Only under a fractional reserve system is the debt contraction ever 'catastrophic' for the economy at large.  Your confusing a symtom with the cause.

Oh, I do.  Ripple isn't comparable to a LETS.  Ripple cannot function without a common currency with an external valuation, be it a fiat dollar or dollar equivilent, or bitcoin or silver or gold or Ithica Hours.  Ripple is not currency, it's a distributed web-of-trust credit system.

If you try to use an unestablished or uncommon currency over Ripple, you will fail.

I've gardened on land that I never owned, and never paid a cent to use.  And I did have permission.  City gardening can be done on vacant lots, simply by locating the owner and asking for written permission to do so.  Perhaps as a rep of a local urban gardening group, or with the backing of a food charity.  Most of the time, the owners don't care if a garden is started on their property, as long as they are not responsible for it and they can reserve the right to tear it up should the property be sold or developed.  Most such lots sit empty and idle for years before a development plan is funded, so that isn't much of a risk.  The only time that I ever tried this and was denied was when I was trying to do it on a lot next to an airport, that was legally owned by the FAA.  It was in a sound abatement zone, but it turned out that it was already slated to be leased to FedEx as an overflow parking lot for their extra trailer trucks.  It was no longer empty one year later.

The nuke thing is an extreme case.  It doesn't say anything really.  How about a cannon?  Can a citizen own a cannon?  If not, why not?  What about dynamite?  Black powder?  How large of a firearm is too large, and why?  You never really did address this before.

What defines 'enough' in this context?  The private markets and the free market pricing mechanism is what tells the investor how much power is needed, and he takes all the risks on behalf of his customer base (society) so that they don't have to.   If he judges the future needs accurately, he is well rewarded by the profit that success should bring.  However, if he is a poor judge of what is 'enough' then he either over invests and loses his ass, or under invests and other investors eat his market share.  How does a government judge how much electric service, or anything else, is the right amount?  They have never been able to do this in the past, and that is exactly what ultimately led to the economic (and then political) collapse of the Soviet Union.  Central economic planning was a core function within the Soviet Union.
 

I don't think that the state handles stuff anyone needs very well.  I shutter to think what would happen if they actually handled water in scarce environments.  Some of the most unjust things happen in Nevada and California over government granted "water rights".  The government doesn't really 'manage' water in areas of abundance, because there isn't really a need to manage it beyond preventing people or companies from contaminating it.  I can, quite literally, drill straight down into one of the largest replenishing freshwater aquifiers in the US from my back yard.  The state expects a "permit" to be filed, so that they know where it is and can add it's presumed value to my property taxes next year; but that doesn't stop me or anyone else from actually doing the drilling should there be a crisis of water issues around here.  And this helps to keep water rates low, because the water utility knows that, even though they hold a state provided monopoly on water distribution, if they tick off their customer base too much they might just find that their customers suddenly don't need quite so much water.


Only if that can practically be done.  Just because it makes more sense from a certain perspective, doesn't mean that it's a problem that can be accomplished in a collective manner.


Every decision making model is unfair to some person or group at some time.  Expecially democracy.


By what metric do you judge this?  IT's long been established that the US feeral governemnt and state and local governments are, by a wide margin, the worst cronic pollutors in the history of mankind.  The entire fleet of vehicles owned and operated by the US military are now and forever exempt from EPA regulations.  There is not a single humvee in the fleet that has a catalitic convertor, and they run convoys across the US freeway system regularly.  The USPS's mail truck fleet is also exempt, BTW; although many of them has pollution controls on them only because they are often built from regular SUV's these days.  The older trapazoidal, right hand drive mail trucks never had such controls, and is one reason that they couldn't be sold to the public.


Dude, you don't know how things happen do you?  The government doesn't build the communications infrastructure in the United States.  And unlike the public roads, the government doesn't even plan for, nor pay for, the public communication infrastructure.  That is done entirely by private industries, whether they hold a state monopoly or not.

No solution is going to be feasible for everyone.  But it's still a good idea to know how to tend a garden, even if you live in a high rise condo.  You might not always.  Some skills are life skills, that parents need to teach children as insurance against the worst possible futures that child might face.  An example is learning to swim, even if you live in a city many miles from any accessible body of water.  I was in the USMC, and in boot camp I encountered people from big cities that have never learned to swim.  I was shocked.  Really, you grew up and never event went to a pool?  And then the joined the US Marine Corps.  Common sense would say that boot camp isn't going to be the ideal enviroment to learn to swim.  I (actually mostly my wife) teach my homeschooled children to swim before they are 5 (currently my 2 year old, who is a natural born swimmer, and I mean that literally.  He has zero fear of deep water, and is such a strong swimmer he probably doesn't need to.) and continue to teach this as a 'life skill' for ten years.  Odds are against them ever turning pro, but if they are ever in a flood, or take a cruise on the Titanic II, their odds of survival are vastly higher knowing how to actually swim.  Likewise, knowing how to plan, plant and tend a simple garden might prove to be useful life skill someday.  Ever hear of urban gardening?

This thread has devolved into two ideological camps, neither of which is willing to concede that the other has a point.  Nor does either side seem to wish to acknowledge that the contrived situations presented to argue over have little bearing on reality.  I'm sorry, but not only is a libertarian not going to really sit idle should some knife juggler stand up in the inflatable life raft; but nor does the concept that liberty should trump consequences rationally lead to a crazy little old lady buying a sachel nuke on her retirement savings in order to go commit a suicide bombing of the Upper West Side.  I'm most certainly libertarian, and thus lean to one side in the debate, but both sides have run to the absurd.

And as I have already noted, trolls don't argue for the sake of enlightening others nor of self enrichment.  And too many of those members who are still here posting have let the caged troll out to play.  Anyone who would follow AyeYo to a new venue is asking to get hurt, because he does so because he knows that the stated rules at the other forum either are notoriously underenforced, or simply don't apply to himself for whatever reason.  Added to that, the open knowledge that I'm watching him in particular (which is what brought me to this thread, for I'm not keen on debating IP with anyone) means that he is at an advantage anywhere else, no matter to what length I may be willing to let him go.  He can go farther if he isn't insulting actual moderators.  I know I'm picking on AyeYo here, but there are many others in this thread who have been acting likewise.  And yes, I'm including members who agree with myself idealogically in that group.  I'm the first to admit that I have allowed myself to get pulled into this kind of intellectual gutter in the past, so I'm not innocent either.  But you guys need to pull yourselves out of the sewage, climb back out of the gutter and mentally step back from each other. 

To sum it up, stop it.  Everybody find a corner to stand in for a time out.

Corrolation is not causation, so I don't think that you can prove any such thing; but it would still depend upon how it's regulated.  It's not an all or nothing question.

Fjord!

That may or may not be so.  Your statement only afirms the general principle that everyone considers himself to be the 'moderate', and assumes that most people believe as he does.  Most people also assume that a popular opinion is evidence for it's validity.  This has often been proven in error in the past.

By alien lifeform, do you mean UK teenagers wearing black suits and pushing handheld turf rollers in the dark?

QR crop circles?  Well, crop squares.

That's just it, not all such expressions are arbitrary.  There really are differences between a weapon held in the hand, such as a knife or a handgun, and controlled by a single person and the kind of weapon that is not held in the hand, and is automatic.  The distiction is the precision of use.  The rifle and handgun are valid uses of force only under particular circumstances.  Circumstances that an automatic weapon such as a trap or a mine can't reasonablely determine, because they are just machines.  The trap cannot identify if the intruder is a rapist or a firefighter.  The bomb cannot kill only the target while leaving the bystanders unharmed.  The user of the weapon is responsible for it's actions, regardless of his own intent, and this is why a rocket launcher is tightly regulated in the US while the rifle much less so.  Notice that I didn't say that a rocket launcher was prohibited, because they are not.  Nor are machine guns, tanks, silencers or even explosives.  These dangerous items are regulated, but not to the same degree that you seem to believe is neccessary.  Regulation isn't all or nothing, how it's done also matters.  For example, any citizen can buy a silencer, but must apply for a federal 'stamp' first.  In doing so, they submit to the ATF doing background checks on their character.  If any history or mental illness or violent criminal tendencies show up, they get denigned.  But they don't get denied because they don't belong to the right political group, race, religion or class.  They only get denied based on what they have actually done.  Likewise, anyone who could buy the silencer could by a rocket launcher, with the additional cavet that he has to be willing to show that he has a place to store it that, should it detonate unintentionally, there will be no harm to bystanders or neighbors.  If the person lives alone on a farm, that's easy enough.  If he lives in a city or suburb, he has to have a explosion rated arms locker, something that costs much more to own then the rocket launcher.  But these kinds of collectors actually exist, and they love to show off their collections.  There is a gun range, near Fort Knox in Kentucky, that is rated for destructive devices, and twice a year hosts the largest machine gun and explosives show in America.  Anyone can go there and rent a GE minigun to shoot for a few minutes, if you can afford it.  Flamethrowers and TOW missles are available, for the right price.  And ATF agents are walking everywhere.  No one has ever been shot or killed.  After dark, tracer rounds are fired into the dark at the rate of thousands per minute; and barrels of petrol are lit and vault flames into the night sky.  It's a great time.  Is there any compeling reason that these collectors shouldn't be able to engage in their hobby?  Do they honestly constitute a threat, considering the weapons that they possess cost a small fortune to aquire and use?  Do they deserve to be automaticly treated as potential terrorists for the expressed desire to engage in a risky form of entertainment?  Who are you to decide, particularly arbitrarily?  Shouldn't even the government be expected to follow some kind of principle, and not permitted to regulate personal activities and purchases based on someone's arbitrary decisions?  That would be the rule by law, not the rule of law.



ou presuem correctly.

Well, sure.  Of course it's contradictory.  All ideologies are contradictory if they are taken as absolutes, as are yours.  One can agree that libertariansism is ideal without also believeing theat the ideal is achiveable, or even prefered.  It's iedeal compared to the other ideologies.  In the real world, a tempered ideal is always the result.  The inability to accept and process subtities and contradictions, withut rejection of the concepts being presented, is a sign of inmaturity.

Of course.  Religion an politics are two subjects that are never debated in polite company, because they are unresolvable and invariablely lead to ill feelings among soon-to-be estranged friends.  Trolls love these topics, partly because they are unresolveable.  Never try to engage the trolls into a civil debate, because you are the one who abides by rules of debate and they do not.  A seasoned troll will never acknowledge your valid points, and simply crop them out and ignore them or replace them with strawmen, ad hominim attacks, or simply insults.  While you, with logic and reason on your side, are obliged to acknowledge his valid points, no matter how relevent to the topic.  This is what they live for, it makes them believe that they are "winning".  Any experienced troll will bludgeon you with attacks and burning strawmen, while never admitting their own limited understanding of the topic.  Enlightenment and self-improvement was never the intent.  It's a kind of coping mechanism, I believe.  A deep seeded lack of self-confidence in one's own mental caliber, combined with a primal need to feel superior, leads these kinds of people to engage in online forums where they can get away with such anti-social behavior.  Only the Internet permits it, and they are likely very meek people IRL.  I think it's some kind of, apparently very common, form of sociopathy.  This is AyeYo in a nutshell.  I can count the number of posts that he has made that were relevant to the topic, civil in discource and valuable in content on one hand; and I mean ever.  He is certainly not the only trollish member that is attracted to topics such as this one, but he is my own pet project, that aparently I've been neglecting to check up on for too long.  Ultimately, these trolls are sick in the head, and thus deserve a little patience from the rational adults; which is why they tend to be tolerated far longer on this forum than most.  And much like the guy with turrets syndrome sitting behind you at a football game, it's just best to politely pretend that you can't hear the obcenities.

Present your facts, or they didn't happen.

This from a completely un-biased view, lacking any preconceptions about what libertarianism is, what it represents or who might best represent it; of course.

Okay, now we are getting somewhere.  So human powered melee weapons are valid, whether they are small enough to hide on one's own person or not?  And human powered projectile weapons are questionable, but what about the pump-type pellet rifles? Is there a limit to the size of a human pumped air rifle?  What is the principle that you make this determination upon, or is it simply an arbitrary decision based upon your own opinons?  I assume that a saber or a foil would be acceptable?  What about a hand cranked taser?

Then determined bombers will make deals with like-minded farmers, or organize a group of like-minded persons to buy smaller quantites across many vendors and time periods so as to avoid raising the red flags.  It is a fatal conceit to assume that this is the reason that car bombs have reduced in the UK.  It may, or may not, be a contributing factor.  Much more likely is that the effectiveness of UK police in undercover operations has identified those who would pursue such tactics and delt with them already or that the grievences against the UK have either been resolved (in the case of the Irish independence movement) or overshadowed by the grievences against the US and Israel. (as might be the case of Islamic motives)  Or just simply that the population of would be bombers still free and alive to do such things has been reduced.  Most likely a combination of all these factors, but corrolation is not causation.

If none of your peers will request the data you announced, then they are all light clients and your node needs to connect to more or different nodes.  It is not optimal, but it is anonymous.  There are attacks that can be used more effectively if the malicious node knows the limitations of his peers or the peers of a target node.  There are good reasons for sharing this data, and good reasons for keeping it mum, so the option rests with the node and is not forced.  I'm not even sure if announcement of node facilities is even emplemented.

A light client & trusted node pairing, then.  This has been discussed in much detail.  Use your search-fu and you will find much more than I can offer.  The bitcoinJ clients are of the semi-independent headers only type.  I suggest you start with understanding how they manage things.

What evidence do you have that my desire to buy a half ton of fertilizer will lead to any other result than a beautiful fall harvest?  Who are you to increase my costs, or restrict my options in my persuit of legitimate uses of my funds.  Why must I prove to you that I'm a gardener and not a terrorist?