Laws are intended to force the will of others on you. This is as far as it can be from egalitarian.
It is similar to when someone takes the kidneys of another person against their will, sells them, and donates the money to charity. Is that egalitarian?
The copyright system was created by special interests and now we are witnessing how a different, more powerful special interest is challenging that system. I predict victory for Google. Though neither Google, nor the Authors Guild cares about you, or me, or egalitarianism.
The only country like that today is Somalia, but they had their problems even before they lost their government, so that mess is caused by reasons other than their lack of a government.
You want to grab all the benefits of a functioning society without taking any responsibilities that come with that.
No, I don't. I always pay for goods and services, and would not take them against their owner's will. I'm not a thief.
And just because I was born here doesn't make me a property of an imaginary "society" to which I own things. But even if we accept that such a society exists (it doesn't), I would be also a member of it, and so I would own things to myself then, which would be meaningless (because I would "owe" them to the "society" of which I'm also a part of).
A "society" does not exist in the way a corporation or a government does because it has no ability to interact with people and other entities. It's just a comfortable illusion.
A negative externality occurs when an individual or firm making a decision does not have to pay the full cost of the decision. If a good has a negative externality, then the cost to society is greater than the cost consumer is paying for it. Since consumers make a decision based on where their marginal cost equals their marginal benefit, and since they don't take into account the cost of the negative externality, negative externalities result in market inefficiencies unless proper action is taken.
When a negative externality exists in an unregulated market, producers don't take responsibility for external costs that exist--these are passed on to society. Thus producers have lower marginal costs than they would otherwise have and the supply curve is effectively shifted down (to the right) of the supply curve that society faces. Because the supply curve is increased, more of the product is bought than the efficient amount--that is, too much of the product is produced and sold. Since marginal benefit is not equal to marginal cost, a deadweight welfare loss results.
That sounds like it was written by environmentalists rather than economists. Who decides what is "too much"? The market already has mechanisms for deciding that. Negative externality seems like a redundant concept.
As if other people had any right to the products of my labor, just because we were unfortunate enough to be born in the same world. And they would murder me when I refused to hand my stuff over to them. They are just a bunch of criminals who are hiding behind this brain-dead idea of taxation.
Tax is the price for the privilege of living in a country, don't want to pay? Then the privilege is revoked. I at least am willing to pay the extra tax for the bullet of revocing.
Are you suggesting killing people who don't pay taxes?
How can you be against slavery if you would happily kill someone who doesn't play by your rules. That is slavery. Suppose your rules are the tax system. People who don't play by the rules, you kill them.
Ok, let's do that. I will let the market decide. I'm all for new technologies, just let's not push it on people. The price of a technology should also be considered besides it's other coolness factors, and weighed against other choices.
Maybe we could electrify all trains for example. But maybe the costs would be too high compared to the savings. Making those kind of decisions is one of the strengths of the market system. I'm not worried about that.
Ultimately it comes down to political issues, and that's where we have our real problems.
About radiation, I think that it's only an issue until we find an effective cure for cancer. Being able to clean out the contamination from a body would be nice to have too. As soon as we have those, radiation will stop being the threat that it is now.
Well the energy cost of transporting nuclear fuel is an incredibly small fraction of the energy that can be gained from the fuel. Really the whole point of nuclear fuels is that they are so dense energy carriers, the amount of energy that can be extracted is so huge, that really such trivial energy costs as transportation become negligible in a nuclear powered economy.
I agree with your other points though.
In the end the difference between a nuclear power plant and, a battery, is energy density. Neither of them actually "generates" the energy, instead both are releasing it. Even our Sun is just releasing energy from the materials it converts inside itself. I could for example take energy from a Wind turbine and store it in combining the end-products of a nuclear energy generating reaction, and gain nuclear fuel as a result. And power a vehicle with it. Very portable, very efficient. So would I be using renewable energy or not in that case?
My only problem with Solar, Wind and renewable energy is that, I can't take it with me into space, underwater, in a dark place (can't use it at night), and can't power my cars and other vehicles with it.
I also don't like the religious side-flow of the environmentalist movement, who are also the most vocal in pushing the renewable energy sources.
Why do you think those industries have such monopolies? Because the corporations can have the government write rules and regulation in their favor, that can just outlaw the competition, or raise the barriers to entry to unreachable for would-be competitors.
Look at the internet for an example of a relatively un-regulated environment, as a contrast.
Not to put too fine a point on it, it sounds like you're comparing the effects of the Great Firewall on the citizens/netizens of China to the effects on you, somewhere (as you say) other than America, because...you can't download bittorrents.
The purpose of the Great Firewall is to block information on political issues (and other things). Of course there are "more important" topics that are being suppressed with the Great Firewall, but copyright is a completely legitimate political issue. An important aspect of "democracy" is that people don't necessarily agree on issues, or even on which issues are important.
North Korea is one big death camp. All communist countries are like that.
Our western democracies are not much better, since they're all violence-based systems in this regard similar to the communist ones. The difference is that our western democracies are less insane than North Korea. But still not sane enough. So I'm not shot for writing this, like I would be in NK, for example, but half of what I earn is still taken away from me, under the threat of deadly violence and enslavement... at least I can keep the other half.
Since all land on our planet is either taken up by western democracies or worse systems, there's really no place to hide from all this madness. (Hopefully Seasteading can change that.) But until then I regard our planet as one big prison, while some areas like North Korea are death camp areas within the large prison world. I'm glad I wasn't born in NK or a similar place at least.
Slashdot Mirror
Perl also has shorter code, and it's not easier to read.
Laws are intended to force the will of others on you. This is as far as it can be from egalitarian.
It is similar to when someone takes the kidneys of another person against their will, sells them, and donates the money to charity. Is that egalitarian?
The copyright system was created by special interests and now we are witnessing how a different, more powerful special interest is challenging that system. I predict victory for Google. Though neither Google, nor the Authors Guild cares about you, or me, or egalitarianism.
A nuclear power generator can be fitted in an aircraft, and it's not above our technology. It's just above our politics.
No, I don't. I always pay for goods and services, and would not take them against their owner's will. I'm not a thief.
And just because I was born here doesn't make me a property of an imaginary "society" to which I own things. But even if we accept that such a society exists (it doesn't), I would be also a member of it, and so I would own things to myself then, which would be meaningless (because I would "owe" them to the "society" of which I'm also a part of).
A "society" does not exist in the way a corporation or a government does because it has no ability to interact with people and other entities. It's just a comfortable illusion.
Here is a short definition for negative externalities
That sounds like it was written by environmentalists rather than economists. Who decides what is "too much"? The market already has mechanisms for deciding that. Negative externality seems like a redundant concept.
As if other people had any right to the products of my labor, just because we were unfortunate enough to be born in the same world. And they would murder me when I refused to hand my stuff over to them. They are just a bunch of criminals who are hiding behind this brain-dead idea of taxation.
Are you suggesting killing people who don't pay taxes?
How can you be against slavery if you would happily kill someone who doesn't play by your rules. That is slavery. Suppose your rules are the tax system. People who don't play by the rules, you kill them.
I remember reading somewhere that Alzheimer's is caused by Herpes sores inside the brain.
Here it is: http://science.slashdot.org/story/08/12/07/1954229/Cold-Sore-Virus-May-Be-Alzheimers-Smoking-Gun
So, let's continue listening to religious idiots and keep placing bans on medical research, shall we?
Ok, let's do that. I will let the market decide. I'm all for new technologies, just let's not push it on people. The price of a technology should also be considered besides it's other coolness factors, and weighed against other choices.
Maybe we could electrify all trains for example. But maybe the costs would be too high compared to the savings. Making those kind of decisions is one of the strengths of the market system. I'm not worried about that.
Ultimately it comes down to political issues, and that's where we have our real problems.
About radiation, I think that it's only an issue until we find an effective cure for cancer. Being able to clean out the contamination from a body would be nice to have too. As soon as we have those, radiation will stop being the threat that it is now.
Well the energy cost of transporting nuclear fuel is an incredibly small fraction of the energy that can be gained from the fuel. Really the whole point of nuclear fuels is that they are so dense energy carriers, the amount of energy that can be extracted is so huge, that really such trivial energy costs as transportation become negligible in a nuclear powered economy.
I agree with your other points though.
In the end the difference between a nuclear power plant and, a battery, is energy density. Neither of them actually "generates" the energy, instead both are releasing it. Even our Sun is just releasing energy from the materials it converts inside itself. I could for example take energy from a Wind turbine and store it in combining the end-products of a nuclear energy generating reaction, and gain nuclear fuel as a result. And power a vehicle with it. Very portable, very efficient. So would I be using renewable energy or not in that case?
My only problem with Solar, Wind and renewable energy is that, I can't take it with me into space, underwater, in a dark place (can't use it at night), and can't power my cars and other vehicles with it.
I also don't like the religious side-flow of the environmentalist movement, who are also the most vocal in pushing the renewable energy sources.
But you have to build your power station where wind likes to go. There, the transport is in deciding the location.
Actually that would make you even more unique. Because no one else will create the same fake fonts as you...
That would not protect from race conditions.
Why do you think those industries have such monopolies? Because the corporations can have the government write rules and regulation in their favor, that can just outlaw the competition, or raise the barriers to entry to unreachable for would-be competitors.
Look at the internet for an example of a relatively un-regulated environment, as a contrast.
How are they going to enforce this? It's not really possible to check who typed in the password, from across the net...
The purpose of the Great Firewall is to block information on political issues (and other things). Of course there are "more important" topics that are being suppressed with the Great Firewall, but copyright is a completely legitimate political issue. An important aspect of "democracy" is that people don't necessarily agree on issues, or even on which issues are important.
North Korea is one big death camp. All communist countries are like that.
Our western democracies are not much better, since they're all violence-based systems in this regard similar to the communist ones. The difference is that our western democracies are less insane than North Korea. But still not sane enough. So I'm not shot for writing this, like I would be in NK, for example, but half of what I earn is still taken away from me, under the threat of deadly violence and enslavement... at least I can keep the other half.
Since all land on our planet is either taken up by western democracies or worse systems, there's really no place to hide from all this madness. (Hopefully Seasteading can change that.) But until then I regard our planet as one big prison, while some areas like North Korea are death camp areas within the large prison world. I'm glad I wasn't born in NK or a similar place at least.
NASA could not build a reusable space vehicle successfully, so I don't trust their ability to build a moon base either.
I think building moon bases will be left up to private companies, just the same way as building reusable spaceraft is up to them now.