A free market is quite capable of failing to provide for people's needs
No, it isn't, because a free market has no responsibility to provide for peoples needs in the first place.
Most simply, if we're going to count the Soviets' mistreatment of their citizens as part of the price of their space program, then we should count the fact that homelessness exists as part of the price of ours. Is that totally unreasonable?
Yes, it is. Why? Because western governments and economies aren't meant to provide for people. The whole basis of a capitalist system is the idea that you are responsible for yourself. If you fail to provide for yourself that's not the government's fault, it's your own. When you starve, you have only yourself to blame. In a communist system, on the other hand, people starving becomes the responsibility of the government because the government controls every aspect of their lives, and of the economy. A communist government does not allow you the means to provide for yourself, so they automatically become responsible for you.
How can you possibly not understand the difference?
lol. That's what I love about us computer nerds, our priorities. Like, you just realised that something was wrong because so much money was spent on war during the 5 years it lasted and little can be spent on Internet's infrastructure, when black babies have been dying with no healthcare for the whole time.
The difference is, most of us are interested in having a fiber internet connection, while most of us are NOT interested in having black babies.
I hear the communist governments in Cuba and North Korea take real good care of their black babies, though. Maybe you can just ship them all there.
We starved plenty of kids in order to beat the Russians to the moon, it just wasn't so obviously the government's fault.
Congratulations, you win first prize for the "Stupidest comment I've ever read" award.
By the way, for about 30 seconds there I actually debated trying to explain exactly what it is about your comment that makes it so ludicrous. However, it's obvious that you are living on an entirely different planet than the rest of us, and I doubt my signal could penetrate your atmosphere without getting garbled.
What I think the GP was trying to point out is that when you look at our annual defense budget, why does $100bn (which could and probably would be spread throughout the course of several years) seem unreasonable?
Because it IS the federal governments job to provide for the security and defence of the nation, while it is NOT the federal governments job to provide you with a faster way to download porn. Kapish?
If I was Osama, I'd be laughing myself sick watching these clowns destroy that nasty, evil free society I hate so much. I couldn't do a better job with another hundred planes.
No, thundernuts, you just don't get it. These kinds of measures have been brought up, discussed, and dismissed, many, MANY times before. They will doubtless be discussed many, MANY times more. Our ability to discuss ideas openly and without restrictions is exactly what makes our society free, even when the topic at hand happens to be the proposed introduction of restrictions. Your overreaction is, sadly, rather typical.
Isn't paying out large settlements to record companies for copyright infringement similarly a bad idea, and for similar reasons?
More or less. It's deffinitely a bad idea to allow them to claim such ludicrous amounts as "damages", but for a different reason. There has to be some element of rationality to all human interactions, especially when it comes to the legal system. We don't execute people for spitting on the sidewalk, so why would we fine someone $1.5 million for stealing a $15 CD?
Realistically, the companies themselves know that they have no hope of recovering these types of fines from the average pirate. Even today, most cases are settled out of court, with the "offender" paying a much lower fine than the current maximums allow. For this reason, I think your fear that "pretty soon they're not interested in making/distributing/promoting music as much as they are interested in suing people" is not realistic. Frankly, I can't even see any reason why the companies would want to lobby for increased fines, since they're not likely to see an increase in payouts as a result. They're wasting their time and money on an irrational measure which will be of no benefit to anyone.
Totally off-topic, but since you decided to fudge some stats, I may as well respond: the maximum payout is not set at $600 but at $2,500. Larger amounts COULD be paid out...but my general experience has been that any time you start compensating locals for large amounts, they go out of their way to try and suck money out of you. When we were doing "peacekeeping" in Bosnia, there was a fairly large payout for pretty much everything from property damage caused by raids to vehicle damage caused in accidents. As a result, locals would often damage their own property in order to try and claim "compensation". They'd even go so far as to intentionally cause a head-on collision between a honda-civic sized shitbox and an armoured personnel carrier, which, unsurprisingly, most often lead to the death of the driver.
These things often seem like really great ideas to people sitting on their asses in North America, banging away at a computer keyboard, but in real life they don't work nearly as well. For instance, I can't count how many times some clown on an internet forum has suggested we offer a cash incentive for people to turn in explosives. Of course, the real world result of that would be a lot of civilians being killed while trying to bring in unstable ordinance. Or the suggestions that we pay people to turn in weapons - usually the only result is villagers selling us their WW1 era muskets, and then using the money to buy AK47's.
So, long story short, paying out large amounts for "wrongful deaths" is a bad idea. The cash currently paid out isn't meant to replace the person who was killed, and it's certainly not an admission of culpability or responsibility. It's just a gesture to say "we're sorry this had to happen to you, here's something to help you get back on your feet".
This is where you should describe your experience in more detail... Are you an an Army (Navy, Marine, Air Force) recruiter or some such?.. Or do you just know a few delinquents, who signed up and got straightened up?
I signed up in the 90's as a reserve infantryman, and spent a good chunk of my career as...well, as our equivalent of the American "Drill Instructor", although in addition to training new recruits I also taught various advanced courses. As a result, I have been directly responsible for something like 250 soldiers, and directly involved in the training of close to a thousand. When it's your responsibility to care for, break, and rebuild a group of men who have nothing in common except the uniform they wear, you have to get to know them pretty well. It's important to understand where they come from, what their personal lives are/were like, what incentives are likely to motivate them, and what punishments are likely to break them. I always made a point of getting to know as much about them as I could, so I think I've got a good background for making my assessment. But no, I don't have any scientific data to back me up.
Oh, and I'm still in the service these days, just not as an infantryman.
In all honesty, I don't think the result will be felt by the society in either case -- our total prison population is well over two millions, while our entire active-duty military is just over a million (Coast Guard included). Our military is simply too small to noticeably affect demographics
I like to think that a few good men can make a much bigger impact than a hundred criminals, but yes, you are quite likely correct. I was mainly objecting to your implication that "robot soldiers" would be of benefit to society due to a reduction in PTSD cases.
Asimov DIED in 1992! Sure, he wrote some good fiction, and had some interesting ideas about robots, but his work is more of a comment on human psychology than it is a guide to the future of robotics.
Your argument is akin to saying that a manned mission to Mars will only piss off the Martians, since H.G. Wells explained to us just how warlike and evil they are. Let's not be silly. A properly programmed robot would neither "go into roblock" nor "go berserk out of frustration". Robots, like computers, follow their programming - period. They cannot have a moral crisis and go insane, and they cannot disobey their programming. If you've deluded yourself into believing otherwise, then you REALLY need to turn off the TV, put down the sci-fi books, and maybe attend a couple college courses on electronics or programming. It'd do you good to get some REAL knowledge.
If Israel had treated the Arabs rationally and compassionately to begin with, they wouldn't have a lot of the problems that they do today.
Even that's giving the Arabs too much credit. After all, the vast (and I mean VAST) majority of the UN partitioned land was granted to the various Arab factions, with the Jews receiving a tiny sliver of land, most of which they already owned. And the Israeli Deceleration of Establishment states that:
WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.
Which is certainly a lot more reasonable than anything we've ever heard out of the Arab states regarding Israel.
But, regardless, even if we pretend that the Israelis were just as irrational and bloodthirsty as the Arabs have been, that's all in the past. Today, Israel has managed to make peace with all of it's neighbours....except Palestine. And the reason for this is quite clear, as you yourself pointed out: "when's the last time a ceasefire's worked for more than a month?".
All you need to do is think back, and ask yourself "Has Palestine EVER made any concessions to Israel, which it did not violate immediately afterwards?".
If the goal is achieved, there'd be even less to worry about, than with today's human soldiers, whose stress-disorders and other ailments often make them a burden and a danger to the civil society...
While PTSD is certainly a legitimate (and serious) problem, it's been my experience that the vast majority of the men and women joining the combat arms end up as much better human beings because of their training and indoctrination. For every soldier who becomes a "problem" because of PTSD, there's probably a dozen more who would have ended up as gang members, drug dealers, or petty criminals if it weren't for the opportunity which they found in the military. If you eliminate those opportunities by replacing them with robots, do you really think the result will be good for our society?
Gotcha. The guys I know who worked on those ops all referred to the film canisters as "satellites". Checking online now, I see most articles refer to them the same way. Weird. I guess, technically speaking, even a film canister dropped from orbit is a satellite, but I certainly had a much different mental-picture when I first heard the stories. Thanks for the correction.
So not only did you not RTFA, but you didn't even RTFS?
The thing ran out of fuel. It's rather difficult to control the de-orbiting of a satellite which has no fuel.
With that said, though, before servicing satellites in orbit became common-place (mostly thanks to the CANADARM), the US military used to catch de-orbiting satellites using transport aircraft. Sounds weird, I know, but it's true. What's the chances that this satellite might have been outfitted to be caught?
Heh. Judging by the quotes, Gordon Gekko is as far away from being a "rabid capitalist" as it's possible to get. He's more of a legal crime-lord, or a modern day warlord. He believes that the only way to get ahead is by destroying his opponent. That's not capitalism - sure, true capitalists always try to outperform the competition, but no "rabid capitalist" would ever suggest that wealth is a finite resource, or that the only way to get it is by utterly destroying the competition.
I had to look up Gordon Gekko to figure out what the hell you were talking about. Here's the first quote that pops up on wiki:
"It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another."
Which is pretty much the exact opposite of what I believe. If anything, it's much closer to what the OP was suggesting; that the western way of life is based on the exploitation of other nations. This seems to be a common theme amongst people who do not understand economics - the belief that money cannot be created or destroyed, and so all wealthy people must acquire their fortunes by making others poor. In reality, wealth is created every time one professional exchanges goods with another professional, and the rich and successful tend to drag the poor and incompetent along with them, making everyone richer in the process. But you can't be a hip anti-establishment "progressive" without blaming the rich and powerful for all of the worlds problems, so....well, there we are. The end result is that the worlds poor and the worlds "progressives" have brainwashed each other into believing that the creation of wealth is evil, because being rich must means you're exploiting someone else. It's a rather twisted way of looking at things, but it's frighteningly common.
BTW, as far as I can tell, Gordon Gekko seems to be a socialists caricature of a modern businessman. You didn't actually take that movie seriously, did you?
Ultranova already answered you pretty well, but to expand on that, flexibility is a key tenet of military might. The more options you have at your disposal, the better able you are to respond to any circumstance. Even in day to day lifer there's really only two ways to discourage an opponent:
1) Make him think you're friggin' nuts. In other words, if he tries to mug you, you're going to slaughter his whole family. Mobs operate this way.
2) Make him realize that you are so professional at the use of force that ANY infraction on his part will always result in a measured and effective response from you.
That's about it. In order for your scenario to be effective, the US would have to assume a policy of....well, insanity. You'd have to be willing, and make others believe that you're willing, to drop nukes at the slightest provocation. Otherwise, other nations will simply keep pushing you until either you collapse or you snap and finally fire off your nukes.
Just as importantly, without military might, you lose influence on the world stage. It's not very politically correct to point out that military strength is still one of the most important factors in global diplomacy, but that doesn't make it any less true. And if you don't understand how influence translates into safety, well, there's not much I can say in a slashdot comment to make it clear to you. I could probably recommend some books, but that's about it.
I'm not sure what you are trying to argue, exactly, but the OP was attempting to explain to us that all the suffering in the world is a direct result of greedy westerners who can never get enough power. Which is a load of horse shit. If you're simply arguing that humans co-operate on a regular basis, then yes, absolutely, I agree with you. We cooperate with each other when we think it's in our best interest, which is what creates wealth and achievement. But if you're trying to pile on the OP's bandwagon, well, you're not doing much better than he was.
I do not see the world as a giant game of monopoly where we are endlessly seeking to increase our power and wealth.
That's your own problem. Why should the government let your naiveté influence policy? If you want to stick your head in the dirt and ignore the rest of the world, fine, but the rest of us will go on seeking to constantly increase our knowledge, wealth, productivity, and power. Maybe you've got some metaphysical touchy-feely answer as to what the purpose of life is, but for me, and billions like me, it's achieving as much as I possibly can today, and improving as much as I possibly can tomorrow.
The world is full of people who all share a common desire to live a happy and fulfilling life, yet millions die for the pointless greedy ambitions of a few powerful men.
That's because the world is also full of people who all share a common desire to be the alpha-male, and control what everyone else does, says, reads, eats, fucks, and even thinks. And those people would put a serious hurtin' on sheep like you if you didn't have a military and police force to protect you. Whether you like it or not, it IS a dog-eat-dog world out there. Playing ostrich isn't going to change that fact.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it is. Why? Because western governments and economies aren't meant to provide for people. The whole basis of a capitalist system is the idea that you are responsible for yourself. If you fail to provide for yourself that's not the government's fault, it's your own. When you starve, you have only yourself to blame. In a communist system, on the other hand, people starving becomes the responsibility of the government because the government controls every aspect of their lives, and of the economy. A communist government does not allow you the means to provide for yourself, so they automatically become responsible for you.
How can you possibly not understand the difference?
I hear the communist governments in Cuba and North Korea take real good care of their black babies, though. Maybe you can just ship them all there.
By the way, for about 30 seconds there I actually debated trying to explain exactly what it is about your comment that makes it so ludicrous. However, it's obvious that you are living on an entirely different planet than the rest of us, and I doubt my signal could penetrate your atmosphere without getting garbled.
Realistically, the companies themselves know that they have no hope of recovering these types of fines from the average pirate. Even today, most cases are settled out of court, with the "offender" paying a much lower fine than the current maximums allow. For this reason, I think your fear that "pretty soon they're not interested in making/distributing/promoting music as much as they are interested in suing people" is not realistic. Frankly, I can't even see any reason why the companies would want to lobby for increased fines, since they're not likely to see an increase in payouts as a result. They're wasting their time and money on an irrational measure which will be of no benefit to anyone.
Totally off-topic, but since you decided to fudge some stats, I may as well respond: the maximum payout is not set at $600 but at $2,500. Larger amounts COULD be paid out...but my general experience has been that any time you start compensating locals for large amounts, they go out of their way to try and suck money out of you. When we were doing "peacekeeping" in Bosnia, there was a fairly large payout for pretty much everything from property damage caused by raids to vehicle damage caused in accidents. As a result, locals would often damage their own property in order to try and claim "compensation". They'd even go so far as to intentionally cause a head-on collision between a honda-civic sized shitbox and an armoured personnel carrier, which, unsurprisingly, most often lead to the death of the driver.
These things often seem like really great ideas to people sitting on their asses in North America, banging away at a computer keyboard, but in real life they don't work nearly as well. For instance, I can't count how many times some clown on an internet forum has suggested we offer a cash incentive for people to turn in explosives. Of course, the real world result of that would be a lot of civilians being killed while trying to bring in unstable ordinance. Or the suggestions that we pay people to turn in weapons - usually the only result is villagers selling us their WW1 era muskets, and then using the money to buy AK47's.
So, long story short, paying out large amounts for "wrongful deaths" is a bad idea. The cash currently paid out isn't meant to replace the person who was killed, and it's certainly not an admission of culpability or responsibility. It's just a gesture to say "we're sorry this had to happen to you, here's something to help you get back on your feet".
Your failure is not my problem. Try a /whimsical tag next time.
Oh, and I'm still in the service these days, just not as an infantryman.
I like to think that a few good men can make a much bigger impact than a hundred criminals, but yes, you are quite likely correct. I was mainly objecting to your implication that "robot soldiers" would be of benefit to society due to a reduction in PTSD cases.
Asimov DIED in 1992! Sure, he wrote some good fiction, and had some interesting ideas about robots, but his work is more of a comment on human psychology than it is a guide to the future of robotics.
Your argument is akin to saying that a manned mission to Mars will only piss off the Martians, since H.G. Wells explained to us just how warlike and evil they are. Let's not be silly. A properly programmed robot would neither "go into roblock" nor "go berserk out of frustration". Robots, like computers, follow their programming - period. They cannot have a moral crisis and go insane, and they cannot disobey their programming. If you've deluded yourself into believing otherwise, then you REALLY need to turn off the TV, put down the sci-fi books, and maybe attend a couple college courses on electronics or programming. It'd do you good to get some REAL knowledge.
Natalie Portman? You know, judging by her acting in the new Star Wars trilogy, I'm pretty sure she IS a robot....
WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.
Which is certainly a lot more reasonable than anything we've ever heard out of the Arab states regarding Israel.
But, regardless, even if we pretend that the Israelis were just as irrational and bloodthirsty as the Arabs have been, that's all in the past. Today, Israel has managed to make peace with all of it's neighbours....except Palestine. And the reason for this is quite clear, as you yourself pointed out: "when's the last time a ceasefire's worked for more than a month?".
All you need to do is think back, and ask yourself "Has Palestine EVER made any concessions to Israel, which it did not violate immediately afterwards?".
Gotcha. The guys I know who worked on those ops all referred to the film canisters as "satellites". Checking online now, I see most articles refer to them the same way. Weird. I guess, technically speaking, even a film canister dropped from orbit is a satellite, but I certainly had a much different mental-picture when I first heard the stories. Thanks for the correction.
Hrm. Your post is intelligent, well thought out, and rational.
U MUST B 1 OF DEM!!!!!11!
That was a joke, right? It's so hard to tell sometimes....
The thing ran out of fuel. It's rather difficult to control the de-orbiting of a satellite which has no fuel.
With that said, though, before servicing satellites in orbit became common-place (mostly thanks to the CANADARM), the US military used to catch de-orbiting satellites using transport aircraft. Sounds weird, I know, but it's true. What's the chances that this satellite might have been outfitted to be caught?
Maybe so, but the probability of a flamebait comment mocking the US not being modded "funny" is even lower.
Heh. Judging by the quotes, Gordon Gekko is as far away from being a "rabid capitalist" as it's possible to get. He's more of a legal crime-lord, or a modern day warlord. He believes that the only way to get ahead is by destroying his opponent. That's not capitalism - sure, true capitalists always try to outperform the competition, but no "rabid capitalist" would ever suggest that wealth is a finite resource, or that the only way to get it is by utterly destroying the competition.
I had to look up Gordon Gekko to figure out what the hell you were talking about. Here's the first quote that pops up on wiki:
"It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another."
Which is pretty much the exact opposite of what I believe. If anything, it's much closer to what the OP was suggesting; that the western way of life is based on the exploitation of other nations. This seems to be a common theme amongst people who do not understand economics - the belief that money cannot be created or destroyed, and so all wealthy people must acquire their fortunes by making others poor. In reality, wealth is created every time one professional exchanges goods with another professional, and the rich and successful tend to drag the poor and incompetent along with them, making everyone richer in the process. But you can't be a hip anti-establishment "progressive" without blaming the rich and powerful for all of the worlds problems, so....well, there we are. The end result is that the worlds poor and the worlds "progressives" have brainwashed each other into believing that the creation of wealth is evil, because being rich must means you're exploiting someone else. It's a rather twisted way of looking at things, but it's frighteningly common.
BTW, as far as I can tell, Gordon Gekko seems to be a socialists caricature of a modern businessman. You didn't actually take that movie seriously, did you?
Ultranova already answered you pretty well, but to expand on that, flexibility is a key tenet of military might. The more options you have at your disposal, the better able you are to respond to any circumstance. Even in day to day lifer there's really only two ways to discourage an opponent:
1) Make him think you're friggin' nuts. In other words, if he tries to mug you, you're going to slaughter his whole family. Mobs operate this way.
2) Make him realize that you are so professional at the use of force that ANY infraction on his part will always result in a measured and effective response from you.
That's about it. In order for your scenario to be effective, the US would have to assume a policy of....well, insanity. You'd have to be willing, and make others believe that you're willing, to drop nukes at the slightest provocation. Otherwise, other nations will simply keep pushing you until either you collapse or you snap and finally fire off your nukes.
Just as importantly, without military might, you lose influence on the world stage. It's not very politically correct to point out that military strength is still one of the most important factors in global diplomacy, but that doesn't make it any less true. And if you don't understand how influence translates into safety, well, there's not much I can say in a slashdot comment to make it clear to you. I could probably recommend some books, but that's about it.
I'm not sure what you are trying to argue, exactly, but the OP was attempting to explain to us that all the suffering in the world is a direct result of greedy westerners who can never get enough power. Which is a load of horse shit. If you're simply arguing that humans co-operate on a regular basis, then yes, absolutely, I agree with you. We cooperate with each other when we think it's in our best interest, which is what creates wealth and achievement. But if you're trying to pile on the OP's bandwagon, well, you're not doing much better than he was.
That's because the world is also full of people who all share a common desire to be the alpha-male, and control what everyone else does, says, reads, eats, fucks, and even thinks. And those people would put a serious hurtin' on sheep like you if you didn't have a military and police force to protect you. Whether you like it or not, it IS a dog-eat-dog world out there. Playing ostrich isn't going to change that fact.