In some ways I'm sympathetic to libertarian ideas. I tend to score as left libertarian on the politicalcompass.org test. Their test is interesting because they measure two different scales: economic and social.

I don't feel that Christians are really being forced to participate in activities supporting same-sex marriage. The only case that I'm familiar with that could be described that way is the gay wedding cake case, but that one is a complicated enough case that it has been taken on by the supreme court.

I'm again sympathetic to the idea that government can be dangerous, but I think whether we need more or less or just different government is another complex philosophical that I have not thought enough about to answer with certainty. I have seen people refer to the Federalist papers before and would like to read them when I have a chance, so I can learn more. Thanks for the suggestion/reminder. There is a whole bunch of political philosophy materials that I really need to read.

Sorry to hear that, but at least they will accept a patch, according to that page.

I stand by my point. Sure, patients do demand them, and the doctors go along probably for fear of lawsuits, but there is also a heavy profit motive on the other end to not do anything about that detrimental demand.

If someone is selling a lot of something, there's a profit to be made. Pfizer milked Zithromax (azythromycin) for all it was worth. That antibiotic was extremely popular (wikipedia says it was the most prescribed antibiotic in 2010) and they milked it so much that it's losing its effectiveness (my doctor told me that it's losing it last year, explaining why it's no longer his first choice).

Also consider the case of Purdue pharma (and likely others), who have made billions and billions and fought tooth and nail and even broken laws to keep the flood of opiate painkillers going despite the absolute carnage that this causing (worse death epidemic than AIDS was). Again according to a brief wikipedia search, a dose of codeine for example costs one dollar. A course of Zithromax, which is like 5 or 6 pills seems to cost over $30. Why would Pfizer not do everything in their power to keep selling as much as they could the same way that Purdue has been, unless someone stopped them?

Finally, when I said antibiotics, I was including antibiotic ointments. How much profit do you think Johnson & Johnson (previously Pfizer too) makes from selling Neosporin in every drug store, convenience store, and supermarket in the US?

naz...guls?

The factors that some posters above have mentioned all point back to factors that are in place because of extreme market fundamentalism, (i.e. neoliberalism) in the US:

1. Slack sterile procedures in hospitals - oh no, we can't force hospitals to fix this because hospital profits.
2. Vast abuse of antibiotics in animal farming - oh no, we can't force meat producers to fix this because industrial agriculture profits.
3. Abuse of antibiotics by doctors, patients, and consumers - oh no, we can't force everyone to only use antibiotics when absolutely necessary because pharmaceutical profits.

In other words, the neoliberal answer to this issue so far has been: we can't fix it because it would affect profits. Just keep on dying.

You're welcome, and thank you too for explaining. Here are my thoughts in response:

First, I think that one of the problems is that labels like progressives, liberals, conservatives, etc. mean different things to different people, and their meaning changes over time and mean different things in different places, even places that use the same language. This ends up causing all kinds of major problems because people end up attacking others just based on labels, and not for actual ideas and actions.

Second, I feel similarly about intrusion into people's personal lives, but from the other side. I think that you are mistakenly targeting progressives/liberals because conservatives are just as apt to intrude into peoples lives, just for different reasons (sexuality, drugs, abortion, etc). I can understand why someone may think this way though. Unfortunately, much to my chagrin progressives/liberals have been increasingly strident over the decades about moralistic stuff that either doesn't matter or is just counter-productive to much more worthwhile causes.

Finally, I do have to disagree about government. Yes, there have been some terrible examples, but there have also been great examples. The thing is that there is no viable alternative to government and there never will be. The alternative is being trampled by a different power that you have no control over, every other week. To very remotely paraphrase that famous saying about democracy, government is terrible but it's the best choice we have out of the available options.

I get your frustration with loss of functionality, but that specific example seems like a reason to petition the developers to add this as an option or to fix the bug, not to keep a feature that I understand had adverse security and performance implications.

I will check them out, thanks!

Thanks for the reply. I do remember hearing a lot of complaints over the last few years about the direction that the Firefox interface was heading. Fortunately I was personally never too annoyed with the changes, except when it seemed to be copying Chrome too closely, coincidentally.

I can understand your feelings and reaction, since you had been relying on those features. I've gone through the frustration of having software that I've used for a long time be "sabotaged" in one way or another.

On the other hand it's a bit funny for me to hear that you thought it was astroturfers touting the new version of Firefox. It may well have been that too, but I think I did post a couple of times defending it here on Slashdot, and I have no financial or other incentive connection to Mozilla whatsoever, other than being a happy user. I should have realized that my comments may have been irritating to people who had the opposite opinion of the changes, but I was just excited to see it become competitive with Chrome again, which seems to be dominating the browser world nowadays. I'm concerned about us returning to a browser mono-culture.

I'm very concerned about privacy on the internet too and use some add-ons for it as well, but oddly enough I don't feel too strongly about telemetry, especially when there's clear notice and the ability to disable it, because I imagine that as a software developer it probably really helps improve the product. Also especially if I feel that I trust the company or that they have my best interests in mind, or at least some reasonable level of respect for me. It's probably a naive attitude for me to have.

Anyway, if you don't mind telling me, please let me know if there are any chromium-derived browsers that you recommend on Windows and I will check it out. I would love to have another good alternative to Chrome that I could also use as a second browser.

Sigh. Thanks for the off-topic link. None of that applies, and my messages to you have been completely honest.

You do yourself a disservice with your insults/snarkiness/anger.

I voted for and gave his campaign money three times (including the primaries), but I'm glad I haven't felt so injured by some of the opposition's reactionary response that it has made me stoop to their level of discourse. That would only make things worse.

Hey, first, thanks again for the link on the other thread (geopolitics).

On the other hand, what is with the harsh responses I've received today on Slashdot? You and PopeRatzo have come out swinging a bit heavy given what I've said. Perhaps I'm not communicating very well today.

To go point by point:

I never claimed anything regarding website compatibility. Did you perhaps mistake my reply with someone else's? But since you touch on the subject, it's not Firefox' fault that web developers choose not to test against a major browser. Besides, the little incompatibility that may exist is a small factor in how good a browser is.

That's not the only advantage. I've stuck with Firefox the whole time despite not running any add-ons that required those powerful API features. That's because I care about being able to configure the browser how I want even without add-ons, support for open standards, and freedom from Google's tracking and other policies/practices/choices of theirs I don't like. And now Quantum is just as fast or faster than Chrome, so I've lost little and gained a lot with the transition to v57. Perhaps that's a big factor in why our perspectives differ so much on this.

You don't know my technical knowledge or intent. I've been in IT for a long time, and what I said is specifically limited to Chrome because I've never seen the need or had the interest to try any alternative chromium-based browsers (frankly, I'm not even familiar with any). I'm not shifting goalposts but just talking about the goalposts that I am familiar with.

Thank you for the link! What you say makes a lot of sense. Thanks again.

That was a super-interesting post to me. Do you have any reading recommendations to learn more about some of the subjects you touched on? Particularly the big picture narrative that you painted, to start with.

Ok, I'm a leftist and thus feel a bit put off by your signature (although not entirely since I criticize "liberals" from the left - I would really need to understand what exactly you mean before passing judgement). I also feel that your example of Germans and Nazis is really shaky ground for an example to make an argument out of. Similarly, the gay marriage thing also seems like not the most apt example.

However, I agree with or at least understand your perspective on much of what you say on this post otherwise. Perhaps consider that your signature makes you come across as less reasonable and nuanced in your thinking than you actually appear to be.