His motives don't matter. What matters is that he has misappropriated the far-too-awesome power of the state in order to force someone not to do something. A 1% tax may not have a huge impact, but once it's there, they can and will raise it, until that behavior they don't like is either wiped out or driven underground.
The best example is smoking. It's now so expensive to be a smoker that almost everyone is quitting, though I know a number of people who have bought tobacco seed and are now growing their own, like it was bloody marijuana. And it all started with an innocent little "vice tax".
Watch out. These days you can be arrested for abusing children that don't exist. Being arrested for abusing laws that don't exist isn't that far of a stretch...
I think you are making a big mistake by saying that capitalism fosters those types of practices. You fail to take into account the legal system that exists in any developing democracy. Slavery is illegal, pollution is directly punishable by lawsuit (many polluters have been successfully punished this way), and toxic materials in products will bring similar lawsuits.
There aren't any problems with capitalism. It is the most efficient, kindest, and most progressive economic system possible. Every singe "failing" either points back to the government, or to the admittedly messy transition from feudalism to capitalism. You have to understand that EVERY TIME the government "steps in", it produces numerous unintended consequences, and creates the opportunity for the various leeches and moochers (think AIG or any of the bailed out banks) to come in and take undeserved money from the taxpayers, or from the holders of dollars through inflation. It also creates an enormous bureaucracy that produces nothing, and only decreases the productive capacity of businesses, effectively stopping small start-ups from being competitive with big corporations. Why do you think we haven't had any new car companies emerge in this country in the last 50 years? Regulation. Why don't we have hundreds of choices when it comes to cell phone companies, like in Japan? Regulation. Why is it that most places in the US have only one choice when it comes to cable, or internet? Regulation. Why are there only two satellite television providers? Regulation. Why are so many radio stations owned by so few companies? Regulation. Why can't anyone open up a lottery in a state with a state lottery? State monopoly. Why can't an effective airline like Southwest fly to anywhere east of Dallas? Regulation spawned by favoratism.
No human is smart enough to control the economy without creating opportunities for graft and/or elimination of competition. The Soviets, who had some of the smartest, best educated economists in the world, saw their economy fall apart as people stopped working hard. There was no incentive to produce, and great incentive to consume. Under such conditions, the only thing that can moderate people's behavior is force, and they thus had to resort to massive application of force, to the point that the place that was supposed to become a worker's paradise instead became a worker's inferno. Those who weren't afraid of government action against them did nothing, only pretending to work. Those who were afraid of government action against them were worked to death to cover for the loafers and moochers. The same is happening here, only this time it is in the shadows. The government steals our productive power by printing money and spending it, as though they had contributed something to the economy, basically compelling labor, giving the money to the banks, then forcing them to lend, increasing demand for goods. It also taxes us, such that there is an incentive to stay in a lower tax bracket, suppressing productive capacity. Thus far, foreigners have made up the difference by lending us money, and supplying us with goods while not consuming much themselves. That is ending though. This new corporatist communism has now led us to the brink of an abyss from which there is no easy escape. The government will try to stop it with more spending, more regulations, and more force, but those actions will do nothing to fix the situation, and will instead only make them worse. These United States will not survive the coming storm in their current form, just as the USSR did not survive their fall from superpower status. We will go from being the richest country in the world due to the very capitalist economic system you seem to hate so much, to one of the porest; a newly de-industrialized nation with power on par to that of Eastern European countries. We might be able to survive, but the era of American hegemony is fast coming to a close.
If you looked into it, you would see that the only children being forced to work such jobs were orphans compelled to the work by the state. Children who got jobs out of thier own free will avoided starvation.
People hate the conditions that existed for workers during the industrial revolution, but they fail to take into account that conditions before the industrial revolution were FAR WORSE, and that government intervention did nothing but damage to worker's right during that time period (remember that it was the government that sent in the army to bust unions). The fact is that if life during the industrial revolution was so bad, people would have continued on as subsistence farmers and serfs.
Simple, we mine the sun for coal once it cools off. We then use the hydrogen we get from burning that coal in the little widget I bought on the internet for my car, and turn it all into hydrogen, then BAM! Problem solved.
It's surprisingly easy make or modify what looks like a winning lottery ticket, what with Photoshop and all. I suspect that they bought a ticket the day after the drawing with the winning numbers from the day before and switched them out. It's an old con (which has taken in lots of smart people) turned into a practical joke.
She was a highly valued employee, and I was in a panic that I was going to have to replace her on short notice. She had been here longer than anyone else except for the owner, and did the work of two-three people. Smart, capable people can be gullible too, especially when it plays on their hopes.
Screw ups like this are why I hate April Fools with a passion. Anyone that works under me knows that if they participate in an April Fools joke at work that I will be very angry at them. Things that start as an April Fools joke can easily end in injury or lawsuits. Either the day ought to be a national holiday or it should be abolished. Some jokes are very funny, but too many end in disaster. One year I had someone give two weeks notice because they thought they had won the lottery, later the same day she came in and sheepishly retracted her notice. Imagine if she had quit on the spot, and said a few choice words to the folks in the office. I might not have been able to keep her on had her reaction gone just that much further...
You are arguing about something completely different. You are proposing a. that this is an either/or proposition, and that b. reproduction is only for retards, which is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of.
Being remembered is great, but as the person I was originally replying to pointed out, fame after death is utterly unsatisfying. The knowledge that you had children and grandchildren, on the other hand, is quite comforting as one goes into their final sleep due to the built in biological mechanisms that evolution has created in order to keep our DNA from disappearing (which is the closest thing to PHYSICAL immortality that is possible).
You may think your works are mighty, Ozymandius, but ten thousand years from now, they will be but dust (unless you preserve your data in a more permanent fashion, which is what I was talking about), and even your name will have disappeared from the minds of men. Your DNA will continue, though. Assuming you weren't too busy to have sex at least once.
Why was this modded flamebait? It seems like a reasonable argument to me. If you want to refute it, then do so, but don't use mod points to stifle civil debate.
Confirmation bias is a real problem, and should be addressed.
What is your definition of value? Nothing is valuable to the universe, not even the universe, because the universe is not sentient, nor does it have needs or desires. People are important to people, because they are able to do many things which promote their ability to survive and provide comfort.
If all records and knowledge were lost, as you seem to desire, in your foolish quest for infinite self debasement, then man would revert to his most primitive state, living in the woods chasing down animals and killing them with his bear hands, living nothing but a short, violent life. If that is the future you and your ilk desire, you can keep it.
If you care enough to continue living, then you must want something. If you want something, then you must value it. Don't you see how self contradictory your very existence is? Wipe yourself from this universe, and thereby add value by your own definition, but creating more dirt.
That's not the point. How many great scientists did have children and continued their work for their benefit? Countless ancient scholars wasted their mental capacity as priestly machinists hiding their secrets from the world so they could benefit exclusively until they were lost due to war, plague, or some other inevitable event. Their children lost out on all of that benefit because they didn't care much about the future. When they died, that was the end for them, so they didn't care. Their children could take up their role as priestly mechanic, and that was enough. Instead, their children were stuck in an era of darkness, because they didn't keep good records.
What I'm saying is that leaving records after your death is a good thing, because they will generally promote the health of society in general, and as such, your progeny will have a better life for it. Those who die childless have failed in continuing their bloodline, which is the only real reason for existence. If Newton had no children, then he failed that test, though his genes likely live on through brothers and sisters who did manage to reproduce, and his contributions to society DID help them, so from the widest possible human centered view, he did succeed, and it was mostly due to the surviving records of his work.
...is a collection of oral histories from Israel and the areas surrounding it, modified to promote the idea of one true God. The oral histories are a collection of both fictional morality tales and actual facts, and is therefore one of the best guides to what exactly was going on during the transition from pre-history.
That said, I am an atheist. I just don't discount the information that has been passed down for thousands of years as a bunch of hogwash, especially when much of it has in fact been proven true by following the text and discovering ancient ruined cities.
If you plan to have children, you should be concerned, as your line is the closest thing to immortality there is. Strong documentation of the lives of people in the past can prevent those yet to be born from repeating our mistakes. That doesn't even mention the fact that there is a lot of important and valuable information stored electronically that has already been lost (such as designs of ICBMs and various rocket designs) that, had they been recorded on more permanent media, would have benefitted us today.
If everyone failed to document as you do, the world would fall apart in a generation. How's that for a legacy to leave to your children and grandchildren?
That's because by saying that nothing is important, you are saying that you r life has no meaning or purpose. People look at you funny because they are wondering why you haven't killed yourself. That is the end result of such a sick and twisted ideology.
By staying alive, you only put those who are not infected by your death worshipping ideology in danger, whether though infection of their minds, or from physical violence at your hands (because nothing you do matters, so you may as well fulfill your basest desires). That's the long, dark path that leads to the death of civilizations.
Ah, so you are a death worshipper. Yes, remember that you are worthless, and let anyone do whatever they want to you. Remember, in the long run, your pain, torture, and death are irrelevant. The only thing that is important is that which lasts forever, and that's death.
Every person is the center of their own universe. If you wipe out the center of your universe, then yes, it IS very important. All those other universes are going to want to get at the knowledge accumulated by others, to better understand themselves (if it didn't matter, we wouldn't have historians, we'd also still be using stone tools if that).
If you think life is so worthless, then why don't you end yours before your filthy ideology spreads?
All it takes is a vocal and committed minority. Democrats and Republicans have done a good job of distracting the public from the real issues, at least until now, when they are biting us directly in the ass. If a third party were to gain enough support under these circumstances, Democrats and Republicans would probably try to shut them down, and might even agree to suspend elections. Hell, people who support third parties are already labeled as terrorists by state police. It's not a stretch that they would try to ban them or take other actions as necessary to prevent them from upsetting the balance of power.
That said, assuming there is a 2012 election, you will probably see a damn strong showing of some third party (or a radical reformation of the Republican Party). They might even win.
The US army could hardly handle Iraq, which is about the size of Texas, and didn't have an armed populace at the outset of the war. The US is much larger than Texas, and we have an armed populace. We also have the national guard, which answers to the state governors. Should revolution break out, all it would take would be a few governors siding with the revolution and you've got a full scale civil war on your hands. That doesn't take into account the fact that there are nuclear installations thoughout the nation. A civil war in a nuclear armed nation probably wouldn't last long, so long as both sides had nukes. The national guard could easily take control of at least a few ICBM installations within a few hours, and it would take weeks to recall foreign based troops to put down any rebellion.
So yeah, we would have a pretty good chance. Especially with widespread public support. If there was enough support, it might even be wholly bloodless.
and voted for Ron Paul. Obama is just the same as any other politician, but worse, because he seems intent on seizing more power. His only good points are that he seems to be repudiating some of the nastier policies of the Bush administration, but I doubt he would argue that the executive didn't have the AUTHORITY to do what Bush did (if he did, he sure didn't get that authority from Congress or the Constitution), just that it was a bad policy.
Also, it should have been 10,000-20,000 years ago rather than 150,000 years ago. Even without using advanced technology, they would still have built a reasonably advanced civilization within a generation or two (think Egypt).
The idea of them building an advanced civilization on an Atlantic continent is pretty good, but they should have been destroyed by cylons, or a war, rather than a natural disaster. The dregs of that civilization might integrate themselves into the other developing civilizations of the world, causing the flowering of advanced civilizations around the world about 6000 years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
His motives don't matter. What matters is that he has misappropriated the far-too-awesome power of the state in order to force someone not to do something. A 1% tax may not have a huge impact, but once it's there, they can and will raise it, until that behavior they don't like is either wiped out or driven underground.
The best example is smoking. It's now so expensive to be a smoker that almost everyone is quitting, though I know a number of people who have bought tobacco seed and are now growing their own, like it was bloody marijuana. And it all started with an innocent little "vice tax".
Coming soon, fat taxes.
They steal more from those they don't like than those they do. God help you if they don't like you.
Watch out. These days you can be arrested for abusing children that don't exist. Being arrested for abusing laws that don't exist isn't that far of a stretch...
I think you are making a big mistake by saying that capitalism fosters those types of practices. You fail to take into account the legal system that exists in any developing democracy. Slavery is illegal, pollution is directly punishable by lawsuit (many polluters have been successfully punished this way), and toxic materials in products will bring similar lawsuits.
There aren't any problems with capitalism. It is the most efficient, kindest, and most progressive economic system possible. Every singe "failing" either points back to the government, or to the admittedly messy transition from feudalism to capitalism. You have to understand that EVERY TIME the government "steps in", it produces numerous unintended consequences, and creates the opportunity for the various leeches and moochers (think AIG or any of the bailed out banks) to come in and take undeserved money from the taxpayers, or from the holders of dollars through inflation. It also creates an enormous bureaucracy that produces nothing, and only decreases the productive capacity of businesses, effectively stopping small start-ups from being competitive with big corporations. Why do you think we haven't had any new car companies emerge in this country in the last 50 years? Regulation. Why don't we have hundreds of choices when it comes to cell phone companies, like in Japan? Regulation. Why is it that most places in the US have only one choice when it comes to cable, or internet? Regulation. Why are there only two satellite television providers? Regulation. Why are so many radio stations owned by so few companies? Regulation. Why can't anyone open up a lottery in a state with a state lottery? State monopoly. Why can't an effective airline like Southwest fly to anywhere east of Dallas? Regulation spawned by favoratism.
No human is smart enough to control the economy without creating opportunities for graft and/or elimination of competition. The Soviets, who had some of the smartest, best educated economists in the world, saw their economy fall apart as people stopped working hard. There was no incentive to produce, and great incentive to consume. Under such conditions, the only thing that can moderate people's behavior is force, and they thus had to resort to massive application of force, to the point that the place that was supposed to become a worker's paradise instead became a worker's inferno. Those who weren't afraid of government action against them did nothing, only pretending to work. Those who were afraid of government action against them were worked to death to cover for the loafers and moochers. The same is happening here, only this time it is in the shadows. The government steals our productive power by printing money and spending it, as though they had contributed something to the economy, basically compelling labor, giving the money to the banks, then forcing them to lend, increasing demand for goods. It also taxes us, such that there is an incentive to stay in a lower tax bracket, suppressing productive capacity. Thus far, foreigners have made up the difference by lending us money, and supplying us with goods while not consuming much themselves. That is ending though. This new corporatist communism has now led us to the brink of an abyss from which there is no easy escape. The government will try to stop it with more spending, more regulations, and more force, but those actions will do nothing to fix the situation, and will instead only make them worse. These United States will not survive the coming storm in their current form, just as the USSR did not survive their fall from superpower status. We will go from being the richest country in the world due to the very capitalist economic system you seem to hate so much, to one of the porest; a newly de-industrialized nation with power on par to that of Eastern European countries. We might be able to survive, but the era of American hegemony is fast coming to a close.
If you looked into it, you would see that the only children being forced to work such jobs were orphans compelled to the work by the state. Children who got jobs out of thier own free will avoided starvation.
People hate the conditions that existed for workers during the industrial revolution, but they fail to take into account that conditions before the industrial revolution were FAR WORSE, and that government intervention did nothing but damage to worker's right during that time period (remember that it was the government that sent in the army to bust unions). The fact is that if life during the industrial revolution was so bad, people would have continued on as subsistence farmers and serfs.
Simple, we mine the sun for coal once it cools off. We then use the hydrogen we get from burning that coal in the little widget I bought on the internet for my car, and turn it all into hydrogen, then BAM! Problem solved.
It's surprisingly easy make or modify what looks like a winning lottery ticket, what with Photoshop and all. I suspect that they bought a ticket the day after the drawing with the winning numbers from the day before and switched them out. It's an old con (which has taken in lots of smart people) turned into a practical joke.
She was a highly valued employee, and I was in a panic that I was going to have to replace her on short notice. She had been here longer than anyone else except for the owner, and did the work of two-three people. Smart, capable people can be gullible too, especially when it plays on their hopes.
Screw ups like this are why I hate April Fools with a passion. Anyone that works under me knows that if they participate in an April Fools joke at work that I will be very angry at them. Things that start as an April Fools joke can easily end in injury or lawsuits. Either the day ought to be a national holiday or it should be abolished. Some jokes are very funny, but too many end in disaster. One year I had someone give two weeks notice because they thought they had won the lottery, later the same day she came in and sheepishly retracted her notice. Imagine if she had quit on the spot, and said a few choice words to the folks in the office. I might not have been able to keep her on had her reaction gone just that much further...
You are arguing about something completely different. You are proposing a. that this is an either/or proposition, and that b. reproduction is only for retards, which is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of.
Being remembered is great, but as the person I was originally replying to pointed out, fame after death is utterly unsatisfying. The knowledge that you had children and grandchildren, on the other hand, is quite comforting as one goes into their final sleep due to the built in biological mechanisms that evolution has created in order to keep our DNA from disappearing (which is the closest thing to PHYSICAL immortality that is possible).
You may think your works are mighty, Ozymandius, but ten thousand years from now, they will be but dust (unless you preserve your data in a more permanent fashion, which is what I was talking about), and even your name will have disappeared from the minds of men. Your DNA will continue, though. Assuming you weren't too busy to have sex at least once.
Or unless you are facing a race of giant sentient cockroaches who have Twinkie based militaries.
But seriously, stop justifying stupidity by calling up unrealistic situations. Countries don't become suicide bombers.
Is autism inheritable? And if so, one would think that the study would have controlled for that...
Why was this modded flamebait? It seems like a reasonable argument to me. If you want to refute it, then do so, but don't use mod points to stifle civil debate.
Confirmation bias is a real problem, and should be addressed.
What is your definition of value? Nothing is valuable to the universe, not even the universe, because the universe is not sentient, nor does it have needs or desires. People are important to people, because they are able to do many things which promote their ability to survive and provide comfort.
If all records and knowledge were lost, as you seem to desire, in your foolish quest for infinite self debasement, then man would revert to his most primitive state, living in the woods chasing down animals and killing them with his bear hands, living nothing but a short, violent life. If that is the future you and your ilk desire, you can keep it.
If you care enough to continue living, then you must want something. If you want something, then you must value it. Don't you see how self contradictory your very existence is? Wipe yourself from this universe, and thereby add value by your own definition, but creating more dirt.
Idiot.
That's not the point. How many great scientists did have children and continued their work for their benefit? Countless ancient scholars wasted their mental capacity as priestly machinists hiding their secrets from the world so they could benefit exclusively until they were lost due to war, plague, or some other inevitable event. Their children lost out on all of that benefit because they didn't care much about the future. When they died, that was the end for them, so they didn't care. Their children could take up their role as priestly mechanic, and that was enough. Instead, their children were stuck in an era of darkness, because they didn't keep good records.
What I'm saying is that leaving records after your death is a good thing, because they will generally promote the health of society in general, and as such, your progeny will have a better life for it. Those who die childless have failed in continuing their bloodline, which is the only real reason for existence. If Newton had no children, then he failed that test, though his genes likely live on through brothers and sisters who did manage to reproduce, and his contributions to society DID help them, so from the widest possible human centered view, he did succeed, and it was mostly due to the surviving records of his work.
The half life of a concept is the amount of time it takes for half the people taught about it in school to forget about it.
So the half life of entropy is about 45 minutes.
...is a collection of oral histories from Israel and the areas surrounding it, modified to promote the idea of one true God. The oral histories are a collection of both fictional morality tales and actual facts, and is therefore one of the best guides to what exactly was going on during the transition from pre-history.
That said, I am an atheist. I just don't discount the information that has been passed down for thousands of years as a bunch of hogwash, especially when much of it has in fact been proven true by following the text and discovering ancient ruined cities.
If you plan to have children, you should be concerned, as your line is the closest thing to immortality there is. Strong documentation of the lives of people in the past can prevent those yet to be born from repeating our mistakes. That doesn't even mention the fact that there is a lot of important and valuable information stored electronically that has already been lost (such as designs of ICBMs and various rocket designs) that, had they been recorded on more permanent media, would have benefitted us today.
If everyone failed to document as you do, the world would fall apart in a generation. How's that for a legacy to leave to your children and grandchildren?
That's because by saying that nothing is important, you are saying that you r life has no meaning or purpose. People look at you funny because they are wondering why you haven't killed yourself. That is the end result of such a sick and twisted ideology.
By staying alive, you only put those who are not infected by your death worshipping ideology in danger, whether though infection of their minds, or from physical violence at your hands (because nothing you do matters, so you may as well fulfill your basest desires). That's the long, dark path that leads to the death of civilizations.
Ah, so you are a death worshipper. Yes, remember that you are worthless, and let anyone do whatever they want to you. Remember, in the long run, your pain, torture, and death are irrelevant. The only thing that is important is that which lasts forever, and that's death.
Every person is the center of their own universe. If you wipe out the center of your universe, then yes, it IS very important. All those other universes are going to want to get at the knowledge accumulated by others, to better understand themselves (if it didn't matter, we wouldn't have historians, we'd also still be using stone tools if that).
If you think life is so worthless, then why don't you end yours before your filthy ideology spreads?
It's currently a perpetually motionless machine.
All it takes is a vocal and committed minority. Democrats and Republicans have done a good job of distracting the public from the real issues, at least until now, when they are biting us directly in the ass. If a third party were to gain enough support under these circumstances, Democrats and Republicans would probably try to shut them down, and might even agree to suspend elections. Hell, people who support third parties are already labeled as terrorists by state police. It's not a stretch that they would try to ban them or take other actions as necessary to prevent them from upsetting the balance of power.
That said, assuming there is a 2012 election, you will probably see a damn strong showing of some third party (or a radical reformation of the Republican Party). They might even win.
This is not the case. Patents and copyrights are government backed monopolies and therefore anathema to any ideologically consistent libertarian.
The US army could hardly handle Iraq, which is about the size of Texas, and didn't have an armed populace at the outset of the war. The US is much larger than Texas, and we have an armed populace. We also have the national guard, which answers to the state governors. Should revolution break out, all it would take would be a few governors siding with the revolution and you've got a full scale civil war on your hands. That doesn't take into account the fact that there are nuclear installations thoughout the nation. A civil war in a nuclear armed nation probably wouldn't last long, so long as both sides had nukes. The national guard could easily take control of at least a few ICBM installations within a few hours, and it would take weeks to recall foreign based troops to put down any rebellion.
So yeah, we would have a pretty good chance. Especially with widespread public support. If there was enough support, it might even be wholly bloodless.
and voted for Ron Paul. Obama is just the same as any other politician, but worse, because he seems intent on seizing more power. His only good points are that he seems to be repudiating some of the nastier policies of the Bush administration, but I doubt he would argue that the executive didn't have the AUTHORITY to do what Bush did (if he did, he sure didn't get that authority from Congress or the Constitution), just that it was a bad policy.
Also, it should have been 10,000-20,000 years ago rather than 150,000 years ago. Even without using advanced technology, they would still have built a reasonably advanced civilization within a generation or two (think Egypt).
The idea of them building an advanced civilization on an Atlantic continent is pretty good, but they should have been destroyed by cylons, or a war, rather than a natural disaster. The dregs of that civilization might integrate themselves into the other developing civilizations of the world, causing the flowering of advanced civilizations around the world about 6000 years ago.