Re: What, exactly, is Apple's iPod business model?

On Sep 4, 12:50 pm, Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 9/3/07 9:09 PM,spinoza1111wrote:

On Sep 4, 2:19 am, Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"self-appointed representatives of the common man", such as yourself,
are fascists. Do try and keep up.
I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head there. There is an
intense "control freakery" among certain sorts of Leftist's that can be
really frightening at times.

So you prefer being controlled by bills in the mail and real estate
assessors? How's that working out for you and your family?

It's working out much better than the alternative.

How would you know that?

What I'm trying to figure out is how much of Edward's philosophy is
motivated by his desire to get a government stipend for programming
without a boss telling him what to do. Or whether that is a fortuitous
consequence of already deeply held beliefs.

I'd rather get a "government stipend" for teaching in Africa or New
Orleans. But these are the type of "government stipends" that
disappear.

This, of course, does not help answer my question one bit. And by your
own account, you no longer need a large income, so I'm confident that
you could get a teaching job in New Orleans in a moment. And you could
probably also find some organization to fund you teaching in Africa.

Maybe...maybe not. Development jobs disappear at a certain level of
chaos, and the United Nations is significantly underfunded as opposed
to world militaries. C goddamn F "Shake Hands with the Devil", a
personal account of Rwanda by the highest-ranking soldier to suffer
from post-traumatic stress, General Romeo Dallaire of the Canadian
army, who oversaw Rwanda peacekeeping in 1994 during the genocide of
Tutsi by Hutu: even the peacekeepers had to survive on rotten German
rations and were completely outgunned by the technicals. The situation
of aid workers is even more dire.

As to telling them to suck it up, we have no right unless we work as
they do.



I find it remarkable that after pointing out all of the problems that
capitalist bosses and markets impose on programmers that he could
actually imagine that putting politicians in charge would make matters
better. Surely those same problems would remain and be exacerbated
making which types of people get paid to code a political decision.

Politicians were put in charge of Britain's health in 1949:

Yes. Although it goes against what I know of economic theory, it does
work far better than the broken system in the US. It is true that there
are long waits and "rationed" services, but those issues are no worse in

Britons deny this. Furthermore, if you have no money in the US, your
wait is infinity and your ration is zero.

the UK under the NHS than with the kind of health care provided by an
HMO in the US. And when you consider how many people don't even have
that level of service in the US, the winning system is clear.

Even in terms of government spending. Per capita government spending on
health care in the US is about the same as it is in the UK. So we don't
even seem to be saving public money this way.

But it's not that the NHS and other public healthcare systems that exist
in basically every developed country in the world are so good, it's just
that the system in the US is so unspeakably awful.

A triumph, also, of the free market model.

But this helps illustrate my approach. I'm relying on experience to
tell me whether markets in general work better than socialism. With
socialized medicine, socialism works better in my experience (even
though I'm not sure why). In just about every other domain socialism
works worse (and I have pretty good ideas about why).

How would you know? In the United States, socialistic ventures are
often against the law (cf. the corporate interpretation of the
Fourteenth Amendment and the US doctrine that the corporation is a
legal person). The WPA and NRA of President Roosevelt never "worked"
because they were challenged in court before they could succeed in
relieving 25% unemployment and mass misery.


Unlike you, I don't let my ideology define the facts that I see. Or if
I do, it is to a far lesser extent than you do.

What are the "facts" you see? Your backyard? I'm not quoting the
Communist Manifesto here, I am referencing documents which reference
the facts.


It of course depends on what sort of "politicians" you are talking
about. And, I'd say that to the extent that rich people are allowed to
buy into politics, the more the politicians become the corrupt
representatives of those rich.

It may be fair to say that in the US we have the best Congress money can
buy, but I still trust those politicians more than I would trust people
like you.

Why? If I want a blow job in an airport restroom, you'll be the first
to know. In fact, I will put decriminalizing consensual adult sex on
my platform. Ya happy now?


Any work on BSD based OSes would clearly have to be banned, since BSDers
openly worship the devil.

Theocracy and religious fear is just a way in which the rich
manipulate the lower middle class.

You've been out of the US too long if you believe that. The extreme
religiosity we've got here is about as genuine a grass-roots movement as
you can imagine. As congregations get larger (and the preachers richer)

....and the "worship" more clownish, more corporate, more a celebration
of wealth both actual and hoped-for, more a worship of Moloch...

they also become less extremist. It's the relatively smaller groups
that are the most fanatical. Furthermore the business Republicans tend
to see the religious Republicans as vote getters, but not as soul mates.
The (evil) genius of Karl Rove was to put together in electoral
coalition of people who would otherwise hate each other (fiscal
conservatives with corporate welfarists and neocons with nativists and
religious kooks with libertarians).

You should watch what's going on with a vaguely open mind instead of
just giving your prewrapped Marxist interpretation.

I've been doing a far better job, you have references, from me.
Whereas with all due respect I submit that you are watching TV and the
alder grow in the back yard.

You're fitting a canned interpretation which fits poorer every year to
the "facts". It mixes cynicism with acceptance of the American way as
the best of a bad deal.


-j


.

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