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Mark Ronson: How sampling transformed music

Trancecoach says...

More than reading this article, I point you towards the commentary on this article which reads:

"This is good, but the problem with reformers who do not want to totally abolish patent and copyright is that their arguments basically amount to "the law has gone too far" (people like Khanna, Tom Bell, Alex Tabarrok, Jerry Brito, Cory Doctorow, Public Knowledge, the EFF, Lawrence Lessig, and so on). That requires an empirical claim as dubious as those of advocates of the current IP regime. The only principled case for IP reform is one that also makes the case for IP abolition."

This, although not specifically stated, this comment demonstrates a preference for rigor when it comes to justifications for any position on any issue. Rationalism allows you take a consistent position based on unchanging principles. Hermeneutics as well as other modes that deal with all issues as a matter of "preference" or bias can seem rather arbitrary and harder to defend through rational argumentation.

ChaosEngine said:

Sorry, I missed the part where you actually engaged in a debate.

Let's recap shall we?

You posted a blanket statement about copyright, with no supporting arguments.

I responded with some reasons why I don't think it's that simple.

And you then came back with (to use you new favourite word) an ad hominem.

At no point in this thread have you made a single point or argument, other than linking to a libertarian pamphlet.

Then to top it all off, you seem to think you have the right to tell me to "debate somewhere else".

But it's ok, I have no interest in debating with a petty child like you anyway. I'm done.

Irish are the niggers of Europe? Reginald D Hunter

chingalera says...

JSing and Chaos made the two small leaps here that points to the interpreter as the responsible party to context. Meaning can be elusive to folks who have problems with critical thinking and with regard to 'racism' (the definition and intensity of this label range from arbitrary to anally-exacting considering the range of interpretation) there is no clear, consensual handbook...In the 00's, the word 'nigger' being so flagrantly abused and praised as it has become a filler-word in hip-hop and rap culture as well as a safe-haven for haters who love to toss the convenient label 'racist' around like skee-ball tickets, when they simply refuse to fucking think, or dislike someone, or are simply cunts, etc.

True racism exists but not on the scale imagined by the weak-minded and overly sensitive who both recoil from the very notion of certain words even existing (wouldn't the world be such a wonderful place if the word nigger did not exist and the world could all hold hands and blow soap bubbles and kiss puppy dogs?? Pretentious, American, WHITE PEOPLE have so abused both the concept and history of racism that the waters of it's essence have become murky. Chumps use the label 'racism' as if it were ranch dressing to refer to all manner of perceived evils of the world when their little cruise-liner of self-delusion drifts ever-so-slightly off course.

Colonel Sanders Explains Our Dire Overpopulation Problem

RedSky says...

@gorillaman

The market dictates prices and the capacity to consume the current amount that we do. With more people affluent and more demand, the price of items will go up based on levels of scarcity. With less countries to outsource lower paid labour to, prices on the supply side will also rise.

Whatever we have will be shared based on wealth. It's the interests of fairly sharing resources that as many people as possible rise from poverty to match rich/middle income countries.

I don't know about his predictions, I was sourcing the data on the relation between birth rate and poverty.

Your range seems arbitrary and not supported by any data. Massively restricting population growth, if it were even possible in anything but a dictatorial state would create the same problems China will have in the coming years as I listed. If we let it plateau, as it's expected to, I don't see how the harm (of having to share more), outweighs the obvious problems of a large elderly/young imbalance.

Milton Friedman puts a young Michael Moore in his place

RedSky says...

The point of hyperbole is to show how arbitrary his argument is.

SVUs are safer than compacts. Should there be mandates on the size of cars as well? Where do you draw the line?

Maybe you let consumers decide, and give them recourse to courts in cases like these where they are uninformed about an egregious safety flaw.

Which is exactly what happened.

Drachen_Jager said:

@bcglorf

Seriously? He says, flat out, that a car shouldn't be so safely engineered that a million people have to starve so one person can afford it.

Pure hyperbole, especially when he knows full well the profits won't go to starving people.

americas wars of aggression-no justice-no peace

enoch says...

@lantern53

ah my friend.
you seem to have fallen into the propaganda trap.
allow enoch to chat with you for a bit.

are you comfy? need a drink? coffee? a beer?

ok,then let us begin

this is not a political ideology.
this is not right nor left.(seriously limiting terms anyways).

this is about the full picture.

so let us discuss WHAT propaganda actual is,rather than what we are TOLD it is.
propaganda is simply manipulated information presented in a way to appeal to our irrational and emotional response rather than our rational and reasonable.

when i use the term "manipulated" i am not inferring or implying an outright conspiracy (though often-times it may possibly be a conspiracy) but rather a set goal to illicit the desired response.

and there is always an element of truth in propaganda but the truth being presented is controlled and manipulated.which is apparent in your commentary.

corporations use this tactic and we call it mass marketing but the first usage was that of the state to control its own citizenry.america being the major and first to pioneer this tactic.see:edward bernaise and the council of propaganda (later changed to the council of public relations).

so let us break down your examples which i assume are an attempt by you to discredit the assertions in dr wasfi's speech in this video.

1.to point out the crimes against humanity is a straw man argument.
it is irrelevant.
it is a last ditch effort by the american government to excuse and/or validate an illegal war of aggression:
a.no weapons of mass destruction
b.no connection to al qaeda
c.almost 1 trillion lost (literally,they cant account for that money)

so the american government points to the atrocities of saddam hussein and says "look! look at what a bad person he is"!

SQUIRREL!

which brings us to your next point.

2.the atrocities you are referring to were well know when saddam was a paid participant by multiple government agencies.
let me say that again for you:
saddams atrocities were WELL known and was on the american government payroll.
did saddam gas the kurds?------yes
who sold him the gas components?---we did.

so when my government,in a last ditch effort to absolve its complicity in the wreckage that is iraq by pointing to the awful and horrific acts saddam perpetrated on his own people as somehow making the invasion of iraq a righteous act is utter..and complete..hypocrisy.

they KNEW what he was doing and did nothing because it was politically expedient for them to do so.they wished to corral iran and the ends justified the means.see:Zbigniew Brzezinski-the grand chessboard

there are many MANY accounts where the american government turned a blind eye to the suffering of other nation-states citizens because it did not align with our interests.

i find the whole situation morally repugnant and it angers me even further when i see the propaganda twisting my fellow countrymen into believing this is somehow a morally just way to deal with despots,tyrants,zealots.

when it was MY country who put them in power in the first place!

the rationalizations are so deeply cynical and hypocritical that it creates an almost vacuum of cognitive dissonance.

and this is my main point in regards to your commentary.
it is a rationalization given to you by those who wish to continue to oppress,dominate and control those who are powerless.

it gives a semblance of morality where there is none.

because if we took your commentary to its logical conclusion:that sometimes war is necessary to rid the world of "evil" (an arbitrary term based on perspective),then why are we not in those countries that ALSO oppress,kill,maim,torture and immiserate their citizens?

answer:because it does not serve the interests of this government.

so the only usage of emotional heart string pulling is to give americans a sense of moral superiority,while not dealing with the actual reality.

you are being manipulated my friend.
and they have given you a convenient myth to hold onto.

by my commentary i am not dismissing the great works of my country nor am i saying that my country is inherently evil.
i served my country and did my duty.

but i also will not turn a blind eye to the reality on the ground just because i find that information..uncomfortable.

many times the truth is uncomfortable and it takes courage to look at it with clear eyes and a critical mind.

i always stick to the axiom:governments lie

as for your nazi reference,
i invoke godwins law.
the death camps were not even a known reality till the war was almost over and were not the reasons for the war in the first place.
so the context is irrelevant.

as always,
eyes open...
and stay sharp.

@lantern53 keepin it frosty since 1982.stay awesome my man

Can You Solve This? - Veritasium

yellowc says...

I don't think it's really that bad to come to the correct answer in 10, even 15 minutes to what is essentially a vague guessing game?

Numbers in ascending order isn't really a Black Swan scenario, this isn't something people couldn't fathom existing, it's just an arbitrary rule he decided on in a system all the people were familiar with, numbers.

All it really showed was people are slow to activate their critical thinking skills when randomly stopped in the street, once they get warmed up with a few throw-away guesses, there reasoning becomes more complex.

I don't see anything unusual about that, especially since half the problem was actually just deceptive word play.

"Desert Breath" | Land Art Installation | By D.A.ST. Arteam

draak13 says...

I wish they would have justified its existence somewhere in there. It's so arbitrary as it's presented here.

The desert sculpture described by @oritteropo at least is meaningful, and is a memorial for a plane that was the victim of terrorism...though interestingly, generating that sculpture cost its creator his marriage and his career.

Stop making sculptures in the sahara!

Anyone Else? No Option to Repair Embeds (Wtf Talk Post)

chingalera says...

Fair enough Dag

...sucks now I can't deliver p-ponts to alla y'all that are either used to the stroke, or never expecting the surprise...My advice to all y'all lazy motherfuckers that just sit on yer power-points and never do anything with em?? Make someone happy today and worry about whether or not some dumb-ass bullshit belongs up on the front page just because you wanna pop-spit or promote your OWN videos (which I think is completely retarded, unless it's to promote some hella good shit, which most of you self-promoting motherfuckers's shit, ISN'T!?? DUH??)

Oh and Dag?? Fuck a buncha blaming the time zone or not copping to the real-deal timing IS after all, everythhing...I'm no fucking idiot. I KNOW there's a buncha whiny mother fucks, crawling up the sift's ass to burn me, all you poser fucks can fuck the fuck the fuck off and go back to sleep.

You know who you are....Suck my balls and gently carress the taint, rimjobs after I've had some schwarma and spanakopita and sag panneer, motherfuckers. You ACTUAL haters know exactly who and what you are and can't see yourself for the douche in your veins.

Ok. Got all that out. Back to shitting-on-bullshit when it screams, to the consternation of all haters everywhere.

Too bad for all those dead Kronospissant videos I can never fix to help alleviate the carbon-fucking-footprint that coal-burner left behind....because the arbitrary rules here suck donkey-dick!!

(It's no great mystery as to why this site was never able to make any fucking money...self-destructive, narcissistic circle-jerk of doom)

Anyone Else? No Option to Repair Embeds (Wtf Talk Post)

chingalera says...

Well thanks kinna dag. You pm'd me AFTER the fact and after I posted this to the sift-talk....THANKS, for the fucking heads-up.

If it's "sort of" a one time thing deal, Not fine. The only way anyone knows if the embed is not spot on is if another user (either the original submitter or someone else that sees and remembers it different, alerts someone.) WHY then, would not the person who cried foul contact the person who raised it from the dead and TELL THEM, rather than (and this is what i suspect) tattle to the admins (because they have a particular hate-stick lodged in their assess towards another user, or were never taught manners by their abusive mothers and fathers) who then unilaterally FUCKS MY POWERS AWAY) to the giggles and squeaks of the internet DOUCHEBAG who brought it to your attention? Which is what I KNOW has transpired, the cowardly little fucks whoever you are, suck it.

Cowardly. infantile, sophomoric douchebag bullshit thuggery.

Now, how do I get these powers back, and now codify these arbitrary "sort of" rules??

By bringing this mishap to the sift's attention, and perhaps *cough, put it to vote??

Voting only works for those who use it for evil apparently, just look at the state of the planet.

I would appreciate again, the ability to clean-up dead videos. I regularly fix dead embeds and then immediately give other videos a chance by *promoting them to the front page....to foster a spirit of courtesy and joy and good will in the hearts of the original submitter.....GOOD THING

I even deaded all of Kronosposidens dead shit since he's AWOL, and am bringing his back tto life slowly but surely, even though that charlatan gentle-man was the biggest prick in the universe to me, and set-out on a similar quest, to burn me at ever turn...

(like copper-dan the resident ban-hammer obsessive-compulsive) regularly peruses the sift for violators, to satisfy his badge-point quest to be head NARC of the site). GOOD THING?? I consider it not, but I suppose everyone needs their little jobs.

Can you...People who don;t recognize the hatred in your hearts, act as civilly as you accuse me of acting the opposite of?? Look in the fucking mirrors and stop lying to yourselves, it's getting really fucking old..

Or how bout this.

Let's take a fucking vvote, or pole (like the one in so many assess) and vote whether or not to let love rule...Just tell me to fucking leave and I will....Don't keep playing the the punk-ass bitch card about it why doncha??....Bare your true natures and use small words if you have to. please. A single sentence will do.

The Incoherence of Atheism (Ravi Zacharias)

shinyblurry says...

Hi voodooV..sorry it took me so long to reply.

you're committing another logical fallacy here. Argument from ignorance. just because you can't think of any other reason for morality doesn't prove god did it.

The fallacy you mentioned doesn't apply. The argument isn't for Gods existence, the argument is that atheism is incoherent because it has no foundation for morality, among other reasons. Ravi asked the question, without God what are the Ontic referrants for reality?

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

To answer your question though. Survival...pure survival is pretty much the foundation of morality. what behavior ensures a long, prosperous and happy life? That's your morality right there. And it's all based on logic and reason, not an imaginary god.

is it better to be a dick to someone or is it better to work with other people. hrm...which ensures a higher probability of success in your endeavors.

is better in the long run to help or to hurt. Which ensures a greater likelyhood that people will be willing to help YOU out when you need it.

virtually everything that we consider moral today is the evolution (gasp) of instinctual rules we've learned over the millions (not thousands) of years that ensure a longer, happier life.


What you're talking about is pragmatism, which is to say that if it works then it is the best way to do things. Yet plenty of people have led long, prosperous and happy lives by exploiting other people for their gain. That's what works for them, so why shouldn't I emulate that standard of behavior instead of being self-sacrificing? Some of the most successful people who have ever lived got there by being terrible human beings. Basically, your standard of survival isn't about what is right, but what is right for me and that is entirely arbitrary. It also is an incoherent standard for morality.

Which is why only two of your commandments still hold up as secular laws.

I forget where I learned this but even biblical morality can be traced back to rules that made sense, at the time, that ensured survival. I think it has been shown that many of the biblical rules involving not eating certain foods can be traced back to diseases or some other logical reason, but hey, we didn't have an understanding of these pesky little things called bacteria and microorganisms back then so when you ate a certain food and died, that wasn't science, it was your imaginary sky god who was angry with you.


What's really interesting about that is that Moses was educated as an Egyptian prince, which was the most advanced country in the world at the time. He would have certainly been exposed to their medical knowledge, but you won't find a shred of that in the bible. The Egyptians were doing things like applying dung to peoples wounds, whereas the Laws of Moses detailed procedures for disease control, like hand washing and quarantine procedures, as well as public sanitation, and dietary laws which prevented the spread of parasites. They were thousands of years ahead of their time; we only started washing our hands to control disease in the past 200 years.

Even your fear and hatred of homosexuality and abortion can be easily explained by survival. When your village only numbered in the hundreds or maybe thousands and simple diseases and winters wiped out LOTS of people, discouraging homosexuality and abortion is actually a pretty good idea when the survival of your species is at stake. But when you've got advanced medicine and we've got the whole food and shelter thing dealt with and our population is now 7 billion. the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing just isn't necessary anymore. In fact, it's becoming a problem. and Once again, survival will dictate our morality. If we do nothing to combat overpopulation and resources become an issue, I guarantee you that large families will eventually have a negative stigma attached to them until the situation is resolved.

You're talking to a former agnostic who once approved of homosexuality and abortion. I am not afraid of it, and I don't hate the people doing it. This is a clash of presuppositions; if there isn't a God then I couldn't give you an absolute reason why people cannot have homosexual relationships or murder their unborn children. If we're all just glorified apes contending for limited resources, then in that paradigm it may be necessary to cull the herd. I think the appropriate response though to someone contending we should eliminate vast swaths of the human populace to save the planet is, "you first".

But God is in control and this is His planet, and since He is still creating human beings, He will provide the resources to take care of them. It's the iniquity of mankind which is limiting the resources when the truth is that we have way more than enough to take care of everyone. Take for example the fact that over 30 thousand people starve to death every day. Is that because we don't have enough food? Actually, we have more than enough food yet we waste about 1/3 of the world food supply every year. The gross world product in 2012 was over 84 trillion dollars, more than enough to feed, clothe, house and vaccinate every single person on the planet. Those people die not because there isn't enough, but because the wickedness of man.

Don't ask me though, ask an anthropologist or sociologist. They've been studying this stuff for decades. I'm sure you could even find an anthropologist/sociologist that believes in god and they'd still say the same thing. our understanding of reality changes....as does morality. no one takes seriously the old biblical rules about stoning unruly kids, working the sabbath, and wearing clothing of two types of fabric anymore. So why should we listen other outdated biblical rules that don't apply anymore. As countless others of sifters have already informed you, you have the burden of proof and you haven't met it yet.

Call me when someone discovers a disease or some other problem that arises when you mix two fabrics and we'll revisit those rules k?


God has three kinds of laws, moral civil and cermonial. The rules you're referring to were civil and ceremonial laws for Israel and not for the rest of the world. They have no application today because they were connected to the Old Covenant God had with Israel. God has a New Covenant with the whole world that doesn't include those laws. The moral laws of God do not change with time, or ever. And although we fancy ourselves as more enlightened today, the reality of the world we live in tells us that human nature hasn't changed one bit. Human nature is every bit as ugly and self serving as it always has been. If you peel back the thin veneer of civility you will find a boiling pot of iniquity.

Stop committing basic logical fallacies and you might learn this stuff for yourself You haven't ever said anything that isn't easily invalidated by a simple logical fallacy or hasn't already been debunked long ago.

It's easy to speak in generalities; if I have committed a logical fallacy, then specifically point it out. The one that you detailed earlier did not apply.

Do you watch the Atheist Experience videos Shiny? because every time I watch one of the videos and listened to the same old tired theist "arguments" over and over again. I'm always reminded of you because you just aren't saying anything new. If you're serious about understanding why your ideas just don't pan out and you're not just trolling, you should seriously watch those.

I've watched the show, and again, I was a lifelong agnostic before becoming a Christian. I was pretty far left and would have probably fit in well with the lot of you not too many years ago. So, this is all to say that I understand where you're coming from and why you think and believe the way you do, because I used to think and believe in the same ways. Your mindset isn't a mystery to me. What I've learned about it is that God has to reveal Himself to a person before they will know anything about Him. Everyone gets some revelation and it is up to them to follow it. I received the revelation that there is a God and I pursued that for many years until He revealed Himself to me through His Son Jesus Christ. He has revealed Himself to you and everyone else on this website in some form or fashion. You would be shocked to hear some of the revelation people have received and turned away from, or rationalized away later. Statistics show that 10 percent of self professing atheists pray, and that is because they are unable to within themselves completely deny the revelation that they have received. I guarantee you there are atheists on this board who wrestle with all of this but since it isn't something atheists talk about (or would admit to publicly) you would never know it, that you're all keeping a lid on the truth.

VoodooV said:

To answer your question though.

Questions for Statists

enoch says...

im no statist but this video is so childishly naive as to be laughable.

might as well call the free market jesus.

jesus is the way and the light.
follow jesus for salvation.
only jesus can absolve you of your sins.

this is about power.
if the libertarian is willing to acknowledge that the government is bloated and corrupt but unwilling to recognize the abuse of power wrought by corporations...because the corporation is part of the "free market"...they can end their sermon right there.

i am no longer interested.

if a libertarian preaches the importance of individual sovereignty and individual rights but dismisses that they are part of a community in a larger society.
they can proselytize at somebody elses door.

if a libertarian wishes to shower me with the glories of private property and ownership but ignore the importance and basic human dignity of the very workers who produce everything for those private owners.

then i say unto them that they wish to enslave their fellow man and the freedom they seek is for them alone and the rest of humanity be damned all in the name of profit and greed.

they can take their cult of ayn rand and masturbate somewhere else.

UNLESS....
they are willing to admit that:
1.as @VoodooV pointed out,we live in a society and a society is populated by PEOPLE.

2.that people deserve more than just the right to trade freely (which i agree with) but that human dignity and compassion,and yes..the right for life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

3.that the corporation is actually MORE vicious than a government.a corporation is amoral by design! so if we are going to address the abusive powers of government,the abuses of corporations should be recognized as well.

4.the argument that corporations would not exist without governments is a canard.that may have been true in 1910 but no longer.there are corporations that have a higher GDP than most nation states.

5.the argument that governments start wars are only half-truths.can you guess what the other half is? thats right! banks and corporations using their power and influence to oppress third world nations...through the use (or abuse to be more accurate) of this nations military.see:smedley butler.

6.while a non-state would be amazing i am not naive enough to believe it could ever happen in our lifetime.yes many arbitrary borders have been penned by empires but there will always be lines drawn by cultural,religious and ethnicity..lets be honest.

7.while i do not share voodoos optimism in this democratic representative republics current health status (i feel it is broken and dysfunctional),it is a FAR better thing than the authoritarian,totalitarian system that is the american corporation.unless they went all democratic on me and i didnt get the memo.

8.government does have a role in our society,though it should be limited.
defense (not illegal and pre-emptive wars of aggression).
fraud control and law enforcement.
roads,fire,police,education and health,because thats what a society does for each other.
we take care of each other.
you dont like that? move to the mountains..have fun!

9.the corporate charter should be re-written."for the public good" should be re-instated for one thing.
a.i was talking to a libertarian and he used the term "non-aggression" and i really REALLY liked this.so a corporation will be held responsible for any and all:destruction to the ecology (local and abroad),destruction of peoples health,home and property.externalization of any sort will be seen as "aggression" and the CEO and all officers will be held liable to be paid by:dissillusion of company of jail time,they can choose.
b.a corporation is NOT a person and ZERO funds will be drawn from company money to purchase a legislator.they may spend as much money as they wish from their own personal accounts,but ALL contributions shall be made public over a certain amount.
c.any corporation that has been found to pay their workers so little as to put the burden on the tax payer shall be found performing an "aggressive" act against the american people and shall either pay the amount in full or forfeit their company.

dammit.im rambling ...again.
but oh baby am i digging this non-aggression dealio!

can i rewrite the corporate charter?
please please please please.....

*promote the discussion

Kevin O'Leary on global inequality: "It's fantastic!"

Trancecoach says...

Do enlighten me: How do you think "dominant corporation(s) or collusion thereof [will] strongarm retailers?" That simply won't happen. Rather, there will be fewer barriers to entry for other widget manufacturers to enter the market, either independently or working for competing "dominant" corporations when they discover that it's more profitable to not be "paid off" but to compete in the market instead.

A dominant corporation cannot buy every possible competitor. That's absurd. And there will always multiple "dominant" corporations, and not just one, or one and a number of "start-ups." Where there is Coke, there will be Pepsi. Where there is Apple, there will be Samsung. In a free market, monopolies and cartels cannot exist except in the very short term and at an eventual loss (unless they have the primary monopoly of the government to back them up).

If there are patents, there's no free market. A free market, by definition, must exclude all patent, trademark, copyright, and other such IP law. So, you may have picked the worst example.

Free markets without patents is not a problem at all. Not for the market and not for consumers. Companies may just be more careful about spies. They certainly wouldn't be incentivized (like they are now) to spend $millions just to hold patents on products that are never produced, only to corner the market and "strongarm" competitors (like they do now).

Companies like Bed, Bath & Beyond have been trying to price upstarts out of the market for years, decades even! And they're still not able to get rid of competitors! Same can be said about Walmart. Many stores other than Walmart sell TVs, even at higher prices, and remain competitive. Other stores sell linens besides BB&B. So, you have a distorted view of how markets actually work. No one corporation can monopolize the sale of any goods or services. That's just incorrect (unless the government helps them to do so). It just doesn't happen.

There's no such thing as a "natural monopoly." Name one. In Texas, for example, there are competing utility providers, and people can choose which energy service to use. This is in contrast to CA, where most of us are forced to "choose" PG&E over zero other alternatives.

"Restriction of information/prevention of rational, informed consumers"

I'm sorry, but anyone who has been involved in business knows this is complete horseshit. If you have a better product/service (the only way to outdo the competition), you will let the customers/market know right away.

And there's no scale at which markets collapse. The same forces of the market apply to big, small, and medium businesses. There is no arbitrary size for which these forces do not apply. And keep in mind that without government granted privileges, corporations would be much smaller than they are now, because competition would make it easier for competitors to participate, thereby forcing a re-allocation of resources to accommodate the market's demands.

So, yes you most certainly "overstated" your case. All markets can be free, regardless of size. Whether it's a small farmer's market or Whole Foods. The same market forces apply. They all have to court voluntary customers through service, price, quality, etc. Again, anyone who has had to work with marketing will know this.

BTW, things like "price dumping" are circumvented all the time. Does Rolls Royce care that Hyundai sells cheaper cars? Does Mercedes care that a Prius is less expensive?

Target makes money because Walmart is cheaper, not in spite of it!
And everything Walmart sells, you'll find many other stores selling it, even though Walmart might sell it cheaper.
The local natural food store in my neighborhood sells, more or less, the same things as Whole Foods. None of your objections pose any real problems in the real world.

I don't see Walmart buying every other TV seller, or even trying to do this. Microsoft tried but, so what? They failed, because they could not buy every single competitor in the software world, could they?

Even in Somalia, to use @enoch's example, in the telecommunications industry (to pick one that saw growth), no one even remotely managed to do any of the things you say could happen. In 20 years, no corporation did any of these things. Why not?

Because they couldn't.

And did "dominant" corporations take over all small retailers and sellers? No way, not even close! They couldn't. Only regulations can really kill all small retailers (and they do it all the time). Your outrage is gravely misplaced. Do the countless bazaars and sellers of Turkey, India, or Thailand get taken over by "dominant" corporations?

Hint: No.

Only when government meddles, do the big corporations wipe out the little ones, and sometimes each other.

In any case, Coke will not eliminate Pepsi (or Sprite, or Dr. Pepper, or A&W), government or no government.

direpickle said:

<snipped>

Tracey Spicer on society's expectations of women

gorillaman says...

You can sign me up @bareboards2. If there were some broad agreement on terminology I would switch to gender neutral language instantly. Fucking sick of it.

Coincidentally I was thinking about this just this afternoon, because luckily I have nothing better to do at work than stand around contemplating gender politics; pleased and proud as I am of genderqueer crusaders trying to wrestle pronouns into shape, I've been generally unwilling to join them. For fuck's sake, I spend enough time every day arguing about the excess syllable in the number sev, I can't afford to multiply that by every sentence with a person in it.

Singularising plural pronouns is offensive to me on a practical and aesthetic level, Spivak's no damn good, you've got your zes and your hirs and your hens, it's a pain in the ass but as soon as we get some consensus and momentum it's going to be cool.

Can't see that feminism really has anything to do with all this, well, I have trouble seeing that feminism has anything to do with anything. Not to go all Trancecoach here with male world problems but they're similarly told that to be professional they have to knot a piece of cloth around their neck for no reason or slice the hair off their face every day for no fucking reason. The situation is that we have a bullshit tribal culture with endless absurd customs and arbitrary rituals which is perpetuated by morons.

So we should always be rationalising - language, culture, behaviour, expectations.

Gender neutrality is obviously the way to go. If you get shoved in a box you don't become the champion of the box and work to make your box the best box it can be; you break out and start beating your captors over the head with box fragments.

I don't give a fuck about women's problems; I don't give a fuck about women, but I'm glad to consider anyone who stops wearing makeup a part of my team because I don't wear makeup for the same reason I don't shave my stupid face.

Anyway that was my choggie impression for the day. Too much caffeine, not enough sleep, not enough time spent bathing in the blood of my enemies.

Right in the Feels

Numberphile: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/12

Sniper007 says...

Sure, because that's never happened before...

But as to the shifting over - why did they shift just one position? Why not two or three places over? The answer would be VERY different if they shifted any farther - which as far as I can tell is totally arbitrary and done for no good reason other than to get to the answer they already know they want.

So the particular 'proof' they are showing in THIS video doesn't hold much weight.

rancor said:

Geez, guys, this isn't wrong, you're just nitpicking on notation or trying to apply conventional wisdom to a counterintuitive proof. If it's so wrong why does everyone who does math or physics professionally have the same incorrect opinion about it!



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