That's a completely different type of society with different issues. No fair comparison can be made.
I can give many more similar examples in many different societies. At a certain point it is worth asking whether the claim is false for more societies than it is true.
At the same point we should be asking whether it's possible for there to be a system which encourages compassion. Not having an evidence of such systems does not prove they are not possible. If that were the case then nothing new could be invented.
You have care of a young child who is starving. The child is so weak they can barely whimper about their hunger because they've had so little food. You have almost no food. You can steal food from a rich merchant with food. The rich person won't miss it but the child will die without it. Do you do so? If not, why not? If yes, how is this not an unethical use of aggression?
Yes, of course I would steal in that situation. But in this hypothetical we have moved squarely into anarchy. And yes, it is a form of agression. Ethics go out the window with anarchy. In a compassionate society this kind or anarchy would not be necessary. A system of governance cannot be compassionate when it is built on the threat of agression.
Famines and wealth inequality exist in many societies and often are a function of other features not the system of government. And that often occurs in contexts where one looking at the society would not generally call it a state of anarchy. The point is that you are willing to engage in "aggression" to solve more deep moral and ethical concerns. Saying that ethics has gone "out the window" is really avoiding the real issue- morality and ethics are still there, but you are placing a moral or ethical goal, not letting a child starve, as a higher priority than the ethic of liberty. And that's not unreasonable: humans balance competing ethical concerns all the time and sometimes need to give one a priority in one circumstance and another priority in a different circumstance.
There is a difference in taking extreme measures to feed your own child, than to force someone else to feed someone else's child.
So the question becomes both where to draw the line and how to decide given a certain priority set what will work best. Simply claiming that charity and compassion will get better in a libertarian society is an empirical claim about reality, and similar remarks apply to whether a libertarian government work would be more effective. The question at that point should be empirical and derived from looking at reality and history, not from what we ideologically would fine most convenient.
It wasn't long ago that near instantaneous communication around the globe was not possible. Because there was no historical evidence of such a technology does that imply that it cannot be possible? That it's not worth investigating whether such a thing could be invented?
When determining how effective something is you need a yardstick to determine effectiveness. Freedom is in itself a goal - any system that removes that freedom to achieve other goals is not as effective as one that protects freedom. If you ignore freedom when determining effectiveness you'll no doubt end up with a system that undermines freedom. And here we are today with such a system.
Allowing the state to use agression against its citizens to achieve certain goals (such as feeding children) is a very slippery slope. The next thing you know they'll be regulating industries, invading other countries, limiting association, criminalizing substances, preventing certains forms of marriage. In saying "I want the state to use agression against other people so no child starves" the politicians hear "I give the state the permission to use agression against all of us to do whatever we please". And that's where we are at today. There's a huge difference morally between wanting children to be fed than wanting to send people into space. The government (most governments) don't see a distinction - and that is an issue for all of us.
Damn, that's just asking for trouble. There's no way I would let anyone take my credit or debit card out of my sight. The majority of times I do the actual inserting of the card into the machine before entering my pin - the retailer never get their hands on it.
Sheesh, if you want credit card numbers, just get a job at any restaurant as a waiter.
I don't understand this comment - I have never been to a restaurant where my credit card (or debit card) leaves my possession. And I always pay by either one of them. You actually give someone else your credit card and they then leave your sight with it?
Private donations in a socialist system is always going to be less than in a freer system because of the apathy that socialism breeds.
That's not completely obvious but is a plausible claim....[snip]... I can give similar examples such asthe transition from private to public fire departments in the United States in the 19th century.
That's a completely different type of society with different issues. No fair comparison can be made. If workers have their money forcibly taken off them so that a part of it can be given to people in need, then those workers are less likely to voluntarily hand their money for the same cause.
What you're really asking is whether I would be happy in confiscating peoples' private wealth using a threat of force. No, I would not be happy with that.
Happy is a distinct question from what one would do or thinks people would do. Presumably you wouldn't be happy being killed by a giant asteroid either, or watching children die slowly of cancer. The universe is cold and unforgiving. It doesn't care what makes us happy. So sometimes when we have different values, we need to decide which values we are going to emphasize. You say that solutions using "aggression" are unethical. But sometimes there's no really easy ethical solution, because reality just sucks.
There are ethical solutions, but they involve volunary action and compassion. What is needed is a system which encourages such compassion. In my opinion that means that first and foremost people must be free from aggression.
Humans are complicated creatures with a lot of different values they care about. It is easy to look at a single human value and point to it and emphasize that value above all else. Some emphasize liberty, others survival, others equality, others compassion. But it is a mistake to think that when focusing on any single one one can handle all the others.
They are unrelated things. Liberty is not a cure-all for all issues and it doesn't pretend to be. It's foundation upon which ethical and enlightened societies can be formed.
I have one more hypothetical that I want to ask you, and this one isn't that far from ones that have happened historically. You have care of a young child who is starving. The child is so weak they can barely whimper about their hunger because they've had so little food. You have almost no food. You can steal food from a rich merchant with food. The rich person won't miss it but the child will die without it. Do you do so? If not, why not? If yes, how is this not an unethical use of aggression?
Yes, of course I would steal in that situation. But in this hypothetical we have moved squarely into anarchy. And yes, it is a form of agression. Ethics go out the window with anarchy. In a compassionate society this kind or anarchy would not be necessary. A system of governance cannot be compassionate when it is built on the threat of agression.
So, you raise some valid points. What evidence is there that the cancer research results would not have happened without largescale government funding? Well, we know how much funding there was before hand and so we can see that voluntary donations ended up being much less. The Jimmy Fund for example was one of the first major fundraisers for childhood cancer research. Despite that, they and other similar institutions raised comparatively little money in their first 20 years or so (when there was essentially zero federal funding for cancer research) compared to the amount supplied by the federal government once it became a national priority. This is discussed in some detail in "The Emperor of All Maladies" which is an excellent book about the history of cancer, So we do actually have some idea where funding levels compare.
Private donations in a socialist system is always going to be less than in a freer system because of the apathy that socialism breeds. People abdicate their personal and community responsibilities because a) they think the state is there to look after that stuff so they don't need to and b) because the state actively discourages charity by diluting the resources with which we can be charitable. You're looking at this from within the bounds of the current system - it's akin to begging the question.
Not only because it's not ethical to harm people in order to help them, but because the same ends can be achieved by means that don't see our freedoms trampled on.
I think community and bulk funding of various things is essential. I just don't think that funding should be enforced via agression. I think it should be through wholly voluntary means
In general, one should be suspicious when an ideological belief and reality correspond perfectly. In this case, there's an ideological belief (voluntary payments good, involuntary bad) and an assertion about reality (voluntary payments will be sufficient and work as well). The vast majority of the time, reality is pretty messy. It isn't going to correspond well to any simple ideology. In this particular context, I'm curious how you would respond to a hypothetical similar to the asteroid, but where you have detailed economic data and the like showing that you simply aren't going to raise enough funds through voluntary donations. Would you still be in favor of just using voluntary donations?
What you're really asking is whether I would be happy in confiscating peoples' private wealth using a threat of force. No, I would not be happy with that.
If people don't want to fund asteroid avoidance research then those people don't want to prevent asteroids from hitting them. If people are very passionate about this then they will go out and ensure they are protected.
What if you have an extremely reliable oracle telling you? Still. If your answer to both is no, then it should strike you as convenient that you think reality happens to never create similar situations. If your answer in either case is yes, where and how do you draw the line?
Any "solution" to a problem that involves using aggression against people is an unethical solution. Sure some people are selfish and some people are greedy. I suggest that the current socialist systems make people this way. The current system discourages compassion. It encourages compulsion over voluntary action. The reason more people are not charitable and socially responsible is because of the current political system they live in. We are taught to be this way. The cynical would say it's a con to keep people in power. One of the quickest ways of ensuring you have power is to legalise taking peoples' money off them.
I am very conscious of what apps my children use and I vet them all.
So, let me get this straight. If your daughter wanted to play some game, you would buy it, download it, and play it a few dozen times before letting her even come near it?
If I have no prior knowledge of the game, yes (though maybe not a few dozen times).
Or would you probably just check out the description and screen shots in the App Store and figure, "Yeah, looks okay."
The point is that the description didn't say anything about In-App purchases.
If an app has-in app purchases this is mentioned in the app store along with the app description.
The price of the game was marked as "Free." It's a reasonable assumption that he's not going to have pay anything more for the game.
I don't think that's a reasonable assumption. A lot of apps have no cover charge and yet you can buy things inside the app.
Don't get me wrong--the whole "Class Action Lawsuit" thing is pure BS. And I believe Apple has made changes to solve this "problem." I believe Apple may have reimbursed him for his charges. So why bother with the lawsuit other than to get money?
He describes games that are free to play but require purchases of virtual goods to progress as 'bait apps' and says they should not be aimed at children."
I agree completely. However, I think it's a parent's responsibility to ensure apps their children use are suitable. If this parent did not do this then that's their fault. I am very conscious of what apps my children use and I vet them all.
Apple is not responsible for what your children do - you are.
So there are a variety of problems with this. First, what do you mean by harm?
Harm is agression against someone's person or their property. An individual is soveriegn over their own mind, body and possessions.
Second, while it does depend what yardstick you measure success, I suspect that if one looks at history, you will consider a lot of things we have today to be signs of success that came due to government funding.
Sure - though it's not a logical conclusion that only compulsion based government funding could have achieved this result. Many technological advances have come from war. Does that mean that war is good? Desirable? Of course it doesn't.
For example, most of the funding for cancer research in the last seventy years has been from the government.... So, do you think fewer children dying of cancer is a decent way to measure success?
Again you are making the assumption that because these advances were funded by the state then it could *only* have been funded by the state. That's not a logical conclusion to draw.
And it bears note that cancer is not the only example of this. One can go back centuries and point to research and exploration done by governments, where no one else had the resources to do so.
This is in part due to the state reducing the resources individuals have available to them. It's also a result of the old adage that socialism breeds wide scale apathy to things like communal funding. "Why should I donate to causes that the state is supposed to be looking after". This can be seen in other areas too such as welfare: so long as the state provides someone with a pension at retirement we see generations of people not adequately saving for their retirement when they should be.
Another relevant measure of success might be the survival of humanity as a whole. Thus for example, existential threats to humanity like large near Earth asteroids are an obvious threat. Are you ok with taxes that go to fund defense against such threats?
No I am not. Not only because it's not ethical to harm people in order to help them, but because the same ends can be achieved by means that don't see our freedoms trampled on.
I think community and bulk funding of various things is essential. I just don't think that funding should be enforced via agression. I think it should be through wholly voluntary means.
And the fact that basic economics/game theory shows that that won't in general be enough?
Enough for what? It depends by what yardstick you measure success. I say that any system which allows (and encourages) the state to actively harm us is a fundamentally flawed system.
If one took your conclusion to its logical standpoint no form of government would be acceptable at all. That's not even libertarianism. That's anarchy.
I don't advocate anarcy. Some form of government is necessary. The government exists to protect us from the initiation of force. If in doing that they end up harming us, then we have already lost. There are other ways of funding governments than enforced property confiscation. It's in our best interests for the system that protects us to be well funded. Funding would come from voluntary means such as donations, service fees and lotteries.
In order to effectively and reliably fund things, one needs regular sources of funding. And simply going to people and asking for a fraction of a cent is not an efficient or reliable way of getting money.
Liberty trumps efficiency every time. Effectively enslaving people in the name of efficiency or a "public good" is not ethical. It's removing the veyr liberties the state is supposed to be protecting. It's self defeating to say that in order to protect us the state must first harm us.
Moreover, scientific research,like defense, is a public good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good which means that everyone benefits whether they pay for it or not. Thus, people will have no incentive given the option not to pay for it since they will benefit either way. The only effective or fair way to pay for public goods is for everyone to pay.
By force, whether they can afford it or not? Is it fair that some are forced to pay for it disproportionately to someone else? When it comes to the state confiscating private property the end never justifies the means.
You can say just about the same thing about all other government services. You want medical care, school systems, highway infrastructure, social security?? Then why don't you get out your own checkbook and pay for it yourself, and give me back the taxes I paid for the services you use.
I like the way you're thinking. The sooner people decide where to spend their own money the better. The enlightened way to look after the needy is via compassion, and compassion cannot be forced - it is a voluntary action.
If you're going to call someone ignorant, at least try and spell "you're" properly.
NASA routinely runs less than a penny per federal dollar. It makes no sense to try to balance the budget with cuts to NASA. From Wikipedia: NASA's FY 2011 budget of $18.4 billion represents about 0.5% of the $3.4 trillion United States federal budget during the year, or about 35% of total spending on academic scientific research in the United States.
That's $18.4 billion dollars that needn't be taken from taxpayers. The fact that it's such a small fraction of the total federal budget is a tragedy for all who value liberty.
The only place those trilliions should go is back to the hard working people they were taken from. If individuals want a space program, then they can get out their check books and voluntarily pay for one.
Indeed. Caps in New Zealand are typically in the 15Gb to 45Gb range, unless you want to start throwing aroung some big dollars. The price per additional Gb tends to be around NZ$1 (probably about 80 cents US). Speed (for me at least) is about 15Mb/s down, 1.5Mb/s up.
The 3G iPad plan from a major network provider here is 250Mb for $20, which I consider to be an absolute rip off. Still, worth paying if you need it.
The biggest problem with democracy is that it promises far more than any practical solution will ever deliver. There is no perfect system.
The biggest problem with democracy is that it is used as an excuse for the state to actively harm people. There are many ways democracy enables the state remove or dilute our primary liberties. No system (democratic or otherwise) should allow this to happen.
This tether will be 85% of the circumference of the Earth. If is snaps (or the counterweight lets go) then it'll leave a path of destruction in a thin line around the planet. It makes sense to build this on the equator, and if it snaps back to Earth it will draw a line across the equator, smashing through a chunk of nothern South America and central Africa. They better make sure this thing is well secured and protected from religious nut cases.
Hmm, this is a slightly strange thread. Several of the key comments are AC.
Trying to be clear - we're talking about why we can't go to Mars, because it's "too expensive", right?
NASA should advertise for people to make donations so they can fund research like this. If not enough if donated, then such research should not be done. It most definitely should not be funded via taxation - if people don't fund it voluntarily through donations then they are saying "we don't want this" and if they don't want it then why should the state force them to pay for it?
Space exploration is all well and good, but it should not be funded for via compulsory wealth confiscation (i.e. taxation). Fund it through entirely voluntary means and you'll have my support and that of a lot of other people who value liberty. It's a sad reflection on our society that the only way to advance ourselves in endeavours like space travel is to have the state compel us to fund it using threats of force.
Pandora's Star and the books that follow (including the "Void" books) are in my opinion the most enjoyable Sci-Fi books I have read. That title used to be held by the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card.
Which is the point of a constitution. It needs to be founded on a basic set of ethics. That of self ownership - I am the owner of me. No one should be able to initiate harm against me and I must not initiate harm against anyone else. In my opinion the very purpose of the state it to ensure people abide by those rules. The problem is that the state actively harms people, and it allows people to vote on what form the harm takes and whether people should be harmed any more.
The state should be protecting us, not harming us.
As if nobody disagrees with that. "The state should be protecting us, not harming us" "What? No!" Do you (not meant personally) think that the problem with all prior governments is that they never thought of that?
We (New Zealand) have elections in a couple of weeks, and not one single political party is campaigning on principles based on protecting people without harming them. Their policies are about what additional regulations to introduce, how much more or less tax to tax from people, how money raised through property confiscation (i.e. taxation) should be spent.
So whether or not previous governments started out with the intention of protecting people is a moot point. What matter is what governments seek to do *today*. This is why I believe we need to start again with a constitution that specifically limits what the state can do.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a completely different type of society with different issues. No fair comparison can be made.
I can give many more similar examples in many different societies. At a certain point it is worth asking whether the claim is false for more societies than it is true.
At the same point we should be asking whether it's possible for there to be a system which encourages compassion. Not having an evidence of such systems does not prove they are not possible. If that were the case then nothing new could be invented.
You have care of a young child who is starving. The child is so weak they can barely whimper about their hunger because they've had so little food. You have almost no food. You can steal food from a rich merchant with food. The rich person won't miss it but the child will die without it. Do you do so? If not, why not? If yes, how is this not an unethical use of aggression?
Yes, of course I would steal in that situation. But in this hypothetical we have moved squarely into anarchy. And yes, it is a form of agression. Ethics go out the window with anarchy. In a compassionate society this kind or anarchy would not be necessary. A system of governance cannot be compassionate when it is built on the threat of agression.
Famines and wealth inequality exist in many societies and often are a function of other features not the system of government. And that often occurs in contexts where one looking at the society would not generally call it a state of anarchy. The point is that you are willing to engage in "aggression" to solve more deep moral and ethical concerns. Saying that ethics has gone "out the window" is really avoiding the real issue- morality and ethics are still there, but you are placing a moral or ethical goal, not letting a child starve, as a higher priority than the ethic of liberty. And that's not unreasonable: humans balance competing ethical concerns all the time and sometimes need to give one a priority in one circumstance and another priority in a different circumstance.
There is a difference in taking extreme measures to feed your own child, than to force someone else to feed someone else's child.
So the question becomes both where to draw the line and how to decide given a certain priority set what will work best. Simply claiming that charity and compassion will get better in a libertarian society is an empirical claim about reality, and similar remarks apply to whether a libertarian government work would be more effective. The question at that point should be empirical and derived from looking at reality and history, not from what we ideologically would fine most convenient.
It wasn't long ago that near instantaneous communication around the globe was not possible. Because there was no historical evidence of such a technology does that imply that it cannot be possible? That it's not worth investigating whether such a thing could be invented?
When determining how effective something is you need a yardstick to determine effectiveness. Freedom is in itself a goal - any system that removes that freedom to achieve other goals is not as effective as one that protects freedom. If you ignore freedom when determining effectiveness you'll no doubt end up with a system that undermines freedom. And here we are today with such a system.
Allowing the state to use agression against its citizens to achieve certain goals (such as feeding children) is a very slippery slope. The next thing you know they'll be regulating industries, invading other countries, limiting association, criminalizing substances, preventing certains forms of marriage. In saying "I want the state to use agression against other people so no child starves" the politicians hear "I give the state the permission to use agression against all of us to do whatever we please". And that's where we are at today. There's a huge difference morally between wanting children to be fed than wanting to send people into space. The government (most governments) don't see a distinction - and that is an issue for all of us.
In the USA, yes. That's what normally happens.
Damn, that's just asking for trouble. There's no way I would let anyone take my credit or debit card out of my sight. The majority of times I do the actual inserting of the card into the machine before entering my pin - the retailer never get their hands on it.
Sheesh, if you want credit card numbers, just get a job at any restaurant as a waiter.
I don't understand this comment - I have never been to a restaurant where my credit card (or debit card) leaves my possession. And I always pay by either one of them. You actually give someone else your credit card and they then leave your sight with it?
Private donations in a socialist system is always going to be less than in a freer system because of the apathy that socialism breeds.
That's not completely obvious but is a plausible claim. ...[snip]... I can give similar examples such asthe transition from private to public fire departments in the United States in the 19th century.
That's a completely different type of society with different issues. No fair comparison can be made. If workers have their money forcibly taken off them so that a part of it can be given to people in need, then those workers are less likely to voluntarily hand their money for the same cause.
What you're really asking is whether I would be happy in confiscating peoples' private wealth using a threat of force. No, I would not be happy with that.
Happy is a distinct question from what one would do or thinks people would do. Presumably you wouldn't be happy being killed by a giant asteroid either, or watching children die slowly of cancer. The universe is cold and unforgiving. It doesn't care what makes us happy. So sometimes when we have different values, we need to decide which values we are going to emphasize. You say that solutions using "aggression" are unethical. But sometimes there's no really easy ethical solution, because reality just sucks.
There are ethical solutions, but they involve volunary action and compassion. What is needed is a system which encourages such compassion. In my opinion that means that first and foremost people must be free from aggression.
Humans are complicated creatures with a lot of different values they care about. It is easy to look at a single human value and point to it and emphasize that value above all else. Some emphasize liberty, others survival, others equality, others compassion. But it is a mistake to think that when focusing on any single one one can handle all the others.
They are unrelated things. Liberty is not a cure-all for all issues and it doesn't pretend to be. It's foundation upon which ethical and enlightened societies can be formed.
I have one more hypothetical that I want to ask you, and this one isn't that far from ones that have happened historically. You have care of a young child who is starving. The child is so weak they can barely whimper about their hunger because they've had so little food. You have almost no food. You can steal food from a rich merchant with food. The rich person won't miss it but the child will die without it. Do you do so? If not, why not? If yes, how is this not an unethical use of aggression?
Yes, of course I would steal in that situation. But in this hypothetical we have moved squarely into anarchy. And yes, it is a form of agression. Ethics go out the window with anarchy. In a compassionate society this kind or anarchy would not be necessary. A system of governance cannot be compassionate when it is built on the threat of agression.
So, you raise some valid points. What evidence is there that the cancer research results would not have happened without largescale government funding? Well, we know how much funding there was before hand and so we can see that voluntary donations ended up being much less. The Jimmy Fund for example was one of the first major fundraisers for childhood cancer research. Despite that, they and other similar institutions raised comparatively little money in their first 20 years or so (when there was essentially zero federal funding for cancer research) compared to the amount supplied by the federal government once it became a national priority. This is discussed in some detail in "The Emperor of All Maladies" which is an excellent book about the history of cancer, So we do actually have some idea where funding levels compare.
Private donations in a socialist system is always going to be less than in a freer system because of the apathy that socialism breeds. People abdicate their personal and community responsibilities because a) they think the state is there to look after that stuff so they don't need to and b) because the state actively discourages charity by diluting the resources with which we can be charitable. You're looking at this from within the bounds of the current system - it's akin to begging the question.
Not only because it's not ethical to harm people in order to help them, but because the same ends can be achieved by means that don't see our freedoms trampled on.
I think community and bulk funding of various things is essential. I just don't think that funding should be enforced via agression. I think it should be through wholly voluntary means
In general, one should be suspicious when an ideological belief and reality correspond perfectly. In this case, there's an ideological belief (voluntary payments good, involuntary bad) and an assertion about reality (voluntary payments will be sufficient and work as well). The vast majority of the time, reality is pretty messy. It isn't going to correspond well to any simple ideology. In this particular context, I'm curious how you would respond to a hypothetical similar to the asteroid, but where you have detailed economic data and the like showing that you simply aren't going to raise enough funds through voluntary donations. Would you still be in favor of just using voluntary donations?
What you're really asking is whether I would be happy in confiscating peoples' private wealth using a threat of force. No, I would not be happy with that.
If people don't want to fund asteroid avoidance research then those people don't want to prevent asteroids from hitting them. If people are very passionate about this then they will go out and ensure they are protected.
What if you have an extremely reliable oracle telling you? Still. If your answer to both is no, then it should strike you as convenient that you think reality happens to never create similar situations. If your answer in either case is yes, where and how do you draw the line?
Any "solution" to a problem that involves using aggression against people is an unethical solution. Sure some people are selfish and some people are greedy. I suggest that the current socialist systems make people this way. The current system discourages compassion. It encourages compulsion over voluntary action. The reason more people are not charitable and socially responsible is because of the current political system they live in. We are taught to be this way. The cynical would say it's a con to keep people in power. One of the quickest ways of ensuring you have power is to legalise taking peoples' money off them.
I am very conscious of what apps my children use and I vet them all.
So, let me get this straight. If your daughter wanted to play some game, you would buy it, download it, and play it a few dozen times before letting her even come near it?
If I have no prior knowledge of the game, yes (though maybe not a few dozen times).
Or would you probably just check out the description and screen shots in the App Store and figure, "Yeah, looks okay."
The point is that the description didn't say anything about In-App purchases.
If an app has-in app purchases this is mentioned in the app store along with the app description.
The price of the game was marked as "Free." It's a reasonable assumption that he's not going to have pay anything more for the game.
I don't think that's a reasonable assumption. A lot of apps have no cover charge and yet you can buy things inside the app.
Don't get me wrong--the whole "Class Action Lawsuit" thing is pure BS. And I believe Apple has made changes to solve this "problem." I believe Apple may have reimbursed him for his charges. So why bother with the lawsuit other than to get money?
If you don't like what happens inside a walled garden, don't enter it in the first place. Last time I looked no one is forcing you to.
How can a responsible parent not be aware of what their children does on an internet connected device?
He describes games that are free to play but require purchases of virtual goods to progress as 'bait apps' and says they should not be aimed at children."
I agree completely. However, I think it's a parent's responsibility to ensure apps their children use are suitable. If this parent did not do this then that's their fault. I am very conscious of what apps my children use and I vet them all.
Apple is not responsible for what your children do - you are.
So there are a variety of problems with this. First, what do you mean by harm?
Harm is agression against someone's person or their property. An individual is soveriegn over their own mind, body and possessions.
Second, while it does depend what yardstick you measure success, I suspect that if one looks at history, you will consider a lot of things we have today to be signs of success that came due to government funding.
Sure - though it's not a logical conclusion that only compulsion based government funding could have achieved this result. Many technological advances have come from war. Does that mean that war is good? Desirable? Of course it doesn't.
For example, most of the funding for cancer research in the last seventy years has been from the government.... So, do you think fewer children dying of cancer is a decent way to measure success?
Again you are making the assumption that because these advances were funded by the state then it could *only* have been funded by the state. That's not a logical conclusion to draw.
And it bears note that cancer is not the only example of this. One can go back centuries and point to research and exploration done by governments, where no one else had the resources to do so.
This is in part due to the state reducing the resources individuals have available to them. It's also a result of the old adage that socialism breeds wide scale apathy to things like communal funding. "Why should I donate to causes that the state is supposed to be looking after". This can be seen in other areas too such as welfare: so long as the state provides someone with a pension at retirement we see generations of people not adequately saving for their retirement when they should be.
Another relevant measure of success might be the survival of humanity as a whole. Thus for example, existential threats to humanity like large near Earth asteroids are an obvious threat. Are you ok with taxes that go to fund defense against such threats?
No I am not. Not only because it's not ethical to harm people in order to help them, but because the same ends can be achieved by means that don't see our freedoms trampled on.
I think community and bulk funding of various things is essential. I just don't think that funding should be enforced via agression. I think it should be through wholly voluntary means.
And the fact that basic economics/game theory shows that that won't in general be enough?
Enough for what? It depends by what yardstick you measure success. I say that any system which allows (and encourages) the state to actively harm us is a fundamentally flawed system.
If one took your conclusion to its logical standpoint no form of government would be acceptable at all. That's not even libertarianism. That's anarchy.
I don't advocate anarcy. Some form of government is necessary. The government exists to protect us from the initiation of force. If in doing that they end up harming us, then we have already lost. There are other ways of funding governments than enforced property confiscation. It's in our best interests for the system that protects us to be well funded. Funding would come from voluntary means such as donations, service fees and lotteries.
In order to effectively and reliably fund things, one needs regular sources of funding. And simply going to people and asking for a fraction of a cent is not an efficient or reliable way of getting money.
Liberty trumps efficiency every time. Effectively enslaving people in the name of efficiency or a "public good" is not ethical. It's removing the veyr liberties the state is supposed to be protecting. It's self defeating to say that in order to protect us the state must first harm us.
Moreover, scientific research,like defense, is a public good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good which means that everyone benefits whether they pay for it or not. Thus, people will have no incentive given the option not to pay for it since they will benefit either way. The only effective or fair way to pay for public goods is for everyone to pay.
By force, whether they can afford it or not? Is it fair that some are forced to pay for it disproportionately to someone else? When it comes to the state confiscating private property the end never justifies the means.
You can say just about the same thing about all other government services. You want medical care, school systems, highway infrastructure, social security?? Then why don't you get out your own checkbook and pay for it yourself, and give me back the taxes I paid for the services you use.
I like the way you're thinking. The sooner people decide where to spend their own money the better. The enlightened way to look after the needy is via compassion, and compassion cannot be forced - it is a voluntary action.
Boy, your just showing your ignorance there.
If you're going to call someone ignorant, at least try and spell "you're" properly.
NASA routinely runs less than a penny per federal dollar.
It makes no sense to try to balance the budget with cuts to NASA.
From Wikipedia:
NASA's FY 2011 budget of $18.4 billion represents about 0.5% of the $3.4 trillion United States federal budget during the year, or about 35% of total spending on academic scientific research in the United States.
That's $18.4 billion dollars that needn't be taken from taxpayers. The fact that it's such a small fraction of the total federal budget is a tragedy for all who value liberty.
The only place those trilliions should go is back to the hard working people they were taken from. If individuals want a space program, then they can get out their check books and voluntarily pay for one.
Indeed. Caps in New Zealand are typically in the 15Gb to 45Gb range, unless you want to start throwing aroung some big dollars. The price per additional Gb tends to be around NZ$1 (probably about 80 cents US). Speed (for me at least) is about 15Mb/s down, 1.5Mb/s up.
The 3G iPad plan from a major network provider here is 250Mb for $20, which I consider to be an absolute rip off. Still, worth paying if you need it.
My son cracked his iPod touch by leaving it in his pockets which ended up in the washing machine. Ouch. Not a happy chappy.
The biggest problem with democracy is that it promises far more than any practical solution will ever deliver. There is no perfect system.
The biggest problem with democracy is that it is used as an excuse for the state to actively harm people. There are many ways democracy enables the state remove or dilute our primary liberties. No system (democratic or otherwise) should allow this to happen.
What afterlife?
Whilst geosynchronous orbit is achieved at about 36,000 Kms, the atmosphere ends at roughly 120kms.
This tether will be 85% of the circumference of the Earth. If is snaps (or the counterweight lets go) then it'll leave a path of destruction in a thin line around the planet. It makes sense to build this on the equator, and if it snaps back to Earth it will draw a line across the equator, smashing through a chunk of nothern South America and central Africa. They better make sure this thing is well secured and protected from religious nut cases.
Hmm, this is a slightly strange thread. Several of the key comments are AC.
Trying to be clear - we're talking about why we can't go to Mars, because it's "too expensive", right?
NASA should advertise for people to make donations so they can fund research like this. If not enough if donated, then such research should not be done. It most definitely should not be funded via taxation - if people don't fund it voluntarily through donations then they are saying "we don't want this" and if they don't want it then why should the state force them to pay for it?
Space exploration is all well and good, but it should not be funded for via compulsory wealth confiscation (i.e. taxation). Fund it through entirely voluntary means and you'll have my support and that of a lot of other people who value liberty. It's a sad reflection on our society that the only way to advance ourselves in endeavours like space travel is to have the state compel us to fund it using threats of force.
Pandora's Star and the books that follow (including the "Void" books) are in my opinion the most enjoyable Sci-Fi books I have read. That title used to be held by the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card.
Which is the point of a constitution. It needs to be founded on a basic set of ethics. That of self ownership - I am the owner of me. No one should be able to initiate harm against me and I must not initiate harm against anyone else. In my opinion the very purpose of the state it to ensure people abide by those rules.
The problem is that the state actively harms people, and it allows people to vote on what form the harm takes and whether people should be harmed any more.
The state should be protecting us, not harming us.
As if nobody disagrees with that.
"The state should be protecting us, not harming us"
"What? No!"
Do you (not meant personally) think that the problem with all prior governments is that they never thought of that?
We (New Zealand) have elections in a couple of weeks, and not one single political party is campaigning on principles based on protecting people without harming them. Their policies are about what additional regulations to introduce, how much more or less tax to tax from people, how money raised through property confiscation (i.e. taxation) should be spent.
So whether or not previous governments started out with the intention of protecting people is a moot point. What matter is what governments seek to do *today*. This is why I believe we need to start again with a constitution that specifically limits what the state can do.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the operating systems the infected computers were running.