Poor people can only afford junk food. Tax that and you will have a problem on your hands.
Think "organic" food is cheaper? Wait till the demand goes up due to taxes. Then you will realize that it is impossible to meet the demands of 6 Billion people without growth hormones and genetic modification.
LOL @ Americans... This is only the beginning. Your new masters are going to be worser than your old ones. But the slippery slope is so undetectable that every generation thinks it has more freedoms than the previous ones.
If you think taxes and the will of the majority are the omnipotent solutions to all problems in this world, you will soon realize that it is not. But then it will be too late for a revolution. The frog is being boiled slowly.
There is a lot of talk about stock traders being thieves.
Theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent. The stock traders do everything they do with consent.
So they are not thieves.
On the other hand, they provide the liquidity real investors need. Real investors being people who buy a company to profit from dividends or actual increase in company value.
If this is true, then medical quacks and new age groups are going to have a field day using this as the justification for everything mystical and magical. I bet they will make a lotaf money by quoting this Nobel Laureate.
Communism is, among other things: Taking from each according to his ability and giving to each according to his need.
Unfortunately, Human needs are unlimited, and Human abilities are limited. So if we steal from the able and give it to the needy, all of us will go bankrupt.
This is why Communism does not work in theory nor does it work in practice.
@Relayman Unfortunately, infinitely divisible mangoes do not exist. At some point of time we will end up trying to divide the fundamental building block of matter and we will fail unless a mango has a number of such building blocks which is divisible by 3.
The same argument can be used to argue that no fraction of a mango can exist for all mangoes. This is because whether a fraction exists for mango will depend on its number of fundamental building blocks.
The argument against the above mentioned proof arises from philosophy: Actual infinities cannot exist. For example, 0.999.... mangoes cannot exist (ask why?). But 0.99999999999 mangoes and 0.999 mangoes can. Q.E.D
Redhat 6's graphics setup auto-configured a very bad screen resolution for me using VESA or something. So I was trying to set it right.
Then I tried to use my Winmodem (an internal dial up modem which had no drivers).
Then I tried to mount my windows partition.
If such a better method exists, and weren't "owned", I wouldn't use it because it is still extremely costly and time consuming for a small lab..
It would be like trying to make a green label Johnnie Walker at home.
Therefore I believe we should give these companies enough incentives to enter into the business and reduce all our costs as a result.
Definitely, not all biological artifacts can be replicated with low opportunity costs. For example, Many enzymes used in my labs are extremely costly to replicate/produce. So we just buy them from biotech companies. I believe such companies should be given the right to own the specific method they use to make those enzymes in large quantities and at cheaper oppurtunity costs than what can be achieved in college labs. Other wise those companies won't have the incentive to produce such goods, and will make biotech/life sciences extremely costly.
All I advocate is that the extremist anti-private-property sentiments I see in the FOSS community is not justified by reality.
May be in future when all widgets can be replicated with little opportunity costs owing to advances in nano-technology & bio-tech, we may have to come up with some type of post-scarcity economic doctrine.
Let the number of people whom you can feed with a loaf of bread be n.
Let the number of people who can jerk off to one porn file, or use a Windows ISO image be M.
Clearly M > n. Economists call this phenomena scarcity. A loaf of bread is more scarce than a porn video file because potentially infinite number of people can get utilize a porn video file but that is not true for bread.
Scarcity leads to opportunity costs. i.e. the amount of stuff that needs to be not-produced to produce bread.
Differences in opportunity costs for various goods is what drives capitalism. Somebody will find it cheaper to produce bread instead of cereal flakes. Somebody will find it cheaper to produce cereal flakes instead of bread. They will exchange these commodities through a common token of exchange (money) and achieve a total higher production than if each where trying to produce both bread and corn flakes individually without specializing in one commodity & exchange.
However, there is catch. The society needs to legalize private property rights for goods-with-scarcity for the above plan to work. Or else nobody will have the incentive to capitalize on their lower oppurtunity costs for a particular widget if everybody can own/copycat everything he/she produces without exchanging anything in return for it. This will inevitably lead to very low production like what happened in communist economies which had no private property rights.
Geeks are right when they say patents & copyrights are bad for goods with no scarcity. e.g. software, digital media formats
Geeks are wrong when they say patents & copyrights are bad for goods with scarcity. e.g. goods made using biotech.
So my advice for geeks is keep their FOSS ideologies where it belongs, i.e. goods with no scarcity. e.g. bioinformatics.
Biotech is a whole different story. FOSS ideas won't work there.
In the long run, Software will inevitably be free as in beer because
there is no
scarcity.
Ideally, once a good software (e.g. LaTeX) is written, and the more
users use it, the average
fixed cost tends to become zero all the time. At such near-zero
oppurtunity costs, somebody will find enough utlity (e.g. geek cred) in
doing/maintaining/improving it without money.
We can already see this in the case of Operating Systems because
everybody uses an OS AND because there is no scarcity of OS related
ideas
either (OS algorithms are easily available). And therefore, sooner or
later, somebody will find utility in doing it for free and bear the
oppurtunity costs.
Some companies try to emulate scarcity by introducing DRM, but any
such attempt will inevitably face competition from non- DRM substitutes
which will inevitably lead us back to the problem of no scarcity. Some
other companies try to write bad/incomplete software so that they keep
improving and customizing it. But such companies will face competition
from better/more complete software.
There are however someways to get around this problem:
Keep innovating. If you can innovate faster than the FOSS
rate of innovation, you can emulate scarcity. This is what Apple does.
Move to greener pastures. There are certain fields of
software development where there is real scarcity of ideas & a
commonly available knowledge bank does not exist. e.g. speech
recognition, protein folding, specialized databases for drug discovery
etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Poor people can only afford junk food. Tax that and you will have a problem on your hands. Think "organic" food is cheaper? Wait till the demand goes up due to taxes. Then you will realize that it is impossible to meet the demands of 6 Billion people without growth hormones and genetic modification.
LOL @ Americans... This is only the beginning. Your new masters are going to be worser than your old ones. But the slippery slope is so undetectable that every generation thinks it has more freedoms than the previous ones. If you think taxes and the will of the majority are the omnipotent solutions to all problems in this world, you will soon realize that it is not. But then it will be too late for a revolution. The frog is being boiled slowly.
There is a lot of talk about stock traders being thieves. Theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent. The stock traders do everything they do with consent. So they are not thieves. On the other hand, they provide the liquidity real investors need. Real investors being people who buy a company to profit from dividends or actual increase in company value.
If this is true, then medical quacks and new age groups are going to have a field day using this as the justification for everything mystical and magical. I bet they will make a lotaf money by quoting this Nobel Laureate.
Uhm.. I read a lot of stuff about induction. I think that falls under philosophy too.
Are you saying there is no dichotomy?
I am kind of busy. Can anyone please do the Apple bashing for me?
Communism is, among other things: Taking from each according to his ability and giving to each according to his need. Unfortunately, Human needs are unlimited, and Human abilities are limited. So if we steal from the able and give it to the needy, all of us will go bankrupt. This is why Communism does not work in theory nor does it work in practice.
@Relayman Unfortunately, infinitely divisible mangoes do not exist. At some point of time we will end up trying to divide the fundamental building block of matter and we will fail unless a mango has a number of such building blocks which is divisible by 3. The same argument can be used to argue that no fraction of a mango can exist for all mangoes. This is because whether a fraction exists for mango will depend on its number of fundamental building blocks.
The argument against the above mentioned proof arises from philosophy: Actual infinities cannot exist. For example, 0.999.... mangoes cannot exist (ask why?). But 0.99999999999 mangoes and 0.999 mangoes can. Q.E.D
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/patents_and_copyrights.html
Redhat 6's graphics setup auto-configured a very bad screen resolution for me using VESA or something. So I was trying to set it right. Then I tried to use my Winmodem (an internal dial up modem which had no drivers). Then I tried to mount my windows partition.
If such a better method exists, and weren't "owned", I wouldn't use it because it is still extremely costly and time consuming for a small lab.. It would be like trying to make a green label Johnnie Walker at home. Therefore I believe we should give these companies enough incentives to enter into the business and reduce all our costs as a result.
Definitely, not all biological artifacts can be replicated with low opportunity costs. For example, Many enzymes used in my labs are extremely costly to replicate/produce. So we just buy them from biotech companies. I believe such companies should be given the right to own the specific method they use to make those enzymes in large quantities and at cheaper oppurtunity costs than what can be achieved in college labs. Other wise those companies won't have the incentive to produce such goods, and will make biotech/life sciences extremely costly.
All I advocate is that the extremist anti-private-property sentiments I see in the FOSS community is not justified by reality.
May be in future when all widgets can be replicated with little opportunity costs owing to advances in nano-technology & bio-tech, we may have to come up with some type of post-scarcity economic doctrine.
Let the number of people whom you can feed with a loaf of bread be n.
Let the number of people who can jerk off to one porn file, or use a Windows ISO image be M.
Clearly M > n. Economists call this phenomena scarcity. A loaf of bread is more scarce than a porn video file because potentially infinite number of people can get utilize a porn video file but that is not true for bread.
Scarcity leads to opportunity costs. i.e. the amount of stuff that needs to be not-produced to produce bread.
Differences in opportunity costs for various goods is what drives capitalism. Somebody will find it cheaper to produce bread instead of cereal flakes. Somebody will find it cheaper to produce cereal flakes instead of bread. They will exchange these commodities through a common token of exchange (money) and achieve a total higher production than if each where trying to produce both bread and corn flakes individually without specializing in one commodity & exchange.
However, there is catch. The society needs to legalize private property rights for goods-with-scarcity for the above plan to work. Or else nobody will have the incentive to capitalize on their lower oppurtunity costs for a particular widget if everybody can own/copycat everything he/she produces without exchanging anything in return for it. This will inevitably lead to very low production like what happened in communist economies which had no private property rights.
Geeks are right when they say patents & copyrights are bad for goods with no scarcity. e.g. software, digital media formats
Geeks are wrong when they say patents & copyrights are bad for goods with scarcity. e.g. goods made using biotech.
So my advice for geeks is keep their FOSS ideologies where it belongs, i.e. goods with no scarcity. e.g. bioinformatics.
Biotech is a whole different story. FOSS ideas won't work there.
P.S: Don't mistake biotech for bioinformatics
I get a feeling we are already generating & testing hypothesises for someone/something bigger than us like in Asimov's The Last Answer.
XKCD should draw stick figure porn in protest..
We should all protest with placards showing stick figure porn.. I am sure the children won't understand it.
How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent
I used to play a lot tetris while recovering after I saw my bones in an accident. This might have helped...
OK I am going to sign up to be one.. Must not let MS formats destroy future history.
So they want to erase history now.
Once we cut of people from free information.. propaganda can flourish, Truth can be rewritten just like in Orwell's 1984.
MS is becoming just like the Mafia. And they are ready to do anything to get what they want.
We can already see this in the case of Operating Systems because everybody uses an OS AND because there is no scarcity of OS related ideas either (OS algorithms are easily available). And therefore, sooner or later, somebody will find utility in doing it for free and bear the oppurtunity costs.
Some companies try to emulate scarcity by introducing DRM, but any such attempt will inevitably face competition from non- DRM substitutes which will inevitably lead us back to the problem of no scarcity. Some other companies try to write bad/incomplete software so that they keep improving and customizing it. But such companies will face competition from better/more complete software.
There are however someways to get around this problem: