He didn't answer the question I most wanted answers: What happens to the losers in a Liberitarian society? What will happen to the people who, through no fault of their own, can't find a job or become productive members of society? Or those who become invalids?
Two examples: My fiancee worked hospice care for mentally disabled adults. One of them was a guy who got blindsided by an SUV while he was on his motorcycle. He went from being a well-paid metal worker to a grown man with the mental skills of a two-year old. Would the burden of his care be placed on his family, or the family of the person who hit him? Neither of them could support his care.
My future brother-in-law has muscular dystrophy, and has gone from walking around and caring for himself to a wheelchair and complete dependence on others in six months. He gets some help from MDA, but without government assistance my future mother-in-law could not afford treatments for him that could extend his life so he could be cured in the future. Does he deserve to die because he was born with a congenital disease? And I don't trust that a donations-funded organization could provide for him. What happens when they have a bad year? Would his medication be cut? Would his therapy and school aid be dropped because they can't afford it?
Maybe I'm Wolverine's Dad, but I don't ever get sick.
Maybe it was all those dares to eat things off of the floor in junior high, but I could eat dirt and not get sick. I eat lunchmeat that's probably beyond its prime, live on month-old refrigerated leftovers and pick the moldy bits out of shredded cheese to pour on said month-old leftovers.
My fiancee, on the other hand, gets sick on a quarterly basis, and turns her nose up at week-old milk.
I had a similar situation in an old job. So I just twisted two of the flourescent tubes so they didn't have power, and left one on in each fixture. That way people didn't complain about the "black hole" in my cube, and I could still function, at least with my sunglasses on.
I have already decreased my own dependence on fossil fuels down to what I consider a reasonable level, at what I consider a reasonable cost.
Then get out there to tell your legislators that you think it's too much. You have the freedom to do this, just like I have the freedom to do the opposite. The government isn't some big, faceless entity. We elect people who make policy (for the most part), so we can change this.
And the answer to my questions is: There is a collective good that is served by doing (some) uneconomical things. One of these is limiting our dependence on fossil fuels.
This is why I will not use a fancy-pants ATM. I don't need a color screen with moving graphics to get money out. Give me a monochromatic text-based ATM for those occasions when some retailer won't take my debit card.
My dad works with a federal agency building low-cost housing in rural areas. A similar government official came to visit one year and balked at the fact that we make roofs that only last 20 years! He said people in England wouldn't buy a house without at least a 50 year-guaranteed slate roof.
I'm going to start having to keep this story in a text file...
My dad built two earth-sheltered passive solar homes, which were about 1200 sq ft and cost next to nothing. They didn't have solar panels, but they did have a large greenhouse and a solar water pre-heater. It was basically a box made of foil-backed insulation that had a black 55-gallon drum in it. This was hooked up between the water supply and the hot water heater. When it was sunny out, it preheated the water and saved energy. Since it was an electric water heater, the $50 of materials paid for themselves the first year. No major installation costs, no big expensive solar panels, and a very rugged design.
I like to keep my lights off when I'm *in* the office. Why do I need a bank of flourescents buzzing away over my head when I have a perfectly good radiation tube that will provide me with all my lighting needs?
Or a backlit keyboard on my Powerbook. Mmm... glowey.
Ever since WWII we've backed the Saudi Royal family in exchange for their continued oil exportation. This is a well-known fact, not a conspiracy. While we invade Iraq for "democracy," we ignore Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses.
Let me put it in a way that a warmonger will understand: Oil is a strategic resource that we have to protect. Saudi Arabia has the most oil in the world, so we have to make sure that their country is stable, regardless of how it affects the people there.
At any rate, it's a stupid idea to feed cows things that humans can eat, be it corn or other cows. Why not just feed it to people in the first place? This is why I only buy organic, free-range beef. Well, that and it tastes better.
But saying that they shouldn't take either of them out unless they take both of them out is still idiotic.
Of course that's true. However, there are far cheaper ways to keep them from harming others. We could have contained Iraq. We could have not given Saddam our support to begin with. We could have negotiated with him and North Korea. If we really value life, we would not take actions that increase death in the world. We would pursue a middle path, one that neither causes more suffering, nor allows more suffering to take place.
Of course, I'm a Buddhist surrounded by a sea of people crying "Death to the infidels!"
Would you argue that because the police don't catch every murderer they shouldn't bother stopping any?
I'd argue that the police should catch the guy in the clocktower mowing down civilians instead of the ex-policeman who shot a guy he thought was robbing his house.
Explanation: There are a lot more really bad people out there. Like Kim Jong Il. Why not go after him instead of Saddam who, until 1991, was our buddy? Pyongyang was much closer to a Nuke, and much worse for its people.
I'll tell you why: We're crackwhores and Saudi Arabia is our pimp and dealer. We'll do anything to make sure the Saudis keep selling us that sweet, sweet liquid love (petroleum).
Not to mention the fact that if we invaded North Korea, China would stop taking our money in exchange for abusing its workers and environment to make stuff cheaper.
If you don't like spinach you're not doing it right.
Don't get the frozen stuff. The bagged spinach works best. Put olive oil and garlic in a pan over medium-high heat and let it get warm. Add spinach and toss to coat for about a minute. It's one of the best non-meat foods I can think of.
For the price of the war in Iraq ($100 billion) we could have gone to mars 10 times over 15 years, according to Zubrin's calculation of $50 billion for R&D and 5 flights using Mars Direct. Take out cost-plus accounting and bureaucratic waste, and that means at *least* three trips, plus development of all of the hardware, software, and wetware (experience) we need to survive on the red planet.
And 1,000 US soldiers and 10,000 Iraqis still alive.
I've thought about this. Humans on Mars, if they eat meat at all, will eat goats.
Why? Because all three can live off of stuff we can't, and are small enough to fit inside a habitat. We eat animals because they're machines that turn grass into meat. (Why we feed cows grain is beyond me, but that's a story for another time.) Goats can eat corn stalks and carrot leaves and other such produce waste. They can also be milked, which solves the 'dairy group' problem.
Now we just need to breed a goat that doesn't grow to a very large size, but has a good amount of meat and makes a lot of milk.
Billion billion is a perfectly valid number. Or would you rather they say 6.0 × 10^18? Most people can't imagine that. But people can (kind of) visualize a billion, and then multiply that by a billion, and see it's really, really big.
One more thing: If it's abortable, you can use it to save other people by harvesting stem cells. You wouldn't stop someone from getting stem cells from afterbirth, would you?
I heard a pretty good explanation once. It went along these lines: Life doesn't start at any point, it is continuous. The sperm and egg are alive, the person they come from are alive, so at no point is a zygote/fetus/baby *not* alive. But you have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise menstruation and masturbation is murder.
Me? I draw the line here: If the entity is capable of surviving outside of the mother's body, regardless of whether it needs assistance, and there is trivial danger to the mother in removing the entity intact, then abortion is wrong.
But it's a personal decision, and I'm not going to make it for you or your girlfriend/wife/mother/sister/etc., so you shouldn't try to make it for me. No one is saying you *must* get an abortion, just like no one is saying you *must* marry someone of the same gender. You just have to tolerate that other people have different ideas about what is right.
And that doesn't mean you can't try to convince them otherwise, because that's your right. Just don't blow up a clinic, shoot a doctor or plaster pictures of aborted fetuses on the sides of buses, because that's wrong.
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Two examples: My fiancee worked hospice care for mentally disabled adults. One of them was a guy who got blindsided by an SUV while he was on his motorcycle. He went from being a well-paid metal worker to a grown man with the mental skills of a two-year old. Would the burden of his care be placed on his family, or the family of the person who hit him? Neither of them could support his care.
My future brother-in-law has muscular dystrophy, and has gone from walking around and caring for himself to a wheelchair and complete dependence on others in six months. He gets some help from MDA, but without government assistance my future mother-in-law could not afford treatments for him that could extend his life so he could be cured in the future. Does he deserve to die because he was born with a congenital disease? And I don't trust that a donations-funded organization could provide for him. What happens when they have a bad year? Would his medication be cut? Would his therapy and school aid be dropped because they can't afford it?
In IT mission critical means "This is important enough to bother the sysadmin."
Maybe it was all those dares to eat things off of the floor in junior high, but I could eat dirt and not get sick. I eat lunchmeat that's probably beyond its prime, live on month-old refrigerated leftovers and pick the moldy bits out of shredded cheese to pour on said month-old leftovers.
My fiancee, on the other hand, gets sick on a quarterly basis, and turns her nose up at week-old milk.
Self-vaccination or blind luck? You decide.
/me contemplates changing name to "Hans Moleman."
Then get out there to tell your legislators that you think it's too much. You have the freedom to do this, just like I have the freedom to do the opposite. The government isn't some big, faceless entity. We elect people who make policy (for the most part), so we can change this.
And the answer to my questions is: There is a collective good that is served by doing (some) uneconomical things. One of these is limiting our dependence on fossil fuels.
This is why I will not use a fancy-pants ATM. I don't need a color screen with moving graphics to get money out. Give me a monochromatic text-based ATM for those occasions when some retailer won't take my debit card.
And I'm planning on building my own one day.
My dad works with a federal agency building low-cost housing in rural areas. A similar government official came to visit one year and balked at the fact that we make roofs that only last 20 years! He said people in England wouldn't buy a house without at least a 50 year-guaranteed slate roof.
Who has an interest in increasing the size of the market for these products so economies of scale can lower their prices? Taxpayers.
Who has an interest in lowering electrical demand so the possibility of power shortages decreases? Taxpayers.
My dad built two earth-sheltered passive solar homes, which were about 1200 sq ft and cost next to nothing. They didn't have solar panels, but they did have a large greenhouse and a solar water pre-heater. It was basically a box made of foil-backed insulation that had a black 55-gallon drum in it. This was hooked up between the water supply and the hot water heater. When it was sunny out, it preheated the water and saved energy. Since it was an electric water heater, the $50 of materials paid for themselves the first year. No major installation costs, no big expensive solar panels, and a very rugged design.
Or a backlit keyboard on my Powerbook. Mmm... glowey.
So that would be 0.0000001 Sagans, not .1, which would be 100 million billion.
Let me put it in a way that a warmonger will understand: Oil is a strategic resource that we have to protect. Saudi Arabia has the most oil in the world, so we have to make sure that their country is stable, regardless of how it affects the people there.
At any rate, it's a stupid idea to feed cows things that humans can eat, be it corn or other cows. Why not just feed it to people in the first place? This is why I only buy organic, free-range beef. Well, that and it tastes better.
Of course that's true. However, there are far cheaper ways to keep them from harming others. We could have contained Iraq. We could have not given Saddam our support to begin with. We could have negotiated with him and North Korea. If we really value life, we would not take actions that increase death in the world. We would pursue a middle path, one that neither causes more suffering, nor allows more suffering to take place.
Of course, I'm a Buddhist surrounded by a sea of people crying "Death to the infidels!"
That sounds so cool. Unfortunately, there is a problem with it.
1 Sagan = 1 quintillion (US) = 1 trillion (EU) = 1 hexillion (Greek)
I'd argue that the police should catch the guy in the clocktower mowing down civilians instead of the ex-policeman who shot a guy he thought was robbing his house.
Explanation: There are a lot more really bad people out there. Like Kim Jong Il. Why not go after him instead of Saddam who, until 1991, was our buddy? Pyongyang was much closer to a Nuke, and much worse for its people.
I'll tell you why: We're crackwhores and Saudi Arabia is our pimp and dealer. We'll do anything to make sure the Saudis keep selling us that sweet, sweet liquid love (petroleum).
Not to mention the fact that if we invaded North Korea, China would stop taking our money in exchange for abusing its workers and environment to make stuff cheaper.
It's all very logical. Psychopathic, but logical.
Don't get the frozen stuff. The bagged spinach works best. Put olive oil and garlic in a pan over medium-high heat and let it get warm. Add spinach and toss to coat for about a minute. It's one of the best non-meat foods I can think of.
No, we'll only go if they show the Martian plains covered with oil wells.
And 1,000 US soldiers and 10,000 Iraqis still alive.
Think about it.
Yes, but he said "billion billion" or "One hundred million million." So calling 10^18 a "Sagan" is a great idea.
Why? Because all three can live off of stuff we can't, and are small enough to fit inside a habitat. We eat animals because they're machines that turn grass into meat. (Why we feed cows grain is beyond me, but that's a story for another time.) Goats can eat corn stalks and carrot leaves and other such produce waste. They can also be milked, which solves the 'dairy group' problem.
Now we just need to breed a goat that doesn't grow to a very large size, but has a good amount of meat and makes a lot of milk.
Billion billion is a perfectly valid number. Or would you rather they say 6.0 × 10^18? Most people can't imagine that. But people can (kind of) visualize a billion, and then multiply that by a billion, and see it's really, really big.
One more thing: If it's abortable, you can use it to save other people by harvesting stem cells. You wouldn't stop someone from getting stem cells from afterbirth, would you?
Me? I draw the line here: If the entity is capable of surviving outside of the mother's body, regardless of whether it needs assistance, and there is trivial danger to the mother in removing the entity intact, then abortion is wrong.
But it's a personal decision, and I'm not going to make it for you or your girlfriend/wife/mother/sister/etc., so you shouldn't try to make it for me. No one is saying you *must* get an abortion, just like no one is saying you *must* marry someone of the same gender. You just have to tolerate that other people have different ideas about what is right.
And that doesn't mean you can't try to convince them otherwise, because that's your right. Just don't blow up a clinic, shoot a doctor or plaster pictures of aborted fetuses on the sides of buses, because that's wrong.