Yes, I think that absence of government is good and that government is evil by very definition. I think that all and any ills of the world do not warrant reduction of individual freedoms at all under any circumstances. Yes, governments tend to form in the power vacuum that exists when there is no centralized authority. No, that does not mean that the power vacuum being filled with a government is a good thing, it is a horrible thing, the real question is what to do to actively prevent that from happening.
How to prevent governments from forming and from stealing from individuals, stealing their freedoms, stealing their lives away from them in every possible manner resulting from the violence that government inherently is?
So for the lack of better choices today, I think MAD doctrine is the necessary response, where everybody can destroy everybody at any moment in time. I am not looking for 'stable', I am looking for freedom. I think at some point the destructive power in the hands of any individual will be of such greatness, that MAD doctrine will actually become reality. When anybody can destroy the planet, nobody can force anybody to do anything and that's a great thing.
Until the time that everybody can have their own doomsday device only very few will enjoy such power. AFAIC technological progress will lead to individual power increasing enough to the point where the collective attempting to control an individual will become nearly impossible without a large part of the collective going down in flames with the individual.
It is very unlikely that we will witness it during our lifetimes, but that should be the goal.
For those who are still very thick in the head and cannot comprehend the simplest thing since for the first time in history of this planet a rock was used to bash somebody on the head, I would like to repeat this axiom: governments = evil.
Government is an evil structure by its very definition, as it is set up to provide the collective with violent means of dominating an individual. Whatever system that is fundamentally based on violence can not and will not avoid using violence to increase its own power, and a government is seen as legitimate by its very definition, doesn't it? It's the *government* after all, it is there to serve and protect...
Here is your problem: you are not the ones it will be serving and protecting once it manages to grow its power enough with its legitimate use of violence. It will dominate and subjugate you and it will imprison you.
Government exists to use power and it ends up using its power against you, understand it and work against it. Copyrights and patents are a manner used to create monopoly power for specific individuals. Many of you believe that monopolies are the property of free market capitalism, however in a free market capitalism monopolies are temporary and their existence depends on them providing a good enough product / service in the most cost effective way possible.
With government there is no such requirement, government simply sets up monopolies and uses its violent power to maintain them. Utility companies, copyright holders, patent holders, military, education, name whatever government does and there is violence there, used to protect somebody's monopoly.
My position is that TPP is inevitable once government with violent powers exists.
Tell you what, 'your' roads are stolen property. The Internet is built privately and the government work on the protocol was one of many. Government stole the money to build the original ARPANET as well. Every single thing that you believe government is giving you came on the backs of theft, violence, murder. As to what I should do, I had the unfortunate displeasure of being born on the planet full of thieves and as such options are limited, you being happy with the situation is simply another indicator of the theft as the status quo here. AFAIC everything that government does comes from theft of private property and all forms of destruction of individual liberties, including murder in every war that governments start.
As to who is paying taxes in this system, it's easy to use the system, such as it is, to not pay income related taxes, at the very least half of the population does not, so quite the opposite, I will do as that half does - let the system work for me because it is set up this way. That does not mean at all that I want that system. I believe that this system has prevented much more wealth from being generated than what it generated itself with all this theft. Government has cut your legs off, gave you crutches and you are happy about it, moron.
Wrong, it is theft under all conditions when my money is stolen from me under the barrel of a gun (quite literally, should I refuse to pay and try to protect my private property).
Beyond that, most people who are paying most taxes are getting nothing from it that they personally need at all, but that's totally beside the real argument that all government is based on theft.
What the fuck is 'successful' then? A successful business is one where the owner makes money because the market found the business to be useful.
This compares with about 1/3 government agencies considered successful. Government beats new business every day of the week.
- ????? WTF does that mean? Government 'beats' real business? Because government STEALS money to run its department!
Government is theft, income and wealth taxes are theft, government departments are theft, government programs are theft, every single thing, without a fucking exception that governments do is based on theft!
You know, if your private business is theft you can also be quite successful, especially if it doesn't matter that you can get caught, because the entire political system says that the theft that you do is legal.
Capitalism can lead to a very great concentration of wealth and income among the capitalists, which increases poverty.
- that is wrong, concentration of wealth of some does not diminish wealth in the society. Wealth that is 'concentrated' is not transferred, it is created. Apple creates new wealth, it doesn't take it from anybody. Walmart's profits are not taking anything from anybody, those are profits that are much smaller based on the sales of items people would buy anyway (or would not buy at all, if prices were higher). Walmart's wealth concentration does not diminish wealth of the society, in fact ability of Walmart or Apple to make so much money is the proof positive that they are providing enormous benefit to the society.
The only problem with 'wealth concentration' is the fact that it is so visible by the collective that aims to steal it.
As to civil unrest, actually what leads to civil unrest is unrestrained government power, not anybody's wealth. Socialist parties will win, but them winning is the testament of destruction of wealth in the system, not concentration of wealth. In a free market capitalist system wealth is created (even if plenty of it is concentrated in few hands). In a collectivist system wealth is transferred and much less wealth is created, at that point eyes start gazing on other people's property.
My point is that there is nothing wrong with free market capitalism, the problems that the society is experiencing is due to lack of free market capitalism as opposed to abundance of it.
I would also add that the biggest mass shootings and cases of murder in the world throughout human history resulted from collectivism one way or another. Wars and genocides, from early on and until today, all done under the ideas and ideology of ganging up together as a mob against somebody else.
Every dictator uses collectivist ideas to murder people.
I will provide the same answer to this as I did to a similar question. Capitalism is private ownership and operation of property and no property owner and manager wants to spend more on something than they absolutely minimally have to and that is the expected behaviour of all humans (and of non-human systems as well, it's called entropy - equilibrium of energy states).
If you are looking for somebody to blame, look no further than for the ideas and ideology of collectivism that makes it much more cost effective to outsource and to automate than to use human labour.
As to capitalism in a free market system, that's the idea and ideology that actually reduces poverty throughout the system, as can be observed in China, that is one of the most free market capitalist systems available today and it pulled over 350 Million people out of poverty over the last 30 years.
No, people are not specifically driven by deficit, they are however products of the borked society that is what it is because the economy is fucked up. McAfee noticed that the antidepressant drug usage went up in 1980, would I say that the people on antidepressants directly cared about the deficit and the stagflation of 1970s? Probably not (some more than others), however stagflation is reflected in the mass media, it is reflected in the overall feeling throughout the society and the feelings of depression are contagious.
Getting off the gold was a symptom of government promises and expenses that cannot be paid for. Government expenses that cannot be paid for are a symptom of bad governance and in the case of USA it was caused by collectivism or the idea that government should at all participate in the economy and money management.
There is nothing unknown about the causes of rising depression in 1980, it was rooted in the economic problems of the seventies, caused by government defaulting on the gold dollar in 1971, which itself was caused by massive government spending of 1950s and 1960s, which came out of the idea that it is OK to print, borrow and spend. All of this rooted in the wrong Keynesian lessons derived from 1930s, when the depression was caused by USA Fed and government in 1925 and generally after the act of 1917, which allowed the Fed to monetise the USA debt. The Fed and the IRS were created in 1913, leading to these problems, however that is not the beginning of the story. This story began with Hamilton and his 3 reports on the economy, giving rise to the idea that central bank should exist, that government can borrow for government programs and then monetise the debt.
What do you expect?/. today is a Borg of sorts. The rich are evil here, the government must be used to solve all problems, the individual freedoms are irrelevant.
The reality is that the only real economics that works in the long run to lift all out of poverty is free market capitalism, China is showing it in its latest 40 year stretch of increasing individual freedoms and reducing the choke of the government on the private sector and it lifted over 350,000,000 people out of poverty in that time frame. USA and most of Europe on the other hand are going in the wrong direction, opposite of individual freedoms and it shows.
Many here advocate stealing from the wealthy individuals as a form of policy and control and probably personal satisfaction of bringing down somebody who is above them, well that's what is being advocated here and that's what is destroying the economy and by extension the society.
'Trickle down' economics is not about the wealthy consuming any number of personal goods, it is about savings that are re-invested that allow businesses to grow and wealth to be generated.
Walmart has done more for the USA population than its government to reduce misery in the country, but the mob doesn't understand it at all, not even slightly. Taking away the wealth of those, who are able to manage it successfully in the free market is the fastest way to destroy wealth. It's not a surprise that these sentiments are held by the modern society, uneducated in the real economics, brainwashed by the Statists and their so called 'main stream economist' puppets.
All regulations are an affront to individual freedoms and as such they are all bad. Individual freedom and non aggression of the collective to an individual is the virtue, reduction of individual freedoms by a collectivist structure (government) is evil by its very definition. There is nothing more evil than the collective abusing an individual because the collective has more guns.
Uber is a race to the bottom and a sign capitalism is starting to break down...
- go ahead and explain how is it that 'capitalism is breaking down' when in fact capitalism is taking the people who are practicing it out of poverty (the Chinese), while people who only pay lip service to it, while practicing a command economy (the Fed, all the law, taxes, welfare, departments) are experiencing economic downturn.
Like I said over the years, China is being held down by its currency peg. They have removed it and now Chinese currency will be able to go up when the USD will go down, allowing Chinese not to absorb USA the inflation created by the USA Federal reserve and the government. I fully expect Chinese to start consuming all of the products they produce, not just Flash SSD and the prices for all consumable goods will go down in Chinese currency but up in other currencies, as the Chinese money will go up in value relative to other currencies.
Slashdot Mirror
Government = Evil
That is an axiom. Some do not understand it.
Correct, because they can and because, as I said already (and was modded in a weird way) Government = Evil
I am sure that you believe that you are 'insightful' like the fools that marked you up.
Here is another reason that the government is evil, listen to the speech of the man who tried to educate the American public and died in prison in USA, a political prisoner put there for fighting against the oppression and trying to educate people.
Yes, I think that absence of government is good and that government is evil by very definition. I think that all and any ills of the world do not warrant reduction of individual freedoms at all under any circumstances. Yes, governments tend to form in the power vacuum that exists when there is no centralized authority. No, that does not mean that the power vacuum being filled with a government is a good thing, it is a horrible thing, the real question is what to do to actively prevent that from happening.
How to prevent governments from forming and from stealing from individuals, stealing their freedoms, stealing their lives away from them in every possible manner resulting from the violence that government inherently is?
So for the lack of better choices today, I think MAD doctrine is the necessary response, where everybody can destroy everybody at any moment in time. I am not looking for 'stable', I am looking for freedom. I think at some point the destructive power in the hands of any individual will be of such greatness, that MAD doctrine will actually become reality. When anybody can destroy the planet, nobody can force anybody to do anything and that's a great thing.
Until the time that everybody can have their own doomsday device only very few will enjoy such power. AFAIC technological progress will lead to individual power increasing enough to the point where the collective attempting to control an individual will become nearly impossible without a large part of the collective going down in flames with the individual.
It is very unlikely that we will witness it during our lifetimes, but that should be the goal.
For those who are still very thick in the head and cannot comprehend the simplest thing since for the first time in history of this planet a rock was used to bash somebody on the head, I would like to repeat this axiom: governments = evil.
Government is an evil structure by its very definition, as it is set up to provide the collective with violent means of dominating an individual. Whatever system that is fundamentally based on violence can not and will not avoid using violence to increase its own power, and a government is seen as legitimate by its very definition, doesn't it? It's the *government* after all, it is there to serve and protect...
Here is your problem: you are not the ones it will be serving and protecting once it manages to grow its power enough with its legitimate use of violence. It will dominate and subjugate you and it will imprison you.
I will also repeat something I said for nearly two decades now: abolish government protected copyrights and patents.
Government exists to use power and it ends up using its power against you, understand it and work against it. Copyrights and patents are a manner used to create monopoly power for specific individuals. Many of you believe that monopolies are the property of free market capitalism, however in a free market capitalism monopolies are temporary and their existence depends on them providing a good enough product / service in the most cost effective way possible.
With government there is no such requirement, government simply sets up monopolies and uses its violent power to maintain them. Utility companies, copyright holders, patent holders, military, education, name whatever government does and there is violence there, used to protect somebody's monopoly.
My position is that TPP is inevitable once government with violent powers exists.
Tell you what, 'your' roads are stolen property. The Internet is built privately and the government work on the protocol was one of many. Government stole the money to build the original ARPANET as well. Every single thing that you believe government is giving you came on the backs of theft, violence, murder. As to what I should do, I had the unfortunate displeasure of being born on the planet full of thieves and as such options are limited, you being happy with the situation is simply another indicator of the theft as the status quo here. AFAIC everything that government does comes from theft of private property and all forms of destruction of individual liberties, including murder in every war that governments start.
As to who is paying taxes in this system, it's easy to use the system, such as it is, to not pay income related taxes, at the very least half of the population does not, so quite the opposite, I will do as that half does - let the system work for me because it is set up this way. That does not mean at all that I want that system. I believe that this system has prevented much more wealth from being generated than what it generated itself with all this theft. Government has cut your legs off, gave you crutches and you are happy about it, moron.
Wrong, it is theft under all conditions when my money is stolen from me under the barrel of a gun (quite literally, should I refuse to pay and try to protect my private property).
Beyond that, most people who are paying most taxes are getting nothing from it that they personally need at all, but that's totally beside the real argument that all government is based on theft.
What the fuck is 'successful' then? A successful business is one where the owner makes money because the market found the business to be useful.
This compares with about 1/3 government agencies considered successful. Government beats new business every day of the week.
- ????? WTF does that mean? Government 'beats' real business? Because government STEALS money to run its department!
Government is theft, income and wealth taxes are theft, government departments are theft, government programs are theft, every single thing, without a fucking exception that governments do is based on theft!
You know, if your private business is theft you can also be quite successful, especially if it doesn't matter that you can get caught, because the entire political system says that the theft that you do is legal.
You can use reshippers from no-sale tax states to avoid paying your sales taxes on Amazon purchases is you like.
Capitalism can lead to a very great concentration of wealth and income among the capitalists, which increases poverty.
- that is wrong, concentration of wealth of some does not diminish wealth in the society. Wealth that is 'concentrated' is not transferred, it is created. Apple creates new wealth, it doesn't take it from anybody. Walmart's profits are not taking anything from anybody, those are profits that are much smaller based on the sales of items people would buy anyway (or would not buy at all, if prices were higher). Walmart's wealth concentration does not diminish wealth of the society, in fact ability of Walmart or Apple to make so much money is the proof positive that they are providing enormous benefit to the society.
The only problem with 'wealth concentration' is the fact that it is so visible by the collective that aims to steal it.
As to civil unrest, actually what leads to civil unrest is unrestrained government power, not anybody's wealth. Socialist parties will win, but them winning is the testament of destruction of wealth in the system, not concentration of wealth. In a free market capitalist system wealth is created (even if plenty of it is concentrated in few hands). In a collectivist system wealth is transferred and much less wealth is created, at that point eyes start gazing on other people's property.
My point is that there is nothing wrong with free market capitalism, the problems that the society is experiencing is due to lack of free market capitalism as opposed to abundance of it.
Should have added this one there too.
The first guy? Seriously? For ? First guy in the world?
I would also add that the biggest mass shootings and cases of murder in the world throughout human history resulted from collectivism one way or another. Wars and genocides, from early on and until today, all done under the ideas and ideology of ganging up together as a mob against somebody else.
Every dictator uses collectivist ideas to murder people.
I will provide the same answer to this as I did to a similar question. Capitalism is private ownership and operation of property and no property owner and manager wants to spend more on something than they absolutely minimally have to and that is the expected behaviour of all humans (and of non-human systems as well, it's called entropy - equilibrium of energy states).
If you are looking for somebody to blame, look no further than for the ideas and ideology of collectivism that makes it much more cost effective to outsource and to automate than to use human labour.
As to capitalism in a free market system, that's the idea and ideology that actually reduces poverty throughout the system, as can be observed in China, that is one of the most free market capitalist systems available today and it pulled over 350 Million people out of poverty over the last 30 years.
No, people are not specifically driven by deficit, they are however products of the borked society that is what it is because the economy is fucked up. McAfee noticed that the antidepressant drug usage went up in 1980, would I say that the people on antidepressants directly cared about the deficit and the stagflation of 1970s? Probably not (some more than others), however stagflation is reflected in the mass media, it is reflected in the overall feeling throughout the society and the feelings of depression are contagious.
Getting off the gold was a symptom of government promises and expenses that cannot be paid for. Government expenses that cannot be paid for are a symptom of bad governance and in the case of USA it was caused by collectivism or the idea that government should at all participate in the economy and money management.
Do not pervert what I said.
There is nothing unknown about the causes of rising depression in 1980, it was rooted in the economic problems of the seventies, caused by government defaulting on the gold dollar in 1971, which itself was caused by massive government spending of 1950s and 1960s, which came out of the idea that it is OK to print, borrow and spend. All of this rooted in the wrong Keynesian lessons derived from 1930s, when the depression was caused by USA Fed and government in 1925 and generally after the act of 1917, which allowed the Fed to monetise the USA debt. The Fed and the IRS were created in 1913, leading to these problems, however that is not the beginning of the story. This story began with Hamilton and his 3 reports on the economy, giving rise to the idea that central bank should exist, that government can borrow for government programs and then monetise the debt.
The real problem is collectivism.
What do you expect? /. today is a Borg of sorts. The rich are evil here, the government must be used to solve all problems, the individual freedoms are irrelevant.
The reality is that the only real economics that works in the long run to lift all out of poverty is free market capitalism, China is showing it in its latest 40 year stretch of increasing individual freedoms and reducing the choke of the government on the private sector and it lifted over 350,000,000 people out of poverty in that time frame. USA and most of Europe on the other hand are going in the wrong direction, opposite of individual freedoms and it shows.
Many here advocate stealing from the wealthy individuals as a form of policy and control and probably personal satisfaction of bringing down somebody who is above them, well that's what is being advocated here and that's what is destroying the economy and by extension the society.
'Trickle down' economics is not about the wealthy consuming any number of personal goods, it is about savings that are re-invested that allow businesses to grow and wealth to be generated.
Walmart has done more for the USA population than its government to reduce misery in the country, but the mob doesn't understand it at all, not even slightly. Taking away the wealth of those, who are able to manage it successfully in the free market is the fastest way to destroy wealth. It's not a surprise that these sentiments are held by the modern society, uneducated in the real economics, brainwashed by the Statists and their so called 'main stream economist' puppets.
RIP Irwin Schiff
What a fundamental misunderstanding of the word 'break down' then. Minimizing cost of production is not in any way at all a 'break down'!!!!!!!
All regulations are an affront to individual freedoms and as such they are all bad. Individual freedom and non aggression of the collective to an individual is the virtue, reduction of individual freedoms by a collectivist structure (government) is evil by its very definition. There is nothing more evil than the collective abusing an individual because the collective has more guns.
Uber is a race to the bottom and a sign capitalism is starting to break down...
- go ahead and explain how is it that 'capitalism is breaking down' when in fact capitalism is taking the people who are practicing it out of poverty (the Chinese), while people who only pay lip service to it, while practicing a command economy (the Fed, all the law, taxes, welfare, departments) are experiencing economic downturn.
Jefferson also was an actual free market capitalist. In today's America he would not be electable by this mob.
Like I said over the years, China is being held down by its currency peg. They have removed it and now Chinese currency will be able to go up when the USD will go down, allowing Chinese not to absorb USA the inflation created by the USA Federal reserve and the government. I fully expect Chinese to start consuming all of the products they produce, not just Flash SSD and the prices for all consumable goods will go down in Chinese currency but up in other currencies, as the Chinese money will go up in value relative to other currencies.
Stock up on various non-perishable goods.
How about this for a title: FCC is trying to strip more of your individual freedoms away, EFF objects.