XM is cool -- I tried it out for a few months and actually found myself listening to the radio for the first time in a long time. That ended when the lady of the house gave me her old iPod, which is now my primary listening device. I download a ton of independent music, go to a lot of shows, and also produce a few bands so I get demos all the time. A few podcasts make their way to the little device, and I'm happier for it. I'm 32, but it seems that most teenagers don't even know what a radio is, except for 88.7 FM or whatever station their FM transmitter for their iPod uses.
I think radio technology is old and dated, and I can't really see a future for it. I've been calling for the FCC to deregulate (or lessen regulations) on the old analog TV channels -- and it looks like others have too because the FCC is doing just that. Setting up large chunks of bandwidth for broadcasting is ridiculous, it would be like setting up large chunks of the Internet for one-way non-interactive websites. The future is about a la carte selections, narrowcasting, custom playlists, whatever. The future is not massive 50,000 watt transmitters hitting the numb masses, but about individuals selecting what they want.
I think the future is either WiFi-based communications, or EDGE-network communications. I already stream my music from my home server to my PDA via EDGE (HP PDA with Bluetooth dialup to my cell phone). It works great and I have instant access to gigs of music (and limited video).
I realize that I am in the minority here, but everyone who checks out my system loves it and asks how they can do it. For now, they can't do it easily, but I don't expect that to last as more cell phone companies embrace wireless access for the web. For now it will stay proprietary (t-zones, vCast, etc), but give it time and as more bandwidth is deregulated, more people will jump on the narrowcast system. I even download a podcast of a few bands that put an hour playlist together, and it is perfect for my drive. Interactive real-time broadcasts aren't that interesting to me.
The short future will be both local and satellite radio stations bashing each other over legal infractions, and that's fine -- let them spend their money on lawyers and lobbying Congress for more power over the airwaves. That future is only good for a little while, though. Right now people love the web over TV because they demand what they want, and someone supplies it RIGHT NOW. As the TV becomes more copyprotected, more people will demand more of the web, and suppliers will meet their needs.
As wireless connectivity reaches more of the masses, and becomes easier to use, and becomes faster, the days of broadcasting (TV, radio, newspaper, etc) will fall away, left as a memory to what the previous generation did. How antiquated. How cute.
Sidenote: Funny how radio can not compete in the same way as XM because of the FCC. The FCC was created to support big radio conglomerates and keep out little competitors. They're still using the FCC to keep their monopoly, without realizing they're leaking customers like a sieve.
I'm all cell phone now, so I can understand why _NOW_ I don't get any of these calls. But for years we had a landline -- the same number for years, too. We never got any solicitations, unwanted spam phone calls, attempts to switch long distance service, or recorded announcements. Ever!
That phone number was listed on the web, in the phone book, in my e-mail sig, pretty much all over the place. I used it on applications for frequent shopper cards, etc.
I've always been confused why some people get harassed, and others don't. I don't use credit cards or banks or stock investment companies -- is it the financial industry that sells that information the most often? Anyone work for a company that mines phone numbers?
If you are really a fan of a free market, you'd understand the reality that regulation means that it isn't free. Restrictions mean it isn't free. Taxation means it isn't free. Licensing means it isn't free.
What we really see here are Statists who use the words "free market" are just pro-State pundits who, as the anonymous reader wrote, are paid to profess support for their employers while sounding pro-freedom.
This is no different than war supporters who think that soldiers and previous war protect freedoms (they don't). It is no different than neoliberal Senators who think that minimum wage laws protect the freedoms of workers (they don't). It is no different than the Federal Reserve Board of Governors who believe that more liquidity means more freedom for the consumer (sorry, wrong).
There are two ways to conduct business: competitively, or with the help of the State. Regulations, licensing, taxations, embargoes, tariffs, duties and other "pro-market" structures are "legal" uses of force by the State for one thing and one thing only: to take care of the businesses friendly with the State.
I love the free market because I love watching markets change to meet the needs of the consumers (demand) as well as the manufacturers (supply). I love seeing both sides of a barter or exchange profit from that exchange, rather than one side gaining and one side losing. The free market is not zero sum: it is mutual gain. This is capitalism. The State-licensed mercantilistic market is not zero sum -- one party loses, one party gains. This is socialism or Western State mercantilism.
This is useless for me. The only FM radio station I listen to is 88.7FM because that's the station that my iPod FM transmitter is set to. If I want to capture some online radio station, there is a ton of software to do it and recompress it to a memory stick.
What I really want to see would be something USB-key sized that supports Bluetooth and some sort of streaming protocol (even WMV!), along with Bluetooth dial-up networking modem support. I'm sure it wouldn't be crazy expensive. Battery life would be a problem, I guess, but if it was USB-based, it could get power off of the PC (or a power adapter of some sort).
The idea is for me to be able to access online streams through my cell phone (EDGE/GPRS-enabled). There's a ton of web stations I WOULD listen to, but just can't. Unlimited EDGE/GRPS means I can stay connected for as long as I want (short of battery life, but I keep my chargers handy in the car anyway). If it was really well designed, maybe it could even grab podcasts as they happen, or even do a text-to-speech on certain RSS feeds. TCP/IP isn't that complicated, and their are the requests for these basic Web 2.0 protocols.
I'd think it could compete well with XM, especially considering I get 200kbps EDGE connections in almost every city I spend time in. With a 20kbps stream, we could get near real-time radio with about 10 seconds of caching. I use Skype over my BE PDA and get really decent quality out of the connection to my BE cell phone. I was sort of hoping for a cell phone that would handle streaming, but every phone I get falls short of providing enough horsepower.
So basically we're looking at a USB-dongle sized device that supports BT dial-up networking, a simple TCP/IP stack, and a streaming protocol or various ones. It needs to have enough memory to cache a stream (maybe 64MB, but even that sounds like too much). It should have a headphone jack for sound output. It should be programmable through the USB port (dial-up settings, etc).
For me (I write on blogs and books), my value comes from my direct performance to an audience -- it's called consulting. For political writings, I have gotten paid to speak to an audience and field questions. Even a nobody like me can get $10-$20 per head for the live venue. 500 people paying to ask an author questions is an easy $10k. I've NEVER copywritten anything I've produced, including music. I let others freely copy my works and put THEIR OWN NAME on them -- this is because it increases the audience for the ideas I write, and eventually they find me or increase the demand for my work.
A toilet bowl maker spends hours designing a toilet bowl and then producing it. Do you pay him every time you flush it? Of course not. You pay once. That toilet bowl engineer may have spent years in college and in the field learning to make a better toilet bowl -- do you compensate him for this learning time? No.
A band also spends time making music -- some went to school, some spend years making an album. It doesn't matter -- everything you did in the past is USELESS in terms of value. I am an employer (in IT, in the print business, in business consulting, and in editing), and all my employees know from the past is IRRELEVANT -- it is what they produce TODAY that matters. Been on the job 50 years? Great, apply that knowledge to something profitable TODAY. Sometimes the people in a business the longest are worth the least because they refuse to change with the market. The same is true for music, engineering, laboring, whatever.
Your only profitable work is what you can do TODAY, not yesterday. Did you write something yesterday? Don't use the State to protect your profits -- go out and make yourself new ones by talking about what you wrote. Give your book away for free and command more money for your intimate knowledge that you share with a live audience. It can be done -- do it.
If you are afraid to take a risk as a band (in giving away your advertising on CD in music form) and try to make money live, then get a salaried job making music -- there's thousands of jobs in the music industry worldwide that pay a salary and offer little risk (and little reward). Want to try to make millions? That's all about LIVE PRODUCTION income -- your reward is high, but your risk is higher. Think about supply and demand and you'll get it.
Rights aren't given to anyone by society, government or any corporations -- rights are inherent and they're only protected when we use them even in the face of those who wish to stop us.
Government can jail me, society can tell me to get lost, corporations can sue me -- but I will still use these hands and these ears and this voice as God gave them to me (yes, a religious slashdotter). No one can take them away, and no one can tell me what to do with them. I don't use them to hurt anyone. If I spend time making copies of something, it is my time I am wasting. I could use my hands to make a copy of a mechanical design that is patented -- it might take me thousands of hours, or I could just go and buy it. Some things are difficult to copy, so my time preference says it is better to buy it. I could make a copy of a CD -- it might take me 30 seconds, or I could just go buy it. Time preference works in my favor in this case.
I pay the plumber to fix the toilet -- his current action in front of me is worth my money. I pay the band to perform live for me -- their current action is worth my money. Recording their music on a CD is a great way for them to advertise their abilities to get me to come to their live show, but the CD is worthless. Supply and demand, people. The supply is near infinite (for the recorded music), so the price goes to zero. But the supply of the live band is limited, so the price goes up to meet demand.
1. "If you don't like it, move away." Considering the fact that Congress is severely limited by the Constitution in creating NO law that infringes on our God-given (or inherent, if you prefer) right to speak freely on our property, the laws listed above have nothing to do with what he did. In fact, his website IS his property, he rents it, and he's protected. Congress here should be the ones behind bars for continuing to violate the Constitution they took an oath to uphold.
2. "He broke a law, he should go to jail." The court system should be mandated to tell the jurors in all trials about their right to nullify terrible laws. Jury nullifaction is more than a priviledge, it is a right even greater than serving on a jury.
3. "He didn't do anything wrong." This shouldn't matter either way unless he violated someone's property or person himself. I find it outrageous that people are arrested for inciting violence -- the gun doesn't kill, the inciter doesn't kill, it is the person who physically performs a violent act that is the cause of the violence. Not only did he do nothing wrong, we shouldn't even be considering whether or not he did or didn't. Did he harm anyone physically? Did he physically steal anything? Did he trespass?
On top of those 3, we should also realize that the laws pertaining to security are 100% unconstitutional. The airplanes are private. The airports should be privatized (I can't see how airports could be considered federally-regulated properties). The passengers are generally private citizens. The Constitution is clear on this, too -- it should be left up to the individual States and the people.
This is what you get when you have democracy -- even a republican form of it.
"Democracy is the most vile form of government...democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." James Madison
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." John Adams
The U.S. isn't going to hell in a handbasket, it's been there since 1913 (or 1865, if you consider the traitor Lincoln's actions).
Thankfully, there are a great number of opportunities to vacate from the system without leaving the lands of the "Nation." I can only hope that more freedom lovers just stop voting for authority and move forward to taking that authority back.
The article hints more at the new synthetic process' value for jewelry, but I'm not so certain that most jewelers will appreciate it -- especially the jewelers that cater to the most extravagent tastes. Diamonds have always been an oddity for me -- I understand the diamond's purpose in industrial applications (drill bits, saw blades, abrasives, and even in semiconductors) but the De Beers Group situation is not one I've ever understood -- even when trying to "think like a lady."
I'm guessing the De Beers Group isn't worried about these synthetic diamonds, either -- they have such a great relationship with most jewelers because the De Beers Group spends a LOT of money in how they market the diamonds: marketing that provides diamonds for the bling-bling rappers, the royal families, the Hollywood stars and whoever else needs something sparkling to wear in public. That's what the jewelers want: they don't care if it's cheap, they get a great marketing campaign and still make huge profit margins.
From Adia's website, we see only one retailer that resells their diamonds. Here's a company that has been around a few years, and they don't have a lot of support.
For industrial applications, though, is the De Beers Group really a powerhouse? I'd always heard that a lot of flawed diamonds end up in the industrial applications, and the flawed ones are significantly cheaper than the "perfect" clarity versions used in jewelry.
As a sidenote, my lady doesn't wear diamonds unless they're family heirlooms -- I've gotten her to move to 22K and 24K gold jewelry. It is shiny, sparkles like crazy if cut right, and when it wears down, I have it swapped for a new piece of jewelry in any Indian neighborhood (or in India) for a relatively competitive price. Diamonds are sort of boring for her now -- she sees how little they store value over time versus gold, and they're not very useful in a financial emergency (versus gold or platinum). Plus the fact that she can "trade-up" her softened jewelry for something else really captivates her -- the last ring she wore we "exchanged" for a set of earrings that was traded for bangles a few years later. With the diamond, she's mostly stuck.
That list gives me even more reason to believe that society and the States that surround us are both inept. Look at the rundown of the top 10 items and the reasons why the item is "contraband."
1. Marijuana -- The State says what you can put into your body (doing no crime to no one else), probably funded by the big medical business
2. Counterfeit Technology Products -- This is why you shop at stores that guarantee their products with a refund. If there was no law against counterfeit goods, I'd let the retailer find out what is best for me. In some cases, something counterfeit might be of the same quality as the "official and legal" version. Look at Fendi handbags and their knock-offs
3. Cocaine -- See #1. No crime committed against anyone else. Now if you kill someone (when on drugs or off), I can agree that a crime is committed, but the intoxicant shouldn't matter. Sometimes that intoxicant is adrenaline.
4. Opion/Heroin -- See #1 (doing crime to no one else).
5. Pirated Web Videos. Supply and demand here. The supply of digitally transmitted products is nearly infinite, therefore the price falls to the floor. Then again, I am I am against copyright.
6. Counterfeit Pharmaceutical -- Here's another place that the retail and distributor can excel at. Don't trust your distributor? Shop at one that's insured and bonded against dispensing dangerous drugs, or knock-off ones.
7. Pirated Software. See #5 (supply and demand).
8. Human Trafficking. Here's a place I can understand goverment being involved in, but it is also one they're doing a terrible job in fighting. The worst concern is my thought that a lot of States might even be involved in this problem. I know the U.S. government trafficks in human lives and bodies. See Guantanemo Bay.
9. Amphetamines/Meth -- See #1 (doing crime to no one else).
10. Animals and Wildlife Smuggling. Here's a problem better solved through groups like PERC. If you care about rare animals, spend YOUR money to make wildlife habitats to keep them out of the open arms of the State that is part of the problem with extinction.
11. Ecstasy -- See #1 (doing crime to no one else).
12. Counterfeit Auto Parts -- See #2 (shop at trustworthy retailers if you're concerned).
13. Trash Smuggling. A friend of mine is a famous pastor in Uganda. I told him we should go into business to take trash from the U.S. on boats to Uganda and let people find value in the trash. He loved the idea. He deals with the absolute poorest people in Africa every day (I'm going there again in December) and he loves the thought that one man's trash is another man's treasure. They'd probably find millions of dollars worth of treasure in our trash.
14. Human Smuggling -- See #8 (State's failure).
15. Art and Antique Smuggling. I insure against theft, so should you. The State is worthless here.
16. Pirated Movies -- See #5 (supply and demand).
17. Smuggled Cigarettes -- Thank the market for cheaper tax free smokes. I noticed they were $7 a pack in Chicago a few weeks ago. Tax free they're about 70 cents. The State created this problem.
18. Gas and Oil Smuggling. See #17 on the State destroying the market of goods through taxation/theft.
19. Pirated Music -- See #5 (supply and demand).
20. Illegal Fishing -- See #10 (privately funded habitats).
22. Pirated Mobile Phone Entertainment -- See #5 (supply and demand).
23. Pirated Video Games -- See #5 (supply and demand).
24. Counterfeit Cigarettes -- See #17 (market provisions) and #2 (shop at trustworthy retailers if you're concerned).
25. Small Arms Trafficking -- See the second amendment.
27. Counterfeit Shoes -- See #2 (shop at trustworthy retailers if you're concerned).
28. Pirated Books -- See #5 (supply and demand).
29. Counterfeit Sports Memorabilia -- See #5 (supply and demand) and #2 (shop
Most of the Constitution applies all over the world in regards to the US governments. The term "citizen" is VERY rarely used, but the generic term "man" is used over and over to signify ALL men. The Founding Fathers were very specific about wanting the document to be accepted by countries all over the world, unfortunately, it isn't even accepted by most U.S. citizens anymore.
The U.S. government has very specific and limited authorizations under the Constitution. Not just within the borders, but everywhere.
Bush, Clinton, Gore, Obama (Barack), Kerry, Kennedy, all of them have to abide by the Constitution no matter where they're at. When will the courts start charging them with the treasonous act of violating the Constitution and give them the ultimate penalty?
I run ad-block for all sites, except those I visit regularly. I try to focus my purchases around buying from advertisers who are sponsoring the sites I like. I've bought web hosting through a slashdot link, gold from a gold blog link (not mine!), clothes from a Bluefly link on a site I read daily, etc.
Most advertising is garbage, but it still helps keep the small sites afloat. I rarely read large sites (slashdot got big since I signed on), but I do read a lot of small sites, and I make sure to buy from them if the ads produce items I want. Even better, I let the supplier know I bought because they advertised on a site I appreciate.
Trans fats, in my opinion and that my of 83 year old doctor (who smokes, drinks, and is on his fourth wife). He's not pro-AMA (government/corporate collusion) but is a registered AAPS doctor (who doesn't even accept medicare, medicaid or ANY insurance). He also does house calls and accepts tips. The guy knows his stuff and he saved me from my 192 lb, high blood pressure, bad memory problems by helping me find the dietary requirements I needed.
Trans fats might be the cause of big heart disease issues (which I have to pay for because of government-required insurance and welfare) and other issues, too. I prefer to eat zero, except what naturally occurs in beef.
0.5g per serving is not a real figure because the serving sizes are sometimes cut down in order to get the trans fat figure below 0.5 so they can say "Zero Trans Fats." As I said in another reply to this thread (somewhere), if they have a 60 gram serving size with 0.6g of trans fats, they can make the serving size 49 grams so they can now say "Zero Trans Fats" on the label. That's the State regulation for you -- false and endearing to the large industry powerhouses who support these labeling laws for their own power.
I'm not sure it matters. I advertise my own businesses on the web, and I accept advertising on my sites. I've sold numerous ads just for my site for repeat customers who realize I give them more than they pay out of supporting my site. I support some sites repeatedly because those sites make me a profit for what I invest.
If you're a big company, you gauge your profits NOT on what others say but what you actually witness through numbers paid and profits made. If you don't make a profit, the traffic reports mean NOTHING. If you make MORE profits than you were expecting, the traffic reports mean NOTHING.
Most advertisers already know this. If they're complaining about false traffic statements, they're not working hard enough. They basically are trying to automate something that still needs human intervention -- for now.
Facebook and MySpace and YouTube are terrible places to advertise, in my experience. The visitors you get are completely worthless (in my businesses) because they don't convert to sales. On the other hand, that whole "long tail" idea works for me -- I advertise on the smallest blogs, the tiniest forums, the most niche communities, and those consumers thank me for supporting their communities by buying my products and services. I look at the traffic figures of the largest sites and realize "These numbers do not tell the truth about convertibility."
My link below takes you to my sites, and some slashdot readers say I am a spamming troll. I'm not. MOST slashdot readers who come back to my sites already block my ads (as I request that they do!). I post my links for a different kind of profit -- the profit of gained information my my readers and sharers, including those who oppose my views. The ads on my sites are for people who find me via search engines, who are looking for products, and who get those products from the advertisers. The advertisers who target me directly aren't concerned that I only have an Alexa rank of 200,000-400,000 and a PageRank of 5-6. They care about my targetted market, people who are interested in what I talk about, and what my ads sell.
My advertisers (and readers) are also free to look at my site statistics (sitemeter is open on my sites). This tells them who is coming -- google searches, not MySpace losers. This makes my sites more valuable to products that are in-line with what I "preach" daily.
That's a great comment, one reason you're a friend on here:)
I'm going to reply to it deeper on my blog tomorrow, but I'll try to capture my opinion quickly here:
Your entire point seems to be that the flow of information from producer to consumer doesn't matter, because the consumers can get that information elsewhere. Okay, I'll accept that to a certain extent, but it's not really saying that "information doesn't matter," it's just that the source of the information is basically irrelevant, as long as you trust/believe it.
And? Honest question: are you just saying this to yourself? Because for me, EVERYONE is irrelevant unless we believe or disbelieve it. I trust my doctor (AAPS, not AMA), but I don't trust yours. I trust my father, but not my mother. I trust my wife to take care of me, but not handle my money. I trust my employees to work the bare minimum that I require, but I don't trust them to maximize my profit. I don't trust the State, at all. Most people don't, except where they feeling they're getting something for nothing.
Information is critical to the functioning of an efficient marketplace. If the producer doesn't give accurate information about the good they're selling, then a customer is going to have to buy it and then tell others about it (or, more realistically, someone buys one and reverse-engineers it). This isn't a benefit, it's a burden. If the information had been available to begin with, then this reviewing process wouldn't have to happen. As a result of information not being immediately available, the market will manufacture it -- but this process is itself an inefficiency.
It's a burden ONCE. You share that burden with others who share their burdens with you -- all work is a burden until that work is a commodity enough to automate. Then we work on some new burden to make it efficient.
The biggest benefit of the Internet is that it allows for the fast exchange of information. Markets have traditionally existed only across the same spans that you can transmit information easily. If you're selling apples in one city and I'm selling them in another, and we have no idea what the price of apples is in the other's city, then they're basically disconnected markets. But if there's a telegraph or stock ticker set up between them, and we know the transportation cost, then the markets become integrated because of the flow of information. (If you want a real-world example of this, you can look at the New York and Philadelphia stock markets in the 19th century before and after the introduction of the telegraph. Prior to that, the same stock or commodity might trade on each one, completely independent of the other market. With the telegraph, they became integrated and began following each other almost overnight.) The biggest benefit of the 'net is that it creates one large market out of disparate ones, by facilitating the real-time flow of information from one place to another.
Which is why the Net is the most anarcho-capitalist society in the world's history. People don't realize it, but it is. We are free to boycott those we don't want to barter with (except the State). We are free to buy and sell without intervention (except some risk of the State finding out). We are free to discuss anonymously or in full disclosure of who we are (like I do, always). We are free to investigate and re-investigate. We are free to congregate and segregate as we wish. We are free to lie and be caught in lying by others.
The Net leads to anarcho-capitalism. Why else would I embrace it so fully?
If 10% of people have allergies (which your numbers would force me believe), those 10% of people can create a forum or many forums online to discuss what is good and what is bad. Don't tell me that you're not doing that ALREADY. Labels don't help -- actual people who post their experiences (in consuming, or in contacting the manufacturer, or who work for the manufacturer, etc) help. You answered your own question, if you had only have taken the idea further.
I find that writing on Slashdot, my blogs, and writing on other people's forums and blogs helps me cultivate a response to good debate. Many slashdot repliers give me a GREAT opinion that is contrarian to my contrarian opinion. Some of them are persuasive enough to their side of the debate that I have to rethink my side and figure out who is right or wrong from my point of view. This has helped me become MORE anarcho-capitalist because I work through the problem using the new opinions, and discover that often times the most persuasive replies against my opinion are based on Statist studies that don't show the "hidden hand" in the long run. I also prove my beliefs by running successful businesses and charities -- using my system of economic theory. The fact that it works, and convinces many people to change their attitudes after I work for them, is a great way to prove to myself that the Austrians are right, time and again.
My profit comes from response I get -- whether supporting me, debating me, hating me, or just ignoring me. They are all great ways to learn, moreso than going to college and getting a very one-sided view of things.
Which I am thankful for. For those who receive my ads but aren't ones who normally visit advertisers to make purchases, it dilutes the potential payout for me significantly. Those who don't utilize the ads for purchasing and block them help make the advertising pay better from those who do utilize them. I wish everyone blocked ads who didn't utilize the advertiser.
Personally, I block ads, EXCEPT ON SITES I LIKE (like slashdot). If the advertiser is truly interesting, I always click through to see what they have to sell. If I make a purchase, I always let the advertiser know where I came from, and that I appreciate them supporting the sites I like.
You can't do that with TV, radio or any other form of media. My ad-block runs full time, except on sites I visit regularly and want to support by supporting the advertisers on them.
I'm not a libertarian anymore -- I was, but I realized that the Libertarians are still Statists, and they don't realize how evil the State truly is.
Government CAN NOT and HAS NEVER facilitated a safe market. As anarcho-capitalist J David shows in his slashdot reply, government creates a bar that is fairly irrelevant, and it forces those below the bar to pay more for what they want, and forces those above the bar to not get what they want because most producers will stick to the bar so they don't get in trouble with the State. It is a crime to NOT label your product exactly like the FDA/USDA/whoever requires -- even if you add information not required.
Libertarians who want FEDERAL regulations are not libertarians, they're probably pro-market liberals or pro-market conservatives, but not pro-market enough. The Libertarian Party is co-opted now by the big parties, and is a tragedy for the cause of freedom.
Show me ONE area of regulation that the State has truly made better, and has continued to keep better over the long run. SOME regulations may have fixed some temporary new-market problems, but those would get solved by the market anyway. Eventually, the regulation makes it MORE difficult for the market to adapt to supply and demand on both sides of the barter.
You're money obsessed, I'm not. Money is irrelevant to me (last year I sold my huge home, sold all my new SUVs, sold my businesses, and basically moved into a white trash neighborhood where I can live happier and cheaper). Money is not the root of all evil, power is. Money is just a medium of trade -- some people want more ability to tender trades, others don't. Everyone can make money, but the State does a fine job of making it difficult for those without money to try to make money. The market is open to all to enter, but the State sets restrictions called "licensing," "regulation," "taxes," "tariffs," "embargoes," and other barriers to entry that make it hard for anyone to compete with those who keep the government in their pocket.
Sorry, but you're just as greedy as anyone else, you just want to force ME to live your way. I want YOU to live how you want to live, and me to live how I want to live. Who's the tyrant here?
If information is expensive then you end up with an inefficient market. Look at what the net has done to buying electronic goods. I can do a search for reviews, find out technical specifications and prices and make an informed decision about an item before I buy it. That is an efficient market.
Not created by manufacturers but created by the billions of unique decisions of the masses. The State and the Producer had NOTHING to do with this, which is why I believe I am right in my opinion that free flow from producers to consumers DOES NOT MATTER, especially since we have the Net.
Anyway, what is the harm in requiring manufacturers to label their products? My wife and I ran a food business and I generated the data and labels for the products. It really wasn't that big a deal and didn't add significantly to the cost of the product. Your stance seems almost fundamentalistic in nature. Who cares whether labeling is socialistic or capitalistic? Which yields a better result for the economy and our quality of life - a requirement to disclose important information up front or the "freedom" to hide the information and make it difficult to obtain, which is historically what manufacturers have done.
NEITHER. Allowing the producer of an item to sell what the consumer wants is the best way to provide the best product. The State now requires labels to all be consistent, which DOES increase the cost to the producer, making it more expensive for the consumer who doesn't care, and reduces the amount of information for the consumer who DOES care and is willing to pay MORE for MORE information.
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XM is cool -- I tried it out for a few months and actually found myself listening to the radio for the first time in a long time. That ended when the lady of the house gave me her old iPod, which is now my primary listening device. I download a ton of independent music, go to a lot of shows, and also produce a few bands so I get demos all the time. A few podcasts make their way to the little device, and I'm happier for it. I'm 32, but it seems that most teenagers don't even know what a radio is, except for 88.7 FM or whatever station their FM transmitter for their iPod uses.
I think radio technology is old and dated, and I can't really see a future for it. I've been calling for the FCC to deregulate (or lessen regulations) on the old analog TV channels -- and it looks like others have too because the FCC is doing just that. Setting up large chunks of bandwidth for broadcasting is ridiculous, it would be like setting up large chunks of the Internet for one-way non-interactive websites. The future is about a la carte selections, narrowcasting, custom playlists, whatever. The future is not massive 50,000 watt transmitters hitting the numb masses, but about individuals selecting what they want.
I think the future is either WiFi-based communications, or EDGE-network communications. I already stream my music from my home server to my PDA via EDGE (HP PDA with Bluetooth dialup to my cell phone). It works great and I have instant access to gigs of music (and limited video).
I realize that I am in the minority here, but everyone who checks out my system loves it and asks how they can do it. For now, they can't do it easily, but I don't expect that to last as more cell phone companies embrace wireless access for the web. For now it will stay proprietary (t-zones, vCast, etc), but give it time and as more bandwidth is deregulated, more people will jump on the narrowcast system. I even download a podcast of a few bands that put an hour playlist together, and it is perfect for my drive. Interactive real-time broadcasts aren't that interesting to me.
The short future will be both local and satellite radio stations bashing each other over legal infractions, and that's fine -- let them spend their money on lawyers and lobbying Congress for more power over the airwaves. That future is only good for a little while, though. Right now people love the web over TV because they demand what they want, and someone supplies it RIGHT NOW. As the TV becomes more copyprotected, more people will demand more of the web, and suppliers will meet their needs.
As wireless connectivity reaches more of the masses, and becomes easier to use, and becomes faster, the days of broadcasting (TV, radio, newspaper, etc) will fall away, left as a memory to what the previous generation did. How antiquated. How cute.
Sidenote: Funny how radio can not compete in the same way as XM because of the FCC. The FCC was created to support big radio conglomerates and keep out little competitors. They're still using the FCC to keep their monopoly, without realizing they're leaking customers like a sieve.
I'm all cell phone now, so I can understand why _NOW_ I don't get any of these calls. But for years we had a landline -- the same number for years, too. We never got any solicitations, unwanted spam phone calls, attempts to switch long distance service, or recorded announcements. Ever!
That phone number was listed on the web, in the phone book, in my e-mail sig, pretty much all over the place. I used it on applications for frequent shopper cards, etc.
I've always been confused why some people get harassed, and others don't. I don't use credit cards or banks or stock investment companies -- is it the financial industry that sells that information the most often? Anyone work for a company that mines phone numbers?
There IS a political system where taxes are fair as you said -- unanimous consent. See definition of unanimocracy.
If you are really a fan of a free market, you'd understand the reality that regulation means that it isn't free. Restrictions mean it isn't free. Taxation means it isn't free. Licensing means it isn't free.
What we really see here are Statists who use the words "free market" are just pro-State pundits who, as the anonymous reader wrote, are paid to profess support for their employers while sounding pro-freedom.
This is no different than war supporters who think that soldiers and previous war protect freedoms (they don't). It is no different than neoliberal Senators who think that minimum wage laws protect the freedoms of workers (they don't). It is no different than the Federal Reserve Board of Governors who believe that more liquidity means more freedom for the consumer (sorry, wrong).
There are two ways to conduct business: competitively, or with the help of the State. Regulations, licensing, taxations, embargoes, tariffs, duties and other "pro-market" structures are "legal" uses of force by the State for one thing and one thing only: to take care of the businesses friendly with the State.
I love the free market because I love watching markets change to meet the needs of the consumers (demand) as well as the manufacturers (supply). I love seeing both sides of a barter or exchange profit from that exchange, rather than one side gaining and one side losing. The free market is not zero sum: it is mutual gain. This is capitalism. The State-licensed mercantilistic market is not zero sum -- one party loses, one party gains. This is socialism or Western State mercantilism.
This is useless for me. The only FM radio station I listen to is 88.7FM because that's the station that my iPod FM transmitter is set to. If I want to capture some online radio station, there is a ton of software to do it and recompress it to a memory stick.
What I really want to see would be something USB-key sized that supports Bluetooth and some sort of streaming protocol (even WMV!), along with Bluetooth dial-up networking modem support. I'm sure it wouldn't be crazy expensive. Battery life would be a problem, I guess, but if it was USB-based, it could get power off of the PC (or a power adapter of some sort).
The idea is for me to be able to access online streams through my cell phone (EDGE/GPRS-enabled). There's a ton of web stations I WOULD listen to, but just can't. Unlimited EDGE/GRPS means I can stay connected for as long as I want (short of battery life, but I keep my chargers handy in the car anyway). If it was really well designed, maybe it could even grab podcasts as they happen, or even do a text-to-speech on certain RSS feeds. TCP/IP isn't that complicated, and their are the requests for these basic Web 2.0 protocols.
I'd think it could compete well with XM, especially considering I get 200kbps EDGE connections in almost every city I spend time in. With a 20kbps stream, we could get near real-time radio with about 10 seconds of caching. I use Skype over my BE PDA and get really decent quality out of the connection to my BE cell phone. I was sort of hoping for a cell phone that would handle streaming, but every phone I get falls short of providing enough horsepower.
So basically we're looking at a USB-dongle sized device that supports BT dial-up networking, a simple TCP/IP stack, and a streaming protocol or various ones. It needs to have enough memory to cache a stream (maybe 64MB, but even that sounds like too much). It should have a headphone jack for sound output. It should be programmable through the USB port (dial-up settings, etc).
Thoughts?
For me (I write on blogs and books), my value comes from my direct performance to an audience -- it's called consulting. For political writings, I have gotten paid to speak to an audience and field questions. Even a nobody like me can get $10-$20 per head for the live venue. 500 people paying to ask an author questions is an easy $10k. I've NEVER copywritten anything I've produced, including music. I let others freely copy my works and put THEIR OWN NAME on them -- this is because it increases the audience for the ideas I write, and eventually they find me or increase the demand for my work.
A toilet bowl maker spends hours designing a toilet bowl and then producing it. Do you pay him every time you flush it? Of course not. You pay once. That toilet bowl engineer may have spent years in college and in the field learning to make a better toilet bowl -- do you compensate him for this learning time? No.
A band also spends time making music -- some went to school, some spend years making an album. It doesn't matter -- everything you did in the past is USELESS in terms of value. I am an employer (in IT, in the print business, in business consulting, and in editing), and all my employees know from the past is IRRELEVANT -- it is what they produce TODAY that matters. Been on the job 50 years? Great, apply that knowledge to something profitable TODAY. Sometimes the people in a business the longest are worth the least because they refuse to change with the market. The same is true for music, engineering, laboring, whatever.
Your only profitable work is what you can do TODAY, not yesterday. Did you write something yesterday? Don't use the State to protect your profits -- go out and make yourself new ones by talking about what you wrote. Give your book away for free and command more money for your intimate knowledge that you share with a live audience. It can be done -- do it.
If you are afraid to take a risk as a band (in giving away your advertising on CD in music form) and try to make money live, then get a salaried job making music -- there's thousands of jobs in the music industry worldwide that pay a salary and offer little risk (and little reward). Want to try to make millions? That's all about LIVE PRODUCTION income -- your reward is high, but your risk is higher. Think about supply and demand and you'll get it.
Rights aren't given to anyone by society, government or any corporations -- rights are inherent and they're only protected when we use them even in the face of those who wish to stop us.
Government can jail me, society can tell me to get lost, corporations can sue me -- but I will still use these hands and these ears and this voice as God gave them to me (yes, a religious slashdotter). No one can take them away, and no one can tell me what to do with them. I don't use them to hurt anyone. If I spend time making copies of something, it is my time I am wasting. I could use my hands to make a copy of a mechanical design that is patented -- it might take me thousands of hours, or I could just go and buy it. Some things are difficult to copy, so my time preference says it is better to buy it. I could make a copy of a CD -- it might take me 30 seconds, or I could just go buy it. Time preference works in my favor in this case.
I pay the plumber to fix the toilet -- his current action in front of me is worth my money. I pay the band to perform live for me -- their current action is worth my money. Recording their music on a CD is a great way for them to advertise their abilities to get me to come to their live show, but the CD is worthless. Supply and demand, people. The supply is near infinite (for the recorded music), so the price goes to zero. But the supply of the live band is limited, so the price goes up to meet demand.
1. "If you don't like it, move away." Considering the fact that Congress is severely limited by the Constitution in creating NO law that infringes on our God-given (or inherent, if you prefer) right to speak freely on our property, the laws listed above have nothing to do with what he did. In fact, his website IS his property, he rents it, and he's protected. Congress here should be the ones behind bars for continuing to violate the Constitution they took an oath to uphold.
2. "He broke a law, he should go to jail." The court system should be mandated to tell the jurors in all trials about their right to nullify terrible laws. Jury nullifaction is more than a priviledge, it is a right even greater than serving on a jury.
3. "He didn't do anything wrong." This shouldn't matter either way unless he violated someone's property or person himself. I find it outrageous that people are arrested for inciting violence -- the gun doesn't kill, the inciter doesn't kill, it is the person who physically performs a violent act that is the cause of the violence. Not only did he do nothing wrong, we shouldn't even be considering whether or not he did or didn't. Did he harm anyone physically? Did he physically steal anything? Did he trespass?
On top of those 3, we should also realize that the laws pertaining to security are 100% unconstitutional. The airplanes are private. The airports should be privatized (I can't see how airports could be considered federally-regulated properties). The passengers are generally private citizens. The Constitution is clear on this, too -- it should be left up to the individual States and the people.
This is what you get when you have democracy -- even a republican form of it.
"Democracy is the most vile form of government...democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." James Madison
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." John Adams
The U.S. isn't going to hell in a handbasket, it's been there since 1913 (or 1865, if you consider the traitor Lincoln's actions).
Thankfully, there are a great number of opportunities to vacate from the system without leaving the lands of the "Nation." I can only hope that more freedom lovers just stop voting for authority and move forward to taking that authority back.
The article hints more at the new synthetic process' value for jewelry, but I'm not so certain that most jewelers will appreciate it -- especially the jewelers that cater to the most extravagent tastes. Diamonds have always been an oddity for me -- I understand the diamond's purpose in industrial applications (drill bits, saw blades, abrasives, and even in semiconductors) but the De Beers Group situation is not one I've ever understood -- even when trying to "think like a lady."
I'm guessing the De Beers Group isn't worried about these synthetic diamonds, either -- they have such a great relationship with most jewelers because the De Beers Group spends a LOT of money in how they market the diamonds: marketing that provides diamonds for the bling-bling rappers, the royal families, the Hollywood stars and whoever else needs something sparkling to wear in public. That's what the jewelers want: they don't care if it's cheap, they get a great marketing campaign and still make huge profit margins.
From Adia's website, we see only one retailer that resells their diamonds. Here's a company that has been around a few years, and they don't have a lot of support.
For industrial applications, though, is the De Beers Group really a powerhouse? I'd always heard that a lot of flawed diamonds end up in the industrial applications, and the flawed ones are significantly cheaper than the "perfect" clarity versions used in jewelry.
As a sidenote, my lady doesn't wear diamonds unless they're family heirlooms -- I've gotten her to move to 22K and 24K gold jewelry. It is shiny, sparkles like crazy if cut right, and when it wears down, I have it swapped for a new piece of jewelry in any Indian neighborhood (or in India) for a relatively competitive price. Diamonds are sort of boring for her now -- she sees how little they store value over time versus gold, and they're not very useful in a financial emergency (versus gold or platinum). Plus the fact that she can "trade-up" her softened jewelry for something else really captivates her -- the last ring she wore we "exchanged" for a set of earrings that was traded for bangles a few years later. With the diamond, she's mostly stuck.
1. Does it run Linux? ...as in beer.
2. It'll cost me nothing because you can't upgrade *nix to Win*
3. Profit!
4. I already read this on digg.
5.
Not much to read, is there?
That list gives me even more reason to believe that society and the States that surround us are both inept. Look at the rundown of the top 10 items and the reasons why the item is "contraband."
1. Marijuana -- The State says what you can put into your body (doing no crime to no one else), probably funded by the big medical business
2. Counterfeit Technology Products -- This is why you shop at stores that guarantee their products with a refund. If there was no law against counterfeit goods, I'd let the retailer find out what is best for me. In some cases, something counterfeit might be of the same quality as the "official and legal" version. Look at Fendi handbags and their knock-offs
3. Cocaine -- See #1. No crime committed against anyone else. Now if you kill someone (when on drugs or off), I can agree that a crime is committed, but the intoxicant shouldn't matter. Sometimes that intoxicant is adrenaline.
4. Opion/Heroin -- See #1 (doing crime to no one else).
5. Pirated Web Videos. Supply and demand here. The supply of digitally transmitted products is nearly infinite, therefore the price falls to the floor. Then again, I am I am against copyright.
6. Counterfeit Pharmaceutical -- Here's another place that the retail and distributor can excel at. Don't trust your distributor? Shop at one that's insured and bonded against dispensing dangerous drugs, or knock-off ones.
7. Pirated Software. See #5 (supply and demand).
8. Human Trafficking. Here's a place I can understand goverment being involved in, but it is also one they're doing a terrible job in fighting. The worst concern is my thought that a lot of States might even be involved in this problem. I know the U.S. government trafficks in human lives and bodies. See Guantanemo Bay.
9. Amphetamines/Meth -- See #1 (doing crime to no one else).
10. Animals and Wildlife Smuggling. Here's a problem better solved through groups like PERC. If you care about rare animals, spend YOUR money to make wildlife habitats to keep them out of the open arms of the State that is part of the problem with extinction.
11. Ecstasy -- See #1 (doing crime to no one else).
12. Counterfeit Auto Parts -- See #2 (shop at trustworthy retailers if you're concerned).
13. Trash Smuggling. A friend of mine is a famous pastor in Uganda. I told him we should go into business to take trash from the U.S. on boats to Uganda and let people find value in the trash. He loved the idea. He deals with the absolute poorest people in Africa every day (I'm going there again in December) and he loves the thought that one man's trash is another man's treasure. They'd probably find millions of dollars worth of treasure in our trash.
14. Human Smuggling -- See #8 (State's failure).
15. Art and Antique Smuggling. I insure against theft, so should you. The State is worthless here.
16. Pirated Movies -- See #5 (supply and demand).
17. Smuggled Cigarettes -- Thank the market for cheaper tax free smokes. I noticed they were $7 a pack in Chicago a few weeks ago. Tax free they're about 70 cents. The State created this problem.
18. Gas and Oil Smuggling. See #17 on the State destroying the market of goods through taxation/theft.
19. Pirated Music -- See #5 (supply and demand).
20. Illegal Fishing -- See #10 (privately funded habitats).
22. Pirated Mobile Phone Entertainment -- See #5 (supply and demand).
23. Pirated Video Games -- See #5 (supply and demand).
24. Counterfeit Cigarettes -- See #17 (market provisions) and #2 (shop at trustworthy retailers if you're concerned).
25. Small Arms Trafficking -- See the second amendment.
27. Counterfeit Shoes -- See #2 (shop at trustworthy retailers if you're concerned).
28. Pirated Books -- See #5 (supply and demand).
29. Counterfeit Sports Memorabilia -- See #5 (supply and demand) and #2 (shop
Most of the Constitution applies all over the world in regards to the US governments. The term "citizen" is VERY rarely used, but the generic term "man" is used over and over to signify ALL men. The Founding Fathers were very specific about wanting the document to be accepted by countries all over the world, unfortunately, it isn't even accepted by most U.S. citizens anymore.
The U.S. government has very specific and limited authorizations under the Constitution. Not just within the borders, but everywhere.
Bush, Clinton, Gore, Obama (Barack), Kerry, Kennedy, all of them have to abide by the Constitution no matter where they're at. When will the courts start charging them with the treasonous act of violating the Constitution and give them the ultimate penalty?
I do.
I run ad-block for all sites, except those I visit regularly. I try to focus my purchases around buying from advertisers who are sponsoring the sites I like. I've bought web hosting through a slashdot link, gold from a gold blog link (not mine!), clothes from a Bluefly link on a site I read daily, etc.
Most advertising is garbage, but it still helps keep the small sites afloat. I rarely read large sites (slashdot got big since I signed on), but I do read a lot of small sites, and I make sure to buy from them if the ads produce items I want. Even better, I let the supplier know I bought because they advertised on a site I appreciate.
Trans fats, in my opinion and that my of 83 year old doctor (who smokes, drinks, and is on his fourth wife). He's not pro-AMA (government/corporate collusion) but is a registered AAPS doctor (who doesn't even accept medicare, medicaid or ANY insurance). He also does house calls and accepts tips. The guy knows his stuff and he saved me from my 192 lb, high blood pressure, bad memory problems by helping me find the dietary requirements I needed.
Trans fats might be the cause of big heart disease issues (which I have to pay for because of government-required insurance and welfare) and other issues, too. I prefer to eat zero, except what naturally occurs in beef.
0.5g per serving is not a real figure because the serving sizes are sometimes cut down in order to get the trans fat figure below 0.5 so they can say "Zero Trans Fats." As I said in another reply to this thread (somewhere), if they have a 60 gram serving size with 0.6g of trans fats, they can make the serving size 49 grams so they can now say "Zero Trans Fats" on the label. That's the State regulation for you -- false and endearing to the large industry powerhouses who support these labeling laws for their own power.
I'm not sure it matters. I advertise my own businesses on the web, and I accept advertising on my sites. I've sold numerous ads just for my site for repeat customers who realize I give them more than they pay out of supporting my site. I support some sites repeatedly because those sites make me a profit for what I invest.
If you're a big company, you gauge your profits NOT on what others say but what you actually witness through numbers paid and profits made. If you don't make a profit, the traffic reports mean NOTHING. If you make MORE profits than you were expecting, the traffic reports mean NOTHING.
Most advertisers already know this. If they're complaining about false traffic statements, they're not working hard enough. They basically are trying to automate something that still needs human intervention -- for now.
Facebook and MySpace and YouTube are terrible places to advertise, in my experience. The visitors you get are completely worthless (in my businesses) because they don't convert to sales. On the other hand, that whole "long tail" idea works for me -- I advertise on the smallest blogs, the tiniest forums, the most niche communities, and those consumers thank me for supporting their communities by buying my products and services. I look at the traffic figures of the largest sites and realize "These numbers do not tell the truth about convertibility."
My link below takes you to my sites, and some slashdot readers say I am a spamming troll. I'm not. MOST slashdot readers who come back to my sites already block my ads (as I request that they do!). I post my links for a different kind of profit -- the profit of gained information my my readers and sharers, including those who oppose my views. The ads on my sites are for people who find me via search engines, who are looking for products, and who get those products from the advertisers. The advertisers who target me directly aren't concerned that I only have an Alexa rank of 200,000-400,000 and a PageRank of 5-6. They care about my targetted market, people who are interested in what I talk about, and what my ads sell.
My advertisers (and readers) are also free to look at my site statistics (sitemeter is open on my sites). This tells them who is coming -- google searches, not MySpace losers. This makes my sites more valuable to products that are in-line with what I "preach" daily.
General traffic figures are useless.
That's a great comment, one reason you're a friend on here :)
I'm going to reply to it deeper on my blog tomorrow, but I'll try to capture my opinion quickly here:
Your entire point seems to be that the flow of information from producer to consumer doesn't matter, because the consumers can get that information elsewhere. Okay, I'll accept that to a certain extent, but it's not really saying that "information doesn't matter," it's just that the source of the information is basically irrelevant, as long as you trust/believe it.
And? Honest question: are you just saying this to yourself? Because for me, EVERYONE is irrelevant unless we believe or disbelieve it. I trust my doctor (AAPS, not AMA), but I don't trust yours. I trust my father, but not my mother. I trust my wife to take care of me, but not handle my money. I trust my employees to work the bare minimum that I require, but I don't trust them to maximize my profit. I don't trust the State, at all. Most people don't, except where they feeling they're getting something for nothing.
Information is critical to the functioning of an efficient marketplace. If the producer doesn't give accurate information about the good they're selling, then a customer is going to have to buy it and then tell others about it (or, more realistically, someone buys one and reverse-engineers it). This isn't a benefit, it's a burden. If the information had been available to begin with, then this reviewing process wouldn't have to happen. As a result of information not being immediately available, the market will manufacture it -- but this process is itself an inefficiency.
It's a burden ONCE. You share that burden with others who share their burdens with you -- all work is a burden until that work is a commodity enough to automate. Then we work on some new burden to make it efficient.
The biggest benefit of the Internet is that it allows for the fast exchange of information. Markets have traditionally existed only across the same spans that you can transmit information easily. If you're selling apples in one city and I'm selling them in another, and we have no idea what the price of apples is in the other's city, then they're basically disconnected markets. But if there's a telegraph or stock ticker set up between them, and we know the transportation cost, then the markets become integrated because of the flow of information. (If you want a real-world example of this, you can look at the New York and Philadelphia stock markets in the 19th century before and after the introduction of the telegraph. Prior to that, the same stock or commodity might trade on each one, completely independent of the other market. With the telegraph, they became integrated and began following each other almost overnight.) The biggest benefit of the 'net is that it creates one large market out of disparate ones, by facilitating the real-time flow of information from one place to another.
Which is why the Net is the most anarcho-capitalist society in the world's history. People don't realize it, but it is. We are free to boycott those we don't want to barter with (except the State). We are free to buy and sell without intervention (except some risk of the State finding out). We are free to discuss anonymously or in full disclosure of who we are (like I do, always). We are free to investigate and re-investigate. We are free to congregate and segregate as we wish. We are free to lie and be caught in lying by others.
The Net leads to anarcho-capitalism. Why else would I embrace it so fully?
The FDA trying to protect itself through bogus articles? Who would have believed that!
& sortorder=articledate
http://www.lewrockwell.com/grichar/grichar17.html
Talks about the failure of the FDA
http://www.mises.org/story/1805
Playing God at the FDA
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.asp?control=56
Dangers of Food Safety
If 10% of people have allergies (which your numbers would force me believe), those 10% of people can create a forum or many forums online to discuss what is good and what is bad. Don't tell me that you're not doing that ALREADY. Labels don't help -- actual people who post their experiences (in consuming, or in contacting the manufacturer, or who work for the manufacturer, etc) help. You answered your own question, if you had only have taken the idea further.
I find that writing on Slashdot, my blogs, and writing on other people's forums and blogs helps me cultivate a response to good debate. Many slashdot repliers give me a GREAT opinion that is contrarian to my contrarian opinion. Some of them are persuasive enough to their side of the debate that I have to rethink my side and figure out who is right or wrong from my point of view. This has helped me become MORE anarcho-capitalist because I work through the problem using the new opinions, and discover that often times the most persuasive replies against my opinion are based on Statist studies that don't show the "hidden hand" in the long run. I also prove my beliefs by running successful businesses and charities -- using my system of economic theory. The fact that it works, and convinces many people to change their attitudes after I work for them, is a great way to prove to myself that the Austrians are right, time and again.
My profit comes from response I get -- whether supporting me, debating me, hating me, or just ignoring me. They are all great ways to learn, moreso than going to college and getting a very one-sided view of things.
Which I am thankful for. For those who receive my ads but aren't ones who normally visit advertisers to make purchases, it dilutes the potential payout for me significantly. Those who don't utilize the ads for purchasing and block them help make the advertising pay better from those who do utilize them. I wish everyone blocked ads who didn't utilize the advertiser.
Personally, I block ads, EXCEPT ON SITES I LIKE (like slashdot). If the advertiser is truly interesting, I always click through to see what they have to sell. If I make a purchase, I always let the advertiser know where I came from, and that I appreciate them supporting the sites I like.
You can't do that with TV, radio or any other form of media. My ad-block runs full time, except on sites I visit regularly and want to support by supporting the advertisers on them.
I'm not a libertarian anymore -- I was, but I realized that the Libertarians are still Statists, and they don't realize how evil the State truly is.
Government CAN NOT and HAS NEVER facilitated a safe market. As anarcho-capitalist J David shows in his slashdot reply, government creates a bar that is fairly irrelevant, and it forces those below the bar to pay more for what they want, and forces those above the bar to not get what they want because most producers will stick to the bar so they don't get in trouble with the State. It is a crime to NOT label your product exactly like the FDA/USDA/whoever requires -- even if you add information not required.
Libertarians who want FEDERAL regulations are not libertarians, they're probably pro-market liberals or pro-market conservatives, but not pro-market enough. The Libertarian Party is co-opted now by the big parties, and is a tragedy for the cause of freedom.
Show me ONE area of regulation that the State has truly made better, and has continued to keep better over the long run. SOME regulations may have fixed some temporary new-market problems, but those would get solved by the market anyway. Eventually, the regulation makes it MORE difficult for the market to adapt to supply and demand on both sides of the barter.
Liberty Magazine had a GREAT article on him a few months back, I'll scan the article and stick it on a PDF somewhere for you.
w ww.mises.org/story/2202+john+mackey,+libertarian&h l=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=8
Mises is down, but they had a good article on him here: http://www.mises.org/story/2202
From memory, I don't think they were 100% positive about him, but neither am I.
Oh, here's the cache:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:UKkC6lJU8HIJ:
You're money obsessed, I'm not. Money is irrelevant to me (last year I sold my huge home, sold all my new SUVs, sold my businesses, and basically moved into a white trash neighborhood where I can live happier and cheaper). Money is not the root of all evil, power is. Money is just a medium of trade -- some people want more ability to tender trades, others don't. Everyone can make money, but the State does a fine job of making it difficult for those without money to try to make money. The market is open to all to enter, but the State sets restrictions called "licensing," "regulation," "taxes," "tariffs," "embargoes," and other barriers to entry that make it hard for anyone to compete with those who keep the government in their pocket.
Sorry, but you're just as greedy as anyone else, you just want to force ME to live your way. I want YOU to live how you want to live, and me to live how I want to live. Who's the tyrant here?
If information is expensive then you end up with an inefficient market. Look at what the net has done to buying electronic goods. I can do a search for reviews, find out technical specifications and prices and make an informed decision about an item before I buy it. That is an efficient market.
Not created by manufacturers but created by the billions of unique decisions of the masses. The State and the Producer had NOTHING to do with this, which is why I believe I am right in my opinion that free flow from producers to consumers DOES NOT MATTER, especially since we have the Net.
Anyway, what is the harm in requiring manufacturers to label their products? My wife and I ran a food business and I generated the data and labels for the products. It really wasn't that big a deal and didn't add significantly to the cost of the product. Your stance seems almost fundamentalistic in nature. Who cares whether labeling is socialistic or capitalistic? Which yields a better result for the economy and our quality of life - a requirement to disclose important information up front or the "freedom" to hide the information and make it difficult to obtain, which is historically what manufacturers have done.
NEITHER. Allowing the producer of an item to sell what the consumer wants is the best way to provide the best product. The State now requires labels to all be consistent, which DOES increase the cost to the producer, making it more expensive for the consumer who doesn't care, and reduces the amount of information for the consumer who DOES care and is willing to pay MORE for MORE information.