And Oil companies sprung forth propped up by government, as well... You do know that, right? Do you consider their manner of origin so truly different, or are you being intellectually dishonest?
- wrong, the government stepped in to destroy the most profitable company in the world when it took down Standard Oil, which was built in a free market economy by a person competing against others to the best of his abilities. Government destroyed that company, since then oil products never went lower in price.
Not to be a dick... But you're better than that argument. Buggy whips. They're the massively capitally invested energy source du jour, nothing more. There were energy sources before them, there shall be energy sources after them.
- Ha! They are providing the cheapest form of energy ever known to man kind on this planet, they are also providing the most important chemicals used across all industries, from food to medicine to materials, you name something, it uses oil to exist.
Buggy whip was no longer useful when it was replaced by a car. To argue that solar and wind are the modern cars is the disingenuous argument and no, I don't think you are better than that but then I don't give a rats ass about being a dick.
Depends on your definition of merits. If the merit of oil, gas, and coal is that it is cheap, then sure, you're right.
- as far as the market is concerned that's the only thing that matters, but no, they are not only cheap. They are the most convenient.
They are the most transportable, the most convenient to use, the fastest to use, the best in terms of energy density (unless we are going to get our nuclear cars, I am all for nuclear cars).
But you know as well as I that it is cheap because of massive amounts of public dollars going into its exploration and development.
- wrong. There is no 'public dollars' going into exploration, unless of-course you are talking about loans that some companies get from banks (and they are not loaning in this market, not even to oil and gas developers, thanks to idiotic public policy of money destruction through inflation). If banks are in any way 'public' that's a problem in itself that needs to be solved by removing government from money and interest rate manipulation, from business oppression, but that's a different story.
Again with this bullshit. You know *damn* well the fossil fuel industry has *nothing* to do with the free market. You're lying through your teeth.
- clearly oil and gas demand is some of the most free market there is out there, sold internationally to the highest bidders.
Yes, cartels manipulation production but they are manipulating production up, which is great for the consumers.
I am not anywhere near done with my arguments but I am tired of bullshit that I read here.
that there is no hidden cost to their snake oil, and that it is folly to look elsewhere for energy.
- well that's nonsense, quite the opposite seems to be happening everywhere. Solar and other alternative energy companies are springing up propped up by tax money, taxes that are extracted from the general population via direct taxation, borrowing, inflation. AFAIC all businesses must survive on merits dictated by the free market, not by any government.
Saying that oil, gas, coal businesses are peddling 'snake oil' is at the very least weird. They are delivering energy and chemical products used in 95% of our daily lives, in everything, from manufacturing and food to shipping, energy of all forms, roads, construction, medicine, everything. To say that solar or wind can replace oil and gas and coal on merits today is disingenuous.
The free market may decide to replace oil and gas and coal when the prices become right for it.
The costs of global warming--literally, one planet--would bankrupt them if they ever actually had to pay for the damage in a lawsuit or under a new law.
- stop and explain something to me right now: are these companies PROVIDING you with the oil and gas products or are they USING them and producing the carbon emissions themselves?
WHY IS IT THAT THE EFFECTS ON CLIMATE ARE SOMEHOW ON THE SUPPLIER OF OIL AND GAS PRODUCTS AS OPPOSED TO ON THE USER?
What does that means: these oil and gas (and coal of-course) companies are responsible for putting out all of this pollution, aren't the consumers of these energy resources the actual polluters?
Who is forcing anybody to live on this planet exactly and how would this planet sustain 8,000,000,000 people or so (and eventually more) if companies did not provide people with energy sources required for this human expansion?
Under this logic shouldn't farmers and doctors and scientists and engineers be responsible for the expansion of the human race, which is really where the pollution is coming from - the human race, not companies that supply human race with energy, food, shelter, medicine, utilities, etc.?
Nothing at all will happen. Putin doesn't care about this 'revelation' any more than he or his cohorts cared about information released about the Attorney General of Russia Chaika and his children (video) This person still keeps going strong, so do his children, and the information released about them ties them to the criminal organization responsible for the biggest case of multiple murders including little children in Russia in the last decade.
As an astronomy minor I can appreciate the reactions that take place in the core of a star. There is likely a trace of oxygen above the core, since we do detect traces of many materials in a star spectrum but the core is where thermonuclear reactions take place, that's where you would see material conversion. Photosphere, etc., do not consist of pure oxygen. To read a story like that on the first of April does not add any certainty that this makes any sense, most likely a hoax. The story said: almost purr oxygen atmosphere. Most likely a hoax.
Apple car with only one button. You don't get into it, it wraps around you. It doesn't drive you anywhere, it just changes your perception of what is around you so you don't want to go anywhere else.
Also maybe it won't blow you away but just blow you.
I am precisely on point. You have had laws that were pro slavery. You had 'slave codes' no less. Without these laws in the American Republic you couldn't justify slavery. Slavery in the USA was 'justified' by using the Bible no less, a Christian could not enslave a Christian, so all that had to be worked around.
Blacks in the America also owned property prior to 1600s, they also owned slaves, do you realise that? My point stands, you were saying that you needed laws to abolish slavery, I pointed out that you had laws that made slavery legal in the first place.
Sure sure, slavery existed before laws existed on this planet and it wasn't America that started slavery obviously, slavery existed since we invented the first weapons I bet. However for whatever reason there was always a government involved in promoting and making slavery legal ever since governments existed on this planet as well.
Making laws about abolishing slavery by governments that were the principle drivers of slavery since governments existed is a very dubious argument. I argue that governments have to treat people as equal under law and the criminal code, and criminal code can simply deal with slavery as with any other case of kidnapping and torture.
Man, talk about a slippery slope argument. I believe in helping the less fortunate*, but that is balanced against my needs and the needs of people who depend on me in some way. Like any other economic principle, there are tradeoffs.
- except it is not a slippery slope argument because it is actually the fact of what is happening collectively.
USA (and some other countries, but the USA is an extreme example of this) is in debt. It is in so much debt (hundreds of trillions of combined debt nationally, on State and municipal levels, personal, education, health care, all that stuff together) that the debt cannot and will not be repaid.
What is this debt used for? Well, huge portion of it is going towards the social programs, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, etc. Yes, large portion of it is going towards military (and USA should stop that). But my point is that it is not a slippery slope when in fact you are thousands of percent over your capacity to repay something and you are still getting into this debt so that you can have that lifestyle and all of those social programs as well as run a gigantic military all at the same time.
It's not a slippery slope, you are down in that ditch.
110%? Will you give up everything and go into debt out of compassion for others?
200%?
When will you say: can't do it anymore, they are multiplying faster than I find compassion and they want or even need more than it takes me to live comfortably or even to survive?
Will you be a slave to your own compassion?
I don't find it compassionate at all to breed dependency, I find it disgusting.
I am not a libertarian, I am an anarcho-capitalist, but that's just a nitpick.
Cost effective automation replacing 50% of current jobs due to market pressure hopefully (I say hopefully but of-course we both know that in reality it is not the free market that is only at play here unfortunately, minimum wage and other labour laws, various business regulations is what drives a large portion of the automation).
Given 2 parts of your scenario: maximum liberty and maximum automation of current jobs it stands to reason that the automation happens mostly due to market pressures, can we assert that?
1. If the automation is the result of market manipulation by the government then we cannot assert that 'it happens in all countries'. 2. If the automation is result of market pressure absent government manipulation it stands to reason that in fact individual freedom is largely winning on the world stage, because productivity follows the path of least resistance, which is why jobs leave for countries with fewer regulations and taxes.
So in your scenario we have global market pressure in a mostly free market capitalist system that is mostly free from government oppression.
Under those conditions the wages are not manipulated by any number of government agencies, so individual humans are fully employable other than their current position is automated away.
I hire more people than some other companies because my per person costs are lower, I can hire more people if prices go down because by hiring more people I can in fact increase my own productivity.
My productivity (my output) is based on the capital investment that I apply and on the amount of labour that I can afford. The more labour I can afford the higher my output is. My clients would be only happy to see me do more for them at lower prices, my prices can (and DO!) go down as I find ways to lower my costs.
My costs are largely payroll, taxes, rent, hardware, utilities (in that order). Should my largest portion of the cost go down in price (payroll) I should be able to lower my prices and gain more business by providing more customers with my services, those customers who are priced out of my services currently.
What I am telling you that in a free market environment (and I try to set up a system for myself to maximise my own freedom regardless of what the oppressive governments around me are trying to do) any people automated away in some companies should be able to find employment because they will agree to lower wages.
Simultaneously lower wages lead to lower prices for customers.
In your scenario I expect prices for wages (salaries) and prices for products and services to fall, while I also expect more and more companies to be created specifically because people who start companies are mostly put off by high business costs they have to handle especially when a business is new.
I expect an enormous economic boom under your scenario, not any type of a catastrophe. I expect standard of living for everybody to go up at a much higher rate than before at lower costs of achieving it as well. I expect the working hours to shorten as well, while the productive output to increase.
Your libertarian worldview falls to pieces when there exist corrupt individuals.
- what is a 'corrupt individual' exactly and how does that affect me on the scale of a government exactly?
Given the right circumstances anybody can be as 'corrupt' as it can get, I am not a libertarian, I am an anarcho capitalist just to have the nomenclature right, by the way. I don't need individual people to be good, I count on them being greedy, selfish, self centred. What I do need is ensuring that government cannot be captured by any specific type of people who I expect to be greedy, selfish and self centred.
I don't have a problem with businesses trying their best to make money, I have a problem with society using oppression at the level of government for its 'social' goals.
Do you know why I would always support this? Because I am not at all amused by people always trying to increase taxes upon somebody who makes more than themselves, while they are always finding reasons why they personally shouldn't be taxed.
Let me tell you what I think, I think people who make more money are more productive individuals (specifically if they are making money that is not tied to government in any way). They do more for society than society does for them AFAIC. Those who make less money are not contributing to society much, they are contributing on a much lower scale and they should be the ones forced (not 'asked', as the facetious collectivists like to propose, people are forced to pay taxes, not asked to pay taxes) to do more.
Not today, but maybe a few years from today, especially if I can help it. I am very interested in covering this segment of the market and working steadily towards that goal.
Obviously I disagree completely. When I was just creating free source software (like you mentioned you are doing today) that was one thing. I actually employ people and I have to make payroll every month, it takes a different kind of effort to start and run a company that employs people while serving the needs of the market than just creating free source software, where no profit is actually required for that to be done. I don't see any purpose at all in paying a large group of people to exist where they are not being productive to the society since they are not producing anything that I or others can actually consume.
Of-course you are welcome to work for others without expecting them to produce something back for your enjoyment, I don't do charity in the world where I am already taxed to the point that I have to figure out ways to reduce that tax load rather than just using my maximum potential to be as productive as I can without spending time and effort simply to keep what I earn.
It doesn't matter one bit how 'rich' you think the 'country' is if there are no businesses that use those natural resources to produce actual products and services that people desire to consume (which is the entire point of an economy). The ever multiplying army of do-nothing, create-nothing crowd, that still will continue with the rallying cries of class warfare regardless of how much they actually depend on the productive segment of the society, I don't have any use for that type of a setup.
Roads are nothing at all for private enterprise, many roads are built and maintained and ran privately (all should be built and maintained and ran privately, except that the government monopolised this market segment and diverted a gigantic amount of resources that should have not been wasted like that to that).
I don't see any purpose for government involvement with defence either. Private enterprise is more than capable of handling military contracts should the need arise, and these military contracts should be paid for upfront with people interested in running a war purchasing bonds from those private companies.
Everything else that you are talking about is insurance. There is 0 reason for government interfering with insurance. AFAIC insurance is corrupted and destroyed by government interference.
But I see no change coming in that model. Not even a hint of it.
- I can't read the future as clearly as that, I say there is a chance, but for this chance to exist the current system must crash and it will.
then as technology increases our leverage, and as the idea becomes embedded in the national mindset, the basic income is increased, raising everyone's standard of living, while the available ceiling for what is presently unlimited acquisition of wealth drops.
- personally I am 100% against every bit of this idea, given that you are requiring that the State controls our lives, productivity, earnings, etc. Not a chance that myself (or somebody like myself) would ever comply or support any of it. So we will keep being on the opposite sides of this issue forever and we will obviously do what we see as necessary to work towards our own goals.
Nor are the ideas that there might no longer be any billionaires, or that no one might own a yacht, anything that upset me at all.
- I think you are not really looking at this situation in its totality. I was born in the USSR, nobody had yachts (except that the government officials pretty much owned the entire country, so in principle they commanded the war fleet, if you can counts such things as 'yachts'). The point is that a system like that requires an authoritarian regime that many try to escape.
It requires a very oppressive regime, extremely deadly in every way. People are thrown into crazy houses, jails, shot, their property is confiscated because they find ways around your utopian society's ideology and methods.
Correct, the real estate market as well as stock market and bond market (and other) bubbles that are created by the government manipulating the money supply (inflating) and by manipulating interest rates for various forms of debt cause the prices denominated in USD to go up without creating any actual productivity. All of this inflates the GDP (which is supposed to be adjusted with a deflater, this deflater is of-course a government number that makes 0 sense, the real inflation is in double digits). All of this causes prices to go up without any gains in productivity, in fact rather than gains we have losses in productivity due to investment capital outflow.
Nobody who works for me in other countries can bring me a coffee, which is why I still have a few people working for me locally but everything can change. A coffee machine will automate those jobs away just as well given enough incentive.
Slashdot Mirror
And Oil companies sprung forth propped up by government, as well... You do know that, right? Do you consider their manner of origin so truly different, or are you being intellectually dishonest?
- wrong, the government stepped in to destroy the most profitable company in the world when it took down Standard Oil, which was built in a free market economy by a person competing against others to the best of his abilities. Government destroyed that company, since then oil products never went lower in price.
Not to be a dick... But you're better than that argument. Buggy whips. They're the massively capitally invested energy source du jour, nothing more. There were energy sources before them, there shall be energy sources after them.
- Ha! They are providing the cheapest form of energy ever known to man kind on this planet, they are also providing the most important chemicals used across all industries, from food to medicine to materials, you name something, it uses oil to exist.
Buggy whip was no longer useful when it was replaced by a car. To argue that solar and wind are the modern cars is the disingenuous argument and no, I don't think you are better than that but then I don't give a rats ass about being a dick.
Depends on your definition of merits. If the merit of oil, gas, and coal is that it is cheap, then sure, you're right.
- as far as the market is concerned that's the only thing that matters, but no, they are not only cheap. They are the most convenient.
They are the most transportable, the most convenient to use, the fastest to use, the best in terms of energy density (unless we are going to get our nuclear cars, I am all for nuclear cars).
But you know as well as I that it is cheap because of massive amounts of public dollars going into its exploration and development.
- wrong. There is no 'public dollars' going into exploration, unless of-course you are talking about loans that some companies get from banks (and they are not loaning in this market, not even to oil and gas developers, thanks to idiotic public policy of money destruction through inflation). If banks are in any way 'public' that's a problem in itself that needs to be solved by removing government from money and interest rate manipulation, from business oppression, but that's a different story.
Again with this bullshit. You know *damn* well the fossil fuel industry has *nothing* to do with the free market. You're lying through your teeth.
- clearly oil and gas demand is some of the most free market there is out there, sold internationally to the highest bidders.
Yes, cartels manipulation production but they are manipulating production up, which is great for the consumers.
I am not anywhere near done with my arguments but I am tired of bullshit that I read here.
that there is no hidden cost to their snake oil, and that it is folly to look elsewhere for energy.
- well that's nonsense, quite the opposite seems to be happening everywhere. Solar and other alternative energy companies are springing up propped up by tax money, taxes that are extracted from the general population via direct taxation, borrowing, inflation. AFAIC all businesses must survive on merits dictated by the free market, not by any government.
Saying that oil, gas, coal businesses are peddling 'snake oil' is at the very least weird. They are delivering energy and chemical products used in 95% of our daily lives, in everything, from manufacturing and food to shipping, energy of all forms, roads, construction, medicine, everything. To say that solar or wind can replace oil and gas and coal on merits today is disingenuous.
The free market may decide to replace oil and gas and coal when the prices become right for it.
dozens of movies have done this.
How about Terminator 3 - self driving vehicles, controlled by a maniacal bitchbot...
The costs of global warming--literally, one planet--would bankrupt them if they ever actually had to pay for the damage in a lawsuit or under a new law.
- stop and explain something to me right now: are these companies PROVIDING you with the oil and gas products or are they USING them and producing the carbon emissions themselves?
WHY IS IT THAT THE EFFECTS ON CLIMATE ARE SOMEHOW ON THE SUPPLIER OF OIL AND GAS PRODUCTS AS OPPOSED TO ON THE USER?
What does that means: these oil and gas (and coal of-course) companies are responsible for putting out all of this pollution, aren't the consumers of these energy resources the actual polluters?
Who is forcing anybody to live on this planet exactly and how would this planet sustain 8,000,000,000 people or so (and eventually more) if companies did not provide people with energy sources required for this human expansion?
Under this logic shouldn't farmers and doctors and scientists and engineers be responsible for the expansion of the human race, which is really where the pollution is coming from - the human race, not companies that supply human race with energy, food, shelter, medicine, utilities, etc.?
Nothing at all will happen. Putin doesn't care about this 'revelation' any more than he or his cohorts cared about information released about the Attorney General of Russia Chaika and his children (video) This person still keeps going strong, so do his children, and the information released about them ties them to the criminal organization responsible for the biggest case of multiple murders including little children in Russia in the last decade.
Well, if it's not a hoax it would be unprecedented for a star, we will find out eventually if it is confirmed.
As an astronomy minor I can appreciate the reactions that take place in the core of a star. There is likely a trace of oxygen above the core, since we do detect traces of many materials in a star spectrum but the core is where thermonuclear reactions take place, that's where you would see material conversion. Photosphere, etc., do not consist of pure oxygen. To read a story like that on the first of April does not add any certainty that this makes any sense, most likely a hoax. The story said: almost purr oxygen atmosphere. Most likely a hoax.
Norths Koreas Launches Missiles ands Tries To Jamsssssssssssssssssssssss GPSs Signalss.
Apple car with only one button. You don't get into it, it wraps around you. It doesn't drive you anywhere, it just changes your perception of what is around you so you don't want to go anywhere else.
Also maybe it won't blow you away but just blow you.
Thank you, magic fairy, my day is a bit brighter now!
I never know whether news articles are serious or fake.
- a star with an Oxygen atmosphere could have been a dead give away but then again, public education system....
I miss OMG PONIES meme.
I am precisely on point. You have had laws that were pro slavery. You had 'slave codes' no less. Without these laws in the American Republic you couldn't justify slavery. Slavery in the USA was 'justified' by using the Bible no less, a Christian could not enslave a Christian, so all that had to be worked around.
Blacks in the America also owned property prior to 1600s, they also owned slaves, do you realise that? My point stands, you were saying that you needed laws to abolish slavery, I pointed out that you had laws that made slavery legal in the first place.
Sure sure, slavery existed before laws existed on this planet and it wasn't America that started slavery obviously, slavery existed since we invented the first weapons I bet. However for whatever reason there was always a government involved in promoting and making slavery legal ever since governments existed on this planet as well.
Making laws about abolishing slavery by governments that were the principle drivers of slavery since governments existed is a very dubious argument. I argue that governments have to treat people as equal under law and the criminal code, and criminal code can simply deal with slavery as with any other case of kidnapping and torture.
Man, talk about a slippery slope argument. I believe in helping the less fortunate*, but that is balanced against my needs and the needs of people who depend on me in some way. Like any other economic principle, there are tradeoffs.
- except it is not a slippery slope argument because it is actually the fact of what is happening collectively.
USA (and some other countries, but the USA is an extreme example of this) is in debt. It is in so much debt (hundreds of trillions of combined debt nationally, on State and municipal levels, personal, education, health care, all that stuff together) that the debt cannot and will not be repaid.
What is this debt used for? Well, huge portion of it is going towards the social programs, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, etc. Yes, large portion of it is going towards military (and USA should stop that). But my point is that it is not a slippery slope when in fact you are thousands of percent over your capacity to repay something and you are still getting into this debt so that you can have that lifestyle and all of those social programs as well as run a gigantic military all at the same time.
It's not a slippery slope, you are down in that ditch.
such as the liberty to own slaves. (It's probably a good idea to have that law. Don't get me wrong
- except that ability to own slaves was the law in itself, the law started slavery.
Most of you are idiots, so...
Compassion is all great up to a point. So how much of your life output are you willing to give up for others before you say: enough?
10%? Probably more? 30%? 50%? 70%? 90%? 99%? 99.999%? 100%?
110%? Will you give up everything and go into debt out of compassion for others?
200%?
When will you say: can't do it anymore, they are multiplying faster than I find compassion and they want or even need more than it takes me to live comfortably or even to survive?
Will you be a slave to your own compassion?
I don't find it compassionate at all to breed dependency, I find it disgusting.
I am not a libertarian, I am an anarcho-capitalist, but that's just a nitpick.
Cost effective automation replacing 50% of current jobs due to market pressure hopefully (I say hopefully but of-course we both know that in reality it is not the free market that is only at play here unfortunately, minimum wage and other labour laws, various business regulations is what drives a large portion of the automation).
Given 2 parts of your scenario: maximum liberty and maximum automation of current jobs it stands to reason that the automation happens mostly due to market pressures, can we assert that?
1. If the automation is the result of market manipulation by the government then we cannot assert that 'it happens in all countries'.
2. If the automation is result of market pressure absent government manipulation it stands to reason that in fact individual freedom is largely winning on the world stage, because productivity follows the path of least resistance, which is why jobs leave for countries with fewer regulations and taxes.
So in your scenario we have global market pressure in a mostly free market capitalist system that is mostly free from government oppression.
Under those conditions the wages are not manipulated by any number of government agencies, so individual humans are fully employable other than their current position is automated away.
I hire more people than some other companies because my per person costs are lower, I can hire more people if prices go down because by hiring more people I can in fact increase my own productivity.
My productivity (my output) is based on the capital investment that I apply and on the amount of labour that I can afford. The more labour I can afford the higher my output is. My clients would be only happy to see me do more for them at lower prices, my prices can (and DO!) go down as I find ways to lower my costs.
My costs are largely payroll, taxes, rent, hardware, utilities (in that order). Should my largest portion of the cost go down in price (payroll) I should be able to lower my prices and gain more business by providing more customers with my services, those customers who are priced out of my services currently.
What I am telling you that in a free market environment (and I try to set up a system for myself to maximise my own freedom regardless of what the oppressive governments around me are trying to do) any people automated away in some companies should be able to find employment because they will agree to lower wages.
Simultaneously lower wages lead to lower prices for customers.
In your scenario I expect prices for wages (salaries) and prices for products and services to fall, while I also expect more and more companies to be created specifically because people who start companies are mostly put off by high business costs they have to handle especially when a business is new.
I expect an enormous economic boom under your scenario, not any type of a catastrophe. I expect standard of living for everybody to go up at a much higher rate than before at lower costs of achieving it as well. I expect the working hours to shorten as well, while the productive output to increase.
Your libertarian worldview falls to pieces when there exist corrupt individuals.
- what is a 'corrupt individual' exactly and how does that affect me on the scale of a government exactly?
Given the right circumstances anybody can be as 'corrupt' as it can get, I am not a libertarian, I am an anarcho capitalist just to have the nomenclature right, by the way. I don't need individual people to be good, I count on them being greedy, selfish, self centred. What I do need is ensuring that government cannot be captured by any specific type of people who I expect to be greedy, selfish and self centred.
I don't have a problem with businesses trying their best to make money, I have a problem with society using oppression at the level of government for its 'social' goals.
I disagree completely. You are taxing work and incentivising idleness. I would go the other way around altogether:
>=1,000,000: 0% tax.
>=900,000: 1% tax.
>=800,000: 2% tax.
>=700,000: 3% tax.
>=600,000: 4% tax.
>=500,000: 5% tax.
>=400,000: 6% tax.
>=300,000: 7% tax.
>=200,000: 8% tax.
>=100,000: 9% tax.
>=90,000: 10% tax.
>=80,000: 11% tax.
>=70,000: 12% tax.
>=60,000: 13% tax.
>=50,000: 14% tax.
>=40,000: 15% tax.
>=30,000: 16% tax.
>=20,000: 17% tax.
>=10,000: 18% tax.
Do you know why I would always support this? Because I am not at all amused by people always trying to increase taxes upon somebody who makes more than themselves, while they are always finding reasons why they personally shouldn't be taxed.
Let me tell you what I think, I think people who make more money are more productive individuals (specifically if they are making money that is not tied to government in any way). They do more for society than society does for them AFAIC. Those who make less money are not contributing to society much, they are contributing on a much lower scale and they should be the ones forced (not 'asked', as the facetious collectivists like to propose, people are forced to pay taxes, not asked to pay taxes) to do more.
Not today, but maybe a few years from today, especially if I can help it. I am very interested in covering this segment of the market and working steadily towards that goal.
Of-course they are novelty today. Just like cars were a novelty back in 1769.
Obviously I disagree completely. When I was just creating free source software (like you mentioned you are doing today) that was one thing. I actually employ people and I have to make payroll every month, it takes a different kind of effort to start and run a company that employs people while serving the needs of the market than just creating free source software, where no profit is actually required for that to be done. I don't see any purpose at all in paying a large group of people to exist where they are not being productive to the society since they are not producing anything that I or others can actually consume.
Of-course you are welcome to work for others without expecting them to produce something back for your enjoyment, I don't do charity in the world where I am already taxed to the point that I have to figure out ways to reduce that tax load rather than just using my maximum potential to be as productive as I can without spending time and effort simply to keep what I earn.
It doesn't matter one bit how 'rich' you think the 'country' is if there are no businesses that use those natural resources to produce actual products and services that people desire to consume (which is the entire point of an economy). The ever multiplying army of do-nothing, create-nothing crowd, that still will continue with the rallying cries of class warfare regardless of how much they actually depend on the productive segment of the society, I don't have any use for that type of a setup.
Roads are nothing at all for private enterprise, many roads are built and maintained and ran privately (all should be built and maintained and ran privately, except that the government monopolised this market segment and diverted a gigantic amount of resources that should have not been wasted like that to that).
I don't see any purpose for government involvement with defence either. Private enterprise is more than capable of handling military contracts should the need arise, and these military contracts should be paid for upfront with people interested in running a war purchasing bonds from those private companies.
Everything else that you are talking about is insurance. There is 0 reason for government interfering with insurance. AFAIC insurance is corrupted and destroyed by government interference.
But I see no change coming in that model. Not even a hint of it.
- I can't read the future as clearly as that, I say there is a chance, but for this chance to exist the current system must crash and it will.
then as technology increases our leverage, and as the idea becomes embedded in the national mindset, the basic income is increased, raising everyone's standard of living, while the available ceiling for what is presently unlimited acquisition of wealth drops.
- personally I am 100% against every bit of this idea, given that you are requiring that the State controls our lives, productivity, earnings, etc. Not a chance that myself (or somebody like myself) would ever comply or support any of it. So we will keep being on the opposite sides of this issue forever and we will obviously do what we see as necessary to work towards our own goals.
Nor are the ideas that there might no longer be any billionaires, or that no one might own a yacht, anything that upset me at all.
- I think you are not really looking at this situation in its totality. I was born in the USSR, nobody had yachts (except that the government officials pretty much owned the entire country, so in principle they commanded the war fleet, if you can counts such things as 'yachts'). The point is that a system like that requires an authoritarian regime that many try to escape.
It requires a very oppressive regime, extremely deadly in every way. People are thrown into crazy houses, jails, shot, their property is confiscated because they find ways around your utopian society's ideology and methods.
Then of-course there
If you're talking about a coffee machine that can smile, engage in light pleasantries and bring the coffee to your table, it's gonna cost plenty.
- I don't think it will cost that much, there are already restaurants using robots today, not a big deal.
Correct, the real estate market as well as stock market and bond market (and other) bubbles that are created by the government manipulating the money supply (inflating) and by manipulating interest rates for various forms of debt cause the prices denominated in USD to go up without creating any actual productivity. All of this inflates the GDP (which is supposed to be adjusted with a deflater, this deflater is of-course a government number that makes 0 sense, the real inflation is in double digits). All of this causes prices to go up without any gains in productivity, in fact rather than gains we have losses in productivity due to investment capital outflow.
Nobody who works for me in other countries can bring me a coffee, which is why I still have a few people working for me locally but everything can change. A coffee machine will automate those jobs away just as well given enough incentive.