Wow.  You make it sound like the whole of society woudl self destruct without the 'adults' around to make us eat our broccoli, and stop smoking, and recycle, and don't get the Big Gulp.  Who the hell do you think you are?  Do you think that you are better suited to decide for me or my children?  Do you think you have the right to tell me I shouldn't eat cake?  Everything in moderateration isn't unhealthy, and chocolate is good for human beings.

Statist mentality in a nutshell.  There is no greater evil that can ever be done by men to men, but by those who belieive they are doing so for the greater good.

Yeah, I'm done with you.  You're just a troll, although a particularly thoughtful one.

Is the whole of your worldview about your own personal opinions?

BTW, if you fear things might really get this bad, order a map of the salt "licks" in your area from your state geological survey outlet.  If you live farther than 100 miles from a coastline, you might find this information particularly valueable.

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a convience store, not the name of a government agency.

I didn't.  Personal gain just happens to be a major motivation.  It's not the only one, and I never claimed otherwise.  But we don't get from horses to aircraft without that particular motivating factor.  Necessity may be the mother of invention, but greed is the baby-daddy, no matter where it's born.

Yes, difference.  Much difference.  Off topic difference, not going there right now.


Dude, it's what they do that makes them exceptional, even by your standard; not who they are.  Still, that doesn't change my point; capitalism provides the economic incentive for such exceptional people to create things.  You can choose any notablely excectional historical figure you like, and without fail the things that they may have invented would still have been invented.  No one is special, not even the special people.  Without Thomas Edison, we might not have General Electric Corporation, but we would still have electricity.  Joe sixpack might not matter in your worldview, but he (and his many other non0mattering fleshbag citizens) matter a great deal, economicly speaking, more than your average Bill Gates or Albert Enstein.  Do you doubt that, if Al had kept his job as a patent clerk, we wouldn't have the General Relativity Theory (or someting very much like it) within a decade of when we actually did have it?


Something more than 'creativity' motivates those people, and you know it.  Still, such creativity doesn't do more than contribute to the quality of life for the artist, which is all that it's intended to do anyway.

by forcing those same dirt farmers to work to feed those who wanted to put a man in orbit.  Capitalism isn't the only way things happen, it's just the only way things happen for everyone.


Some people, sure.  Those people are statitisical aberations.  Statisitical aberations don't drive economies nor advance socities.


Create what?  As you pointed out value is subjective.  American indians once entertained themselves by creating sand paintings on the ground.  They must have valued the joy of creating them, otherwise they wouldn't have done so.  They are certainly valueless to me, since they were created as an artform more temporary than sidewalk chalk art.  We can only measure value based upon those willing to create for themselves and those willing to create for others for pay.  Generally, price is what something costs, but value is what it's worth to the person paying that price.

Just nonsense.  You still can't support your worldview with actual facts.

I've never depended upon a job for my own survival.  I work because I enjoy it, I work a lot because my wife and kids live well as a consequence.  But I certainly don't require the job.  I am quite capable of doing exactly what you seem to think is a great idea for everyone, scratching a living in the woods.  Sure, it can be fun for awhile when you're young and unattached.


Science is another tool for captialism, in this case.  Science alone produces nothing of value.  Just like that scene in The Lion King wherein the warthog theorizes that the stars were "giant balls of burning gas millions of miles away".  He was right, but what value is such knowledge to a warthog?  Or even a farmer?  The scientific knowledge concerning how to build a toilet, or how electrical impulses can be organized into a machine readable signal, is likewise useless without capitalism.  The founders of IBM believed that there was only a market for a couple dozen computers worldwide, and the first one ever built was sold to General Electric to calculate payroll.


The existence of free riders does not invalidate capitalism.  And copyright law is a monopoly, not capitalism. 


You think so?  You think you're sticking it to 'the man' with you're freeriding?  You're wrong.


Bridges are owned by the state.  By definition, not capitalism.  How has capitalism caused you're own poverty, specificly?

I don't think you get where any of it comes from.  You've lived under bridges?  I've done some 'urban camping' of my own in my time. Now you can argue with people from across the US and around the world in real time, and it costs you nearly nothing of consequence.  It's not quite free, but it's now cheap enough that buying an overpriced coffee can get you an hour or two of free wifi access.  The Internet itself existed for 20 years before the 'private sector' gained access to it at immense costs, and another 20 years later and more people in this world have regular access to a personal email account than have regular access to a flush toilet.  Why?

Because nearly all of the Internet is privately owned property engaging in exchanges for mutual benefits (i.e. Capitalism) whereas the vast majority of urban areas in this world are served either by water monopolies or publicly owned municipal water services.  Sure, a flush toilet is an expense, but it's value is in it's ability to deal with the human waste problem effectively and cheaply.  Even under a bridge, you benefit from our modern society in the sense that potable water is cheap.  Filling your water bottle up at a public fountain costs you nothing, but it still costs someone something, just not enough for them to bother with the costs you incur.  Less than a penny a gallon where I live, but in another part of the world wherein a gallon of drinking water might cost as much as a dime, but the average wage is $2 a day; four gallons per flush just doesn't make economic sense.  And yet, there are still people who will save for a cell phone and service to gain access to the Internet, because the efficiencies of communications make their trades more profitable.  The farmer can find a buyer for his harvest faster, without wasting time and energy traveling into town to speak to some dealer in person; as an example.

You cannot fathom the many ways that capitalism has improved your own life, even during the midst of your poverty and homelessness. 

Indeed.  Cities developed long ago due to the efficiencies of groupings, and it's quite possible for a standard 1/4 acre lot to grow 50% or more of the food that a family of four would consume.  However, the knowledge of how to grow 'victory gardens' is all but lost in America, and generations of growing nothing but fescue on poor soils, and then throwing away the cuttings, has left us with quite a challenge.  IF a major currency crisis sets off a series of bad events and leads to a "world made by hand" imagined by some, or even a major economic collapse such as occurred in Russia during the 1990's; then there will be much suffering before enough of the population has both the knowledge and the resources to grow respectable amounts of food on urban plots.  There certainly aren't enough horses in this country to even come close to replacing lost bulk transportation capacity if we lose access to petrol.  But at least there will be plenty of unskilled labor able to do the work of gardening, if there are people willing to teach them all how to do it under such circumstances.

Well, let's break that word down, shall we?

Gentlemen comes, obviously, from a contraction of 'gentle' and 'men'.

Men - noun, plural of man.

Man - noun
1. an adult male person, as distinguished from a boy or a woman.
2. a member of the species Homo sapiens  or all the members of this species collectively, without regard to sex: prehistoric man.  
3. the human individual as representing the species, without reference to sex; the human race; humankind: Man hopes for peace, but prepares for war.  
4. a human being; person: to give a man a chance; When the audience smelled the smoke, it was every man for himself.  
5. a husband.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/man

Gentle - verb, adjective
1. kindly; amiable: a gentle manner.  
2. not severe, rough, or violent; mild: a gentle wind; a gentle tap on the shoulder.  
3. moderate: gentle heat.  
4. gradual: a gentle slope.  
5. of good birth or family; wellborn.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gentle

Looking at that, it says to me that calling a rich man a 'gentleman' is a nice way of saying he's weak and soft, and otherwise quite un-man-like, despite his biological gender.

Therefore, money makes you a gentleman because luxury makes one fat, weak and soft.  I'd say one pretty much leads to another. unless you're to much of a man to become 'gentle' regardless of your finances.

No one does, really.  That was my point.  To assume that the population will necessarily go mad just because of a currency crisis is at least as unsupportable.  There have been currency crisies in the past, and the degree to which the population goes mad varied significantly along with the details.

That's called a chicken tractor, and is a method that has been known and in use for several decades now on a small scall.  If you have enough chickens, you don't even have to plow.  Even still, there is a legal definition for "free range" and "organic" and neither of these terms are allowed to be used with chickens that use a chicken tractor.  If the are ever locked up, even for their own good, they are not free range.  Silly, but true.

Based upon what, exactly?  I would say it very much depends upon the details.  While it's unlikely that the dollar collapses without coincidental civil strife, the portion of the US "society" most immediately dependent upon the trustworthiness of the dollar are those whose paychecks are directly or indirectly dependent upon the government itself.  A very visable breakdown of the dollar, lacking realistic possibilities of returning to a viable currency, would be a harsh blow upon the government to maintain it's grip of control in any local sense.  Whether this is good or bad very much depends upon the particulars of your own local situation, and your particular viewpoint on the value of the federal government itself.

In any case, living in a mountain town isn't a bad place to weather any kind of storm.

Oh, I think you need to.


I started that thread with one.

I was using as a segway whether or not it was a joke.

That's not the primary reason.  The main reason was the way their society was organized and how the human mind works.  Rare did the tribal group grow beyond Dunbar's number without conflicts, except when there was an external threat to their people that compelled them to unite.

Although the lack of electricity to run elevators and fresh water pumps is a really good reason to leave urban areas that are concentrated enough that buildings higher than three stories were common.  City planners and emergency management professionals have long known that populations go crazy after three days without water, and either resort to unsanitary consumption that results in mass outbreaks of deadly diseases or mass civil unrest as groups who believe that resources are deliberately be held from them revolt against their perceived oppressors (whether true enough or not); often both these things.  Once upon a time, every city and town would make certain that the water towers held enough water for their demographics for three days at least, should the power fail long term and the pumps couldn't be run.  Population growth has outpaced those demographic predictions decades ago, and many urban areas couldn't supply three days without power no matter what.  Some 15 years or so ago, I worked on a public works project for the Cincinnait Water Works; installing an entire system of diesel & natural gas fired emergency pumps all controlled by central controls with minimum electric power requirements, and gensets to supply those minimums.  It's an awesome system.  It's a real pity that Cincinnati doesn't have the legal right, and therefore the capacity, to draw freshwater from the Ohio River.  They have to draw from the Little Miami and Great Miami Rivers.

Done correctly, aquaponics is hughly effective, no doubt.  But doesn't your system require electricity?

Nope.  You claimed you 'engaged' me because of my namecalling and meanness.  I expect you to prove it.  I will not suffer your slander.  If I called you anything harsh or unwarranted before you earned it, prove it and I will apologize.  Fail and you can expect whatever consequences of your slander that I can bring to bear.  And don't forget, you brought this upon yourself.


Hundreds, some better than others.  A dozen of them were listed in that other thread you abandoned because you couldn't spin an argument, most of which were there before you were even a member of this forum.  You choose to ignore them.  I'm not obligated to do anything, and I'm not here to entertain you by doing tricks.


Correct, "Racist Bastard" does not count, because you earned that title.