Also, should we be trying harder to stop the BTC black market?
Surely we should be calling it the African-American market? |
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Discounting that I don't agree with your definition of intrinsic value, you have to take into account all the entropy that went into constructing that thing and that which will be needed to maintain it. Thus your supposed value must be amortized over a period of time. I'll also note that your definition of intrinsic value would include a ledge on the side of a hill where rocks that roll down might sit a while before the wind knocks them off to continue on their way. |
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My point is that we will be exchanging one group of rich bastards for a completely new (and mostly unknown) group of rich bastards.
True. The difference is that when our rich bastards spend their money, they can't simply fire up the presses and print some more. |
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Jesus f h christ, education is much more than litteracy alone. We don't live in pre-industrial times.
And in any case, by 1870 the educational system was already growing for 100 years.
So in those days about half of that 90% of yours was provided by the educational system.
The educational system now bears little resemblance to that of a hundred years ago. Perhaps we need to define what kind of system we are discussing since it covers quite a range of options and I'm certainly not saying there should be no organized options at all. You're right, we don't live in pre-industrial times which makes your statement "Look at how things were before we had an educational system and look at countries where the educational system is not effective." somewhat meaningless. Universities have existed for a long time (Oxford, founded somewhere around the end of the first millenium) for trades, guilds and vocational training were the norm. It's an untestable assertion that things would not have progressed as well or better than they have in a post-industrial world without a top-heavy compulsory educational system. Certainly my own experience is that the state schools system server high academic achievers and low academic achievers equally poorly and the skills I learned which I use in my current occupation were learned alongside my university teaching (and where the two coincided, the self-taught far surpassed the taught). |
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Look at how things were before we had an educational system and look at countries where the educational system is not effective.
I suggest you look at how things were before we had an educational system. Things were not as desolate as you might think. I have, and education was mostly for the elite in those days. Seriously dude, your computer would not have existed if the world didn't take an initiative to educate the masses. In The Transofmration of the American Economy, Robert Higgs touches upon the subject, In 1870 about 90 percent of adult white Americans could read and write; by 1910, 95 percent possessed these basic skills. For obvious reasons, literacy was much less prevalent among the nonwhite population - predominately blacks - but improvement was rapid. In 1870 only about 20 percent of the adult nonwhite population was literate; by 1910 the proportion had increased to 70 percent. (p. 34.) |
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Home schooling? lol yes let's have high school dropouts teaching kids that Jesus controls the climate and economy, what could go wrong? We don't need young people to learn peer-reviewed science, we need them to learn whatever random bullshit their parents believe. Fuck math.
Sweet. Your demonstration of complete ignorance of the subject means I can feel free to disregard any more you have to say on the matter. |
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Let me see if I get this right:
You think "I own it because I was the first one there, and marked it" (however that marking gets done) is not legitimate, but "I own it because I killed the fuckers who lived there, and anyone else who tried to move in" is?
Legitimate or not, it's the literal truth. |
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Put simply: they conquered the land. They proved that they are able to defeat anyone who would challenge their power. They reached an understanding with the foreign governments of the world that they alone are sovereign within its borders, and it's this understanding and fear of war that keeps their territory safe from those foreign governments.
For definitions of "safe" which may mean "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". What governments are generally protecting is their ability to shake down the people who are living on the land. The allegiance of the people living on the land is often real but arbitrary. |
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I think the main issue is that the only real reason to own lots and lots of land is to control the people who wish to use it. I don't have solid answers and don't claim to be drawing lines but if you own more than "as far as the eye can see", you possibly have more than you should.
The only entities I know of that own that much land are governments. Possible exception: the Catholic Church (which counts as a government, in my book). Yes, exactly  Though I think there are ranches in Texas and Monsanto is probably in there too. Though Texan ranches are probably (maybe) justifiable. |
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Look at how things were before we had an educational system and look at countries where the educational system is not effective.
I suggest you look at how things were before we had an educational system. Things were not as desolate as you might think. |
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things seem to be moving in the right direction, my friend set me up with a phone interview with the district manager for Little Caesars in regards to a management position, it's nothing glorious but it's better than any response I've gotten up here. Time to sharpen up my resume and send it to the franchise owner.
You didn't really describe your skill set. You never know, someone here might be in a position to help out. Are you content to sling pizza for the rest of your life or do you have a plan? |
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At the end of the day, change requires people asking themselves what trade-offs and sacrifices they're prepared to make to bring about change. Not the trade-offs and sacrifices they're willing to make when they win the lottery or someone gives them $5 million, but the ones they're willing to make right this moment - regardless of their current circumstances - to make this world a better place. I don't know what answers the current generations of young adults have to that question.
The answer the current generation is likely to be to tell seniors that it's their own damn fault they bought into the social security ponzi scheme and they aren't going to be able to help themselves to the earnings of the younger generation any more. It's going to get messy. WRT solving the problems of the world, it's not possible. Humanity will expand (metaphorically as well as literally) to over-fill any non-problem space you can define the same way a liquid fills a container. Any attempts to fix things from the outside will just lead to problems elsewhere. Aid to many places has had the disastrous effect of enabling cruel, evil regimes to stay in place well past their sell-by date. |
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My brother in law is a Lt at the local jail, he does not hire anyone young at all. Boredom tends to get the best of them, and the new guys always work the crappy shifts. "Young ones belong on a bike patrolling parks."
A long, long time ago I did a degree in criminology and criminal justice. One of the problems which was identified both within policing and within corrections related to the issues which arise when you use young male officers to exert authority over young male offenders - you end up with a lot of unnecessary conflict and can unintentionally create an environment in which abuse of authority is almost inevitable. Maybe the older officers are wiser about hiding the abuse. |
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You say it creates jobs, but at the same time, by not paying taxes those people destroy jobs. In fact, they destroy a little of everything that is paid with taxes. Roads, education, etc. Perhaps every job that only exists because people are forced to fund it at gunpoint instead of being created by voluntary trade deserves to be destroyed, the sooner the better. That's not how society would survive. If you had it your way there would be no things like computers because noone would pay for education. So it's pretty ironic that you write a protest against how society is organized by using some of the newest and most advanced technologies this society has produced. Think carefully of what you whish destroyed. The assumption being that government is needed for a decent education system. A belief that has been inculcated by... a government run education system. |
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Everyone is missing the most ridiculous part of the article: The EU wants to cap MEMORY BANDWIDTH, not just power consumption. The commission wants to stop dedicated graphics cards of group G7 from going above 320 GB/s - that is in theory a memory bus at 384-bit connected to memory operating at 6667 MHz or 512-bit with 5001 MHz. This is definitely within reach for the next generation graphics cards. Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition currently has a bandwidth of 288 GB/s with a 384-bit memory bus and 6000 MHz memory. For notebooks the limit will be only 225 GB/s. No, they don't. In fact they EXEMPT cards with high memory bandwidths from this recommendation if they are in a high end system. "1.1.3. Category D desktop computers and integrated desktop computers meeting all of the following technical parameters are exempt from the requirements specified in points 1.1.1 and 1.1.2: (a) a minimum of six physical cores in the central processing unit (CPU); and (b) discrete GPU(s) providing total frame buffer bandwidths above 320 GB/s; and (c) a minimum 16GB of system memory; and (d) a PSU with a rated output power of at least 1000 W. " Curse my decision to go quad core. Wait, I don't live in the EU. Hopefully we'll dump O-bum-a and be free of such nonsense for another four years at least. Edit: They do realise that this means that anyone who wants a decent GPU will now go with a power hungry, resource eating monster of a machine, right? |
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I think the main issue is that the only real reason to own lots and lots of land is to control the people who wish to use it. I don't have solid answers and don't claim to be drawing lines but if you own more than "as far as the eye can see", you possibly have more than you should.
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You say it creates jobs, but at the same time, by not paying taxes those people destroy jobs. In fact, they destroy a little of everything that is paid with taxes. Roads, education, etc. Perhaps every job that only exists because people are forced to fund it at gunpoint instead of being created by voluntary trade deserves to be destroyed, the sooner the better. Many of those jobs deserve to be destroyed regardless of how the funds are obtained. |
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OK, I still don't see why you would want to do the reverse-water-gas shift reaction when there are plenty of easier ways to go about getting CO.
I'm trying to revolutionize the world, of course (like any self-respecting scientist). And this is the part I'd like to keep secret for a while longer, though I'd say google could probably tell you why if you search around the topic a bit. And my masterplan requires me to generate CO from H2 and CO2; reduction of O2, CO2 or H2O with C is not an option. what possible use would you have for making carbon monoxide? He's an Observer? |
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When I first heard it this morning in UK on The Inquirer news site,I thought,holy s*** the EU decides it wants to regulate the very components I want to use inside my PC now.Talk about getting into my personal business.What business is it how powerful my PC is to someone other than me (the regulators). If anything,people like me will simply hasten up their plans to migrate to a country outside EU to escape these ridiculous regs.They banned traditional lightbulbs (non-CFL/LED),then they restrict certain supplements and now they're trying to regulate how powerful my GPU is.I mean come on.Whats next? I'm just happy I started to realise (better late than never) how useful freedom can be (esp in Uk where we're all convinced that the more regs,the better.I mean sure we need some regs but not so damn many lol)
Even though I find all this downright bizzare,we can find ways around it,question is will they start checking everything we import into EU too?
The unregulated high-tech computer industry has been amazingly successful. Just imagine how much better things will be now we have the helping hand of government to guide us. |
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For history's sake. Historians make a living at this kind of thing.
Historians make a living a)Teaching new historians and 2)Selling cars and real estate. |
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