"Freedom" thread or something

I love how in one breath he claims to be concerned with users' privacy and in the next he condemns facebook for not handing its data over to public researchers.

I may have to write an op-ed on this.

some part of the world might panic - the rest of the world would simply stop using it. I know for some that is an unthinkable notion, but 5 years ago the idea of not using MySpace was an unthinkable notion until the numpties at News Corp broke it. These things (social networks) work because there is the feeling (or impression) of public ownership - no one thinks of it as Zuckerberg's Facebook - they think of it as their Facebook - regardless of who owns the fiscal side of it or the hardware side of it or who profits from the advertising - the bit that makes it all work is the public that uses it, on their Wall and their Timeline with their Friends sharing all those things that are theirs. That will stop once it becomes the Washington's Facebook so there is no need to get all panicky and headless chicken-y about state controlled social network sites.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: I think tempted would be a better word. The initial change of loyalties by Sauron was not due to any supernatural influence of Morgoth.

You don't need a supernatural influence to be corrupted. 

I like the BBC. Do you ever watch the panel show QI? It's one of my favorites.

I'm not that sure many people would tune in to a channel where the advertisement content is so excessive as to turn watching any program into a nightmare.

I like the BBC though mostly for news. Incredibly, it's quite close to impartial.

More incredibly, I actually think PBS shouldn't be first in the list of government-run things to disappear. It's actually somewhat decent.

Epignosis wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: I think tempted would be a better word. The initial change of loyalties by Sauron was not due to any supernatural influence of Morgoth.  You don't need a supernatural influence to be corrupted.

Yessir, but I think that goes along with it when people read the word nowadays.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Dean wrote: Since this is the Libertarian thread I would imagine that many here would prefer that to be deregulated so they could fill the hour with adverts upto whatever the consumer would tolerate by market forces... I've watched PA now sells T-Shirts TV in the buy a PA T-Shirt, you know they look cool USA and I don't see but first a word from our sponsor buy a PA T-Shirt now! how that works but don't forget to buy that PA T-Shirt. That's true, but that's not the same thing as me agreeing with the continued expansion of commercial time. One thing I happen to love though would be a vastly inferior product at this point if commercials were capped. The modern NFL is annoyingly cluttered with the omnipresence of commercial breaks, not to mention in-game commercials. This revenue though was necessary to draw prime athletes away from other sports which offer longer careers and a diminished risk of life altering injuries. So yes I do not agree with the regulation. Yes, the increased advertising basically plays a game of chicken with a set of viewers essentially deemed as passive enough to watch any amount of advertisements as long as the increases are implemented gradually. But I can also see the rare occasion where the lack of regulation allows a particular industry to thrive and give a high quality product. Part of the issue of TV, I think, was lack of serious competition. It will either be felled completely by internet media in the coming years or have to make serious changes on that front.

I have a theory that as the internet makes it easier and easier to simply chop out commercial breaks, eventually most advertising will become integrated into the  content itself in the form of product placement or in-story discussion of products. This was done in the early days of radio with characters on comedy shows discussing the virtues of a particular brand of soap and I find it much less obnoxious than ad breaks, because you still get the flavor of the show you like. Time will tell if I am proven right.

Dean wrote: You have me at a slight disadvantage [read: eyes glazing over] in that I know 4/5ths of sod all about football. My first question would be "away from what other sports specifically?" since the athletic attributes of a football player don't seem to be too compatible with any other sport that springs to mind and certainly not one where 1,700 athletes can earn $11.4m during their sporting career (all the average figures I used to arrive at those "facts" are available on the web, I found them in about a minute) - I assume most of them expect to make a living in some football related career for the remaining 34 years of their employable lifetime after retiring from professional football and not live off the savings they accumulated while playing (but even if they did $335K a year for life isn't a punch in the face). In the UK we have 540 Premiership Football (socher) players earning more or less the same per year as an NFL player (£1.16m or $1.9m) - their playing career is at least twice that of an NFL player - there are Premiership players in their 40s still drawing salary.   I dunno... as a disinterested outsider this ad revenue to draw prime athetes seems a little tenous to me   However, the structure of a NFL Football game lends itself to be punctuated by ad breaks - 3 hours to watch a 60 minute game... more than enough opportunity to insert as many adverts as is required considering you have a captive audience that is hell-bent on going nowhere for the next 180 minutes, except perhaps the bathroom and the beer-fridge. [by comparison a 90 minute premiership football (socher) match lasts 105 minutes and when televised on a commercial channel the adverts only appear during the half-time break].   Even with capping I can't see too much damage being done to ad revenue - with capping the avalable ad time is now at a premium and can command the best price.

Being strong, having good hand-eye coordination, and being fast doesn't seem to be compatible with other sports? The most important for a sport is raw athleticism. The specific skills can be taught throughout the tens of thousands of hours that a professional athlete will practice in his career. Football players routinely are drawn from pools of players who would have otherwise gone into the NBA (basketball) or the MLB (baseball). Other sports certainly are affected, but those two sports have this happen very frequently. I don't have numbers, but there's a pandemic of football players going broke after only a few years of their career ending. The average NFL player's career sits at about 5 years. After that, a lot of them end up in supermarkets or other menial labor The numbers you cite give what appears to be a nice average salary, but take a look at the median salary of an NFL player. $770,000 is a nice living. However, given that you often leave with debilitating injuries it's not so nice. Also, given what you can make in the other premier sports in the USA, it's really not a good deal.

There's a pretty well established connection between league profitability and the quality of athletes. 50 years ago you had players working summer jobs and playing in the NFL. The level of competition is nothing like it is today.

Supply shortened pricing rarely provides an optimal for businesses. I haven't done any sort of research on the NFL's revenue, but I'm relatively confident that the maxim applies to them.

I didn't mean to pick an example which put you at a disadvantage, so to speak, but it's quite literally the only example I can think of where I can put a good spin on the lack of such control laws in terms of effect rather than a empty-ish deontological justification.

I mean to quote the median value because of the nature of the sport. The mega-athletes which skew the mean salary do not really factor into this analysis. I mean to look at the marginal athletes, which in football constitutes the majority of the players. The minimum for a practice squad player for example (minimum is pretty representative for this group) is at $88,000 per year. It's someone earning in this range that would be especially volatile in terms of profession with respect to marginal differences in wage.

Of course the progress of nutrition and sports science in general has accounted for macro rise in talent. I mean to suggest the talent level of the NFL as compared to the talent level of MLB and NBA and other professional sports affiliates.

I agree that the current pricing structures rests on producing quantity entertainment which I differentiate from quality entertainment. I'd never heard of the Delia Effect. I'll have to look into that more.

Ok heath care rant that somehow should have some libertarian connection. A couple months ago I had a test done (CT scan) and the people in the place where I had it done told me my only obligation would be a 200$ copay. I agreed and paid. Two months later, last Saturday,  I received a bill for 950$ for the procedure. Contacting the imaging center, they told me the insurance company, who said it would cover the test, "changed its mind" because of supposed preexisting condition. How can this be? I'm sure even a drug dealer tells you what you are going to pay BEFORE you purchase the product, not after. That's part of a free agreement. If I was told the test was going to cost me 1200 I would have NOT have it done. This is another reason why I lose every inch of hope in this country's health system, laughingstock of the civilized world.