Time is the ultimate limited resource. Sure, iron may not be limited, but there's not much you can do if someone says "there's iron in that hill there." You need someone to spend the time to make it into something useful. It is from the limited nature of time that nearly all other scarcity is derived.
Regarding your fusion idea, what if we spent $300 billion a year for 5 years and ended up with nothing? That's an awfully big risk you propose taking for something as unpredictable as a scientific breakthrough. If fusion is feasable, we'll make it work. But making it the focus of our entire country, without really knowing for certain if we can do it simply doesn't make sense.
Most libertarians (such as myself) still favor a small amount of regulation. Mostly to keep down monopolies, retain intellectual property (though with a MUCH shorter time horizon, maybe 10 years for copyrights, 5 for patents), and prosecute fraud.
The last line in your post reminds me of another quote "Democracy is the worst system of government on earth... except for every other type." I feel the same way about the free market. Economics is not called "the dismal science" for nothing. When you're dealing with limited resources, there's never a perfect solution, but at least this one sucks less than all the others.
First of all, the UK was still fairly mercantilistic in the 18th century. It wasn't until the 19th century when they demolished most of their remaining trade barriers. And THAT, as you may know, was when the industrial revolution really took hold, making the country fabulously wealthy. Of course, there was something of a perception of increased poverty (mainly because the people formerly living as sustinance farmers were now moving into the cities, becoming wealthier than they were in the country, but not so wealthy as the existing city residents).
I have no idea what to make of your point about running out of time and money. A free market is all about allocating limited resources (notably time and money) according to people's preferences. All time and money is accounted for, even if the time is spent relaxing, and the money is stuffed under a mattress, so really, I have no idea what you're talking about.
It is true that we have not found a magic bullet for helping developing nations. Certainly most of the strategies employed over the last 60 years have performed poorly everywhere except Asia. The one constant though has been the central planning doesn't work. Nowhere ever has a centrally planned economy brought anything but ruin (Russia, the middle east, North vs. South Korea, the PRC vs. Hong Kong and the DRC, central america, the list of failed collectivist governments is almost endless). The debate then is about the rules of the capitalist game. Should a country impose import duties, and if so on which goods and at what levels? What constitutes a monopoly, and what should we do about monopolies? But selectivly aiding and beating down particular (non-monopolistic) companies gets you right back into central planning.
The other debate is on how a country can get its population to participate in an economy and respect the rule of law. A country like Russia cannot simply snap their fingers and say "we're capitalist," and expect all of the black markets to suddenly start getting legit business licenses, play by the rules, and pay taxes. When homes and land become abandoned, as often happens in the war and famine ridden third world, who should get the property? If someone moves into that property, does it become theirs? Who makes sure it was really abandoned in the first place? Questions like these, as well as dismally small tax revenues make it exceptionally difficult for the developing world to get started.
Finally, in regards to your last paragraph, I should point out that the growth of business has directly mirrored the growth of the government. The "mom'and'pop" days you so fondly refer to were by and large much less regulated (although I'm curious when exactly you are referring to. The days of AT&T's telecom monopoly? The Great Depression? The heyday of the Robber Barons? Or are we talking about the days before the industrial revolution, when perhaps 20% of the population was below the poverty line?)
Huh, maybe early PC laptops bit ass, I used mac in those days. With all the powersaving options on, I'd generally get 4+ hours of work out of them on a single (NiCad) battery. Granted, a CD rom drive would chew up power, but I rarely need cds when I'm working. I use it for installing software, and sometimes playing games, but in those situations I'm usually plugged in anyway.
Heh, I like the way the entire slashdot page goes into an aqua theme when you're on an apple page. I wonder if the other topics will get themes as we..
With the computer technology we have, we ought to be able to make exceptionally low power laptops. Fuck the color screen, and the high processing power, just give me enough to do word processing, spreadsheets, and view course material in PDF format and make the batteries last 8+ hours. There's nothing more frustrating than getting on a 6 hour flight and knowing that you're laptop's going to be out of power half way through the flight.
This is one of the things that really excited me about Transmeta. Here was a company that seemed to be saying "no, it's not top of the line performance, it won't run Quake, but it can do all your work and keep your laptop running a long, long time." Unfortunately, all the OEMs seem to be stuck in a bigger/better/faster mindset, and don't realize that some of us actually miss the early days of laptops.
Now you've got the same damn thing with palmtops. I'm hearing about iPaqs now that only last 8 hours before they need to be recharged? Fuck that, give me a black and white Palm any day.
Unless you are actually involved in the purchasing of computer software for your computer, I'm almost certain you're wrong. We have the same "download for free from the university" system here at Brown, but the reason it's "free" is because the university paid Microsoft for a couple thousand seat site license.
According to the Bureau of Labor, inflation was 2.7% in 1999, 3.5% in 2000, and 3.7% in 2001. So, altogether, a $9.99 service should cost $11.01, a 10% price hike. If inflation is 4% from now on, then the price should hit $13 sometimes in 2006.
It's also worth noting that the CPI uses a fixed basket of goods, and therefore has a tendancy to overstate inflaion (if the price of beef goes through the roof, you'll probably eat more pork, but the CPI will still factor in the full impact of the spike in beef prices).
Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman comics, wrote the english dialog. Apparently, he had to spend a LOT of time making sure that the mouths matched up with the words he was writing in, so it's understandable that most low budget dubs don't bother.
He was talking about gross in Japan. As you may or may not know, prior to Titanic, the recordholder in Japan was another Miyazaki anime, Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). Disney also imported that film, with Neil Gaiman rewriting the dialoge.
Sadly, silicone implants are still illegal in the US due to concerns that they might cause breast cancer. I don't think any studies actually showed this, but my guess is a bunch of aging ex-strippers heard about someone with implants who got breast cancer, smelled money, and all started complaining about psychosomatic pains
I have heard, however, that it is possible to make saline breast implants that can be filled and deflated as desired, but the tubes would probably look a little funny when one was naked, so I don't think it's exactly a standard procedure
Actually, I believe the US has decomissioned our largest bombs (greater than 5 megatons), simply because there aren't any targets large enough to warrant using them. Even if there were, we could just send a half dozen cheaper 1 megaton bombs and get better damage dispersal anyway.
As you probably know, game theory has long been a mainstay of econmics, the most simple and well known example being the Prisoner's Dilemma. Computers allow us to create and understand far more complicated games, so well crafted games can certainly further our understanding of how people act in certain situations, under certain constraints.
This actually reminds me of an article I read a while back, before SimCity 2000, about Maxis doing contract work for some oil company to create SimOilRefinery, to help the company plan out their refineries.
Les Vadasz says "This technology is not going to be put back in the bottle," he said. "They can slow down progress, but they cannot stop it."
Unfortunately, he's wrong. Perhaps he's never heard of the Greeks and the Romans? The Greeks got as far as inventing mechanical calculators, while the Romans had central heating. These technologies were not rediscovered until the last couple hundred years.
Never, ever make the mistake of thinking that our prosperity must last forever. We could fall at any time, and it's a long way down.
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (you can do your own damn google searches if you want more)
Re:Google doesn't accept money, but accepts cheate
on
Search Engine Payola
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· Score: 1
Still, this solution is more obviously underhanded than simply paying the search engine, and is therefore less likely to be used by legitimate (non porn) companies. Also, it seems like it would be fairly expensive to buy all of those domains, probably more expensive than buying a high ranking on Lycos, which acts as another disincentive, and will also insure that only the most high margin sites would be able to profit from such a method of self promotion.
The mp3 player part is important, I think. Carrying an external hard drive around in a computer store might look suspicious, but an mp3 player wouldn't. Plus, you could just load one or two songs on to "prove" to the employees that you were actually using it to play mp3s, not steal software.
What about gays who get married in Hawaii, but their marriage is not recognized in any of the other 49 states? Sounds like your friend may need to do a bit of brushing up on his legal knowledge.
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson
This was actually taken from Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I've forgotten which of the morally despicable collectivists says it, but it's not too far into it, at a party.
You're getting EULA and terms of service confused. Sony is banning people for violating terms of service. They are not, however, taking you to court for violation of your EULA. You are still free to use your EQ software, but Sony is not letting you access their servers.
In the realm of EULAs, there was a case recently (reported on/.) where someone successfully challenged the unbundling clause in an EULA (a box came with 2 cds, he split them up and resold one of them, in violation of his EULA), though I believe the decision is being appealled.
So the parent was correct, so far as I know, restrictive EULAs have not been successfully used to prosecute anyone in court.
Two reasons: 1, you invest that $60 in some sort of money market instrument and get a bit of interest (this is the standard economist point of view). 2, the price may go down, or you may be able to get a used version.
The only comment I want to make on this is that Michael Jordan didn't start playing basketball until high school. No doubt, he did other athletics prior to that, but obviously nature vs. nuture is a sticky argument indeed.
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Regarding your fusion idea, what if we spent $300 billion a year for 5 years and ended up with nothing? That's an awfully big risk you propose taking for something as unpredictable as a scientific breakthrough. If fusion is feasable, we'll make it work. But making it the focus of our entire country, without really knowing for certain if we can do it simply doesn't make sense.
The last line in your post reminds me of another quote "Democracy is the worst system of government on earth... except for every other type." I feel the same way about the free market. Economics is not called "the dismal science" for nothing. When you're dealing with limited resources, there's never a perfect solution, but at least this one sucks less than all the others.
I have no idea what to make of your point about running out of time and money. A free market is all about allocating limited resources (notably time and money) according to people's preferences. All time and money is accounted for, even if the time is spent relaxing, and the money is stuffed under a mattress, so really, I have no idea what you're talking about.
It is true that we have not found a magic bullet for helping developing nations. Certainly most of the strategies employed over the last 60 years have performed poorly everywhere except Asia. The one constant though has been the central planning doesn't work. Nowhere ever has a centrally planned economy brought anything but ruin (Russia, the middle east, North vs. South Korea, the PRC vs. Hong Kong and the DRC, central america, the list of failed collectivist governments is almost endless). The debate then is about the rules of the capitalist game. Should a country impose import duties, and if so on which goods and at what levels? What constitutes a monopoly, and what should we do about monopolies? But selectivly aiding and beating down particular (non-monopolistic) companies gets you right back into central planning.
The other debate is on how a country can get its population to participate in an economy and respect the rule of law. A country like Russia cannot simply snap their fingers and say "we're capitalist," and expect all of the black markets to suddenly start getting legit business licenses, play by the rules, and pay taxes. When homes and land become abandoned, as often happens in the war and famine ridden third world, who should get the property? If someone moves into that property, does it become theirs? Who makes sure it was really abandoned in the first place? Questions like these, as well as dismally small tax revenues make it exceptionally difficult for the developing world to get started.
Finally, in regards to your last paragraph, I should point out that the growth of business has directly mirrored the growth of the government. The "mom'and'pop" days you so fondly refer to were by and large much less regulated (although I'm curious when exactly you are referring to. The days of AT&T's telecom monopoly? The Great Depression? The heyday of the Robber Barons? Or are we talking about the days before the industrial revolution, when perhaps 20% of the population was below the poverty line?)
Huh, maybe early PC laptops bit ass, I used mac in those days. With all the powersaving options on, I'd generally get 4+ hours of work out of them on a single (NiCad) battery. Granted, a CD rom drive would chew up power, but I rarely need cds when I'm working. I use it for installing software, and sometimes playing games, but in those situations I'm usually plugged in anyway.
Heh, I like the way the entire slashdot page goes into an aqua theme when you're on an apple page. I wonder if the other topics will get themes as we..
This is one of the things that really excited me about Transmeta. Here was a company that seemed to be saying "no, it's not top of the line performance, it won't run Quake, but it can do all your work and keep your laptop running a long, long time." Unfortunately, all the OEMs seem to be stuck in a bigger/better/faster mindset, and don't realize that some of us actually miss the early days of laptops.
Now you've got the same damn thing with palmtops. I'm hearing about iPaqs now that only last 8 hours before they need to be recharged? Fuck that, give me a black and white Palm any day.
That's what I thought it said until the 3rd readthrough. Interestingly, the description holds either way.
er, switch "for your computer" with "for your school." Should have used preview...
Unless you are actually involved in the purchasing of computer software for your computer, I'm almost certain you're wrong. We have the same "download for free from the university" system here at Brown, but the reason it's "free" is because the university paid Microsoft for a couple thousand seat site license.
According to the Bureau of Labor, inflation was 2.7% in 1999, 3.5% in 2000, and 3.7% in 2001. So, altogether, a $9.99 service should cost $11.01, a 10% price hike. If inflation is 4% from now on, then the price should hit $13 sometimes in 2006.
It's also worth noting that the CPI uses a fixed basket of goods, and therefore has a tendancy to overstate inflaion (if the price of beef goes through the roof, you'll probably eat more pork, but the CPI will still factor in the full impact of the spike in beef prices).
Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman comics, wrote the english dialog. Apparently, he had to spend a LOT of time making sure that the mouths matched up with the words he was writing in, so it's understandable that most low budget dubs don't bother.
He was talking about gross in Japan. As you may or may not know, prior to Titanic, the recordholder in Japan was another Miyazaki anime, Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). Disney also imported that film, with Neil Gaiman rewriting the dialoge.
I have heard, however, that it is possible to make saline breast implants that can be filled and deflated as desired, but the tubes would probably look a little funny when one was naked, so I don't think it's exactly a standard procedure
Actually, I believe the US has decomissioned our largest bombs (greater than 5 megatons), simply because there aren't any targets large enough to warrant using them. Even if there were, we could just send a half dozen cheaper 1 megaton bombs and get better damage dispersal anyway.
This actually reminds me of an article I read a while back, before SimCity 2000, about Maxis doing contract work for some oil company to create SimOilRefinery, to help the company plan out their refineries.
Yeah, what the hell is he talking about? What do dogs have to do with the media industry?
Unfortunately, he's wrong. Perhaps he's never heard of the Greeks and the Romans? The Greeks got as far as inventing mechanical calculators, while the Romans had central heating. These technologies were not rediscovered until the last couple hundred years.
Never, ever make the mistake of thinking that our prosperity must last forever. We could fall at any time, and it's a long way down.
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (you can do your own damn google searches if you want more)
Still, this solution is more obviously underhanded than simply paying the search engine, and is therefore less likely to be used by legitimate (non porn) companies. Also, it seems like it would be fairly expensive to buy all of those domains, probably more expensive than buying a high ranking on Lycos, which acts as another disincentive, and will also insure that only the most high margin sites would be able to profit from such a method of self promotion.
The mp3 player part is important, I think. Carrying an external hard drive around in a computer store might look suspicious, but an mp3 player wouldn't. Plus, you could just load one or two songs on to "prove" to the employees that you were actually using it to play mp3s, not steal software.
What about gays who get married in Hawaii, but their marriage is not recognized in any of the other 49 states? Sounds like your friend may need to do a bit of brushing up on his legal knowledge.
This was actually taken from Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I've forgotten which of the morally despicable collectivists says it, but it's not too far into it, at a party.
In the realm of EULAs, there was a case recently (reported on /.) where someone successfully challenged the unbundling clause in an EULA (a box came with 2 cds, he split them up and resold one of them, in violation of his EULA), though I believe the decision is being appealled.
So the parent was correct, so far as I know, restrictive EULAs have not been successfully used to prosecute anyone in court.
Two reasons: 1, you invest that $60 in some sort of money market instrument and get a bit of interest (this is the standard economist point of view). 2, the price may go down, or you may be able to get a used version.
The only comment I want to make on this is that Michael Jordan didn't start playing basketball until high school. No doubt, he did other athletics prior to that, but obviously nature vs. nuture is a sticky argument indeed.