I haven't read Locke, but I agree with what you relate. I was referring to land and raw materials, and really I was thinking specifically of mined raw materials at that. This that existed before man, and aren't replaceable.
Even that question isn't straightforward. Who owns the foetus before birth? Is there a "you" that can own it, or is it the property of body that contains it? And what, if any, ownership does the father have. If one says there is a "you" that owns a foetus, at what stage does that apply? Such are the unanswerable questions surrounding the abortion debate.
Then again, as a child, who owns it? One is certainly not free to do as one like with it. One's parent(s) have legal control over where it is kept for example. And in cases where parents are declared unfit, the state gains such control.
As an adult, if the body is "yours", how come the state make it a crime to put certain chemicals (street drugs) in to it?
But these things are a digression. I used the term "Property is theft" from Joseph Proudhon. But making my argument, I think I made clear that I was talking about land and (mined) raw materials. Those things that already existed before man came along.
If you can't own something, you can't steal it either. There is no 'theft' without property.
Absolutely. And that's implicit in the statement "Property is theft."
Communists do not have a problem with the government at all, and would prefer to put more control and ownership in to the hands government rather than those of any one individual. The government is then asked to ration out the property and enforce fairness and the sharing of equal benefits. This system never works.
You're forgetting that it was working perfectly well for Americans prior to the invasion by Europeans.
You should also note that the belief that communism can't work in the modern world was not shared by America's presidents. In the latter half of the 20th century, America waged war on communism, not just in the USSR, but all over the world. If they truly believed that communism couldn't work on it's own merits, there would be no need to destroy it. It would die of it's own accord.
Your disdain for the government, for private property, and your lack of solutions, lead me to believe that you are an Anarchist. You probably wouldn't be satisfied until most human beings were dead, and the rest are forced to live like dumb animals.
LOL! I don't think much of your powers of deduction. My argument was that the government DOES have the right of eminent domain (compulsory purchase.) because there is no such thing as property without government. Anarchists of course don't believe in governments having such power.
I believe governments should have more power in some things and less power in others. Certainly not the viewpoint of anarchism, or any other extreme "ism".
Anarchism is a naive belief system, but not as naive as you characterisation of it. Nor your writing off of the whole of the rest of the animal kingdom as "dumb".
Note that the current iPod touch is a year old and so most closely matches the iPhone 4, rather than the current iPhone 4S. Even then there are differences besides the lack of telephony. Memory is 256MB vs 512MB. The rear camera 0.7 MegaPixel vs 5 MegaPixel. And it lacks GPS and compass.
As a result it has a different PCB and comes in a smaller and lighter package. It is a different device, it's not just the same device with a component missing.
Despite the use of the word "device" in the title of the chart, that analysis is only of smartphones, and doesn't include iPad or iPod touch, which are both iOS devices.
"iPhone is the most popular smartphone. iOS ships on more devices than Android."
You're disputing the second of those statements. The one that deals with OSs. But your link doesn't include iPod touches or iPads. As I said iOS ships on more devices than Android.
As an iPhone developer, I agree absolutely about the reasons why they probably won't do it. I guess what I was trying to say was that that it's a design choice, not a design principle.
iPods with different screen sizes? You mean the NON-touchscreen devices?
I mean the iPods. Only one of which - the iPod touch - had a touchscreen.
The availability of devices with larger screens from HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc. suggests very strongly that a significant number of people do benefit from larger screens
It might suggest that to you. People who know however are aware that Apple bought up the entire world production of 3.5" screens. That's why the Andoid copies of iPhone don't also copy the screensize.
a larger screen device from Apple suggests that Apple did not consider it.
Are you suggesting that everything that you ever considered, you went ahead and did? You must be a very impulsive person then, unable to rationally balance the pros and cons of possible actions.
Rational people weigh up the pros and cons of things they consider, and only do some of them.
Your tone sounds rather foolish, using the language of logic whilst being resolutely illogical.
Here is where Steve Jobs' design philosophies fall down. We are not talking about the aesthetics of the device, we are discussing how the dimensions of the phone match the user. Hand size, how well the eyes work, etc.. One size does not fit all.
What design philosophies are you talking about? You seem to be assuming one about having a single screen size. But iPod came in a variety of screen sizes, as of course do Macs.
The do indeed believe in one handed operation, and if that is made easier for a significant number of people with a 4" they'd consider it.
I doubt Apple will think a 4" worthwhile, but if they did there's nothing in their history to indicate that would mean dropping the 3.5".
*IF* the report of Apple buying 4" screens is true, and that's a big if, then it's probably for a different device. Perhaps a game console. They're already the biggest handheld games platform with the iPhone/iPod touch. But there are lots of games genres that would benefit from joysticks and buttons. Or maybe it's for a remote for a TV or full sized console. Or maybe it's for an automotive device.
That piece of driftwood is worthless. In that if you didn't collect it, nobody would. There's no competition for that item as property. For sure you can add value to it by carving, and that makes it worth something.
More prosaically you might pick garbage up from the street and fashion it into recycled products.
If there was suddenly competition for these things then they'd be no different from the things we've been talking about previously - land and raw materials. You can add value to all these things by work - but the raw item itself doesn't belong to you any more than anyone else.
it is essential to living as human beings as distinguished from brutes.
The land belongs to those, who can protect it from it being taken away from them.
Then by your own definition, the US government owns any land* within it's borders that it chooses to call it's own. They have the power to take it and they have the power to protect it so nobody can take it away from them.
Property is about power. The concept of "rights" is a system by which the government chooses to use it's power over property and people. No more.
There's the concept of "human rights" but that is no more than a widely held set of views on what the minimum set of right a government should guarantee to the people in it's territory.
( * And quite a lot of places outside of it's borders too.)
The important thing is to realize that without property rights nothing can ever be done.
Look at ants, bees, wolves. Plenty can be done without the concept of personal ownership.
Property is theft? That's interesting. Say, do you know anybody with a house that is paid out? Did they steal the house?
They bought it from someone who stole it.
Do you know anybody with a car they paid out? Did they steal it?
Did the car company make the raw materials that the car is constructed of? No, they are a finite earth resource, made long before the company existed. They stole them. Or rather the mining companies stole them and the car company bought stolen goods. There is no reason those materials should belong to them any more than anyone else.
Do you know anybody with a toaster oven they own? Dirty thieves.
No I don't.
For every piece of land and every raw material on earth, at some stage somebody just said "this is mine". Usually with the violence, often killing people. Most land has actually been stolen many times thought various wars and invasions over recorded history, and many more violent conflicts before recorded history.
But because the reality that nobody has more of a right to any thing than anyone else does is not convenient, especially to those people that have successfully managed to occupy land, then this fiction of ownership was given to the current occupiers.
Now I'm not saying that this fiction of "ownership" is a bad thing. But it's certainly not the kind of inalienable right you think it is. And it's certainly the business of government to determine the parameters of that fiction. Because without government that fiction doesn't exist.
Answer the question: what is 'just' compensation, who decides it?
Are you saying the constitution is flawed?
When does it happen that the property is taken away not from somebody who is wealthier and given to somebody who is less wealthy, but the other way around?
The elephant in the room is that that land was taken from the native Americans for no compensation in the first place. Taken by the government and either given or sold the forebears of the people who have possession of it now. And you can't call the reservations "compensation" in that the native Americans already owned the reservation land, and the rest of it too.
If it's going to be needed later, why not build it now? As it is, the plan for completion isn't for another 22 years! That's certainly "later" in anyone's book. And some way beyond most guesses for peak oil.
I don't think it would be so bad if we waited 15-20 years to start building it. By then, fuel costs and congestion should be bad enough that people will be begging for it and investors will be lining up to finance it.
And the fuel costs will also bump up the cost of building the railroad.
But somehow some people have arrived at the belief that corporations should not be considered persons
Is a company a human being? Not it is not. Some insane tax related legislation in the USA might suggest it is. If so, it's wrong.
A company's owners and employees are human beings. But not the company itself.
If you can find a distinction between a human being and a person, other than in legislation which has been lobbied for by business I'd like to see it.
What we have here is law consciously not representing reality, for rich people's benefit.
and should not have any say in government, yet they should be taxed
There is absolutely no reason why a company should not be taxed. It's entirely unrelated to the silly idea that it's a human being.
parasite freeloading off of corporations.
There's nothing stopping corporations conducting their business in international waters, without any government interference or taxation. Hard to see how they make any money though.
There's nothing stopping corporations conducting their business in Somalia, without any government interference or taxation. Hard to see how they make any money though. And hard to see how the owners and employees based there would stay alive long.
Companies rely on the infrastructure, environment and legal structure that governments put there. That's the reason it's OK to tax them.
You seem to be making my points for me. Scully and Fiorina wrecked the companies they were hired to run. Don't know enough about the others you mention.
Many systems had a global hierarchical menu, some put them at the top, some used vertically stacked buttons, some used a menu button. Apple's choice was a minor variation of these systems,
I've asked for a specific example. The only one you've given is Xerox, and you're wrong on that. Give it up.
Yeah, you're just the typical Apple fanboy trying to rewrite history.
On the contrary. I've given the history. I've linked to Wikipedia to prove it. You're the one who's denying history, without a scrap of anything to back you up. And the reason you're doing it is you hate Apple. Grow up.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't read Locke, but I agree with what you relate. I was referring to land and raw materials, and really I was thinking specifically of mined raw materials at that. This that existed before man, and aren't replaceable.
They are comparable so long as care is taken to compare like with like.
iPhone is comparable with a specific phone series from another manufacturer. Such as the Samsung Galaxy (Galaxy A, Galaxy S, Galaxy SII etc.)
Android is comparable with iOS, provided all devices that each OS is shipped on is included, phones, tablets, media players, set top boxes etc.
Incidentally, iOS isn't on "almost all of Apple's product range". Macs ship with OSX. They are related, but they're also significantly different.
So if property is theft, who owns your body?
Even that question isn't straightforward. Who owns the foetus before birth? Is there a "you" that can own it, or is it the property of body that contains it? And what, if any, ownership does the father have. If one says there is a "you" that owns a foetus, at what stage does that apply? Such are the unanswerable questions surrounding the abortion debate.
Then again, as a child, who owns it? One is certainly not free to do as one like with it. One's parent(s) have legal control over where it is kept for example. And in cases where parents are declared unfit, the state gains such control.
As an adult, if the body is "yours", how come the state make it a crime to put certain chemicals (street drugs) in to it?
But these things are a digression. I used the term "Property is theft" from Joseph Proudhon. But making my argument, I think I made clear that I was talking about land and (mined) raw materials. Those things that already existed before man came along.
If you can't own something, you can't steal it either. There is no 'theft' without property.
Absolutely. And that's implicit in the statement "Property is theft."
Communists do not have a problem with the government at all, and would prefer to put more control and ownership in to the hands government rather than those of any one individual. The government is then asked to ration out the property and enforce fairness and the sharing of equal benefits. This system never works.
You're forgetting that it was working perfectly well for Americans prior to the invasion by Europeans.
You should also note that the belief that communism can't work in the modern world was not shared by America's presidents. In the latter half of the 20th century, America waged war on communism, not just in the USSR, but all over the world. If they truly believed that communism couldn't work on it's own merits, there would be no need to destroy it. It would die of it's own accord.
Your disdain for the government, for private property, and your lack of solutions, lead me to believe that you are an Anarchist. You probably wouldn't be satisfied until most human beings were dead, and the rest are forced to live like dumb animals.
LOL! I don't think much of your powers of deduction. My argument was that the government DOES have the right of eminent domain (compulsory purchase.) because there is no such thing as property without government. Anarchists of course don't believe in governments having such power.
I believe governments should have more power in some things and less power in others. Certainly not the viewpoint of anarchism, or any other extreme "ism".
Anarchism is a naive belief system, but not as naive as you characterisation of it. Nor your writing off of the whole of the rest of the animal kingdom as "dumb".
Note that the current iPod touch is a year old and so most closely matches the iPhone 4, rather than the current iPhone 4S. Even then there are differences besides the lack of telephony. Memory is 256MB vs 512MB. The rear camera 0.7 MegaPixel vs 5 MegaPixel. And it lacks GPS and compass.
As a result it has a different PCB and comes in a smaller and lighter package. It is a different device, it's not just the same device with a component missing.
Despite the use of the word "device" in the title of the chart, that analysis is only of smartphones, and doesn't include iPad or iPod touch, which are both iOS devices.
Here's the primary source.
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/in-u-s-market-new-smartphone-buyers-increasingly-embracing-android/
You're still confusing phones and OSs. I said:
"iPhone is the most popular smartphone.
iOS ships on more devices than Android."
You're disputing the second of those statements. The one that deals with OSs. But your link doesn't include iPod touches or iPads. As I said iOS ships on more devices than Android.
As an iPhone developer, I agree absolutely about the reasons why they probably won't do it. I guess what I was trying to say was that that it's a design choice, not a design principle.
iPods with different screen sizes? You mean the NON-touchscreen devices?
I mean the iPods. Only one of which - the iPod touch - had a touchscreen.
The availability of devices with larger screens from HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc. suggests very strongly that a significant number of people do benefit from larger screens
It might suggest that to you. People who know however are aware that Apple bought up the entire world production of 3.5" screens. That's why the Andoid copies of iPhone don't also copy the screensize.
a larger screen device from Apple suggests that Apple did not consider it.
Are you suggesting that everything that you ever considered, you went ahead and did? You must be a very impulsive person then, unable to rationally balance the pros and cons of possible actions.
Rational people weigh up the pros and cons of things they consider, and only do some of them.
Your tone sounds rather foolish, using the language of logic whilst being resolutely illogical.
Here is where Steve Jobs' design philosophies fall down. We are not talking about the aesthetics of the device, we are discussing how the dimensions of the phone match the user. Hand size, how well the eyes work, etc.. One size does not fit all.
What design philosophies are you talking about? You seem to be assuming one about having a single screen size. But iPod came in a variety of screen sizes, as of course do Macs.
The do indeed believe in one handed operation, and if that is made easier for a significant number of people with a 4" they'd consider it.
I doubt Apple will think a 4" worthwhile, but if they did there's nothing in their history to indicate that would mean dropping the 3.5".
*IF* the report of Apple buying 4" screens is true, and that's a big if, then it's probably for a different device. Perhaps a game console. They're already the biggest handheld games platform with the iPhone/iPod touch. But there are lots of games genres that would benefit from joysticks and buttons. Or maybe it's for a remote for a TV or full sized console. Or maybe it's for an automotive device.
You're confused. You're comparing a phone model with an OS.
iPhone is the most popular smartphone.
iOS ships on more devices than Android.
That piece of driftwood is worthless. In that if you didn't collect it, nobody would. There's no competition for that item as property. For sure you can add value to it by carving, and that makes it worth something.
More prosaically you might pick garbage up from the street and fashion it into recycled products.
If there was suddenly competition for these things then they'd be no different from the things we've been talking about previously - land and raw materials. You can add value to all these things by work - but the raw item itself doesn't belong to you any more than anyone else.
it is essential to living as human beings as distinguished from brutes.
What are you? A christian?
Ah OK, so you're just anti the project then. So your opinion on the timing is rather irrelevant.
Opportunity cost. You can use the money now for something more useful and then build the high speed rail later.
What makes you imagine there will be more available money or less competing things to spend it on then than now?
The land belongs to those, who can protect it from it being taken away from them.
Then by your own definition, the US government owns any land* within it's borders that it chooses to call it's own. They have the power to take it and they have the power to protect it so nobody can take it away from them.
Property is about power. The concept of "rights" is a system by which the government chooses to use it's power over property and people. No more.
There's the concept of "human rights" but that is no more than a widely held set of views on what the minimum set of right a government should guarantee to the people in it's territory.
( * And quite a lot of places outside of it's borders too.)
The important thing is to realize that without property rights nothing can ever be done.
Look at ants, bees, wolves. Plenty can be done without the concept of personal ownership.
Union Station and Transbay Terminal look to be right in the centre of LA and SF respectively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cahsr_map.svg
Property is theft? That's interesting. Say, do you know anybody with a house that is paid out? Did they steal the house?
They bought it from someone who stole it.
Do you know anybody with a car they paid out? Did they steal it?
Did the car company make the raw materials that the car is constructed of? No, they are a finite earth resource, made long before the company existed. They stole them. Or rather the mining companies stole them and the car company bought stolen goods. There is no reason those materials should belong to them any more than anyone else.
Do you know anybody with a toaster oven they own? Dirty thieves.
No I don't.
For every piece of land and every raw material on earth, at some stage somebody just said "this is mine". Usually with the violence, often killing people. Most land has actually been stolen many times thought various wars and invasions over recorded history, and many more violent conflicts before recorded history.
But because the reality that nobody has more of a right to any thing than anyone else does is not convenient, especially to those people that have successfully managed to occupy land, then this fiction of ownership was given to the current occupiers.
Now I'm not saying that this fiction of "ownership" is a bad thing. But it's certainly not the kind of inalienable right you think it is. And it's certainly the business of government to determine the parameters of that fiction. Because without government that fiction doesn't exist.
Well what an obedient little corporate puppy dog you are.
Answer the question: what is 'just' compensation, who decides it?
Are you saying the constitution is flawed?
When does it happen that the property is taken away not from somebody who is wealthier and given to somebody who is less wealthy, but the other way around?
The elephant in the room is that that land was taken from the native Americans for no compensation in the first place. Taken by the government and either given or sold the forebears of the people who have possession of it now. And you can't call the reservations "compensation" in that the native Americans already owned the reservation land, and the rest of it too.
Property is theft.
If it's going to be needed later, why not build it now? As it is, the plan for completion isn't for another 22 years! That's certainly "later" in anyone's book. And some way beyond most guesses for peak oil.
I don't think it would be so bad if we waited 15-20 years to start building it. By then, fuel costs and congestion should be bad enough that people will be begging for it and investors will be lining up to finance it.
And the fuel costs will also bump up the cost of building the railroad.
Thanks for an informative post. Just one question:
this railroad to nowhere in California.
Which city are you calling "nowhere"? LA or SF?
But somehow some people have arrived at the belief that corporations should not be considered persons
Is a company a human being? Not it is not. Some insane tax related legislation in the USA might suggest it is. If so, it's wrong.
A company's owners and employees are human beings. But not the company itself.
If you can find a distinction between a human being and a person, other than in legislation which has been lobbied for by business I'd like to see it.
What we have here is law consciously not representing reality, for rich people's benefit.
and should not have any say in government, yet they should be taxed
There is absolutely no reason why a company should not be taxed. It's entirely unrelated to the silly idea that it's a human being.
parasite freeloading off of corporations.
There's nothing stopping corporations conducting their business in international waters, without any government interference or taxation. Hard to see how they make any money though.
There's nothing stopping corporations conducting their business in Somalia, without any government interference or taxation. Hard to see how they make any money though. And hard to see how the owners and employees based there would stay alive long.
Companies rely on the infrastructure, environment and legal structure that governments put there. That's the reason it's OK to tax them.
You seem to be making my points for me. Scully and Fiorina wrecked the companies they were hired to run. Don't know enough about the others you mention.
Many systems had a global hierarchical menu, some put them at the top, some used vertically stacked buttons, some used a menu button. Apple's choice was a minor variation of these systems,
I've asked for a specific example. The only one you've given is Xerox, and you're wrong on that. Give it up.
Yeah, you're just the typical Apple fanboy trying to rewrite history.
On the contrary. I've given the history. I've linked to Wikipedia to prove it. You're the one who's denying history, without a scrap of anything to back you up. And the reason you're doing it is you hate Apple. Grow up.
Ah, screwed formatting by using angle brackets. Can't be bothered redoing it.