Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[smjjames]

Everyone loved Nero when he made a horse his personal advisor because it pissed off the Senators

No, that was Caligula I think. Though that may have been propoganda or something.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There is no rule that says a basketball-playing dog cannot become Vice-President.

[TheDarkStar]

Good luck finding a 35-year-old dog.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I've known plenty of seven year-old dogs.

[Rolan7]

There is no rule that says a basketball-playing dog cannot become Vice-President.

Best XKCD paraphrase I've seen in a while

[smjjames]

There is no rule that says a basketball-playing dog cannot become Vice-President.

Best XKCD paraphrase I've seen in a while

It has to be an American born dog though, obviously.

[mainiac]

As for Medicare and Social Security, it seems that he wants to do the same thing- block-grant the funds to the states after cutting out most of the federal management of the programs and leaving it to the states. If that's a good thing, I am not sure; this isn't something that I particularly looked in to. I just think you might be blowing things a bit out of proportion here, mainiac.

It's not hyperbole, the programs would simply not be viable in that way.  You would be killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.  This is the thing that drives me crazy, people ASSUME that the benefits of technocrats making sure we dont horribly fuck things up will be there.  They dont appreciate that someone has to make sure that idiots like Gary Johnson dont was grandmas insulin money because he doesn't understand how cost structures work.  So you have a jackass who proposes a bunch of harmful things and they say no big deal because nothing bad has ever happened before.  But that's because people like Gary Johnson haven't been allowed to put their radical agenda into practice.

[Frumple]

Maybe Carson is angling for surgeon general or something, which is mostly a figurehead post these days.

But only mostly, which would make that scenario another reason to not vote trump. Carson is/was a damn good neurological surgeon. That doesn't mean we want him anywhere near any other facet of medicine.

As for Medicare and Social Security, it seems that he wants to do the same thing- block-grant the funds to the states after cutting out most of the federal management of the programs and leaving it to the states. If that's a good thing, I am not sure; this isn't something that I particularly looked in to.

It's quite possibly the most fucking terrifying thing I've heard in years regarding the management of the programs noted. You want to know how to turn the medicare and social security systems into a swiss cheese hellscape of mismanagement? Remove all or near all federal oversight. Same for education, really. The rough rule of things in most areas of the US is that just about the only thing less competent and more corrupt than federal management is state management, and inflicting that on everyone instead of just the states stupid enough to vote for it is just... something that can't be adequately described without violating the forum ToS.

Plus removing most or all of any unifying elements between the states (which is exactly what that would require) means that the standards of the systems in question become a complete and total crap shoot, and any to all coordination/communication between them becomes an utter goddamn nightmare. What you're describe is indeed a mandate to completely destroy what it's applied to.

Actually, it's also something that is quite frankly concentrated hate towards the younger, more mobile generations. You think the paperwork problems involved with moving is bad now, shit like that would treble or better it, and gods don't even want to consider what it would do to the costs involved.

Just... holy shit. Whoever it was that suggested that as policy, as the cognitive disruption from the suggestion in question has already caused me to forget, should be legally barred from ever engaging in non-personal economic interactions, and possibly shot for the good of mankind should they ever manage to get into a position capable of influencing political policy. Sweet christ-humping dog on a quantum powered pogostick, it makes my brain hurt.

[mainiac]

Almost right Frumple.  But there is something worse then state management.  Look at what municipalities are capable of doing.

Though I will say that the guy did manage to be Governor of New Mexico and not break everything, so there is that.

And Dubya "managed" to not privatize social security.

[mainiac]

Wait actually you make Johnson sound a lot better in that last post.  Nothing isn't the worst thing that could happen.

[Frumple]

Can't I just get my candidate who considers the term "natural monopoly" bullshit? I'm pretty sure even Sanders doesn't go that far.

... um. Considering it's largely not a bullshit term, I'd rather imagine not? Not and them still be even remotely sane, anyway, at least in regards to anything involving economics.

Though I guess maybe with socialist/communist groups? And not bernie's european "socialist" stuff. At the very least, they'd say the concept isn't particularly useful when everything it'd apply to is (supposed to be, anyway) state controlled...

[Frumple]

Mm... yeah, mostly. Natural monopoly stuff only really applies to... infrastructure, basically, so far as my half-remembered recollection can recall. Water, electricity, roads (though those are usually state controlled, more or less), etc., etc. Stuff where competition would cause (significantly) more problems than its lack, and where the thing the monopoly is controlling is pretty vital. And where the nature of the service means there kinda' has to be one provider for it to really give maximal benefit to the consumer, I guess.

Not really sure what the state of things are regarding stuff that's mostly software/online, though. Pretty sure they busted MS a ways back mostly because the stuff was also bundled with the hardware.

Also not really sure how you'd go about breaking up google or facebook. It's not like they don't have a fairly substantial amount of regularly appearing (and generally disappearing :V) competition, it's just that, well. No one really uses them. Especially with the latter, there's no real point to them if basically everyone isn't using them...

[mainiac]

Alright, I meant natural monopolies in regard to tech companies. If we broke up AT&T, we can break up Google or Facebook.

I'm not sure but I think you are using that term wrong.  Natural monopolies are things that should be done by one organization because they are efficient that way.  For instance water and roads like Frumple said.

[Rolan7]

If they broke up Facebook, wouldn't that split the Facebook userbase between different services?  That would pretty much ruin Facebook's redeeming value.

[Frumple]

If they broke up Facebook, wouldn't that split the Facebook userbase between different services?  That would pretty much ruin Facebook's redeeming value.

It would. There is a difference in regards to service provision between a broken AT&T and facebook -- the various (former) AT&T customers could still intercommunicate, meaning the service itself was not substantially disrupted. That... wouldn't happen with facebook, as y'note. Probably wouldn't, anyway, and if it did you'd almost certainly only end up with an oligopoly that's barely (if at all) different from the current situation.

Though @Isp, do you actually think that would happen? I can almost guarantee it wouldn't, or if it did, the intercommunication wouldn't be between actual competitors

Presumably third-party facilitators might show up, it's pretty unlikely they wouldn't be in violation of the primary service's ToS and/or illegal in short order, if not immediately.

E: Though... I guess you could have some kind of government run intercommunication service/regulation/etc. It would be really goddamn weird and I'm not sure I'd like* the precedents involved with government mandated coding insertions or whatever that would probably entail, but I guess it could happen.

*I.e. that faint noise you hear in the distance is in fact me running screaming into the swamp at the thought. Admittedly there's not much running or screaming involved because it's late, I'm tired, and people are sleeping, and I'm not actually moving because this is florida and I'm already in the swamp, but still. That noise is still me, in spirit.