Right, the comparison would be relative. Note that the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom actually lists Denmark as more economically free than the USA in 2011:
It's natural for most people to prefer and vote for the benefits of socialism as long as capitalism can readily subsidize it. Socialism is charity without the unpredictability of free will and the obligations of receiving charity.
Yes, power tends to corrupt and it is the nature of all government to become tyrannical. That is not reason to give up but to remain vigilant.
Capitalism is not merely good in theory. Even approximations of capitalism usually fare better than other systems. In reality, economic freedom strongly correlates with overall prosperity.
Capitalism doesn't depend on government being made of a different class of individuals -- it relies upon government authority being severely restricted to only those domains where coercion is absolutely necessary. If the authority of government is so limited, it cannot make laws on any arbitrary subject and control every little thing, so there will be little of value to buy in government. It will cease to be a "capital asset", as you put it.
Indeed, viewing government as a "capital asset" is innately anti-capitalist because it necessarily deprives others of liberty.
Sorry for the delay. The manipulation of government in order to coerce others is a corruption of the individual freedom required by free market capitalism. Capitalism depends upon a very limited and impartial coercive government in order to preserve its defining qualities. Once those qualities are gone, you no longer have capitalism.
Sorry for the delay. Profit, safety and freedom are the variables that are being optimized. With capitalism, it is our individual choices that determine that balance through our money, contracts, liability, etc. In this case, it is the government choosing that optimal point for us.
As several people have commented, the safety rules may have been overly strict in this case, thereby costing more money than necessary. So even the government is searching for the optimal balance, but contrary to the OP, it is not capitalism when the government does it for us.
I'm not saying it's simple, I'm just trying to come to a common understanding of terms.
You misunderstand capitalism. Under capitalism, the above is an optimization problem where individual freedom is the means of finding the optimal balance. The government primarily just prevents fraud.
Regardless of whether reducing the rules was proper or improper, this story is an example of manipulating government, not capitalism.
Software is not scarce, developer time is. I'll never understand the cognitive dissonance that makes people think a non-scarce resource should be treated like a scarce one.
It's not cognitive dissonance; you explain it right there -- a scarce resource is required to create a valuable but non-scarce resource.
By establishing a social contract where everyone gives you control (for a limited time) over the distribution of a non-scarce resource you created, the creation of more non-scarce but valuable resources will be encouraged.
The flaw in copyright is not that principle but rather the imbalance of its present implementation.
The entire purpose of copyright has been lost, and in its place given birth to the erroneous belief in an inherent moral that people should own non-scarce resources once they release them.
No one is forcing you to accept a job you don't want.
Exactly -- that is a key difference between a job and being a slave. And for whatever reason, the GGP chose not to accept the hooker job.
The only thing that degrades hookers is people's attitudes towards them
A hooker may also degrade themselves. Keep in mind that people grade all jobs, and sex is a special act -- it is necessary for procreation (families, in general) and it is often, and perhaps biologically wired to be, an emotional act. People naturally have strong feelings about it and when it is appropriate in a way that is unlike almost all other jobs.
and the exploitation that we allow to happen because we push prostitution underground.
Good point. Legalizing (and regulating?) prostitution may be a better option. I view this as a separate argument than social stigma.
Superpowers are the best at spreading their cultures and ideologies, but I'd argue that all powers do it, particularly when they expand. The salient difference is how they do it -- whether through violence or through trade or other free choice. The reality is always a mixture of those, but the make-up of that mixture is important yet difficult to weigh.
Conflating non-violent missionaries with violent conquerors confuses the morality at issue.
But one benefit of regulation is that it gives the government authority to arbitrarily choose to examine internal processes before an injury even occurs. Should private citizens have similar authority? If not, it seems that they would be at a disadvantage to provide a similar preventative service.
There's also a significant cost to litigation that individuals tend to avoid, though that might be ameliorated with proper incentives to expose fraud.
In a box approximately 1nm on a side there is a north pole with no matching south pole. So there are magnetic field lines flowing out of the box with no matching field lines flowing in. Of course "over there" there is a south pole which has field lines flowing in without field lines flowing out.
Except, from my reading above, it seems that the matching "monopoles" are connected by a long series of aligned dipoles resembling solenoidal tubes, so there is mag field in the dipoles flowing into the box. Sure the "in" field occupies a very small area, but in/out still balances. Is this incorrect? If not, I don't see how this is evidence of the existence of monopoles.
And, as an aside, given the parallel you draw with conservation of charge, is there any corresponding persistent and unique connection between (e.g.) an electron and positron pair after they are created?
As with the "no true scotsman" argument, you both have to agree upon on a single definition for capitalism.
Keep in mind that capitalism is not anarchy. e.g. it certainly requires that fraud be prosecuted. At some point, intentional confusion and misinformation become fraud. Likewise, capitalism is aided by an informed market.
While I don't like the physically centralized registry of Windows, having a standard format and api for easy, live, dynamic modification and notification of configuration is a great boon.
Text files which each have a different format, which must be parsed and altered in their entirety to maintain consistency, and which often are not live, are not as useful or advanced.
The only meaningful act of an omnipotent and omniscient being is to limit its own power and knowledge. In essence, to create separate entities of free will and abide by rules for its existence.
After reading a book about Linux, tuning a system for someone, and walking her through it, why did I have to post on a technology discussion website to find out about it?
Because the freedom of Linux also results in an abundance of fragmentation. Diverse Window Managers aren't even close to the worst of it.
What is remarkable is how the freedom to share and customize can actually result in less sharing of code. Too many options breeds confusion which can be a significant impediment to actually getting things done which is the purpose of freedom.
It's also fascinating to consider the parallel pitfalls of freedom in economics. It can be chaotic, confusing, lacking controls, and often more difficult, but the system as a whole evolves better.
Similarly, Linux evolves and I am confident that it will eventually solidify on excellent general purpose solutions. I just don't know when that will happen.
Slashdot Mirror
But what if we don't run out!? THE HORROR!
MAFF is similar to what you're looking for (zip storage), but it's really only supported by Mozilla's browsers.
http://maf.mozdev.org/maff-file-format.html
And then there's Microsoft's original MHTML (MIME HTML) that uses a mime format like e-mail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHTML
It looks like Safari on Macs have the Webarchive format, but they mention that most people just use PDFs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webarchive
ePub has some similarity as Thomas mentions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB
Right, the comparison would be relative. Note that the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom actually lists Denmark as more economically free than the USA in 2011:
http://www.heritage.org/index/TopTen
It's natural for most people to prefer and vote for the benefits of socialism as long as capitalism can readily subsidize it. Socialism is charity without the unpredictability of free will and the obligations of receiving charity.
Yes, power tends to corrupt and it is the nature of all government to become tyrannical. That is not reason to give up but to remain vigilant.
Capitalism is not merely good in theory. Even approximations of capitalism usually fare better than other systems. In reality, economic freedom strongly correlates with overall prosperity.
http://ideasmatter.typepad.com/ideas-matter/2011/06/economic-freedom.html
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2010/01/20/haitis_avoidable_death_toll/page/full/
Capitalism doesn't depend on government being made of a different class of individuals -- it relies upon government authority being severely restricted to only those domains where coercion is absolutely necessary. If the authority of government is so limited, it cannot make laws on any arbitrary subject and control every little thing, so there will be little of value to buy in government. It will cease to be a "capital asset", as you put it.
Indeed, viewing government as a "capital asset" is innately anti-capitalist because it necessarily deprives others of liberty.
Sorry for the delay. The manipulation of government in order to coerce others is a corruption of the individual freedom required by free market capitalism. Capitalism depends upon a very limited and impartial coercive government in order to preserve its defining qualities. Once those qualities are gone, you no longer have capitalism.
Sorry for the delay. Profit, safety and freedom are the variables that are being optimized. With capitalism, it is our individual choices that determine that balance through our money, contracts, liability, etc. In this case, it is the government choosing that optimal point for us.
As several people have commented, the safety rules may have been overly strict in this case, thereby costing more money than necessary. So even the government is searching for the optimal balance, but contrary to the OP, it is not capitalism when the government does it for us.
I'm not saying it's simple, I'm just trying to come to a common understanding of terms.
I agree with how you are doing it: Like the content? Reward it so you'll get more of it. It's a type of patronage or subscription.
Of course, even this is for profit, so I'm not sure "public service" covers it. Bear in mind that "non-profit" is just a wrapper for someone's profit.
Ideally, it would even be easy to reward individual articles and individual reporters after reading their work.
You misunderstand capitalism. Under capitalism, the above is an optimization problem where individual freedom is the means of finding the optimal balance. The government primarily just prevents fraud.
Regardless of whether reducing the rules was proper or improper, this story is an example of manipulating government, not capitalism.
Software is not scarce, developer time is. I'll never understand the cognitive dissonance that makes people think a non-scarce resource should be treated like a scarce one.
It's not cognitive dissonance; you explain it right there -- a scarce resource is required to create a valuable but non-scarce resource.
By establishing a social contract where everyone gives you control (for a limited time) over the distribution of a non-scarce resource you created, the creation of more non-scarce but valuable resources will be encouraged.
The flaw in copyright is not that principle but rather the imbalance of its present implementation.
The entire purpose of copyright has been lost, and in its place given birth to the erroneous belief in an inherent moral that people should own non-scarce resources once they release them.
No one is forcing you to accept a job you don't want.
Exactly -- that is a key difference between a job and being a slave. And for whatever reason, the GGP chose not to accept the hooker job.
The only thing that degrades hookers is people's attitudes towards them
A hooker may also degrade themselves. Keep in mind that people grade all jobs, and sex is a special act -- it is necessary for procreation (families, in general) and it is often, and perhaps biologically wired to be, an emotional act. People naturally have strong feelings about it and when it is appropriate in a way that is unlike almost all other jobs.
and the exploitation that we allow to happen because we push prostitution underground.
Good point. Legalizing (and regulating?) prostitution may be a better option. I view this as a separate argument than social stigma.
Superpowers are the best at spreading their cultures and ideologies, but I'd argue that all powers do it, particularly when they expand. The salient difference is how they do it -- whether through violence or through trade or other free choice. The reality is always a mixture of those, but the make-up of that mixture is important yet difficult to weigh.
Conflating non-violent missionaries with violent conquerors confuses the morality at issue.
Are you really saying that you would have sex with your boss if ordered to?
Selling your work is entirely different from slavery.
You make an excellent point that the GP ignores.
But one benefit of regulation is that it gives the government authority to arbitrarily choose to examine internal processes before an injury even occurs. Should private citizens have similar authority? If not, it seems that they would be at a disadvantage to provide a similar preventative service.
There's also a significant cost to litigation that individuals tend to avoid, though that might be ameliorated with proper incentives to expose fraud.
In a box approximately 1nm on a side there is a north pole with no matching south pole. So there are magnetic field lines flowing out of the box with no matching field lines flowing in. Of course "over there" there is a south pole which has field lines flowing in without field lines flowing out.
Except, from my reading above, it seems that the matching "monopoles" are connected by a long series of aligned dipoles resembling solenoidal tubes, so there is mag field in the dipoles flowing into the box. Sure the "in" field occupies a very small area, but in/out still balances. Is this incorrect? If not, I don't see how this is evidence of the existence of monopoles.
And, as an aside, given the parallel you draw with conservation of charge, is there any corresponding persistent and unique connection between (e.g.) an electron and positron pair after they are created?
As with the "no true scotsman" argument, you both have to agree upon on a single definition for capitalism.
Keep in mind that capitalism is not anarchy. e.g. it certainly requires that fraud be prosecuted. At some point, intentional confusion and misinformation become fraud. Likewise, capitalism is aided by an informed market.
There's also soft toric lenses for astigmatism.
If linking with the kernel creates a derivative, how can Linux link non-GPL drivers, but a non-GPL kernel cannot link a GPL driver?
While I don't like the physically centralized registry of Windows, having a standard format and api for easy, live, dynamic modification and notification of configuration is a great boon.
Text files which each have a different format, which must be parsed and altered in their entirety to maintain consistency, and which often are not live, are not as useful or advanced.
The only meaningful act of an omnipotent and omniscient being is to limit its own power and knowledge. In essence, to create separate entities of free will and abide by rules for its existence.
If it's not too much trouble, could you please elaborate on a couple of points?:
(1) Examples of the "trade giveaways" where the U.S. gave up its natural trade advantages.
(2) The key differences between global trade and global economy. You seem to suggest that economy leads to homogeneity while trade does not.
Then why not implement it as a non-profit rather than a government program?
Capitalism means getting to choose what to buy. Socialism means everybody is forced to pay for a particular option, even if everybody doesn't want it.
After reading a book about Linux, tuning a system for someone, and walking her through it, why did I have to post on a technology discussion website to find out about it?
Because the freedom of Linux also results in an abundance of fragmentation. Diverse Window Managers aren't even close to the worst of it.
What is remarkable is how the freedom to share and customize can actually result in less sharing of code. Too many options breeds confusion which can be a significant impediment to actually getting things done which is the purpose of freedom.
It's also fascinating to consider the parallel pitfalls of freedom in economics. It can be chaotic, confusing, lacking controls, and often more difficult, but the system as a whole evolves better.
Similarly, Linux evolves and I am confident that it will eventually solidify on excellent general purpose solutions. I just don't know when that will happen.
His example link doesn't actually use the unicode symbol for division. It uses a forward slash. Maybe slashdot has issues with unicode.