No voting system is immune to tactical voting: http://rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig.html but the current Plurality Voting system *encourages* it. Voters are frequently faced with the wasted-vote dilemma, and often enough vote their true preference, split the vote, and cost the overall preferred candidate the election (e.g. Nader cost Gore the 2000 US presidential election). Approval Voting is a good system theoretically, and its practical simplicity makes it the best system for our next step in the evolution of voting.
>It would be much better to draw the lines such that there are two or three winners for each district. >If you did that than even first past the fence voting would be tolerable.
You would still have vote-splitting. How about a proportional system?
>If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether.
We've thought about a lot of things.;) The FSP is based on a very simple concept: zionism. Any group will have more influence if its members live concentrated rather than dispersed. On most dimensions this doesn't matter, but in the case of politics it often does. Migration for the sake of human rights is nothing new in US history, e.g. blacks migrated north and Mormons migrated west. In an increasingly politicized and centralized USA, the stakes are getting higher, so people are flocking increasingly with their own kind. The book "The Big Sort" laments this: http://www.thebigsort.com/
The US has 50 separate states for a reason. Let all the gun-banning socialists move to California, the gun-toting socialists move to Vermont, and the libertarians move to New Hampshire, the "Live free or die" state. This is political, with no racial, religious, or other such irrelevant components.
On the issue of borders and immigration libertarians are divided, but they typically do not base their opinion on country of origin. I have been with the FSP since its inception, and I am not the only black libertarian in New Hampshire.
The vast majority of the 800+ free-staters who have moved to New Hampshire are normal, law-abiding folk, and you wouldn't necessarily hear about them, any more than you would hear if your legislators are Mormon or Catholic. The Keeniacs are an exception, but there are no more than a dozen of them, plus a larger number of similarly rambunctious locals. Most free-staters (I am an exception) do not introduce themselves as free-staters.
>They were completely inconsequential in the recent election
That was quite an amusingly false statement. To prove such a negative you would have to exert a bit effort. Anyway, it illustrates the degree to which free-staters fit in with the NH culture, which is why we chose NH in the first place.
>As someone born and raised in NH, this probably has very little to do with the Free State Project.
Free-staters were mentioned in the article, and they are among the bill's sponsors, but being an NH native wouldn't help you know that. Other than that, you are absolutely right: the FSP chose NH for all those reasons. It would be foolish, futile, and perhaps immoral, for a small movement to migrate to an unwelcoming location.
"The public policy established by Congress in the Real ID Act of 2005, Public Law 109-13, is contrary and repugnant to Articles 1 through 10 of the New Hampshire constitution as well as Amendments 4 though 10 of the Constitution for the United States of America."
>An otherwise smart and intelligent programmer friend of mine once suggested that >if we could experience the minds of others directly we'd never have any arguments.
100 years ago Zamenhof said something similarly naive: that if only the peoples of the world had a common language (Esperanto) there would no longer be any misunderstandings and thus no more war. I am still an Esperantist, but not from any silly idea about ending conflict. As long as people are different, there will be conflicting interests. Even if we were all genetic clones, different memes would still fight each other using our bodies.
Twice now you've cited a Singularity site. I'm a big Singularity believer, so I just glanced at it:
"Why does the Singularity matter? The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence was created in the belief that the Singularity represents a tremendous opportunity to accomplish good. The Singularity may offer a new opportunity to solve fundamental problems, not just by creating new technologies, but by increasing the intelligence with which we solve problems. For the first time, there is the possibility of humans using technology to become, not only healthier and wealthier and longer-lived, but smarter. At last it will be possible for our intelligence to grow along with our technology. We believe a world that realizes these possibilities is a better world, one of the best possible futures for humanity."
This is a gross underestimation of The Singularity, at least of Vernor Vinge's version. It's not something that you can harness. If I could meet Vinge (himself a libertarian) in person, I would ask him one question: under what circumstances does a transcending society become a God or a Perversion? My guess is that the difference is the presence of (and respect for) a proper constitution, which delegates limited powers to a minimal government that exists only to protect rights.
>Are you seriously trying to compare Russia to North America? >You're holding up Moscow as a beacon of liberty?
No, of course not. Are you serious suggesting that my post could be interpreted that way by anyone without severe brain damage? I was simply citing the closest example at hand (myself) of a person who freely chose a job that is more dangerous than the average. Every job has its risks: most of us here are in greater danger of carpal tunnel syndrome than restaurant workers are of cancer from second-hand smoke. We all make our choices.
But, since you bring it up, I'll bite: if you were to assess the US and Russia according to a list of freedom criteria, the US would not do so well, nor Russia so poorly, as you might think. The US is tied for 9th place in economic freedom: http://www.heritage.org/Research/features/index/co untries.cfm and in personal freedom is probably not higher. I hate being lectured by Dutchmen.
Interesting--that is not the parallel with the software world that I had in mind. I wonder how many others we could come up with? I was thinking of the difference between spaghetti and elegant, robust, maintainable code. Good programmers instinctively recognize an elegant solution, and despise spaghetti. We are taught how to partition software in various ways, e.g. subroutines, stored procedures, and objects with subtypes and inheritance.
Though I studied computer science, my education is in control systems, with particular emphasis on aerodynamics. We controls guys care that our systems be responsive, stable, and robust. That means, for example, that you design your airplane with the center of lift well behind the center of mass. You want your airplane to fly safely and not tumble in *all* expected flight conditions, not just a narrow ideal regime.
There are also design patterns in political engineering. If you want a long-term just and prosperous society, powers should be delegated by the people to the government, rather than rights granted by the government to the people.
I sense from your accent that you are not American, and probably British (and it always irks me whenever non-Americans understand and value liberty more than citizens of the US, whom I would like to send to Cuba). If you are a European, then you are familiar with the concept of Subsidiarity. Political decisions should be made at the lowest possible level: local instead of regional, regional instead of national, and national instead of supranational.
>They see the day when a super intelligence will amass such power >that every action can and will be scrutinised to determine the >ultimate outcome of that action and then allowed only if the >action leads to the ultimate good of human kind.
Like in "I, Robot": a new high-tech attempt at creating the bureaucrat-god that failed in socialist countries. Again, I don't understand how computer scientists would buy that, as they should be familiar with the superiority of distributed computing. The knowledge and processing power distributed among our little human heads vastly outweighs that of any central authority, human, computer, or both.
Another design pattern is to never trust power, because there will always be a danger that those entrusted with power to do good will use it to do ill. What happens if the bad guys get root? "The price of democracy is eternal vigilance," which is why it is so disturbing that the police in NH have resisted monitoring. Sounds like some cells of the immune system are turning cancerous.
>>Failure to protect rights has killed more people than second-hand smoke ever has.
>Ridiculous, unsubstantiated hyperbole.
In fact it is nearly a truism, so obvious that I did not intentionally leave it as an exercise for the reader. Excercise your imagination. I don't often visit Slashdot, but I notice that people here are a bit too quick and loud in expressing their ignorance.
>Employees have a right to a safe work environment.
Oh really? So who has a more dangerous job, barmen or firemen? I dare say that my job puts me in more danger than most barmen face, though for that I receive "milk for hardship," as the Russians say. I live on the busiest street in Moscow, and inhale carcinogens 24/7. Employees have the right of *contract*, and you are violating it.
>"No one's forcing them to work there," the critics say.
Yes, that is what I say. The use or threat of force is the essence of injustice. By applying it to property owners, *you* are committing injustice, not they!
>But the people who work in these types of jobs don't have many other options.
What a crock. Are you saying 1) restaurant workers lack any other skills, and 2) if bars and restaurants were to close, there is no other industry for them? That is not even true of the dishwashers. Admittedly, it might be tough for aspiring Hollywood actors to find something, but I think others certainly could.
>We as a society have spoken
Thus speaks someone blissfully unaware of the theories of rights, voting, and constitutions. So it was okay to kill 6 million Jews, because Germany as a society had spoken? Or for US whites to enslave blacks, until they merely changed their minds?
>Fortunately, I live in a progressive region which has already passed such laws (Ontario, Canada).
Oppressive, not progressive. Amsterdam--now that is a progressive town.
>And I hope this spreads everywhere, like the cancerous smoke billowing out of the leathery, >selfish smokers that oppose safety for all workers.
It will never spread everywhere, because those of us who value freedom will keep moving to flee you nazis. Fortunately, liberty correlates strongly with prosperity, so it is your kind who will die out.
Funny, whenever I hear or read about someone else's asthmatic experience, I instinctively gasp for breath.
One of the common confusions in this topic results from the ambiguous word "public", which I try to avoid. "Government" or "state" are much more clear. Government property belongs to everyone, so we fight for control over it. This means smoking rules in government offices, and prayer and the pledge of allegiance in government schools. There is a saying that good fences make good neighbors--there would be a good deal less political rancor if we privatized government property and depoliticized the debate. However, as this discussion thread has shown, there will always be people who want to tell you what you can and can't do with your private property.
>This would include in my opinion baseball stadiums
Because the restaurant and (probably) the stadium are also private property. The property owner sets the rules, and we guests may choose to visit or not. I choose not to visit smokey places. Under your confused conception of rights, there would be nothing to stop our voting to prohibit smoking (or any other activity we don't like) in your home.
I assume that this site is frequented by software engineers. I am rather surprised that people who must understand the principles of good, clean code do not understand the principles of rights and good, clean laws.
Failure to protect rights has killed more people than second-hand smoke ever has. I am an asthmatic, but I support your right to smoke whatever you want on private property. If you don't like second-hand smoke, exercise your rights and boycott those establishments that permit it. But don't impose your values (even if they were not based on questionable science) by force.
My home town is Simi Valley, home of the Rodney King trial. Think of all the rioting that was caused by someone videotaping police brutality. Mercifully this will never happen in New Hampshire. Pass the soma, please.
>the core of the Esperanto movement is obsessed with forcing its ideals on the outside world
Yes, they are statists, like most Europeans (and non-Europeans). It is indeed very annoying to us libertarians, but then we have to deal with statism in areas more serious than Esperanto.
>If you spent time in the central office of UEA or became significantly active in the movement's central organisation
Why do that? I would imagine that people sympathetic to the open-source model would piss on bureaucratic central organizations (btw, why are you using British spelling?). I certainly haven't noticed them doing much useful, e.g. making decent web sites.
>a cult, essentially
Esperanto is as much a cult as it is a movement, that is to say, not. It is a social club. We activists are a lonely minority. Your flippant use of "cult" would apply to any group that promotes some ideal of How Things Ought To Be. (Most) Esperantists have a bit more of a sense of humor about it than that. In fact, most of them apply that humor to the activists.
>Esperanto is a eurocentric language, regardless of what some crackpots...
Euro-"centric"? Um, it's based on Latin--how could it not be? What is your purely neutral alternative, Lojban? Aestetically pleasing to some, but not pareto-optimal. And one could argue that in inventing a language completely from scratch one would probably inadvertantly violate some universal or another, and end up with something that just feels wrong. (We could have a discussion about why even Slavic-speakers trip over Esperanto's accusative case.)
>For many Asians, English and Esperanto are equally difficult.
Asians find easier a non-phonetic, highly idiomatic language with 12+ vowels, absurdly large vocabulary, and all the irregularities of an evolved creole? Gimme a break!
>Esperanto is a lost cause. Just give up.
That statement assumes agreement on the "cause". What is the "cause", world domination? Yes, on that I would give up. But as the number of speakers has remained fairly stable over the decades, and now the internet offers unprecedented opportunities, Esperanto is going to continue as a living language for the foreseeable future. Given how incredibly easy it is to learn, Esperanto will never go away--just give up.;)
The meta-debate here is more interesting: what emotional issues underlie people's suspiciously strong anti-Esperanto attitudes? Do they voice such vehement opposition to other equally pointless activities such as baseball, curling, sudoku, Paris Hilton, and Burning Man? Look, you're going to live a hundred years--you've got to pass your leisure time somehow.
I live in Wiesbaden, so I found interesting your description of the German system's distinction between freedom of the press and an ordinary citizen's freedom of speech. I find the distinction to be a mistake, as the two activities are more similar than they are different. That Germany doesn't fully value freedom of speech is evidenced by their laws against Nazi talk, symbols, and writing.
>It does not bother Americans that a court in one state or >even town will interpret your basic rights differently than >another judge a few miles down the road, since they have >been told that this is the way it has to be.
Um, in that last phrase you went too far. There are other reasons for our decentralized system "not to bother Americans" besides blind acceptance. Europeans have an amusing (given their history) faith in the infallibility of The State: if they could just pick the smartest people and give them the best education in L'Ecole National d'Administration, the emerging Enarques will be uniquely fit to run the country. Well, we don't believe in a Solomonesque elite; the truth is harder to establish, and maybe the best search algorithm uses parallel processing.
That we are "stuck with a legal system that never made it past the 18th Century" could be re-phrased to say that our legal system has worked successfully for over 200 years; age is not necessarily a sign of weakness (though we tech geeks have the tendency to think so). You can point to many newer systems that have not worked as well, besides that of the USSR. How else is the US system anachronistic, and what wonderful innovations have other countries come up with? I have not been overly impressed by German law in those few occasions when I have bumped into it. You must not like shopping on Sundays; there is an innovation that the US adopted long ago.
>Trial-by-jury is something that the rest of the free world thinks is only >a minor improvement on using a lottery or chicken guts to decide who is guilty.
Trial-by-jury affords more advantages than a simple Delphi Effect means of finding the truth. Via the doctrine of Jury Nullification, it gives ordinary citizens, people who live in your community, the power to protect you from unjust laws. If the people were informed about it (JN is of course not taught in our public schools), they could use it to not convict those accused of non-violent drug offenses. That the US are now the country with the highest percentage of its population in prison, and most of the recent growth is due to the federal Drug War, there clearly needs to be some additional check on federal power.
http://www.free-market.net/spotlight/nullificati on/ http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/0412.ht ml http://www.friesian.com/nullif.htm http://www .fija.org
>Americans, on the other hand, don't have a federal law book
There has been quite an explosion in federal law in the past couple of decades; I assume that it is kept somewhere in a book.
No worries: the First Amendment was just a bug, and it's been fixed:
http://www.theonion.com/onion3501/first_amendmen t. html
"WASHINGTON, DC--Federal officials unveiled the newly updated Bill Of Rights 2.0 at last weekend's Govworld Expo '99. The enhanced version of the document is said to be free of the First Amendment bug which had plagued previous releases."
In time of war, the government assumes extraordinary powers, temporarily restricting the rights of the people in order to save them from a greater imminent threat to those same rights. It is no coincidence that the US Government has chosen the terminology of war to pursue its recent goals. We have now a War on -Poverty -Crime -Drugs -Terrorism
The beauty (if you happen to be inside the government monopoloy) of a war on an abstract concept is that the concept never surrenders and the war never ends, so the temporary extra powers become permanent, and eventually taken for granted.
Any erosion in press freedom (or press access to government officials) is part of a larger context of increasing government size and power, and reciprocally eroding human rights. This sort of report is the equivalent of an annoying fly biting the sheeple; they will quickly go back to grazing.
Those who are concerned should review their Constitution and Bill of Rights: http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/bill ofrights. php http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/charters _of_f reedom/constitution/constitution_transcription.htm l and check them for erosion. Those who are really concerned should join the Free State Project: http://www.FreeStateProject.org
I agree with your skepticism: that people frequently choose to eat fast food and that such restaurants outnumber those of higher class does not mean that my right to eat at or open a gourmet restaurant has been eroded; it just means that my fellow citizens have bad taste and I am a suffering snob. As a libertarian, I define freedom to be freedom from coercion, and coercion I define very narrowly.
However, two of your points were areas of real coercion.
"2 - Reporters put in jail for not revealing sources..."
We already extend client confidentiality protection to doctors and lawyers, so a precedent exists. Rush Limbaugh today suggested that the press could probably get ahold of this sniper character and interview him, at least with more competence than the FBI. If they would they then have to reveal everything they knew, how would the guy trust them in the first place? If you don't like that example, what about the more important case where the press is criticizing the government? The press is a major democratic institution that is supposed to be one of the checks on government overstepping its bounds. Whistleblowers and other sources should be protected.
"5- The government withholding information from the press is not an indication of restricted freedom."
As I said above, the press is a key part of our system of maintaining government accountability; exciting scandals like Watergate are obvious example, but in general they keep our government officials honest. Unfortunately, they are also dependent on the government for the news, so the government officials have some leverage over them, and they end up in a symbiotic relationship.
Where is the coercion, you ask? One could argue that this is not a problem of freedom of the press, but rather excess power in the government. Coercion is inherent in all things governmental, because that is its definition: it is that agency authorized to initiate force. Furthermore it raises its revenues (taxes) by force, unlike any business, and can eliminate its competition by force. Its operations must therefore be kept maximally transparent.
Reporters can and should be able to *legally* "get away with" saying something as fact, even if it's not, unless it damages a person's reputation. In that case, we call it libel, and there are laws dealing with it.
If they print unsubstantiated crap, it is the job of the intelligent reader, whose mind was honed in our excellent public school system (bringing to mind another ranking where the US isn't on top), to disregard it.
How long did it take the Founders' little utopia to become the thing they fought against? Nearly 200 years.
Of course the new USA was not considered a utopia (although maybe some anti-revolutionary naysayers tried to dismiss it as such).
Entropy works against most any improvement--is that necessarily a reason to not do something? Thanks for the excuse to not vacuum and clean the bathroom tonight....
>First, are they going to impose their views on the existing population >to the extent that the existing population will react or choose to leave?
When libertarians want to "impose" views, they are in fact "unimposing" them. Reducing taxes or allowing school vouchers can be expressed as imposing less taxes, or not forcing children to attend a specific school in the education monopoly. But we well understand your point, that people may not be happy about the changing of some aspects of their way of life (as if life were staying the same anywhere!). Fortunately, of all ideologies, libertarianism provides the most flexible framework for the coexistence of a diversity of choice.
>>"Utopianism" is a primitive but common epithet. >"Primitive" in what way? It's a term out of the Renaissance...
Primitive not because of its definition, but because of its most common usage, which is a mindless dismissal of any plan for changing society with which one disagrees. Libertarians hear it quite a lot, even when the proposed changes are concrete and demonstrably successful in other countries or societies.
>Legalization of drugs is in place in Singapore? >I think your information is a bit out-of-date on that one.
You misunderstood: legalization of drugs in the Netherlands, minimal taxes in Singapore (it beat the US in the recently released 2002 Index of Economic Freedom). Aside: I recently had lunch with two colleagues, one from Singapore and one from the Netherlands. For entertainment I started an argument about capital punishment for marijuana smokers....
People probably said similar things before the American Revolution, and many others besides. Come join us and make it happen. Vote first with your feet, and then just vote, no violence necessary.
This post was not off topic: the poster was suggesting that those prone to cry "Market failure!" ignore the even worse failings of the government monopoloy. This new primer "Government Failure" on Public Choice theory (for which James Buchanan received a Nobel Prize) should help: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1930 865201/
It is a pity that all Americans do not get to share my experience of living in the Soviet Union. They would quickly learn to identify government failure.
Slashdot Mirror
No voting system is immune to tactical voting:
http://rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig.html
but the current Plurality Voting system *encourages* it. Voters are frequently faced with the wasted-vote dilemma, and often enough vote their true preference, split the vote, and cost the overall preferred candidate the election (e.g. Nader cost Gore the 2000 US presidential election).
Approval Voting is a good system theoretically, and its practical simplicity makes it the best system for our next step in the evolution of voting.
>It would be much better to draw the lines such that there are two or three winners for each district.
>If you did that than even first past the fence voting would be tolerable.
You would still have vote-splitting. How about a proportional system?
>If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether.
We've thought about a lot of things. ;)
The FSP is based on a very simple concept: zionism. Any group will have more influence if its members live concentrated rather than dispersed. On most dimensions this doesn't matter, but in the case of politics it often does. Migration for the sake of human rights is nothing new in US history, e.g. blacks migrated north and Mormons migrated west. In an increasingly politicized and centralized USA, the stakes are getting higher, so people are flocking increasingly with their own kind. The book "The Big Sort" laments this:
http://www.thebigsort.com/
The US has 50 separate states for a reason. Let all the gun-banning socialists move to California, the gun-toting socialists move to Vermont, and the libertarians move to New Hampshire, the "Live free or die" state. This is political, with no racial, religious, or other such irrelevant components.
On the issue of borders and immigration libertarians are divided, but they typically do not base their opinion on country of origin. I have been with the FSP since its inception, and I am not the only black libertarian in New Hampshire.
The vast majority of the 800+ free-staters who have moved to New Hampshire are normal, law-abiding folk, and you wouldn't necessarily hear about them, any more than you would hear if your legislators are Mormon or Catholic. The Keeniacs are an exception, but there are no more than a dozen of them, plus a larger number of similarly rambunctious locals. Most free-staters (I am an exception) do not introduce themselves as free-staters.
Free-staters led the effort to legalize medical marijuana in 2009, getting a bill passed, but Democratic Governor Lynch vetoed it:
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=41a9feee-02b4-4304-b1b7-7a44217412bf&headline=Lynch+vetoes+medical+marijuana+bill
http://nhcommonsense.org/
>They were completely inconsequential in the recent election
That was quite an amusingly false statement. To prove such a negative you would have to exert a bit effort. Anyway, it illustrates the degree to which free-staters fit in with the NH culture, which is why we chose NH in the first place.
>As someone born and raised in NH, this probably has very little to do with the Free State Project.
Free-staters were mentioned in the article, and they are among the bill's sponsors, but being an NH native wouldn't help you know that. Other than that, you are absolutely right: the FSP chose NH for all those reasons. It would be foolish, futile, and perhaps immoral, for a small movement to migrate to an unwelcoming location.
"The public policy established by Congress in the Real ID Act of 2005, Public Law 109-13, is contrary and repugnant to Articles 1 through 10 of the New Hampshire constitution as well as Amendments 4 though 10 of the Constitution for the United States of America."
Dang, so how do they *really* feel about it?
more easily than men resist women's old-fashioned silicon-based enhancements.
>An otherwise smart and intelligent programmer friend of mine once suggested that
>if we could experience the minds of others directly we'd never have any arguments.
100 years ago Zamenhof said something similarly naive: that if only the peoples of the world had a common language (Esperanto) there would no longer be any misunderstandings and thus no more war. I am still an Esperantist, but not from any silly idea about ending conflict. As long as people are different, there will be conflicting interests. Even if we were all genetic clones, different memes would still fight each other using our bodies.
The evolutionarily stable solution a consistent set of rights:
http://www.jim.com/rights.html
Twice now you've cited a Singularity site. I'm a big Singularity believer, so I just glanced at it:
"Why does the Singularity matter? The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence was created in the belief that the Singularity represents a tremendous opportunity to accomplish good. The Singularity may offer a new opportunity to solve fundamental problems, not just by creating new technologies, but by increasing the intelligence with which we solve problems. For the first time, there is the possibility of humans using technology to become, not only healthier and wealthier and longer-lived, but smarter. At last it will be possible for our intelligence to grow along with our technology. We believe a world that realizes these possibilities is a better world, one of the best possible futures for humanity."
This is a gross underestimation of The Singularity, at least of Vernor Vinge's version. It's not something that you can harness. If I could meet Vinge (himself a libertarian) in person, I would ask him one question: under what circumstances does a transcending society become a God or a Perversion? My guess is that the difference is the presence of (and respect for) a proper constitution, which delegates limited powers to a minimal government that exists only to protect rights.
What an utterly non-sequitur response!
o untries.cfm
>Are you seriously trying to compare Russia to North America?
>You're holding up Moscow as a beacon of liberty?
No, of course not. Are you serious suggesting that my post could be interpreted that way by anyone without severe brain damage? I was simply citing the closest example at hand (myself) of a person who freely chose a job that is more dangerous than the average. Every job has its risks: most of us here are in greater danger of carpal tunnel syndrome than restaurant workers are of cancer from second-hand smoke. We all make our choices.
But, since you bring it up, I'll bite: if you were to assess the US and Russia according to a list of freedom criteria, the US would not do so well, nor Russia so poorly, as you might think. The US is tied for 9th place in economic freedom:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/features/index/c
and in personal freedom is probably not higher. I hate being lectured by Dutchmen.
Interesting--that is not the parallel with the software world that I had in mind. I wonder how many others we could come up with? I was thinking of the difference between spaghetti and elegant, robust, maintainable code. Good programmers instinctively recognize an elegant solution, and despise spaghetti. We are taught how to partition software in various ways, e.g. subroutines, stored procedures, and objects with subtypes and inheritance.
Though I studied computer science, my education is in control systems, with particular emphasis on aerodynamics. We controls guys care that our systems be responsive, stable, and robust. That means, for example, that you design your airplane with the center of lift well behind the center of mass. You want your airplane to fly safely and not tumble in *all* expected flight conditions, not just a narrow ideal regime.
There are also design patterns in political engineering. If you want a long-term just and prosperous society, powers should be delegated by the people to the government, rather than rights granted by the government to the people.
I sense from your accent that you are not American, and probably British (and it always irks me whenever non-Americans understand and value liberty more than citizens of the US, whom I would like to send to Cuba). If you are a European, then you are familiar with the concept of Subsidiarity. Political decisions should be made at the lowest possible level: local instead of regional, regional instead of national, and national instead of supranational.
>They see the day when a super intelligence will amass such power
>that every action can and will be scrutinised to determine the
>ultimate outcome of that action and then allowed only if the
>action leads to the ultimate good of human kind.
Like in "I, Robot": a new high-tech attempt at creating the bureaucrat-god that failed in socialist countries. Again, I don't understand how computer scientists would buy that, as they should be familiar with the superiority of distributed computing. The knowledge and processing power distributed among our little human heads vastly outweighs that of any central authority, human, computer, or both.
Another design pattern is to never trust power, because there will always be a danger that those entrusted with power to do good will use it to do ill. What happens if the bad guys get root? "The price of democracy is eternal vigilance," which is why it is so disturbing that the police in NH have resisted monitoring. Sounds like some cells of the immune system are turning cancerous.
>>Failure to protect rights has killed more people than second-hand smoke ever has.
>Ridiculous, unsubstantiated hyperbole.
In fact it is nearly a truism, so obvious that I did not intentionally leave it as an exercise for the reader. Excercise your imagination. I don't often visit Slashdot, but I notice that people here are a bit too quick and loud in expressing their ignorance.
>Employees have a right to a safe work environment.
Oh really? So who has a more dangerous job, barmen or firemen? I dare say that my job puts me in more danger than most barmen face, though for that I receive "milk for hardship," as the Russians say. I live on the busiest street in Moscow, and inhale carcinogens 24/7. Employees have the right of *contract*, and you are violating it.
>"No one's forcing them to work there," the critics say.
Yes, that is what I say. The use or threat of force is the essence of injustice. By applying it to property owners, *you* are committing injustice, not they!
>But the people who work in these types of jobs don't have many other options.
What a crock. Are you saying 1) restaurant workers lack any other skills, and 2) if bars and restaurants were to close, there is no other industry for them? That is not even true of the dishwashers. Admittedly, it might be tough for aspiring Hollywood actors to find something, but I think others certainly could.
>We as a society have spoken
Thus speaks someone blissfully unaware of the theories of rights, voting, and constitutions. So it was okay to kill 6 million Jews, because Germany as a society had spoken? Or for US whites to enslave blacks, until they merely changed their minds?
>Fortunately, I live in a progressive region which has already passed such laws (Ontario, Canada).
Oppressive, not progressive. Amsterdam--now that is a progressive town.
>And I hope this spreads everywhere, like the cancerous smoke billowing out of the leathery,
>selfish smokers that oppose safety for all workers.
It will never spread everywhere, because those of us who value freedom will keep moving to flee you nazis. Fortunately, liberty correlates strongly with prosperity, so it is your kind who will die out.
Funny, whenever I hear or read about someone else's asthmatic experience, I instinctively gasp for breath.
1 9.html
One of the common confusions in this topic results from the ambiguous word "public", which I try to avoid. "Government" or "state" are much more clear. Government property belongs to everyone, so we fight for control over it. This means smoking rules in government offices, and prayer and the pledge of allegiance in government schools. There is a saying that good fences make good neighbors--there would be a good deal less political rancor if we privatized government property and depoliticized the debate. However, as this discussion thread has shown, there will always be people who want to tell you what you can and can't do with your private property.
>This would include in my opinion baseball stadiums
Which raises the question of why our tax dollars are subsidizing stadiums. Bread and circuses for the masses, and millions of dollars for the rich:
http://www.reason.com/sullum/111204.shtml
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/bandow-0310
>It's also funny how the bar/restaurant traffic has severely declined
>in the Phoenix metro area in those cities with smoking bans.
I've heard about that, and I really don't understand it, but then I still can't understand how people can put such poison in their bodies.
Because the restaurant and (probably) the stadium are also private property. The property owner sets the rules, and we guests may choose to visit or not. I choose not to visit smokey places. Under your confused conception of rights, there would be nothing to stop our voting to prohibit smoking (or any other activity we don't like) in your home.
I assume that this site is frequented by software engineers. I am rather surprised that people who must understand the principles of good, clean code do not understand the principles of rights and good, clean laws.
Failure to protect rights has killed more people than second-hand smoke ever has. I am an asthmatic, but I support your right to smoke whatever you want on private property. If you don't like second-hand smoke, exercise your rights and boycott those establishments that permit it. But don't impose your values (even if they were not based on questionable science) by force.
My home town is Simi Valley, home of the Rodney King trial. Think of all the rioting that was caused by someone videotaping police brutality. Mercifully this will never happen in New Hampshire. Pass the soma, please.
>the core of the Esperanto movement is obsessed with forcing its ideals on the outside world
;)
Yes, they are statists, like most Europeans (and non-Europeans). It is indeed very annoying to us libertarians, but then we have to deal with statism in areas more serious than Esperanto.
>If you spent time in the central office of UEA or became significantly active in the movement's central organisation
Why do that? I would imagine that people sympathetic to the open-source model would piss on bureaucratic central organizations (btw, why are you using British spelling?). I certainly haven't noticed them doing much useful, e.g. making decent web sites.
>a cult, essentially
Esperanto is as much a cult as it is a movement, that is to say, not. It is a social club. We activists are a lonely minority. Your flippant use of "cult" would apply to any group that promotes some ideal of How Things Ought To Be. (Most) Esperantists have a bit more of a sense of humor about it than that. In fact, most of them apply that humor to the activists.
>Esperanto is a eurocentric language, regardless of what some crackpots...
Euro-"centric"? Um, it's based on Latin--how could it not be? What is your purely neutral alternative, Lojban? Aestetically pleasing to some, but not pareto-optimal. And one could argue that in inventing a language completely from scratch one would probably inadvertantly violate some universal or another, and end up with something that just feels wrong. (We could have a discussion about why even Slavic-speakers trip over Esperanto's accusative case.)
>For many Asians, English and Esperanto are equally difficult.
Asians find easier a non-phonetic, highly idiomatic language with 12+ vowels, absurdly large vocabulary, and all the irregularities of an evolved creole? Gimme a break!
>Esperanto is a lost cause. Just give up.
That statement assumes agreement on the "cause". What is the "cause", world domination? Yes, on that I would give up. But as the number of speakers has remained fairly stable over the decades, and now the internet offers unprecedented opportunities, Esperanto is going to continue as a living language for the foreseeable future. Given how incredibly easy it is to learn, Esperanto will never go away--just give up.
The meta-debate here is more interesting: what emotional issues underlie people's suspiciously strong anti-Esperanto attitudes? Do they voice such vehement opposition to other equally pointless activities such as baseball, curling, sudoku, Paris Hilton, and Burning Man? Look, you're going to live a hundred years--you've got to pass your leisure time somehow.
I live in Wiesbaden, so I found interesting your description of the German system's distinction between freedom of the press and an ordinary citizen's freedom of speech. I find the distinction to be a mistake, as the two activities are more similar than they are different. That Germany doesn't fully value freedom of speech is evidenced by their laws against Nazi talk, symbols, and writing.
i on /t mlw .fija.org
>It does not bother Americans that a court in one state or
>even town will interpret your basic rights differently than
>another judge a few miles down the road, since they have
>been told that this is the way it has to be.
Um, in that last phrase you went too far. There are other reasons for our decentralized system "not to bother Americans" besides blind acceptance. Europeans have an amusing (given their history) faith in the infallibility of The State: if they could just pick the smartest people and give them the best education in L'Ecole National d'Administration, the emerging Enarques will be uniquely fit to run the country. Well, we don't believe in a Solomonesque elite; the truth is harder to establish, and maybe the best search algorithm uses parallel processing.
That we are "stuck with a legal system that never made it past the 18th Century" could be re-phrased to say that our legal system has worked successfully for over 200 years; age is not necessarily a sign of weakness (though we tech geeks have the tendency to think so). You can point to many newer systems that have not worked as well, besides that of the USSR. How else is the US system anachronistic, and what wonderful innovations have other countries come up with? I have not been overly impressed by German law in those few occasions when I have bumped into it. You must not like shopping on Sundays; there is an innovation that the US adopted long ago.
>Trial-by-jury is something that the rest of the free world thinks is only
>a minor improvement on using a lottery or chicken guts to decide who is guilty.
Trial-by-jury affords more advantages than a simple Delphi Effect means of finding the truth. Via the doctrine of Jury Nullification, it gives ordinary citizens, people who live in your community, the power to protect you from unjust laws. If the people were informed about it (JN is of course not taught in our public schools), they could use it to not convict those accused of non-violent drug offenses. That the US are now the country with the highest percentage of its population in prison, and most of the recent growth is due to the federal Drug War, there clearly needs to be some additional check on federal power.
http://www.free-market.net/spotlight/nullificat
http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/0412.h
http://www.friesian.com/nullif.htm
http://ww
>Americans, on the other hand, don't have a federal law book
There has been quite an explosion in federal law in the past couple of decades; I assume that it is kept somewhere in a book.
No worries: the First Amendment was just a bug, and it's been fixed:
n t. html
http://www.theonion.com/onion3501/first_amendme
"WASHINGTON, DC--Federal officials unveiled the newly updated Bill Of Rights 2.0 at last weekend's Govworld Expo '99. The enhanced version of the document is said to be free of the First Amendment bug which had plagued previous releases."
In time of war, the government assumes extraordinary powers, temporarily restricting the rights of the people in order to save them from a greater imminent threat to those same rights. It is no coincidence that the US Government has chosen the terminology of war to pursue its recent goals. We have now a War on
l ofrights. phps _of_f reedom/constitution/constitution_transcription.htm l
-Poverty
-Crime
-Drugs
-Terrorism
The beauty (if you happen to be inside the government monopoloy) of a war on an abstract concept is that the concept never surrenders and the war never ends, so the temporary extra powers become permanent, and eventually taken for granted.
Any erosion in press freedom (or press access to government officials) is part of a larger context of increasing government size and power, and reciprocally eroding human rights. This sort of report is the equivalent of an annoying fly biting the sheeple; they will quickly go back to grazing.
Those who are concerned should review their Constitution and Bill of Rights:
http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/bil
http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/charter
and check them for erosion. Those who are really concerned should join the Free State Project:
http://www.FreeStateProject.org
I agree with your skepticism: that people frequently choose to eat fast food and that such restaurants outnumber those of higher class does not mean that my right to eat at or open a gourmet restaurant has been eroded; it just means that my fellow citizens have bad taste and I am a suffering snob. As a libertarian, I define freedom to be freedom from coercion, and coercion I define very narrowly.
However, two of your points were areas of real coercion.
"2 - Reporters put in jail for not revealing sources..."
We already extend client confidentiality protection to doctors and lawyers, so a precedent exists. Rush Limbaugh today suggested that the press could probably get ahold of this sniper character and interview him, at least with more competence than the FBI. If they would they then have to reveal everything they knew, how would the guy trust them in the first place? If you don't like that example, what about the more important case where the press is criticizing the government? The press is a major democratic institution that is supposed to be one of the checks on government overstepping its bounds. Whistleblowers and other sources should be protected.
"5- The government withholding information from the press is not an indication of restricted freedom."
As I said above, the press is a key part of our system of maintaining government accountability; exciting scandals like Watergate are obvious example, but in general they keep our government officials honest. Unfortunately, they are also dependent on the government for the news, so the government officials have some leverage over them, and they end up in a symbiotic relationship.
Where is the coercion, you ask? One could argue that this is not a problem of freedom of the press, but rather excess power in the government. Coercion is inherent in all things governmental, because that is its definition: it is that agency authorized to initiate force. Furthermore it raises its revenues (taxes) by force, unlike any business, and can eliminate its competition by force. Its operations must therefore be kept maximally transparent.
Reporters can and should be able to *legally* "get away with" saying something as fact, even if it's not, unless it damages a person's reputation. In that case, we call it libel, and there are laws dealing with it.
/.
If they print unsubstantiated crap, it is the job of the intelligent reader, whose mind was honed in our excellent public school system (bringing to mind another ranking where the US isn't on top), to disregard it.
I believe only what I read at
How long did it take the Founders' little utopia to become the thing they fought against? Nearly 200 years.
Of course the new USA was not considered a utopia (although maybe some anti-revolutionary naysayers tried to dismiss it as such).
Entropy works against most any improvement--is that necessarily a reason to not do something? Thanks for the excuse to not vacuum and clean the bathroom tonight....
>First, are they going to impose their views on the existing population
>to the extent that the existing population will react or choose to leave?
When libertarians want to "impose" views, they are in fact "unimposing" them. Reducing taxes or allowing school vouchers can be expressed as imposing less taxes, or not forcing children to attend a specific school in the education monopoly. But we well understand your point, that people may not be happy about the changing of some aspects of their way of life (as if life were staying the same anywhere!). Fortunately, of all ideologies, libertarianism provides the most flexible framework for the coexistence of a diversity of choice.
>>"Utopianism" is a primitive but common epithet.
>"Primitive" in what way? It's a term out of the Renaissance...
Primitive not because of its definition, but because of its most common usage, which is a mindless dismissal of any plan for changing society with which one disagrees. Libertarians hear it quite a lot, even when the proposed changes are concrete and demonstrably successful in other countries or societies.
>Legalization of drugs is in place in Singapore?
>I think your information is a bit out-of-date on that one.
You misunderstood: legalization of drugs in the Netherlands, minimal taxes in Singapore (it beat the US in the recently released 2002 Index of Economic Freedom). Aside: I recently had lunch with two colleagues, one from Singapore and one from the Netherlands. For entertainment I started an argument about capital punishment for marijuana smokers....
People probably said similar things before the American Revolution, and many others besides. Come join us and make it happen. Vote first with your feet, and then just vote, no violence necessary.
This post was not off topic: the poster was suggesting that those prone to cry "Market failure!" ignore the even worse failings of the government monopoloy. This new primer "Government Failure" on Public Choice theory (for which James Buchanan received a Nobel Prize) should help:0 865201/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/193
It is a pity that all Americans do not get to share my experience of living in the Soviet Union. They would quickly learn to identify government failure.