Second - why would Sony ship every PS3 which HDMI cables, when such a tiny percentage of homes even have HDMI ready TV's
But if so few people have HDMI capable TV's... er, why support it in the first place? And if they are going to support it... er, why not get the bulk discount on the cables and pass it on to buyers?
It's like you're saying they should support HDMI, but not enough to... support HDMI.
me: No, that's you believing the Marxist bit hook, line, and sinker. If their work *really* has noticeably more value than that, someone can bid away the labor.
you: Only if they have the capital.
So only your employer has the capital? No one competes with them?
me:and the fact that the employer, not the worker, discovered the opportunity that allowed his labor to actually have a use in the first place
you:If the worker had "discovered the opportunity" then they wouldn't have the capital to set up the company in the first place, however much they might want to.
Let's compare apples to apples here. If a worker were given free money with which he could start a business, yes, he could try out his own ideas. He could risk it all on the chance he's right and can do it better. Or, more likely, if he had that kind of capital, he'd loan it out himself, draw the interest near-risk-free, and continue to work for a wage. I'm not sure what that proves though.
Anyway, you seem to be confusing "employer" and owner. Often it is not the person with the capital who sets up the business.
The distinction was irrelevant in the context I was using it. In any case, once you concede that someone who doesn't have the capital but has an idea can raise the funds, you objections about workers not being able to start competing businesses on account of "not having funds" withers.
But the current company is already in existence and entrenched so you are already starting from a point of weakness. The closest viable option I can think of is a worker buyout, which tend to be quite successful (e.g. Tower Colliery [wikipedia.org]). The conditions where they can occur are pretty rare though.
They are rare *because* they are typically rather pointless. Even if successful, the workers end up just becoming owners and hire their replacements at the market rate. If they "tend to be quite successful", you would see a lot more of them. Me, sorry, I'm not going to put ten years of savings into one venture in which I have to trust all of my co-partners not to screw over the company. But that's just me.
Anyway, it's not really anything to do with communism.
Unless you are capable of reading a discussion in context, in which you would have seen that the person who initiated the mention of "communism" defined it in terms of worker ownership of the means of production at which they work. I agree that's not strictly speaking, communism, but then, I also don't like to change definitions of a term in the middle of a discussion and act confused. But again, that's just me. You may be different.
Oh, puh-friggin-leeze. Please don't try to deny the obvious. The economists who most strongly support Social Security freely admit it is a Ponzi schme, just a *good*, socially-beneficial Ponzi scheme. You shouldn't try to deny every negative aspect of policies you like, just because you like them. Just concede that it's a Ponzi scheme, and go on to show why it's a good idea nevertheless.
SS is certainly unsustainable. If for example, most workers decided not to have kids, and immigration levels were too low, it would require an enormous multiple of each worker's salary to pay beneficiaries, which obviously isn't possible. More importantly, if government couldn't compel new "investors", it would collapse pretty quickly, as few people would voluntarily join such a program.
I'm not even going to touch your "starve the beast" point, except to say that I hope it's something you grow out of.
Yeah, kinda reminds me of those lamers who strut around with their dicks stiff in the air talking about the great things "we" did at "our" university... just... someone other than him that actually did it... but hey, he can be proud of it, right? Even though, you know, he didn't do it.
People don't own their own workplaces because they fear the risk, it is because a) most people don't work for public-traded companies and b) most people lack the capital to do so. When people are offered the opportunity to buy shares in their workplace, they often do so.
Right, but they don't put *all of their savings* into it, which is exactly what a "communist" (as you've described it, i.e., workers own their own workplaces) society would look like. If no workplace can be absentee-owned, the only investment you can make is in your workplace.
Trade "their share in their workplace"? But people don't start off with a share in their workplace!
I was speaking relative to how a "communist" (your sense above) society would start out, in which people do have shares. In that situation, they would definitely want to trade their shares to insure against the risk. And even if we were talking about a capitalist society, then yes, in the sense that by taking a wage, you *forgo* purchasing the shares, yes, you are "trading" the opportunity to lock yourself into one company's fate, for the fate of the entire economy.
They only get paid a proportion of the value they produce as wages, whereas the rest gets creamed off in the form of profit.
No, that's you believing the Marxist bit hook, line, and sinker. If their work *really* has noticeably more value than that, someone can bid away the labor. You're merely assuming a certain formula properly describes the "true value" of labor and then noting the rest goes to profit. Once you deduct financial risk, time value of money (yes, it exists even in communism), search costs, and the fact that the employer, not the worker, discovered the opportunity that allowed his labor to actually have a use in the first place, you see that the worker isn't getting "shorted", and if he were running the company, he'd do the same thing -- pay the market rate that his employer is paying. (of course, this is describing a laissez faire economy. Today, many businesses are given artificial monopolies somewhere or another, but none of these seem to bother you.)
Of course, over time some people who are paid enough (not if you are being paid just enough to survive) manage to save some money to buy some shares in other companies, but they will usually not be able to compete with the owners of the company they work for.
Um, sorry, but most people earn far more than needed to survive. And yes, individually, you generally can't compete against 200 people. However, you and "the workers" can save up, over 5-10 years and invest ALL of that into ONE venture to compete with your employer, where you'd have the same costs, and have to bear significant risk. Sorry, it's just a bad deal. That's why no one takes it. It's not a capitalist conspiracy.
Not quite. *Most*, not all, Ponzi schemes are illegal. Governments generally reserve that right to themselves, and conduct them if they believe (not necessarily correctly) that to do so would serve the public interest. See: Social Security, issuing debt.
I'm not upset that you're criticizing capitalism, but that you're doing it out of ignorance:
It is the basic idea behind the Communist Manifesto: workers should reap the benefits of their own efforts,
No, communists believe that people should be paid "according to need" (remember that "from each according to ability..." line?), whether or not their efforts produced any benefit. Whether or not a given worker is completely useless.
this requires that everyone owns the means of production he uses, and since a factory can't be operated by a single person alone, it should be owned communally by all the workers working there who can then share the profits between themselves instead of having a rich capitalist - megacorp in these times - pocket them.
Again, the whole "corporations get all the profits". Well, they also get all the losses. Do you want to wait to get paid until the corporation has paid back all of its expenses? Do you want to refund wages when it sinks without earning a profit? If you think your employer is going to get rich, a neat trick is to "buy shares". In a worker-owned factory, every worker's ENTIRE investments are in the factory. If ANYTHING goes wrong -- over which they have no control -- they lose their job and their savings. Nice deal, huh? This is why people don't own their workplaces. It makes much more sense for them to trade their share in their workplace and buy shares in a broad array of businesses so as to insure themselves against the financial risk.
Contrary to what you have said above, it is possible to have worker-owned factories under capitalism. They're actually heavily tax favored. Of all the enormous unions out there, any one of them could have pooled members funds and performed a hostile takeover (look it up) of any existing corporation. The reason they don't is, a) the financial risk above, and b) they all realize that what would happen is that for a few days they would merrily "pay themselves" a "fair wage" until they realized they could just pay the market rate for other people to do it.
That line on every social security card that says "Not For Identification Purposes" is a lie, plain and simple.
Because it's logically impossible. They can make people not ask for it, but they can't make people interact with you, so if a person/business couples one to the other,... there you go.
(Small digression: this is like employment law, e.g. min. wage, anti-discrimination. They can make someone *who actually decides to hire people* obey certain practices, but they can't *make people decide to hire* to begin with.)
Asking for it for medical care is probably because of the long, venerated history of people stiffing emergency rooms. I don't see why they can't wait, as they would if you couldn't respond at the time. I actually had an experience like you at age 20 (!). I woke up early one morning with chest pains so bad I wanted to die, so I called 911 (and got forwarded!). Luckily they subsided before paramedics arrived, and even though I didn't need to pay them (part of the campus medical services or whatever), they made absolutely certain to get my SSN.
Also, they could actually, you know, *tell you* why they need the SSN, so you can say, "Oh, don't trouble yourself. I'll just give you a deposit/pre-pay so you needn't rely on my creditworthiness." (British accent optional) I hated having to give them that, then have them look me up, only to find, "Oh, we can't trust you... deposit needed."
Another thing on my wish list would be not being told that I have "no credit history" after two years of paying bills and rent.
As far as I know, the NFL's storyline is the same each year. Now, what I want to see is a football video game that *really* mimics what happens in the *real* NFL. Want to bribe a ref? Try it. Honeytrap the other team's key players? Do it. Dope your players? Hook 'em up. Tactical penalties to injur others? Assassinations? Fixing matches? At least make it an option.
The problem is, I... don't think that game would go over well with the Jack Thompson crowd.
Exactly -- and what you said made me want to clarify what I said above. If, like in your example about the projector, you know what you plan to use the computer for, and belief its benefit to justify the cost, that's fine. Then you should buy it. But a lot of the pressure to put more computers in schools is driven by "hey, all those rich people have computers, so if we start using them that will make us so much more effective than we were before!". It's like the plan is:
1) Buy overpriced computers without knowing what to do with them. 2) ??? 3) Education!
Is it so bad to oppose laptops? I oppose them (disclaimer: have no kids) in schools on the grounds that they probably provide little educational value given their costs. They are typically given (like "a computer in every classroom") as part of a fad to use the coolest new technology, irrespective of any actual benefit. This is not to say students don't need computers -- they do -- but that's what the computer lab is for. The "enthusiastic parent" referenced didn't see her child master PowerPoint skills because because he had a laptop -- that was because he had access to *a computer*. He didn't need to have it on the go to accomplish that.
I'm all for using the best available technology -- as long as it makes you better off than before.
I think that has a lot to do with why I specified full body DDR "that can detect 3D body motions". A silhouette does not specify three dimensions (or twirls, or kicks, etc.)
The hold of the copyright cannot legally stop me from recording my LPs on cassette tape, for example.
They *don't* legally stop you from copying. They *physically* stop you. As far as I know, no DRM prevents you from *playing the music aloud* and recording that sound onto another medium. I know, I know, "but that's low quality!". Yeah, sorry about the inconveniences of doing something typically done to break copyright law. Let me guess: you also consider it an abhorrent, totalitarian violation of rights that you have to fill out two lines notifying the government when you withdraw over $10,000 in cash. Did I call that one right?
Not only are they going to have lightsabers, but now:
Spidey's webshooters, and Wolverine's claws
Seems there's no limit to the possibilities. You can act out whatever superhero or whatnot fantasy you've had. Hack up zombies with chainsaws holstered to your arms? Have a Wiimote strapped to the back of your wrist to operate like Boba Fett's cord launcher? "Punch enemies" realistically? Have a Wiimote on each limb for a more complex version of DDR that can detect 3D body motions? Why not!
I'm really interested to see what developers will put on the market. (of what they'll let hobbyists do...)
I had really been looking forward to seeing them implement some innovative ideas that were rumored for it, like including a touch screen w/ stylus, and allowing it to fold out with a "second screen" so it's protected when not in use and the screen(s) don't get all messed up from exposure. If not them, who?
Also, I've seen people start using {{dubious}} for claims that need a citation and seem not to be right, but that you aren't ready to delete, just to signify less reliability.
Blu-ray was the main reason gamers weren't able to get the new machine last spring: The launch had to be postponed because the new format's digital rights management system did not yet satisfy every Hollywood studio.'"
Blu-ray was the *main* reason? So, otherwise, they were basically ready to launch before May? So, a bunch of launch titles had *already* been completed by developers and should have had full functionality at E3, and it's possible to send reviewers ready-for-gaming (but crippled) PS3s with these games? And the "tilt controller" was ready to go then?
Is it just me, or were several other equally important issues preventing the Spring launch?
Yeah, he is contorting the concept of a myth for that one. Normally, when one "debunks" a myth, one shows reliable information that pretty conclusively removes "reasonable" doubt to the contrary. To "debunk" the "myth" that the PS3 will fail, it seems that you need to say, "according to this visit on my time machine..."
Yes it is. Since you spend your whole day around the geek crowd, you probably don't know that the average person doesn't know how to get started downloading music, and the reason that information can't be more easily brought to them is because... OF COPYRIGHT LAWS!
Slashdot Mirror
Second - why would Sony ship every PS3 which HDMI cables, when such a tiny percentage of homes even have HDMI ready TV's
... er, why support it in the first place? And if they are going to support it ... er, why not get the bulk discount on the cables and pass it on to buyers?
... support HDMI.
But if so few people have HDMI capable TV's
It's like you're saying they should support HDMI, but not enough to
me: No, that's you believing the Marxist bit hook, line, and sinker. If their work *really* has noticeably more value than that, someone can bid away the labor.
you: Only if they have the capital.
So only your employer has the capital? No one competes with them?
me:and the fact that the employer, not the worker, discovered the opportunity that allowed his labor to actually have a use in the first place
you:If the worker had "discovered the opportunity" then they wouldn't have the capital to set up the company in the first place, however much they might want to.
Let's compare apples to apples here. If a worker were given free money with which he could start a business, yes, he could try out his own ideas. He could risk it all on the chance he's right and can do it better. Or, more likely, if he had that kind of capital, he'd loan it out himself, draw the interest near-risk-free, and continue to work for a wage. I'm not sure what that proves though.
Anyway, you seem to be confusing "employer" and owner. Often it is not the person with the capital who sets up the business.
The distinction was irrelevant in the context I was using it. In any case, once you concede that someone who doesn't have the capital but has an idea can raise the funds, you objections about workers not being able to start competing businesses on account of "not having funds" withers.
But the current company is already in existence and entrenched so you are already starting from a point of weakness. The closest viable option I can think of is a worker buyout, which tend to be quite successful (e.g. Tower Colliery [wikipedia.org]). The conditions where they can occur are pretty rare though.
They are rare *because* they are typically rather pointless. Even if successful, the workers end up just becoming owners and hire their replacements at the market rate. If they "tend to be quite successful", you would see a lot more of them. Me, sorry, I'm not going to put ten years of savings into one venture in which I have to trust all of my co-partners not to screw over the company. But that's just me.
Anyway, it's not really anything to do with communism.
Unless you are capable of reading a discussion in context, in which you would have seen that the person who initiated the mention of "communism" defined it in terms of worker ownership of the means of production at which they work. I agree that's not strictly speaking, communism, but then, I also don't like to change definitions of a term in the middle of a discussion and act confused. But again, that's just me. You may be different.
Oh, puh-friggin-leeze. Please don't try to deny the obvious. The economists who most strongly support Social Security freely admit it is a Ponzi schme, just a *good*, socially-beneficial Ponzi scheme. You shouldn't try to deny every negative aspect of policies you like, just because you like them. Just concede that it's a Ponzi scheme, and go on to show why it's a good idea nevertheless.
SS is certainly unsustainable. If for example, most workers decided not to have kids, and immigration levels were too low, it would require an enormous multiple of each worker's salary to pay beneficiaries, which obviously isn't possible. More importantly, if government couldn't compel new "investors", it would collapse pretty quickly, as few people would voluntarily join such a program.
I'm not even going to touch your "starve the beast" point, except to say that I hope it's something you grow out of.
Yeah, kinda reminds me of those lamers who strut around with their dicks stiff in the air talking about the great things "we" did at "our" university ... just ... someone other than him that actually did it ... but hey, he can be proud of it, right? Even though, you know, he didn't do it.
People don't own their own workplaces because they fear the risk, it is because a) most people don't work for public-traded companies and b) most people lack the capital to do so. When people are offered the opportunity to buy shares in their workplace, they often do so.
Right, but they don't put *all of their savings* into it, which is exactly what a "communist" (as you've described it, i.e., workers own their own workplaces) society would look like. If no workplace can be absentee-owned, the only investment you can make is in your workplace.
Trade "their share in their workplace"? But people don't start off with a share in their workplace!
I was speaking relative to how a "communist" (your sense above) society would start out, in which people do have shares. In that situation, they would definitely want to trade their shares to insure against the risk. And even if we were talking about a capitalist society, then yes, in the sense that by taking a wage, you *forgo* purchasing the shares, yes, you are "trading" the opportunity to lock yourself into one company's fate, for the fate of the entire economy.
They only get paid a proportion of the value they produce as wages, whereas the rest gets creamed off in the form of profit.
No, that's you believing the Marxist bit hook, line, and sinker. If their work *really* has noticeably more value than that, someone can bid away the labor. You're merely assuming a certain formula properly describes the "true value" of labor and then noting the rest goes to profit. Once you deduct financial risk, time value of money (yes, it exists even in communism), search costs, and the fact that the employer, not the worker, discovered the opportunity that allowed his labor to actually have a use in the first place, you see that the worker isn't getting "shorted", and if he were running the company, he'd do the same thing -- pay the market rate that his employer is paying. (of course, this is describing a laissez faire economy. Today, many businesses are given artificial monopolies somewhere or another, but none of these seem to bother you.)
Of course, over time some people who are paid enough (not if you are being paid just enough to survive) manage to save some money to buy some shares in other companies, but they will usually not be able to compete with the owners of the company they work for.
Um, sorry, but most people earn far more than needed to survive. And yes, individually, you generally can't compete against 200 people. However, you and "the workers" can save up, over 5-10 years and invest ALL of that into ONE venture to compete with your employer, where you'd have the same costs, and have to bear significant risk. Sorry, it's just a bad deal. That's why no one takes it. It's not a capitalist conspiracy.
Not quite. *Most*, not all, Ponzi schemes are illegal. Governments generally reserve that right to themselves, and conduct them if they believe (not necessarily correctly) that to do so would serve the public interest. See: Social Security, issuing debt.
I'm not upset that you're criticizing capitalism, but that you're doing it out of ignorance:
..." line?), whether or not their efforts produced any benefit. Whether or not a given worker is completely useless.
It is the basic idea behind the Communist Manifesto: workers should reap the benefits of their own efforts,
No, communists believe that people should be paid "according to need" (remember that "from each according to ability
this requires that everyone owns the means of production he uses, and since a factory can't be operated by a single person alone, it should be owned communally by all the workers working there who can then share the profits between themselves instead of having a rich capitalist - megacorp in these times - pocket them.
Again, the whole "corporations get all the profits". Well, they also get all the losses. Do you want to wait to get paid until the corporation has paid back all of its expenses? Do you want to refund wages when it sinks without earning a profit? If you think your employer is going to get rich, a neat trick is to "buy shares". In a worker-owned factory, every worker's ENTIRE investments are in the factory. If ANYTHING goes wrong -- over which they have no control -- they lose their job and their savings. Nice deal, huh? This is why people don't own their workplaces. It makes much more sense for them to trade their share in their workplace and buy shares in a broad array of businesses so as to insure themselves against the financial risk.
Contrary to what you have said above, it is possible to have worker-owned factories under capitalism. They're actually heavily tax favored. Of all the enormous unions out there, any one of them could have pooled members funds and performed a hostile takeover (look it up) of any existing corporation. The reason they don't is, a) the financial risk above, and b) they all realize that what would happen is that for a few days they would merrily "pay themselves" a "fair wage" until they realized they could just pay the market rate for other people to do it.
Please, cure your ignorance.
That line on every social security card that says "Not For Identification Purposes" is a lie, plain and simple.
... there you go.
Because it's logically impossible. They can make people not ask for it, but they can't make people interact with you, so if a person/business couples one to the other,
(Small digression: this is like employment law, e.g. min. wage, anti-discrimination. They can make someone *who actually decides to hire people* obey certain practices, but they can't *make people decide to hire* to begin with.)
Asking for it for medical care is probably because of the long, venerated history of people stiffing emergency rooms. I don't see why they can't wait, as they would if you couldn't respond at the time. I actually had an experience like you at age 20 (!). I woke up early one morning with chest pains so bad I wanted to die, so I called 911 (and got forwarded!). Luckily they subsided before paramedics arrived, and even though I didn't need to pay them (part of the campus medical services or whatever), they made absolutely certain to get my SSN.
Also, they could actually, you know, *tell you* why they need the SSN, so you can say, "Oh, don't trouble yourself. I'll just give you a deposit/pre-pay so you needn't rely on my creditworthiness." (British accent optional) I hated having to give them that, then have them look me up, only to find, "Oh, we can't trust you... deposit needed."
Another thing on my wish list would be not being told that I have "no credit history" after two years of paying bills and rent.
I'm an early adopter, have been for a long time.
Really? I'd go a step further. I think you're among the people who have adopted it for the *longest* time of all users.
Because that's what "early adopter" means.
As far as I know, the NFL's storyline is the same each year. Now, what I want to see is a football video game that *really* mimics what happens in the *real* NFL. Want to bribe a ref? Try it. Honeytrap the other team's key players? Do it. Dope your players? Hook 'em up. Tactical penalties to injur others? Assassinations? Fixing matches? At least make it an option.
... don't think that game would go over well with the Jack Thompson crowd.
The problem is, I
Is this a serious reply?
I mean, how can you be against portable computing?
... same way I can be against free personal supercomputers for every person in the world forever...?
The
Had you actually understood what my objection was -- and with it, the concept of a "tradeoff" -- you wouldn't be asking that question.
Exactly -- and what you said made me want to clarify what I said above. If, like in your example about the projector, you know what you plan to use the computer for, and belief its benefit to justify the cost, that's fine. Then you should buy it. But a lot of the pressure to put more computers in schools is driven by "hey, all those rich people have computers, so if we start using them that will make us so much more effective than we were before!". It's like the plan is:
1) Buy overpriced computers without knowing what to do with them.
2) ???
3) Education!
Is it so bad to oppose laptops? I oppose them (disclaimer: have no kids) in schools on the grounds that they probably provide little educational value given their costs. They are typically given (like "a computer in every classroom") as part of a fad to use the coolest new technology, irrespective of any actual benefit. This is not to say students don't need computers -- they do -- but that's what the computer lab is for. The "enthusiastic parent" referenced didn't see her child master PowerPoint skills because because he had a laptop -- that was because he had access to *a computer*. He didn't need to have it on the go to accomplish that.
I'm all for using the best available technology -- as long as it makes you better off than before.
I think that has a lot to do with why I specified full body DDR " that can detect 3D body motions ". A silhouette does not specify three dimensions (or twirls, or kicks, etc.)
The hold of the copyright cannot legally stop me from recording my LPs on cassette tape, for example.
They *don't* legally stop you from copying. They *physically* stop you. As far as I know, no DRM prevents you from *playing the music aloud* and recording that sound onto another medium. I know, I know, "but that's low quality!". Yeah, sorry about the inconveniences of doing something typically done to break copyright law. Let me guess: you also consider it an abhorrent, totalitarian violation of rights that you have to fill out two lines notifying the government when you withdraw over $10,000 in cash. Did I call that one right?
Not only are they going to have lightsabers, but now:
Spidey's webshooters, and Wolverine's claws
Seems there's no limit to the possibilities. You can act out whatever superhero or whatnot fantasy you've had. Hack up zombies with chainsaws holstered to your arms? Have a Wiimote strapped to the back of your wrist to operate like Boba Fett's cord launcher? "Punch enemies" realistically? Have a Wiimote on each limb for a more complex version of DDR that can detect 3D body motions? Why not!
I'm really interested to see what developers will put on the market. (of what they'll let hobbyists do...)
I had really been looking forward to seeing them implement some innovative ideas that were rumored for it, like including a touch screen w/ stylus, and allowing it to fold out with a "second screen" so it's protected when not in use and the screen(s) don't get all messed up from exposure. If not them, who?
Also, I've seen people start using {{dubious}} for claims that need a citation and seem not to be right, but that you aren't ready to delete, just to signify less reliability.
The Fountainhead?
Coward.
Blu-ray was the main reason gamers weren't able to get the new machine last spring: The launch had to be postponed because the new format's digital rights management system did not yet satisfy every Hollywood studio.'"
Blu-ray was the *main* reason? So, otherwise, they were basically ready to launch before May? So, a bunch of launch titles had *already* been completed by developers and should have had full functionality at E3, and it's possible to send reviewers ready-for-gaming (but crippled) PS3s with these games? And the "tilt controller" was ready to go then?
Is it just me, or were several other equally important issues preventing the Spring launch?
Yeah, he is contorting the concept of a myth for that one. Normally, when one "debunks" a myth, one shows reliable information that pretty conclusively removes "reasonable" doubt to the contrary. To "debunk" the "myth" that the PS3 will fail, it seems that you need to say, "according to this visit on my time machine..."
Lack of opportunity is not an issue.
Yes it is. Since you spend your whole day around the geek crowd, you probably don't know that the average person doesn't know how to get started downloading music, and the reason that information can't be more easily brought to them is because... OF COPYRIGHT LAWS!