sillygeese

The tech industry certainly has competition, but the juicy margins make it much less of an "issue".

Of course not. We shouldn't have governments at all, because all they do is exploit us. That's why they exist.

All you need to see is that they're taking our money by force, and you can make sense of everything they do - it's all about keeping us blind to the exploitation so that they can keep on doing it.

King's had "The Divine Right" to rule over everyone else, and governments have "The Social Contract", which amounts to the same thing.

What he means to say is that a nuclear meltdown can fuck up a huge area for millenia, but a coal incident can't.

Well the way for a reactor to "demonstrate an improvement" over Fukushima would be to withstand the same kind of earthquake + tsunami that Fukushima didn't.

It doesn't make sense to say it's hard to demonstrate improvements when it's not even under our control.

But demonizing nuclear power has nothing to do with it.

That's all fine, but for example Fukushima is still not under control, and may still cause enormous harm.

That kind of stuff is why we need to get rid of nuclear power altogether. All that's holding us back is politicians and their bribes.. and of course, to a lesser extent, people who rationalize not moving away from nuclear power.

It's just politicians and their cronies benefiting at the masses' expense, i.e. the system working as intended.

Yeah, but more accurately, his bribes might depend on "not understanding" something.

Politicians "not understanding" something is an age-old excuse. They don't even give a fuck about anything besides themselves, because they're psychopaths.

They're smart too, because otherwise they wouldn't have managed to climb up the hierarchy of political power to their current positions, what with all the other smart psychopaths jockeying for position along with them.

So if it's in a politician's personal interest to vote X on whatever, then he will do so. If it's not, then he won't. It's as simple as that.

Understanding has nothing to do with it. It's not like they couldn't get someone to help them understand, if they wanted to.

Also, the Australian government (along with any others that can) has been doing the things listed in the article already. They don't need permission from themselves.

Nice to see someone thinking for himself. These might still make things clearer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngpsJKQR_ZE http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/Contents.pdf

Look, all you need to know about the government is that they take our money by force. If the masses benefited from having a government, they wouldn't need to do that.

No seriously. Think about it. It really is as simple as that. Apple doesn't have to force people to buy their devices.

People aren't extorted for their benefit, but the extorter's, even if the extortion is shrouded in brainwashing, propaganda, rituals and so on.

So once you accept that taxation is extortion and politicians are psychopaths, you'll start being able to make sense of the insanity of the world.

This book thoroughly destroys most of the pro-state arguments people have come up with: http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/Contents.pdf

Are you uncomfortable with reading that? -Well why might that be? What sense does it make? Keep going anyway.

No thanks, I don't want to play your games.

The plaintiffs/petitioners presented only a tenuous case that their records were actually collected, which reduced their perceived likelihood of success on the ultimate merits of the case enough that they were not entitled to a preliminary injunction.

So let's see.. Because a person can't prove to the government that the government is violating its own rules, the government decides that the person doesn't actually have a case, even though everyone knows the government is spying on everyone, and thus violating its own rules.

Rright. So even if the government decided the case against itself, i.e. forbade itself from spying on everyone, why would anyone think they'd actually curtail their spying activities?

If a wolf had been eating sheep left and right, and suddenly declared he'll stop doing that because eating sheep is Ba-a-a-ad, would the sheep have reason to believe he'd actually stop?

Eating sheep is in the wolf's nature, and he's never had a problem with it before, so why would he stop? It would serve the wolf's interests to distract/placate the sheep though, so that they'd be easier to eat!

Yes, the system is working very much as intended: http://popehat.com/2013/12/23/burn-the-fucking-system-to-the...

If governments were actually useful to us, they wouldn't have to take our money by force. We'd be happy to pay for their services voluntarily.

That tells you everything you need to know about the system's nature.

There are shitty people who love being offended, being angry about some very subjective injustice; dignified agitation gives those people reason to breathe and makes them feel good.

Those people are psychopaths, and they're actually not even offended - they're just pretending to be. They just enjoy playing games, fucking with people, causing frustration/anger/arguing/confusion, etc.

It's even heftier percentage-wise.

You realize I was responding to a comment, right?

Basically it's just propaganda. They're using complicated econospeak trying to confuse you into thinking that everything is alright.

In reality, nothing has been fixed since 2008, and Western economies are in shambles behind the scenes. It's a confidence game. At this point, investors are close to losing confidence, and when they do, a big crash will happen.

Living in Denial?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style-blog/wp/2014/12/16...

http://www.chicagonow.com/listing-toward-forty/2013/11/elf-o...

"Smart" TVs, and most of the "Internet of Things" stuff is all about monitoring us. XBox's Kinect is in the mix too.

And they're just brazenly telling us through the mainstream media. Again, they're acclimating us to being aware that we're surveilled all the time.

You can rest assured that the cameras are being used by the government. All over the West, they're clearly showing us they don't want us to have any privacy.

As for the article, it is, of course, some sort of propaganda. I guess they're just acclimating us to being aware that we're monitored all the time, everywhere.

That way we're easier to lead down the slippery slope all the way to where ever we're headed. But it's not good.

People need to wake up and start seeing that governments are obviously not working towards our interests. It's amazing how the masses still don't see it.

Do we want surveillance? No. Are we going to be surveilled anyway? Yes, of course. It's not about what we want - it's about what our rulers want.

A more educated population tends to demand more reason.

Not when it's "educated" by the government itself.

The public education system is a brainwashing program, to make us unquestioningly obedient to authority, and to think we need more government intervention in everything.

The more education and progress there is the less corruption.

Do you think a ruling class can be educated into not pursuing their personal gain at everyone else's expense?

It's not that complicated. 2 + 2 = 4, and "fucking people over is bad mm'kay?"

The problem is that opportunities for "corruption", wealth and power are the main reasons why psychopaths seek political office to begin with. They don't go there to help others.

The Chinese economy is doing OK

A bunch of ghost cities would beg to differ. Apparently this guy thinks malinvestment on a massive scale has no effect on an economy.

America is the greatest economic engine the world has ever known. It's not because we're situated on a mountain of rubies, or that we are intellectually superior to other countries.

It's because of our system of government.

No, it's because of the relative freedom you enjoyed in the past. Strangely enough, the less of the fruits of people's labour you forcefully take away from them, the more motivated they are to produce.

The easier it is to do business, the more business will be done. Go figure.

There's a reason people were flocking to America from all over the world, and it wasn't to get horribly oppressed by filthy capitalist "Robber Barons".

Perhaps those are not the same people?

Bear in mind that printing currency is not without consequences either. It's not like each printed (and used) dollar is worth exactly as much as the previous one - otherwise hyperinflations could not happen.

Yeah, speaking the truth tends to get you downvoted. People are silly and emotional. But it's nice to see another independent thinker here. I've noticed you before.

Don't pay much attention to the political circus though, the false choice between "Demopublicans". That's all smoke and mirrors to make you think you have a say in how you're "governed" (i.e. coerced).

The current mess of the US economy is due to the choices of many politicians, in congress and the presidency, from both parties.

It's much deeper than that. The dollar was detached from the gold standard in 1971, and that was the beginning of "the real end". Before that, the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 set the scene for all the economic trouble to come, and so on. Check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IJeemTQ7Vk

This is why we need the government out of the economy, and let it work.

You're on the right track, but take it further. We need the government out of existence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngpsJKQR_ZE .. it is based on extortion, after all.

What maintains governments is the belief in political authority: http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/Contents.pdf

Hell if it weren't for government the bad banks would have failed in 2008-- and we would have had a real recovery afterwards.

That's certainly true.

when you look at the US economy as a whole things are doing quite well

To be more accurate, when you look at the propaganda spewed by the mainstream media, everything seems to be fine, because they keep spinning everything in a positive light.

In the US, for starters, there's a huge bubble in stocks, and an echo bubble in housing. There's a massive property bubble in Canada and Australia, and so on.

With interest rates already at roughly zero, they don't have room for lowering them to "stimulate" the economy (to avoid the inevitable crash that's coming).

Of course, getting people to spend money they don't have and businesses to start projects they shouldn't, isn't exactly good for the economy but hey.. whatever keeps the show going for a while longer.

(Downvoters? It's at the very least possible that you just don't know that I'm right.. :) Do your homework, but not from mainstream media sources)

Broadly speaking the US economy is quite healthy

In reality, it's the exact opposite of "quite healthy". Here's a good overview of what's up: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug15/bear8-15.html

How is it fair that the markets get put on pause if they're failing? I really don't understand.

That just means the ruling class is in panic mode, trying to prevent the inevitable from happening, just like their peers in China recently.

In China they managed to temporarily stem the tide, but the real crash is still coming, of course, just like it is all over the West.

I wonder why you're getting downvoted.

Does it matter?

If there's enough pressure for MS to respond, they'll spew some bullshit to placate the masses. What they won't do is change their spying ways.

Besides, it's probably not even all Microsoft's fault. I bet governments are pressuring them to spy on us on their behalf.