No reason you can't drink both. I do. Never thought I was stuck on it until I found myself buying sugar cubes to put in my coffee/tea. At college. In the dorms. Yes, I'm American. My friends used to pick on me about that, but mysteriously stopped when they discovered the joy of eating straight sugar cubes.
Since I'm in college, I don't have the money now to go out and buy a good coffee/espresso maker, so I'm not too picky about the coffee itself. What I am picky about is the process of putting in the sugar and milk. Seriously. I have a different process for whether it's coffee or tea, whether I'm using sugar cubes or not, if I'm brewing it in the mug, in the coffee maker, or in a teapot, etc.
And don't even try to make me do it out of order, or bad things will happen.
The free market is not magic and infallible. It is a complex system of feedback loops that does not posses any sort of true homeostasis and therefore needs external management in order to maintain its state of freedom. Actually... that's exactly right. The market is a system of feedback loops. I'd never heard it put quite that way, but I like it. But looking at the market as an entity by itself can be confusing. The market is also, in theory (though I doubt it's ever been purely free), the free exchanges of every single person. When the market changes, that means people changed.
The point is, things change. People's wants change. Technology changes. Methods of production change. Nothing in life is stable.
People have the choice of adapting to the change or fighting it. Neither is the correct choice. It's really a matter of preference. I don't buy every new technology as soon as it comes out. I like doing things the way I've done them before. I'm a creature of habit, as we all are. But things change, regardless of my habits. And when my habits no longer work in the situation I find myself, I change, too.
A "state of freedom" isn't a "state." It's lack of force, lack of coercion. If someone on the outside is managing things, that in itself is hindering freedom.
I do consider myself libertarian. However, there are so many disagreements about what a libertarian actually is, that I often have to explain what I mean. I don't worship the market as some sort of mythical entity that will solve all man's problems. I don't believe in natural law (and please, don't flame me over that). I don't believe that people can be forced to be free, which means I don't use government methods to attain my goals. I just happen to think that freedom, by which I mean freedom from outside force or coercion, is the best way for people to live together. I don't think it'll happen soon. I doubt it'll happen in my lifetime.
Do these people see hyperbole as the best way to get people to listen because I know that anyone claiming kids are watching porn all day long is either an idiot or prone to exaggeration so why should I listen to them? Especially looking at porn on an open wireless network. If a kid's going to stare at porn all day, I don't think he's going to take his laptop over to the nearest Starbucks where anyone can look over his shoulder and see what he's doing. Now, if he can pick up the signal from his basement, that's a different matter...
In the world, no, there aren't more women. I'm guessing that's due to the general Asian desire for a male child, combined with China's one child policy. On the other hand, in the US, women outnumber men. I don't know about other European countries, but I'd bet it's about the same as the US.
And why isn't Granpa online and Granny is? Is Granny smarter than Granpa? Was Granny more able to adapt to online culture better? Women outlive men. In the higher age brackets, that means women outnumber men to a greater extent than they do in the general population. So, instead of Granny outsmarting Granpa, she just outlived Granpa, got lonely, and figured out this email thing so she could keep in touch with the kids and grandkids.
In the early 1900s, there was a huge religious push to ban drinking. Ever heard of Prohibition? It failed so dismally, that for the first and only time, the US repealed an amendment to its Constitution. But it came back, not quite so religious this time, sort of as a "save the children" idea. Technically, each state has its own drinking age, but since the Federal government threatened to cut off highway funding to states that didn't raise that age to 21, it's really a national thing.
I don't drink; never have. But I'm not stupid enough to think that people actually wait until they're 21. Also, making an arbitrary call on when someone's allowed to drink can have some pretty nasty side effects, as many, many 21st birthdays consist of getting as drunk as possible. I say, let people decide when they're able to handle it, if they want. There'd be less pressure, at least, for kids to get drunk to prove themselves to their friends.
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No reason you can't drink both. I do. Never thought I was stuck on it until I found myself buying sugar cubes to put in my coffee/tea. At college. In the dorms. Yes, I'm American. My friends used to pick on me about that, but mysteriously stopped when they discovered the joy of eating straight sugar cubes.
Since I'm in college, I don't have the money now to go out and buy a good coffee/espresso maker, so I'm not too picky about the coffee itself. What I am picky about is the process of putting in the sugar and milk. Seriously. I have a different process for whether it's coffee or tea, whether I'm using sugar cubes or not, if I'm brewing it in the mug, in the coffee maker, or in a teapot, etc.
And don't even try to make me do it out of order, or bad things will happen.
The point is, things change. People's wants change. Technology changes. Methods of production change. Nothing in life is stable.
People have the choice of adapting to the change or fighting it. Neither is the correct choice. It's really a matter of preference. I don't buy every new technology as soon as it comes out. I like doing things the way I've done them before. I'm a creature of habit, as we all are. But things change, regardless of my habits. And when my habits no longer work in the situation I find myself, I change, too.
A "state of freedom" isn't a "state." It's lack of force, lack of coercion. If someone on the outside is managing things, that in itself is hindering freedom.
I do consider myself libertarian. However, there are so many disagreements about what a libertarian actually is, that I often have to explain what I mean. I don't worship the market as some sort of mythical entity that will solve all man's problems. I don't believe in natural law (and please, don't flame me over that). I don't believe that people can be forced to be free, which means I don't use government methods to attain my goals. I just happen to think that freedom, by which I mean freedom from outside force or coercion, is the best way for people to live together. I don't think it'll happen soon. I doubt it'll happen in my lifetime.
In the world, no, there aren't more women. I'm guessing that's due to the general Asian desire for a male child, combined with China's one child policy. On the other hand, in the US, women outnumber men. I don't know about other European countries, but I'd bet it's about the same as the US.
It's already been argued here: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/1 9/1515205
In the early 1900s, there was a huge religious push to ban drinking. Ever heard of Prohibition? It failed so dismally, that for the first and only time, the US repealed an amendment to its Constitution. But it came back, not quite so religious this time, sort of as a "save the children" idea. Technically, each state has its own drinking age, but since the Federal government threatened to cut off highway funding to states that didn't raise that age to 21, it's really a national thing.
I don't drink; never have. But I'm not stupid enough to think that people actually wait until they're 21. Also, making an arbitrary call on when someone's allowed to drink can have some pretty nasty side effects, as many, many 21st birthdays consist of getting as drunk as possible. I say, let people decide when they're able to handle it, if they want. There'd be less pressure, at least, for kids to get drunk to prove themselves to their friends.