By stealing the local consumers of local businesses. What it really comes down to is how you measure value and what having an economy is all about. If you think having an economy is about the individual, then you are quite correct. But if having an economy is about providing value for the community, then it's much easier to break it down into small local community units that do not trade.
What you don't seem to get is the power of trade. For instance, lets say that I have great open farmland for corn, and my 'neighbor' 50 miles away has great marshy farmland for rice, and another 'neighbor' of ours 50 miles away from each of us has a great orchard for apples. Which is optimal:
1. I live without rice or apples.
2. I plant a bunch of apple trees in a field, create a marsh for rice, wait 20 years, and then I produce all 3 myself.
3. Trade with my neighbors so all of us have corn, rice, and apples.
#3 is by far the best choice for me (assuming I actually like rice and apples, of course). Thanks to economies of scale, if I specialize in corn I can produce about 3x as much total goods as if I didn't specialize. (i.e. instead of producing 100 bushels of corn, 100 bushels of rice, and 100 bushels of apples, I can produce 900 bushels of corn). This means that I can sell 800 of my bushels to a trader, buy 100 bushels of rice and 100 bushels of apples, and still have ~400 bushels worth of profit (the trader will get his own cut, of course). Plus, I'm overproducing enough food that other people can work in industry or services instead of farming, producing things for me to spend my profit on.
I hope you see how #3 is much better than #2. The advantages to specialization apply to almost all goods, foodstuffs, and services, and allow everyone involved to live a wealthier life. (Capital in the form of specialized machinery and training results in the greater economies of scale. If you don't have tractors, combines, threshers, etc., then generalization is almost as good as specialization. We're not in the middle ages any more, though.)
And that's where your theory breaks down- in the value of the COMMUNITY, I do have an obligation to buy his products in the first place, else the community and local economy fall apart.
I like the theory that individuals (collectively) are more important than the 'community' in which they reside. If a town becomes a ghost town, deserted and empty, but every individual in the town has moved elsewhere, becoming wealthier and happier in the process, I consider that a huge improvement. Just because someone lives next to me doesn't make them more valuable as a person than someone living far away. I especially don't need to support inferior products just because the merchant lives nearby. Do I need to buy pot from my neighbor because he's local? Do I need to attend the 4th-grade orchestra performance instead of buying Yo-Yo Ma? Should I only browse websites maintained by people in my home town? I suspect that you support very little that's truly local, unless you live in the middle of nowhere. And even if you're in the middle of nowhere, you're still browsing slashdot instead of supporting your local community, running a computer that was made elsewhere, and buying dial-up internet access from a distant telco.
Actually, to have net positive impact, you'd have to donate the full profits to the Arbor foundation. But that still doesn't help the local community, though it may well help global warming.....
How much do you think it hurts the environment to drive a mile in a truck? Does it do more than $1 of damage? If so, the damage we do to the environment EACH YEAR is greater than our GDP. You'd have to be a serious wacko to think that, so I'll just assume you made a calculation error.
You think that everyone should be in their own little isolated fiefdom, not realizing how much trade improves everyone's lives. You probably realize that in a small community, everyone benefits
Basically this is about our right to express political views on the internet without regulation. It deserves a 'politics' tag as well, I suppose, but it is a 'YRO' issue.
Better than that- I want the government running railroads! Actually, the government might not drive the truck, but they spent over $2 million/mile to give that truck a road to run on....
That's an interesting statistic. That would mean the government spent 8 Trillion on our highways alone, which is probably what you are referring to. The rest of our road system doesn't cost nearly as much. You can pave a road pretty cheaply.
And getting the corn from the farm to NYC is not productive?
For two reasons- one is that it's usually more efficient to put the people where the food is rather than trucking it hundreds of miles, and the other questioning whether ANYTHING goes on in NYC that is actually productive instead of just an overhead drain on society. No, trucking does not create a new product- and shipping in this day and age, except for a few rare earth metals, is just a waste of resources.
Further evidence that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. It's cheaper and more efficient to build computers in one city and ship them to another than it is to create a computer manufacturing plant in every city. (Consider that it costs billions to build a state-of-the-art plant and paltry millions to ship everything from it). Interestingly, the same applies to almost any product, including food. Obviously you never took any economics classes, which makes sense given your nickname.
The bit about Amtrak I'm not going to argue with- I don't know enough to discuss it, and you're probably correct anyway.
Moving goods and bits of paper around is negative value that destroys local producers.
This is another case of not knowing what you're talking about. Sure, a global economy sometimes destroys local producers, and sometimes enables them to help more people. But it's certainly not negative value. If I can make and ship you a computer for cheaper than you next-door neighbor can, you could argue that I'm destroying his business. But how am I producing negative value? You're better off, the trucker who brought you the computer is better off, and I'm better off. Your neighbor who produces computers hasn't even lost anything, since you were under no obligation to buy his products in the first place, and he still has the inferior computer you could have purchased from him. (You might argue that the trucker's damage to the environment hurts more than the money you have saved, but consider that he would probably be driving near your city/town/village/hut anyway, so you're only a few blocks out of his way. You could donate a single dollar that you saved to the Arbor foundation and have a net positive impact).
None of which actually CREATE goods- they just mess up the market with unproductive activities that are better done by government.
If the activity is unproductive, it's probably better if the government doesn't do it at all. I certainly don't consider doctors or teachers to be unproductive myself, and while I consider most entertainers to be worthless, I place great value in others. Fortunately I'm only required to support those entertainers I actually enjoy, since I'm not living in a socialist state. Ditto with designers and advertisers- every once in a while one of them will create something I value, and these are the ones that I actually support. The government is already the biggest employer of service workers in the U.S. anyway, if I remember correctly. You're not advocating the elimination of service jobs, just changing how they are paid for.
Yes, but they don't create wealth.
What is wealth without health or entertainment? Certainly having food and a roof over your head is important, but wealth for its own sake has little value. I work in industry myself (it's nice being able to see something concrete happen from your labor) but after a day of coding (with some Slashdot thrown in) I would rather go home and be entertained for a few hours than accumulate more wealth by working overtime. Even Marxists like you spend time trolling on Slashdot, a service, created by web designers and paid for by advertisers. Clearly this has value to you, even though it doesn't produce any wealth.
Ok, I'll give you that one. They only make minimum wage if the service is unskilled, or if it hasn't been opened to global competition yet.
Are you saying that salesmen aren't up for global competition? Certainly there are Indian telemarketers, but real salesmen still make far more than I do. (This goes for Businessmen of all sorts). Ditto for Authors, Producers, Editors, Screenwriters, Designers, and any sort of 'intellectual property' based job. As a programmer I could also be replaced by anyone with a computer, and yet I make far more than minimum wage. It's only the unskilled jobs that make minimum wage in this country.
You may want to re-think your position. Other than Slashdot, how many services do you use each day? How many merchants do you do business with? What value do you place on the Internet, the components of which were made in industry, but which is maintained by, sold by, and filled with content by people in the service industry? None of these create wealth, but all of them create value. My guess is that your only idea of service jobs are the McJobs, which is just as ignorant as assuming everyone in agriculture drives a tractor or everyone in industry works an assembly line.
Nevermind, I didn't realize you were correcting your own post; I just thought you were some random grammar Nazi, and decided to mock you for not going all the way. Carry on.
Microsoft wants Linux and any others who threaten their monopoly power gone. There is no end to Microsoft's madness and so they must go.
Oh, and ask your boss if these are the kind of developers you want behind your enterprise software, because Microsoft developes that too.
There! Now that we've eliminated some more errors, touched up some grammar, and clarified ambiguous pronouns, we have a readable rant against Microsoft. Remember kids, when ranting against 'Them', make sure your audience knows who 'They' are!
Our entertainers, doctors and teachers all count as 'service' jobs. So are the graphic artists who design our toys and the advertisers who sell them to us. So are the truckers that bring us our food, the McMinions that cook it for us, and the lawyers that sue for us when we eat too much of it. Just because someone's in a 'service' job doesn't mean they aren't useful, valued, and improve the human condition. It also certainly doesn't mean they make minimum wage. (Sure, the McMinions will make minimum wage, but it's not like the assembly line workers or grunt farmers are doing any better for themselves).
Nobody even fully understands gravity even though the current understanding was presented by Newton and is known to break down as soon as you apply it to more than one body of approximately equal mass.
True, we still don't fully understand gravity. However, we have gone much beyond Newton in terms of our understanding, mostly thanks to Einstein's theories of general relativity. Neither theory breaks down when applied to more than one body, but the mathematics behind it start to get REALLY HARD. In CompSci terms, the run-time complexity of a computer program running a multi-body system is O(n^n). Even before computers, though, dedicated mathematicians could and did solve such equations. For instance, Neptune was found due to an astronomer calculating where a planet would need to be to produce the oddities observed in the orbit of Uranus, a clear example of the accuracy of Newton's Laws even in a multi-body system.
For the record, I would say that state tax dollars should be used to benefit a state's citizens- so I would not only disagree with the state of Montana paying all of an Indian student's tuition, I would disagree with them paying all of of an Indiana student's tuition.
The rest of your comment, though, is flawed on many levels. You remind me of a question I heard once in Macro Economics: "Which is better for the U.S:
1. The U.S. GDP grows 12% and Japan's grows 20%, or
2. the U.S. GDP grows 4% and Japan's grows 2%"? Since the majority of people are clueless, they picked option #2. They forgot that Economics is not Zero-Sum, and that everyone can grow richer at no one's expense.
By your logic, every non-American who gets an education anywhere hurts the United States- clearly they are going to make some other country money, OR they're going to take a job from an American.
Some things to think about:
Imagine that a stoner in Florida decides to give up pot and become an engineer instead. Does this hurt all other engineers in Florida? Is it good for Florida as a whole?
Imagine that the same stoner goes to school in Georgia. Is it logical for the Georgians to deny him schooling because he's out of state? (It is, of course, logical for Georgian taxpayers not to foot the bill). Does the stoner getting a degree hurt all engineers in Georgia? (it does increase their competition). Is it good for the country as a whole?
Imagine, now, that instead of being a Floridian the stoner is an Indian. Should Georgia treat the Indian any differently than a Floridian? (Obviously Georgia taxpayers still shouldn't foot his bill.)
By the way, the correct answer is that the additional competition might slightly hurts the engineers in Florida/Georgia/America/the World, but it's good for everyone else. So having more Indian Engineers slightly hurts American Engineers, but benefits all other Americans (including, say, American Doctors, who use technology Indians develop). Likewise, having more Indian Doctors may hurt American Doctors, but benefits everyone else (including American Engineers who may need a novel heart transplant, or American Engineers being hired to design a new hospital in Delhi). Of course, sometimes Engineers and Scientists will even design something that increases the demand for all engineers, so it's a net gain for everyone, including the Engineers. (A recent example would be computers- sure, it decreased the demand for some mathematicians, but the gain in GDP and the net demand for skilled workers increased enormously thanks to them). The more skilled workers you have, the better and cheaper goods and services will be, and the better off everyone is.
That sort of things is always interesting- and to the best of my knowledge the courts have sided with Yahoo/Google in most of those cases. From the consumer's perspective, if they are looking for a widget, and Acme Widgets have them for $100, and Widgets 'R' Us has them for $120, the consumer benefits from seeing a link to Acme's website when looking for Widgets 'R' Us in a search engine. (Now if it's false representation, that is fraud, and another topic entirely. ) It's as if you're in a grocery store and get to see multiple brands of cheese on a shelf- the cheese companies aren't going to sue the supermarket for putting their cheese next to a cheaper variety. Another analogy would be buying a billboard near Widgets 'R' Us, and then advertising Acme Widgets on it. Sure, Widgets 'R' Us may complain, but there's nothing illegal about telling customers about other offers, and there should never be such a law.
Nothing is stopping Google from doing that right now, with any search term you give them. They don't because:
1. It would look evil, and Google doesn't like that.
2. If Google doesn't return the results people are looking for, they'll stop using Google. 3. If content providers see Google screwing people over, they'll stop using Google. I'm still not seeing any problems here. I fail to see how Google can use content you provide to harm you, unless:
1. Google commits fraud (and you can still sue them over that!)
2. Google makes harmful, infringing derived works (but satire and parody are already fair use, and #3 above makes this unlikely)
3. You were stupid enough to post something harmful to yourself on publicly accessible webpages (you can sue Google for that, but we'd all make fun of you and you'd be thrown out of court).
I'm still not seeing any way Google could hurt its users without hurting itself much worse. It's like saying that Firefox could intentionally cripple their browser with an update, I could show up tomorrow with a squirt gun and soak my co-workers, Bush could give the finger to the press corps tomorrow, Microsoft could start charging $2000 to upgrade to Vista. All of these things could happen, and are all even legal. We don't expect any of these things to happen, though, because it's inconsistent with past behavior, and doesn't help the individuals/companies mentioned achieve any of their goals. Likewise, fretting about Google screwing over the people helping it get revenue doesn't make sense.
If you're putting stuff up for the public through Google, about the worst Google can do to you is not show it. If you're worried about what the public (which includes Google and its partners) will do with your content, you shouldn't have put it up in the first place. (Google doesn't actually own your content, just the rights to distribute it however they wish).
Admittedly, Google not showing people your stuff could be a problem- but I think all hosting companies should reserve the right not to show anything they don't like (after refunding your money), because that's a lot easier than listing a bunch of things they won't show (like child porn and copyright infringement) so when they find things later they don't want to show (like ads for illegal services, phishing sites, snuff films, etc.) they can get rid of it without changing the contract.
We shall go on our merry ways, then, continuing to think the other person's an idiot who can't follow a simple line of reasoning. Perhaps we will have another pointless flame war some other time.
The great-great-grandparent was discussing students saddled with debt. Your response (paraphrased): "40k is the most students can take in government loans. Other loans are hard to get. 40k is not an insane amount of debt. "
My response (paraphrased): "You can get $120k in debt easily, I have a friend who did just that". Note how my example contradicts your assumption that other loans are hard to get, and is therefore an accurate and relevant response as a result.
My college actively helped him get more loans so that he could finish school, so there was little work on his part (from what I could tell as a third party). To the best of my knowledge this is very common, even if it wasn't common at your school. Your response was to suggest I'm a liar, the very height of internet debating tactics.
Now, I did insult you with my 'briefly looking at student loans' statement, but that's only because it's fun to be rude to rude people. You were rude to the great-great-grandparent, so I was rude back. Besides, look up "students loans" on Google, and you will see 30,700,000 results, with places like Bank of America saying: "Borrow up to $40,000 a year for student loans. Apply Now!" I had companies going out of their way to try to get me to take student loans when I was in college. And you're saying that it's hard to get Student loans? That acquiring $120,000 in debt is tricky? I'll need some actual evidence for that, not just your own experience. It sounds to me like you know all about the government loans- the ones that you actually want to take, because they are so much better than the private ones. But all my experience tells me that your original post was wrong, that it's easy to get deep in debt, and lots of Americans do. (Note that 'lots' is not the majority of college students- we're talking about 10-20%, depending on what you call 'significant' debt). Now if you want to show me that it's hard to get private loans, and not many people do, then I can change my stance. Calling me a liar and an idiot just amuses me, and increases my confidence that you don't really know what you are talking about.
P.S. What you should be arguing is that people who get into that much debt are stupid, not that getting into that much debt is hard. Ever since bankruptcy protection for student borrowers was taken away in 1997, it's become easier and easier for students to borrow; There's very little risk anymore for the banking companies.
Briefly looking at Wikipedia tells me that private loans designed for students are still considered student loans. Obviously he didn't get into that much debt from just Stafford loans. Clearly the great-great-grandparent isn't talking about government loans, since he advocates the government doing more loaning out itself and less relying on private firms to loan money to students. The problem here is that you aren't using 'student loans' the way everyone else in this thread is using them. Admittedly, I mistook your confusion about what we were talking about for ignorance, when you are just talking about something else entirely. The original point of this thread was that it might be cheaper for the government to do all the loaning itself, instead of subsidizing private loans. You responded "No one can get deep into dept off government loans". Your point may be correct, but it's irrelevant to this thread, because it's not what we were talking about.
Suppose that 90% of red cars have a top speed of 80 mph, and the other 10% have a top speed of 120 mph. Suppose 90% of white cars have a top speed of 85 mph, and the other 10% have a top speed of 60 mph. The Average speed of the red cars is higher- but if I pick two random cars, one red and one white, there's an 81% chance that the white car is faster.
This is because the median white car is faster than the median red car, even though the mean (average) red car is faster than the mean white car. Now, for men vs. women, men have higher mean AND median strength, but in general your example fails.
To sum up: Average is a confusing term, but it usually refers to the mean, and not the median. Unless you're going to argue that you really meant that 'Average' means 'Median' you're wrong. Being modded to +5 just mean that lots of other clueless people agree with you. My advice to you: spend less time watching pr0n and more time understanding mathematics.
A friend of mine is somewhere around $120,000 in debt from his student loans for an undergraduate degree. He was able to acquire that much debt easily over the 5 years it took him to graduate. Don't think that because you briefly looked into student loans that you know what you're talking about.
I find it a lot more advantageous to know who's bankrolling which politicians than being able to donate to politicians privately. Sure, it's embarrassing for Disney to reveal that its employees are donating money for the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, but I benefit from knowing which politicians are in which companies' pockets.
'Elves' was the old way of spelling it, and it appears that other authors used it when referring to the Norse Elves (as opposed to the small winged elfs).
Supposedly as much as 40% of the population of Iceland believes in elves (the small fairies, not Legolas). Plenty of people believe in ghosts and angels as well. I've had two (unrelated, non LSD-taking) people I trusted tell me they had personal encounters with ghost(s), and plenty of people believe in them without personal evidence.
The problem is that when you're dealing with an intelligent, secretive (God/god/demon/spirit/Alien spaceship/government agent/stalker), often the best you can say is "If they exist, they are pretty good at making it seem as if they don't."
Tolkien created the spellings 'elves' and 'dwarves' instead of elfs and dwarfs. Elves and Dwarves are the typical spelling if you're talking about humanoids in Fantasy, while elfs (for talking about old fairy tales) and dwarfs (for talking about short humans) remains the proper spelling in those contexts. So the grandparent is saying "Humans with dwarfism get the short end of the stick" as opposed to "Humanoids living in Ironforge get the short end of the stick"
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending... (emphasis mine)
I'm not a lawyer, so I have difficulty imagining that putting files on a publicly accessible folder does not count as authorizing other people to make copies. There is no other purpose to a publicly accessible folder than letting others make copies of the information stored inside. Even if your argument holds, and they aren't distributing the works, reproducing the copyrighted work, or authorizing others to reproduce it, then that means you're placing all the blame on the person downloading the file. As it happens, most of the defendants distributing files are also downloading them from someone else's publicly accessible folder, so they are still violating copyright law, just not exactly the way the RIAA claims.
I'm probably just too idealistic, but I don't see how arguing petty loopholes in stupid laws to try to get obviously guilty people acquitted serves the public interest. (The RIAA sues some innocent people too, of course, but I'm not talking about them). What I'm waiting for is a judge to say "Yes, they're guilty, but fining them $750 per song is imbecilic to the point of insanity. Instead of $75,000 in damages, I award you $1,000 in damages. Now stop wasting my time".
The 15-16 year olds are a lot more mature than the 11-year olds you would normally be stuck with. Even if the 16-year-olds are jerks, they've still got 5 years maturity over the 11-year olds in the same school. Also, when you've got an 11-year old genius in your class, they are less of a threat to the 16-year-old's social standing. They aren't going to compete with the 11-year old for girls or friends, and being able to beat up someone 5 years younger doesn't impress anyone. Even in the competition for grades it's okay to lose to the genius, it's like playing basketball with Shaq.
It's not a nurturing environment- the 11-year old isn't going to get affection or offers of support- but it is an accepting one, without the hatred, jealousy, and competition that he'd find from his 'peers'. Ideally he still interacts with some people his own age, preferable outside the classroom.
Slashdot Mirror
By stealing the local consumers of local businesses. What it really comes down to is how you measure value and what having an economy is all about. If you think having an economy is about the individual, then you are quite correct. But if having an economy is about providing value for the community, then it's much easier to break it down into small local community units that do not trade.
What you don't seem to get is the power of trade. For instance, lets say that I have great open farmland for corn, and my 'neighbor' 50 miles away has great marshy farmland for rice, and another 'neighbor' of ours 50 miles away from each of us has a great orchard for apples. Which is optimal:
1. I live without rice or apples.
2. I plant a bunch of apple trees in a field, create a marsh for rice, wait 20 years, and then I produce all 3 myself.
3. Trade with my neighbors so all of us have corn, rice, and apples.
#3 is by far the best choice for me (assuming I actually like rice and apples, of course). Thanks to economies of scale, if I specialize in corn I can produce about 3x as much total goods as if I didn't specialize. (i.e. instead of producing 100 bushels of corn, 100 bushels of rice, and 100 bushels of apples, I can produce 900 bushels of corn). This means that I can sell 800 of my bushels to a trader, buy 100 bushels of rice and 100 bushels of apples, and still have ~400 bushels worth of profit (the trader will get his own cut, of course). Plus, I'm overproducing enough food that other people can work in industry or services instead of farming, producing things for me to spend my profit on.
I hope you see how #3 is much better than #2. The advantages to specialization apply to almost all goods, foodstuffs, and services, and allow everyone involved to live a wealthier life. (Capital in the form of specialized machinery and training results in the greater economies of scale. If you don't have tractors, combines, threshers, etc., then generalization is almost as good as specialization. We're not in the middle ages any more, though.)
And that's where your theory breaks down- in the value of the COMMUNITY, I do have an obligation to buy his products in the first place, else the community and local economy fall apart.
I like the theory that individuals (collectively) are more important than the 'community' in which they reside. If a town becomes a ghost town, deserted and empty, but every individual in the town has moved elsewhere, becoming wealthier and happier in the process, I consider that a huge improvement. Just because someone lives next to me doesn't make them more valuable as a person than someone living far away. I especially don't need to support inferior products just because the merchant lives nearby. Do I need to buy pot from my neighbor because he's local? Do I need to attend the 4th-grade orchestra performance instead of buying Yo-Yo Ma? Should I only browse websites maintained by people in my home town? I suspect that you support very little that's truly local, unless you live in the middle of nowhere. And even if you're in the middle of nowhere, you're still browsing slashdot instead of supporting your local community, running a computer that was made elsewhere, and buying dial-up internet access from a distant telco.
Actually, to have net positive impact, you'd have to donate the full profits to the Arbor foundation. But that still doesn't help the local community, though it may well help global warming..... How much do you think it hurts the environment to drive a mile in a truck? Does it do more than $1 of damage? If so, the damage we do to the environment EACH YEAR is greater than our GDP. You'd have to be a serious wacko to think that, so I'll just assume you made a calculation error.
You think that everyone should be in their own little isolated fiefdom, not realizing how much trade improves everyone's lives. You probably realize that in a small community, everyone benefits
Basically this is about our right to express political views on the internet without regulation. It deserves a 'politics' tag as well, I suppose, but it is a 'YRO' issue.
Better than that- I want the government running railroads! Actually, the government might not drive the truck, but they spent over $2 million/mile to give that truck a road to run on....
That's an interesting statistic. That would mean the government spent 8 Trillion on our highways alone, which is probably what you are referring to. The rest of our road system doesn't cost nearly as much. You can pave a road pretty cheaply.
And getting the corn from the farm to NYC is not productive?
For two reasons- one is that it's usually more efficient to put the people where the food is rather than trucking it hundreds of miles, and the other questioning whether ANYTHING goes on in NYC that is actually productive instead of just an overhead drain on society. No, trucking does not create a new product- and shipping in this day and age, except for a few rare earth metals, is just a waste of resources.
Further evidence that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. It's cheaper and more efficient to build computers in one city and ship them to another than it is to create a computer manufacturing plant in every city. (Consider that it costs billions to build a state-of-the-art plant and paltry millions to ship everything from it). Interestingly, the same applies to almost any product, including food. Obviously you never took any economics classes, which makes sense given your nickname.
The bit about Amtrak I'm not going to argue with- I don't know enough to discuss it, and you're probably correct anyway.
Moving goods and bits of paper around is negative value that destroys local producers.
This is another case of not knowing what you're talking about. Sure, a global economy sometimes destroys local producers, and sometimes enables them to help more people. But it's certainly not negative value. If I can make and ship you a computer for cheaper than you next-door neighbor can, you could argue that I'm destroying his business. But how am I producing negative value? You're better off, the trucker who brought you the computer is better off, and I'm better off. Your neighbor who produces computers hasn't even lost anything, since you were under no obligation to buy his products in the first place, and he still has the inferior computer you could have purchased from him. (You might argue that the trucker's damage to the environment hurts more than the money you have saved, but consider that he would probably be driving near your city/town/village/hut anyway, so you're only a few blocks out of his way. You could donate a single dollar that you saved to the Arbor foundation and have a net positive impact).
None of which actually CREATE goods- they just mess up the market with unproductive activities that are better done by government.
If the activity is unproductive, it's probably better if the government doesn't do it at all. I certainly don't consider doctors or teachers to be unproductive myself, and while I consider most entertainers to be worthless, I place great value in others. Fortunately I'm only required to support those entertainers I actually enjoy, since I'm not living in a socialist state. Ditto with designers and advertisers- every once in a while one of them will create something I value, and these are the ones that I actually support. The government is already the biggest employer of service workers in the U.S. anyway, if I remember correctly. You're not advocating the elimination of service jobs, just changing how they are paid for.
Yes, but they don't create wealth.
What is wealth without health or entertainment? Certainly having food and a roof over your head is important, but wealth for its own sake has little value. I work in industry myself (it's nice being able to see something concrete happen from your labor) but after a day of coding (with some Slashdot thrown in) I would rather go home and be entertained for a few hours than accumulate more wealth by working overtime. Even Marxists like you spend time trolling on Slashdot, a service, created by web designers and paid for by advertisers. Clearly this has value to you, even though it doesn't produce any wealth.
Ok, I'll give you that one. They only make minimum wage if the service is unskilled, or if it hasn't been opened to global competition yet.
Are you saying that salesmen aren't up for global competition? Certainly there are Indian telemarketers, but real salesmen still make far more than I do. (This goes for Businessmen of all sorts). Ditto for Authors, Producers, Editors, Screenwriters, Designers, and any sort of 'intellectual property' based job. As a programmer I could also be replaced by anyone with a computer, and yet I make far more than minimum wage. It's only the unskilled jobs that make minimum wage in this country.
You may want to re-think your position. Other than Slashdot, how many services do you use each day? How many merchants do you do business with? What value do you place on the Internet, the components of which were made in industry, but which is maintained by, sold by, and filled with content by people in the service industry? None of these create wealth, but all of them create value. My guess is that your only idea of service jobs are the McJobs, which is just as ignorant as assuming everyone in agriculture drives a tractor or everyone in industry works an assembly line.
Nevermind, I didn't realize you were correcting your own post; I just thought you were some random grammar Nazi, and decided to mock you for not going all the way. Carry on.
Microsoft wants Linux and any others who threaten their monopoly power gone. There is no end to Microsoft's madness and so they must go.
Oh, and ask your boss if these are the kind of developers you want behind your enterprise software, because Microsoft developes that too.
There! Now that we've eliminated some more errors, touched up some grammar, and clarified ambiguous pronouns, we have a readable rant against Microsoft. Remember kids, when ranting against 'Them', make sure your audience knows who 'They' are!
Our entertainers, doctors and teachers all count as 'service' jobs. So are the graphic artists who design our toys and the advertisers who sell them to us. So are the truckers that bring us our food, the McMinions that cook it for us, and the lawyers that sue for us when we eat too much of it. Just because someone's in a 'service' job doesn't mean they aren't useful, valued, and improve the human condition. It also certainly doesn't mean they make minimum wage. (Sure, the McMinions will make minimum wage, but it's not like the assembly line workers or grunt farmers are doing any better for themselves).
True, we still don't fully understand gravity. However, we have gone much beyond Newton in terms of our understanding, mostly thanks to Einstein's theories of general relativity. Neither theory breaks down when applied to more than one body, but the mathematics behind it start to get REALLY HARD. In CompSci terms, the run-time complexity of a computer program running a multi-body system is O(n^n). Even before computers, though, dedicated mathematicians could and did solve such equations. For instance, Neptune was found due to an astronomer calculating where a planet would need to be to produce the oddities observed in the orbit of Uranus, a clear example of the accuracy of Newton's Laws even in a multi-body system.
For the record, I would say that state tax dollars should be used to benefit a state's citizens- so I would not only disagree with the state of Montana paying all of an Indian student's tuition, I would disagree with them paying all of of an Indiana student's tuition.
The rest of your comment, though, is flawed on many levels. You remind me of a question I heard once in Macro Economics: "Which is better for the U.S:
1. The U.S. GDP grows 12% and Japan's grows 20%, or
2. the U.S. GDP grows 4% and Japan's grows 2%"? Since the majority of people are clueless, they picked option #2. They forgot that Economics is not Zero-Sum, and that everyone can grow richer at no one's expense.
By your logic, every non-American who gets an education anywhere hurts the United States- clearly they are going to make some other country money, OR they're going to take a job from an American.
Some things to think about:
Imagine that a stoner in Florida decides to give up pot and become an engineer instead. Does this hurt all other engineers in Florida? Is it good for Florida as a whole?
Imagine that the same stoner goes to school in Georgia. Is it logical for the Georgians to deny him schooling because he's out of state? (It is, of course, logical for Georgian taxpayers not to foot the bill). Does the stoner getting a degree hurt all engineers in Georgia? (it does increase their competition). Is it good for the country as a whole?
Imagine, now, that instead of being a Floridian the stoner is an Indian. Should Georgia treat the Indian any differently than a Floridian? (Obviously Georgia taxpayers still shouldn't foot his bill.)
By the way, the correct answer is that the additional competition might slightly hurts the engineers in Florida/Georgia/America/the World, but it's good for everyone else. So having more Indian Engineers slightly hurts American Engineers, but benefits all other Americans (including, say, American Doctors, who use technology Indians develop). Likewise, having more Indian Doctors may hurt American Doctors, but benefits everyone else (including American Engineers who may need a novel heart transplant, or American Engineers being hired to design a new hospital in Delhi). Of course, sometimes Engineers and Scientists will even design something that increases the demand for all engineers, so it's a net gain for everyone, including the Engineers. (A recent example would be computers- sure, it decreased the demand for some mathematicians, but the gain in GDP and the net demand for skilled workers increased enormously thanks to them). The more skilled workers you have, the better and cheaper goods and services will be, and the better off everyone is.
That sort of things is always interesting- and to the best of my knowledge the courts have sided with Yahoo/Google in most of those cases. From the consumer's perspective, if they are looking for a widget, and Acme Widgets have them for $100, and Widgets 'R' Us has them for $120, the consumer benefits from seeing a link to Acme's website when looking for Widgets 'R' Us in a search engine. (Now if it's false representation, that is fraud, and another topic entirely. ) It's as if you're in a grocery store and get to see multiple brands of cheese on a shelf- the cheese companies aren't going to sue the supermarket for putting their cheese next to a cheaper variety. Another analogy would be buying a billboard near Widgets 'R' Us, and then advertising Acme Widgets on it. Sure, Widgets 'R' Us may complain, but there's nothing illegal about telling customers about other offers, and there should never be such a law.
Nothing is stopping Google from doing that right now, with any search term you give them. They don't because:
1. It would look evil, and Google doesn't like that.
2. If Google doesn't return the results people are looking for, they'll stop using Google.
3. If content providers see Google screwing people over, they'll stop using Google.
I'm still not seeing any problems here. I fail to see how Google can use content you provide to harm you, unless:
1. Google commits fraud (and you can still sue them over that!)
2. Google makes harmful, infringing derived works (but satire and parody are already fair use, and #3 above makes this unlikely)
3. You were stupid enough to post something harmful to yourself on publicly accessible webpages (you can sue Google for that, but we'd all make fun of you and you'd be thrown out of court).
I'm still not seeing any way Google could hurt its users without hurting itself much worse. It's like saying that Firefox could intentionally cripple their browser with an update, I could show up tomorrow with a squirt gun and soak my co-workers, Bush could give the finger to the press corps tomorrow, Microsoft could start charging $2000 to upgrade to Vista. All of these things could happen, and are all even legal. We don't expect any of these things to happen, though, because it's inconsistent with past behavior, and doesn't help the individuals/companies mentioned achieve any of their goals. Likewise, fretting about Google screwing over the people helping it get revenue doesn't make sense.
If you're putting stuff up for the public through Google, about the worst Google can do to you is not show it. If you're worried about what the public (which includes Google and its partners) will do with your content, you shouldn't have put it up in the first place. (Google doesn't actually own your content, just the rights to distribute it however they wish).
Admittedly, Google not showing people your stuff could be a problem- but I think all hosting companies should reserve the right not to show anything they don't like (after refunding your money), because that's a lot easier than listing a bunch of things they won't show (like child porn and copyright infringement) so when they find things later they don't want to show (like ads for illegal services, phishing sites, snuff films, etc.) they can get rid of it without changing the contract.
Your talent for debate amazes me. With that witty retort, I clearly see the error of my ways.
We shall go on our merry ways, then, continuing to think the other person's an idiot who can't follow a simple line of reasoning. Perhaps we will have another pointless flame war some other time.
The great-great-grandparent was discussing students saddled with debt. Your response (paraphrased): "40k is the most students can take in government loans. Other loans are hard to get. 40k is not an insane amount of debt. "
My response (paraphrased): "You can get $120k in debt easily, I have a friend who did just that". Note how my example contradicts your assumption that other loans are hard to get, and is therefore an accurate and relevant response as a result.
My college actively helped him get more loans so that he could finish school, so there was little work on his part (from what I could tell as a third party). To the best of my knowledge this is very common, even if it wasn't common at your school. Your response was to suggest I'm a liar, the very height of internet debating tactics.
Now, I did insult you with my 'briefly looking at student loans' statement, but that's only because it's fun to be rude to rude people. You were rude to the great-great-grandparent, so I was rude back. Besides, look up "students loans" on Google, and you will see 30,700,000 results, with places like Bank of America saying: "Borrow up to $40,000 a year for student loans. Apply Now!" I had companies going out of their way to try to get me to take student loans when I was in college. And you're saying that it's hard to get Student loans? That acquiring $120,000 in debt is tricky? I'll need some actual evidence for that, not just your own experience. It sounds to me like you know all about the government loans- the ones that you actually want to take, because they are so much better than the private ones. But all my experience tells me that your original post was wrong, that it's easy to get deep in debt, and lots of Americans do. (Note that 'lots' is not the majority of college students- we're talking about 10-20%, depending on what you call 'significant' debt). Now if you want to show me that it's hard to get private loans, and not many people do, then I can change my stance. Calling me a liar and an idiot just amuses me, and increases my confidence that you don't really know what you are talking about.
P.S. What you should be arguing is that people who get into that much debt are stupid, not that getting into that much debt is hard. Ever since bankruptcy protection for student borrowers was taken away in 1997, it's become easier and easier for students to borrow; There's very little risk anymore for the banking companies.
Your point is correct, but it's irrelevant. Forgive me for assuming that you were trying to post on topic.
Briefly looking at Wikipedia tells me that private loans designed for students are still considered student loans. Obviously he didn't get into that much debt from just Stafford loans. Clearly the great-great-grandparent isn't talking about government loans, since he advocates the government doing more loaning out itself and less relying on private firms to loan money to students. The problem here is that you aren't using 'student loans' the way everyone else in this thread is using them. Admittedly, I mistook your confusion about what we were talking about for ignorance, when you are just talking about something else entirely. The original point of this thread was that it might be cheaper for the government to do all the loaning itself, instead of subsidizing private loans. You responded "No one can get deep into dept off government loans". Your point may be correct, but it's irrelevant to this thread, because it's not what we were talking about.
Suppose that 90% of red cars have a top speed of 80 mph, and the other 10% have a top speed of 120 mph. Suppose 90% of white cars have a top speed of 85 mph, and the other 10% have a top speed of 60 mph. The Average speed of the red cars is higher- but if I pick two random cars, one red and one white, there's an 81% chance that the white car is faster.
This is because the median white car is faster than the median red car, even though the mean (average) red car is faster than the mean white car. Now, for men vs. women, men have higher mean AND median strength, but in general your example fails.
To sum up: Average is a confusing term, but it usually refers to the mean, and not the median. Unless you're going to argue that you really meant that 'Average' means 'Median' you're wrong. Being modded to +5 just mean that lots of other clueless people agree with you. My advice to you: spend less time watching pr0n and more time understanding mathematics.
A friend of mine is somewhere around $120,000 in debt from his student loans for an undergraduate degree. He was able to acquire that much debt easily over the 5 years it took him to graduate. Don't think that because you briefly looked into student loans that you know what you're talking about.
I find it a lot more advantageous to know who's bankrolling which politicians than being able to donate to politicians privately. Sure, it's embarrassing for Disney to reveal that its employees are donating money for the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, but I benefit from knowing which politicians are in which companies' pockets.
'Elves' was the old way of spelling it, and it appears that other authors used it when referring to the Norse Elves (as opposed to the small winged elfs).
Supposedly as much as 40% of the population of Iceland believes in elves (the small fairies, not Legolas). Plenty of people believe in ghosts and angels as well. I've had two (unrelated, non LSD-taking) people I trusted tell me they had personal encounters with ghost(s), and plenty of people believe in them without personal evidence.
The problem is that when you're dealing with an intelligent, secretive (God/god/demon/spirit/Alien spaceship/government agent/stalker), often the best you can say is "If they exist, they are pretty good at making it seem as if they don't."
Tolkien created the spellings 'elves' and 'dwarves' instead of elfs and dwarfs. Elves and Dwarves are the typical spelling if you're talking about humanoids in Fantasy, while elfs (for talking about old fairy tales) and dwarfs (for talking about short humans) remains the proper spelling in those contexts. So the grandparent is saying "Humans with dwarfism get the short end of the stick" as opposed to "Humanoids living in Ironforge get the short end of the stick"
I'm not a lawyer, so I have difficulty imagining that putting files on a publicly accessible folder does not count as authorizing other people to make copies. There is no other purpose to a publicly accessible folder than letting others make copies of the information stored inside. Even if your argument holds, and they aren't distributing the works, reproducing the copyrighted work, or authorizing others to reproduce it, then that means you're placing all the blame on the person downloading the file. As it happens, most of the defendants distributing files are also downloading them from someone else's publicly accessible folder, so they are still violating copyright law, just not exactly the way the RIAA claims.
I'm probably just too idealistic, but I don't see how arguing petty loopholes in stupid laws to try to get obviously guilty people acquitted serves the public interest. (The RIAA sues some innocent people too, of course, but I'm not talking about them). What I'm waiting for is a judge to say "Yes, they're guilty, but fining them $750 per song is imbecilic to the point of insanity. Instead of $75,000 in damages, I award you $1,000 in damages. Now stop wasting my time".
The 15-16 year olds are a lot more mature than the 11-year olds you would normally be stuck with. Even if the 16-year-olds are jerks, they've still got 5 years maturity over the 11-year olds in the same school. Also, when you've got an 11-year old genius in your class, they are less of a threat to the 16-year-old's social standing. They aren't going to compete with the 11-year old for girls or friends, and being able to beat up someone 5 years younger doesn't impress anyone. Even in the competition for grades it's okay to lose to the genius, it's like playing basketball with Shaq.
It's not a nurturing environment- the 11-year old isn't going to get affection or offers of support- but it is an accepting one, without the hatred, jealousy, and competition that he'd find from his 'peers'. Ideally he still interacts with some people his own age, preferable outside the classroom.