Any sensible man would know we shouldn't have such stupid laws. If CFLs/LEDs/etc are so superior, why do we need a law banning them? If everyone cares enough about the environment to pass a law to mandate the use of such bulbs, don't enough of us care that a law isn't necessary? The government shouldn't be passing laws for this kind of BS, guidelines and industry standard recommendations maybe, but not laws.

If you want to save electricity, how about turning off the millions of street and parking lot lights at night? How about wiring homes with DC so that damn near every piece of electric equipment doesn't have to take a >10% efficiency hit in order to operate? Or a law to limit the number of hours a TV can be used (we can all agree that that freedom isn't needed anymore, right)?

Maybe we should have laws limiting the amount of power your computer can draw or how long it can be on. Or perhaps outlaw that scourge to computer efficiency, the hard drive?

Of course everything can't be privatized; there are things that must be held in the public name or else fundamental public services would be non existant (such as courts or the military). I've never heard anyone clamoring for such an irrational view of privatization but I wouldn't put it past people. But the real reason privatization is NOT as dangerous to the common man is because 1) The government is eternal and 2) History has shown you have a lot more to fear from your government than from your asshole neighbor.

In regards to social security...how naive were people to think that this WOULDN'T happen? I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner! You've already admitted the money "didn't belong to them" and you're right - it belonged to the people who earned it. So why isn't that money in *their* control? Why was it ever under the control of the government in the first place? (Hint: it wasn't unintentional.) Why isn't the middle ground of SS "you have to put money away for retirement, but that money is in a privately held, but federally insured account for the individual"? Heck, you could even say that the money *has* to be used to purchase US Treasuries - as a method of lending to the government to fund it while hedging against inflation.

But the whole notion of SS is fundamentally flawed - it assumes that people can't think for themselves, can't plan for their own future, and can't manage their own finances. Anyone with any sense of self worth and independence should see that for what it is: a slap in the face and a command to "obey"!

Why "minorities"? Why not just "individuals"? Isn't an "individual" the ultimate minority?

This constant obsession with protecting specific groups is a deep, fundamental flaw in your thinking that is all too common. Stop categorizing people. Rights shouldn't be based on what category you fit into, they should be based on the fact that you are an individual human being with the same rights as every other human being.

No, the US constitution was important because it put THE GOVERNMENTS rights in simple English on a sheet of paper. It's supposed to list what the government can do, not what the people can do; I say supposed to because the monstrosity of government we have now is so out of scope of the original purpose of government that it's beyond defining. The Bill of Rights (which is what you're really talking about) was an afterthought introduced by Madison because it was feared that the Constitution wasn't explicit enough, i.e., people would allow the government to grow beyond its purpose and trample certain rights were key to the revolution in the first place.

The Constitution doesn't give you freedom. It gives the government freedom. Freedom isn't given to you by your government - it's something your government is supposed to protect!

So don't work for that employer. Work for yourself or work for someone else. Start a company which reverses this trend: allow innovators to keep the right to their ideas in exchange for being reimbursed the cost of developing the technology. I hope you don't consider yourself an inventor, because quite frankly you don't seem to have the balls to handle the competition (hint: if you want the government to rewrite the rules in your favor, you're doing it wrong). If you think corporations or the government has all the power, they only do because you let them have it.

There are real benefits to having a corporation fund your work. For example, there's almost zero risk for the inventor. The company will pay for the development and marketing of your idea and absorb (or default) on the loss if it fails. Sure, you might lose your job, but you're not going to go bankrupt or lose millions (and potentially more) on an idea with no guarantee of return. Your family isn't going to starve if your idea flops, or the market dries up.

Or lower the cost of labor. Not everyone in this country is going to have a high paying job and high education is not for everyone. Maybe if we spent more time on lowering the cost of living in this country then lower paying jobs wouldn't be so intolerable.

Well said. Right behind being popular is "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" which is absolutely contrary to the principles the US was founded on. Too many people these days think that what's good for the group is good for the individual. This is rarely the case, because it puts the government in the position of picking winners and losers, which is a position the government should not be in.

Society is not government. If government wants to implement social reform, it should do so in an open forum as an exchange between citizens and government and not merely pass laws. People keep thinking government is a tool for change when it should really be a weapon of second-to-last resort (with the last being force).

A lot of private companies are founded by people who incubated their ideas at a university (the first startup I cofounded began at a University). Corporate innovation and development is *gasp* a group effort; you're rarely going to find single-man corporations doing anything serious in the tech world. Everyday I wake up, I go to work, where I personally consider it my *job* to make this world a better place (I'm an engineer), I pay my taxes, I love my country, and I support my community. The problem isn't with capitalism. The problem isn't even with socialism. The problem is that people are more focused on doing things at a national level instead of at a local level where they can make the biggest difference. People are fanatical about using the federal government to solve all the problems of the world. It's like using a fucking sledge hammer during open heart surgery.

Who gives a shit if we aren't the world's largest economy, or that we might be losing our "tech mojo", or that our standard of living isn't as high as the socialist paradises of Europe, or that every single child doesn't get a free college education. Let people know that this is still the freest country in the world: that people who come here get to keep what they earn, use it as they see fit, and find their own happiness. That's the only thing America needs to be #1 in. Everything else will follow.

Eh, I don't think being smart is considered bad in American society (plenty of popular people now are considered "smart" and have >4.0 GPAs in high school). The problem is we over-emphasize the importance of learning at a high school level in order for the young to gain entry to an overly burdened college/university system, where education is often less-emphasized relative to high school. At that level, parents generally care less about *what* their children study so long as they study *something*. I think a symptom of the problem you're trying to describe is this: parents are more concerned with which university their children go to than what they study at that university.

I wouldn't mind a tax increase to help pay for some of these things, and I live in CA, which is already heavily taxed. Unfortunately, from a fiscal perspective, I have -zero- faith in the politicians capability to 1) Accurately estimate the cost of such a project, 2) Effectively execute and manage the project, 3) Appropriately and reasonably raise the initial funds to subsidize the project, and 4) Adjust the taxes/fees to adequately maintain the project. CA has such a poor track record that this is more a systemic failure than anything else.

That said, I'd rather see options in the cars available that include these features. I certainly don't mind paying for my own safety (and collision avoidance systems would indeed protect the safety of others as well).

Still...probably the biggest problem with American roads are the drivers, not the cars or the roads or the technology. The number of deaths could be brought down considerably if states weren't so lenient on drivers. And I'm not talking your basic speeding or stop sign rolling, but real hazards like blowing through red lights at full speed, weaving in and out of traffic on a busy freeway, or simply having no understanding of basic physics (1000 kg of steel at 100 kph has a LOT of energy). The worst offenders tend to be younger, arrogant in their thinking, misguided in their judgment, and utterly ignorant of physics.

Since you can't beat sense into reckless drivers (and boy do I wish this was possible) they should simply have the privilege of driving revoked. Less reckless drivers translates to fewer deaths, lower traffic volumes, and lower insurance premiums. Do this first and THEN evaluate whether expensive new safety mandates and technology requirements are necessary to fix public stupidity.

Yes, I understand that it's an inside joke between the audience and the writer.

I know that it's a plot device, my point is that it's not a good one. Using shitty puns in your otherwise trying to be serious movie AND not offering anything more ethically challenging than "durrrr, it's worth lots of moneys11!" should tell you that James Cameron thinks you're a child or a moron. And he's probably right.

Plot is there, it's just terrible AND unoriginal. Good movies are rarely predictable - that's why movies seem so much better when you're younger than when you're older. I could have done without the hyperbolic stereotyping. I would have actually been more impressed and somewhat surprised if the movie followed the historically accurate "white man comes in, destroys alien culture, builds mini mall" scenario.

Do you really need to get inside the guys head when you know exactly what's going to happen?

You have seen Idiocracy, haven't you?

No, it could have been gold for all I care - it was just a plot element. And since no one in my theater laughed at the reference, you either saw it with a larger and older age group, or people who aren't borderline retarded.

Unobtanium wasn't my beef, my beef was with the Disneyesque story and painfully obvious stereotypes. Slightly liberal but research-only concerned scientists. Angry, butt-hurt military types who went to destroy everything. Tree hugging forest dwellers. Greedy corporations who think any means justifies their ends. And the protagonist with emotional baggage caught up in it all.

If you're under 18 or have lived a sheltered life from Disney movies, or Japanese RPGs, or generic science fiction, the history of Humanity in the last 10,000 years, then I suppose you might take the story arcs as new and refreshing and the characters seriously. But in my opinion - this movie was all bark and no bite.

Imagine one of those cheesy SciFi channel Saturday evening low budget science fiction movies on a $300 million dollar budget. That's what Avatar is. Sure the acting is decent and the special effects are spectacular - but the story is boring and predictable. (Come on, 'unobtainium'?) It's as if James Cameron and Disney tried to Westernize a Japanese RPG storyline.

As for the science, well...if you're a neurobiologist with a flare for xenobiology, I'm sure this is a very interesting story. Otherwise, all the technology ranges from "reasonably possible in the not too distant future" to "still very much science fiction".