I probably hate microsoft as much as anyone you will find, but seriously. Of course they take these actions for financial gain. For once they are offering functionality the user wants, rather than using tricks to force things down the users throat they dont want. This is exactly the way we WANT companies to go about pursuing financial gain.
Clearly MS are being extremely hypocritical here, which is important in the broader picture, but it doesnt change the fact that they are actually on the right side of this one, specific issue, right now.
Apple mucks up all their devices like this, it's the main reason I dont even consider purchasing them anymore. They dont want to "allow" you to simply mount an ipod as a usb disk and copy your files back and forth, instead they insist on installing a large bug-ridden stack of software to "manage" your collection. On an OSX machine these things are much better tested and supported, but on windows you should definitely expect a subpar performance. Spend your money elsewhere (unless you are so in love with apple you are ready to scrap all your existing computers and replace them with sculptures from cupertino.)
Well, to be fair, it is a cloaking device. Much larger than the device it would cloak, and it only cloaks from microwaves, which are not the most common electromagnetic waves you would want to cloak yourself from. The size issues, and covering the rest of the spectrum (including radar and visible light) is supposedly a matter of engineering now. Time will tell.
Yes, it's very naÃve. About as naÃve as me reading the linked article then closing the window and expecting to be able to reload it at will. Slashdotted now. But IIRC the reason for some of the complication of the language was because they were afraid that treaty would be used in exactly the opposite direction.
Poeg could easily be related to Pojke (Swedish for boy) though it might not, one would have to research to see. But I - Mina? Very close to English Mine (compare Swedish min etc.) and You - Sina (Eng Thine) could easily be related as well. Not being a Ugricist I am not sure if those are actually cognates or not but I cant say that on it's face there are no similarities.
Traditional methods to confirm the possibility would involve going back to earlier records and seeing how the words may have changed over time, if earlier versions resemble each other more or less, etc. The linked article is more taking the brute statistical approach - it's interesting at least.
You do have different strands of thought that are called feminism, and importantly individual feminists who, as individuals, think differently. Camille Paglia and Wendy McElroy are a couple of my favourites. But what I tend to see much more prominently packaged with that word are nanny-statisms which rule out individualists like that and you get a spectrum essentially from Andrea Dworkin to Anna Hutsol, with a fundamental misandry and a determination to make people behave by force the common denominator. It isnt always as in your face and unmistakeable of course, but it's implied where it is not outright stated.
Who is this "we" that wants women to have careers? I want women to have a choice in the matter. "We" need the labour in modern welfare states because the non-productive sector of society has grown too fat and too entitled. Have you ever thought about how only 80 or 100 years ago it was still possible for regular people, commoners if you will, to support a family well on a single income, and our technology and productivity have only increased dramatically since then, yet today that is not a realistic possibility for most people. I dont agree with the presumption of some earlier ages that this was simply a womans place (and neither did everyone in those times) but neither do I agree with this presumption that the option should not be open to them, or that they need to be bullied or propagandised or 'educated' to desire something else instead, or that 'we' should imagine ourselves as part and parcel of the non-productive sector or rulers rather than identifying just as much with the productive sector, the commoners, the plebians who did not care about the glory of wars and killing so much as the crop outlook and providing for their families.
It's true that men and women are different. But what you describe as the basis of modern feminism is simply the basis of statist utopianism, the common faith of nanny-staters. Modern feminism is based on an entirely different and contradictory premise - that men are the root of all evil, and women are inherently oriented towards the good and only do evil as a result of evil men having power over them.
The two premises are logically incompatible yet a many modern feminist nanny-staters seem to hold both simultaneously so I can understand the confusion.
And despite agreeing that, clearly, men and women are different, I disagree that the law should recognise that difference. All individuals are different (even more different than men and women!) but equality under the law is fundamental. Of course the law probably shouldnt be involved in post-spawn leave either...
And about that leave. Yes, men and women are different. But nothing in that difference prevents a father from taking care of that baby. There are even single fathers, women sometimes die in delivery, imagine that. Add insult to injury by giving said newly-single new father less maternity leave than a single mother? Is the father getting anything else in the deal here or are the male employees actually subsidising the benefits of the females?
Recognising that men and women are different isnt sexism, but designing something important like a benefits package around gender stereotypes (even if they are not completely false) just might be. It's one thing to recognise that statistically women are more likely to use leave for a particular purpose, it's another to simply give them more days for nothing more than possessing a vagina. If I were a woman I think I would find this policy slightly insulting.
So if you cant make a point you accuse me (and many others) of supporting slavery? Without even making the slightest attempt to give any evidence. On the face of it the adjective 'libelous' would appear to apply.
"Its no surprise that the only Libertarian politician you referenced is a Christian fundamentalist who would not object to slavery."
Ron Paul would be the only one I referred to and your statement is absolutely and absurdly untrue. He is not a fundamentalist (I'll grant he manages to rally supporters who are, but if you listen to him or read his book he's clearly is not) first off. And slaves? Really? Is this really the closest thing to an argument you have? Because he is on the record over and over and over again throughout his life, not just denouncing slavery by rote as is required to be socially acceptable, but denouncing it to it's very core and root, with passion and conviction and based on deep principles, understanding, and yes his Christian belief in the golden rule.
If you are not flat out trolling you are so monumentally misinformed you should never open your mouth on the subject again out of shame.
No they fucking don't boil down to "bribe the umpire." It includes shit like dumping chemical waste out back because "Who's going to know?"
And when they are found out, who protects them? The state does. The regulatory system which we oppose does. Knowing that they will be protected from harm alters their risk/benefit equation and encourages them to take the risk. Once you see the forest instead of the trees it's obvious that they do, indeed, boil down almost exclusively to variations on bribe the umpire. Get the rules changed in your favour, get them interpreted in your favour, set up a web of relationships with high officials that allow you to use the umpire as a tool against the other players. Take long-shots freely, if they hit you walk away rich, if they miss the state will cover your losses. That's not a free market, that's the furthest thing from a free market.
That needs to be explicitly illegal because it doesn't result in immediate, identifiable harm, but still fuck-tons of net harm.
There is no requirement whatsoever that harm be immediate in order for it to be actionable.
Cooking the books, ponzi schemes, company stores, racketeering, and other things that represent ways to abuse a libertarian paradise also apply.
The point is that they would not apply any more in a 'libertarian paradise' than they already do today. The only difference is that today these folks are normally able to get away scot free (occasionally a particularly egregious or simply poorly connected individual may be sacrificed to public opinion, but it's the exception not the rule) with these activities through regulatory capture and lobbying activities, while in a 'libertarian paradise' those currently socially acceptable methods of bribery would be cut off. You cant bribe regulators that dont exist. Your only option along those lines would be to bribe a judge. Which also can certainly happen, but it opens you up for some pretty good criminal sanctions at that point.
You're ignoring the fact that the corporate team's 'thousands of sneaky ways' boils down almost entirely to one single trick - bribe the umpire.
The more power the umpire has, the more the incentive for that game. The ideal is an umpire with no power at all - one who enforces the rules but makes no judgements and treats everyone equally. It may not be perfectly achievable at present but that's no excuse not to move in the right direction.
I probably wouldnt recognise your typical modern *nix development, I havent had the slightest thing to do with development since the 90s. It was just a question of curiosity. That said, the stuff I vaguely remember probably looks more like what is done now in embedded systems than elsewhere I would guess.
Hopefully it doesnt really crash, it just quits accepting new clients? If it really crashes that does not sound like good design. If it quits accepting new clients, then in effect the available RAM produces a limit on number of connections, software works as designed within limitations.
If it genuinely crashes yikes. Rewrite it somehow to swap some connections out to virtual (i.e. main) memory? But what kind of performance overhead would that incur?
Feel free to ignore me, I am fascinated but extremely unlikely to actually produce any patches.
You misunderstand. No one thinks people will play nice if you remove the umpire.
We think that if the umpires job is very strictly and tightly defined and if he does his own job and lets the players do theirs, then the game will work out better all around.
Unfortunately, at the moment, the manufacturers perceive the proprietariness of their products as a value. You see how much this costs as is?
But it's real. Every bit is there, driver, firmware, documentation. This thing will be supported as long as there is one old hacker that has one and doesnt like to replace a working part.
And honestly, I know, I like having the latest and greatest when I can too, but can you please quit shitting on those less fortunate? USB 1.1 is 12mbps and there are a lot of people trying to work on less than that. I have the best service available in my area and it would not be a bottleneck in my system. (Not that I run critical systems on wireless anyway, it's ethernet, but if I needed to run something wireless the USB 1.1 throughput limit wouldnt slow me down.)
Last years tech fully and truly available is infinitely better than this years tech locked away where I can never see it, even if I did supposedly buy the hardware. And hopefully this will lead to the manufacturers starting to figure this stuff out and doing more of it.
Enjoy making the world a crappier place, retarding the progress of science, and generally screwing the world up for your kids.
I dont know how much you lose when you are offline for an hour, but it would take me at least that long to drive in to replace one of these things, and that's more than the dongle costs however you look at it. So as I see it you are penny-wise but dollar (and otherwise) foolish.
It's not just wishful thinking, it's a gambit in an assault against our ideas. Anything that is done based on the idea that the free market is involved here is done on false premises and bound to fail. For which the nonexistent free market will be blamed.
The spectrum auction is a scam from beginning to end. The idea that anyone can own spectrum betrays a complete misunderstand of "own" and/or of "spectrum."
The best one could do is establish a customary right of occupation. By using the spectrum in question for something of value. If they dont use it they should lose it. If we ignore spectrum which is reserved but unused, there is suddenly a considerably greater supply.
The telecoms in this country are monopoly capitalists, not free marketeers, and this has been true longer than I have been alive. And I am a bit older than the average slashbot. This has only gotten worse over time. Their idea of competition is competing with other telecoms to see who can sway more congresscritters to their side. Just look at how many times the taxpayers (and ratepayers in monopolised/privileged districts, same thing) have paid for fibre coverage in the US. Enough to provide it border to border, sea to sea, several times over. What's the current percentage of us that have it? 10, 15%? And how many telecoms are still actively expanding coverage? Trick question, the answer appears to be 0.
Sure, there's a point to buying quality hardware, but at the same time, why is buying a $54 dongle and keeping it for a long time better than buying a $20 one today and buying an improved one for $20 sometime in the future.
Primarily because doing so sends a clear signal to suppliers that we ARE willing to pay extra to get something done right.
Secondarily because buying the "improved one" should be done on my timescale and for my reasons, not forced because I have a piece of junk that wont work properly.
This isn't 2004, you really don't have to search for laptops/wireless dongles that support Linux, its a rarity if they don't support Linux.
To the contrary, although it is not 2004 and some things have improved, I still count one single dongle that actually supports GNU/Linux properly. One.
Supporting one or many binary distributions of GNU/Linux does not constitute proper support. Meeting the criteria for this particular certification does.
A dongle that 'just works' today with a particular binary wont necessarily work tomorrow on a different machine or after a simple recompile with different options, let alone after a major software upgrade.
At the moment this appears to be the only properly supported wireless dongle on the market. It should be no surprise it's a little more expensive than the junk.
First libertarians havent 'chosen' the Republican party - it was the only one where we appeared to have a chance last election. Historically since 1970 we have had caucuses in both Republicratic parties and a third party as well. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich worked well together on several issues. We are ultimately working for the Republic not for a party.
Second, the "deregulated capitalism" you talk about has nothing whatsoever to do with libertarianism, nothing. It's corporate capitalism, crony capitialism, or just plain corruption.
Thirdly, I dont know how you expect libertarianism to protect the environment without being in power. You appear to be unaware that libertarians advocate a return to strict liability in regards to pollution, a much more strict level of environmental protection than either major party would even consider implementing.
Fourthly, where on earth do you get the idea that multinational corporations would even exist under a libertarian regime? Really?
Fifthly and finally, how old are you, and why do you bring that into the discussion? Is it your intention to plead excessive age or youth as an excuse for a post that fired shots off in all directions without hitting a single target?
The thing is, while your techniques should be good for entertainment, they arent going to work to get these people on our side. And (some of) them should be, and we need them desperately. A lot of people on the left, I have found, are coming from a deeply libertarian place. They simply dont have the most basic grasp of economics, and have absorbed the long-obsolete labour theory of value subconsciously. To be brought on board, they have to first have their conscious attention brought to how much of their world view does indeed rest on this theory, then shown why this theory doesnt work, and finally given a decent grasp of the alternative. Economics in one lesson is the best tool for this I have found, but unfortunately it's still long enough some people wont read it.
Mocking them may make you feel better for a few minutes but in the end it does our nation no good.
Believing each individual has an inalienable right to the fruit of their own labour does not equal believing that capitalists have the right to the lions share of the fruits of others' labour. The difference should be obvious to anyone that can read English.
You should be familiar with your weapon, and choose your weapon. When someone is choosing a weapon, the safety function is one of the things to consider carefully. Is it fully secure when set to safe, and is it quick yet positive to take it off? If not, dont buy the weapon. If you can get it to fire when it's on safe, that can get someone killed. But if it's not quick intuitive and very positive taking the safety OFF, it might get you killed.
Of course, once you have the weapon, then you need to train yourself to use the safety as it exists, and to use it effectively regardless of how poorly designed it is. But those are separate issues.
Slashdot Mirror
I probably hate microsoft as much as anyone you will find, but seriously. Of course they take these actions for financial gain. For once they are offering functionality the user wants, rather than using tricks to force things down the users throat they dont want. This is exactly the way we WANT companies to go about pursuing financial gain.
Clearly MS are being extremely hypocritical here, which is important in the broader picture, but it doesnt change the fact that they are actually on the right side of this one, specific issue, right now.
Both of which are very much available for any platform that can access youtube.
FTFY
Apple mucks up all their devices like this, it's the main reason I dont even consider purchasing them anymore. They dont want to "allow" you to simply mount an ipod as a usb disk and copy your files back and forth, instead they insist on installing a large bug-ridden stack of software to "manage" your collection. On an OSX machine these things are much better tested and supported, but on windows you should definitely expect a subpar performance. Spend your money elsewhere (unless you are so in love with apple you are ready to scrap all your existing computers and replace them with sculptures from cupertino.)
Well, to be fair, it is a cloaking device. Much larger than the device it would cloak, and it only cloaks from microwaves, which are not the most common electromagnetic waves you would want to cloak yourself from. The size issues, and covering the rest of the spectrum (including radar and visible light) is supposedly a matter of engineering now. Time will tell.
Yes, it's very naÃve. About as naÃve as me reading the linked article then closing the window and expecting to be able to reload it at will. Slashdotted now. But IIRC the reason for some of the complication of the language was because they were afraid that treaty would be used in exactly the opposite direction.
You are thinking of Hans Reiser?
No notable similarities?
You just dont know what to look for.
Poeg could easily be related to Pojke (Swedish for boy) though it might not, one would have to research to see. But I - Mina? Very close to English Mine (compare Swedish min etc.) and You - Sina (Eng Thine) could easily be related as well. Not being a Ugricist I am not sure if those are actually cognates or not but I cant say that on it's face there are no similarities.
Traditional methods to confirm the possibility would involve going back to earlier records and seeing how the words may have changed over time, if earlier versions resemble each other more or less, etc. The linked article is more taking the brute statistical approach - it's interesting at least.
You do have different strands of thought that are called feminism, and importantly individual feminists who, as individuals, think differently. Camille Paglia and Wendy McElroy are a couple of my favourites. But what I tend to see much more prominently packaged with that word are nanny-statisms which rule out individualists like that and you get a spectrum essentially from Andrea Dworkin to Anna Hutsol, with a fundamental misandry and a determination to make people behave by force the common denominator. It isnt always as in your face and unmistakeable of course, but it's implied where it is not outright stated.
Who is this "we" that wants women to have careers? I want women to have a choice in the matter. "We" need the labour in modern welfare states because the non-productive sector of society has grown too fat and too entitled. Have you ever thought about how only 80 or 100 years ago it was still possible for regular people, commoners if you will, to support a family well on a single income, and our technology and productivity have only increased dramatically since then, yet today that is not a realistic possibility for most people. I dont agree with the presumption of some earlier ages that this was simply a womans place (and neither did everyone in those times) but neither do I agree with this presumption that the option should not be open to them, or that they need to be bullied or propagandised or 'educated' to desire something else instead, or that 'we' should imagine ourselves as part and parcel of the non-productive sector or rulers rather than identifying just as much with the productive sector, the commoners, the plebians who did not care about the glory of wars and killing so much as the crop outlook and providing for their families.
It's true that men and women are different. But what you describe as the basis of modern feminism is simply the basis of statist utopianism, the common faith of nanny-staters. Modern feminism is based on an entirely different and contradictory premise - that men are the root of all evil, and women are inherently oriented towards the good and only do evil as a result of evil men having power over them.
The two premises are logically incompatible yet a many modern feminist nanny-staters seem to hold both simultaneously so I can understand the confusion.
And despite agreeing that, clearly, men and women are different, I disagree that the law should recognise that difference. All individuals are different (even more different than men and women!) but equality under the law is fundamental. Of course the law probably shouldnt be involved in post-spawn leave either...
And about that leave. Yes, men and women are different. But nothing in that difference prevents a father from taking care of that baby. There are even single fathers, women sometimes die in delivery, imagine that. Add insult to injury by giving said newly-single new father less maternity leave than a single mother? Is the father getting anything else in the deal here or are the male employees actually subsidising the benefits of the females?
Recognising that men and women are different isnt sexism, but designing something important like a benefits package around gender stereotypes (even if they are not completely false) just might be. It's one thing to recognise that statistically women are more likely to use leave for a particular purpose, it's another to simply give them more days for nothing more than possessing a vagina. If I were a woman I think I would find this policy slightly insulting.
So if you cant make a point you accuse me (and many others) of supporting slavery? Without even making the slightest attempt to give any evidence. On the face of it the adjective 'libelous' would appear to apply.
"Its no surprise that the only Libertarian politician you referenced is a Christian fundamentalist who would not object to slavery."
Ron Paul would be the only one I referred to and your statement is absolutely and absurdly untrue. He is not a fundamentalist (I'll grant he manages to rally supporters who are, but if you listen to him or read his book he's clearly is not) first off. And slaves? Really? Is this really the closest thing to an argument you have? Because he is on the record over and over and over again throughout his life, not just denouncing slavery by rote as is required to be socially acceptable, but denouncing it to it's very core and root, with passion and conviction and based on deep principles, understanding, and yes his Christian belief in the golden rule.
If you are not flat out trolling you are so monumentally misinformed you should never open your mouth on the subject again out of shame.
And when they are found out, who protects them? The state does. The regulatory system which we oppose does. Knowing that they will be protected from harm alters their risk/benefit equation and encourages them to take the risk. Once you see the forest instead of the trees it's obvious that they do, indeed, boil down almost exclusively to variations on bribe the umpire. Get the rules changed in your favour, get them interpreted in your favour, set up a web of relationships with high officials that allow you to use the umpire as a tool against the other players. Take long-shots freely, if they hit you walk away rich, if they miss the state will cover your losses. That's not a free market, that's the furthest thing from a free market.
There is no requirement whatsoever that harm be immediate in order for it to be actionable.
The point is that they would not apply any more in a 'libertarian paradise' than they already do today. The only difference is that today these folks are normally able to get away scot free (occasionally a particularly egregious or simply poorly connected individual may be sacrificed to public opinion, but it's the exception not the rule) with these activities through regulatory capture and lobbying activities, while in a 'libertarian paradise' those currently socially acceptable methods of bribery would be cut off. You cant bribe regulators that dont exist. Your only option along those lines would be to bribe a judge. Which also can certainly happen, but it opens you up for some pretty good criminal sanctions at that point.
You're ignoring the fact that the corporate team's 'thousands of sneaky ways' boils down almost entirely to one single trick - bribe the umpire.
The more power the umpire has, the more the incentive for that game. The ideal is an umpire with no power at all - one who enforces the rules but makes no judgements and treats everyone equally. It may not be perfectly achievable at present but that's no excuse not to move in the right direction.
I probably wouldnt recognise your typical modern *nix development, I havent had the slightest thing to do with development since the 90s. It was just a question of curiosity. That said, the stuff I vaguely remember probably looks more like what is done now in embedded systems than elsewhere I would guess.
Hopefully it doesnt really crash, it just quits accepting new clients? If it really crashes that does not sound like good design. If it quits accepting new clients, then in effect the available RAM produces a limit on number of connections, software works as designed within limitations.
If it genuinely crashes yikes. Rewrite it somehow to swap some connections out to virtual (i.e. main) memory? But what kind of performance overhead would that incur?
Feel free to ignore me, I am fascinated but extremely unlikely to actually produce any patches.
You misunderstand. No one thinks people will play nice if you remove the umpire.
We think that if the umpires job is very strictly and tightly defined and if he does his own job and lets the players do theirs, then the game will work out better all around.
Unfortunately, at the moment, the manufacturers perceive the proprietariness of their products as a value. You see how much this costs as is?
But it's real. Every bit is there, driver, firmware, documentation. This thing will be supported as long as there is one old hacker that has one and doesnt like to replace a working part.
And honestly, I know, I like having the latest and greatest when I can too, but can you please quit shitting on those less fortunate? USB 1.1 is 12mbps and there are a lot of people trying to work on less than that. I have the best service available in my area and it would not be a bottleneck in my system. (Not that I run critical systems on wireless anyway, it's ethernet, but if I needed to run something wireless the USB 1.1 throughput limit wouldnt slow me down.)
Last years tech fully and truly available is infinitely better than this years tech locked away where I can never see it, even if I did supposedly buy the hardware. And hopefully this will lead to the manufacturers starting to figure this stuff out and doing more of it.
Enjoy making the world a crappier place, retarding the progress of science, and generally screwing the world up for your kids.
I dont know how much you lose when you are offline for an hour, but it would take me at least that long to drive in to replace one of these things, and that's more than the dongle costs however you look at it. So as I see it you are penny-wise but dollar (and otherwise) foolish.
So what exactly happens, with the provided firmware, when the onboard RAM is exhausted?
Good to see a wifi device with free firmware. Freaking finally. The long-term implications of this are probably greater than even I imagine.
It's not just wishful thinking, it's a gambit in an assault against our ideas. Anything that is done based on the idea that the free market is involved here is done on false premises and bound to fail. For which the nonexistent free market will be blamed.
The spectrum auction is a scam from beginning to end. The idea that anyone can own spectrum betrays a complete misunderstand of "own" and/or of "spectrum."
The best one could do is establish a customary right of occupation. By using the spectrum in question for something of value. If they dont use it they should lose it. If we ignore spectrum which is reserved but unused, there is suddenly a considerably greater supply.
The telecoms in this country are monopoly capitalists, not free marketeers, and this has been true longer than I have been alive. And I am a bit older than the average slashbot. This has only gotten worse over time. Their idea of competition is competing with other telecoms to see who can sway more congresscritters to their side. Just look at how many times the taxpayers (and ratepayers in monopolised/privileged districts, same thing) have paid for fibre coverage in the US. Enough to provide it border to border, sea to sea, several times over. What's the current percentage of us that have it? 10, 15%? And how many telecoms are still actively expanding coverage? Trick question, the answer appears to be 0.
Primarily because doing so sends a clear signal to suppliers that we ARE willing to pay extra to get something done right.
Secondarily because buying the "improved one" should be done on my timescale and for my reasons, not forced because I have a piece of junk that wont work properly.
To the contrary, although it is not 2004 and some things have improved, I still count one single dongle that actually supports GNU/Linux properly. One.
Supporting one or many binary distributions of GNU/Linux does not constitute proper support. Meeting the criteria for this particular certification does.
Freedom isnt about cheap and it never was.
A dongle that 'just works' today with a particular binary wont necessarily work tomorrow on a different machine or after a simple recompile with different options, let alone after a major software upgrade.
At the moment this appears to be the only properly supported wireless dongle on the market. It should be no surprise it's a little more expensive than the junk.
First libertarians havent 'chosen' the Republican party - it was the only one where we appeared to have a chance last election. Historically since 1970 we have had caucuses in both Republicratic parties and a third party as well. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich worked well together on several issues. We are ultimately working for the Republic not for a party.
Second, the "deregulated capitalism" you talk about has nothing whatsoever to do with libertarianism, nothing. It's corporate capitalism, crony capitialism, or just plain corruption.
Thirdly, I dont know how you expect libertarianism to protect the environment without being in power. You appear to be unaware that libertarians advocate a return to strict liability in regards to pollution, a much more strict level of environmental protection than either major party would even consider implementing.
Fourthly, where on earth do you get the idea that multinational corporations would even exist under a libertarian regime? Really?
Fifthly and finally, how old are you, and why do you bring that into the discussion? Is it your intention to plead excessive age or youth as an excuse for a post that fired shots off in all directions without hitting a single target?
The thing is, while your techniques should be good for entertainment, they arent going to work to get these people on our side. And (some of) them should be, and we need them desperately. A lot of people on the left, I have found, are coming from a deeply libertarian place. They simply dont have the most basic grasp of economics, and have absorbed the long-obsolete labour theory of value subconsciously. To be brought on board, they have to first have their conscious attention brought to how much of their world view does indeed rest on this theory, then shown why this theory doesnt work, and finally given a decent grasp of the alternative. Economics in one lesson is the best tool for this I have found, but unfortunately it's still long enough some people wont read it.
Mocking them may make you feel better for a few minutes but in the end it does our nation no good.
Believing each individual has an inalienable right to the fruit of their own labour does not equal believing that capitalists have the right to the lions share of the fruits of others' labour. The difference should be obvious to anyone that can read English.
That's true but it's part of the story only.
You should be familiar with your weapon, and choose your weapon. When someone is choosing a weapon, the safety function is one of the things to consider carefully. Is it fully secure when set to safe, and is it quick yet positive to take it off? If not, dont buy the weapon. If you can get it to fire when it's on safe, that can get someone killed. But if it's not quick intuitive and very positive taking the safety OFF, it might get you killed.
Of course, once you have the weapon, then you need to train yourself to use the safety as it exists, and to use it effectively regardless of how poorly designed it is. But those are separate issues.