Isn't it obvious ? You are what you eat. Go raw! Plants, vegetables & fruit don't catch viruses. Unprocessed raw food is the Nature's Solution. The Cows eat it when they live in a natural environment, why couldn't we ?
They don't? What about plant viruses? You're not suggesting a solution, you're suggesting we delay the problem by switching to an all plant diet. What happens when we face the same problems with plants, like what happened with the potato famine? Clearly we must both control consumption, eliminate waste, and control population growth through family planning. Making everyone vegetarians (or vegans as you seem to suggest) won't magically solve the problem, it will just delay the problem until we have an even more massive world population, where one bad harvest results in massive starvation.
Debt and promissory note property reclamation are not the same. If they were, then such storage would incur the same interest rates upon the holder for the risk of default.
They are the same, and they do incur an interest rate dependent on the risk of default, it's just that since the risk of default is essentially zero, so is the interest rate. And again, if I give gold to someone in exchange for a note, they are very much in my debt. They can do whatever they want with the gold so long as when I ask for it back, they give it to me.
Claiming to have ones property stored safely is not the same as claiming to be obligated to repay a loan over some amount of time.
You're the one with the misconception. A "loan" and a "debt" are not synonymous, but you seem to think they are, and by extension, think I should.
I find it hard to avoid when you use words like "psychopath", "blood of a million people", "infuriate", "mobilize", "fight back", "dictatorship", "denounce", "war criminals", and then finally the conclusion that unless we listen to you and put some people behind bars we will lose our democracy.
No, you simply described all fiat currency. Not all currency. Even paper money is based on wealth and not debt if it's representative currency backed by gold or silver.
This is simply not true. Even paper notes which are backed by gold are only valuable because one trusts that they will be able to exchange their notes for gold, which is basically the definition of debt. You give me something "worthless" (a piece of paper), and I give you something valuable in exchange (gold), trusting that you will honor your obligation to give me the gold if I need it. You are indebted to me.
which means there is never enough money in circulation to repay the debt, which means the only possibility is ever-increasing debt? Just insisting really, really hard that this can't be so will not change the situation.
I'm not denying this. This is simply not a problem, unless people lose faith in the system. Why do we need to fix the amount of currency in circulation to that which physically has been printed, or been mined from the earth? Gold has no intrinsic value of its own... what is wrong with letting currency fluctuate based on other parameters than simply "the amount of gold which we have been able to, or foresee being able to, in the near future, dig up"?
As for your quotes, you seemed to have missed the point of them.
Lincoln was saying that money should not be enshrined over a democratic government.
FDR was merely saying that which everybody knows, ie, "wealth is power" (it doesn't matter the form said wealth takes, debt or diamonds).
Ford was saying the system benefits those who have wealth more than it does those who do not. I agree that we could work towards a more level playing field.
I don't know what to make of the anonymous Banker's magazine contributor. They seem to be trying to personify a Marxist "evil greedy capitalist".
As for Jefferson, the quote has no substance to it, it is merely his opinion. It may be true, but then again, Jefferson was a slave owner, so "depriving people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent" was something he did every day when he got out of bed. How can one trust his opinion on the subject?
That if your goal is a better, more egalitarian society, you can't start it with hate-mongering, scapegoating and lynch mob style accusations?
We are all part of the system, in its current incarnation. If we want to make it better, we must work together, rather than simply blaming some for the inequalities of the world. Don't you see that statements like those of the OP only serve to entrench prior opinions, instead of furthering the ultimate goal of economic equality?
That's my idiotic point. If history has shown anything, it is that you can't stop wars by fighting just "one more war".
Create currency out of nothing to monetize not wealth, but debt.
This is such nonsense. Debt has always been a part of wealth and power. Debt has always been monetized. Debt without monetization is meaningless, as is monetization without debt. All currency is based on trust in some entity, and trust that that entity will repay their debts.
This attitude is inevitable for straight males who are surrounded by other straight males all day... even more so when they're mostly 20-30 somethings. There's nothing harmful in it... besides, I guarantee women would ask the same question about a man who was joining their all female crew.
While I agree that it is unlikely, calling it vanishingly small is somewhat disingenuous. It seems actually fairly likely that the intersection of "people who don't vaccinate their children" and "people who use unregulated and untested alternative medicines" is quite large, while the intersection of "people who vaccinate their children" with the two former groups is relatively small.
If there is no correlation between vaccines and autism, then that precludes the possibility of causation; and there is no correlation, therefore there is no causation.
I agree that vaccines don't caused autism, but this statement is incorrect. If there is some unknown interaction with another chemical (say, hipster baby herbal supplements), which anti-vaccine parents give their babies (but pro-vaccine parents don't), then there could indeed be causation (Vaccine + Supplement cause autism) without evident correlation, as autism rates will be the same between both populations (since vaccinated children don't take the supplement). As you said though, that's why we do the fancy science, to eliminate such possibilities.
And you would wind up with a massive quagmire of American freedom fighters and massive Chinese import-immigrant starvation as the Great Plains burn. Has there ever been a war where the victor simply eliminates the locals and brings in a new set of locals?
The air drops are useless unless you can back them up with a landing force, which has to come by sea. If the Navy cuts off the main landing force, the paratroopers will be mopped up in a matter of days, weeks at most.
I know you're joking, but it's a common fallacy that evolution converges to an optimal solution. It doesn't, it merely converges to a solution. Intelligent design has the potential to find much better solutions than evolution.
I don't see why it would converge to a global maximum, and even if it did, what it is maximizing is not necessarily desirable.
However what the common good is, may not be what any individual or group happens to think it is.
Exactly... so we let the invisible hand dictate to us what "the common good" is, and have faith that it will be beneficial to mankind? What if the solution market forces are converging to is the extinction of mankind as a species (or the exhaustion of all the Earth's resources) , and free market forces are leading us down the most efficient path to that optimal solution? How could any reasonable person still call that "the common good (for mankind)"?
Because the market has a better chance of gravitating toward the "common good" than an economy planned by bureaucrats?
How? Market forces gravitate towards what is cheaper, and more efficient (in terms of monetary costs). How is that necessarily the "common good"? In some cases it may very well be, but having faith that it will always be the best solution relies more on faith than any scientifically minded person should be willing to accept.
Sarcasm aside, isn't one of the key ideas of Science, and its bastard child Engineering, that by tinkering with things intelligently, we can improve on the status quo?
Sure, the government makes mistakes, but I don't see how a scientific person can buy into this idea that somehow market forces will solve all our problems.
I'm not saying that more government is always better... but clearly government has had, and will continue to, provide massive benefits to society. Why should we accept what the market dictates, when we can engineer a better solution?
I don't understand all these arguments against the Volt saying that standard gas cars are more economical.
That may very well be true, but since when do we measure benefit to society by only looking at what's cheapest?
Not educating our children would be cheaper too, should we close all schools to balance our budgets? Should we close all fire departments to save a few bucks in the short term?
Why do intelligent people make the argument that trusting the market, and the "invisible hand" will always have the best outcome? It's as if people have replaced (or augmented) their trust in God with this idea of "the market is always right". Surely this is as far from a scientific argument as one could get?
Slashdot Mirror
The real question is why is anyone still getting their news this way?
Isn't it obvious ? You are what you eat. Go raw! Plants, vegetables & fruit don't catch viruses. Unprocessed raw food is the Nature's Solution. The Cows eat it when they live in a natural environment, why couldn't we ?
They don't? What about plant viruses? You're not suggesting a solution, you're suggesting we delay the problem by switching to an all plant diet. What happens when we face the same problems with plants, like what happened with the potato famine? Clearly we must both control consumption, eliminate waste, and control population growth through family planning. Making everyone vegetarians (or vegans as you seem to suggest) won't magically solve the problem, it will just delay the problem until we have an even more massive world population, where one bad harvest results in massive starvation.
Debt and promissory note property reclamation are not the same. If they were, then such storage would incur the same interest rates upon the holder for the risk of default.
They are the same, and they do incur an interest rate dependent on the risk of default, it's just that since the risk of default is essentially zero, so is the interest rate. And again, if I give gold to someone in exchange for a note, they are very much in my debt. They can do whatever they want with the gold so long as when I ask for it back, they give it to me.
Claiming to have ones property stored safely is not the same as claiming to be obligated to repay a loan over some amount of time.
You're the one with the misconception. A "loan" and a "debt" are not synonymous, but you seem to think they are, and by extension, think I should.
I find it hard to avoid when you use words like "psychopath", "blood of a million people", "infuriate", "mobilize", "fight back", "dictatorship", "denounce", "war criminals", and then finally the conclusion that unless we listen to you and put some people behind bars we will lose our democracy.
I just finished Quicksilver... I can't wait to get to the other two. Are they as good?
Again though, and I can't state this enough, Jefferson was an asshole to talk about the evils of debt-slavery when he owned actual slaves.
No, you simply described all fiat currency. Not all currency. Even paper money is based on wealth and not debt if it's representative currency backed by gold or silver.
This is simply not true. Even paper notes which are backed by gold are only valuable because one trusts that they will be able to exchange their notes for gold, which is basically the definition of debt. You give me something "worthless" (a piece of paper), and I give you something valuable in exchange (gold), trusting that you will honor your obligation to give me the gold if I need it. You are indebted to me.
which means there is never enough money in circulation to repay the debt, which means the only possibility is ever-increasing debt? Just insisting really, really hard that this can't be so will not change the situation.
I'm not denying this. This is simply not a problem, unless people lose faith in the system. Why do we need to fix the amount of currency in circulation to that which physically has been printed, or been mined from the earth? Gold has no intrinsic value of its own... what is wrong with letting currency fluctuate based on other parameters than simply "the amount of gold which we have been able to, or foresee being able to, in the near future, dig up"?
As for your quotes, you seemed to have missed the point of them.
Lincoln was saying that money should not be enshrined over a democratic government.
FDR was merely saying that which everybody knows, ie, "wealth is power" (it doesn't matter the form said wealth takes, debt or diamonds).
Ford was saying the system benefits those who have wealth more than it does those who do not. I agree that we could work towards a more level playing field.
I don't know what to make of the anonymous Banker's magazine contributor. They seem to be trying to personify a Marxist "evil greedy capitalist".
As for Jefferson, the quote has no substance to it, it is merely his opinion. It may be true, but then again, Jefferson was a slave owner, so "depriving people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent" was something he did every day when he got out of bed. How can one trust his opinion on the subject?
What is your idiotic point?
That if your goal is a better, more egalitarian society, you can't start it with hate-mongering, scapegoating and lynch mob style accusations?
We are all part of the system, in its current incarnation. If we want to make it better, we must work together, rather than simply blaming some for the inequalities of the world. Don't you see that statements like those of the OP only serve to entrench prior opinions, instead of furthering the ultimate goal of economic equality?
That's my idiotic point. If history has shown anything, it is that you can't stop wars by fighting just "one more war".
Create currency out of nothing to monetize not wealth, but debt.
This is such nonsense. Debt has always been a part of wealth and power. Debt has always been monetized. Debt without monetization is meaningless, as is monetization without debt. All currency is based on trust in some entity, and trust that that entity will repay their debts.
Yikes, insert a few "Jews" into that rant and you've got yourself a vintage 1930s Nazi propaganda speech.
This attitude is inevitable for straight males who are surrounded by other straight males all day... even more so when they're mostly 20-30 somethings. There's nothing harmful in it... besides, I guarantee women would ask the same question about a man who was joining their all female crew.
Hah, what's with the guy covering his face in that photo??
While I agree that it is unlikely, calling it vanishingly small is somewhat disingenuous. It seems actually fairly likely that the intersection of "people who don't vaccinate their children" and "people who use unregulated and untested alternative medicines" is quite large, while the intersection of "people who vaccinate their children" with the two former groups is relatively small.
If there is no correlation between vaccines and autism, then that precludes the possibility of causation; and there is no correlation, therefore there is no causation.
I agree that vaccines don't caused autism, but this statement is incorrect. If there is some unknown interaction with another chemical (say, hipster baby herbal supplements), which anti-vaccine parents give their babies (but pro-vaccine parents don't), then there could indeed be causation (Vaccine + Supplement cause autism) without evident correlation, as autism rates will be the same between both populations (since vaccinated children don't take the supplement). As you said though, that's why we do the fancy science, to eliminate such possibilities.
I believe it counts as a trade secret; they paid you to develop it, and even though they didn't patent the work, it is protected.
And you would wind up with a massive quagmire of American freedom fighters and massive Chinese import-immigrant starvation as the Great Plains burn. Has there ever been a war where the victor simply eliminates the locals and brings in a new set of locals?
The air drops are useless unless you can back them up with a landing force, which has to come by sea. If the Navy cuts off the main landing force, the paratroopers will be mopped up in a matter of days, weeks at most.
there is a predictable supply of them, so with expected inflation they are better than things that are less predictable.
Isn't that the case with every currency? Even gold is only valuable because we assume that only so much of it will be mined every year...
I know you're joking, but it's a common fallacy that evolution converges to an optimal solution. It doesn't, it merely converges to a solution. Intelligent design has the potential to find much better solutions than evolution.
However what the common good is, may not be what any individual or group happens to think it is.
Exactly... so we let the invisible hand dictate to us what "the common good" is, and have faith that it will be beneficial to mankind? What if the solution market forces are converging to is the extinction of mankind as a species (or the exhaustion of all the Earth's resources) , and free market forces are leading us down the most efficient path to that optimal solution? How could any reasonable person still call that "the common good (for mankind)"?
the market has a better chance of gravitating toward the "common good" than an economy planned by bureaucrats
is misleading, if not flat out erroneous in many cases.
Because the market has a better chance of gravitating toward the "common good" than an economy planned by bureaucrats?
How? Market forces gravitate towards what is cheaper, and more efficient (in terms of monetary costs). How is that necessarily the "common good"? In some cases it may very well be, but having faith that it will always be the best solution relies more on faith than any scientifically minded person should be willing to accept.
Sure, the government makes mistakes, but I don't see how a scientific person can buy into this idea that somehow market forces will solve all our problems.
I'm not saying that more government is always better... but clearly government has had, and will continue to, provide massive benefits to society. Why should we accept what the market dictates, when we can engineer a better solution?
That may very well be true, but since when do we measure benefit to society by only looking at what's cheapest?
Not educating our children would be cheaper too, should we close all schools to balance our budgets? Should we close all fire departments to save a few bucks in the short term?
Why do intelligent people make the argument that trusting the market, and the "invisible hand" will always have the best outcome? It's as if people have replaced (or augmented) their trust in God with this idea of "the market is always right". Surely this is as far from a scientific argument as one could get?
Even mob gangsters have some standards , after all, many of them have children of their own.
I suspect that much of this belief comes from Hollywood. I really doubt there is really much honor among thieves.