Ultimately, though I find a business failing to meet consumer demand a pity, it all depends on the individual.  If a business is known to repeatedly screw consumers, they eventually tank; who wants to buy from a business that is unreliable?  Even wrongdoing one individual is cause to lose several customers; it is the duty of the person wronged to bring their wronging to light, to warn others that the business in question is shady.  Due to our connectivity, it is paramount that businesses of today perform to near perfection, and to always maintain a healthy relationship with people who are reasonably dissatisfied; it is when a business is protected, for whatever reason, from tanking (usually involving "we have to protect ourselves from the monopolies with another monopoly" or "we can't let them die or who would supply service X?"), that they tend to abuse.

There are two forms of crime in this world: crime born in necessity, and crime born in want.  The first is the cause of a person committing a crime to remain alive; this is typically not the case for business.  The second occurs when a person or entity finds themselves in a position where they can do wrong and get away with it.  It is enabled through trusting the entity; if the business or corporation etc knows they can shaft a person without the negative repercussion, or at least a delayed consequence, then they will do so, every time.  Thus, the consumer's ultimate protection against this type of crime is to disallow it from occurring, either by refusing business or taking preemptive action, such as escrow.

Now, to resolve such a matter once it inevitably arises, it is always in the light of the business to do well, for it is the business who will make the larger wave by abusing a customer, than if a customer abuses a business.  The business must weigh the pros and cons; in the case of a customer attempting to rob the business by taking advantage of return policies and whatnot, the business must draw an agreeable line; for example, if a man has eaten 3/4ths of his hamburger and only then did he realize that it was not to his liking, of course he's trying to skip out on the bill; a common understanding tells us that one should realize they do not like something within the first few bites.  However, if the man has taken but a single bite and realized it was not to his liking, it is in the responsibility of the business to solve the problem, or even give a refund if need be, for the negative imagine of serving bad food and refusing to give refunds, whether true or not, would have a far greater impact than the few dollars it took to make the burger.

In other words, these disputes, when not interfered with, will naturally resolve themselves; there is a consequence for every action, and every bad business is in the responsibility of their customers to end.  What's important is to ensure that no bad deed goes unnoticed; consumers, as they typically do today, will research a business before shopping, will have an opinion about the business after shopping, and will then recommend or condemn the business based on their experience.  So long as we remain connected and aware of our web of trust among business, we can limit the crime businesses are capable of and stomp out the ones who repeatedly fail to perform.  The point is not to seek action once the deed is done, for nothing in the world, no law or technology, can stop a person from being careless; the point is to allow those who are consistently careless to become harmed so they may learn not to be.

"It could've fell on someone" is just an excuse for stupid people to have done something stupid; they had no intention or harming or helping anyone, they just wanted to push the rock over and needed a reason after the fact to make them appear as though they were doing good.

The real reason was, you can't fund an empire without an exploitable currency.  Whatever else you're hearing is conjecture; there's no proof that people will generally starve themselves over their money; the Great Depression had nothing to do with whether one's money stored value or not.  Economies work perfectly well with money as a store of value, since they did, for long stretches of time; we can see clearly what happens to economies when currencies store no value, since we've been living it for forty years; you get a stark shift in wealth from those who do not have a money which stores value, and those who do.  We must then make one of two conclusions: "The economy of today is perfect and the best it will ever get", or "The economy of today is horrendous and it's nowhere close to its potential."  I tend to fall into the second camp.

Look at it this way: you have two objects, one is a currency and one is a money.  One does everything the other does, except it can store value.  Now, if you have money that can work as a currency, and you have currency that cannot work as a money, by what extension do you assume money, which has all the properties of a currency +1, cannot function correctly as a currency?

"My phone can make calls."
"Oh yeah well my phone can make calls and take pictures."
"That's a shame because you can't make calls while taking pictures, therefore you should get a second phone that can't take pictures so you can make calls."

Even if we coupled our money with a currency, we would still have to swap our money with the currency to use the currency.  It's a moot point then; we may as well just keep the money and spend that, instead.

That would be a very good idea, considering they don't have much time before the USD goes splat.

That would explain why so many rulers claimed to either be Gods or were blessed by God to rule; once you train a people to believe self-governance is a ticket to Hell, you make yourself (assuming yourself is a king) not only wanted, but impossible to live without.

Ethics a sin?  Who wrote this book, a statist?

Oh, sorry; I mean, to have certain meals as soylent alone.  Either that or go half-and-half on a smaller meal and a small portion of soylent.

Sure, I'll roll with that.  I must also assert that I'm not getting extra nutrition, rather the opposite effect with my American diet.

As with all holidays

I don't think you'd have to give up regular food to use it; I see it more as a supplement, since it's balanced to include every vitamin and mineral you'd need to stay healthy.  I wouldn't want to have a gelatin soylent turkey for Christmas

Then I guess the people would have to do it behind their government's back.  Now we see a clear distinction between a plot of land with people living on it, and a state.

It's...people!! 

"What if the state would not be able anymore to pay for its citizens needs?"

The state doesn't pay for anyone, because it makes no money.  Since the state gets all its cash (hypothetically, without referring to secret taxation or bonds) from people, what you're asking is, "What if we can't force people to pay for other people?"  My answer is, "Finally we're making some progress."

"What if this led to a system where the old and the sick would not have any support by the state?"

People would have to learn how to take care of themselves and another.  People who cannot find anyone to take care of them will get worse and likely die; if one doesn't want this to happen, one should take care of people, instead of worrying about whether or not we can force other people to pay for other people.  Fair enough, yes?

Anyway, what would happen when a nation could no longer have its own currency, I theorize, that nation would have to resort to a flat rate tax and give you a bill at the end of the year of everything you owe.  The state cannot sell bonds (i.e. your children's futures) without its own currency, nor can it inflate its own currency to death (that secret tax), thus forcing the state to remain small and focused primarily on serving its people, as opposed to empire building, i.e. war, fancy construction and turning independent people into dependents through welfare.

The power taken from the people through fiat currencies would then return to the people.  I can't tell you exactly what will happen, but I find this a step in the right direction.  There will likely be a short-term period of intense pain as the wealth is redistributed, but remember what I said: "As opposed to empire building."  If Bitcoin, or other currencies that cannot be printed to death, were the primary usage of the planet's economy, empires could no longer form.  War would be far more costly, impossible to sustain for long periods of time.  People would be far more independent and freedom-oriented; they would no longer have any need to wish for the state to be their nanny.  The general wealth of each person would be far superior.

$10 for one Bitcoin is a signal of Bitcoin's death; I see no signs of this happening in the near future so $1000 is the way to go.

Yes; the best way to cash out a million dollars is over the course of a lifetime.

I want to try it out.  If I can be far healthier with this, I wouldn't mind substituting most of my meals; eat to live, don't live to eat.

And thanks to the acceleration of history coupled with our incredible methods of communication, it has become nigh on impossible to accomplish such a feat again if ever there was a loss of control.  We live in interesting times

The trouble with objective morality: "My church doesn't like this, time to reinterpret God's word and invent a new church."  I believe there was a famous king of England who did this...

By installing a state


To sum it up, libertarianism is ethics in application.  To put it more bluntly, libertarianism is to hone one's actions and to be fully expectant of the reciprocal, of reaction.  To put it very bluntly, libertarianism is to mature and be a capable, responsible adult.  To sum it up in a popular colloquialism, libertarianism is to man up.


This is not an argument; it is a demand.

This is what separates the authoritarians from the libertarians: one uses threats, the other uses reason.

When you allow evil, it should come as no surprise when evil is inevitably used against you.  For someone like Merkel to be bothered by this is silly; she's the type of person who believes that hypocrisy should be the foundation of society, is it really that much different when America practices exceptionalism in the same fashion?  If Germany were in the boat America was in now, the same results would follow.

To be virtuous, one must practice virtue; to be vicious, one must practice vice; to expect others to be virtuous while one practices vice is mere hypocrisy.  Thus, the hypocrite is the hypocrite's greatest enemy, since one wants to be the exception while all others are not.  Merkel's now getting a taste of what her own practices tow.  Sadly, these are the people that are supposed to run our lives; they're certainly not philosophers, I can say this much.