Mac vs PC. That ancient rivalry going back to the Jobs at the Gates. The Bill that Steve left was huge, leading to a tribal conflict of epic proportions. We hope you enjoy the new edgy Common Ground.
"Mac vs. PC" was one of the greatest PR moves in recent history because of the equivocation between "PC" and "Windows".
Of course, Linux (or should I say GNU/Linux?) is the real communism, right? Though if you want to do round two of this debate, you can both embrace open-source software and then do RMS vs. ESR. Which is more of a liberal-vs-conservative debate than Apple versus Microsoft, it would be right up your alley!
Matt, if you build your own computers, you really ought to give Ubuntu Linux a try before the next time you shell out for a Windows license (you can run it from within Windows, too, which makes it really easy to try). I've found that Ubuntu is really nice and easy, and I've found it works way better on minimal or old hardware than Windows (I think with Windows there's little incentive to have updates perform well on old hardware, they'd rather have you buy new hardware with Windows pre-installed). I've been using Ubuntu full-time since 2008 (prior to that I was mostly using XP and dual-booting, I switched after trying Windows Vista).
Matt, I'd like to cry foul on you calling Obama a communist for supporting single-payer healthcare in theory, but compromising due to the lack of sufficient public support for that policy. (With apologies for if that was exaggerated for the purposes of this episode, but I've seen similar from you before, though maybe just at particularly emotional moments.)
Seriously, if you care about the state of discourse in this country (which is the whole point of this podcast, right?) this sort of hyperbole really needs to stop. Communism is about abolition of private property and state ownership of the means of production. Socialism is about state ownership of major industry. In the US (pre-ACA), ~45% of healthcare spending is government spending, in Canada, it's ~70%. (I assume the public healthcare spending percentage post-ACA has increased due to Medicaid expansion, though not to Canada levels.)
There's common ground between Democrats and Republicans on quite a bit of public spending on healthcare: Medicare is quite popular. Paying for veteran's healthcare is quite popular. There's a broad base of support for subsidizing healthcare for poor children. Stop acting like there's something about healthcare in particular that makes government spending on healthcare (unlike, e.g., spending on roads) socialist anathema, or that there's some particular hard line between 45% and 70% that's the hard takeoff for socialism.
It's frequently implied that Obama's policy positions are a radical departure from Bush or even Clinton. But the evidence just doesn't support it. He was in Congress, he has a voting record, you can analyze it. And yet, when Obama advocates for policies that you imagine are less liberal than the policies he might advocate for in a world where Americans were generally more liberal, instead of giving him credit as someone who is in fact willing to compromise (something you value, or else you've really chosen poorly for the title of your podcast), you call him "pragmatic" with a negative tone that implies you really mean deceitful.
Obama passes legislation that's broadly similar to policy signed into law by Romney, and a policy proposal published by the Heritage Foundation in 1989. Sure, some conservatives found those policies a little left-leaning. But in the hands of Obama, those policies are characterized as radically, egregiously left-leaning.
(Is this new? It seems new. Was every conservative and their uncle calling Clinton a communist back in the 90s and I was just too young and/or politically isolated to be aware of it?)
This pattern of painting the opposition as super-extremely radical (and characterizing things like a moderate voting record as just a pragmatic cover-up of underlying secret radicalism) really hinders any effort to find political common ground.
Yeah, I know. But the "Obama is super-radical" stuff is something that I hear put forward way more frequently in a non-joke context. Sure, you're exaggerating for the sake of humor. But if the joke is just "this is the same stuff often said seriously, but this time I'm saying it as a joke", it's not much of a joke. Where's the twist?
The Stallman vs. Eric Raymond stuff is, of course, a gold mine for both joke and non-joke discussions.
But I should have reworded my responses to be funnier.
"Mac vs. PC" was one of the greatest PR moves in recent history because of the equivocation between "PC" and "Windows".
ReplyDeleteOf course, Linux (or should I say GNU/Linux?) is the real communism, right? Though if you want to do round two of this debate, you can both embrace open-source software and then do RMS vs. ESR. Which is more of a liberal-vs-conservative debate than Apple versus Microsoft, it would be right up your alley!
Matt, if you build your own computers, you really ought to give Ubuntu Linux a try before the next time you shell out for a Windows license (you can run it from within Windows, too, which makes it really easy to try). I've found that Ubuntu is really nice and easy, and I've found it works way better on minimal or old hardware than Windows (I think with Windows there's little incentive to have updates perform well on old hardware, they'd rather have you buy new hardware with Windows pre-installed). I've been using Ubuntu full-time since 2008 (prior to that I was mostly using XP and dual-booting, I switched after trying Windows Vista).
Side rant:
ReplyDeleteMatt, I'd like to cry foul on you calling Obama a communist for supporting single-payer healthcare in theory, but compromising due to the lack of sufficient public support for that policy. (With apologies for if that was exaggerated for the purposes of this episode, but I've seen similar from you before, though maybe just at particularly emotional moments.)
Seriously, if you care about the state of discourse in this country (which is the whole point of this podcast, right?) this sort of hyperbole really needs to stop. Communism is about abolition of private property and state ownership of the means of production. Socialism is about state ownership of major industry. In the US (pre-ACA), ~45% of healthcare spending is government spending, in Canada, it's ~70%. (I assume the public healthcare spending percentage post-ACA has increased due to Medicaid expansion, though not to Canada levels.)
There's common ground between Democrats and Republicans on quite a bit of public spending on healthcare: Medicare is quite popular. Paying for veteran's healthcare is quite popular. There's a broad base of support for subsidizing healthcare for poor children. Stop acting like there's something about healthcare in particular that makes government spending on healthcare (unlike, e.g., spending on roads) socialist anathema, or that there's some particular hard line between 45% and 70% that's the hard takeoff for socialism.
It's frequently implied that Obama's policy positions are a radical departure from Bush or even Clinton. But the evidence just doesn't support it. He was in Congress, he has a voting record, you can analyze it. And yet, when Obama advocates for policies that you imagine are less liberal than the policies he might advocate for in a world where Americans were generally more liberal, instead of giving him credit as someone who is in fact willing to compromise (something you value, or else you've really chosen poorly for the title of your podcast), you call him "pragmatic" with a negative tone that implies you really mean deceitful.
Obama passes legislation that's broadly similar to policy signed into law by Romney, and a policy proposal published by the Heritage Foundation in 1989. Sure, some conservatives found those policies a little left-leaning. But in the hands of Obama, those policies are characterized as radically, egregiously left-leaning.
(Is this new? It seems new. Was every conservative and their uncle calling Clinton a communist back in the 90s and I was just too young and/or politically isolated to be aware of it?)
This pattern of painting the opposition as super-extremely radical (and characterizing things like a moderate voting record as just a pragmatic cover-up of underlying secret radicalism) really hinders any effort to find political common ground.
l33tminion: This was our April Fool's episode. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know. But the "Obama is super-radical" stuff is something that I hear put forward way more frequently in a non-joke context. Sure, you're exaggerating for the sake of humor. But if the joke is just "this is the same stuff often said seriously, but this time I'm saying it as a joke", it's not much of a joke. Where's the twist?
ReplyDeleteThe Stallman vs. Eric Raymond stuff is, of course, a gold mine for both joke and non-joke discussions.
But I should have reworded my responses to be funnier.