i'm not clicking a mystery link

make your case plainly in your own words or don't bother posting at all

"here, read this indoctrination without any motivation" is not how real life works

true, good point

but if costs and profits approach each other so close the uncertainty of a profit looms large and its just a hassle, static well-established commodities would be abandoned to the state to manage

moved to the state to manage not as in communist take over

more like railroads: "not profitable and no one wants to deal with it, but it's still vital"

nothing is truly free. just like we can never have absolute zero or a true vacuum

but we get to a point where cost in capital and effort is so low, compared to vast production, that it is virtually free

right wing is indeed anti-progress according to a number of different malicious and/ or low iq theories. correct

sums up what? the tax code is complicated because the economy and is complicated. if you had a flat tax you would crush certain sectors of the economy and let other ones off scott free, no tax

the flat tax is a laughable joke sold by propaganda con artists and believed by completely deluded morons

of course the tax code is overly complicated and needs reform, but you have to genuinely be a low iq tool to believe a flat tax is somehow better. it's not. it's grossly unfair

and this whole " You need to go out of your way to try to force equality of outcome" is some retarded right wing fearmongering douchebaggery. taxing people is about making everyone equal? seriously? where do you fucking morons come from?

capitalism is about maximizing profit. you just listed a bunch of ways to maximize profit and said that's not capitalism

what is this virtuous restrained concept of capitalism you speak of that has never existed and never will?

i'm sorry, but if you want to say greed and capitalism are different unrelated topics, you're trolling badly or you're dumb

This is a Republic - not a Democracy

i'm sorry, i stopped reading there

this comment causes me instant rage and instantly makes me disrespect the person. i can't interact with you any further

it's a constant comment, you see it all the time on the topic of government

it's like "correlation is not causation"

a phrase originally meant to be about keeping an open mind, but now a phrase constantly kneejerk parroted by morons to close their mind against proof that contradicts their prejudices. correlation is actually the first step in establishing causation. correlation does not mean causation does not exists. but that's how people use the phrase! it's incredibly stupid

likewise, "the usa is a republic not a democracy" is similar. a constant comment by low effort low iq people who want to seem discerning and knowledgeable but only reveal themselves to be fucking dumb

it's like saying "the usa is a mode of transportation, not an automobile"

we're a republic that elects our representatives democratically you dumb fuck

we're BOTH

it is completely accurate to call the USA a democracy. it doesn't mean we are not a republic. these are different descriptors for different aspects of our government structure you stupid shit

to not understand that, and to think saying this kneejerk dumb comment is important or wise, instantly makes you completely not worth any further interaction

please mod this comment +500 insightful and burn it across the front page of slashdot

still won't save us from the steady rain of "the usa is a republic not a democracy, the usa is a republic not a democracy, the usa is a republic not a democracy" from dumb assholes for years

i'm not a conspiracy theorist, but if we ever get to the point where everything is mostly automated, i wouldn't put it past plutocrats to simply kill us all off with a contrived war and/ or some plague

simply because we represent excess unneeded capacity

only a few rich human remain, vast billions of us simply removed as redundant and too much drama and hassle

1. no, capitalism is not anarchy. the endpoint is plutocracy: high corruption, a few ultrarich, and a sea of poor

2. that abuse exists independent of capitalism doesn't say anything for or against capitalism. that's a pretty dumb red herring. capitalism of course creates certain kinds of abuse. many other abuses exist outside capitalism. duh

3. capitalism created unions in the late 1800s. people were becoming slaves (charged more for the company food and housing than the money they made, in essence paying to work). no holidays, no time off, child slavery, no worker safety, etc. unions exist simply because without anyone advocating for workers, companies would happily abuse workers. uinions themselves have many abuses. as if those abuses are worse than a slave holding corporation

4. a government is controlled by its people. it's called democracy. a *corrupt* government is controlled by corporations. so you want to remove the *corruption* not the *government. get it? if you weaken the government, who fills the power vacuum? corporations do. the ones corrupting your government. hello?

never in a million years do i understand this deranged notion:

"corporations corrupt my democracy, so government is evil"

wtf? it's like:

"someone robbed the bank by bribing the security guard. so from now on we will have no security at banks. that way our money will be safe from robbers... what did you ask? go after the robbers? nah, forget about them. just fire the bad guard and hire a new good guard? that's crazy talk"

why are so many people so deranged on this point? corporations are your enemy, not government. they are the ones corrupting your government. plenty of countries have laws against corruption that works. you can't remove all corruption but you can do far, far better than the USA's legalized corruption

A government controlled economy is like having huge corporations with armies, police forces and courts with little or no recourse for whatever plight you may have.

(facepalm)

how the fuck can you have it exactly backwards from the truth?

weak government means corporations control the army, police force, and courts with little or no recourse. with your government, you're arrested, tried, and freed/ jailed. there's a process to protect you. the process can fuck up, but why is NO process somehow better? what recourse do you have against an army controlled by corporations?

is that science fiction i'm talking about? consider dickface plutocrat cheney and his blackwater crew and then consider this real american history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

Pinkerton's agents performed services ranging from security guarding to private military contracting work. Pinkerton was the largest private law enforcement organization in the world at the height of its power.[3] By the early 1890s, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed more agents than there were members of the standing army of the United States of America.

During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businessmen hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, as well as recruiting goon squads to intimidate workers. One such confrontation was the Homestead Strike of 1892, in which Pinkerton agents were called in to reinforce the strikebreaking measures of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie. The ensuing battle between Pinkerton agents and striking workers led to the deaths of seven Pinkerton agents and nine steelworkers.[4] The Pinkertons were also used as guards in coal, iron, and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia as well as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. The organization was pejoratively called the "Pinks" by its opponents.

why do so many morons want to weaken government and strengthen corporations... because corporations corrupt their government. "this asshole is abusing the guy who is supposed to protect me, so remove the guy who is supposed to protect me so the asshole can abuse me directly" so it's fucking stupid and insane

i would love to see a return of intelligent conservatism like Buckley. the idea of having an intelligent rational exchange with a conservative is an exciting prospect

unfortunately, in the USA at least, the right seems to have been taken over by its idiots. there are of course many, many morons on the left. the difference being the right seems to have put their morons in charge

in today's cllimate Buckley would quickly be labeled a RINO, a moderate, a flip flopper (to be intellectually honest and be able to change your mind is considered wrong), or even socialist

not because Buckley ever espoused socialism, but because since the end of the cold war 25 years ago, the insult "socialist" has degenerated to mean nothing more than "bad word to call scary person i don't like"

if you had a great machine that automated all means of resource extraction, refining, assembly, and distribution, all powered by automated energy sources or just solar, then i'm sorry, the cost is negligible enough to be called zero

you're just not thinking far enough ahead, the end game of all efforts at cost reduction. it's a progressive effort that started with assembly lines and mass production and millworks next to swift flowing rivers two centuries ago. it took production out of the hands of artisans and craftsmen and this shift represented a huge drop in costs. the cost reduction continues to this day. there is an endgame here

maintenance would still be human though. so in the future, janitors and networking cable grunts would hold all power

there is also of course research and development, and entrepreneurship. this is still human. this is where capitalism will move to

our basics will be nationalized, but not in the communist sense. in the sense of "no one is interested in this industry, the profits are too tiny or nonexistent, so give it to government to run because it's still vital." example: railroads

capitalism is about increasing profits by any means possible

if people could be worked 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for no pay, capitalism would be very happy. just look at the cruelties of the gilded age before the labor movement shut down most of the viciousness

the ideal society is capitalism with social safety nets and market protections. otherwise capitalism will lead to worker abuse and monopolies/ oligopolies where consumers are ripped off and smaller competitors squashed

you need to protect society from capitalism's extremes. if some of those protections and regulations have problems, those problems are tiny compared to no protections or regulations. protections and regulations can be cleaned up and refined, but never removed. to not understand why less protections and regulations is far worse is to not understand the topic

capitalism is like a great beast. properly harnessed and controlled it can plow your fields and give you great riches. allowed to run roughshod, it will knock down your barn and eat your crops. and what capitalism is most certainly not is some sort of fundamentalist religion, the end-all be-all of existence as some assholes conceive it to be. such fools represent our destruction

if the ultimate capitalist pursuit of removing all human workers results in production without any cost, then they have delivered the ultimate socialist utopia: everything costs $0, no one having to work

all that has to be removed is the mendacity that will still seek rent for the existing machinery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

is why it is turned off

if the question were "why should a phone add all this expensive hardware for negligible benefit" then the answer should obviously screw FM radio

but if the functionality is already there, why isn't anyone angry that you are being denied something for free simply so your phone carrier can squeeze more cash out of you?

i look at the other posts here and their priorities and their rationale, and i can't understand why this thought doesn't rank higher

and while we're at it, get us a tv tuner too, like in japan:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Androi...

why aren't television and fm radio industries banding together to demand inclusion on smartphones? nevermind as a safety feature, you can make arguments for that, but even if you think that's a contrived concern, do it simply because it's a fucking industry of content, that you can get FOR FREE

so, indeed, you're affirming the insult

you're telling me you see no distinction between science and business

why are there so many fucking morons in this world?