Of course, why is there dead silence on the other part of the comparison ? Where, exactly, does Bush resemble Hitler ?
Funny how there isn't a single comment pointing out how ridiculous "BusHitler" is, yet you prove my point about how easy it is to get buried in ad-hominems just for pointing out someone might see something negative in ObaHitler. (oops did I just call Obama Hitler instead of Bush ? Curse the all-powerful atheismo, I must be a racist)
Oh right, everything is about Hitler. Thats "reasonable" and your side is hysterically yelling Hitler like spoiled children unable to win a debate.
Say, which party was it that came with the term Hitler ? Oh right... democrats... you in other words.
Ad-hominems... do totalitarian "liberals" even know any other way to argue ? Please, for once, prove it.
Really ? Then where are those pitchforks ? Where was the BusHitler backlash ? There was absolutely no shortage of anti-bush rhetoric, imagery, or anything. Blatantly racist imagery, faked imagery, faked evidence, death threats,... no shortage at all.
Of course pointing out that as far as policy comparisons go, it's Obama's policies that resemble those of the ("early") Hitler : govt. healthcare, govt. takeover of car companies, stimulus money on creating his own civilians corps,... all those policies were implemented by both. Now pointing that out, no matter how true (and how irrelevant), is racist.
Why wouldn't an Objectivist have a low tolerance for criticism? Objectivism is the view that there is a single, objective, unquestionable reality - with the implication that the Objectivist him or herself perceives this reality. If you hold such a view, those that disagree with you must seem like dangerous lunatics or liars. It isn't a philosophy that tolerates criticism, as its founder repeatedly demonstrated during her lifetime.
Why do I bother countering your fantasies ? Why do I think there is any way to convince you that your fantasies which you seem to think are more real than... reality... are just that, fantasies ? You fully agree their fantasies, ungrounded and unobstructed by any real truth. So why do I bother asking facts of you ?
You don't even accept reality as true. How can you question reality, yes the very concept of truth itself, and then whine that someone in an argument does not accept your feelings as falsifying a proven theory ?
What a joke. I asked you a VERY specific question, and a real answer to that WOULD shake my "beliefs". But of course you want just your feelings to falsify the real world.
Let's resume this discussion when you have the intellectual insight of a 2-year old, and we can agree that a real world, that can be observed and correctly inferred about, exists. Until then, have fun in fantasyland, and stop whining about the distinct lack of working fantasyland-approved economic theories. It's kinda pathetic.
And if you prefer to live in fantasyland, just pretend this post doesn't exist. After all, your fantasy viewpoints are the only "real" truth, aren't they ?
That may be true, but you've got to see the limitations in that too. There are no paints that are reflective over a large amount of the light spectrum, so you gotta pick your poison. A normal mirror, for example, would not hold up against an infrared laser.
Furthermore doing that requires knowing the exact frequency of the airborne laser, something which is presumably not public knowledge. It is these days relatively trivial to change the frequency of the laser, e.g. doubling or halving it. Presumably such tricks could be built in and change the frequency "on the fly".
So yes, given enough information you could probably protect the rocket from a single specific laser, for a few years until the next generation of lasers. But it'd require spies to get the information to start with, it would be dependant on not having spies in your own organisation and you'd need a few doctors in chemistry to actually make the paint (since that paint needs to do more than just reflect laser pulses, it must hold up in mutli-mach flight and not heat up, it must not peel off with a constant explosion just below it, it must stand up to both the freezing temperatures in clouds and the heat the rocket will develop during descent. It must even be able to deal with ice formation on the rocket itself, so it's not like you can buy this in your local toy store).
I have no problem with overselling. It's necessary and efficient. I have problems with [b]dramatic[/b] overselling, particularly when coupled with a 'we can disconnect you for no reason' clause. Which means ISPs can sell a substancially defective product to people who'll significantly undersell it, while cutting off anyone who uses even close to their allotment.
Then you should buy a business connection. If you want a large allotment, that they respect, then buy it from them. It's not like their not selling it.
You must know from checking around you that 99% of their customers are perfectly happy with the "dramatically" oversold product, so why would these people have to pay more just to get you a better connection ? That would have 0 value to them.
I know people who do this, buying a business connection. It has other advantages, like when you're calling tech support. Here comcast has a 24 hour fix window for business connections : if they can't fix your problem in 24 hours, that month is free.
Reductio ad car analogy, would you buy a car which shut down after being driven 40miles in a day, despite being told that the car had a 400 mile range? (it does, but only 40 miles per day... what- you want to drive MOOOORE? EXCESSIVE USAGE, BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, YOUR CAR SHUTS DOWN!)
That sounds an awful lot like the cars Obama's pushing actually. They have a theoretical range close to 300 miles. Of course that implies that you left them in the charger for at least 12 hours, which is totally unrealistic. They can recharge "to 80%" in 2 hours with the charger, which is still beyond pitiful if you're driving an actual distance, and is furthermore deceptive. Yes the voltage in the batteries will rise to 80% of maximum. The range you'll get out of that will, at best, be 60% of max range.
Also they neglect to mention that these cars push these batteries very, very hard. Resulting, obviously in quick performance degradation. This is normal, every battery has this, including current car batteries. What they don't tell you is that after a year of driving you'll be very lucky if your range is 70% of the range you had last year.
It's worse even in Europe, where authorities are demanding a device in every electrical car that can (1) disable that car remotely (2) limit it's speed in response to a radio signal. Obviously they're not telling this to the press. Not that that would have any effect though, since several magazines have indeed pointed it out.
So yes I've got a problem with such cars, unfortunately "change" is coming.
They do not think it's a net power loss. They think it's a net money loss, generally referred to as "net loss".
I also fail to see what the problem with overselling is. You can easily get a non-oversubscribed connection, with of course the attached cost. Nearly all ISP's do not oversubscribe business connections - or very little (2:1 to 10:1 versus consumer connections where 70:1 is not that bad an oversubscription ratio for the lex connection alone). So just get a "professional" connection, and pay the price for it ?
Why complain about the price versus performance of normal connections ? Suppose you win, and isp's have to modify their behavior. That will simply mean the cheapest adsl connection available will be the same price as the 28 mbit business connection, in most cases several thousand dollars per month. Most people are perfectly happy and well-served with those massively oversubscribed connections, why do they have to be forced into higher costs for what they will consider equal value ?
Furthermore it is impossible to build a non-oversubscribed network except in trivial cases. Take a normal office building. All pc's have 100 mbit ports (if not gigabit). And the network works great. But in my experience, they use a 10 mbit internet to service about 1000 100 mbit internet connections in those buildings. Do you think it would be reasonable to not oversubscribe such a network ?
Of course medicare is not -at all- sustainable. That's the little devil under the sheets.
Of course democrats do the same to every non-working "social" program : expand it. Not even democrats themselves dare to suggest it's working right - which is presumably why they want to expand it and force it on every American.
Btw : it's not a death panel if you can choose your own panel. Only forced government coverage which outlawed or sabotaged private insurers (e.g. "single payer") would have death panels. The difference is that you know in advance what a private insurer's panel is going to say, so the decision (cost and benefit) is basically your own. You don't know in advance what a government panel is going to say, and you don't get to select another one. Therefore if a government panel like Obama suggests would come into existence, it's refusal to cover some life-saving treatment is a de-facto death sentence.
The Dutch actually do this. If you're over 65 most care is actually denied. They may refrain from directly executing you for being old, but if you have even minor kidney or liver problems... forget living another year. Nearly all of those problems are perfectly and safely treatable, and no obstacle to living to see a century, but the government decided it's too expensive to pay to fix old geezers.
Obviously the dutch government is in the process of expanding this downward. Recent casualties are pain treatments for pregnant women (epidurals are de-facto outlawed in Holland). Also some treatments for young children are being denied more often - like leukemia treatment. The problem is that if the government denies care you have 2 choices : die or emigrate. Needless to say, massive numbers of Dutch people seek medical care outside of Holland, like Canadians do.
Of course politically expedient "treatments" like euthanasia or abortion are paid back 150%. They are actually talking about involuntary euthanasia on healthy people (right now you have to explicitly state you don't want to be euthanized, or... ). One can only wonder what the next round of cost-cutting will bring in Holland, and how many more Dutchies will run away.
Objectivism is the denial of personal viewpoints, to the advantage of one absolute truth, totally and utterly independant of an individual viewpoint.
A reality which the Objectivist claims to perceive himself, thus presenting a viewpoint. Your philosophy is laughably easy to debunk.
I find this statement so perplexingly laughable that I still find it hard to believe you actually make it.
So which is your point : 1) either objectivism is correct, and you're wrong 2) or you're right, but only about "your own" reality. Meaning you're wrong from anyone else's truth except your own.
So which is it ? Are you wrong because there is no truth and therefore everybody is always wrong, except in his own mind. Or are you wrong because your claim about personal realities is wrong ?
The problem (and the communist agenda) is in the part of the law that outlaws any other coverage, destroying private health care (if single payer goes through) or "merely" private health care insurance (except... of course... for members of congress or the Obama administration, showing just how much faith these guys actually have in this law)
What Obamacare would do is outlaw going beside this. If you're decided to be "too old" and not "worth" life-saving treatment, there's nothing you can do. That's what Obama wants to do.
Okay, how can you falsify my beliefs : prove a solution, which satisfies these 2 conditions, to the economics information problem, in a world with woefully incomplete information. The 2 conditions are :
1) every individual must act in his/her own intrest at all times. 2) Not only that but those actions must benefit BOTH the individual and society as a whole.
Remember, you must do it in a world with incomplete information. You do NOT know what mines will yield, you do NOT know if the harvest will fail in any given year, and while you do have some control over this, you must survive a total failure of prediction.
(or of course you can prove that you can perfectly predict the world, in that case, I'll take next week's lotto numbers as proof. Surely predicting those is peanuts compared to predicting worldwide economic output with any accuracy)
Now how do I falsify your beliefs ? Because if the answer to that is to prove that this problem is unsolvable for the socialist assumptions (even for welfare states it's unsolveable), then I'm done already.
So since proving that socialism, or things like national health care cannot work, not now, and not ever, is done (and it's ancient history at that) in an economy where wealth is produced and consumed by the same entities (e.g. communism can work in a slavery-based society, or at least it can work better than it has in the last century, it doesn't exactly create a utopia, certainly not for the slaves). Historical "proof" is not proof in the pure sense, but given the ample supply of genocides caused by socialism, it seems relevant because just how wrong socialism goes in practice. What exactly would it take to convince you ?
That's of course the advantage of your beliefs : you do not believe in objective reality. You think like the muslims : you believe that the soviet massacres are a conspiracy against socialism, and by extention, against you personally. You don't believe that what math says has any validity in the real world, for thinking like that would make you that most evil of things : a capitalist. It would show you the sense of work, of creating, of having original ideas and to depend on them. That's positively scary. It's an easy way out to think like you do. The problem, however, is simple : it's destructive. For you personally, and for everyone touched by you.
And if you must think like that and destroy yourself, knock yourself out, it's a free country. But please keep it to yourself and don't push ideologies in America that killed so many millions of Europeans, Asians and Latino's just last century.
And after this process, the Objectivist always comes to confirm what Ayn Rand said. Funny how that happens!
And what is wrong with that ? Your argument is no more complex than that your political differences with Ayn Rand are justified because there is no reality. Therefore health care is free and unlimited, if we only... hope strongly enough ? Or what exactly is your argument ?
That's the problem with socialists : any serious look at their arguments will yield a simple conclusion : it cannot work in theory, it did not work in practice, and several hundred million people are now corpses because people tried to make it work and failed.
Either all they care about is the extremely short term payout socialism provides or they deny obvious truths, like limitations on resources. Implying that somehow, these things do not apply if those evil "reality exists" bastards just put them in charge. To think that people like this actually have the nerve to criticize past generations for not being foresighted enough is beyond idiotic.
Also, you ignore the fact that with private healthcare, your employer gets to determine whether or not you have healthcare by controlling your employment status. Is the board of directors a "death panel" then?
Of course, since it's utterly impossible to buy health insurance yourself. </sarcasm>
No private health insurance does not have a death panel. Your are -in advance- informed of exactly what is covered and what is not, and you make the choice for yourself.
In other words, yes there is still the choice of whether to cover something or not in private health care. But it's the person's own decision. Picking a cheap healthcare system, or ill-researched one, is like smoking cigarettes : not good for you, but also entirely your own fault, and a respectable choice. You just have to live with the consequences of your own decisions.
Government health care by contrast, is forced on everyone. That specific fact is what makes it a death panel. The person does not decide for himself what he is insured against, and is forbidden from doing so. A death panel, instead, decides what he can survive and what not.
So of course, if national health care were adopted then this would be true. Which is exactly what I was claiming in the first place.
You know objective truth. It's a lot easier to argue against it than it is to deny it in actual real life policy. Funny that you actually admit that you're arguing against the existence of reality and that that denial is the basis of your pushing national health care. Most totalitarian collectivists ("liberals") would deny it with their last breath.
Objectivism is the view that there is a single, objective, unquestionable reality - with the implication that the Objectivist him or herself perceives this reality. If you hold such a view, those that disagree with you must seem like dangerous lunatics or liars. It isn't a philosophy that tolerates criticism, as its founder repeatedly demonstrated during her lifetime.
Is this a joke ? Objectivism is a cult ? No objectivist has a low tolerance for criticism. Such an attitude would prohibit the formation of the correct objective opinion in the first place. On the contrary an objectivist would take note of criticism and check if said facts are objectively true, attempting to use dispassionate argument, logic (preferably pure logic), and nothing else.
Of course the same cannot be said of the socialists fighting objectivism. Of course, without denying reality they'd have to answer the truth : that socialism has never failed to produce mass genocide, even in "moderate" quantities. That government-run health care necessitates government "death panels", who decide if life-saving treatment will be granted to a person or not. There is simply no other way to do it.
Objectivism is the denial of personal viewpoints, to the advantage of one absolute truth, totally and utterly independant of an individual viewpoint.
Now obviously the very basis of science is that objectivism is true, and that objective reality can be measured (also called empirism).
But you're simply a totalitarian semi-collectivist "liberal" with a bone to pick, aren't you ? Ayn Rand was more than willing to entertain, analyse and debate criticisms on any point. She was, however, not prepared to accept the criticism that reality didn't exist. She was gladly willing to even entertain the notion that all real-world measurements were flawed, however she was not prepared to accept that communism (sorry "socialism") was never correctly implemented, and therefore was correct despite all objective history making such a viewpoint laughable.
Of course, idiots denying objective reality and historical data to push communism can count Obama amongst them these days. Of course, unless they find a way to make God (/nature/reality/... whatever tickles your fancy) one of them, their policies will keep failing, and they will keep blaming others. The Jews, infidels, capitalists,... all are guilty of the failures of communism, except of course... communism itself.
An objectivist with a low tolerance for criticism is quite simple an idiot that's bound to be wrong. Such objectivists would count people like Osama Bin Laden, and the Taliban ("muslim students") amongst their members.
Like the articles about wikipedia's founder for example. Oh wait... For a "self-avowed objectivist to the core" he sure has a low tolerance for criticism. (I refuse to link to his wikipedia page, if you want to see masturbation in action there are quite sufficient sites depicting that, and none of them should be linked)
Your argument is flawed in that it assumes there are no preconditions for technological advance. And there are many indeed :
-> agriculture -> developed economy -> some education system -> at least a partial meritocracy -> a compatible ideology (mainly an ideology that's prepared to accept empirical data)
Various states have existed in the past, and only very few of them made any technological advance at all (e.g. the Jews failed to introduce any large technological advances in the (many) years Jewish tribes dominated Europe, eskimo's, indians, just about any tribal culture...). Others, like China, had very short periods of extremely rapid technological advance, followed by thousand years of standstill development. Others only had any technology due to conquering, and had only "subjected" scientists, who were outside the mainstream, and whose works were hidden or destroyed (the muslims). Other civilizations had technological development that started allowing for population growth, then failed to deal with that population growth and destroyed themselves (Some southern african states). Others had technological development, which was cut short by an invader, and they never recovered from it (most northern african states).
Unfortunately there is exactly 1 culture that made (for now) lasting technological process, and that would be the (reformed) Christian civilization, which could, though it's a stretch, be said to be an extention of the Roman Empire, or the Roman Republic, which is in itself an extension of the ancient Greek city states, where most people agree representative government was first combined with capitalism.
Given the thousands of civilizations that failed to progress beyond mostly very basic science, how can you claim that it's impossible that we lose the edge we have ? If we only become a bit more like any of those failed civilizations, why exactly would we be spared the same failure they had ?
Especially the muslim case is interesting. They conquered vast swaths of territory, that had thousands of scientists in it, massive libraries and an economy that would not be dreamed possible for 1000 years after they destroyed it. 200 years after the muslim army won, there was barely any science left, and the economy was beyond repair, except in regions where non-muslims were still dominant (Alexandria, Anatolia). The muslims had a *massive* technological advance, acquired by force of arms (and force of numbers), which they lost due to repression of science (or at least that is the prevalent historians' view). They lost it so badly... to illustrate, can you imagine that in 400 A.D. the center of world science was either Carthago or Alexandria. You should visit those places today and look what they lost.
If I was pushing those policies I would also refuse to talk about them if someone asked "hey what happened last time central government control was forced into everybody's lives ?". Because the only answers to that questions are beyond cruel.
What's obviously left to be explained is why you're pushing them anyway ? Because they get you a little bit of free money in the short term ?
Surely the party that's screaming how everybody "ignored the long term" would not do such a thing ? But then you must have a different argument. And arguments is something that has yet to be seen in your posts. Ad-hominems, and redirects to extremely biased sites lacking any credentials, yes, but actual argument, that's conspicuously missing.
But you're right obviously : by imposing an unpayable debt on everyone, you may get some very short term cash. Obviously due to money representing actual value, and actual value not increasing at all, you won't be able to spend it.
But hey if illusions is all you have - vote democrat.
I've read a few other articles on your site and I basically conclude it's another "justice before actual data" science. Their version of justice, of course.
Let's take the top article on the front page (http://socyberty.com/issues/affirmative-action-policy-vs-anti-affirmative-action/), it describes the lofty affirmative action policies. Obviously it falls in the trap that the whole left has fallen into : it claims anti-white racism is affirmative action. Such a position will obviously push racism, both by allowing many people to be racist supported by law and by breeding resentment in the group being discriminated against.
It heaps all sorts of praises on those policies, and yet it somehow misses the little detail that pro-centrally-controlled-society sites always miss : We've had these policies for a while, what effect have they had ? What are the numbers ?
Regardless even of whether the effect of affirmative action was positive or negative (which is another discussion), the results of the past implementations should be the first thing to guide future implementations.
Obviously, performance in the real world is not even mentioned in the article.
Why are so anti-real-world-data ? In my not so humble opinion for a simple reason : they don't care. They are merely interested in pushing "fair" rules on society (according to their standard obviously, and if I may say so not very well reasoned), and what effect these rules have ? They don't know, they're not interested, they don't even want to know, please nobody tell us. The only thing that matters to them is whether their rules are pushed on society. They may not explicitly say using force, but given the rules they intend to push it's clear massive violence will be required to kill the non-believers, and if their rules are even slightly unbalanced, much more violence to kill the ones who see the evidence of failure before them. They are massively anti-freedom. They are literally against freedom of thought.
Such a site cannot function as an authorative source, for obvious reasons : it has a thinly veiled ideological agenda, and a relatively extreme one at that.
And Keynes was for direct government control of markets. Direct interference through every available means, in all markets. Without limitation, without consideration of the expected effects. That does not make him a "moderate" capitalist, it makes him a moderate communist, also known as a fascist (can we please avoid references to that particular fascist, please ? Yes socialists used to be in favor of eugenics and he drove that a bit far (not that Stalin didn't drive it further, but hey, even Che didn't believe Stalin was a "rightwing hawk", and we've got to tell people all evil is from the right, right ? Even if it means massively "bending the truth" about fascism : that it's merely moderate socialism), anyway the socialist eugenics theory has little bearing on today's situation since now socialists believe (wrongly) the total opposite) Back to Keynes. He advocated direct government control of markets, but without totally destroying the market forces ("totally" being a necessary qualifier). And he does indeed show all other marks of fascism : he is in favor of a welfare state. He is in favor of huge public firms supported by tax funds. And yes, before the consequences of his politics became clear, he was indeed in favor of Nazi Germany.
He is a moderate communist (they like to be called socialists, and to be frank, they are correct for any reasonable definition of socialist). He is a fascist.
Can we please stop with the alien brainwashing accusations ?
OTOH, remarks like that fully and clearly illustrate the ideas your point is based on.
It's been shown what Keynesian economics (also known as socialism) does : it prevents recovery from crises (which happen even under 100% communist systems).
Not that anyone with half a brain can seriously expect actual research to generate rational thought in you, but I'm fairly sure we'll see more brainwashing accusations. Perhaps you could call me Bush, or...
The other fallacy is that governent spending / control HAS to be bad. I agree that in most situations it turns out that way (largely because of the fundamental disconnect between the interests of voters and the interests of those that represent them), but it's not inherent.
So wait... there is a fundamental disconnect between the motivations of the voters and the motivations of the elected.
And yet they will not act against eachother's intrest ??????
Care to explain a bit further. Why would 2 groups with fundamentally different motivations always act in eachother's intrest. Because you don't have to prove "sometimes", even wolf and sheep sometimes act in one another's best intrest.
But there is a more fundamental problem. Suppose we are a perfect democracy. Perfect. Every elected is 100% selfless, 0% corrupt and honestly devotes his entire life to the betterment of the electorate. Then there is still one thing that has a rather decisive vote involved : reality. People aren't realistic.
You claim "I simply can't afford what's in my best intrest". That may be true, but that means it would not be in the best intrest of society to give that specific (obviously scarce) thing to you. You see reality is limited, in everything. Literally, in e-ver-y-th-ing. What prices and money do is modifying your behavior in such a way the whole of society stays within the limits of reality. There is no such limit on the wishes of the electorate, or on the wishes of the elected officials.
Worse : even if that electorate or those elected officials wanted to stay within the limits of society, it would be extremely hard for them to do so (just ask Lenin, who made a very honest attempt at doing so, with scores of very smart people attempting to do what prices do).
The real problem is, of course, when those wishes exceed what reality has to offer. Then the government serves you pine needle tea (very nutricious, cures cancer you know, or so socialists claim), yet somehow scores of people keep dying from malnutrition.
What you don't understand is that for all it's flaws, there is no alternative to capitalism. Stores run empty in Venezuela, a mere 2 years after socialism was given a try. That's government spending at work. And North Korea, well... we all know about North Korea. There is still capitalism in Venezuela and North Korea, it's just applied to the country as a whole instead of to individuals, who have *zero* options of bettering their situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, why is there dead silence on the other part of the comparison ? Where, exactly, does Bush resemble Hitler ?
Funny how there isn't a single comment pointing out how ridiculous "BusHitler" is, yet you prove my point about how easy it is to get buried in ad-hominems just for pointing out someone might see something negative in ObaHitler. (oops did I just call Obama Hitler instead of Bush ? Curse the all-powerful atheismo, I must be a racist)
Oh right, everything is about Hitler. Thats "reasonable" and your side is hysterically yelling Hitler like spoiled children unable to win a debate.
Say, which party was it that came with the term Hitler ? Oh right ... democrats ... you in other words.
Ad-hominems ... do totalitarian "liberals" even know any other way to argue ? Please, for once, prove it.
"the neocons would have had pitchforks in hand"
Really ? Then where are those pitchforks ? Where was the BusHitler backlash ? There was absolutely no shortage of anti-bush rhetoric, imagery, or anything. Blatantly racist imagery, faked imagery, faked evidence, death threats, ... no shortage at all.
Of course pointing out that as far as policy comparisons go, it's Obama's policies that resemble those of the ("early") Hitler : govt. healthcare, govt. takeover of car companies, stimulus money on creating his own civilians corps, ... all those policies were implemented by both. Now pointing that out, no matter how true (and how irrelevant), is racist.
Why wouldn't an Objectivist have a low tolerance for criticism? Objectivism is the view that there is a single, objective, unquestionable reality - with the implication that the Objectivist him or herself perceives this reality. If you hold such a view, those that disagree with you must seem like dangerous lunatics or liars. It isn't a philosophy that tolerates criticism, as its founder repeatedly demonstrated during her lifetime.
Why do I bother countering your fantasies ? Why do I think there is any way to convince you that your fantasies which you seem to think are more real than ... reality ... are just that, fantasies ? You fully agree their fantasies, ungrounded and unobstructed by any real truth. So why do I bother asking facts of you ?
You don't even accept reality as true. How can you question reality, yes the very concept of truth itself, and then whine that someone in an argument does not accept your feelings as falsifying a proven theory ?
What a joke. I asked you a VERY specific question, and a real answer to that WOULD shake my "beliefs". But of course you want just your feelings to falsify the real world.
Let's resume this discussion when you have the intellectual insight of a 2-year old, and we can agree that a real world, that can be observed and correctly inferred about, exists. Until then, have fun in fantasyland, and stop whining about the distinct lack of working fantasyland-approved economic theories. It's kinda pathetic.
And if you prefer to live in fantasyland, just pretend this post doesn't exist. After all, your fantasy viewpoints are the only "real" truth, aren't they ?
That may be true, but you've got to see the limitations in that too. There are no paints that are reflective over a large amount of the light spectrum, so you gotta pick your poison. A normal mirror, for example, would not hold up against an infrared laser.
Furthermore doing that requires knowing the exact frequency of the airborne laser, something which is presumably not public knowledge. It is these days relatively trivial to change the frequency of the laser, e.g. doubling or halving it. Presumably such tricks could be built in and change the frequency "on the fly".
So yes, given enough information you could probably protect the rocket from a single specific laser, for a few years until the next generation of lasers. But it'd require spies to get the information to start with, it would be dependant on not having spies in your own organisation and you'd need a few doctors in chemistry to actually make the paint (since that paint needs to do more than just reflect laser pulses, it must hold up in mutli-mach flight and not heat up, it must not peel off with a constant explosion just below it, it must stand up to both the freezing temperatures in clouds and the heat the rocket will develop during descent. It must even be able to deal with ice formation on the rocket itself, so it's not like you can buy this in your local toy store).
I have no problem with overselling. It's necessary and efficient. I have problems with [b]dramatic[/b] overselling, particularly when coupled with a 'we can disconnect you for no reason' clause. Which means ISPs can sell a substancially defective product to people who'll significantly undersell it, while cutting off anyone who uses even close to their allotment.
Then you should buy a business connection. If you want a large allotment, that they respect, then buy it from them. It's not like their not selling it.
You must know from checking around you that 99% of their customers are perfectly happy with the "dramatically" oversold product, so why would these people have to pay more just to get you a better connection ? That would have 0 value to them.
I know people who do this, buying a business connection. It has other advantages, like when you're calling tech support. Here comcast has a 24 hour fix window for business connections : if they can't fix your problem in 24 hours, that month is free.
Reductio ad car analogy, would you buy a car which shut down after being driven 40miles in a day, despite being told that the car had a 400 mile range? (it does, but only 40 miles per day... what- you want to drive MOOOORE? EXCESSIVE USAGE, BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, YOUR CAR SHUTS DOWN!)
That sounds an awful lot like the cars Obama's pushing actually. They have a theoretical range close to 300 miles. Of course that implies that you left them in the charger for at least 12 hours, which is totally unrealistic. They can recharge "to 80%" in 2 hours with the charger, which is still beyond pitiful if you're driving an actual distance, and is furthermore deceptive. Yes the voltage in the batteries will rise to 80% of maximum. The range you'll get out of that will, at best, be 60% of max range.
Also they neglect to mention that these cars push these batteries very, very hard. Resulting, obviously in quick performance degradation. This is normal, every battery has this, including current car batteries. What they don't tell you is that after a year of driving you'll be very lucky if your range is 70% of the range you had last year.
It's worse even in Europe, where authorities are demanding a device in every electrical car that can (1) disable that car remotely (2) limit it's speed in response to a radio signal. Obviously they're not telling this to the press. Not that that would have any effect though, since several magazines have indeed pointed it out.
So yes I've got a problem with such cars, unfortunately "change" is coming.
Aren't you afraid that ... you know ... at some point you will run out of other people's money to spend ?
Obviously if I were to spend your money (like you want to spend other's money) you'd call that theft. So do you consider yourself a thief ?
You see communism depends on class wars. So not letting the government interfere is obviously only motivated by greed.
They do not think it's a net power loss. They think it's a net money loss, generally referred to as "net loss".
I also fail to see what the problem with overselling is. You can easily get a non-oversubscribed connection, with of course the attached cost. Nearly all ISP's do not oversubscribe business connections - or very little (2:1 to 10:1 versus consumer connections where 70:1 is not that bad an oversubscription ratio for the lex connection alone). So just get a "professional" connection, and pay the price for it ?
Why complain about the price versus performance of normal connections ? Suppose you win, and isp's have to modify their behavior. That will simply mean the cheapest adsl connection available will be the same price as the 28 mbit business connection, in most cases several thousand dollars per month. Most people are perfectly happy and well-served with those massively oversubscribed connections, why do they have to be forced into higher costs for what they will consider equal value ?
Furthermore it is impossible to build a non-oversubscribed network except in trivial cases. Take a normal office building. All pc's have 100 mbit ports (if not gigabit). And the network works great. But in my experience, they use a 10 mbit internet to service about 1000 100 mbit internet connections in those buildings. Do you think it would be reasonable to not oversubscribe such a network ?
Of course medicare is not -at all- sustainable. That's the little devil under the sheets.
Of course democrats do the same to every non-working "social" program : expand it. Not even democrats themselves dare to suggest it's working right - which is presumably why they want to expand it and force it on every American.
Btw : it's not a death panel if you can choose your own panel. Only forced government coverage which outlawed or sabotaged private insurers (e.g. "single payer") would have death panels. The difference is that you know in advance what a private insurer's panel is going to say, so the decision (cost and benefit) is basically your own. You don't know in advance what a government panel is going to say, and you don't get to select another one. Therefore if a government panel like Obama suggests would come into existence, it's refusal to cover some life-saving treatment is a de-facto death sentence.
The Dutch actually do this. If you're over 65 most care is actually denied. They may refrain from directly executing you for being old, but if you have even minor kidney or liver problems ... forget living another year. Nearly all of those problems are perfectly and safely treatable, and no obstacle to living to see a century, but the government decided it's too expensive to pay to fix old geezers.
Obviously the dutch government is in the process of expanding this downward. Recent casualties are pain treatments for pregnant women (epidurals are de-facto outlawed in Holland). Also some treatments for young children are being denied more often - like leukemia treatment. The problem is that if the government denies care you have 2 choices : die or emigrate. Needless to say, massive numbers of Dutch people seek medical care outside of Holland, like Canadians do.
Of course politically expedient "treatments" like euthanasia or abortion are paid back 150%. They are actually talking about involuntary euthanasia on healthy people (right now you have to explicitly state you don't want to be euthanized, or ... ). One can only wonder what the next round of cost-cutting will bring in Holland, and how many more Dutchies will run away.
http://www.brooklaw.edu/students/journals/bjil/bjil31ii_allen.pdf
This is what Obama wants to introduce to America. This is where it leads.
Objectivism is the denial of personal viewpoints, to the advantage of one absolute truth, totally and utterly independant of an individual viewpoint.
A reality which the Objectivist claims to perceive himself, thus presenting a viewpoint. Your philosophy is laughably easy to debunk.
I find this statement so perplexingly laughable that I still find it hard to believe you actually make it.
So which is your point :
1) either objectivism is correct, and you're wrong
2) or you're right, but only about "your own" reality. Meaning you're wrong from anyone else's truth except your own.
So which is it ? Are you wrong because there is no truth and therefore everybody is always wrong, except in his own mind. Or are you wrong because your claim about personal realities is wrong ?
The problem (and the communist agenda) is in the part of the law that outlaws any other coverage, destroying private health care (if single payer goes through) or "merely" private health care insurance (except ... of course ... for members of congress or the Obama administration, showing just how much faith these guys actually have in this law)
Here's an example of decisions by a death panel
What Obamacare would do is outlaw going beside this. If you're decided to be "too old" and not "worth" life-saving treatment, there's nothing you can do. That's what Obama wants to do.
Change we can believe in ! Belief being necessary because, you know, you don't get to check.
Say what were those economic numbers again ?
Okay, how can you falsify my beliefs : prove a solution, which satisfies these 2 conditions, to the economics information problem, in a world with woefully incomplete information. The 2 conditions are :
1) every individual must act in his/her own intrest at all times.
2) Not only that but those actions must benefit BOTH the individual and society as a whole.
Remember, you must do it in a world with incomplete information. You do NOT know what mines will yield, you do NOT know if the harvest will fail in any given year, and while you do have some control over this, you must survive a total failure of prediction.
(or of course you can prove that you can perfectly predict the world, in that case, I'll take next week's lotto numbers as proof. Surely predicting those is peanuts compared to predicting worldwide economic output with any accuracy)
Now how do I falsify your beliefs ? Because if the answer to that is to prove that this problem is unsolvable for the socialist assumptions (even for welfare states it's unsolveable), then I'm done already.
So since proving that socialism, or things like national health care cannot work, not now, and not ever, is done (and it's ancient history at that) in an economy where wealth is produced and consumed by the same entities (e.g. communism can work in a slavery-based society, or at least it can work better than it has in the last century, it doesn't exactly create a utopia, certainly not for the slaves). Historical "proof" is not proof in the pure sense, but given the ample supply of genocides caused by socialism, it seems relevant because just how wrong socialism goes in practice. What exactly would it take to convince you ?
That's of course the advantage of your beliefs : you do not believe in objective reality. You think like the muslims : you believe that the soviet massacres are a conspiracy against socialism, and by extention, against you personally. You don't believe that what math says has any validity in the real world, for thinking like that would make you that most evil of things : a capitalist. It would show you the sense of work, of creating, of having original ideas and to depend on them. That's positively scary. It's an easy way out to think like you do. The problem, however, is simple : it's destructive. For you personally, and for everyone touched by you.
And if you must think like that and destroy yourself, knock yourself out, it's a free country. But please keep it to yourself and don't push ideologies in America that killed so many millions of Europeans, Asians and Latino's just last century.
And after this process, the Objectivist always comes to confirm what Ayn Rand said. Funny how that happens!
And what is wrong with that ? Your argument is no more complex than that your political differences with Ayn Rand are justified because there is no reality. Therefore health care is free and unlimited, if we only ... hope strongly enough ? Or what exactly is your argument ?
That's the problem with socialists : any serious look at their arguments will yield a simple conclusion : it cannot work in theory, it did not work in practice, and several hundred million people are now corpses because people tried to make it work and failed.
Either all they care about is the extremely short term payout socialism provides or they deny obvious truths, like limitations on resources. Implying that somehow, these things do not apply if those evil "reality exists" bastards just put them in charge. To think that people like this actually have the nerve to criticize past generations for not being foresighted enough is beyond idiotic.
Also, you ignore the fact that with private healthcare, your employer gets to determine whether or not you have healthcare by controlling your employment status. Is the board of directors a "death panel" then?
Of course, since it's utterly impossible to buy health insurance yourself. </sarcasm>
No private health insurance does not have a death panel. Your are -in advance- informed of exactly what is covered and what is not, and you make the choice for yourself.
In other words, yes there is still the choice of whether to cover something or not in private health care. But it's the person's own decision. Picking a cheap healthcare system, or ill-researched one, is like smoking cigarettes : not good for you, but also entirely your own fault, and a respectable choice. You just have to live with the consequences of your own decisions.
Government health care by contrast, is forced on everyone. That specific fact is what makes it a death panel. The person does not decide for himself what he is insured against, and is forbidden from doing so. A death panel, instead, decides what he can survive and what not.
So of course, if national health care were adopted then this would be true. Which is exactly what I was claiming in the first place.
You know objective truth. It's a lot easier to argue against it than it is to deny it in actual real life policy. Funny that you actually admit that you're arguing against the existence of reality and that that denial is the basis of your pushing national health care. Most totalitarian collectivists ("liberals") would deny it with their last breath.
Objectivism is the view that there is a single, objective, unquestionable reality - with the implication that the Objectivist him or herself perceives this reality. If you hold such a view, those that disagree with you must seem like dangerous lunatics or liars. It isn't a philosophy that tolerates criticism, as its founder repeatedly demonstrated during her lifetime.
Is this a joke ? Objectivism is a cult ? No objectivist has a low tolerance for criticism. Such an attitude would prohibit the formation of the correct objective opinion in the first place. On the contrary an objectivist would take note of criticism and check if said facts are objectively true, attempting to use dispassionate argument, logic (preferably pure logic), and nothing else.
Of course the same cannot be said of the socialists fighting objectivism. Of course, without denying reality they'd have to answer the truth : that socialism has never failed to produce mass genocide, even in "moderate" quantities. That government-run health care necessitates government "death panels", who decide if life-saving treatment will be granted to a person or not. There is simply no other way to do it.
Objectivism is the denial of personal viewpoints, to the advantage of one absolute truth, totally and utterly independant of an individual viewpoint.
Now obviously the very basis of science is that objectivism is true, and that objective reality can be measured (also called empirism).
But you're simply a totalitarian semi-collectivist "liberal" with a bone to pick, aren't you ? Ayn Rand was more than willing to entertain, analyse and debate criticisms on any point. She was, however, not prepared to accept the criticism that reality didn't exist. She was gladly willing to even entertain the notion that all real-world measurements were flawed, however she was not prepared to accept that communism (sorry "socialism") was never correctly implemented, and therefore was correct despite all objective history making such a viewpoint laughable.
Of course, idiots denying objective reality and historical data to push communism can count Obama amongst them these days. Of course, unless they find a way to make God (/nature/reality/... whatever tickles your fancy) one of them, their policies will keep failing, and they will keep blaming others. The Jews, infidels, capitalists, ... all are guilty of the failures of communism, except of course ... communism itself.
An objectivist with a low tolerance for criticism is quite simple an idiot that's bound to be wrong. Such objectivists would count people like Osama Bin Laden, and the Taliban ("muslim students") amongst their members.
Like the articles about wikipedia's founder for example. Oh wait ... For a "self-avowed objectivist to the core" he sure has a low tolerance for criticism. (I refuse to link to his wikipedia page, if you want to see masturbation in action there are quite sufficient sites depicting that, and none of them should be linked)
Grammar nazi's, now with base64 ahem encryption support
gWVg+xEojKXMDhE2m4cdSEMYkx1KkL6oTIGqxVFksjxhY6h4aELohkJDrFX+P6ESb/Qmhpjw6ySB
mg6nGIbrWVlQpCSTSaePyU8hCACOiAUQQ7HsV6S5dS9JKiklzPzXpLl1L0kqKSXM/NxpWKAVvARQ
t4DSEpQHz7zVuolJ/gBYUEHwIUUoSymmUFCAIg1H1GFWRL5GEMIP0klImAAdywQgAg3RhAkgsLCC
QcNpCdksSV0tgMgg/6qTIdQIMVDJBEGCdyBAQJ0zbBIOyQ1JAYQGQRogyxsoDGEEIhAkgmJqGoKg
iKTNVL+mmhAQIa7IQkA4VKCUwBWVVAQ+NAgExIGovYL0oETDQKoIRMVQHyacMEh+ilDACHYWxQEJ
Your argument is flawed in that it assumes there are no preconditions for technological advance. And there are many indeed :
-> agriculture
-> developed economy
-> some education system
-> at least a partial meritocracy
-> a compatible ideology (mainly an ideology that's prepared to accept empirical data)
Various states have existed in the past, and only very few of them made any technological advance at all (e.g. the Jews failed to introduce any large technological advances in the (many) years Jewish tribes dominated Europe, eskimo's, indians, just about any tribal culture ...). Others, like China, had very short periods of extremely rapid technological advance, followed by thousand years of standstill development. Others only had any technology due to conquering, and had only "subjected" scientists, who were outside the mainstream, and whose works were hidden or destroyed (the muslims). Other civilizations had technological development that started allowing for population growth, then failed to deal with that population growth and destroyed themselves (Some southern african states). Others had technological development, which was cut short by an invader, and they never recovered from it (most northern african states).
Unfortunately there is exactly 1 culture that made (for now) lasting technological process, and that would be the (reformed) Christian civilization, which could, though it's a stretch, be said to be an extention of the Roman Empire, or the Roman Republic, which is in itself an extension of the ancient Greek city states, where most people agree representative government was first combined with capitalism.
Given the thousands of civilizations that failed to progress beyond mostly very basic science, how can you claim that it's impossible that we lose the edge we have ? If we only become a bit more like any of those failed civilizations, why exactly would we be spared the same failure they had ?
Especially the muslim case is interesting. They conquered vast swaths of territory, that had thousands of scientists in it, massive libraries and an economy that would not be dreamed possible for 1000 years after they destroyed it. 200 years after the muslim army won, there was barely any science left, and the economy was beyond repair, except in regions where non-muslims were still dominant (Alexandria, Anatolia). The muslims had a *massive* technological advance, acquired by force of arms (and force of numbers), which they lost due to repression of science (or at least that is the prevalent historians' view). They lost it so badly ... to illustrate, can you imagine that in 400 A.D. the center of world science was either Carthago or Alexandria. You should visit those places today and look what they lost.
No obviously we should spend the last days figuring out how to blame this on Bush. After all that's what the MSM will be doing.
If I was pushing those policies I would also refuse to talk about them if someone asked "hey what happened last time central government control was forced into everybody's lives ?". Because the only answers to that questions are beyond cruel.
What's obviously left to be explained is why you're pushing them anyway ? Because they get you a little bit of free money in the short term ?
Surely the party that's screaming how everybody "ignored the long term" would not do such a thing ? But then you must have a different argument. And arguments is something that has yet to be seen in your posts. Ad-hominems, and redirects to extremely biased sites lacking any credentials, yes, but actual argument, that's conspicuously missing.
But you're right obviously : by imposing an unpayable debt on everyone, you may get some very short term cash. Obviously due to money representing actual value, and actual value not increasing at all, you won't be able to spend it.
But hey if illusions is all you have - vote democrat.
I've read a few other articles on your site and I basically conclude it's another "justice before actual data" science. Their version of justice, of course.
Let's take the top article on the front page (http://socyberty.com/issues/affirmative-action-policy-vs-anti-affirmative-action/), it describes the lofty affirmative action policies. Obviously it falls in the trap that the whole left has fallen into : it claims anti-white racism is affirmative action. Such a position will obviously push racism, both by allowing many people to be racist supported by law and by breeding resentment in the group being discriminated against.
It heaps all sorts of praises on those policies, and yet it somehow misses the little detail that pro-centrally-controlled-society sites always miss : We've had these policies for a while, what effect have they had ? What are the numbers ?
Regardless even of whether the effect of affirmative action was positive or negative (which is another discussion), the results of the past implementations should be the first thing to guide future implementations.
Obviously, performance in the real world is not even mentioned in the article.
Why are so anti-real-world-data ? In my not so humble opinion for a simple reason : they don't care. They are merely interested in pushing "fair" rules on society (according to their standard obviously, and if I may say so not very well reasoned), and what effect these rules have ? They don't know, they're not interested, they don't even want to know, please nobody tell us. The only thing that matters to them is whether their rules are pushed on society. They may not explicitly say using force, but given the rules they intend to push it's clear massive violence will be required to kill the non-believers, and if their rules are even slightly unbalanced, much more violence to kill the ones who see the evidence of failure before them. They are massively anti-freedom. They are literally against freedom of thought.
Such a site cannot function as an authorative source, for obvious reasons : it has a thinly veiled ideological agenda, and a relatively extreme one at that.
And Keynes was for direct government control of markets. Direct interference through every available means, in all markets. Without limitation, without consideration of the expected effects. That does not make him a "moderate" capitalist, it makes him a moderate communist, also known as a fascist (can we please avoid references to that particular fascist, please ? Yes socialists used to be in favor of eugenics and he drove that a bit far (not that Stalin didn't drive it further, but hey, even Che didn't believe Stalin was a "rightwing hawk", and we've got to tell people all evil is from the right, right ? Even if it means massively "bending the truth" about fascism : that it's merely moderate socialism), anyway the socialist eugenics theory has little bearing on today's situation since now socialists believe (wrongly) the total opposite) Back to Keynes. He advocated direct government control of markets, but without totally destroying the market forces ("totally" being a necessary qualifier). And he does indeed show all other marks of fascism : he is in favor of a welfare state. He is in favor of huge public firms supported by tax funds. And yes, before the consequences of his politics became clear, he was indeed in favor of Nazi Germany.
He is a moderate communist (they like to be called socialists, and to be frank, they are correct for any reasonable definition of socialist). He is a fascist.
And this is a much more reliable paper analysing the political position of John Maynard Keynes. Written by 2 actual economists. John Maynard Keynes, Socialism And Economic Policy Of Nazi Germany.
Can we please stop with the alien brainwashing accusations ?
OTOH, remarks like that fully and clearly illustrate the ideas your point is based on.
It's been shown what Keynesian economics (also known as socialism) does : it prevents recovery from crises (which happen even under 100% communist systems).
Not that anyone with half a brain can seriously expect actual research to generate rational thought in you, but I'm fairly sure we'll see more brainwashing accusations. Perhaps you could call me Bush, or ...
The other fallacy is that governent spending / control HAS to be bad. I agree that in most situations it turns out that way (largely because of the fundamental disconnect between the interests of voters and the interests of those that represent them), but it's not inherent.
So wait ... there is a fundamental disconnect between the motivations of the voters and the motivations of the elected.
And yet they will not act against eachother's intrest ??????
Care to explain a bit further. Why would 2 groups with fundamentally different motivations always act in eachother's intrest. Because you don't have to prove "sometimes", even wolf and sheep sometimes act in one another's best intrest.
But there is a more fundamental problem. Suppose we are a perfect democracy. Perfect. Every elected is 100% selfless, 0% corrupt and honestly devotes his entire life to the betterment of the electorate. Then there is still one thing that has a rather decisive vote involved : reality. People aren't realistic.
You claim "I simply can't afford what's in my best intrest". That may be true, but that means it would not be in the best intrest of society to give that specific (obviously scarce) thing to you. You see reality is limited , in everything. Literally, in e-ver-y-th-ing. What prices and money do is modifying your behavior in such a way the whole of society stays within the limits of reality. There is no such limit on the wishes of the electorate, or on the wishes of the elected officials.
Worse : even if that electorate or those elected officials wanted to stay within the limits of society, it would be extremely hard for them to do so (just ask Lenin, who made a very honest attempt at doing so, with scores of very smart people attempting to do what prices do).
The real problem is, of course, when those wishes exceed what reality has to offer. Then the government serves you pine needle tea (very nutricious, cures cancer you know, or so socialists claim), yet somehow scores of people keep dying from malnutrition.
What you don't understand is that for all it's flaws, there is no alternative to capitalism. Stores run empty in Venezuela, a mere 2 years after socialism was given a try. That's government spending at work. And North Korea, well ... we all know about North Korea. There is still capitalism in Venezuela and North Korea, it's just applied to the country as a whole instead of to individuals, who have *zero* options of bettering their situation.