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You've probably read it, but let's reference The Federalist Papers, shall we?

The rest of this post assumes that "we" are citizens of the USA.

Our constitution recognizes that the authority of government is derived from the consent of the governed. That's us. When our government does stupid things, it putatively does them on our behalf. Presumably the actions of our government are an expression of the common will, and so it is right and proper that foreigners might dislike us individually for the actions we take collectively. So it is that tourists in foreign lands feel some coldness when the actions of our government are received badly, as R.A.H. wrote about in "Expanded Universe". (Gary powers was "shot down" while the Heinleins were touring Russia.) When our government does smart things (WPA, the space program, etc.) we enjoy the benefits.

Here at home we don't worry much about what happens in foreign lands as long as our troops and tourists come home OK. That might be a mistake. The genocide in Rwanda that we turned a blind eye to years ago has turned into genocide in Congo. In a few years it may spread. As Men (and this is the usage that includes women too) we are diminished by the heinous injustices that occur anywhere in the world. But are we - can we - be the World Police? Can we do anything about it?

Our laws including the constitution have been sorely tested these last few years, it's true. Part of this is the cold press of events, as the cauldron of strife distills new truths from the mash of common ideals. Part is the intrusion of money represented by special interests who ply our representatives with education campaigns, astroturf campaigns, and flat cash. We do bear some responsibility for this. If we were not so susceptible to advertising there would be no incentive to accept the funding for advertising that drives reelection campaigns. As it sits now the candidate with the most money doesn't always win but like the race to the swift and the battle to the strong, that's where the smart money lays their bets. If we cared more it would not be so.

Protesters can do a lot, but the sad fact is that in the modern market protesters can be hired. For a million bucks you can shut down a major city for a number of hours with protesters who care not for your cause but who'll show up and protest for a buck. Some of them are quite clever. If you mix in with them because you believe in the cause of the day is your zeal real, or is it a network effect purchased by the protest organizer?

Sigh. Go vote.

Oh, and support Project Gutenberg. They're doing more for you and all mankind than you know.

This is also the same Britain which has had to rely on unelected peers to protect our liberty.

Maybe Thomas Paine was wrong about them after all.

Thanks for the informative post.

That Microsoft has Embraced AMQP will hasten its demise.

A shame, that. Binary was more efficient. I guess we're still learning from Michael Hart that although it's less efficient in the moment, in the fullness of time it's the most efficient.

Agreed. His proposal might indeed be helpful in preventing the children of poor people from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public.

The real irony in many ways is that Niccolò Macchiavelli was actually very much a republican (as in, one who favors the republic as a form of governance :), but one who understood that the republic can falter. The New Yorker posted an interesting (and long) look at his life last month, which is worth the read for anyone interested. Machiavelli's possibly most well-known work, Il Principe , can indeed come across as archetypically "machiavellian" (as we use the term today), but reading it more closely brings to light advice to would-be rulers that they cannot be callous, ruthless bastards and expect to hold onto their jobs for very long. Some choice quotes, courtesy the linked article:

A prince must have the people on his side, otherwise he will not have support in adverse times.

A prince need not worry unduly about conspiracies when the people are well disposed toward him. But if they are his enemies and hate him, he must fear everything and everybody.

The best fortress for the prince is to be loved by his people.

Ultimately, the current strategy in the US of criminalizing broad swaths of otherwise harmless behaviour and locking up everyone who disagrees with the movers and shakers is pretty far from Machiavelli's advice to would-be rulers, given the mounting discontent this generates. Machiavelli actually comes across a bit as an old-school Taoist (in terms of Lao-zi, not Zhuang-zi) -- keep the people fat, happy, and dumb, and they will be easy to rule. Pissing them off and depriving them of common liberties left and right just isn't a smart move.

Cheers,

I doubt if any form of libertarian government would confiscate personal property to pay for another's upkeep. That smacks of communism.

We have that in Australia right now. Money is property. Income tax pays for the dole.

A society should look after their aged, poor etc. It's a matter of ethics and morals. You believe in that or you don't.

I do, but morals and ethics are matters of choice, ie: if the government takes my money and gives it to the poor I have done nothing moral at all. Charity ought rightly involve both generosity and gratitude. It's part of what builds the community, yet with government compulsion, both giver and recipient tend towards resentment, or even worse, for the recipients to develop a sense of entitlement. This is the norm in Australia today because people see the money as coming from "the government" and not "my working friends and neighbours". I'm not saying that there is no place at all for government to be involved in charitable works, but the system as it stands has actively destroyed morals, ethics and community.

However in a completely Libertarian society you would have no such need as every member would ensure that they provide for themselves in case times get hard.

People would still help each other in hard times, as we still do voluntarily now anyway. The idea that we need government compulsion to force us to help each other is repulsive to me and not true anyway. Look at the amount of disaster relief that gets raised and the rate of child sponsorships and the like.

After all, by accepting that a portion of your tax dollar go towards public education and public health while still having the right to do as you please, could be a solution.

The Communist Manifesto lists government schooling as one of the 10 central tools for destroying the "old social order" and "entirely revolutionising the mode of production". I personally regard compulsory government controlled schooling with the same distaste I would have for compulsory government controlled religion. How can you be free if a government agent tells you how to think? If you aren't familiar with John Taylor Gatto's work there's a good introduction here: http://hometown.aol.com/tma68/7lesson.htm

You've got some good ideas, I hope you're not offended. I have you marked as a friend for some time now, so we must have some substantial agreement on some issues.

H. Beam Piper used a brain scanner (veridicator) to verify truth (lie detector) in courts and making statements. They had strict rules on when it could be used and what could be asked. Gutenberg has Little Fuzzy as free text

When Shakespeare wrote "first kill all the lawyers"* his ire was somewhat misdirected.

You know it was Jack Cade, the villian of the piece, that said this right?

FYI: Apparently, it was "Dick the butcher", and not "Jack Cade". Cade did concur, though.

Sources:
* http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_VI,_Part_2
* http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/Henry_VI,_part_2/13.html
* http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/2ws0210.txt

If there are to many people who can't think, there will be problems, in the same way as if there are to many people who can think.

What problems does it cause if there are too many people who can think? How many people capable of thinking is the optimum number? What action should we take to prevent an excess supply of people who can think?

If we have a secret agenda to prevent people from thinking, we don't have a free society (especially if it is successful). If we have an openly stated program of deliberately induced stupidity, who would participate?

Freedom of education, yes, instant freedom to not be educated would create a nightmare of a situation and in such case there would instantly be a class of people who have difficulty thinking for themselves and could potentially fall into a "mob rule" situation with nasty consequences.

We have a class of people who have difficulty thinking for themselves right now. My observation is that many people learn to dislike reading and history, for example, in school. But reading and a knowledge of history are in my view indispensable for those who desire self determination.

I will also need to find time to read that book you suggest.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20662 To be fair, I think the people proposing and implementing these ideas often had the best of intentions they could. Eugenics was considered compassionate and a social obligation by some, and only its association with the Nazis really brought it into disrepute.

From what specifics I could find on it, they are planning on supporting Flash 7.0 and I think this means one could play swfs on it (of which I know several addictive games online).

As for other support, I'm kind of disappointed that they went far enough to support Lyrics (Lyc) files but they only support TXT for their E-Books. I would be nice to see Plucker supported by default so that all the Project Gutenberg books would be readily accessible in something better than just plain text. But, I suppose that's just a matter of recompiling for the targeted architecture. I wonder if proprietary e-Book formats will ever be supported on devices like this? That's probably just wishful thinking--why would Amazon divert sales of the Kindle to something like this?

H. Beam Piper had a story about recovering a lost language, on an alien planet; Omnilingual .

Going through a school/university, they come across a periodic chart and a chemist explains to a linguist why elements will always be the same, regardless of who 'discovers' them. Is good story about a cunning linguist.

"The story that is style and allegory, or the one devotes pages of exposition to laughably wrong predictions of a supposedly realistic future? It all might as well be spaceports in Ohio."

"Predictions?" As I said before, anybody since Sir Isaac Newton could easily see that lower latitudes were beneficial. Jules Verne did figure it out. Better still, Bradbury could have set it in segregated Florida and maybe get away with combining a story or two.

And the image of the destruction of Australia (!!!) being visible with the naked eye from the surface of Mars isn't a "wrong prediction," it isn't "obsolete scientific opinion," it's the writings of a man who never actually looked up at the night sky and noticed "Gee, it's just a rust-colored dot, can't really see much from this distance," in spite of writing a book that supposedly takes place there. Aside from being a visual too jarring for the reader to stay in the narrative, it reflects Bradbury's own geocentrism, a notion he spends a great many pages mocking and belittling his characters for showing.

Just as discongruent was the idea that almost everybody on Mars would go back to Earth (even after seeing such a spectacle) to die with that planet, rather than accepting a flood of war refugees. But any amount of believability that gets in the way of Father Bradbury's sermon has to go, he's got A Point to Make.

I'll gladly ship you a copy of the free Project gutenberg DVD for 100...

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_CD_and_DVD_Project

Having spent thousands on text books myself for college (on top of an already large tuition), I applaud any effort to wrest control from the publishers. In addition to making cheaper books for students, the open-source textbooks can easily be translated and used in other countries where university-level education is harder to come by (and thus more expensive, likely with fewer options in books).

My main concern about the whole thing is the "everyone edits" model. I love Wikipedia, but this is the sort of thing where we may want to lock out some. I didn't see anything in the Times article about it, but I hope some of the wider-adopted ones do a credentials check. It's free to get in, but you have to prove you have at least a Masters or something, and then are limited in which types of books you can edit (so someone with a Masters in Finance won't be working on a biology textbook). Especially with debacles like the Kansas Board of Education, it would only take a small group of rogue individuals to mess up a textbook to make it more "Christian" or "wholesome", or even trying to change history. While likely caught before a book goes to press, some may get their stuff straight online, and so may download a bad copy.

Furthermore, while I'm glad it happened at the college level (too late to help myself, though), I see a far larger need for this at the public school level. While the students don't pay for the books themselves (per se), it's hard for many school systems to keep up-to-date textbooks or enough textbooks on hand, especially in poorer areas. Many would benefit greatly from open-source, cheap textbooks. There may be projects on this already, but I don't recall any at the moment.

Even better, scrap the large amount of text-books at the higher level and go fully digital. When I envision the Average High School in 2020, I see all students with two things: a Kindle-like device and something like the SmartQuill (I don't know a modern equivalent).

The digital textbook, something that will be along the likes of an "OLPC" for Kindle, will house all text-books, have bluetooth (or WUSB) to instantly download any notes, updates, or addendums by the teacher, and wireless networking to access school-wide announcements, discussion boards, and the like. Ideally it's in the style of a clamshell, both to protect the screen and to give it a better "book" feel. A small keyboard slides in when not in use. Bonus if it's a touchscreen or tablet, but it's not required and, at least for the moment, can't be done with eInk at the moment anyway.

The SmartQuill (or modern equivalent) will allow students to take hand-written notes if their typing isn't up to par, or if they need to draw diagrams/more complex equations. It will sync up with the digital textbook (perhaps even using a custom port that can house the pen, and sell them as a set) to make a permanent copy of the notes. These could be shared or cross-referenced in case someone misses something.

The whole setup will likely cost ~$600 student. It's about the price of four college textbooks or five-six high school text books. The convenience and re-use (you get it as a freshmen and give it back once you graduate) will likely more than make up for the initial large cost. Combine that with cheap digital text books or free open-source projects (and the Gutenberg project!) and it would be great thing for all schools to have.

I also see flying cars, but I think the Kindle/SmartQuill setup is actually feasible.

"In fact if you read Marx he's quite clearly talking about a collapse of capitalism, not a violent revolution at all."

You're the one who hasn't read Marx:

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.
They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by
the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.
They have a world to win.

English version:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/61/61.txt

German version:
http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me04/me04_459.htm

Go get someone to translate the German version if you don't think the English translation is correct about forcible/violent overthrow.

See also:
If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

My emphasis: swept away the conditions... and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

Go ahead and believe Marx and Engels. I might not be that smart, but hindsight shows they got that rather wrong.

Sweep away the conditions and install a Dictatorship so far has proven the rule for any revolution that involves violence.

Well, non-adult, but similar... Printcrime...

The complaint in the second case is pretty damning, if true, and it's too detailed to be all made up.

From this comment, I infer you have never read, like, a book. After you browse some of the made up stuff you can find here, you might reconsider whether it is possible to make up stuff that's extremely detailed.

Ah, too bad. At least I was able to get my hands on an unedited 16-volume set of Burton's translation of Arabian Nights. Some pretty racy stuff in there for a 13-year old! Funny thing was, I had no interest in that musty old stuff until my mom told me not to read them. Ever since then I've been on the lookout for anything published before 1900!

Of course, now you can get at least most of it on the Internet.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/burt1k1/
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/b#a5414

The one-size-fits-all public education system is the worst possible thing you can do to an asd kid.

Or a kid without asd. You are wrong about it being natural selection though. Have a read of The Measurement of Intelligence by Lewis Madison Terman written in 1916 on the introduction of intelligence testing in schools. There is nothing natural about the selection process you are observing.

One sample paragraph: "It is safe to predict that in the near future intelligence tests will bring tens of thousands of these high-grade defectives under the surveillance and protection of society. This will ultimately result in curtailing the reproduction of feeble-mindedness and in the elimination of an enormous amount of crime, pauperism, and industrial inefficiency. It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the high-grade cases, of the type now so frequently overlooked, are precisely the ones whose guardianship it is most important for the State to assume."

by excellent men of Rhetoric and not so excellent men. Just give Scientology another thousand some years and it could be on par with any "legit" religion of today. Look how it has progressed in only a few decades. For some enlightening reading, check out the following.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainlfe.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3186/3186-h/3186-h.htm

And no, I am not an atheist. I use my reason and believe in no human god because there is no "True" evidence, and faith is not it. But, I also do not claim that there is no God because I neither have "True" evidence of that. I do not belong to any religion because the past and present has shown that it can be easily manipulated by certain corrupt humans for their own political agendas. Most likely the future will show the same.

So Dutch researchers cracked the public transportation pass for London? Boy they're gonna be pretty down when they'll realise they need to travel all the way to London just to get free public transportation.

Well, after all that fighting several centuries ago, they can't very well put up with a bunch of Dutch tourists gallavanting about, now can they?

Fortunately being Dutch they'll surely find a place to forget about all of this within a walking distance.

Or skating distance.

OP seems to have recalled the title wrong, but somebody else knew what he meant. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18224

Ah ha. Thanks, I wondered why I couldn't find it. (Not sure if I'll read it, I was just curious after AC left that note saying it was copyrighted.)

Also, OP is correct: you can download it from Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Didn't mean to offend you. I'm just trying to point out that in order for me to have a right that nobody can take away, it may be necessary to prevent me from giving that right away.

I don't think that is a proper understanding of "inalienable rights".
From Leviathan:
Not All Rights Are Alienable
Whensoever a man Transferreth his Right, or Renounceth it; it is either in consideration of some Right reciprocally transferred to himselfe; or for some other good he hopeth for thereby. For it is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some Good To Himselfe. And therefore there be some Rights, which no man can be understood by any words, or other signes, to have abandoned, or transferred. As first a man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life; because he cannot be understood to ayme thereby, at any Good to himselfe. The same may be sayd of Wounds, and Chayns, and Imprisonment; both because there is no benefit consequent to such patience; as there is to the patience of suffering another to be wounded, or imprisoned: as also because a man cannot tell, when he seeth men proceed against him by violence, whether they intend his death or not. And lastly the motive, and end for which this renouncing, and transferring or Right is introduced, is nothing else but the security of a mans person, in his life, and in the means of so preserving life, as not to be weary of it. And therefore if a man by words, or other signes, seem to despoyle himselfe of the End, for which those signes were intended; he is not to be understood as if he meant it, or that it was his will; but that he was ignorant of how such words and actions were to be interpreted.

So selling yourself into permanent slavery, for example, is not something that you have to be prevented from doing, it is something that does not represent a benefit to you and as such cannot be considered an enforcable contract. Having an inalienable right to live doesn't mean that someone can't kill you (for example in self defence, or execution by the state) but that you have no obligation to hand yourself over to be killed, as explained also in Leviathan:

A Mans Covenant Not To Defend Himselfe, Is Voyd
A Covenant not to defend my selfe from force, by force, is alwayes voyd. For (as I have shewed before) no man can transferre, or lay down his Right to save himselfe from Death, Wounds, and Imprisonment, (the avoyding whereof is the onely End of laying down any Right,) and therefore the promise of not resisting force, in no Covenant transferreth any right; nor is obliging. For though a man may Covenant thus, "Unlesse I do so, or so, kill me;" he cannot Covenant thus "Unless I do so, or so, I will not resist you, when you come to kill me." For man by nature chooseth the lesser evill, which is danger of death in resisting; rather than the greater, which is certain and present death in not resisting. And this is granted to be true by all men, in that they lead Criminals to Execution, and Prison, with armed men, notwithstanding that such Criminals have consented to the Law, by which they are condemned.

Now the constitution and founders of the USA were directly opposed to the views on monarchy posed in Leviathan, but I am fairly sure they got their understanding of inalienable rights from there or a similar source. It is the only way I can understand an "inalienable right to life" and a state than execute criminals to co-exist.

This reasoning can also be directly interpreted to mean that all people have a right to keep and bear arms for self defence.

You accidentily inserted the word "quality" in there.

Nope, it was entirely intentional.

No doubt there are some gems, but I've yet to read/find them.

Keep looking, they're in there.

Of course, I grew up on pulp sci-fi, so my standards may be different from yours. There's definitely a lack of truly "hard" sci-fi, but there are many entertaining stories, and that's most of what I'm after, nowadays. There's no Asimov or Dickson in there, I'll admit. I like stories, not textbooks. If I wanted to actually learn about quantum physics, I'd go google up a textbook, or something.

To me, the Baen Free Library is mostly a repository of some fairly decent pop-sci-fi authors, that I can peruse at my leisure without having to track down that book from my stacks (I swear, they started out as shelves, but they keep gathering more books, and, well...). I like them because they don't require much thought to delve into, but often have good concepts.

"Freehold", for instance; A good read, with only a few obstacles to suspension of disbelief, describing a colony world based on anarchy, libertarianism and the free market, and the society's (obvious and obligatory) problems in its interactions with Earth because of its (lack of) societal structure. It has plenty of scenes where stuff blows up, and military drama abounds. It also makes some good points about our current society, and where it might be headed, as well as pointing out some of the good features of anarchy/libertarianism (it's not necessarily pandemonium, ya dig?). I've recommended it to several of my friends, and will continue to do so. Being able to recommend it by hitting someone with a link in an IM or forum post makes it that much easier.

Keep in mind that the Baen Free Library is more of a marketing push, so they're trying to appeal to the "lowest common denominator", rather than creating a free collective body-of-work like Project Gutenberg. On the other hand, Gutenberg doesn't make it easy to decide I like a series (or an author, or a single book), and drop a small chunk of change on a small stack of paperbacks.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Baen in any way other than being a fan of some of their authors.

I loved those as a kid and read any I could get my hands on.

And many of them are available online for free:

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/a#a267

The GPL is not communist.

Of course it is. It's not about the abolishment of private property, but about collective work toward a common goal. You know, the good part of communism.

From "The Communist Manifesto" In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

What is this "communism" you speak of? It seem so different to that communism proposed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. I had this discussion with a fellow worker a few days ago. He praised the society on an island resort he had been to as "perfect communism".
Me: Do they call themselves communist?
Him: No.
Me: Do they kill the rich?
Him: No.
Me: If a man catches a fish can is it forcibly taken from him? (sharing fish with the ill was an example he used)
Him: No.
Me: Well it isn't communism then.

Communism was very clearly outlined in The Communist Manifesto. If words are to mean anything, then anything not conforming at least approximately to the description given by Marx and Engels ought not to be called communism. People working together for common good is by no means exclusive to communism.

He is the same guy that wrote Tarzan. There are several on http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/b#a48 They are a little light on the Science part on occasion, but they were written in 1914.

Seconded. For sheer enjoyment, most of Burroughs stuff is great, and the Barzoom saga is at the top. It's purely fluff, but all of the books were glued to my hands until I could finish them.

I'll second Andre Norton. Forerunner Foray, Time Traders, Witch World, etc. are all excellent. The same goes for old Heinlein (his later stuff is either not as good, inappropriate for children, or both, IMHO).

Most people here are largely recommending more modern Sci-Fi (Eddings, Card, Rowling, etc.), and so I'll suggest some older or lesser-known authors:

• H. Beam Piper: "Space Viking" (warning, not-PC, with sanitized violence), "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen", "Great Kings War". Oooh, Space Viking is available from Project Gutenberg. I'm not a fan of his other works, except for maybe his Paratime series.
• Jack L. Chalker: "And the Devil Will Drag You Under", the Well World series, and the Dancing Gods series (I think). (Sigh, I didn't know that he'd passed away. :-( )

"Magnifique!" ejaculated the Countess de Coude, beneath her breath. The Return Of Tarzan You gotta love a book that starts out like that.

He is the same guy that wrote Tarzan. There are several on http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/b#a48 They are a little light on the Science part on occasion, but they were written in 1914.

How about Project Gutenberg? They've got lots of books that have already been scanned.

This article ispired me to look through Project Gutenberg for old Science and Math books.

This Calculus book looks decent.
Here's an Algebra book, but it doesn't look very good.

I also note that Chemistry has changed much in the last 100 years since the advent of quantum mechanics. I also can't seem to find any decent physics books on Project Gutenberg.

The US military has some nice textbooks online. I don't know how they got there though, they don't seem official.

This article ispired me to look through Project Gutenberg for old Science and Math books.

This Calculus book looks decent.
Here's an Algebra book, but it doesn't look very good.

I also note that Chemistry has changed much in the last 100 years since the advent of quantum mechanics. I also can't seem to find any decent physics books on Project Gutenberg.

The US military has some nice textbooks online. I don't know how they got there though, they don't seem official.

Not sure what religion has to do with this economics question.

Then you didn't read my post. I was pointing out the flaw in your argument, where you said that Imaginary Property was something that we made up, and so it did not need to be "believed in" in order to be considered real. In case I didn't make myself clear:

I disagree.

As for your questions...

Do you have an alternate proposal for incentivizing content creators?

If not, do you believe that software/books/movies/songs/etc. will be created by individuals for no compensation? Or by companies for no compensation?

When I was growing up, artists and musicians did what they did for the love of the music/art. Metallica went on MTV and said they would never make a music video because they "weren't in it for the money." Now they've alienated their fanbase by suing them for giving away their music, and they're pissed off about the lack of money in the equation. Nevermind that they went on TV in front of millions of people and lied. Seems to me that the artists need to figure out which way they're trying to be, and stick to it once they've chosen. This, of course, is just anecdotal evidence and meandering ranting, and is also totally off topic. Get off my lawn!

Back to the issue at hand.

Yes, I have an "alternate proposal" for "incentivizing content creators". I like to call it "cut out the middlemen who do no work, maximize your profits without raking your customers over the coals, and stop pinching everyone's wallets while whining about how you don't make any money because you only get 1% of the profit of each CD sold". It involves content creators posting their content for the world to enjoy, and asking for (non-specific amounts of) money.
(As an aside, I'm typically insulted when people tell me I have to donate a specific amount of money. If I want to give you 50 cents for a single song, I should be able to. Don't tell me I have to give you $5 and take the whole disk!)

If this "economic model" seems surprising to you, then it would seem I need to point out to you that several big names are already doing it, as you can see with a little googling on the subject. To get you started, allow me to offer the following as potential search terms:
"Nine Inch Nails", "Radiohead", "donation", "free music"
It may interest you to learn that the results from these attempts have been successful (or at least, that's what I read). You may also be interested in Jonathan Coulton, who seems to be making quite a decent living by giving his stuff away for free.

Despite answering in the affirmative (and with proof!) and thus excusing myself from the "bonus questions", I will continue in this monologue, answering your second and third questions, too. Please note that the emphasis is mine.

The answers are simple and undeniable. Yes, I believe that software, books, movies, songs, etc. are being created by individuals for no direct financial compensation. Yes, I believe that software, books, movies, songs, etc. are being created by companies for no direct financial compensation. As proof, I offer up open source software (Linux, for example; The Apache Software Foundation, for another), free books (check out the Baen Free Library, or Project Gutenberg), free movies, free music, and the beginnings of an economic model that depends on having products and services that have more than just a financial value to the consumers and producers... which raises the questio

"The 2nd Amendment was put in place because of "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" - any other reason is just one you're pulling out of your "hat"."

You keep repeating the same incorrect nonsense like repeating it will make it true. It is you who are pulling stuff out of your hat. Educate yourself, maybe try some research for a change. You could start by RTFA for one, and how about remembering back to high school history and civics classes and re-read 'the Federalist Papers' that the framers of the constitution wrote in support of their actions and reasoning behind the Constitution. It is spelled out clearly enough that even you should be able to understand.

Here, I'll even make easy for you and give you the link as a starting point. If you are not so biased, how about the full text of the Federalist Papers so you can see for yourself.

You might start getting into the habit of tying your legs to your chairlegs so when you do your next kneejerk you don't knock your teeth out.

I think I've made more foes today than since I registered here, and about to add you to that list just to cut down on the inane noise here.

Stupid git.

Here, now get some remedial education.You should have learned this in high school.

They did not have to travel back in time, just review the extensive writings of our founder's thoughts on the constitution (ie: the Federalist Papers) and how it should work, what the purpose was, etc.

SCOTUS seems quite fond of them as a reference, having quoted them in their decisions 291 times as of the year 2000. (according to the above wiki link)

"Do you have any further historical references supporting this much-derided viewpoint?"

I can't give you exactly what your asking (been a while since I read the Federalist Papers), but I for sure can tell you where to look.

The 'Federalist' he referred to is a compilation of the Federalist Papers, and for the texts to these try here.

Interesting reading on what was going on in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they were fighting to get it ratified.
Apparently SCOTUS reviews these writings even now days to help come to their decisions.( according to the wiki link above, SCOTUS has quoted them 291 times as of 2000)

Hope this helps somewhat.

Give him a break, he's 314!

So, how the fsck could he have written to his son if his *first* son, who inherited the title, wasn't born until 15 years after that decade?

Project Gutenberg has the letters: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/c#a1187

As for Melanthius, they took him through the cloister into the inner court. There they cut off his nose and his ears; they drew out his vitals and gave them to the dogs raw, and then in their fury they cut off his hands and his feet.

'You don't actually learn anything through memorization.'

"I disagree. If someone forced you to memorize the date "July 4, 1776" as the day the U.S. declared independence, and years later you read a book written in England or America in 1778, you automatically know something about the political environment it was written in."

Personally, i think just reading any of the books listed here, on project Gutenberg would be far more informational than your 'example' or rote memorization, and coming 'across' a book written in '1778' as you say... I'm not even sure where you'd come across a book written in '1778' other than project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_(Bookshelf)#International_relations
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/United_States_(Bookshelf)

'You don't actually learn anything through memorization.'

"I disagree. If someone forced you to memorize the date "July 4, 1776" as the day the U.S. declared independence, and years later you read a book written in England or America in 1778, you automatically know something about the political environment it was written in."

Personally, i think just reading any of the books listed here, on project Gutenberg would be far more informational than your 'example' or rote memorization, and coming 'across' a book written in '1778' as you say... I'm not even sure where you'd come across a book written in '1778' other than project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_(Bookshelf)#International_relations
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/United_States_(Bookshelf)

there Are electronic libraries. there are drm encumbered systems that have contracts with most library systems, then there is drm free project gutenburg, then there are a few other e-book libraries that cover more targeted groups than gutenburg and contemporary drm encumbered ebooks.

http://www.overdrive.com/ http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/

although as different as night and day, both the above sites offer 'free' to the end user, e-books, one at the cost of the public library system, the other with books that have fallen out of copyright, due to the death of the author.

Are we in the reality where the Air Force is supporting a show about secret off world operations as a way to mask true off world operations?

Or was that from before I walked around the horses?

"Fight Fire With Fire And Everything Will Burn"

up until the last few years, Linux has been all of those things to the common "e-mail checking and web browsing" computer users

Compared to that, at about the same period it took me nearly a week and several consultations with other people until I got Windows 95 to run on the same machine. The hardware drivers had to be carefully configured and installed in a precise sequence to boot windows 95, even though it had been running windows 3.11 before. So, even if Linux was in an extremely primitive state for the common user at the time, it wasn't any more difficult to install and configure than windows.

For normal use today, I think Linux with KDE is easier to use than XP (I have never tried Vista). For one thing, the "K" or "Start" menu is nicely organized, divided by application type instead of by software provider. Also, It's much easier to search and install software: click on "Add/Remove programs", search by keyword, click on "install" and "apply changes", and that's it. And copy/paste is easier too: select with the mouse, middle-click to paste. One handed, no need to CTRL-C, CTRL-V. And so on, etc, etc.

Now, if you think it's off-topic to mention Vista in a discussion about Linux, think again: why is it that Linux is mentioned 177000 times in the Microsoft website? It's always on-topic to mention the alternatives, of course.
 

He argues that property derives from labor. For example, fruit that falls to the ground belongs to no one. If you come and pick it up, you are performing labor and so it belongs to you.

Sect. 32. But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the earth, and the beasts that subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is plain, that property in that too is acquired as the former. As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property.

So until someone actually goes to the moon and does something to improve on its natural state, they have no claim to property rights. If someone goes to the moon and creates a base and roads or mines for instance, they would have a good argument in my book for owning that property. Also it makes sense that they could not just go and claim the southern hemisphere for instance, only the area which they could improve.

bourgeoisie (owners of private property)

Bourgeoisie refers only to controllers of the work force

Marxism defines the bourgeoisie as the social class which obtains income from ownership or trade in capital assets, or from commercial activities such as the buying and selling of commodities, wares, and services.

Check out WikiBooks. They aren't quite there yet, but some of their stuff is quite good - and being a wiki, your inputs are encouraged.

With cheap laptops/ebook readers on the horizon, and projects like WikiBooks / Project Gutenberg I am hopeful that we are only a few years from prolific material availability.

Also, slightly off topic - but since you mentioned schools I'd like to refer you to Lockhart's Lament. Do we even really need text books?

Text of the communist manifesto can be found here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61.txt

So what is communism on paper?

According to Marx and Engels, it is the abolition of law and morality ...

"The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family-relations; modern industrial labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests."

...the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie (owners of private property) ...

"In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat."

... and their elimination.

"Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society."

So, if we include the extermination of all property owners in our definition of a "working political system", then communism works, on paper.

McCarthy was right.