Unfortunately there isn't a critical mass of people who think the way you do, so what we're stuck with is a creeping incrementalism. Just a little here, a little there, and soon the freedoms that we take for granted (in this case privacy) are whittled away to nothing.
I do not want to live in a society where it is impossible to get away with a crime.
Ah, a liberal Christian. Christian because you've admitted to it, and liberal because of the tell-tale snide sarcasm and multiple loaded questions.
I never said I was a second-class citizen. In fact, I like my position in society very much, thanks.
To cut to the chase of what my original post was saying: liberals are hypocritical, conservatives are hypocritical. Why be a hypocrite? Why not just say (as a liberal) "You will do it my way or I'll use the force of government on you" or (as a conservative) "only the strong should survive".
There is something to be said for purity of ideology.
"I'm smart, everyone else is stupid, therefore people who think like me should run the world unchecked by the people we decide are stupid." How is this different than "I follow the true God, everyone else is an evil sinner, therefore I should run the world unchecked by the people I decide are sinners."?
A very astute observation. Just like I wouldn't want the creepy social conservatives over at FreeRepublic in charge of things, I would abhor the rage-filled and perpetually offended nuts at DemocraticUnderground running the country.
The new version is: "You're with the Lord? We hate you. You are now a second-class citizen."
That is very, very true. I've witnessed many an intellectual roll their eyes in digust when they find out a person (or group of people) have any kind of Christian beliefs. Especially on college campuses, where even though free speech should reign supreme, liberal groups will bend themselves into a pretzel to prevent/cancel meetings and conferences featuring conservative ideology.
I'm agnostic, BTW. I just think it's amusing that a lot of liberals are so smug and presume to think that they have the one true answer to all of life's questions.
I strongly agree with what you wrote. I do not even have a degree at all and I've been making well over 100k doing bleeding edge development for the last 7 years, and I don't live in an expensive part of the country. I work maybe 20-30 hours a week.
The key is to work for a small to medium sized firm, as they typically don't have a large HR department scanning your resume for keywords like MS or BSCS. With the smaller businesses experience counts more that some degree that will put you 100k in debt.
I think you're referring to the game "Tapper", which had you sling Budweiser down lengthy bars in a variety of settings.
There was also a sanitized version called "Root Beer Tapper" which was made to pacify the angry parents who didn't want little Johnny getting pro-alcohol messages from his video games.
1) USA, by its nature, is a country of immigrants 2) USA is a society based primarily on concept of self-profit/selfishness. Flames welcome !
You say this like it's a bad thing. Because of our culture of self-profit/selfishness, we're the technological/economic/military powerhouse that most of the non-Marxist world envies.
There is a huge lack of innovation in Games, music, and film these days in favor of quick cash-ins
Right, but the quick cash-ins aren't so quick and have no guarantee to recoup their development costs. If you're talking a sports franchise, sure, but otherwise you're rolling the dice with millions of dollars.
What Western countries with high rates of wealth redistribution are thriving? The last time I checked (admittedly over a month ago) a lot of Europe had double-digit unemployment rates. There is also the little problem with Europe's demographic implosion which is going to make things even worse in the coming decades.
Although I'd be against a totally free market civilization, I'd rather have a society that is heavily tilted towards capitalism than one that was mired in socialism.
In my high school class there were three, yes three girls with crazy names:
Sara Cuda
Bunny Butt
Heather Greathead
Just my meaningless contribution to the thread.
Portland is becoming a suburb of California. Where I live (West Linn, a suburb of Portland) housing prices have increased quite a bit since I bought my house three years ago. I was somewhat annoyed that I couldn't cash in on the SanFran housing boom, but now it looks like the market will be coming to me.
So, by all means, move to Portland! Drive our housing prices up so I can retire at 35 instead of 40!
No, I'm not saying that the mob should be lauded for their success. The mob runs afoul of the law, so they should be punished. Microsoft, on the other hand, plays very near the line what is ethical/legal, but I don't think they intentionally cross it.
The gist of the original comment is that too much success is bad, and behind every great fortune there is a great crime, therefore too much success=criminal activity and 'the people' should punish the successful company. Sorry, I don't buy into that theory. Businesses are free, within the confines of the law, to be as brutal as they need to be in order to out-compete their competition.
Just who decides when a company is successful enough? You? People just like you? And, where is the incentive for starting a company if some group can say "You're too successful, we're bringing you down!" ?
I'm all for ethical business practices, but placing artificial constraints on the success of a business strikes me as extreme-left punishment for simply being the alpha-business in a particular industry.
Moving does not magically make people rich.
True, but it does get them away from the situation that is holding them down. Oftentimes a poor persons support group is the very thing that keeps them poor. If all your friends work at mininum wage jobs and smoke pot everyday it makes it difficult to get out of that rut.
Moving away from where I grew up was the best thing I could have done, by far.
Although your sentiments are good, I think you are wrong. Microsoft will not fail based on your listed reasons because you're assuming the average MS user cares about fairness, which they do not. The users, like most of humanity, cares about the expediency of the problem at hand. As long as Office and Windows continue to meet 85% of the needs of the masses, Microsoft will not fail.
It's true. Everything *is* increasingly isolated, and I think people like it that way.
I can get most of my needs met from my computer, and if it wasn't for my wife (and takeout food!) I'd probably go days without interacting with another living soul. Which is fine by me.
I think social interaction is highly overrated anyway. Have you ever realized that most people suck?
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Oh how I wish I had mod points. Great post.
Unfortunately there isn't a critical mass of people who think the way you do, so what we're stuck with is a creeping incrementalism. Just a little here, a little there, and soon the freedoms that we take for granted (in this case privacy) are whittled away to nothing.
I do not want to live in a society where it is impossible to get away with a crime.
...Fix the problems listed above...
What problems? The fact that men and women have different bathrooms at the airport? The fact that most languages have gender-specific pronouns?
Do "it's a girl!" type exclamations at births actually bother you?
Personally I don't want to morph into an androgynous society (and I don't think we will) but your opinion seems to differ.
Damnit! Now you've gone and spoiled the surprise for me. I was going to play Planetfall one of these days...
Ah, a liberal Christian. Christian because you've admitted to it, and liberal because of the tell-tale snide sarcasm and multiple loaded questions.
I never said I was a second-class citizen. In fact, I like my position in society very much, thanks.
To cut to the chase of what my original post was saying: liberals are hypocritical, conservatives are hypocritical. Why be a hypocrite? Why not just say (as a liberal) "You will do it my way or I'll use the force of government on you" or (as a conservative) "only the strong should survive".
There is something to be said for purity of ideology.
"I'm smart, everyone else is stupid, therefore people who think like me should run the world unchecked by the people we decide are stupid." How is this different than "I follow the true God, everyone else is an evil sinner, therefore I should run the world unchecked by the people I decide are sinners."?
A very astute observation. Just like I wouldn't want the creepy social conservatives over at FreeRepublic in charge of things, I would abhor the rage-filled and perpetually offended nuts at DemocraticUnderground running the country.
The new version is: "You're with the Lord? We hate you. You are now a second-class citizen."
That is very, very true. I've witnessed many an intellectual roll their eyes in digust when they find out a person (or group of people) have any kind of Christian beliefs. Especially on college campuses, where even though free speech should reign supreme, liberal groups will bend themselves into a pretzel to prevent/cancel meetings and conferences featuring conservative ideology.
I'm agnostic, BTW. I just think it's amusing that a lot of liberals are so smug and presume to think that they have the one true answer to all of life's questions.
So really, why is everybody complaining?
Because the groupthink notion of "making money is bad, unless I'm the one doing it" permeates this board like a cancer.
I strongly agree with what you wrote. I do not even have a degree at all and I've been making well over 100k doing bleeding edge development for the last 7 years, and I don't live in an expensive part of the country. I work maybe 20-30 hours a week.
The key is to work for a small to medium sized firm, as they typically don't have a large HR department scanning your resume for keywords like MS or BSCS. With the smaller businesses experience counts more that some degree that will put you 100k in debt.
I think you're referring to the game "Tapper", which had you sling Budweiser down lengthy bars in a variety of settings.
There was also a sanitized version called "Root Beer Tapper" which was made to pacify the angry parents who didn't want little Johnny getting pro-alcohol messages from his video games.
I wish I had mod points. I was going to reply to the parent but you got the point across in a concise fashion. Well done.
1) USA, by its nature, is a country of immigrants 2) USA is a society based primarily on concept of self-profit/selfishness. Flames welcome !
You say this like it's a bad thing. Because of our culture of self-profit/selfishness, we're the technological/economic/military powerhouse that most of the non-Marxist world envies.
There is a huge lack of innovation in Games, music, and film these days in favor of quick cash-ins
Right, but the quick cash-ins aren't so quick and have no guarantee to recoup their development costs. If you're talking a sports franchise, sure, but otherwise you're rolling the dice with millions of dollars.
What Western countries with high rates of wealth redistribution are thriving? The last time I checked (admittedly over a month ago) a lot of Europe had double-digit unemployment rates. There is also the little problem with Europe's demographic implosion which is going to make things even worse in the coming decades.
Although I'd be against a totally free market civilization, I'd rather have a society that is heavily tilted towards capitalism than one that was mired in socialism.
And how, excactly, is a poor Mexican supposed to naturalize "in the traditional sense of the word?"
Easy. They apply for citizenship and wait in line just like everyone else who is doing it the correct way. If they can't wait then too f'ing bad.
In my high school class there were three, yes three girls with crazy names: Sara Cuda Bunny Butt Heather Greathead Just my meaningless contribution to the thread.
Portland is becoming a suburb of California. Where I live (West Linn, a suburb of Portland) housing prices have increased quite a bit since I bought my house three years ago. I was somewhat annoyed that I couldn't cash in on the SanFran housing boom, but now it looks like the market will be coming to me.
So, by all means, move to Portland! Drive our housing prices up so I can retire at 35 instead of 40!
The gist of the original comment is that too much success is bad, and behind every great fortune there is a great crime, therefore too much success=criminal activity and 'the people' should punish the successful company. Sorry, I don't buy into that theory. Businesses are free, within the confines of the law, to be as brutal as they need to be in order to out-compete their competition.
Just who decides when a company is successful enough? You? People just like you? And, where is the incentive for starting a company if some group can say "You're too successful, we're bringing you down!" ? I'm all for ethical business practices, but placing artificial constraints on the success of a business strikes me as extreme-left punishment for simply being the alpha-business in a particular industry.
"pitty"? Tsk tsk.
Moving does not magically make people rich. True, but it does get them away from the situation that is holding them down. Oftentimes a poor persons support group is the very thing that keeps them poor. If all your friends work at mininum wage jobs and smoke pot everyday it makes it difficult to get out of that rut. Moving away from where I grew up was the best thing I could have done, by far.
Although your sentiments are good, I think you are wrong. Microsoft will not fail based on your listed reasons because you're assuming the average MS user cares about fairness, which they do not. The users, like most of humanity, cares about the expediency of the problem at hand. As long as Office and Windows continue to meet 85% of the needs of the masses, Microsoft will not fail.
It's true. Everything *is* increasingly isolated, and I think people like it that way.
I can get most of my needs met from my computer, and if it wasn't for my wife (and takeout food!) I'd probably go days without interacting with another living soul. Which is fine by me.
I think social interaction is highly overrated anyway. Have you ever realized that most people suck?