As a de jure geographical monopoly of law (at least), government *is* inherently evil. Your use of the word power blurs the crucial distinction between mere influence, charisma, purchasing power etc, and political power which relies on the use of force. I agree that patents and copyright, as extensions of political power, should be opposed.
Getting rid of governmental institutions (federal or not) is not laziness, it's being ethical. By supporting governmental institutions, you support organizations that routinely engage in theft, extorsion, slavery, kidnapping and murder merely by making their did legal. Don't be an accomplice.
No one will fill the vaccuum, corporations don't have any power, per se. They can only gain power by tapping on the government monopoly of law and its ability to tax. For this, they need a big and powerful government.
You talk about efficiency, but before even thinking about efficiency you should look at ethics. Government, large or small is unethical.
An insurer makes money by charging a risk premium, people are willing to pay more than their expected expenditures to remove the risk, since the insurer insures many people, the risks cancel out and he gets the premium. Arguing that insurer make money by denying treatment is at best crude ignorance and at worst dishonesty. In the US the insurance business works differently though, mostly because it is legally prevented to act like an insurer.
It's not theft, it's handling of stolen money. Ideally they should take the money and distribute it back to the taxpayers.
To be sure, if it has to be spent, I'd rather see a government buying OLPC than buying weapons, there's no doubt about that, and if money was given back to the taxpayer as I suggest, it would probably be taxed backed anyway. The fact remain it's wrong to accept the proceeds of a theft.
I am not concerned with genetic discrimination itself, it may be good, bad, rational, irrational, stupid, intelligent. I don't care as long as it is peaceful. I am concerned about opposition to discrimination by force, which is what this law intends to do, i.e. eventually send the police if someone discriminates.
If I am in a position of being an employer some day, and I wish to relie on genetic data to discriminate between prospective employees, the government has no business telling me whom I can hire.
If 23andMe.com genuinely care about discrimination they can pledge never to reveal DNA to employers or health insurers but saying they support the government in a planned infringement on individual rights is just evil.
* The Genetic Nondiscrimination Act of 2007 (GINA) was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 420-3. The act will protect individuals against discrimination based on their genetic information when it comes to health insurance and employment. These protections are intended to encourage Americans to take advantage of genetic testing as part of their medical care.
It's not about being arbitrary. Creating more gold to debase the currency is very expensive and slow. Turning on a printing press is just the flick of a button. And the button is mostly controlled by two groups who are perpetually in debt, the government and the banks.
A pure paper currency would idealy better than gold, but in the real world, someone always controls the printing press.
What was the other third thinking ? Seriously I don't think they believe their vote matter or will possibly change anything.... My guess is that democracy represents some kind of religion for them, a cult of the state where each good citizen does his duty by casting his ballot, protecting his precious liberty... in this mindset, their right to vote holds some kind of mystical power. I am glad the two other third don't buy in this naive cult, freedom has always been destroyed through the ballot.
[i]That is because there is a monopoly within each geographic region.[/i]
Why does it have to be a territorial monopoly ?
[i]In some areas of the world, non-governmental gangs essentially control parts of cities.[/i]
You mean they have a territorial monopoly, like a government ?
[i]Where the boundaries of the monopoly are well defined, there is no fighting because no one seeks to upset the status quo.[/i]
Canadians and Americans on the border don't really give a shit about the status quo, yet you don't see more violent acts on the border than inside the country. You're talking about war between territorial monopolists but that's assuming they exist.
[i]But the fact of the matter remains, you would be hard pressed to find an example (even a theoretical one) where one geographic region had multiple people allowed to use force that was not unstable[/i]
Medieval Iceland ftw. But if you want theoretical example then you have to provide theoretical problems that could not be overcome without a territorial monopoly of violence.
Besides, by 1800 you'd be have been hardpressed finding an example of a stable society without slaves, it doesn't mean it was not possible though.
And I would rather have a monopoly on force than a devastating plague from Mars killing 99% of earth's population.
Your argument makes a false dichotomy, the absence of a monopoly of force does not need to translate into civil war. There is no global monopoly of force, yet there is not constant war on the borders.
It is not in principle different from any other organizations
Name one other organization that sends armed people to your door if you refuse to buy to their "services"
Furthermore, freedom of contract is not absolute. As you yourself noted, it is limited by laws.
.... made by a government which is no different than any organization, therefore government laws are no more relevant than my 6-year-old nephew secret clubs law. Unfortunately the government is armed and willing to attack people to enforce those law.
I wonder what is the overlap between the percentages, I mean some people could not pay anything, decide they like the album then come back to the site and pay for the download.
A quick internet search will show there's no ground for your blame of capitalism.
In the future we'll have robotic sex-slave with downloadable procedures. The day the bj.bite virus hits is going to be a very sad day.
But the problem is that application would need to talk to the hardware and they don't know how to do that, so we should bundle it with a piece of software that provides an abstraction... and actually that piece of software could be used to launch other applications without the need for rebooting, it could even manage to juggle multiple application at the same time, while protecting memory and and and we'd call it an OS !!!111
Slashdot Mirror
As a de jure geographical monopoly of law (at least), government *is* inherently evil. Your use of the word power blurs the crucial distinction between mere influence, charisma, purchasing power etc, and political power which relies on the use of force. I agree that patents and copyright, as extensions of political power, should be opposed.
Getting rid of governmental institutions (federal or not) is not laziness, it's being ethical. By supporting governmental institutions, you support organizations that routinely engage in theft, extorsion, slavery, kidnapping and murder merely by making their did legal. Don't be an accomplice.
Why not give it back to the people the government stole it from, so they can choose if they want food or a XO laptop... Just saying.
No one will fill the vaccuum, corporations don't have any power, per se. They can only gain power by tapping on the government monopoly of law and its ability to tax. For this, they need a big and powerful government.
You talk about efficiency, but before even thinking about efficiency you should look at ethics. Government, large or small is unethical.
An insurer makes money by charging a risk premium, people are willing to pay more than their expected expenditures to remove the risk, since the insurer insures many people, the risks cancel out and he gets the premium. Arguing that insurer make money by denying treatment is at best crude ignorance and at worst dishonesty. In the US the insurance business works differently though, mostly because it is legally prevented to act like an insurer.
It's not theft, it's handling of stolen money. Ideally they should take the money and distribute it back to the taxpayers.
To be sure, if it has to be spent, I'd rather see a government buying OLPC than buying weapons, there's no doubt about that, and if money was given back to the taxpayer as I suggest, it would probably be taxed backed anyway. The fact remain it's wrong to accept the proceeds of a theft.
If I still your wallet to fight world hunger, the problem is not me helping starving kids, it's the stealing the wallet part.
I am not concerned with genetic discrimination itself, it may be good, bad, rational, irrational, stupid, intelligent. I don't care as long as it is peaceful. I am concerned about opposition to discrimination by force, which is what this law intends to do, i.e. eventually send the police if someone discriminates.
If I am in a position of being an employer some day, and I wish to relie on genetic data to discriminate between prospective employees, the government has no business telling me whom I can hire.
If 23andMe.com genuinely care about discrimination they can pledge never to reveal DNA to employers or health insurers but saying they support the government in a planned infringement on individual rights is just evil.
forget it. Those bastards are supporting GINA
:[
https://www.23andme.com/about/policy/
* The Genetic Nondiscrimination Act of 2007 (GINA) was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 420-3. The act will protect individuals against discrimination based on their genetic information when it comes to health insurance and employment. These protections are intended to encourage Americans to take advantage of genetic testing as part of their medical care.
I'm not giving $999 to support socialism
is a bit stiff, if it comes down I'll buy it, otherwise I'll hint that I am looking for christmas gifts ^^
Such as?
It's not about being arbitrary. Creating more gold to debase the currency is very expensive and slow. Turning on a printing press is just the flick of a button. And the button is mostly controlled by two groups who are perpetually in debt, the government and the banks.
A pure paper currency would idealy better than gold, but in the real world, someone always controls the printing press.
What was the other third thinking ? Seriously I don't think they believe their vote matter or will possibly change anything.... My guess is that democracy represents some kind of religion for them, a cult of the state where each good citizen does his duty by casting his ballot, protecting his precious liberty... in this mindset, their right to vote holds some kind of mystical power. I am glad the two other third don't buy in this naive cult, freedom has always been destroyed through the ballot.
[i]That is because there is a monopoly within each geographic region.[/i]
Why does it have to be a territorial monopoly ?
[i]In some areas of the world, non-governmental gangs essentially control parts of cities.[/i]
You mean they have a territorial monopoly, like a government ?
[i]Where the boundaries of the monopoly are well defined, there is no fighting because no one seeks to upset the status quo.[/i]
Canadians and Americans on the border don't really give a shit about the status quo, yet you don't see more violent acts on the border than inside the country. You're talking about war between territorial monopolists but that's assuming they exist.
[i]But the fact of the matter remains, you would be hard pressed to find an example (even a theoretical one) where one geographic region had multiple people allowed to use force that was not unstable[/i]
Medieval Iceland ftw. But if you want theoretical example then you have to provide theoretical problems that could not be overcome without a territorial monopoly of violence.
Besides, by 1800 you'd be have been hardpressed finding an example of a stable society without slaves, it doesn't mean it was not possible though.
Please read: if you are not brainless.
And I would rather have a monopoly on force than a devastating plague from Mars killing 99% of earth's population.
Your argument makes a false dichotomy, the absence of a monopoly of force does not need to translate into civil war. There is no global monopoly of force, yet there is not constant war on the borders.
It is not in principle different from any other organizations
.... made by a government which is no different than any organization, therefore government laws are no more relevant than my 6-year-old nephew secret clubs law. Unfortunately the government is armed and willing to attack people to enforce those law.
Name one other organization that sends armed people to your door if you refuse to buy to their "services"
Furthermore, freedom of contract is not absolute. As you yourself noted, it is limited by laws.
There are probably no girls at the party
- Will it work on a black and white screen when the color codes are so important
- What about the open source lincity ?
http://xkcd.com/251/ ... sure I can overpower it *now*
Where can we buy the beads ?
I wonder what is the overlap between the percentages, I mean some people could not pay anything, decide they like the album then come back to the site and pay for the download.
A quick internet search will show there's no ground for your blame of capitalism. In the future we'll have robotic sex-slave with downloadable procedures. The day the bj.bite virus hits is going to be a very sad day.
It is worth noting that intel doesn't make use of patents while biotech heavily relies on them. So much for "patents are needed to push r&d".
But the problem is that application would need to talk to the hardware and they don't know how to do that, so we should bundle it with a piece of software that provides an abstraction... and actually that piece of software could be used to launch other applications without the need for rebooting, it could even manage to juggle multiple application at the same time, while protecting memory and and and we'd call it an OS !!!111