Greed is fine in the free market because to be greedy you have to provide products and services to people. ...
Thinking about it, I'm not even sure I know what greed actually is. I know the word is used many ways by different people, sometimes in a perjorative sense, sometimes in a descriptive sense. Greed is simply self-interest. Wanting to improve your situation. Some people don't like that. Suppose the idea of greed originated in agrarian society, and was applied to anyone who ate too much of the stores during the long, cold time between crops. Or who ate the seed stock for the next year's plantings. That would endanger survival of the group. I'm basically an Ayn Rand type thinker, but I could agree with the above as a valid use of the term. Then we've got the other, contemporary uses of the term. |
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..snip...
The flip side is that if the DHS got involved, they probably have more evidence than a bunch of counterfeit merchandise. There could be an absolute bucket of reasons that the DHS did this and I highly doubt it is solely because they thought that terrorists were using the products as income. That is personal speculation on my part though. Other than that, I agree that the DHS handling this was extreme, but as far as I'm concerned, it was far from the wrong thing to do.
What if, and this is only speculation, in these days of sequestrated budgets, the Department of Homeland Security wants to show its not a total waste of money and operations like this are all they have to work on? Seriously there is no invasion for them to defend against; the Boston bombs make them look stupid; money is tight; perhaps this is all they have to avoid being fired for uselessness? All proceeds according to plan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s |
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UPDATE: (May 21, 2013) Top IRS official will invoke the Fifth Amendment in congressional hearing about tea party targeting program The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday afternoon that Lois Lerner, who heads up the Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt division, plans to invoke the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in a hearing Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs. The Fifth Amendment provides that U.S. citizens may not be compelled to offer testimony if telling the truth would incriminate them. Lerner's defense lawyer, William W. Taylor III, wrote to the committee on Tuesday that his client would refuse to answer questions related to what she knew about the extra levels of scrutiny appled to conservative nonprofit organizations that applied for tax-exempt status beginning in 2010. She also will decline to say why she didn’t disclose what she knew to Congress, according to the LA Times. Lerner 'has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation,' Taylor's letter read, 'but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course.' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2328696/Top-IRS-official-invoke-Fifth-Amendment-congressional-hearing-tea-party-targeting-program.htmlI actually like this, it's straightforward and honest. Cuts through all the sleazy, lying, insulting "I don't remember" crap. Also means she's likely going down - her attorney has seen what the prosecutor has, and it is damaging. |
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So is this really a "conservative vs less-conservative" issue as some in the thread imply or is the larger issue about waste, fraud and abuse in government generally? 'Cause God knows conservative groups in America are gonna ride this all the way through the next election cycle as if no conservative-run government has ever done the same sorts of things. Outrage about this specific incident should be more broadly directed otherwise it's just more of the same partisan crap.
Following the wise advice to never fight your enemy when he's engaged in shooting himself in the foot, I don't think any particular work is in order. Maybe except fixing a big heap of popcorn. An extra large biggie supply, dripping with real butter and high in salt. Then it's time to watch the circus. The problem with useful idiots is of course that they are, well,.... idiots.... I mean, we've got the IRS thing, the AP thing, the Fast and Furious thing, Bengazi. What the FUCK??? Business as usual. Here are 34 Bush-era scandals to stimulate conversation. Oh, and BTW, this was just the first 4 years. http://www.salon.com/2005/01/18/scandal_11/You did in fact provide a link to 'business as usual scandals.' I don't think any of my friends in Mexico consider their 300 some dead killed with Fast and Furious weapons to be 'business as usual'. And I'm sorry, but similarly, Bengazi does not fall within any stretch of business as usual. So rather than providing the answer - you've clarified the problem. |
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Greed is fine in the free market because to be greedy you have to provide products and services to people. ...
Thinking about it, I'm not even sure I know what greed actually is. I know the word is used many ways by different people, sometimes in a perjorative sense, sometimes in a descriptive sense. |
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Many places, over several decades. But this thread was about the border, which of course for Mexico is the most problematic area.
Precisely. Yeah the border areas have became totally no fun. There's only one small town crossing I'll even go across. And that means passing the 50 cal on the jeep, the heavily armed mexican federalis, the US guards (and dog) with flak jackets, the shady characters loitering around.... Seems their mayor got murdered a few months back. but it's not a 3 hour wait... |
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I know there is an atmosphere in some parts of the USA, personally I've seen it in LA, that you don't even talk about guns. It's strictly a taboo subject, very emotionally colored. So your statistics couldn't be brought into the conversation. You see, those are facts about the <unmentionable>. NO FUDGING REQUIRED!!! |
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They don't do that in free countries
Please tell me, which countries are the free ones?  I hear tell Mexico is pretty good about leaving you the hell alone. Unless some thug wants your car, your money or your wife/girl. Something tells me you've never actually been there. Then you should examine that something, and question what else it has told you wrongly about. What part of Mexico did you visit? Many places, over several decades. But this thread was about the border, which of course for Mexico is the most problematic area. These days one is liable to get bored to death in the wait for the border crossing, after which the job of the US border guard in extracting your password is quite difficult. |
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They don't do that in free countries
Please tell me, which countries are the free ones? I hear tell Mexico is pretty good about leaving you the hell alone. Unless some thug wants your car, your money or your wife/girl. Something tells me you've never actually been there. Then you should examine that something, and question what else it has told you wrongly about. But do note......I didn't include in what the thug might want, your passwords.  |
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but if you look at it from the perspective that energy costs can also drive people to move toward their own energy generation (Solar, Wind, Tidal, etc), in order to be competitive in that market, the total energy consumption isn't as relavent as the source of that energy being consumed.
If you think of the trilions of gigawatts of energy that are wasted by not harnessing the Sun's power... There's not a big issue with consuming a lot of energy.
In the far future you might even be right. There are clever people around that think energy will be 100% renewable and almost for free in the future. But I think we should consider the status quo and not rely on utopia when judging weaknesses of today's bitcoin technology. Bitcoin value might rise a lot faster than renewable energy will progress. In the case of Photovoltaics one should bear in mind that today PV cells are produced in china using non-renewable energy. So their embodied energy is not renewable at all. As long as renewable energy is more expensive than fossil and nuclear energy, I consider excessive energy use as being bad because real costs are externalized. ....just because something is produced using another type of energy makes it not 'clean energy' is disingenuous at best. In order for that statement to be true, it would require that every cell produced consumes more 'dirty' energy in the the production process than it will produce in its working lifetime, which, if that were the case, solar energy would already make ZERO economic sense. People would never be able to come out ahead, as the solar installation would cost more in energy costs alone to produce, than would ever be recovered... Haven't you just disproved your own argument? But in so doing you asserted based on the absolutes..."every cell produced"..."zero economic sense"... and economics of A vs B is never based on absolutes. We see solar cells used for ranch gate openers - GOOD. For city stop signs and other markers where there'd be a high cost to run the power wires - GOOD. For a city stop sign right next to a power line - STUPID. This isn't terribly complicated unless you preface the argument with a moral premise such as SOLAR = GOOD, then proceed in a twisted and warped fashion to ignore actual numbers because you've predefined GOOD. In fact, you've argued against the other poster who simply stated that externalized costs (and pollution) have to be entered into the equation. Sorry, you can't do that. |
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They don't do that in free countries
Please tell me, which countries are the free ones? I hear tell Mexico is pretty good about leaving you the hell alone. Unless some thug wants your car, your money or your wife/girl. |
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The article specifically lays out that they don't ask for passwords. They ask the person to access his laptop and show them the emails. Less objectionable than demanding passwords.... |
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A friend was telling me there is a program that depending on which password you give it at bootup it will
load different encrypted partitions....
TrueCrypt can do that. I don't recall such a capability within Truecrypt, but it is certainly a very robust system. For example, it provides http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability "plausible deniability" even after giving a password to a extortionist, border guard, whomever; the same would be the case if the password was hacked. Correction, I see it - this is slick!!! However, in order to boot a system encrypted by TrueCrypt, an unencrypted copy of the TrueCrypt Boot Loader has to be stored on the system drive or on a TrueCrypt Rescue Disk. Hence, the mere presence of the TrueCrypt Boot Loader can indicate that there is a system encrypted by TrueCrypt on the computer. Therefore, to provide a plausible explanation for the presence of the TrueCrypt Boot Loader, the TrueCrypt helps you create a second encrypted operating system, so-called decoy operating system, during the process of creation of a hidden operating system. A decoy operating system must not contain any sensitive files. Its existence is not secret (it is not installed in a hidden volume). The password for the decoy operating system can be safely revealed to anyone forcing you to disclose your pre-boot authentication password.*LOL...but I still like the HotCindy/Jehovah's Witness training manual method! Anyone who takes thirty minutes to read the eighty some page Truecrypt manual will be vastly smarter about these issues than before reading it. I suggest that in lieu of reading, say....this thread.... My opinion is that creating a secure machine is highly advantageous and for multiple reasons. Yet at the same time, the biggest leaks and the most common issues are the result of users' habits, such as allowing facebook or linkedin access to a contacts list associated with email, or other access allowed to apps on android or iphone. |
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Japan is a very strange country as it's basically a vassal state since the USA wrote their constitution after WO2 (which is still in effect) making it unconstitutional for Japan to wage war. For the last ten years or so people are starting to increasingly loudly question the constitution. It will be interesting what happens in the next ten years. "Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is a clause in the National Constitution of Japan that prohibits an act of war by the state. The Constitution came into effect on May 3, 1947, following World War II. In its text, the state formally renounces war as a sovereign right and bans settlement of international disputes through the use of force. The article also states that, to accomplish these aims, armed forces with war potential will not be maintained, although Japan maintains de facto armed forces, referred to as the Japan Self-Defense Forces." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Japanese_ConstitutionAnd the JSDF is pretty much a joke, from what I hear. Their weapons grade uranium is not a joke. |
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.....Claiming you don't know a password as a defense will result in you being placed in jail for contempt of court. Claiming to not know a password is not a valid legal defense.
Frankly I don't think you know what you are talking about. If you really and sincerely think that, then if you want to convince others, you should be able to cite case law and higher court decisions to the effect claimed. Because what you are saying sounds just silly, and goes against basic principles of law. I'm not at this time going to look up the relevant cases. You are the one that has made the fantastic claim, it is your job to support it. |
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Sure, officer....here is the password to my account. It's "HotCindy". What? You want the passwords to the other fourteen accounts? Oh, I have NO IDEA. Those must be my kids and my girlfriend's accounts. What, you've got into HotCindy? What's the problem? You don't like what we do? Well, it's just the training manual materials for our door to door missionaries. You don't have any problem with Jehovah's Witnesses, do you? What's that? You want the administrator password? Gee, I don't know...none of these accounts are named administrator. Aren't you an administrator? There's one account here, look. It's called BigBOB....[/i] ......  They want to act sick and twisted, give'em sick and twisted. You can still be jailed for not giving the passwords for the other accounts. Claiming "I don't know them" is not a valid defense. I have no idea where you get these assertions from. Can some cop find some excuse to jail someone regardless of the facts? Yeah, probably, anytime, anywhere. Is "I don't know" a valid defense? Hell yes it is. What I think you are referring to is whether an individual could be strong armed and pressured into giving up some things, under threat of some legal charges being brought. That's different from "being jailed". There is a process where someone might be detained and questioned, then possibly charged with something, then booked, possibly being in jail overnight if they timed it right, then getting out on bond when the courts open the next day and after bond has been set and an attorney hired. So please don't argue the fear factor. Yet in so doing you miss my point. I argued FOR giving them passwords, but making the obvious content so disgusting, boring and ridiculous that it matched their disgusting, boring and ridiculous behavior. And there's no person, anywhere that's going to credibly assert that one individual has all the logins to a family computer. |
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So I read that bitcoin is now the most powerful distributed computing project in history.
I find it ironic that the cure for cancer and the search for extra terrestrial intelligence are lower on the scale of human priority than currency. Not that I don't think bitcoin is good, or that greed is necessarily bad.
Is the success of bitcoin based on greed?
Yes, the maple kind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeKSiCQkPw |
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When my bitcoins gain value I will pay taxes on them. As it is, I have lost all of my bitcoins that I bought at a low price. The only bitcoins I have left are the ones I bought at a high price. Those are the ones I spend.  Lucky! I only have bitcoins I bought at a higher price than what I will sell them for! The wallet with the ones that I bought really cheap got lost. Hard drive crash. Yeah, just bad luck. Now where do I put down my taxable losses and what kind of refund am I getting back? |
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I've been aware of bitcoin since 2011, but didn't get started until 2012. I've been a miner, observer and trader the entire time. An interesting thing I've noticed about bitcoin, that might make bitcoin look bad. We have a few large demographics of bitcoin user: The Radical
Politically radicalized and generally hates the US government. Always the first to post comparisons between administrations and authoritarian regimes, and scathingly deride anyone who disagrees by insinuating that they are mentally incompetent or unobservant.
The Curious
Someone who is fascinated by the sentiment behind Bitcoin and the technology behind it, and wants to be a part of the movement and where it goes.
The Opportunist
Those who flock to Bitcoin because they smell money to be made.
Comes in two sub flavors, the good and the bad.
The good are interested in making money through Bitcoin legitimately, through mining, running a pool or some sort of Bitcoin service.
The bad scam their way into hundreds of coins, putting their effort into schemes and scams.
The Anonymous
The drug user, the money launderer, the subversive.
All the unsavory darkside bitcoin users who use Bitcoin for their illegal or amoral purposes.
The Freedom Seekers
The ones looking for liberty in all things, including their money. Often similar to the Radical, but generally less anti-government, and seek the legitimization of Bitcoin and acceptance of Bitcoin as it is.
Who did I miss? Apparently, you missed all the important players. Those would be those spread across Europe who moved into Bitcoin immediately following the Cyprus money grab. You missed intelligent people acting in their own self interest, and you missed Gresham's law and the reverse Gresham's law. |
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Reasonable Suspicion
"He was acting suspiciously."
"He smelled like weed."
"He was white but his children were Hispanic."
"He kinda looked like a guy."
"His car kinda looked like another car."
"He don't speak American English good."
"He wore a fancy desert-dress and a head-towel."
"He could've had guns."
"He could've had child-porn."
"He could've had WMD's in his trunk. And laptop."
If none of that works,
"We suspected he was a terrorist."
Sure, officer....here is the password to my account. It's "HotCindy". What? You want the passwords to the other fourteen accounts? Oh, I have NO IDEA. Those must be my kids and my girlfriend's accounts. What, you've got into HotCindy? What's the problem? You don't like what we do? Well, it's just the training manual materials for our door to door missionaries. You don't have any problem with Jehovah's Witnesses, do you?
What's that? You want the administrator password? Gee, I don't know...none of these accounts are named administrator. Aren't you an administrator? There's one account here, look. It's called BigBOB.......... They want to act sick and twisted, give'em sick and twisted. |
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