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Post by robeiae on Dec 1, 2017 6:56:36 GMT -5
During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. Even looking at that sentence in isolation, there are multiple ways to parse it, grammatically. The (less charitable) one is the one that paraphrases as "I...created the Internet." The (more charitable and IMO more accurate one) is "I took the initiative in (the effort of - implying it was not a one-man job) creating the Internet." You are reading it in the most pedantic possible way. No, I'm not. How can you not get this? I agree with you with regard to what he meant (more or less). But it's still--imo--a fucking obnoxiously self-aggrandizing statement coming from a greasy politician who thinks he's the most important person in the room, always. So using his own words to make that point strikes me as an effective and allowable thing to do, even with the hyperbole. YMMV. Again: "I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Come on. That's crying out for mockery, regardless of the context.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2017 7:50:51 GMT -5
And I think it's you, with an intense prejudice against Al Gore, reading grandioseness into his post.
How can you not get this?
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Post by robeiae on Dec 1, 2017 8:32:34 GMT -5
Lol, cute. But I'm not misunderstanding what you and Amadan are saying. In contrast, Amadan seems to think that I think Al Gore meant to say that he "invented the internet." But I'm not saying that, as I've repeatedly noted, apparently to no avail.
As to "intense prejudices," that's really funny, as well. There's a reason why that SNL skit on the Gore-Bush debate resonated the way that it did.
Regardless, Amadan can get peeved and you can join him every time someone knocks Gore with a "isn't he the guy who invented the internet?" I'll continue to find such remarks humorous.
*bows low, exits thread, stage right (of course)*
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Post by Amadan on Dec 1, 2017 8:45:25 GMT -5
Fuck it, the board software sometimes posts my reply with all the text I wrote deleted.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 18, 2019 11:37:42 GMT -5
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Post by Don on Feb 18, 2019 13:36:15 GMT -5
Requoted and bolding for emphasis. It amazes me how many people assume that consumers have no power, when they have all the power in the world. For another example look at how eating has changed in the last decades. That hasn't been legislated either. One example: Eight years ago when my wife was diagnosed with celiac disease, she couldn't eat out anywhere. Guess what? She has tons of choices now. And consumers, not legislators, created that change, by demanding it of the producers. The same applies to gluten-free groceries. What if she'd had to wait for that to be legislated? She'd still be eating every single meal at home. Some people don't believe that people are capable of making their own choices, and prefer that government eliminate as many choices as possible by making those choices for them. Like Bernie feels about toothpaste. Like Bernie, they don't get that competition improves the standard of living. It's been improving the Internet for decades. Today's internet shares only history and a tiny bit of technology with the original ARPANet. Those vast improvements were neither government-driven nor government-licensed. Thought experiment: If FedGov had decided to legislate each change in operating systems and baud speed, what are the chances we'd still be communicating at 9600 baud and using DOS 3.1? I'd say they near unity. YMMV. After all, why innovate if you can freeze out the competition instead with some groovy legislative legerdemain? Bill Gates hated graphic interfaces. He would have gladly thrown Apple under the bus instead of hassling with Windows, and he could certainly have afforded the legislators.
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Post by Christine on Feb 21, 2019 21:27:00 GMT -5
Requoted and bolding for emphasis. It amazes me how many people assume that consumers have no power, when they have all the power in the world. For another example look at how eating has changed in the last decades. That hasn't been legislated either. One example: Eight years ago when my wife was diagnosed with celiac disease, she couldn't eat out anywhere. Guess what? She has tons of choices now. And consumers, not legislators, created that change, by demanding it of the producers. The same applies to gluten-free groceries. What if she'd had to wait for that to be legislated? She'd still be eating every single meal at home. Yeah, nah, pretty sure your wife was the unintended beneficiary of the gluten free diet craze. I seriously doubt the free market and all the restaurants would otherwise have been scrambling to accomodate the 0.05 - 1.26% of potential customers with celiac disease. It seems improper in this case to credit the god of your own particular religion.
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Post by Don on Feb 21, 2019 21:46:36 GMT -5
Yeah, and organic food, market water (as opposed to government water -- see also: Flint, MI), whole-grain foods, low-carb options, and the thousands of other changes we've seen in the food markets over the last decades have just been crazes too.
Nope... it's evolution at work, far outstripping the performance of Mordor's Intelligent Design, aka corporate-approved legislation.
And Denny's, Bob Evans and the like are hardly known as trend-setters, or followers, nor are their clientele, and gluten, while trendy, is not the only allergen they're tracking for their customers these days. Add in peanuts, shellfish and the like, and they've opened their restaurants to a range of potential customers who all ate at home in "the old days."
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Post by Christine on Feb 21, 2019 21:56:30 GMT -5
"Organic" Totes really! LOL
"Low-carb" Totes healthy! LOL
And hundreds of others like the once-hailed "low fat" options. FFS, the free market gave us SNACKWELLS and the like, contributing to obesity and diabetes.
In no instance ever has the free market tried to curb people's ignorance and fantasies when it comes to weight loss or health. The free market gives uneducated, uniformed, gullible people whatever they ask for.
Again: in the case of "gluten-free" options, your wife was an unintended beneficiary. Millions of people are currently gorging themselves on "gluten-free" whatever, thinking it's got to be the answer to their weight/health problems. And the free market is just fine with that.
Bon Appetit.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 22, 2019 7:47:16 GMT -5
The free market also gives educated and informed people whatever they ask for. And it gives semi-educated and semi-informed people whatever they ask for.
The fact of the matter is that while the market can take people places they didn't want to go, it also responds to what people want and need. It always has.
Because if Mega Telephone and Internet Service Conglomerate isn't giving consumers what they want, is gouging them, or both, Little Start-up ISP is prepared to step in to fill and even exceed those needs at a lower price.
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Post by Don on Feb 22, 2019 8:54:58 GMT -5
It's not the job of the market to curb ignorance and fantasies. Government claimed that mantle when it took over primary education. So if people are ignorant and live in a fantasy world, lacking the education to make intelligent decisions, there's only one institution you can place the blame on, and it sure as hell ain't the market.
It's not the market that trains people to sit down, shut up, and obey the voice of authority, rather than make their own intelligent decisions. That's primary education.
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Post by Christine on Feb 22, 2019 9:27:26 GMT -5
To review what I originally responded to:
I pointed out that gluten-free products weren't provided by the free market for people with celiac disease. Meeting the needs of 1% of the population is not what the free market does. Using time and resources to make products for 1% of the population is really shitty on profit margins.
Other examples are wheelchair ramps and handicap parking spaces. The free market didn't volunteer to provide those things either.
I'm not anti-free market, at all. But the worshipful praise of it over government is, in this case, misplaced, imo.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 22, 2019 9:37:13 GMT -5
Sorry, but you're wrong.
Providing something 1% of the population wants isn't "really shitty on profit margins" as a matter of course. In fact, identifying such a 1% and finding a way to meet their needs is pure entrepreneurship, is a vital component of a market economy.
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Post by Christine on Feb 22, 2019 9:49:23 GMT -5
I'm not talking about niche markets. I'm talking about the currently widely available supply of gluten-free products which is great for people with celiac disease which Don credits the free market for providing for 1% of the population. Where were all the mass-produced gluten-free products ten years ago? Were there no people with celiac disease ten years ago?
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Post by robeiae on Feb 22, 2019 10:10:01 GMT -5
As the population keeps going up, 1% of it becomes a larger and larger number, making the market larger and larger. And the market never responds instantaneously, regardless.
Don's analysis is accurate, in my opinion. The growth of gluten-free products was/is a response to consumer needs/wants.
Of course, one can argue that such needs/wants were themselves a consequence of better education to some degree, which then can get warped by various hucksters to turn a profit, as well.
A free market* isn't moral. It can't be. There's always gonna be good and bad. But over time, the upside is far greater than the downside.
* Relatively free, to be sure. I--for one--am not arguing for no regulations, no laws, no rules in the market at all. I think the that an absolutely free market would cause far too much harm in the short run, even if it would right itself over time. In the realm of foods and drugs, I think the FDA and most of its rules are necessary. But of course, this thread was initially about the FCC and net neutrality, and many were claiming that ending net neutrality would be a horrible thing, that the market--when it came to ISPs--couldn't be trusted. And it looks like--so far--those claims were without merit. Things are better without net neutrality. And I can't help but wonder where all the hardcore net neutrality advocates are now (the big ones, not people here), why they're not willing to step up and admit they were wrong.
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