"but to ensure that the constituents of the very influential body politic (in a democratic society) are capable of interacting effectively with their world."
This is the ideal of education in democracy, and it is proven false by empirical reality--that people do not act out of rational deliberation but according to incentives. Thus, this ideal of education needs to be scrapped, along with democracy. Government that is limited to only the role of prosecuting a very short list of truly victim-ful (as opposed to victimless crimes--most of what is currently illegal) crimes solves the problem of needing a rational populace, which can't exist anyway, because WE ARE NOT RATIONAL!
I believe that everyone *should* partake of intellectual exercises that might not be their particular cup of tea, just for the value of the mental development these challenges provide. But my love affair with my own brilliance stops at the point where most people conclude that "therefore, everyone else should be forced by government to do what I think is good."
That there is one of the fundamental problems with society at present (actually--since the dawn of civilization).
Let's cut with the wasting of people's adolescence by forcing them to take algebra or what we--most likely all on the right half of the IQ distribution--think is good for them. Oh how arrogant of us! We are of above average intelligence, so we certainly know what's best for others. It's an insidiously seductive self-deception that almost no one can resist. It is the defining reason why intelligence != wisdom.
Let the kids decide in middle school to go to trade school or to academic high school and be done with this crap. Jeez, the plumbers we graduate will probably be making more than us some day anyway. Good for them.
Your doing good so far. So what is the root problem? The Fed and its fake money. It creates economic distortions in every conceivable way. Then when things f*ck up, people think the problem is not enough government control. Well, the Fed and its fake money are fundamentally a centrally planned market for money. That is fundamentally total government control over the economy. Yes I know the Fed is "private"--but in reality it is private the same way "public/private partnerships" are private--they aren't and wouldn't exist if it wasn't for a political decision, so they are really quasi-government enterprises. So there is no way at all to create a free market with its inherently stabilizing negative feedback loops that leftists cannot comprehend or insist on denying, out of this mess. It is destined to unravel into unstable distortions.
But the 99% always believe the problem IS the (non-existent) free market, and that we need more government interventions, because that is what they were programmed to think in...government school.
Wrong, the government gives the "banks" their power, starting with the Federal Reserve Act. I was one of the vast numbers who faxed my congress-traitors to implore them NOT to bailout the financial system in 2008. They thumbed their noses at the 99% who were against it, then supported acts of literal economic terrorism to trick people into believing that if they didn't support bailouts we'd be facing financial armageddon (hint: we weren't). So who again is screwing the "99%?"
The "head" is the government, plain and simple. The fact is that crime has been committed, and the government is committed to ensuring it doesn't get punished. As long as that continues we are a kleptocracy. The OWS morons were whining at the banks. Well who let those banks continue to exist? The free market? A free market would have all the primarly broker dealer's CEOs standing on Wall St. with "will work for food" signs! The ones that didn't get sent to the slammer, that is. This, this, is the truth, if you can handle it:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=208374
My wife immigrated to this country by following a tortuous process involving countless INS office visits and hours of waiting, interviews, telephone book sized application submissions in which one un-dotted 'i' could get the whole process derailed, and my parents and myself having to pledge our assets and future income if something should go wrong and she ended up unable to support herself.
Obama and liberals want to give a free entry ticket to people who have no respect for the laws of this country as evidenced by their willingness to enter it illegally. But I am supposed to believe they will "make this country a better place?" You really must be borderline sociopathic to be so unable to empathize with the position of those who immigrate legally and to be unable to understand how deeply disrespectful and mocking of their legitimate efforts it is to coddle illegal immigrants.
Unless of course you are willing to publicly declare right here and now that anyone has the right to enter your house at any time and start making themselves a meal with the contents of your refrigerator, and offer up your address, then you're nothing but a bloody hypocrite.
That is false. Wise dictatorship could be superior. Thus, there is at least a theoretically viable superior alternative. There are others as well, but people intentionally refuse to think about them. What cannot be guaranteed is the selection of a wise dictator. But then again, the democratic selection of wise leaders isn't working very well either...
Bingo! And if he is good enough to be a full-time specialist VMware Admin paying 35% more, then he should be able to find such a job and come back to give you a resignation letter. And if not,..., well I know that in my position I am fairly compensated so I am just grateful for my job and try to do as best I can to keep improving myself and contributing to my company's viability.
Once again, the predictable pea-brained "so move to Somalia" false dichotomy.
The alternative to a completely regulated economy is not only Somalia. The fact is, that the vast majority of business people would do honest business and not try to screw anyone, even in the complete absence of government. Government is justifiable only to prosecute crime. That has nothing to do with "regulation", which is administering essentially political privileges which favor one industry over another, or big players over small. You know, the kind of setup that I hear people complaining about all the time here on Slashdot.
Yet why is it that people keep thinking that "if we just get OUR people in charge" then the regulation will somehow work and produce only "socially just" outcomes?
Answer that and you know the real reason why things are the way they are...
Wonderful story. This tells most everything one needs to know about the true nature of government, no matter who is in charge. It can never be any other way. It is never any other way. Yet all people ask for is more of it.
1. Legalize marijuana and traditional hard drugs: cocaine, methamphetamine and amphetamine, heroin, morphine, ketamine, MDMA, etc. I have reservations about PCP, but heck, legalize it too--because my system will create strong but non-criminal incentives to not sell people PCP (which is one of the very few drugs that can actually cause drug psychosis--meth's propensity for this is WAY over hyped by propaganda, and more likely due to poor nutrition and impure drug anyway in the rare cases that it occurs. Now do this:
2. Do NOT regulate and tax the heck out of it. Just:
2a. Pharmacy is legally exempt from legal ramifications if buyer has an adverse reaction.
2b. Pharmacy is legally restricted to sell a modest "ration" to each buyer per week. Of course, addicts will try to get their friends to sell them their ration. This is OK. Remember--it's all legal. But...
3. Since ONLY a pharmacist is legally exempt from lawsuit for selling the regulated amount, and your friend or factory is NOT, your friend can choose to sell it to you or not. But many, such as myself, will tell you to go away because I have a life and a job, etc., and am not interested in the risk of a lawsuit because you blow your heart out snorting my weekly 0.5g of coke, for a measly $20. Some people will choose to take the risk and peddle their rations. That's Ok--but the incentive will be to not do this.
4. A free market for medical insurance to create financial incentives to not abuse drugs. The market may then evolve the following situation:
4a. Disaster insurance--covers hospital stays and serious medical bills that would financially wreck the typical person. Cheap to buy, but relatively high deductibles of several $1000. That will make most healthy young adults happy. Buy preventative care and small incidental care with cash--it will be much cheaper without the gov. mandating that doctors and ins. cos. cover everything. It cost me $7 for a doctor visit when I was a kid.
4b. More thorough insurance that covers stuff like child delivery, some prescription meds., etc. More expensive, but lower deductible, and guaranteed to cover things that are likely but not certain to happen, like child birth. Suitable for middle class folks when they get started on their careers.
4c. Steep discounts for healthy lifestyles. You take cocaine and heroin and it shows on your yearly insurance co. piss test, that's Ok. You just don't get the healthy lifestyle discount. Strong incentive for folks to not abuse drugs. Occasional users can just not use any for 2 weeks before their piss test.
4d. Charity hospitals for caring for the poor. To the extent that the charity system has the resources to treat. This was what worked, imperfectly, but better than bankrupting a whole nation which is going to happen with the present system. Then we will all get nothing. And how big a health risk is a civil war?
4e. Government clinics for preventative care, first aid, shooing away people with the common cold, vaccines, urgent care etc. I'm a libertarian, but life isn't simple. I'll make a compromise here. But no, we will NOT treat you with $500000 of care to extend your life 6 months when you are 77 and at the end of the road. We'll give you a bottle of morphine if you can't afford it and send you on your way to meet you maker. It's what we all much ultimately face. My neighbor should not be obligated to pay for my life extension with 1/2 of his lifetime earnings.
5. Pharmaceutical drugs should be similarly deregulated, so that folks with terminal diseases who are going to die anyway can take the risk of testing a new drug that has little risk data behind it, but which might just save them. And nonsense like this doesn't happen anymore... A final little anecdote:
GHB (gamma-hydroxy butyric acid) was banned because a handful of people were victimized by the "date rape" crime. One could argue that they took a large risk by hanging out with the nightclub trash where this happens anyway. Anyway, it u
Slashdot Mirror
This is the ideal of education in democracy, and it is proven false by empirical reality--that people do not act out of rational deliberation but according to incentives. Thus, this ideal of education needs to be scrapped, along with democracy. Government that is limited to only the role of prosecuting a very short list of truly victim-ful (as opposed to victimless crimes--most of what is currently illegal) crimes solves the problem of needing a rational populace, which can't exist anyway, because WE ARE NOT RATIONAL!
I believe that everyone *should* partake of intellectual exercises that might not be their particular cup of tea, just for the value of the mental development these challenges provide. But my love affair with my own brilliance stops at the point where most people conclude that "therefore, everyone else should be forced by government to do what I think is good."
That there is one of the fundamental problems with society at present (actually--since the dawn of civilization).
Let's cut with the wasting of people's adolescence by forcing them to take algebra or what we--most likely all on the right half of the IQ distribution--think is good for them. Oh how arrogant of us! We are of above average intelligence, so we certainly know what's best for others. It's an insidiously seductive self-deception that almost no one can resist. It is the defining reason why intelligence != wisdom.
Let the kids decide in middle school to go to trade school or to academic high school and be done with this crap. Jeez, the plumbers we graduate will probably be making more than us some day anyway. Good for them.
Your doing good so far. So what is the root problem? The Fed and its fake money. It creates economic distortions in every conceivable way. Then when things f*ck up, people think the problem is not enough government control. Well, the Fed and its fake money are fundamentally a centrally planned market for money. That is fundamentally total government control over the economy. Yes I know the Fed is "private"--but in reality it is private the same way "public/private partnerships" are private--they aren't and wouldn't exist if it wasn't for a political decision, so they are really quasi-government enterprises. So there is no way at all to create a free market with its inherently stabilizing negative feedback loops that leftists cannot comprehend or insist on denying, out of this mess. It is destined to unravel into unstable distortions.
But the 99% always believe the problem IS the (non-existent) free market, and that we need more government interventions, because that is what they were programmed to think in...government school.
Everything is as it is meant to be.
My god, someone gets it. Thank you for rekindling my hope for humanity this evening!
The "head" is the government, plain and simple. The fact is that crime has been committed, and the government is committed to ensuring it doesn't get punished. As long as that continues we are a kleptocracy. The OWS morons were whining at the banks. Well who let those banks continue to exist? The free market? A free market would have all the primarly broker dealer's CEOs standing on Wall St. with "will work for food" signs! The ones that didn't get sent to the slammer, that is. This, this, is the truth, if you can handle it: http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=208374
My wife immigrated to this country by following a tortuous process involving countless INS office visits and hours of waiting, interviews, telephone book sized application submissions in which one un-dotted 'i' could get the whole process derailed, and my parents and myself having to pledge our assets and future income if something should go wrong and she ended up unable to support herself.
Obama and liberals want to give a free entry ticket to people who have no respect for the laws of this country as evidenced by their willingness to enter it illegally. But I am supposed to believe they will "make this country a better place?" You really must be borderline sociopathic to be so unable to empathize with the position of those who immigrate legally and to be unable to understand how deeply disrespectful and mocking of their legitimate efforts it is to coddle illegal immigrants.
Unless of course you are willing to publicly declare right here and now that anyone has the right to enter your house at any time and start making themselves a meal with the contents of your refrigerator, and offer up your address, then you're nothing but a bloody hypocrite.
That is false. Wise dictatorship could be superior. Thus, there is at least a theoretically viable superior alternative. There are others as well, but people intentionally refuse to think about them. What cannot be guaranteed is the selection of a wise dictator. But then again, the democratic selection of wise leaders isn't working very well either...
Bingo! And if he is good enough to be a full-time specialist VMware Admin paying 35% more, then he should be able to find such a job and come back to give you a resignation letter. And if not,..., well I know that in my position I am fairly compensated so I am just grateful for my job and try to do as best I can to keep improving myself and contributing to my company's viability.
Once again, the predictable pea-brained "so move to Somalia" false dichotomy.
The alternative to a completely regulated economy is not only Somalia. The fact is, that the vast majority of business people would do honest business and not try to screw anyone, even in the complete absence of government. Government is justifiable only to prosecute crime. That has nothing to do with "regulation", which is administering essentially political privileges which favor one industry over another, or big players over small. You know, the kind of setup that I hear people complaining about all the time here on Slashdot.
Yet why is it that people keep thinking that "if we just get OUR people in charge" then the regulation will somehow work and produce only "socially just" outcomes?
Answer that and you know the real reason why things are the way they are...
Wonderful story. This tells most everything one needs to know about the true nature of government, no matter who is in charge. It can never be any other way. It is never any other way. Yet all people ask for is more of it.
1. Legalize marijuana and traditional hard drugs: cocaine, methamphetamine and amphetamine, heroin, morphine, ketamine, MDMA, etc. I have reservations about PCP, but heck, legalize it too--because my system will create strong but non-criminal incentives to not sell people PCP (which is one of the very few drugs that can actually cause drug psychosis--meth's propensity for this is WAY over hyped by propaganda, and more likely due to poor nutrition and impure drug anyway in the rare cases that it occurs. Now do this:
2. Do NOT regulate and tax the heck out of it. Just:
2a. Pharmacy is legally exempt from legal ramifications if buyer has an adverse reaction.
2b. Pharmacy is legally restricted to sell a modest "ration" to each buyer per week. Of course, addicts will try to get their friends to sell them their ration. This is OK. Remember--it's all legal. But...
3. Since ONLY a pharmacist is legally exempt from lawsuit for selling the regulated amount, and your friend or factory is NOT, your friend can choose to sell it to you or not. But many, such as myself, will tell you to go away because I have a life and a job, etc., and am not interested in the risk of a lawsuit because you blow your heart out snorting my weekly 0.5g of coke, for a measly $20. Some people will choose to take the risk and peddle their rations. That's Ok--but the incentive will be to not do this.
4. A free market for medical insurance to create financial incentives to not abuse drugs. The market may then evolve the following situation:
4a. Disaster insurance--covers hospital stays and serious medical bills that would financially wreck the typical person. Cheap to buy, but relatively high deductibles of several $1000. That will make most healthy young adults happy. Buy preventative care and small incidental care with cash--it will be much cheaper without the gov. mandating that doctors and ins. cos. cover everything. It cost me $7 for a doctor visit when I was a kid.
4b. More thorough insurance that covers stuff like child delivery, some prescription meds., etc. More expensive, but lower deductible, and guaranteed to cover things that are likely but not certain to happen, like child birth. Suitable for middle class folks when they get started on their careers.
4c. Steep discounts for healthy lifestyles. You take cocaine and heroin and it shows on your yearly insurance co. piss test, that's Ok. You just don't get the healthy lifestyle discount. Strong incentive for folks to not abuse drugs. Occasional users can just not use any for 2 weeks before their piss test.
4d. Charity hospitals for caring for the poor. To the extent that the charity system has the resources to treat. This was what worked, imperfectly, but better than bankrupting a whole nation which is going to happen with the present system. Then we will all get nothing. And how big a health risk is a civil war?
4e. Government clinics for preventative care, first aid, shooing away people with the common cold, vaccines, urgent care etc. I'm a libertarian, but life isn't simple. I'll make a compromise here. But no, we will NOT treat you with $500000 of care to extend your life 6 months when you are 77 and at the end of the road. We'll give you a bottle of morphine if you can't afford it and send you on your way to meet you maker. It's what we all much ultimately face. My neighbor should not be obligated to pay for my life extension with 1/2 of his lifetime earnings.
5. Pharmaceutical drugs should be similarly deregulated, so that folks with terminal diseases who are going to die anyway can take the risk of testing a new drug that has little risk data behind it, but which might just save them. And nonsense like this doesn't happen anymore... A final little anecdote:
GHB (gamma-hydroxy butyric acid) was banned because a handful of people were victimized by the "date rape" crime. One could argue that they took a large risk by hanging out with the nightclub trash where this happens anyway. Anyway, it u
Is that really the way you WANT it to be? Think about it...