Well, for starters, Jared Diamond wrote a fascinating book about it called "Collapse". It's a more popular-scientific expansion of the scientific work of Joseph Tainter "The Collapse of Complex Societies" (but I've never tried to read that).
Basically, IIRC, the first point where you notice that your society is in collapse, is that long-term regular maintenance of infrastructure isn't done anymore. For example, in Nîmes in a dry part of France, the Romans built a large aquaduct. But aquaducts need to be maintained, otherwise the kettle stone (limestone) and moss clogs up the flow over the years.
Being in the periphery of the empire, Nîmes faired probably a lot better than central Rome, but when the aquaduct was no longer maintained, less people probably wanted to live there.
As one of the 1% non-idiotic commenters on a BBC blog put it: "sure they spy on Angela Merkel; who knows she may be planning to blow up the Bundestag!"
Just because the public will was to put Obama in office, that doesn't mean the public will was health insurance reform that just makes everything worse for the majority of people.
I don't understand; if the will of the people was to stop Obamacare, then why didn't the majority vote for Romney at the last election?
I must say it was a brilliant and very fair tactic of the Republicans to postpone Obamacare until after the elections: very reasonable to say "well, Obamacare is such a big change, allow the people to vote for it first, and if they vote Republican, then they don't want it".
On the other hand it smacks of total disrespect for the will of the electorate what happened last few weeks. In any other country, the people wouldn't vote anymore for a political party that did that kind of tricks (nothing wrong with doing it, but there would be new elections ASAP, a caretaker government, and the Republicans would be reduced to 10% of current size).
In view of the first part of your statement, can you back up the claim that there is no oversight whatsoever? That seems to be an assertion without evidence.
That's a good point. I haven't paid good attention to the primary sources of information here. In my mind, the past months of news have coagulated to an impression that mr. James Clapper was questioned by the US Government oversight committee of the security apparatus (I don't know the official name, or whether that's Senate or House of Representatives -- feel free to clarify) "does the NSA do massive scale surveillance of the US population?" and that mr. Clapper denied this, and that later on Snowden gave proof that such massive-scale surveillance had indeed taken place (forget if it was PRISM or XKeyscore). That would make it lying ( under oath? dunno) to your direct oversight committee, so that means no effective oversight, if he does not at least get prosecuted to be impeached, amirite?
This is the impression formed in my mind, the mind of an outsider, not even an American.
You have often used more or less clear language to point out inconsistencies, untruths etc. in other Slashdotter's postings, and you seem to greatly appreciate the work of the NSA. Please, point out the flaws in this scandalous picture I just painted. I promise I won't shout "DIE" at you like some anonymous coward. You are smart, make the picture of the crime clearer for us.
So, let me get it straight: you support criminals undermining your democracy by shady bribes, because at least they're not the (politically) wrong type of criminals?
That's... crazy talk. Why not send them all to jail for trying to undermine democracy, or at least vote for a political party that wants to deflate the influence of money on American politics, so that it's one person one vote and not Terry Pratchett's version of the Golden Rule.
Why do we not need a study on cyclical climate change? Recognizing how much of global warming isn't due to humans is also important.
Yeah, I don't get that either--what Milankovich discovered in the 1940's is fascinating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles Let's hope the experiments don't have to run for 25 000 - 100 000 years though.
That may be true, but strangely enough it doesn't translate into many votes for the American Green Party or others:
election 2012: Democrats 332 electors, Republicans 206 electors, total 538, that's all of them ZERO VOTES for the Green Party.
Well, I'd imagine Merkel has spent most of her days and nights last 5 years phoning her colleagues about managing the crisis and Greece, which was caused by Credit Default Swaps from... the same country that's been tapping her phone all those years! I think you in the USA haven't a notion how hard the economic crisis has hit Europe, what damage it has caused. Google youth employment in Spain for example. And it's up to the serious brand of politicians to mend the wounds for many years.
And then, last week there was all this hot air about the (for Europeans) crazy "we'll crash the world economy if you don't stop a healthcare law that looks too much like the Europeans have enjoyed the past 50 years!"
Small wonder she's even less gruntled than usual.. A few more insults and she'll form a coalition with the Greens and Left (now that would be an interesting development).
Actually, WMDs WERE found in Iraq; I remember reading in the newspaper that a (U.S?) soldier found a gas grenade on the side of the road somewhere in Iraq. I guess it wasn't widely reported, though...
Merkel isn't justifying her opposition to the NSA solely by claiming a duty to protect German's privacy, she's unhappy her personal phone got tapped.
Well, don't blame her; see it from her personal perspective: in her youth, her parents' phone was tapped by the Stasi, and now her phone is tapped by the NSA (oh ok according to Obama not anymore). It would bring.. associations and similarities.. to a person's memory. Germany didn't get rid of the Stasi on order to have it replaced by the NSA (I honestly believe). And don't underestimate Merkel, she's an extremely capable politician, who appears to genuinely have her country's well-being as a high priority.
She's just not into macho alpha-male threatening language, which probably makes it difficult to decypher by Americans (cultural difference).
This morning I saw a British politician claiming that without the ability to tap into all devices, then the public is never going to be able to be safe from terrorism.
Well, that's a half-truth, unless he/she added: "with the ability to tap into all devices, the public is never going to be safe from terrorism either."
Exercise: take the politician's sentence, and substitute s/tap into all devices/ban all cooking devices/. It makes just as much sense (a non-sequitur, I believe).
The American efforts to protect the American public from those sneaky terrorists also benefits the UK public by protecting the from the same sneaky terrorists, or so believes the governments.
So you're saying that since WWII, the American government protected the UK public from the IRA? Did the UK government believe this?
The point of my post was to illustrate how the UK government can indeed see a double standard, not to ascribe any particular ethical standpoint to the situation.
Point taken, I guess.
Isn't the man paid to protect the security of the UK public?
No. The man is paid to lead the UK government that protects the UK public as best it can, and in the opinion of many people within that UK government, the biggest threat is not the UK government itself or the US government, but rather the non-allied foreigners who want to cause harm to the UK and US public.
In the case of phone hacking, the Guardian supported the security of the public by exposing and denouncing a crime.
Agreed. Let's make a note that "the Guardian" in your first sentence means: the UK newspaper "the Guardian", and "the public" refers to "the UK public".
In the case of the Snowden documents, the Guardian is exposing and denouncing a legal operation protecting the security of the public, and in doing so it's helping criminals evade detection.
Well.. it could be true what you say.. but I haven't read anything about this yet. Because: in your second sentence, "the public" seems to refer to "the USA public". "The Guardian" is still the UK newspaper. It may be, as you say, that this UK newspaper has endangered the security of the UK public, but I don't see how (link please). I do hope that you didn't use two diferent meanings for "the public" in those two sentences!
In "it's helping criminals evade detection", I completely disagree: I think the newspaper has done its best to expose the criminals running the USA NSA. (I'm assuming here that lying under oath to your oversight committee, is a crime in the USA, but I haven't heard anything of the impeachment procedure repercussions yet).
Your third sentence though is really weird:
To Cameron, it looks like the Guardian is acting inconsistently, publishing whatever it wants not based on ethics, but rather based on the potential for public outrage.
I really believed from the news that David Cameron worked for the UK government, not the USA government. Isn't the man paid to protect the security of the UK public? Then why is he complaining that the Grauniad helps him with this, not once but twice FFS!
What do you suggest, then? Maybe someone can calculate what the effect would be if the Americans paid as much petrol tax as the Europeans. (I mean: the effect on CO2 production; not the political repercussions).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, for starters, Jared Diamond wrote a fascinating book about it called "Collapse". It's a more popular-scientific expansion of the scientific work of Joseph Tainter "The Collapse of Complex Societies" (but I've never tried to read that).
Basically, IIRC, the first point where you notice that your society is in collapse, is that long-term regular maintenance of infrastructure isn't done anymore. For example, in Nîmes in a dry part of France, the Romans built a large aquaduct. But aquaducts need to be maintained, otherwise the kettle stone (limestone) and moss clogs up the flow over the years.
Being in the periphery of the empire, Nîmes faired probably a lot better than central Rome, but when the aquaduct was no longer maintained, less people probably wanted to live there.
As one of the 1% non-idiotic commenters on a BBC blog put it: "sure they spy on Angela Merkel; who knows she may be planning to blow up the Bundestag!"
I don't understand; if the will of the people was to stop Obamacare, then why didn't the majority vote for Romney at the last election?
I must say it was a brilliant and very fair tactic of the Republicans to postpone Obamacare until after the elections: very reasonable to say "well, Obamacare is such a big change, allow the people to vote for it first, and if they vote Republican, then they don't want it".
On the other hand it smacks of total disrespect for the will of the electorate what happened last few weeks. In any other country, the people wouldn't vote anymore for a political party that did that kind of tricks (nothing wrong with doing it, but there would be new elections ASAP, a caretaker government, and the Republicans would be reduced to 10% of current size).
That's a good point. I haven't paid good attention to the primary sources of information here. In my mind, the past months of news have coagulated to an impression that mr. James Clapper was questioned by the US Government oversight committee of the security apparatus (I don't know the official name, or whether that's Senate or House of Representatives -- feel free to clarify) "does the NSA do massive scale surveillance of the US population?" and that mr. Clapper denied this, and that later on Snowden gave proof that such massive-scale surveillance had indeed taken place (forget if it was PRISM or XKeyscore). That would make it lying ( under oath? dunno) to your direct oversight committee, so that means no effective oversight, if he does not at least get prosecuted to be impeached, amirite?
This is the impression formed in my mind, the mind of an outsider, not even an American.
You have often used more or less clear language to point out inconsistencies, untruths etc. in other Slashdotter's postings, and you seem to greatly appreciate the work of the NSA. Please, point out the flaws in this scandalous picture I just painted. I promise I won't shout "DIE" at you like some anonymous coward. You are smart, make the picture of the crime clearer for us.
So, let me get it straight: you support criminals undermining your democracy by shady bribes, because at least they're not the (politically) wrong type of criminals?
... crazy talk. Why not send them all to jail for trying to undermine democracy, or at least vote for a political party that wants to deflate the influence of money on American politics, so that it's one person one vote and not Terry Pratchett's version of the Golden Rule.
That's
AMERICA: THE BEST GOVERNMENT MONEY CAN BUY
Rome didn't have leaking "hot potato" nuclear waste depôts
Yeah, I don't get that either--what Milankovich discovered in the 1940's is fascinating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
Let's hope the experiments don't have to run for 25 000 - 100 000 years though.
That may be true, but strangely enough it doesn't translate into many votes for the American Green Party or others: election 2012: Democrats 332 electors, Republicans 206 electors, total 538, that's all of them ZERO VOTES for the Green Party.
Well, I'd imagine Merkel has spent most of her days and nights last 5 years phoning her colleagues about managing the crisis and Greece, which was caused by Credit Default Swaps from ... the same country that's been tapping her phone all those years! I think you in the USA haven't a notion how hard the economic crisis has hit Europe, what damage it has caused. Google youth employment in Spain for example. And it's up to the serious brand of politicians to mend the wounds for many years.
And then, last week there was all this hot air about the (for Europeans) crazy "we'll crash the world economy if you don't stop a healthcare law that looks too much like the Europeans have enjoyed the past 50 years!"
Small wonder she's even less gruntled than usual.. A few more insults and she'll form a coalition with the Greens and Left (now that would be an interesting development).
Actually, WMDs WERE found in Iraq; I remember reading in the newspaper that a (U.S?) soldier found a gas grenade on the side of the road somewhere in Iraq. I guess it wasn't widely reported, though...
Oh, so that's what went wrong with Oliver North's order .. the address label.
"quick! he's phoning about scrapping our budget and getting Clapper and Alexander arrested! Prepare the 16-ton weight NOW!"
Especially if you note which politician landed the word "shitstorm" in the dictionary
Well, don't blame her; see it from her personal perspective: in her youth, her parents' phone was tapped by the Stasi, and now her phone is tapped by the NSA (oh ok according to Obama not anymore). It would bring .. associations and similarities .. to a person's memory. Germany didn't get rid of the Stasi on order to have it replaced by the NSA (I honestly believe). And don't underestimate Merkel, she's an extremely capable politician, who appears to genuinely have her country's well-being as a high priority.
She's just not into macho alpha-male threatening language, which probably makes it difficult to decypher by Americans (cultural difference).
Well, that's a half-truth, unless he/she added: "with the ability to tap into all devices, the public is never going to be safe from terrorism either."
Exercise: take the politician's sentence, and substitute s/tap into all devices/ban all cooking devices/. It makes just as much sense (a non-sequitur, I believe).
Er was eens een vrouwtje uit Naarden ...
So you're saying that since WWII, the American government protected the UK public from the IRA? Did the UK government believe this?
Point taken, I guess.
OK well put.
Yeah.. I didn't make it up myself, though; I read it somewhere (probably the Register): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#References_in_popular_culture
Does that mean that George Michael will do another video clip about it? I had to laugh a lot at the last one.
Agreed. Let's make a note that "the Guardian" in your first sentence means: the UK newspaper "the Guardian", and "the public" refers to "the UK public".
Well.. it could be true what you say.. but I haven't read anything about this yet. Because: in your second sentence, "the public" seems to refer to "the USA public". "The Guardian" is still the UK newspaper. It may be, as you say, that this UK newspaper has endangered the security of the UK public, but I don't see how (link please). I do hope that you didn't use two diferent meanings for "the public" in those two sentences!
In "it's helping criminals evade detection", I completely disagree: I think the newspaper has done its best to expose the criminals running the USA NSA. (I'm assuming here that lying under oath to your oversight committee, is a crime in the USA, but I haven't heard anything of the impeachment procedure repercussions yet).
Your third sentence though is really weird:
I really believed from the news that David Cameron worked for the UK government, not the USA government. Isn't the man paid to protect the security of the UK public? Then why is he complaining that the Grauniad helps him with this, not once but twice FFS!
What do you suggest, then? Maybe someone can calculate what the effect would be if the Americans paid as much petrol tax as the Europeans. (I mean: the effect on CO2 production; not the political repercussions).
Is that the border between Haïti and the Dominican Republic, by any chance? I read about that in one of Jared Diamond's books.
Well, in my personal view, you're still better off as an insensitive clod, than as an insensitive pebble.
N.B.: maybe this poem is accidentally on-topic as well!
Thank you, that was fascinating to read.
I think I could give it a try, but you'd have to pay me first, otherwise it would be immoral.