The looters show their true colors---maybe this will cause a mass exodus of even more productive people, and their wealth, to places they won't be preyed upon (nearly as much, at least).
And an equally large proportion of Americans are willing to engage in silly, time-wasting rituals that have been sold to them by priests and ministers as a way of ensuring they get into "heaven" when they die. These rituals are typically sold to people by making them feel bad about themselves for not doing the rituals. Guilt can make people do awfully irrational things.
Similarly, the environmentalists have done a great job guilting people into feeling bad about themselves unless they waste their money on "green," too.
I support clean energy---when it provides a material benefit to people: For example, when it's cheaper, or when it's more sustainable, or when it lessens dependency on centralized infrastructure---but not merely when someone tries to make me feel bad about us "ruining the planet" with carbon dioxide and pollution.
And let's not forget that people elected this administration because it was supposed to stop all of the Bush administration's abuses. Instead it merely built upon them, nearly every single one.
Suppose we had a system where money couldn't buy "power." It couldn't buy laws, licensing, regulations, bans, tariffs, subsidies, artificial barriers to entry, forced competition, forced non-competition, monopolies, the breaking up of monopolies, and so on. And in such a society, if someone had the wealth to invest---that is, to build something and then convince a bunch of other people to voluntarily come work for him, where they agree to receive mere hourly wages with the bulk of the wealth of the production going to the investor---you would oppose this?
If someone is making money off of someone else's labor, but that situation is entirely voluntary---the worker wasn't forced into it, the investor didn't use the legal system to somehow prevent competition from worker-owner factories working alongside his---what's the problem? Why do you think that people should be prevented from entering into such voluntary agreements?
I think you and I are almost on the same page---but I draw a distinction between "natural" wealth inequality where people have voluntarily agreed to work for someone else where the someone else receives the bulk of the profits, and an involuntary system (which is what our real-world system certainly is in many, many sectors of the economy) where the owners have used their wealth to buy power and effectively ensure that the only economic opportunity for ordinary people is wage work.
And what you just described is the whole crux of the argument that our society is by no means free. People are expected to adhere to other people's obligations without their explicit consent. Hereditary obligations---this is properly called "serfdom" or "feudalism."
And it's not just the descendants of the signers of the Constitution that are expected to submit to its obligations. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the United States when the Constitution was signed, yet it was signed by only a handful of people. All these other people were just forced to go along---not just the descendants of the signers. This is properly called "slavery."
You know that if anyone but the State tried to write a contract with conditions like this, it would be considered highly immoral by any thinking individual. It would be called "unconscionable" and unenforceable. If Alice tried to contract with Bob for employment that was (a) perpetual, (b) obligated Bob's children, grandchildren, and so on, to continue working for Alice, and (c) obligated everyone else in his household, too, without their explicit consent, Alice would rightly be called a slaver, and Bob's family, slaves.
So what makes it suddenly moral to construct a contract with such terms, just because it's done by the State?
So why is it that in reality, it always seems to take a group of people to invest money in someone else doing the work? I don't dispute that it's possible for a group of a few hundred workers to get together and build a factory themselves from the ground up using nothing more than their own money and labor. But this is rarely how it works in reality---instead, a few people (or a single individual) with a large amount of money come together and pay someone else to build and operate the factory for them.
The Paul campaign is redirecting their attention to the delegate strategy---which is turning out to be very successful. This is being discussed at The Daily Paul. They predicted that the media would intentionally misrepresent this as Ron Paul ending his campaign, and they were right.
He hardly sounds like the crackpot globalwarmers are making him out to be...now. I see a litany of proper scientific credentials, appointments, awards, and accolades there.
The section on Gaia says that "[w]hile the Gaia hypothesis was readily accepted by many in the environmentalist community, it has not been widely accepted within the scientific community." In other words, whereas scientists may not accept this particular hypothesis of his (although he seems pretty well-accepted on all sorts of other environmental work he's done), the "community" of people who make political hay out of environmentalism has accepted him just fine. (Until now.)
Sounds like a pretty good counter-surveillance technology, being able to know when you're in the presence of hidden metal / RFID / security strip detectors without carrying any overt detector-detectors.
Now I'm wondering if something like this can be used to detect EM like radar or millimeter waves, or if not, what could?
Except the predictions that he made about temperature increases are the same predictions made and/or promoted by most "reputable" global warming advocates. But I suppose that now that's no longer supporting the cause he's just some crazy guy not worth listening to.
Right. So if I make up a contract, and you refuse to do anything with it, that implies you consented to it?
A contract requires, among other things, explicit consent. Without such, it's not a "contract." The "social contract" is nonsense made up to try and justify a fundamentally nonconsensual system by redefining concepts to make them fit.
Either the globalwarmers are guilty of an "appeal to false authority" for supporting this guy, or now we've got the "no true Scotsman" fallacy on our hands when they're repudiating him.
Now, you can of course break that contract and attempt to change the system by revolution...
Fortunately I live in a state where their "social contract" explicitly allows for this:
[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
let all the other Randian jackasses who think the world owes them something simply because they made lots of money living in that same world
One of Rand's most famous quotes is: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." Why do so many people critical of Rand seem to ignore that second part? People who think that the world "owes them something" aren't objectivists, they're the antithesis of it. People who think the world "owes them something" are the welfare statists.
How did that assembly line get built? Someone had to put the money in to do it. Employee-built and -owned factories are certainly a possibility, but that's not how most are set up. Most are built as a result of investors/entrepreneurs putting in money to build one, then hiring other people to come produce using the infrastructure he paid for.
Maybe, but not Paul's. The math I did may not be whatever he did to come up with his position. The only actual number he gives in his article is the 45% one.
The BitTorrent protocol will be reworked to neutralize this crap, but in the meantime someone gets to make an awful lot of money selling ultimately worthless software to the *AA clowns. BitTorrent is made stronger, the MafIAA has a little less money, and someone else profits handsomely at their expense.
Slashdot Mirror
The looters show their true colors---maybe this will cause a mass exodus of even more productive people, and their wealth, to places they won't be preyed upon (nearly as much, at least).
And an equally large proportion of Americans are willing to engage in silly, time-wasting rituals that have been sold to them by priests and ministers as a way of ensuring they get into "heaven" when they die. These rituals are typically sold to people by making them feel bad about themselves for not doing the rituals. Guilt can make people do awfully irrational things.
Similarly, the environmentalists have done a great job guilting people into feeling bad about themselves unless they waste their money on "green," too.
I support clean energy---when it provides a material benefit to people: For example, when it's cheaper, or when it's more sustainable, or when it lessens dependency on centralized infrastructure---but not merely when someone tries to make me feel bad about us "ruining the planet" with carbon dioxide and pollution.
And let's not forget that people elected this administration because it was supposed to stop all of the Bush administration's abuses. Instead it merely built upon them, nearly every single one.
Suppose we had a system where money couldn't buy "power." It couldn't buy laws, licensing, regulations, bans, tariffs, subsidies, artificial barriers to entry, forced competition, forced non-competition, monopolies, the breaking up of monopolies, and so on. And in such a society, if someone had the wealth to invest---that is, to build something and then convince a bunch of other people to voluntarily come work for him, where they agree to receive mere hourly wages with the bulk of the wealth of the production going to the investor---you would oppose this?
If someone is making money off of someone else's labor, but that situation is entirely voluntary---the worker wasn't forced into it, the investor didn't use the legal system to somehow prevent competition from worker-owner factories working alongside his---what's the problem? Why do you think that people should be prevented from entering into such voluntary agreements?
I think you and I are almost on the same page---but I draw a distinction between "natural" wealth inequality where people have voluntarily agreed to work for someone else where the someone else receives the bulk of the profits, and an involuntary system (which is what our real-world system certainly is in many, many sectors of the economy) where the owners have used their wealth to buy power and effectively ensure that the only economic opportunity for ordinary people is wage work.
And what you just described is the whole crux of the argument that our society is by no means free. People are expected to adhere to other people's obligations without their explicit consent. Hereditary obligations---this is properly called "serfdom" or "feudalism."
And it's not just the descendants of the signers of the Constitution that are expected to submit to its obligations. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the United States when the Constitution was signed, yet it was signed by only a handful of people. All these other people were just forced to go along---not just the descendants of the signers. This is properly called "slavery."
You know that if anyone but the State tried to write a contract with conditions like this, it would be considered highly immoral by any thinking individual. It would be called "unconscionable" and unenforceable. If Alice tried to contract with Bob for employment that was (a) perpetual, (b) obligated Bob's children, grandchildren, and so on, to continue working for Alice, and (c) obligated everyone else in his household, too, without their explicit consent, Alice would rightly be called a slaver, and Bob's family, slaves.
So what makes it suddenly moral to construct a contract with such terms, just because it's done by the State?
So why is it that in reality, it always seems to take a group of people to invest money in someone else doing the work? I don't dispute that it's possible for a group of a few hundred workers to get together and build a factory themselves from the ground up using nothing more than their own money and labor. But this is rarely how it works in reality---instead, a few people (or a single individual) with a large amount of money come together and pay someone else to build and operate the factory for them.
You want the government to be able to interfere with and nullify private contracts, too?
The Paul campaign is redirecting their attention to the delegate strategy---which is turning out to be very successful. This is being discussed at The Daily Paul. They predicted that the media would intentionally misrepresent this as Ron Paul ending his campaign, and they were right.
He hardly sounds like the crackpot globalwarmers are making him out to be ...now. I see a litany of proper scientific credentials, appointments, awards, and accolades there.
The section on Gaia says that "[w]hile the Gaia hypothesis was readily accepted by many in the environmentalist community, it has not been widely accepted within the scientific community." In other words, whereas scientists may not accept this particular hypothesis of his (although he seems pretty well-accepted on all sorts of other environmental work he's done), the "community" of people who make political hay out of environmentalism has accepted him just fine. (Until now.)
GP is about anesthesia and general surgery, not MRIs.
Sounds like a pretty good counter-surveillance technology, being able to know when you're in the presence of hidden metal / RFID / security strip detectors without carrying any overt detector-detectors.
Now I'm wondering if something like this can be used to detect EM like radar or millimeter waves, or if not, what could?
What is the reason for this? The fact that it's metal, the fact that it's implanted, or ...?
No different than someone with a bone fracture with metal pins in it...
Except the predictions that he made about temperature increases are the same predictions made and/or promoted by most "reputable" global warming advocates. But I suppose that now that's no longer supporting the cause he's just some crazy guy not worth listening to.
Right. So if I make up a contract, and you refuse to do anything with it, that implies you consented to it?
A contract requires, among other things, explicit consent. Without such, it's not a "contract." The "social contract" is nonsense made up to try and justify a fundamentally nonconsensual system by redefining concepts to make them fit.
Is that the "It's the end of the world! We're all going to die!" script or the "Oh, sorry, our predictions were wrong..." one?
I picked out the biggest part of the discretionary spending. The vast majority of Federal spending probably didn't help Facebook a whit, either.
The "entangling alliances" George Washington warned us about...
Society doing something to help children vs. doing nothing is a false dichotomy. A child is the parents' responsibility.
Either the globalwarmers are guilty of an "appeal to false authority" for supporting this guy, or now we've got the "no true Scotsman" fallacy on our hands when they're repudiating him.
Isn't hypocrisy fun? :D
Fortunately I live in a state where their "social contract" explicitly allows for this:
One of Rand's most famous quotes is: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." Why do so many people critical of Rand seem to ignore that second part? People who think that the world "owes them something" aren't objectivists, they're the antithesis of it. People who think the world "owes them something" are the welfare statists.
How did that assembly line get built? Someone had to put the money in to do it. Employee-built and -owned factories are certainly a possibility, but that's not how most are set up. Most are built as a result of investors/entrepreneurs putting in money to build one, then hiring other people to come produce using the infrastructure he paid for.
Maybe, but not Paul's. The math I did may not be whatever he did to come up with his position. The only actual number he gives in his article is the 45% one.
The BitTorrent protocol will be reworked to neutralize this crap, but in the meantime someone gets to make an awful lot of money selling ultimately worthless software to the *AA clowns. BitTorrent is made stronger, the MafIAA has a little less money, and someone else profits handsomely at their expense.
Win-win all around.