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Editorial Government Politics

Lessig: We Are Squandering Away The Future 207

Posted by michael from the flush dept.
Illissius writes "Lawrence Lessig has a new article up on Wired, with the title Our Kids Are in Big Trouble. I suck at summarizing, so here's a choice quote: 'Gone is the sense of duty that made so compelling Kennedy's demand "ask what you can do for your country." We don't even ask what we, as a nation, can do for our kids. The rhetoric of self-interest so deeply pervades politics that an ideal as fundamental as building a better future has been lost.'"
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Lessig: We Are Squandering Away The Future More

Lessig: We Are Squandering Away The Future

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  • The first half of the quote was lost on him:

    "Ask not what your country can do for you..."

  • Squandering, or ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tanktalus ( 794810 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @01:32PM (#10537976) Journal

    Obviously, this is an op-ed piece. Not really news. Then again, this is the politics section of /., so I suppose it fits.

    The more politically-aware of us have ideologies which we believe are larger than ourselves. They dictate things like taxes, spending, abortion, stem-cell research, etc. So I won't even pretend to agree with TFA on all points.

    To me, the only universal point was to ensure that we think about the consequences if we do something, but, unlike the article, we need to think also about the consequences if we don't. We endanger ourselves to years of extremists terrorising us if we stay in Iraq. Something tells me that if we didn't go in to begin with, we'd be in a worse position after a generation or two of no consequences to committing terrorist acts.

    Oh, and I always cringe when a political statement involves "think of the children" mentality. Of course we all care about our children. Too often, this cry is followed by an appeal to do things that otherwise really don't make sense, and are very, very shortsighted.

    • Step #1. Know fact from fantasy/opinion. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Friday October 15, 2004 @02:23PM (#10538626)
      Something tells me that if we didn't go in to begin with, we'd be in a worse position after a generation or two of no consequences to committing terrorist acts.

      But Iraq wasn't involved in any anti-US terrorist attacks. Wasn't that what the 9/11 commission wrote in their report?

      Before you can assess the risks of any action (and taking no action is an action), you have to have the facts. Opinions and fantasies and nightmares don't count as facts.
    • We endanger ourselves to years of extremists terrorising us if we stay in Iraq. Something tells me that if we didn't go in to begin with, we'd be in a worse position after a generation or two of no consequences to committing terrorist acts.

      Did you mean to imply that Iraq was our ONLY choice in fighting the war on terror? Couldn't we have invaded Saudi Arabia instead? Or Pakistan? Or Iran? What if we had gone another way, exiled all non-citizen moslems and stopped buying oil from the middle east while

      • Pick one. Regardless of which one you pick, there will have been many other options. Bush picked this one, rightly or wrongly. In an alternate universe, he picked Iran - and you are still complaining there were other choices.

        You can only make one choice at a time - and the fact that there are other options merely is evidence that a choice was made, not that the wrong choice was made.

  • Libertarianism and the failure of selfishness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by revscat ( 35618 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @01:36PM (#10538032) Journal
    I know it's fashionable these days to claim to be a libertarian of one stripe or another, but the fundamental philosophy of libertarianism -- "greed is the ultimate good" -- is to share a large part of the blame here. The almost exclusive focus libertarianism gives to short-sighted individual gain has had grave consequences to the environment our descendants, and what almost all cultures throughout history have come to realize constitutes the "good". It is also, I believe, a large reason why so much of the planet considers Americans to be almost completely immoral.

    I believe that there are larger and ultimately more beneficial (personally and socially) virtues than some dogmatic worship of greed and belief that the market, left to its own devices, is perfect and holy, not to be touched by the Satanic hands of government bureaucrats. We *are* sacrificing the ability of future generations to succeed, to live on a planet that is substanaible for human life, and are moving towards a nation where our elders live our their final years in poverty.

    • Re:Libertarianism and the failure of selfishness (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Golias ( 176380 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @02:00PM (#10538339)
      but the fundamental philosophy of libertarianism -- "greed is the ultimate good"

      Your entire argument is flawed because you are beginning with a false premise. That is not the fundamental philosophy of libertarianism. If you ever have read Adam Smith and Voltaire (the two most important writers on any libertarian's bookshelf), you clearly did not understand tehm correctly, and need to study them further.
      • And how applicable are they to modern libertarian thought? Very little, I would argue. The primary motivator of libertarians and the libertarian party today is Ayn Rand, and her philosophy is indeed based upon the primary importance of selfish greed.

        • Re:Libertarianism and the failure of selfishness (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          As a libertarian, I don't base my politics on anything or anyone. My politics is as simple as this:

          Grown adults can do whatever they want to themselves or other consenting adults and the government should be as minimal and non-invasive as possible. It's not that difficult and considering that's essentially the point of the entire constitutional and the federalist papers, I don't see how anyone can want anything different. Stop trying to push your agenda and just leave people alone.

          • Is that sort of like defining Republicans as the actions of the party, rather than its members? Group names take on the meaning of its loudest members ... don't be so hard on people whose only interactions with your group has been reading about those vocal members. That's just human nature, not a failing of the other person.

          • Grown adults can do whatever they want to themselves or other consenting adults and the government should be as minimal and non-invasive as possible. It's not that difficult and considering that's essentially the point of the entire constitutional and the federalist papers, I don't see how anyone can want anything different.

            But you ignore effects on 3rd parties... for example, suppose I sell coffee with styrofoam cups instead of more expensive recycled ones. My decision to do so has now gone beyond my pe
        • I think you're thinking of "those other libertarians." My personal definition of libertarianism excludes actions that harm others, except by mutual consent.

          BTW: what Ayn Rand proposed is called Objectivism [wikipedia.org].

          • My personal definition of libertarianism excludes actions that harm others, except by mutual consent.

            I believe that is Ayn Rand's philosophy as well. Someone else summed it up as "Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose." I think people object to Ayn Rand for other reasons - such as her "altruism is the root of all evil" notions. Many of her arguments for refuting communism were quite good (and she was an excellent writer), but I'm not sure I'd want to live in her ideal society.

            I'd be intereste

      • I think it's pretty arrogant for Libertarians to claim Adam Smith and Voltaire as some kind of intellectual progenitors of Libertarianism. Yes, Adam Smith and Voltaire both expressed strong ideas about "liberty", but I seriously doubt they would have approved of the views and policies espoused by modern US Libertarianisms.

    • Re:Libertarianism and the failure of selfishness (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Illissius ( 694708 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @02:03PM (#10538386)
      Well, as I see it, the fundamental philosophy of Libertarianism isn't "greed is the ultimate good" as you say. Rather, it recognizes that people are fundamentally greedy, and attempts to design a functioning society with that in mind. That's what I like about Libertarianism -- in stark contrast to other 'idealist' philosophies like, for example, communism, it designs for the worst rather than the best case scenario; rather than assume that human nature will conveniently step aside, it specifically exploits it. It's as if it were designed to actually work in practice.
      Now, so far I've just been trying to clear up a misconception; I'm not saying a Libertarian government/society would necessarily avoid the pitfalls mentioned in TFA. We don't have a Libertarian government, nor has there been one recently; there's no way to know. However, it's certainly possible that one of the reasons for the current situation is that people are fundamentally greedy, and we currently have a system that doesn't account for it.
      • We don't have a Libertarian government, nor has there been one recently; there's no way to know.

        Actually, there has.

        Prior to the hand-over to the Chinese government, the city of Hong Kong was managed (or more accurately, not managed) by Brittish appointees who left the people of Hong Kong largely to their own devices. Immigration policy was "if you get here, you can stay." Copyright protection was non-existant. There was no minimum wage, ultra-low taxes, no government-run welfare state, and almost no
        • Hong Kong is just as much of, if not more than, a social welfare state as any other European welfare state.

          In Hong Kong, people get free health care, almost-free education, etc. I can't think of more than 5 things which are not subsidized by the government there. You couldn't imagine how large and bloated the local government is. People in the states would not be able to imagine the things that go on. For example, some Hong Kong government agencies will provide free 3-course lunches daily. And some give em
      • You have it backwards. Libertarians assume that society will still work if everyone is left to fend for himself. They assume that private citizens will suddenly, after thousands of years of not giving a fuck, start seriously supporting the poor, etc...

        Communism (socialism ?) is designed from the start to support all regardless of the scenario. It is designed for the worst case scenario, it takes care of the poor, of the underprivledged, and the needy. Libertarianism turns a blind eye and assumes these thi
        • I agree that the welfare thing is one of the weak spots of the Libertarian platform, and I don't necessarily agree with it; nor disagree. People might start taking care of the poor by themselves; they might not. It's also possible that the economy will do so well that pretty much anyone who wants a job will be able to get one. But you're certainly correct that Libertarianism doesn't fundamentally account for it.
          I've also been toying with the alternate idea of making life and the resources necessary to main
          • It seems to me if society has generated the money to care for people than why not? Why choose this so-called "open market" system that depends on a downtrodden poor to function? It just doesn't make sense for a society to choose a zero-sum style of economy to me.

            Don't get me wrong I am all for gun rights, abortion right, drug legalisation, and tons of other libertarian issues. Where I differ is in the belief that as wealth and technology increases we can use it to increase what we consider the basic stan
            • "why not use our enormous technological and financial wealth to aid healthcare?"

              I can't think of any reason why not. It sounds like a good idea to me. Just don't force me to do it, ok?

              There is a huge difference between someone choosing to do something with his property, and someone else taking it from him and doing it.


          • I have had that same idea. Give *everyone* welfare (or Income Support or whatever it's called in your country). I think that would do a lot of good. There is much bad feeling from those who feel they unfairly support the jobless. There is a whole bunch of govt. workers assigned to monitoring the jobless for qualification for benefits, a bunch of people who spend their days chasing fraud (though it wouldn't be eliminated).

            To get *any* help here one has to prove that one is "actively seeking work" such that
        • Libertarians... assume that private citizens will suddenly, after thousands of years of not giving a fuck, start seriously supporting the poor, etc...

          Communism (socialism ?) is designed from the start to support all regardless of the scenario. It is designed for the worst case scenario, it takes care of the poor, of the underprivledged, and the needy. Libertarianism turns a blind eye and assumes these things will disappear.

          Actually, Marxism also tends to assume the best of people. Marxist theory state

      • [Libertarianism] designs for the worst rather than the best case

        Designing for the worst case often is a really bad way of designing a system: you expend a lot of resources in order to protect against a case that may never arise. That is, you might end up condemning an entire nation to live in abject poverty just in order to guard against some theoretical risk or danger.

        that one of the reasons for the current situation is that people are fundamentally greedy, and we currently have a system that doesn't

        • History shows that that is not the case: people are not necessarily greedy, and they are capable of selfless cooperation. While some greed may exist in any society, if greedy and selfish behavior becomes the norm in a society, it is probably because the society has chosen to make that the preferred behavior.

          Either you're confused, or I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say. Libertarianism doesn't specify that all people shall be greedy capitalist pigs; it merely accounts for the possibility that

      • I've always viewed Liberalism as the political philosophy that tried to use dialectal reasoning instead of faith. Libertarianism seems to me to be just as idealistic about the usefulness that comes from greed. The idea that unfettered markets either become free or remain free seems naive and idealistic to me.

        Modern Liberalism has included many of the ideas of Mises and Hayek as they have been useful. I think the current thinking in national economies in the modern world is very much along the lines of Haye
        • Libertarianism is Liberalism stuck in the 19th century.

          Libertarianism is Liberalism with a vital organ removed. According to Locke's liberalism, each person should be allowed to take only what they need - unlimited build-up of wealth in a single individual was seen as unjustifiable. Libertarianism removes this principle, and the result has nothing to do with Liberalism.

          One thing that liberalism agrees with Marxism on - it is that concentration of wealth in the few is the ultimate social evil.

    • I know it's fashionable these days to claim to be a libertarian of one stripe or another, but the fundamental philosophy of libertarianism -- "greed is the ultimate good" -- is to share a large part of the blame here.
      Riiiight. Because most positions of public authority and responsibility, such as the senate, the house, and the presidential office, are just filled to the brim with libertarians. </sarcasm>
    • the fundamental philosophy of libertarianism -- "greed is the ultimate good"

      That's not the fundamental philosophy at all. Not even close. Do not mistake objectivism with libertarianism, no matter what the objectivists say.

      The fundamental philosophy of libertarianism is liberty, hence the name. Liberty means the lack of coercion, or the initiation of force. In other words, you may not interfer with the actions of another without permission, except for self defense.

      The only reason greed enters the picture
    • I know it's fashionable these days to claim to be a libertarian of one stripe or another, but the fundamental philosophy of libertarianism -- "greed is the ultimate good" -- is to share a large part of the blame here.

      Then you apparently know nothing of libertarianism. The most fundimental premise of libertarianism is the NAP (Non-Aggression Principle). The NAP is the premise that no individual may justly initiate force against another individual.
      • The most fundimental premise of libertarianism is the NAP (Non-Aggression Principle)

        Sorry, but that is not something that belongs to libertarianism. The Non-Aggression Principle is a part of social contract theory, and social contract theory has been used to justify most political philosophies, including absolute positivism and extreme totalitarian regimes. In fact at risk of inviting Mike Godwin to the table, absolute positivism was the dominant legal philosophy in Germany between around 1890 and 1945.

  • Attila the Hun wants equal time (Score:3, Funny)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @01:43PM (#10538113) Homepage Journal
    Mr. Lessig is a noted voice in the FOSS movement, but his hysterical, sky-is-falling political rhetoric is truly breathtaking.

    It almost made me run out and protest Nixon and his damned Viet Nam war.
    • Mr. Lessig is not the only one to say such things.

      Pete Peterson, former Federal Reserve Banker of New York, says exactly the same things in his new book: Running on Empty.

      The fact is that the current administration with its record budget deficits is doing farm more harm to the long term economy than good for the short-term. Deficits are merely tax increases in the guise of loans. As anyone who has any understanding of credit can tell you, running up debt on your credit card reduces your future income to t

  • Progressive Income Tax (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) * <seebert42@gmail.com> on Friday October 15, 2004 @01:50PM (#10538205) Homepage Journal
    GMHowell's JE [slashdot.org] had a topic on this today- how our forefathers paid a larger top rate income tax and built the middle class. My generation, Generation X, however, saw this tax rate cut first just as we were being born, and again when we were in our teens, and again when we were in our twenties, and again now that we're in our thirties. Can anybody truthfully say that the middle class is better off for all of these tax cuts? The article asks, sort of, the following question: Was it always like this?

    It may always have been like this. I don't believe in "golden age" histories; the past was not always better than the present. But somehow it seems that we have lost an ethic. When your grandfather spoke of building a better world for you than he knew himself, you believed him. And when you look into the eyes of any 1-year-old child, you may understand what he meant.

    The reason we believed our grandfathers is because our parents had a better world than they did- but our parents did not return the favor, as the 7 generations of Americans before them did- and thus we've got the mess we have today.
    • how our forefathers paid a larger top rate income tax and built the middle class.

      Umm there was no federal income tax until the last century. So if by forfathers you mean the past 90 years then yes they paid a higher rate but government became too addicted to spending where it should not and thus rates for the lower and middle class raised. But the nation ran just fine for more than 100 years w/out a federal income tax..

      • Umm there was no federal income tax until the last century. So if by forfathers you mean the past 90 years then yes they paid a higher rate but government became too addicted to spending where it should not and thus rates for the lower and middle class raised. But the nation ran just fine for more than 100 years w/out a federal income tax..

        My grandparents (note the quote from the article) were alive and economically active in the 1950s- and are no longer. As for the hundred years previous- sure it ran j
        • The real boom time for the middle class, in all of the history of the United States, was from 1947-1965.

          And do you think this boom had more to do with the tax structure? or the fact the rest of the worlds manufacturing capacity was devistated in ww2 while ours grew at an astounding rate?

          The manufacturing (and not IT) base leaving has nothing to do with tax structure it has to do with lower prices and increasing capacity overseas.

          • Re:Progressive Income Tax (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) * <seebert42@gmail.com> on Friday October 15, 2004 @02:58PM (#10539058) Homepage Journal
            And do you think this boom had more to do with the tax structure? or the fact the rest of the worlds manufacturing capacity was devistated in ww2 while ours grew at an astounding rate?

            Ours grew at an astounding rate because the government had the money to invest in buying up the output- which we gave away free to the countries we were trying to rebuild. We wouldn't have had the money to do that if it wasn't for the top tax rate- and the opportunity to get middle class jobs wouldn't have been there without our government doing the buying. Europe and Japan were devistated- but they were devistated economically as well (and what is this about the whole world? Southern Africa, Australia, and South America were barely touched- and thier industrial systems were quite robust- yet they didn't see the expansion we did).

            The manufacturing (and not IT) base leaving has nothing to do with tax structure it has to do with lower prices and increasing capacity overseas.

            Yes and no- the base leaving has to do with lower prices and increasing capacity overseas. But if our federal government had the extra money to invest into R&D by going back to the tax structure of the 1950s, we'd also have a slew of new technologies to move our workforce into. As the old saying goes: They copied everything they could, but they couldn't copy my mind- so I left them plotting and schemeing, a year and a half behind.

            The real problem isn't that these jobs are going overseas; they were bound to eventually. The real problem is that our government is now the slave to short term business interests, instead of being the driver of long term research and development of the type that built the Internet.
            • Ours grew at an astounding rate because the government had the money to invest in buying up the output- which we gave away free to the countries we were trying to rebuild.

              No it grew because during the war we were the only party whos factories went unbombed. As inductrial sites in England were destroyed we built to meet their capacity. After the war no nation had our capacity and that had everything to do with geography. Japan started doning major damage to the US auto industry long before the regan taxcut

              • No it grew because during the war we were the only party whos factories went unbombed. As inductrial sites in England were destroyed we built to meet their capacity. After the war no nation had our capacity and that had everything to do with geography. Japan started doning major damage to the US auto industry long before the regan taxcuts.

                And how did Japan and England and Germany afford that rebuilding? As I remember, it was entirely with GRANTS from the US Government- that is, the 95% tax money.

                And w
                • And how did Japan and England and Germany afford that rebuilding? As I remember, it was entirely with GRANTS from the US Government- that is, the 95% tax money.

                  What did them rebounding have to do with Americas prosperity during that time period?

                  • What did them rebounding have to do with Americas prosperity during that time period?

                    Without money from OUR taxes, they wouldn't have been able to rebuild at all (well, they would have, it just would have taken them a lot longer). Money from our taxes went to orders to our factories, for material needed for rebuilding and survival needs while they were rebuilding. Those orders to our factories created jobs- which created the middle class. As the middle class got more affluent, they ordered stuff of the
    • I believe that a 2 or even 3 thousand dollar tax cut, is not nearly as good as a job that pays (on average) $9000 more than it does currently.

      Telling me you are giving me a tax cut in this situation is nothing more than a distraction from the real issue of jobs not paying what they used to and the cost of living increasing just like always.

      And to be quite frank, it is my opinion that NONE of us should be getting tax cuts at all while we are at WAR.
      I believe that those that can afford it should be willing

  • How do you go from: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by N3WBI3 ( 595976 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @01:54PM (#10538246) Homepage
    "Ask not what your country can do for you" to complaining "We don't even ask what we, as a nation, can do for our kids."

    Kennedy was talking about sacrifice in that speech. Sacrifice, it seems, few Americans can stomach. more than 8k per kid is not enough for school? what people might have to save for retirement? what unemployemnt only lasted a year? bulderdash! we need free health care, double the spending on education, unlimited terms on welfare, and G*d help us if we dont start giving money away on $cause, after all its for the children.

    • I have a question:

      If we could afford all that as a society, then why not?
      • two problems:

        1) When the government gets its hands into something the states (and thus the people) lose a freedom. Do you know why the drinking age is 21 and not 18 in every state? Its because the federal Government threatened to withdraw highway funds if the state left it at 18. The 10th was put into place so that the government would not become what it has become. The fed has way too much influence on education at a state level, too much on drug policy, and too much on healthcare and its all because we

    • As if government policy had more than a small effect on the economy. Consumers and their changing demands in the world are what ultimately drives an economy, not policy. Any economics professor will tell you the same. The government makes changes (such as interest rate hikes or reductions) based on where the economy is already going. Policy is more often reactionary than not.

      I think it's more interesting that no matter who is at the helm.. Democrat or Republican, we have still run a deficit every year

    • One thing to keep in mind is that the interest on that debt doesn't just disappear. It goes to the banks that loan the money to the country.

      Don't think of it as building debt... think of it as a bailout for Citibank, Bank of America, and all those poor, suffering megabanks who would have lost their taxpayer-funded handouts if the Clinton-era trend had continued.

      Not to mention the whole "starve the beast" strategy -- make debt service so expensive that those silly social programs will simply die from lack
  • What's happening to the US is the same that has happened to every other empire before, except that technology has accelerated the rise and is accelerating the fall. No society, no empire, and no superpower lasts forever.

  • A New Worldview (Score:2, Interesting)

    by David Greene ( 463 )
    I am a memer of the ISAIAH [gamaliel.org] organization, an interfaith coalition of churches in the Twin Cities and Saint Cloud, MN regions. We use faith-based organizing to work for social justice. We do this because our faith calls us to do it.

    While not everyone is motivated by faith to work on these issues, most people share the common values that drive it. This past weekend, we got 4,000 people together to talk to our state and federal legislators about what matters to us.

    Underneath all of this is an effort to c

    • If you can get 4000 people with their hand out to whatever level of government - you've got 4000 people who can actually take it upon themselves and do something to help their community.

      You should be telling those officials to back off and allow you to take care of your own community - which you could afford to do if you weren't sending at least 1/3 of what you make to Washington and more to Minneapolis. The sheer amount of taxes that everyone pays makes for a good excuse to avoid donating to the church

      • Until a rival group decides to kill/enslave those 4000 people because while the innocents have been building houses and passing out food, a smaller group has been building an army.

        Or that would never happen?

        Sorry. Yeah, it would.
        • He was saying that they had 4000 people at a rally of some sort this year. Think of what those 4000 people could have been doing, or could be doing, to improve the lot of those in the Minneapolis/St. Cloud area instead of attending rallies. That's a lot of people and, even if they just do a little, a lot can be accomplished.

          My ineloquent point is that we've become so conditioned to believe that we can't do anything without government help that even those faith-based groups (that should be out doing stuf

  • We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

  • Cultural and social issues.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CashCarSTAR ( 548853 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @02:21PM (#10538611)
    The real problem, of course, is not in the politics of it. If it was, it would be easy. Just elect the right people and the problem is fixed. But no, these are real cultural and social issues that really need to be taken care of, and it's going to take time, effort and a whole lot of work.

    The further problem, at least in America, has to do with the whole idea of patriotism, and what it means to be a patriot. Conservative types have had a LOT of success of changing the definition of patriotism to a very childish one, where you love your country for what it is. The problem with that, is that it makes change virtually impossible. Because you want America to change? You must hate it!

    That's the big problem.

    Fortunately, there's a growing number of patriots who are actually getting active in making change, with a more mature love of their country (We love it, so lets make it even better!). Maybe it's too late. Maybe we've let too much ground slip to the single-issue interest groups..let them do all the work..ignore the larger cultural issues.

    The second part of it, is the idea that younger people are stupid and inexperienced, so therefore #1. Shouldn't vote and #2. Older people know what's good for them, so they should just shut up. You're seeing this is the media word war between Penn and Stone/Parker. The thing is...it doesn't really matter WHO young people vote for. But the idea is, by getting younger people out en masse to vote..period..it gets more of their issues out. It no longer becomes a government by the baby boomers and for the baby boomers. It has to become something more...substantive and long-reaching.

    The third part, in my mind, is the economic problems of an economy based on fraud. The current investor economy for the overwhelming most part, is based upon a big ponzi scheme, where the actual invested in companies are paying very little back to the investors, and the money that's actually being made is coming from OTHER investors. The problem with that, is that it basically kills the insurance industry as their business model is made up in a large part in investments, forcing them to raise prices to keep with the..well..immature investor expectation of forever rising profits as far as the eye can see....

    It's a system that's built for instability. And that needs to be fixed.

  • List of significant challenges for kids (Score:5, Interesting)

    by justanyone ( 308934 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @02:38PM (#10538816) Homepage Journal
    Significant challenges for our children's generation will include:
    • loss of biodiversity, especially oceanic
    • at least one more large-scale nuclear "meltdown" (my suspicion, given current trends);
    • Complications of Global warming
    • Shifting from petroleum-based energy to other sources (inevitable) causing (yet) more instability in arab socio-political structures
    • U.S. Social Security baby-boom-bubble shifting demographics placing a very, very high tax burden;
    • increasing speed and longevity of communications means a silly photo at a high-school or college party or an ill-thought-out possibly-anti-(insert-minority-group-here) comment posted on a newsgroup can last until your first senate candidacy;
    • Inability or reduced ability to 'reinvent' oneself after a life change due to increasing availability of personal info;
    • possible deflation in U.S./world due to U.S. trade imbalance and rise of EU and China as global powers;
    • economic and geographic dislocation if a bioweapon or other epidemic causes mass evacuations near population centers;
    • Rising pro-"American Empire" (neoconservatism) causing wars that kill them;
    • Rising religious fundamentalism (Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Seikh, etc.) again causing inter-religion and intra-religion wars as there were in the 1600's and 1700's;
    Yah, this list is kind of scarey, but I'm sure you can think of others more and less likely.

    • At least one more large-scale nuclear "meltdown" (my suspicion, given current trends)

      What trends would those be? The only meltdown we've had was a reactor that was (a) a horribly unsafe design, (b) operated by people with egregiously inadequate training, (c) operating with what poor safety features it had turned off and (d) intentionally placed in a dangerous state for a 'test'.

      Now, that's the starting point, so what are the trends? From what I can see, the trends are: Unsafe reactor designs are bei

  • Milhouse: Well, remember when the last administration decided to invest in our nation's children? Big mistake.

  • money (Score:3)

    by pizza_milkshake ( 580452 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @02:51PM (#10538983)
    there's simply too much money out there, who cares about accountability? history can say whatever it wants as long as i can live the rest of my life in luxury doing whatever i please

    we've increasingly seen this in corporations and government. if i can make $20 million screwing people over, and eventually get caught and thrown out on my ass (whether i be a CEO or gov't official) what do i care what they think about me?

    in the past there was usually was never enough potential monetary benefit that the corrupt individual could simply dissapear for the rest of their lives.

    on another issue i make this prediction: the social security issue in the US will not be solved. politics is such a short-term game, there's no incentive to save money down the road when the money could be used for something with a more dramatic short-term gain. one president might manage to make some progress and then the next president could jump right in and waste that money.

  • "We are eating our seed corn."

    But then, how many Americans (or Europeans) these days could explain this sentence?

    "Huh? Whuddayamean? All corn has seeds." ;-)

  • A Canadian Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Txiasaeia ( 581598 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @03:11PM (#10539179)
    For better or worse, I keep on hearing this up here in Canada: Americans are concerned with individual freedom, Canadians are concerned with the freedom/good of the whole society. This is reflected in our subsidised child care, free health care, social programs for the poor, etc. I'm not sure if I agree with this blanket statement, but this dialectic is *everywhere* - media, higher education, politics, etc. Anyway, my point is that we, as Canadians, give up certain things (i.e. our money, as we're taxed to death) so that those who are well-off don't have to suffer as much.

    I was watching SpikeTV yesterday & saw that they were having a contest for men: go to the doctor, get a checkup, and try to win a trip to Carnival. Apparently some people haven't seen a doctor in 10 years! I'm not well off by any stretch of the imagination (student, young family), but I also happen to be sick quite a lot and see a doctor once every month or so. I cringe at the thought of paying $100 per visit to the doctor (this is how much my folks in the US pay - middle class, no health coverage).

    I know that /. is US-centric, so forgive me for pointing out flaws in the US, but without free health care I don't know what I would do. From the perspective of an outsider, Lessig is absolutely right. I'm glad that my kids, when they're starting out on their own too, won't have to sacrifice their health because of the health care system in Canada (if the current system holds) - then again, the way that we're screwing up the air right now, they're probably going to need it.

  • We are already taxed to death, much of it under the guise of helping those in need. The trouble is, the only ones helped are those in power.

    We carry such a ridiculous load that that real squandering of our future happens at the Government level. They already take in enough money to do everything we want and more. The key is removing NON-ESSENTIAL functions from the government. The key is removing the ability to attach RIDERS to any appropriation bill. All appropiration bills should be single purpose.
  • Unlike the "golden generation" we don't all have kids. We don't all want kids like they did back then. A large percentage of my generation see children as an unacceptable burden. We don't have em, so why would we vote for a politician that considers their future interests over our immediate interests? Here in Australia we recently just had an election dominated by "family oriented" policy. This was squarely aimed at the last generation, not my generation. The vast amount of people my age (25-30) and l
    • I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I expect that in 20 years I'll have to hear all this whining about how people didn't have children and now they're old and everybody just wants them to die so that resources can be freed for the next generation of selfish, whiny, bastards. Wonderful.

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