1,011 karma · joined June 21, 2012
If this is the kind of anarchy you envision, you're going to be sorely disappointed if something like that happened in real life. Real anarchy would look more like how people would react if zombies broke out. There would be mass looting, killings, raping, and people taking advantage of the chaos (opportunists). It would literally be the wild west with all services, including power and the internet going down.
The "anarchy" in Mr. Robot is a falsehood, it's a libertarian/hackers fantasy. That's not anarchy at all. Not even close.
China is a country capable of deciding what it wants for itself. If it wants to be a factory, then that's what it will be. It's "grown up" enough to make its own decisions and be held accountable for them. Blaming the west is just that; trying to redirect the blame.
I say good, let manufacturing move back to the countries they came from. Let them operate under actual regulations. It will be slightly more expense, maybe, but the air will be cleaner. That would require China to do its job and enforce environmental regulations. Which they're not willing to do because profits... So no, the west gets none of the blame here. It's 100% China. If a gang war broke out over drug dealing spots, would you blame the drug user for the violence? Of course you wouldn't. The dealers are the ones responsible. They have free will and can choose to be violent, non-violent, or not deal at all.
It might make a difference if they were actually using the C02 to do something worthwhile, instead they're using it to make goods to sell for a profit. It's about profit and has nothing to do with China being an developing/industrial country new to the game.
Though if you want to go that route, India trounces China on C02, despite having more people.
You would need to combine the emissions of the U.S, India and the entirety of the European Union to equal China's annual CO2 emissions. See for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
Basically, China emits as much CO2 as the next 3 countries. And they do nothing to curb it. Oh, they have regulations on books (Hey look, see, we have laws too!) but there is virtually zero enforcement unless something big is coming to town, like the olympics. And then they only focus on the relevant region, not the whole country. Oh, and they tell the factories to turn off completely rather than adding scrubbers or filtering.
China could reduce its emissions by orders of magnitude if they could get these factory owners and coal plants to put the bare minimum filters/scrubbers in play. But that cost money, and factory owners/government need every penny. Regulations you say? I must have forgot my monthly bribe money. Here you go sir. That's how it plays out, and will continue to play out until there is a massive systemic change to China's culture. The corruption is simply to high for anything else. They rank 100 on corruption, with 1 being the least corrupt. The U.S? Usually between 13 and 17. Source: http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results
Yeah, I'm pretty sure they've wanted their own Brexit from day 1. At least Hong Kong does, and even Taiwan probably too. Especially Taiwan. I feel sorry for Taiwan, watching stuff like this (http://reason.com/blog/2014/09/30/hong-kong-student-begs-for...) from Hong Kong and knowing that's a real possibility for them. At least the pro-China people in Taiwan (yes, they exist) will have to reevaluate their opinions after seeing how China has handled the Hong Kong return...
Due to their population size, there's a lot of potential but their economy is a giant mess. There are many separate huge bubbles forming in China right now, some larger than the U.S's largest economic bubble. Real estate and banking among them. Only, instead of popping organically as happens in every other economic system, the PRC has complete control of every facet so they just don't let it pop. Which causes it to grow even bigger. And that means when it does burst, it's going to come down a lot harder. They're putting off the inevitable. But they should realize that no economy can grow forever. It's never happened in 3,000 years of recorded history.
Japan never really suffered from this (oh they had bubbles, but they popped when they were supposed too) so I expect to see the country back in the number 2 spot when China's house of cards comes tumbling down. It will come tumbling down, that much is certain. The 'when', however, is not so clear. The PRC can do a lot to stave a collapse off, but I don't think it can do much about manufacturing moving out of the country, or people choosing other countries to have their cheap products made (Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, etc). That's one of the few things they can't stop and have little control over. And China relies on its cheap exports -- It's a massive part of the country's income. If that goes, not even the government can plug the hole. It will cause a cascade effect, allowing all those bubbles to pop. It will be a sight to behold.
Basically, China is different from Japan. In size, scope and because their economy operates differently since it's under the complete control of the government. Japan's economy was more "normal", if there is such a thing.
You make it sound like the contracts aren't a real barrier. If they break their contracts, they could face millions, nay, billions in fines, fees, and settlements from being sued by everyone they had a contract with.
> they could today stop signing these "old media" contracts
They have. But contracts for broadcasting rights are usually 10 year deals. And up until recently (2010-ish) they were usually just automatically renewed. So you're looking at old media sticking around until 2020-ish. By then, most companies will have moved on from the old way of doing things completely.
You make it sound like every hobby website wasn't out to make money. What you're describing are the exceptions, not the rule. And they weren't as numerous as your comment indicates. An RC airplane website/forum had ads or deals with companies selling planes, marijuana websites (anyone remember overgrow.com back in 2001?) had deals with seedbanks and marijuana supply companies. Very rare was the hobby website that operated without sponsorship or some form of money generation mechanic. Not to mention, hosting back then was much more expensive. Today it's cheaper than dirt but that wasn't always the case.
Not really. I think the customer bases are different enough that it's an apples and oranges comparison. Not only do you have a different type of customer on Amazon (people shopping for groceries, or carpentry tools or even computer parts and hygiene products. While on Nordstrom, you have people shopping for not clothing, but high-end clothing.) but the scale itself is on an entirely different level. Amazon has millions of people buying stuff from them every single day. The volume of traffic and orders on Amazon is like comparing the entire economy of the United States with that of Kobe, Japan.
Isn't that ideology center to the anti-net neutrality stance? People who only want to pay for what they use? I don't buy into that ideology because there are plenty of examples of it failing. Not only that, but doesn't serve everyone equally. And, if it wasn't already apparent, it hurts the poor. They wouldn't have access to the same content if they had to pay as they go.
I do believe this is a big part of why they call us millennials the entitled generation. We literally expect everything for free. From our game of thrones TV shows to our favorite blogs, podcasts and websites. They all exist to entertain us and fuck them for wanting to make a dollar off their hard work. How dare they...
You're right that google is an advertisement company (87% of their revenue comes from their ad network), but I don't think that's entirely from search alone. Google's 3rd party adsense program is absolutely massive. This includes things like youtube ads, as well as ads on other 3rd party websites. Pick a random website with ads, 9 times out of 10, it will be an adsense (google) affiliated website.
I have those same strange morbid feelings but not about Trump. Because I know the damage would be too severe. It's like saying there's a sick part of me that wants to play russian roulette. There's morbid and then there's knowing that the damage will be so massive that you already know the final outcome. Nothing mysterious about that.
The GOP has been preaching hatred, fear and bigotry for the last 2-3 decades so someone like Trump was inevitable. The only good thing to come out of all this is that you know damn well the GOP leadership is sitting in a room somewhere, trying to figure out how to do a 180 and move back towards the center. Because if they don't, they lost the moderate and independent vote forever. Hell, I can see moderate republicans (like Kasich, etc) becoming democrats if things don't change or get worse. Trump is the worst thing to happen to the Republican party and I couldn't be happier.
This is interesting to me because it's something that's inherent to China's culture. It persists passed the education stage of their life, well into adulthood. And that's a terrible shame because it sets up China for failure.
Without actually learning/understanding the material (and learning to think critically), the general populace isn't equipped and stands no chance when it comes to future innovations. The foundation for future technological innovation (in any industry) simply isn't there. Their country has always been a few steps behind, and keeps falling further and further behind as the decades pass. There are no new big innovations coming out of China, they've only been able to hold their own (if you can call it that) by buying, copying or stealing technology from other countries, entities or businesses. The problem is, China's targets have wised up over the years, so future IP/technology theft will be much, much harder if not impossible.
Unfortunately, I think because this has its roots in China's culture (systemic), there is no quick fix as changing the culture of a billion people is nearly impossible. I think the entire thing needs to come down and be rebuilt from scratch.
Because both the president and NASA's power pales in comparison to congress. Congress is responsible for budgets, they're the ones that approve/disprove/modify any bill or budget on the table. If they don't like a particular direction a government organization is going, they say "Hey, do this" and that organization does it. They do it because congress is their financier. Organizations like NASA have to justify their budgets and layout their plans and short/long term goals before any money is approved. Congress can and will say "We don't like those goals. Make these your goals instead" and replace them entirely.
A more sobering view of the situation, however, is that a congressman (or congressmen) probably has some big lobbyist lobbying for this because while NASA heads up the mission, NASA still relies on cooperation with private businesses to make parts, widgets, contract work, etc... These private entities and local municipalities would benefit from a huge NASA mission financially. Unfortunately, the senator who lobbied hard for this (John Culberson, R-Texas) almost certainly didn't do it for altruistic reasons. Someone somewhere is going to financially benefit in a big way.
Edit: As another commentor pointed out (and was downmodded for doing so, a bit boggling), John Culberson receives lobby money from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Northrop Grumman. So there you have it... Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-space and pro-Europa trip. Just giving the lay of the land and answering your question.
89% of Google's revenue comes from their ads they display on their search results, and in their adchoices network.
Oh, sorry if I mislead you. I'm actually not in the industry at all. I used to be a publisher though, had my own website until I sold it. My comments were me empathizing and seeing things from the point of view of a content creator. That's for whom I argue.
It's more complex than that, I'm afraid. People don't create content or innovate for free. I'm sure there are a rare few who do, but most people hope for the promise of a financial incentive. Having a financial incentive to innovate or create content is a good thing and life without ads would have a butterfly like effect on that innovation. I highly doubt the internet would resemble anything like it does today if ads didn't exist (people take for granted it would look exactly the same as it does now). Nope, without ads, I doubt the internet would have evolved much beyond 1997. And I remember the internet back in 1997. There was some neat things going on, not many ads, but practically zero content compared to today.
Without ads to subsidize content, most of your favorite TV shows wouldn't exist, most of your favorite websites wouldn't exist (think google.com, youtube.com, etc)... After all, google.com doesn't make much if anything off their search engine, 97% of their revenue comes from their advertising department.
I never said that. I said it's a BS excuse. I think it's perfectly fine to be afraid of malware. But you can run a couple of plugins (like noscript, and uninstall java) and solve that problem without even installing an adblocker. Which means you can have ads without the malware if you actually wanted to make the effort to do so.
So yes, it's an excuse since there are plenty of solutions which exist, some only requiring the download of a single plugin.
There are other (quite simple) plugins to stop any malware from running (like noscript, etc) while at the same time, not having an adblocker even installed. The two are not mutually inclusive. Thus, it isn't ridiculous in the least. It's actually ridiculous to imply that if you have one, you must have the other.
More importantly, these days, you only find malware ads (consistently) on real shady sites. When it makes it to big reputable sites, it actually makes the news because of how rare it has been. There are dozens of other ways to get malware (software downloads, etc) but you don't see people ceasing to download anything off the entire internet, they take a risk because they want the product. The risk is virtually identical -- it depends on where you go and what you do.
> Ads are being used to distribute malware through reputable sites
Sure, that has happened. But it's rare and again, it makes the news when it happens because of how rare it is. You make it sound like reddit.com, facebook.com or news.google.com serves up malware every other day. That just isn't the case. Not even close.
The problem with that mindset is that people tend to think it's also OK to block the little guys who self-publish, or even places that have amazing or great content who deserve the ad impressions. People always say "Yeah, I unblock my favorite sites". Unfortunately, they're just 1 guy (and who knows if they actually do it). The other 99.999% of people do not unblock their favorite sites. They just don't give a shit.
Even the rare few who may give a shit due to stronger empathy or morality will usually justify it away in their heads "Oh, I'm afraid of malware" or some other BS excuse which works to trick themselves into feeling better about blocking every ad.
It is tinfoil hat sounding because it is tinfoil hat territory.
I'm sorry, but the internet has made Sanders supporters lose touch with reality; Hillary Clinton, even at the very end, still beat Sanders by double digits (source: http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-d...). The Obama vs Clinton matchup was much, much closer. We're only talking a few point difference.
I saw this same thing happen back in 2008 with Ron Paul. Paul supporters had a hard time believing that Paul didn't stand a chance.
The reason Clinton trounced Sanders is multifaceted; First off, Sanders is old and he's Jewish. Unfortunately, that puts some people off right away (bigotry and prejudice is still alive and well in America). Secondly, he embraced the term Socialist. While people under 40 may be aware of what that term entails (we think of European/democratic socialism, not Russian/Chinese socialism) the older generation & boomers still thinks of the commies and pinkos. America is still 10-30 years away from using that word without the stigma & negative connotations. And that kind of sums up Sanders; he's espousing an ideology that America isn't quite ready for.
We need to move further to the left a bit. Kind of like how the GOP has kept moving this country to the right over the last 35 years, we need to move it back to the center, and ultimately to the left. I'm a democratic socialist myself but even I knew Sanders didn't stand a chance. That's because I'm aware that it's going to take some time. Perhaps a couple decades. It starts with small steps, electing moderates who lean left, then finally left candidates like Sanders.