Machiavelli's the prince is a work that explains how to oppress people best to stay in power and you cite it as an example of how to keep a free society? Who is responsible for such brainwashed Americans?
TV-sets, being more complicated, are more of a "luxury", than a boombox. So, right there you contradict yourself. It seems, your definition of "luxury" boils down to: "what you did not have access to as a child". Sorry, that's non-sense. There is nothing "luxury" about clothes that fit, furniture that does not creak.
So you define luxury goods by being complicated? A TV is a necessity good since, oh, I don't know, the nineteen seventies.
By the way, as a child I not only had a cassette recorder and a record player (had nothing do do with access, they were both my own) but also an Atari 2600 and a Spectrum 64 so you are wrong again about my definition.
Heck, there is nothing luxurious about a car even
A car is a luxury good in every place where a working mass transit exists. Read up in a lexicon someday about necessity and luxury goods. Then you will understand.
False. That may be your definition of laissez-faire, but it is wrong. Any and all proponents of free markets not only leave law enforcement to the Government (including enforcement of intellectual property rights), but insist, it should do a better job (and not get distracted by providing, say, welfare, roads, or public schools).
Anything goes is anything goes and not some wishy washy definition of it. You want to have a cake and eat it, too (Na huy sest' i rybku syest'). The reality doesn't work like that.
Yes, yes. Wouldn't it be terrific, if all your opponents were the straw-men erected by your Illiberal professors and yourself? So easy to knock-off, aren't they?
My professors? What professors? Dude, who is playing with strawmen now?
A music boombox is very much a luxury good. TV couldn't be since even my grandparents had 2 TV sets. Medicine that works couldn't be either because if that were true you then you are right now talking with someone who has died in the late eighties.
Not at all. The foundation and corner-stone of Capitalism -- laissez-faire or not quite -- is a functional legal system, that defends all participants from coercion and enforces contracts.
That is actually Marx' definition. Earlier definitions - much preferred by free market fans - go without it.
Businessmen were forced to hire "roofs" (protection racketeers) and those closest to the government officials were able to take over the public assets. That's not capitalism at all, much less "laissez-faire".
That is very much anything goes capitalism. Everything is at the market and has its price, from bandits to the government. Anyway, noone forced the businessmen to hire bandits, they could as well hire enough heavily armed security guards but bandits were usually cheaper. Also a thing of a free market.
Well, with a little googling you will find that according to 12 of Chinese criminal procedure law no one is guilty of a crime without a people's court rendering a judgment according to law.
Look at Soviet Russia before it collapsed or communist China before they began introducing more capitalism to their system, Russia had 0% unemployment but 1/3 of the country could not afford a loaf of bread per day.
Stop spilling bullshit. In the USSR basic foodstuff was unaffordable or unavailable only right after WW1, right after WW2 and around the time of the GKChP putch. At all other time basic food was not only available, it was also very affordable. A kilogram of bread was about 20 kopecks in 1988 and that bread was often still warm and much tastier than everything you get in the USA - short of self baked one. Meat was more difficult to get and there was an extreme shortage of luxury goods but not as you described.
but to create the most individual freedom without inhibiting another individual's freedom. The -only- economic system that can do that is a capitalist system.
Another outright lie. Let's stay with your former example. Russia in the nineties is a perfect example of laissez-faire capitalism. If you had money, really everything was possible and the government was irrelevant. So you think people were more free back then? Nope. The only free people were bandits and businessmen so reach they could afford their own small armies. Everyone else was fucked by the former two parties.
Actually, the only economic system that theoretically doesn't inhibit anyone's freedom is simple barter. It also works when all other systems fail. But it is the most inefficient system.
BTW you should read some works of Karl Marx yourself before you bash them. Das Kapital is pretty much basic economy and was spot on in the beginning of the 20th century and is still pretty much valid. Many of his theories are still taught in the MBA classes, although noone wants to admit that they were written by Marx.
In addition to what bigstrat2003 has written, there was nothing intimidating at, say, Treo 180 (2002), or a HTC Wallaby (2003) either. Even my mother was able to use them. Treo 180 is actually a good example since iPhone OS feels very much like Palm OS with some bling bling on top. Also, Opera Mobile was there before WebKit. Evolution is not revolution.
But then again, there are people who are too stupid to set the clock of their VCR, but they would be probably too stupid to use iPhone either.
Look at the way the iPhone has completely changed the mobile landscape in the mere 2 years it has existed.
Pray tell me, how it has completely changed the mobile landscape? All I see is just an evolution of things available long before iPhone was even projected.
Fiat isn't a small backyard shack it was 50 years ago. Fiat owns Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Iveco, Maserati and even Ferrari. I don't think Chrysler has got anything IP-wise Fiat doesn't have.
Okay, let me rephrase it: all soldiers are supposed to get the same basic training.
Anyway, you are wrong. My grandfather was at VVS (soviet airforce) in the WW2. He was an aircraft mechanic for Il-2 ground attack aircraft. But more often than not he was supposed to fly as the rear gunner (because of the high death rate of rear gunners) and in the fight for Berlin he was at the front line serving as an infantryman.
In a real war shit happens and often people have to improvise. That is how naval infantry came to existence in first place.
Well, given that "Cyxymu" is false cyrillic for Sukhumi (the capital of Abkhasia, actually) and that georgian blogger himself chooses to blog in Russian, one shouldn't wonder why it is almost all in Russian there.
it is the versatility of humans that helped the species not only to survive but to get on the top of the food chain. because no one is irreplaceable, because everyone can learn new things, because people have to invent new stuff.
bullshit. all soldiers (and yes, airforce pilots are also soldiers) undergo the same basic training so if the pilot cannot fly he still can shoot at the enemy or defend himself after ejecting.
this is not a fucking team fortress, real humans are universal.
I personally use some Norton Commander clone which has got FTP already inside it. Way faster and more comfortable than Explorer, so I don't understand the GP rant either.
So? I also knew a guy who followed that principle in business. He now lives in Switzerland and he lives very well. You just have to know when to stop and cash out.
Maybe there is such a thing as a healthy free market because greed is an antagonist of itself. Those who don't act in good faith when dealing with me are acting against my best interest. I will not deal with them anymore. Won't they soon be out of business since no one will deal with them?
Nope. Because everyone is greedy and no one acts in good faith so either there is no business at all (which works only when everyone grows their own food, makes their own clothes and so on) or everyone accepts the market conditions and tries themselves to screw their business partners as much as possible.
A world full of honest people is even more an utopia than real communism.
If I cannot freely choose what to buy, how much to pay for it and who I do business with, how am I free?
Says you. "If I cannot freely cheat my business partners and oppress my employees, how I am free?" says some CEO. "If I cannot freely take protection money and kill my concurrents, how I am free?" says some mobster.
As long you live in a society you have to give up some freedoms. As long as you don't want others to screw you over a business transaction and get away with it, you'll have to give up some economic freedoms.
Nope, you are not the only one. This arrangement would be quite typical of the soviet 600 series panel houses so I used to live in a flat where it was the same. Probably due to some drunk electricians the light switch wiring was wrong - the bathroom light switch switched the toilet lights and vice versa.
Then again, in the Russian language there is no ambiguity between the words for a toilet and bathroom.
Hence you need a powerful system capable of exceeding the off stage level. Turning down the volume is not an option in this scenario, unless the band is willing to turn down on stage, and let me tell you that virtually never happens, or if it does only for a few minutes then they are back up again.
I remember a gig of The Machine (A Pink Floyd tribute band) in Essen, Germany, where they did just that - turned down the volume after 5 minutes of the show - because the bass sound sucked. They kept the lower volume for the rest of the show and I can assure you, this was the best performance sound quality-wise I ever attended in my whole life (and as far the music goes, if you closed your eyes it was the real Pink Floyd). Too bad they didn't do the same trick at their previous gigs.
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Wow. Just wow.
Machiavelli's the prince is a work that explains how to oppress people best to stay in power and you cite it as an example of how to keep a free society?
Who is responsible for such brainwashed Americans?
Dude, European politicians are too eager to copy the worst of the USA.
So you define luxury goods by being complicated? A TV is a necessity good since, oh, I don't know, the nineteen seventies.
By the way, as a child I not only had a cassette recorder and a record player (had nothing do do with access, they were both my own) but also an Atari 2600 and a Spectrum 64 so you are wrong again about my definition.
A car is a luxury good in every place where a working mass transit exists. Read up in a lexicon someday about necessity and luxury goods. Then you will understand.
Anything goes is anything goes and not some wishy washy definition of it. You want to have a cake and eat it, too (Na huy sest' i rybku syest'). The reality doesn't work like that.
My professors? What professors? Dude, who is playing with strawmen now?
A music boombox is very much a luxury good. TV couldn't be since even my grandparents had 2 TV sets. Medicine that works couldn't be either because if that were true you then you are right now talking with someone who has died in the late eighties.
That is actually Marx' definition. Earlier definitions - much preferred by free market fans - go without it.
That is very much anything goes capitalism. Everything is at the market and has its price, from bandits to the government. Anyway, noone forced the businessmen to hire bandits, they could as well hire enough heavily armed security guards but bandits were usually cheaper. Also a thing of a free market.
Well, with a little googling you will find that according to 12 of Chinese criminal procedure law no one is guilty of a crime without a people's court rendering a judgment according to law.
It is a presumption of innocence.
and even when it happens, better a crash than a remote exploit.
Stop spilling bullshit. In the USSR basic foodstuff was unaffordable or unavailable only right after WW1, right after WW2 and around the time of the GKChP putch. At all other time basic food was not only available, it was also very affordable. A kilogram of bread was about 20 kopecks in 1988 and that bread was often still warm and much tastier than everything you get in the USA - short of self baked one. Meat was more difficult to get and there was an extreme shortage of luxury goods but not as you described.
Another outright lie. Let's stay with your former example. Russia in the nineties is a perfect example of laissez-faire capitalism. If you had money, really everything was possible and the government was irrelevant. So you think people were more free back then? Nope. The only free people were bandits and businessmen so reach they could afford their own small armies. Everyone else was fucked by the former two parties.
Actually, the only economic system that theoretically doesn't inhibit anyone's freedom is simple barter. It also works when all other systems fail. But it is the most inefficient system.
BTW you should read some works of Karl Marx yourself before you bash them. Das Kapital is pretty much basic economy and was spot on in the beginning of the 20th century and is still pretty much valid. Many of his theories are still taught in the MBA classes, although noone wants to admit that they were written by Marx.
In addition to what bigstrat2003 has written, there was nothing intimidating at, say, Treo 180 (2002), or a HTC Wallaby (2003) either. Even my mother was able to use them. Treo 180 is actually a good example since iPhone OS feels very much like Palm OS with some bling bling on top. Also, Opera Mobile was there before WebKit. Evolution is not revolution.
But then again, there are people who are too stupid to set the clock of their VCR, but they would be probably too stupid to use iPhone either.
Pray tell me, how it has completely changed the mobile landscape? All I see is just an evolution of things available long before iPhone was even projected.
What IP?
Fiat isn't a small backyard shack it was 50 years ago. Fiat owns Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Iveco, Maserati and even Ferrari.
I don't think Chrysler has got anything IP-wise Fiat doesn't have.
Okay, let me rephrase it: all soldiers are supposed to get the same basic training.
Anyway, you are wrong. My grandfather was at VVS (soviet airforce) in the WW2. He was an aircraft mechanic for Il-2 ground attack aircraft. But more often than not he was supposed to fly as the rear gunner (because of the high death rate of rear gunners) and in the fight for Berlin he was at the front line serving as an infantryman.
In a real war shit happens and often people have to improvise. That is how naval infantry came to existence in first place.
Well, given that "Cyxymu" is false cyrillic for Sukhumi (the capital of Abkhasia, actually) and that georgian blogger himself chooses to blog in Russian, one shouldn't wonder why it is almost all in Russian there.
it is the versatility of humans that helped the species not only to survive but to get on the top of the food chain.
because no one is irreplaceable, because everyone can learn new things, because people have to invent new stuff.
bullshit.
all soldiers (and yes, airforce pilots are also soldiers) undergo the same basic training so if the pilot cannot fly he still can shoot at the enemy or defend himself after ejecting.
this is not a fucking team fortress, real humans are universal.
I personally use some Norton Commander clone which has got FTP already inside it. Way faster and more comfortable than Explorer, so I don't understand the GP rant either.
So? I also knew a guy who followed that principle in business. He now lives in Switzerland and he lives very well. You just have to know when to stop and cash out.
Nope. Because everyone is greedy and no one acts in good faith so either there is no business at all (which works only when everyone grows their own food, makes their own clothes and so on) or everyone accepts the market conditions and tries themselves to screw their business partners as much as possible.
A world full of honest people is even more an utopia than real communism.
Says you.
"If I cannot freely cheat my business partners and oppress my employees, how I am free?" says some CEO.
"If I cannot freely take protection money and kill my concurrents, how I am free?" says some mobster.
As long you live in a society you have to give up some freedoms. As long as you don't want others to screw you over a business transaction and get away with it, you'll have to give up some economic freedoms.
There is no such thing as a healthy free market because greed is an antagonist of good faith.
William of course because WC stands for William the Conqueror.
Not really. You still can move.
If you are often sitting in a 2 hour traffic jam then it is possible that you use wrong means of transportation.
Nope, you are not the only one. This arrangement would be quite typical of the soviet 600 series panel houses so I used to live in a flat where it was the same. Probably due to some drunk electricians the light switch wiring was wrong - the bathroom light switch switched the toilet lights and vice versa.
Then again, in the Russian language there is no ambiguity between the words for a toilet and bathroom.
I remember a gig of The Machine (A Pink Floyd tribute band) in Essen, Germany, where they did just that - turned down the volume after 5 minutes of the show - because the bass sound sucked. They kept the lower volume for the rest of the show and I can assure you, this was the best performance sound quality-wise I ever attended in my whole life (and as far the music goes, if you closed your eyes it was the real Pink Floyd). Too bad they didn't do the same trick at their previous gigs.
so that law is your fault?
Also known as BGNWLBeschG (The short form).
Available as a 150 pages paperback.