[aklug] Re: OFFTOPIC: Re: Re: ACS Google Gateway

First of, I want to apologize to Arthur, in particular, and the readers
of this list for the manner in which I composed my comment. I have only
been on this list for a short time, joining after I started using Linux
again after a long hiatus. I wrote my comment after a night out with
friends, eating and drinking and should have waited until the next day
(Saturday) to hit the send button

On 10/19/2013 12:13 PM, Arthur Corliss wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Oct 2013, Greg Schmitz wrote:
>
>> Arthur,
>>
>> I thought you were a better of student of history and not one to
>> drink to much political kool-aide(R). Looking back at the history of
>> our government (us) esp. with regard to our Federal Govt. much good
>> has come from government, at least before R. Raygun (and
>> Westinghouse), Ailes and crew shuffled the deck; corporate control
>> fucked things up. Really I thought you were a deeper thinker than
>> what your comment reflects? Perhaps you've forgotten about the
>> Office of Technology Assessment (one of the first Federal Agencies
>> Raygun deep sixed) or the Government Printing Office (did you ever
>> fill in the check boxes for "free" info about how government works
>> printed by GPO?). FWIW, the GPO secured the position of US printers
>> for at least 3 decades. If you do a little research you will find
>> out that the GPO, in order to be more efficient, realized that paper
>> conditioning was key to printing and GPO employees invented tools -
>> like the first meter to read the humidity level of paper rolls (word
>> has it that this was done by GPO folks on their own nickle.) Back off
>> Arthur and get with the program. Fuck computers - there is a big
>> heap on the technological pile.
>
> I think your view of history is less than adequate. Governments like
> ours
> can have benefit, yes. But, in terms of a general statement, they are
> *never* models of efficiency. That's just a fact. The moment you
> allow a
> band of people to spend other people's money they are going to do so with
> much less dilligence than they would they are. It's the inherent
> laziness
> of human nature.
>
> Commercial entities keep that wastefulness in check usually by using
> financial incentives. Lower expense, increased bonus, etc. Somethng the
> government has never leveraged effectively.

Efficiency? Do you think a private entity, with profit as a motive, can
be more efficient than a host of other models for accomplishing work and
goals - including models that historically have been used by our
governments? I think not, and I think history is on my side. While
"for profit" organizations can leverage worker "efficiency," at a low
level, primarily by leveraging power over workers, they in fact are very
inefficient (monetarily at least) because they necessarily have to
generate profits. Having been involved in a number of cooperative
endeavours (all involving large sums of money) the downside of human
nature you have described as, "inherent laziness," has, in my
experience, been the exception not the rule - and in the end has not
damaged or impacted the endeavours I'm familiar with, see for example:
<http://www.foodcoop.com/>. As examples of failure in the world of
profit, from private endeavours, one need only look at the cost and the
many failed attempts by private enterprise (with regard to computing
systems) at DOD, the FBI, the IRS, DOJ, FAA or perhaps the Municipality
of Anchorage
<http://www.adn.com/2013/04/12/2862627/software-to-automate-anchorage.html>.

>
> And we haven't even gotten into the slow spiral of corruption that
> extends
> back to the early Republic. Regardless of the ideals this nation was
> founded on the slow erosion of those ideals started early and steadily
> progressed. Not because the American form of government wasn't a good
> idea,
> but because people of baser character will always find a way to
> exploit and
> subvert any system. It's inevitiable.
>

Are you referring to the collusion of Public officials with private
entrepreneurs? I grew up in Wisconsin, which has, as far as I know,
only 2 stands of virgin timber remaining - everything else was clear cut
(twice) by "lumber barons" and paper makers with help from government.
Lots of jobs way back when - very few now.

> I hold it to be true, and find it laughably easy to support, that most of
> what our modern government does damages our country and undermines our
> children's future. I also hold it to be true that even when the
> government
> does good, it will do so at such an expense and inefficiency that it
> would
> have been far better if the American people had taken those tax
> dollars and
> instead gifted it to charitable organizations at our own discretions.
>
> You may disagree, but I would have to think it's *you*, not me, that's
> hopelessly naive, and perhaps, even willfully ignorant of history.
>
> --Arthur Corliss
> Live Free or Die

I'll go with the government any day over commerce, or the even worse
combination of commerce that controls government (call it what you will).

Live Free or Die! --greg

========

"Totalitarian society, especially in its more extreme versions, tends
to abolish the boundary between the public and the private; power, as
it grows ever more opaque, requires the lives of citizens to be
entirely transparent."

Milan Kundera

"Dialogue on the Art of the Novel." The Art of the Novel. New York:
  Grove Press, 1986.

========

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Received on Mon Oct 21 23:39:45 2013