Fairly negligible. Sexist advertising is the symptom of sexist culture. Advertisers are very good at adapting to cultural expectations. Whether sexist culture is good or bad is a normative judgement, and hence likely to be contentious.

And the 'cure' in this case is almost certainly worse than the disease. Social engineering of this sort can only be justified through a paternalistic view of government; that it's the majority of us trying to keep us individually on the 'right' path. Which is dictatorship. Benevolent and majoritarian dictatorship, but dictatorship nevertheless. [1] And hence should be anathema to the true liberal; much worse than individuals making choices we personally disagree with.

[1] Blatantly plagarizing from Milton Freedman, Capitalism and Freedom

Citation needed

People are most creative in find ways to be wealthier and more successful. Another way they're smarter than cats; if I was a cat, I'd want a pet Roomba to chase around. :)

AAAHHH, they let the magic smoke out of the AMD! Of course it stopped working! UNFAIR TEST! ~

RSA hasn't been broken (publicly at least). There's a decent chance the NSA has broken it, but I'm not too concerned about them in this case.

It's not password protection, it's RSA encryption. That means it's a practical impossibility to break it directly with today's tech; you would need months on any top500 supercomputer to have even a chance at it.

That said, my original comment was after being a joke...

Or rather, I hope you concluded they are about as self-interested as said housecat. Until housecats prove as adroit at maximizing personal income and success, I'm going to maintain the 'Job Creators' are much smarter.

Not really. The truly stupid people think demand is completely inflexible.

I'm confused. How exactly did WW2 move money (or more usefully, wealth, as inflation/deflation happened a lot in that period of time) into the hands of the middle class? By destroying large amounts of infrastructure, property and capital? By killing off a sizable number of said middle class?

Wars are inherently destructive. Claiming they help the economy is the fallacy of the broken window.

While I agree with your general point, I'm not sure public libraries are truly necessary for prosperity, particularly these days. I'm an avid reader, and haven't been in a library in years. If government stopped wasting (a very tiny fraction of) my money on public libraries, I'd be able to afford (a fractional part of) an extra book to read!

That qualifies as one of those inventions that make you wonder why it had to be invented... The utility is quite obvious.

Yeah, trusting the Guardian to be responsible definitely does qualify as incompetence. But gross incompetence? You're taking things a bit too far...~

I think it's a tragedy that someone raised anywhere doesn't know what socialism is. I doubt growing up in an authoritarian country is likely to improve your chances of understanding it.

And that, my friend, is an ideology. Your ideology. That normative standard is nothing that can be derived from reality. I believe the parent might disagree with it. I would only agree for a very specific definition of 'works for the most'. Ideology is the lens we see the world through. For a healthy person, it's an autofocusing lens, continually changing your perceptions of the world, and being changed by them.

Ideology is for children. In fact, the point of a lot of education is to give them a decent one. Is accepting progress 'natural'? Is demanding rationality 'normal'? Is compassion for the downtrodden 'admirable'? Each of these judgments depends on ideology. I hope our kids will be taught to answer yes to each of these, and maintain that ideology throughout their lives.

The simplest, most straight-forward answer is that it's better designed to achieve it's goal. Both programs are primarily used to fight poverty; to, as you put it, keep people from "[being] forced onto the street".

But one of them is funded by regressive payroll taxes, and provides benefits on the basis of age. The other one is funded by a progressive income tax and provides benefits on the basis of need.

I know which one might be worth supporting, and it isn't the first one.

I'd be the first to admit that morals can conflict. But it's just that; a conflict. It is, by itself, immoral to break your word. It is also, sometimes, immoral to keep your word, when you have promised foolishly. In such a dilemma, an ethics and moral courage are questioned, as they must choose which principle to break.

But in the end the fact will remain that you spoke foolishly and were compelled to break faith by a stronger moral injunction.