You are very optimistic concerning the operation of government.
No I am not. However this particular piece of CRTC activity is of minor impact on the industry and affects only the two major incumbant telcos. It also makes provisions for other more important stuff such as 911 call handling, lack of which already resulted in lost lives. As I said, I personally believe that the measures of this sort are too weak and require micro-managment on the part of regulators (and thus expose the process to inefficiency and mismanagment) but it appears that anything more radical is not in the cards anywhere. So we are left to choose between well-meaning but bumbling bureaucrats at CRTC or the so called "unfethered free market" with its apparent state of equillibrium being an all-poweful oligarchy. At least the bureaucrats have some minor modicum of accountability to the voters.
My opinion is just that this regulation isn't beneficial long term though the harm is probably mild.
You are probably right, although I do understand the motivation of the CTRC. The effectivenes of this regulation will depend how well does CRTC react to market conditions by adjusting the rules. There are also other elements in this such as 911 call provisions, something VOIP services are notorioulsy deficient at and which already resulted in deaths.
Um.... and what happens when somebody comes along who can charge less than the minimum price and still make a profit?
Then the "unfair" price will be adjusted downwards. The whole point of the regulation is to prevent what is known in other industries as "dumping", i.e. using size and profitability in other (usually monopolized) markets to outlast a smaller, specialized competitor in a niche market by writing off the losses in this small market which the competitor cannot afford to. In other words: to stop an anti-competetive and thus subversive to capitalism practice.
This has been going on in other industries (RAM memory, CDs, vitamins etc) and the various governments (some of them anything but socialist) slap this type of activity down quite rightfully.
My personal view on fixing this permanently is a globally enforced (via progressive taxation) limit on the size a company can grow to, thus forcing ongoing competition and avoiding this issue alltogether. But I realize its not likely to happen that way, so every government is left to come up with their own method of playing anti-monopolistic whack-a-mole as capitalism is moving more and more into oligarcho-corporatism despite these haphazard efforts.
Speed cameras are not simply the next step in a gradual progression to totalitarianism.
Apparently thats where we differ. Mine and other's opinion is that if left unchecked and unopposed they will lead precisely to that. Yours is not. Only time will tell who was right.
Speed cameras in public places simply are mechanical devices designed to do what police officers have done since the advent of roads.
Some of the British street surveilance cameras are capable of pointing directly into windows of private residences, do explain the difference from the "tele-screens" again...
Wireless microphones in public places simply do what police have done ever since the advent of loud music. Street cameras in public places simply do what police officers have been doing since the advent of assult, theivery and rape.
The fundamental difference is twofold: a) it allows for total and automated surveilance, thus creating a ratio of "virtual" police to citizenry of 1:1 (or more) from which flows: b) With such surveilance and automation capability comes exponentially increased power. Power to automatically collect, archive and use minor infractions against anyone because we all commit them. This allows the "security" forces to pick and choose whose political views can be silenced or discredited. The term for such a situation is: "police state". In traditional, non-police-state societies it is explicitely forbidden to go on fishing expedition type surveilance missions targetted at juornalists and politicians. Automated, 24/7, "neutral" (but not neutrally interpreted), surveilance conveniently circum-navigates this restriction.
If allowed to go unchecked this trend will not have you on the next train to Dachau, the worst that will happen is possibly you might get fined next time you do something a little nauty.
And this is precisely the kind of intellectually dodgy and lazy rethorical technique you are accusing me of: the totalitarian societies of the future will not be carbon copies of the ones in the past. So while you or I might not catch the train to Dachau, we might instead end up politically powerless and terminally intimidated by vast, automated, unbeatable, always monitoring machinery of state run by "security contractors" and "security corporations" while sheepishly smiling anchors on 1200 TV channels blabber their newspeak nonsense about "liberty", "democracy" and "public safety". The techniques of would be opressors change as times change, but the end result they seek is still the same: a totalitarian society.
Come on, I'm just talking about being fined for driving too fast, not being imprisoned for saying the wrong things.
Actually both Goodwin's "law" and your sentiment are faulty. The reason that many threads end up mentioning totalitarian or would-be totalitarian societies is because for some inexplicable reason it appears we have today an endless supply of people who in completely oblivious manner espouse views essential to constructing totalitarianism. And when this lapse of reason is pointed out, the persons in question get even more irrational and attempt to end or mis-direct any further discussion by invoking inane concotions such as Goodwin's "law".
Speaking of "just" being fined for driving too fast, that is a part of an ever-growing maze of suffocating "laws" and "rules" of staggering complexity and questionable validity which combined with ruthless and automated enforcement along with arguable motivation behind such selective emphasis on them is leading many to believe that we have lost control of the basic mechanisms of our society and instead a self-annointed, self-serving priesthood of lawyers, lawyers-cum-politicians and enforcement securocracy has taken over. Some of us find this situation unacceptable. The "speeding" cameras are just a particularly visible, in-your-face, aggrevating reminder of this situation, soon to be joined in Britain by automated microphones and, in what only seems as a logical next step, 24/7 computer assisted speech monitoring in public places. I am sure Homeland Security is salivating at the idea and can't wait to import it to the USA. Orwell might still have the last laugh in our lifetimes.
Seriously, those speed limits are there to tell you how fast to drive for a reason,
Some are and most aren't. You seem to have forgotten that the limits are set by politicos and inane city "officials" who could not explain to you the reason why they put a limit of 70km/hr right after 80km/hr if their life depended on it. The very few speed limits that make sense are set in areas where there are unexpected manouvers that have to be performed by drivers. Civil engineers are responsible for setting of those and few people would argue. The whole "speed limit" stupidity is the result of an inability to enforce basic rules of road (such as maintaining distance between vehicles appropriate to speed) and the fact that... lower speed limits nation wide reduce oil imports. Now add to this a veritable bonanza from "speed cameras" (in my city some 20 cameras are now responsible for 30% increase in city revenue) and you got 100% political bullshit and 0% common sense.
Stick to the rules and you won't get busted, it's as simple as that.
Sticking to all "rules" just because they are "rules" and not because they make sense is the foundation of every sheep citizen/fascist government society that ever existed. It goes right along with "I dont care about this new law allowing idefinite detention in Guantanamo if you are 'uppity' because if you do nothing 'wrong' you have nothing to worry about!".
Read through a history of libraries and you'll notice that the vast majority of the earliest ones are private, not public.
Err, that depends what do you mean by "private". A King's or a feudal lord's library is not "private" because feudal lords=government in those times and access to scholars makes the libraries "public" (although they were clearly opened only to the upper echelons of society, peasants were too lowly to be called a "public").
Little definite is actually known about the library itself (not even it's exact location in the city) and it was most likely a private library with a very restricted set of rules for scholars being able to access it.
Actually no. The simple rule of those times was: you can read = you are a member of a tiny respected minority = you have access. You forgot that literacy was extremely rare in those days.
I'm no library expert (despite having worked as a volunteer in several and having read tens of thousands of books), but since a simple couple of minutes with a web browser and a search engine demonstrates your lack of knowledge, apparently neither are you.
Digging out some facts and then twisting them painfully does not advance your cause.
I'll clarify that I was talking mostly about past private libraries that typically didn't run as a profit-making endevour, but were mainly charitable or a break-even service that went along with a print-shop (in the time of great masses of people beginning to learn to read and frequent print-shops, the new technology of the time) or with a club with specific needs, like a group of lawyers.
Actually, no, you were admiringly talking about the likes of Netflix i.e. pay-per-view operations.
Yes, charity predates government-enforced theft.
Yes, "theft" such as roads, police, army and in modern times enviromental protections etc. All better left to private enterpise according to you. Which never happened in recorded history because even the oldest of the kings of old built roads and had national armies. The tax was back then called "tithe"... and some of it went to furnish king's library, except not all who paid had access. Restoration of that elitism is what you are so clearly longing for.
Just to make the connection there for you, very rapid=short term.
And yes, for those others who didn't read the article, these conclusions are from a peer-reviewed article published for economic scholars by a team of respected economists at UCLA.
To kill two lies in one stone:
a) The braindead paper is a prime example of politically charged economic "pie in the sky" voodoo. The idiots focus on 1933 onwards, by which time 10,000 banks failed since the market crash in 1929, international trade fell by 2/3rd, GNP fell by 31% and more then 13 million Americans were out of work and mass starvation complete with corner-street soup kitchens was the main theme. That was before FDR got elected, never you mind his policies. I will repeat for the feeble minded: 6 years of "very rapid", "short term" starvation already occured. The whole stupid article is beyond redemption.
b) As to "peer-reviewed, respected" economists, there is no such thing as "respected" economist, very much like there is no such thing as "respected" witch doctor. Economics is not science as it was proven repeatedely thoughout history, time after time, "respected" economists making predictions and proclamations turning out to be totally false, and in modern times the idiots even starting multi-billion dollar hedge funds which left taxpayers bailing them out after they lost all the money.
Feel free to dispute their data or methodology, but constantly just stating your contrary opinions in post after post doesn't make the facts change one whit.
Very well: the data covers the tail-end of the great depression after 1933, it focuses on wrong and misleading parameters (i.e. price indicators instead of employment levels), blames FDR for continuing his predecessor lax anti-trust activities (forced on him by the very same people who criticise him, i.e. industiral elites), employs invalid and baseless correlations (claiming that recovery sped up when labour suffered "setbacks", while neglecting other factors such as massive government labour projects which also occured at the same time frame - as a matter of fact it completely ignores these wide-spread gigiantic undertakings such as highway constructions which employed tens of thousands), etc and so on. And of course the whole thing is based on the "reasearchers" unfounded assumptions that their proposed policies would actually have the effect they predict, something they have absoultely no way of determining. In short: total hypocritical, woulda-coulda-shoulda bunk.
Ole modern Capitalism also seems to be sliding in this direction. Could it be that no government or economic system works well for a long amount of time?
I would not venture as far as to say "no" system. I think none of the systems that are being talked about were actually designed to withstand all of the preassures that are being placed on them while adhering to basic requirements of society. Also it is very difficult to future-proof a political system, changes in technology can render old equations moot and create completely new problems.
Having said that, I am optimistic that an extremely robust system could be devised because the number of fundamental rules is very small. Once everyone acknowledges these basic axioms, the rest flows out of there through logic. So even if the fine level details could be variable, the core would essentially have to be static. But what is required is that very acknowledment of basic rules which have to be defined in the terms of interaction of sentient beings so that if (or rather when) AI or other forms (genetic engineering? aliens? what not?) are encountered the system would accomodate them by definition.
Please, at least realize that force is our common enemy, not free will.
Force applied by one person against another? Well, yes, sort-of. This is an ultra-simplistic and frankly naive position. Or more precisely, "force" can have so many forms that basically the only state in which people do not apply "force" against each other is when they are all dead. You eat, thus you need food, thus you put preasure on food production, which leads to raising price which reduces someone else's ability to buy food: ergo you are applying "force" (deadly one in some cases) and thus, to him, you are guilty of the greatest sin in your siplistic world view.
Force is not our common enemy (as force is merely a neutral concept) but injsutice is. Application of force is merely one of mechanisms to cause injustice.
Now, the actual definition of injustice is subject to debate, but there are some basic immutable assumptions here:
every sentient being has some basic "rights" in regards to all others, i.e. there is a set of basic rules that govern interaction of beings, such as:
one person's welfare is not more important then another's
society's basic purpose is protection of all of its members from harm, as long as these members abide by societal rules
the society's ultimate purpose is to provide means of fullfilment and happiness to its members
From these simple rules, one can try to devise a practical system which takes into account things like the scarcity of resources and the fact that significant portion of members of society are not cabable of understanding the rules and/or are actively trying to pervert them out of stupidity or malice.
The democratic government/capitalist economy is our latest and arguably most successful concotion which approximates (remotely) the solution. But it is recently showing its inability to cope with vicious, perisistent and coordinated attack from various would-be feudal lordlings and also with technological change upsetting existing balances. In short, we need something better.
Unfortunately I see Libertatians (although some, like you, appear to be well meaning) in the same camp as Anarchists and Marxists. That is your proposed "solution" is so obviously vulnerable to takeover by a small group of unscrupulous individuals and has so little to stop them from their takeover being near absolute that it truly frightens me. What would come out of anarcho-libertarianism is very simlilar to what came out of Marxism: totalitarian, feudal-like power.
So do I, and that's exactly why I do not believe in robbing Peter to give to Paul.
The trick is in the choice of terms here: what if Peter is an oligopolistic Robber Baron who scammed billions of Peters until their livelhood became untennable? You would like to present it as a case of saintly, highly-talented, God's favourtie child Peter innocently and piously pursuing his "destiny" to great wealth and unlimited power over others and on the other hand a Satanic band of evil, underhanded, greedy wolf-like Pauls aided by a communist monster called "guvmnt" to rob our hapless hero. But perheaps Peter is a greedy asshole who abused every rule in the book to con, deceive, cajole and force other people to work for him, give to him far more then he compensates them for and who in the result ended up with 1/2 of the planet and a private army as his "property".
In which case I would be cheering for "robbing" him as violently as possible.
As to people "choosing" to submit themselves to force: they do it all the time because the power (and incidentally wealth) elites control education and keep their serfs ignorant enough to not understand what they are "choosing".
Let me get this straight. You view wealth as a problem that needs solving. For whatever reason, you consider wealth (financial success) immoral, even when it is acquired through 100% voluntary means.
Let me butt into this: I do not consider wealth "immoral" (as money is simply an amoral tool) but I see a vast disparity in wealth between some tiny elite and majority of society leading to centralized power and control, followed by debasing serfdom of majortity to that tiny minority, and thus to be anti-social and for lack of a better word "evil". (I will skip for the momemnt discussion of crippling economical effects of such distribution of wealth). From your other posts I see that you see use of "force" against few anti-social people for the benefit of billions as the utimate failing of society. I would be curious for your explanation as to how to solve the problem of oligopoly being the inherent equilibrium of real-life capitalist system (as oposed to pure theory under ideal conditions) while not using any sort of centralized political power such as government. I am all ears.
Dude. You're talking about the crowd that "buys" things via BitTorrent. The/. crowd might melt their web server but it won't take all their stock, unless there is a way to download it without paying...
Generalizations are dangerous... I currently own an SL-C760 (used as a specialized diagnostic tool with custom engineering software), SL-C860 (general laptop replacement) and I am thinking of getting a SL-C3000... if you combine it with other posters above who also have various Zaurus models, I would say that we are actually quite the target audience.
He just showed her the big bang. She figured out the rest from there.
I guess it would go towards expaining the transfer of genetic material and accellatory effects of sexual reproduction on the genetic search algorithm... if I understood your reference to "bing bang" correctly that is...
Genuinely curious as to your preferable model for behavior.
My view is that there are some basic rules and obligations for any intelligence operating among other intelligences which establish their mutual relationship. This view is based on a principle that all sentient beings have some inalienable basic "rights" in relation to others in the universe. The rest flows logically from there.
Christianity attempts to address this issue, but it lacks internal logic and consistency (perheaps because it was concocted out of haphazard collection of pre-existing dogmas and beliefs). For example: one of the wisest and most beneficial elements of Christian teachings is the doctrine of "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you". In theory, it leads to societal support of all of its individuals and in vast majority of persons would also result in personal happiness.
As I was trying to get at in my first post; without some sort of theistic model, i.e. a purely mechanical view of reality, I'm still not seeing the differnce between virtue and anarchy. The utilitarian argument seems weak; when the heart stops, so what?
There are two separate issues here: one is the operation of society and individuals within. We are inherently wired to find certain things good for us and certain things objectionable. We form societies to make the good things happen to us more often then the bad ones. Simple logic and common sense should take it from there to sane rules of society. Mathematically speaking, mutual cooperation (aka commune) would be the optimal scenario... if... and only if.. all members of society were rational. Unfortunately this does not work that way because most are not and prefer to try to abuse others for gain. Utilitarian argument has a lot in common in some places with the Christan one, because I believe that in essence, Christ was attempting to perform this sort of social engineering project to make everyone better off. My hat off to him for trying but at the same time as we already know, the project failed rather spectacularly.
As to "after-life", sicence is simply not qualified to answer certain questions, sometimes because they are simply posed incorrectly (such as "How kind is color Blue?"). This fact however does not render it somehow less potent and less applicable within its own domain. In short, the "explanatory" part of religion is fine in the realm of pure fantasy but as soon as it crosses into the realm of discoverable phenomena, it is toast.
My point is the in demonstration of the complexity of living organisms.
Which in your view prohibits their incremental, spontaneous development..
As far as following the rules go, let's stick with the ever faithful scientific method. You can show me real experimental evidence that proves how the chemical precursors to life happened to have come about in the violent environment of pre-life earth? And don't tell me about the papers where molecular pre-cursors are subjected to a single stimulus, after which the products are whisked out of solution and/or protected from further stimulus and degradation. Those don't do anything but prove my point that the sequence of events across time that lead to what we have today were directed by an Intelligent Designer (or The LORD God, if that makes you more comfortable).
Right. Next thing you will ask me to "prove" to you how it worked by producing a time machine and transporting you backwards in time to the precise moment and place where that occured...
So let me repeat: 3 billion years of reactions in a vast (planetary-sized) pool of chemical goo, with miriads of varying conditions between places is rather hard to simulate experimentally in the lab. Instead, mathematical models are developed which describe the process in compressed time-scale but as necessity, lose the precision to describe fine-grained details such as the chemical composition of molecules. That is how it is with the "theory" of evolution. A model which explains experimental evidence and is able to predict with great accuracy the behaviour of the process in current conditions.
By your logic, Sun does not exist, because noone was able to replicate in a lab the complete set of fusion reactions, combined with neccessary mass to effect sufficient gravitational force and did not wait a few billion years to see how did it work out...therefore the only explanation is: "God made it!", no?
Except that you don't really have 3 billion years, do you? No, because evidence shows that the conditions suitable for life only existed for a tiny fraction of geologic history.
Err, actually it was 3 billion or so. Earth is estimated to be 4 billion years old, pre-bacterial/bacterial life is believed to have evolved for about 3 billion years until finally a cell structure became available out of which multi-cellular organisms could form. The trial and error combinations accross trillions upon trillions of generations each made up of trillions upon trillions of cells is staggering.
And the painting isn't really *trying* to do anything, is it? Things are just happening (errors, mainly), and if environmental conditions dictate those errors to be favorable at that time, then those changes are propagated to the next generation.
These conditions determine the direction of evolution. Just as you arbitrarily decided that the vector of evolution of a "painting" should be towards "beautiful landscape" to which I oblidged by specifying the appropriate evolutionary criteria.
That is what I was suggessting. If you think that such an absolutely complete and beautiful work of art could be created by such conditions (even given a nearly infinite timespan), so be it. If you think instead that a skilled artist directed his brush, applied paint to empty canvas, took his time, and created a masterpiece, so be it.
This is a classic cop-out. First "complete and beautiful" is an arbitrary, subjective criterion. What is "complete and beautiful" to one person, is "kitsch" to another. Furthermore, it was you who framed it in such terms, I can only guess to try to leave an escape hatch opened to esoteric talk about an "artist" in case someone managed to challenge your "common sense" attempt at discrediting evolution. If you want to keep religion in the realm of never-never land of fantasy and conjecture, you will find no argument from me. But if you attempt to project it onto things that can be subjected to scientific discovery, expect to be made to follow the rules of the playing field you are on.
Christ as presented to us is a whishful-thinking fantasy. I would concede that probably a real person existed who had attempted to improve the society by preaching tolerance and love of others... and ended up with what George Bush would call a "catastrofic success". His (already somewhat naive and ill-thought-out) teachings were perverted and mis-used as soon as they left his mouth... for the express purpose of doing things he so vehemently oposed. Sad case testimony to human naivete, stupidity, lust for power and greed.
I found a beautiful painting of a great landscape in the ditch the other day. It was absolutely perfect and beautiful....
I can only assume that you are suggesting that exquisitely complex and internally consistent things cannot come out of random chance. This shows your complete mis-understanding how evolution works. Evolution is a directed process. That is, in your example, instad of all of these things happening spontaneously all at once, you have 3 billion years of self-replicating "paintings" trying and failing to produce your "beautiful landscape" and at each stage if one of them gets just one more tiny leaf of a tree in this landscape right, it gets to become a base for the next generation of more refined paintings. Repeat this countless billions of times and presto: exquisite landscape by the side of the road for you to find.
28" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
I always found Christianity (and all other religions) to be thinly-vailed, convoluted and vicious set of excuses for the greedy in case they need to get muderous for profit.
You just repeat the same "scarry" thing ottawa say
at each referendum. True every political change
create instability but it wont be as terrible as
you claim. Quebec is a democraty whit a strong
economy by it own. if you think Quebec is a
banana republica you underestimate it capability.
This is not some "scary thing" anyone has made up. It is just plain common sense. Quebeq will and must become much weaker because it will be much smaller and have less access to geographic resources! This is as simple as it can get. No underhanded, convoluted reasoning is needed here. 1/5th of the country has by necessity 1/5th of the economic power. You cant escape that. And of course the rest of Canada will have less power and will suffer too.
Canadian hope the Quebec pepole will die off and
disapear by asimilation since the conquests but
they are still here.
I am sure there are some dimwitted Canadians who would think so, just as there are some geniuses who would have some Christian fundamentalists from Alberta run the country and go invade Iran. The same people would also want all the scientists and educators to die off too. Every country has its share of idiots and I am sure Quebec has a some wackos in it of its own.
As to majority of Canadians, poll after poll shows that noone wants Quebecers to "die off". Conquer? What are you talking about? If Canadians were "conquering" Quebec, you would have Iraq style civil war going on in there and instead you have... 1/4th of the seats in the Parliment, official bilingualism and transfer payments exceeding Quebec tax input! Could you elaborate on this "conquest" idea, I am all ears.
Anyway, what ever happen, Quebec sovereignty must
be done before the Quebecois and Canadians can
move on.
In other words, to hell with logic, to hell with consequences, you want to be "sovereign" because then you will get... wait... what exactly is the gain for an average Quebecer?!
Wow. That was an in-depth, educated and thoroughly convincing reply. I guess you are one of those "The ship is unsinkable!" pundits. Good for you. I hope you like really, really cold baths.
As of the financial transfers, they are actually on the level of $325 per year per capita (this is not even half my monthly rent), so we can very well afford that, thank-you very much, and as of the foreign aid, we won't need any as we are perfectly capable of running our own business ourselves, like we already control 35% of CANADIAN industrial equity (which is 10% more than our demographic weight).
While possibly true, you seem to forget that both Canada and Quebec benefit form economies of scale, access to tariff-free energy, two coasts, very large national banking system etc etc etc. So while these numbers are true, you would find that they would drop significantly at the moment of separation. Both Quebec and Canada would lose a lot doing this. The only winner would be the USA who now would have two smaller (and therefore easier to push around) nations with very confusing (and thus easy to abuse) international treaty status. Add to this the absolutely guaranteed exodus of capital from Quebec (not because of what Quebec is but because capital fears uncertainty of any kind) and disastrous effects of all of this on Canadian currency and Bank Of Canada's ability to control its value. We are talking an economic and political disaster for all involved. Would Quebec recover? Sure, after a while. But it (nor Canada) never regain its former status. It would become an equvalent of a Balkan republic. Too small and too dependent on external trade to stand up to any serious commerce bullying (even the much larger country we are now has trouble - imagine being only a fraction of the size).
So, if you show that you believe all the stupid lies peddled by the Moronto-based incompetent family compact of Ontario, you will not have much credibility.
Politicians lie. That is true of all of them. Martin and his merry sticky-fingered crew lie no less then the PQ politicos who dream of the day they can go on a full scale looting spree and powergrabbing when the day of the separation comes. I sense these men mean no good for you nor me. I would fear those who would stroke local petty grievances in hopes to profit when people fight far more then a band of incompetent clowns.
So, next time, do your homework and prepare for the inevitable: the next referendum will be winning.
I would be most unfortunate if it happened so. Remember the old maxim of "Divide and Conquer". It is more topical today then ever. US-based corporate robbers and neocons would love nothing more then to see people bicker and fight amongst themsevles while they plunder both sides.
And you seem to forget other revenu to the federal governement, gaz/cigaret/alcool tax, TPS(what is it in english? the federal tax on every product we buy), border tax and more that I forget.
Not to put a fine point on this, but the federal transfer payments are based on all federal taxation. Including GST, income tax, gas, cigaretes, alcohol and what not.
You know that the PQ did a budget for this year as if Québec was separate and it ended with 4-5 billion in surplus! It was checked by over 6 well know neutral economist analyst.
It is called voodoo economics. While I do not doubt that Quebec would be able to support itself, after all it has all the infrastructure of a nation and skilled and intelligent people in it, but it would be a total mess at least initially. Why? Because a lot of people, most importantly business, would run away fearing uncertainty and then wait until things settle down before coming back. Furthermore, you do not seem to realize that many of the PQ officials are just as slime covered as the regular federal ones (I suspect even more so) and would quickly engage in an orgy of looting and powergrabbing under the auspices of "separation" and flag waving.
There is a long list of reasons why Quebec (and Canada) would be worse off separately, not the least of them being that old imperial maxim: "Divide and Conquer". The USA based robber barrons would love nothing better then to see us bicker and fight over petty grievances while they plunder us both.
"United we stand, divided we fall" never sounded more true.
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No I am not. However this particular piece of CRTC activity is of minor impact on the industry and affects only the two major incumbant telcos. It also makes provisions for other more important stuff such as 911 call handling, lack of which already resulted in lost lives. As I said, I personally believe that the measures of this sort are too weak and require micro-managment on the part of regulators (and thus expose the process to inefficiency and mismanagment) but it appears that anything more radical is not in the cards anywhere. So we are left to choose between well-meaning but bumbling bureaucrats at CRTC or the so called "unfethered free market" with its apparent state of equillibrium being an all-poweful oligarchy. At least the bureaucrats have some minor modicum of accountability to the voters.
You are probably right, although I do understand the motivation of the CTRC. The effectivenes of this regulation will depend how well does CRTC react to market conditions by adjusting the rules. There are also other elements in this such as 911 call provisions, something VOIP services are notorioulsy deficient at and which already resulted in deaths.
Then the "unfair" price will be adjusted downwards. The whole point of the regulation is to prevent what is known in other industries as "dumping", i.e. using size and profitability in other (usually monopolized) markets to outlast a smaller, specialized competitor in a niche market by writing off the losses in this small market which the competitor cannot afford to. In other words: to stop an anti-competetive and thus subversive to capitalism practice.
This has been going on in other industries (RAM memory, CDs, vitamins etc) and the various governments (some of them anything but socialist) slap this type of activity down quite rightfully.
My personal view on fixing this permanently is a globally enforced (via progressive taxation) limit on the size a company can grow to, thus forcing ongoing competition and avoiding this issue alltogether. But I realize its not likely to happen that way, so every government is left to come up with their own method of playing anti-monopolistic whack-a-mole as capitalism is moving more and more into oligarcho-corporatism despite these haphazard efforts.
Apparently thats where we differ. Mine and other's opinion is that if left unchecked and unopposed they will lead precisely to that. Yours is not. Only time will tell who was right.
Speed cameras in public places simply are mechanical devices designed to do what police officers have done since the advent of roads.
Some of the British street surveilance cameras are capable of pointing directly into windows of private residences, do explain the difference from the "tele-screens" again...
Wireless microphones in public places simply do what police have done ever since the advent of loud music. Street cameras in public places simply do what police officers have been doing since the advent of assult, theivery and rape.
The fundamental difference is twofold: a) it allows for total and automated surveilance, thus creating a ratio of "virtual" police to citizenry of 1:1 (or more) from which flows: b) With such surveilance and automation capability comes exponentially increased power. Power to automatically collect, archive and use minor infractions against anyone because we all commit them. This allows the "security" forces to pick and choose whose political views can be silenced or discredited. The term for such a situation is: "police state". In traditional, non-police-state societies it is explicitely forbidden to go on fishing expedition type surveilance missions targetted at juornalists and politicians. Automated, 24/7, "neutral" (but not neutrally interpreted), surveilance conveniently circum-navigates this restriction.
If allowed to go unchecked this trend will not have you on the next train to Dachau, the worst that will happen is possibly you might get fined next time you do something a little nauty.
And this is precisely the kind of intellectually dodgy and lazy rethorical technique you are accusing me of: the totalitarian societies of the future will not be carbon copies of the ones in the past. So while you or I might not catch the train to Dachau, we might instead end up politically powerless and terminally intimidated by vast, automated, unbeatable, always monitoring machinery of state run by "security contractors" and "security corporations" while sheepishly smiling anchors on 1200 TV channels blabber their newspeak nonsense about "liberty", "democracy" and "public safety". The techniques of would be opressors change as times change, but the end result they seek is still the same: a totalitarian society.
Actually both Goodwin's "law" and your sentiment are faulty. The reason that many threads end up mentioning totalitarian or would-be totalitarian societies is because for some inexplicable reason it appears we have today an endless supply of people who in completely oblivious manner espouse views essential to constructing totalitarianism. And when this lapse of reason is pointed out, the persons in question get even more irrational and attempt to end or mis-direct any further discussion by invoking inane concotions such as Goodwin's "law".
Speaking of "just" being fined for driving too fast, that is a part of an ever-growing maze of suffocating "laws" and "rules" of staggering complexity and questionable validity which combined with ruthless and automated enforcement along with arguable motivation behind such selective emphasis on them is leading many to believe that we have lost control of the basic mechanisms of our society and instead a self-annointed, self-serving priesthood of lawyers, lawyers-cum-politicians and enforcement securocracy has taken over. Some of us find this situation unacceptable. The "speeding" cameras are just a particularly visible, in-your-face, aggrevating reminder of this situation, soon to be joined in Britain by automated microphones and, in what only seems as a logical next step, 24/7 computer assisted speech monitoring in public places. I am sure Homeland Security is salivating at the idea and can't wait to import it to the USA. Orwell might still have the last laugh in our lifetimes.
Some are and most aren't. You seem to have forgotten that the limits are set by politicos and inane city "officials" who could not explain to you the reason why they put a limit of 70km/hr right after 80km/hr if their life depended on it. The very few speed limits that make sense are set in areas where there are unexpected manouvers that have to be performed by drivers. Civil engineers are responsible for setting of those and few people would argue. The whole "speed limit" stupidity is the result of an inability to enforce basic rules of road (such as maintaining distance between vehicles appropriate to speed) and the fact that ... lower speed limits nation wide reduce oil imports. Now add to this a veritable bonanza from "speed cameras" (in my city some 20 cameras are now responsible for 30% increase in city revenue) and you got 100% political bullshit and 0% common sense.
Stick to the rules and you won't get busted, it's as simple as that.
Sticking to all "rules" just because they are "rules" and not because they make sense is the foundation of every sheep citizen/fascist government society that ever existed. It goes right along with "I dont care about this new law allowing idefinite detention in Guantanamo if you are 'uppity' because if you do nothing 'wrong' you have nothing to worry about!".
Err, that depends what do you mean by "private". A King's or a feudal lord's library is not "private" because feudal lords=government in those times and access to scholars makes the libraries "public" (although they were clearly opened only to the upper echelons of society, peasants were too lowly to be called a "public").
Little definite is actually known about the library itself (not even it's exact location in the city) and it was most likely a private library with a very restricted set of rules for scholars being able to access it.
Actually no. The simple rule of those times was: you can read = you are a member of a tiny respected minority = you have access. You forgot that literacy was extremely rare in those days.
I'm no library expert (despite having worked as a volunteer in several and having read tens of thousands of books), but since a simple couple of minutes with a web browser and a search engine demonstrates your lack of knowledge, apparently neither are you.
Digging out some facts and then twisting them painfully does not advance your cause.
I'll clarify that I was talking mostly about past private libraries that typically didn't run as a profit-making endevour, but were mainly charitable or a break-even service that went along with a print-shop (in the time of great masses of people beginning to learn to read and frequent print-shops, the new technology of the time) or with a club with specific needs, like a group of lawyers.
Actually, no, you were admiringly talking about the likes of Netflix i.e. pay-per-view operations.
Yes, charity predates government-enforced theft.
Yes, "theft" such as roads, police, army and in modern times enviromental protections etc. All better left to private enterpise according to you. Which never happened in recorded history because even the oldest of the kings of old built roads and had national armies. The tax was back then called "tithe" ... and some of it went to furnish king's library, except not all who paid had access. Restoration of that elitism is what you are so clearly longing for.
And yes, for those others who didn't read the article, these conclusions are from a peer-reviewed article published for economic scholars by a team of respected economists at UCLA.
To kill two lies in one stone:
a) The braindead paper is a prime example of politically charged economic "pie in the sky" voodoo. The idiots focus on 1933 onwards, by which time 10,000 banks failed since the market crash in 1929, international trade fell by 2/3rd, GNP fell by 31% and more then 13 million Americans were out of work and mass starvation complete with corner-street soup kitchens was the main theme. That was before FDR got elected, never you mind his policies. I will repeat for the feeble minded: 6 years of "very rapid", "short term" starvation already occured. The whole stupid article is beyond redemption.
b) As to "peer-reviewed, respected" economists, there is no such thing as "respected" economist, very much like there is no such thing as "respected" witch doctor. Economics is not science as it was proven repeatedely thoughout history, time after time, "respected" economists making predictions and proclamations turning out to be totally false, and in modern times the idiots even starting multi-billion dollar hedge funds which left taxpayers bailing them out after they lost all the money.
Feel free to dispute their data or methodology, but constantly just stating your contrary opinions in post after post doesn't make the facts change one whit.
Very well: the data covers the tail-end of the great depression after 1933, it focuses on wrong and misleading parameters (i.e. price indicators instead of employment levels), blames FDR for continuing his predecessor lax anti-trust activities (forced on him by the very same people who criticise him, i.e. industiral elites), employs invalid and baseless correlations (claiming that recovery sped up when labour suffered "setbacks", while neglecting other factors such as massive government labour projects which also occured at the same time frame - as a matter of fact it completely ignores these wide-spread gigiantic undertakings such as highway constructions which employed tens of thousands), etc and so on. And of course the whole thing is based on the "reasearchers" unfounded assumptions that their proposed policies would actually have the effect they predict, something they have absoultely no way of determining. In short: total hypocritical, woulda-coulda-shoulda bunk.
I would not venture as far as to say "no" system. I think none of the systems that are being talked about were actually designed to withstand all of the preassures that are being placed on them while adhering to basic requirements of society. Also it is very difficult to future-proof a political system, changes in technology can render old equations moot and create completely new problems.
Having said that, I am optimistic that an extremely robust system could be devised because the number of fundamental rules is very small. Once everyone acknowledges these basic axioms, the rest flows out of there through logic. So even if the fine level details could be variable, the core would essentially have to be static. But what is required is that very acknowledment of basic rules which have to be defined in the terms of interaction of sentient beings so that if (or rather when) AI or other forms (genetic engineering? aliens? what not?) are encountered the system would accomodate them by definition.
Force applied by one person against another? Well, yes, sort-of. This is an ultra-simplistic and frankly naive position. Or more precisely, "force" can have so many forms that basically the only state in which people do not apply "force" against each other is when they are all dead. You eat, thus you need food, thus you put preasure on food production, which leads to raising price which reduces someone else's ability to buy food: ergo you are applying "force" (deadly one in some cases) and thus, to him, you are guilty of the greatest sin in your siplistic world view.
Force is not our common enemy (as force is merely a neutral concept) but injsutice is. Application of force is merely one of mechanisms to cause injustice.
Now, the actual definition of injustice is subject to debate, but there are some basic immutable assumptions here:
- every sentient being has some basic "rights" in regards to all others, i.e. there is a set of basic rules that govern interaction of beings, such as:
- one person's welfare is not more important then another's
- society's basic purpose is protection of all of its members from harm, as long as these members abide by societal rules
- the society's ultimate purpose is to provide means of fullfilment and happiness to its members
From these simple rules, one can try to devise a practical system which takes into account things like the scarcity of resources and the fact that significant portion of members of society are not cabable of understanding the rules and/or are actively trying to pervert them out of stupidity or malice.The democratic government/capitalist economy is our latest and arguably most successful concotion which approximates (remotely) the solution. But it is recently showing its inability to cope with vicious, perisistent and coordinated attack from various would-be feudal lordlings and also with technological change upsetting existing balances. In short, we need something better.
Unfortunately I see Libertatians (although some, like you, appear to be well meaning) in the same camp as Anarchists and Marxists. That is your proposed "solution" is so obviously vulnerable to takeover by a small group of unscrupulous individuals and has so little to stop them from their takeover being near absolute that it truly frightens me. What would come out of anarcho-libertarianism is very simlilar to what came out of Marxism: totalitarian, feudal-like power.
The trick is in the choice of terms here: what if Peter is an oligopolistic Robber Baron who scammed billions of Peters until their livelhood became untennable? You would like to present it as a case of saintly, highly-talented, God's favourtie child Peter innocently and piously pursuing his "destiny" to great wealth and unlimited power over others and on the other hand a Satanic band of evil, underhanded, greedy wolf-like Pauls aided by a communist monster called "guvmnt" to rob our hapless hero. But perheaps Peter is a greedy asshole who abused every rule in the book to con, deceive, cajole and force other people to work for him, give to him far more then he compensates them for and who in the result ended up with 1/2 of the planet and a private army as his "property".
In which case I would be cheering for "robbing" him as violently as possible.
As to people "choosing" to submit themselves to force: they do it all the time because the power (and incidentally wealth) elites control education and keep their serfs ignorant enough to not understand what they are "choosing".
Let me butt into this: I do not consider wealth "immoral" (as money is simply an amoral tool) but I see a vast disparity in wealth between some tiny elite and majority of society leading to centralized power and control, followed by debasing serfdom of majortity to that tiny minority, and thus to be anti-social and for lack of a better word "evil". (I will skip for the momemnt discussion of crippling economical effects of such distribution of wealth). From your other posts I see that you see use of "force" against few anti-social people for the benefit of billions as the utimate failing of society. I would be curious for your explanation as to how to solve the problem of oligopoly being the inherent equilibrium of real-life capitalist system (as oposed to pure theory under ideal conditions) while not using any sort of centralized political power such as government. I am all ears.
Generalizations are dangerous... I currently own an SL-C760 (used as a specialized diagnostic tool with custom engineering software), SL-C860 (general laptop replacement) and I am thinking of getting a SL-C3000... if you combine it with other posters above who also have various Zaurus models, I would say that we are actually quite the target audience.
I guess it would go towards expaining the transfer of genetic material and accellatory effects of sexual reproduction on the genetic search algorithm... if I understood your reference to "bing bang" correctly that is...
My view is that there are some basic rules and obligations for any intelligence operating among other intelligences which establish their mutual relationship. This view is based on a principle that all sentient beings have some inalienable basic "rights" in relation to others in the universe. The rest flows logically from there.
Christianity attempts to address this issue, but it lacks internal logic and consistency (perheaps because it was concocted out of haphazard collection of pre-existing dogmas and beliefs). For example: one of the wisest and most beneficial elements of Christian teachings is the doctrine of "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you". In theory, it leads to societal support of all of its individuals and in vast majority of persons would also result in personal happiness.
As I was trying to get at in my first post; without some sort of theistic model, i.e. a purely mechanical view of reality, I'm still not seeing the differnce between virtue and anarchy. The utilitarian argument seems weak; when the heart stops, so what?
There are two separate issues here: one is the operation of society and individuals within. We are inherently wired to find certain things good for us and certain things objectionable. We form societies to make the good things happen to us more often then the bad ones. Simple logic and common sense should take it from there to sane rules of society. Mathematically speaking, mutual cooperation (aka commune) would be the optimal scenario ... if ... and only if.. all members of society were rational. Unfortunately this does not work that way because most are not and prefer to try to abuse others for gain. Utilitarian argument has a lot in common in some places with the Christan one, because I believe that in essence, Christ was attempting to perform this sort of social engineering project to make everyone better off. My hat off to him for trying but at the same time as we already know, the project failed rather spectacularly.
As to "after-life", sicence is simply not qualified to answer certain questions, sometimes because they are simply posed incorrectly (such as "How kind is color Blue?"). This fact however does not render it somehow less potent and less applicable within its own domain. In short, the "explanatory" part of religion is fine in the realm of pure fantasy but as soon as it crosses into the realm of discoverable phenomena, it is toast.
Which in your view prohibits their incremental, spontaneous development..
As far as following the rules go, let's stick with the ever faithful scientific method. You can show me real experimental evidence that proves how the chemical precursors to life happened to have come about in the violent environment of pre-life earth? And don't tell me about the papers where molecular pre-cursors are subjected to a single stimulus, after which the products are whisked out of solution and/or protected from further stimulus and degradation. Those don't do anything but prove my point that the sequence of events across time that lead to what we have today were directed by an Intelligent Designer (or The LORD God, if that makes you more comfortable).
Right. Next thing you will ask me to "prove" to you how it worked by producing a time machine and transporting you backwards in time to the precise moment and place where that occured...
So let me repeat: 3 billion years of reactions in a vast (planetary-sized) pool of chemical goo, with miriads of varying conditions between places is rather hard to simulate experimentally in the lab. Instead, mathematical models are developed which describe the process in compressed time-scale but as necessity, lose the precision to describe fine-grained details such as the chemical composition of molecules. That is how it is with the "theory" of evolution. A model which explains experimental evidence and is able to predict with great accuracy the behaviour of the process in current conditions.
By your logic, Sun does not exist, because noone was able to replicate in a lab the complete set of fusion reactions, combined with neccessary mass to effect sufficient gravitational force and did not wait a few billion years to see how did it work out...therefore the only explanation is: "God made it!", no?
Err, actually it was 3 billion or so. Earth is estimated to be 4 billion years old, pre-bacterial/bacterial life is believed to have evolved for about 3 billion years until finally a cell structure became available out of which multi-cellular organisms could form. The trial and error combinations accross trillions upon trillions of generations each made up of trillions upon trillions of cells is staggering.
And the painting isn't really *trying* to do anything, is it? Things are just happening (errors, mainly), and if environmental conditions dictate those errors to be favorable at that time, then those changes are propagated to the next generation.
These conditions determine the direction of evolution. Just as you arbitrarily decided that the vector of evolution of a "painting" should be towards "beautiful landscape" to which I oblidged by specifying the appropriate evolutionary criteria.
That is what I was suggessting. If you think that such an absolutely complete and beautiful work of art could be created by such conditions (even given a nearly infinite timespan), so be it. If you think instead that a skilled artist directed his brush, applied paint to empty canvas, took his time, and created a masterpiece, so be it.
This is a classic cop-out. First "complete and beautiful" is an arbitrary, subjective criterion. What is "complete and beautiful" to one person, is "kitsch" to another. Furthermore, it was you who framed it in such terms, I can only guess to try to leave an escape hatch opened to esoteric talk about an "artist" in case someone managed to challenge your "common sense" attempt at discrediting evolution. If you want to keep religion in the realm of never-never land of fantasy and conjecture, you will find no argument from me. But if you attempt to project it onto things that can be subjected to scientific discovery, expect to be made to follow the rules of the playing field you are on.
Christ as presented to us is a whishful-thinking fantasy. I would concede that probably a real person existed who had attempted to improve the society by preaching tolerance and love of others ... and ended up with what George Bush would call a "catastrofic success". His (already somewhat naive and ill-thought-out) teachings were perverted and mis-used as soon as they left his mouth ... for the express purpose of doing things he so vehemently oposed. Sad case testimony to human naivete, stupidity, lust for power and greed.
I can only assume that you are suggesting that exquisitely complex and internally consistent things cannot come out of random chance. This shows your complete mis-understanding how evolution works. Evolution is a directed process. That is, in your example, instad of all of these things happening spontaneously all at once, you have 3 billion years of self-replicating "paintings" trying and failing to produce your "beautiful landscape" and at each stage if one of them gets just one more tiny leaf of a tree in this landscape right, it gets to become a base for the next generation of more refined paintings. Repeat this countless billions of times and presto: exquisite landscape by the side of the road for you to find.
Out of curiousity, what experiment did you perform? I can only guess it was something involving bacteria or fruit-flies..
I always found Christianity (and all other religions) to be thinly-vailed, convoluted and vicious set of excuses for the greedy in case they need to get muderous for profit.
This is not some "scary thing" anyone has made up. It is just plain common sense. Quebeq will and must become much weaker because it will be much smaller and have less access to geographic resources! This is as simple as it can get. No underhanded, convoluted reasoning is needed here. 1/5th of the country has by necessity 1/5th of the economic power. You cant escape that. And of course the rest of Canada will have less power and will suffer too.
Canadian hope the Quebec pepole will die off and disapear by asimilation since the conquests but they are still here.
I am sure there are some dimwitted Canadians who would think so, just as there are some geniuses who would have some Christian fundamentalists from Alberta run the country and go invade Iran. The same people would also want all the scientists and educators to die off too. Every country has its share of idiots and I am sure Quebec has a some wackos in it of its own.
As to majority of Canadians, poll after poll shows that noone wants Quebecers to "die off". Conquer? What are you talking about? If Canadians were "conquering" Quebec, you would have Iraq style civil war going on in there and instead you have ... 1/4th of the seats in the Parliment, official bilingualism and transfer payments exceeding Quebec tax input! Could you elaborate on this "conquest" idea, I am all ears.
Anyway, what ever happen, Quebec sovereignty must be done before the Quebecois and Canadians can move on.
In other words, to hell with logic, to hell with consequences, you want to be "sovereign" because then you will get ... wait ... what exactly is the gain for an average Quebecer?!
Wow. That was an in-depth, educated and thoroughly convincing reply. I guess you are one of those "The ship is unsinkable!" pundits. Good for you. I hope you like really, really cold baths.
While possibly true, you seem to forget that both Canada and Quebec benefit form economies of scale, access to tariff-free energy, two coasts, very large national banking system etc etc etc. So while these numbers are true, you would find that they would drop significantly at the moment of separation. Both Quebec and Canada would lose a lot doing this. The only winner would be the USA who now would have two smaller (and therefore easier to push around) nations with very confusing (and thus easy to abuse) international treaty status. Add to this the absolutely guaranteed exodus of capital from Quebec (not because of what Quebec is but because capital fears uncertainty of any kind) and disastrous effects of all of this on Canadian currency and Bank Of Canada's ability to control its value. We are talking an economic and political disaster for all involved. Would Quebec recover? Sure, after a while. But it (nor Canada) never regain its former status. It would become an equvalent of a Balkan republic. Too small and too dependent on external trade to stand up to any serious commerce bullying (even the much larger country we are now has trouble - imagine being only a fraction of the size).
So, if you show that you believe all the stupid lies peddled by the Moronto-based incompetent family compact of Ontario, you will not have much credibility.
Politicians lie. That is true of all of them. Martin and his merry sticky-fingered crew lie no less then the PQ politicos who dream of the day they can go on a full scale looting spree and powergrabbing when the day of the separation comes. I sense these men mean no good for you nor me. I would fear those who would stroke local petty grievances in hopes to profit when people fight far more then a band of incompetent clowns.
So, next time, do your homework and prepare for the inevitable: the next referendum will be winning.
I would be most unfortunate if it happened so. Remember the old maxim of "Divide and Conquer". It is more topical today then ever. US-based corporate robbers and neocons would love nothing more then to see people bicker and fight amongst themsevles while they plunder both sides.
Not to put a fine point on this, but the federal transfer payments are based on all federal taxation. Including GST, income tax, gas, cigaretes, alcohol and what not.
You know that the PQ did a budget for this year as if Québec was separate and it ended with 4-5 billion in surplus! It was checked by over 6 well know neutral economist analyst.
It is called voodoo economics. While I do not doubt that Quebec would be able to support itself, after all it has all the infrastructure of a nation and skilled and intelligent people in it, but it would be a total mess at least initially. Why? Because a lot of people, most importantly business, would run away fearing uncertainty and then wait until things settle down before coming back. Furthermore, you do not seem to realize that many of the PQ officials are just as slime covered as the regular federal ones (I suspect even more so) and would quickly engage in an orgy of looting and powergrabbing under the auspices of "separation" and flag waving.
There is a long list of reasons why Quebec (and Canada) would be worse off separately, not the least of them being that old imperial maxim: "Divide and Conquer". The USA based robber barrons would love nothing better then to see us bicker and fight over petty grievances while they plunder us both.
"United we stand, divided we fall" never sounded more true.