Of course slower release is better. The atmosphere is not a bottle! There are many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative, at work. The danger is not the total amount released, but entirely the speed.
You're right, of course... But the rate of slow in order to make your correctness relevant is... unrealistic.
It's not going to take humanity millions of years to burn through our fuels, and plate tectonics simply aren't going to work on a human timescale.
Maybe you were just being pedantic, but for the purposes of the article, slower (at least on human timescales) just isn't going to make a lick of difference.
To reduce CO2 climatically, it has to go somewhere which is entirely out of the biosphere and stay there. For instance, coal is excellent carbon sequestration.
This isn't true. Living biomass will work as well. Of course it will go back into the atmosphere when it dies and decays, but as long as it regrows, the cycle's balance is altered toward solid carbon instead of gaseous. We need to plant a lot more trees. Overall Earth forestation needs to increase to offset the coal being burnt. And it would, if left to its own devices... But man is stronger than trees.
It's a little more complicated... Photosynthesis isn't enough.
We need need to alter the balance of the cycle, we need that photosynthesis to turn that CO2 into a nice green carbon sink. That is- we need to increase the amount of biomass on the planet. If we're pulling the shit out of the dirt- we need to be increasing biomass, or we're fucking with the planet's thermodynamic equilibrium.
Simply replanting what we cut down isn't enough- we need to offset what we pull out of the dirt with an increase in overall biomass. I really, really, really don't see that happening.
The FICA trusts were all emptied by Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. They no longer contain marketable securities, and instead contain IOUs with no economic value. Much as if you loaned yourself all the money in your 401k - the 401k still has an asset, worth the same as before, but it's useless to your retirement plans.
I've heard this claim pulled around quite a bit... It's patently false, though. They don't contain marketable securities, in the fact that they're special treasury bills- but they are valuable securities, regardless. As long as we continue to grow and pay taxes, those securities are as valuable as any other treasury security.
All spending by Social Security must come from taxation. Pre-Reagan, the SSA could actually sell the securities it held on the market, as they were normal federal bonds. That's no longer the case. The sad thing is, almost no one noticed. There was some complaining when the looting started, but we moved on the the next political scandal and ignored it for 20 years.
All spending by Social Security must come from taxation. I don't think we agree. FICA taxation.
Sure, the interest on the FICA trusts come from general taxation, but they're not the anywhere close to the majority of that income, and for now, at least, the trusts are solvent.
Money is always fungible. Doesn't matter what the tax is called, the government will spent it where it wants.
You're losing me. This isn't what happens. Not until the trusts are allowed to become insolvent.
BTW, FICA won't even cover the outlays it's intended for, going forward (the combined unfunded liabilities of SS and Medi* are $860k per taxpayer - never gonna happen). Breaking our promise there is only a matter of time (or we'll inflate our way out, but the promise isn't a dollar amount, it the ability to subsist on the money). And of course we lack the political courage to do this gracefully, 20 years ahead of a crisis.
Agreed- entirely. The trusts will not remain solvent perpetually. It is a problem that *must* be addressed... But conflating the future problem and what may be done about it as today's problem isn't really fair.
The majority of your income taxes go to the military, flatly, period. FICA entitlements are their own set of problems right on the horizon, but today, we (well, this is subjective, I admit) get a lot more money out of those relatively small taxes per percentage of marginal rate than we do from income taxes, and a lot more value per dollar.
Not sure if intellectually dishonest, or you just don't know...
Expenditures from FICA-filled trusts aren't really fair to include in the list with the others. Even if we didn't send those checks, the government would not have more general money to spend on anything not funded by FICA taxes.
Unless you're proposing spending FICA withheld taxes on infrastructure?
I would say "healthy baseline" means at last something that both parties agree to and enjoy. That is NOT something that watching random internet porn is going to teach to young adults.
I find that assertion pretty perplexing.
Like saying "An extensive vocabulary is great for success and happiness in life. That is NOT something that reading books is going to teach to young adults."
What, specifically, is your beef with porn?
Does your BBQ belch out tar fines, nicotine, and carcinogens?
Serious question? Minus the nicotine- you bet your ass it does. Wonderful, beautiful smelling tar and carcinogens... on top of a dozen other chemicals that are truly terrible for you.
And as a smoker, I just think it's the nice thing to do for me to stay away from other people while I do it, even if I'm not yet required to...
It just seems courteous. People have asthma, people can be strongly offended by the smell. Some people aren't, but it doesn't really kill me to cater to the sensitivities of generally nice people just trying to enjoy some fresh air.
I generally walk across to the other side of the street if I see someone coming when I smoke outside my house.
Generally only smoke on the outskirts of a park when I'm at one, so that I can maneuver away from people.
I keep a fleece for smoking in the trunk of my car so that it doesn't stink up my regular clothing too much.
I think I should have a right to smoke outside.
We all pollute the air, and every one of us who walks outside is breathing in a lot more car exhaust than smoke.
But I also don't think my right to use the air makes it OK for me to be an asshole. I'd rather walk across the street, or not smoke at all, than give someone like you an asthma attack.
I don't know... For a while now, we've been entirely dependent on bond sales to fund our government. Flooding the market with $750B in treasury bills is a pretty big deal. They would have to raise interest rates on new bond sales considerably to make them more attractive than the secondary market bills that just got flooded... all $750B of them. It would create a rather huge fucking fiscal mess if Saudi Arabia did this. Wouldn't be the end of the world, wouldn't be a new depression, but the shit show on Capitol Hill would be enough to make you want to shoot yourself.
You mistake my wording as partisanship... perhaps because your brain is stuck in that football team mentality.
The Republicans (and/or this constituents) in general are more supportive of torture, they are thus more likely to support a President's usage of it.
The people who generally back the Democrats are the people who marched over this topic already, and tried to remedy it as soon as they had the power to do so... Meaning I assume, that they wouldn't even hesitate before flaying a President that orderede the practice.
Stay on target.
Perhaps... But in the instance that the refused order is in fact illegal (clearly so, and please don't throw your own list of things you *think* are illegal at me as a counter-argument) the President himself will likely not be far behind him.
I think even the Republicans would burn one of their own at the stake if he/she ordered something that was quite clearly illegal and defined as an impeachable offense (high crime or misdemeanor) that the DOJ couldn't write a plausible bullshit justification for.
I don't think they'd have much choice. They want to keep their seats, and even their own would turn on them like rabid dogs at a president not just skirting the law, but openly flouting it. We re-wrote the laws on torture to be clearer after Bush, in the hopes that a future DOJ can't so easily write a bullshit justification for the practice that turns an impeachment proceeding into a popularity contest.
Solar and other alternative energy companies are springing up propped up by tax money
And Oil companies sprung forth propped up by government, as well... You do know that, right? Do you consider their manner of origin so truly different, or are you being intellectually dishonest?
They are delivering energy and chemical products used in 95% of our daily lives
Not to be a dick... But you're better than that argument. Buggy whips. They're the massively capitally invested energy source du jour, nothing more. There were energy sources before them, there shall be energy sources after them.
To say that solar or wind can replace oil and gas and coal on merits today is disingenuous.
Depends on your definition of merits. If the merit of oil, gas, and coal is that it is cheap, then sure, you're right.
But you know as well as I that it is cheap because of massive amounts of public dollars going into its exploration and development.
The free market may decide to replace oil and gas and coal when the prices become right for it.
Again with this bullshit. You know *damn* well the fossil fuel industry has *nothing* to do with the free market. You're lying through your teeth.
You are correct about this...
However, it would be quite foolish to straight up doubt the "A" for lack of evidence, because- well, thermodynamics.
If anything, I'd be more concerned why you're having trouble finding the evidence for the "A", as it *must* be there, because again, thermodynamics.
That means you're missing pieces of the system, and you should be afraid that you're altering a system without understanding it.
WHY IS IT THAT THE EFFECTS ON CLIMATE ARE SOMEHOW ON THE SUPPLIER OF OIL AND GAS PRODUCTS AS OPPOSED TO ON THE USER?
I'd agree, largely... Except our wonderful system of campaign finance and "public welfare organizations" allows the suppliers of those products to use the gains of their energy source- energy being essential to civilization, though their source not nearly being irreplaceable- to convince the masses and the politicians that have either conflicts of interest, or are beholden to their campaign financiers, that there is no hidden cost to their snake oil, and that it is folly to look elsewhere for energy.
And that makes them evil, and far more "complicit" than the ignorant.
Don't forget the huge benefits we get from energy sources.
FTFY.
Extra credit: See if said benefits exist with other energy sources without the terrible hidden cost of trying to give the Earth a Cretacious period climate again.
That was also something I looked at when I decided to go HUE.
Sadly, they then decided to intentionally disable the HUEs ability to interact with other Zigbee LL bulbs.
Bulbs that were otherwise completely compatible- just to pitch a rent-seeking "Friends of Hue" platform to bulb manufacturers.
They disabled the crippleware feature after intense outcry, but I'm still now a little worried that I backed the wrong horse in the HA arena.
I have since began working on my own Zigbee HA/LL hub using open hardware and software... Surprisingly easy, as almost all of the hardware required and protocol information can be found.. Hardest part is trying to find a good mobile interface... I'm not terribly excited by OpenHAB.
And then you lost it.
In political science, North Korea is in fact a republic, regardless of how wickedly messed up it is. None of the aspects of a "theocratic hereditary oligarchy" preclude something from being a republic.
As to a country being a democracy if there is an election, it depends on whether the people on the ballot are actually up to the people at all.
No, this is absolutely false. I think we can all agree that your personal definition of democracy is the ideal, though.
As to the 'we're a republic"/"we're a democracy"... The united states is a democratic republic.
Sure is.
In that people have a vote but the day to day ruler of the country is "the law".
Except in extreme cases where preemption of the law is allowed. Do we cease to be a republic, then?
Any country where the highest law "is the law"... is a republic.
That being the case, we must have been the first ever republic, ya?
If the king is the highest law or the Kim family... then you do not have a republic.
If you have a King at all, you do not have a republic. Even in a constitutional monarchy, the government's right to govern is derived from the monarch. In practice, the monarch gets overthrown if he doesn't consent, in political science, these terms follow technical definition, not practiced.
To have a democracy in china, it would have to be permissible for someone other than the communist party to run for election.
This is again false. Agreed, ideal, but false. You're treating Democracy and Republic as if they are no true scotsman fallacies. None of them exist in purest form. They can't, and never will. And as such, they are used as descriptors while categorizing the spectrum of governance of a state.
Statements of absolutes are for elementary school civics.
Don't, for example, conflate the raw attribute "democracy" with a more precise contemporary term like "liberal democracy". That works for laymen, not for debate about political science.
So they do not have a democracy because the people do not actually choose.
Again, no true scotsman.
The people elect people to govern them, they are as such, a democracy.
You lack the authority to deny every state that every existed that had voting restrictions their place as a democracy, including the one you likely live in.
If the people voted for... I don't know... an anti communist to run a province in China, would that person be allowed on the ballot much less allowed to serve his term in office?
Probably not. Again, I guess we aren't one either. Remember what happened to the last US socialist party candidate that had significant popular vote turnout?
I believe he was labeled a "traitor" by the powers that be. (FDR)
The fact that the military in China literally swears loyality to the Communist Party of China directly is another damning point of evidence in my favor here
Not at all. Unless you were trying to make the argument that the military of China is an arm of the party in power... Which I wouldn't argue with... But isn't entirely orthogonal to the discussion.
China is not a democracy.
Not a Karma-Shockian democracy- agreed. Not a liberal democracy- agreed.
Much more akin to a classical democracy, which bears little resemblance to a modern liberal democracy.
So why do people like me bring this up? Because people like YOU think you know what a democracy or a republic is...
It's not just me chief- It's political science as a whole... But I can see now that you know better. Forgive my hubris.
The rules are (at least as I'm understanding them) quite exactly like I describe.
They are.
It's not just go ask and get it.
No- it's not. It varies state-by-state, and the redder state, the more impossible it is to get on the rolls.
This is due to how the money is wast^H^H^H^Hspent in states intent to see it fail, from my personal experience with family members going through the programs.
There's a shit ton of people who are not covered.
Yep. 2 members of my family, of whom I am their welfare.
Again- it's all about the state. Welfare in Oklahoma is a lot different than welfare in Washington.
I know some of them. Chances are good that you do too.
He does. We all do. It's statistically unlikely that one wouldn't.
We are a constitutional federal representative democratic republic. I could throw more words in there if I wanted that would make the description of our state more and more accurate, but I think those will suffice.
North Korea is a republic.
China is a democracy (though a quite corrupt one).
Methods of choosing your governors (regardless of party voting limitations) determines whether or not you are a democracy.
Whether sovereignty is vested in the public, or a single person determines whether or not you are a republic.
Why the shit do people keep dragging this "We're not a democracy, we're a republic!" shit-stain line through conversations? Where the hell did it originate from? Is it some "republicans" are better than "democracts" thing? Honest question.
No, I understand the original point. I just take exception to the assertion that popular often means better or well used, scrutinised and understood.
Particularly in the open source world, I find that very much not to be the case.
The most popular software (excluding ubiquitous software at the core of it all) often suffers from very poor design, and in many cases you do yourself a disservice by using it instead of writing something better.
I've been sucked into too many cloud stacks, too many HA stacks, and far too many buzzword distributed filesystem/block layers to give the idea that "popular means good" any kind of credibility. That's executive thinking, not programmer thinking. Re-use software if it doesn't suck. If it does suck, write something better. Too much of the internet is perl bandaids around shitty software.
So does the super-wheel outperform the popular wheel even when the opportunity cost of the time and effort that went into inventing it in a world where the popular wheel already existed is taken into account?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Part of being a good programmer is knowing when it wiser to use already-written software. It's important to view the software from the standpoint of its merit, not its popularity.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course slower release is better. The atmosphere is not a bottle! There are many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative, at work. The danger is not the total amount released, but entirely the speed.
You're right, of course... But the rate of slow in order to make your correctness relevant is... unrealistic.
It's not going to take humanity millions of years to burn through our fuels, and plate tectonics simply aren't going to work on a human timescale.
Maybe you were just being pedantic, but for the purposes of the article, slower (at least on human timescales) just isn't going to make a lick of difference.
To reduce CO2 climatically, it has to go somewhere which is entirely out of the biosphere and stay there. For instance, coal is excellent carbon sequestration.
This isn't true. Living biomass will work as well. Of course it will go back into the atmosphere when it dies and decays, but as long as it regrows, the cycle's balance is altered toward solid carbon instead of gaseous. We need to plant a lot more trees. Overall Earth forestation needs to increase to offset the coal being burnt. And it would, if left to its own devices... But man is stronger than trees.
It's a little more complicated... Photosynthesis isn't enough.
We need need to alter the balance of the cycle, we need that photosynthesis to turn that CO2 into a nice green carbon sink. That is- we need to increase the amount of biomass on the planet. If we're pulling the shit out of the dirt- we need to be increasing biomass, or we're fucking with the planet's thermodynamic equilibrium.
Simply replanting what we cut down isn't enough- we need to offset what we pull out of the dirt with an increase in overall biomass. I really, really, really don't see that happening.
Crap. * I don't think we disagree
The FICA trusts were all emptied by Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. They no longer contain marketable securities, and instead contain IOUs with no economic value. Much as if you loaned yourself all the money in your 401k - the 401k still has an asset, worth the same as before, but it's useless to your retirement plans.
I've heard this claim pulled around quite a bit... It's patently false, though. They don't contain marketable securities, in the fact that they're special treasury bills- but they are valuable securities, regardless. As long as we continue to grow and pay taxes, those securities are as valuable as any other treasury security.
All spending by Social Security must come from taxation. Pre-Reagan, the SSA could actually sell the securities it held on the market, as they were normal federal bonds. That's no longer the case. The sad thing is, almost no one noticed. There was some complaining when the looting started, but we moved on the the next political scandal and ignored it for 20 years.
All spending by Social Security must come from taxation. I don't think we agree. FICA taxation.
Sure, the interest on the FICA trusts come from general taxation, but they're not the anywhere close to the majority of that income, and for now, at least, the trusts are solvent.
Money is always fungible. Doesn't matter what the tax is called, the government will spent it where it wants.
You're losing me. This isn't what happens. Not until the trusts are allowed to become insolvent.
BTW, FICA won't even cover the outlays it's intended for, going forward (the combined unfunded liabilities of SS and Medi* are $860k per taxpayer - never gonna happen). Breaking our promise there is only a matter of time (or we'll inflate our way out, but the promise isn't a dollar amount, it the ability to subsist on the money). And of course we lack the political courage to do this gracefully, 20 years ahead of a crisis.
Agreed- entirely. The trusts will not remain solvent perpetually. It is a problem that *must* be addressed... But conflating the future problem and what may be done about it as today's problem isn't really fair. The majority of your income taxes go to the military, flatly, period. FICA entitlements are their own set of problems right on the horizon, but today, we (well, this is subjective, I admit) get a lot more money out of those relatively small taxes per percentage of marginal rate than we do from income taxes, and a lot more value per dollar.
* 68% mailing checks to the old and the poor
Not sure if intellectually dishonest, or you just don't know...
Expenditures from FICA-filled trusts aren't really fair to include in the list with the others. Even if we didn't send those checks, the government would not have more general money to spend on anything not funded by FICA taxes.
Unless you're proposing spending FICA withheld taxes on infrastructure?
I would say "healthy baseline" means at last something that both parties agree to and enjoy. That is NOT something that watching random internet porn is going to teach to young adults.
I find that assertion pretty perplexing.
Like saying "An extensive vocabulary is great for success and happiness in life. That is NOT something that reading books is going to teach to young adults."
What, specifically, is your beef with porn?
Does your BBQ belch out tar fines, nicotine, and carcinogens?
Serious question? Minus the nicotine- you bet your ass it does. Wonderful, beautiful smelling tar and carcinogens... on top of a dozen other chemicals that are truly terrible for you.
But gods it's such a beautiful flavor and smell.
And as a smoker, I just think it's the nice thing to do for me to stay away from other people while I do it, even if I'm not yet required to...
It just seems courteous. People have asthma, people can be strongly offended by the smell. Some people aren't, but it doesn't really kill me to cater to the sensitivities of generally nice people just trying to enjoy some fresh air.
I generally walk across to the other side of the street if I see someone coming when I smoke outside my house.
Generally only smoke on the outskirts of a park when I'm at one, so that I can maneuver away from people.
I keep a fleece for smoking in the trunk of my car so that it doesn't stink up my regular clothing too much.
I think I should have a right to smoke outside.
We all pollute the air, and every one of us who walks outside is breathing in a lot more car exhaust than smoke.
But I also don't think my right to use the air makes it OK for me to be an asshole. I'd rather walk across the street, or not smoke at all, than give someone like you an asthma attack.
I don't know... For a while now, we've been entirely dependent on bond sales to fund our government. Flooding the market with $750B in treasury bills is a pretty big deal. They would have to raise interest rates on new bond sales considerably to make them more attractive than the secondary market bills that just got flooded... all $750B of them. It would create a rather huge fucking fiscal mess if Saudi Arabia did this. Wouldn't be the end of the world, wouldn't be a new depression, but the shit show on Capitol Hill would be enough to make you want to shoot yourself.
You mistake my wording as partisanship... perhaps because your brain is stuck in that football team mentality.
The Republicans (and/or this constituents) in general are more supportive of torture, they are thus more likely to support a President's usage of it.
The people who generally back the Democrats are the people who marched over this topic already, and tried to remedy it as soon as they had the power to do so...
Meaning I assume, that they wouldn't even hesitate before flaying a President that orderede the practice.
Stay on target.
Perhaps... But in the instance that the refused order is in fact illegal (clearly so, and please don't throw your own list of things you *think* are illegal at me as a counter-argument) the President himself will likely not be far behind him.
I think even the Republicans would burn one of their own at the stake if he/she ordered something that was quite clearly illegal and defined as an impeachable offense (high crime or misdemeanor) that the DOJ couldn't write a plausible bullshit justification for.
I don't think they'd have much choice. They want to keep their seats, and even their own would turn on them like rabid dogs at a president not just skirting the law, but openly flouting it. We re-wrote the laws on torture to be clearer after Bush, in the hopes that a future DOJ can't so easily write a bullshit justification for the practice that turns an impeachment proceeding into a popularity contest.
Solar and other alternative energy companies are springing up propped up by tax money
And Oil companies sprung forth propped up by government, as well... You do know that, right? Do you consider their manner of origin so truly different, or are you being intellectually dishonest?
They are delivering energy and chemical products used in 95% of our daily lives
Not to be a dick... But you're better than that argument. Buggy whips. They're the massively capitally invested energy source du jour, nothing more. There were energy sources before them, there shall be energy sources after them.
To say that solar or wind can replace oil and gas and coal on merits today is disingenuous.
Depends on your definition of merits. If the merit of oil, gas, and coal is that it is cheap, then sure, you're right.
But you know as well as I that it is cheap because of massive amounts of public dollars going into its exploration and development.
The free market may decide to replace oil and gas and coal when the prices become right for it.
Again with this bullshit. You know *damn* well the fossil fuel industry has *nothing* to do with the free market. You're lying through your teeth.
You are correct about this...
However, it would be quite foolish to straight up doubt the "A" for lack of evidence, because- well, thermodynamics.
If anything, I'd be more concerned why you're having trouble finding the evidence for the "A", as it *must* be there, because again, thermodynamics.
That means you're missing pieces of the system, and you should be afraid that you're altering a system without understanding it.
Terrible example. The Dust Bowl was in fact caused, and fixed, by the same species
WHY IS IT THAT THE EFFECTS ON CLIMATE ARE SOMEHOW ON THE SUPPLIER OF OIL AND GAS PRODUCTS AS OPPOSED TO ON THE USER?
I'd agree, largely... Except our wonderful system of campaign finance and "public welfare organizations" allows the suppliers of those products to use the gains of their energy source- energy being essential to civilization, though their source not nearly being irreplaceable- to convince the masses and the politicians that have either conflicts of interest, or are beholden to their campaign financiers, that there is no hidden cost to their snake oil, and that it is folly to look elsewhere for energy.
And that makes them evil, and far more "complicit" than the ignorant.
Agreed. The French had a far more effective solution to the problem. Off with their fucking heads.
Don't forget the huge benefits we get from energy sources.
FTFY.
Extra credit: See if said benefits exist with other energy sources without the terrible hidden cost of trying to give the Earth a Cretacious period climate again.
That was also something I looked at when I decided to go HUE.
Sadly, they then decided to intentionally disable the HUEs ability to interact with other Zigbee LL bulbs.
Bulbs that were otherwise completely compatible- just to pitch a rent-seeking "Friends of Hue" platform to bulb manufacturers.
They disabled the crippleware feature after intense outcry, but I'm still now a little worried that I backed the wrong horse in the HA arena.
I have since began working on my own Zigbee HA/LL hub using open hardware and software... Surprisingly easy, as almost all of the hardware required and protocol information can be found.. Hardest part is trying to find a good mobile interface... I'm not terribly excited by OpenHAB.
North Korea is a theocratic hereditary oligarchy.
Correct.
Not a republic.
And then you lost it.
In political science, North Korea is in fact a republic, regardless of how wickedly messed up it is. None of the aspects of a "theocratic hereditary oligarchy" preclude something from being a republic.
As to a country being a democracy if there is an election, it depends on whether the people on the ballot are actually up to the people at all.
No, this is absolutely false. I think we can all agree that your personal definition of democracy is the ideal, though.
As to the 'we're a republic"/"we're a democracy"... The united states is a democratic republic.
Sure is.
In that people have a vote but the day to day ruler of the country is "the law".
Except in extreme cases where preemption of the law is allowed. Do we cease to be a republic, then?
Any country where the highest law "is the law"... is a republic.
That being the case, we must have been the first ever republic, ya?
If the king is the highest law or the Kim family... then you do not have a republic.
If you have a King at all, you do not have a republic. Even in a constitutional monarchy, the government's right to govern is derived from the monarch. In practice, the monarch gets overthrown if he doesn't consent, in political science, these terms follow technical definition, not practiced.
To have a democracy in china, it would have to be permissible for someone other than the communist party to run for election.
This is again false. Agreed, ideal, but false. You're treating Democracy and Republic as if they are no true scotsman fallacies. None of them exist in purest form. They can't, and never will. And as such, they are used as descriptors while categorizing the spectrum of governance of a state.
Statements of absolutes are for elementary school civics.
Don't, for example, conflate the raw attribute "democracy" with a more precise contemporary term like "liberal democracy". That works for laymen, not for debate about political science.
So they do not have a democracy because the people do not actually choose.
Again, no true scotsman.
The people elect people to govern them, they are as such, a democracy.
You lack the authority to deny every state that every existed that had voting restrictions their place as a democracy, including the one you likely live in.
If the people voted for... I don't know... an anti communist to run a province in China, would that person be allowed on the ballot much less allowed to serve his term in office?
Probably not. Again, I guess we aren't one either. Remember what happened to the last US socialist party candidate that had significant popular vote turnout?
I believe he was labeled a "traitor" by the powers that be. (FDR)
The fact that the military in China literally swears loyality to the Communist Party of China directly is another damning point of evidence in my favor here
Not at all. Unless you were trying to make the argument that the military of China is an arm of the party in power... Which I wouldn't argue with... But isn't entirely orthogonal to the discussion.
China is not a democracy.
Not a Karma-Shockian democracy- agreed. Not a liberal democracy- agreed.
Much more akin to a classical democracy, which bears little resemblance to a modern liberal democracy.
So why do people like me bring this up? Because people like YOU think you know what a democracy or a republic is...
It's not just me chief- It's political science as a whole... But I can see now that you know better. Forgive my hubris.
The rules are (at least as I'm understanding them) quite exactly like I describe.
They are.
It's not just go ask and get it.
No- it's not. It varies state-by-state, and the redder state, the more impossible it is to get on the rolls.
This is due to how the money is wast^H^H^H^Hspent in states intent to see it fail, from my personal experience with family members going through the programs.
There's a shit ton of people who are not covered.
Yep. 2 members of my family, of whom I am their welfare.
Again- it's all about the state. Welfare in Oklahoma is a lot different than welfare in Washington.
I know some of them. Chances are good that you do too.
He does. We all do. It's statistically unlikely that one wouldn't.
Certainly there is- Everything that's done is done by God's will, no?
Ah, ignorance.
We are a constitutional federal representative democratic republic. I could throw more words in there if I wanted that would make the description of our state more and more accurate, but I think those will suffice.
North Korea is a republic.
China is a democracy (though a quite corrupt one).
Methods of choosing your governors (regardless of party voting limitations) determines whether or not you are a democracy.
Whether sovereignty is vested in the public, or a single person determines whether or not you are a republic.
Why the shit do people keep dragging this "We're not a democracy, we're a republic!" shit-stain line through conversations? Where the hell did it originate from? Is it some "republicans" are better than "democracts" thing? Honest question.
No, I understand the original point. I just take exception to the assertion that popular often means better or well used, scrutinised and understood.
Particularly in the open source world, I find that very much not to be the case.
The most popular software (excluding ubiquitous software at the core of it all) often suffers from very poor design, and in many cases you do yourself a disservice by using it instead of writing something better.
I've been sucked into too many cloud stacks, too many HA stacks, and far too many buzzword distributed filesystem/block layers to give the idea that "popular means good" any kind of credibility. That's executive thinking, not programmer thinking. Re-use software if it doesn't suck. If it does suck, write something better. Too much of the internet is perl bandaids around shitty software.
So does the super-wheel outperform the popular wheel even when the opportunity cost of the time and effort that went into inventing it in a world where the popular wheel already existed is taken into account?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Part of being a good programmer is knowing when it wiser to use already-written software. It's important to view the software from the standpoint of its merit, not its popularity.