It's the purchasing that drives up the demand. Making it illegal only drives up the profit. Then again, making it legal would increase proliferation, which in my opinion would be worse.
If you need to censor something, it's because it's being given away for free. Not only is there little reason to give something illegal away for free, but also consumption of a free (and freely and infinitely reproducible) commodity does not drive up demand.
Note, I'm not trying to defend child pornography, I'm just pointing out that neither censoring nor not censoring it makes an appreciable difference. Given this, there's little reason to go through the time, trouble, expense, and immorality of censorship - the sole exception being for political appeal.
Horza has the right of it: the right to free speech means the preclusion of prevention, not the right to immunity from consequence. There was once a time in this country when speaking or writing ill of the president was a felony - but you were completely free to do so anyway.
Now we have a Supreme Court verdict against "chilling speech", or tacking arbitrary consequences to certain expressions, which tends to prevent (or censor) completely free speech.
To put it another way, here in the U.S., we are completely free to shout "FIRE!" in a theater all we like - we just aren't immune to the consequences.
Wouldn't we need to remove hammers? Because someone may bash someone in the head with it?
No, of course not, no more than guns should be banned. But when the only purpose for filtering tools is censorship, and censorship is inherently evil, then the only people with the tools should be the misguided ones that want things censored from them.
In other words, all filtering should be done on the client-side.
Yeah, until sunspot activity randomly interrupts the mesh network on some random day, simultaneously causing millions of accidents across the country...
The solution to congestion in cities is public transportation - automobiles were originally designed for rural areas and sparsely populated towns in mind, and for crossing the empty spaces in between, not navigating the dense urban environments that we have today.
The solution to get higher speeds, less congestion, and less (I won't say no) drunk driving is much, much simpler than networking vehicles - it's banning commuter vehicles from city streets, making them stop at the city limits and get on the subway/trolley/train/bus line.
Uh, most people don't travel around by military march. The individual, taking his time, walks at 3 mph. A fit individual walking briskly moves at about 4 mph. A power-walker covers ground at 5-6 mph. I know these things because I used to cover around 100 miles on foot every week, for exercise and exploratory purposes.
His point was that public transportation is useless for rural U.S., and that no amount of infrastructure re-organization will ameliorate the need for private vehicles in those areas.
Public trans. is great for cities; we need more of it there, no doubt. I live in a city and work 8 miles from my home (in a neighboring city) - using the current bus system actually takes more time than walking there directly (2.5 hrs vs. 2 hrs), and I feel a little guilty about driving so short a distance.
But the need for privately owned vehicles will never go away in the U.S. - at least not until our population exceeds some 2 billion or more people, and given that our birth rate has just recently fallen below the rate of replenishment (yay!), it'll be a good long time before that happens, if ever.
We have a need, more than any other industrial nation (save maybe Australia), for clean and efficient cars. The fact that our auto industry is so very reluctant to supply them demands a paradigm shift. If I, as a layman, can design a 3 person vehicle that gets 180 miles to the gallon (of biodiesel) based on existing designs and current technology, what exactly is the holdup?
Hey, I'm all for a consumption tax. There was even a small bi-partisan movement a few years back for a 23% consumption tax on all new goods and services to replace the income tax. Didn't go anywhere.
I think it's highly unlikely that we'll see a consumption tax in the U.S. anytime soon, if ever: it would reduce consumption. This country literally thrives on over-consumption - it's our primary export.
Precisely. The federal government doesn't need to be spending money on either of those things, although they're welcome to fund their own highways. If they elect not to, the states could just raise the tolls again.
The federal government could easily cut all it's spending in education as well; schools have only gotten worse since the DoE took over in the 90's. And farming subsidies to large agribiz - no need for that. Also, no point in paying farmers not to produce, either.
Oh, and don't forget the war on drugs - that's completely needless expenditure that could be turned into massive tax profits.
Er, no one 'invented' English; it has always been a mash-up of multiple languages. While it may have originated in England as a modified Germanic tongue, it has moved so far from its origins that no one group of people could be said to have created it.
Just because we 'fold, spindle, and mutilate' different languages/words and incorporate them into our language here in the USA
The U.S. is not the sole practitioner of this - this has happened to the language since its inception, which is why we all don't speak and write in Old English anymore.
Realistically, I have to take the position that both spellings are technically correct.
The problem there is that the Republicans have always relied on simple minds for the bulk of their votes, just as the Democrats rely on the lazy ("I just want the government to take care of me") vote.
While the majority of the stupid and lazy don't vote, the majority that do vote are, unfortunately, also stupid and lazy. The shift in paradigm that's needed to get this country on the right track begins with education and a firm belief in self-reliance. Any ideas on how to spread those around?
Oh hell, I've been cheering for gridlock since I was 11 years old.
The best government is the one that does nothing at all. No growth, no reactionary laws, no behavioral regulations. Local communities are and have always been able to take care of themselves, given a state of general peace.
Even a plane slamming into the skyscraper you're currently inhabiting isn't that big of a cause for alarm. An orderly evacuation is recommended, but any decent architect will tell you that those steel-and-concrete buildings are designed to withstand the impact of several 747s.
Actually, it is precisely Apple's fault. If they didn't make their formats proprietary, then the choice of operating system would not make a difference.
I think you've misunderstood the reasoning at work here.
This is in preparation for a continental biometric identity database, not to track alleged terrorists. The goal is to track everyone, regardless of who they are or what they've done.
The federal government is still pushing for it's Real ID program, and it has a few states on board. Most of the states want nothing to do with this, but I'm not sure how long they'll hold out.
Actually, Runaway makes a great deal of sense. The single greatest deterrent to violent crime is an armed and/or empowered victim. No after-the-fact police officer is going to make a difference, and prior performance does not necessarily indicate future action - in other words, identification helps very little in crime prevention.
This is why I'm not advocating anarchy. I'm advocating the government structure guaranteed to us in the U.S. Constitution, of a government that was bottom-up in design with no head; from the people to their communities to the counties to the sovereign states, with a legal entity formed by the contract between them to solve interstate disputes.
I've been saying for years that money is just a metaphor for energy, and I'd gladly accept 40 watt coins or kilowatt bills.
But how would you determine the creation of such money? Is it worth the amount of energy needed to make it? Coins would be worth more than paper, then, as there is more energy put into the mining of the metals, the smelting of the ore, the minting of the coins. Or do you think the power companies should simply print their own money instead of banks?
You could just go and say all currency should be based on sunlight, that countries get to mint currency each day representing the total energy gain from the light that falls on their lands. It's not at all fair, and would never be considered seriously, but it is the most logical form of currency.
The gold standard is something everyone can understand, is familiar with, and works. The only reason we ever broke from it is from running national social programs and wars at the same time. When we first adopted the Bretton Woods system in 1946, gold was at $35 an ounce. When we broke from the Bretton Woods system in 1971, Gold was at $44 an ounce. Right now it's around $844 an ounce. Does that help put things into perspective?
In a general sense, I agree with you; large corporations show a disturbing lack of collective morality.
But it needs to be understood, especially with today's transportation and communication capabilities, that large corporations are more protected from across-the-board business legislation than not. Indeed, often lobbyists or other corporate affiliates push for an increase in order to protect themselves from smaller newcomers who would be able to beat them out through innovation or superior marketing if not for the cost of implementing confusing and often unnecessary or non applicable regulation.
As for labor rights, I'm right on board with you there, but also realize that standards were improving on their own before government intervention, and that government intervention today is precisely what keeps wages low.
Let me pose this question to you; what would happen today, if a capitalist decided to start up an auto factory in the U.S. designing ultralight geodiesel hybrids that got 200-250 mi./gal? What if, instead of a single capitalist, we were talking about a group of individuals interested in starting a worker-owned company, just take take the moral ambiguity and the unions out of it. Do you think that would be possible? Do you think that, if it is possible, it would be harder or easier to do because of federal legislation?
Federal regulation oversteps its bounds and prevents innovation and competition. If it must legislate business, it should restrict itself only to public business (businesses with public stock), and leave private business regulation to the 50 sovereign states.
Precious metals are the obvious choice but the global supply of them does not grow at the rate the economy usually does, which is a problem.
I would argue that the real economy does not grow much at all, only that living standards get continually better through advance of technology, and that the inflated economy we see today is a result of profit from a position of debt.
Ultimately, IANAE (Economist), and I don't have a great answer for you, other than many economists from the Austrian school of thought believe in a return to commodity-backed money, and the economists from the Keynes school of thought have got us into this mess in the first place and ought to be duly ignored.
Capitalism seemed to work pretty well until we gave up on it early last century (it was just too damn hard for large companies to compete in an open market). We could always try that again.
The parent was suggesting as little government intervention as possible. What do you think anarchy is?
Anarchy would be no government. Small government leads to a situation known as freedom.
You want to know what a lack of sensible regulation and control gets you - look at the current financial troubles your country has caused.
Actually the current situation is not as simple as that. While the bank failure can be immediately attributed to the repeal of the Glass Seagal Act (which, by the way, no one in legislation has bothered to reinstate), the real problems with the economy can be attributed to the creation of the Federal Reserve (putting banks in charge of the economy in the first place), and the dissolution of the gold standard (allowing the Fed to create as much money as it wants, without creating actual wealth to accompany it).
Government involvement has done nothing but harm the economy since at least the 1920's, when anti-competitive legislation first began rearing up. It's only grown since then - we really do need less legislation: the people and the states will pull themselves out of this mess much more easily without the federal government mucking things up.
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It's the purchasing that drives up the demand. Making it illegal only drives up the profit. Then again, making it legal would increase proliferation, which in my opinion would be worse.
If you need to censor something, it's because it's being given away for free. Not only is there little reason to give something illegal away for free, but also consumption of a free (and freely and infinitely reproducible) commodity does not drive up demand.
Note, I'm not trying to defend child pornography, I'm just pointing out that neither censoring nor not censoring it makes an appreciable difference. Given this, there's little reason to go through the time, trouble, expense, and immorality of censorship - the sole exception being for political appeal.
Horza has the right of it: the right to free speech means the preclusion of prevention, not the right to immunity from consequence. There was once a time in this country when speaking or writing ill of the president was a felony - but you were completely free to do so anyway.
Now we have a Supreme Court verdict against "chilling speech", or tacking arbitrary consequences to certain expressions, which tends to prevent (or censor) completely free speech.
To put it another way, here in the U.S., we are completely free to shout "FIRE!" in a theater all we like - we just aren't immune to the consequences.
Wouldn't we need to remove hammers? Because someone may bash someone in the head with it?
No, of course not, no more than guns should be banned. But when the only purpose for filtering tools is censorship, and censorship is inherently evil, then the only people with the tools should be the misguided ones that want things censored from them.
In other words, all filtering should be done on the client-side.
Vitamin A:
Carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, kale, spinach, pumpkin, cantaloupe, apricots, papaya, mangoes, peas, squash.
Vitamin D:
Generated within the human body on contact with sunlight (UV light). Can also be produced in mushrooms grown under UV light.
Vitamin E:
Avocado, spinach, asparagus, wheat germ, wholegrain foods, most nuts, seeds, and palm & vegetable oils.
Vitamin K:
Spinach, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, avocado, kiwi, parsley.
Yeah, until sunspot activity randomly interrupts the mesh network on some random day, simultaneously causing millions of accidents across the country...
The solution to congestion in cities is public transportation - automobiles were originally designed for rural areas and sparsely populated towns in mind, and for crossing the empty spaces in between, not navigating the dense urban environments that we have today.
The solution to get higher speeds, less congestion, and less (I won't say no) drunk driving is much, much simpler than networking vehicles - it's banning commuter vehicles from city streets, making them stop at the city limits and get on the subway/trolley/train/bus line.
Uh, most people don't travel around by military march. The individual, taking his time, walks at 3 mph. A fit individual walking briskly moves at about 4 mph. A power-walker covers ground at 5-6 mph. I know these things because I used to cover around 100 miles on foot every week, for exercise and exploratory purposes.
His point was that public transportation is useless for rural U.S., and that no amount of infrastructure re-organization will ameliorate the need for private vehicles in those areas.
Public trans. is great for cities; we need more of it there, no doubt. I live in a city and work 8 miles from my home (in a neighboring city) - using the current bus system actually takes more time than walking there directly (2.5 hrs vs. 2 hrs), and I feel a little guilty about driving so short a distance.
But the need for privately owned vehicles will never go away in the U.S. - at least not until our population exceeds some 2 billion or more people, and given that our birth rate has just recently fallen below the rate of replenishment (yay!), it'll be a good long time before that happens, if ever.
We have a need, more than any other industrial nation (save maybe Australia), for clean and efficient cars. The fact that our auto industry is so very reluctant to supply them demands a paradigm shift. If I, as a layman, can design a 3 person vehicle that gets 180 miles to the gallon (of biodiesel) based on existing designs and current technology, what exactly is the holdup?
Ethanol -> lots of space to make fuel.
That's why you grow it vertically.
Hey, I'm all for a consumption tax. There was even a small bi-partisan movement a few years back for a 23% consumption tax on all new goods and services to replace the income tax. Didn't go anywhere.
I think it's highly unlikely that we'll see a consumption tax in the U.S. anytime soon, if ever: it would reduce consumption. This country literally thrives on over-consumption - it's our primary export.
Precisely. The federal government doesn't need to be spending money on either of those things, although they're welcome to fund their own highways. If they elect not to, the states could just raise the tolls again.
The federal government could easily cut all it's spending in education as well; schools have only gotten worse since the DoE took over in the 90's. And farming subsidies to large agribiz - no need for that. Also, no point in paying farmers not to produce, either.
Oh, and don't forget the war on drugs - that's completely needless expenditure that could be turned into massive tax profits.
Get over the spelling, they invented the language
Er, no one 'invented' English; it has always been a mash-up of multiple languages. While it may have originated in England as a modified Germanic tongue, it has moved so far from its origins that no one group of people could be said to have created it.
Just because we 'fold, spindle, and mutilate' different languages/words and incorporate them into our language here in the USA
The U.S. is not the sole practitioner of this - this has happened to the language since its inception, which is why we all don't speak and write in Old English anymore.
Realistically, I have to take the position that both spellings are technically correct.
The problem there is that the Republicans have always relied on simple minds for the bulk of their votes, just as the Democrats rely on the lazy ("I just want the government to take care of me") vote.
While the majority of the stupid and lazy don't vote, the majority that do vote are, unfortunately, also stupid and lazy. The shift in paradigm that's needed to get this country on the right track begins with education and a firm belief in self-reliance. Any ideas on how to spread those around?
Oh hell, I've been cheering for gridlock since I was 11 years old.
The best government is the one that does nothing at all. No growth, no reactionary laws, no behavioral regulations. Local communities are and have always been able to take care of themselves, given a state of general peace.
However, sustained fire damage is what brought down the twin towers, not the direct force of the planes.
That's a good one. I suppose a couple of random fires caused by burning debris is what brought down Building 7?
Even a plane slamming into the skyscraper you're currently inhabiting isn't that big of a cause for alarm. An orderly evacuation is recommended, but any decent architect will tell you that those steel-and-concrete buildings are designed to withstand the impact of several 747s.
Actually, it is precisely Apple's fault. If they didn't make their formats proprietary, then the choice of operating system would not make a difference.
I think you've misunderstood the reasoning at work here.
This is in preparation for a continental biometric identity database, not to track alleged terrorists. The goal is to track everyone, regardless of who they are or what they've done.
The federal government is still pushing for it's Real ID program, and it has a few states on board. Most of the states want nothing to do with this, but I'm not sure how long they'll hold out.
Actually, Runaway makes a great deal of sense. The single greatest deterrent to violent crime is an armed and/or empowered victim. No after-the-fact police officer is going to make a difference, and prior performance does not necessarily indicate future action - in other words, identification helps very little in crime prevention.
This is why I'm not advocating anarchy. I'm advocating the government structure guaranteed to us in the U.S. Constitution, of a government that was bottom-up in design with no head; from the people to their communities to the counties to the sovereign states, with a legal entity formed by the contract between them to solve interstate disputes.
I've been saying for years that money is just a metaphor for energy, and I'd gladly accept 40 watt coins or kilowatt bills.
But how would you determine the creation of such money? Is it worth the amount of energy needed to make it? Coins would be worth more than paper, then, as there is more energy put into the mining of the metals, the smelting of the ore, the minting of the coins. Or do you think the power companies should simply print their own money instead of banks?
You could just go and say all currency should be based on sunlight, that countries get to mint currency each day representing the total energy gain from the light that falls on their lands. It's not at all fair, and would never be considered seriously, but it is the most logical form of currency.
The gold standard is something everyone can understand, is familiar with, and works. The only reason we ever broke from it is from running national social programs and wars at the same time. When we first adopted the Bretton Woods system in 1946, gold was at $35 an ounce. When we broke from the Bretton Woods system in 1971, Gold was at $44 an ounce. Right now it's around $844 an ounce. Does that help put things into perspective?
In a general sense, I agree with you; large corporations show a disturbing lack of collective morality.
But it needs to be understood, especially with today's transportation and communication capabilities, that large corporations are more protected from across-the-board business legislation than not. Indeed, often lobbyists or other corporate affiliates push for an increase in order to protect themselves from smaller newcomers who would be able to beat them out through innovation or superior marketing if not for the cost of implementing confusing and often unnecessary or non applicable regulation.
As for labor rights, I'm right on board with you there, but also realize that standards were improving on their own before government intervention, and that government intervention today is precisely what keeps wages low.
Let me pose this question to you; what would happen today, if a capitalist decided to start up an auto factory in the U.S. designing ultralight geodiesel hybrids that got 200-250 mi./gal? What if, instead of a single capitalist, we were talking about a group of individuals interested in starting a worker-owned company, just take take the moral ambiguity and the unions out of it. Do you think that would be possible? Do you think that, if it is possible, it would be harder or easier to do because of federal legislation?
Federal regulation oversteps its bounds and prevents innovation and competition. If it must legislate business, it should restrict itself only to public business (businesses with public stock), and leave private business regulation to the 50 sovereign states.
Precious metals are the obvious choice but the global supply of them does not grow at the rate the economy usually does, which is a problem.
I would argue that the real economy does not grow much at all, only that living standards get continually better through advance of technology, and that the inflated economy we see today is a result of profit from a position of debt.
Ultimately, IANAE (Economist), and I don't have a great answer for you, other than many economists from the Austrian school of thought believe in a return to commodity-backed money, and the economists from the Keynes school of thought have got us into this mess in the first place and ought to be duly ignored.
Capitalism seemed to work pretty well until we gave up on it early last century (it was just too damn hard for large companies to compete in an open market). We could always try that again.
The parent was suggesting as little government intervention as possible. What do you think anarchy is?
Anarchy would be no government. Small government leads to a situation known as freedom.
You want to know what a lack of sensible regulation and control gets you - look at the current financial troubles your country has caused.
Actually the current situation is not as simple as that. While the bank failure can be immediately attributed to the repeal of the Glass Seagal Act (which, by the way, no one in legislation has bothered to reinstate), the real problems with the economy can be attributed to the creation of the Federal Reserve (putting banks in charge of the economy in the first place), and the dissolution of the gold standard (allowing the Fed to create as much money as it wants, without creating actual wealth to accompany it).
Government involvement has done nothing but harm the economy since at least the 1920's, when anti-competitive legislation first began rearing up. It's only grown since then - we really do need less legislation: the people and the states will pull themselves out of this mess much more easily without the federal government mucking things up.
Doesn't matter. Precedent from the Supreme Court states that the IRS has sovereign immunity and cannot be sued on any issue within it's own domain.