Yes, I think it is a difficult for libertarians to realize that sometime regulation has already corrupted a free market. And there will always be laws that prohibit and punish actions that harm others. So that simplified regulations that mean lower barriers to market entry and freer markets and focus on prohibiting those things that directly harm others are what is needed. As well as laws that prevent monopolization of public spaces and public rights of way.
This is what they do, they just add up all the charges up front.
By source and destination I meant "who" not "where". Of course, packages are paid for based on how far they have to go and how fast you want packages to get there. But only one party pays, either the sender or the receiver. And the main point is that the charges are uniform and not more simply based on perceived ability of one party or another to pay more.
Google has already confirmed that they have been approached by telcos to make sure their packets reach google users in a timely manner. Google is already paying big money for the bandwidth that they use and end users are already paying for the bandwidth that we use. Why is it so hard to see this as a shakedown by corporate monopolists rather than a legitamite business practice?
I really thought they had been put out of business (and out of our misery) by now. Can any company buy any of their products and services these days without feeling dirty? Well, I guess Microsoft can prop them up for a little while more.
I agree, but the big telecoms are aiming to destroy the free market with quality of service and end to end discrimination.
Do you not get it? There are but a handful of long haul carriers left and they are all on board with triple billing their customers for content. These companies at one time or another owe their ability to exist from the power of government to seize people's property and legally maintain their cables on public rights of way, yet they want to have final say over ever packet that goes over their network without considering the benefit of the public. The public has the right and obligation to regulate public rights of way and this is all that this was.
Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, seek to serepticiously undermine competition at every step along the way and my fellow libertarians seem caught up in the idea that it is somehow still a free market even when the marketplace itself is by invitation only.
And I said they seek to triple bill customers... it could be far worse, with every telco along the way seeking further kickbacks along the way to promptly deliver each packet. This is as if UPS, Fedex, Airborne express all suddenly started to demand greater payments along the route for prompt delivery, not just by weight, but based on the source and destination of the packet. If you live in a good neighborhood you get charged more, if they think your company can afford it, you get charged more. And everyone else gets purposefully shitty service.
Welcome to the free market, as long as you don't define "free" and "market" in old speak.
Let's think of this from a business standpoint: patent the process. Produce titanium in small numbers to prevent market saturation. Charge the same amount as everyone else, but at 10% the production cost. I don't see the savings being passed to the consumer anytime soon.
Well the patent holder would want to maximise profit, so will have to produce enough to make it worth while. So, this would increase supply at least somewhat and thus likely decrease prices. And it is very likely that the patent holder would just want to license the process to current companies instead of actually getting capital to start their own plant. So, they would have incentive to license the process to as many companies as possible. At which point it only takes one company to decide that it needs to increase production to increase market share in order to have an effect of lowering prices. Of course, there can always be anti competitive price fixing, but that is illegal and can't go on forever.
And they say anarchy is freedom for the strong. Things like this make me wonder if democracy really is any better.
This may have been simply rhetorical, but many people do feel this way.
Please don't forget the Bill of Rights. Unbridled Democracy becomes just another form of dictatorship without the limits on government power imposed by the Bill of Rights. Democracy or Representative Democracy (a Republic) helps the majority to retain their Freedom, while the Bill of Rights along with the threat of rebellion help minorities retain theirs.
Democracy simply allows us one more step before we all start turning over tables and in that way it is good. But always remember that Democracy is a tool we can use to protect our freedoms and not Freedom itself.
However, anarchy helps no one, because no one is invulnerable.
If you dismiss infractions against the rights of freaks and fags, don't expect respect for your right to have a 30-round banana clip in your assault rifle. Most people think you're a freak too.
I don't mean to say that liberals are wrong to protect the rights of freaks and misfits, but that they are wrong not to go further and protect the rights of everyone else. I think that when liberals don't respect the right to protect oneself as expressed in the second ammendment, that means that any right of expression that may be legally recognized is in fact meaningless when faced with coercion by an armed government.
Freedom is based on the principle that there are certain limits to the power and authority of government. Essentially, a recognition that even a minority can only be bullied so far before they will defend themselves. Without even the ability to defend ourselves, and yes I think this relates directly to science and technology, then we can all be bullied a whole lot more with impunity.
More believably, you could say that progess in science requires freedom of expression. Yet there are plenty of examples (e.g. China) where speech and gun ownership are both heavily restricted, yet science education and research is (or is becoming) top notch. The driver is the prioritization at a societal level of funding science education and research, and on that score America is trailing badly.
Yes, progress in science does require freedom of expression, at least as regards scientific research. China is largely free in this regard as is the US. Sure, you can simulate freedom in a way by putting all of science under government stewardship, so that if you want to work with dangerous chemicals... ie anything, then you do so in state funded schools under government regulations under government supervision. But are you truly going to have innovation and an advancement of science if everything has to be approved of? Challenging the status quo of any belief system, even one that is supposed to be based on quantitative measurement of reality, comes with a price anwyay. But it won't be possible at all without freedom to explore the physical properties of the world around us, and that can't be done by simulation on a computer or by talking about it.
Obviously some people agreed with what I said, but I find the negative reaction to be more disturbing. I am essentially saying that liberals are wrong to only be fighting for freedoms of speech and expression and that the big "F" Freedom overall has suffered by the absense of their political will and quite frankly their cooperation in breaking down our freedoms to protect ourselves to travel freely and exchange goods more freely. These are quite frankly things that true liberals, ones concerned with promoting freedom and the pursuit of knowledge should be fighting for. And I think it is right to call them out.
The liberal Democrats have done what they could given their level of power.
I blame both parties. This trend goes back long enough to spread the blame around to both of those parties, but I think the Democrats deserve special disdane for saying that they defend personal liberties, but not doing so either in word or in deed on so many issues that are more deserving than those hot button topics. I blame the Republicans for saying they will protect the Right to bear arms, but allowing a federal government to restrict the sale of anything that could be dangerous. But the democrats are all for restricting the sale of anything dangerous. Democrats are as prohbitionist than any other party currently. And both parties have done nothing but perpetuate a politics of fear which has enabled Republicans and Democrats together to wipe out civil liberties broadly under the trojan horse of safety.
Thanks for clarifying your point. You are right the research of science does carry an implicit risk, but this does not relate to a second ammendment issue.
Not just the research as in the potential for accidents, but the knowledge itself that is gained carries an implicit risk of being misused. I very much see this as an armament issue. And so does the US government.
As the United States has said of Iran, even just seeking the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon would be considered unacceptible. This wired article highlights this new attitude, that knowledge and science regardless of how it is used is now considered a dangerous weapon.
That's why in order to save science I believe you have to either argue that science and the prusuit of knowledge is safe, which I think is patently false. Or else that we have a right to be dangerous, at least as much as an individual can bear.
Science can not exist in a society where we willingly trade freedom for security. Given that it is the conservatives in the White House and Congress who have been throwing away our freedoms to "improve" security since 9/11, it is completely laughable that you would blame liberals for this problem.
I blame liberals for protecting our freedoms selectively based on political expediency. The Democrats have been throwing away freedoms as gleefully as any Republican. I blame conservatives as well. Actually, I pretty much blame everyone.
We've all fucked up... Fucked up bad.
I am libertarian, I think Freedom is more than a convenient slogan, but is a reasonable basis for a society. It is disheartening that it seems that most other people seem to have given up.
I read this comment and was about to move on thinking, meh slashdot. But really this is insulting to scientists and ppl who love science, I seperate the two cause some scientists don't actually love science.
If you had read the article you would realize that science is being suppressed and attacked because our government believes it to be dangerous. My point was that they are right, science is dangerous. You cannot argue around the issue. No matter how many assurances you want to give people, the pursuit of science and the understanding of the natural world that comes with it will give people power to manipulate nature. To argue otherwise is patently false and only makes people suspicious of science. What should also be made clear is that the power that comes with scientific knowledge can be used either for destructive or beneficial purposes. You cannot seperate the two, because the destructive potential will always be there.
The second ammendment in essence is supposed to gurantee our right to be dangerous. It doesn't give us any right to threaten or harm others, but if we cannot even be allowed by a society the ability protect ourselves by our potential ability to harm others, then how can we expect to be allowed by that same society to pursue knowledge which may likely give us the inherent ability to harm others.
My point is that if you want to elimate every man made danger within a society, then eliminating science really is a logical place to start. So, if you want to keep science then you have to have a free society which respects our right to bear arms. And you have to have a scientific community that tells the government that science cannot exist without being dangerous.
With a few sentences you have summed up a very serious problem with the USA. It makes you wish for another Soviet Union and and the days of the space race to get our ass in gear (perhaps China can soon fill this role of a worthy competitor?).
Do we want to live in a society that needs to justify science in order to give it permission to exist? Science is its own justification, sometimes it will lead to useful tools to fight an enemy, but more often it won't. This article is about a return to a society based on fear of the unknown, a society which will dictate what is normal and require permission from the central authority for anything that is abnormal.
We can no longer rely on liberals to fight for true freedom. Liberals have won the right to dress funny in public schools, have sex with whomever they want and read and write about everything that they care about. But everything else is slipping away.
It is Your fault.
Science cannot truly exist in a society that does not respect the Right to bear arms. Science is a weapon.
There's absolutely nothing that would justify any legal intervention or any other meddling with the market in this case. Nobody is forcing DRM on you.
If you mean forced as is nobody is forcing you to consume content, you are right. But the entertainment industry has been pushing hard to get respect for DRM enshrined in laws which would force hardware manufacturers to only build machines that do whatever it is the DRM tells them to do.
So, if you build electronics or even build your own computers, then DRM is looming over you and Congress is just one midnight vote away from forcing DRM on you.
Which tramples on the freedom to create and your first ammendment right to freedom of expression. Such laws as have been proposed leave consumers with a choice either to do without electronicly recorded content or to use DRM.
Copyright is an artificial right which goes against our natural rights. That is why fair use had to be recognized because copyright otherwise becomes a tool of real political and economic oppression. The imposition of copyright by the government must be restrained, because content is not always just about entertainment sometimes it is about survival.
it's a novel and simple way to raise funds from new technology.
Simple? They must be smoking some good stuff over there.
How is this possibly simple? Use taxes do nothing but unnaturally constrain a particular use at the expense of the overall economy. Use taxes unnaturally constrain economic activity just so that polticians can take more of people's time and money without the politicians having to be the ones that are seen to take it out of your pocket. Simply cowardly politicians wanting a bigger slice of everyone's pie, but not wanting people to notice. Just raise the income tax... or god forbid... don't let politicians spend so much money on prostitutes, either being prostitutes or hiring them.
Countdown to random Internet Libertarian telling us all how this is a horrible infringement on private enterprise in five, four, three, two...
Speaking as a random Internet Libertarian I would consider this as potentially good legislation. Libertarians aren't anarchists, a libertarian should support good laws which seek to punish certain actions that are willingly harmful to others. And no thoughtful libertarian should view conveyance on public rights of way (whether that be in a car or in a data packet) as an arrangement that can be held in the same regard as what I can do in my own home or on my own property.
This is no more an infringement on private ownership or private enterprise than saying that people should drive on the right side of the road or that they may not pass others without signaling first. It is a reasonable extension of rules to enable fair use of commonly held space.
Spend $10bn/month on fusion research. Or $10bn/month on a public rail transportation infrastructure, instead of roads for cars. It'll be worth it.
I agree with the fusion research part, but the tricky thing about road spending is that it is derived from a tax on road use...the gas tax. So if you don't spend the $10bn/month on roads then sooner or later you won't have the 10bn/month to spend on public rail. And I think your roads and bridges will become unusable faster than you could replace them with an effective rail system.
Generally, between 4-6% and there is no National Sales tax... at least yet. There has been some talk recently about creating one. But nobody was too happy about the idea.
You apparently don't realize that telecommuting is different from traditionally working from home. Because you're simultaneously working at your employer's location.
Yes, I don't realize it, because it isn't true. How can you be in two places at once? We are still physical beings. The actual work is done by the person even if that work is conveyed to the employer via the internet, it should be considered no differently than if the person Fedexed the product of the work to the employer. The Internet is just more efficient for conveying information, but it in no way changes the reality of arrangement.
So, would you also assert that help desk employees should also be taxed in the state which confused customers are calling from? After all under your brilliant reasoning, they would be performing work in two different places at once.
You'll just screw it up beyond recognition.
Well, I suppose I was being fairly derisive when I told you you were exercising some government thinking and I am sorry to have offended. But absurd is the correct description of a belief that you can do work in two places at once. "Ridiculous" is just about right too.
How should NYC pay for the costs of legislating, policing, and judging the protections of the workers while they're telecommunting to NYC businesses? Or any of the other municipal/state costs that keep NYC such a great place to work, even virtually?
You do realize that "telecommuting" isn't really commuting? It is just some trendy term for working from your home. The idea that you should be taxed by another state for working out of your own home is pretty rediculous. Very rediculous. Absurd... beyond absurd. So.... it must be the result of government thinking: How can we suck today?
"Well, yeah, it is. In this case, while the citation may be there, enough of the text is taken that there's no point in consulting the original article (so it's not like aggregators such as slashdot, which point to the article). The blogger adds no additional content, and effectively profits (whether in "community kudos" or adsense) from unauthorized reproduction of someone else's content.
That's plagiarism, whether cited it or not.
Think of some of the "techno trends" blog links that make it to slashdot sometimes. Slashdot links to the blog; the blog contains pretty much the whole news item, and you're done." - some guy who calls himself "DingerX"
If they can show restraint in that area, I would hope they would show equal or greater restraint when it comes to national security.
They do. Everything released in the press so far has been about programs that may violate the law directly or simply threaten the basis of our system of government. Nothing released has even come close to threatening national security in a tangible way.
Let me let you in on a big non-secret: the Al Qaeda assume that they will be tortured if captured, and spied on. And they aren't going to trust a "leak" one way or another. Both legitamite and illegitamite methods of interrogation are known and well documented, you could release the torturer's handbook and it wouldn't effect any interrogation outcome. People will be broken when they are broken, a story in the NY times that tells people that when their heads are shoved under water that the interrogator probably isn't actually trying to kill them isn't going to change anything in the person's mind. We must know what is being done to people in our names, for us, and using the fruits of our labors. Anyone who chooses not to find out what is being done and at least apply their moral judgement is simply a coward.
Our soldiers die for nothing if we do not preserve Liberty at home.
Slashdot Mirror
We need less government regulation, NOT more!
Yes, I think it is a difficult for libertarians to realize that sometime regulation has already corrupted a free market. And there will always be laws that prohibit and punish actions that harm others. So that simplified regulations that mean lower barriers to market entry and freer markets and focus on prohibiting those things that directly harm others are what is needed. As well as laws that prevent monopolization of public spaces and public rights of way.
This is what they do, they just add up all the charges up front.
By source and destination I meant "who" not "where". Of course, packages are paid for based on how far they have to go and how fast you want packages to get there. But only one party pays, either the sender or the receiver. And the main point is that the charges are uniform and not more simply based on perceived ability of one party or another to pay more.
Google has already confirmed that they have been approached by telcos to make sure their packets reach google users in a timely manner. Google is already paying big money for the bandwidth that they use and end users are already paying for the bandwidth that we use. Why is it so hard to see this as a shakedown by corporate monopolists rather than a legitamite business practice?
I really thought they had been put out of business (and out of our misery) by now. Can any company buy any of their products and services these days without feeling dirty? Well, I guess Microsoft can prop them up for a little while more.
The market is a better solution than hackers.
I agree, but the big telecoms are aiming to destroy the free market with quality of service and end to end discrimination.
Do you not get it? There are but a handful of long haul carriers left and they are all on board with triple billing their customers for content. These companies at one time or another owe their ability to exist from the power of government to seize people's property and legally maintain their cables on public rights of way, yet they want to have final say over ever packet that goes over their network without considering the benefit of the public. The public has the right and obligation to regulate public rights of way and this is all that this was.
Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, seek to serepticiously undermine competition at every step along the way and my fellow libertarians seem caught up in the idea that it is somehow still a free market even when the marketplace itself is by invitation only.
And I said they seek to triple bill customers... it could be far worse, with every telco along the way seeking further kickbacks along the way to promptly deliver each packet. This is as if UPS, Fedex, Airborne express all suddenly started to demand greater payments along the route for prompt delivery, not just by weight, but based on the source and destination of the packet. If you live in a good neighborhood you get charged more, if they think your company can afford it, you get charged more. And everyone else gets purposefully shitty service.
Welcome to the free market, as long as you don't define "free" and "market" in old speak.
Let's think of this from a business standpoint: patent the process. Produce titanium in small numbers to prevent market saturation. Charge the same amount as everyone else, but at 10% the production cost. I don't see the savings being passed to the consumer anytime soon.
Well the patent holder would want to maximise profit, so will have to produce enough to make it worth while. So, this would increase supply at least somewhat and thus likely decrease prices. And it is very likely that the patent holder would just want to license the process to current companies instead of actually getting capital to start their own plant. So, they would have incentive to license the process to as many companies as possible. At which point it only takes one company to decide that it needs to increase production to increase market share in order to have an effect of lowering prices. Of course, there can always be anti competitive price fixing, but that is illegal and can't go on forever.
Just look at the map
Interest seems worldwide.
lots of cool ocean water to cool your servers and put up a few megawatt class wind turbines to power the servers and the pumps.
They add nothing.
I think you may have just summarized the whole of professional journalism.
And they say anarchy is freedom for the strong. Things like this make me wonder if democracy really is any better.
This may have been simply rhetorical, but many people do feel this way.
Please don't forget the Bill of Rights. Unbridled Democracy becomes just another form of dictatorship without the limits on government power imposed by the Bill of Rights. Democracy or Representative Democracy (a Republic) helps the majority to retain their Freedom, while the Bill of Rights along with the threat of rebellion help minorities retain theirs.
Democracy simply allows us one more step before we all start turning over tables and in that way it is good. But always remember that Democracy is a tool we can use to protect our freedoms and not Freedom itself.
However, anarchy helps no one, because no one is invulnerable.
a sharp knife. And a bit of tequila.
RFID implants are a monumentally stupid idea.
How much time and effort are we going to expend trying to create a caste system in America? Some people really do hate freedom.
If you dismiss infractions against the rights of freaks and fags, don't expect respect for your right to have a 30-round banana clip in your assault rifle. Most people think you're a freak too.
I don't mean to say that liberals are wrong to protect the rights of freaks and misfits, but that they are wrong not to go further and protect the rights of everyone else. I think that when liberals don't respect the right to protect oneself as expressed in the second ammendment, that means that any right of expression that may be legally recognized is in fact meaningless when faced with coercion by an armed government.
Freedom is based on the principle that there are certain limits to the power and authority of government. Essentially, a recognition that even a minority can only be bullied so far before they will defend themselves. Without even the ability to defend ourselves, and yes I think this relates directly to science and technology, then we can all be bullied a whole lot more with impunity.
More believably, you could say that progess in science requires freedom of expression. Yet there are plenty of examples (e.g. China) where speech and gun ownership are both heavily restricted, yet science education and research is (or is becoming) top notch. The driver is the prioritization at a societal level of funding science education and research, and on that score America is trailing badly.
Yes, progress in science does require freedom of expression, at least as regards scientific research. China is largely free in this regard as is the US. Sure, you can simulate freedom in a way by putting all of science under government stewardship, so that if you want to work with dangerous chemicals... ie anything, then you do so in state funded schools under government regulations under government supervision. But are you truly going to have innovation and an advancement of science if everything has to be approved of? Challenging the status quo of any belief system, even one that is supposed to be based on quantitative measurement of reality, comes with a price anwyay. But it won't be possible at all without freedom to explore the physical properties of the world around us, and that can't be done by simulation on a computer or by talking about it.
Obviously some people agreed with what I said, but I find the negative reaction to be more disturbing. I am essentially saying that liberals are wrong to only be fighting for freedoms of speech and expression and that the big "F" Freedom overall has suffered by the absense of their political will and quite frankly their cooperation in breaking down our freedoms to protect ourselves to travel freely and exchange goods more freely. These are quite frankly things that true liberals, ones concerned with promoting freedom and the pursuit of knowledge should be fighting for. And I think it is right to call them out.
The liberal Democrats have done what they could given their level of power.
I blame both parties. This trend goes back long enough to spread the blame around to both of those parties, but I think the Democrats deserve special disdane for saying that they defend personal liberties, but not doing so either in word or in deed on so many issues that are more deserving than those hot button topics. I blame the Republicans for saying they will protect the Right to bear arms, but allowing a federal government to restrict the sale of anything that could be dangerous. But the democrats are all for restricting the sale of anything dangerous. Democrats are as prohbitionist than any other party currently. And both parties have done nothing but perpetuate a politics of fear which has enabled Republicans and Democrats together to wipe out civil liberties broadly under the trojan horse of safety.
Thanks for clarifying your point. You are right the research of science does carry an implicit risk, but this does not relate to a second ammendment issue.
Not just the research as in the potential for accidents, but the knowledge itself that is gained carries an implicit risk of being misused. I very much see this as an armament issue. And so does the US government.
As the United States has said of Iran, even just seeking the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon would be considered unacceptible. This wired article highlights this new attitude, that knowledge and science regardless of how it is used is now considered a dangerous weapon.
That's why in order to save science I believe you have to either argue that science and the prusuit of knowledge is safe, which I think is patently false. Or else that we have a right to be dangerous, at least as much as an individual can bear.
Science can not exist in a society where we willingly trade freedom for security. Given that it is the conservatives in the White House and Congress who have been throwing away our freedoms to "improve" security since 9/11, it is completely laughable that you would blame liberals for this problem.
I blame liberals for protecting our freedoms selectively based on political expediency. The Democrats have been throwing away freedoms as gleefully as any Republican. I blame conservatives as well. Actually, I pretty much blame everyone.
We've all fucked up... Fucked up bad.
I am libertarian, I think Freedom is more than a convenient slogan, but is a reasonable basis for a society. It is disheartening that it seems that most other people seem to have given up.
I read this comment and was about to move on thinking, meh slashdot. But really this is insulting to scientists and ppl who love science, I seperate the two cause some scientists don't actually love science.
If you had read the article you would realize that science is being suppressed and attacked because our government believes it to be dangerous. My point was that they are right, science is dangerous. You cannot argue around the issue. No matter how many assurances you want to give people, the pursuit of science and the understanding of the natural world that comes with it will give people power to manipulate nature. To argue otherwise is patently false and only makes people suspicious of science. What should also be made clear is that the power that comes with scientific knowledge can be used either for destructive or beneficial purposes. You cannot seperate the two, because the destructive potential will always be there.
The second ammendment in essence is supposed to gurantee our right to be dangerous. It doesn't give us any right to threaten or harm others, but if we cannot even be allowed by a society the ability protect ourselves by our potential ability to harm others, then how can we expect to be allowed by that same society to pursue knowledge which may likely give us the inherent ability to harm others.
My point is that if you want to elimate every man made danger within a society, then eliminating science really is a logical place to start. So, if you want to keep science then you have to have a free society which respects our right to bear arms. And you have to have a scientific community that tells the government that science cannot exist without being dangerous.
With a few sentences you have summed up a very serious problem with the USA. It makes you wish for another Soviet Union and and the days of the space race to get our ass in gear (perhaps China can soon fill this role of a worthy competitor?).
Do we want to live in a society that needs to justify science in order to give it permission to exist? Science is its own justification, sometimes it will lead to useful tools to fight an enemy, but more often it won't. This article is about a return to a society based on fear of the unknown, a society which will dictate what is normal and require permission from the central authority for anything that is abnormal.
We can no longer rely on liberals to fight for true freedom. Liberals have won the right to dress funny in public schools, have sex with whomever they want and read and write about everything that they care about. But everything else is slipping away.
It is Your fault.
Science cannot truly exist in a society that does not respect the Right to bear arms. Science is a weapon.
There's absolutely nothing that would justify any legal intervention or any other meddling with the market in this case. Nobody is forcing DRM on you.
If you mean forced as is nobody is forcing you to consume content, you are right. But the entertainment industry has been pushing hard to get respect for DRM enshrined in laws which would force hardware manufacturers to only build machines that do whatever it is the DRM tells them to do.
So, if you build electronics or even build your own computers, then DRM is looming over you and Congress is just one midnight vote away from forcing DRM on you.
Which tramples on the freedom to create and your first ammendment right to freedom of expression. Such laws as have been proposed leave consumers with a choice either to do without electronicly recorded content or to use DRM.
Copyright is an artificial right which goes against our natural rights. That is why fair use had to be recognized because copyright otherwise becomes a tool of real political and economic oppression. The imposition of copyright by the government must be restrained, because content is not always just about entertainment sometimes it is about survival.
it's a novel and simple way to raise funds from new technology.
Simple? They must be smoking some good stuff over there.
How is this possibly simple? Use taxes do nothing but unnaturally constrain a particular use at the expense of the overall economy. Use taxes unnaturally constrain economic activity just so that polticians can take more of people's time and money without the politicians having to be the ones that are seen to take it out of your pocket. Simply cowardly politicians wanting a bigger slice of everyone's pie, but not wanting people to notice. Just raise the income tax... or god forbid... don't let politicians spend so much money on prostitutes, either being prostitutes or hiring them.
Countdown to random Internet Libertarian telling us all how this is a horrible infringement on private enterprise in five, four, three, two...
Speaking as a random Internet Libertarian I would consider this as potentially good legislation. Libertarians aren't anarchists, a libertarian should support good laws which seek to punish certain actions that are willingly harmful to others. And no thoughtful libertarian should view conveyance on public rights of way (whether that be in a car or in a data packet) as an arrangement that can be held in the same regard as what I can do in my own home or on my own property.
This is no more an infringement on private ownership or private enterprise than saying that people should drive on the right side of the road or that they may not pass others without signaling first. It is a reasonable extension of rules to enable fair use of commonly held space.
Spend $10bn/month on fusion research. Or $10bn/month on a public rail transportation infrastructure, instead of roads for cars. It'll be worth it.
I agree with the fusion research part, but the tricky thing about road spending is that it is derived from a tax on road use...the gas tax. So if you don't spend the $10bn/month on roads then sooner or later you won't have the 10bn/month to spend on public rail. And I think your roads and bridges will become unusable faster than you could replace them with an effective rail system.
Seems like sales tax is a lot different than European VATs which are more hidden from the taxpayer, so probably can be a lot bigger.
Here is are the State tax rates in the US:
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/sales.html
Generally, between 4-6% and there is no National Sales tax... at least yet. There has been some talk recently about creating one. But nobody was too happy about the idea.
You apparently don't realize that telecommuting is different from traditionally working from home. Because you're simultaneously working at your employer's location.
Yes, I don't realize it, because it isn't true. How can you be in two places at once? We are still physical beings. The actual work is done by the person even if that work is conveyed to the employer via the internet, it should be considered no differently than if the person Fedexed the product of the work to the employer. The Internet is just more efficient for conveying information, but it in no way changes the reality of arrangement.
So, would you also assert that help desk employees should also be taxed in the state which confused customers are calling from? After all under your brilliant reasoning, they would be performing work in two different places at once.
You'll just screw it up beyond recognition.
Well, I suppose I was being fairly derisive when I told you you were exercising some government thinking and I am sorry to have offended. But absurd is the correct description of a belief that you can do work in two places at once. "Ridiculous" is just about right too.
How should NYC pay for the costs of legislating, policing, and judging the protections of the workers while they're telecommunting to NYC businesses? Or any of the other municipal/state costs that keep NYC such a great place to work, even virtually?
You do realize that "telecommuting" isn't really commuting? It is just some trendy term for working from your home. The idea that you should be taxed by another state for working out of your own home is pretty rediculous. Very rediculous. Absurd... beyond absurd. So.... it must be the result of government thinking: How can we suck today?
"Well, yeah, it is. In this case, while the citation may be there, enough of the text is taken that there's no point in consulting the original article (so it's not like aggregators such as slashdot, which point to the article). The blogger adds no additional content, and effectively profits (whether in "community kudos" or adsense) from unauthorized reproduction of someone else's content.
That's plagiarism, whether cited it or not.
Think of some of the "techno trends" blog links that make it to slashdot sometimes. Slashdot links to the blog; the blog contains pretty much the whole news item, and you're done."
- some guy who calls himself "DingerX"
No this isn't plagiarism.
If they can show restraint in that area, I would hope they would show equal or greater restraint when it comes to national security.
They do. Everything released in the press so far has been about programs that may violate the law directly or simply threaten the basis of our system of government. Nothing released has even come close to threatening national security in a tangible way.
Let me let you in on a big non-secret: the Al Qaeda assume that they will be tortured if captured, and spied on. And they aren't going to trust a "leak" one way or another. Both legitamite and illegitamite methods of interrogation are known and well documented, you could release the torturer's handbook and it wouldn't effect any interrogation outcome. People will be broken when they are broken, a story in the NY times that tells people that when their heads are shoved under water that the interrogator probably isn't actually trying to kill them isn't going to change anything in the person's mind. We must know what is being done to people in our names, for us, and using the fruits of our labors. Anyone who chooses not to find out what is being done and at least apply their moral judgement is simply a coward.
Our soldiers die for nothing if we do not preserve Liberty at home.