Humodour

Yeah, but Australia isn't a superpower, nor aims to become one, right? I mean, it hasn't had to go against the biggest fish in the pond. That's what I meant by coming on top. You can be aligned in some way or another and practice different variations of a model. But can that model become THE standard? Is it capable of generating more wealth than the others, because ultimately that's what matters? If the "third way" is practiced just in a few places here and there, is it really a solution for everyone? Again, I'm hopeful. It's becoming the dominant economic policy in Europe, and its starting to influence American politics. Sarkozy - leader of France - certainly seems to think something similar to it is the way of the future for Europe: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/...2374595726.html I'm not going to say 'emphatically yes' or anything, because I just don't know. I think it's got a better chance of holding on than Reaganomics, though. The thing is - they overlap enough that the Third Way ends up being a natural evolution of laissez faire's failure. I'm skeptical with regards to that. As taks pointed out, the impressive economic growth in China is merely the expansion of free market where there was none before, and once they have reached the level of market saturation of modern economies, the growth will decrease. Not to mention the immense poverty and social inequality problems - problems it shares with India. Brazil is a different story though, but poverty and corruption aren't negligible there either. And also, the US may have crashed, but I'd say they aren't burning yet. America won't burn. It'll be more a partner with the BRIC than a leader, though. Frankly, I'm uncertain about China's direction. India has the right idea, but needs to overcome bureaucratic concerns. Russia... is Russia. But Brazil, yeah, I think it's perfectly well placed to become a real superpower. Its local position in South America is enviable, from a trade perspective. Its corruption and poverty have fallen dramatically under their current leader. In fact, it's not really in poverty anymore - it recently moved to middle income status (from memory the definition is: 80% of people own a TV, a bike/car, and a house). It has even switched from exporting its goods to local consumption, because its population can now sustain that economically. This crash positions the BRIC really well for success afterwards. I think we'll see the bunch of them competing with their own unique economic systems. Chances are at least one of them will be a Third Way style system. I think they'll all end up being mixed market systems though, not laissez faire, and not socialist. Re China: the expansion of the free market is a natural step towards both the Third Way and laissez faire, so the verdict is still out on that one. I'm sure it's a very marketable idea. After all, everyone likes the state giving them stuff and taking "from the rich". A popular idea is not necessarily a good idea, though. "taking from the rich"? And why don't you think the Internet is a good idea? I'm talking about freedom of information, and global connectivity. Brazil has already taken this by the horns - it really aims to be a technology economy, like Israel, Ireland and Iceland.

Really? Sorry, ADHD, remember - I'm only good at recalling things I care about. Oh snap! *cough* To be honest, though, I probably thought you were kidding. It sounds a bit too much like Gordon Freeman. Man, if you're anything like Gordon Freeman, I top my hat to you, sir. Seriously, though, are you an mechanical or chemical engineer? It'd explain how you know fluid dynamics.

I think it's more like "the greater degree to which your investments are concentrated in the financial sector, the worse hit." Diversify, diversify, diversify. Well said. Although that's probably complementary to what taks said - that guy was probably in the middle of some high-risk investment scheme in the first place.

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. I probably overreacted a bit in my vehemence. I just really feel that it's wrong to push low-level languages first to teach the 'fundamentals' - I feel it turns people off and you lose sight of the broader picture, the core CS concepts. Likewise I think it's just a fundamentally outdated notion that you should learn C or ASM first to learn good style or something. I would never discourage somebody from learning C or C++ at any time. But I would at the least suggest they learn something like Python simultaneously is all, so that when they get disheartened, or lose sight of why they're typing in all the powerful pointer and memory mumbo jumbo, they know "this isn't what it's all like. it CAN be easy and clear; I know this because it's like that in Python." Python DOES instill a sense of safety. But increasingly people are realising that's not so bad. Increasingly it becomes "why exactly do I need C++'s supposed extra power, anyway?" and sometimes you do, all good. But often not. And especially in mission critical systems, C++ is NOT a language you want to be using. You want something like Python or Haskell DELIBERATELY because it's safe and predictable. Not only that, but it significantly cuts down on debugging time, but more and more errors are caught early and safely, and the style is just so much clearer and more concise. I guess I bring this all up because I don't think a game designer is any different to a normal programmer. He should know just as much CS, definitely, and just as many languages. I concede that C++ should be a focus, but that's all I concede.

the problem with blu-ray isn't the format, it is the cost of the players and tvs. still prohibitive. in fact, the best blu-ray player on the market is still the sony playstation 3, and you can get 'em for the same price as the regular players. you just get a gaming platform to boot! add in the cost of an hd-tv and it gets ugly, fast. Yeah, definitely. But this is all the reason why both Blu-Ray AND HD-DVD will be the losers in the end. Sure, sure. Thing is, most consumers don't know that. I don't even. They say you don't know what you've got till it's gone. In this case, it's you don't know what you're missing out on till you've experience it, I guess. Mmm. Flash-based is very promising. I think you're right, actually. I mean, there's lots of advances in hard-drive technology, and lots of advances in optical disc tech (both are in the terabyte range). But in the end, it probably will be all these fantastic new solid-state devices that win out. Right now, though, it's too cost prohibitive for high-density storage. 5 years is definitely a reasonable timeline to change that. As for digital TV... we'll see how America goes. I think we switch over here in like 2012, so we've got a while yet. There's some controversy about digital TV forcing small broadcasters out of business because they'd need to do expensive upgrades, so I think the government is going to subsides them a bit from memory. Everybody is certainly pushing for digital TV. I'm ambivalent - what, exactly, is the benefit?

Wait, wait, you know dynamical systems? Are we talking fluid dynamics here or a full-blown theory of complex systems and optimisation? *shrug* I love that stuff is all. Too few people understand it. Even a solid qualitative understanding would be enough. Alas, alack. That, and I always figured you for either a commerce jock or a military grunt. No offence.

It was free market dogma mixed with senators from both sides facing re-election in a few weeks and not wanting their name attached to an unpopular bill. That's pretty scary, isn't it? They didn't vote to save the economy because they wanted to be re-elected.

Please taks, tell us more.

Apparently it'll be a few weeks till the bill gets a chance to pass again. But I think one or two days now will be enough to cause the biggest collapse in history.

The Brazilian stock market just crashed (dropping more than 10%) and they suspended trading. The Irish stock market crashed already yesterday (dropping more than 12%). The Brizilian crash was due to the Republicans in America not passing the $700 billion bailout bill. America's stock market fell 6% while Canada's fell 8%. You can probably expect more countries to crash later today and tomorrow. Switzerland likely. And now Brazil is down, the rest of South America will likely follow. Britain expects to crash shortly, as does America (as much as 33%!). This is pretty amazing stuff. It's kind of surreal. I always figured they'd be smart enough to pass that bill. I know I said Australia had a sound economy and was doing fine with the recent ditch... but so was Brazil! Everyone was assuming they'd pass that bill! All bets are off now.

sure, and i think mixed economies don't work. It's true. All mixed markets are failures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy#Examples

My, you're such a maverick, taks.

um, no, i didn't make that specific claim, and i'm not citing a "few examples," either. "examples" pile up continuously, if not daily. Oh, yes you did: i'm not, and you're committing another strawman. is that intellectually honest? even noob admitted he misrepresented me, yet you fail to acknowledge your complete and utter lack of tact in this regard. You're not? Excellent! So you believe that some levels of government regulation work fine? Oh, and he was being humble so you'd put semantics aside and actually justify your economic stance for once. then do. Sure. Australia. I know, I know - I like to talk up Australia. Fact remains, though, it's a good example of a well regulated free market economy that has experienced economic success and stability for many decades. It completely undermines your "all regulation is bad" theory. good for them, but that is not "proof" that regulation works, not in the least. again, here you are judging a system from within the system claiming "capitalism couldn't have done that." It doesn't matter what capitalism could have done. The point is clearly that regulation works fine here, quite contrary to everything you've been claiming. False, but irrelevant; the success or failure of any other regulatory system is of no consequence here, since we're talking about Australia. I have shown that Australia's economy is government regulated, and very successful. Clearly this means your claim that 'all' regulation is a failure... is a false notion.

I give up. This is like talking to a ****ing brickwall.

uh, the discussion about the current failure of the US' regulated market... every single socialisst country that has failed, or is failing? how many examples of proof do you need? taks You claim all levels of government regulation are failures, right? Then citing a few examples of failed government regulation is clearly in no way sufficient proof. That would be like me citing the failure of one democracy as evidence all democracies are failures. Furthermore, socialist states and communist states do not constitute all levels of government regulation, therefore it is not intellectually honest to claim "all levels of government regulation are failures" based on a small subset. I can, in fact, clearly cite you counter-examples of where regulation works to varying degrees: basically every Western country (even America when you free market boneheads lay off). The Reserve Bank of Australia, for example, specifically cites its sound regulatory framework as the reason why Australia weathered well the 1997 Asian crash, the 2000 recession, and the 2008 Wall Street crash. In fact, Australia's economic growth has been, on average, some of the highest in the OECD over the past 10 years. It is currently still more than double that of America. A similar situation applies to Brazil. Where's the failure there?

taks, I think we all got over the fact that you don't understand the term 'strawman'. We moved on. It's fairly trivial. We just want you to give us this 'proof' that regulation doesn't work. You keep talking about it, after all.

Oh, it's easy to prove? Good, good. Could you please do so? you mean lightly, and i just proved that you don't even understand why your own argument is false. taks Really? My browser must be playing up. Where is this proof?

Your capacity for self-delusion is admirable, taks. I'll leave you with the proper definition of strawman, now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man Random n00b didn't misrepresent you, nor replace your argument with a weaker one, or whatever. He simply asked, quite reasonably, for you to either back up your nonsense claim that all intervention is bad, or prove your claim that the free market is always right. He was letting you off lightly. You should really be backing up both claims. Instead you give us "it's obviously true, so I don't need to prove anything" rhetoric.

i'm not misinterpreting at all. i don't have to prove the alternative. we know that intervention does not work. not at any level. that's why your argument, that i should prove the alternative, is a strawman. You're damn deluded. Honestly, that's on par with Walsingham quoting that guy who said "Banks have never worked and never will." EDIT: And learn what 'strawman' means. Random n00b's argument - if it were actually fallacious, which it isn't - would be a burden of proof error, not a strawman. A strawman is misrepresentation of another's stance. Random n00b did not misrepresent you. His ideology was strange, yes. But that wasn't what the speech was about. He was examining the nature of 'conservatism' and 'libertarianism' in America compared to the rest of the world.

I don't know man. Can we, really? I mean, it sure sounds nice (vagueness of definition notwithstanding), but is it really a philosophy, a way of things that can come on top when faced with others? I'm not even talking about whether it's a better way of doing things, but, can it even become a prevalent ideology? *shrug* We do it here in Australia (have for almost 30 years). You might have noticed I find economic libertarianism laughable, and the accusations that I'm a socialist or a liberal equally laughable. Once you get past the ideology barrier and just go "what the heck, let's just pick the best bits and stop trying to lay blame", it gets a lot easier. The real question should be whether or not you can extend the Third Way to populations of hundreds of millions, or perhaps whether or not some cultures are capable of perfecting it; America is ideologically as different to Australia as China is (in different ways, of course). I suspect that no matter who tries it in America, it will remain imperfect there for some time to come - there's just too much ideological opposition to regulation and the welfare state. But then, that was before this year. Now, I think the world is changing. A lot. The next 10 years will be amazing not just for America but the world - if we consider current trends, development in Brazil, India, China, Mexico, the Internet, and this new economic uncertainty in America. I'm hopeful. Brazil is already shaping out to be a potential good case for a successful social democracy with hundreds of millions of people (Mexico not so much). I agree, 'Third Way' is a vague term. I can recognise the tangible difference we have over here compared to America or a generic social democracy in Scandinavia, for example. And I can recognise the similarities Australia shares with Canada in what seems like 'Third Way' politics. But I honestly can't tell you yet if Brazil will head that way, or forge its own unique form of social democracy or what. *shrug* But yeah, I'm hopeful. I think the Internet is a really empowering tool for the Third Way and social democracy in general, so if I had to predict, I'd say yes - it can become a prevalent ideology.

That guy is spot on. He is an absolute champion, seriously.

I think it's best if I just quote Sarkozy directly since it's clear you didn't read the article: "The idea of the all-powerful market which must not be constrained by any rules, by any political intervention, was mad. The idea that markets were always right was mad." ~ Sarkozy Also: "Self-regulation as a way of solving all problems is finished. Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished." ~ Sarkozy He's not calling for the end of capitalism by any means. He has quite good clarity about what needs to replace the current system: "The financial crisis is not the crisis of capitalism. It is the crisis of a system that has distanced itself from the most fundamental values of capitalism, which betrayed the spirit of capitalism ... The present crisis must incite us to refound capitalism on the basis of ethics and work." "The market economy is a regulated market ... in the service of all. It is not the law of the jungle; it is not exorbitant profits for a few and sacrifices for all the others. The market economy is competition that lowers prices ... that benefits all consumers."

666? At least the forum software says so You evil man. Your post count at the moment is 3666. Wow, that's a whole 3000 posts unrelated to 666! It can't be a coincidence.

I'll just point out once more that unregulated free market capitalism has had its time. America should now move over for capitalism with a conscience. Maybe that's the Third Way. Who knows? It works for Australia and Canada. But whatever it is, as Sarkozy points out, the era of the completely unregulated free market, Reagan's notion that the market always knows best, is over. No, don't stop me! Let me guess - it's a 'socialist conspiracy'. Call me when Cato Institute crumbles.

You seem confused. The Bush administration went to lengths to tip the partisan balance of the DoJ and Supreme Court towards religious conservatives.