Most private entities cannot send men with guns to my house to put chain me and put me in a concrete and iron box for the rest of my life. Most private entities do not have aircraft carriers and ICBMs enforcing their will.
And as everyone predicted, the pound is tanking without the strength of the EU to prop it up.
Ah yes, I'm sure the reaction of traders within hours of the referendum accurately reflects the full realities of the markets after the UK leaves the EU, which won't happen for at least 2 years because it's a complicated process.
If the EU really wanted to have fun, they could probably make the UK economy collapse completely by refusing to trade with them. The impact on the rest of the EU would be small compared with the impact on the UK. Then in five years, they could offer to reluctantly let the UK back in with an exchange rate of two pounds to the Euro, but only if they actually started acting like real members of the EU. Some of the EU member nations might well decide to do that just out of spite.
That's actually a great idea, and it's probably something being seriously considered in the halls of EU's power. Need to teach a lesson to all those pesky voters what happens when you go against the wishes of globalist interests. There's already talk of some people in other countries calling for referendums, so the UK needs to be made an example of.
Money is irrelevant to the equation. In fact if you try to route a UBI through money, it's doomed to fail. All you'll do is inflate prices to where stuff becomes unaffordable despite everyone getting a UBI, just like the widespread availability of student loans has inflated the price of college tuitions to where you can't afford if despite the loans.
UBI is not comparable to student loans. Tuition inflation happens because students are not paying with some finite amount of income, they are paying with a virtually unlimited amount of credit, because student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. There is no downward pressure on the price, because credit is treated as an unlimited resource (in practice it is of course limited -- the limit is lifelong indentured servitude).
When you increase people's ability to pay (demand-side economic fix), prices just rise to compensate. It's like trying to climb out of quicksand by pulling one foot up, then putting your weight on that foot to pull your other foot up. Then someone says "let me help you" and pulls one foot up even further. The net effect is no change in your position, except you and the person trying to help did a lot more work for the exact same results.
You're making a vague, qualitative statement about a quantitative question, the Deepak Chopra of economic arguments. The question isn't whether UBI would increase prices, the question is how much and of what. If what you say was true, there'd ultimately basically be no point in any welfare program from food stamps to medicare. UBI is wealth distribution. Translating dollars into "percent ownership of total existing wealth", what UBI does is take some percent from everyone above a certain threshold of wealth and gives it to everyone below that threshold. Would that cause some amount of price increases in some goods? Yeah, of course. But prices are still dictated by the market. Since we don't currently have people starving in the streets in developed nations (quite the opposite, in fact), one can safely assume that the consumption of, for example, staple foods like bread and milk would not change with UBI, at least not much. There's only so much milk you can drink. Whatever price increases happened would be 1) as a result of overall decreased productivity due to people choosing not to work (which is an unknown quantity, but there are arguments why it would be a manageable amount), and 2) to price out UBI dependents out of goods that are currently near the threshold of what the poorest people can afford. Neither of these are anywhere near as catastrophic as what you claim.
A lot of people seem to miss the "basic" part of "universal basic income." This isn't an amount of money that's supposed to be enough to live like Kanye West. It's supposed to be enough to not be homeless and not starve.
Am I certain that UBI is a good idea and won't result in catastrophe? Hell no I'm not. What I am certain of, however, is that if your handwavy little argument was enough to prove UBI so obviously unworkable, there wouldn't be any real-life, grownup economists willing to consider it, but there are.
OK so when you said "If it has not reached sexual maturity do not have sex with it, or fantasize about sex with it," you were wrong? Could you be more accurate about what types of "its" that have not reached sexual maturity is OK to depict in sexually explicit drawings, and what type isn't? Why are slugs OK, but non-human aliens are not OK? Say, if there was a story about humans that were genetically engineered for deep space exploration and reached full brain development by the age of 5 along with an accelerated education regime, but otherwise physically developed like normal humans, would it be OK to depict sexual acts between those people? Or how about if someone was having sex with a sexually immature slug, but then it turned out to be a human child disguised with a cloak that made them look like a slug later on? Or what if it was actually a sexually immature slug, but was disguised with a cloak that made it look like a child?
My comment was intended to point out a simple fact: an obligation, be it externally or internally imposed, to print the words of others will naturally come at the cost of other basic human rights. I never intended to suggest that meant printing the words of others was a bad thing, since I do agree that the right should extend beyond what the government permits. Even so, because of those costs, I also believe that the extent to which the right is extended should be left to the individual to decide. Otherwise, as we agree, it would result in the trampling of rights.
No, actually, we don't agree on that. At least not based on that argument alone. Analogy: I think it's morally wrong to refer to your girlfriend as a dumb bitch in public and private. There should not be any government regulation against it (short of high-threshold abuse), but there should most certainly be a social and internalized cost to it. Do you feel guilty if you flick your booger on the floor? Do you think that feeling of guilt tramples on your rights? Would you look down on someone who farts in the elevator? How about someone who refuses to teach their children any sex ed? Is it OK to be repulsed when someone has bad breath or dorito dust on their shirt? The old adage about your right to swing your fist ending where my nose begins is much too crude to capture the nuances of morality, ethics, and social norms outside of the law.
Remember, the law, basically, means one thing -- a rule which can and will be violently enforced. You won't be locked in a cage at gunpoint for farting in an elevator. Nor will you be locked in a cage at gunpoint for censoring speech on your massive online discussion platform. That's the only thing you and I definitely agree on.
One more thing about the mobile interface -- it's really slow. Granted I have a crappy underpowered android, but I can still browse most websites just fine. I'm not sure if the problem is heavy scripting crapping out the processor, or a lot of requests piling onto the (fast but still not THAT fast) 4G connection, but it's extremely hard to use.
Lol, you still believe in that? Pretty sure that ship has sailed. Now go back to your regularly scheduled programming of making fun of RMS for walking around barefoot and having weird hair.
What you are alluding to as trampling on others' rights would be if you were legally obligated to print speech you don't want to print. You're still thinking of it in terms of prohibitions under penalty of law. But there is a whole big world out there that has nothing to do with the law. You can start here.
The reality is that, during the Obama Administration, income inequality has skyrocketed [oxfam.org]. That follows 8 years of income inequality falling, during the Bush years.
Yes, and it's your choice to interpret surge pricing as necessarily inevitably excessive. You haven't explained why there can be no instance of non-predatory surge pricing.
Wrong. The whole point of surge pricing is to only offer taxis to those who can afford it, screw the non-rich folks. That's gouging.
But for some reason, you haven't broken into an art gallery and stolen a Picasso to give it to some of those non-rich folks. And before you tell me that a taxi is different because it's a basic necessity, 1) there is already a federal almost-ban on surge pricing during disaster events, 2) Uber isn't a monopoly, 3) there is a difference between limited surge pricing and absolutely no surge pricing, which you have failed to address, 4) did I mention Uber isn't monopoly, which is typically a pretty damn important component of price gauging?
Doesn't that kinda prove that religion - or lack of it - is an irrelevant detail to the issue of people doing horrible things to other people they consider expendable in the name of their cause?
I don't think anybody's saying religion is what makes people capable of doing bad things. I think they're just saying it's been one hell of a motivator. So no, it doesn't prove anything of the sort.
Well, I think there would have to be some minimal temporal granularity to it, so the price isn't changing by the second. Also, I think they should be required to get explicit consent before applying the surge price, like a popup saying "surge pricing in effect for the next hour, accept or limit to 3G speeds?"
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose it would be a waste of time to tell you that Monsanto is responsible for a small portion of the GMO market.
Basing your opinion of nougat on the Three Musketeers bar is like basing your opinion of air travel on 9/11.
Most private entities cannot send men with guns to my house to put chain me and put me in a concrete and iron box for the rest of my life. Most private entities do not have aircraft carriers and ICBMs enforcing their will.
Did you know that judges are 70% less likely to be lenient when hungry?
Sorry, I left my telekinesis in my other pants.
Well no, but dude, it's Boston Dynamics. Any self-respecting geek should really know their name by now.
And as everyone predicted, the pound is tanking without the strength of the EU to prop it up.
Ah yes, I'm sure the reaction of traders within hours of the referendum accurately reflects the full realities of the markets after the UK leaves the EU, which won't happen for at least 2 years because it's a complicated process.
If the EU really wanted to have fun, they could probably make the UK economy collapse completely by refusing to trade with them. The impact on the rest of the EU would be small compared with the impact on the UK. Then in five years, they could offer to reluctantly let the UK back in with an exchange rate of two pounds to the Euro, but only if they actually started acting like real members of the EU. Some of the EU member nations might well decide to do that just out of spite.
That's actually a great idea, and it's probably something being seriously considered in the halls of EU's power. Need to teach a lesson to all those pesky voters what happens when you go against the wishes of globalist interests. There's already talk of some people in other countries calling for referendums, so the UK needs to be made an example of.
OK. It's official now. That word has literally lost all its meaning.
The outrageous damages would be viewed by a judge as outright silliness and dismissed
As they would be in the US, if you actually bothered to show up in court.
This sort of thing would also likely get the serial litigant declared to be a Vexatious Litigant
That happens in the US too, but it's a bit more complicated since the legal system is a lot more fragmented.
You are definitely not the same person replying to yourself over and over again.
Money is irrelevant to the equation. In fact if you try to route a UBI through money, it's doomed to fail. All you'll do is inflate prices to where stuff becomes unaffordable despite everyone getting a UBI, just like the widespread availability of student loans has inflated the price of college tuitions to where you can't afford if despite the loans.
UBI is not comparable to student loans. Tuition inflation happens because students are not paying with some finite amount of income, they are paying with a virtually unlimited amount of credit, because student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. There is no downward pressure on the price, because credit is treated as an unlimited resource (in practice it is of course limited -- the limit is lifelong indentured servitude).
When you increase people's ability to pay (demand-side economic fix), prices just rise to compensate. It's like trying to climb out of quicksand by pulling one foot up, then putting your weight on that foot to pull your other foot up. Then someone says "let me help you" and pulls one foot up even further. The net effect is no change in your position, except you and the person trying to help did a lot more work for the exact same results.
You're making a vague, qualitative statement about a quantitative question, the Deepak Chopra of economic arguments. The question isn't whether UBI would increase prices, the question is how much and of what. If what you say was true, there'd ultimately basically be no point in any welfare program from food stamps to medicare. UBI is wealth distribution. Translating dollars into "percent ownership of total existing wealth", what UBI does is take some percent from everyone above a certain threshold of wealth and gives it to everyone below that threshold. Would that cause some amount of price increases in some goods? Yeah, of course. But prices are still dictated by the market. Since we don't currently have people starving in the streets in developed nations (quite the opposite, in fact), one can safely assume that the consumption of, for example, staple foods like bread and milk would not change with UBI, at least not much. There's only so much milk you can drink. Whatever price increases happened would be 1) as a result of overall decreased productivity due to people choosing not to work (which is an unknown quantity, but there are arguments why it would be a manageable amount), and 2) to price out UBI dependents out of goods that are currently near the threshold of what the poorest people can afford. Neither of these are anywhere near as catastrophic as what you claim. A lot of people seem to miss the "basic" part of "universal basic income." This isn't an amount of money that's supposed to be enough to live like Kanye West. It's supposed to be enough to not be homeless and not starve.
Am I certain that UBI is a good idea and won't result in catastrophe? Hell no I'm not. What I am certain of, however, is that if your handwavy little argument was enough to prove UBI so obviously unworkable, there wouldn't be any real-life, grownup economists willing to consider it, but there are.
the left just coddles people that should be removed from society
Could you be more specific? What does that coddling look like?
OK so when you said "If it has not reached sexual maturity do not have sex with it, or fantasize about sex with it," you were wrong? Could you be more accurate about what types of "its" that have not reached sexual maturity is OK to depict in sexually explicit drawings, and what type isn't? Why are slugs OK, but non-human aliens are not OK? Say, if there was a story about humans that were genetically engineered for deep space exploration and reached full brain development by the age of 5 along with an accelerated education regime, but otherwise physically developed like normal humans, would it be OK to depict sexual acts between those people? Or how about if someone was having sex with a sexually immature slug, but then it turned out to be a human child disguised with a cloak that made them look like a slug later on? Or what if it was actually a sexually immature slug, but was disguised with a cloak that made it look like a child?
What about slugs? Can I draw sex with sexually immature slugs?
My comment was intended to point out a simple fact: an obligation, be it externally or internally imposed, to print the words of others will naturally come at the cost of other basic human rights. I never intended to suggest that meant printing the words of others was a bad thing, since I do agree that the right should extend beyond what the government permits. Even so, because of those costs, I also believe that the extent to which the right is extended should be left to the individual to decide. Otherwise, as we agree, it would result in the trampling of rights.
No, actually, we don't agree on that. At least not based on that argument alone. Analogy: I think it's morally wrong to refer to your girlfriend as a dumb bitch in public and private. There should not be any government regulation against it (short of high-threshold abuse), but there should most certainly be a social and internalized cost to it. Do you feel guilty if you flick your booger on the floor? Do you think that feeling of guilt tramples on your rights? Would you look down on someone who farts in the elevator? How about someone who refuses to teach their children any sex ed? Is it OK to be repulsed when someone has bad breath or dorito dust on their shirt? The old adage about your right to swing your fist ending where my nose begins is much too crude to capture the nuances of morality, ethics, and social norms outside of the law.
Remember, the law, basically, means one thing -- a rule which can and will be violently enforced. You won't be locked in a cage at gunpoint for farting in an elevator. Nor will you be locked in a cage at gunpoint for censoring speech on your massive online discussion platform. That's the only thing you and I definitely agree on.
TL;DR: this
OK. What about sex with children of a non-human but humanoid and intelligent species?
One more thing about the mobile interface -- it's really slow. Granted I have a crappy underpowered android, but I can still browse most websites just fine. I'm not sure if the problem is heavy scripting crapping out the processor, or a lot of requests piling onto the (fast but still not THAT fast) 4G connection, but it's extremely hard to use.
Lol, you still believe in that? Pretty sure that ship has sailed. Now go back to your regularly scheduled programming of making fun of RMS for walking around barefoot and having weird hair.
What you are alluding to as trampling on others' rights would be if you were legally obligated to print speech you don't want to print. You're still thinking of it in terms of prohibitions under penalty of law. But there is a whole big world out there that has nothing to do with the law. You can start here.
The reality is that, during the Obama Administration, income inequality has skyrocketed [oxfam.org]. That follows 8 years of income inequality falling, during the Bush years.
That's global, not US.
You forgot the steam engine -- first conceived of in ancient Greece.
Wrong. The whole point of surge pricing is to only offer taxis to those who can afford it, screw the non-rich folks. That's gouging.
But for some reason, you haven't broken into an art gallery and stolen a Picasso to give it to some of those non-rich folks. And before you tell me that a taxi is different because it's a basic necessity, 1) there is already a federal almost-ban on surge pricing during disaster events, 2) Uber isn't a monopoly, 3) there is a difference between limited surge pricing and absolutely no surge pricing, which you have failed to address, 4) did I mention Uber isn't monopoly, which is typically a pretty damn important component of price gauging?
And look, I can link to articles too. Here's one:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ub...
Hey, look at that, even the NYC council isn't considering completely banning surge pricing, only limiting it:
http://dailysignal.com/2015/09...
And even that seems to be dead in the water:
http://legistar.council.nyc.go...
I bet if you'd lived in post-WWI Weimar Republic you'd be calling for the heads of the Novemberverbrecher.
Doesn't that kinda prove that religion - or lack of it - is an irrelevant detail to the issue of people doing horrible things to other people they consider expendable in the name of their cause?
I don't think anybody's saying religion is what makes people capable of doing bad things. I think they're just saying it's been one hell of a motivator. So no, it doesn't prove anything of the sort.
Well, I think there would have to be some minimal temporal granularity to it, so the price isn't changing by the second. Also, I think they should be required to get explicit consent before applying the surge price, like a popup saying "surge pricing in effect for the next hour, accept or limit to 3G speeds?"