There is nothing wrong with the theoretical concept of a perfect free market, it's just disappointing when people behave as though it's descriptive of reality rather than an abstract concept used to test ideas.
Reading the ingredients would not help in this case. Not that I'm convinced it's a bad thing anyway. If fish like eating shit and can survive on it, I don't really see the problem. Plants eat shit too.
Similarly, there is no problem feeding cattle with mashed up BSE-laden ex-neighbours either. Oh wait...
I love how the moderators freak out when they can't find that "-1 Criticizes my ideology" mod so they just pick "Offtopic" or "Overrated" instead (when the post is neither).
In this case it's because there's no "-1 evil fuckbag" moderation option. If someone posted a long spiel about the joys of butt-raping 8 year old boys, or why Hitler was right about the Jews I would expect it to be modded down too.
I always find it amusing when serious Randian/"libertarian"/extreme rightwing free market cheerleaders are surprised that some of their ideas disgust people.
My view is that it can't be health care reform because it makes the problems that it alleges to solve worse. For example, it greatly expands health insurance coverage and subsidizes a bunch of people
1. If you have a private health service, the vast majority of people will need insurance one way or another. Contrary to the sashdot libertarian group opinion, most people do not earn enough to save sufficient to cover potential costs of even tens, never mind hundreds of thousands of dollars.
2. Yes, the poor are subsidized by the rich. It is at least a nod towards egalitarianism and fairness.
3. At some point, you have to choose whether you want a selfish, rightwing, money-obsessed Randian society or a more equal, harmonious one.
This is why I come to slashdot. Random cool stuff, written right now by actual humans (MS VB ShillBots aside) that I never would have heard about any other way. Good post, thanks.:-)
You make it sound like details of the NZ economy are some exotic pieces of information you'd never have come across otherwise.
Don't you ever read newspapers or look at internet news sites beyond the first couple of headlines?
Charity is not the basis for a sensible system of funding for society. Personally, I would abolish all charities (especially religious and educational ones) and increase direct taxation to fund things that benefit everyone.
In a socialist system charities, like religion, would be superfluous.
The US does not have waiting lists for medical care. Finland does.
You are labouring under on the false assumption that all medical care needs to be available immediately, on demand, and that waiting a few weeks for non-urgent surgery is somehow a terrible indictment of that country's system.
Good medical care is not just about consumer choice. That is the farcical thing about the Tories' attempts to "modernise" the NHS by giving patients the "choice" of which doctor/hospital to go to. I don't give a flying fuck about choosing Hospital A over Hospital B, I want the closest one. They should all be of the same standard.
It's the same with education and parents having the "choice" of schools for their kids. Again, sod that, I want all schools to be good and my kids to go to the closest one.
Actually, since healthy young people are the lowest-risk category, insurance for them is very cheap
That's not what most US posters on slashdot seem to suggest. Almost every time salary is mentioned, US posters qualify it with "plus health insurance" or whatever. And I don't think most slashdotters are over 50.
most here don't seem to grasp that "free" healthcare still has to be paid for by somebody
Don't be such an idiot, "free healthcare" is just shorthand for "free healthcare at the point it is needed, funded by taxation along with other services for the public good".
Only extreme right wing fantasists would think that people thought otherwise.
The poor don't pay taxes either and they get healthcare in Britain. Seems to me the Brits would first have to acknowledge the independence of Sealand before they could debate denying him healthcare.
If us "Brits" wanted to, we could have hanged, drawn and quartered him for treason. [*] Luckily we decided to humour him as a harmless eccentric, as has been pointed out above he did serve his country in the military and so got additional sympathy
[*] Well, OK, I just checked and apparently life imprisonment is now the maximum sentence..
He was the prince of a principality, yet required the care that British Healthcare provided. Reminds me of some Americans with Canadian dual-citizenship who come back to Canada to get Healthcare. If you don't pay taxes you shouldn't get anything. Citizenship is an obligation as much as it is a birthright.
Revoking his citizenship could have put the British Gov't in the position that they were recognizing Sealand so they couldn't really do that...
The point is that if he wasn't a pure and simple twat, he'd have revoked his British citizenship himself.
They tried that. It was Communism and was seen in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
No, it wasn't. The USSR never got past the intermediate stage on the way to communism. While you still had party officials driving in limousines to their dachas at weekends while factory workers queued for hours for bread you most certainly didn't have communism.
Then why not tax us all at %100 and free house, food, health care, car, energy (gas & electric), bandwidth (Internet and TV)...
(disclaimer: This point of view not the poster's but is espoused to make a point)
Sounds good to me, although you'd also have to chuck in an entertainment (beer/holidays/whatever) allowance.
What rich libertarian types don't seem to be able to comprehend is that in fact most people already live as though they're taxed at nearly 100% already. Once you take out all the things mentioned above, most families don't have a huge amount left over each month.
It's not "yours" to begin with. If, to put it crudely, the majority decide to kill all the rich people and redistribute their wealth, good luck enforcing your property rights. The only property that you can call your own is what you can carry on your person, the rest is a series of traditions and age old compromises. How do you get to "own" a piece of land? You're allowed to because the majority of people get to live somewhere else fairly happily, that's all. If you have a cellar full of gold bars, it's because me and my friends and everyone else in society have agreed that there is such a thing as abstact wealth and there are property laws to protect you if I try and take it off you.
Society is a series of compromises. People agree to work in a capitalist society rather than hang the business owners from lampposts because most people want a reasonably safe and happy life, not a continuous series of violent revolutions, and as long as they're fed, clothed, housed and entertained, they don't really care if you're a billionaire or not.. Sensible business owners want the same, and so everyone pays taxes to share around the good and bad a bit.
Slashdot Mirror
They'll just add MORE steroids and antibiotics to compensate. The side benefit is that we will all be stronger and healthier!
Just as long as they don't keep them in goddam commie fluoridated water.
Manure does NOT mean composted. Manure is feces from livestock. Once composted, it's actually called compost.
And you don't grow stuff that you're intending to eat directly in manure IIRC.
You can eat raw steer manure and live
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
There's a difference between fecal material which has been recycled back into the organic chain and fresh shit filled with salmonella and the like.
There is nothing wrong with the theoretical concept of a perfect free market, it's just disappointing when people behave as though it's descriptive of reality rather than an abstract concept used to test ideas.
Reading the ingredients would not help in this case. Not that I'm convinced it's a bad thing anyway. If fish like eating shit and can survive on it, I don't really see the problem. Plants eat shit too.
Similarly, there is no problem feeding cattle with mashed up BSE-laden ex-neighbours either. Oh wait...
I love how the moderators freak out when they can't find that "-1 Criticizes my ideology" mod so they just pick "Offtopic" or "Overrated" instead (when the post is neither).
In this case it's because there's no "-1 evil fuckbag" moderation option. If someone posted a long spiel about the joys of butt-raping 8 year old boys, or why Hitler was right about the Jews I would expect it to be modded down too.
I always find it amusing when serious Randian/"libertarian"/extreme rightwing free market cheerleaders are surprised that some of their ideas disgust people.
I read your first paragraph and assumed you were parodying libertarian/free market fanboys.
Then I read the second and realised you were serious.
So Poe's law has been broken by your own humourless stupidity. Thanks for that.
My view is that it can't be health care reform because it makes the problems that it alleges to solve worse. For example, it greatly expands health insurance coverage and subsidizes a bunch of people
1. If you have a private health service, the vast majority of people will need insurance one way or another. Contrary to the sashdot libertarian group opinion, most people do not earn enough to save sufficient to cover potential costs of even tens, never mind hundreds of thousands of dollars.
2. Yes, the poor are subsidized by the rich. It is at least a nod towards egalitarianism and fairness.
3. At some point, you have to choose whether you want a selfish, rightwing, money-obsessed Randian society or a more equal, harmonious one.
This is why I come to slashdot. Random cool stuff, written right now by actual humans (MS VB ShillBots aside) that I never would have heard about any other way. Good post, thanks. :-)
You make it sound like details of the NZ economy are some exotic pieces of information you'd never have come across otherwise.
Don't you ever read newspapers or look at internet news sites beyond the first couple of headlines?
The hypocrisy of the people praising the idea of a hereditary monarch with absolute power being some sort of protector or haven for human rights.
I guess it fits into the mythos of the "wise, benevolent leader who will not screw you over later because they're too nice".
If you've got delusions of grandeur, you're going to call yourself King. 'Nuff said.
Did we ever figure out if SeaLand is actually a country, or not?
It is legally a country in the same way that I am legally the Emperor of Mars, i.e. entirely in my own head.
He was in San Francisco to meet with techie folks, and we all had sushi together.
Which was nice.
Since China, India, and vast majority of Africa don't have universal healthcare, are you excluding them from the definition "civilized world"?
Perhaps "fully developed world" would be a better choice of words.
Charity is not the basis for a sensible system of funding for society. Personally, I would abolish all charities (especially religious and educational ones) and increase direct taxation to fund things that benefit everyone.
In a socialist system charities, like religion, would be superfluous.
The US does not have waiting lists for medical care. Finland does.
You are labouring under on the false assumption that all medical care needs to be available immediately, on demand, and that waiting a few weeks for non-urgent surgery is somehow a terrible indictment of that country's system.
Good medical care is not just about consumer choice. That is the farcical thing about the Tories' attempts to "modernise" the NHS by giving patients the "choice" of which doctor/hospital to go to. I don't give a flying fuck about choosing Hospital A over Hospital B, I want the closest one. They should all be of the same standard.
It's the same with education and parents having the "choice" of schools for their kids. Again, sod that, I want all schools to be good and my kids to go to the closest one.
Actually, since healthy young people are the lowest-risk category, insurance for them is very cheap
That's not what most US posters on slashdot seem to suggest. Almost every time salary is mentioned, US posters qualify it with "plus health insurance" or whatever. And I don't think most slashdotters are over 50.
most here don't seem to grasp that "free" healthcare still has to be paid for by somebody
Don't be such an idiot, "free healthcare" is just shorthand for "free healthcare at the point it is needed, funded by taxation along with other services for the public good".
Only extreme right wing fantasists would think that people thought otherwise.
The poor don't pay taxes either and they get healthcare in Britain. Seems to me the Brits would first have to acknowledge the independence of Sealand before they could debate denying him healthcare.
If us "Brits" wanted to, we could have hanged, drawn and quartered him for treason. [*] Luckily we decided to humour him as a harmless eccentric, as has been pointed out above he did serve his country in the military and so got additional sympathy
[*] Well, OK, I just checked and apparently life imprisonment is now the maximum sentence..
He was the prince of a principality, yet required the care that British Healthcare provided. Reminds me of some Americans with Canadian dual-citizenship who come back to Canada to get Healthcare. If you don't pay taxes you shouldn't get anything. Citizenship is an obligation as much as it is a birthright.
Revoking his citizenship could have put the British Gov't in the position that they were recognizing Sealand so they couldn't really do that...
The point is that if he wasn't a pure and simple twat, he'd have revoked his British citizenship himself.
In theory the Crown owns all the land in the UK. So really the Queen is doing "freeholders" a favour by not charging them rent.
And it's enabled a number of people to get very rich by knowing the right people or filling out the right paperwork.
Bullshit. The "very rich" are businessmen, not fucking civil servants.
They tried that. It was Communism and was seen in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
No, it wasn't. The USSR never got past the intermediate stage on the way to communism. While you still had party officials driving in limousines to their dachas at weekends while factory workers queued for hours for bread you most certainly didn't have communism.
Then why not tax us all at %100 and free house, food, health care, car, energy (gas & electric), bandwidth (Internet and TV)...
(disclaimer: This point of view not the poster's but is espoused to make a point)
Sounds good to me, although you'd also have to chuck in an entertainment (beer/holidays/whatever) allowance.
What rich libertarian types don't seem to be able to comprehend is that in fact most people already live as though they're taxed at nearly 100% already. Once you take out all the things mentioned above, most families don't have a huge amount left over each month.
No, the problem is that you got mine.
It's not "yours" to begin with. If, to put it crudely, the majority decide to kill all the rich people and redistribute their wealth, good luck enforcing your property rights. The only property that you can call your own is what you can carry on your person, the rest is a series of traditions and age old compromises. How do you get to "own" a piece of land? You're allowed to because the majority of people get to live somewhere else fairly happily, that's all. If you have a cellar full of gold bars, it's because me and my friends and everyone else in society have agreed that there is such a thing as abstact wealth and there are property laws to protect you if I try and take it off you.
Society is a series of compromises. People agree to work in a capitalist society rather than hang the business owners from lampposts because most people want a reasonably safe and happy life, not a continuous series of violent revolutions, and as long as they're fed, clothed, housed and entertained, they don't really care if you're a billionaire or not.. Sensible business owners want the same, and so everyone pays taxes to share around the good and bad a bit.