It actually does "update" drivers when you use it, so it's not a "NIL" thing.
There are all sorts of drivers provided - NIC, video, sound card drivers etc.
And >=90% of the time you will regret the aftermath of "updating". For example you might get an nvidia driver for your vid card that dates to 2001 when nvidia last bothered to send a driver to MS for "certification". Same thing for NIC drivers.
The theory is nice, but in practice, don't use it.
"I don't think giving different types of data differing priorities is a good idea"
One of my suggestions was give all users crap priorities, till they "dial up", then they get normal priorities. You can give normal priorities to akamai etc stuff even if they don't "dial up".
Users won't be able to hide from that.
If an ISP is having to regularly discard packets at their core routers I think they are doing something wrong. They should be discarding at the edge where the "info" is, plus it's more scalable that way.
For printers and some other stuff I often try to avoid running the "installer from the CD", because that usually puts tons of useless crap into your computer.
I usually try to look for the Win2K/XP directory where the "real driver" is stored, and then point windows to it.
If XP gets the wrong driver and you want to rerecognize the stuff again, just go to control panel and delete the relevant "?" stuff in device manager (the question mark icon for the device indicates it's not properly installed etc).
Most times it's the manufacturers who mess things up.
That said, NEVER install hardware drivers from Windows Update.
It's when you stick in a CD/DVD into the optical drive and Windows freezes for a significant moment.
Same goes for other cases where the UI pauses and I don't get to do other stuff, even though there's PLENTY of CPU left, and even for a single core low end CPU.
The rest of Win2K/XP doesn't bother me as much.
In fact Firefox 2 has been very annoying, more annoying than IE. I can launch IE in multiple different processes but I can't do that with Firefox. If an IE instance hangs or uses too much memory, I can kill it without affecting my other IE instances. Same if an IE instance crashes - doesn't affect the rest. Can't seem to do that with firefox 2, unless you create X different users to run X different instances, which is ridiculous.
So when one tab out of 40 causes the entire firefox to hang, I have to kill firefox (and thus every tab etc) and restart again, and often it doesn't resume all the sessions properly (especially when you have more than one window, each window having multiple tabs). When firefox starts to use 1GB of RAM, I have to kill everything, not just close one tab, or one window. If the firefox developers can't get things right, they should design it to fail better.
An ISP at the "edge" knows who is logged on to that IP and so can treat them accordingly.
Already companies _are_ getting better service than "normal users". So your concerns are unfounded.
Roberts proposal (and company's product) however appears to be more focused at the core rather than the edge (if it's the edge I don't even see why it's such a great benefit).
The real problem with P2P using up too much ISP bandwidth is Copyright Law and the **AA.
If ISPs could cache and seed all torrents (on demand or prefetch) without being sued by the **AA etc, ISPs could make far more efficient use of their bandwidth.
They would just throttle P2P connections to peers outside their network, but allow downloads at top speed from the ISP's Super Peers (which get prioritized bandwidth when downloading from the "outside").
If the **AA do not allow that, the other solution is to to put some (or all) "always on" internet service traffic at a lower priority all the time (so whenever there are other packets to send, they get sent first), then when users want "full service" for their P2P or whatever, they "dial up", and "logout/disconnect" when they're done with "premium priority", leaving their P2P etc going back to lower priority. Then users get X hours of premium priority a month depending on their package (with option to purchase more hours).
While it's a bit like back to the old days of dial up, the difference is you still get "always on" internet - and the ISP might still have some web access get "premium" (aka normal) priority, for example searches on google or wikipedia might not be throttled, and akamai or youtube mirrored/cached stuff within the ISP's network might be max speed, and even P2P traffic within the network might not be throttled.
That way users who just leave their P2P on just to try to keep their upload ratios good, can continue doing it, and users that actually want to download something fast via P2P, can activate their premium priority.
I think many users might be ok with such a scheme. The trouble is figuring out a foolproof way of logging out:).
"Is it really fair to treat an entire office or dorm (or even a small country) the same as a single user who happens to have a unique IP from their ISP"
The company I currently work for already does this (we provide "premium" aka $$$ internet services at various hotels and airports around the world).
We do the traffic shaping at end points. At the end points we know who the users are, so we can give them different treatment.
Possible scenario: the normal users get their fair share. The VIP users get their fair share which happens to be bigger than the normal users. So if it's a Big company paying $$$$ they get a bigger share (that's fair right?). Believe me in the hospitality industry it is not rare for VIPs to demand a bigger share and "right now".
That said, if the normal/VIP users aren't fully using their share of the bandwidth (e.g. the servers they are downloading from are slow), the rest get to use it. The moment Mr VIP starts using it, well too bad for the rest they go back to their "fair share".
It's not strictly per IP either - we can have different guests sharing the same scheme e.g. all guests from Company X share the same 10Mbps.
There are more details that I won't go into. Anyway, I think my way is better than what Roberts suggests, I'm biased since I'm "Co-Designer" of the way we do things;).
I suspect he's probably biased too, since his company sells that flow stuff...
It's probably academic now, since the company I work for wants to use a different product they acquired recently, which from what I hear can't do the same thing (yet?), and I might be looking for a new job soon... Oh well:).
"For example, a computer that might interact with its user purely by voice -- more advanced voice and language recognition systems are likely to require significantly more cores and computational power than is currently in wide use."
I actually think very few people want to talk all day.
I'd rather interact with my computer via "thought macros". I pick macros, and the computer learns them (if it's too hard for the computer, I pick a different one, the top software will find it easier to reliably recognize a variety of thought macros), and also by an auxiliary video in (either implant or just a normal screen or microscreen).
This way, the computer becomes a super extension of me. So I can think: [computer][calculate]145656/1.15[/calculate][/computer], and the computer will calculate the answer for me or [computer][past_recall][associated brain pattern/state][/past_recall][/computer], then the computer will try to retrieve its records of the rough time and date when I set that associated brain pattern or state, naturally for lower latency i could think of [back] or [forward] before doing [/computer] in order to find the incident I want to recall.
Voice is quaint;).
Seriously voice recognition is klunky as a primary method of control. Voice recognition will still be useful, but more so that I can ask the computer "Whose voice is that?", or "let me know if you hear XYZ's voice anywhere".
The military would be interested in: "Let me know if you see a gun muzzle/possible danger item, and highlight it to me", "turn on automatic crack-thump location of snipers now".
Given all this I don't see the real need for doing the parallel processing the way they are talking about, one core for gun muzzle, one core for heli, one core for audio/video preprocessing etc, it all adds up even if you single thread the processes.
You give me the cores, I can think of lots of ways to use them.
In theory yes. In practice, it's not neutral. It's as evil as the people that control it. It is an extension of those people's will.
Making a fine distinction between a machine and the invisible people controlling it as the machine goes about crushing people, is correct in theory.
But in practice, if the same people keep controlling it, you might as well associate their brand with "Evil". After all those invisible people in control are often so interested in Brand consciousness.
And Brand consciousness is currently the main reason why anyone would buy Creative sound cards.
See: * Unauthorised access to computer material A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to both. * Unauthorised modification of computer material A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable-- (a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both; and (b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine or to both.
I don't see how the Act does not apply to the people involved.
If someone wrote malware or sniffed your keystrokes, the same law should apply whether the perpetrator is BT or some "Evil Hacker".
Many banks etc now call it identity theft and not fraud, because calling it identity theft makes it YOUR problem, whereas calling it banking/transaction fraud makes it THEIR problem.
Anyway, you can't solve impersonation that easily.
So your suggestion on validating transactions is a good one. If I need to add a new account for transfering money to, I have to request a code, which is then sent to my phone, which I then need to enter into the form for the "add" to be valid.
So an attacker would need to have possession of my phone or sniff the mobile phone network, in addition to somehow gaining control over my online bank account (know username and password, or login some other way).
Other banks provide physical devices (e.g. security token) to provide codes in order to validate transactions.
But the reason why I say you can't solve impersonation that easily is people lose and forget stuff all the time, so if banks etc are not careful people can still impersonate you and get new tokens in your name;).
That's kind of my point. The top treatments possible by technology will cost a lot, and there's no way they can be provided to everyone.
So for socialized healthcare, most people would only get the basic to midrange stuff, no top end stuff.
Yes it is quite sucky if you know the patient can be saved, but there are just not enough resources. But I think the HMO bunch are sucking out a large amount of those resources AND doing the same thing - letting people die because the resources left aren't enough (delayed/denied payments etc), so doing it the socialized way might be more efficient use of resources in maximizing the number of people treated effectively.
If the government can't do it directly (no skill etc), then perhaps the government could start a cooperative or two to do it. I feel that cooperatives tend to be less gluttonous than companies.
Also as technology gets better, I think more and more people might be treatable with the low/mid end stuff. The low end treatment now is much better than the top end 100 years ago:).
"Because I bought it and no one successfully challenged my ownership claim."
If your country's law does say it belongs fully to you, including sovereignty (look it up) then sure it's yours. Otherwise, even when you buy the land (or acquire it some other way) it is _never_ 100% yours - you do NOT get sovereignty with it.
As I said, way before you took "ownership" of your land, there were lots of people who came before you, who had claims to the land, who have said it's never becomes 100% yours, that the Government has say over it no matter what. And they said so _first_ before you.
That's why it's not totally yours even though you bought it. So it ain't stealing when the Gov seizes it - they're taking it back. Maybe you could sue the seller for misrepresentation, or maybe you didn't read the fine print.
That's the big difference. If say you find some island in the middle of the ocean with no other claims to it, then you can claim that land as yours as long as "no one successfully challenges your ownership claim". Then I suppose you have every right to keep it, even to the point of going to war to do so if need be, and you can make the rules however you want, like say if someone buys land from you, they get sovereignty over that land as well.
That said, I am not a lawyer, so you can check with a lawyer on your legal standing in this.
I believe he claims that 1) the medicaid/medicare stuff is being sucked up by the insurance companies. 2) A lot of your tax money is going to F22s and stuff that just pisses off everyone else - the last I checked the USA spends almost as much on military as the rest of the world _combined_.
I feel those are valid points[1]. Just because you get socialized medicine does not necessarily mean your taxes will go up.
But the trouble is if you have lots of expensive high tech equipment, and expensive top doctors, when do you stop treatment? There is no way you can go all the way for everyone. So would there be some counter that when it hits say USD100k the doctors stop work on you and even to the point of letting you die, if you don't have a fresh "infusion of money"?
[1] I believe some insurance companies do a fair amount of dubious stuff - intentionally delay/deny payments (and thus treatments) in order to make more money. Just think of how much money they pay out a day, so if they can delay payouts by a month, imagine how much extra money they can earn from putting that money in the financial markets or banks.
I suggest that a reasonable deficit does not matter as long as _enough_ of the rest of the world use the US dollar for trade and other stuff (and thus hold billions in reserve).
Because all that means is the US Gov "prints" more US dollars, and suddenly the US Gov gets richer and the rest of the world gets poorer. This also affects US Citizens, but the US Gov can pass the money to US citizens via various means. The US Gov can print more money by either actually printing it, or by telling Japan, China, etc - hey can I borrow X USD from you, I'll pay you back in 30 years, plus I'll use some of that borrowed money to buy your stuff:).
It's a great scheme eh? Now I think some potential problems are:
1) If instead of passing the money to most US citizens, the money is passed to a few cronies, or blown away in Iraq. 2) If the rest of the world start shifting to some other currency for trade, for example the Euro.
Nowadays with all the usual stuff out there I think just having porn pics in the browser cache shouldn't be such a serious offense.
Just let everyone know that all web requests are logged, and once in a while check the top 10 users and the top 10 sites.
But be aware that often the top will be the CEO or someone near that level, so if you are going to make public announcements better inform them and do a private trial run first;).
"When you left your parent's club, did they ask you to leave your home as well ?"
After I became an adult, I left the club. So I don't have to pay the club fee. I have not left my home, so I pay whatever is due from me for that. I have not left my country, so I will continue to pay the taxes in that country. I can leave my country for another country, then I will pay whatever is due in that new country.
"No, the government will use force and prevent me from doing it."
I don't know where you are living, or what you did, but I can freely leave my country, pack my bags, and leave.
I think if you move your entire house, and land top soil to some other country or middle of the ocean, I think your government won't stop you, or at least it won't be legal to do so (as long as you respected the environment impact laws etc, have fully paid for the house etc).
I'd personally suggest converting that property=land to property=money (by selling it), and move. Much easier.
If that land is worth so much more to you than your objection of paying taxes + sale price, then I think your Government must be doing at least some things right.
"If every property owner in the US willingly gave to the government a monopoly of law over his land"
What makes your land 100% yours? Just because you say so? Sure you can, so can I. So what happens if we both make claims on the same piece of land? Well, before you took "ownership" of your land, there were lots of people who came before you, who have said it's not 100% yours, that the Government has say over it no matter what. So they said so _first_ before you.
It's very easy to say "This land is mine, mine, all mine!". Despite some of the land having been taken from the Native Americans (and other people) years ago (was it a Government doing that in most cases? I'm not that familiar with US history), and the Government eventually paying some compensation for it, to hopefully satisfy most of them.
Lastly, as a Christian I personally believe it's all God's, so it's easier for me to not kick up a big fuss if it's taken away (being human I bet I'll still kick up a fuss:) ). So maybe that's why my perspective is a lot different from yours - I find it hard to kick up a big fuss over paying taxes:
1) It's required - because enough other people believe it is required. 2) You can pay it in money - which only has value because enough other people believe it has. 3) After you die, it's not worth as much to you. 4) If you believe in eternal life, then people matter more, so if it makes them happy if you pay...:) 5) You can go elsewhere.
People make fun of World of Warcraft (WoW) players and their virtual gold and items. But to me the USD isn't much more real than the WoW money. I wonder if the USD has weakened against the WoW currency;).
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Ah, no wonder - it's not the socks. You have to be a virgin and subject yourself to the whims and fancies of Microsoft.
;).
Naturally I qualify for the virgin part, and since my parent's house does not have a basement, I have resorted to living in the ground floor room.
It actually does "update" drivers when you use it, so it's not a "NIL" thing.
There are all sorts of drivers provided - NIC, video, sound card drivers etc.
And >=90% of the time you will regret the aftermath of "updating". For example you might get an nvidia driver for your vid card that dates to 2001 when nvidia last bothered to send a driver to MS for "certification". Same thing for NIC drivers.
The theory is nice, but in practice, don't use it.
(I'm not a graphics designer so I probably see things differently)
I've seen this: http://img261.imageshack.us/my.php?image=applestoorangesua8.jpg
And they don't look the same to me - the curvatures are different. Heck the NYC logo doesn't even look that much like an apple to me.
Apple should just stop being assholes.
Exactly why it should be done at the edge not the core.
"I don't think giving different types of data differing priorities is a good idea"
One of my suggestions was give all users crap priorities, till they "dial up", then they get normal priorities. You can give normal priorities to akamai etc stuff even if they don't "dial up".
Users won't be able to hide from that.
If an ISP is having to regularly discard packets at their core routers I think they are doing something wrong. They should be discarding at the edge where the "info" is, plus it's more scalable that way.
For printers and some other stuff I often try to avoid running the "installer from the CD", because that usually puts tons of useless crap into your computer.
I usually try to look for the Win2K/XP directory where the "real driver" is stored, and then point windows to it.
If XP gets the wrong driver and you want to rerecognize the stuff again, just go to control panel and delete the relevant "?" stuff in device manager (the question mark icon for the device indicates it's not properly installed etc).
Most times it's the manufacturers who mess things up.
That said, NEVER install hardware drivers from Windows Update.
You know what really bothers me?
It's when you stick in a CD/DVD into the optical drive and Windows freezes for a significant moment.
Same goes for other cases where the UI pauses and I don't get to do other stuff, even though there's PLENTY of CPU left, and even for a single core low end CPU.
The rest of Win2K/XP doesn't bother me as much.
In fact Firefox 2 has been very annoying, more annoying than IE. I can launch IE in multiple different processes but I can't do that with Firefox. If an IE instance hangs or uses too much memory, I can kill it without affecting my other IE instances. Same if an IE instance crashes - doesn't affect the rest. Can't seem to do that with firefox 2, unless you create X different users to run X different instances, which is ridiculous.
So when one tab out of 40 causes the entire firefox to hang, I have to kill firefox (and thus every tab etc) and restart again, and often it doesn't resume all the sessions properly (especially when you have more than one window, each window having multiple tabs). When firefox starts to use 1GB of RAM, I have to kill everything, not just close one tab, or one window. If the firefox developers can't get things right, they should design it to fail better.
An ISP at the "edge" knows who is logged on to that IP and so can treat them accordingly.
:).
Already companies _are_ getting better service than "normal users". So your concerns are unfounded.
Roberts proposal (and company's product) however appears to be more focused at the core rather than the edge (if it's the edge I don't even see why it's such a great benefit).
The real problem with P2P using up too much ISP bandwidth is Copyright Law and the **AA.
If ISPs could cache and seed all torrents (on demand or prefetch) without being sued by the **AA etc, ISPs could make far more efficient use of their bandwidth.
They would just throttle P2P connections to peers outside their network, but allow downloads at top speed from the ISP's Super Peers (which get prioritized bandwidth when downloading from the "outside").
If the **AA do not allow that, the other solution is to to put some (or all) "always on" internet service traffic at a lower priority all the time (so whenever there are other packets to send, they get sent first), then when users want "full service" for their P2P or whatever, they "dial up", and "logout/disconnect" when they're done with "premium priority", leaving their P2P etc going back to lower priority. Then users get X hours of premium priority a month depending on their package (with option to purchase more hours).
While it's a bit like back to the old days of dial up, the difference is you still get "always on" internet - and the ISP might still have some web access get "premium" (aka normal) priority, for example searches on google or wikipedia might not be throttled, and akamai or youtube mirrored/cached stuff within the ISP's network might be max speed, and even P2P traffic within the network might not be throttled.
That way users who just leave their P2P on just to try to keep their upload ratios good, can continue doing it, and users that actually want to download something fast via P2P, can activate their premium priority.
I think many users might be ok with such a scheme. The trouble is figuring out a foolproof way of logging out
Independent? His company sells stuff which happens to do what he wants everyone else to do...
This is a thinly veiled infomercial or PR fluff piece.
"Is it really fair to treat an entire office or dorm (or even a small country) the same as a single user who happens to have a unique IP from their ISP"
;).
:).
The company I currently work for already does this (we provide "premium" aka $$$ internet services at various hotels and airports around the world).
We do the traffic shaping at end points. At the end points we know who the users are, so we can give them different treatment.
Possible scenario: the normal users get their fair share. The VIP users get their fair share which happens to be bigger than the normal users. So if it's a Big company paying $$$$ they get a bigger share (that's fair right?). Believe me in the hospitality industry it is not rare for VIPs to demand a bigger share and "right now".
That said, if the normal/VIP users aren't fully using their share of the bandwidth (e.g. the servers they are downloading from are slow), the rest get to use it. The moment Mr VIP starts using it, well too bad for the rest they go back to their "fair share".
It's not strictly per IP either - we can have different guests sharing the same scheme e.g. all guests from Company X share the same 10Mbps.
There are more details that I won't go into. Anyway, I think my way is better than what Roberts suggests, I'm biased since I'm "Co-Designer" of the way we do things
I suspect he's probably biased too, since his company sells that flow stuff...
It's probably academic now, since the company I work for wants to use a different product they acquired recently, which from what I hear can't do the same thing (yet?), and I might be looking for a new job soon... Oh well
"For example, a computer that might interact with its user purely by voice -- more advanced voice and language recognition systems are likely to require significantly more cores and computational power than is currently in wide use."
;).
I actually think very few people want to talk all day.
I'd rather interact with my computer via "thought macros". I pick macros, and the computer learns them (if it's too hard for the computer, I pick a different one, the top software will find it easier to reliably recognize a variety of thought macros), and also by an auxiliary video in (either implant or just a normal screen or microscreen).
This way, the computer becomes a super extension of me. So I can think: [computer][calculate]145656/1.15[/calculate][/computer], and the computer will calculate the answer for me or [computer][past_recall][associated brain pattern/state][/past_recall][/computer], then the computer will try to retrieve its records of the rough time and date when I set that associated brain pattern or state, naturally for lower latency i could think of [back] or [forward] before doing [/computer] in order to find the incident I want to recall.
Voice is quaint
Seriously voice recognition is klunky as a primary method of control. Voice recognition will still be useful, but more so that I can ask the computer "Whose voice is that?", or "let me know if you hear XYZ's voice anywhere".
The military would be interested in: "Let me know if you see a gun muzzle/possible danger item, and highlight it to me", "turn on automatic crack-thump location of snipers now".
Given all this I don't see the real need for doing the parallel processing the way they are talking about, one core for gun muzzle, one core for heli, one core for audio/video preprocessing etc, it all adds up even if you single thread the processes.
You give me the cores, I can think of lots of ways to use them.
"But a corporation isn't a person. It's neutral"
In theory yes.
In practice, it's not neutral. It's as evil as the people that control it. It is an extension of those people's will.
Making a fine distinction between a machine and the invisible people controlling it as the machine goes about crushing people, is correct in theory.
But in practice, if the same people keep controlling it, you might as well associate their brand with "Evil". After all those invisible people in control are often so interested in Brand consciousness.
And Brand consciousness is currently the main reason why anyone would buy Creative sound cards.
I believe the UK Computer Misuse act 1990 covers it.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/ukpga_19900018_en_1.htm
See:
* Unauthorised access to computer material
A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to both.
* Unauthorised modification of computer material
A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable--
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both; and
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine or to both.
I don't see how the Act does not apply to the people involved.
If someone wrote malware or sniffed your keystrokes, the same law should apply whether the perpetrator is BT or some "Evil Hacker".
Many banks etc now call it identity theft and not fraud, because calling it identity theft makes it YOUR problem, whereas calling it banking/transaction fraud makes it THEIR problem.
;).
Anyway, you can't solve impersonation that easily.
So your suggestion on validating transactions is a good one. If I need to add a new account for transfering money to, I have to request a code, which is then sent to my phone, which I then need to enter into the form for the "add" to be valid.
So an attacker would need to have possession of my phone or sniff the mobile phone network, in addition to somehow gaining control over my online bank account (know username and password, or login some other way).
Other banks provide physical devices (e.g. security token) to provide codes in order to validate transactions.
But the reason why I say you can't solve impersonation that easily is people lose and forget stuff all the time, so if banks etc are not careful people can still impersonate you and get new tokens in your name
That's because it's the only chance us engineers have a chance of ever touching a real live girl that isn't a close relative ;).
The rest don't need no fancy dance skills...
The hours are long, the work is hard, the pay is low, the conditions are poor, but the rewards are out of this world.
So it wasn't paranoia- they were really out to get him...
That's kind of my point. The top treatments possible by technology will cost a lot, and there's no way they can be provided to everyone.
:).
So for socialized healthcare, most people would only get the basic to midrange stuff, no top end stuff.
Yes it is quite sucky if you know the patient can be saved, but there are just not enough resources. But I think the HMO bunch are sucking out a large amount of those resources AND doing the same thing - letting people die because the resources left aren't enough (delayed/denied payments etc), so doing it the socialized way might be more efficient use of resources in maximizing the number of people treated effectively.
If the government can't do it directly (no skill etc), then perhaps the government could start a cooperative or two to do it. I feel that cooperatives tend to be less gluttonous than companies.
Also as technology gets better, I think more and more people might be treatable with the low/mid end stuff. The low end treatment now is much better than the top end 100 years ago
Unless I remember wrongly, Iraq did the Euro thing too... I wonder what the US did in response ;).
Once too many countries switch, no more free ride for the USA.
The US prints money, the rest of the countries holding billions of Euro don't automatically become poorer.
"Because I bought it and no one successfully challenged my ownership claim."
If your country's law does say it belongs fully to you, including sovereignty (look it up) then sure it's yours. Otherwise, even when you buy the land (or acquire it some other way) it is _never_ 100% yours - you do NOT get sovereignty with it.
As I said, way before you took "ownership" of your land, there were lots of people who came before you, who had claims to the land, who have said it's never becomes 100% yours, that the Government has say over it no matter what. And they said so _first_ before you.
That's why it's not totally yours even though you bought it. So it ain't stealing when the Gov seizes it - they're taking it back. Maybe you could sue the seller for misrepresentation, or maybe you didn't read the fine print.
That's the big difference. If say you find some island in the middle of the ocean with no other claims to it, then you can claim that land as yours as long as "no one successfully challenges your ownership claim". Then I suppose you have every right to keep it, even to the point of going to war to do so if need be, and you can make the rules however you want, like say if someone buys land from you, they get sovereignty over that land as well.
That said, I am not a lawyer, so you can check with a lawyer on your legal standing in this.
I believe he claims that
1) the medicaid/medicare stuff is being sucked up by the insurance companies.
2) A lot of your tax money is going to F22s and stuff that just pisses off everyone else - the last I checked the USA spends almost as much on military as the rest of the world _combined_.
I feel those are valid points[1]. Just because you get socialized medicine does not necessarily mean your taxes will go up.
But the trouble is if you have lots of expensive high tech equipment, and expensive top doctors, when do you stop treatment? There is no way you can go all the way for everyone. So would there be some counter that when it hits say USD100k the doctors stop work on you and even to the point of letting you die, if you don't have a fresh "infusion of money"?
[1] I believe some insurance companies do a fair amount of dubious stuff - intentionally delay/deny payments (and thus treatments) in order to make more money. Just think of how much money they pay out a day, so if they can delay payouts by a month, imagine how much extra money they can earn from putting that money in the financial markets or banks.
I suggest that a reasonable deficit does not matter as long as _enough_ of the rest of the world use the US dollar for trade and other stuff (and thus hold billions in reserve).
:).
Because all that means is the US Gov "prints" more US dollars, and suddenly the US Gov gets richer and the rest of the world gets poorer. This also affects US Citizens, but the US Gov can pass the money to US citizens via various means. The US Gov can print more money by either actually printing it, or by telling Japan, China, etc - hey can I borrow X USD from you, I'll pay you back in 30 years, plus I'll use some of that borrowed money to buy your stuff
It's a great scheme eh? Now I think some potential problems are:
1) If instead of passing the money to most US citizens, the money is passed to a few cronies, or blown away in Iraq.
2) If the rest of the world start shifting to some other currency for trade, for example the Euro.
"its a fire on the spot if you have porn"
;).
Nowadays with all the usual stuff out there I think just having porn pics in the browser cache shouldn't be such a serious offense.
Just let everyone know that all web requests are logged, and once in a while check the top 10 users and the top 10 sites.
But be aware that often the top will be the CEO or someone near that level, so if you are going to make public announcements better inform them and do a private trial run first
"When you left your parent's club, did they ask you to leave your home as well ?"
:) ). So maybe that's why my perspective is a lot different from yours - I find it hard to kick up a big fuss over paying taxes:
:)
;).
After I became an adult, I left the club. So I don't have to pay the club fee.
I have not left my home, so I pay whatever is due from me for that.
I have not left my country, so I will continue to pay the taxes in that country.
I can leave my country for another country, then I will pay whatever is due in that new country.
"No, the government will use force and prevent me from doing it."
I don't know where you are living, or what you did, but I can freely leave my country, pack my bags, and leave.
I think if you move your entire house, and land top soil to some other country or middle of the ocean, I think your government won't stop you, or at least it won't be legal to do so (as long as you respected the environment impact laws etc, have fully paid for the house etc).
I'd personally suggest converting that property=land to property=money (by selling it), and move. Much easier.
If that land is worth so much more to you than your objection of paying taxes + sale price, then I think your Government must be doing at least some things right.
"If every property owner in the US willingly gave to the government a monopoly of law over his land"
What makes your land 100% yours? Just because you say so? Sure you can, so can I. So what happens if we both make claims on the same piece of land? Well, before you took "ownership" of your land, there were lots of people who came before you, who have said it's not 100% yours, that the Government has say over it no matter what. So they said so _first_ before you.
It's very easy to say "This land is mine, mine, all mine!". Despite some of the land having been taken from the Native Americans (and other people) years ago (was it a Government doing that in most cases? I'm not that familiar with US history), and the Government eventually paying some compensation for it, to hopefully satisfy most of them.
Lastly, as a Christian I personally believe it's all God's, so it's easier for me to not kick up a big fuss if it's taken away (being human I bet I'll still kick up a fuss
1) It's required - because enough other people believe it is required.
2) You can pay it in money - which only has value because enough other people believe it has.
3) After you die, it's not worth as much to you.
4) If you believe in eternal life, then people matter more, so if it makes them happy if you pay...
5) You can go elsewhere.
People make fun of World of Warcraft (WoW) players and their virtual gold and items. But to me the USD isn't much more real than the WoW money. I wonder if the USD has weakened against the WoW currency
Better now?