"disconnecting the money supply from the economy is not without any drawbacks."
I don't know what it means to disconnect the money supply from the economy.
The big question is whether the money supply should be determined by the market or by the government (who in USA's case gifted it to the federal reserve banks).
Probably Keynesians think taking it from government control is a disconnect, and probably Austrians think taking it from the market is a disconnect.
Cage is a good word for it, but maybe we don't agree why.
I think it didn't work because it was half-heartedly "tied". Government debased the currency at will by dropping the paper's redemption rate, then by dropping citizens' ability to redeem their paper, and finally severing it completely by cajoling foreign governments to base their currency on our dollars instead of metal.
Since debasing currency is subtler than overtly raising taxes, governments will always try to pass "legal tender" laws which give them some ability to inflate the paper supply.
For metals to work, you have to use the metal itself as the currency. Exchanging paper (or digital) receipts in lieu of metal is ok, if you don't let the government hijack the paper and give it a life of its own.
"I can defend myself against 'evil corporations' by refusing to participate."
Yeah.... no. Not really. All corporations, evil and good, are interwoven in a global gordian knot.
If you buy a smart phone, CarrierIQ profits. If you borrow money, you give business to Equifax and TransUnion. If you buy a kitchen appliance, you help Disney or CBS.
"Refusing to participate" would be about equivalent to living as a caveman. Even very carefully participating would probably leave us a lifestyle approaching the Amish.
But at least under a libertarian government, living like a caveman might be legal.
Liberty is less threatened by foreign evildoers than by domestic injustice. Laws that stack the deck, and laws that are selectively enforced, are what any lovers of freedom should fear.
It's not secret technology that protects us. Freedom's only hope is a people that won't take crap from their government.
I think armed revolution would be a stupid and counterproductive idea. But bloodless or bloody, technical tactical details of the hardware we've bought with our own money could be handy to know.
Of course it's not as simple as I portray it, but progress and freedom depend on transparency, warfare and tyranny depend on secrecy. When so much is secret, even our laws, we must ask ourselves if our priorities are straight.
Imagine if you were a fisherman, and in your application for a fishing license you had to identify the specific fish ("Charlie Tuna" or "Mr. Limpet" or "Wanda" or "Moby Dick") you were going after.
It wouldn't be fishing anymore. It would be more like hunting in California, or, perish the thought, detective work.
The only way people could make a big difference is if the people were different. We're not held back by defeatism as much as polarization. It's, about ignorance and dogma vs gullibility and simple-mindedness.
The masses are in a huge tug-of-war - sometimes one side manages to drag the knot to their side, but nobody really goes anywhere.
This thread is response to speculation that the military would step in and protect us from more blatantly oppressive feds.
Who knows what the future holds and what shit will or won't hit the fan. But if worse oppression happens, I wouldn't count on the military to rescue us from our government - soldiers could only give us a regime-change/coup. Not much point in counting on one department of the Executive Branch to save us from another.
Revolution (hopefully bloodless) is what we'd need, and that's really a civilian affair - of, by, and for The People. No passing the buck.
"The majority of the military is made up of people just like you and I"
Well, *like* you and I perhaps, but not *just* like us. Probably their mindset is closer to law enforcement officers than software geeks.
Sheriff deputies don't really have a problem evicting women and children on behalf of demonstrably corrupt banks. Cops have been known to go along with questionable tactics like racial profiling and beating captives to death and DUI checkpoints and planting evidence. If LEO doesn't put up much of a fuss, I'm sure, if they hear a semi-plausible story, many soldiers will follow anti-populist orders just fine.
The government is huge and opaque and one congressman represents so many people, that most of us have near-zero access to say a thing about it. Sure we can write letters and they'll tally them up and pile them with the rest. Won't change much.
I'd really like to have my congress critters sit and discuss with me why they don't see this as the problem Franken and Paul do.
Because to me, the Constitution is crystal clear, and the feds are breaking the law.
"the signal is very small in relation to the noise"
That's a nice, concise explanation. While that seems to be intuitive for many, it's never made sense to me. I find human-generated noise often deafening.
Billions of people extracting carbon from the bowels of the earth and shooting it by the ton into the sky, year after year, decade after decade, seems more or less competitive with, say, a volcanic eruption here and there.
I'll leave the numbers to the professionals, but I can't buy the 7-billion-people-have-insignificant-impact shrug off.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but a mosquito is solid and a human, in this scenario, is liquid.
One of him suspects a schism from reality, the other of him is perfectly sane, thank you very much.
Or the spanish mensa
"disconnecting the money supply from the economy is not without any drawbacks."
I don't know what it means to disconnect the money supply from the economy.
The big question is whether the money supply should be determined by the market or by the government (who in USA's case gifted it to the federal reserve banks).
Probably Keynesians think taking it from government control is a disconnect, and probably Austrians think taking it from the market is a disconnect.
"There is a reason we left the gilded cage."
Cage is a good word for it, but maybe we don't agree why.
I think it didn't work because it was half-heartedly "tied". Government debased the currency at will by dropping the paper's redemption rate, then by dropping citizens' ability to redeem their paper, and finally severing it completely by cajoling foreign governments to base their currency on our dollars instead of metal.
Since debasing currency is subtler than overtly raising taxes, governments will always try to pass "legal tender" laws which give them some ability to inflate the paper supply.
For metals to work, you have to use the metal itself as the currency. Exchanging paper (or digital) receipts in lieu of metal is ok, if you don't let the government hijack the paper and give it a life of its own.
"If your neighbor finds a huge new mine, your savings can lose half their value over night"
Yes, if overnight they manage to extract and refine an amount of ore equal to all the metal that's currently in circulation.
In practice, I think the precious metal supply is more stable than either the supply of dollars or bitcoins.
Sounds very smart.
What is a "hayseed bank"? A Mom&Pop thing?
"I can defend myself against 'evil corporations' by refusing to participate."
Yeah.... no. Not really. All corporations, evil and good, are interwoven in a global gordian knot.
If you buy a smart phone, CarrierIQ profits. If you borrow money, you give business to Equifax and TransUnion. If you buy a kitchen appliance, you help Disney or CBS.
"Refusing to participate" would be about equivalent to living as a caveman. Even very carefully participating would probably leave us a lifestyle approaching the Amish.
But at least under a libertarian government, living like a caveman might be legal.
"unelected and untouchable CEOs running things instead of politicians."
Thanks for the warning. And if you're a brit, beware of Germany's rising Nazi party. I fear this upstart Hitler fellow might someday attack London.
Liberty is less threatened by foreign evildoers than by domestic injustice. Laws that stack the deck, and laws that are selectively enforced, are what any lovers of freedom should fear.
It's not secret technology that protects us. Freedom's only hope is a people that won't take crap from their government.
I think armed revolution would be a stupid and counterproductive idea. But bloodless or bloody, technical tactical details of the hardware we've bought with our own money could be handy to know.
Of course it's not as simple as I portray it, but progress and freedom depend on transparency, warfare and tyranny depend on secrecy. When so much is secret, even our laws, we must ask ourselves if our priorities are straight.
You seem to know Heather a little too well.
Is she your boss's former wife, or is your boss a former employer? And how are you and Heather now?
Sorry - some cheap shots I can't pass on. It's a compulsion. I wonder if Heather could help...
Imagine if you were a fisherman, and in your application for a fishing license you had to identify the specific fish ("Charlie Tuna" or "Mr. Limpet" or "Wanda" or "Moby Dick") you were going after.
It wouldn't be fishing anymore. It would be more like hunting in California, or, perish the thought, detective work.
" plenty of atheists are atheists for the same reasons that christians are christians"
I'll grant you that there are probably born-and-raised atheists who never deeply questioned their atheism, but -
Why would they? What event would trigger an honest suspicion that immortal gods rule the cosmos and demand servitude?
+1 flattering
" it was probably unfair of me to try and approach it from completely outside that realm"
Unfair to the author perhaps, but not to the general Slashdot community. "The Logic of Chance" sounds like a title that would interest many of us.
Thanks for your hard work, thanks for sharing it.
unfamiliar jargon = new words (and phrases)
Someone learning English might think, for example, that the english jargon "looking up for new words" would suggest skygazing for vocabulary.
The only way people could make a big difference is if the people were different. We're not held back by defeatism as much as polarization. It's, about ignorance and dogma vs gullibility and simple-mindedness.
The masses are in a huge tug-of-war - sometimes one side manages to drag the knot to their side, but nobody really goes anywhere.
This thread is response to speculation that the military would step in and protect us from more blatantly oppressive feds.
Who knows what the future holds and what shit will or won't hit the fan. But if worse oppression happens, I wouldn't count on the military to rescue us from our government - soldiers could only give us a regime-change/coup. Not much point in counting on one department of the Executive Branch to save us from another.
Revolution (hopefully bloodless) is what we'd need, and that's really a civilian affair - of, by, and for The People. No passing the buck.
"The majority of the military is made up of people just like you and I"
Well, *like* you and I perhaps, but not *just* like us. Probably their mindset is closer to law enforcement officers than software geeks.
Sheriff deputies don't really have a problem evicting women and children on behalf of demonstrably corrupt banks. Cops have been known to go along with questionable tactics like racial profiling and beating captives to death and DUI checkpoints and planting evidence. If LEO doesn't put up much of a fuss, I'm sure, if they hear a semi-plausible story, many soldiers will follow anti-populist orders just fine.
The government is huge and opaque and one congressman represents so many people, that most of us have near-zero access to say a thing about it. Sure we can write letters and they'll tally them up and pile them with the rest. Won't change much.
I'd really like to have my congress critters sit and discuss with me why they don't see this as the problem Franken and Paul do.
Because to me, the Constitution is crystal clear, and the feds are breaking the law.
If corporations are people, these laws probably exist already.
Regardless of laws, the audacity of demanding personal passwords as a condition of employment just boggles my mind.
We're employees hired to do a job and go home. We're not paid to room and board our employer in our underpants.
"the signal is very small in relation to the noise"
That's a nice, concise explanation. While that seems to be intuitive for many, it's never made sense to me. I find human-generated noise often deafening.
Billions of people extracting carbon from the bowels of the earth and shooting it by the ton into the sky, year after year, decade after decade, seems more or less competitive with, say, a volcanic eruption here and there.
I'll leave the numbers to the professionals, but I can't buy the 7-billion-people-have-insignificant-impact shrug off.
Way ahead of you. Since 1996 I haven't even eaten veggies.
You can too prove it to yourself, and you probably have many times. It's not hard to set up an experiment.
If you can't prove it, you don't "know" it.