I do agree. It's one of the many problems we have in economics, when we use these aggregate variables, with distributions which may be normal, but don't have the expected results when applied to one specific instance.
In the poorer countries you'd find your analysis wouldn't be as true, mainly because of how much of their income is subsistence living, so the weight of those food prices would be quite large.
What we model uses proxy variables, this detaches it from the true underlying relationship. Not to mention, these are such complex interrelationships, that we can't actually "ceteris paribus". As such, there's always some correlated confounding variable which we can't rule out.
Most economists would disagree with me, but I don't believe economics fits the definition of science enough. Mainly because though we can use the tools of the scientific method, we're extremely restricted in using them.
Also there are different schools of thought in economics, many of which approach things from a different view point. There's the Neo-Classical, this is the mainstream school that you learn about at university, they don't have a very rigorous approach to ensuring their models fit the data empirically. There's the Monetarists, this is a school of thought derived from the University of Chicago, and more specifically Milton Friedman, which emphasizes the money market more than others. There's the Post Keynsians, this is a school of thought which focuses more on empirical data, that rationalizing axioms, and is one of the better schools when it comes to estimating, but still isn't good. Then there's the Austrian Economists, this is a school of thought which rejects empirical models, and instead defines and argues over a set of axioms, then builds all logic up from this, in an axiomatic way. There are many, many, many, different schools of thought, and they ALL come to DIFFERENT conclusions, as they're based on different underlying axioms. Here's a list of them. Although that's quite a list, it's still probably not exhaustive, especially since there's always division within the schools, and some people define themselves as a split between some ideas of one school, and some of another.
Instead I use whatever models I can when estimating, but don't expect these relationships to hold over the long run, and when attempting to figure out what's happening, I take more of an axiomatic approach, like I did above. Just attempting to find the underlying relationships and model them in a more soft manner. This can be used to "sanitize" the estimation results, and also provides a quick and dirty analysis. As you can probably tell, I'm an advocate of the Post Keynsian and Austrian schools. I'm ideologically Austrian, and Post Keynsian for estimating.
There's a lot wrong with the current world view, and though I hold out hope for economics, I'm as to if the "dream of economics" will ever be achieved.
Also, you're sort of right, the main problem is food distribution, but saying its food distribution is sort of disingenuous, as it's not really the distribution which is stopping people, it's the politicians, laws, and similar, which are inhibiting the distribution/investment/etc.
However, no matter how pessimistic my view is, it's fascinating stuff, especially learning about how these ideas came about.
Approval ratings for country leaders usually skyrocket in times of crises, so this 90% information sounds complete bullshit.
In fact, the first thing I searched for in Google, told me that's true... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10707663... the other links commented the same, in fact, some of the others were a little older and had him at around 70%, which is exceedingly high.
I live in South Australia, and I know New Zealand has a low incidence of crime/corruption, so in all likelihood his cabinet truly thinks that whatever they're doing is for the best. You may not agree, economists would likely be split 50/50. If the government ever wants to reverse anything, they can, with varying amounts of hassle, if its popular it can always be undone.
Lastly, while you may have seen a tax cut for the rich, there is economic theory/ideology to support it, regardless of whether you think its right or not. Additionally, that requirement could have been apart of other trade negotiations and similar.
I study this stuff, and while people may think its easy, and that "we just got to do this" the truth is often far from the matter, and no one can reasonably say they know the answer, or what to do.
Greed is a retarded concept, and can be more accurately replaced by fear.
You fear losing a job, you fear being reliant on your neighbouring countries/states/etc, so you pressure your politicians. Your politicians fear losing their job, politicians fear being seen negatively, so they enact measures which "protect" your jobs and food sources. Then the price of food goes up for you, and your neighbour.
Here's where it gets tricky.
If you're in a poor country: This price increase hurts, you yell louder at your politicians, they enact more policies, they appeal to the greater international community, and you get aide, subsidized food, etc. These policies/subsidies/aide drive the price of food down, and reduces the local incentive to produce. The result is a feedback loop, until you've destroyed your economy, and created immense famine.
If you're in a rich country: This price increase annoys, you yell louder at your politicians, they enact more policies, and you get subsidies and tariffs. These policies/subsidies/tariffs drive the price of food down, and reduces the local incentive to produce. The result is a feedback loop, but since this is such a small sector of your economy, you likely won't feel it, you just watch the prices go up, and get annoyed at "big fat greedy corporations". Your price rises, are more likely to have an affect on the poorer countries which rely on you.
The further you go, and the higher this pseudo equilibrium price becomes, the more sensitive your economy is to shocks in associated markets, so as the price of oil goes up, the price of food will also go up, and this relationship will become stronger over time.
While this is an extreme generalization, and of course there are other factors (global warming, disasters, etc) which could be solved technologically, we know that a large proportion of the "food shortage" is structural in nature. Every time I read a well researched paper on this, it always comes to the same conclusions, and shows that this simple axiomatic break down is correct.
I'm more than happy to pursue various food security strategies (including GM), but the first step has to be dealing with the structural problem (which I see as more of a nationalism problem), which literally could happen over night, before dealing with technical problems. Because if you don't address the structural problems, the technical solutions won't do shit.
A warning needs to be attached to this game. Katamari is a dangerous game to play.
First you'll start, possibly with some friends, possibly high, rolling things up, and you'll be having a good time.
Then you'll be consumed with rolling things up, accurately guessing what size objects you can roll up, and developing strategies on how to gain size more effectively.
Eventually you'll get what we like to call "Katamari Eyes". This is when in real life, you start to see regular objects in groups, which could be good for rolling up, or areas you'll want to stay away from as there isn't enough growth potential. It's a well known effect.
This destroys relationships, but given you're reading this, I don't think that's a problem you'll have.
Yeah, it seems you used the CDs as backups, which is okay, but that hasn't worked out well for me. They get lost, they get damaged, etc.
Also, buying then ripping, or even just buying and copying them across, is just adding another step.
I'll continue to buy music online, as its a lot more convenient. Artists that don't distribute online, and sometimes artists that don't do FLAC, just won't get my business, instead I'll pirate their shit.
Well look at you and your dedicated room. I guess since that works for you, it must work for me... right?
I got CDs in the 90s, and I don't have them anymore. Nor do I have the space to store them.
Oh, I see, you've mistaken read only media, with read/write media. Does a CD last longer than an infinite number of hard drives? See, hard drives allow you to copy, move, and back up your media. In fact, it seems you do this as well. Funny that.
So, lets not pretend that a CD is equal to a hard drive, and it certainly isn't better. Or at least lets say, it isn't better for MANY people, such as myself.
Also, its impressive that your CDs still work. My parents CDs skip, have scratches, won't play, etc. They're essentially useless. They put more time into categorizing their stuff, like you, and they still can't find many of their CDs.
I can't find a single one of my CDs these days. The only stuff I can find is on my hard drive. Nicely categorized. Backed up. Taking a small amount of room.
Do your CDs out last your hard drives? What brands are you buying, because that shit sounds fucking terrible. Else, why are you spending so much time and effort keeping track of your CDs?
I'm not abdicating getting rid of CDs, but FLAC is a perfectly good format, which could be easily supported.
So thank you for diverting the conversation.
Side Note: I buy heaps of FLAC music, when its available, and I never buy CDs, I don't even have a CD player, and they will get lost, meaning they don't last long for me.
Given it learns, might have a greater weight on the most recent rounds, than older rounds, then this would be extremely hard.
Also, ever done statistics in your head?
I don't see that lasting long if we have to do it in our heads. If we can also do calculations on a computer, then its hardly us vs the computer, more 1 computer vs another computer.
LOL That worry is well founded. While said in jest, I am proud of it, and I do get quite a lot of mileage out of this story.
So, I know it isn't a worthwhile accomplishment, and thats why the story is written as if I was doing something absolutely intense, kind of to poke fun at how pleased I am with that accomplishment.
Further more, it was awesome, and you can't take that from me! You're not the boss of me, and you're not my real dad!
If it's designed to outsmart me, I'm guessing unless I really learnt its algorithms, and there was a limit placed on its memory/analysis, that I couldn't.
Don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty fucking awesome when it comes to Paper-Rock-Scissors (it's like Rock-Paper-Scissors with ROT1). The reason I was good, was I was good at gauging the intelligence of my opponent, and emulating how they would emulate me, then moving to the next level.
The best experience of this was a competition at school, where you had to beat one person, advance to level 2, beat a level 2, advance to level 3, until I think it was level 6 or 7. If you lost, you got demoted, if you won, you advanced. It was the best of 3. This was done in quick succession, eg, the entire game took about 5 minutes for me, 30 minutes to an hour for others.
I won by beating level 1 (easy), people think you go rock, so they go paper, so I go scissors. Next they chase scissors, not sure why, but this round is in quick succession to the first, and maybe its being unable to come up with anything else, so I go rock. BAM! LEVEL UP!
Next level was relatively easy, they must have had a similar thought process to me, so I go rock (remembering the decision process for level 1). Next they go 2 moves ahead from rock, because that's their level of emulation. This means they go scissors again. So I go rock. BAM! LEVEL UP!
Next level was harder, first round they had the level 2 decision process, but the second round they've caught on, so I need to go scissors, which is 1 move ahead (or could also be seen as taking the level 2 decision process, but I modeled it in my mind as taking 1 move ahead). They go paper! BAM! LEVEL UP!
Next level was much harder, but by now I got a good idea of what I should be doing. Following on from before, I emulate them as my last turn, and BAM! LEVEL UP!
Did this a few times.
At the end had a collision, I went rock, they went rock. WHOAH! FIRST LOSS/DRAW! I realized that this person was doing exactly as I was doing, the hard problem then became, modelling my own process. I remember we did the count down 1..2.. and I said stop. Wait. Because I couldn't walk through the chain of previous decisions fast enough in my mind, to come at the one I want. Once I had it, I went, okay go. 1...2...3...BAM! I WIN! Next round, 1...2...3...BAM! I WIN! LEVEL UP!
I'm now crowned king of all students and get to go sit on the benches and wait for the idiots. When I talked to the people who finished next, and asked them what they did, they explained it exactly how I did. In the end, I was able to predict their capability one further though. A large part of why the decision processes above would have worked was also because I was the first to level up, and get out, if I messed up early on, and got stuck amongst the riffraff I'd likely be unable to apply the same reasoning, as each level would follow that process less, and be less refined. Also, give I sort of knew these people, I probably had a reasonable feeling on their ability to think like me, which probably helped quite a lot.
As you may be able garner by now, this was the greatest moment of my life. Now some might say, the law of large numbers applies here, and that what I achieved, was just randomness in action. Well fuck you! Given their explanations later, my ability to repeat this a few other times, and my ego, I come to the conclusion that this was not random.
Wait... what was I saying. Oh yeah.
Anyhow, because of this, I'd likely be unable to defeat the computer over and over again, as its ability to estimate my thought process (give it's simple like above), would be far greater as it can store a lot more of "if I go x he goes y after I went x and he went y and I went...", while also applying statistical analysis to it. Though, I do however think I'd be able to give it a good enough run for its money, that we'd diverge towards 50% win rate, as my thought process would devolve to random, in the long run.
Ergo, could you beat a computer at Paper-Rock-Scissors? No, no I fucking couldn't, that's a stupid question. Next you'll be fucking asking me "Could you beat a computer at calculating and verifying primes?".
Good point. I forgot there's only one company, and I said explicitly that "they're supposed to be competitive with companies that are worth a HUNDRED TIMES MORE". But hey, if you don't think they can, then we should just use Microsoft and Apple, because apparently they can't.
imagine US Marines walking off the job by comparison
I would fucking love that. Have the military on voluntary contracts, where they can't be forced to stay, and I think you'd find this fucking war would be over by now. Hell, it might not have even gotten off the ground. Imagine that, billions in resources, countless lives, damaged relationships, all saved, by allowing the people in the military freedom.
Yes, it doesn't mean you think its an individual, however if you don't then its not a fair comparison, and it loses a lot of its meaning.
I could say a rock exhibits sociopathic behaviour (it's stupid, but its early and thats all I could come up with), but by applying it to something the concept wasn't designed for, it loses a lot of its meaning.
LOL So instead of tackling the problem, just try to make it shitter for them? I guess that's a fall back position, but the former is the real solution.
Interesting that you think that a corporation is a person, and as such you can apply the same analysis you apply to people, to it. I guess you also support the government treating corporate entities as people with rights.
So, to his sweeping comments that they deserve it, you thought "I know, I'll take the high road" and then proceeded to use similar sweeping comments against him.
It was wrong for him to suggest that its okay for the others to get hurt, and you show him hes wrong by hoping that he gets hurt.
Hello Mr. Argument, meet Mr. Self Defeating Proposition, or to put it another way, two wrongs, where the second wrong, is actually just the first wrong repeated, don't make a right.
You just got spun!
Also, in response to the grand parent, you should never sacrifice the individual, in the name of the group or concept, because through this logic, you can rationalize anything. A group or concept is a subjective abstract construction, you may think its objective and tangible, but under rational scrutiny you'll find it isn't. As such, the group/concept could be anything, allowing you a lot of lea way. But this is probably getting a little to philosophical, so I'll end it there.
Slashdot Mirror
I do agree. It's one of the many problems we have in economics, when we use these aggregate variables, with distributions which may be normal, but don't have the expected results when applied to one specific instance.
In the poorer countries you'd find your analysis wouldn't be as true, mainly because of how much of their income is subsistence living, so the weight of those food prices would be quite large.
But in the rich countries, you're right.
You're right.
What we model uses proxy variables, this detaches it from the true underlying relationship. Not to mention, these are such complex interrelationships, that we can't actually "ceteris paribus". As such, there's always some correlated confounding variable which we can't rule out.
Most economists would disagree with me, but I don't believe economics fits the definition of science enough. Mainly because though we can use the tools of the scientific method, we're extremely restricted in using them.
Also there are different schools of thought in economics, many of which approach things from a different view point. There's the Neo-Classical, this is the mainstream school that you learn about at university, they don't have a very rigorous approach to ensuring their models fit the data empirically. There's the Monetarists, this is a school of thought derived from the University of Chicago, and more specifically Milton Friedman, which emphasizes the money market more than others. There's the Post Keynsians, this is a school of thought which focuses more on empirical data, that rationalizing axioms, and is one of the better schools when it comes to estimating, but still isn't good. Then there's the Austrian Economists, this is a school of thought which rejects empirical models, and instead defines and argues over a set of axioms, then builds all logic up from this, in an axiomatic way. There are many, many, many, different schools of thought, and they ALL come to DIFFERENT conclusions, as they're based on different underlying axioms. Here's a list of them. Although that's quite a list, it's still probably not exhaustive, especially since there's always division within the schools, and some people define themselves as a split between some ideas of one school, and some of another.
Instead I use whatever models I can when estimating, but don't expect these relationships to hold over the long run, and when attempting to figure out what's happening, I take more of an axiomatic approach, like I did above. Just attempting to find the underlying relationships and model them in a more soft manner. This can be used to "sanitize" the estimation results, and also provides a quick and dirty analysis. As you can probably tell, I'm an advocate of the Post Keynsian and Austrian schools. I'm ideologically Austrian, and Post Keynsian for estimating.
There's a lot wrong with the current world view, and though I hold out hope for economics, I'm as to if the "dream of economics" will ever be achieved.
Also, you're sort of right, the main problem is food distribution, but saying its food distribution is sort of disingenuous, as it's not really the distribution which is stopping people, it's the politicians, laws, and similar, which are inhibiting the distribution/investment/etc.
However, no matter how pessimistic my view is, it's fascinating stuff, especially learning about how these ideas came about.
Approval ratings for country leaders usually skyrocket in times of crises, so this 90% information sounds complete bullshit.
In fact, the first thing I searched for in Google, told me that's true... ... the other links commented the same, in fact, some of the others were a little older and had him at around 70%, which is exceedingly high.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10707663
I live in South Australia, and I know New Zealand has a low incidence of crime/corruption, so in all likelihood his cabinet truly thinks that whatever they're doing is for the best. You may not agree, economists would likely be split 50/50. If the government ever wants to reverse anything, they can, with varying amounts of hassle, if its popular it can always be undone.
Lastly, while you may have seen a tax cut for the rich, there is economic theory/ideology to support it, regardless of whether you think its right or not. Additionally, that requirement could have been apart of other trade negotiations and similar.
I study this stuff, and while people may think its easy, and that "we just got to do this" the truth is often far from the matter, and no one can reasonably say they know the answer, or what to do.
Greed is a retarded concept, and can be more accurately replaced by fear.
You fear losing a job, you fear being reliant on your neighbouring countries/states/etc, so you pressure your politicians.
Your politicians fear losing their job, politicians fear being seen negatively, so they enact measures which "protect" your jobs and food sources.
Then the price of food goes up for you, and your neighbour.
Here's where it gets tricky.
If you're in a poor country:
This price increase hurts, you yell louder at your politicians, they enact more policies, they appeal to the greater international community, and you get aide, subsidized food, etc.
These policies/subsidies/aide drive the price of food down, and reduces the local incentive to produce.
The result is a feedback loop, until you've destroyed your economy, and created immense famine.
If you're in a rich country:
This price increase annoys, you yell louder at your politicians, they enact more policies, and you get subsidies and tariffs.
These policies/subsidies/tariffs drive the price of food down, and reduces the local incentive to produce.
The result is a feedback loop, but since this is such a small sector of your economy, you likely won't feel it, you just watch the prices go up, and get annoyed at "big fat greedy corporations".
Your price rises, are more likely to have an affect on the poorer countries which rely on you.
The further you go, and the higher this pseudo equilibrium price becomes, the more sensitive your economy is to shocks in associated markets, so as the price of oil goes up, the price of food will also go up, and this relationship will become stronger over time.
While this is an extreme generalization, and of course there are other factors (global warming, disasters, etc) which could be solved technologically, we know that a large proportion of the "food shortage" is structural in nature. Every time I read a well researched paper on this, it always comes to the same conclusions, and shows that this simple axiomatic break down is correct.
I'm more than happy to pursue various food security strategies (including GM), but the first step has to be dealing with the structural problem (which I see as more of a nationalism problem), which literally could happen over night, before dealing with technical problems. Because if you don't address the structural problems, the technical solutions won't do shit.
A warning needs to be attached to this game. Katamari is a dangerous game to play.
First you'll start, possibly with some friends, possibly high, rolling things up, and you'll be having a good time.
Then you'll be consumed with rolling things up, accurately guessing what size objects you can roll up, and developing strategies on how to gain size more effectively.
Eventually you'll get what we like to call "Katamari Eyes". This is when in real life, you start to see regular objects in groups, which could be good for rolling up, or areas you'll want to stay away from as there isn't enough growth potential. It's a well known effect.
This destroys relationships, but given you're reading this, I don't think that's a problem you'll have.
You've been warned!
What application do you use to do that? Interesting!
Yeah, it seems you used the CDs as backups, which is okay, but that hasn't worked out well for me. They get lost, they get damaged, etc.
Also, buying then ripping, or even just buying and copying them across, is just adding another step.
I'll continue to buy music online, as its a lot more convenient. Artists that don't distribute online, and sometimes artists that don't do FLAC, just won't get my business, instead I'll pirate their shit.
Done and done.
Well look at you and your dedicated room. I guess since that works for you, it must work for me... right?
I got CDs in the 90s, and I don't have them anymore. Nor do I have the space to store them.
Oh, I see, you've mistaken read only media, with read/write media. Does a CD last longer than an infinite number of hard drives? See, hard drives allow you to copy, move, and back up your media. In fact, it seems you do this as well. Funny that.
So, lets not pretend that a CD is equal to a hard drive, and it certainly isn't better. Or at least lets say, it isn't better for MANY people, such as myself.
Also, its impressive that your CDs still work. My parents CDs skip, have scratches, won't play, etc. They're essentially useless. They put more time into categorizing their stuff, like you, and they still can't find many of their CDs.
LOL Yes I am!
No it wasn't a typo/mental mix up. I meant to say that. I didn't mean to say advocating.
I am a ruler of CD collection land who is leaving his office.
You can find your CD's?
I can't find a single one of my CDs these days. The only stuff I can find is on my hard drive. Nicely categorized. Backed up. Taking a small amount of room.
Do your CDs out last your hard drives? What brands are you buying, because that shit sounds fucking terrible. Else, why are you spending so much time and effort keeping track of your CDs?
I'm not abdicating getting rid of CDs, but FLAC is a perfectly good format, which could be easily supported.
So thank you for diverting the conversation.
Side Note: I buy heaps of FLAC music, when its available, and I never buy CDs, I don't even have a CD player, and they will get lost, meaning they don't last long for me.
WINNING!
The moment I read your comment.
The second worst was when my uncle touched me, but I had repressed this until you posted your comment.
THANKS ARSEHOLE!
Given it learns, might have a greater weight on the most recent rounds, than older rounds, then this would be extremely hard.
Also, ever done statistics in your head?
I don't see that lasting long if we have to do it in our heads. If we can also do calculations on a computer, then its hardly us vs the computer, more 1 computer vs another computer.
LOL That worry is well founded. While said in jest, I am proud of it, and I do get quite a lot of mileage out of this story.
So, I know it isn't a worthwhile accomplishment, and thats why the story is written as if I was doing something absolutely intense, kind of to poke fun at how pleased I am with that accomplishment.
Further more, it was awesome, and you can't take that from me! You're not the boss of me, and you're not my real dad!
If it's designed to outsmart me, I'm guessing unless I really learnt its algorithms, and there was a limit placed on its memory/analysis, that I couldn't.
Don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty fucking awesome when it comes to Paper-Rock-Scissors (it's like Rock-Paper-Scissors with ROT1). The reason I was good, was I was good at gauging the intelligence of my opponent, and emulating how they would emulate me, then moving to the next level.
The best experience of this was a competition at school, where you had to beat one person, advance to level 2, beat a level 2, advance to level 3, until I think it was level 6 or 7. If you lost, you got demoted, if you won, you advanced. It was the best of 3. This was done in quick succession, eg, the entire game took about 5 minutes for me, 30 minutes to an hour for others.
I won by beating level 1 (easy), people think you go rock, so they go paper, so I go scissors. Next they chase scissors, not sure why, but this round is in quick succession to the first, and maybe its being unable to come up with anything else, so I go rock. BAM! LEVEL UP!
Next level was relatively easy, they must have had a similar thought process to me, so I go rock (remembering the decision process for level 1). Next they go 2 moves ahead from rock, because that's their level of emulation. This means they go scissors again. So I go rock. BAM! LEVEL UP!
Next level was harder, first round they had the level 2 decision process, but the second round they've caught on, so I need to go scissors, which is 1 move ahead (or could also be seen as taking the level 2 decision process, but I modeled it in my mind as taking 1 move ahead). They go paper! BAM! LEVEL UP!
Next level was much harder, but by now I got a good idea of what I should be doing. Following on from before, I emulate them as my last turn, and BAM! LEVEL UP!
Did this a few times.
At the end had a collision, I went rock, they went rock. WHOAH! FIRST LOSS/DRAW! I realized that this person was doing exactly as I was doing, the hard problem then became, modelling my own process. I remember we did the count down 1..2.. and I said stop. Wait. Because I couldn't walk through the chain of previous decisions fast enough in my mind, to come at the one I want. Once I had it, I went, okay go. 1...2...3...BAM! I WIN! Next round, 1...2...3...BAM! I WIN! LEVEL UP!
I'm now crowned king of all students and get to go sit on the benches and wait for the idiots. When I talked to the people who finished next, and asked them what they did, they explained it exactly how I did. In the end, I was able to predict their capability one further though. A large part of why the decision processes above would have worked was also because I was the first to level up, and get out, if I messed up early on, and got stuck amongst the riffraff I'd likely be unable to apply the same reasoning, as each level would follow that process less, and be less refined. Also, give I sort of knew these people, I probably had a reasonable feeling on their ability to think like me, which probably helped quite a lot.
As you may be able garner by now, this was the greatest moment of my life. Now some might say, the law of large numbers applies here, and that what I achieved, was just randomness in action. Well fuck you! Given their explanations later, my ability to repeat this a few other times, and my ego, I come to the conclusion that this was not random.
Wait... what was I saying. Oh yeah.
Anyhow, because of this, I'd likely be unable to defeat the computer over and over again, as its ability to estimate my thought process (give it's simple like above), would be far greater as it can store a lot more of "if I go x he goes y after I went x and he went y and I went...", while also applying statistical analysis to it. Though, I do however think I'd be able to give it a good enough run for its money, that we'd diverge towards 50% win rate, as my thought process would devolve to random, in the long run.
Ergo, could you beat a computer at Paper-Rock-Scissors? No, no I fucking couldn't, that's a stupid question. Next you'll be fucking asking me "Could you beat a computer at calculating and verifying primes?".
Good point. I forgot there's only one company, and I said explicitly that "they're supposed to be competitive with companies that are worth a HUNDRED TIMES MORE". But hey, if you don't think they can, then we should just use Microsoft and Apple, because apparently they can't.
Yeah, what the hell? You mean I have to make an account on a free service to post?
This is just stupid! NO other commenting system requires you to create an account! ABSOLUTELY NONE!
Granted, I've only used 4chan and Slashdot, but still, I think this is a reasonable sample size to extrapolate from.
Sorry, you missed one, probably just a simple mistake on your behalf...
Red Hat market cap: $7.90 billion dollars
Oh riiight, I forgot, it is bad form to remember that a large amount of the FOSS comes from companies, even the Kernel.
imagine US Marines walking off the job by comparison
I would fucking love that. Have the military on voluntary contracts, where they can't be forced to stay, and I think you'd find this fucking war would be over by now. Hell, it might not have even gotten off the ground. Imagine that, billions in resources, countless lives, damaged relationships, all saved, by allowing the people in the military freedom.
Yes, it doesn't mean you think its an individual, however if you don't then its not a fair comparison, and it loses a lot of its meaning.
I could say a rock exhibits sociopathic behaviour (it's stupid, but its early and thats all I could come up with), but by applying it to something the concept wasn't designed for, it loses a lot of its meaning.
LOL So instead of tackling the problem, just try to make it shitter for them? I guess that's a fall back position, but the former is the real solution.
Interesting that you think that a corporation is a person, and as such you can apply the same analysis you apply to people, to it. I guess you also support the government treating corporate entities as people with rights.
That's the worst slogan I've ever heard.
It's not even catchy.
Yeah, I got what he meant, but found it was more hypocritical than anything.
So, to his sweeping comments that they deserve it, you thought "I know, I'll take the high road" and then proceeded to use similar sweeping comments against him.
It was wrong for him to suggest that its okay for the others to get hurt, and you show him hes wrong by hoping that he gets hurt.
Hello Mr. Argument, meet Mr. Self Defeating Proposition, or to put it another way, two wrongs, where the second wrong, is actually just the first wrong repeated, don't make a right.
You just got spun!
Also, in response to the grand parent, you should never sacrifice the individual, in the name of the group or concept, because through this logic, you can rationalize anything. A group or concept is a subjective abstract construction, you may think its objective and tangible, but under rational scrutiny you'll find it isn't. As such, the group/concept could be anything, allowing you a lot of lea way. But this is probably getting a little to philosophical, so I'll end it there.