Peter Thiel and friends have a crazy idea.
>It goes like this: Friedman wants to establish new sovereign nations built on oil-rig-type platforms anchored in international waters—free from the regulation, laws, and moral suasion of any landlocked country.
Here's the fundamental flaw: they’re going to build an artificial island of sorts which is a major technological undertaking. It requires not only major initial investment but also continuous and expensive upkeep. How will they pay for it if they don’t believe in taxes and tariffs?
Will it turn out that the free market wills taxation and government regulation into existence?
Ahahaha, oh man.
It is possible that something like this could work for a while by skimming the population for the super-rich. But otherwise? There is no chance in hell. I'm not familiar with the intricacies of libertarian political economy, but I'm pretty confident in saying that the existence of a state-like presence is essentially inevitable in the long run.
But the transnational elite actually CAN have its cake and eat it at the same time with a scheme like this. The rich would be able to farm overseas markets for commodities as it always has, all the while avoiding having to deal with issues of accountability, governance, etc. In the end, it'll just end up as spatial separation of the international elite at best.
As for libertarianism, the state is inevitable. Within an organization of restricted size (IE consisting of multinational executives etc), the demands it makes may be reasonably controlled. However, it is impossible to reverse the process of accumulation at an individual level on a broad scale. For all the peons at the bottom of the ladder, the parallel corporate state emerges for lack of an alternative
There was once something like this called Sealand. It ended badly.
Does the thread come from corrupt goverment? Is there unstable neibhour at large? Do you think terrorists are the gravest danger?
All in all, what does your country have to fear?
I'm from the US and afraid of corporate sponsorship of political campaigns.
Philippines here. I fear the extensive corruption and poverty here. :((
American here. I'm afraid I won't get my 99 cent big mac :(
>>37
You could lose some of those pounds though, man.
One world government under Islamic radicals.
the president sending a drone after me
American. My list is too long for me to want to type.
I fear the insane amount of non-integrated (north and sub-Saharan) immigrants and son of immigrants that settled in France. A large amount of these are stacked in peripheral "ghettos", destroying and vandalizing every pieces of public services, respecting nothing and having a vocabulary of 400 words.
They're known as "racailles" (scum) here in France and it's a major and politically-incorrect subject.
I don't really see how the government can handle it since they're breeding in their own little aggressive and primitive environment. Once they've passed 18 and still act like violent apes and leech of the state, I have no idea how to change their mindsets.
The majority of crimes and aggressions are committed by these on big French cities.
Belgium: country breack up and political deadlock.
These people really need to wise up, there are other things in life than nationalism.
i can't think of anything that i wouldn't fear were i to be registered in the databases of another country
IN THIS THREAD WE REFUTE EVERYTHING
No we don't.
Yes, we do.
>>4, is this the five-minute argument or the full half-hour?
>>5
It looks like my opponent in the corner over there is getting flustered
<<0
Seems this topic is nonsense.It makes sense (no the other way) doesn't it ?
>>7
Your refusal to admit the facts only confirms your state of denial!
>>9
You're the one that doesn't know the facts here!
In the United States we have something called “Section 8” which is a housing subsidy. The way this works is that if you’re sufficiently poor, the government will make up part of your rent. Say an apartment costs $1000/mo and you claim to be only to afford $700, the government will kick in $300. I live in a particularly high rent area and the subsidy brutalizes the market. Why would landlords bother getting what they can from people when they know they can get that plus a government check? In the end, the subsidy ruins everything. If you want to rent, you’ll either overpay or end up on the subsidy yourself. If you want to buy, prices are inflated due to the potential rental income on any property which is always improved by the subsidy. The people that this program benefits most are not the poor, but rich people that own apartment buildings (by the way, state housing is almost nonexistent here and usually no safer than Mogadishu when available).
Surely now is the time to end this nonsense. Our government has better things to spend its money on (education and roads... in Iraq). Let the landlords try to get what they were asking before and chances are they’ll fail. It may precipitate its own crisis with a crash of the rental market, but if it turns out that was propped up with bad government policy, wasn’t it bound to crash eventually anyway?
What a thought provoking post, OP! For instance, my first thought was "this person has no idea what they are talking about." You see, we really don't have section 8 housing anymore. The Department of Housing and Urban Development now favors a Housing Voucher program. Their website does an excellent job of explaining how the program works. For instance, folks who receive housing vouchers have to pay 30% of their income towards rent and utilities. If that amount were $700, why, then their family income would disqualify them from receiving any vouchers!
Consider the following information, OP: around %15 of American households are below the poverty line; somewhere around %2 of American households receive vouchers. Tack onto that the concept of rent showing inelasticity in regards to supply and demand while it generally follows property value and inflation. Put all of this together and you'll find that housing vouchers add less than $dick to your taxes and rental rate.
Now, let me end with an anecdote, OP. I live in a 1200 sq foot apartment with fancy fixtures and vaulted ceilings. This costs about $1200 per month, an amount affordable to any voucher recipient with more than one non-spousal dependent. Why doesn't anyone there receive vouchers? Because folks living below the poverty line can't afford to put up 3months of wages for the security deposit.
OK, since that didn't work...
What I wanted to weasel this into was the idea that we should be building state housing projects rather than handing money to slumlords. Isn't that money better spent?
(By the way, how can Fox News make empty arguments that people actually believe? Study as I may, I still can't quite grasp the magic. Maybe I need to make my arguments to dumber people or maybe I need a chalkboard and an air of authority)
Alright, OP, I'll bite.
I acknowledge than an undetermined percentage of Housing Voucher funds go to slumlords. However, the Housing Voucher program provides a means for impoverished families to move out of the hood.
Besides, we've tried large scale government housing before. They're typically referred to as "the projects" and aren't really considered any safer than "the slums" proper.
OK, so what is it about America that screws up a good idea? A lot of other countries have state housing and it's not the scariest place in town (never is it the nicest). I think we have this inability to take things as far as they need to go in order to work. Rather than build sufficient state housing for all that might want (or even need) it, we build only enough for the poorest of the poor and then warehouse them there. As usual we can't risk socialism taking root and take every step to ensure its failure.
Basically my argument is that if there were enough state-owned units on the market, the working class would fill them out and dilute the destitute that are normally the only takers. That's likely wishful thinking. I also prefer the government making an investment in itself rather than just handing out checks to rich people that own apartment buildings. Why rent when you have all the resources to own? Also wishful thinking.
I don't know. Maybe the solution is more in capitalism and we should stress ownership. The only way to really get the housing that people can reasonably afford onto the market is to restructure taxes to make income properties unappealing. I'm all for this too.
Anyway, any other ideas?
>OK, so what is it about America that screws up a good idea?
That's a valid question. Without any particular research or reason, I would imagine it has a lot to do with politics (is it a great society program or an entitlement program?) Besides, who has better access to politicians of any stripe? Would it be bankers and landlords or the poor?
The problem isn't with the housing voucher program, or even with section 8, but rather it seems like the poor are invariably victims of systemic flaws in American style capitalism. For instance, how do you define what is "working class"? Not even thirty years ago, the working class consisted of unskilled laborers in manufacturing. Mills, mines, factories. America's largest private sector employer was General Motors, a job that paid enough to support owning: a nice suburban home, a late model vehicle, a modest boat, a cottage in the country, and a family vacation at least once a year. Now, America's largest employer is WalMart, where hourly employees can't dream to afford any one of those things.
So, even if we radically restructured our political system so that the rich didn't have an enormous ability to buy influence, and got past our silly idea that private industry is necessarily more efficient than public endeavors (newsflash: it's not) and managed to build a flood of state housing, it'd be one state of poverty rounding the ranks of the destitute. Neither of those classes shows much hope in the arena of social mobility.
The only real solution I can see is finding a way to drive wage inflation faster than price elasticity. Government programs like the WPA, rural electrification, and building freeways paid well, and forced the private sector to adjust their wages to compete. The New Deal introduced all kinds of social welfare programs like poverty relief and THE MINIMUM FUCKING WAGE. Unions also had a huge impact on wages and living conditions for workers across the board, even those in non-union shops. Think overtime laws and forty hour weeks.
A real minimum wage increase would really be the first solution I would present, because it is the most rapidly dispensed form of compensation. Several years ago we saw an increase in minimum wage from 5.25 an hour to 7.15 or some such. Organized labor did a bang up job lobbying for that one. But it's not enough. The British non-profit newspaper "The Guardian" had an article explaining that if minimum wage had increased at the same rate as business profits, it would be more than $15 an hour. That essentially doubles the wages of workers across the board, and it even means better wages for skilled workers and middle management.
This probably exposes American capitalism's greatest defect: regulatory constructs must constantly be erected to buttress the inequalities it gravitates towards. Honestly, that's why I started so hostile with >>2. The Internet is crawling with RON PAUL libertarians and mises styled anarcho-capitalists who want everyone to believe that if we leave the capitalist class to their own devices, it will benefit everyone including them. When I saw you suggesting that we essentially terminate a necessary public welfare program, I assumed the worst and responded as such. Sorry about that.
Hmm... the main thing of interest I saw here was mention of the voucher program offering mobility. I'm not sure that's 100% true. Granted of course state housing might tie them down even more. What I'm trying to say is that the ideal of home ownership works in much the same way. People can't just up and move to follow work because they often have so much invested in their home. They're willing to take lower wages if it means not abandoning their investment and eventually end up in far worse shape than they would have if they could just leave at will (oh yeah, and why do businesses seem to uproot and relocate like clockwork? Or is that just a west coast thing?)
Anyway, even those on vouchers are not necessarily willing to up and leave the place they've always known even if all industry disappears (as it has pretty much everywhere; how many states hope, pray, and bribe substantially for Kia factories these days?). Add to that the cost of moving and the general glut of labor on the market and we're all stuck where we are.
Again, I have plenty of crazy ideas that probably have me on watch lists, but whatever. Maybe seize foreclosed properties to pay for TARP and sell them at substantially reduced rates to people of low income (rather than to rich people with the cash on hand who will rent them out for substantial profit; oh and then sell them to poor schmucks again in the next boom cycle right before the inevitable bust). If working people can live rent-free (in a reasonable amount of time, not 30+ years) they'll spend more in the local economy, care more about their neighborhoods, and generally improve the world. That's redistrubition of wealth though and everyone is opposed to it, espeically the dirt-poor.
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20110907-00000126-jij-soci
A Australian were warned by bus. Because, he was talking on the mobile phone. And he violated the person.
This is FORIGNER of Japan.
I read an article in USA Today not too long ago which talked about Ethiopia and how since their last awful famine (1984, Live Aid, all that), the total population has risen from 40M to 80M. Why was this allowed to happen? If they couldn’t feed forty million, how will they feed eighty million? Everyone is happy to chime in with solutions which are all along the lines of agricultural reform and providing aid when it happens again (and it will happen again) but no one will say the obvious: they’re having too many kids. That’s the real problem. People worldwide are having more kids than they (or the world and its resources) can reasonably support.
Is there something wrong with population control efforts? It seems to me that it’s the root of all the world’s problems. There really is no other problem. If there were only a half a billion people on this planet, we could all drive sports cars, eat the best fish in the ocean, and heat our homes with raging fires of tropical hardwoods with minimal impact on the environment. If we look at things seriously, how much of the current world population is completely redundant? How many millions of people do nothing but starve and beg in India and Africa? They have nothing to do and contribute nothing aside from many more mouths to feed with each new generation.
Who decides who dies? Who does the killing? What if you or your family members are chosen for death? Who sets up the new, minutely populated utopia? Who runs it? What rules are there?
It's not a simple solution, and it certainly isn't humane. Those people have lives, they have desires and friends and family just like you. They are not anymore "useless" than you or I or anyone else.
The people you are talking about are peasants. The majority of the population. They make possible everything in our life. Fresh fruit during winter, cars, computers, our homes... You would have them killed because you don't think they are useful? Ever heard the term megalomaniac?
...The real problem we have is anger, greed, arrogance, ignorance... not people. People are the most dynamic intelligent beings on this planet, we have the most potential of any creature. Our potential is vast and has produced many good things over the years. But, with the light there's the dark. If you want a solution to humanity's problems then start with yourself, your own mind. That's the basis for all of our contrivances.
The strongest adult bulletin board in Japan
http://www.y-bbs.net/
>>2
I wasn't suggesting killing people, I was suggesting birth control. If you want to get simple in this country (USA), rewrite tax code to reflect the actual costs of children on society rather than giving people credit for them (or at least stop giving credit after two children).
Anyway, greed, arrogance, and ignorance are never going to go away. These go hand-in-hand with being human and in fact are made worse by population growing out of control. People are fighting harder and harder for an ever-decreasing share of resources and think only for themselves in this struggle. Likewise, it's harder to provide a quality education for people when there are simply too many students crowding our classrooms.
If a democracy is following the choice of the majority, is the majority's view always the right one? Even if the majority asked crazy things like said "Hey lets not bother helping the poor" etc.
>>85
One of the biggest problems with modern military police actions is determining who is a threat and who is simply a neutral bystander. In other words, we don't know who to shoot.
Let's take Iraq for example:
In Iraq, you have "terrorist" guerrillas fighting against the US occupying force. These guerrillas, while incapable of posing any significant military threat to the occupying forces, have a advantage that allows them to carry out a strategic political agenda (i.e. getting the Americans to leave by making the occupation very expensive.) That advantage is that they blend seamlessly into the native population to resupply and escape from US forces. It goes even further - combatants do not stick around to be identified and are indistinguishable form the population (no scarfs wrapped around faces, no uniforms, no formations.) What's worse, they will often attack (non-US, non-military) targets as living bombs, damaging their own infrastructure and noncombatants (which the US is trying to repair and protect.)
When the very people you are protecting are helping your enemies, what do you do? If you can give me a better solution than "Get the f'ck out with your tail between your legs." then you will have solved the little problem with "noncombatants."
>>85
What I was alluding to in my original post is that
1) the German people =/ Nazis and they still supported them.
2) Germany had its own reasons for doing what they did (please note how they were screwed over by the allies following WWI.)
3) if Germany had won WWII we would all be thinking very differently about this. If Hitler was der feuhrer we would simply not know about the concentration camps. Instead we simply don't mention what the Allies did (see firebombing of Japan.)
4) WWII is still too close to home for the world to really talk about. Give it a few more decades when all the vets are dead. Then we'll talk.
The majority may not always be right, but what other system would you have us use?
I'd still choose democracy. I'm not saying that democracy is always wrong, just that you can't keep a democracy wrong when the elitest superstructure (Those at the top of the political food chain, not DQNers) decide that they get to play fast and loose with reality and morals.
That's just reality. Genocide, use of WMDs, arbitrary arrests without trials, torture, and other such things are wrong. Just because you can come up with a rationalization for doing those things does not make them OK. The reason is that there will always be a justification -- there is always some enemy around, whether forgein or a political group (remember our millitias?), and therefore it's a blank check.
Criminals are the same way. They blend in with their neighbors. They don't wear colored "I'm a criminal" jerseys, they don't wear masks when they aren't commiting a crime. They go after civillian targets -- they rob 7-11, not the police station. Etc. That doesn't mean you get to raid every house in the area and shoot anyone who resists having his door kicked in.
>>88
i'd choose democracy as well - it has it's problems but it's the best system i've heard of (that actually works.) it has it's problems, but from what i've seen these are fixed over time, one way or another. it just cheese's me off a bit when people complain about things they don't understand and then blame the faceless majority.
i guess the big difference between terrorist guerrillas and criminals is that criminals don't have an agenda (except for organized crime i suppose.) this makes them less of a problem because they only attack targets of opportunity rather than randomly blowing crap up.
Japanese violent "minority" circle
http://hrdpocu.blog.shinobi.jp/
one of the principles of governmance in my country is "to do what is right then what is popuplar"
When the entire world minus one person has the same oppinion they have as little the right to force their oppinion on that one person as he has on forcing his oppinion on them.
(Now and then one just has to use nice one-liners.)
>>52
Sounds a bit like France, but I didn't read everything, just quickly glanced.
>>1
Just a simple sociologic fact: people on average tend to be less an less intelligent, open-minded, etc, as they gather up (usually starting from more than three person). This gives "somebody else's problem" mentalities, mob mentalities, etc.
So I guess, "the majority" as a whole can't be always right, no. Hence why most of our modern Western societies fail (in my opinion, stagnating and maintaining a precary equilibrium is NOT success for a society). We need more "distributed computing". To make an analogy, we need some kind of Peer-to-peer network, and not client/server architecture.
I have some ideas on how to make this work, but they need more maturing. Then I'll write a book.
If everyone has the same opportunity, the wiser people must be going to succeed than the more foolish ones.
Therefore democracy will be inevitably supplanted by bureaucracy at once.
But I still prefer democracy to autocracy.
I choose Republic. Republics are supposed to protect the rights of the minority electorate from the injustices of the majority. Right now, the Democrats are doing everything in their power to fuck over the people in Arizona to prevent them from deporting illegal aliens. But when Bush II was in office, he turned the country into a jail and called anyone who disagreed with him a traitor and unamerican.
Fuck these people. I still wonder if it is even safe to be registered to vote anymore. One day, the majority party will jail those who voted against them. It is only a matter of time.
I have an accomplice who, whilst is a great guy, has permanently red eyes, greasy hair, dirty fingernails and stinky pits.
He is skinny and lean, good with computers and always, ALWAYS tired. His work at college is of an average standard - he will not fail, but he won't pass with flying colours, either.
He plays WoW.
On hearing of the upcoming release of Wrath of the Lich King, it was all he spoke about and thought about until it's release. He was not in class on the day it was released, and by the time we next saw him, he looked as if he'd just run a marathon of some kind. He proceeded to proudly tell us that he'd just gained Level 76, about a day or two after WOTLK's release...
This was met with shock and disgust from some of my peers, but others merely heralded him as some sort of icon.
I personally don't know what to say. I love videogames. I know why they have such appeal. But I wouldn't sacrifice things like hygiene or relationships for it... that's kind of pushing it.
It's getting to the point where people are commenting on how bad he looks and sometimes smells. I've tried telling him he should maybe come out with us on weekends but he doesn't listen. And every evening he BOOKS IT like a motherfucker home to go and play WoW.
Anybody else witness to something like this? What do you think about it?
My best friend recently broke his WoW addiction. Doing great in college, quite intelligent, et cetera. He was in a state worse than that - in addition to the horrible hygiene he also gained upwards up 50 lbs. Given that he's still retained his poor health, he also gained something else. Apparently he has become quite fascinated with physics. Around two weeks after quitting his obsessive gaming he told me how amazing he found the world to be, how complex, all that jazz, and now he wants to study physics. Needless to say, and being a physics major myself, I was pretty happy to hear this.
So - yes, I have witnessed it. And it should be obvious that gaming addiction often immerses a person to the point where an external frame of reference is highly likely to be ignored, which leads to more productive thought processes being tunneled to accommodate for the mechanics of said game.
I'm currently letting my life slip into economic despair while playing WoW. That doesn't mean that WoW is blame directly, but that I'm the sort of person who would use it that way.
What's interesting about the game mechanics as compared to other games is that it really only takes an hour or two on a max level character to understand the game, maybe a day or two to do instances and pvp stuff. Everything after that is just the bullshit scaling of your characters items, nothing has actually changed other than your character's power.
Think I might quit now (again).
>>4
Sell your account on ebay and use the money to go out / do something else. How much are you spending monthly on WoW?
#5's idea is good. at least sell it and get rid of everything then move on to something else. I played an mmorpg for 6 years and i miss it sometimes but having many more offline friends now has made me happier in a sense.
Well the problem is I'm agoraphobic, so online activities are the only hobbies I can stick with. I also have a skin disease so I can't have a girlfriend(or friends really).
>>5
Just 15$ a month.
I guess if I sold it I would consider getting some camping gear, because that's something I could do alone and without being seen by people.
I've played WOW for a short period of time, It was only short because I found it boring and had a small appeal to most of the other MMORPG games that I have played.
I find the quality of the game low, I guess this is what drives me away from it mostly.
Also the aspect of paying for the game.
Frankly I found it boring and couldn't even begin to immerse myself for more than an hour at a time.
> I also have a skin disease so I can't have a girlfriend(or friends really).
You're not the only one with said skin disease... if it's that bad join a support group for said skin disease and you have instant friends who can relate... maybe some in your area
>>7 I know how you feel. Not entirely but partially. I also have some sort of skin disease or dry skin, really dry skin. Girls hated me and guys despise me. However it just made me more resolve in getting better so i started in trying a lot of stuff to keep my skin hydrate or dead skin to peel off. Finally i succeeded and no my days are getting better.
And about the game.... i just use it as a conversation topic with my friend.
It has been known that the day on which Opposite Day falls is by declaration of the speaker, and in fact can happen multiple times in a year but only within a local community-sphere, wherein the outside world is unnaffected. Rules of logic dictate that Opposite Day begins immediately after it's declaration, and is not retroactive, or else the statement becomes null and void.
Further, it's agreed my most experts on the subject that Opposite Day is only related to verbal statements, not actions, written communications, or any rules or statements made before or after Opposite Day ends. In this nature, we have all learned from the example of Jerry Johnston, who upon declaring Opposite Day ignored all posted speed limits by going much too slow or much too fast or just stopping in the highway's fast lane. His tragic end, after speeding up when he saw the police sirens, also teaches us law enforcement does not participate in Opposite Day so when they say 'freeze' it always means just that.
Is this our consensus, or do we differ on opinion?
Are there localized rules in different jurisdictions?
What makes opposite day special than any set of rules to follow in a day? Since there's arbitrary rules to choose from, such things are bound to clash with the law system. There really isn't anything else about it. I don't see the point of opposite day.
As a belated 4th birthday present to the website, I have decided to add a new board or two. So, it goes without saying that this board should hopefully be an open-ended place where people can hopefully, like mature folk debate and discussion whatever social, political issue (or any other topic) for that matter, worthy of starting a serious debate. Because the internet is a serious place.
Please, could we keep this as troll-free as possible, which I know is somewhat stupid to ask. Also, please use this thread to debate whether or not the default name of "Anonymous Speaker" could be changed to somethin better.
Unnamed Orator? Pseudonymous Pontificator?
Faceless Orator?
I like the "Orator" word.
Unassailable Demagogue?
Intangible postulator?
Orator is a wonderful word, but this forum category hardly is condusive to prose, good menschen.
>>12
Well you can hardly say that most people in /music/ are popstars or that most people in /food/ are chefs, now can you? I always thought the names were kinda exaggerated because it was funny.
Anonypuss
Whoever or Whomever
Me
ME
ME!
Shadowvoice
The hidden
Participant
Party of the second part
Steve
Franklin J. McMonkeybottoms
Average Joe
Above average Joe
Below average Joe
Sibling
Advocate
>>14 I realize it may be a bit late to change it, but "Average Joe" sounds good to me.
How about "Devil's Advocate".
I like "Steve".
Because I really, really don't.
Nor do I care about Giuliani's 18 wives or Mitt Romney's Mormonism or any of that other crap.
Who is John Edwards?
I don't know her, but I feel sorry for her. Cancer is a bitch.
On the other hand, I can't imagine how a husband can still run for president knowing that his wife could be dead in a year -- it's pretty thoughtless, so to my mind, he isn't a good pick.
We don't care about politics, just ourselves & 4-ch. (￣▽￣)
She cares.
Nope...I hope the fucker dies. His gun control laws have gotten millions killed. I hope he is there in hell with his brothers, the sorry new world order fuck.
#8 was me. Whoa...my bad..I misread and thought it was about Kennedy. But still I do not give a fuck. Would THEY give a fuck if I got cancer? Nope...they would not. So I stick with my "fuck her, I hope she dies" position.