A gold standard isn't magic, nor does is prevent inflation or deflation.
Actually, it sort of is. Consider when inflation is high (that is: when the growth in the gold supply exceeds growth of the population), then gold isn't worth as much. That means that it isn't as valuable to people to mine and mint it. Marginal mines close down. CEOs decide not to produce minor veins. Workers move into other lines of business. The supply of gold falls. The inflation is reduced. Now consider when inflation is low. Gold becomes more valuable relative to the available goods and services. Wildcatters spring up. Chemists research more efficient ways to extract gold from tailings. People start using alternatives in electronic circuits. The supply of gold rises. The deflation is reduced.
Now consider fiat money. Unless there are rigid controls on the creation of money, and who gets to spend it, then the guy who decides to make the money benefits from making it, and there is little limit to how fast he would want to.
The reason drugs can get banned is because they are so incredibly devastating to individuals to families and to communities when their use becomes common.
That has to be balanced against the incredibly devastating effects of imprisonment. Forget for a moment that we're discussing some filthy, undesirable, immoral, mewling quim. In fact, literally forget it. Imagine, for whatever reason, that we've randomly selected some fine, upstanding, pillar of the community and decided to imprison him for twenty-to-life. What do you think would be the effects on the individuals, families, and communities, then? Now imagine that we've done that to the extent that it's doubled our prison population. Are the effects cumulative? Or even emergent? Okay, now let's add in the asset forfeiture laws giving the random selectors incentive to randomly select more marks, errm...criminals. How do you like your results now?
I personally think freedom of the press is really important, but that you do not have a right to publish lies.
The really nice thing about the right to publish lies is that there are then no custodians with the power to determine whether something is a lie or not. Suppose you're a Conservative who's written, "Obama is the worst president ever!" Do you really want a bunch of Liberals judging whether that's a lie or not? Or suppose you're a Liberal who's written, "Bush lied, and people died!" Do you really want a bunch of Conservatives judging whether that's a lie?
The downside is that people are going to read lies, but it seems to me that the latter is preferable to the former.
You live in a deluded fantasy that free market and zero regulation means honest brokers and business ventures. Grow up and get passed Friedman's fallacy along with Ayn Rand.
Despite your post being chock-a-block full of cogent reasoning and nearly unassailable data, I'm forced to disagree. Firstly, cshark never claimed that free markets and zero regulation meant honest brokers and business ventures. He claimed that it meant innovation. Secondly, and assuming you meant "past" instead of "passed," Friedman's fallacy appears to be failing to live up to it's name. The Heritage Foundation has an annual survey of countries rated by economic freedom, and invariably the countries with the most economic freedom either have the most affluence, or they have the fastest growth if they aren't already affluent. You can find it here. Thirdly, you're mistaken* when you lump Friedman and Ayn Rand together. Friedman was a Republican with libertarian leanings, while Rand was an Objectivist with strong lunatic leanings.
~Loyal
*Unless you meant that Ayn Rand had gotten past Friedman's fallacy, in which case I'm without words.
The USPS is the most efficient system for moving things from one place to the other on the planet. Seriously. Its private competitors cost far more to move the same amount of stuff in a similar amount of time, and its international counterparts don't come close to dealing with the kinds of requirements the USPS has to deal with. Their systems and procedures are designed so that practically anybody can get hired, follow the manual, and do the job correctly, and are also capable of working under a wide variety of conditions ranging from tiny towns in the middle of Alaska to lower Manhattan.
It's not that they aren't competitive.
Wow! If they're that good, then it makes me wonder why they have to have a government-granted monopoly on letters.
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941) Olmstead et al. vs. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478, 1928
Personally I believe there are 2 sides to almost any story, including this one.
There is some evidence to suggest that any monopoly privilege grant, such as patents, will be expanded with time. The benefits to owning monopoly privileges are concentrated amongst the few owners, while the costs of being excluded are diffuse amongst the population at large. Under those conditions, the political incentive will be to expand monopoly rights, regardless of the current state of those rights. The reason is that it pays the benefactors to lobby congress, whereas it's a net loss to individuals to do so, even when they win.
Although it's in a different area, copyrights instead of patents, no doubt this explains why the copyright expiration has been repeatedly extended.
Godel's theories on undecidable propositions only hold within the formal systems within which they are created.
That's not correct. As I tell DMUTPeregrine above, Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem applies to any sufficiently strong logical system. I go on to tell him that "sufficiently strong" turns out not to be very strong at all. If you're curious, then you can read what I posted to him to get more information.
There exist perfectly valid ways to decide these kinds of propositions outside the formal system.
Quite true. Unfortunately those other logic systems are also either incomplete or inconsistent. It seems hardly worth saying that proving one incomplete or inconsistent logic system using another incomplete or inconsistent logic system is a mighty thin reed to place your faith in.
Do you actually understand why what you are asserting is false, or is it OK to mock you for your ignorance?
No, I don't. I suppose it's OK to mock me for my ignorance. While you're doing that, would you care to explain why what I'm asserting is false? I'm eager to get rid of my ignorance.
There are true statements that can't be proved ("I love you") and false statements that can't be disproved ("there is an invisible massless flying teapot orbiting the Earth").
So, if I understand correctly, you are going to a great deal of effort to convince me that you believe things that have no proof?
Yes, you may mock me for the indescribable truths that exist that I don't believe in.
Well, I wasn't really discussing indescribable truths. Is your offer also open for describable truths?
Please enumerate them explicitly that I may learn from your wisdom as you taunt me.
Strangely, there are an infinite number of them, making them non-enumerable. That's beside the point, really, though. You stated that you didn't believe in anything that was without proof. I showed that there exists a thing that's true, but that cannot be proven, and gave you a link where you could find more information. The ineluctable conclusion is that there exists something that's true, and in which you don't believe it's true. Now, if I have made a logical error, I would invite you to show me where it is.
Proving the existence of god is not a matter of untangling the limitations of some arbitrary linguistic system,
Wow! That's an extraordinary claim! Do you have some proof that it's true? What am I saying! Of course you have proof that it's true. You already told me that you don't believe in anything without proof. Would you be willing to share that proof with me?
The first incompleteness theorem applies only to formal systems. There are accepted methods of proof outside of such formal systems.
Actually, no. Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem applies to any "sufficiently strong system." As it turns out, "sufficiently strong" isn't very strong at all. Your logic system merely has to have the ability to describe the natural numbers, it has to have addition, it has to be able to associate numbers (for example, to have the pair (2,-1)), and that's about all. If your logic system has those abilities, then it has true statements in it that can never be proven within the system.
It is OK to mock Christians, and anyone else who believes in things they cannot prove.
Perhaps you are unaware of the fact that Gödel's First Incompleteness theorem proved that there exist true statements that may never be proven. So that suggests a question: Do you disbelieve true things, or is it OK to mock you?
The Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment renders all of your hypotheticals moot. The point - which you got just fine but skipped over - is that federal treaties and law trump state laws. Not that the feds can do whatever they want by signing a treaty.
How very strange. So, you're saying that the constitution (in this case the 14th amendment to it) trumps treaties. And since Article 1 Section 4 gives the manner of elections to the States, that treaties cannot override that? So the attorney general was still right?
Yes, his state's laws mean jack and shit in comparison to agreement made by the US with the OCSE. It's this thing called the "Supremacy Clause". Abbott is waving his dick around to grandstand and nothing more.
How very strange. So, you're saying that if the Federal Government made an agreement with the OCSE that people who register Republican cannot vote, then they couldn't? Or if they made one that said that only Christians could vote, then no one else could? Of if they made one that said that only opponents of abortion could vote, then that's the way it would be? How very strange.
They therefore invite observers from any other CSCE participating States and any appropriate private institutions and organizations who may wish to do so to observe the course of their national election proceedings, to the extent permitted by law.
Let me see if I understand what you're saying. By treaty, the CSCE can observe the election to the extent permitted by law. By law, observers cannot maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has warned the CSCE not to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place. So...The AG is right?
So, since the Government Communications and Security Bureau broke the law, are they going to go in with a swat team, take all of their computers, and shut them down for six months?
Yes, but marking something Interesting or Insightful and certainly Underrated is usually a "Like" vote. Certainly "Overrated" is a unlike vote, but Troll and Flamebait often substitute if the mod has the inability to tolerate a worldview very far from their own.
If you see a fairly well fleshed out post with reasonable, albeit extreme view points, and you see it has been marked as "Troll", you know exactly what has happened.
I suspect you're right, but that's not the way things are supposed to be. In fact, the FAQ on moderation says:
Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. Try to be impartial about this; simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. The goal here is to share ideas, to sift through the haystack and find needles, and to keep spammers and griefers in check.
When I moderate, I take that directive seriously; I have marked posts with which I disagree as interesting or insightful.
Inflation is also not "money printing", it is the value you lose in buying power on your currency per year.
Actually, udachny is right. He's merely using the original definition of "inflation." Some people starting using your definition of inflation once they observed that the one almost always leads to the other.
How did this get modded +5?
Well, possibly because modding is not supposed to be for whether the modder agrees with it, or even whether it's right. It's supposed to be for when something is on-topic and interesting.
"what makes sense and actually works to produce favorable outcomes".
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.
Favorable outcomes cannot be judged absent a true morality. Scientists seek to describe what is, or even what will be. Jesus sought to describe what should be.
BAM there it is, another nut turning everything around so they are the one being persecuted.
I hate to admit it, but I'm confused. However, if I could get you to do me a favor I think it would clear things up for me. The favor is to look at two statements and tell me which one is persecuting. Would you do that for me, please?
The first statement is: It seems to me that you're being hypocritical because you're doing the same thing to me that you decry when others do it to you.
The second statement is: Everywhere you turn some atheist nutjob is screaming about the "War on Atheists". Seems to me that the "civil rights for atheists" groups LOVE to berate and belittle every belief, nonbelief, and outlook that isn't theirs and the second anybody points this out it's suddenly a war on atheists.
Which of those statements is the more persecutory, if any? It seems to me that one of those is persecuting and the other isn't, but it's certainly possible that neither are, or even that both are. Would you let me know? Because I'm really having a problem understanding.
No, I guess not. I like watching Castle, but it's been in reruns this summer, so I haven't been watching. I get most of my television from Netflix, and there are no republicans there.
Everywhere you turn some christian nutjob is screaming about the "War on Religion". Seems to me that the "religious right" LOVES to berate and belittle every belief, nonbelief, and outlook that isn't theirs and the second anybody points this out it's suddenly a war on religion.
Because the Christian Lobby (both political and economic) is really powerful in the US...
I'm not sure what you're saying about the Lobby, but according to Wikipedia 79.5% of the US is Christian. I would expect that any democratic republic would reflect the wishes and desires of four-fifths of its population--unless something like Apartheid was going on, but I understand Apartheid is frowned upon.
...and has a serious persecution complex...
I haven't seen that in the churches where I've attended. In fact, it's much more likely that prayers will be offered thanking God for the freedom to worship as we please rather than to ask for relief from oppression.
Slashdot Mirror
A gold standard isn't magic, nor does is prevent inflation or deflation.
Actually, it sort of is. Consider when inflation is high (that is: when the growth in the gold supply exceeds growth of the population), then gold isn't worth as much. That means that it isn't as valuable to people to mine and mint it. Marginal mines close down. CEOs decide not to produce minor veins. Workers move into other lines of business. The supply of gold falls. The inflation is reduced. Now consider when inflation is low. Gold becomes more valuable relative to the available goods and services. Wildcatters spring up. Chemists research more efficient ways to extract gold from tailings. People start using alternatives in electronic circuits. The supply of gold rises. The deflation is reduced.
Now consider fiat money. Unless there are rigid controls on the creation of money, and who gets to spend it, then the guy who decides to make the money benefits from making it, and there is little limit to how fast he would want to.
~Loyal
The reason drugs can get banned is because they are so incredibly devastating to individuals to families and to communities when their use becomes common.
That has to be balanced against the incredibly devastating effects of imprisonment. Forget for a moment that we're discussing some filthy, undesirable, immoral, mewling quim. In fact, literally forget it. Imagine, for whatever reason, that we've randomly selected some fine, upstanding, pillar of the community and decided to imprison him for twenty-to-life. What do you think would be the effects on the individuals, families, and communities, then? Now imagine that we've done that to the extent that it's doubled our prison population. Are the effects cumulative? Or even emergent? Okay, now let's add in the asset forfeiture laws giving the random selectors incentive to randomly select more marks, errm...criminals. How do you like your results now?
~Loyal
I personally think freedom of the press is really important, but that you do not have a right to publish lies.
The really nice thing about the right to publish lies is that there are then no custodians with the power to determine whether something is a lie or not. Suppose you're a Conservative who's written, "Obama is the worst president ever!" Do you really want a bunch of Liberals judging whether that's a lie or not? Or suppose you're a Liberal who's written, "Bush lied, and people died!" Do you really want a bunch of Conservatives judging whether that's a lie?
The downside is that people are going to read lies, but it seems to me that the latter is preferable to the former.
~Loyal
Because it's never existed, never will exist even Adam Smith saw that the government was going to have to be involved to keep the actors honest.
You might profit from a brief study of the semantic version of the slippery slope fallacy.
~Loyal
You live in a deluded fantasy that free market and zero regulation means honest brokers and business ventures. Grow up and get passed Friedman's fallacy along with Ayn Rand.
Despite your post being chock-a-block full of cogent reasoning and nearly unassailable data, I'm forced to disagree. Firstly, cshark never claimed that free markets and zero regulation meant honest brokers and business ventures. He claimed that it meant innovation. Secondly, and assuming you meant "past" instead of "passed," Friedman's fallacy appears to be failing to live up to it's name. The Heritage Foundation has an annual survey of countries rated by economic freedom, and invariably the countries with the most economic freedom either have the most affluence, or they have the fastest growth if they aren't already affluent. You can find it here. Thirdly, you're mistaken* when you lump Friedman and Ayn Rand together. Friedman was a Republican with libertarian leanings, while Rand was an Objectivist with strong lunatic leanings.
~Loyal
*Unless you meant that Ayn Rand had gotten past Friedman's fallacy, in which case I'm without words.
The USPS is the most efficient system for moving things from one place to the other on the planet. Seriously. Its private competitors cost far more to move the same amount of stuff in a similar amount of time, and its international counterparts don't come close to dealing with the kinds of requirements the USPS has to deal with. Their systems and procedures are designed so that practically anybody can get hired, follow the manual, and do the job correctly, and are also capable of working under a wide variety of conditions ranging from tiny towns in the middle of Alaska to lower Manhattan.
It's not that they aren't competitive.
Wow! If they're that good, then it makes me wonder why they have to have a government-granted monopoly on letters.
~Loyal
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941)
Olmstead et al. vs. United States,
277 U.S. 438, 478, 1928
Personally I believe there are 2 sides to almost any story, including this one.
There is some evidence to suggest that any monopoly privilege grant, such as patents, will be expanded with time. The benefits to owning monopoly privileges are concentrated amongst the few owners, while the costs of being excluded are diffuse amongst the population at large. Under those conditions, the political incentive will be to expand monopoly rights, regardless of the current state of those rights. The reason is that it pays the benefactors to lobby congress, whereas it's a net loss to individuals to do so, even when they win.
Although it's in a different area, copyrights instead of patents, no doubt this explains why the copyright expiration has been repeatedly extended.
~Loyal
Godel's theories on undecidable propositions only hold within the formal systems within which they are created.
That's not correct. As I tell DMUTPeregrine above, Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem applies to any sufficiently strong logical system. I go on to tell him that "sufficiently strong" turns out not to be very strong at all. If you're curious, then you can read what I posted to him to get more information.
There exist perfectly valid ways to decide these kinds of propositions outside the formal system.
Quite true. Unfortunately those other logic systems are also either incomplete or inconsistent. It seems hardly worth saying that proving one incomplete or inconsistent logic system using another incomplete or inconsistent logic system is a mighty thin reed to place your faith in.
Do you actually understand why what you are asserting is false, or is it OK to mock you for your ignorance?
No, I don't. I suppose it's OK to mock me for my ignorance. While you're doing that, would you care to explain why what I'm asserting is false? I'm eager to get rid of my ignorance.
~Loyal
There are true statements that can't be proved ("I love you") and false statements that can't be disproved ("there is an invisible massless flying teapot orbiting the Earth").
So, if I understand correctly, you are going to a great deal of effort to convince me that you believe things that have no proof?
~Loyal
Yes, you may mock me for the indescribable truths that exist that I don't believe in.
Well, I wasn't really discussing indescribable truths. Is your offer also open for describable truths?
Please enumerate them explicitly that I may learn from your wisdom as you taunt me.
Strangely, there are an infinite number of them, making them non-enumerable. That's beside the point, really, though. You stated that you didn't believe in anything that was without proof. I showed that there exists a thing that's true, but that cannot be proven, and gave you a link where you could find more information. The ineluctable conclusion is that there exists something that's true, and in which you don't believe it's true. Now, if I have made a logical error, I would invite you to show me where it is.
Proving the existence of god is not a matter of untangling the limitations of some arbitrary linguistic system,
Wow! That's an extraordinary claim! Do you have some proof that it's true? What am I saying! Of course you have proof that it's true. You already told me that you don't believe in anything without proof. Would you be willing to share that proof with me?
~Loyal
The first incompleteness theorem applies only to formal systems. There are accepted methods of proof outside of such formal systems.
Actually, no. Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem applies to any "sufficiently strong system." As it turns out, "sufficiently strong" isn't very strong at all. Your logic system merely has to have the ability to describe the natural numbers, it has to have addition, it has to be able to associate numbers (for example, to have the pair (2,-1)), and that's about all. If your logic system has those abilities, then it has true statements in it that can never be proven within the system.
~Loyal
It is OK to mock Christians, and anyone else who believes in things they cannot prove.
Perhaps you are unaware of the fact that Gödel's First Incompleteness theorem proved that there exist true statements that may never be proven. So that suggests a question: Do you disbelieve true things, or is it OK to mock you?
~Loyal
The Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment renders all of your hypotheticals moot. The point - which you got just fine but skipped over - is that federal treaties and law trump state laws. Not that the feds can do whatever they want by signing a treaty.
How very strange. So, you're saying that the constitution (in this case the 14th amendment to it) trumps treaties. And since Article 1 Section 4 gives the manner of elections to the States, that treaties cannot override that? So the attorney general was still right?
~Loyal
Yes, his state's laws mean jack and shit in comparison to agreement made by the US with the OCSE. It's this thing called the "Supremacy Clause". Abbott is waving his dick around to grandstand and nothing more.
How very strange. So, you're saying that if the Federal Government made an agreement with the OCSE that people who register Republican cannot vote, then they couldn't? Or if they made one that said that only Christians could vote, then no one else could? Of if they made one that said that only opponents of abortion could vote, then that's the way it would be? How very strange.
~Loyal
They therefore invite observers from any other CSCE participating States and any appropriate private institutions and organizations who may wish to do so to observe the course of their national election proceedings, to the extent permitted by law.
Let me see if I understand what you're saying. By treaty, the CSCE can observe the election to the extent permitted by law. By law, observers cannot maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has warned the CSCE not to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place. So...The AG is right?
~Loyal
No you cannot prove a negative assertion.
Why should I believe that you cannot prove a negative assertion?
~Loyal
So, since the Government Communications and Security Bureau broke the law, are they going to go in with a swat team, take all of their computers, and shut them down for six months?
~Loyal
Yes, but marking something Interesting or Insightful and certainly Underrated is usually a "Like" vote. Certainly "Overrated" is a unlike vote, but Troll and Flamebait often substitute if the mod has the inability to tolerate a worldview very far from their own.
If you see a fairly well fleshed out post with reasonable, albeit extreme view points, and you see it has been marked as "Troll", you know exactly what has happened.
I suspect you're right, but that's not the way things are supposed to be. In fact, the FAQ on moderation says:
Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. Try to be impartial about this; simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. The goal here is to share ideas, to sift through the haystack and find needles, and to keep spammers and griefers in check.
When I moderate, I take that directive seriously; I have marked posts with which I disagree as interesting or insightful.
~Loyal
Inflation is also not "money printing", it is the value you lose in buying power on your currency per year.
Actually, udachny is right. He's merely using the original definition of "inflation." Some people starting using your definition of inflation once they observed that the one almost always leads to the other.
How did this get modded +5?
Well, possibly because modding is not supposed to be for whether the modder agrees with it, or even whether it's right. It's supposed to be for when something is on-topic and interesting.
~Loyal
"what makes sense and actually works to produce favorable outcomes".
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.
Favorable outcomes cannot be judged absent a true morality. Scientists seek to describe what is, or even what will be. Jesus sought to describe what should be.
~Loyal
BAM there it is, another nut turning everything around so they are the one being persecuted.
I hate to admit it, but I'm confused. However, if I could get you to do me a favor I think it would clear things up for me. The favor is to look at two statements and tell me which one is persecuting. Would you do that for me, please?
The first statement is: It seems to me that you're being hypocritical because you're doing the same thing to me that you decry when others do it to you.
The second statement is: Everywhere you turn some atheist nutjob is screaming about the "War on Atheists". Seems to me that the "civil rights for atheists" groups LOVE to berate and belittle every belief, nonbelief, and outlook that isn't theirs and the second anybody points this out it's suddenly a war on atheists.
Which of those statements is the more persecutory, if any? It seems to me that one of those is persecuting and the other isn't, but it's certainly possible that neither are, or even that both are. Would you let me know? Because I'm really having a problem understanding.
~Loyal
As it turns out, only 25.3% of all helplessness is foundationless.
~Loyal
Really?
Yeah.
Have you not seen a single republican on the TV?
No, I guess not. I like watching Castle, but it's been in reruns this summer, so I haven't been watching. I get most of my television from Netflix, and there are no republicans there.
Everywhere you turn some christian nutjob is screaming about the "War on Religion". Seems to me that the "religious right" LOVES to berate and belittle every belief, nonbelief, and outlook that isn't theirs and the second anybody points this out it's suddenly a war on religion.
You mean--like you're doing to me right now?
~Loyal
Because the Christian Lobby (both political and economic) is really powerful in the US...
I'm not sure what you're saying about the Lobby, but according to Wikipedia 79.5% of the US is Christian. I would expect that any democratic republic would reflect the wishes and desires of four-fifths of its population--unless something like Apartheid was going on, but I understand Apartheid is frowned upon.
I haven't seen that in the churches where I've attended. In fact, it's much more likely that prayers will be offered thanking God for the freedom to worship as we please rather than to ask for relief from oppression.
~Loyal