacking among most of the current majority members of Congress.
_Most_ Muslims, like most everyone who claims some sort of religious faith, don't really give a damn about "converting" everyone to their faith - they just want to live a comfortable and interesting life.
Its only those people who are insecure in their faith (or who like to use xenophobia as a useful political tool) who are panicking about the "evil Muslim hordes trying to convert everyone to Islam".
Slashdot might be occasionally scientifically challenged, but you are definitely demonstrating how scientifically challenged YOU are.
There are already applications that can use signal analysis to determine the origins of sound waves without knowing the initial characteristics of the waves (for instance, mapping the movements of underground fault lines by measuring seismic waves, or determining the location & type of a gun based on its gunshot signature).
This device sounds like its an additional order of complexity, but there's nothing magical about the technology its using.
There's a decent economic argument to made that it is in society's best interest to use public monies to fund pure research, and then allow the fruits of such research to be released into the public domain for any entrepreneurs to take it to a usable form. It spreads the large and long-term financial risks of such research over the entire society, but lets capitalistic forces figure out the most efficient way to make practical uses of the research available to the society.
1. Apparently, some people find it difficult to fill in bubbles accurately. 2. You can disenfranchise a LOT of people by "accidentally" ruining the sheets, or just "losing" the box containing the sheets.
Paper-based voting isn't perfect either, although a lot of the potential gotchas have been worked out by trial-and-error over time.
There's no reason that machines can't be used to take votes from people, and then print out a user-readable ballot.
It's just that the rest of the system (the counting part) has to be _AT LEAST_ as good as the paper-based counting system before we should switch, but so far every implementation has been completely incompetent (if not willfully broken).
I read it just fine. He said he was in favor of a "free market", but he didn't denounce the idea of patents altogether - just software patents/algorithms. Since he is not disagreeing with the existence of other types of patents, he is not really truly in favor of a free market.
There would be nothing stopping the individuals from exercising their free speech rights, individually or as a group. There is no reason to allow an entity which is essentially a legal fiction, those same rights.
One simple reform would make campaign finance reform a LOT easier: removing the idea from the legal system that corporations (or organizations) have the same sorts of rights as real people (specifically, free speech).
Though I am staunchly in favour of the free market
Oh good grief. Anyone who supports intellectual property has completely given up the right to say they're in favor of the "free market". There's nothing "free market" about IP laws.
But when election time comes around, the politicians have to go running back to the people and promise to deliver on the issues that matter to them. Otherwise the other party's candidate will, and will win.
What do we do when BOTH parties' candidates won't get us out of Iraq?!
To restrict something requires the use of force (i.e. power).
Actually, that's the hard way of restricting something, and is error prone since the people/activities you are trying to restrict will keep trying to get around the boundaries.
The easier way to restrict something is to make sure it doesn't have the resources to do it in the first place.
The problem today is that there are so many simple-minded "progressives" who are incapable of even TRYING to see the other side of an issue.
Your talking point is MUCH more applicable to simple-minded conservatives who are incapable of even trying to see that their "side" of the issue is morally bankrupt, and are almost directly responsible for the steady slide of this country's government into fascism.
I know it's difficult for someone like you to understand, but most "progressives" really DO try and look at all sides of an issue - but once they've decided that certain sides are not supportable, by either moral or factual analysis, then there's no logical point in giving those sides any continuing credibility.
Only conservatives keep frequently bringing up the same old talking points, long after those arguments have been discredited, with the sole purpose of winning their case by being more buttheaded than their opponents.
Well, you can limit the potential societal damage of patents by putting a limit on how many patent claims can be valid at any given time (like 10,000 or so).
That would at least make the patent database a lot more searchable to determine whether or not a engineer/company is violating something, and would keep the patent system from being too much of a drag on innovation.
New patents would be granted as existing patents expire or are thrown out.
Giving credibility to stories like this lowers the signal-to-noise ratio.
There might be some really cool power-generating (or storage) technologies being developed, but if you have to wade through all the stupid "perpetual machine" scams to get to them, you probably won't recognize the good stuff when you see it.
It would be better if such stories were not splashed around by the general media until the technology has gone through a few cycles of independent (not by the inventor), controlled, peer-reviewed testing. If there's a real effect, then multiple independent people will be able to reproduce it.
Frankly, if someone tries to conceal the details of their technology "to protect my secrets", you can pretty much take it to the bank that they're running some kind of scam. At that point, it's better just to ignore any technobabble they're spouting and get away before you find their hands in your pocket looking for your wallet.
There's nothing wrong with using a machine to print out the ballot - a machine could print out a nice easily-readable summary of each issue, and how you voted for that issue (and leave out all of the other choices). No problems with hanging chads there. Also, machines would be good for accomodating disabilities (and could still generate a 'standard' ballot).
In most of these cases, the big problems are when people are trusting machines to the _counting_ (not the printing). That's the process which needs straightforward hard-to-fake-or-alter physical tokens (the ballots), and redundant & cross-checked counting setups which don't require that any particular set of people (like the machine operators) be trusted.
It does allow the little guy to get credit where it is due though and it requires true innovation in the field and not plagiarism of an idea. I do agree that it is relatively ridiculous that 20 year patents are allowed in technological fields where the idea itself will be obsolete in 5, but a lot of the Slashdot community tends to overlook the good that is also done.
Please point me to a peer-reviewed study that indicates this effect is really occurring. I've been looking for a reference to such a study for quite a while now, but haven't heard anything more than anecdotal and "it's obvious" arguments that patents do anything to help the overall innovation rate of a society.
There's also the possibility of casting aside our humanity (genetic engineering and/or cybernetics) to become organisms can that can survive while spreading through the galaxy. Very science fictiony, but in the long run perhaps more practical than the other solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
And there's no scenario where you can help them restructure their infrastructure so they can stand on their own, while providing the bare necessities (and I mean _bare_) so they don't flat-out die?
Granted, it doesn't help that those kinds of countries often have corrupt power-brokers (including some of those infamous companies you've mentioned) which have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in their country, but in that situation part of "restructuring the infrastructure" would have to include prying control of the country loose from the grasp of those types of people.
You are presenting a false choice of solutions. There ARE potential solutions which don't involve "giving up" on large population segments. The only thing missing is the will of the societies that have the resources to implement such solutions - which brings me back to my initial point about a lack of compassion.
Hey, if you're an anime freak, then those states aren't mutually exclusive...
The fact that you don't regard this last bit as a deal-killer really reveals a lot about your capacity for compassion.
The only effective solution will be to completely defund whatever department (or entire agency) where it pops up. After half of the government has gone bye-bye, the remaining agencies will be a little leery about accepting the program into their control.
You mean the Republican who was knowingly trolling for gay sex while hypocritically denouncing homosexuals & Bill Clinton's escapades, or the out-of-the-closet Democrat who didn't know his personal assistant was running the prostitution ring out of the DC apartment, fired him as soon as he found out, and deliberately asked the House ethics committee to investigate the relationship (which they cleared)?
Sorry, you fail. Try again.
Is there a stat on how well agriculture would be doing without any government subsidies?
The Democrats could still deny funding to neo-con favored-programs, and that's a tactic which the minority party can't do anything about. They might even impress a few "small government" proponents in doing so.
That implies, of course, that the Democrats have the courage to fight the resultant propaganda war and/or aren't so addicted to their own pork to use such a tactic.
Well, in theory the majority party in Congress could also refuse to provide any funding for any organization that didn't let them see what they were doing. _THAT_ wouldn't take a 2/3 majority and couldn't be blocked by the minority party.
This kind of tactic, however, require that the majority party have a spine and/or testicular fortitude - something which is quite lacking among most of the current majority members of Congress.
_Most_ Muslims, like most everyone who claims some sort of religious faith, don't really give a damn about "converting" everyone to their faith - they just want to live a comfortable and interesting life.
Its only those people who are insecure in their faith (or who like to use xenophobia as a useful political tool) who are panicking about the "evil Muslim hordes trying to convert everyone to Islam".
Slashdot might be occasionally scientifically challenged, but you are definitely demonstrating how scientifically challenged YOU are.
There are already applications that can use signal analysis to determine the origins of sound waves without knowing the initial characteristics of the waves (for instance, mapping the movements of underground fault lines by measuring seismic waves, or determining the location & type of a gun based on its gunshot signature).
This device sounds like its an additional order of complexity, but there's nothing magical about the technology its using.
There's a decent economic argument to made that it is in society's best interest to use public monies to fund pure research, and then allow the fruits of such research to be released into the public domain for any entrepreneurs to take it to a usable form. It spreads the large and long-term financial risks of such research over the entire society, but lets capitalistic forces figure out the most efficient way to make practical uses of the research available to the society.
1. Apparently, some people find it difficult to fill in bubbles accurately.
2. You can disenfranchise a LOT of people by "accidentally" ruining the sheets, or just "losing" the box containing the sheets.
Paper-based voting isn't perfect either, although a lot of the potential gotchas have been worked out by trial-and-error over time.
There's no reason that machines can't be used to take votes from people, and then print out a user-readable ballot.
It's just that the rest of the system (the counting part) has to be _AT LEAST_ as good as the paper-based counting system before we should switch, but so far every implementation has been completely incompetent (if not willfully broken).
I read it just fine. He said he was in favor of a "free market", but he didn't denounce the idea of patents altogether - just software patents/algorithms. Since he is not disagreeing with the existence of other types of patents, he is not really truly in favor of a free market.
There would be nothing stopping the individuals from exercising their free speech rights, individually or as a group. There is no reason to allow an entity which is essentially a legal fiction, those same rights.
One simple reform would make campaign finance reform a LOT easier: removing the idea from the legal system that corporations (or organizations) have the same sorts of rights as real people (specifically, free speech).
Oh good grief. Anyone who supports intellectual property has completely given up the right to say they're in favor of the "free market". There's nothing "free market" about IP laws.
What do we do when BOTH parties' candidates won't get us out of Iraq?!
Actually, that's the hard way of restricting something, and is error prone since the people/activities you are trying to restrict will keep trying to get around the boundaries.
The easier way to restrict something is to make sure it doesn't have the resources to do it in the first place.
All right, I'll bite: given that you sound somewhat libertarian in bent, why in the world do you like the Bush administration?
Your talking point is MUCH more applicable to simple-minded conservatives who are incapable of even trying to see that their "side" of the issue is morally bankrupt, and are almost directly responsible for the steady slide of this country's government into fascism.
I know it's difficult for someone like you to understand, but most "progressives" really DO try and look at all sides of an issue - but once they've decided that certain sides are not supportable, by either moral or factual analysis, then there's no logical point in giving those sides any continuing credibility.
Only conservatives keep frequently bringing up the same old talking points, long after those arguments have been discredited, with the sole purpose of winning their case by being more buttheaded than their opponents.
Well, you can limit the potential societal damage of patents by putting a limit on how many patent claims can be valid at any given time (like 10,000 or so).
That would at least make the patent database a lot more searchable to determine whether or not a engineer/company is violating something, and would keep the patent system from being too much of a drag on innovation.
New patents would be granted as existing patents expire or are thrown out.
Giving credibility to stories like this lowers the signal-to-noise ratio.
There might be some really cool power-generating (or storage) technologies being developed, but if you have to wade through all the stupid "perpetual machine" scams to get to them, you probably won't recognize the good stuff when you see it.
It would be better if such stories were not splashed around by the general media until the technology has gone through a few cycles of independent (not by the inventor), controlled, peer-reviewed testing. If there's a real effect, then multiple independent people will be able to reproduce it.
Frankly, if someone tries to conceal the details of their technology "to protect my secrets", you can pretty much take it to the bank that they're running some kind of scam. At that point, it's better just to ignore any technobabble they're spouting and get away before you find their hands in your pocket looking for your wallet.
There's nothing wrong with using a machine to print out the ballot - a machine could print out a nice easily-readable summary of each issue, and how you voted for that issue (and leave out all of the other choices). No problems with hanging chads there. Also, machines would be good for accomodating disabilities (and could still generate a 'standard' ballot).
In most of these cases, the big problems are when people are trusting machines to the _counting_ (not the printing). That's the process which needs straightforward hard-to-fake-or-alter physical tokens (the ballots), and redundant & cross-checked counting setups which don't require that any particular set of people (like the machine operators) be trusted.
Please point me to a peer-reviewed study that indicates this effect is really occurring. I've been looking for a reference to such a study for quite a while now, but haven't heard anything more than anecdotal and "it's obvious" arguments that patents do anything to help the overall innovation rate of a society.
There's also the possibility of casting aside our humanity (genetic engineering and/or cybernetics) to become organisms can that can survive while spreading through the galaxy. Very science fictiony, but in the long run perhaps more practical than the other solutions.