sonofsam

The architecture problem was solved separately in Flux: https://facebook.github.io/flux/docs/overview.html

The rich prodomiently hold their wealth in assets. These assets are more akin to rise in an inflationary environment (ie. Stock market.)

It usually the middle class that is desvated as most do not have any assets other than their homes and rely on a salary for the majority of their income.

It is possible for inflation and deflation to co-exist.

Wages could down while the cost of food, housing and energy raises.

This is where most Linux package managers do a really good job.

However, the system should be designed in a manner where I have a choice.

This here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard

Makes no sense in a world of dynamically linked libraries and 6 month release cycles.

This is insanely important.

The goal of an operating system is to run applications. The installation and packaging of software should be as simple as possible.

For whatever reason, the Linux desktop community does not see this as an issue.

If I want Vim 7.4, 7.3 and 7.1 installed at the sametime, your package manager should support it. What if 'X' plugin is only compatible with 7.1 and 'Y' plugin is only compatible with 7.4. This is a valid use case.

Lately, I have been using Docker to work around this, but it's not fun setting up GUI applications in a container.

1) This is a Legitimate problem for China, but how can we assume that the USA will be the world's superpower, when China does encounter this problem? 2050 is a long way from now. It is likely that another nation will take the role of the #1 economy.

Beyond that, how do we know the environmental impact caused by the industrialization of China will not reduce the average life expectancy (cancer, etc.)?

2) Much of the shale oil extraction has been financed through low interest rates and debt. The cost of extracting many of these oil reserves is more than the worth of the oil itself.

"Just a few of the roadblocks: Independent producers will spend $1.50 drilling this year for every dollar they get back."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-27/dream-of-u-s-oil-in...

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Shells-American-Woes-...

3) This is hard to argue against. I have a few concerns: a) The profits from the R&D and IP are usually concentrated in the hands of large corporations with large patent portfolios. These corporations are global and not beholden to the USA (they can move work aboard). The profits of these corporations are increasing being moved towards the hands of the few.

b) The education system in the USA for the majority, has been far from stellar. There is an opening for another country to surpass the USA in education and academic institutions.

c) As China moves away from an export driven economy, they can take the role of R&D and IP. China is working towards this. I'm not sure if they can succeed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/chinas-ambitious-...

After I read through Edward Bernay's Propaganda, I can't take this writing seriously. It seems to be some overly patriotic horn tooting, meant for pushing academics even further from the real problems we are facing.

No where does he explain why America became a large economy or why it should even stay that way.

As far as I'm concern, America is contributing less and less to the world. There is no reason for the world to give such high value to the dollar and continually send goods to America (things that have no reason to, will not continue for long).

And if you want to talk about dollars (or lack there of). Please refer to the public and private debt of America and its citizens.

Some things are just plain wrong: "home to the U.S. ... in tandem with plentiful cheap energy from fracking."

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/ma...

This guy reminds me of other infamous propagandists, such: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pipes and his equality notorious father: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pipes

| (2) I don't want to update my whole operating system to update applications;

This is huge. IMO, this is the purpose of an operating system. I want to install applications, I do not want to waste time installing new versions of my operating system.

The main focus of Linux distributions should be to make as many applications as possible available to the user and make them easily available.

That being said, Docker has changed this a bit for me, but most Linux distributions still fall flat on their faces when it comes to installing non-packaged applications. Sometimes I find myself having to download applications from websites, manually configure them or even compile software myself.

Basically, the file system hierarchy should had been versioned from the start:

  /
    programs
       vim
          7.1
          7.2
          7.3

The FHS is a disaster that every distribution tries to implement differently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard

Surprised no one mentioned: http://zero-k.info/

This is an extremely polished open source game (spiritually based on Total Annihilation). Everyone should check it out.

I suggest you also check out Bernay's book propaganda. It's not an easy read (simply, because you have read through bullshit), but it's fairly important that people understand the media that targets them. Quick Google shows a freely available copy.

Here's an interesting quote from Bernay's Propaganda: "Different men rule us in the various departments of our lives. There may be one power behind the throne in politics, another in the manipulation of the Federal discount rate..." Chapter III

I find a lot of people complain about the gap between the rich and the poor, but they never take a second to think about the easily accessible and 0% - 1% interest rate loans that the rich enjoy from governments. Governments creating poverty?!? Nah :)