Poor people would. Ongbonga definitely would.
Printable View
Poor people would. Ongbonga definitely would.
No more rush hour for those that can afford the Pay. A longer time between leaving home for work and arriving home for those that can't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
Agree with the car pooling and climate change points which would possibly make it a good idea anyway.
But u don't accept that it would be universally better for everyone.
Ate there any examples of large scale private roads? Not the odd one that you pay to use, but an entire network with no free option?
Today I have been sunbathing in my underwear.
I'm wealthy, I just don't have any money.
There is another way to revolutionise the economy, without filling the pockets of shareholders.
Free public transport.
Of course, it's not free, it's paid for out of tax. But people will save money because the extra tax will be more than offset by lower commuting costs, unless of course you choose to drive anyway.
Make people pay for public transport whether they want to use it or not, and more people will use it.
Fuck privatisation. Yes it encourages competition where cometition can exist, but it's not like rival companies can build new roads to compete with the current infrastructure. Whichever company gets in first will quickly have a monopoly, and the benefits of competition are negated. This will mean higher costs for road users, because not only has maintenence got to be paid for, but dividends too.
When something moves from public to private hands, costs are naturally incurred because profit becomes the primary motivation, rather than things like strengthening the wider economy and the relentless other benefits that free public transport would provide.
Ong you of course realize that all of the current problems with the transportation network are because of peak time congestion and overuse of the roads? How would your free transportation for all go about mitigating these issues?
No. Companies would shift their working hours from 9-5 to 8-4 7-3 10-6 11-7 etc to make things cheaper for their employees. There would literally be no rush hour, or at least not nearly as sharp of one. Transport trucks would plan their routes to go through major cities at night just to avoid having to pay the higher prices. Yes, middle class drivers would have to pay tolls, but they would save in fuel bills and have way more free time when they don't have to commute 2 hours to work in bumper to bumper traffic. Poor people would definitely carpool more, and I suspect a lot fewer poor people would find it worthwhile to own a car, but I'm not sure it was worth all of the trouble to subsidize single-passenger drivers who can't afford to pay a toll for all of these years.Quote:
No more rush hour for those that can afford the Pay. A longer time between leaving home for work and arriving home for those that can't.
It's not that simple for employers to just change working hours. There'd be huge costs involved. Not to. Mention the fact that people have planned their lives around traditional working hours and that would have to be changed completely.
As for transportation trucks, why don't they travel at night anyway to avoid traffic and reduce fuel costs and time?
I admit that I felt that the transport truck argument was weak as I was typing it. It would provide slightly more incentive for them to avoid rush hour though. Basically my point is that rush hour as it currently exists would be impossible with peak load pricing. With that level of congestion, tolls could be >$100. We already see an analogue to this with Uber pricing. This doesn't mean that people would regularly have to pay 100 bucks to use a road, it just means that roads would almost never be that congested. Which is a good thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
When a bottleneck emerges with the current setup, it just goes untreated and gets worse and worse. With private roads, every bottleneck would have a market response. Some other alternate route would get developed to chase the profit signal and the effect would be alleviating the clog and stabilizing the price.
re: hours, yes it would be pretty revolutionary on that front, but I don't see defying tradition as a bad thing. I'm not sure that the costs would be huge. Working hours are for the most part pretty arbitrary, shifting them an hour here or there wouldn't be that momentous of a change. The problem is now there is very little incentive for that to happen.
idk, I'm the ideas guy, I'll employ someone else to do all the paperwork.Quote:
Ong you of course realize that all of the current problems with the transportation network are because of peak time congestion and overuse of the roads? How would your free transportation for all go about mitigating these issues?
I mean I'm working on the assumption that more busses means less cars, assuming people are actually using the bus. If it's free, then they will.
I still wouldn't get a bus. It's full of poor people.
Bumping this post since there was a thread on reddit about it this morning. Apparently this was created by Google's Image recognition AI. Google set up a feedback loop of the software and this allows you to see what the software is seeing. In the article they are saying since it's a neural network the way it reads an image is something it does on its own rather than following explicit instructions. These images allow the programmers to actually see what the AI is focusing on and ignoring.Quote:
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
I know barely anything about AI but I always liked stuff like this. I always wished I'd taken that direction in school as it's pretty mind-blowing stuff. Anyway, here's the article the reddit thread linked to - http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...heep?CMP=fb_gu
There's already a thread on capitalism and why people who don't agree on it are wrong.
ugh fuck off Galapagos, i literally just came here to post that link.
newayz, here's another one i wanted to post days ago while skimming through here: http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/d...inds-together/
"New research puts us on the cusp of brain-to-brain communication. Could the next step spell the end of individual minds?"
This is in response to something Boost posted about the loss of the individual entities in the context of artificial intelligence.
Twitter is a pretty portentous warning of the collective echo chamber to come.
I wonder if freedom of movement / freedom to travel would change with a privatized road system.
My argument about taxation relies on the ability to freely leave that tax district.
***
Businesses are frequently incentivized w/ city tax breaks to have their work shift take place off of rush hour traffic (at least in the St Louis area - in business districts). However, most businesses do not do this, even though the tax cut is significant. The reason I was given at the companies at which I worked was this: Businesses do business with each other, and there is a severe hit to productivity when your business is open but the businesses with which you want to do business are closed.
IDK about any of this, though. It's all hearsay and assumptions to me.
Didn't this just bump up the price of ivory and therefore increase the incentive of every poacher to go snipe an elephant?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33209800
This is what AI is about - learning more about our I. Not this misguided nonsense that an AI will learn to dominate the world, because that's what we did with our I.Quote:
Originally Posted by Galapogos
Look at how trippy the image is. Look at how it looks for eyes in everything. Look at how it builds patterns out of nothing in the background and is always looking to make a face (or maybe I'm looking to make a face). I bet we do something like this without even knowing.
Meh, I'd plug in. Are you even an individual entity? You're more or less a cacophony of simpler brains.Quote:
Originally Posted by aubreymcfate
Made from a Knight
http://i.imgur.com/Xx7X8i3.jpg
Made from random noise:
http://i.imgur.com/FbHdfgo.jpg
Poor people with suntans.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
Maybe. I'm not sure how much demand there is for antique ivory.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
But as usual, left-wing environmentalism hurts the environment more than the people they're trying to stop.
Here's a neat story: Corey Knowlton won the bid to kill a rhino of an endangered species for ~250k. The proceeds go towards conservation of the species. Environmentalists had protested the bidding event so badly, that many who wanted to bid over 1MM did not partake in the event. This rhino was already an older, non-breeding male who had killed several breeding males, and the only real option for aiding the conservation of the species was to kill him and use the proceeds for good. Of course, the environmentalist left knows nothing about anything, so they did everything they could to stop this.
This is what happens when feelings overtake logic. Everybody gets fucked, even the people doing the fucking.
Speaking of feelings overtaking logic.Quote:
On Friday, the Army announced that all the women who had attempted to graduate from Ranger School had officially failed to meet the standards, according to a military source.
Ranger School, which grooms the Army’s most elite special operations fighting force, opened its doors to women for the first time this year. Eight of the 20 women who originally entered the school's first co-ed class were allowed to recycle through the program after they fell out in their first go-round. The Friday announcement confirmed this happened again. Three of the eight were invited to take the course over again in late June....
But there is another opinion quietly being voiced as well: that Ranger School is more akin to a rite of passage – an opportunity for men to “thump their chest,” as one Ranger puts it – than a realistic preparation for leading in war. That women can actually make Ranger units more effective. And that the standards that keep them out are outdated....
This argument is less about gender equity than the firm belief that women can make Ranger battalions better. In modern warfare, relations with local populations are crucial, and women Rangers would provide unique value added in places such as Afghanistan or Iraq, where cultural norms often prohibit contact between male soldiers and women. Ranger School also showed women were innovative problem-solvers who offered fresh approaches in the field.
Innovative problem-solvers lol. Fresh approaches lol. Failing miserably en masse is more like it.
Fun Fact: The US Women’s National Soccer Team lost to the Under 17’s US Boys’ Team 2-8
Go equality.
I predict that exactly one person here finds that remotely interesting.
This is me trying to get fresh blood into the commune: http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...=1#post2239200
There was a patent case at the SCOTUS, and one of the Justices quoted Ben Parker's "With great power, comes great responsibility".
A few months ago, the same justice quoted Dr. Seuss.
Neat
Glad to know Green Eggs and Fucking Ham is helping to craft policy in the United States.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
Then again, that's a step up from how shit normally runs.
Great. Now I can't read Green Eggs and Ham w/o hearing Samuel Jackson doing the voice-overs.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Wait.
This is much better.
IkrQuote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
I haven't tried in years, but I'm sure I could sound out the big words to get through it.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
Eventually you climb the intellectual mountaintop and find a need to piss off the peak.
That's where volcanoes come from.Quote:
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
Don't piss off the peak. Peak's are sensitive.
Naw, it was One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish!
http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/25/politi...arbanes-oxley/
What a policy. Coast Guard needs to take a lesson from street cops. Cops aren't ever asking criminals to kindly follow them back to the Police Station with the contraband.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
Nor should they. You're already a proven criminal in their eyes.
There's every reason to NOT trust you to be a responsible citizen at that point.
***
I'm curious what the time limit is on catch-and-release, now. I mean... it sounds like the fish were still alive when they were thrown back to sea.
How do you guys feel about Soldiers?
Everyone makes a huge fucking deal about it, like "OMG support our troops" and what not. But it seems forced to me. Like, you can watch Rambo, for instance, and see why supporting the troops matters and was a huge deal. But that was when we had a draft. That was when people were actually forced to go to war. In that case, fuck yeah support the troops. But now, without a draft, I dont see why I should pay them any more respect or give them any more deference than any other public servant.
(that isnt to say we shouldnt have better veteran assistance; just that troops shouldnt be off-limits to talk about critically (or even badmouthingly))
Also, I never hear things like "Support our Volunteer Firefighters"... but I'm ready to actually pounce on anyone who doesnt support them.
War is deeply fascinating and emotive. No one can escape how captivating war is. Someone says to admire a warrior and pay them some respect? It's not hard.
And I'll play devil's advocate on 'support your firefighters". You probably need a higher mortality rate and greater personal sacrifice while matching the historic public service of a trooper to expect people to be buying firemen drinks and thanking them for their service.
Fuck the soliders. They sign on the dotted line, then they go out to other nations and kill people. They can have my contempt, not my respect.
They do a job I am way too much of a lazy coward to even approach.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
I never met a soldier that I was really close friends with; I don't have a lot of data to judge.
:/Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I don't like the attitude of judging a group of people with a blanket statement.
Do better, Ong.
I agree with the notion that they did choose their career just like anyone else and, like anyone else, if they're going to expect respect, then they should offer it. The thing is... most of them do exactly that (offer an above average amount of respect right up front).
At worst, I can say that I've met plenty of wanna-be martyrs. They focus on the "putting their life on the line" part too much.
IMO, get over yourself. There are tons of reasons to respect what you do if you are an honest, hard-working person. Tell me about that.
I don't like the naivity of kids who think that they are somehow protecting our nation by going to another continent to kill people for daring to fight aggressive invaders.Quote:
I don't like the attitude of judging a group of people with a blanket statement.
We're not fighting Nazis anymore. We are the Nazis. Should the German people have shown their soldiers respect during WWII?
In fact that's not even a good analogy. Yes the Germans should've respected their soldiers. They had no choice.
I'm not saying they should get no respect, but rather that it shouldn't be the upmost respect.
Sure, I couldn't be a soldier. But lots of people couldn't be teachers, garbage men, police officers, or family law attorneys. Fact is, Noone is forced to be a soldier right now, so I can only assume that many of them are there by choice. Its certainly dangerous work, life threatening even. But lots of careers have risks, so why is this one in particular so beyond reproach? Police officers are the easier corollary I guess, but I got mixed feelings about them too.
Also, I'll admit that the only people in any kind of armed service that I've met were nice and good people...whom I respect. I don't think any of them walk on water though.
Ong is a Nazi. Confirmed.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
http://i1053.photobucket.com/albums/...psa32ca4c1.jpg
:lynch:
Define "good people".
I mean, making a really stupid and naive choice to give up your life to defend your nation's "freedom" on the other side of the world by means of force isn't how I'd define "good".
They are chooising a life of blind obedience. They're no better than dogs.
This film is historically perfect. Having seen this film many times, I know now what it was like to be around in those times.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
:pQuote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
People who are not OngBonga.
...because you're a Nazi-ISIS-commie who hates getting pwned by freedom-loving Murcans.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
obv.
... to freedom.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Jibbers, now you're attacking dogs, too?Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
:lol:
:h:
Seriously, though:
I agree with you that I don't see any credible threats to the American way of life coming from outside of America.
I don't accept the notion that joining the military amounts to "defending our freedom." That's just a talking point that can be made by either side. It is therefore merely an appeal to emotion and not a statement which reflects reality in a helpful or progressive manner. (IMO)
The notion that the military is composed of people who 'blindly follow orders' is silly.
There were a lot of ROTC soldiers in the Engineering and Physics department at Saint Louis University. Many of them came from situations where it was A) their only way to pay for college and B) allowed them to enter the military as an officer - a leadership role.
Dan Carlin does an amazing podcast where he talks about how war was romanticized until early into WW1 where people saw war had become something demonic.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
In truth, war was always terrible, but in this era of machine guns, tanks, warplanes, submarines, chemical weapons, nuclear bombs.... it's too terrible to even pretend otherwise.
But we ain't done with war, yet.
Got around to watching ex machina and yeah, not a bad film at all. The one thing I took away from it is that Nathan is a fan of the landing stripQuote:
Originally Posted by givememyleg
I thought that was neat.Quote:
A 2015 National Debt Relief survey of 1,107 adults with credit card debt revealed some interesting differences between the sexes. In the survey, the main difference between men and women was the amount of credit card debt they carried.
For instance, 63 percent of women ages 18 to 24 carried some credit card debt, but only 36 percent of men in that age category had any debt. Similarly, 66 percent of women ages 55 to 64 carried credit card debt, but only 33 percent of men in that age bracket had credit card debt.
can you please share the link to that podcast? I've been reading about Ed Bernays and WW1 propaganda, so I'm curious to see how that fits in.Quote:
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
Watch the documentary "The Century of Self." It's available online for free.Quote:
Originally Posted by aubreymcfate
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
Already on my to-do list -- thanks:)
7 minutes of commentary on the disintegration:Quote:
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFKQGkHPnCg
TL;DW
You can actually see the payload capsule tumble away before the vehicle disintegrates.
If it were a manned launch, there is a high probability that the crew would have survived.
SpaceX is still below the average 5% failure rate observed by the international space community.
(I hope I worded that last one correctly.)
How do ya'll go about picking a doctor?
I'm no longer illusioned into thinking doctors all have talent, and idk how to efficiently find a good one.
WWI podcast is called Blueprint for Armageddon. It's unbelievably long, but excellent.
Two important factors to take into account are -Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
how easy their name is to pronounce,
and how easy their handwriting is to read.
I mean Dr Ulamulubalulula may be the best doctor in town, but I can't keep calling him "mate".
This is great.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
And on YouTube.
Saw this a few years ago, it's a great watch.Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
I have never done what you are asking. I heard an NPR report about this ~10 years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by JKDS
Ask people you trust what they think of their GP. If that pool is too small, ask anyone you have 2 - 3 minutes with.
I would guess that, while it's an odd question to be asked by a stranger, most people will be comfortable sharing their opinion with you, so long as you're acting professionally (or at least generally "normal").
I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a web site that amounts to a "rate my doctor" kind of deal.
<bit of searching>
There is a web site to help you choose a doctor in St. Louis area, but I don't think there's anything it could offer me besides names and addresses. It's not like I can verify if any of the reviews are for real, or from remotely sane people.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/ortho...icans-instead/
"A group of Orthodox Jews hired Mexican day laborers to dress in traditional Jewish garb and protest against the New York City gay pride parade Sunday."
lollllll
thanks, it made me chuckleQuote:
Originally Posted by aubreymcfate
Hey I just want to throw out a quick fuck Obama for making my monthly Obamacare tax payment of about $240 for the most useless health insurance plan you could fucking imagine.
Yeah but private health insurance means competition and better quality blah blah fucking blah.
My friend, a former NHS nurse, found it really easy to get work in New Zealand because the NHS is repsected worldwide as health care of the highest quality. They bent over backwards to help her emigrate. They want our nurses.
So we have great health care that is currently paid for by the state. Of course it has its impact on taxation, so it's not like it's free, but $240 a month? That's a lot more than the UK taxpayer is contributing.
Fuck privatisation. Don't just point the finger at Obama. He's just the face.
lol at calling the american healthcare regime privatization.
Okay you just confirmed that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Just?
Ong, to be fair to you, it's a very standard misconception that this type of "privatization" is something that pro-capitalism people are in favor of. In fact, we despise it probably even more than you do.
Way more. Imagine how Ong would feel if the vast majority of people thought that weed causes cancer, stroke, and syphilis. Yeah, that's what we have to put up with when people say the US healthcare system is private or that it was private before ACA.
Blueprint for Armageddon in his Hardcore History series. It's massive and exhausting just listening to what that war was. But, also incredible, in that Germany and Hitler learned a lesson from the Twitter of the time. How they would take the basic abstract truths of certain events and sensationalize them to paint the Germans as the obvious force for evil. Clearly something that's still alive and well today. The Germans were just not prepared for the rhetoric game in the first WW. But I have the sense that that'll become damned masters of it by the Second.Quote:
Originally Posted by aubreymcfate
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/02/te...tag/index.html
I submit to you, the racism litmus test. I laughed a little too hard at it so I'm thinking I need sensitivity training or something.
So who are you paying $240 to? Who provides you with medical care in the event you get sick? Is the doctor employed by the government whose priority is public health, or a private company subject to profit targets and such?Quote:
Originally Posted by spoonitnow
I'm sorry for not knowing what I'm talking about. Educate me. Explain to me why this isn't privatisation of public services.
That whole gorilla story made me laugh. It just emphasise that our attitude is what's racist. A robot analyses a black couple and concludes that it is probably a pair of gorillas. The robot isn't racist, obviously. So it's not an issue, right? Wait, it's still a huge embarrassment that google has to apologise for. Who the hell gets offended by this? Who are they apologising to? I'd have respected google more if they programmed the robot to say sorry.
It's not privatization because the U.S. government has a heavy hand in practically every aspect of the healthcare supply chain, from insurance to medical practice. One thing I grudgingly give to the Europeans is that when you socialism you go full socialism, and there's a lot of evidence to suggest that as fucked as that is, it's better than the hybrid semi crony brand of socialism that the Americans are cooking up.
$240 a month is a lot to pay for a public service.
Point being, someone somewhere is making a fuckton of money off the back off this.
Exactly. And that's not privatization. That's the government in bed with insurance companies. Guess what happens if I don't pay it? I get a tax penalty.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
I also have a deductible of $5,000 that I have to spend each year out of pocket before it covers a goddamn thing. It's basically a $3,000 yearly tax just because Obama felt like it.
I wish they'd kiss me though. I like to be kissed when I'm GETTING FUCKED.
So it's the insurance companies that are making the money, right? You can at least understand why I consider this to be capitalism, rather than socialism, right? You have private companies making money here, at least that's what it looks like to me.
Buy shares in the insurance company that you're getting fucked by. That way you're fucking yourself every time you get a dividend.
Market capitalism is not when specific private companies make money because of laws that favor them. That's rent-seeking.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
No economist calls our healthcare system remotely free market.
To use this language, it's governmentisation of a private service.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Here's one: the US government has put many laws on the books that make it really hard and really expensive to provide this service or to purchase its products. The real supply of healthcare is actually super high and the real cost of care is super low, but the current costs do not reflect these because of government policies that restrict conduction of what the real capacity of the economy is.
One example: there are lots of people who are capable of performing dentistry functions and there are tons of consumers who would choose their services. But this is illegal. The amount of hoops you have to jump through to provide dentistry is off the charts, and doing so is extremely expensive. This in turn makes the supply of dentistry services low, while demand is still high. This makes it horribly expensive. Furthermore, this makes less total care and hurts the poor the most. When laws have been changed to allow dentistry services without so many worthless regulations, the amount of care that the poor receive goes up.
This piss-poor dynamic is created by a handful of private organizations lobbying the government to give them specific benefits at the expense of the rest of the economy and everybody in it. This is not capitalism. It is cronyism, and I'd like it if people would stop calling things the government does by mandate as being market capitalism.
Getting annoyed by me for being stupid and calling something capitalism when it isn't, while you're getting fucked by your government, I must say your annoyance seems somewhat misdirected.Quote:
This is not capitalism. It is cronyism, and I'd like it if people would stop calling things the government does by mandate as being market capitalism.
$3k a year spoon is paying for helath insurance. That's a fortnight in New Zealand.
It's not about being annoyed at you. It's about making sure you and others understand what a smart conservative or libertarian really means when he says he wants more privatization. The last thing he wants is this faux-privatization.
I don't even pretend I can pass racist litmus tests, but black people can look like gorillas just like GWB could look like a monkey. We're fucking apes, you apes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
And some gorillas...
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-06-3...hearts-flutter
I've been thinking about polygamy in the Ape world. I know in their natural environment it's natural for a male to have several female mates, but once in a zoo, this isn't necessary. And whilst I'm not aware of any female ape complaining, that's probably because they don't know better. So I propose putting a stop to this shameful sexism and ensuring that from now on each male ape can only have one female. How do you think those female apes feel? Used and unappreciated I bet. If you support equal opportunity between the sexes then this draconian practice needs to stop.
Why not direct your annoyance at the poor use of confusing language by smart conservatives and libertarians?Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
No matter how many times you tell me that what I mean by capitalism is not what you mean by capitalism, isn't going to change the fact that I'm using the common parlance definition. If you insist on using words outside the bounds of their common parlance, then you have to accept being misunderstood most of the time by people outside your field.
Do you think this invites them into a more clever understanding of your field? Or pushes them away?
Which do you prefer?
I am not convinced that capitalism = economics. I do not see what is explained by this muddling of terms. If they are the same, I'd prefer to use economics, and not capitalism. After all, the equals sign works in both directions, and economics covers a more broad area than capitalism (in the common usage).
When I answer physics questions, I am careful to choose words which my audience will find intuitive. When I choose to use a word in a manner that is beyond common intuition, I state as much. I try to avoid this as much as possible, but sometimes I end up with things like, "observation means interaction." To me, this is an important point, as the language doesn't imply that these are the same. However, at the scale of particle interactions, the "observer" that we focus on in physics is a particle. It "observes" by being affected.
My point is that, I accept that fields produce jargon for a reason (my chosen field as much as any other). Jargon streamlines communication of a very specific class. However, when communicating outside of the field, then care must be taken to avoid sounding like an uninviting snob.
I know that a quality woman would rather be a quality man's #2 than an average man's #1.Quote:
Originally Posted by rong
The healthcare system in the U.S. doesn't fit or even approach any common parlance definition of capitalism. I'm not hoarding some special libertarian-edition version of the word, the wikipedia or webster versions will serve. It all comes down to private property ownership. The degree to which people have control and ownership over their property is directly proportional to how capitalistic a system is. You can say all day long that something is privately-owned, but nothing is 100% owned because there are restrictions and obligations to all forms of ownership in a state.
For example, say I own a car. I have all forms of documentation proving it is mine. But i don't 100% own it, because the ownership isn't unconditional. I'm only able to utilize that car as long as I keep the registration and insurance up to date, pay ad velorum taxes on it, get emission checks annually, keep the tail lights working, etc. All in all, these are fairly reasonable restrictions to abide by, and I would say in the American economy car ownership is easily over 90% private.
I also own myself, and the output that comes from my effort. The more restrictions on my personal freedom, the less that I own myself. If I have to pay 1/3 of my wages in taxes, I only own 2/3 of my labor.
If this seems like I'm abusing semantics, just try hypothetically moving the freedom scale toward authoritarianism to a level you're not comfortable with. Move the U.S. tax burden from 38% toward 90%. Take away more and more of the freedoms you believe in, like privacy, free speech, free belief. Add more censorships, more prohibitions. And then tell me that this isn't the very definition of ownership of one's self. Then apply it to the other things you own, like your house, your land, or your business.
Then, look at how much the state has infected the healthcare industry, making it ever more difficult to become licensed in the medical field, making it ever more difficult to approve new drugs, restricting every aspect of the insurance industry to the point where they can't even charge based on assessed risk (which by the way is their fucking job). Tell me that this is actually private property while keeping a straight face.
Also, economics is obviously not capitalism. Economic factors are at play regardless of the economic system, whether its capitalism, communism, feudalism, whatever. Capitalism is just the one that has the fewest artificial distortions of economic incentives.
This is an excellent post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton
Thank you.
Let's not stop with female gorilla equality. How about those poor male emperor penguins currently huddling together in the brutal Antarctic winter in a desperate struggle for survival while the bitches are swimming around getting fat in warmer climes?
I said that to jimmy your rustles. I thought I had made that clear, but apparently not. It was never intended to be a point of debate, but more an example of how I can be controversial. I'm sorry that I made you believe I was making a definitive statement that capitalism is economics. That said, I wouldn't have said capitalism = economics if I didn't think the position is arguable. Let me explain.Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
If somebody is doing math, but he's doing it wrong, are they really doing math? Say somebody develops arithmetic theory where 3*3=20 and a whole bunch of other stuff that isn't correct. He doesn't prove any of his stuff and everything he does is wrong by any reasonable measure of mathematics. We would say his stuff is not math. We would say that just because he's adding and subtracting doesn't mean he's doing math, because his methods are not sound. If we wanted to be the nittiest of picks about it, we might say his stuff is math on some technical level, but practically he's not, or at least he has thus far provided nothing of worth to the field of mathematics.
This is where my contention that it is possible to say capitalism = economics comes in. When we discuss economics on this forum, it's pretty much always in a macro and political sense, and it's with the agenda of sound policy in mind. In that context, everything that we know about economics that we consider sound comes out of capitalist framework, or in some sense a rejection of non-capitalist frameworks. The reason I think this point could be of value is that oftentimes people discuss other frameworks as if they have sound economic merit. But the reality is, at least as far as I know, that non-capitalist frameworks provide nothing of value to marco and political economic debate.
I should have been clearer that I wasn't saying that capitalism = economics in a technical sense. When you said "wuf you can be so confusing", I said "I agree and here's an example of just how confusing I can get". For that, I apologize. My underlying point all along for why I would even suggest such a damned thing is to illustrate that when we discuss economics, some frameworks like socialism are not equally as revealing about sound political economic policy as capitalism. It's to such a degree that we can discard basically everything except capitalism and we'd be better off.
If this post upsets or confuses you, don't worry about it. Capitalism is not economics and I would be wrong to say so. Beyond what I've said here, there's no need to go further into why I would contend otherwise. Sorry for the confusion.