Democracy is a fine tool. Better than most of the alternatives.
The problem is that it gets idealized. Liberty for all makes for a much better ideal, with necessary compromises being done democratically (because it is the least worst).
I don't smoke (anything...) and don't break the law (well, I speed a little bit, but I stay right at the bottom of civil penalty territory), but I see laws against stealing as sufficient, I don't see any reason to try to engineer society by making second order laws that try to outlaw behaviors that someone thinks might lead to breaking of other laws (and I see this concept as generalizable).
I am in favor of changing the law, as the current situation seems far more damaging to society than even the worst case scenario painted by those who argue for the status quo.
Except it is incredibly unfair to career soldiers to a force them to rely on a bunch of out of shape conscripts (you said no exceptions, no exemptions...).
What is it about rules that makes you love them so much?
I've known plenty of people who had a perfectly manageable marijuana habit, they smoked varying amounts, but most of them limited their activity to some extent because of the side effects. For those people, all the bad effects you mention are going to be mitigated by lower street prices, not increased. For the people that bake their lives away, I don't find it particularly likely that the law is going to have much impact on their behavior.
Pretty much any opiate derivative is going to be on one of the schedules (and I think most of them are going to be I and II; it looks like low dosages are sometimes III).
It isn't really taboo so much as it is inane. Sufficient documents have actually been produced (they satisfy Hawaiian law), but there are people hand-waving those documents aside and crying for 'the real thing' while producing no information that casts what has been provided into doubt.
If I don't have faith, what problems does the assumption of atheism present me? Are you positing that I should consider a world with god (something I doubt I could do justice too) and use that consideration to try to build faith around? I could never reconcile 'life will be better if X' with the not being honest with myself, so it wouldn't work.
He is saying that those fines aren't productive activity and that the money that pays them comes from some productive activity. It isn't explicitly called a tax, but it takes money out of the private sector and gives it to the government...
(Of course, there is some chance that regulated radio spectrum is more efficient than unregulated radio spectrum, who knows (in that case, the fees would presumably be enabling additional productive activity))
Not considering that other people have different needs and so forth is pretty well related to being self-centered.
As far as reasonable in a market economy, I wish the market was working better (and note, the company offering this product isn't making any profit on me...). One way to make the market work better is to try to get people who don't care about the money they are spending to care more about the money they are spending. Pointing out that even though the value they are receiving in exchange for the money may exceed the value they place on the money the deal may still be crappy is one way to do this (i.e., they are letting more benefit than necessary accrue to the other side of the deal).
I agree that there are lots of situations that would justify the cost, but the cost still trips my internal "out of line with what is remotely reasonable" switch. In my personal bubble, 5 Gigabyte monthly access should cost $10 (or maybe $15). The cap should also grow rather quickly, and there should probably be something built into the system that turns off (or turns down) the metering on towers that are lightly loaded.
I'm talking about the 700 million (or whatever, some huge number, the numbers I am seeing are all over the place) rural Chinese. This poll indicates that less than 10% of them had access to a computer (in 2005), leaving more than 600 million people without:
No doubt those numbers are changing rapidly, but the numbers involved mean than any change reflects an enormous effort and is only going to proceed so fast. These numbers corroborate the enormous wealth gap, and they didn't even bother to list rural computer ownership (but then, they are even older):
Slashdot Mirror
Democracy is a fine tool. Better than most of the alternatives.
The problem is that it gets idealized. Liberty for all makes for a much better ideal, with necessary compromises being done democratically (because it is the least worst).
I don't smoke (anything...) and don't break the law (well, I speed a little bit, but I stay right at the bottom of civil penalty territory), but I see laws against stealing as sufficient, I don't see any reason to try to engineer society by making second order laws that try to outlaw behaviors that someone thinks might lead to breaking of other laws (and I see this concept as generalizable).
I am in favor of changing the law, as the current situation seems far more damaging to society than even the worst case scenario painted by those who argue for the status quo.
Except it is incredibly unfair to career soldiers to a force them to rely on a bunch of out of shape conscripts (you said no exceptions, no exemptions...).
What is it about rules that makes you love them so much?
I've known plenty of people who had a perfectly manageable marijuana habit, they smoked varying amounts, but most of them limited their activity to some extent because of the side effects. For those people, all the bad effects you mention are going to be mitigated by lower street prices, not increased. For the people that bake their lives away, I don't find it particularly likely that the law is going to have much impact on their behavior.
Oxycontin et al., are very much controlled substances:
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/scheduling.html
Pretty much any opiate derivative is going to be on one of the schedules (and I think most of them are going to be I and II; it looks like low dosages are sometimes III).
Yeah, the second it goes legal, all 300 million of us are going to toke up.
It isn't really taboo so much as it is inane. Sufficient documents have actually been produced (they satisfy Hawaiian law), but there are people hand-waving those documents aside and crying for 'the real thing' while producing no information that casts what has been provided into doubt.
If I don't have faith, what problems does the assumption of atheism present me? Are you positing that I should consider a world with god (something I doubt I could do justice too) and use that consideration to try to build faith around? I could never reconcile 'life will be better if X' with the not being honest with myself, so it wouldn't work.
He is saying that those fines aren't productive activity and that the money that pays them comes from some productive activity. It isn't explicitly called a tax, but it takes money out of the private sector and gives it to the government...
(Of course, there is some chance that regulated radio spectrum is more efficient than unregulated radio spectrum, who knows (in that case, the fees would presumably be enabling additional productive activity))
Not considering that other people have different needs and so forth is pretty well related to being self-centered.
As far as reasonable in a market economy, I wish the market was working better (and note, the company offering this product isn't making any profit on me...). One way to make the market work better is to try to get people who don't care about the money they are spending to care more about the money they are spending. Pointing out that even though the value they are receiving in exchange for the money may exceed the value they place on the money the deal may still be crappy is one way to do this (i.e., they are letting more benefit than necessary accrue to the other side of the deal).
I'm glad my sense of what it could cost (i.e., a good bit less than $15) isn't completely broken.
I do it because I am ridiculously self-centered.
I agree that there are lots of situations that would justify the cost, but the cost still trips my internal "out of line with what is remotely reasonable" switch. In my personal bubble, 5 Gigabyte monthly access should cost $10 (or maybe $15). The cap should also grow rather quickly, and there should probably be something built into the system that turns off (or turns down) the metering on towers that are lightly loaded.
Topical and timely:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-planets-lose-their-atmospheres
More cowbell.
This is always true.
The daily rate is even more absurdly expensive than the subscription.
If you cry into a beer, at least you have a beer.
HTML5 specifies the algorithm to use to transform bad markup into a DOM. How is that ambiguous?
So just use a prototype Mars dome for the zoo.
I'm pretty sure gravity is the problem, not vacuum (just carry some decent amount of water up a flight of stairs if you doubt this).
By here, do you mean America, or Earth?
I'm talking about the 700 million (or whatever, some huge number, the numbers I am seeing are all over the place) rural Chinese. This poll indicates that less than 10% of them had access to a computer (in 2005), leaving more than 600 million people without:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/14776/Internet-Use-Behind-The-Great-Firewall-China.aspx
No doubt those numbers are changing rapidly, but the numbers involved mean than any change reflects an enormous effort and is only going to proceed so fast. These numbers corroborate the enormous wealth gap, and they didn't even bother to list rural computer ownership (but then, they are even older):
http://www.chinability.com/Durables.htm
You fail one internets:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_fly_in_urinal.htm
Such an awful solution. Remap them (my capslock key is a third control key, numlock is hidden behind the laptops fn key).
It's like peeing on the fly; having something to aim at makes it easier to aim.
Nor does religion.