Whether Canada's lower rate of gun deaths is due to Canada's greater restrictions on handgun is an interesting question but I don't know if it is particularly relevant to the poster's question. The poster asked what was the best way to defend his mother (though admittedly he did say let's not try to hurt anybody) and his home from danger. On the assumption that he lives in the United States, with many criminals being armed as well as law-abiding citizens, with human nature being that a smart person is going to do the things with least cost in order to accomplish your objective-the argument is the poster should learn to use a weapon and make it clear that the home is armed in order to deter any crime-or prevent it from happening if his house is breaking into. If he were to live in Canada and perhaps the risk of getting caught for owning a hand gun was excessive and of course it's not a good idea to break the law and assuming criminals don't arm themselves (I don't know if this is true) a different option would be in order. If the US were able to lower the rate of gun ownership to Canada's tommorow maybe the answer would be different. But the poster asked how to defend his family and not how we could decrease the amount of crime- so though the posting is interesting I don't know if it is a response to previous posters debunking the idea that gun ownership would harm his family.
Actually, that's not really true. Just because there is not so much public clamor for the protection of species we don't see doesn't mean that "Environmentalism" is some type of beauty contest. In fact there is a branch of Environmentalist philosophy called deep ecology which professes the inherent worth of all of nature. So the little insect no one cares about is worth just as much as the human being. I don't subscribe to that philosophy but it's an example. Note: Deep ecology is much more complex than I've just described. Like I don't think a deep ecologist wouldn't walk across a field of grass because the ecologist might step on a bug or something. I think there something humans have a right to reduce the richness of nature for vital needs.
If Israeli programmers end up helping Iranians get Farsi support it won't be the first time Israel and Iran have helped each other. Prior to the 1979 revolution, the Shah and Israel were close allies. Though Israel didn't have an embassy in Iran, they were defacto recognized and the I think it was called "diplomatic" mission in Iran was treated like an embassy. In fact I recall reading that the Shah said that neither Israel nor Iran would want to be alone in a "sea of arabs"
It has been estimated according to the Mammal Society that in Britain cats kill 55 million birds annually. Let's just say that wind power just doesn't have the efficiency of a feline. In the US cars kill 57 million birds every year and more than 97.5 million birds die colliding with plate glass. To be fair now, the 20,000 bird statistic for wind power is just for one windfarm, albeit the biggest and all of the above statistics are for entire nations. Also in the case of domestic cats in Britain I am sure that the cats aren't killing eagles though who knows....
The main problem the Coase theorem tries to solve is trying to make things efficient. (i.e goods which costs are lower then the value when it is produced get produced and things which costs are higher than the value don't get produced) It lets landowners owning certain rights decide the cost of pollution to them and in this case their tenants. Externalites really have nothing to do with the Coase Theorem. Transaction costs are what decide the outcome. And I don't suggest that the polluter has to buy the right to pollute from the landowner, because in the case of multiple landowners one landowner may be a holdout to try to get a higher percentage of the money from the polluter buying the right and the negotiations may break down. (This is assuming pollution is more efficient, with some of the technolgy suggested about this book I think pollution won't be efficient any longer) I think the landowners should have a right to collect damages from the polluter not buy the right. I don't suggest the Coase Theorem is perfect but it's better than most regulation. We can't dismiss public or private regulation, but pick and choose the best ones.
What you are talking about sounds like Pigouvian taxes but remember that externalites, according to the Coase Theorem,
aren't really what cause inefficiency. It's transaction costs. If you initally assign Property Rights to the wrong people (i.e lets say you give the pollutor the right to pollute and their is a landowner downwind that's tenants don't like pollution) if the transaction costs are zero it will be bargained out of existence (the landowner pays the polluter not to pollute imagining one landowner) In the case of pollution above if there was more than one landowner and all of them had to pay the polluter there is probably one that will holdout assuming he can reap the benefits without paying the polluter, if everything thinks this the negotiations will break down, the transaction cost will not be zero. In this case the Law should give the right to collect damages to all the landowners but not a right to forbid him from polluting. See www.davidfriedman.com/Libertarian/The_Swedes.html for more on the theorem.
Maybe he's a time traveler
on
Time Travel
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· Score: 1
Well if time travel does exist maybe this guy is from an alternate universe created by Universal(?) when they were doing back to the future, and he got stuck here and now that technology is good enough he trying to get back to his own pararrel universe! Exactly what colleagues is he talking about?
We need tshirts.
I think it should be a shirt like the "Arrest me, I'm a skateboarder shirts" except it would be
"Arrest me, I'm a programmer", and below
that in smaller print it would say "The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, and the proposed Consumer Broadband and Digital Televison Promotion Act, threaten the free speech rights of programmers, call your congressman and express your opinion now!"
I think it would be neat if their were shirts
like the "Arrest me, I'm a skateboarder" shirts
except instead of that it would say "Arrest me, I'm a programmer" and in smaller print it
would the read "The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, and the proposed Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act threatens the free speech rights of programmers, call your congressmen and express your opinion now"
Slashdot Mirror
Whether Canada's lower rate of gun deaths is due to Canada's greater restrictions on handgun is an interesting question but I don't know if it is particularly relevant to the poster's question. The poster asked what was the best way to defend his mother (though admittedly he did say let's not try to hurt anybody) and his home from danger. On the assumption that he lives in the United States, with many criminals being armed as well as law-abiding citizens, with human nature being that a smart person is going to do the things with least cost in order to accomplish your objective-the argument is the poster should learn to use a weapon and make it clear that the home is armed in order to deter any crime-or prevent it from happening if his house is breaking into. If he were to live in Canada and perhaps the risk of getting caught for owning a hand gun was excessive and of course it's not a good idea to break the law and assuming criminals don't arm themselves (I don't know if this is true) a different option would be in order. If the US were able to lower the rate of gun ownership to Canada's tommorow maybe the answer would be different. But the poster asked how to defend his family and not how we could decrease the amount of crime- so though the posting is interesting I don't know if it is a response to previous posters debunking the idea that gun ownership would harm his family.
* I'd like to see a debate between Hayek and Mandelbrot
Sadly for us, it wouldn't be much of a debate. Hayek died in 1992.
Actually, that's not really true. Just because there is not so much public clamor for the protection of species we don't see doesn't mean that "Environmentalism" is some type of beauty contest. In fact there is a branch of Environmentalist philosophy called deep ecology which professes the inherent worth of all of nature. So the little insect no one cares about is worth just as much as the human being. I don't subscribe to that philosophy but it's an example. Note: Deep ecology is much more complex than I've just described. Like I don't think a deep ecologist wouldn't walk across a field of grass because the ecologist might step on a bug or something. I think there something humans have a right to reduce the richness of nature for vital needs.
If Israeli programmers end up helping Iranians get Farsi support it won't be the first time Israel and Iran have helped each other. Prior to the 1979 revolution, the Shah and Israel were close allies. Though Israel didn't have an embassy in Iran, they were defacto recognized and the I think it was called "diplomatic" mission in Iran was treated like an embassy. In fact I recall reading that the Shah said that neither Israel nor Iran would want to be alone in a "sea of arabs"
It has been estimated according to the Mammal Society that in Britain cats kill 55 million birds annually. Let's just say that wind power just doesn't have the efficiency of a feline. In the US cars kill 57 million birds every year and more than 97.5 million birds die colliding with plate glass. To be fair now, the 20,000 bird statistic for wind power is just for one windfarm, albeit the biggest and all of the above statistics are for entire nations. Also in the case of domestic cats in Britain I am sure that the cats aren't killing eagles though who knows....
The main problem the Coase theorem tries to solve is trying to make things efficient. (i.e goods which costs are lower then the value when it is produced get produced and things which costs are higher than the value don't get produced) It lets landowners owning certain rights decide the cost of pollution to them and in this case their tenants. Externalites really have nothing to do with the Coase Theorem. Transaction costs are what decide the outcome. And I don't suggest that the polluter has to buy the right to pollute from the landowner, because in the case of multiple landowners one landowner may be a holdout to try to get a higher percentage of the money from the polluter buying the right and the negotiations may break down. (This is assuming pollution is more efficient, with some of the technolgy suggested about this book I think pollution won't be efficient any longer) I think the landowners should have a right to collect damages from the polluter not buy the right. I don't suggest the Coase Theorem is perfect but it's better than most regulation. We can't dismiss public or private regulation, but pick and choose the best ones.
What you are talking about sounds like Pigouvian taxes but remember that externalites, according to the Coase Theorem, aren't really what cause inefficiency. It's transaction costs. If you initally assign Property Rights to the wrong people (i.e lets say you give the pollutor the right to pollute and their is a landowner downwind that's tenants don't like pollution) if the transaction costs are zero it will be bargained out of existence (the landowner pays the polluter not to pollute imagining one landowner) In the case of pollution above if there was more than one landowner and all of them had to pay the polluter there is probably one that will holdout assuming he can reap the benefits without paying the polluter, if everything thinks this the negotiations will break down, the transaction cost will not be zero. In this case the Law should give the right to collect damages to all the landowners but not a right to forbid him from polluting. See www.davidfriedman.com/Libertarian/The_Swedes.html for more on the theorem.
Well if time travel does exist maybe this guy is from an alternate universe created by Universal(?) when they were doing back to the future, and he got stuck here and now that technology is good enough he trying to get back to his own pararrel universe! Exactly what colleagues is he talking about?
We need tshirts. I think it should be a shirt like the "Arrest me, I'm a skateboarder shirts" except it would be "Arrest me, I'm a programmer", and below that in smaller print it would say "The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, and the proposed Consumer Broadband and Digital Televison Promotion Act, threaten the free speech rights of programmers, call your congressman and express your opinion now!"
I think it would be neat if their were shirts like the "Arrest me, I'm a skateboarder" shirts except instead of that it would say "Arrest me, I'm a programmer" and in smaller print it would the read "The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, and the proposed Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act threatens the free speech rights of programmers, call your congressmen and express your opinion now"