On 1/11/14, 5:27 PM, glen wrote:
"Outside groups, including super PACs and nonprofit organizations,
have spent almost four times more on the 2012 presidential campaign
than comparable organizations spent at the same point in the 2008
cycle, an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings show."
Sorry, I am dense. How is this an example that non-rich people are
making the rules? If anything, it seems to be evidence that the rich
people are still making the rules.
Again it means what you mean to rule. I think it means to control with
some threshold of effectiveness. For example, a robotic control
system which aims to keep a robot moving in spite of getting kicked or
when moving over unstable terrain. If such a control system takes a 100
kilowatt cluster to do what a person can do on 10 watts of brainstem
energy, that suggests that the robotic control system is not yet as
sophisticated as the biological calculator. Ok, IBM's Watson apparently
can now dominate the best humans on Jeopardy, so sometimes gross power
use is justified and effective. Another example that comes to mind
are asymmetrical attacks by organizations like Al Qaeda. If it takes
trillions of dollars to find and kill bin Laden's ilk (and keep killing
them), it makes one wonder what the next generation of terrorist will
look like, and whether the U.S. can afford to keep extinguishing them.
Similarly, several factor more billion dollars every election cycle to
deliver the plutocrats' message to the country via super PAC advertising
and lobbying might suggest that that control mechanism is not getting
stronger, but rather falling apart and that it may not be sustainable as
voters become more resistant to manipulation.
Marcus
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