jlc

That is interesting. I think it is easier for me to pay with plastic than with cash...and if I had to pay in gold!!!

Even still, a modicum of common sense would go a long way, even to folks not formally trained in economics.

Jan

My father left a copy of Anthem around the house, and I picked it up and read it. It made a big impression on me. In HS, I checked out a copy of AS.

I began reading it after school on a Friday...was abstracted through dinner...continued reading as soon as dinner was done. When my mother woke up in the morning, I was in the middle of Galt's speech. She pointed out that I had not yet done the dinner dishes (my chore) from the previous night. "I will, I will. Just let me finish this chapter." An hour later I finished. Wow.

I got up to do the dishes, and stumbled...I had sat in the same position all night, reading. My mother looked at me, "You look beat - go to bed. I'LL do the dishes. Just go."

That was my real intro to Rand. It is not so much that I felt I wanted to follow her philosophy as that she had elegantly articulated the thoughts I was forming in my own brain. Her words 'clicked' into place - and have not left.

Jan

Sure. I thought from the lead in that it was just for folks who had found out about Rand via the movies. (It was interesting reading, however; I did note that the replies did not precisely match what I thought your parameters were, but I decided not to spam.)

Jan

A fascinating report. Must know more.

Jan

I am not good at math, and have never had economics. But I know that when a penny leaves my hands it should scream as I pinch it.

This is not a difficult lesson.

Jan

The difference I see between a autodrive car and a human driving a car is twofold: attention and reflex time. It is a given that there will be manually controlled cars on the road, and that some of them will be driven by idiots. But if the car you are in is autocontrolled, it will have faster reflexes and never get tired or have an attention lapse.

So, if you hold 'idiot drivers' constant, then increasing the abilities of the other cars (via autodrive) should improve overall road conditions and decrease accidents.

Jan

That sounds like a great childhood. The 'bent sapling part is straight out of old Tarzan movies!

Now: Go get the jetpack!

Jan

:>)

No. One of my sisters lived there for some decades. The Swiss control things like 'what plants you are allowed to plant along the street'. Every facet of life seems to have a regulation that tells you how to do it. (The US is getting this way!)

I loved visiting my sister, but after a while Switzerland drove me crazy. It was like trying to live in a picture postcard. I wanted WEEDS and Big Open Spaces and enough variation that I could see that people were doing what they wanted to do as opposed to what they were told to do.

Jan

I worship idolatrously at the alter of IT, O blarman! I give you credit for the sun in the morning and the scant drops of rain that deign to fall upon the parched soil of California.

Is that OK?

But I am also quite aware that your well-phrased second paragraph seems the rule. Perhaps this is not entirely due to being risk-adverse, but also due to the fact that programmers think that if only they mull stuff over 'a little while longer' they can make it even better.

Wm is right: I worked 17 years on graveyard shift in a hospital laboratory. You had to do things perfectly and immediately. That is not possible...so what you really had to do is do things as well as you could in a short enough time to help the patient who was bleeding out or turning blue in ER. I am very accustomed to making decisions that involve the phrase 'good enough'. It is no use turning out a perfectly complete Chem panel after the patient is dead if instead you can get just the Electrolytes to the doctor in time to keep the patient alive.

Jan

I agree. If no volunteer army, then why are we fighting? BUT If there were to be a draft, it should include women.

Jan, not a second class citizen

I have been recently doing some research on this question. The Swiss tradition of military service for all men began in the 14th century - back when Switzerland was a loose confederation of Alpine valleys. Then the Cantons discovered that efficient warfare was their only economic export, and the famed Swiss mercenaries began.

So there is a long history of arming the Swiss populace. This tradition has been held to be the reason that Switzerland has not been invaded on several occasions...as recently as the 1950's. I would like for this tradition of an armed and trained citizenry to take root in the USA - it is legitimately part of our own heritage, which we are loosing with the passing of time.

I would like to reclaim this tradition.

Jan

blarman -

Normally I agree with your posts, but this one I disagree with. I am a 'get it done' person. What I know about IT is not large: I have done a little programming and I can do reasonable computer related tasks.

My job is frequently to kick the butts of the IT people who get into a loop of 'doing it so right' that they never accomplish anything at all. After months of nothing to show for what they have done, I come in and start spouting 'do in NOW' plans - this generally results in something effective being turned out that is more developed than my 'NOW' plan but which is functional instead of iteratively impotent.

Your management plan far underestimates the degree to which people in general, and in IT in particular (which - as you point out - is a self-selecting minority) are totally incapable of producing on their own. I really wish this were different, but I have repeatedly tried to let people alone and not nag them...and then nothing has happened; sometimes, for years. There are a large number of superbly intelligent and entirely unmotivated people in this world. Helicopter management? I want one!

Jan

I took Heinlein to heart. I have always thought it...well...crappy...that men paid for their right to vote by being able to be drafted but that women had the right to vote as a gift from the men. I do not agree with the draft, but I do think that if we institute a draft it should be across the board, with alternative service for conscientious objectors.

This was something that was in my mind when I enlisted in the USAF. (The other thing that was in my mind was 'getting a job'.)

So when someone questions my right to have a political opinion (this does not happen often), I have innocently asked, "Oh. What branch of the military were YOU in?" (I think I have said this twice. In neither case had the person been in the military.)

What it comes down to is this: when I search internationally, there is still no place freer than the US. With all of its warts, it is still worth protecting.

Jan

I generally agree with you - but see my reply to jdg for a slight slant on the issue. In some way, the realization that we have all taken land from someone else over the millennia removes some elements of righteousness and makes the conversation about ownership.

Jan (any Bushmen on this list are excepted from the above remark)

This is why the American Indians do not want this information to be generally known. Part of their intellectual scaffolding is that they were the actual natives of this continent and we Europeans were the invaders. Realizing that they were just another invader, eventually succeeded by European invaders removes their sense of righteousness.

This does not mean that the American Indians did not own the land, any less than it means that our Anglo Saxon ancestors did not own their lands, but it does change the topic from one of innate purity ("we were the first") to one of ownership ("we owned it at the moment you came here").

Jan

I do not know if most people will ever become rational. I am optimistic in general...but that is pretty darn far outside of what I think is plausible. Hmmm - perhaps if there were further planets to colonize, we could subset the more rational folks a few additional times and end up with a subculture where rationality was the default.

I am quite fond of that TED talk - mind candy, as you say, puzzlelady.

Jan

And the American Indians are pretty desperate that this info does not get around...

Jan

It has only been in the last few generations where a man could not teach his son (and a woman her daughter) 'all the skills he needed to know for his work and his life'. How you plow, wash, cook, communicate...now it is the sons and daughters who have to teach their parents.

Jan

AH! That makes more sense. I was wondering what was filtering the gene out - certainly it is not spousal choice! (But allergies were a possibility.)

Jan, likes red-haired guy eye candy

Huh. If you find that article, please send me a link.

Jan

Oooooh. THOSE aliens. Well of course! I must not have had my telepathic antennae extended when I read your email earlier.

Jan

Hey wiggys! It is an odd day: What freakin' aliens?

Jan

Thanks. I will look that up.

Jan

Wow. Knowledge is Power! :>)

Jan