If it's probable that we can't stop the technology from being used, perhaps we should insist on transparency - if they're going to be using the system to keep track of us, then WE (the citizens) should be able to use the system too - to tag & track "rogue" law enforcers (the people "in charge" who don't seem to be treating us too well...)
One thing that the story didn't talk about, but would probably be useful - does the interface provide any feedback to the pilot (aside from the plane dipping & rolling, of course)?
Electrical or sonic stimulation for instance? Feedback would bring the user "into the neural net", and would probably assist in learning how to use the interface & speeding up the user's reactions quite a bit!
Actually, that's not the primary reason why the anti-BM systems are not worth the money (and why they are simply a method of subsidizing defense contractors).
The primary reason, is that the "current" set of US enemies is more likely to deliver their nuke/biological/chemical weapon parts via luggage & cargo than by ICBM - a delivery technique which is not really affected by how much money you throw at a technological system. (And if you know how, I suspect the DEA would probably want to hire you.)
The only way that you're protect yourself against THOSE kinds of threats is by either: 1. drastically increase intelligence operations, both domestic & foreign (with the current anti-government social undercurrent running in the US, fat chance of getting THAT budget passed w/o controversy), or 2. have such a close-knit society that people will be able to tell if individuals are up to no good (essentially informing on each other, not necessarily to a "higher" authority). The last bit isn't necessarily good, since such societies would have a tendency to be xenophobic.
Perhaps also 3. reduce the numbers & power of our enemies, either by conversion into friends or via threats/conflict. (Which do you think is more effective, and which do you think the US foreign policy is more geared toward?)
As an idealist, I'd like to believe the "conversion into friends" works pretty well, but my cynical side says that there will never be a situation where some of all of those elements are not needed.
Dragon Ball Z will carry on a quest or a plot line for weeks on end, promoting much more attention span then the half-hour, encapsulated, interchangeable episodes of many modern cartoons.
Actually, that's one of the things that drove me absolutely crazy about Dragonball Z (in a bad way) - the main characters, standing around posing for 2 episodes or more, the villains explaining how they're going to kick everybody's rear ends & the good guys either floating around giving that "yawn, I've heard that before" or agonizing about how helpless they feel...then they do it again 2 episodes later!
I vaguely remember hearing that there is at least one law which requires that photocopiers modify the image at least slightly (shrink or expand, stretch or degrade) so that people couldn't easily make decent copies of paper money.
What I didn't understand, was why in the world did that article contain the bit about Russian scientists claiming evidence of: three foot tall humanoids and a robot???!!!
Heh - maybe the Russians ran across a group of Western European tourist's kids & their Aibos out for a walk:)
Re:Use of the "SPAM" topic icon
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Norway Bans Spam
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· Score: 1
Hershey's Chocolate Syrup goes pretty good with SPAM (the salt, grease & sugar forms a great combo:)
I think the _militant_ pro-lifers would be quite happy if abortion was a capital offense. Then they could kill evil doctors in the name of God & receive accolades from society while they're at it.
The only reason they're operating outside of the law, is that the majority of society doesn't agree with their extreme views.
Of course, they've justified their behavior by defining the situation as being in a "war", where it is acceptable to sacrifice human life to achieve some "more important", long-term goal.
What makes ME even more disgusted, are the pro-lifers who aren't willing to pull the trigger themselves, but who quietly condone (& support) the behavior of the militants because of the widespread chilling effect it has on the availability of aborton (all those agent-of-Satan doctors fearing for their lives).
Before I read the article, I was thinking along the lines of the scene in `Logan's Run' when the laser cosmetic surgery machine goes berserk.
I thought that had happened because the main computer had given instructions to the surgeon that he was supposed to kill Logan, so the surgeon programmed his laser-surgery machine to not perform the healing-part of the operation?
On the other hand, that one robot which was capturing people who tried to get to Sanctuary & turning them into food...
I would guess that the surgeon has to take their job as seriously as if they were in the operating room hacking away directly on the patient (i.e., try and avoid random muscle spasms which might cause the scalpel to cut through important stuff).
If they're using haptic feedback (sense of touch & force feedback) then they probably are trying to set up some kind of proper hand/eye interface so that the surgeon can perform the normal types of movements that they are used to, and the robot will perform those same movements remotely (while transmitting back through the interface the same kinds of feelings that the surgeon would get if operating directly).
As for your last issue, there's no reason why the robot has to operate on a 1-to-1 scale of movement - in fact, with the proper feedback, going through the robot could increase the surgeon's margin of error quite a bit. (On the other hand, surgeons might start thinking that they'll be able to operate even after a 24-hour bender and they're shaking with the DTs - "just make those movements REAL slow, Bettie!").
Please tell me how removing a murderer from society (he can never kill again) does "infact [sic] make the problem worse in a way".
I think it's a social/psychological argument - long term, if a society as a whole gets used to killing everyone who's a criminal, then the individuals in that society will be comfortable with killing as a solution to problems. Same principle behind showing many hours of mindless media violence to desensitize your population to real-life examples of that violence.
Short term, of course, killing the truly incorrigible is a "cost-effective" solution.
Re:Linus should have his own action-figure line
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Linus Talks About 2.4
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· Score: 2
The second best option would be to start manufacturing and selling his own action-figure lineup.
Never mind Linus, his wife is probably in MUCH better shape (and already has the skills necessary to kick butt:)
People have already mentioned some of these, but I'll reiterate anyway:)
1. Trainable room temperature, based on temperature outside & current temperature inside, time of day/year, and whether anybody is in the house or not (and possibly WHO is in the house), vents to individual rooms, cost. Simple training using remote to indicate currently where too hot or too cold & measurement of fuel/electricity use, with some factors to make the neural net understand that temperature change is not instant.
2. Trainable lighting - based on light coming in from outside and/or time of day/year, and whether somebody is in the house/room (and possibly who is in the house/room) and whether or not there are other independently-controlled sources of light, & electricity cost. Possibly hook up with automated window blinds, to control light from outside (perhaps also a privacy factor). Similar training mechanism as for heating/cooling (too bright/too dark/electricity cost).
3. Trainable water temperature & amount (depends on which faucet (kitchen/bathroom/shower/tub/etc), who is asking, time of day/year, competition for water sources, how much water is left in the hot water heater, cost. Train by hot/cold/too much/too little/cost.
4. Home entertainment (at least volume for stereo, based on where listener is located & time of day). Could also be choice of station, both for radio & TV, although I'm sure the neural net would end up getting "punished" regularly:)
5. Security - choose reaction (turn on more sensors, turn on fake dog barking, turn on surveillance, turn on siren, alert police, alert owner, etc) based on which combinations of sensors are triggered. Send the robot with the gun? Training this net could be fun:)
I'm sure people will be able to think of plenty more - question is, will they be simple enough to implement?
I really think computer development is in for a big slowdown in the next ten years. The main reason being that in two years time we will have more computing power than we know what to do with.
Dunno - I think there's plenty of room for wanting more powerful processors. Simulations & virtual environments will pretty much eat any amount of power you can throw at them (the more you throw, the better they get). I can also think of some uses for personal-level data mining will which require heavy hp.
Good code needs only a bare minimum of "extra" documentation (except where your language syntax is totally bizarre & counterintuitive, or if your algorithm is something derived from a crazed CS grad student's thesis).
I can't count the times I've run into "documented" code, where the documentation completely misdescribes what the code is doing.
It's only your limited mind that cannot distinguish between something that is tangible and something that has value. ClueStick: Society has evolved beyond assigning values to physical goods only.
My "limited" mind says that the value of a good or service is what I'm willing to pay for it, without somebody else telling me I have to pay more for something than I think it's worth. _THAT'S_ capitalism - _NOT_ using the law to create artificial scarcity & then pretending like you're a real capitalist.
Capitalism is about allowing people to create wealth based on their efforts and endeavors...
Capitalism is about supply & demand. I want this, you got more of it than you need, we trade for mutual benefit (in the best case). In the worst case, capitalism can create class inequity. In no case, does "pure" capitalism require that an external agent be used to force people to give money to other people that they don't want to.
Yes, intellectual property enforcement is the same as enforcing a contract. If, for example, I allow you to buy my music under the contract that you will use it for yourself alone then I expect you to honor that contract and for the government to enforce it. Intellectual property is released under this implicit contract.
This parallel almost works, until you get to something like patents. For that kind of "intellectual property", it doesn't matter whether you signed a contract or not with the originator of the patent - the government stops you from pursuing your independent development of that idea (or rather stops you from benefiting from the development of that idea). There is no "chain of implicit contract" from the originator of the idea.
In this manner, law is used to create an artificial scarcity so that people who don't really believe in pure capitalism can take money from people without providing any additional value to them.
Actually, treating intellectual property as property is definitely part of "real" capitalism.
And this is exactly the fallacy which so many "pure" capitalists stumble into. (Note: just in case you missed it, I'm saying you're wrong:)
Capitalism is based on giving people the ability to sell goods, services, whatever for money. It is also important to capitalist principles that the government should protect these properties from "theft".
And if ideas actually had some resemblance to "goods" or "services", then your argument would be worth something. Unfortunately, they don't. Only the initial cost of coming up with the idea is worth anything, plus the incremental costs of transmitting the idea through society. You can charge for THOSE services using a supply & demand model, but you're going to have trouble convincing somebody not under legal threat that the idea is worth paying more than it will cost to receive it.
Getting back to reality, providing a good or service to someone requires a physical exchange of something. "Goods" are made out of physical components, "services" require time & effort of the people who are involved in the exchange. You wouldn't argue that a person who provided a doohickey for your thingamajig is entitled to a another payment EVERY TIME the thingamajig changes hands - they already got all the money they're going to get when they sold the doohickey in the first place.
Capitalists are very much FOR a government role in this area - in fact that is the only area which they are for a government role in at all.
No they're not. Pure capitalists only really see one role for government - enforcing contracts. Certainly not enforcing an arbitrary classification on something as abstract as an "idea".
Insisting that these bitstreams, which other people are willing to pay for, are not real property and therefore should be subject to a price ceiling of 0, as the previous poster mentioned, is very contrary to capitalist principles.
Insisting that "ideas" are real property is very much against capitalistic principles.
They're not real property. In the absence of legal enforcement, the only amount people would be willing to pay is for the initial cost of coming up with the idea, and then the incremental cost of distributing the idea. Under the laws of supply & demand, untouched by government influence, no rational capitalist would be willing to pay any more. Therefore you are wrong.
And the obvious rebuttal-rebuttal is that the FSF is attempting to subvert the capitalist system.
Ummm...well, attempting to subvert the "intellectual property" system maybe - which *isn't* the same thing as the capitalist system.
Whereas "real" capitalism is based on the exchange of real-life goods & services, "intellectual property" laws have created artificial "goods & services".
I find it highly amusing (and annoying at the same time) at how many so-called conservatives scream about wanting to reduce government intervention, but when you point out that means you should get rid of intellectual property laws, they immediately label you as a commie.
Even if I were inclined to believe your single point of "evidence", it's hardly representative of a statistical sampling of all major world societies over a long period of time. I'm pretty confident I can find more historical examples of societies with no public education with a large illiterate & poor population than you will be able to find with no public education & a broadly educated society.
Also, I'm not sure what your point is by saying that point in time is noted for its poverty and the great divide between the classes. Even if I accept your historical scenario, just because a population is somewhat literate doesn't mean that there won't be a rich/poor class divide. I'd be interested in reading about a society where a large chunk of the population _isn't_ literate, but where there _wasn't_ a rich/poor class divide.
Get the gov't out of the schools and we cease to have these problems. If private individuals wish to censor, who cares? Let 'em be stupid.
This sounds suspiciously like mindless anti-government drivel memorized from talk-show hosts and people who find it convenient to avoid thinking about any reason for paying taxes.
I don't think a society can afford to allow a big chunk of its constituency to be "stupid"/ignorant - stupid/ignorant people do irrational things, based purely on emotion and w/o no critical thought. If you have too many stupid/ignorant people, and they all charge in one irrational direction at the same time, your society is going to descend into chaos and screw EVERYONE - not just the stupid/ignorant people.
That's why it's a good idea for a society to do its best to raise the education level for EVERYONE, and the most efficient & equitable way to do that for everyone is at the highest level of society, not at the local level. I know it annoys you, but the government is only agent at that level of society which has the duty & the power of organizing such an educational program.
I certainly don't trust private interests to perform such a task competently, since their main goal isn't to educate members of society - it's to make money, and they'll cut corners where they can get away with it so they can make more money.
Allowing lower levels society to be solely responsible for the education of their own residents will inevitably result in inequal education for between those different groups of population (as can already be seen by the widely differing test scores between states with widely differing commitments to education).
It's when you let the State in that the real problems start.
No, it's when you have people in charge whose aren't interested in maximizing the health of their society - perhaps for their own benefit - THAT'S when the real problems start. Amazingly enough, a lot of those people sound like you, stating that their interests should be able to override everyone else's. (Or conveniently ignoring or denying that anyone else might have any other interests.)
I've heard this one before. Believe me, we aren't going to create a generation of illiterates if the fed is removed from education. (At least no more illiterate than now.) Society has an interest in education, so it will continue. The slack will be picked up by the individual states, that's all.
And I disagree with you. If the society doesn't deliberately spread educational resources through all social classes, then the poor will eventually get frozen out. Why should the rich give up their "hard-earned" assets to help educate some little bastard who's just going to grow up to compete w/their own kids? Much better from their viewpoint to make sure that everyone "else" is controllable.
The founders knew the danger of overly centralized power. They envisioned a union of states, not the nation of districts we have today. This may sound archaic to everyone that believes we live in a democracy (we don't, it's a republic, to prevent the tyranny of the majority from happening) but this is the reason that states get equal representation in the Senate.
Uh - not really. The founders set up the rules the way they were because it was the only compromise they could come up with to get all of them (who were representatives from the various colonial provinces/states) to accept ANY kind of national government (since they were naturally reluctant to replace a central monarchy with an equally-strong central presidency).
There's nothing inherently sacred about the system they sent up, other than the historical fact that it was a decent, simple system which has been flexible enough to transfer power to whatever level of government is necessary for the overall health of society. In recent times, with the growth of large national & global special interests, the federal government has assumed a lot of power in a reaction to the presence of those entities. State governments can't deal effectively with these trans-state & trans-national companies.
It's the duty of the states to look after the interest of their residents. The duty of looking after the people is being unrightly assumed by the federal gov't, distancing it further from influence by the people.
Yes, it's the duty of the state to look after the interests of IT'S residents - even at the expense of the OTHER residents in the country. It's the duty of the Federal government to look after the well-being of ALL the residents in the country. This means that the Federal government might have to make some decisions which will hurt a particular state, for the overall goal of improving the health of the whole country.
Of course, you can argue that the current federal government is not properly representing the interests of the whole country, rather the interests of the monied. I'm afraid I'd agree with you there, although it doesn't change my opinion that the federal government should have the power appropriate for performing its duty of maintaining the overall country's health.
If asked which you'd think would be more responsive to petition, would you say a county, state, or federal agency? My money's not going to be on the feds.
As I've stated above, that's because the feds have to take into account more people's viewpoints to arrive at actions which benefit the country as a whole. I don't want a government which tries to fulfill every resident's desires - I want a government which tries to maximize the health of its entire society. That doesn't mean that it should ignore the input of its residents, but it shouldn't try and do everything that any of its residents want.
(Actually, honestly speaking, I'd rather have a government which fulfills _my_ personal desires as a priority over helping anybody else, but I'm trying to keep a rational debate going here:)
Slashdot Mirror
If it's probable that we can't stop the technology from being used, perhaps we should insist on transparency - if they're going to be using the system to keep track of us, then WE (the citizens) should be able to use the system too - to tag & track "rogue" law enforcers (the people "in charge" who don't seem to be treating us too well...)
One thing that the story didn't talk about, but would probably be useful - does the interface provide any feedback to the pilot (aside from the plane dipping & rolling, of course)?
Electrical or sonic stimulation for instance? Feedback would bring the user "into the neural net", and would probably assist in learning how to use the interface & speeding up the user's reactions quite a bit!
Every time I point my dish at birds, it tends to build up sticky white gunk. Apparently, it makes a convenient bullseye.
Actually, that's not the primary reason why the anti-BM systems are not worth the money (and why they are simply a method of subsidizing defense contractors).
The primary reason, is that the "current" set of US enemies is more likely to deliver their nuke/biological/chemical weapon parts via luggage & cargo than by ICBM - a delivery technique which is not really affected by how much money you throw at a technological system. (And if you know how, I suspect the DEA would probably want to hire you.)
The only way that you're protect yourself against THOSE kinds of threats is by either: 1. drastically increase intelligence operations, both domestic & foreign (with the current anti-government social undercurrent running in the US, fat chance of getting THAT budget passed w/o controversy), or 2. have such a close-knit society that people will be able to tell if individuals are up to no good (essentially informing on each other, not necessarily to a "higher" authority). The last bit isn't necessarily good, since such societies would have a tendency to be xenophobic.
Perhaps also 3. reduce the numbers & power of our enemies, either by conversion into friends or via threats/conflict. (Which do you think is more effective, and which do you think the US foreign policy is more geared toward?)
As an idealist, I'd like to believe the "conversion into friends" works pretty well, but my cynical side says that there will never be a situation where some of all of those elements are not needed.
Actually, that's one of the things that drove me absolutely crazy about Dragonball Z (in a bad way) - the main characters, standing around posing for 2 episodes or more, the villains explaining how they're going to kick everybody's rear ends & the good guys either floating around giving that "yawn, I've heard that before" or agonizing about how helpless they feel...then they do it again 2 episodes later!
I vaguely remember hearing that there is at least one law which requires that photocopiers modify the image at least slightly (shrink or expand, stretch or degrade) so that people couldn't easily make decent copies of paper money.
I think it's the Declaration of Independence which talks about that.
_Which_ bookstores? Certainly not the little local ones with the weird collections of books - most of them are living hand to mouth.
I think we also eat 20-30% of the world's food (I dunno what the number is really, just making a bad joke...)
Heh - maybe the Russians ran across a group of Western European tourist's kids & their Aibos out for a walk :)
Hershey's Chocolate Syrup goes pretty good with SPAM (the salt, grease & sugar forms a great combo :)
I think the _militant_ pro-lifers would be quite happy if abortion was a capital offense. Then they could kill evil doctors in the name of God & receive accolades from society while they're at it.
The only reason they're operating outside of the law, is that the majority of society doesn't agree with their extreme views.
Of course, they've justified their behavior by defining the situation as being in a "war", where it is acceptable to sacrifice human life to achieve some "more important", long-term goal.
What makes ME even more disgusted, are the pro-lifers who aren't willing to pull the trigger themselves, but who quietly condone (& support) the behavior of the militants because of the widespread chilling effect it has on the availability of aborton (all those agent-of-Satan doctors fearing for their lives).
I thought that had happened because the main computer had given instructions to the surgeon that he was supposed to kill Logan, so the surgeon programmed his laser-surgery machine to not perform the healing-part of the operation?
On the other hand, that one robot which was capturing people who tried to get to Sanctuary & turning them into food...
I would guess that the surgeon has to take their job as seriously as if they were in the operating room hacking away directly on the patient (i.e., try and avoid random muscle spasms which might cause the scalpel to cut through important stuff).
If they're using haptic feedback (sense of touch & force feedback) then they probably are trying to set up some kind of proper hand/eye interface so that the surgeon can perform the normal types of movements that they are used to, and the robot will perform those same movements remotely (while transmitting back through the interface the same kinds of feelings that the surgeon would get if operating directly).
As for your last issue, there's no reason why the robot has to operate on a 1-to-1 scale of movement - in fact, with the proper feedback, going through the robot could increase the surgeon's margin of error quite a bit. (On the other hand, surgeons might start thinking that they'll be able to operate even after a 24-hour bender and they're shaking with the DTs - "just make those movements REAL slow, Bettie!").
I think it's a social/psychological argument - long term, if a society as a whole gets used to killing everyone who's a criminal, then the individuals in that society will be comfortable with killing as a solution to problems. Same principle behind showing many hours of mindless media violence to desensitize your population to real-life examples of that violence.
Short term, of course, killing the truly incorrigible is a "cost-effective" solution.
Never mind Linus, his wife is probably in MUCH better shape (and already has the skills necessary to kick butt :)
People have already mentioned some of these, but I'll reiterate anyway :)
:)
:)
1. Trainable room temperature, based on temperature outside & current temperature inside, time of day/year, and whether anybody is in the house or not (and possibly WHO is in the house), vents to individual rooms, cost. Simple training using remote to indicate currently where too hot or too cold & measurement of fuel/electricity use, with some factors to make the neural net understand that temperature change is not instant.
2. Trainable lighting - based on light coming in from outside and/or time of day/year, and whether somebody is in the house/room (and possibly who is in the house/room) and whether or not there are other independently-controlled sources of light, & electricity cost. Possibly hook up with automated window blinds, to control light from outside (perhaps also a privacy factor). Similar training mechanism as for heating/cooling (too bright/too dark/electricity cost).
3. Trainable water temperature & amount (depends on which faucet (kitchen/bathroom/shower/tub/etc), who is asking, time of day/year, competition for water sources, how much water is left in the hot water heater, cost. Train by hot/cold/too much/too little/cost.
4. Home entertainment (at least volume for stereo, based on where listener is located & time of day). Could also be choice of station, both for radio & TV, although I'm sure the neural net would end up getting "punished" regularly
5. Security - choose reaction (turn on more sensors, turn on fake dog barking, turn on surveillance, turn on siren, alert police, alert owner, etc) based on which combinations of sensors are triggered. Send the robot with the gun? Training this net could be fun
I'm sure people will be able to think of plenty more - question is, will they be simple enough to implement?
Dunno - I think there's plenty of room for wanting more powerful processors. Simulations & virtual environments will pretty much eat any amount of power you can throw at them (the more you throw, the better they get). I can also think of some uses for personal-level data mining will which require heavy hp.
Good code needs only a bare minimum of "extra" documentation (except where your language syntax is totally bizarre & counterintuitive, or if your algorithm is something derived from a crazed CS grad student's thesis).
I can't count the times I've run into "documented" code, where the documentation completely misdescribes what the code is doing.
My "limited" mind says that the value of a good or service is what I'm willing to pay for it, without somebody else telling me I have to pay more for something than I think it's worth. _THAT'S_ capitalism - _NOT_ using the law to create artificial scarcity & then pretending like you're a real capitalist.
Capitalism is about supply & demand. I want this, you got more of it than you need, we trade for mutual benefit (in the best case). In the worst case, capitalism can create class inequity. In no case, does "pure" capitalism require that an external agent be used to force people to give money to other people that they don't want to.
This parallel almost works, until you get to something like patents. For that kind of "intellectual property", it doesn't matter whether you signed a contract or not with the originator of the patent - the government stops you from pursuing your independent development of that idea (or rather stops you from benefiting from the development of that idea). There is no "chain of implicit contract" from the originator of the idea.
In this manner, law is used to create an artificial scarcity so that people who don't really believe in pure capitalism can take money from people without providing any additional value to them.
And this is exactly the fallacy which so many "pure" capitalists stumble into. (Note: just in case you missed it, I'm saying you're wrong :)
And if ideas actually had some resemblance to "goods" or "services", then your argument would be worth something. Unfortunately, they don't. Only the initial cost of coming up with the idea is worth anything, plus the incremental costs of transmitting the idea through society. You can charge for THOSE services using a supply & demand model, but you're going to have trouble convincing somebody not under legal threat that the idea is worth paying more than it will cost to receive it.
Getting back to reality, providing a good or service to someone requires a physical exchange of something. "Goods" are made out of physical components, "services" require time & effort of the people who are involved in the exchange. You wouldn't argue that a person who provided a doohickey for your thingamajig is entitled to a another payment EVERY TIME the thingamajig changes hands - they already got all the money they're going to get when they sold the doohickey in the first place.
No they're not. Pure capitalists only really see one role for government - enforcing contracts. Certainly not enforcing an arbitrary classification on something as abstract as an "idea".
Insisting that "ideas" are real property is very much against capitalistic principles.
They're not real property. In the absence of legal enforcement, the only amount people would be willing to pay is for the initial cost of coming up with the idea, and then the incremental cost of distributing the idea. Under the laws of supply & demand, untouched by government influence, no rational capitalist would be willing to pay any more. Therefore you are wrong.
Ummm...well, attempting to subvert the "intellectual property" system maybe - which *isn't* the same thing as the capitalist system.
Whereas "real" capitalism is based on the exchange of real-life goods & services, "intellectual property" laws have created artificial "goods & services".
I find it highly amusing (and annoying at the same time) at how many so-called conservatives scream about wanting to reduce government intervention, but when you point out that means you should get rid of intellectual property laws, they immediately label you as a commie.
Guess we'll have to transition to either optical or fluidics for our computation systems :)
Even if I were inclined to believe your single point of "evidence", it's hardly representative of a statistical sampling of all major world societies over a long period of time. I'm pretty confident I can find more historical examples of societies with no public education with a large illiterate & poor population than you will be able to find with no public education & a broadly educated society.
Also, I'm not sure what your point is by saying that point in time is noted for its poverty and the great divide between the classes. Even if I accept your historical scenario, just because a population is somewhat literate doesn't mean that there won't be a rich/poor class divide. I'd be interested in reading about a society where a large chunk of the population _isn't_ literate, but where there _wasn't_ a rich/poor class divide.
This sounds suspiciously like mindless anti-government drivel memorized from talk-show hosts and people who find it convenient to avoid thinking about any reason for paying taxes.
I don't think a society can afford to allow a big chunk of its constituency to be "stupid"/ignorant - stupid/ignorant people do irrational things, based purely on emotion and w/o no critical thought. If you have too many stupid/ignorant people, and they all charge in one irrational direction at the same time, your society is going to descend into chaos and screw EVERYONE - not just the stupid/ignorant people.
That's why it's a good idea for a society to do its best to raise the education level for EVERYONE, and the most efficient & equitable way to do that for everyone is at the highest level of society, not at the local level. I know it annoys you, but the government is only agent at that level of society which has the duty & the power of organizing such an educational program.
I certainly don't trust private interests to perform such a task competently, since their main goal isn't to educate members of society - it's to make money, and they'll cut corners where they can get away with it so they can make more money.
Allowing lower levels society to be solely responsible for the education of their own residents will inevitably result in inequal education for between those different groups of population (as can already be seen by the widely differing test scores between states with widely differing commitments to education).
No, it's when you have people in charge whose aren't interested in maximizing the health of their society - perhaps for their own benefit - THAT'S when the real problems start. Amazingly enough, a lot of those people sound like you, stating that their interests should be able to override everyone else's. (Or conveniently ignoring or denying that anyone else might have any other interests.)
And I disagree with you. If the society doesn't deliberately spread educational resources through all social classes, then the poor will eventually get frozen out. Why should the rich give up their "hard-earned" assets to help educate some little bastard who's just going to grow up to compete w/their own kids? Much better from their viewpoint to make sure that everyone "else" is controllable.
Uh - not really. The founders set up the rules the way they were because it was the only compromise they could come up with to get all of them (who were representatives from the various colonial provinces/states) to accept ANY kind of national government (since they were naturally reluctant to replace a central monarchy with an equally-strong central presidency).
There's nothing inherently sacred about the system they sent up, other than the historical fact that it was a decent, simple system which has been flexible enough to transfer power to whatever level of government is necessary for the overall health of society. In recent times, with the growth of large national & global special interests, the federal government has assumed a lot of power in a reaction to the presence of those entities. State governments can't deal effectively with these trans-state & trans-national companies.
Yes, it's the duty of the state to look after the interests of IT'S residents - even at the expense of the OTHER residents in the country. It's the duty of the Federal government to look after the well-being of ALL the residents in the country. This means that the Federal government might have to make some decisions which will hurt a particular state, for the overall goal of improving the health of the whole country.
Of course, you can argue that the current federal government is not properly representing the interests of the whole country, rather the interests of the monied. I'm afraid I'd agree with you there, although it doesn't change my opinion that the federal government should have the power appropriate for performing its duty of maintaining the overall country's health.
As I've stated above, that's because the feds have to take into account more people's viewpoints to arrive at actions which benefit the country as a whole. I don't want a government which tries to fulfill every resident's desires - I want a government which tries to maximize the health of its entire society. That doesn't mean that it should ignore the input of its residents, but it shouldn't try and do everything that any of its residents want.
(Actually, honestly speaking, I'd rather have a government which fulfills _my_ personal desires as a priority over helping anybody else, but I'm trying to keep a rational debate going here :)