Why can't a non-voter complain? I'm an avowed non-voter in the UK, largely because our elections are a futile sham, and I complain plenty.
The arseholes we have in power in our respective countries have murdered perhaps more than a million people in the name of 'democracy' and I feel that participating in what they laughably refer to as democracy would legitimise this, whilst having no appreciable effect on my life or my countries politics.
The impression I get, is that it was a political backlash. Systems management empowered people in the system who could get things done in ways that anybody outside their highly specialised fields of knowledge could not. In a word, NASA spawned technocrats - people with significant political and economic power wielded not by mandate or by entrepreneurship but by scientific knowledge, and the United States associated such people with Communism.
Oversimplified a bit, perhaps, but the basic gist of it is true - NASA as an organisation seemed uncomfortably 'socialist' to many people and as soon as the mitigating circumstances of the space race passed, they tried to eradicate this element of it.
The result is now just another government agency, run with plenty of political oversight and short-sighted, penny pinching accounting.
The rockets you mention had a hell of a time getting to work properly. Stuff that makes the problems with Ares look tame. In the 50s all the US could do was make big explosions, before they got the hang of systems management.
Yeah, because here in Britain people were such shits to each other when food was rationed and the Nazis were bombing the crap out of the country. Oh, wait...
What you've missed though, is that growing your own food is becoming more popular. People who don't even realise it are acting in an 'anarchist' way; they don't trust the hierarchy to provide healthy food for them so they do it themselves.
Not everybody into anarchy and communal living is lazy. Some people who believe these things find that working for yourself and for your peers is rewarding in a way that working for a rich fucker or a government fucker is not.
So the powerless fight back. The anarchists of Spain held out for almost 3 years squashed between the Condor legion and the Soviets. The nation of Poland didn't last a fortnight against such forces.
tbh, 99% of people aren't like that. I know plenty of people who lift and do martial arts that could tear me to pieces without breaking a sweat; they don't not because of fear of the law but because as humans beings we can live in harmony without direct conflict.
The principle of Mutual Aid is sound. The beefcakes, at least the adult ones, won't slaughter the nerds because they realise that a world with free nerds has far more cool toys than a world with oppressed nerds.
I'm aware that there is more awareness of potential hazards this time round than there was when petroleum chemistry first took off, but it doesn't for the moment seem to be keeping pace with the enthusiasm of commercial chemists who have in a very short space of time got a load of cool new materials to play with and, in some cases, are refusing to see any downside.
Except, you ignorant fucktard, DDT is still in use in places where the risk of malaria is higher than the risks from DDT. But don't let me get in the way of your mindless knucle-dragging hippie-bashing with niggling little facts.
I am not saying ban them. Don't make shit up. They simply need to be regulated as their own chemicals, as all existing chemicals are before they reach the market. The governments of the world haven't caught up with the fact nanomaterials are different from macromaterials. Thats all. No need to whip out your right-wing talking points.
Nanotech. A whole new zoo of materials, significantly different in their properties from the same stuff in macro form, but that isn't in itself regulated.
...and the government doesn't want us to forget that
The technical name for it is in fact "her majesty's government" so there isn't really any pretense that they serve us. They serve the status quo, always have and always will. Your rights and your privacy are just an obstacle to be brushed aside.
They are bean counters, and bean counters can't fathom that perhaps the beans don't want to be counted. They 'need' to watch us in order to control us to make our lives 'better'
This means that people with messy rooms can be targetted for voter intimidation! Just wait until they can work out your leanings from the way you dress, that'll be so much fun at polling stations.
Are computers getting smarter, or people getting dumber? When Turing formulated his famous test, AOL hadn't even been invented.
A new test is thus in order, seeing as if the level of discourse on the Internet continues to degenerate as it has done, and becomes increasingly formulaic and repetitive as it has done, then a 1970s Eliza programme will be able to emulate the typical user in a decade or so.
We shouldn't make AI by lowering the bar for intelligence.
I want to leave but my fiancee doesn't want to be far away from her family, and also she is trained as a teacher here and would take a big salary hit teaching elsewhere (and have to learn a new language, unless we went to another English speaking country; name one that isn't doing the same shit...)
Do you really think that the American people would be allowed guns, even by the Republicans, if the government had even the slightest doubt in its ability to keep the population ignorant.
Americans are allowed more weapons by their government simply because they are more gullible.
The authorities (both government and corporate, if there is really a difference) now has such a technological ability to watch us and to manipulate the opinions of at least the weakest 80=90% of us, there could very well be no more mass uprisings, ever.
Too many people are all about themselves, their idiotic quest for acquisition and a pitiful concept of personal identity sold to them and a million other fools by professional marketers.
If you ever suggested the idea of violent revolution to one of the sheeple, and they agreed to it, they would simply say 'ok, you go first'.
Yes, but the repeal of that act would've been classed by your typical market fundamentalist as a reduction of government interference. At the time, I am sure they cheered quite loudly.
Slashdot Mirror
If you equate US democrats with socialists then you are truly uninformed. For the sake of your 'republic' - please do not vote. It can only end badly.
Why can't a non-voter complain? I'm an avowed non-voter in the UK, largely because our elections are a futile sham, and I complain plenty.
The arseholes we have in power in our respective countries have murdered perhaps more than a million people in the name of 'democracy' and I feel that participating in what they laughably refer to as democracy would legitimise this, whilst having no appreciable effect on my life or my countries politics.
The Chinese response to the recent Earthquake was fast and efficient - unlike the US response to Hurricane Katrina.
Sure, they have no freedom, but freedom doesn't show up on a balance sheet. They can get stuff done.
India has a huge, consumption-hungry middle class arising. If the US becomes replaceable as a consumer of Chinese goods you guys are in trouble.
The impression I get, is that it was a political backlash. Systems management empowered people in the system who could get things done in ways that anybody outside their highly specialised fields of knowledge could not. In a word, NASA spawned technocrats - people with significant political and economic power wielded not by mandate or by entrepreneurship but by scientific knowledge, and the United States associated such people with Communism.
Oversimplified a bit, perhaps, but the basic gist of it is true - NASA as an organisation seemed uncomfortably 'socialist' to many people and as soon as the mitigating circumstances of the space race passed, they tried to eradicate this element of it.
The result is now just another government agency, run with plenty of political oversight and short-sighted, penny pinching accounting.
You're wrong.
The rockets you mention had a hell of a time getting to work properly. Stuff that makes the problems with Ares look tame. In the 50s all the US could do was make big explosions, before they got the hang of systems management.
Yeah, because here in Britain people were such shits to each other when food was rationed and the Nazis were bombing the crap out of the country. Oh, wait...
What you've missed though, is that growing your own food is becoming more popular. People who don't even realise it are acting in an 'anarchist' way; they don't trust the hierarchy to provide healthy food for them so they do it themselves.
Not everybody into anarchy and communal living is lazy. Some people who believe these things find that working for yourself and for your peers is rewarding in a way that working for a rich fucker or a government fucker is not.
So the powerless fight back. The anarchists of Spain held out for almost 3 years squashed between the Condor legion and the Soviets. The nation of Poland didn't last a fortnight against such forces.
tbh, 99% of people aren't like that. I know plenty of people who lift and do martial arts that could tear me to pieces without breaking a sweat; they don't not because of fear of the law but because as humans beings we can live in harmony without direct conflict.
The principle of Mutual Aid is sound. The beefcakes, at least the adult ones, won't slaughter the nerds because they realise that a world with free nerds has far more cool toys than a world with oppressed nerds.
I'm aware that there is more awareness of potential hazards this time round than there was when petroleum chemistry first took off, but it doesn't for the moment seem to be keeping pace with the enthusiasm of commercial chemists who have in a very short space of time got a load of cool new materials to play with and, in some cases, are refusing to see any downside.
Retard. As if businesses aren't even more irresponsible.
Except, you ignorant fucktard, DDT is still in use in places where the risk of malaria is higher than the risks from DDT. But don't let me get in the way of your mindless knucle-dragging hippie-bashing with niggling little facts.
I am not saying ban them. Don't make shit up. They simply need to be regulated as their own chemicals, as all existing chemicals are before they reach the market. The governments of the world haven't caught up with the fact nanomaterials are different from macromaterials. Thats all. No need to whip out your right-wing talking points.
Nanotech. A whole new zoo of materials, significantly different in their properties from the same stuff in macro form, but that isn't in itself regulated.
This could turn into another DDT
...and the government doesn't want us to forget that
The technical name for it is in fact "her majesty's government" so there isn't really any pretense that they serve us. They serve the status quo, always have and always will. Your rights and your privacy are just an obstacle to be brushed aside.
They are bean counters, and bean counters can't fathom that perhaps the beans don't want to be counted. They 'need' to watch us in order to control us to make our lives 'better'
This means that people with messy rooms can be targetted for voter intimidation! Just wait until they can work out your leanings from the way you dress, that'll be so much fun at polling stations.
I don't think it would be hard to programme a pedant. Actually, could you tell me only the good things that come into your mind about your mother?
Are computers getting smarter, or people getting dumber? When Turing formulated his famous test, AOL hadn't even been invented.
A new test is thus in order, seeing as if the level of discourse on the Internet continues to degenerate as it has done, and becomes increasingly formulaic and repetitive as it has done, then a 1970s Eliza programme will be able to emulate the typical user in a decade or so.
We shouldn't make AI by lowering the bar for intelligence.
I want to leave but my fiancee doesn't want to be far away from her family, and also she is trained as a teacher here and would take a big salary hit teaching elsewhere (and have to learn a new language, unless we went to another English speaking country; name one that isn't doing the same shit...)
"The scandal is, there is no scandal"
Do you really think that the American people would be allowed guns, even by the Republicans, if the government had even the slightest doubt in its ability to keep the population ignorant.
Americans are allowed more weapons by their government simply because they are more gullible.
Yeah, because being armed to the teeth really stopped the US losing its liberty, didn't it?
Chuck every hard drive, pen drive, CD, and paper file the government has into a hole, add thermite, and break out the marshmellows.
If someone were to push the spooks and bureaucrats who collected the data into such a fire, I wouldn't object too much either.
The authorities (both government and corporate, if there is really a difference) now has such a technological ability to watch us and to manipulate the opinions of at least the weakest 80=90% of us, there could very well be no more mass uprisings, ever.
Too many people are all about themselves, their idiotic quest for acquisition and a pitiful concept of personal identity sold to them and a million other fools by professional marketers.
If you ever suggested the idea of violent revolution to one of the sheeple, and they agreed to it, they would simply say 'ok, you go first'.
Its a fairly hopeless situation right now.
Yes, but the repeal of that act would've been classed by your typical market fundamentalist as a reduction of government interference. At the time, I am sure they cheered quite loudly.