Correct ... but by the same token, Amazon is more of an obvious threat to the publishers; and Amazon effectively controls the DRM servers that lock in the customers. Dropping the requirement for DRM is about the only thing the publishers can do at this point that would undermine Amazon's near monopoly status.
]]>It doesn't work because, as any political scientist who has spent years or decades involved in empirical study will tell you, people are fucking stupid.
Now, let me clarify. First when they make this statement - that people are stupid - and before you nod sagely, remember they use it as a universal qualifier.
Wait. What? Me no stupid. Me read science fiction.
What they really mean is, people are used to using that ancient region of our wonderful kluge of a mind, the reflexive lizard brain, which, and who knows how or why, understands language. The reflective part which seems to inhabit the frontal lobes? Oh, that's hard to use. Do I have to?
I've a vision of the Almighty with cotton in His ears, flinching and clenching his teeth at the unholy noise of humanity grinding gears until we finally figure out the fucking clutch that engages our frontal lobes. And honestly, maybe its just easier to keep the thing in Low, which is what the chimp handlers of the candidates are counting on.
They are rarely surprised. So, we hold totems, Ken dolls for your perusal, and you are free to ignore the warning labels clearly posted on them. I'm amazed to hear people who will say, and let's choose Ron Paul as an example, "Yeah, he's a racist and sexist and all sorts of other terrible things, and his son Rand was clearly carved out of wood and animated by the Blue Fairy for the next really odious round of political nepotism, and all that and more, and I recognize it and acknowledge and understand it, but I'm gonna vote for him anyway, because he's my kind of guy".
Or people who were disappointed in Obama, who clearly were not paying attention to what he said, there could be absolutely no confusion as to what he was gonna do, or how he was gonna do it. I voted for Obama because he wasn't McCain.
Why I myself, trying to keep up on current events, will read an analysis in, say, the Economist or Foreign Affairs a year after the fact, and I'll say, "Whoa! Why didn't I see this? I was all over this when it was in the news, and yet, I was sleepwalking through the whole farrago.
How to engage the frontal lobes? That clearly is the question.
]]>http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/indian-call-center-americanization
"Truth is, 90 percent of the people there, you will find, they'll do the most stupid things, impulsive things. I know for a fact. At the same time, Americans are bighearted people, and the remaining 10 percent of them are smart. Bloody smart. That's why they rule the world."
I, uh, have a bad feeling I'm not in that world ruler column.
The beginnings of wisdom, Grasshopper?
]]>Eloise @ 156 Easy You vote for the least-worst candidate (or party) However, even that can go pear-shaped, which is why we need coupled compulsory voting AND "None of the above" boxes...
timofulz1968 @ 159 Care to make a small wager on that? I think Hick Sanatorium is going at least as far as the R convention ....
]]>"In 2000, conservatives were determined to avoid another George H.W. Bush, so they picked a candidate whose dedication to conservatism seemed unassailable. And as far as they're concerned, even that didn't work out." - Kevin Drum
"No, it was while watching the debates last night that it finally hit me: This is justice. What we have here are chickens coming home to roost. It's as if all of the American public's bad habits and perverse obsessions are all coming back to haunt Republican voters in this race: The lack of attention span, the constant demand for instant gratification, the abject hunger for negativity, the utter lack of backbone or constancy (we change our loyalties at the drop of a hat, all it takes is a clever TV ad): these things are all major factors in the spiraling Republican disaster." - Matt Taibbi
]]>In other words, please take a few deep breaths before posting a comment, and try to make sure you've said what you want in the way you want.
]]>Well, you know, my point was to keep the message succinct enough for the multi-taskers out there. A more thorough treatment would involve two of my favorite delusions. I'm not much of a Nietzsche fan. In fact, I'm convinced that he started suffering from softening of the brain long before he started writing. But I do think he got one thing on the money, which, can't remember the exact quote, but paraphrased was "It will take a thousand years before we realize the full impact of the printing press", or something like that. And so:
1) After 10,000 years we may finally be understanding the impact of the Neolithic cultural package. It's more than just land parcels, and animal husbandry, and timber-framed rectangular houses, it's also governance. Aside from realizing things like limits to growth and sustainability, we also are maybe getting a handle on social groups beyond the extended family. Point being, before I stray too far, you are right, we have a limited attention span which is not a sustainable ecology. As such, we've to be most careful as to where to expend this resource, and which information sources we draw from, which gets me to point 2...
2) What I call Platonic Derangement Syndrome. And pity that this acronym is in use, but hey, sky objects quickly used up the pantheon of godly names, why should human weaknesses be any different? So, PDS involves basically terminally augmented reality, but without the futuristic rose-colored google goggles - instead using the existing cortex-kluge of what Kahneman calls Systems 1 and 2, the reflexive and reflective. We so often, whether ye be listing starboard or larboard in your ideology, are fucked from the get-go because our little platonic axioms as to how the world should really work. And then reality inconveniently (or fortunately?) steps in for a course correction. Point being, (again, sorry, I ramble), we misinterpret basic sensory data as, mandates, agendas, signs and portents from above, resulting in liberal cornucopia, or Randian objectives, or conservative stringencies, or whichever contrivance or who-haw animal you wish to construct...
Oh dear,...to summarize, it's kluges all the way down.
]]>Anatoly: given that Israel is the 500lb nuclear-armed gorilla in the middle east right now, I think it very unlikely that, Ahmedinejad's posturing aside (which is in any case aimed at motivating his domestic base and has no serious international relations standing insofar as he isn't the Iranian head of state) there is about zero chance that the Iranian government will decide to give Benny Netenyahu an excuse to turn Tehran into a glowing hole in the map. Because that's what would happen. Iran: 1-2 atom bombs. Israel: up to 200 H-bombs. Even religious crazies understand mutually assured destruction. If anything, I think an Iranian A-bomb would be good for the region. Certainly it'd focus a few minds ...
]]>Great humanitarian, that Winnie.
]]>Oh... dear. And here after I talked about platonic derangement. I know it's futile to complain about it, but the meme delusion is a personal irritation of mine, kind of like seeing someone give up on Xtianity but then watching them run straight into the arms of New Age hoodoo.
Stupidity, on the other hand, is unlike a meme, not only extremely well defined (as in more than just some game-show category, but rather, as rich as a 3D color spindle, with exquisitely precise and subtle descriptions of the tone, value, saturation and hue of the stupid), but also consistently, reliably, and repeatedly empirically verifiable.
Which is to say, you might as well have told me that it's all "invisible unicorns shitting donuts. The horns explain the holes". Continuing the baked-goods analogy, proffering up stale pastries with a sell-by date of 1976 is hardly giving me any confidence in the rest of your argument. Especially the part about swaying calcified mindsets who, through the very definition of word conservative, are unwilling or unable to change.
But that's just me. Carry, by all means, please.
]]>Actually, "we've been had, all of us, by a bunch of pranksters and situation artists pretending to be politicians and lobbyists" would be a great explanation for the past 20 years, wouldn't it?
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