laotzu
Joined 11 years ago
Karma
401
Submissions
200
Member since
Oct 12
Recent submissions
Comment · 10 years ago
Define sentient entities
Comment · 10 years ago
Why should students be forced to use such outdated technology?
If we are trying to teach students how to work in the real world, shouldn't we let them use computers that they would be using in the real world as opposed to obsolete computers that were made before they were born?
Comment · 10 years ago
Vice laws
Comment · 10 years ago
It used to be 90% of the population was working to produce food, now its around 1% and decreasing with increasing efficiency. So it is an increasingly negligible amount of labor needed to provide an already surplus amount of food.
It is cynical and ignorant to assume the dollar is the monotheistic deity of motivation for everyone. There are and have been countless cultures across the world who don't require monetary payment to produce the requisite food for the community.
Comment · 10 years ago
>You are saying it isn't my right to consume what I choose?
That's what the law says actually. Not trying to be snide here but unfortunately the law does not allow for sovereign domain over one's own body (at least in the US -- and elsewhere) in many cases. Though I realize you are asking in regards to advertisements.
Comment · 10 years ago
>if it's only unconsciously influencing me a tiny amount
If it is unconsciously influencing you how would you know if it is only doing so "a tiny amount"?
Comment · 10 years ago
>At the moment the problem in the US is labor scarcity. Robots haven't replaced these jobs, these jobs just don't get done.
Labor scarcity in the sense that there's not enough people who need work, or in the sense that there is not enough people who have the necessary skills? I would have to assume the latter. If that is the case, aren't most of these scarce skills the type which are used to service and maintain the very automation which would be used to implement a UBI?
>When robots provide the same level of services to the US middle class, that would be a signal that we might need to think about something like a BI.
Automation already provides a much higher level of services than human workers in many areas. Do we really want to wait to the very end of this process to begin the transition?
Comment · 10 years ago
It's really about being able to match growth with sustainability.
Comment · 10 years ago
The measurement problem, if by quantitative you mean "relating to, measuring, or measured by the quantity of something".
There is no consistent mathematical standard of measurement by which money is created. Instead, the monetary value of some good or service used as capital for a loan is largely up to the arbitrary appraisal of the bank.
Comment · 10 years ago
In my university finance classes we were forced to use calculators that were invented in 1976[1] to run calculations on formulas we had to memorize that could easily have been automated in Excel. Since then I've been prejudiced that "the invisible hand" ;) was deliberately keeping electric technology out of finance in order to maintain a legacy business model. Like that of the MPAA towards VCRs and DVDs etc.
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_Business_A...
Comment · 10 years ago
I think the author is referring to increasingly distributed networks as opposed to the more centralized legacy networks. So electric networks vs. Paper based networks.
Comment · 10 years ago
They gave up because of general lack of opportunity.
Comment · 10 years ago
>The self-titled militia organizations, however, use a warped view of history that glorifies their role in the American Revolution
As a proponent of non-violence I have no real support for such activities but after having read much of the constitutional debates I feel compelled to point out the fact that a civilian militia as a check/balance on government power as well as for auxiliary military purposes was a very considerable topic of discussion in the constitutional debates of the founding fathers:
>No man has a greater regard for the military gentlemen than I have. I admire their intrepidity, perseverance, and valor. But when once a standing army is established in any country, the people lose their liberty. When, against a regular and disciplined army, yeomanry are the only defence,--yeomanry, unskilful and unarmed,--what chance is there for preserving freedom? Give me leave to recur to the page of history, to warn you of your present danger. Recollect the history of most nations of the world. What havoc, desolation, and destruction, have been perpetrated by standing armies! An instance within the memory of some of this house will show us how our militia may be destroyed. Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia. [Here Mr. Mason quoted sundry passages to this effect.] This was a most iniquitous project. Why should we not provide against the danger of having our militia, our real and natural strength, destroyed? The general government ought, at the same time, to have some such power. But we need not give them power to abolish our militia. If they neglect to arm them, and prescribe proper discipline, they will be of no use.
-George Mason, "The Father of the Bill of Rights", Debate in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/a1_8...
However, others such as Alexander Hamilton noted the logistical difficulties of sustaining such a militia:
>A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
-Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, 1788
Comment · 10 years ago
Against zombies
Comment · 10 years ago
>The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out.