The question is, I think, whether that decrease in reliability is an acceptable tradeoff for the increase in safety gained due to only the owner being able to fire it.
Determining whether a tradeoff in reliability is worth a potential increase in safety can only be done by the person needing the firearm. It's easy for a third party to look at a general situation, calculate some numbers, and decide wether or not a tradeoff is worth it. What a third party misses is the lifetime of knowledge and experiences held by the firearm owner. Consider the manner you calculated reliability. You calculation was determined by considering the number of failed firings in relation to the number of successful firings. A blanket calculation like that doesn't take into consideration the condition that can induce failure.
Electronics are more susceptible environmentally induced failures. Consider an individual living in a jungle environment. They are dealing with higher humidity and periodical encounters with water (either through rain or crossing bodies of water). Water does not interact well with electronics. While the average number of failures across the board after adding electronics to a gun may only be 3 in 10,000 the number of failures experienced in a jungle environment are likely to be much higher. Extremely cold weather can also wreck havoc with electronics. A person living in an arctic region is likely to have more failures after electronics are added to a firearm.
Firearms are, to a point, inherently dangerous. It is a device designed to cause physical harm. When the purpose of a device is to cause physical harm the amount of safety that can be added is limited. Consider the chainsaw, another device designed to cause harm (although primarily to trees). It consistes of an engine that spins a chain that is covered in sharp blades. Being designed to cut through trees a chainsaw can easily cut through a human as well. Safety devices have been added to chainsaws but the design only lends itself to a certain amount of safety before it becomes too unreliable for its intended purpose. The intended purpose of a firearm is often defensive. When it's needed it's usually needed immediately and any failure to properly operate can cost the user his or her life. Due to this most people are likely unwilling to reduce reliability in the name of safety. Firearms are already to the point where they are extremely safe for the user so long as some basic safety rules are followed.
I don't know where people come up with these kinds of claims. Anarchy isn't an opposition to organization (in fact anarcho-communists are all about organization). Depending on the form of anarchism it's about the opposition of violence and coercion or hierarchy all together.
Those in the former group oppose the state (what is commonly referred to as the government) because it is necessarily violent. Everything it does is backed by the threat or actuality of violence. For example, failing to pay your taxes will result in your kidnapping and being tossed into a cage or your property stolen. If you resist any of these actions by the state they will use physical force against you and, if you resist sufficiently, even go so far as to kill you.
Anarchists in the latter category oppose any single individuals having power over another. In the case of the state they oppose the fact that state agents have power over non-state agents. Members of this group also oppose capitalism and the idea of landlords because they believe the capitalist has power over the workers because without the wages paid by the capitalist the employees would be unable to acquire the basic needs of survival (food, water, clothing, shelter). They also oppose landlords for the same reason, the landlord can toss out renters leaving said renters without shelter.
The former group generally has no issue with hierarchy so long as it's voluntary. They have no problem with somebody working for an employer, renting living space, or being a member of any organization that has created a set of rules for members of follow (Slashdot, for example, has rules that must be agreed to and those who disobey said rules can be kicked out).
While the latter group opposes hierarchy they don't oppose organization. In general they believe decisions should be made by the applicable communities. Workers at a factory would vote on policies regarding the factory, members of a community would vote on the rules of that community, and so on. Because each person is viewed as having an equal voice no single person has power over another.
It would do you well to research the philosophies of anarchism before making erroneous claims regarding them.
Real anarchism at its core is about the recognition of the basic rights, ie the right to self ownership of one's own body, and the descendent right to property.
Social anarchists, in general, don't merely wish to do away with government but all forms of hierarchy. As they view property as a form of hierarchy they advocate for the abolition of the entire idea. Therefore most social anarchists would vehemently disagree with your statement. They also argue against the concept of self-owner because they believe that you, being yourself, cannot own yourself. They usually phrase it something like, "You are you so you can't own you." I don't entirely understand it myself but that's why I'm not a social anarchist (among other reasons).
While I believe in the concept of self-ownership to say "real" anarchists all believe in it would be entirely in error. Most social anarchists consider themselves the only "true" anarchists while most individualist anarchists believe they're the only "true" anarchists. Truthfully there are as many "true" anarchists as there are "true" scotsmen.
You appears to have a fairly shortsighted view of anarchism. By saying the anarchist movement has a long history of terrorism you're lumping all anarchist philosophies together.
Anarchism is a term that covers many different philosophies. There are the revolutionary anarchists (the ones you were likely thinking of when you made your comment) who utilize acts of violence and property destruction. On the other end you have agorists who do not believe in such violence means, instead they believe in using counter-economics to eventually cause the of the state. Many christian anarchist philosophies are entirely pacifist. There are social anarchists and individualist anarchist, anarchist who believe in the abolition of all property and anarchists who believe in absolute private property rights, market anarchists and communist anarchist, and the list goes on.
Lumping all anarchists together is no different than lumping all christian together. Yes, some christians believe in using violence to enforce their decrees but many more christians oppose such actions. The same applies to anarchists, some advocate and use violence in the hopes of furthering their cause while others oppose violent actions.
Personally I believe there are far more common dangers to concern one's self with than lasers. For instance anybody with a credit card in hand can go fill a can with gasoline and honestly gasoline has for more destructive potential than any laser current on the market.
But the ultimate truth is stupid people will do stupid things and bad people with do bad things regardless of rules and regulations put into place.
I think you're the one who's not understanding this. Under libertarian philosophy you have a right to self-defense which includes situations where you are reasonably sure your life is in immediate danger. For example if somebody with a bomb strapped to themselves came to your location you would be able to argue that you had a reasonable expectation that the man with the bomb strapped to himself was an immediate threat to either yourself or your property. Thus if you took actions to defend yourself it's likely any court would agree with your action and also unlikely a court would agree with the potential bomber's heirs if they tried to bring a case against you.
In addition to that property rights would further make this issue no more worrisome then it is today. Yes you have a right to strap a bomb to yourself, walk around, and even detonate it so long as that detonation won't harm another or the property of another. Your right stops at your property line, once you enter another person's property you must either play by their rules or leave. Most people are not going to be OK with some random guy coming on to their property with a bomb strapped to themselves and thus a person doing so it's a "law-abiding citizen." As the property owner would have a reasonable expectation that they or their property was in immediate danger they could take actions necessary to defend either.
Again I'll urge you to read the material I linked to (it's freely available at the link I provided) as it will likely clear up many of the misconceptions about libertarianism you seem to have.
First of all a suicide bomber would constitute an immediate threat to life granting anybody in the vicinity legitimate reason for self-defense. I'll recommend reading The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard as it answers most of the common questions and counters most of the common criticisms people have about libertarianism.
As for collecting compensation from a penniless dead man, you can't do that now, so it's not really a criticism of libertarianism but of modern technological limitations. There isn't a modern society on the planet that can bring a dead man back to life in order to enact justice against him. In such a case you would rely on insurance just as you do now.
You seem to be mistaking a libertarian society with one that lacks law. Libertarian philosophy does include provisions for law but the laws are solely against harming another or their property. It's called the non-aggression principle and if violated libertarian philosophy recognizes the violation as a crime and allows for the collection of compensation.
I haven't ventured out to start my own business yet but my father did exactly as I described. He's an auto-mechanic who wasn't satisfied with the working conditions available to him so he worked just long enough to be able to secure a small business loan and started his own shop.
I didn't say there was a labor shortage but that one could be created based on the circumstances I described.
On the subject of political contributions I'm with you. This is mostly due to my political views but I'd be happy to see a political system where candidates and elected officials were unable to receive any donations.
Which competition are you going to take your skills to if ALL businesses decide to place "unreasonable consideration upon" people's employment?
If I'm unsatisfied with the offerings made available I have the option to either start my own business or find another industry to work in. Should enough people choose the latter case a labor shortage will develop in that industry forcing employers to improve conditions in order to attract people.
Don't get me wrong either, I'm not against employees voluntarily coming together to form a union in order to fight for better working conditions. That's a great option to get better benefits. What I am against though are unions trying to use the government's monopoly on the initiation of force to coerce employers into actions. This is what large unions paying money to members of political parties do and that's what I have a problem with.
It's impossible, because you people think any implementation of commons, having to give a crap about anyone else but people you care about, and having to pay for legitimate government oversight of industry is infringing on your freedom.
No. Libertarian philosophy follows a non-aggression principle. We don't believe caring about others is infringing on our freedoms, we believe government using their monopoly on the initiation of force to coerce us into action is against our freedom. In order to enact social programs they must be funded either through voluntary giving or taxation. Those who follow libertarian philosophy have no problem with voluntary giving.
What we have a problem with is the government putting a gun to our heads and taking a portion of the money we earned through our labor. You can debate whether or not the ends justify the means but you need to understand the point of conflict before making a statement about the philosophy. The point of conflict is the requirement of violence not our pocket books.
So they promote debate, they promote listening to dissenting opinions, they have people in their ranks who disagree with the party base and AREN'T made to be political outcasts by their fellow party members.
You must know different Democrats than I do. Most of the Democrats (and Republicans) I know are zealously loyal to their party and try everything they can to shout down any unapproved opinion. They don't try to foster debate, they try to yell over you in the hopes you'll stop pointing out potential fallacies in their ideologies.
Both sides have fanatics who try to shout down the Other Party. And that's the problem, fanatics. I know several non-fanatic Republicans and Democrats who are actually pleasurable to converse with even though my beliefs are not aligned with either of their ideologies.
What kind of a third-rate country are we going to become with these jackoffs in control?
The same kind of country we are now that they're already in control. The crux of your argument appears to be government corruption in the form of corporations being able to "buy" politicians. You mention the fact that GE was able to buy favorable tax laws, government has sold securities against Social Security causing it to cost money, and that the tax rate of the highest bracket affects the GDP. All these are conditions created by the government.
These jack offs are already in control, they're called politicians. The problem is most people look towards the government to fix these problems through legislation (making GE's accounting practices illegal for instance). Hoping to get government to fix the problems created by government isn't going to conclude with a favorable solution.
I'm not unionized and still have free time. I owe my free time to competition in the job market. If my employer places unreasonable consideration upon my employment I take my skills to their competition. It's actually the same thing I owe my salary to now that I think about it.
You may wish to look up the definition of a state as used in politics, it's a bit more complicated then you've claimed. A state is an entity with a legitimized monopoly on the initiation of force. A society with multiple competing security firms for instance wouldn't imply an existence of a state as no monopoly on the initiation of force is in place.
Just because there is no state doesn't mean society will allow you to get away with initiating violence against another.
Don't confuse anarchy with chaos. Chaos sucks. Slavery was first an institution granted legitimacy by states, you could own slaves legally even though a state was in place.
Slashdot Mirror
The question is, I think, whether that decrease in reliability is an acceptable tradeoff for the increase in safety gained due to only the owner being able to fire it.
Determining whether a tradeoff in reliability is worth a potential increase in safety can only be done by the person needing the firearm. It's easy for a third party to look at a general situation, calculate some numbers, and decide wether or not a tradeoff is worth it. What a third party misses is the lifetime of knowledge and experiences held by the firearm owner. Consider the manner you calculated reliability. You calculation was determined by considering the number of failed firings in relation to the number of successful firings. A blanket calculation like that doesn't take into consideration the condition that can induce failure.
Electronics are more susceptible environmentally induced failures. Consider an individual living in a jungle environment. They are dealing with higher humidity and periodical encounters with water (either through rain or crossing bodies of water). Water does not interact well with electronics. While the average number of failures across the board after adding electronics to a gun may only be 3 in 10,000 the number of failures experienced in a jungle environment are likely to be much higher. Extremely cold weather can also wreck havoc with electronics. A person living in an arctic region is likely to have more failures after electronics are added to a firearm.
Firearms are, to a point, inherently dangerous. It is a device designed to cause physical harm. When the purpose of a device is to cause physical harm the amount of safety that can be added is limited. Consider the chainsaw, another device designed to cause harm (although primarily to trees). It consistes of an engine that spins a chain that is covered in sharp blades. Being designed to cut through trees a chainsaw can easily cut through a human as well. Safety devices have been added to chainsaws but the design only lends itself to a certain amount of safety before it becomes too unreliable for its intended purpose. The intended purpose of a firearm is often defensive. When it's needed it's usually needed immediately and any failure to properly operate can cost the user his or her life. Due to this most people are likely unwilling to reduce reliability in the name of safety. Firearms are already to the point where they are extremely safe for the user so long as some basic safety rules are followed.
The Expendables 2 is coming out later this year.
I don't know where people come up with these kinds of claims. Anarchy isn't an opposition to organization (in fact anarcho-communists are all about organization). Depending on the form of anarchism it's about the opposition of violence and coercion or hierarchy all together.
Those in the former group oppose the state (what is commonly referred to as the government) because it is necessarily violent. Everything it does is backed by the threat or actuality of violence. For example, failing to pay your taxes will result in your kidnapping and being tossed into a cage or your property stolen. If you resist any of these actions by the state they will use physical force against you and, if you resist sufficiently, even go so far as to kill you.
Anarchists in the latter category oppose any single individuals having power over another. In the case of the state they oppose the fact that state agents have power over non-state agents. Members of this group also oppose capitalism and the idea of landlords because they believe the capitalist has power over the workers because without the wages paid by the capitalist the employees would be unable to acquire the basic needs of survival (food, water, clothing, shelter). They also oppose landlords for the same reason, the landlord can toss out renters leaving said renters without shelter.
The former group generally has no issue with hierarchy so long as it's voluntary. They have no problem with somebody working for an employer, renting living space, or being a member of any organization that has created a set of rules for members of follow (Slashdot, for example, has rules that must be agreed to and those who disobey said rules can be kicked out).
While the latter group opposes hierarchy they don't oppose organization. In general they believe decisions should be made by the applicable communities. Workers at a factory would vote on policies regarding the factory, members of a community would vote on the rules of that community, and so on. Because each person is viewed as having an equal voice no single person has power over another.
It would do you well to research the philosophies of anarchism before making erroneous claims regarding them.
Libertarians and anarchists are rather far apart in philosophy.
Tell that to the voluntaryists.
Real anarchism at its core is about the recognition of the basic rights, ie the right to self ownership of one's own body, and the descendent right to property.
Social anarchists, in general, don't merely wish to do away with government but all forms of hierarchy. As they view property as a form of hierarchy they advocate for the abolition of the entire idea. Therefore most social anarchists would vehemently disagree with your statement. They also argue against the concept of self-owner because they believe that you, being yourself, cannot own yourself. They usually phrase it something like, "You are you so you can't own you." I don't entirely understand it myself but that's why I'm not a social anarchist (among other reasons).
While I believe in the concept of self-ownership to say "real" anarchists all believe in it would be entirely in error. Most social anarchists consider themselves the only "true" anarchists while most individualist anarchists believe they're the only "true" anarchists. Truthfully there are as many "true" anarchists as there are "true" scotsmen.
You appears to have a fairly shortsighted view of anarchism. By saying the anarchist movement has a long history of terrorism you're lumping all anarchist philosophies together.
Anarchism is a term that covers many different philosophies. There are the revolutionary anarchists (the ones you were likely thinking of when you made your comment) who utilize acts of violence and property destruction. On the other end you have agorists who do not believe in such violence means, instead they believe in using counter-economics to eventually cause the of the state. Many christian anarchist philosophies are entirely pacifist. There are social anarchists and individualist anarchist, anarchist who believe in the abolition of all property and anarchists who believe in absolute private property rights, market anarchists and communist anarchist, and the list goes on.
Lumping all anarchists together is no different than lumping all christian together. Yes, some christians believe in using violence to enforce their decrees but many more christians oppose such actions. The same applies to anarchists, some advocate and use violence in the hopes of furthering their cause while others oppose violent actions.
That all depends on the contract signed by participating parties.
Naw, they'll just exempt themselves from it as they always do when they enact legislation that may negatively impact them.
Personally I believe there are far more common dangers to concern one's self with than lasers. For instance anybody with a credit card in hand can go fill a can with gasoline and honestly gasoline has for more destructive potential than any laser current on the market.
But the ultimate truth is stupid people will do stupid things and bad people with do bad things regardless of rules and regulations put into place.
Maybe, just maybe, the subsidies was too low?
Ah, yes. If something doesn't work we just need to try it again only harder!
Best Buy now buys and sells used games and many pawn shops have been buying and selling used games since the old NES days (probably earlier).
I think you're the one who's not understanding this. Under libertarian philosophy you have a right to self-defense which includes situations where you are reasonably sure your life is in immediate danger. For example if somebody with a bomb strapped to themselves came to your location you would be able to argue that you had a reasonable expectation that the man with the bomb strapped to himself was an immediate threat to either yourself or your property. Thus if you took actions to defend yourself it's likely any court would agree with your action and also unlikely a court would agree with the potential bomber's heirs if they tried to bring a case against you.
In addition to that property rights would further make this issue no more worrisome then it is today. Yes you have a right to strap a bomb to yourself, walk around, and even detonate it so long as that detonation won't harm another or the property of another. Your right stops at your property line, once you enter another person's property you must either play by their rules or leave. Most people are not going to be OK with some random guy coming on to their property with a bomb strapped to themselves and thus a person doing so it's a "law-abiding citizen." As the property owner would have a reasonable expectation that they or their property was in immediate danger they could take actions necessary to defend either.
Again I'll urge you to read the material I linked to (it's freely available at the link I provided) as it will likely clear up many of the misconceptions about libertarianism you seem to have.
First of all a suicide bomber would constitute an immediate threat to life granting anybody in the vicinity legitimate reason for self-defense. I'll recommend reading The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard as it answers most of the common questions and counters most of the common criticisms people have about libertarianism.
As for collecting compensation from a penniless dead man, you can't do that now, so it's not really a criticism of libertarianism but of modern technological limitations. There isn't a modern society on the planet that can bring a dead man back to life in order to enact justice against him. In such a case you would rely on insurance just as you do now.
You seem to be mistaking a libertarian society with one that lacks law. Libertarian philosophy does include provisions for law but the laws are solely against harming another or their property. It's called the non-aggression principle and if violated libertarian philosophy recognizes the violation as a crime and allows for the collection of compensation.
It's actually not that terribly difficult to replace the "non-replaceable" batteries in the unibody MacBook Pros.
I haven't ventured out to start my own business yet but my father did exactly as I described. He's an auto-mechanic who wasn't satisfied with the working conditions available to him so he worked just long enough to be able to secure a small business loan and started his own shop.
I didn't say there was a labor shortage but that one could be created based on the circumstances I described.
On the subject of political contributions I'm with you. This is mostly due to my political views but I'd be happy to see a political system where candidates and elected officials were unable to receive any donations.
If I'm unsatisfied with the offerings made available I have the option to either start my own business or find another industry to work in. Should enough people choose the latter case a labor shortage will develop in that industry forcing employers to improve conditions in order to attract people.
Don't get me wrong either, I'm not against employees voluntarily coming together to form a union in order to fight for better working conditions. That's a great option to get better benefits. What I am against though are unions trying to use the government's monopoly on the initiation of force to coerce employers into actions. This is what large unions paying money to members of political parties do and that's what I have a problem with.
No. Libertarian philosophy follows a non-aggression principle. We don't believe caring about others is infringing on our freedoms, we believe government using their monopoly on the initiation of force to coerce us into action is against our freedom. In order to enact social programs they must be funded either through voluntary giving or taxation. Those who follow libertarian philosophy have no problem with voluntary giving.
What we have a problem with is the government putting a gun to our heads and taking a portion of the money we earned through our labor. You can debate whether or not the ends justify the means but you need to understand the point of conflict before making a statement about the philosophy. The point of conflict is the requirement of violence not our pocket books.
You must know different Democrats than I do. Most of the Democrats (and Republicans) I know are zealously loyal to their party and try everything they can to shout down any unapproved opinion. They don't try to foster debate, they try to yell over you in the hopes you'll stop pointing out potential fallacies in their ideologies.
Both sides have fanatics who try to shout down the Other Party. And that's the problem, fanatics. I know several non-fanatic Republicans and Democrats who are actually pleasurable to converse with even though my beliefs are not aligned with either of their ideologies.
The same kind of country we are now that they're already in control. The crux of your argument appears to be government corruption in the form of corporations being able to "buy" politicians. You mention the fact that GE was able to buy favorable tax laws, government has sold securities against Social Security causing it to cost money, and that the tax rate of the highest bracket affects the GDP. All these are conditions created by the government.
These jack offs are already in control, they're called politicians. The problem is most people look towards the government to fix these problems through legislation (making GE's accounting practices illegal for instance). Hoping to get government to fix the problems created by government isn't going to conclude with a favorable solution.
I'm not unionized and still have free time. I owe my free time to competition in the job market. If my employer places unreasonable consideration upon my employment I take my skills to their competition. It's actually the same thing I owe my salary to now that I think about it.
You may wish to look up the definition of a state as used in politics, it's a bit more complicated then you've claimed. A state is an entity with a legitimized monopoly on the initiation of force. A society with multiple competing security firms for instance wouldn't imply an existence of a state as no monopoly on the initiation of force is in place.
Anarchy != Chaos.
Just because there is no state doesn't mean society will allow you to get away with initiating violence against another.
Don't confuse anarchy with chaos. Chaos sucks. Slavery was first an institution granted legitimacy by states, you could own slaves legally even though a state was in place.
Hey, times are tough and you have to find work wherever you can.