Not at all. 84% of the UK population spend time writing sums in the little book they've got concealed in an alcove next to their TV.
Its our politicians gleefully rubbing their hands at each erosion of freedom, and the population is too broken, demoralised, and drunk, to do anything about it.
Conspiracy theory? Conspiracy implies secrecy, and I implied no such thing.
The difference with the current situation is that you are wrong - they honestly have no clue as to how shitty the situation is. Most politicians (especially in the UK) live in a completely different universe from us. They've been training to be politicians all their lives, and know nothing else - not work, not wider society, not technology - nothing but politics. Their entire worldview is formed by focus groups, comprising largely of the middle-aged and middle class. See the works of Adam Curtis and Peter Oborne for more on that.
Gordon Brown, for instance, has such a pitifully unpolished public persona that if he were insincere about his beliefs it would be obvious to everybody. The current financial crisis caught them flat footed for this very reason - until it happened he and the rest of the Labour leadership were loudly parroting the neoliberal line as if it were handed to them on stone tablets by God himself (well, Margaret Thatcher, which is much the same as far as New Labour are concerned sadly).
There is a very deep philosophical belief in the perfection, and more terribly the finality, of the western, neoliberal system of government. Its failure in the one area it claims total expertise - the economy - hasn't even dislodged it completely. After a brief, nostalgic flirtation with Keynesianism they will blink and return to their established 'utopia', using all their power to ensure its continuation regardless of results.
They are oblivious, fanatical, and ruthless. A bizarre and dangerous combination.
I know that, but they could've chosen better wording. If you want your law to sound sinister, describing it in similar terms to the law that gave Hitler absolute power is a pretty good starting point. I'm surprised the term gets used at all anymore, given it's historical connotations.
You have to understand, that just like at the end of the Cold War, Western elites (I won't bother distinguishing between judges, politicians and businessmen in this matter because of the almost total blurring between the leaders of state, judiciary and corporation) consider us at the End of History. Our present form of government is perfect now, and for a thousand years hence.
When you believe have a perfect state, it logically follows that everything should be in the state, for the state, and of the state. Any element that goes against the wishes of the state must be wrong and evil, for the state is perfect and good.
I believe the people in power today, more so than in previous generations, are so convinced of the suitability of present laws and institutions they will resist all substantial changes with any force required. They are the last men, who say they have discovered happiness. Their destruction is a prerequisite for any further advancement of the human species.
They want the government to sign into law an 'enabling' act, designed to curtail free speech and free association, in response to a vague threat which they've refused to provide evidence for the scope of?
It does depend on your circumstances (parental support, level of state benefits in your country, willingness and availability to do casual, part time work) but it is better for your happiness to reduce your consumption than to increase your income. Dead end jobs are traps, and if you start to take credit (such as a mortgage) you may never escape.
Deferring your job satisfaction rarely works because your shit job demoralizes you, takes you down an experience path which does only leads into higher paying jobs of the same time. If you loathe web design, then 5 years of experience in web design is not going to be a great deal of use to you, especially when you've got used to the wages of someone with 5 years of experience.
If your friends don't like you if you aren't spending cash, get some new friends. Material wealth must always be secondary to liking what you do, otherwise you well end up middle aged, trapped and depressed.
How do you think a person gets a PhD without being eager to learn?
Your criticisms of education are exaggerated. Yes, education establishments can be focused on grades and qualifications - but commercial establishments are more focused on the bottom line and on office politics. The latter, IMHO, is worse.
The advantage of education is that, without the emphasis on moment-to-moment productivity allows a person more freedom and creativity in their activities. The flip-side of this is, of course, that absent any extrinsic motivation its just as easy to have no activity at all outside the requirements of your course.
As for your points - (1) and (2) are both valid, (3) I wouldn't consider in an environment where established, successful business run by experience people are struggling. (4) might be better if economic conditions pick up. (5) forms a false dichotomy - not being in professional, full time work does not necessarily make you a loser, although it does make you, yourself entirely responsible for making sure you are not a loser.
For a start, education is worth more than your final salary. Your time at university should be more about expanding your horizons and using the spare time that you will not have in the working world to pursue your own projects. Savour it whilst you can.
Secondly, if you hadn't noticed, it isn't a great time for anybody to be graduating with anything right now. Staying in university longer will, hopefully, save you from having to look for a job in the middle of a crisis where companies are having to cut costs.
Thirdly, the idea that you must find work as soon as you graduate often leads people into jobs they dislike, jobs they feel trapped in, and jobs that are considerably below what they are capable of. This will, I speak from personal experience, make you very unhappy.
Forget the work ethic bullshit you've had thrust upon you. The purpose of life is to enjoy yourself and to fulfill your potential in the way you choose. Work should not be a means to this, but a part of it. Poverty is preferable to drudgery.
Don't look for money. Look for a vocation that really appeals to you, rather than just a job, and let the money sort itself out later. Don't think about getting a mortgage and a pile of expensive crap as soon as you graduate it because you'll end up making yourself little more than an indentured servant.
You just compared giant corporations buying political influence with working for a living. This confusion is cynically nurtured by billionaires who want an army of delusional middle-class workaholics to defend their obscene wealth for them.
Here's a tip for you. You stop working to support your family some time around Tuesday afternoon. Everything after that you are working to support someone who is likely already wealthier than you and works less than you.
Even if the old Protestant work ethic wasn't a bunch of crap to start with, its corruption in the name of squeezing ever more productivity out of workers makes it the most pathetic line of bullshit that could come out of someones mouth.
Americans are so convinced of the virtue of entrepreneurship they are willing to give corporations and their corrupt ways a far wider leeway.
In America, 'individualism' means believing greed is a virtue, the same as everyone else. There are plenty of people who think that in France as well, of course, but there is considerably more cynicism regarding that worldview outside America.
Sounds perfectly reasonable; in fact I noticed in the article that Ubuntu were fairly cool with the guy, and that taking down their logos may have been an overreaction on his part as they never threatened him with legal action.
What tends to happen is that open source companies have to walk a tightrope, and slightly strange rules on trademark get put in place. For example, Ubuntu is cool with community remixes using the trademark, but if you intend to make money from Ubuntu and want to include the word in your business title, you're going to need permission. It's not quite clear here how the former won't dilute the Ubuntu brand, while the latter possibly will. The "protecting brand identity" argument falls apart almost immediately upon examination.
It is clear; commercial projects operate with different motives than free projects. Commercial projects aim primarily to make users cough up cash, whilst free projects aim primarily to provide something useful to users. The difference in motivation often produces starkly different results.
Mozilla is even worse. If I create a new Linux distro, and include my own compiled Firefox binary, it's unlikely I would be able to call the browser "Firefox", or use the familiar fox logo, without getting permission from Mozilla. This could put me at a competitive disadvantage compared to other versions of Linux because my users would be using what appears to be unfamiliar software. It's worth mentioning that Mozilla's trademark rules also indicate they're not terribly happy about the unofficial redistribution of their binaries, either, and would prefer it if they were the exclusive source.
Yeah, Debian is really suffering because of that...
"Thankyou for getting this fucking nutjob off our doorstep. Now lets build a rail link through his former country and continue our successful trade relations."
North Korea is China's drunk, loudmouth little brother that keeps embarrassing him at parties.
Pulled off correctly this would be a very lucrative scam. Scrap all the repairman shit - just openly steal drives from businesses without a good backup policy, and demand ransom.
This guy didn't have the brains, organisation, or discipline for that though.
Your criteria of 'incompetent' is absurd and dependent on the quality of the pupils - egotistical little shits who don't want to learn will fail regardless of the quality of the teacher.
Primitive tribe mentality? I'm not the one signing up for a lynch mob, you cunt.
I read the entire article. It still sounds like a witch hunt. Even if everything said against this teacher (including the context, which idiots like you don't care about) then one misjudged comment is certainly not grounds for the crucifixion that you retards from the think=of-the-children brigade demand.
I'm not even a teacher (good job on leaping to conclusions, retard) - my fiancee is though and I am sick of uniformed pricks like you jumping up and down on them, blaming them for the shitty quality of parenting.
You don't know the full facts. You are just jumping on the teacher-bashing bandwagon because you've no free will of your own. I did read the entire article, and it stinks of a witch hunt.
Yes, yes you are. You also were probably old enough (I won't ask) that the media were less intensely riding the buy-our-product-to-be-an-instant-superstar train, which when directed squarely at children, often leads to delusions of incredible success with zero effort.
No, you will just pull your child out of school, and send them to some fundamentalist indoctrination camp.
Public education is a good idea. Its the only method in history to achieve over 95% literacy. Vouchers are just a political gimmick aimed at those who like a level of control over their children's minds that borders on Orwellian.
The article kicks off describing how a group of shrill, ignorant parents took the word of an emotionally disturbed 12 year old and decided to push for someone to be fired based soley on that.
Parents like to treat teachers as their personal governesses. Like that cheerleading coach who was crucified for playboy pictures that were not a big deal until some fat dumpy girl who didn't get picked had a tantrum and made her mum charge into the headteachers office with the pictures.
Your kid isn't special. In all likelihood, your kid is a spoilt, willfully ignorant little shit who will give the teacher hell no matter how much they try (and they do try; nobody sticks at teaching who doesn't see it as a vocation as well as a job). Your little darling is so convinced they will be a millionaire professional sportsperson/musician/actor because you've always told them how 'special' they were, that they carry this overinflated sense of entitlement into the classroom along with 30 other 'special' kids.
The result basically lord of the flies with nicer clothes. And the people who take up the under paid task of controlling the little bastards are constantly subject to demands to fire them, cut their pay, and increase their work loads.
Slashdot Mirror
Not at all. 84% of the UK population spend time writing sums in the little book they've got concealed in an alcove next to their TV.
Its our politicians gleefully rubbing their hands at each erosion of freedom, and the population is too broken, demoralised, and drunk, to do anything about it.
Conspiracy theory? Conspiracy implies secrecy, and I implied no such thing.
The difference with the current situation is that you are wrong - they honestly have no clue as to how shitty the situation is. Most politicians (especially in the UK) live in a completely different universe from us. They've been training to be politicians all their lives, and know nothing else - not work, not wider society, not technology - nothing but politics. Their entire worldview is formed by focus groups, comprising largely of the middle-aged and middle class. See the works of Adam Curtis and Peter Oborne for more on that.
Gordon Brown, for instance, has such a pitifully unpolished public persona that if he were insincere about his beliefs it would be obvious to everybody. The current financial crisis caught them flat footed for this very reason - until it happened he and the rest of the Labour leadership were loudly parroting the neoliberal line as if it were handed to them on stone tablets by God himself (well, Margaret Thatcher, which is much the same as far as New Labour are concerned sadly).
There is a very deep philosophical belief in the perfection, and more terribly the finality, of the western, neoliberal system of government. Its failure in the one area it claims total expertise - the economy - hasn't even dislodged it completely. After a brief, nostalgic flirtation with Keynesianism they will blink and return to their established 'utopia', using all their power to ensure its continuation regardless of results.
They are oblivious, fanatical, and ruthless. A bizarre and dangerous combination.
I know that, but they could've chosen better wording. If you want your law to sound sinister, describing it in similar terms to the law that gave Hitler absolute power is a pretty good starting point. I'm surprised the term gets used at all anymore, given it's historical connotations.
That isn't how they think.
You have to understand, that just like at the end of the Cold War, Western elites (I won't bother distinguishing between judges, politicians and businessmen in this matter because of the almost total blurring between the leaders of state, judiciary and corporation) consider us at the End of History. Our present form of government is perfect now, and for a thousand years hence.
When you believe have a perfect state, it logically follows that everything should be in the state, for the state, and of the state. Any element that goes against the wishes of the state must be wrong and evil, for the state is perfect and good.
I believe the people in power today, more so than in previous generations, are so convinced of the suitability of present laws and institutions they will resist all substantial changes with any force required. They are the last men, who say they have discovered happiness. Their destruction is a prerequisite for any further advancement of the human species.
They want the government to sign into law an 'enabling' act, designed to curtail free speech and free association, in response to a vague threat which they've refused to provide evidence for the scope of?
Some people are just asking for Nazi comparisons.
It does depend on your circumstances (parental support, level of state benefits in your country, willingness and availability to do casual, part time work) but it is better for your happiness to reduce your consumption than to increase your income. Dead end jobs are traps, and if you start to take credit (such as a mortgage) you may never escape.
Deferring your job satisfaction rarely works because your shit job demoralizes you, takes you down an experience path which does only leads into higher paying jobs of the same time. If you loathe web design, then 5 years of experience in web design is not going to be a great deal of use to you, especially when you've got used to the wages of someone with 5 years of experience.
If your friends don't like you if you aren't spending cash, get some new friends. Material wealth must always be secondary to liking what you do, otherwise you well end up middle aged, trapped and depressed.
How do you think a person gets a PhD without being eager to learn?
Your criticisms of education are exaggerated. Yes, education establishments can be focused on grades and qualifications - but commercial establishments are more focused on the bottom line and on office politics. The latter, IMHO, is worse.
The advantage of education is that, without the emphasis on moment-to-moment productivity allows a person more freedom and creativity in their activities. The flip-side of this is, of course, that absent any extrinsic motivation its just as easy to have no activity at all outside the requirements of your course.
As for your points - (1) and (2) are both valid, (3) I wouldn't consider in an environment where established, successful business run by experience people are struggling. (4) might be better if economic conditions pick up. (5) forms a false dichotomy - not being in professional, full time work does not necessarily make you a loser, although it does make you, yourself entirely responsible for making sure you are not a loser.
For a start, education is worth more than your final salary. Your time at university should be more about expanding your horizons and using the spare time that you will not have in the working world to pursue your own projects. Savour it whilst you can.
Secondly, if you hadn't noticed, it isn't a great time for anybody to be graduating with anything right now. Staying in university longer will, hopefully, save you from having to look for a job in the middle of a crisis where companies are having to cut costs.
Thirdly, the idea that you must find work as soon as you graduate often leads people into jobs they dislike, jobs they feel trapped in, and jobs that are considerably below what they are capable of. This will, I speak from personal experience, make you very unhappy.
Forget the work ethic bullshit you've had thrust upon you. The purpose of life is to enjoy yourself and to fulfill your potential in the way you choose. Work should not be a means to this, but a part of it. Poverty is preferable to drudgery.
Don't look for money. Look for a vocation that really appeals to you, rather than just a job, and let the money sort itself out later. Don't think about getting a mortgage and a pile of expensive crap as soon as you graduate it because you'll end up making yourself little more than an indentured servant.
You just compared giant corporations buying political influence with working for a living. This confusion is cynically nurtured by billionaires who want an army of delusional middle-class workaholics to defend their obscene wealth for them.
Here's a tip for you. You stop working to support your family some time around Tuesday afternoon. Everything after that you are working to support someone who is likely already wealthier than you and works less than you.
Even if the old Protestant work ethic wasn't a bunch of crap to start with, its corruption in the name of squeezing ever more productivity out of workers makes it the most pathetic line of bullshit that could come out of someones mouth.
Americans are so convinced of the virtue of entrepreneurship they are willing to give corporations and their corrupt ways a far wider leeway.
In America, 'individualism' means believing greed is a virtue, the same as everyone else. There are plenty of people who think that in France as well, of course, but there is considerably more cynicism regarding that worldview outside America.
Sounds perfectly reasonable; in fact I noticed in the article that Ubuntu were fairly cool with the guy, and that taking down their logos may have been an overreaction on his part as they never threatened him with legal action.
From the article:
It is clear; commercial projects operate with different motives than free projects. Commercial projects aim primarily to make users cough up cash, whilst free projects aim primarily to provide something useful to users. The difference in motivation often produces starkly different results.
Yeah, Debian is really suffering because of that...
Whats to stop a Chinese company doing that right now? IP isn't exactly strong over there.
Pu-238 isn't weapon fuel.
"Thankyou for getting this fucking nutjob off our doorstep. Now lets build a rail link through his former country and continue our successful trade relations."
North Korea is China's drunk, loudmouth little brother that keeps embarrassing him at parties.
Criminal? Yes. Greedy? Yes. Stupid? No.
Pulled off correctly this would be a very lucrative scam. Scrap all the repairman shit - just openly steal drives from businesses without a good backup policy, and demand ransom.
This guy didn't have the brains, organisation, or discipline for that though.
wtf? He was fairly badass fighting the Nazis, but I'm fairly sure he is dead, and not in a US prison.
It is a typo, but you're right. I'm using it on purpose from now on :)
Your criteria of 'incompetent' is absurd and dependent on the quality of the pupils - egotistical little shits who don't want to learn will fail regardless of the quality of the teacher.
Primitive tribe mentality? I'm not the one signing up for a lynch mob, you cunt.
I read the entire article. It still sounds like a witch hunt. Even if everything said against this teacher (including the context, which idiots like you don't care about) then one misjudged comment is certainly not grounds for the crucifixion that you retards from the think=of-the-children brigade demand.
I'm not even a teacher (good job on leaping to conclusions, retard) - my fiancee is though and I am sick of uniformed pricks like you jumping up and down on them, blaming them for the shitty quality of parenting.
You don't know the full facts. You are just jumping on the teacher-bashing bandwagon because you've no free will of your own. I did read the entire article, and it stinks of a witch hunt.
Yes, yes you are. You also were probably old enough (I won't ask) that the media were less intensely riding the buy-our-product-to-be-an-instant-superstar train, which when directed squarely at children, often leads to delusions of incredible success with zero effort.
No, you will just pull your child out of school, and send them to some fundamentalist indoctrination camp.
Public education is a good idea. Its the only method in history to achieve over 95% literacy. Vouchers are just a political gimmick aimed at those who like a level of control over their children's minds that borders on Orwellian.
The article kicks off describing how a group of shrill, ignorant parents took the word of an emotionally disturbed 12 year old and decided to push for someone to be fired based soley on that.
Parents like to treat teachers as their personal governesses. Like that cheerleading coach who was crucified for playboy pictures that were not a big deal until some fat dumpy girl who didn't get picked had a tantrum and made her mum charge into the headteachers office with the pictures.
Your kid isn't special. In all likelihood, your kid is a spoilt, willfully ignorant little shit who will give the teacher hell no matter how much they try (and they do try; nobody sticks at teaching who doesn't see it as a vocation as well as a job). Your little darling is so convinced they will be a millionaire professional sportsperson/musician/actor because you've always told them how 'special' they were, that they carry this overinflated sense of entitlement into the classroom along with 30 other 'special' kids.
The result basically lord of the flies with nicer clothes. And the people who take up the under paid task of controlling the little bastards are constantly subject to demands to fire them, cut their pay, and increase their work loads.
Back off assholes.
No they can't. I know plenty of black people cringe at rap music for that very reason.