I don't think any taxes should be spent on me. Everyone should pay for exactly what they use and not a penny more.
The fact that the government forces me to accept ill-gotten gains in a thousand different ways (most of which I can't even see or adequately account for) does not make my position inconsistent or hypocritical.
I'm sure all those investors in Solyndra are kicking back and enjoying all the rewards that having their "money working for them" entails.
To the extent that rich people make good choices as to what companies to invest in, their money benefits them AND the economy as a whole. To the extent that they make poor choices, that money is dispersed in a bankruptcy, and they no longer have it.
Taking the money the rich by force and investing it according to government whim only makes utilitarian sense if you are willing to make the claim that the government can invest it wiser. Since you seem to believe that rich people can kick back and reap returns on their money without any work or thought, you apparently already think they invest their money wisely.
To put it another way, the more you claim that a particular rich person can sit back and let their money work for them, the more you invalidate your own argument that the government should take over the management of it.
Because solar is extremely expensive? I thought the parent post's point was that Google would love to save money on electricity, not jack the price up to astronomical levels.
No. It rewards people able to act rationally and in their long-term best interest.
You know, with the goal of making people engage the brain. If you don't want to reward people for making good decisions, your only other option is to clean up after them when they make bad decisions, and let me tell you, once people get wind of that sweet little deal, there's no end to the bad decisions they make.
Regulation is the prime creator of monopolies. And let's not get started on so-called "intellectual property", which is the biggest monopoly of all and granted by the government.
I think you underestimate how well the US military would be able to deploy such weapons against its own populace. It's one thing to send US troops overseas to blow up foreigners, but it's another to put them in a tank and tell them to shell the neighborhood where they grew up.
That's the rational choice, which is why it will never happen.
Instead, we subsidize oil companies to keep fuel cheap, complain loudly that the market has "failed" to put enough money into researching green tech, and then spend billions to fund it via borrowing and receive nothing in return.
And the key to having a good dictatorship is to have a benevolent dictator.
Good luck with making that happen, though, because it never seems to work out that way. The kind of people who gravitate toward political power are not the ones you really want to have it.
that initial moment of awe-inspiring potential - stepping into a massive, virtual world for the first time and simply being astounded by the potential - can never come again
Wish I had modpoints right now. I was an Asheron's Call addict rather than EverQuest, but I feel exactly the same way. Nothing will ever feel the same as it did when I first logged into something of such an enormous scale. I guess it's true what they say: You can't go home.:(
I also wonder how much of it had to do with the rest of the players feeling the same way. MMOs today (especially WoW, but especially EvE . ..) seem to have a much nastier playerbase than I remember from my Asheron days. Maybe we're so used to MMOs now, the sense of wonder and adventure has receded and all we're left with is an amusement park where you wait in line for your next "reward", which makes everyone bitter and entitled.
sure it did. Now they can afford to buy more things.
I want to assume you're just playing here, but just in case someone takes that seriously:
Shifting money from one person to another does not create value; otherwise we could gain everything we need to survive by simply trading a dollar bill back and forth between us several million times. Or in my example, I could just give them the money without making them dig the holes. Still no wealth created. To the extent that money is invested in the creation of things of value, the total wealth of the system is increased. Money can buy seeds, but it's the farmer who creates wealth through the act of planting and harvesting.
If the zombie apocalypse happens tomorrow and society breaks down, good luck convincing someone to take your paper (or gold, for that matter) in exchange for their can of beans.
You asked him a question he had already answered. If you don't believe he's honest about his answers, what do you gain by asking him again?
(Also, he said that he had 6000 at one point, but that every time they were worth a certain amount, he donated half of them to other FOSS developers. If you know something that suggests his actual donations were more sinister or self-serving, then spit it out for the rest of us and quit Glenn-Becking the thread)
I took him to mean regulation of the exchanges and such. In much the same way that I can give cash to anyone I want and be reasonably sure that the government isn't tracking the transaction, but when I deposit money into a bank or stocks on an exchange, I know those are tracked and regulated (for better or for worse).
I think the computing power required in verifying a bitcoin transaction in an environment where the whole world uses bitcoins is going to just slightly exceed the current system.
No doubt, but becoming the only currency worldwide isn't likely to happen overnight (or ever, for that matter). The system can be scaled up gradually as use increases gradually.
And here comes the libertarian caveat emptor bullshit we were all waiting for.
Can you do charge-backs on cash-in-hand transactions? In the past, the only way to move money electronically was to use an intermediary (credit cards, paypal, etc.) which allowed charge-backs. Now we have Bitcoin that can be moved electronically like cash, or be moved via intermediary (there are several Bitcoin escrows services already out there). All they've done is given people a method of choosing whether or not they want to use an escrow. Is that necessarily wrong?
(And what do charge-backs have to do with libertarianism? They can be used both in favor of fraud and to fight fraud, so I don't really see it as a philosophical issue.)
An activity is wasteful if it is unnecessary. I could pay people to come dig holes in my backyard and fill them back in again, but that doesn't mean their work added value to the system.
Amir's point seems to be that:
1. Bitcoin relies on burning through electricity (and all the related work behind generating electricity) to keep the network secure.
2. USD and the like rely on their own form of work, from printing, transportation, physical bank locations and vaults, etc. to keep the system going.
Which one is more efficient in the use of its resources? If the answer is Bitcoins, then using a less efficient system results in waste. My 2c.
To the extent that those new forks added something useful to the currency that made them more attractive than bitcoins, I say the more the merrier.
It should be trivial, for example, to modify the Bitcoin code to allow the block lottery to continue indefinitely (rather than the current Bitcoin limit of 21 million), resulting in a similar currency that has a constant (but well-known) inflation rate. If people would prefer that new currency over Bitcoin, it might eventually win out.
Once the early adopters spend the coins, they lose the advantage. Contrast this with our current monetary system whereby the people at the top (the banks) print money in order to stay at the top perpetually.
It may not be perfect, but it's a whole helluva lot better than what we have now.
Did they get shot? Did any pets get shot? If not, I'd say they are one-up on most people who interact with what passes for "law enforcement" these days.
"Your honor, the data center employee was was wielding that server in a hostile manner. They even called it a 'blade'! I feared for my life."
But . . . but . . if we can't throw people in jail for singing along to songs they enjoy, how will artists get paid?? Why do you all hate art?? Won't somebody think of the poor, starving artists??
Since so many of the people who disagree with assisted suicide also (inexplicably) support the death penalty, all we have to do is make suicide a crime, and make it punishable by death.
he government will always decide , who is eligible for that 'right'
As opposed to right now, where they decide that no one has that right? You could make that same argument against every protection in the bill of rights, and it would make just a little sense.
it de-facto places the 'guardian' ( often the state) of a person in the place of deciding if they 'would want' to live.
Nonsense. Someone deciding if someone else lives or dies is not suicide, by definition.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think any taxes should be spent on me. Everyone should pay for exactly what they use and not a penny more.
The fact that the government forces me to accept ill-gotten gains in a thousand different ways (most of which I can't even see or adequately account for) does not make my position inconsistent or hypocritical.
I don't see where he said that no one should live in the country. That's a strawman.
Choices have consequences, and it would be nice if other people weren't forced to subsidize your particular choice of lifestyle.
I'm sure all those investors in Solyndra are kicking back and enjoying all the rewards that having their "money working for them" entails.
To the extent that rich people make good choices as to what companies to invest in, their money benefits them AND the economy as a whole. To the extent that they make poor choices, that money is dispersed in a bankruptcy, and they no longer have it.
Taking the money the rich by force and investing it according to government whim only makes utilitarian sense if you are willing to make the claim that the government can invest it wiser. Since you seem to believe that rich people can kick back and reap returns on their money without any work or thought, you apparently already think they invest their money wisely.
To put it another way, the more you claim that a particular rich person can sit back and let their money work for them, the more you invalidate your own argument that the government should take over the management of it.
Because solar is extremely expensive? I thought the parent post's point was that Google would love to save money on electricity, not jack the price up to astronomical levels.
No. It rewards people able to act rationally and in their long-term best interest.
You know, with the goal of making people engage the brain. If you don't want to reward people for making good decisions, your only other option is to clean up after them when they make bad decisions, and let me tell you, once people get wind of that sweet little deal, there's no end to the bad decisions they make.
Regulation is the prime creator of monopolies. And let's not get started on so-called "intellectual property", which is the biggest monopoly of all and granted by the government.
I think you underestimate how well the US military would be able to deploy such weapons against its own populace. It's one thing to send US troops overseas to blow up foreigners, but it's another to put them in a tank and tell them to shell the neighborhood where they grew up.
That's the rational choice, which is why it will never happen.
Instead, we subsidize oil companies to keep fuel cheap, complain loudly that the market has "failed" to put enough money into researching green tech, and then spend billions to fund it via borrowing and receive nothing in return.
God bless corporatism.
Waste Management?
And the key to having a good dictatorship is to have a benevolent dictator.
Good luck with making that happen, though, because it never seems to work out that way. The kind of people who gravitate toward political power are not the ones you really want to have it.
that initial moment of awe-inspiring potential - stepping into a massive, virtual world for the first time and simply being astounded by the potential - can never come again
Wish I had modpoints right now. I was an Asheron's Call addict rather than EverQuest, but I feel exactly the same way. Nothing will ever feel the same as it did when I first logged into something of such an enormous scale. I guess it's true what they say: You can't go home. :(
.) seem to have a much nastier playerbase than I remember from my Asheron days. Maybe we're so used to MMOs now, the sense of wonder and adventure has receded and all we're left with is an amusement park where you wait in line for your next "reward", which makes everyone bitter and entitled.
I also wonder how much of it had to do with the rest of the players feeling the same way. MMOs today (especially WoW, but especially EvE . .
In response to the unusual style of our press release... this one was written by an anonymous allied ship, not The Lulz Boat. :)
sure it did. Now they can afford to buy more things.
I want to assume you're just playing here, but just in case someone takes that seriously:
Shifting money from one person to another does not create value; otherwise we could gain everything we need to survive by simply trading a dollar bill back and forth between us several million times. Or in my example, I could just give them the money without making them dig the holes. Still no wealth created. To the extent that money is invested in the creation of things of value, the total wealth of the system is increased. Money can buy seeds, but it's the farmer who creates wealth through the act of planting and harvesting.
There's no such thing as "guaranteed value".
If the zombie apocalypse happens tomorrow and society breaks down, good luck convincing someone to take your paper (or gold, for that matter) in exchange for their can of beans.
You asked him a question he had already answered. If you don't believe he's honest about his answers, what do you gain by asking him again?
(Also, he said that he had 6000 at one point, but that every time they were worth a certain amount, he donated half of them to other FOSS developers. If you know something that suggests his actual donations were more sinister or self-serving, then spit it out for the rest of us and quit Glenn-Becking the thread)
Aren't you asking for regulation?
I took him to mean regulation of the exchanges and such. In much the same way that I can give cash to anyone I want and be reasonably sure that the government isn't tracking the transaction, but when I deposit money into a bank or stocks on an exchange, I know those are tracked and regulated (for better or for worse).
I think the computing power required in verifying a bitcoin transaction in an environment where the whole world uses bitcoins is going to just slightly exceed the current system.
No doubt, but becoming the only currency worldwide isn't likely to happen overnight (or ever, for that matter). The system can be scaled up gradually as use increases gradually.
And here comes the libertarian caveat emptor bullshit we were all waiting for.
Can you do charge-backs on cash-in-hand transactions? In the past, the only way to move money electronically was to use an intermediary (credit cards, paypal, etc.) which allowed charge-backs. Now we have Bitcoin that can be moved electronically like cash, or be moved via intermediary (there are several Bitcoin escrows services already out there). All they've done is given people a method of choosing whether or not they want to use an escrow. Is that necessarily wrong?
(And what do charge-backs have to do with libertarianism? They can be used both in favor of fraud and to fight fraud, so I don't really see it as a philosophical issue.)
An activity is wasteful if it is unnecessary. I could pay people to come dig holes in my backyard and fill them back in again, but that doesn't mean their work added value to the system.
Amir's point seems to be that:
1. Bitcoin relies on burning through electricity (and all the related work behind generating electricity) to keep the network secure.
2. USD and the like rely on their own form of work, from printing, transportation, physical bank locations and vaults, etc. to keep the system going.
Which one is more efficient in the use of its resources? If the answer is Bitcoins, then using a less efficient system results in waste. My 2c.
To the extent that those new forks added something useful to the currency that made them more attractive than bitcoins, I say the more the merrier.
It should be trivial, for example, to modify the Bitcoin code to allow the block lottery to continue indefinitely (rather than the current Bitcoin limit of 21 million), resulting in a similar currency that has a constant (but well-known) inflation rate. If people would prefer that new currency over Bitcoin, it might eventually win out.
Once the early adopters spend the coins, they lose the advantage. Contrast this with our current monetary system whereby the people at the top (the banks) print money in order to stay at the top perpetually.
It may not be perfect, but it's a whole helluva lot better than what we have now.
If you'd bothered to RTFA, you'd already know the answer is 32 (currently worth about $500).
But I know that conspiracy theories are easy while reading is really hard.
Did they get shot? Did any pets get shot? If not, I'd say they are one-up on most people who interact with what passes for "law enforcement" these days.
"Your honor, the data center employee was was wielding that server in a hostile manner. They even called it a 'blade'! I feared for my life."
But . . . but . . if we can't throw people in jail for singing along to songs they enjoy, how will artists get paid?? Why do you all hate art?? Won't somebody think of the poor, starving artists??
Since so many of the people who disagree with assisted suicide also (inexplicably) support the death penalty, all we have to do is make suicide a crime, and make it punishable by death.
he government will always decide , who is eligible for that 'right'
As opposed to right now, where they decide that no one has that right? You could make that same argument against every protection in the bill of rights, and it would make just a little sense.
it de-facto places the 'guardian' ( often the state) of a person in the place of deciding if they 'would want' to live.
Nonsense. Someone deciding if someone else lives or dies is not suicide, by definition.
I hope, not because that would be a huge failure on their part (nVidia cards suck for mining bitcoins compared to ATI cards). ;)