When I used to live in Orange County (south of Los Angeles, for those of you that don't know), I rode around on a little 125cc Scooter about 6 months out of the year (summer-time). I spent about a dollar a week on gas. I'm not joking. (Although at today's prices, it would be about 2 or 3 dollars a week). It wasn't fast enough to go on the freeway, but on all the other streets it performed beautifully. It's nice being able to weave through nasty street traffic...and parking is always right outside the store. I reccommend a scooter or small engine motorcycle to everyone during the summer months.
Re:Integration versus Bundling, Choice
on
Pepping Up Windows
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· Score: 1
One costs the company money to produce, the other does not. One is physical, the other is not. They are related only in that both are products that someone else came up with. It would cost Microsoft nothing additional to put Firefox on their Windows CDs over what they pay to make the CDs right now.
You obviously don't know much about running a business. Microsoft does. Forget about the "physical costs" for a second. Have you forgotten that people cost money? Microsoft is not run by a bunch of hippies...all the developers get paid. A whole group of people would have to be hired just to manage deals and interactions between Microsoft and other companies like Mozilla. That costs money. People would need to be hired to fix compatibility problems between windows and these 3rd party apps. That costs money. Marketing teams and product managers would need to be hired to sell this product and all of it's "free" bundled software. That costs money.
Other posters have mentioned that if Microsoft bundled OS software many people would still believe that it was Microsoft's responsibility to support those products as well as their own. Support costs money (even if you have to hire a team that specifically has to tell customers to contact the respective 3rd Parties instead). Fail to do that and you suffer the costs of lacking or confusion support policies. Also, if Microsoft had to dilute their product with a bunch of other software made by companies that do in fact compete with them in other fields, Microsoft loses billions of dollars in brand dilution and devaluation. Oh, and probably the biggest cost of all: some multi-billion dollar verdict handed out to the OS community against microsoft for violating some GNU type licence (ie, charging money for open source software)...not to mention the backlash from the OS community just for profiting off of their "free" work.
It doesn't matter if something is "free", there are still lots of people behind that something and lots of costs a non-business owner like yourself hasn't even thought of, but Microsoft and many of the OEM's have.
Besides, what about the cost to freedom? If we start forcing companies to offer additional products with their own products whether they compete or not...isn't that basically making a slave of all entreprenuers? Isn't that basically taking away liberty? No thanks, I enjoy my freedom.
Call me ignorant, but I thought that you can't sell proprietary software and bundle in OS software (conflicting licenses). I thought that was the whole point of OS software (especially GNU type licenses) that make it a point that it has to be free? Maybe if they used BSD software...but not GNU.
I can see your point, and believe me, I have struggled with these questions myself. Indeed I'm still struggling. But the merits of eliminating state-sponsered IP protection are not limited to the curbing of all the negatives associated with enforcement. The benefits *could* extend to the fundamental ways businesses market products (and produce them). But that's not really the point. I think the ideology of truly seperating state from the market is more important despite the innitial pitfalls IP holders will discover as they adjust to the ultra-competitive marketplace. I think anyone wishing to maintain their intellectual "property" should be responsible themselves for their own protection schemes (ie, DRM systems). Let the market, not a few politicians, decide whether DRM schemes will work. If they don't work, let the corporations sweat, not consumers. The granting of copyright and patent monopolies is an *idea* which I think we should re-examine as being truly beneficial to society. Too many of us take it for granted that the state HAS to protect IP, but why should our tax dollars be devoted to protecting ideas? We don't send tax money off so the govt can distribute it to all the merchants of the world so that they can buy expensive locks and security systems and security gaurds etc. It is the merchants responsibility to secure their own goods, just as it should be the IP holders responsibility to protect their ideas (if they wish to). The same goes for patents. If a company is truly interested in protecting their patentable ideas, they need to be more secretive rather than saying "I thought of this broad concept first, now NO ONE can use it or improve upon its broad foundation." Allowing companies to patent IDEAS is just stupid because my tax money and my freedom is wasted in the process (court costs, limits to my freedom, etc). Let companies market their superior quality or superior service or their ability to come up with good ideas first and often...but do NOT allow companies to tie up the courts over IDEAS! If companies have to innovate faster and more ingeniously in order stay ahead of the competition that just *copies* them, then we can really only benefit. Some people will buy the cheap immitations for sure, but many will gladly pay a bit more for the company that consistantly produces new products with higher quality and better service/reputation. The bottom line is, companies will no longer be able to coast on their past success, they will have to continually succeed to stay ahead...and that is a GOOD thing.
As stated, I haven't given it as much consideration as it deserves, but in light of the ever-expanding difficulty of protecting copyrights and the absurdy of today's patents, I think at the very least, exporling a whole new paradigm is in order.
I don't see how any capitalist or libertarian could be in favor of State-Granted lifetime Monopolies. It boggles the mind. State-Granted Monopolies! Wedding the Corporate to the State, the Military-Industrial complex. It reeks of anything but capitalism (and not to poison this post, it does reek of fascism).
Exactly. Most Libertarians (like myself) are adamantly against any state intervention. The argument amougst libertarians on the subject whether IP monopolies (copyrights & patents) should be protected (if at all). I have personally done some research on what the effects of absolutely NO state-granted IP monoplies would be. Surprisingly, I have found that one could seriously argue that ALL IP law is harmful to society, NOT helpful. Yes, there would be drastic changes to profit models, but once those changes were assimilated, additional benefits could be had and we would actually see much faster innovation in the marketplace. There would be less superflous and wasteful research and development--and corporate fat would be cut because there wouldn't be alot of room for it in the fast paced market. In short, companies that could normally *buy* a monopoly from the government, would now actually have to work for their money on a consistant basis. As a capitalist and business owner myself, I don't have a problem with this. I'm pretty sure the average consumer wouldn't have a problem either. Companies would truly have to compete in the marketplace over quality and execution of service, not over who can file patents the fastest, or who has the most expensive lawyers.
Anyway, as soon as I finish my research I'll post an article somewhere and let the slashdot crowd have at it.
Capitalism is what makes the *AA buy laws and judges, under the capitalist system they have to do everything they possibly can to make money.
Wrong. Capitalists are adamantly againstmonopolies created by government force. True capitalism doesn't allow government law to inferfere in the marketplace (like the government does when "protecting" the RIAA/MPAA or any other subsidized/lobbied industry).
Real capitalists fight in the marketplace, not in the courts.
There's a huge difference between complaining about a war, and complaining that a soldier died in a war. Cindy Sheehan is protesting her son's death - not the war. Understand the difference.
Actually, she's complaining about both and has been rather vocal about both issues. Her motivation for protesting the war is her son's death, to be sure, but that doesn't lessen her current point: she wants other soldiers to come home so other parents don't have to undergo the same grief she did over what she obviously considers to be a senseless and foolish war.
Wouldn't it have just been easier to write that pirates are resourceful and determined instead of trying to squeeze a poorly chosen word into your definition?
No but seriously, thanks. I realize now that my igonorant comments are entirely my fault...I just skipped right through the opening screen because I'm an impatient bastard. This info may/will come in handy if/when I encounter problems when forcefully installing ubuntu on my friends and families machines. I become more impressed with ubuntu every day (though most of the credit goes to the debian team).
Also, I think that Ubuntu/Kubuntu has really great potential, but what's off-putting is the notion that you should be happy with what ships "out of the box" and that advanced features (i.e. the ability during install to tell Ubuntu what services to load/not load or have Ubuntu *ASK* you what refresh rate and resolution you want to set your desktop at) don't apply since it's meant to be "easy" and "simple" to use. We should agree that computers are complicated, and that while "auto-detect" is nice, it is not going to work perfectly, so please give us the *option* of over-rides...even if it breaks the auto-configure features of a package (just tell us so we're aware).
Agreed 100%. I recently have been installing most of the major distros on my spare partitions because I like to see how they are all shaping up about once a year. I thought Xandros's install was excellent, though it was missing a monitor/resolution setting option even under the "advanced" installation steps. Xandros appeared to install beautifully, but once the desktop loaded, my screen went blank. It was obvious that the "autodetect" featured failed for my particular monitor. I had to go in through another distro to reconfigure the xorg file just to be able to SEE the OS! I don't imagine most novices wishing to switch from windows to linux will know how to do this (or want to). I just don't understand how the developers can screw this up so badly. The VERY most important thing that should work is the freaking monitor. Without the monitor you can't do anything...so yes, please let us override the monitor settings if we want to. My Breezy preview install got my monitor right...so no worries there...but there must be someone out there that wished he had the option because right now he's staring at a blank or fuzzy screen.
That said, the Ubuntu developers would do well to look at the Xandros installer and then improve it futher. The Xandros installer lets you decide which programs you want installed (from a 600MB install to a 1200MB install--a big difference) and is very user friendly and easy on the eyes. Ubuntu could improve this by allowing advanced users to configure even further (monitor, wireless network cards, etc). It would also be cool if you could choose a "desktop" a "server" or "both" type of installation. They get the desktop down so well, it's a shame not to throw in apache, php and mysql just for fun. I know it's only an apt-get away, but it would be nice to install ubuntu and have everything running from the get-go.
I will hand it to Ubuntu Breezy though...it installed everything perfectly on my new machine with fancy lcd monitor. Xandros, with it's monied dev team, couldn't even SHOW me the installation.
Well said. We are humans on planet earth. Any other distinctions are divisive and ultimately doomed. If we aren't encouraging the less informed on planet earth to demand and enjoy freedom, we wouldn't be human, we'd be tyrants acquiescing to slavery.
That said, I don't think swinging our weight around (like the US has done for the last century) is any way to ensure peace or freedom is propogated and perpetuated. The United States' meddling has caused more problems than it has solved. The only revolutions that have ever worked are those inspired by the hearts and minds of the people culling the revolutions...and that can only be encouraged peacefully by indulging populations with truth and shedding more light on ideologies they already know they deserve merely by being alive. Starting wars doesn't work anymore than hitting your girlfriend makes her love you.
I for the life of me can't figure out why you got labelled troll. Anyway, you make some valid remarks. I think the record labels can do whatever they want...and if they want to try charging Apple more, then let them. Apple can then decide whether to pay their increased prices and pass the cost onto the consumer or not. However, I don't think Apple is being controlling because it's not something they have control over. The labels have control. Jobs raises an important point though: raising prices on music which is already overpriced and can already hardly compete with piracy is not a wise move. Jobs just wants to save the sickly music industry the time it would take them to realize what a huge mistake raising prices would be.
But the labels will make the final call. And in this case, if they decide to raise their prices any further, it really will be their final call.
If the music industry wants to stay alive, they need to slash their prices DRAMATICALLY--I mean by at least half. They need to go for the long tail numbers, not the overinflated BS numbers that are clearly in the past.
I personally hope they keep their prices high because it will bring me great pleasure to watch all those foolishly greedy music mogul fucks starve on the streets after the artists realize they can control the entire production and distribution process themselves--AND reduce their prices by selling directly.
I live in the Caribbean and my connection is a fixed wireless unit ($200 USD/month for 512kb--very expensive and not terribly reliable). I've been using Skype for about 2 years pc to pc very successfully. I had a vonage account, but cancelled it and got the skypeout/skypein deal because it seemed more economically viable considering I don't call out that much. Anyway, the quality has been superb for me. No one I've talked to in europe or the states with skypeout seems to be aware that the call originates from my PC in the Caribbean.
My suggestion: check your headset/mic on another computer and/or connection. I had a bunk headset once, got a new one and the problem disappeared. If your headset works elsewhere, then it's either your soundcard or your connection. Of course, it goes without saying that you shouldn't run bittorrent or ed2k software at full speeds while using skype or any voip service for that matter. good luck.
Exactly. Freedom is a two-way street. Well, to be fair, freedom is more like a historical idea that inspires spurts of nostalgia here and there. Unfortuanately, we don't carry our nostalgia into the voting booths...and for most slashdotters, I don't think a nostalgia for freedom even exists. Slashdotters give away their freedom faster than their open-source code.
Well said. I was going to suggest some ambien (like a full bottle), but I suppose he could just buy some "hacked" gillette blades and slit his wrists instead...because clearly the world is just too damn unfair to live in when the evil vendors want you to use their hardware in ways that allow them to profit and survive (and afford to make the hardware in the first place).
I know this is an off-topic response to an off-topic post...but: The same government that caused those 20,000+ deaths are the ones that will be regulating these blu-ray players.
Are you saying that in the imaginary world that you live in, there are absolutely no mistakes made, no dishonest accountants and ceo's and no politically motivated politicians?
Wake up! Enron is a perfect example of how the free markete punishes dishonesty. Where is enron? It's gone man! Do you really think that if the books were more transparent that Enron would still be around? Enron had an erroneous business model and would have collapsed SOONER if it handn't fudged the numbers. That means everyone would have been out of work EARLIER.
Besides, when YOU get a job, you are not garaunteed the job for life. YOU are taking a measured risk that the company YOU work for will be around for the long haul and that the people that run the company are honest and competant. I'm so tired of people expecting the entire world to be perfect and safe. The cosmos just isn't set up that way. The entire universe is virtually unexplainable and chaotic and random at its subatomic core, so expecting a world where there is no death, no risk, no pain, no failure and so forth is expecting to live in your fantasies forever. Grow up. Toughen up. Bad shit happens sometimes...but at least when there is a free market, the best companies, products and ideas eventually win. It is when you encourage and condone government interference and regulation that things slow down, become artificial and get politicized into oblivion.
btw...who said anything about Iraq? The only war we Libertarians condoned was the one we fought against the British in the 18th century. Libertarians would never send troops outside of our country and we certainly wouldn't interfere in the politics of other countries (which is the reason the WTC was bombed in the first place). We believe in national DEFENCE, not offence. That means the only US troops you'd see under a Libertarian president would be on US soil. Libertarians were gainst the idea of invading Iraq before Iraq became Iraq.
Depends on your definition of "works", I suppose. Raw capitalism "works" in the same way that Darwinian evolution "works" -- the strongest (and most brutal) players prey on the rest until they've squeezed every last drop of money out of them. Eventually, you end up with a monopoly or oligopoly with control over everything, and everyone else is a wage slave under their control.
That sure does sound ominous...do you have any REAL examples to back up your points? As far as I can see, the only real and destructive monopolies in the world are those that are created by the government, not by businesses in the free market. Read this article to see what I mean.
That's why almost all countries mix in a lot of government regulation, (anti-trust laws, living wage laws, environmental standards, etc) so that society can get the benefits of capitalism while avoiding the abuses.
I guess the political PR machine has worked well on you if you really believe that bullshit. We have regulations, limits on our liberties, "anti-trust" laws etc because politicians profit from these powers which of course they can sell out to the highest bidder. Take away all these powers and there isn't any power to abuse.
I would say that your "mixed" model hurts the market, not helps it.
Otherwise your government participates in brutal acts every day. Taxes? Check. If you don't pay them, it gets even worse. Illegal drugs? Check. Can't have those. Moonshine? Check. That shit isn't happening here. A nuclear warhead? Check. Probably not going to be able to keep that for too long.
I agree with you. I don't think there is any place in the world apart from international waters (maybe) where true capitalism and freedom exists. Every government is oppressive, restrictive, and in varying degrees, totalitarian. That's why I hate government (in pretty much any form) and vote for Libertarians every chance I get. In fact, I used to live in the States, but moved to the Caribbean because I couldn't handle the ever increasing regulation, taxes and limitations on my liberties. There's still laws here of course, but its far more lax and unenforced.
Regarding your question about the logic of my comparison (or lack thereof) between capitalism and communism: I think my point was especially appropriate. Comparing the two reminds me of the argument that schools should teach both "theories" in biology class (evolution versus "intelligent design"). Evolution of course works and is supported by the entire scientific/rational community. Intelligent design is a figment of our irrational society's collective imagination. Believing that communism could ever work completely ignores the psychology of man, just like intelligent design completely ignores reason. Both are not comparable because one is imaginary and the other is real. Man is never satisfied. He always wants more. Hate it or love it, that's the nature of man. Our human nature does not fit within the finite communistic framework and so communism is irrelevant except as an idea, just like god and every other irrational human musing.
Totally true. People that don't know how to use a computer, REALLY don't know how to use a computer.
When I first got in business with my partner who NEVER used a computer in his life (but had lots of $$), he picked up the mouse and sort of shaked it in the air like a pair of dice. I couldn't stop laughing for a week.
Slashdot Mirror
When I used to live in Orange County (south of Los Angeles, for those of you that don't know), I rode around on a little 125cc Scooter about 6 months out of the year (summer-time). I spent about a dollar a week on gas. I'm not joking. (Although at today's prices, it would be about 2 or 3 dollars a week). It wasn't fast enough to go on the freeway, but on all the other streets it performed beautifully. It's nice being able to weave through nasty street traffic...and parking is always right outside the store. I reccommend a scooter or small engine motorcycle to everyone during the summer months.
You obviously don't know much about running a business. Microsoft does. Forget about the "physical costs" for a second. Have you forgotten that people cost money? Microsoft is not run by a bunch of hippies...all the developers get paid. A whole group of people would have to be hired just to manage deals and interactions between Microsoft and other companies like Mozilla. That costs money. People would need to be hired to fix compatibility problems between windows and these 3rd party apps. That costs money. Marketing teams and product managers would need to be hired to sell this product and all of it's "free" bundled software. That costs money.
Other posters have mentioned that if Microsoft bundled OS software many people would still believe that it was Microsoft's responsibility to support those products as well as their own. Support costs money (even if you have to hire a team that specifically has to tell customers to contact the respective 3rd Parties instead). Fail to do that and you suffer the costs of lacking or confusion support policies. Also, if Microsoft had to dilute their product with a bunch of other software made by companies that do in fact compete with them in other fields, Microsoft loses billions of dollars in brand dilution and devaluation. Oh, and probably the biggest cost of all: some multi-billion dollar verdict handed out to the OS community against microsoft for violating some GNU type licence (ie, charging money for open source software)...not to mention the backlash from the OS community just for profiting off of their "free" work.
It doesn't matter if something is "free", there are still lots of people behind that something and lots of costs a non-business owner like yourself hasn't even thought of, but Microsoft and many of the OEM's have.
Besides, what about the cost to freedom? If we start forcing companies to offer additional products with their own products whether they compete or not...isn't that basically making a slave of all entreprenuers? Isn't that basically taking away liberty? No thanks, I enjoy my freedom.
I await patiently to be corrected.
As stated, I haven't given it as much consideration as it deserves, but in light of the ever-expanding difficulty of protecting copyrights and the absurdy of today's patents, I think at the very least, exporling a whole new paradigm is in order.
Exactly. Most Libertarians (like myself) are adamantly against any state intervention. The argument amougst libertarians on the subject whether IP monopolies (copyrights & patents) should be protected (if at all). I have personally done some research on what the effects of absolutely NO state-granted IP monoplies would be. Surprisingly, I have found that one could seriously argue that ALL IP law is harmful to society, NOT helpful. Yes, there would be drastic changes to profit models, but once those changes were assimilated, additional benefits could be had and we would actually see much faster innovation in the marketplace. There would be less superflous and wasteful research and development--and corporate fat would be cut because there wouldn't be alot of room for it in the fast paced market. In short, companies that could normally *buy* a monopoly from the government, would now actually have to work for their money on a consistant basis. As a capitalist and business owner myself, I don't have a problem with this. I'm pretty sure the average consumer wouldn't have a problem either. Companies would truly have to compete in the marketplace over quality and execution of service, not over who can file patents the fastest, or who has the most expensive lawyers.
Anyway, as soon as I finish my research I'll post an article somewhere and let the slashdot crowd have at it.
Wrong. Capitalists are adamantly against monopolies created by government force. True capitalism doesn't allow government law to inferfere in the marketplace (like the government does when "protecting" the RIAA/MPAA or any other subsidized/lobbied industry).
Real capitalists fight in the marketplace, not in the courts.
Ok, you've been upgraded to plastic bag. A for effort :)
^^^^^^ poster above me couldn't joke his way out of a paper bag. so so sad.
Actually, she's complaining about both and has been rather vocal about both issues. Her motivation for protesting the war is her son's death, to be sure, but that doesn't lessen her current point: she wants other soldiers to come home so other parents don't have to undergo the same grief she did over what she obviously considers to be a senseless and foolish war.
Wouldn't it have just been easier to write that pirates are resourceful and determined instead of trying to squeeze a poorly chosen word into your definition?
No but seriously, thanks. I realize now that my igonorant comments are entirely my fault...I just skipped right through the opening screen because I'm an impatient bastard. This info may/will come in handy if/when I encounter problems when forcefully installing ubuntu on my friends and families machines. I become more impressed with ubuntu every day (though most of the credit goes to the debian team).
Have a good night.
And there is a tendancy to always check out the number one rated item on lists...which perpetuates its number one status. Very unreliable indeed.
Agreed 100%. I recently have been installing most of the major distros on my spare partitions because I like to see how they are all shaping up about once a year. I thought Xandros's install was excellent, though it was missing a monitor/resolution setting option even under the "advanced" installation steps. Xandros appeared to install beautifully, but once the desktop loaded, my screen went blank. It was obvious that the "autodetect" featured failed for my particular monitor. I had to go in through another distro to reconfigure the xorg file just to be able to SEE the OS! I don't imagine most novices wishing to switch from windows to linux will know how to do this (or want to). I just don't understand how the developers can screw this up so badly. The VERY most important thing that should work is the freaking monitor. Without the monitor you can't do anything...so yes, please let us override the monitor settings if we want to. My Breezy preview install got my monitor right...so no worries there...but there must be someone out there that wished he had the option because right now he's staring at a blank or fuzzy screen.
That said, the Ubuntu developers would do well to look at the Xandros installer and then improve it futher. The Xandros installer lets you decide which programs you want installed (from a 600MB install to a 1200MB install--a big difference) and is very user friendly and easy on the eyes. Ubuntu could improve this by allowing advanced users to configure even further (monitor, wireless network cards, etc). It would also be cool if you could choose a "desktop" a "server" or "both" type of installation. They get the desktop down so well, it's a shame not to throw in apache, php and mysql just for fun. I know it's only an apt-get away, but it would be nice to install ubuntu and have everything running from the get-go.
I will hand it to Ubuntu Breezy though...it installed everything perfectly on my new machine with fancy lcd monitor. Xandros, with it's monied dev team, couldn't even SHOW me the installation.
That said, I don't think swinging our weight around (like the US has done for the last century) is any way to ensure peace or freedom is propogated and perpetuated. The United States' meddling has caused more problems than it has solved. The only revolutions that have ever worked are those inspired by the hearts and minds of the people culling the revolutions...and that can only be encouraged peacefully by indulging populations with truth and shedding more light on ideologies they already know they deserve merely by being alive. Starting wars doesn't work anymore than hitting your girlfriend makes her love you.
But the labels will make the final call. And in this case, if they decide to raise their prices any further, it really will be their final call.
If the music industry wants to stay alive, they need to slash their prices DRAMATICALLY--I mean by at least half. They need to go for the long tail numbers, not the overinflated BS numbers that are clearly in the past.
I personally hope they keep their prices high because it will bring me great pleasure to watch all those foolishly greedy music mogul fucks starve on the streets after the artists realize they can control the entire production and distribution process themselves--AND reduce their prices by selling directly.
When Google releases their distribution, they will be setting the standards for the Linux community.
Now that is comedy.
My suggestion: check your headset/mic on another computer and/or connection. I had a bunk headset once, got a new one and the problem disappeared. If your headset works elsewhere, then it's either your soundcard or your connection. Of course, it goes without saying that you shouldn't run bittorrent or ed2k software at full speeds while using skype or any voip service for that matter. good luck.
Exactly. Freedom is a two-way street. Well, to be fair, freedom is more like a historical idea that inspires spurts of nostalgia here and there. Unfortuanately, we don't carry our nostalgia into the voting booths...and for most slashdotters, I don't think a nostalgia for freedom even exists. Slashdotters give away their freedom faster than their open-source code.
Well said. I was going to suggest some ambien (like a full bottle), but I suppose he could just buy some "hacked" gillette blades and slit his wrists instead...because clearly the world is just too damn unfair to live in when the evil vendors want you to use their hardware in ways that allow them to profit and survive (and afford to make the hardware in the first place).
I know this is an off-topic response to an off-topic post...but: The same government that caused those 20,000+ deaths are the ones that will be regulating these blu-ray players.
Wake up! Enron is a perfect example of how the free markete punishes dishonesty. Where is enron? It's gone man! Do you really think that if the books were more transparent that Enron would still be around? Enron had an erroneous business model and would have collapsed SOONER if it handn't fudged the numbers. That means everyone would have been out of work EARLIER.
Besides, when YOU get a job, you are not garaunteed the job for life. YOU are taking a measured risk that the company YOU work for will be around for the long haul and that the people that run the company are honest and competant. I'm so tired of people expecting the entire world to be perfect and safe. The cosmos just isn't set up that way. The entire universe is virtually unexplainable and chaotic and random at its subatomic core, so expecting a world where there is no death, no risk, no pain, no failure and so forth is expecting to live in your fantasies forever. Grow up. Toughen up. Bad shit happens sometimes...but at least when there is a free market, the best companies, products and ideas eventually win. It is when you encourage and condone government interference and regulation that things slow down, become artificial and get politicized into oblivion.
btw...who said anything about Iraq? The only war we Libertarians condoned was the one we fought against the British in the 18th century. Libertarians would never send troops outside of our country and we certainly wouldn't interfere in the politics of other countries (which is the reason the WTC was bombed in the first place). We believe in national DEFENCE, not offence. That means the only US troops you'd see under a Libertarian president would be on US soil. Libertarians were gainst the idea of invading Iraq before Iraq became Iraq.
That sure does sound ominous...do you have any REAL examples to back up your points? As far as I can see, the only real and destructive monopolies in the world are those that are created by the government, not by businesses in the free market. Read this article to see what I mean.
That's why almost all countries mix in a lot of government regulation, (anti-trust laws, living wage laws, environmental standards, etc) so that society can get the benefits of capitalism while avoiding the abuses.
I guess the political PR machine has worked well on you if you really believe that bullshit. We have regulations, limits on our liberties, "anti-trust" laws etc because politicians profit from these powers which of course they can sell out to the highest bidder. Take away all these powers and there isn't any power to abuse.
I would say that your "mixed" model hurts the market, not helps it.
I agree with you. I don't think there is any place in the world apart from international waters (maybe) where true capitalism and freedom exists. Every government is oppressive, restrictive, and in varying degrees, totalitarian. That's why I hate government (in pretty much any form) and vote for Libertarians every chance I get. In fact, I used to live in the States, but moved to the Caribbean because I couldn't handle the ever increasing regulation, taxes and limitations on my liberties. There's still laws here of course, but its far more lax and unenforced.
Regarding your question about the logic of my comparison (or lack thereof) between capitalism and communism: I think my point was especially appropriate. Comparing the two reminds me of the argument that schools should teach both "theories" in biology class (evolution versus "intelligent design"). Evolution of course works and is supported by the entire scientific/rational community. Intelligent design is a figment of our irrational society's collective imagination. Believing that communism could ever work completely ignores the psychology of man, just like intelligent design completely ignores reason. Both are not comparable because one is imaginary and the other is real. Man is never satisfied. He always wants more. Hate it or love it, that's the nature of man. Our human nature does not fit within the finite communistic framework and so communism is irrelevant except as an idea, just like god and every other irrational human musing.
When I first got in business with my partner who NEVER used a computer in his life (but had lots of $$), he picked up the mouse and sort of shaked it in the air like a pair of dice. I couldn't stop laughing for a week.
And there are many more people like him.