As far as capitalists care, your productivity, predictability, and sociability are what's important. HS diplomas are not uniform. Institutions that are permitted to discriminate based on high school attendance do so to an extreme degree. So while legally the diploma is a commodity, in practice it's a highly differentiated good.
If you are lumping in University High School graduates from SF in with graduates from Compton High School, you will be mislead.
Because that $260k figure isn't explained, it should be ignored. 'Cause life's too short to be bamboozled by unexplained numbers. If this author had access to the study, there's no reason that it couldn't be linked to or at least footnoted.
Cycling on shared roads is far too dangerous for ordinary people. I bike to work each day. I have been fortunate enough over the years to not be hit by a car.
Almost every serious cyclist that I know has been hit by a car to varying degrees of lethality. I have been riding on shared roads (as has my father) for most of my life, and have been fortunate to not be hit. It takes a while to get a good sense of when it is safe to cross a road, and how to anticipate the behavior of drivers (many of whom are distracted and not expecting a cyclist).
Bike lanes do not protect cyclists from being struck at an intersection.
It is very easy for 'thought leaders' to bleat about how wonderful it would be if everyone were to ride a bicycle to work. It would cut down on road maintenance costs while raising health costs due to injury. Our dippy 'thought leaders' abstract out that the suburban lifestyle makes people obese, and prescribe a ridiculous solution that requires no special thought or changing the urban planning regime fixed in place by Eisenhower through the highway system.
It is easier for medical professionals to keep cashing insurance checks and floating impractical health advice without wondering as to why a system that incentivizes reactive care over preventative care seems to produce so many grotesquely unhealthy citizens.
Fat people should not be cycling to lose weight or to commute -- if they are physically disabled, they will not be fast enough to react when drivers act unpredictably. Even fit cyclists who participate in races are not always fast enough to react to drivers.
Further, cycling at safe commuting speeds is not a good workout. It is a bad workout. It is pleasurable in some cases, and in some states that make room on the shoulder for cyclists, but if you commute at an aerobically active pace, you will be killed at an intersection.
That's what killed the former CFO of Amazon, Joy Covey -- certainly an intelligent, accomplished, and fit woman.
It is not compassionate to our piggy brothers and sisters to tell them to partake in an activity that will get them killed.
This hits all the SWPL high status points:
* Biking is high status; low-status fatties should be more like us and bike more.
* Liking European things is high status. I can ape other high status people by suggesting copying a European policy without going into the details of why it works.
* Academic studies are high status. I will name drop a study without going into detail about what it was about to an audience unqualified to interpret it.
Has anyone noticed that 'thought leaders' lead no one but themselves and people who look like them?
Perhaps it is time to personally set a better example for the lower class, rather than proposing multi-billion dollar bureaucratic solutions that permit the upper class to hand off their responsibilities to a bureaucracy while they wall themselves off in their Elysian neighborhoods from the lumpenfolk who disgust them.
As someone who has written thousands of black hat articles just like these, even in the same vertical as discussed in the article, except more specific (certain niche European destinations) -- well written, for what I was paid -- I can say that articles like these are paid for, and violate Google's guidelines.
There's on article that I'm particularly proud of that involved inventing all sorts of fictional romantic adventures on an island off the coast of Spain that included specific anchor text about cheap hotels for that destination. Creative? Sure! It was almost as good as a print ad, even though it's likely that few real readers actually read the thing. Violating Google's guidelines? Fuck yes!!
Google has no access to the bank accounts of these writers to verify that the links were paid for. The search quality team can't plum the e-mail accounts of everyone involved to see that said articles were commissioned to include specific anchor text.
It's quite difficult to establish objectively whether or not the writers were paid for this. However, I can say that whenever black hatters write these kinds of articles, we're instructed by the client to include certain anchor text types, and to vary the anchor text for different articles in the same campaign.
Further, botted traffic adds another ugly layer to gaming SEO. The publisher just has to 'look' legitimate. The traffic can even be semi-botted by offices full of Indians using software for that purpose.
This is how Americans think, though. They believe that people who have no idea what they're doing are fonts of magic wisdom. It's part of their egalitarian faith.
The norm that creatives should be accessible at all times directly from Twitter or whatever is an extremely new one. The norm that people should use the internet all the time to socialize is also new.
It's becoming more and more apparent that the internet sort of sucks for a lot of the purposes that people tend to use it for (socialization in particular). The distance and abstraction of the internet can promote antisocial behavior.
Creative people need isolation and cultivation to produce great art. Exposing yourself to too much unfiltered internet makes you too familiar and diminishes your cultivation by exposing it to too much deleterious 'democratic' influence.
Down one road is Bach, down the other is Buzzfeed. I know which artistic mode will last, and which will expire. The open internet is relentlessly mediocre. Excellence needs to be protected and cultivated, away from the destructive influence of dirty crowds, digital or otherwise. Shakespeare may have put on plays for commoners as well as nobles, but he didn't ask fishmongers for writing advice.
The 'internet' isn't at war with anyone. I suggest that Phil Fish is being mercilessly selected for removal by the forces of nature. Perhaps artists who want to persist and be remembered in the future ought to adopt different norms of behavior around internet communications than he did.
Technically, the US is supposed to be allied with most of those EU member governments. Violating the security of your allies isn't exactly a friendly move.
And American policy regarding spying on private people worldwide isn't bad for international relations? Isn't bad for relations with China? Isn't harmful to American businesses seeking to serve the Chinese market?
Won't work. Think a little harder. Why do you think this has happened?
Hint. Answer this brain-teaser: 'How can a piece of paper with words on it restrain legislators effectively?' Has history validated the proposition that constitutions are effective tools for restraining governments?
Chomsky agrees with what I said! And it's more than just Madison. Read the Federalist papers. Or this long letter from John Adams to John Taylor, source of this shopworn quote on democracy [1]:
>"You say, I “might have exhibited millions of plebeians sacrificed to the pride, folly, and ambition of monarcy and aristocracy.” This is very true. And I might have exhibited as many millions of plebeians sacrificed by the pride, folly, and ambition of their fellow-plebeians and their own, in proportion to the extent and duration of their power. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never."
...
>"Democracy is chargeable with all the blood that has been spilled for five-and-twenty years.
>Napoleon and all his generals were but creatures of democracy, as really as Rienzi, Theodore, Massaniello, Jack Cade, or Wat Tyler. This democratical hurricane, inundation, earthquake, pestilence, call it which you will, at last aroused and alarmed all the world, and produced a combination unexampled, to prevent its further progress."
Currently, our politicians quite rightly talk of the US as a democracy, because it is such a universal suffrage state within the shell of a republic.
>What exactly are you referring to? You seem to be arguing that the word fascism is overused, and then go on to explain that democracy would lead to tyranny, and at least the NSA understands that.
This is so broken I really, really wish you could elaborate. Call it morbid curiosity.
I'm actually quite familiar with the Chomsky critique of the American system for restricting democracy. That's not what I'm referring to.
1. I dislike it when people use 'fascist' as an all-purpose insult meaning 'form of government that I don't like that people have been propagandized against.' I suggest that people actually read fascist tracts (like 'The Doctrine of Fascism' [2]) if they're going to use the term. When people use the word, their brains shut off. It's also vulgar to claim that fascism is just the 'unification of corporations and the state.'
Now, part of the problem is that fascists were themselves gooey about the definition of what their system was -- but it's clear that whatever economic system they chose to use was subordinate to their 'spiritual' goals -- and that 'spiritual' outlook is mostly absent in the US system. While the US system may share certain characteristics of fascist states, it is not itself fascistic, and proclaiming that it is just muddles the discussion. It confuses effects with causes.
The reason why that's important is because if you believe that secret fascists are the ones corrupting the republic, all you need to do is find the scapegoats and hang them. The truth is that the source of these abuses comes from a deeper source -- the idea that constitutions the source of some strange law-magic that can restrict the actions of people in government. Regardless of how clever it seemed in the 18th century, it's now quite obvious that paper with words on it is not a source of eldritch government-restricting powers.
2. Yes, the current state under democracy is entirely a predictable consequence of the political form. I would say that Chomsky's reading of 'Politics' is incorrect in a general sense while being correct in a couple specific aspects (saying that democracy is a counter-weight to oligarchy). It'd be very tough to make a case that Aristotle saw a political system based on the first principle that men are equal in any sense as workable (because he writes the opposite in Book V, paragraph 3 [3]). 'Politics' is an essentially cynical work that describes how all political systems tend to crumble with time and the influence of human vice. While I can see why Chomsky would interpret it in the way that he does, I'd say that he's cherry picking to make a point for his favored system. Much in the same way that the founders did, arguably, to lend a classical garland to their new republic.
Hope I've satisfied your morbid curiosity.
Anyway, the NSA's actions are consistent with the addled mission of the American state as a whole. You can't provide security for Europe, the Pacific regions, certain Middle East states, many parts of Asia, and the Americas without a global surveillance state to support that mission. The main issue is that the broad policies are not achievable and shouldn't be pursued in the first place. Trying to limit what the NSA can do while also trying to preserve current US policies is just confused. You can't have both privacy and Empire. The former impedes the latter too much.
Yet, tyrannical aggression, both internationally and domestically, are popular political platforms. 'The people' are just getting cold feet about what that requires. Just another point against giving the wheel of state to the fickle and blood-soaked hands of 'the people.'
Fascism has a particular meaning that most people misuse. While presidents like FDR took a lot of inspiration from the fascists, it's tough to say that the US is authentically fascistic. First of all, it's mistaken to proclaim that a government is something that it claims that it's not. Second, the US is too pluralistic in terms of policy towards culture to be considered fascist.
You can say that a system is bad or dysfunctional without likening it to the Italian and German/Austrian governments under Mussolini and Hitler. If you read Mussolini's speeches + books or Hitler's books + speeches (not that they're terribly interesting except as historical documents), you learn that most people using 'fascist' as a pejorative don't really understand what it means.
The US is just as it claims it is: a democracy. There are good reasons as to why thinkers ranging from the founding fathers of the US to Aristotle were skeptical about the long term viability of democracy as a system of government. All these brutal, freedom-sacrificing policies are absolutely necessary to maintain democratic government. This is something most modern Westerners are unwilling to acknowledge. Spooks in the NSA and elsewhere at least comprehend that what they do is necessary to maintain their government, as reprehensible as their actions are.
What do you get when you give 300m+ people political power? The same disaster that many of the founders predicted would happen: tyranny, social dissolution, and foul policies motivated by envy.
This is the real method by which Team Government encourages compliance. It'd be a real shame to see that tax loophole that you rely on closed. Nice company you got there. Would be real upsetting if your new corporate headquarters construction were to be held up waiting for a permit.
Terrorists who are competent harden their communications to avoid US sigint, where the superiority of the US agencies is paramount and well-known.
The US is known to have particularly weak human intelligence networks (few spies actually capable of infiltrating foreign terrorist groups). Al Qaeda and the rest know that it's incredibly risky to use electronic communications, so the people that you'd want to monitor already know they're being targeted.
Naturally, the US government's response to this has been to bet more heavily on signals intelligence.
Before that, you'd be voted down and hollered at because there would be little credibility for it among common idiots. This has been the case for years, because a lot of the information about the NSA published by journalists was built on anonymous sourcing. Now, there's more documentary evidence available to support it, so the US government no longer enjoys the benefit of ignorant doubt.
From a German perspective, it probably doesn't matter at all whether or not this story is even true or how the messages were retrieved if it is true. The US has earned the mistrust of the world.
As far as capitalists care, your productivity, predictability, and sociability are what's important. HS diplomas are not uniform. Institutions that are permitted to discriminate based on high school attendance do so to an extreme degree. So while legally the diploma is a commodity, in practice it's a highly differentiated good.
If you are lumping in University High School graduates from SF in with graduates from Compton High School, you will be mislead.
Because that $260k figure isn't explained, it should be ignored. 'Cause life's too short to be bamboozled by unexplained numbers. If this author had access to the study, there's no reason that it couldn't be linked to or at least footnoted.