But Zynga doesn't -care- about their games and won't move past a certain threshold of "fun". All Zynga cares about is getting hits to its page and getting people to purchase crap. A good version of, say, FarmVille that was basically like Harvest Moon and let you -do- stuff rather than point click, wait an hour, return. Could completely eat up FarmVille's marketshare.
But it seems like so far no one has really done that. They all just want to try to compete with Zynga by doing the exact same thing they copy.
Exactly, and copyrights don't really even have to be registered.
I really don't see how this is a big issue. If the other companies innovated there wouldn't be this problem, the problem is -all- companies try to do is make the exact same thing as Zynga and don't innovate past that, so of course Zynga is going to win. Its just like every other video game trend, Space Invaders popular? Make a game and call it Space Intruders or something. Pac-Man popular? Change up the art and the maze designs a bit. Super Mario Bros popular? Just take a generic character and put it in a platforming game. Doom popular? Change the skin and call it a new game. Etc.
People act like this is something revolutionary, does no one remember street-fighter clones of the 90s? Doom clones? All the pac-man, space invaders, asteroids, etc. rip offs?
No, because then what happens is a new company needs to recruit people so they have better working conditions, etc. Trusts only work with government assistance. For example, the railroad trusts, they wouldn't have existed if the government hadn't given tons of money and land to railroad companies.
Trusts are easily broken when there isn't government interference because companies are always trying to get ahead, and if the existing companies won't someone else will. The only constant is change to progress. When companies realize that they can get better labor by not invading their employee's privacy, they will do that.
If things existed like you said, the scientific revolution would have never happened because there would be no change. But change happens. Corporations have found out and increasingly find out that if they treat their employees better they get better productivity.
Your system fails because right is not on the side of he with the most financial leverage. An employer always has the upper hand over an employee because the employee has only one job and employer has many employees. If an employee quits an employer simply replaces him because they structured things to handle the loss of employees but if the employee quits he may well starve.
No he doesn't. The employee does. A single employee can ruin the entire reputation of a company if he finds abuses within the company. The single employee has much more power to change the corporation than the corporation has on the employee.
If abuses were so bad at a company that the employee had to leave and he told the world via the internet what abuses he suffered, it eventually reaches a point where no one will go to that company for work and the company dies.
Plus, increasing competition means that the employee can easily find other jobs because the system encourages productive, job-giving companies rather than government-sponsored monopolies.
The entire reason we form government in the first place is to more evenly distribute power. We have police because collectively the weak are stronger than the brute and with our police we equalize the brute to make everyone equally strong. The same is true of the financially strong, we must equalize their strength vs that of poor so the poor are not subject to wishes of the rich. Your idea of a weak government fails to protect the poor from the rich. Perhaps because you are rich yourself or hope to be or maybe you are poor and stupid and bought the rich mans line.
The "rich" don't magically have some sort of power because they have wealth. First off, A) How did the rich become rich? In a free society it is because they (or an ancestor) did exceptional work. B) How did the poor become poor? In most cases its laziness. No, I'm not rich but I at least have the balls to tell you why I'm not "rich", because I didn't invest my money, I spent it on (then) fancy technology, delivery pizza, TV, Cable, etc. It wasn't because I was being "oppressed" by the rich, I simply blew the money I had. I didn't exactly study hard in high school or college, I graduated with a degree and student loans which I worked off. Had I been less lazy and saved my money, I would be better off financially. I have no problems saying that. I'm not going to blame it on that I was "oppressed" as a store clerk and I wasn't given a $100,000,000 paycheck every week, breaks every 15 minutes and such. I'm not going to say I was "oppressed" at my job as a systems administrator, complain that I don't get $900 for telling people to make sure their cords are plugged in, etc.
If I didn't want my job, I'd say screw it and move on to another job or start my own company, both of which, barring the government fucking those up, would be very easy to do. But instead the government steals from my paycheck, consistently cheapens my degree and high school diploma, debases our currencies, tramples over civil rights, weakens constitutional power, and destroys basic economic rights.
The problem is, the media jumps on all this stuff like its brand new, thieves did the same thing ages ago. Just drive around a neighborhood where someone said at the bar they were going out of town and break in with a car with cheap magnetic decals of a cable company/telephone company/whatever.
But there are more than one way to do things. Perhaps roads aren't the most efficient way to do things, perhaps air or rail is more efficient. And there are financial incentives, consider a company that, say, makes toothpicks. The best place to find the lumber needed to make toothpicks might be 30 miles from Bobsville in a plot of land, but Bobsville is where all the labor needed to make the toothpicks are, so that company would make a simple road from Bobsville to where they get their lumber, then they realize by extending that road another 30 miles they can reach Bobsburg and so they can get twice the labor and twice the market, so they extend the road to Bobsburg, then people in Bobsburg want to go to Bobsville so they create a toll system to go between there, then later a company specializing in transport buys that as part of their road system and charges a flat toll to go anywhere on their road system, etc.
So when it is efficient, companies acting in their own self-interest will make infrastructure, then open it up to the public to gain a boost for finance for minimal risk which will eventually open up to a few large, competing companies to have routes all over the country.
Power would very much work the same way, only with more competition, imagine actually having a choice for utilities in the most populated areas.
While there are some areas that are remote enough that it wouldn't work, that is one of the trade-offs someone has when they decide to live in the middle of nowhere.
Doing away with social security? Seriously? Investing and saving wisely does nothing for you when the financial system collapses.
With the reduction of government interference in the economy comes a return to sound money and sound investments. The elimination of inflation-building, unstable fiat currencies. The elimination of government support to banks in the form of the federal reserve means an end to silly, fraudulent practices like fractional reserve banking, thus making banks secure and stable.
Let me know when the private space industry has a space station that they're sending people to on a regular basis.
That hasn't happened yet because of the government. Due to restrictions put in place by the government, private corporations can't receive the research they paid for by taxes. Due to other restrictions they can't collaborate internationally on space research. Once those restrictions are eliminated, you will see private spaceflight take off. Its pointless to say that something can't happen when the conditions I said needed it to happen haven't been fulfilled yet.
You basically did nothing to support your statement about education. I could just as easily say education would be less productive and more inefficient using private schools. (This "efficiency" factor you're talking about: is it efficient in a purely profit-driven sense, or efficient for the public good?)
Profit is good for the public good. If someone who graduated from a private institution gets a job, that helps the public good because he is contributing something to society, which in turn helps the private institution because it gets them recognized and they got the money from that one person. On the other hand, a private institution detrimental to the public good by offering crap educational classes wouldn't be profitable because soon no one would enroll there.
Let me know when the Labor Movement will be handed to us by charities.
The labor movement is pointless if this comes to place because corporations will be forced to compete for the best working conditions because there is no status quo that is "good enough" and due to the lowered bar to form your own corporation, workers are free to form their own jobs if they don't like how they are treated.
Because of things like OSHA, businesses don't compete on working conditions beyond a certain threshold because workers have been trained to accept the standards of OSHA as "good enough" rather than striving to get better conditions. When businesses compete, the average person wins. When businesses have government enforcement to say that things are "good enough", the common person loses.
Speaking of which, protecting citizens from force and prosecuting lawbreakers I can understand, but contract enforcement? Why would you possibly want government to enforce contracts between two private organizations? I thought they would have figured it out between themselves with their whole "self-governance" thing. Oh, maybe it's because you want contracts to be law? I've seen enough shitty EULAs in my life to be glad that isn't the case.
Ok, so you want no contract enforcement? How the hell do you think that you get a paycheck? You have a contract, you work a certain number of hours and the business will pay you a certain amount of money. Do you really want the business to say, "Fuck you, we don't feel like paying you today for the hours you've worked"? Because that is what contract enforcement is all about, if the business says that they don't want to pay you, you sue them in court then the government forces them to pay you damages. Contracts are -everywhere- and you need them to be enforced by the government. As for EULAs, "IP" is not property, property has two characteristics, alienability and transferability, neither of which "IP" has. Our idea of property is only created out of the idea of sc
What good is having GPU acceleration that only works on one platform? The -entire- point of the trend of doing things in-browser is to make cross-platform compatibility a reality. If I wanted a game to work just on Windows, why wouldn't I just make an application that did that?
No, it would rely on people simply being people. This isn't anarchy, it is the government boiled down into its core functions, protecting its citizens from force, this means protecting citizens from invasion, murder, theft, rape, etc. and prosecuting those who do it. And protecting its citizens from fraud, this means enforcing contracts and prosecuting false advertising. These are the only two functions of government that cannot reasonably be provided more effectively and efficiently than private enterprise.
Social security is needless because people can get a greater and safer yield by investing and saving their money right. Freed from various restrictions, NASA can be implemented using private companies that can actually -do- something with the technology they develop. Education can be more productive and efficient using private schools, etc.
When freed from excessive taxation, more people will donate money to private charities that can and will provide for people who actually need help and not people who game the system like what the Food stamps/welfare/unemployment benefits do in the US.
Easily. In 2006, government spending for defense was only $622.2 billion, in comparison, spending for Pensions alone was $747.1 billion. Now, in 2006 we didn't have true defense, were were pissing money away in 2 imperialistic wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) so the majority of that wasn't even true defense.
With the decrease of imperialistic wars, ending spending for things not involving fraud and force, the USA could cut taxes to a flat rate per household (it isn't going to cost more in this day and age to protect 4 rich people as it does 1 hobo for foreign invasion). Police would also be paid with a flat rate with the option of using a private security force if you so chose to. Etc.
No, just think about it. If you have true self government, it doesn't matter if some people have fringe or incorrect opinions of the world because it doesn't affect you, its only when they can make decisions that affect you that it really matters. For example, given a mostly self-governed society, it wouldn't matter if they were wrong about the earth's place in the universe because they wouldn't be voting on any matter that didn't involve fraud/force because that is what the government would be restricted to. Sciences would be mostly the domain of private corporations or individuals with greater freedom due to the elimination of various trade barriers because of this which means that more science can be observed and discovered with practical applications.
With true self-government comes true freedoms of people to believe whatever delusion they wish without interfering with the rest of us.
Well, obviously they -should- but the point being is that with a sane government it doesn't matter for you and me and everyone else what the hell they believe because their only real interaction that matters in our lives are the interaction through their job.
...Which is one of the flaws in democracy rather than true self-government and is why democracies need to transition to self-government with a tiny government to protect people from force and fraud.
Unfortunately, there is still a significant minority of Western people who believe that the Earth is the center of the universe: 18% of Americans, 16% of Germans, and 19% of Britons."
...And assuming that they aren't working in astronomy, there really is no loss.
If your mechanic thinks that "The Little Mermaid" was a Shakespearean drama, that really doesn't affect his ability to fix your car. Same with this.
Because people were scared and its better to appear to have a fix to a non existent problem than risk being seen like you are doing nothing.
In August 2010, the Wall St. Journal reported that experts at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had examined the "black boxes" of 58 vehicles involved in sudden-acceleration reports. The study found that in 35 of the cases, the brakes weren't applied at the time of the crash. In nine other cases in the same study, the brakes were used only at the last moment before impact.[210]
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Yeah, pretty much -all- the cases were due to driver error. Remember those 911 tapes where the guy wouldn't put his car in neutral, etc?
The problem is when one person reports a "problem" everyone else thinks "oh wow, I probably have the same problem if I did/will crash my Prius!" even though the problem was non-existent.
Sometimes you need to "fix" a problem that is not there in order to avoid media bashing.
I actually think that Android won't become super fragmented but will break into 3 main branches
A) The "dumbphone or device" branch, devices that barely support their current version of Android loaded on them. (things running 1.5 that aren't phones like the Nook would be an example of this)
B) The "Stables" branch, everyday devices running a simi-current Android release (things running 2.1 right now would be an example)
C) The "bleeding edge" branch, high powered devices either easily rooted or pre-rooted that run the newest Android available (devices like the Nexus One would fall into here)
So developers would probably use branch A to make basic applications, use branch B to make things like games and branch C to make tech demos.
Fragmentation will be less and less of an issue the more phones that get rooted and the slower Google releases OS updates.
Is Nokia's Symbian devices every actually used outside of Europe/Asia? Because I really haven't ever seen one for it being the "number one" smartphone platform. I've seen tons of Blackberries, lots of Android devices, multiple iPhones of every generation, a few Windows Mobile devices, even a few Palm Pre/Pixis but I don't think I've seen a single Nokia smartphone with the exception of the N900 which doesn't run Symbian. So where are these? Just hiding outside of the US?
This isn't that the market for candles disappeared but rather the government banned candles. This is not the free market at work but rather the government screwing us (again)
Ah, the good old US government, not only reducing US jobs but also reducing consumer choice in something as simple as choosing what type of light bulb you want.
It isn't an inflated price though. It is simply the market price. Who is to say what a front-row ticket to see Justin Bieber is worth? If someone wants to pay $100 for it, then let them. If the original tickets cost $50, its simply under-priced to what the market is willing to pay. Ideally the arena hosting the event would charge market price, what people are willing to pay, but they don't so there in an imbalance.
The parent poster wasn't going off on a tangent, he was simply stating that monopolizing oil is bad because it is -needed- for human development at this point in time. On the other hand, tickets to the newest teen pop sensation isn't. A ticket "scalper" is simply correcting the imbalance between the stated price and the price that people are willing to pay.
So, I'll start the argument again. I assert that ticket scalpers monopolize (a significant portion of) the ticket supply. This is unfair to consumers who are now forced to pay inflated prices for tickets that the manufacturer (performer, artist, musician, whatever) originally sold. Now, because musicians/artists/etc. provide services that are largely advertised through word of mouth (i.e. your friend tells you about this great new album) I also assert that keeping ticket prices at the original level determined by the artist is vital for the success of the artist. Selling out a concert generates revenue from ticket sales and through future word of mouth advertising. Scalpers raise the price of the tickets and thus reduce the number of people willing to buy the tickets. This harms the future revenue potential of the artist. Thus, scalpers are unfair to consumers and harmful to content producers.
This isn't unfair to consumers because the prices aren't inflated they are simply the real market price of the tickets. Keeping ticket prices at underpriced levels does nothing to help the artist because the artist already received his revenue (if you really look at things, artists get more money from playing live concerts than CD sales and downloads because those go mostly to the record company while most proceeds from concerts go to the band) from the "scalpers".
Who is to decide what prices are? It is the market. The fact that ticket "scalpers" can get money shows that there is an imbalance between the under-priced tickets sold by the venue and what people are really willing to pay.
...Then they should be priced double that. The only reason scalpers exist is because there is an imbalance between what people are selling something for and what they are worth. Why should I be outraged that Bob's Arena is selling Justin Bieber tickets for $40 but people are willing to pay $80 for them? And it isn't like these are any sort of vital resources like gas, oil or water. I really see nothing to be outraged about, should I also be outraged that some people go to garage sales and get baseball cards worth $100 for $5?
In nature, man has infinite liberty to do with what he pleases. Liberty is the freedom to do whatever you please while not harming others without having artificial consequences. While it could be argued that true liberty does include the ability to harm others, such a thing is impractical when dealing with a large group of people.
I support all liberties that do not harm others. I support the liberty to free trade without artificial restrictions. I support the liberty to keep and bear arms so long as you can keep them safe and agree not to use them to harm others (and yes, even up to the logical extreme, the problem is there is really no way to keep many dangerous weapons completely safe so they wouldn't harm others), I support the liberty to trade using whatever currency people see fit, I support the liberty to choose whatever work you wish, I support the liberty to freedom of religion, I support the liberty of freedom of -all- speech, I support the liberty of people to assemble, I support the liberty of people to ingest, inject, drink, etc. whatever they wish into their body so long as it does not harm others, I support the liberty of people to have an elected government that protects them from force and fraud which are the only two legitimate duties of government, I support the right of people to watch/read/listen to what they want, I support the right of people to own property and to be able to secure it from anyone trying to deprive themselves of it, I support the right of the people to not be employed if they so choose (so no slavery, no conscription, etc)
Unless it harms another human, I support the ability to exercise it freely. Do I always think its wise or prudent to exercise some rights? No. But no human has the authority to force another human what to do so long as it doesn't harm others.
Um, I really don't see whats so bad about "scalping" tickets. If people are willing to pay more than the listed price, let them. Now, granted, selling personal data is bad, but scalping isn't. Its simply the free market at work, if I've got something I bought at $5, why should I -have- to sell them at that price? If someone wants to spend $10, $20, $50 on them, let them.
Tariffs, by nature are oppressive because they restrict the basic economic freedom to buy what you wish with your capital. I support freedom. Part of liberty is pure economic freedom. This is what I stand for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muHg86Mys7I its a bit long, but really makes sense.
So rather than being taxed by our government by giving subsidies to our businesses we are essentially then taxing ourselves equal to China's subsidies? So rather than being taxed by one oppressive government we are being taxed by two?
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But Zynga doesn't -care- about their games and won't move past a certain threshold of "fun". All Zynga cares about is getting hits to its page and getting people to purchase crap. A good version of, say, FarmVille that was basically like Harvest Moon and let you -do- stuff rather than point click, wait an hour, return. Could completely eat up FarmVille's marketshare.
But it seems like so far no one has really done that. They all just want to try to compete with Zynga by doing the exact same thing they copy.
Exactly, and copyrights don't really even have to be registered.
I really don't see how this is a big issue. If the other companies innovated there wouldn't be this problem, the problem is -all- companies try to do is make the exact same thing as Zynga and don't innovate past that, so of course Zynga is going to win. Its just like every other video game trend, Space Invaders popular? Make a game and call it Space Intruders or something. Pac-Man popular? Change up the art and the maze designs a bit. Super Mario Bros popular? Just take a generic character and put it in a platforming game. Doom popular? Change the skin and call it a new game. Etc.
People act like this is something revolutionary, does no one remember street-fighter clones of the 90s? Doom clones? All the pac-man, space invaders, asteroids, etc. rip offs?
Trusts are easily broken when there isn't government interference because companies are always trying to get ahead, and if the existing companies won't someone else will. The only constant is change to progress. When companies realize that they can get better labor by not invading their employee's privacy, they will do that.
If things existed like you said, the scientific revolution would have never happened because there would be no change. But change happens. Corporations have found out and increasingly find out that if they treat their employees better they get better productivity.
Your system fails because right is not on the side of he with the most financial leverage. An employer always has the upper hand over an employee because the employee has only one job and employer has many employees. If an employee quits an employer simply replaces him because they structured things to handle the loss of employees but if the employee quits he may well starve.
No he doesn't. The employee does. A single employee can ruin the entire reputation of a company if he finds abuses within the company. The single employee has much more power to change the corporation than the corporation has on the employee.
If abuses were so bad at a company that the employee had to leave and he told the world via the internet what abuses he suffered, it eventually reaches a point where no one will go to that company for work and the company dies.
Plus, increasing competition means that the employee can easily find other jobs because the system encourages productive, job-giving companies rather than government-sponsored monopolies.
The entire reason we form government in the first place is to more evenly distribute power. We have police because collectively the weak are stronger than the brute and with our police we equalize the brute to make everyone equally strong. The same is true of the financially strong, we must equalize their strength vs that of poor so the poor are not subject to wishes of the rich. Your idea of a weak government fails to protect the poor from the rich. Perhaps because you are rich yourself or hope to be or maybe you are poor and stupid and bought the rich mans line.
The "rich" don't magically have some sort of power because they have wealth. First off, A) How did the rich become rich? In a free society it is because they (or an ancestor) did exceptional work. B) How did the poor become poor? In most cases its laziness. No, I'm not rich but I at least have the balls to tell you why I'm not "rich", because I didn't invest my money, I spent it on (then) fancy technology, delivery pizza, TV, Cable, etc. It wasn't because I was being "oppressed" by the rich, I simply blew the money I had. I didn't exactly study hard in high school or college, I graduated with a degree and student loans which I worked off. Had I been less lazy and saved my money, I would be better off financially. I have no problems saying that. I'm not going to blame it on that I was "oppressed" as a store clerk and I wasn't given a $100,000,000 paycheck every week, breaks every 15 minutes and such. I'm not going to say I was "oppressed" at my job as a systems administrator, complain that I don't get $900 for telling people to make sure their cords are plugged in, etc.
If I didn't want my job, I'd say screw it and move on to another job or start my own company, both of which, barring the government fucking those up, would be very easy to do. But instead the government steals from my paycheck, consistently cheapens my degree and high school diploma, debases our currencies, tramples over civil rights, weakens constitutional power, and destroys basic economic rights.
The problem is, the media jumps on all this stuff like its brand new, thieves did the same thing ages ago. Just drive around a neighborhood where someone said at the bar they were going out of town and break in with a car with cheap magnetic decals of a cable company/telephone company/whatever.
But there are more than one way to do things. Perhaps roads aren't the most efficient way to do things, perhaps air or rail is more efficient. And there are financial incentives, consider a company that, say, makes toothpicks. The best place to find the lumber needed to make toothpicks might be 30 miles from Bobsville in a plot of land, but Bobsville is where all the labor needed to make the toothpicks are, so that company would make a simple road from Bobsville to where they get their lumber, then they realize by extending that road another 30 miles they can reach Bobsburg and so they can get twice the labor and twice the market, so they extend the road to Bobsburg, then people in Bobsburg want to go to Bobsville so they create a toll system to go between there, then later a company specializing in transport buys that as part of their road system and charges a flat toll to go anywhere on their road system, etc.
So when it is efficient, companies acting in their own self-interest will make infrastructure, then open it up to the public to gain a boost for finance for minimal risk which will eventually open up to a few large, competing companies to have routes all over the country.
Power would very much work the same way, only with more competition, imagine actually having a choice for utilities in the most populated areas.
While there are some areas that are remote enough that it wouldn't work, that is one of the trade-offs someone has when they decide to live in the middle of nowhere.
Doing away with social security? Seriously? Investing and saving wisely does nothing for you when the financial system collapses.
With the reduction of government interference in the economy comes a return to sound money and sound investments. The elimination of inflation-building, unstable fiat currencies. The elimination of government support to banks in the form of the federal reserve means an end to silly, fraudulent practices like fractional reserve banking, thus making banks secure and stable.
Let me know when the private space industry has a space station that they're sending people to on a regular basis.
That hasn't happened yet because of the government. Due to restrictions put in place by the government, private corporations can't receive the research they paid for by taxes. Due to other restrictions they can't collaborate internationally on space research. Once those restrictions are eliminated, you will see private spaceflight take off. Its pointless to say that something can't happen when the conditions I said needed it to happen haven't been fulfilled yet.
You basically did nothing to support your statement about education. I could just as easily say education would be less productive and more inefficient using private schools. (This "efficiency" factor you're talking about: is it efficient in a purely profit-driven sense, or efficient for the public good?)
Profit is good for the public good. If someone who graduated from a private institution gets a job, that helps the public good because he is contributing something to society, which in turn helps the private institution because it gets them recognized and they got the money from that one person. On the other hand, a private institution detrimental to the public good by offering crap educational classes wouldn't be profitable because soon no one would enroll there.
Let me know when the Labor Movement will be handed to us by charities.
The labor movement is pointless if this comes to place because corporations will be forced to compete for the best working conditions because there is no status quo that is "good enough" and due to the lowered bar to form your own corporation, workers are free to form their own jobs if they don't like how they are treated.
Because of things like OSHA, businesses don't compete on working conditions beyond a certain threshold because workers have been trained to accept the standards of OSHA as "good enough" rather than striving to get better conditions. When businesses compete, the average person wins. When businesses have government enforcement to say that things are "good enough", the common person loses.
Speaking of which, protecting citizens from force and prosecuting lawbreakers I can understand, but contract enforcement? Why would you possibly want government to enforce contracts between two private organizations? I thought they would have figured it out between themselves with their whole "self-governance" thing. Oh, maybe it's because you want contracts to be law? I've seen enough shitty EULAs in my life to be glad that isn't the case.
Ok, so you want no contract enforcement? How the hell do you think that you get a paycheck? You have a contract, you work a certain number of hours and the business will pay you a certain amount of money. Do you really want the business to say, "Fuck you, we don't feel like paying you today for the hours you've worked"? Because that is what contract enforcement is all about, if the business says that they don't want to pay you, you sue them in court then the government forces them to pay you damages. Contracts are -everywhere- and you need them to be enforced by the government. As for EULAs, "IP" is not property, property has two characteristics, alienability and transferability, neither of which "IP" has. Our idea of property is only created out of the idea of sc
What good is having GPU acceleration that only works on one platform? The -entire- point of the trend of doing things in-browser is to make cross-platform compatibility a reality. If I wanted a game to work just on Windows, why wouldn't I just make an application that did that?
No, it would rely on people simply being people. This isn't anarchy, it is the government boiled down into its core functions, protecting its citizens from force, this means protecting citizens from invasion, murder, theft, rape, etc. and prosecuting those who do it. And protecting its citizens from fraud, this means enforcing contracts and prosecuting false advertising. These are the only two functions of government that cannot reasonably be provided more effectively and efficiently than private enterprise.
Social security is needless because people can get a greater and safer yield by investing and saving their money right. Freed from various restrictions, NASA can be implemented using private companies that can actually -do- something with the technology they develop. Education can be more productive and efficient using private schools, etc.
When freed from excessive taxation, more people will donate money to private charities that can and will provide for people who actually need help and not people who game the system like what the Food stamps/welfare/unemployment benefits do in the US.
Easily. In 2006, government spending for defense was only $622.2 billion, in comparison, spending for Pensions alone was $747.1 billion. Now, in 2006 we didn't have true defense, were were pissing money away in 2 imperialistic wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) so the majority of that wasn't even true defense.
With the decrease of imperialistic wars, ending spending for things not involving fraud and force, the USA could cut taxes to a flat rate per household (it isn't going to cost more in this day and age to protect 4 rich people as it does 1 hobo for foreign invasion). Police would also be paid with a flat rate with the option of using a private security force if you so chose to. Etc.
No, just think about it. If you have true self government, it doesn't matter if some people have fringe or incorrect opinions of the world because it doesn't affect you, its only when they can make decisions that affect you that it really matters. For example, given a mostly self-governed society, it wouldn't matter if they were wrong about the earth's place in the universe because they wouldn't be voting on any matter that didn't involve fraud/force because that is what the government would be restricted to. Sciences would be mostly the domain of private corporations or individuals with greater freedom due to the elimination of various trade barriers because of this which means that more science can be observed and discovered with practical applications.
With true self-government comes true freedoms of people to believe whatever delusion they wish without interfering with the rest of us.
Well, obviously they -should- but the point being is that with a sane government it doesn't matter for you and me and everyone else what the hell they believe because their only real interaction that matters in our lives are the interaction through their job.
And if you read the original story, its totally different than Disney's version too.
...Which is one of the flaws in democracy rather than true self-government and is why democracies need to transition to self-government with a tiny government to protect people from force and fraud.
Unfortunately, there is still a significant minority of Western people who believe that the Earth is the center of the universe: 18% of Americans, 16% of Germans, and 19% of Britons."
If your mechanic thinks that "The Little Mermaid" was a Shakespearean drama, that really doesn't affect his ability to fix your car. Same with this.
In August 2010, the Wall St. Journal reported that experts at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had examined the "black boxes" of 58 vehicles involved in sudden-acceleration reports. The study found that in 35 of the cases, the brakes weren't applied at the time of the crash. In nine other cases in the same study, the brakes were used only at the last moment before impact.[210] [edit]
Yeah, pretty much -all- the cases were due to driver error. Remember those 911 tapes where the guy wouldn't put his car in neutral, etc?
The problem is when one person reports a "problem" everyone else thinks "oh wow, I probably have the same problem if I did/will crash my Prius!" even though the problem was non-existent.
Sometimes you need to "fix" a problem that is not there in order to avoid media bashing.
I actually think that Android won't become super fragmented but will break into 3 main branches
A) The "dumbphone or device" branch, devices that barely support their current version of Android loaded on them. (things running 1.5 that aren't phones like the Nook would be an example of this)
B) The "Stables" branch, everyday devices running a simi-current Android release (things running 2.1 right now would be an example)
C) The "bleeding edge" branch, high powered devices either easily rooted or pre-rooted that run the newest Android available (devices like the Nexus One would fall into here)
So developers would probably use branch A to make basic applications, use branch B to make things like games and branch C to make tech demos.
Fragmentation will be less and less of an issue the more phones that get rooted and the slower Google releases OS updates.
Is Nokia's Symbian devices every actually used outside of Europe/Asia? Because I really haven't ever seen one for it being the "number one" smartphone platform. I've seen tons of Blackberries, lots of Android devices, multiple iPhones of every generation, a few Windows Mobile devices, even a few Palm Pre/Pixis but I don't think I've seen a single Nokia smartphone with the exception of the N900 which doesn't run Symbian. So where are these? Just hiding outside of the US?
This isn't that the market for candles disappeared but rather the government banned candles. This is not the free market at work but rather the government screwing us (again)
Ah, the good old US government, not only reducing US jobs but also reducing consumer choice in something as simple as choosing what type of light bulb you want.
The parent poster wasn't going off on a tangent, he was simply stating that monopolizing oil is bad because it is -needed- for human development at this point in time. On the other hand, tickets to the newest teen pop sensation isn't. A ticket "scalper" is simply correcting the imbalance between the stated price and the price that people are willing to pay.
So, I'll start the argument again. I assert that ticket scalpers monopolize (a significant portion of) the ticket supply. This is unfair to consumers who are now forced to pay inflated prices for tickets that the manufacturer (performer, artist, musician, whatever) originally sold. Now, because musicians/artists/etc. provide services that are largely advertised through word of mouth (i.e. your friend tells you about this great new album) I also assert that keeping ticket prices at the original level determined by the artist is vital for the success of the artist. Selling out a concert generates revenue from ticket sales and through future word of mouth advertising. Scalpers raise the price of the tickets and thus reduce the number of people willing to buy the tickets. This harms the future revenue potential of the artist. Thus, scalpers are unfair to consumers and harmful to content producers.
This isn't unfair to consumers because the prices aren't inflated they are simply the real market price of the tickets. Keeping ticket prices at underpriced levels does nothing to help the artist because the artist already received his revenue (if you really look at things, artists get more money from playing live concerts than CD sales and downloads because those go mostly to the record company while most proceeds from concerts go to the band) from the "scalpers".
Who is to decide what prices are? It is the market. The fact that ticket "scalpers" can get money shows that there is an imbalance between the under-priced tickets sold by the venue and what people are really willing to pay.
...Then they should be priced double that. The only reason scalpers exist is because there is an imbalance between what people are selling something for and what they are worth. Why should I be outraged that Bob's Arena is selling Justin Bieber tickets for $40 but people are willing to pay $80 for them? And it isn't like these are any sort of vital resources like gas, oil or water. I really see nothing to be outraged about, should I also be outraged that some people go to garage sales and get baseball cards worth $100 for $5?
In nature, man has infinite liberty to do with what he pleases. Liberty is the freedom to do whatever you please while not harming others without having artificial consequences. While it could be argued that true liberty does include the ability to harm others, such a thing is impractical when dealing with a large group of people.
I support all liberties that do not harm others. I support the liberty to free trade without artificial restrictions. I support the liberty to keep and bear arms so long as you can keep them safe and agree not to use them to harm others (and yes, even up to the logical extreme, the problem is there is really no way to keep many dangerous weapons completely safe so they wouldn't harm others), I support the liberty to trade using whatever currency people see fit, I support the liberty to choose whatever work you wish, I support the liberty to freedom of religion, I support the liberty of freedom of -all- speech, I support the liberty of people to assemble, I support the liberty of people to ingest, inject, drink, etc. whatever they wish into their body so long as it does not harm others, I support the liberty of people to have an elected government that protects them from force and fraud which are the only two legitimate duties of government, I support the right of people to watch/read/listen to what they want, I support the right of people to own property and to be able to secure it from anyone trying to deprive themselves of it, I support the right of the people to not be employed if they so choose (so no slavery, no conscription, etc)
Unless it harms another human, I support the ability to exercise it freely. Do I always think its wise or prudent to exercise some rights? No. But no human has the authority to force another human what to do so long as it doesn't harm others.
Um, I really don't see whats so bad about "scalping" tickets. If people are willing to pay more than the listed price, let them. Now, granted, selling personal data is bad, but scalping isn't. Its simply the free market at work, if I've got something I bought at $5, why should I -have- to sell them at that price? If someone wants to spend $10, $20, $50 on them, let them.
Tariffs, by nature are oppressive because they restrict the basic economic freedom to buy what you wish with your capital. I support freedom. Part of liberty is pure economic freedom. This is what I stand for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muHg86Mys7I its a bit long, but really makes sense.
So rather than being taxed by our government by giving subsidies to our businesses we are essentially then taxing ourselves equal to China's subsidies? So rather than being taxed by one oppressive government we are being taxed by two?