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Case 1:
[khallow:] They would gain serious opposition throughout the world by alienating a bunch of developing world countries who need that food.
Here, the poster (me) is saying that they believe that certain unnamed countries “need that food”. I later elaborate that “need” means “Egypt would be a smoking ruin, if it ran low on wheat and it's far from the most unstable in that regard.” Here, “need” means must have or some societies, including Egypt, would fall apart into ruin, if they didn’t have enough food. Even if one disagrees with the claim, it’s a fairly honest use of the word. A good is “needed” when there’s an extremely undesirable outcome, if the need is not met.
Case 2:
[AC:] So there's no problem if the food you're making out of the insects etc is from squashed versions.
If you need to do other stuff (like remove the poop etc) then just squash the head really fast.
Here, “need” has a different meaning: an essential step in some process. AC doesn’t specify what the process could be, but it could be mandated by regulation or even merely that the food tastes better without the poop. But the idea is that if bug poop is to be removed, this approach is a way to do that.
Now, let’s consider a couple of less honest uses of “need”.
Case 3:
[AC:] A mega constellation isn't a necessary step or a necessarily shorter path to a future in space.
Here, the word being abused is “necessary/necessarily”. The complaint in question is that megaconstellations have significant externalities – light pollution and possibly space junk. The implication here is that because a megaconstellation isn’t necessary – there are other unspecified ways to a future in space, then it shouldn’t be done.
There’s two flaws in the argument. First, just because something isn’t needed, doesn’t mean we should be blocking it. Another space example is someone arguing that nobody wants to go to space because the speaker doesn't want to go to space.
Second, when a destination is necessary, then so is a path. For example, suppose a kid needs to go home (it’s getting late) and there are two physical paths to their house. A neighbor turns the kid away from the first path because they can go the other way – with the argument that the kid doesn’t need to go down this path (and presumably irk said neighbor). So then another irkable neighbor at the second path does the same, because the kid doesn’t need to travel down that path either since they could travel down the first path. Now, we’ve gone from two paths home to zero paths home!
This is how the need argument can sabotage not just one endeavor, but all of them. There is no path to space that won’t create a bunch of stuff in orbit and engender the externalities, and where there are so many possible paths to space not a one of them is the unique, necessary path.
Finally, there’s the completely bogus use of “need” that spurred this journal. I’ll quote it in context from the original story here [edit: fixed typo].
Case 4:
Ruiter says he’s continued to talk about data centers because he wants to remind people that “the cloud” they’ve come to rely on isn’t just an ethereal concept—it’s something that has a physical manifestation, here in the farmland of North Holland. He worries that growing demand for data storage from people, and also, increasingly, AI, will just mean more and more hyperscale facilities.
“Of course, we need some data centers,” he says. But he wants us to talk about restructuring the way the internet works so they are not so necessary. “We should be having the philosophical debate of what do we do with all our data? I don’t think we need to store everything online in a central place.”
Basically, Ruiter is a politician mooching off Dutch farmer discontent over harsh EU nitrogen regulations which then boiled over to complaints about data centers (which I gather politically are a vastly safer target) which are competing for the same land as the farmers. And he advocates that we restructure Netherlands society so that data centers “are not so necessary”. All this for a naked self-interest – less competition for Dutch farmland. Note also the process would result in significantly fewer data centers and thus a centralization of all that data contrary to the alleged benefit of the scheme. He threw out an excuse for this, ignoring that the scheme would make the excuse worse not better.
This is the cynical, entitled endpoint of the rhetoric of need: you don’t need this so gimme. No cost to society is too high. Just restructure society so it doesn’t need what I stole from it. I find it interesting how so many people are intent on reenacting those cheesy Ayn Rand novels – not as a ruggedly individual John Galt, but as a sleazy, corrupt Wesley Mouch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @02:50PM (3 children)
Whrn are you two lovebirds getting hitched?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 01, @03:11PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05, @08:24PM (1 child)
I'll just leave this [reddit.com] here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 06, @08:54AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @05:52PM (25 children)
The rhetoric of greed [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 01, @06:11PM (13 children)
While I sense you're trying to touche here, it is interesting how greed enters that narrative as well, hand in glove. It's common to see the same people who defend a pilfering of assets or resources because someone didn't "need" it to then cast the prior owners as "greedy". Their own greed and lack of need somehow isn't as material.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @07:53PM (12 children)
Leave it to khallow to conflate need and greed. Sorry but not gonna spend a few hours arguing back and forth just so you can realize that deep down you agree with liberals advocating social programs to balance out the greed of billionaires. Citations are left as an exercise to the reader.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Saturday April 01, @09:52PM (11 children)
Nobody needs me for that!
In other words, just another bad faith AC. I'm fine with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @11:01PM (3 children)
Khallow adopting the insults used against themselves? Standard conservative smooth brain!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 02, @12:23AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06, @02:24AM (1 child)
Khallow: "What? But I DECLARED it!!"
The Office wasn't a managerial tutorial bud.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 06, @08:50AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03, @03:11PM (6 children)
</rolls eyes>
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 03, @03:41PM (5 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03, @08:27PM (4 children)
Or maybe, just perhaps, there are a bunch of us who have come to similar conclusions about you. Have you ever stopped to consider that possibility?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 04, @02:25AM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04, @10:16PM (2 children)
It's not me, khallow. It is not even us: it is you. Maybe you should back off on the frequency of posting, and abandon the silly libertarian bullshit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 05, @09:34AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05, @08:20PM
Evidently it is. The market of ideas has spoken.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 03, @05:57PM (10 children)
The problem isn't that we don't have enough to feed the hungry. It's that we don't have enough to satisfy the rich.
I hate to say it, but a few percent don't need to own half of everything.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 03, @06:58PM (9 children)
The trick though is that it's quite easy to make a lot more everything. That way the greedy bastards can get higher scores without putting us through any pain. Win-win for everyone.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 03, @09:34PM (8 children)
It seems to me that the underpaid workers are the ones who make a lot more of everything, while the rich actually benefit from it and own it.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 04, @02:17AM (7 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04, @01:43PM (6 children)
Umm, yeah. Minus the dumbass mining bit. Financial workers get paid a little better because the wealthy spend a bit more to make a lot more.
Are really stupid comparisons all you've got?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 04, @02:09PM (5 children)
Sounds like I'll need to dumb them down even more for you. I'll type slow so you don't miss it this time.
Rich people wealth is numbers on a computer, not items in a box.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05, @09:05AM (4 children)
"It's more like a series of tubes, it's not a truck." **Dead Republican Senator.
How's that sucking up to the richies working out for you, khallow?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 05, @09:32AM (3 children)
Envy is not an adequate replacement for knowledge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08, @06:54AM (2 children)
You synchophnatic scum, khallow. It is not envy. It is awareness of criminal activity, being "woke". So, some bastard fucks over a bunch of plebs in real estate, and then uses his ill-gotten gains to wine and dine, and yacht and jet, a sitting Supreme Court Justice? And you say the default credit swaps do not influence the determination of law in this country? Khallow, and I mean, Khallow!! Are you stupid, or duplicitous? You must know that what you say is aiding and abetting Republican crimes, and yet you claim to be innocent? Time to confess, khallow, confess!!! Did you, or did you not, cheat on your tax return last year? Answer, under oath, yes or no. And, have you ever been a member of the American Nazi Party, or the Ku Klux Klan? Yes or no. Just as I thought. And you wonder why no one will "debate" you. Bad Faith, bro, bad faith.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 08, @01:31PM (1 child)
Let me guess, yachts and jets taste better than credit defaults?
Neither, but you are clearly both by your amateur histrionics and leading question. Bring up a serious point and we'll have something to talk about. But pouting about how mean I supposedly am is not relevant to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @04:13PM
No one complains about you being mean. In fact you're one of the least mean rightwing weirdos here! We do comolain about your bad faith arguments and willful stupidity in favor of capitalist policies. Try and keep up wee laddy!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @07:47PM (11 children)
You need lunch. [angryflower.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 01, @09:58PM (10 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @07:25PM (9 children)
Right. Without a CEO to decide when lunch time is, we would probably all starve to death, like domesticated turkeys staring up at the rain, with our mouths open, until we drown. Thank goodness for our peerless leader, our alpha male and John Galt look-alike! Without these strong individuals and mass murders, society would simple fall apart.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 13, @01:27PM (8 children)
For glaring examples, consider all the leadership worship throughout the world - people willing to obsessively follow someone merely because they are charismatic. Those followers won't be able to build or maintain their way out of a wet paper bag.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13, @04:28PM (7 children)
Khallow: Resistance is futile
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 13, @10:20PM (6 children)
The point here is that for all the hand wringing, Rand did get the basic truth. There's only a small portion of society with key skills that keeps society going. It's not just the flashy John Galts. It's also the people with key skills like engineering, agriculture, medicine, science, and management/bureaucracy. The large majority who show no special skill with anything, nor organizational ability beyond follow the leader won't be able to cover for those people. The Netherlands moochers I was complaining about will eventually target these people as well (assuming they haven't already). It's their kryptonite. When you're so far gone that you're trying to restructure society to not need the stuff you steal, you have to go after them because that's where the food is.
Thus, you can't "resist" if you don't have the people with the know how or inclination to keep society running.
The thing the Bob the Angry Flower comic missed was that all these skilled people were bowing out of society and "going Galt" not just the wealthy. They're readily available to make Galt's Gulch work well, and the elites hanging out there would have had the pick of the litter - because nobody else had the credibility to hire them! Seriously, think about that. I have leet sk1llz that in a functioning economy would be well-paid, but there are these nutcases who want swag which conflicts with my salary. Anywhere that is subject to those people is going to be looted sooner or later. So why bother working hard just to be a slave?
There's no escape except the places that are off the economic grid, like the Galt's Gulch refuge that the comic is mocking. Galt's Gulch is fantastical in that it's unassailable by the residual governments of the world (due in large part to the military might of the pirate guy's merc army that hangs out there and some fantasy stealth tech) not in the Bob sense, being a refuge for the productive and competent. In practice that probably won't be so unless government totally falls apart, but one could have a powerful, insuppressible black market play as an effective Galt's Gulch.
What critics miss is that Rand already saw this movie in the first half of the 20th Century with the formation of the USSR. She's writing about something that already happened at least once. And it happened even worse with the Khmer Rouge which basically murdered a considerable portion of the productive people of Cambodia - perversely while claiming those victims were pure dead weight no less. ("To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss.") The sociopathy of that movement is enlightening. They decided who was to blame for an imperfect society and almost destroyed Cambodia in the process.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Woodherd on Saturday April 15, @01:02PM (5 children)
Don't read puerile adolescent attempts at philosophy by Ayn Rand, read some real philosophy, like Kojeve's interpretation of Hegel's "Master-slave dialectic". The so called slave submits, in the fight to the death, to the Lord, but soon, by being the one who "works on it", becomes the master upon who the "lord" is dependant. YOU have it all bass assward, khallow, which is not surprising for one as stupid and ass-kissing to the richies as you. The workers are the ones who know how to do stuff, tech. The capitalists really know nothing. Poor silly Kardashian khallows! If we tax their capital gains, they would die!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @01:15PM (4 children)
If the workers know how to do stuff, then why is so little stuff done by those workers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16, @09:10PM (3 children)
khallow's hatred of workers reeks of middle-management, petty middle management. Did he say he has a crew of vending machine emptiers under him? And they usually do not stay more than one season? Makes you wonder why. Oh, and khallow could gather all the coins himself, since none of his workers are getting stuff done! Ayn Rand was a government mooch, died on Medicare and Social Security.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 17, @01:12PM
I thought you knew. My rental backhoes run on the blood of oppressed proletariat slaves. It's cheaper than gas in California and far more sustainable.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 17, @01:14PM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by Woodherd on Tuesday April 18, @10:25AM
Whatever are you suggesting, my deer and turkey season khallow? Here, post anonymously to this post. You can do it. No one (other than janrinok) will know it was you.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 01, @11:32PM (2 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qev-i9-VKlY [youtube.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 02, @12:29AM (1 child)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02, @12:40PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ6rP-rcYHk [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02, @09:07PM (1 child)
Anybody can bee a pedant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03, @11:00AM
But not many can put a pendant on a bee!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04, @12:03PM (10 children)
When will the invisible hand punish those too big to fail? Doesn't that need to happen for the free market to work?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 04, @08:54PM (9 children)
"Too big to fail" is not a criteria generated by a market.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08, @06:56AM (8 children)
Except when the "market" is captured and controlled by the Capitalist Class, so the entire story about "Competition" and "efficiency" is a lie to protect the ill-gotten gains of the one percent. Hate those guys.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 08, @01:33PM (7 children)
Well, should that ever happen, then we'll have something to talk about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09, @11:47AM (6 children)
Lying is not the only way to argue in bad faith, but it is one of the more common ones. You are lying, again, khallow. When you stop with the lying, we might be able to discuss with you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 09, @02:27PM (5 children)
Talk.
And we see what the talk is worth in the very next sentence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09, @08:19PM (4 children)
Is that why you lie? Everyone else does, or so you believe, so why should you care about the truth? Propaganda is a helluva drug amirite?
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday April 10, @01:43AM (3 children)
That is a leading question and quite irrelevant since you are asking me why I do something I didn't do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12, @04:15PM (2 children)
So regular Fox watching ignorance then? Not exactly a better look.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 13, @01:30AM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @01:41PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13, @03:40AM (1 child)
26±4 seconds to midnight
unless
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15, @01:22PM
If so though, why are you posting to me? I'm not the one threatening the world with nuclear weapons or creating this unstable situation. You need to talk to a certain Putin about that.