I could somewhat understand that image if those products were offered for free. In other words, it would be like "you are getting all this for free, yet you are protesting that the corporations must get their money from somewhere in order to produce them; you are biting the hand that feeds you". That's BS, of course.
Corporations should make business. They make and sell products, they make a profit from selling those products, and that's it. They have no business lobbying the government for their own benefit. The government should be run by the people, not by corporations.
Besides, it's not the corporations that manufacture goods that are the major reason for the economic crisis. The major culprit are those corporations that don't manufacture anything at all, and instead base their entire business strategy in making money with money, nothing else. Basically they are just getting money without providing anything in return. In other words, they are just a sinkhole where money goes in and from which nothing comes out. The problem is aggravated by them being so big and powerful that they directly affect how the economy and the government is run.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
Warp wrote:
Corporations should make business. They make and sell products, they make a profit from selling those products, and that's it. They have no business lobbying the government for their own benefit. The government should be run by the people, not by corporations.
In a perfect world, sure. The world's not perfect. Learn to accommodate and abuse the system.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
OK, pirate_sephiroth, let me see if I understand what you mean, you suggest that the mere act of buying something from a corporation means that the buyer agrees wholeheartedly with everything that company does, even if they could somehow be absent of choice when it comes to enterprises with good practices. Therefore, any attempt to criticize those companies is inherently contradictory.
By this same reasoning, do you also consider fair that a cracker that has a vendetta against Microsoft because of its illegal commercial practices sends a virus to users of Microsoft products, stealing their bank passwords and other personal data?
Also, you think that, because of the obvious fact that a perfect world is unreachable, one should just accommodate and give up trying to make it better. Sir, have you been smoking?
In a perfect world, sure. The world's not perfect. Learn to accommodate and abuse the system.
Pic related. It's a rat abusing the system in its little imperfect world.
"It features an intra-cranially self-stimulating rat. The little creature's enraptured frenzy of lever-pressing is eventually followed by death from inanition, self-neglect and immunological collapse."
We're the more advanced species. We have the power to modify the system if we predict that abusing it will lead to nothing good in the end.
Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
p4wn3r wrote:
By this same reasoning, do you also consider fair that a cracker that has a vendetta against Microsoft because of its illegal commercial practices sends a virus to users of Microsoft products, stealing their bank passwords and other personal data?
There's always the possibilty to abuse the system and he would be stupid if he missed that opportunity. It's fair indeed but kinda dumb, since people do this usually for the sake of money or information (which becomes money in the end).
Kuwaga wrote:
Pic related. It's a rat abusing the system in its little imperfect world.
"It features an intra-cranially self-stimulating rat. The little creature's enraptured frenzy of lever-pressing is eventually followed by death from inanition, self-neglect and immunological collapse."
We're the more advanced species. We have the power to modify the system if we predict that abusing it will lead to nothing good in the end.
that rat does that becuase it's its way to show his disapproval towards the establishment.
By the way, if you haven't noticed yet, protests are just as effective as prayers.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
In a perfect world, sure. The world's not perfect. Learn to accommodate and abuse the system.
Pic related. It's a rat abusing the system in its little imperfect world.
"It features an intra-cranially self-stimulating rat. The little creature's enraptured frenzy of lever-pressing is eventually followed by death from inanition, self-neglect and immunological collapse."
We're the more advanced species. We have the power to modify the system if we predict that abusing it will lead to nothing good in the end.
Nah, that was directly into the pleasure centers of the brain. Anyone hooked to that machine would be fucked.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
I have nothing to back this up atm, but as far as I know only humans suffering from depression acted the same as rats in those experiments. We can choose to consciously avoid plessure. That's why not all of us are porn/gaming/gambling/cocaine addicts. If you know that by pressing that lever you'd die (or that nothing good can come of it in the long run), you have a chance to prevent yourself from doing it; as long as there's anything you value more than sheer plessure and pointless fun. The stronger your habit of pressing the lever, the harder it gets to stop. But it's never impossible.
Protests are far more effective than prayers (if God is dead). Every big and growing protest carries an implicit threat of revolution.
People who don't abuse the system might not be dumb, but consciously putting themselves at a disadvantage for a greater good. Eat all the cake yourself or leave some for others, even if you don't know who they are, can't see them and they'd never know they got their share only thanks to you? There are some people who are able to do that. Not because they are stupid, but because they are strong. I'm not saying that the majority of protesters belong to that group though.
By this same reasoning, do you also consider fair that a cracker that has a vendetta against Microsoft because of its illegal commercial practices sends a virus to users of Microsoft products, stealing their bank passwords and other personal data?
There's always the possibilty to abuse the system and he would be stupid if he missed that opportunity. It's fair indeed but kinda dumb, since people do this usually for the sake of money or information (which becomes money in the end).
It's stupid not to abuse the system, but doing so for the money is dumb. Since idealist protests are dumb too, I wonder what's the intelligent motivation for abusing the system.
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
By the way, if you haven't noticed yet, protests are just as effective as prayers.
Not to mention Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, just in the last year...
I was going to post this, but it seems like a waste of breath. Someone who pretends to be so enlightened, yet doesn't have remote knowledge of the happenings in the world in the last two years isn't worth arguing with.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
I have nothing to back this up atm, but as far as I know only humans suffering from depression acted the same as rats in those experiments.
Uh, yeah, no. They definitely did not do the same in humans. This electrode is implanted into the medial forebrain bundle, which is deep inside the brain.
You can't ethically implant something like that in a human. That is extremely deep, and causes some severe damage.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Hm yea. It seems like different areas were used for the experiments on humans. I've also found out about Rat Park now, which seems to contradict some earlier rat experiments related to addictions, but was also highly disputed. Well, the only reason I brought it up was to counter a random image with a random image. Didn't went so well in the end, but I hope we can agree on the point I was trying to make. ;p
Not to mention Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, just in the last year...
I was going to post this, but it seems like a waste of breath. Someone who pretends to be so enlightened, yet doesn't have remote knowledge of the happenings in the world in the last two years isn't worth arguing with.
Yeah, sure we're talking about the same kind of protest here.
In before the revolution of the oppressed fat nerds.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
I've had my money in a credit union, ING Direct, for years now.
Pros:
* Customer support that gives a crap. Their automated tech support quickly gets me to customer support, I rarely get put on hold for more than a minute, and the support personnel are actually competent.
* Convenient, straightforward, and functional web interface.
Cons:
* No in-system ATMs, and out-system ATMs always charge you fees to use them (though ING doesn't charge fees itself). This can be circumvented, kind of, by buying groceries with a debit card and getting cash back.
* Up until recently, no checkbook (though you could have ING mail out checks for you). But they added checkbooks recently, so hey!
It's really the customer support that has me happiest.
As for the "Let's all pull our money out of the banks on the same day", personally I'd do it earlier and avoid the rush. There's sure to be a survey form to fill out asking why you left, and you can point to the bank's status as a giant douchenozzle at that point.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
http://newsone.com/nation/newsonestaff2/650000-people-joined-credit-unions/
The most interesting part of participating in my local Occupy is the consensus process. For those unfamiliar, all official group decisions are voted on, and only pass if no one blocks it. It is frustrating at times, but very rewarding when we do come to agreement (which happens more often than not, after talking things out and compromising).
The least interesting is spending more time on facebook than here boo D: gah stab my eyes out
Is there an organized effort to write letters to local/state/national representatives? I would guess that 650,000 customers even leaving one large bank doesn't really have an effect that the higher up guys care about, and representatives can "ignore the problem until it goes away" and hope that it doesn't last until the next time they are up for election. If you fill their email and snail mail and phone lines and faxes with personal accounts of what you think is wrong, how you want to change it, and why you think it should be changed, day in and day out for a month or six, that's a bit harder to ignore (tying up their normal modes of communication with their other constituents. Standing in a large crowd in a city does not do this.). This should be something people do individually, written by themselves rather than "hey guys I made this form letter let's all copy it" for better effect.
Since donations are already a pretty big part of the occupy deal, it wouldn't be a very large step I think to ask for donations of paper, pens, envelopes, and stamps. And this is a thing that you don't actually have to be at one of the protests to do, so it could reach more people than just those at the camps.
650,000 customers is a lot of people. You can bet it's worth the effort to try to retain even a fraction of that many if they're threatening to leave. Why do you think Bank of America backed down from their proposed monthly debit card fee?
Sure, 650000 is only about .2% of the population of the USA...but in absolute terms there's probably billions of dollars of potential revenue there.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Regardless of how big or small, the fact that it's more people in one month than all of last year says something. And this month may be even bigger as it is being promoted as "No Bank November"
My local Occupy has been encouraging people to write to and call our local officials :)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
alden wrote:
My local Occupy has been encouraging people to write to and call our local officials :)
The only thing my local occupy has done is trash our down-town, and turn it into a hippy commune. Actually, commune conveys way too much organization. Shanty-town rife with drug usage and terrible sanitation is a much better description.
Pic related. It's a rat abusing the system in its little imperfect world.
"It features an intra-cranially self-stimulating rat. The little creature's enraptured frenzy of lever-pressing is eventually followed by death from inanition, self-neglect and immunological collapse."
We're the more advanced species. We have the power to modify the system if we predict that abusing it will lead to nothing good in the end.
You can't ethically implant something like that in a human. That is extremely deep, and causes some severe damage.
