Yes, but the difference is this- it was rare for a manufacturing assembly line worker to become a manufacturing engineer. It's NECESSARY to be a computer programmer for a while on a variety of projects before you can become a good software engineer.
It's more than that- to get good, you need experience. To prove to HR that you're good, you need experience that you can put on a resume (no, writing a virus to control a 50,000 node botnet isn't experience). And getting that experience is exactly what is being outsourced. It's not just the incompetent that have lost their jobs- it's also the ignorant young guys who might have become good programmers if given half a chance.
Software engineers and software analysts are *highly skilled* positions that require experience in addition to
at least a Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering or Software Project Management.
Programming, on the other hand, can be done by anybody with a Computer Science or related mathematical degree,
usually a two year Associate's degree. India is graduating 50,000 people with this training EVERY YEAR.
You need to know some demographics to understand why, in the 2008-2014 era, the first will be in demand- it's
because the first generation of Software Engineers and Analysts and Project Managers are all Baby Boomers.
They're all in their late 50s and early 60s now- getting ready to retire. We're going to need to replace
them with people who have similar skill levels.
Which leads to my question to prompt discussion:
just how the hell do you become a software engineer without being a programmer first, unless you're
independently wealthy enough to work in Open Source for 5-10 years?
One potential answer is
government instead of private industry- I'm a software engineer with 10 years of experience and that's
where I ended up after the last recession because I simply didn't have enough experience in enough languages
to get a private industry job.
But beyond that- I just don't see any way for a young person graduating from high school to become a software engineer anymore. Sure, you can probably get the 4 years of schooling. But you'll be competing with people who earn $2.50/hr halfway around the world when it comes to getting experience. And that's not a winning bet when it comes to paying back your $40,000 of student loans it will take to get that Bachelor's degree.
The one time I watched that one, I realized *why* those characters had been exiled from Y&R...but then again, I guess that might also be the difference in the story lines: Y&R's characters are lawyers, high power businessmen, cops, private investigators, construction experts, and even a barista and a blues club owner. Murders happen. It's more like Hill Street Blues than SOAP. Bold and the Beautiful characters are all in the fashion industry. Brainless idiots....
There is an important difference. The US has the potential capital in private hands to privatize roads. Its government has enough capital to keep them government owned.
No, you're thinking of Mexico, where 35% of the population are billionaires (and 48% of the population live in poverty). In the United States, only 3% of the population are billionaires (and 50% of the population live in poverty). That is NOT enough potential capital to privatize the roads- they've attempted to do so here in Oregon and met with strong resistance once it was revealed that to privatize one road in 21st century economics, you'd have to also sell off all alternate routes to the toll booth company for them to be able to pay back the cost of road construction.
You wouldn't destroy there faith, just reform it. They would all realize that extreme libertarianism (a.k.a anarco-capitalism) would not work, which is why they adopted a view of libertarianism in the first place. The state is an evil, but a necessary evil.
It would at least destroy the tax revolt movement- which is what I see as holding the government at a state just below maintaining the current infrastructure.
Heres where we get to kill two birds with one stone. Calculate the tax rate of fuel assuming everyone has an extremely fuel efficient vehicles. This will encourage people to drive more fuel efficient vehicles. Also, why those driving fuel efficient vehicles are paying less than there fair share, they are using less fuel. Since there is some evidence that were running out of crude, and that fuel emissions might have an effect on the envirorment, reducing these things are not bad. One of the things that a state controlled economy is supposed to do is say things like, "we can use a tax incentive to alter people behavior." This is why a hybrid car with a single occupant can use the HOV lane on the Long Island Expressway. There is no reduction in road wear, but a decrease in smog emissions.
Exactly right- now though, how do you get it by the tax revolters? I'd argue that the best way is to set up an experiment- donate a city to become a true "free enterprise zone" with no regulation, and let it fall apart under the monopolies and lack of government. Only THEN will we have definite proof that anarco-capitalism doesn't work.
Well the privacy issue is up for debate. There is no explicit constitutional right to privacy. There is an implicit one in the search and seizure and self incrimination clauses, but I don't believe in the living constitution. Also, what is a reasonable expectation of privacy has change greatly with technology. That being said, businesses are going to chose money over privacy every time, private individuals will lean the other way. As far as passing state borders, the Vancouver border probably benefits your state as gas is cheaper in this country and more people gas up on this side of the border. Although some people, like me, are strange. In New Jersey, like your state its illegal to pump your own gas. For this reason I try to gas up in NY before visiting my g/f in NJ every weekend even though the price of gas is higher in NY. I pay extra for the privilege of being trusted to operate a gas pump.
Well, Clark County isn't much different- it's usually within 5 cents of Portland per gallon, and you'd probably burn up that 5 cents just driving across the river even in a hybrid. But I've never quite figured out why self-pump states are higher. Is the extra money from lack of wages just going straight to profit?
Interesting idea. About the most tolerable non capitalistic idea I've seen so far. Question, under this system, do I get to buy an audiophile grade pair of head phones (Grado SR125s for example) just because?
Yes, though what you'll have to do to do so is go to your local craft factory, provide them with the specs and design, and pay for what is likely to be a one-off. On the plus side, like with central planning, computer technology is making
What bothers me is that code can be reduced to a set of mathematical expressions, and such expressions are *specifically* non-copyrightable in the patent act. Try reducing a novel to a set of formulae.
Funny, every literature class I've ever taken has attempted to do that- it's interesting how plot lines in relation to tension form bell curves. Even sentence structure, in most languages, has to follow formulae of grammar.
The real problem is that all economic schools of thought are really religions and philosophies, rather than science. Their "self-evident axioms" as Ludwig Von Mises put it, have a strong tendency to be wrong. That goes for Marx as well as Ludwig himself.
But I see it as being "the human problem". Corruption can be eliminated, but not as long as the humans are in charge. Chaos can be eliminated from the economic system, but once again not as long as humans are in charge.
Luckily, over the past 40 years, we've invented something new: The perfect Bureaucrat- a true governmental machine. Hyperactive Bob is doing central planning for fast food outlets nationwide- and proves that central planning is now possible *without* price inputs. But to do so, you've got to eliminate human judgment from the equation. Completely.
I don't have libertarian leanings, but I think it would be a good and useful experiment to isolate a city and declare it a free enterprise zone, with *NO* regulation, only a free market. Given the experience of Chicago in the 1930s, I'd give it about 20 years before the monopolies started using weapons to keep their power.
I would love to see a poll between the USA and UK through the general population and see how many people actually know the difference between ASC and ESC.
I would too. I'd especially like to see it broken down by denomination or sect. I strongly suspect that the more zealous the sect, the less tendency there is to know the difference. This goes for strong atheists and Unitarian Universalists who'd like to see both ASC and ESC legalized, just as much as it goes for the fundamentalist Christian pro-life movement who claims about "Stem Cell Research" without making the distinction.
Like I said, you've missed the fake empathy method. You don't need to talk- you just need to listen and be supportive with random "I understand" and "that's sad" at appropriate places.
Soviet communism didn't. But I'll bet in your town there is a nice big red white and blue building that is the retail outlet of Communist China's biggest importer and the largest retailer in the United States. For them, central planning works- they've got a huge bank of computers in Alabama recording *every* transaction and deciding production in China based upon that.
Then you've switched from a Free Market to Multinational Corporatism, where instead of the corporation being loyal to the state, governments have to compete for corporations to agree to do business in their country.
That was an incidental benefit of the socialist dole. There are arguably just as many authors who didn't write a book because they were receiving a paycheck without doing any work. Besides, J.K. Rowling is one of those success stories of people on welfare- the people who needed help, but then got back on their own feet. Only the most callous jerks don't want to support them. It's the people who've been supported by welfare since their mother was fourteen that annoy me and most others who oppose the welfare state.
Ah, but if we're really in a state of labor surplus- as the entire claim of switching to a service economy states- then the welfare state is quite useful at assuring that only competent people will be your servant- by keeping the incompetent out of the workforce.
Ludwig Von Mises would disagree, but you're quite right. I just get tired of people believing in a "free market" when they really mean "a regulated fair market" by Austrian description.
I think we're trying to reach mutually exclusive goals, though certainly we could change our society in ways that makes us both happier. We both value individuals, but you seem to value communities as being the best way to promote individual welfare, while I place little value on them. I still don't think you grasp the value of trade, despite the necessity of it for things as specialized as your computer.
It's only necessary for things such as my computer because by and large, the United States is FAR more for your goal than mine- and because we value (collectively) individual profit over security, we're quickly getting ourselves into a place where we lose both. American workers are too expensive, but even more expensive will be the day when Intel, VIA, and AMD have to face Lenevo or Great Wall as a chip manufacturer.
One minor note I wish to make about Spaceports is that they work best near the equator- so Florida and New Mexico can have more productive spaceports than Maine and Oregon. This is supposed to suggest that certain communities are naturally more suited for certain occupations, but if you're unaware of this then my post makes much less sense.
Actually, my hometown of Silverton, OR was looked at as one of the contenders with New Mexico for the Spaceport- because it's on the 45th parallel. Maine is also on the 45th parallel. It's just a matter of which launch tech you want to use- 45th parallel and equator are good for rail launchers, New Mexico's a bit better (due to the desert) for carrier planes such as Virgin Galactic will be using. We're getting to the point in our tech that location doesn't matter, as long as you match your tech to the location. One size doesn't fit all, but equally efficient sizes fit different locations.
In a way, we're already doing it large scale, though not quite as focused. A great example is JK Rowling- author of the Harry Potter series. In 1995, she was a single mother, spending all of her time working or parenting. Then she lost her job, and was thrown onto England's vast socialist dole, which paid for her food, clothing, shelter, and education of her child. With the newfound free time, she wrote her first novel, The Philosopher's Stone.
You pick some really poor countries for your examples.
I picked a pair of countries where the governments are too poor to subsidize roads at all, or when they were rich, choose to put those funds into other things. This is no different than eliminating the subsidies outright.
You could still move subsidies down from the federal to state level, except for interstate and national railroads and get more control, while still having enough rich people to tax to help the poor people.
Actually, we already do that- including for interstate and national railroads. National railroads are privately owned in the US, the subsidy is in the form of land grants (right of way) and track rentals (by Amtrak). Interstate highway system is paid for by 83.79% grants to the state Departments of Transportation, who then hire locally (for a wide idea of locally) to build the road.
The best way to explain my views is to link to my favorite article from my favorite angry libertarian quaker..
I've always said the best way to destroy the faith of libertarians in the free market would be to enact a truly regulation-free market.
How much more fair does that make things, at the cost of a lot of privacy?
By allowing taxpayers to pay directly for the destruction they do to the roads under our control while avoiding taxing for roads the state isn't responsible for maintaining (such as, if a Portland driver crosses the Columbia to Vancouver, we don't want to tax the miles driven in Washington State).
There are road sensors and other methods of determining which roads are getting used and should get the money. Fuel is consumed relative to vehicle weight and mileage.
Not as much, we find, with the advent of hybrid and extremely high mileage engines.
Also the extra weight of heavy cargo and more passengers is taken into account with fuel consumption.
Heavy cargo is already under this system, having long ago traded privacy for no fuel taxes. But the number of single passenger private vehicles that could carry four or more people is truly frightening.
I assume your determining vehicle weight by yearly weighing at inspection stations.
Yes, that's close enough for passenger vehicles. Cargo actually gets weighed when rolling down the road, if they've accepted the latest technology (if they haven't, there is a typical Weigh Station right next to the automated transponder reader).
I'd love a company dorm. There is a trailer park in waking distance of my job and that would be the place I would live had I not had cheap rent at the parents. I'd have to live in Suffolk county, but I could easily sell my car at that point. Under your idea of travel being totally wasteful, everyone would end up living in company towns anyway.
Actually, I prefer a slightly more decentralized economy than that, but it works out to be close to the same idea without the centralized control.
This is indeed the case, which means the corn farmer either needs to save his profits from good years or do some diversifying. Of course, even if the farmer has apples, corn, and pigs (which are easy to raise in tandem) he's still not going to have every food he wants to eat, and will still want to trade with the farmer who has rice and fish, and the farmer who has wheat and barley and beef, etc. My example was overly simplified to show a point, but it's still the case that specializing in a few goods is better than trying to do everything.
And my point is that the truly secure *community* contains within it the ability to do everything- and no need left to trade at all. That's the difference between looking at the community and at the individual.
My example was more along the lines of "I don't buy pot now, so I don't feel the need to buy it from anyone, whether or not they are my neighbor". I should have made it more clear. Also, I would like to point out that while I'm not involved in my immediate community, I spend time and money supporting causes I care about, including charities, scholarships, and medical organizations. I still don't see why the people living next door to me are any more important than people living anywhere else, and why you want to put me into a 'community' based on where I happened to be born. I suppose if I wanted to be an astronaut, you would tell me to build an airstrip where I was born instead of moving to Florida.
Well, that seems to be what New Mexico is doing, and in so doing, they're making their state more secure by hosting the first American Public Spaceport. But more importantly- if your community doesn't need to import and survives *first* on local production, trading only out of surplus, then they no longer need to worry about foreign policy or foreign interests. So when faced with radicalized Islam, for instance, instead of sending a bunch of people to other nations to be killed, they can simply *stop trading with Islamics*, thus solving the original problem.
But really, our most serious disagreement comes from our different perspectives on the environmental impact of trade. Your views on the matter are so extreme I don't even know where to begin. Greenpeace and the Sierra Club aren't nearly as out there as you are.
Depends what part of the Sierra Club- there are certainly a range of opinions there as well. What I see though is these so-called Superfund sites that never actually get cleaned up because the businesses that created them go bankrupt paying for them. I see us closing factories here and moving pollution to China- only to have it come back to Oregon courtesy of the jet stream winds to poison my nephew with mercury. Obviously we need to do something- and small scale craft industry is certainly one among many answers.
Lastly, Distributism is all in favor of specialization and trade. What it's opposed to is giant megacorps with undue influence on the State. For instance, a distributed society would still have fast-food restaurants, but instead of having a McDonald's in every town, one town would have a McDonald's, one would have a Joe's, one would have a GnarlBurger, etc., and each would be locally owned. However, the Joe's, the McDonald's, and the GnarlBurger would probably still all import beef, cheese, buns, and/or ketchup from outside of town. (McDonald's might be in a good beef&cheese area, Joe's might be near a Bakery, and GnarlBurger might be in the middle of tomato fields, but they would still want to trade for other ingredients). Also, the State wouldn't be controlling all the services in such a system either, since Distributism favors local, private ownership of the means of production.
The key there is local- and local doesn't work without strong tariffs and borders.
If you need to drink to pick up chicks, then you've obviously missed the fake empathy method, which also works in churches, funeral homes, and abortion clinics.
Interesting, but not quite the same thing, since you can also use adult stem cells to make GDNF. Also note it wasn't a cure- it didn't delay onset of symptoms since the surviving motor neurons also lost their connections to muscle tissue.
In addition to that, this isn't a typical stem cell therapy, where you replace damaged tissue with stem cell grown tissue of the same type. This is something altogether different- if you had a bacteria you had engineered to produce GDNF, you'd end up with EXACTLY the same effect.
I do not know what government you are talking about,
but it is not one I have experienced.
Agreed. The one most of us have experienced so far has been a slave to corporate profit at the expense of the citizenry. This, however, is not the only form of government possible.
Also, I know when I am deathly sick I will want a doctor,
and me not dying creates happiness and well being.
But not profit, which is the point. Under capitalism, profit is the only thing that counts at all.
Beyond that making widgets means a lot less to me, and I am guessing a lot of other ppl as well.
Which would put you all in my camp- of being communists.
Federal funding of adult stem cell research already exists. It's the embryonic stem cell research that is forbidden in the United States; and despite being legal in other countries, has yet to achieve even ONE useful cure. Where Adult Stem Cells, like in TFA, are now up to 20 or 30 miracle cures of a variety of injuries from heart attacks to severed spine paralysis. One ASC researcher has even claimed that he can regenerate 30,000 human brains from a single Grey matter stem cell (though, one would suspect that any knowledge the donor had would not be so duplicated- after all growing nervous tissue does not create the connections between those nerves).
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Yes, but the difference is this- it was rare for a manufacturing assembly line worker to become a manufacturing engineer. It's NECESSARY to be a computer programmer for a while on a variety of projects before you can become a good software engineer.
It's more than that- to get good, you need experience. To prove to HR that you're good, you need experience that you can put on a resume (no, writing a virus to control a 50,000 node botnet isn't experience). And getting that experience is exactly what is being outsourced. It's not just the incompetent that have lost their jobs- it's also the ignorant young guys who might have become good programmers if given half a chance.
Worse than that, it's a corporate ladder. You also can't get to the top without having done the jobs below- college isn't enough, you need experience.
I believe it, but you can't get there from here.
Software engineers and software analysts are *highly skilled* positions that require experience in addition to at least a Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering or Software Project Management.
Programming, on the other hand, can be done by anybody with a Computer Science or related mathematical degree, usually a two year Associate's degree. India is graduating 50,000 people with this training EVERY YEAR.
You need to know some demographics to understand why, in the 2008-2014 era, the first will be in demand- it's because the first generation of Software Engineers and Analysts and Project Managers are all Baby Boomers. They're all in their late 50s and early 60s now- getting ready to retire. We're going to need to replace them with people who have similar skill levels.
Which leads to my question to prompt discussion: just how the hell do you become a software engineer without being a programmer first, unless you're independently wealthy enough to work in Open Source for 5-10 years?
One potential answer is government instead of private industry- I'm a software engineer with 10 years of experience and that's where I ended up after the last recession because I simply didn't have enough experience in enough languages to get a private industry job.
But beyond that- I just don't see any way for a young person graduating from high school to become a software engineer anymore. Sure, you can probably get the 4 years of schooling. But you'll be competing with people who earn $2.50/hr halfway around the world when it comes to getting experience. And that's not a winning bet when it comes to paying back your $40,000 of student loans it will take to get that Bachelor's degree.
The one time I watched that one, I realized *why* those characters had been exiled from Y&R...but then again, I guess that might also be the difference in the story lines: Y&R's characters are lawyers, high power businessmen, cops, private investigators, construction experts, and even a barista and a blues club owner. Murders happen. It's more like Hill Street Blues than SOAP. Bold and the Beautiful characters are all in the fashion industry. Brainless idiots....
Or Iraq!
There is an important difference. The US has the potential capital in private hands to privatize roads. Its government has enough capital to keep them government owned.
No, you're thinking of Mexico, where 35% of the population are billionaires (and 48% of the population live in poverty). In the United States, only 3% of the population are billionaires (and 50% of the population live in poverty). That is NOT enough potential capital to privatize the roads- they've attempted to do so here in Oregon and met with strong resistance once it was revealed that to privatize one road in 21st century economics, you'd have to also sell off all alternate routes to the toll booth company for them to be able to pay back the cost of road construction.
You wouldn't destroy there faith, just reform it. They would all realize that extreme libertarianism (a.k.a anarco-capitalism) would not work, which is why they adopted a view of libertarianism in the first place. The state is an evil, but a necessary evil.
It would at least destroy the tax revolt movement- which is what I see as holding the government at a state just below maintaining the current infrastructure.
Heres where we get to kill two birds with one stone. Calculate the tax rate of fuel assuming everyone has an extremely fuel efficient vehicles. This will encourage people to drive more fuel efficient vehicles. Also, why those driving fuel efficient vehicles are paying less than there fair share, they are using less fuel. Since there is some evidence that were running out of crude, and that fuel emissions might have an effect on the envirorment, reducing these things are not bad. One of the things that a state controlled economy is supposed to do is say things like, "we can use a tax incentive to alter people behavior." This is why a hybrid car with a single occupant can use the HOV lane on the Long Island Expressway. There is no reduction in road wear, but a decrease in smog emissions.
Exactly right- now though, how do you get it by the tax revolters? I'd argue that the best way is to set up an experiment- donate a city to become a true "free enterprise zone" with no regulation, and let it fall apart under the monopolies and lack of government. Only THEN will we have definite proof that anarco-capitalism doesn't work.
Well the privacy issue is up for debate. There is no explicit constitutional right to privacy. There is an implicit one in the search and seizure and self incrimination clauses, but I don't believe in the living constitution. Also, what is a reasonable expectation of privacy has change greatly with technology. That being said, businesses are going to chose money over privacy every time, private individuals will lean the other way. As far as passing state borders, the Vancouver border probably benefits your state as gas is cheaper in this country and more people gas up on this side of the border. Although some people, like me, are strange. In New Jersey, like your state its illegal to pump your own gas. For this reason I try to gas up in NY before visiting my g/f in NJ every weekend even though the price of gas is higher in NY. I pay extra for the privilege of being trusted to operate a gas pump.
Well, Clark County isn't much different- it's usually within 5 cents of Portland per gallon, and you'd probably burn up that 5 cents just driving across the river even in a hybrid. But I've never quite figured out why self-pump states are higher. Is the extra money from lack of wages just going straight to profit?
Interesting idea. About the most tolerable non capitalistic idea I've seen so far. Question, under this system, do I get to buy an audiophile grade pair of head phones (Grado SR125s for example) just because?
Yes, though what you'll have to do to do so is go to your local craft factory, provide them with the specs and design, and pay for what is likely to be a one-off. On the plus side, like with central planning, computer technology is making
What bothers me is that code can be reduced to a set of mathematical expressions, and such expressions are *specifically* non-copyrightable in the patent act. Try reducing a novel to a set of formulae.
Funny, every literature class I've ever taken has attempted to do that- it's interesting how plot lines in relation to tension form bell curves. Even sentence structure, in most languages, has to follow formulae of grammar.
The real problem is that all economic schools of thought are really religions and philosophies, rather than science. Their "self-evident axioms" as Ludwig Von Mises put it, have a strong tendency to be wrong. That goes for Marx as well as Ludwig himself.
But I see it as being "the human problem". Corruption can be eliminated, but not as long as the humans are in charge. Chaos can be eliminated from the economic system, but once again not as long as humans are in charge.
Luckily, over the past 40 years, we've invented something new: The perfect Bureaucrat- a true governmental machine. Hyperactive Bob is doing central planning for fast food outlets nationwide- and proves that central planning is now possible *without* price inputs. But to do so, you've got to eliminate human judgment from the equation. Completely.
I don't have libertarian leanings, but I think it would be a good and useful experiment to isolate a city and declare it a free enterprise zone, with *NO* regulation, only a free market. Given the experience of Chicago in the 1930s, I'd give it about 20 years before the monopolies started using weapons to keep their power.
I would love to see a poll between the USA and UK through the general population and see how many people actually know the difference between ASC and ESC.
I would too. I'd especially like to see it broken down by denomination or sect. I strongly suspect that the more zealous the sect, the less tendency there is to know the difference. This goes for strong atheists and Unitarian Universalists who'd like to see both ASC and ESC legalized, just as much as it goes for the fundamentalist Christian pro-life movement who claims about "Stem Cell Research" without making the distinction.
Working concrete inventions. Machines, not ideas.
Like I said, you've missed the fake empathy method. You don't need to talk- you just need to listen and be supportive with random "I understand" and "that's sad" at appropriate places.
Soviet communism didn't. But I'll bet in your town there is a nice big red white and blue building that is the retail outlet of Communist China's biggest importer and the largest retailer in the United States. For them, central planning works- they've got a huge bank of computers in Alabama recording *every* transaction and deciding production in China based upon that.
Then you've switched from a Free Market to Multinational Corporatism, where instead of the corporation being loyal to the state, governments have to compete for corporations to agree to do business in their country.
That was an incidental benefit of the socialist dole. There are arguably just as many authors who didn't write a book because they were receiving a paycheck without doing any work. Besides, J.K. Rowling is one of those success stories of people on welfare- the people who needed help, but then got back on their own feet. Only the most callous jerks don't want to support them. It's the people who've been supported by welfare since their mother was fourteen that annoy me and most others who oppose the welfare state.
Ah, but if we're really in a state of labor surplus- as the entire claim of switching to a service economy states- then the welfare state is quite useful at assuring that only competent people will be your servant- by keeping the incompetent out of the workforce.
Ludwig Von Mises would disagree, but you're quite right. I just get tired of people believing in a "free market" when they really mean "a regulated fair market" by Austrian description.
I think we're trying to reach mutually exclusive goals, though certainly we could change our society in ways that makes us both happier. We both value individuals, but you seem to value communities as being the best way to promote individual welfare, while I place little value on them. I still don't think you grasp the value of trade, despite the necessity of it for things as specialized as your computer.
It's only necessary for things such as my computer because by and large, the United States is FAR more for your goal than mine- and because we value (collectively) individual profit over security, we're quickly getting ourselves into a place where we lose both. American workers are too expensive, but even more expensive will be the day when Intel, VIA, and AMD have to face Lenevo or Great Wall as a chip manufacturer.
One minor note I wish to make about Spaceports is that they work best near the equator- so Florida and New Mexico can have more productive spaceports than Maine and Oregon. This is supposed to suggest that certain communities are naturally more suited for certain occupations, but if you're unaware of this then my post makes much less sense.
Actually, my hometown of Silverton, OR was looked at as one of the contenders with New Mexico for the Spaceport- because it's on the 45th parallel. Maine is also on the 45th parallel. It's just a matter of which launch tech you want to use- 45th parallel and equator are good for rail launchers, New Mexico's a bit better (due to the desert) for carrier planes such as Virgin Galactic will be using. We're getting to the point in our tech that location doesn't matter, as long as you match your tech to the location. One size doesn't fit all, but equally efficient sizes fit different locations.
In a way, we're already doing it large scale, though not quite as focused. A great example is JK Rowling- author of the Harry Potter series. In 1995, she was a single mother, spending all of her time working or parenting. Then she lost her job, and was thrown onto England's vast socialist dole, which paid for her food, clothing, shelter, and education of her child. With the newfound free time, she wrote her first novel, The Philosopher's Stone.
You pick some really poor countries for your examples.
I picked a pair of countries where the governments are too poor to subsidize roads at all, or when they were rich, choose to put those funds into other things. This is no different than eliminating the subsidies outright.
You could still move subsidies down from the federal to state level, except for interstate and national railroads and get more control, while still having enough rich people to tax to help the poor people.
Actually, we already do that- including for interstate and national railroads. National railroads are privately owned in the US, the subsidy is in the form of land grants (right of way) and track rentals (by Amtrak). Interstate highway system is paid for by 83.79% grants to the state Departments of Transportation, who then hire locally (for a wide idea of locally) to build the road.
The best way to explain my views is to link to my favorite article from my favorite angry libertarian quaker..
I've always said the best way to destroy the faith of libertarians in the free market would be to enact a truly regulation-free market.
How much more fair does that make things, at the cost of a lot of privacy?
By allowing taxpayers to pay directly for the destruction they do to the roads under our control while avoiding taxing for roads the state isn't responsible for maintaining (such as, if a Portland driver crosses the Columbia to Vancouver, we don't want to tax the miles driven in Washington State).
There are road sensors and other methods of determining which roads are getting used and should get the money. Fuel is consumed relative to vehicle weight and mileage.
Not as much, we find, with the advent of hybrid and extremely high mileage engines.
Also the extra weight of heavy cargo and more passengers is taken into account with fuel consumption.
Heavy cargo is already under this system, having long ago traded privacy for no fuel taxes. But the number of single passenger private vehicles that could carry four or more people is truly frightening.
I assume your determining vehicle weight by yearly weighing at inspection stations.
Yes, that's close enough for passenger vehicles. Cargo actually gets weighed when rolling down the road, if they've accepted the latest technology (if they haven't, there is a typical Weigh Station right next to the automated transponder reader).
I'd love a company dorm. There is a trailer park in waking distance of my job and that would be the place I would live had I not had cheap rent at the parents. I'd have to live in Suffolk county, but I could easily sell my car at that point. Under your idea of travel being totally wasteful, everyone would end up living in company towns anyway.
Actually, I prefer a slightly more decentralized economy than that, but it works out to be close to the same idea without the centralized control.
This is indeed the case, which means the corn farmer either needs to save his profits from good years or do some diversifying. Of course, even if the farmer has apples, corn, and pigs (which are easy to raise in tandem) he's still not going to have every food he wants to eat, and will still want to trade with the farmer who has rice and fish, and the farmer who has wheat and barley and beef, etc. My example was overly simplified to show a point, but it's still the case that specializing in a few goods is better than trying to do everything.
And my point is that the truly secure *community* contains within it the ability to do everything- and no need left to trade at all. That's the difference between looking at the community and at the individual.
My example was more along the lines of "I don't buy pot now, so I don't feel the need to buy it from anyone, whether or not they are my neighbor". I should have made it more clear. Also, I would like to point out that while I'm not involved in my immediate community, I spend time and money supporting causes I care about, including charities, scholarships, and medical organizations. I still don't see why the people living next door to me are any more important than people living anywhere else, and why you want to put me into a 'community' based on where I happened to be born. I suppose if I wanted to be an astronaut, you would tell me to build an airstrip where I was born instead of moving to Florida.
Well, that seems to be what New Mexico is doing, and in so doing, they're making their state more secure by hosting the first American Public Spaceport. But more importantly- if your community doesn't need to import and survives *first* on local production, trading only out of surplus, then they no longer need to worry about foreign policy or foreign interests. So when faced with radicalized Islam, for instance, instead of sending a bunch of people to other nations to be killed, they can simply *stop trading with Islamics*, thus solving the original problem.
But really, our most serious disagreement comes from our different perspectives on the environmental impact of trade. Your views on the matter are so extreme I don't even know where to begin. Greenpeace and the Sierra Club aren't nearly as out there as you are.
Depends what part of the Sierra Club- there are certainly a range of opinions there as well. What I see though is these so-called Superfund sites that never actually get cleaned up because the businesses that created them go bankrupt paying for them. I see us closing factories here and moving pollution to China- only to have it come back to Oregon courtesy of the jet stream winds to poison my nephew with mercury. Obviously we need to do something- and small scale craft industry is certainly one among many answers.
Lastly, Distributism is all in favor of specialization and trade. What it's opposed to is giant megacorps with undue influence on the State. For instance, a distributed society would still have fast-food restaurants, but instead of having a McDonald's in every town, one town would have a McDonald's, one would have a Joe's, one would have a GnarlBurger, etc., and each would be locally owned. However, the Joe's, the McDonald's, and the GnarlBurger would probably still all import beef, cheese, buns, and/or ketchup from outside of town. (McDonald's might be in a good beef&cheese area, Joe's might be near a Bakery, and GnarlBurger might be in the middle of tomato fields, but they would still want to trade for other ingredients). Also, the State wouldn't be controlling all the services in such a system either, since Distributism favors local, private ownership of the means of production.
The key there is local- and local doesn't work without strong tariffs and borders.
If you need to drink to pick up chicks, then you've obviously missed the fake empathy method, which also works in churches, funeral homes, and abortion clinics.
Interesting, but not quite the same thing, since you can also use adult stem cells to make GDNF. Also note it wasn't a cure- it didn't delay onset of symptoms since the surviving motor neurons also lost their connections to muscle tissue.
In addition to that, this isn't a typical stem cell therapy, where you replace damaged tissue with stem cell grown tissue of the same type. This is something altogether different- if you had a bacteria you had engineered to produce GDNF, you'd end up with EXACTLY the same effect.
I do not know what government you are talking about, but it is not one I have experienced.
Agreed. The one most of us have experienced so far has been a slave to corporate profit at the expense of the citizenry. This, however, is not the only form of government possible.
Also, I know when I am deathly sick I will want a doctor, and me not dying creates happiness and well being.
But not profit, which is the point. Under capitalism, profit is the only thing that counts at all.
Beyond that making widgets means a lot less to me, and I am guessing a lot of other ppl as well.
Which would put you all in my camp- of being communists.
Federal funding of adult stem cell research already exists. It's the embryonic stem cell research that is forbidden in the United States; and despite being legal in other countries, has yet to achieve even ONE useful cure. Where Adult Stem Cells, like in TFA, are now up to 20 or 30 miracle cures of a variety of injuries from heart attacks to severed spine paralysis. One ASC researcher has even claimed that he can regenerate 30,000 human brains from a single Grey matter stem cell (though, one would suspect that any knowledge the donor had would not be so duplicated- after all growing nervous tissue does not create the connections between those nerves).