Comment Re:Not a Luddite, but... (Score 1) 674
Feel free to reply to my specific arguments here.
Feel free to reply to my specific arguments here.
It was obviously in the future tense. So was your post to which I replied, and the thread context came from the reference to pure future - no present tense involved ("about what's coming next").
We have had increasing automation for more than a century and unemployment has been all over the place, without long term trends
Yep, extrapolation trumps all logic. Nobody ever went wrong following Alan Greenspan right, the infinite extrapolation guy ?
They may get laid off. If they do, they will find new jobs.
Proof? Justification? Proof by confident assertion? New jobs requiring old people that have worked 30 years in other industries that will not die for 30 more years ?
Your story so far did have justification. But when it lead to the very thing you said is to be afraid of, you need to venture into pure dreamland to make your point.
Or the demand for the now much cheaper product will increase tenfold, in which case nobody gets laid off.
Ok, some products can be used tenfold. Many goods/services don't have infinitely scalable demand - how many cars can you drive at once? How many restaurants you can eat in at once?
Your error is in assuming that being laid off results in some kind of permanent state of unemployment.
Your error is making assertions without any justification or proof.
Yes, I've seen multiple times when inconsistency in one's own country's policies is admired. They call it patriotism in many places.
Then you don't understand the tactics developing countries used to levy import duties, and the exhortations US made to them to remove them when it suited the US.
we can make the same stuff with much less work
So 10 people will do the work of 100. 90 laid off.
100 will not do 10% of their former work, even for 10% of their former salary, because employers find it difficult to deal with more employees. 3 or 4 managers are required for 100 people, 1 manager suffices for 10 people. Include benefits, some semblance of retirement etc., and the fate of 90 people is sealed.
So 90 people don't buy anything to stimulate the economy, but are given doles to stop them from becoming criminals. This comes from the salary of 10 people, although they should be richer than when there were 100 employees. But for the 90 people on doles to be remotely satisfied, tax structure has to increase drastically, which faces cultural barriers.
These 10 people are now better placed to "lobby" legislators to the detriment of 90 by forming interest groups. So this same change in employment structure combined with the way of doing legislative business in the US makes it more likely that the thing you say is to be afraid of - hijack.
things will automatically adjust accordingly: products will get so cheap that people, with very little work, will be able to afford them
10 people will be able to afford much more, but 90 people cannot afford anything.
How can the US do it without losing face when it has spent last 50 years convincing developing countries to "open up", reduce import barriers and encourage "free trade" ?
I just bought some radiating apples without any radiation labels! Call the feds!
And yes, you didn't address the remarkable physics question of speed of public opinion vs speed of law making in the US. That was a very unambiguous statement from you, do justice to it by justifying it with at least an example of law taking thousands of years in hundreds of years of US history.
Once the legislative process is complete
Which is never. Rendering paragraph irrelevant.
Cold fjord understands this, and generally keeps his comments within the realm of law, usually discussing Snowden's current case and the relevant facts and questions. That is the extent of our discussion that relates to the original topic. You've extended the discussion far beyond its scope.
No, I have read the thread from its beginning, and Snowden was never the sole topic of the discussion, main topic was the general posting history of a particular Slashdot user, with Snowden case serving only as an example. The post you replied to first didn't even mention Snowden as an example. Cold fjord has made posts on other topics too.
Even when Snowden is the main topic, that does not mean morality based discussions are irrelevant. Even without applying to Snowden himself, legally, morality is completely relevant in discussions related to it so as to prevent future morality-law mismatch solely pertaining to FUTURE cases in the FUTURE which is really the FUTURE. Have to emphasize FUTURE because you have ignored it multiple times harping on the past.
be for the sake of the future, morality is indeed relevant, but those are rare here
That is what I am saying, morality is always relevant. Since past cannot be changed, only future is subject to change. And future is always subject to change. And an attempt to modify the future should always be made. By discussing the past and present in moral sense. Since events that "happened" on 10th September 2014 are not yet available to discuss, comments on past events are a way to express one's moral opinion. To change the FUTURE
I have never said or implied that activism is somehow limited to a single cycle, but rather that an election is the time where it is most feasible to choose a representative who is more amenable to one's views.
WRONG. This post completely rules out legislation as a way to change laws without even mentioning it is for the past. And if it is for the past, it is not relevant as no one has a time machine to change the past. I didn't think you are so big an idiot to harp on the past when "change" is the context. Are you?
That's why the Constitution forbids changing laws ex post facto
I never said change laws ex post facto. If you read the post to the end, you would find it is all about the future. So these 2 paragraphs in your post are completely irrelevant, talking to a strawman. Moving on.
By design, in the United States the opposite is true. The law moves more slowly than public opinion. Elections (the primary means for changing opinions in government) only happen every few years per office. There's time for opinion (and outrage) to flare up, mature, and settle down before anyone is driven to make radical changes.
Wow! The US has determined the speed of public opinion. A Nobel Prize in physics is deserved here.
In the real world, public opinion is still changing about ancient history as people find new facts and discuss among themselves. Let me know of a law in the US that took thousands of years to pass. If you can't, your statement that public opinion is necessarily faster than lawmaking is rendered idiotic.
But you restrict morality discussions only to the end of the "elections cycle". Why shouldn't the public have the leisure of discussing morality for 5 years even if elected representatives are too lazy to pass laws before that? And where is the law prohibiting elected representatives from passing laws in periods that are not "end of election cycles" ?
From what I see, that future blah blah blah
Nothing to do with my argument. Still waiting to see you defend how morality in public discourse can ever be irrelevant.
Says the AC. Without any counter-argument at all.
Until that reevaluation, the law is the standard of behavior that our society is held to, including both the NSA and Snowden.
Try reading that part again, and the illustrations around it.
I already did, but it is stupid. For the reason I stated - law should always be on the mend, in the direction of morality. By public representatives. So public discourse should always include morality. There is no freeze on law mending like you imagine. And even if there is, public opinion around it would take time to mature, so morality being irrelevant in a public discussion is even more impossible.
Morality is relevant when creating and revising the law, because morality is the basis thereof. During the application of the law, though, the nebulous concept of "morality" is just a bias that interferes with the objective law.
Cold fjord is neither creating and revising the law, nor applying it. Nor are slashdotters discussing it with him. So this statement is irrelevant.
Since the original topic of discussion was cold fjord's perspective on current matters, I didn't (and still don't) see the point in discussing what Congress could do to change future matters.
We don't have any time machine to go and change the past, including the past causes of the present. So any purpose(1) for public discourse is necessarily for the future, even if the discourse is apparently of history, even ancient history. So no, this line of argument will not work.
1. Purpose in the sense of any real outcome that could conceivably arise except the entertainment of participants.
So, the old 'If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear' argument. Well, there is no problem with GMO, so they don't need label
There is no problem with protein, why does that need to be labeled? Carbohydrates? Fats? I don't see any problem with most nutrients. Why do we insist they be labeled, then?
That same logic could apply to a large number of things. Do you see every plant improvement technique and variety labeled on every crop? No. Does anyone want them labeled? Also no, there is no controversy over that.
Drip irrigation? Can you read the full post before replying?
Labelling exact variety is what I'm talking about - there could be multiple kinds of GMO for the same species so for the consumer to judge which one he deems safe/good to consume would need this information. Why do you insist on not reading my whole post?
"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne
