How is electricity free?

I was recently talking to someone that works for a state Medicaid office and this is what I learned:

The way Medicaid works is that you get more money for having low birth weight children and because of that, a lot of women are intentionally smoking during pregnancy to cash in on the system even more so. Also, if you have a special needs child, the government gives you lifetime assistance, not just until the child grows up. So, instead of aborting children that would lead a life of suffering or place too large of a burden on the parents, these people are thinking "cha-ching!" whenever they find out their children could be at risk. We are encouraging deformities.

If these parents on welfare were forced to be responsible for their choices, they would think twice about giving birth to a child that's going to be codependent for the rest of his or her life. Instead, they are intentionally putting themselves at risk because not only is it not their burden, they actually benefit from it. There are other scams as well. Instead of getting married, these parasites just cohabitate so the money they receive isn't diminished by income from the spouse.

Also, instead of giving parents of special needs children 24/7 assistance, if you don't work and don't go to school, you only get 8 hours a day of assistance, enough to sleep and that's it. So time and time again these parents are complaining that "I got other kids to take care of too" and in most cases these children were born after the special needs child. That means that these people are counting on the government to take care of their children instead of thinking "Hey, this special needs child is going to take a lot of work, we better not have anymore". When the parasites realize that they can actually get more from working or going to school it's like an alien concept to them and they get what one observer calls a "deer in the headlights" look.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way would be to think "Wow if people are willing to give away hundreds of BTC then imagine how much they would be willing to spend!"

Freedom of speech only applies on your own property. If these forums get too oppressive, we'll just make our own.

That being said, I don't really see the point in organizing things too strictly. If I click on a thread entitled "the economics of Bitcoin" then I expect to see some economic discussion. I don't really care if it's in the "Bitcoin Discussion" or the "Economics" section. I doubt anyone is going to feel slighted. Then again, I don't really care about the moves either. I just like arguing.

I think I may have a problem too.

My house is full of computers to the point where there is no room for me anymore. I'm living under a stack of empty video card boxes in my backyard. I've tapped into the high voltage lines above my house since I'm only wired for 200 amps but it's only a matter of time before the power company notices my partially melted/exposed wiring. When it rains my fillings tingle. I got rid of my stove and refrigerator to make room for more computers. I eat the animals that die after touching my makeshift power lines but birds and squirrels have become scarce in my area. The ones that still die are usually only partially cooked so I do the rest of my cooking over a set of quad 6990's. I think that the only thing that keeps me going these days is the sight of my BTC balance slowly rising but I only spend money on more computers, video cards and my 4 digit power bill. It's gotten so bad that I recently beat a kid to death for his gaming rig only to discover that it was "Powered by NVIDIA". I cried once I realized the ATI sticker on his case was there since his last upgrade. Now I can't look at an ATI sticker without seeing his cold, lifeless face staring back at me. My soul died that day.

just kidding

The results of induction are problematic regardless of whether the universe is random or not. As I just explained, even if the universe isn't random, we don't know that the future will resemble the past. Induction never tells us what is certainly true, only what is probably true in relation to our prior knowledge.


Let's narrow our focus from all the finite length permutations of T's and H's to just two, both possible with randomness. Instead of writing the strings down on a piece of paper, let's imagine that we are watching the flips occur in real time.

1. THTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTH ... and so on for a really long time

2. THTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTH ... and so on for a really long time and then TTTHTHHTTTTTHTHHHT

We stipulate that the series we are watching is one of these two. In both cases, we will notice a pattern of T's and H's. In both cases, after seeing a T we will predict the next flip will be an H, even though it's random. In the case of (2) our predictions will eventually fail as the alternating T-then-H pattern breaks down. However, in the case of (1) our predictions will never fail. We can't be certain that we are observing (1) rather than (2) beforehand but we can get lucky.

Perhaps you don't understand randomness? Most people don't. You probably think that randomness equals uniform distribution but that's wrong. Here's an example. Guess which of these is a series of coin flips and which is me picking the T's and H's.

1. TTTTTHTHHHTTTHHT

2. THHTHTTHTHHTTHTH

Most people would guess that (2) is random but that's the one I made up just to "look" random. It's actually (1) that was taken from a series of coin flips. Most people don't expect to see long runs of T's or H's because they equate randomness with a uniform distribution. However, if I write down all finite length permutations of T's and H's, toss them into a gigantic hat and pull one out, there's a chance that I could pick out the one that spells out, in binary, the King James version of the Bible, "War and Peace" or even the collected works of Douglas Adams. Though unlikely, it's not impossible. All patterns, be they complex or simple, are possible with randomness. Just like it's possible that all the patterns we see in the universe are the products of randomness. Combine that with the fact that our very existence depends on patterns and we wouldn't be around to marvel at the more uniform distribution that could be possible. That's the anthropic principle at work.

As for induction, that's a classic problem in philosophy. Induction is based on the belief that the future will resemble the past but there's no guarantee of that. You can say "induction has always worked". Of course it has but that doesn't mean that it will continue to work, unless you assume induction is true thereby begging the question. No, the reason why induction isn't thrown out the window is because, if the future resembles the past, induction is the best method of predicting it. If it doesn't, then induction is no better and no worse than guessing. At least with induction we have a chance of getting things right. Induction is therefore pragmatically vindicated, though not proven.

Take it as a "the latter proves nothing about the former". The answer is irrelevant.

Your question is a non sequitur.

True but I meant that relatively speaking. There's a difference between wandering around Sam's Club trying to find the bottled water section vs. the scenario I've described in my last post.

I think that you're on to something. Instead of showing + and - it should just show the net rating which is really what matters*.

*not that it actually matters

I can make your example workable if you'll allow for a little fanciful imagination. Imagine the world as it is, nothing changed except, let's say that I own a fresh water lake on my fenced in property. There's no question that I own the lake. I fish in it everyday. I've also built a plastic dome over it to make sure that none of it evaporates. Everything is fine so far.

Now, let's say that aliens show up, beam away all the water in the world, clouds and all, except for my lake. I now control the world's water supply. Has the legal status changed with regards to my lake? Obviously not. The lake is still legally mine. How about the moral status? That, I'm not sure of because we've created a crisis situation and those should never be used to make general laws from because "hard cases make for hard laws."

I don't believe that "excess" has any objective basis. It's an opinion, nothing more.

I think people should be able to keep 100% of what they earn but maybe you're speaking from a legal standpoint rather than a moral standpoint.

The major roads in England and the early American colonies were privately owned and operated. There are still private roads that exist. You simply have to pay a toll. Many fire departments in rural areas are voluntary. Meaning, if you don't pay, they watch your house burn down. Many private justice systems, aka "arbitration tribunals", exist. The police aka "security guards" in private parks are vastly superior. Don't believe me? Go wave money around Central Park at night and I'll do the same thing at the same time in Disney World and we'll see who ends up on the 11 O'Clock news first.

Most people think these things can only be done by the government under threat of violence because that's all they've ever known. The fact that things have been historically done a certain way is never an argument for continuing to do it that way. We used to burn witches for causing disease but we know better now.

No but you should start one. It would be an interesting experiment. Even under ideal circumstances, where there is only one account per person, I'm willing to bet that it would be the slowest pool relative to the number of participants, thereby demonstrating yet again how communism disincentivizes productivity.

It seems they are non-responsive as of late. Those fields are optional. You can leave them blank.

That proposition is self-refuting. You can't steal something unless it's the property of someone else. If you reject the notion of property, the notion of theft goes too.

Many people. Besides, getting tested regularly only reduces the risk. There's still a risk.

Your claim was that the effects of sexual activities between two consenting adults begin and end in the bedroom but that's false. To be consistent, if you're going to interfere based on the negative consequences that spillover into the rest of society, you'd have to regulate what happens in bedrooms as well as workplaces.

Well, you might have trouble walking/working the next day? Also, having unprotected promiscuous sex increases the risk of spreading disease. I'm willing to be there are plenty of other negative externalities too.