I'm astonished by the arrogant ignorance on display by the author. Clearly someone with no understanding of what a nation is, what it means to serve one, or be a member of one. There's no historical context or understanding, just another dolt attacking that which makes their existence and ability to talk nonsense possible.
It's only the other end of the USB cable you plug into them that varies. I have a ton of them that came with a variety of devices from a host of manufacturers. They all work for whatever I plug into them because they all provide the same power.
So, who the hell is throwing them out? Maybe the EU parliament needs to look into why people are wasting perfectly good AC adapters.
I think one of the OP's big points was that when wind and solar were totally infeasible, supposed "environmentalists" prevented the building of the only clean power available. Had they not done so, this might not be an issue at all today. At the very least, it would have slashed the hell out of our emissions for decades.
20? The first "AAAAAHHHHHH!!!! THE WORLD WILL END IN 20 YEARS!!!!" predictions were made before I was born 40 years ago. There's at least one new one every decade I think. So far all seem to have been totally wrong, as we are not living in a Mad Max hellscape.
How many of these have there been since 1970? I remember at least three separate rounds of, "if we don't make these radical changes right this very minute the world will end in 10-20 years", including the original predictions of global freezing.
Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime.
What? Were Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley supposed to predict ahead of time what all the outcomes of doing something new? Is anyone with a new business or idea supposed to whip out a crystal ball first to make sure there's no potential downside? Should we preemptively lock up bold entrepreneurs lest they come up with something brilliant but imperfect?
It's a fake story posted to test how many slashdotters can do basic math and logic, right? There's no way actual scientists would fall for this, let alone produce it, right?
Forget calculating it, the very concept of "a year's worth of the planet's resources" is meaningless in this context. "A year's worth of resources" would have meaning, but is totally unrelated to what they're talking about (would be how many resources are consumed in a year, would not touch on availability).
ALL laws require that government make decisions for everyone.
What? No, they don't. What do you think Law is? Where does it come from and what is its purpose?
Again, though, if the electorate, in full and fair elections, decides they want guaranteed jobs or UBI, would that not exactly fit your definition of OK?
UBI would lead inevitably to fiscal ruin, but would just barely squeak by. Guaranteed jobs would devastate the market and seize the economic rights and liberties of the citizenry without protecting a single damn thing. Not one person's rights or liberties are infringed upon by reserving employment decisions for the People. Seizing that power eliminates rights, curtails freedom and leaves the people without economic liberties.
You say my rephrasing is venal, but you don't actually refute it. You just reject it because you don't like it.
I know, I'm just pointing out the complications with your argument. The 10th was weakened by the post "switch in time that saved nine" New Deal era court, and it is the basis for the State's argument. We're on the same side of the issue, I just don't think your line of reasoning provides the best argument.
The sleeper cab is the one part I'm questioning. It just doesn't make sense when you only have the fuel storage for short hauls, which is why I figure it's more for show than for sell with that cell.
To phrase it that way is so venal as to make it false. It is the exercise of free will constrained only by the rights of others. Constraints that are formalized through the writing of laws by a just government made legitimate by the consent of the governed. Thus, rules we agree upon to protect the freedoms of each from infringement by the others.
I am free to stand in my backyard and shoot a gun. I am not at liberty to do so when facing your house.
"Guaranteed jobs", other than being impossible, requires that government make employment decisions for everyone, negating their freedom to choose their own path but without protecting the rights of anyone else as just laws require. In fact, everyone's right to freely participate in the labor market is seized as they are subjugated to an illegitimate authority.
Setting that aside, there are practical considerations to contend with. Slack in the labor market is necessary for growth and innovation. No central authority can provide economic dynamism, only deny it. It has been tried by Totalitarian governments on both sides of the spectrum, and in every case the results were stagnation, oppression, and mass murder. I hardly think guaranteed employment is worth a Stalinist dictatorship.
As for UBI, it is inherently inflationary, impossibly expensive, and wholly unnecessary.
It is always best to simply preserve the liberties of the People, letting each individual make their own choices about their own lives. No one is better positioned to know what is best for any person than that person themself.
My thoughts exactly. 300 miles is what, 15% of the range of a diesel semi?
What driver is going to want to waste precious time by stopping for fuel every 300 miles? The only reason they stop at all is that the law limits how long they can go before taking a nap. Plus, how likely are they to find a refueling station that can pump hydrogen?
Toyota knows that though, so I figure this is more a demonstration than something they expect to sell.
I'm sorry Pennsylvania, you're SOL. Even if people didn't have a right to make their own guns at home, there's just no way to stop the plans from getting around now.
As for Congress, it can legislate whatever the hell it wants, but it won't change the technological fact. Shutting down Defense Distributed won't make the plans disappear from the internet nor will it prevent anyone else from coming up with their own.
The only possible way to limit 3D printed guns is to control the printers themselves. Some sort of DRM (which will last for all of three days, tops), or licensing and annual inspections (good luck).
Pennsylvania is basing their argument on the 10th Amendment. I'm not saying it's a good argument, and it might run up against one of the two worst decisions in history (in my opinion), United States v. Darby Lumber Co., in which the 10th was essentially discarded as "but a truism" rather than something the Court should find relevant. Which I'm sure left every Anti-Federalist spinning in their grave, because they sure as hell did think it was relevant.
According to Locke, "In political society, liberty consists of being under no other lawmaking power except that established by consent in the commonwealth." Mill would say that it is free will exercised within the constraints defined by the rights of others.
Ok, people can make their own economic decisions. Does that mean that I, as a business owner, am free to choose to enter into a price fixing scheme with the rest of my industry? Does this mean that I, as a business owner, am allowed to cut safety procedures for my workers? Does this mean that I, as a business owner, can choose to pay my workers in company scrip, redeemable only at my company store, and for company lodgings?
No, no, and no. Because a free people recognized that rules are necessary to prevent behaviors that would break the systems that ensure liberty. "Guaranteed jobs" and UBI would also break those systems.
Instead of having the bulk of your income confiscated to support an impossibly expensive UBI, or having your job determined by a government agent, let's just stick with Liberty instead. Let people make their own economic decisions.
Besides, this is all in response to what is only a potential problem whose likelihood is greatly exaggerated.
Consider this: In a capitalist democracy everybody is a market player and everyone is a voter. Free markets generate their own feedback and control mechanisms, the "invisible hand" which can be seen as a rule-making emergent property. But markets are limited in the scope of participant behaviors that it can control as it is but one piece of the economy which is but one piece of society. When a problem arises in markets that cannot be resolved by normal market forces, market participants come together to establish formal rules to correct it and consent to be subject to those rules. Thus, government.
So, you can look at government as a product or extension of the free market's own corrective mechanisms. Or, because the sets of market and government participants are identical, you could say that both the market and government are just products of a free people working out the rules for how to be a society.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm astonished by the arrogant ignorance on display by the author. Clearly someone with no understanding of what a nation is, what it means to serve one, or be a member of one. There's no historical context or understanding, just another dolt attacking that which makes their existence and ability to talk nonsense possible.
So, who the hell is throwing them out? Maybe the EU parliament needs to look into why people are wasting perfectly good AC adapters.
Clearly not. So what the hell are they going to get a patent for?
I'm curious to know what it costs to insure a SpaceX payload launched on a reused rocket vs. a traditional rocket.
I think one of the OP's big points was that when wind and solar were totally infeasible, supposed "environmentalists" prevented the building of the only clean power available. Had they not done so, this might not be an issue at all today. At the very least, it would have slashed the hell out of our emissions for decades.
20? The first "AAAAAHHHHHH!!!! THE WORLD WILL END IN 20 YEARS!!!!" predictions were made before I was born 40 years ago. There's at least one new one every decade I think. So far all seem to have been totally wrong, as we are not living in a Mad Max hellscape.
That's too many times "wolf" has been cried.
Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime.
What? Were Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley supposed to predict ahead of time what all the outcomes of doing something new? Is anyone with a new business or idea supposed to whip out a crystal ball first to make sure there's no potential downside? Should we preemptively lock up bold entrepreneurs lest they come up with something brilliant but imperfect?
What a jerk.
Right?
Forget calculating it, the very concept of "a year's worth of the planet's resources" is meaningless in this context. "A year's worth of resources" would have meaning, but is totally unrelated to what they're talking about (would be how many resources are consumed in a year, would not touch on availability).
ALL laws require that government make decisions for everyone.
What? No, they don't. What do you think Law is? Where does it come from and what is its purpose?
Again, though, if the electorate, in full and fair elections, decides they want guaranteed jobs or UBI, would that not exactly fit your definition of OK?
UBI would lead inevitably to fiscal ruin, but would just barely squeak by. Guaranteed jobs would devastate the market and seize the economic rights and liberties of the citizenry without protecting a single damn thing. Not one person's rights or liberties are infringed upon by reserving employment decisions for the People. Seizing that power eliminates rights, curtails freedom and leaves the people without economic liberties.
You say my rephrasing is venal, but you don't actually refute it. You just reject it because you don't like it.
I corrected it and included an explanation.
I know, I'm just pointing out the complications with your argument. The 10th was weakened by the post "switch in time that saved nine" New Deal era court, and it is the basis for the State's argument. We're on the same side of the issue, I just don't think your line of reasoning provides the best argument.
The sleeper cab is the one part I'm questioning. It just doesn't make sense when you only have the fuel storage for short hauls, which is why I figure it's more for show than for sell with that cell.
I am free to stand in my backyard and shoot a gun. I am not at liberty to do so when facing your house.
"Guaranteed jobs", other than being impossible, requires that government make employment decisions for everyone, negating their freedom to choose their own path but without protecting the rights of anyone else as just laws require. In fact, everyone's right to freely participate in the labor market is seized as they are subjugated to an illegitimate authority.
Setting that aside, there are practical considerations to contend with. Slack in the labor market is necessary for growth and innovation. No central authority can provide economic dynamism, only deny it. It has been tried by Totalitarian governments on both sides of the spectrum, and in every case the results were stagnation, oppression, and mass murder. I hardly think guaranteed employment is worth a Stalinist dictatorship.
As for UBI, it is inherently inflationary, impossibly expensive, and wholly unnecessary.
It is always best to simply preserve the liberties of the People, letting each individual make their own choices about their own lives. No one is better positioned to know what is best for any person than that person themself.
What driver is going to want to waste precious time by stopping for fuel every 300 miles? The only reason they stop at all is that the law limits how long they can go before taking a nap. Plus, how likely are they to find a refueling station that can pump hydrogen?
Toyota knows that though, so I figure this is more a demonstration than something they expect to sell.
I have a book on gunmaking. Is that like a double-whammy?
I'm sorry Pennsylvania, you're SOL. Even if people didn't have a right to make their own guns at home, there's just no way to stop the plans from getting around now.
As for Congress, it can legislate whatever the hell it wants, but it won't change the technological fact. Shutting down Defense Distributed won't make the plans disappear from the internet nor will it prevent anyone else from coming up with their own.
The only possible way to limit 3D printed guns is to control the printers themselves. Some sort of DRM (which will last for all of three days, tops), or licensing and annual inspections (good luck).
Pennsylvania is basing their argument on the 10th Amendment. I'm not saying it's a good argument, and it might run up against one of the two worst decisions in history (in my opinion), United States v. Darby Lumber Co., in which the 10th was essentially discarded as "but a truism" rather than something the Court should find relevant. Which I'm sure left every Anti-Federalist spinning in their grave, because they sure as hell did think it was relevant.
What is 'Liberty?'
According to Locke, "In political society, liberty consists of being under no other lawmaking power except that established by consent in the commonwealth." Mill would say that it is free will exercised within the constraints defined by the rights of others.
Ok, people can make their own economic decisions. Does that mean that I, as a business owner, am free to choose to enter into a price fixing scheme with the rest of my industry? Does this mean that I, as a business owner, am allowed to cut safety procedures for my workers? Does this mean that I, as a business owner, can choose to pay my workers in company scrip, redeemable only at my company store, and for company lodgings?
No, no, and no. Because a free people recognized that rules are necessary to prevent behaviors that would break the systems that ensure liberty. "Guaranteed jobs" and UBI would also break those systems.
'Our' trip to the moon?
What, are all of Slashdot going to schlep up to the lunar surface?
Yes.
Besides, this is all in response to what is only a potential problem whose likelihood is greatly exaggerated.
Define "comfortably". If that's $40k/y, UBI in the US would cost 14,400,000,000,000 a year. Not feasible.
So, you can look at government as a product or extension of the free market's own corrective mechanisms. Or, because the sets of market and government participants are identical, you could say that both the market and government are just products of a free people working out the rules for how to be a society.
Login, logout, follow, unfollow, set avatar, edit bio... Did I miss anything? I don't use it myself so I'm just guessing.
How often you login, and from what sort of device?