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User: slysithesuperspy

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  1. Re:And your evidence is...? on The Uncertain Future of Global Population Numbers · · Score: 1

    I agree, before the industrial revolution the UK had a static population of around 6 million because that is all it could sustain. Like in Africa many children died, then they died pretty early anyway.

    I was convinced by some program, years ago, that "overpopulation" was a problem. I think its just scaremongering now (probably not intentionally) because the world would not sustain a population "too large."

  2. Sucessssss like Cuba? on EU Views Net Censorship As a "Trade Barrier" · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Perhaps I ought to bow to the intellectual gods who populate the European Parliament and give them whatever rights I have left, because although this sounds pretty contradictory to me, I'm sure they are correct! After all, they are from the government, therefore their job is to help me!

    The trade embargo with Cuba hasn't seemed to have worked...it's proponents have had enough time to prove it. So why would sanctions just magically work here? How would oppressing the already oppressed people China in the EU help?

    Their logic is like this: some people are oppressed a bit it in some other country far away that makes stuff for us cheaply. So the way to fix it is to oppress the country even more, while simultaneously oppressing home! Why can't these do gooders leave people alone? Perhaps they can't get a job anywhere else? Also, kind of ironic that China looks like it is getting freer, in contrast to the EU.

    What an earth would we do without the EU? I can't imagine life without it, the world would surely collapse, society would be in ruins!

  3. Victims, wtf on UK Government To Terminate File Sharers' Net Access · · Score: 1

    Please get off your high horse. People are not as irresponsible as you perhaps think - they are not victims - they choose to take drugs or download copyrighted material. Perhaps you are trying to pander to the politician, but if they support the war on drugs then they don't need any ego boost.

    It is completely irresponsible to put the blame on to either drug dealers or uploaders, that is also completely and utterly immoral. Did they go out and hurt someone, did they steal anyones property (tangible property, intellectual "property" which is a government license)? No, and if they have done they should be taken to court because of something they have done wrong.

    Though, I don't think many bittorrent users will buy into that cheap argument as they upload some too.

  4. Re:Real summary. on Has Ron Paul Quit? · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is the New Deal type of thing that helped make the 30s recession last until the war. Sounds like a good thing to be opposed to. And why do you think people at the local level are too stupid to care about their kids?

  5. Libertarianism != Libertinism on Has Ron Paul Quit? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Libertarian principles are exactly why people are falling down the economic ladder in the first place.
    Libertarianism does not mean no rules, no regulations. What you speak of sounds more like libertinism. Also, if there was sound money they couldn't lower interest rates and make stupid loans so the problem couldn't have occurred in the first place. Also, don't forget the equality laws which encourages reckless lending. And, just because Greenspan was a libertarian/objectivist before does not mean that whatever he did was based on libertarian principles.
  6. IP and the Constitution on Ron Paul Campaign Answers Slashdot Reader Questions · · Score: 1

    Looks like whoever replied was in a bit of a rush...but nevermind. It would have been nice to link each answer to the Constitution, like Paul normally does. What does it say about IP in there?

  7. Re:On the topic of politics in broadband.. on President Bush Releases US Broadband Policy · · Score: 1

    Oh. Wow. I am so inspired by a politican who wants to change the meaning of words! He's a tweaker, no real change will happen, all he does is bring false hope.

  8. What free market? on Massive WiMax Network for India · · Score: 1

    And where, pray tell, in your fairy tail world is a free market?

  9. Association fallacy on Replacing a Thinkpad? · · Score: 1

    Loveno employees and stockholders are not the Chinese government, right? I guess some tax money would go to the Chinese government but is there a good government in the world? That point is moot.

  10. Already doing it? on Internet Uses 9.4% of Electricity In the US · · Score: 1

    I'm sure everytime I've read something about a datacenter they speak in terms of performance / watt. So, that would indicate they were already doing it.

  11. Some more books on The History of the Federal Reserve · · Score: 1

    The Mystery of Banking, another by Rothbard. And an audio version of What Has Government Done to Our Money?

  12. Electable on UK Copyright Extension in Exchange for Censorship? · · Score: 1

    I guess he only cares about votes (what kind of non-principled politician would not be?) so how does this make him more electable?

  13. Economists on Microsoft to Sell PCs, Starting in India · · Score: 1

    I've heard many economists say that Microsoft made computers. Now they will be right!

  14. Re:All the irrational replies explained on Venezula Producing Its Own Linux PCs · · Score: 1

    Central planning will always fail. Those aren't centrally planed economies, they are just hampered economies.

  15. Cute on Venezula Producing Its Own Linux PCs · · Score: 1

    I guess it's kind of cute, their socialist revolution and all, but hasn't Chavez noticed that socialism was the big failure of the 20th century!

  16. Democracy is a threat to science on Is Scientific Consensus a Threat to Democracy? · · Score: 1

    It is lucky that not all sciences can be politicised like economics and climatology. I saw a quote from a mathematician once saying that if maths was politically useful we would still be debating whether 2 + 2 = 4.

  17. Re:Massive companies on Legal Online Gambling May Return to US · · Score: 1

    Sorry, I wasn't clear, I was just suggesting, in passing, one possible way the market may come up with of self-regulation. I put too much emphasis on the insurance company part. I mentioned that possible outcome because it would be in the interest of the insurance companies to regulate companies once investors and stockholders had more accountability.

    I agree there is definitely a problem with the legal system. I think is definitely unfair and it seems, to me, completely arbitrary. Though. to be honest I haven't really thought about it much before. Your pharmaceutical executive scenario is intriguing, but I suggest that is only possible when government artificially creates IP. I am absolutely sure anyone who bribes or lobbies to increase the health care costs for everyone is not a good person, but I think it is the people who make the laws, the people with the power, who are ultimately responsible. Unfortunately, I feel, with a situation like that it is some of the people who write the laws that are acting reprehensibly. I would wager that that last bit is perhaps the outcome of a monopoly!

  18. Re:Massive companies on Legal Online Gambling May Return to US · · Score: 1

    It is precisely the greed that means there is always competition, as long as potential competitors can find a better way to do it and they aren't hampered in entering the industry there will be competition. I think not allowing government in the first place to enter this field is more beneficial overall because they would not be tempted to expand further. For instance, if it did work in one area, then they would try again in something else, and in 20 years they'd be regulating everything and the positive effects of the original idea would be far outweighed by the negative effects of them expanding into the anti-trust areas. (For example, most anti-trust cases are firms complaining about rivals, not customers complaining.) Also, just the threat of potential competition and now wanting people to spend their money on something (dollar competition) else will mean they can't take too much "advantage" of customers.

    Lets face it, if people weren't greedy and lazy chasing the ultimate goal of taking a portion of the production of others rather than producing themselves, then communism (as an economic system) would be an ideal system.

    I'm afraid I must completely disagree here because even if everyone would work as hard as they could for everyone else there is still a more fundamental problem with socialism/communism. There is no rational way of allocating available resources because there is no price system. The planners are so disabled without the price information it will never work. Unless somehow everyone's brain is attached to a super powerful computer :-) but that's just perverse.

    Government regulations do not stop unsafe food, unsafe working conditions and the like (which I know you didn't claim) but the idea they are much better than self regulation I think is erroneous. There will always be problems in this area because, as you say, it is human nature. If people have bad experiences they won't come back and they tell many people. Also, there's loads of ways that can spread the information about a bad company, and this is only easier with modern communications. For example, there are consumers reports, companies that voluntarily regulate and allow their customers to show a seal of quality. Ebay does a similar thing with the rating system. People should be responsible for their actions so if they sell something bad or commit fraud they should be punished and be made to pay restitution.

    I agree with your take on removing protections for officers and investors, they should be held accountable. They need to take responsibility, there could be insurance companies that specialise in such things, they would hardly be willing to insure companies that are irresponsible and would cost them money! The toxic waste example is a perfect example of where property rights are not respected (not just the land, the people's bodies and lives that are affected too.)

    It is a pity that in the industrial age the courts did not seek to uphold the property rights of the victims of pollution (e.g. orchid owners and people who breath! :=) ) Apart from being downright immoral it also meant that there was no incentive to take such actions as using cleaner coal and inventing filtration systems.

  19. Massive companies on Legal Online Gambling May Return to US · · Score: 1

    The only way these companies can get so large is by lobbying government. Otherwise their growth would be entirely because they provided a much better service than anyone else could, and that won't last for ever (e.g. standard oil was losing market share at the time of the anti-trust thing.) One of their methods of lobbying is to get their business regulated, and for them to write the laws, so presumably less regulation would help in that area immediately.

    However, I agree with you 100% of enforcing laws, contracts need to be enforceable and people need to be protected from fraud. I think many people forget about property rights and upholding contracts and that's why they demand government regulations.

  20. Far too much credit on 'Dangers of the Internet' Resolution Passed By Senate · · Score: 1

    Sorry, I don't mean to be pedantic, but I couldn't resist. I think you're giving a politician far too much credit by saying that he directly runs the city.

  21. Democracy stinks on Censorship is Changing the Face of the Internet · · Score: 1

    Democracy will never work well because everyone thinks they are getting a good deal, and so they vote for money to be funneled their way, e.g. "free" health care. And that's without even mentioning the special interests, which other people can't do much about because they are busy getting on with their own lives. Also, people want to lose responsibility, to become dependant on government. When the pensions schemes come crashing down, and socialised medicine fails even more, and education then people will wake up. Democracy tends toward socialism, interventionism etc, which are utterly flawed. Hopefully people notice that they are not getting a good deal that'll change.

  22. Property rights falacy on Google et al. Want 700 MHz Auction Opened Up · · Score: 1

    Your argument is assuming there are no property rights. If there is a small station and someone opens up a big station and drowns out the other station then they are violating the smaller stations property rights because they were not there first. The FCC has been even worse than the big station in this case and has got away with the biggest theft and taken all the property rights in the spectrum away.

    Another View of the FCC and Spectrum Scarcity http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/ 11/1728259

  23. Common law on Google et al. Want 700 MHz Auction Opened Up · · Score: 1

    I read somewhere that radio stations simply used the courts to solve issues before the FCC, there were many small cases going on unknown to the public, but it was generally working. However, the FCC seemed an easy case to sell to the public to get a lot of extra income, or even, manipulation of the content on the air waves. I guess these are also arguments why the internet should be completely unregulated.

  24. I think you're right on McCain Wants Ballmer For His Cabinet · · Score: 1

    As I remember they sided with Google et al. But it is one isue out of many, everyone has disagreements.

  25. Looks tidier too (nt) on Economic Analysis of Toilet Seat Position · · Score: 1

    This isn't text.