1. Modern free trade agreements (which cause the out-sourcing) result in harm to workers and the environment. NEarly every country that you out-source to, treats their workers muchworse, and harms the environment far more greatly.
Environmental harm: undoubtedly. But the damage is distributed across the globe instead of centralized in industrial nations. This makes it easier for the natural earth cycles to re-absorb. Additionally, these countries were going to jump into industrialization eventually anyway. Better to do it with our more advanced, cleaner technologies, than to start from scratch with coal burning and repeat all of our mistakes.
Harm to workers: they treat their workers worse than here, but undoubtedly the work is to their advantage otherwise they would not be doing it. If the programmers were really worse off being "exploited" than they were before the jobs came to their countries, do you really think they would keep working in these jobs? Furthermore, when industrialization first began, our nation's workers were treated even worse. It is the natural progression of modernization. As the standard of living increases in these poor, "exploited" countries, the working conditions improve. It is a classic case of parents working their asses and sacrificing a great deal to benefit their children.
2. [...] The OVERALL end result is that the gap between the rich and hte poor increases (it does NOT decrease).
The cheaper production means the price will be lower (profits are not THAT much greater due to competition). The result of cheaper prices is that the lower and middle class spend less money on these products and thus they have more money to spend elsewhere. Furthermore, the rich, having saved so much money, end up re-investing it and either starting more businesses, or growing their current ones, resulting in more jobs both locally and overseas.
Ultimately, it is unclear whether outsourcing actually increases the gap between rich and poor, and unless you are a brilliant economist and post a detailed breakdown, I don't think you can assert this point with any appreciable degree of confidence.
3. This is a personal thing... Power shifts to the capitalists and therefore I don't like it. Workers become weaker.
In your fantasy land of "evil capitalists", they already have all the money, and thus all the power anyway. They already own all of the physical assets of the company, they already own all of the means of production. What further power over workers could they possibly gain?
If the past 200 or so years of capitalism has shown us anything, it is that free competition benefits us all. Weak arguments against the "evils" of capitalism do not outweigh the evidence. I suggest you re-evaluate your propaganda.
When "forte" is pronounced "for-tay," it is Italian for "loud."
Forte in italian means loud, strong, powerful depending on context.
Re:let the kool-aid flow
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Laws ARE regulations, you douchebag. That's the whole point. You want to set up this artificial dichotomy between laws and regulations, and there isn't one. What you call regulations are just the laws that you don't agree with.
Law is such a broad term that it is useless to just toss it in there without a specific context. Law covers many areas: criminal, civil, economic, etc. Regulations are laws designed to control markets. They are not fundamental laws in the sense of "protecting rights and preserving justice".
And I want to get this "free of coercion" garbage out of the way up front. Coercion isn't just "men with guns". People can be coerced by threats, intimidation, and other means
But they need not submit to those "threats" you list. Only force can compel someone to do something they do not want to do. Blackmail is not physically forcing you to do anything. If by intimidation you mean threat of force, then that is an act of violence and illegal.
Hopefully there's still enough humanity in you to break through their mindtraps.
How nice that you are so righteous that you feel authorized to define what a true human being is and what one should aspire to become, and that you feel further obliged to impose it on the rest of us. I hope it works out for you. But please, don't be offended if many of us "slaves" love our freedom so much that we refuse to submit to someone elses' whims and will prefer instead to define ourselves.
Demand does no such thing. Demand is NECESSARY for a market, but it doesn't CREATE that market. Just because you want a thing doesn't mean that a structure magically exists where you can be assured that you can exchange something of your own to get it. That structure has to be created. Anything else is mere custom.
You assert that law is necessary for creating a market. Please explain the existence of drug and weapons smuggling into the US where these activites are illegal, yet the demand for these items are high. Of course demand does not create something magically, but demand is a necessary and sufficient condition for the creation of a market; let's face it, if people want something, there is always someone willing to give it to them. Law has *nothing* to do with creating markets.
Without law, the rich can exploit the poor indefinitely.
I'm sure that thought comforted the wealthy french who were beheaded during the french revolution.
It exists, because without it, there is no way to ensure that mutually beneficial transactions take place.
Wow, all of those ancient civilizations with open markets and free competition must have had a highly developed legal system. And they couldn't even read or write! I'm impressed. </sarcasm>
Ask your local stockbroker if he thinks "reputation" is enough to build a stock market on.
Yes, because stock brokers are the absolute authorities on economic and social theory. Without their guidance, we would all be lost.
Second, yeah, pretty much everyone agrees that government is the only agency of legitimate coercion. Not just the kool-aid crowd.
The difference being, (many) liberterians think that is their *only* justifiable purpose.
You spend a lot of time in your posts berating people for not knowing as much as your haughty self about libertarianism, but you don't seem to understand it yourself.
Let's see, going over my previous post I see a whole two sentences berating the parent for inane comments. That's a lot of time? Get some perspective. You're the one reverting to name calling and insults every few sentences in a pathetic attempt to project an air of superiority and dominance in this discussion. But I address your points anyway because there are enough misconceptions about libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.
*sigh* so much ignorance
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Your understanding of logic and economics and is as tenuous as your grasp of common sense. Allow me to help you out.
There's no such thing as a "free market", dildo. The "free" in "free market" means "law-free".
Regulation free, not law free. A free market can be law free as well though. Free market == market free of coercion.
You need laws to create a market.
Nonsense. Demand creates a market.
Take contract law, for example. Without it, you have no way of enforcing agreements between parties.
Indeed you can: reputation. You don't enter into any agreements without setting forth guidelines governing the exchange and what each party considers a fair trade. If one stiffs the other, they'll soon find others unwilling to deal with the untrustworthy party. Contract law is simply more formal, explicit and economical.
What the fuck will they be sued for?
How about damages to your health? How about pain and suffering? How about murder? Attempted murder? Assault? Criminal negligence? Take your pick.
There won't be any Pure Food & Drug Act mandating that food must not poison you.
In such a government, there would still be laws preventing people from intentionally harming you (see definition of government below). See response below that to explain the rest.
First you're for "free markets", then you're for government regulation of markets. You don't know what you believe.
Government, as defined by libertarians, is the only agency of legitimate coercion. If anyone else pursues coercive action, then it is by definition illegitimate and subject to persecution. In essence, government has a monopoly on force. Some libertarians agree that it should stay so, some don't. People pouring toxic sludge into "drinks" is an illegitimate, malicious act of force and thus subject to persecution. Explicit enough for you? Would you like pictures?
In your libertopia, there can't be any expectation that food is edible, because everything is sold caveat emptor.
In the uber-libertarian society, that may be partially true in that one would have to be more careful how one makes purchases; one might have to draw up an explicit contract with the local grocer. Chances are grocers would explicitly advertise that they gaurantee their food (up to a certain point) in which case they establish an implicit contract. In the libertarian society with a government, this would not really be the case. If you are selling "food", it is implicit that you are selling something edible (hello? definition of food!).
And we haven't even discussed how you're supposed to sue after you're dead.
Families sue for damages all the time numnuts.
Finally, let's not ignore the incredibly obious fact that killing people is bad for business. Given these silly "counter points", I take it you know next to nothing about libertarianism or economics. Please go read something so you can at least spout some rational arguments quite a few of which have already been spelled out by many great thinkers. Like any position, libertarianism has its flaws, but they are nowhere near as inane as you seem to believe.
We don't know? How could it be just as efficient to run two sets of wires down a street as it is to run one set of wires down a street?
You think all of the phones on your whole block are serviced by one pair of wires? If not, why couldn't one company have wired one part, and another wired the rest? Ultimately, you may have the same number of wires, but they are owned by different companies.
Perhaps we've never tried it (I don't enough about the history), but I don't think you could possibly come up with an argument that it's not true. Perhaps you're confusing the term efficiency?
It has nothing to do with overall efficiency, but with efficiency of operations within company. Sure, a tightly run, centrally planned organization with perfect knowledge would be more efficient than a bunch of smaller competing companies. But history has shown us that such an organization is not sustainable in the long run. Monopolies, like government, bloat and run ever higher costs. The only way companies stay manageable is with competition.
There's nothing inefficient about having different COs serving different houses competing, but that's not real competition.
What if a customer on the fringe decides to switch because he can get a better rate? Not much overhead in extending a line a few more meters.The end of your current territory is merely a beachhead for gaining more terrain. There is still competition in this scenario (which is very similar to the artificial monopoly/cartel).
Even a monopoly will run parallel rails. There are lots of people who want to go from the same origin to the same destination at the same time.
Sure, even a monopoly will run parallel phone lines as long as it is to satisfy a demand. That does not invalidate my point which is that the demand will be split among multiple phone companies instead of one. The same overall number of lines may be run, but the load is shared across multiple companies. You also gain greater redundancy with this arrangement. In fact, state granted monopolies are more about lining a few people's pockets than efficiency concerns.
Re:Democrats....Repubs
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I wish I had mod points. That was insightful. If you give greedy businessmen a license to rob and loot, they use it.
Who's giving them a license to murder and loot? Please, you'll have to read a little more about libertarianism before you can hope to criticize it intelligently.
We need to forget the myth of rugged individualism, and organize to bargain collectively.
Really? So who forms the collective? Who defines what the collective needs? Who is this collective to define my priorities, and how do they know what I need? The problem with every collective effort is lack of information. Only the individual has sufficient information to look after all of his own needs (and sometimes not even then). What hope does a collective have? Without erfect information (which is impossible): none.
Adam Smith was a naive economic and political theorist who overestimated human goodness, and underestimated human greed when he wrote The Wealth of Nations, aka, the capitalist manifesto.
Firstly, capitalism is not what you think it is. Capitalism is the right to own private property; I don't think you arguing that all property should be owned by the state are you? I believe you are referring to the free market.
Secondly, capitalism and the free market are the most sceptical resource allocation scheme possible. Every other method of organization allocation is far more susceptible to the whims of those in control; with a fully free market, there is no one in complete control/authority over everything. See: capitalism+free market == decentralized control == robustness against failure. If you negate the free market, as you seem to imply, then you must mandate some form of centralized control and allocation. Centralized control == single point of failure == eventual widespread disaster. See current governments for an apt example of centralized control catering to special interests, regardless of what is in their constitiutions.
And finally, as an answer to the previous poster, there are two outcomes to getting poisoned with sludge in your drink:
a) if you enact a libertarian country with government provided law, policing and courts, the CEOs, owners, etc. will all be tried for murder, and anyone affected by the toxic drink will sue for personal damages to the point of potentially running the company into the ground.
b) if you enact a libertarian country with no central government but with free market law and policing, you may still sue the company for damages to the point where you could run them out of business if they ever tried such as stunt.
No, I don't think businesses run by economics find either of these outcomes all that attractive for their bottom lines, or their health.
You're misusing the phrase "natural monopoly." Normally, it's used to refer to something exactly like the phone company -- a company that is granted exclusive use of a (theoretically) limited resource [...] The idea is that we can't have everyone stringing their own lines all over the place, so the government has to pick one company, or a small number of companies, to use the available space. Other examples include railroads and TV and radio broadcasters.
In economic theory, local phone companies are a natural monopoly, and Blockbuster is not.
That link provides an incomplete definition. A natural monopoly is a "market [that] can support only one firm at the most efficient size of operation", ie. the most efficient size of the firm is the size of the market.
Phone companies are a state monopoly, not a natural monopoly. They weren't even given a chance to compete, so we don't know if they would be a natural monopoly. There was fierce competition in the railroad industry before regulations stepped in oh so many years ago, yet by your argument it would be terribly innefficient to run parallel rails and thus railroads should be a natural monopoly (which history shows is not the case).
Here in Canada, we have Rogers and other smaller chains competing fairly well with Blockbuster, so I doubt it's any kind of monopoly at all.
The P2P "dealers" aren't getting paid. They're just doing it for the hell of it, so it's not necessarily likely others will step in to fill their shoes.
Not entirely. Many P2P protocols implement ranking among peers, so the more you upload, the higher your rank and the more download resources you are allocated. Never forget that "distributors" are also receivers and they want new stuff too. They are getting paid in a form of karma that enables them to more quickly get new stuff for their own enjoyment.
If it was about money, they would sue the DOWNLOADERS.
The sharers are breaking the law. Copyright law says you cannot *distribute* copyrighted works without express consent, not that you cannot receive them. Thus, sharers are violating the copyright holder's distribution rights.
Jeez, breeding for particular traits is NOT at all the same as inserting genes from other species.
Don't be silly. Sequences of A, T, C , and G do not belong to any one species nor would they be "unnatural" if they appeared in another species. We share greater than 95% of our genes with dogs IIRC. Selective breeding is just shoddy genetic engineering.
But even if an advantage is introduced, its still questionable if replacing the wild type with the improved version is a bad thing. What does humanity lose when all soybean plants become roundup-resistant? Would the world be a worse planet to live on if all zebrafish glowed in the dark?
Reducing diversity is rarely a good idea. Ever heard of the potato famine?
I did say it would be useful to those debugging the code. But most people wouldn't debug it and would simply submit a bug report detailing the problems. The contributions back to Apple in this area would be small, and Apples contribution would be enormous if they opened up Quartz. It makes no economic sense, and as we all know, economics drive business decisions.
Does single point of failure mean anything? A single, central source of power makes for an attractive target I'd say. Great way to cripple a nation.
Does enormous transmission loss mean anything? If you're receiving 1/10th the power that was transmitted, it's an atrocious solution.
Does economic feasibility mean anything? Economies of scale only work in your favour up to a certain point. Ditto for the state of reliable engineering.
Nuclear power is likely fine even closer to residential areas, no need to concentrate it in such a dangerous centralized architecture. Distribute your power generation for maximum reliability, robustness and output. Wind generators, solar cells, local centralized power plants with the power grid are the best solutions.
People are crying foul because people always cry foul. People are whiners. Not much can be done about that.
Quartz would actually be useful for many other projects, which is why Apple doesn't do it.
How? The source is only useful to people a) debugging the code, or b) interested in by-passing the API to shoot themselves in the foot by using internal, unpublished features. Apple keeps it closed source to maintain their competitive advantage in being the most visually appealing desktop experience, not to spite anyone.
but also learn Mac-specific stuff like Objective C in addition to the APIs.
This is uninformed rubbish. Objective-C is in the gcc compiler. Mac OS X uses the gcc suite. There is nothing "mac-specific" about Objective-C. The API has been around for over 10 years. It's called OpenStep, and if it has survived that long commercially, then perhaps it just might be worth learning. Lastly, we have source compatible OpenStep libraries for many other Unix OSs: GNUStep.
I was thinking that the machines might actually select The One when Zion reaches a certain size. They pick a new born, and implant some extra hardware in his mind that allows him to interface with the matrix and control it. Thus, they create the cycle of Ones. Since Neo is carrying some special circuitry he has learned to control machines in the real world with it and that's how he stopped the Sentinels.
The Smith connection could also be due to this hardware.
To say that God follows from logic means that the denial of God's existence is literally a contradiction.
Of course. Given a set of base facts which we know to be true (axioms), we can arrive at further conclusions through a systematic process of reasoning. This is logic. If the truths which form our premises imply a God (for some definition of God), then logic will prove that God's existence. A particular logical system's axioms need not be true or valid in our world, but they must be if we hope to accurately model our existence. This is the truly difficult part, since what facts can we truly be certain of?
We can't say. A "unique, non-causal or self-caused, universal cause G" whatever that means is unlikely to do or be anything meaningful.
Indeed, this corresponds with the notion of "God the Creator" but implies no further divine intervention. According to the proof this phenomenon called God is still in existence, since it is self-caused it does not go away with the end of the universe; furthermore it preceded existence and caused the universe. According to the proof, it's sole purpose is to cause the universe and itself.
Why can't it be the universe itself?
That is answered in the proof: "Can V->V?"
In any case, I don't have time to go through the whole proof, but most logical proofs of "God" start from the possibility of God's existence and derive the necessity of God's existence.
The conclusion derives directly from principles 1 through 3 (limitation principle, potency principle, principle of sufficient reason). There are no assumptions beyond this and the principles themselves are founded on a layman's empirical observation of our world (which is the proof's greatest weakness).
In any case, the possibility of God's existence is deniable, and thus does not follow from logic itself.
The existence of God is deniable for various reasons:
the definition of God is arbitrary
the premises of the logical system are arbitrary and may not have direct a correlation with reality
As the link I provided demonstrates, one can construct a logical system which proves the existence of a particular definition of God, yet one must further demonstrate that the premises have also been verified. In the above proof, the premises seem quite reasonable to one not acquainted with physics, but may not be necessarily true.
The facts and knowledge which form our premises are constantly being revised. Even if we do arrive at a complete description of existence (ie. one that explains everything we observe) one can question whether our "models" are the actual mechanism behind existence or whether they just happen to merely coincide with observations thus far (Aristotle vs Plato all over again).
This is an axiom, a base rule that defines the premises of the logical system. Every logical argument makes them. Everything other than axioms must be proven.
This is an axiom, a base rule that defines the premises of the logical system. Every logical argument makes them. Everything other than axioms must be proven.
Not only is it difficult, it's impossible. There can be no logical proof of God's existence, and there can be no logical proof of God's non-existence. In addition, there can be no logical proof that there is no proof of God's existence.
So you claim, yet I see no convincing argument.
But there is a logical proof that there is no logical proof of God's existence.
Where? I am genuinely interested.
What I mean by "logical" proof is just that that can be derived from logic. God does not follow from logic itself.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Modern free trade agreements (which cause the out-sourcing) result in harm to workers and the environment. NEarly every country that you out-source to, treats their workers muchworse, and harms the environment far more greatly.
Environmental harm: undoubtedly. But the damage is distributed across the globe instead of centralized in industrial nations. This makes it easier for the natural earth cycles to re-absorb. Additionally, these countries were going to jump into industrialization eventually anyway. Better to do it with our more advanced, cleaner technologies, than to start from scratch with coal burning and repeat all of our mistakes.
Harm to workers: they treat their workers worse than here, but undoubtedly the work is to their advantage otherwise they would not be doing it. If the programmers were really worse off being "exploited" than they were before the jobs came to their countries, do you really think they would keep working in these jobs? Furthermore, when industrialization first began, our nation's workers were treated even worse. It is the natural progression of modernization. As the standard of living increases in these poor, "exploited" countries, the working conditions improve. It is a classic case of parents working their asses and sacrificing a great deal to benefit their children.
2. [...] The OVERALL end result is that the gap between the rich and hte poor increases (it does NOT decrease).
The cheaper production means the price will be lower (profits are not THAT much greater due to competition). The result of cheaper prices is that the lower and middle class spend less money on these products and thus they have more money to spend elsewhere. Furthermore, the rich, having saved so much money, end up re-investing it and either starting more businesses, or growing their current ones, resulting in more jobs both locally and overseas.
Ultimately, it is unclear whether outsourcing actually increases the gap between rich and poor, and unless you are a brilliant economist and post a detailed breakdown, I don't think you can assert this point with any appreciable degree of confidence.
3. This is a personal thing... Power shifts to the capitalists and therefore I don't like it. Workers become weaker.
In your fantasy land of "evil capitalists", they already have all the money, and thus all the power anyway. They already own all of the physical assets of the company, they already own all of the means of production. What further power over workers could they possibly gain?
If the past 200 or so years of capitalism has shown us anything, it is that free competition benefits us all. Weak arguments against the "evils" of capitalism do not outweigh the evidence. I suggest you re-evaluate your propaganda.
It takes 210Volts to conduct electricity through human flesh (from hand to opposite hand, depends on length of path).
Much less if you puncture the skin I imagine.
http://www.realultimatepower.net/
When "forte" is pronounced "for-tay," it is Italian for "loud."
Forte in italian means loud, strong, powerful depending on context.
Laws ARE regulations, you douchebag. That's the whole point. You want to set up this artificial dichotomy between laws and regulations, and there isn't one. What you call regulations are just the laws that you don't agree with.
Law is such a broad term that it is useless to just toss it in there without a specific context. Law covers many areas: criminal, civil, economic, etc. Regulations are laws designed to control markets. They are not fundamental laws in the sense of "protecting rights and preserving justice".
And I want to get this "free of coercion" garbage out of the way up front. Coercion isn't just "men with guns". People can be coerced by threats, intimidation, and other means
But they need not submit to those "threats" you list. Only force can compel someone to do something they do not want to do. Blackmail is not physically forcing you to do anything. If by intimidation you mean threat of force, then that is an act of violence and illegal.
Hopefully there's still enough humanity in you to break through their mindtraps.
How nice that you are so righteous that you feel authorized to define what a true human being is and what one should aspire to become, and that you feel further obliged to impose it on the rest of us. I hope it works out for you. But please, don't be offended if many of us "slaves" love our freedom so much that we refuse to submit to someone elses' whims and will prefer instead to define ourselves.
Demand does no such thing. Demand is NECESSARY for a market, but it doesn't CREATE that market. Just because you want a thing doesn't mean that a structure magically exists where you can be assured that you can exchange something of your own to get it. That structure has to be created. Anything else is mere custom.
You assert that law is necessary for creating a market. Please explain the existence of drug and weapons smuggling into the US where these activites are illegal, yet the demand for these items are high. Of course demand does not create something magically, but demand is a necessary and sufficient condition for the creation of a market; let's face it, if people want something, there is always someone willing to give it to them. Law has *nothing* to do with creating markets.
Without law, the rich can exploit the poor indefinitely.
I'm sure that thought comforted the wealthy french who were beheaded during the french revolution.
It exists, because without it, there is no way to ensure that mutually beneficial transactions take place.
Wow, all of those ancient civilizations with open markets and free competition must have had a highly developed legal system. And they couldn't even read or write! I'm impressed. </sarcasm>
Ask your local stockbroker if he thinks "reputation" is enough to build a stock market on.
Yes, because stock brokers are the absolute authorities on economic and social theory. Without their guidance, we would all be lost.
Second, yeah, pretty much everyone agrees that government is the only agency of legitimate coercion. Not just the kool-aid crowd.
The difference being, (many) liberterians think that is their *only* justifiable purpose.
You spend a lot of time in your posts berating people for not knowing as much as your haughty self about libertarianism, but you don't seem to understand it yourself.
Let's see, going over my previous post I see a whole two sentences berating the parent for inane comments. That's a lot of time? Get some perspective. You're the one reverting to name calling and insults every few sentences in a pathetic attempt to project an air of superiority and dominance in this discussion. But I address your points anyway because there are enough misconceptions about libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.
Your understanding of logic and economics and is as tenuous as your grasp of common sense. Allow me to help you out.
There's no such thing as a "free market", dildo. The "free" in "free market" means "law-free".
Regulation free, not law free. A free market can be law free as well though. Free market == market free of coercion.
You need laws to create a market.
Nonsense. Demand creates a market.
Take contract law, for example. Without it, you have no way of enforcing agreements between parties.
Indeed you can: reputation. You don't enter into any agreements without setting forth guidelines governing the exchange and what each party considers a fair trade. If one stiffs the other, they'll soon find others unwilling to deal with the untrustworthy party. Contract law is simply more formal, explicit and economical.
What the fuck will they be sued for?
How about damages to your health? How about pain and suffering? How about murder? Attempted murder? Assault? Criminal negligence? Take your pick.
There won't be any Pure Food & Drug Act mandating that food must not poison you.
In such a government, there would still be laws preventing people from intentionally harming you (see definition of government below). See response below that to explain the rest.
First you're for "free markets", then you're for government regulation of markets. You don't know what you believe.
Government, as defined by libertarians, is the only agency of legitimate coercion. If anyone else pursues coercive action, then it is by definition illegitimate and subject to persecution. In essence, government has a monopoly on force. Some libertarians agree that it should stay so, some don't. People pouring toxic sludge into "drinks" is an illegitimate, malicious act of force and thus subject to persecution. Explicit enough for you? Would you like pictures?
In your libertopia, there can't be any expectation that food is edible, because everything is sold caveat emptor.
In the uber-libertarian society, that may be partially true in that one would have to be more careful how one makes purchases; one might have to draw up an explicit contract with the local grocer. Chances are grocers would explicitly advertise that they gaurantee their food (up to a certain point) in which case they establish an implicit contract. In the libertarian society with a government, this would not really be the case. If you are selling "food", it is implicit that you are selling something edible (hello? definition of food!).
And we haven't even discussed how you're supposed to sue after you're dead.
Families sue for damages all the time numnuts.
Finally, let's not ignore the incredibly obious fact that killing people is bad for business. Given these silly "counter points", I take it you know next to nothing about libertarianism or economics. Please go read something so you can at least spout some rational arguments quite a few of which have already been spelled out by many great thinkers. Like any position, libertarianism has its flaws, but they are nowhere near as inane as you seem to believe.
We don't know? How could it be just as efficient to run two sets of wires down a street as it is to run one set of wires down a street?
You think all of the phones on your whole block are serviced by one pair of wires? If not, why couldn't one company have wired one part, and another wired the rest? Ultimately, you may have the same number of wires, but they are owned by different companies.
Perhaps we've never tried it (I don't enough about the history), but I don't think you could possibly come up with an argument that it's not true. Perhaps you're confusing the term efficiency?
It has nothing to do with overall efficiency, but with efficiency of operations within company. Sure, a tightly run, centrally planned organization with perfect knowledge would be more efficient than a bunch of smaller competing companies. But history has shown us that such an organization is not sustainable in the long run. Monopolies, like government, bloat and run ever higher costs. The only way companies stay manageable is with competition.
There's nothing inefficient about having different COs serving different houses competing, but that's not real competition.
What if a customer on the fringe decides to switch because he can get a better rate? Not much overhead in extending a line a few more meters.The end of your current territory is merely a beachhead for gaining more terrain. There is still competition in this scenario (which is very similar to the artificial monopoly/cartel).
Even a monopoly will run parallel rails. There are lots of people who want to go from the same origin to the same destination at the same time.
Sure, even a monopoly will run parallel phone lines as long as it is to satisfy a demand. That does not invalidate my point which is that the demand will be split among multiple phone companies instead of one. The same overall number of lines may be run, but the load is shared across multiple companies. You also gain greater redundancy with this arrangement. In fact, state granted monopolies are more about lining a few people's pockets than efficiency concerns.
I wish I had mod points. That was insightful. If you give greedy businessmen a license to rob and loot, they use it.
Who's giving them a license to murder and loot? Please, you'll have to read a little more about libertarianism before you can hope to criticize it intelligently.
We need to forget the myth of rugged individualism, and organize to bargain collectively.
Really? So who forms the collective? Who defines what the collective needs? Who is this collective to define my priorities, and how do they know what I need? The problem with every collective effort is lack of information. Only the individual has sufficient information to look after all of his own needs (and sometimes not even then). What hope does a collective have? Without erfect information (which is impossible): none.
Adam Smith was a naive economic and political theorist who overestimated human goodness, and underestimated human greed when he wrote The Wealth of Nations, aka, the capitalist manifesto.
Firstly, capitalism is not what you think it is. Capitalism is the right to own private property; I don't think you arguing that all property should be owned by the state are you? I believe you are referring to the free market.
Secondly, capitalism and the free market are the most sceptical resource allocation scheme possible. Every other method of organization allocation is far more susceptible to the whims of those in control; with a fully free market, there is no one in complete control/authority over everything. See: capitalism+free market == decentralized control == robustness against failure. If you negate the free market, as you seem to imply, then you must mandate some form of centralized control and allocation. Centralized control == single point of failure == eventual widespread disaster. See current governments for an apt example of centralized control catering to special interests, regardless of what is in their constitiutions.
And finally, as an answer to the previous poster, there are two outcomes to getting poisoned with sludge in your drink:
a) if you enact a libertarian country with government provided law, policing and courts, the CEOs, owners, etc. will all be tried for murder, and anyone affected by the toxic drink will sue for personal damages to the point of potentially running the company into the ground.
b) if you enact a libertarian country with no central government but with free market law and policing, you may still sue the company for damages to the point where you could run them out of business if they ever tried such as stunt.
No, I don't think businesses run by economics find either of these outcomes all that attractive for their bottom lines, or their health.
You're misusing the phrase "natural monopoly." Normally, it's used to refer to something exactly like the phone company -- a company that is granted exclusive use of a (theoretically) limited resource [...] The idea is that we can't have everyone stringing their own lines all over the place, so the government has to pick one company, or a small number of companies, to use the available space. Other examples include railroads and TV and radio broadcasters.
I'm afraid you are misusing "natural monopoly". All of the examples you cite are state monopolies (not *necessarily* natural ones). Please see my post earlier in this thread which explains the differences
In economic theory, local phone companies are a natural monopoly, and Blockbuster is not.
That link provides an incomplete definition. A natural monopoly is a "market [that] can support only one firm at the most efficient size of operation", ie. the most efficient size of the firm is the size of the market.
Phone companies are a state monopoly, not a natural monopoly. They weren't even given a chance to compete, so we don't know if they would be a natural monopoly. There was fierce competition in the railroad industry before regulations stepped in oh so many years ago, yet by your argument it would be terribly innefficient to run parallel rails and thus railroads should be a natural monopoly (which history shows is not the case).
Here in Canada, we have Rogers and other smaller chains competing fairly well with Blockbuster, so I doubt it's any kind of monopoly at all.
The P2P "dealers" aren't getting paid. They're just doing it for the hell of it, so it's not necessarily likely others will step in to fill their shoes.
Not entirely. Many P2P protocols implement ranking among peers, so the more you upload, the higher your rank and the more download resources you are allocated. Never forget that "distributors" are also receivers and they want new stuff too. They are getting paid in a form of karma that enables them to more quickly get new stuff for their own enjoyment.
If it was about money, they would sue the DOWNLOADERS.
The sharers are breaking the law. Copyright law says you cannot *distribute* copyrighted works without express consent, not that you cannot receive them. Thus, sharers are violating the copyright holder's distribution rights.
but it's still just mindless follow-the-hurd humor (unclassy)
And jumping on the "bash Hurd" bandwagon isn't following the *herd*? Is it classy?
Jeez, breeding for particular traits is NOT at all the same as inserting genes from other species.
Don't be silly. Sequences of A, T, C , and G do not belong to any one species nor would they be "unnatural" if they appeared in another species. We share greater than 95% of our genes with dogs IIRC. Selective breeding is just shoddy genetic engineering.
But even if an advantage is introduced, its still questionable if replacing the wild type with the improved version is a bad thing. What does humanity lose when all soybean plants become roundup-resistant? Would the world be a worse planet to live on if all zebrafish glowed in the dark?
Reducing diversity is rarely a good idea. Ever heard of the potato famine?
I did say it would be useful to those debugging the code. But most people wouldn't debug it and would simply submit a bug report detailing the problems. The contributions back to Apple in this area would be small, and Apples contribution would be enormous if they opened up Quartz. It makes no economic sense, and as we all know, economics drive business decisions.
Does single point of failure mean anything? A single, central source of power makes for an attractive target I'd say. Great way to cripple a nation.
Does enormous transmission loss mean anything? If you're receiving 1/10th the power that was transmitted, it's an atrocious solution.
Does economic feasibility mean anything? Economies of scale only work in your favour up to a certain point. Ditto for the state of reliable engineering.
Nuclear power is likely fine even closer to residential areas, no need to concentrate it in such a dangerous centralized architecture. Distribute your power generation for maximum reliability, robustness and output. Wind generators, solar cells, local centralized power plants with the power grid are the best solutions.
People are crying foul because people always cry foul. People are whiners. Not much can be done about that.
I should also have added that this approach could lessen our reliance on oil from the middle east
Over 70% of your oil comes from us Canadians. The Middle East doesn't factor into many oil equations at all.
Quartz would actually be useful for many other projects, which is why Apple doesn't do it.
How? The source is only useful to people a) debugging the code, or b) interested in by-passing the API to shoot themselves in the foot by using internal, unpublished features. Apple keeps it closed source to maintain their competitive advantage in being the most visually appealing desktop experience, not to spite anyone.
but also learn Mac-specific stuff like Objective C in addition to the APIs.
This is uninformed rubbish. Objective-C is in the gcc compiler. Mac OS X uses the gcc suite. There is nothing "mac-specific" about Objective-C. The API has been around for over 10 years. It's called OpenStep, and if it has survived that long commercially, then perhaps it just might be worth learning. Lastly, we have source compatible OpenStep libraries for many other Unix OSs: GNUStep.
We're not exactly dealing with children here.
Hurting other people because they feel entitled to? Sounds childish to me.
I was thinking that the machines might actually select The One when Zion reaches a certain size. They pick a new born, and implant some extra hardware in his mind that allows him to interface with the matrix and control it. Thus, they create the cycle of Ones. Since Neo is carrying some special circuitry he has learned to control machines in the real world with it and that's how he stopped the Sentinels.
The Smith connection could also be due to this hardware.
Of course. Given a set of base facts which we know to be true (axioms), we can arrive at further conclusions through a systematic process of reasoning. This is logic. If the truths which form our premises imply a God (for some definition of God), then logic will prove that God's existence. A particular logical system's axioms need not be true or valid in our world, but they must be if we hope to accurately model our existence. This is the truly difficult part, since what facts can we truly be certain of?
We can't say. A "unique, non-causal or self-caused, universal cause G" whatever that means is unlikely to do or be anything meaningful.
Indeed, this corresponds with the notion of "God the Creator" but implies no further divine intervention. According to the proof this phenomenon called God is still in existence, since it is self-caused it does not go away with the end of the universe; furthermore it preceded existence and caused the universe. According to the proof, it's sole purpose is to cause the universe and itself.
Why can't it be the universe itself?
That is answered in the proof: "Can V->V?"
In any case, I don't have time to go through the whole proof, but most logical proofs of "God" start from the possibility of God's existence and derive the necessity of God's existence.
The conclusion derives directly from principles 1 through 3 (limitation principle, potency principle, principle of sufficient reason). There are no assumptions beyond this and the principles themselves are founded on a layman's empirical observation of our world (which is the proof's greatest weakness).
In any case, the possibility of God's existence is deniable, and thus does not follow from logic itself.
The existence of God is deniable for various reasons:
As the link I provided demonstrates, one can construct a logical system which proves the existence of a particular definition of God, yet one must further demonstrate that the premises have also been verified. In the above proof, the premises seem quite reasonable to one not acquainted with physics, but may not be necessarily true.
The facts and knowledge which form our premises are constantly being revised. Even if we do arrive at a complete description of existence (ie. one that explains everything we observe) one can question whether our "models" are the actual mechanism behind existence or whether they just happen to merely coincide with observations thus far (Aristotle vs Plato all over again).
Let's try this again...
1+1=2
This is an axiom, a base rule that defines the premises of the logical system. Every logical argument makes them. Everything other than axioms must be proven.
There are an infinite number of primes.
This was proven, not claimed.
There are an infinite number of primes.
This is an axiom, a base rule that defines the premises of the logical system. Every logical argument makes them. Everything other than axioms must be proven.
There are an infinite number of primes.
This was proven, not claimed.
Not only is it difficult, it's impossible. There can be no logical proof of God's existence, and there can be no logical proof of God's non-existence. In addition, there can be no logical proof that there is no proof of God's existence.
So you claim, yet I see no convincing argument.
But there is a logical proof that there is no logical proof of God's existence.
Where? I am genuinely interested.
What I mean by "logical" proof is just that that can be derived from logic. God does not follow from logic itself.
Professor Hatcher thinks he has found one.