I'd like to hear you go on about freedom like that after spending a few years in the prison system. And losing your life doesn't necessarily mean dying. Going to jail, losing everything you have, that's another way to look at losing your life. Sure, you can "start a new life", but it's not the one you had.
I see what you're saying, but if we change the rules for a "spiritual realm" we could just say easily say the rules here, in the phyical universe we know and love, used to be different. Or that our understanding of them is incomplete. I don't say all this only out of argument, either. I'm sure I believe in something, and I'm pretty sure it's not an omnipotent diety, but I'm not sure exactly what I believe in. (But I do admit that, all along the way, until I can offer some proof, that I could just be crazy. xD)
I'd take the money in a heartbeat. And you know what I'd do with a huge chunk of it? Fund other people's fights against the RIAA. Settling with her won't necessarily make the problem go away. It might even make it worse, because then she has the money to fund more litigation against them.
Well, there's ReactOS, but it's still in alpha. More importantly, if there WERE a windows work-a-like, Microsoft would probably totally pwn them in court.
It takes more faith to say "I don't know how the world came to be" than to say "god must have made it"? How do you come to that conclusion?
Follow me a moment on this. If I say the world exists, and created itself, you'd disagree, and claim god created it. But if I asked who created god, you have to concede that he created himself.
You could claim that god always existed, thus never created himself, but then, I could also claim the world always existed, too. The thing is, I know the world exists because I'm living in it. I don't know if god exists or not. So how does it take more faith to believe the world exists without being created than to believe god created it?
Well, that's easy. Some people's work is more valuable than others'. There are many reasons for this. Some jobs require more education and training than others. A doctor needs to go through 11 years of expensive training and zero income post high school. A janitor can learn his trade in 11 minutes. We must pay the doctor more than the janitor, otherwise there would be no doctors.
I'm not sure I agree with this. The reason being, those 11 years the doctor spent in school, learning, the janitor was scrubbing toilets. If I had to choose between eleven years of education, or eleven years of scrubbing toilets, I'd gladly pick the education. But that's not the path for everyone. I think some people enjoy learning, and some people enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done.
The other issue with this one is the cost of eleven years of education. My opinion here is that the more educated people we have in the country, the better. The current system of grants and loans -- and this is coming from someone working a full time job to afford going to school full time -- is rather inadequate. The cost of tuition is skyrocketing, and the only solution is more loans. I think in a world with a fairer distribution of wealth, a good college education would be available to anyone, much in the same way a high school education is available to everyone.
So speaking as someone who one day plans to just live off of his investments, as you say, I'd like to remind you that a) if that happens, I believe I've earned it, and b) you (or anyone else) could do it too, if you only wanted to badly enough.
My granny always used to say, "Want in one hand, shit in the other -- see which one fills up first." Wanting something badly doesn't mean you'll get it. There are only so many resources. The economy is a finite thing, and the more one person has, the less someone else has. If this weren't true, everyone would be infinitely wealthy. Regardless of any other factors involved, I can't see how one human being deserves more than another. That could be in this country, or worldwide. Sure, it's idealistic, and some might say unrealistic, but I think it's not too crazy to think every human being should get an equal share of the world's resources, both natural and otherwise.
Well, it depends on the cost of living there. I guess I should have said the six figure bit applied only here in the U.S.A. If the cost of living if proportionately higher, then, no, $100,000 there isn't "rich".
My last comment means basically this: Everyone contributes, in some way, to the economy. (Most) everyone works, and everyone pays bills. Everyone needs the same basic services. What is the virtue by which one person deserves a much higher standard of living than someone else? Is it really fair to say that Person A deserves an order of magnitude more than Person B? I'd rather see the wealth spread around more evenly. I'd like to see people that do a lot of hard work in low-paying jobs have a higher standard of living, and, frankly, see people who don't actually work, but just live off investments have a lower standard of living. The thing is, the wealthy people who live off investments are the ones who decide how much to pay the low paid worker. And those wealthy people are the ones in government who make all the laws. (heh.)
Ideally, the "free market" would take care of this. I think the problem is that employers don't need to compete for employees. It's pretty typical here for someone to worry about being fired, but I've never once seen an employer worried about people leaving their company.
Someone who, because they possess more money, has standard of living is significantly better than than of the standard of living those who have a median income for their location.
For an example: I live in Nashville, TN. There is a town directly south of here named Franklin, and a town a little South East of Nashville called Murfreesboro. Franklin is generally thought of as a "rich" neighborhood, while Murfreesboro is considered "average", or maybe a little above average. A quick look to wikipedia reveals the median income for M'boro is $39,705, while the median income of Franklin was whopping 65% higher $65,605.
These two cities are only about 30-40 miles apart. Both cities, however, are in "middle tennessee". The price of goods and services is approximately the same in both areas. Housing in Franklin is comparably expensive, when you take into account the quality of the property.
I generally consider "rich" anyone who makes six digits a year. While that might seem a low number to a lot of people, it's my opinion that anyone should be able to live very comfortably on less than $100,000 a year. I feel that, generally speaking, most people who make more than that are taking more than their share out of the nation's prosperity.
You are exactly right. He may mean by "make software work right" that IE7 is only available to XP and Vista. Or that.NET 3.0 is only available to XP and Vista? Of course, I don't know of any software that uses.NET 3.0 right now. You can even get.NET 2.0 for Windows 98. I'm not sure what the complaint there is. I suspect I could install Windows 98 and still do everything I do today on XP.
It probably had crappy integrated video, while your P4 system had a dedicated video card. It's extremely common for laptops, even brand new ones, not to have much video processing capability. I don't see how you can blame vista for this. Did the game magically work better when you installed XP?
Exactly. At least in WoW, I think all the male toons (except the belfs) are ugly as sin. The typical straight guy argument for it is this: "Why would I want to stare at a man's ass for hours at a time?"
No... in a barter system, I trade you something I make or do for something I need. In this system, the people who have the most don't make or do anything. They just have everything. In a barter system, there would be no such thing as an "investor class" or the idea of "money work for you".
Uh, just to let you know, if you work and contribute in this economy at all, you're helping the lazy be lazy. The richest people in this country live only off their investments. Literally, they decide to pay you less, so they can have more. If you're lazy and so poor that you barely get by, that's one thing. Being lazy and living like a king is another thing. Let's fix the lazy kings before we fix the lazy peasants.
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You mean working to the rich people can sit around and spend money all day? Yeah!! Oh wait! That's capitalism! Sorry!
Hey, maybe we need to bring those days back. Shake things up a little.
I'm a raving lunatic, you insensitive clod!
FTP is pretty insecure...
Maybe he meant 96000 rubles? heh heh
I'd like to hear you go on about freedom like that after spending a few years in the prison system. And losing your life doesn't necessarily mean dying. Going to jail, losing everything you have, that's another way to look at losing your life. Sure, you can "start a new life", but it's not the one you had.
I see what you're saying, but if we change the rules for a "spiritual realm" we could just say easily say the rules here, in the phyical universe we know and love, used to be different. Or that our understanding of them is incomplete. I don't say all this only out of argument, either. I'm sure I believe in something, and I'm pretty sure it's not an omnipotent diety, but I'm not sure exactly what I believe in. (But I do admit that, all along the way, until I can offer some proof, that I could just be crazy. xD)
That sig looks familiar (like one of my old ones), and that name looks familiar. Did you ever used to hang out in a.2600.w?
I'd take the money in a heartbeat. And you know what I'd do with a huge chunk of it? Fund other people's fights against the RIAA. Settling with her won't necessarily make the problem go away. It might even make it worse, because then she has the money to fund more litigation against them.
Well, there's ReactOS, but it's still in alpha. More importantly, if there WERE a windows work-a-like, Microsoft would probably totally pwn them in court.
It takes more faith to say "I don't know how the world came to be" than to say "god must have made it"? How do you come to that conclusion?
Follow me a moment on this. If I say the world exists, and created itself, you'd disagree, and claim god created it. But if I asked who created god, you have to concede that he created himself.
You could claim that god always existed, thus never created himself, but then, I could also claim the world always existed, too. The thing is, I know the world exists because I'm living in it. I don't know if god exists or not. So how does it take more faith to believe the world exists without being created than to believe god created it?
What's on the moon that's so great? All the other things you mentioned are useful to society. How does society benefit from trips to the moon?
You suggest we all wave our magic wands at blank paper?
The other issue with this one is the cost of eleven years of education. My opinion here is that the more educated people we have in the country, the better. The current system of grants and loans -- and this is coming from someone working a full time job to afford going to school full time -- is rather inadequate. The cost of tuition is skyrocketing, and the only solution is more loans. I think in a world with a fairer distribution of wealth, a good college education would be available to anyone, much in the same way a high school education is available to everyone.
My granny always used to say, "Want in one hand, shit in the other -- see which one fills up first." Wanting something badly doesn't mean you'll get it. There are only so many resources. The economy is a finite thing, and the more one person has, the less someone else has. If this weren't true, everyone would be infinitely wealthy. Regardless of any other factors involved, I can't see how one human being deserves more than another. That could be in this country, or worldwide. Sure, it's idealistic, and some might say unrealistic, but I think it's not too crazy to think every human being should get an equal share of the world's resources, both natural and otherwise.
Well, it depends on the cost of living there. I guess I should have said the six figure bit applied only here in the U.S.A. If the cost of living if proportionately higher, then, no, $100,000 there isn't "rich".
My last comment means basically this: Everyone contributes, in some way, to the economy. (Most) everyone works, and everyone pays bills. Everyone needs the same basic services. What is the virtue by which one person deserves a much higher standard of living than someone else? Is it really fair to say that Person A deserves an order of magnitude more than Person B? I'd rather see the wealth spread around more evenly. I'd like to see people that do a lot of hard work in low-paying jobs have a higher standard of living, and, frankly, see people who don't actually work, but just live off investments have a lower standard of living. The thing is, the wealthy people who live off investments are the ones who decide how much to pay the low paid worker. And those wealthy people are the ones in government who make all the laws. (heh.)
Ideally, the "free market" would take care of this. I think the problem is that employers don't need to compete for employees. It's pretty typical here for someone to worry about being fired, but I've never once seen an employer worried about people leaving their company.
Bingo! This is too true. I suppose giving money to their stockholders for more mansions and lattes was a better idea though!
Someone who, because they possess more money, has standard of living is significantly better than than of the standard of living those who have a median income for their location.
For an example: I live in Nashville, TN. There is a town directly south of here named Franklin, and a town a little South East of Nashville called Murfreesboro. Franklin is generally thought of as a "rich" neighborhood, while Murfreesboro is considered "average", or maybe a little above average. A quick look to wikipedia reveals the median income for M'boro is $39,705, while the median income of Franklin was whopping 65% higher $65,605.
These two cities are only about 30-40 miles apart. Both cities, however, are in "middle tennessee". The price of goods and services is approximately the same in both areas. Housing in Franklin is comparably expensive, when you take into account the quality of the property.
I generally consider "rich" anyone who makes six digits a year. While that might seem a low number to a lot of people, it's my opinion that anyone should be able to live very comfortably on less than $100,000 a year. I feel that, generally speaking, most people who make more than that are taking more than their share out of the nation's prosperity.
You are exactly right. He may mean by "make software work right" that IE7 is only available to XP and Vista. Or that .NET 3.0 is only available to XP and Vista? Of course, I don't know of any software that uses .NET 3.0 right now. You can even get .NET 2.0 for Windows 98. I'm not sure what the complaint there is. I suspect I could install Windows 98 and still do everything I do today on XP.
It probably had crappy integrated video, while your P4 system had a dedicated video card. It's extremely common for laptops, even brand new ones, not to have much video processing capability. I don't see how you can blame vista for this. Did the game magically work better when you installed XP?
This is marked as funny, but I think makes a very insightful statement about wealth distribution in the world.
Exactly. At least in WoW, I think all the male toons (except the belfs) are ugly as sin. The typical straight guy argument for it is this: "Why would I want to stare at a man's ass for hours at a time?"
No... in a barter system, I trade you something I make or do for something I need. In this system, the people who have the most don't make or do anything. They just have everything. In a barter system, there would be no such thing as an "investor class" or the idea of "money work for you".
Uh, just to let you know, if you work and contribute in this economy at all, you're helping the lazy be lazy. The richest people in this country live only off their investments. Literally, they decide to pay you less, so they can have more. If you're lazy and so poor that you barely get by, that's one thing. Being lazy and living like a king is another thing. Let's fix the lazy kings before we fix the lazy peasants.
I don't have anything to say about the Clintons, but I do agree that Kucinich is the only democrat worth his salt.
In some parts, there is no competitor.