You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2012.
I wish I had gotten around to reading this book sooner. It is a great read and takes a great deal of piss out of the arguments (made by our beloved conservative/libertarian friends) for lower taxes and more love for the wealthy. I highly recommend reading it. Check out other reviews here and here. I found a brief summary of what McQuaig talks about in the book:
“In the last few decades, the concentration of income in the United States, Britain and Canada has reached levels not seen since the late 1920s. Such extreme income concentration created a dynamic that led to the disastrous Wall Street crash in 2008 – just as it did in 1929. The financial collapse is simply the most striking example of the problems caused by the rise of a new class of billionaires. Their massive fortunes – widely considered benign or even beneficial to society — are actually detrimental to everyone else. The glittering lives of the new super-rich may seem like harmless sources of entertainment. But such concentrated economic power reverberates throughout society, threatening the quality of life and the very functioning of democracy. It’s no accident that the United States claims the most billionaires—but suffers from among the highest rates of infant mortality and crime, the shortest life expectancy, as well as the lowest rates of social mobility and electoral political participation in the developed world. Our society sees itself as a meritocracy. So we tend to regard large fortunes as evidence of great talent or accomplishment. Yet the vast new wealth isn’t due to an increase in talent or effort at the top, but rather to changing social attitudes legitimizing greed and to policy changes made by governments under pressure from the new elite.”
Oh and a quick excerpt from the book taking down the notion of the “self-made” billionaire (p.25 – 28).
“The notion that it should be possible to become a billionaire is rooted in the idea that there are some uniquely talented individuals whose contribution is so great that they deserve to be hugely, fabulously rewarded.
Some billionaires, such as Leo J. Hindery Jr., have made this point themselves. Hindery, whose contribution was to found a cable television sports network, put it this way: “I think there are people, including myself at certain times in my career, who because of their uniqueness warrant whatever the market will bear.” Similarly, Sanford Weill, long a towering figure on Wall Street, is impressed with the contributions of billionaires like himself: “People can look at the last 25 years and say that this is an incredibly unique period of time. We didn’t rely on somebody else to build what we built…”
What is striking in such statements, in addition to the absence of modesty, is the lack of any acknowledgement of the role of society in their good fortune. These men seem unaware of the pervasive role played by society in general (as well as by specific other people) in every aspect of their lives — in nurturing them, shaping them, teaching them what they know, performing innumerable functions that contribute to the running of their businesses and indeed every aspect of constructing and operating the market that has enabled them to get rich. Weill’s statement that “We didn’t rely on somebody else to build what we built” can be quickly tested. Would Weill, having built everything from scratch, be able to reproduce his fortune if stranded on a desert island?
If so, then he should be able to keep every bit of it for himself, having been solely responsible for its creation. If not, then it is reasonable to ask what portion of it was created by him, and what by others?
The Desert Island Test is a useful one to keep in mind. The primacy and ubiquity of society — so casually erased by billionaires and others justifying their fortunes — must be restored if we are to have any meaningful discussion of income and wealth, and where an individual’s claim ends and society’s begins.
One of the crucial ways that society assists individuals in generating wealth lies in the inheritance from previous generations.
This inheritance from the past is so vast it is almost beyond calculation. It encompasses every aspect of what we know as a civilization and every bit of scientific and technological advance we make use of today, going all the way back to the beginning of human language and the invention of the wheel. Measured against this vast human cultural and technological inheritance, any additional marginal advance in today’s world — even the creation of a cable television sports network — pales in significance.
The question then becomes: who is the proper beneficiary of the wealth generated by innovations based on the massive inheritance from the past — the individual innovator who adapts some tiny aspect of this past inheritance to create a slightly new product, or society as a whole (that is, all of us)?
Under our current system, the innovator captures an enormously large share of the benefits. Clearly, the innovator should be compensated for his contribution. But should he or she also be compensated for the contributions made by all the other innovators who, over the centuries, have built up a body of knowledge that made his marginal advance possible today? What share of the newly-generated wealth correctly belongs to the society that has not only nurtured him but also provided him with this rich past inheritance — without which, stranded on a desert island, he wouldn’t have the means to even keep himself warm.”
The youtube summary as well.
An explosion and/or fire at Shaw Court in Calgary has knocked out a significant quantity of telecommunications equipment, affecting not only bank machines and radio stations, but stuff like 911 service and the program that tells ambulances which hospital they should take a patient to.
I’m going to repeat the salient bit:
…SPRINKLERS…in that room…ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT…
SPRINKLERS…ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
SPRINKLERS + ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT?!
LOLWHUT?
Normally when you talk about mission-critical infrastructure, you’re talking about stuff like the servers that handle banking and the stock market. And for that kind of thing, the technology exists to have redundant servers in multiple locations that can fail-over almost seamlessly if something like this happens. We don’t have all the details, but chances are some of this stuff is weirdass old mainframes and actual physical mechanical switches that can’t be failed over quite so easily. Still, why in the name of the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster would you put sprinklers in with them? I mean, I know the obvious answer, which is that halon is expensive. But whose brilliant idea was it to cut this particular corner? Maybe it’s just me, but I think 911 service is a bit more important than the stock market.
I keep finding good stuff to repost. This blog entry is by Salty Current with the original found here.
“If you say
I think sexism, misogyny, and harassment of women, including in this community, are real problems that need to be addressed,
you should stop there and consider what you’re actually doing and could be doing to counter them and how you might be contributing to them. If you then say
…BUT feminists really shouldn’t talk publicly about their experiences, shouldn’t write blog posts about the subject, shouldn’t object to slurs, shouldn’t take sexually violent language seriously, shouldn’t be angry, should name names, shouldn’t name names, shouldn’t call out any man who’s ever done anything to support women, shouldn’t call out any man who considers himself their ally, shouldn’t call out prominent men, should only discuss prominent men, shouldn’t call out women who say misogynistic things, shouldn’t call out young people, shouldn’t organize events focusing on women, should mute their criticisms to protect skeptical organizations or events, shouldn’t talk about what’s said on Facebook, shouldn’t talk about what’s said on Twitter, shouldn’t talk about what’s said on YouTube, shouldn’t turn a skeptical eye to sexist “science,” should let their experiences go unexpressed because other women have it worse, should be more polite, should be less polite, should painstakingly qualify their every statement to make it less likely to be misconstrued by those with hostile intent, should calmly describe the entire history of the arguments to everyone who jumps into them ignorant of the context, should give the benefit of the doubt to every guy who’s done or said something sexist, should frame the issues in this or that way, shouldn’t talk about patriarchy, shouldn’t talk about privilege, shouldn’t talk about rape culture, should constantly and patiently explain sociological concepts to their interlocutors, should only discuss problems that affect them personally, shouldn’t work to change official policies, should only work through official organizational channels, should only focus on this or that part of the problem, should never analogize their situation or women’s oppression to anything else, should be more aggressive, should be less aggressive, shouldn’t insult people, shouldn’t ban commenters from their blogs, shouldn’t strenuously object to mischaracterizations of their statements,…,
you should realize that this belies your claim to caring about the problems and wanting to help address them, and recognize that you are contributing to the problem. If you insist on your preconditions for listening to and supporting feminists in their struggles against sexism and misogyny, you’re acting in a way that is harmful to the cause you claim to support.”
Ah yes, tokenism at its best. Just imagine the dudely outrage when called out on this particular trope. See! See! We have a female character… oh wait.
*update – textual goodness*
Take note of the Male-to-Female ratio.
“I’m the only girl.”
— Marzipan, Homestar Runner
— Marzipan, Homestar Runner
For any series not aimed solely at females, odds are high that only one female will be in the regular cast. The Smurfette Principle is the tendency for works of fiction to have exactly one female amongst an ensemble of male characters, in spite of the fact that roughly half of the human race is female. Unless a show is purposefully aimed at a female viewing audience, the main characters will tend to be disproportionately male. In many series, men will have various different personalities, but women will always be The Chick. Thus, by the Law of Conservation of Detail , you only need one. In other cases, the women are feminized versions of existing male characters. This trope has lessened over time, but even now it often applies to animated fare aimed at boys or a general audience. This is especially serious when the regular cast is full of synthetic entities or other species which have a voice or are sufficiently humanoid; these will always be more masculine than feminine, with any feminine examples receiving special attention, suggesting that women are merely an unusual subtype of men. Why does this trope happen? Often, the problem lies with the source material — the work’s an adaptation of something written or created decades before equal recognition for women started to gain momentum. Sometimes, however, writers will try to correct this problem by inserting a few more female characters or at least an Affirmative Action Girl. When the time for merchandising comes, unless the cast is all female, manufacturers won’t create as many figures of the female members as they would males of the franchise even if the series is Merchandise Driven (or at least, until the mid-90’s). This creates a vicious cycle in which The Smurfette Principle is upheld by both toy manufacturers and TV writers, each reasoning that the other will enforce it anyway. This may be because, statistically, companies believe that action figures of female characters don’t sell as well as the male ones, all evidence to the contrary. Of course, the shortage of female action figures to base those figures on can lead to another vicious cycle. In classic comedy animation or shows, especially slapstick, women are often absent because hitting a girl just isn’t considered funny. (In the case of harmless Amusing Injuries, this isn’t always the case.) This trope can also be justified by its unfortunate accuracy in certain contexts. It is fairly realistic for armies, police forces, adventuring parties, and similar groups to be predominantly male, especially if set in a non-Politically Correct History. As noted in the examples below, this trope is nearly universal in all forms of media. Most writers try to balance this out with Positive Discrimination, making the girl more intelligent and level-headed than everyone else, but it still doesn’t change the simple fact that there’s only one of her. Usually, all it does is turn her into a Mary Sue for everyone to loathe. Writers who recognize the problem after a season or two may expand the cast with Affirmative Action Girls. This is usually more effective. Interestingly, this can extend to Mooks and the Monster of the Week with Monogender Monsters, to avoid the Unfortunate Implications of violence against women. The name of this trope was first coined by an article in the New York Times printed April 7, 1991, called “The Smurfette Principle”
. The article discussed the negative message which this trope gave its young audience: that males are individuals who have adventures, while females are a type of deviation who exist only in relation to males.
Maybe not?
We’ll file this under the heading ,”Only *MY* magical religious beliefs and bigotry are acceptable”.
This article has to do with the already wrong notion that a voucher system is somehow good for public education and the whiplash inducing reversal of course that happened once it was known that school vouchers could be used to fund Islamic education instead of the intended target, the ‘acceptable’ fundegelical christian bullshite-schools.
“Valarie Hodges admitted that when she supported Governor Bobby Jindal’s school voucher program, she only did so because she assumed the religious school vouchers could only be used for Christian schools. Religious freedom means that everyone’s free to follow Valarie Hodges’ religion! She explains,
Ah, religious tomfoolery meet the facepalm.
“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools. I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school.”
Contrast this with her next quote on the topic:
“We need to insure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana.”
Religion certainly does not breed intolerant tribalistic sectarianism – OH, Hells no!
QS tackles some debate basics, but makes the argument that our society is progressing to the state where we can challenge the claims of those who subscribe to the supernatural. Enjoy.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…