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  1. #751
    CoccoBill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lyric View Post
    No, stopping me from eating trans fats lowers my quality of life. Period. You can't tell me you know better than I do because you're smarter or because science says so. It is irrelevant until you convince me that I should voluntarily avoid trans fats. Until then you are a violent dictator that ruins my life.
    If eating trans fats cause type 2 diabetes and heart disease effectively shortening your life expectancy, that is physical harm, right? And try to finally understand that regulating a substance is not the same as banning them. If something can safely be consumed in moderation, there's no need to ban it. To stop fast food companies force feeding _only_ trans fats and sugar to school kids' does not mean chocolate should be illegal.

    Why is it that in every example you talk about your personal rights, your liberty to choose, while I'm talking about what's good for the general public. Does this say something about a fundamental difference between how we look at the world?
  2. #752
    CoccoBill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lyric View Post
    You still ignore my question about which island you would rather land on with nothing. Peter is wrong.
    Because your question is completely irrelevant and not based on anything reality- or fact-based. You're saying that in a regulated market no one works, nothing gets invented and everyone is poor, whereas in a free market everyone would be a prosperous entrepreneur with a luxurious rockstar lifestyle. This just has nothing to do with anything.
  3. #753
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lyric View Post
    How do you avoid an FDA that is not affected by lobbying?
    Did you read the link a quarter of an inch above of what you wrote?

    FDA just does what is mandated by law and policies, if there are regulations and processes in place to ensure the legislation is made on fair grounds, not affected by lobbying, wouldn't FDA just do exactly what it should? This is a completely theoretical question, so pointing out what's wrong with your current implementation does not prove anything, unless you're able to demonstrate how these flaws are inherent and unavoidable.
  4. #754
    CoccoBill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lyric View Post
    No government is the goal. If something cannot be sold to each person as an individual it must be socialized. That is all. Each man is free to do as he pleases unless he harms another person. If government is ruled by the wealthy that will not matter as long as government has no power to control in the first place. You have a valid point, however. My system does not work any better than yours, as we both have the same fundamental flaw. Can you tell me what the flaw is?
    No it isn't, you have yourself admitted that order without a government is impossible. This is the same reason why your island scenarios don't apply to reality, they ignore all of the factors that make up modern societies. Stripping a problem to its bare "fundamentals" does not in any way prove that the particular mechanism you're assessing is the only, or even the most powerful mechanism in play. The only flaw in the system is that we are humans with selfish motivations, we are evolved as hunter-gatherers adapted to living in small communities, not in large societies.
  5. #755
    Quote Originally Posted by CoccoBill View Post
    If eating trans fats cause type 2 diabetes and heart disease effectively shortening your life expectancy, that is physical harm, right? And try to finally understand that regulating a substance is not the same as banning them. If something can safely be consumed in moderation, there's no need to ban it. To stop fast food companies force feeding _only_ trans fats and sugar to school kids' does not mean chocolate should be illegal.

    Why is it that in every example you talk about your personal rights, your liberty to choose, while I'm talking about what's good for the general public. Does this say something about a fundamental difference between how we look at the world?
    If I hire you to make trans fatty fries, or hire you to shoot me in the foot, both should be legal as long as we are both in agreement. I am part of the general public. Society does not exist; it is only a collection of people with minds of their own.
  6. #756
    Quote Originally Posted by CoccoBill View Post
    Because your question is completely irrelevant and not based on anything reality- or fact-based. You're saying that in a regulated market no one works, nothing gets invented and everyone is poor, whereas in a free market everyone would be a prosperous entrepreneur with a luxurious rockstar lifestyle. This just has nothing to do with anything.
    No, the point is to show that a society with a wealthy top 10% is better than an equal society with less wealth. Does that make sense? This is very important. Allowing wealth to pool at the top is fine as long as those wealthy people can't force me to do anything or pollute or do any harm to anyone. Money by itself can't hurt me.
  7. #757
    Quote Originally Posted by CoccoBill View Post
    Did you read the link a quarter of an inch above of what you wrote?

    FDA just does what is mandated by law and policies, if there are regulations and processes in place to ensure the legislation is made on fair grounds, not affected by lobbying, wouldn't FDA just do exactly what it should? This is a completely theoretical question, so pointing out what's wrong with your current implementation does not prove anything, unless you're able to demonstrate how these flaws are inherent and unavoidable.
    The FDA will always be made of people and the checks against the powers of those people will be made by other people. I don't know if it is possible to get enough checks on the power of the FDA to insure it makes valid decisions in the public interest, but I am willing to think about it as the only option because some government seems to be needed and the only way to keep it in check is probably properly constructing checks on its own power.

    I think the fundamental problem is that the men in government do not understand the power they hold and do not understand the consequences of the laws they enact. They do not understand that enforcing drug laws causes more harm than good. They don't understand that most of the laws do more harm than good.
  8. #758
    Quote Originally Posted by CoccoBill View Post
    No it isn't, you have yourself admitted that order without a government is impossible. This is the same reason why your island scenarios don't apply to reality, they ignore all of the factors that make up modern societies. Stripping a problem to its bare "fundamentals" does not in any way prove that the particular mechanism you're assessing is the only, or even the most powerful mechanism in play. The only flaw in the system is that we are humans with selfish motivations, we are evolved as hunter-gatherers adapted to living in small communities, not in large societies.
    Right, I agree. We are all human beings with our own mind and our own greedy desires. It's very hard (impossible) to give anyone the power to govern and expect them to remain honest, so that power has to be divided up to prevent the greed of individual men from harming the nation. It seems like the only way to effectively govern is to divide the power of government. I want to divide it up as much as possible, giving each person the freedom to govern themselves, and you want a more centralized, paternal government.

    Either way its quality depends on the quality of the people and their education/understanding of how decisions affect their lives and of those around them, so I guess the best way to solve our problems is via education and discussions like this one.

    We still fundamentally disagree on a major point -- I think each person should be trusted to make decisions about their lives and bear the risk of each personal decision. This doesn't seem perfect because it would frustrate us endlessly to see stupid people being taken advantage of by smarter people.

    It's like being three on an island and watching the dumb man trade a pound of salt for an ounce of fish, over and over again. Or borrowing fish for a year and owing the other man for the rest of their lives. It wouldn't seem moral to avoid intervening, but I think it would be immoral. Our only moral option, IMO, is to sit down with the dumb man and educate him or offer advice. If you slap his hand when he tries to make dumb decisions he will simply resent you for blocking access to something he really wants, which will lower his quality of life -- he will continually feel abused by your power, and fail to see the big picture that you see (longer, richer life.) He will only see your immediate actions and never realize that you are helping to make him live longer and be richer and avoid abuse.
    Last edited by Lyric; 10-14-2010 at 02:20 PM.
  9. #759
    Quote Originally Posted by Lyric View Post
    I think the fundamental problem is that the men in government do not understand the power they hold and do not understand the consequences of the laws they enact. They do not understand that enforcing drug laws causes more harm than good. They don't understand that most of the laws do more harm than good.
    I don't think this is the case at all. The people in power are generally pretty clued up (well lets forget Bush was ever you president).

    The reason they can't actually do anything like legalising drugs is because they wouldn't get voted in and there would be moral uproar. But this is to do with the people of America, not goverment.

    And to say say that most laws do more harm than good is just backwards.

    The laws particurly in UK have to go through a huge vetting process before gettign put in place. The goverment doesn't come up with these legislations just to piss you off. They weigh up the pros and cons for the good of society and then put them in place.

    Weed seems to be high (no pun intended) on your annoyance list. Most European countries have pretty much legalised it now. They've looked at the fact most people are ok smoking it and it isn't a huge harm to the society so let people smoke it if they want. However crack is still banned.
    Seems fair to me (though personally I prefer the crack).
    Normski
  10. #760
    Quote Originally Posted by WillburForce View Post
    I don't think this is the case at all. The people in power are generally pretty clued up (well lets forget Bush was ever you president).

    The reason they can't actually do anything like legalising drugs is because they wouldn't get voted in and there would be moral uproar. But this is to do with the people of America, not goverment.

    And to say say that most laws do more harm than good is just backwards.

    The laws particurly in UK have to go through a huge vetting process before gettign put in place. The goverment doesn't come up with these legislations just to piss you off. They weigh up the pros and cons for the good of society and then put them in place.

    Yes, and they make poor decisions about which laws to put in place, historically speaking. Most of the laws we have today are harmful and were shown to be harmful by other nations before they were voted into place. This is why I say that lawmakers are either corrupt or ignorant of history and the consequences of the new laws.

    Weed seems to be high (no pun intended) on your annoyance list. Most European countries have pretty much legalised it now. They've looked at the fact most people are ok smoking it and it isn't a huge harm to the society so let people smoke it if they want. However crack is still banned.
    Seems fair to me (though personally I prefer the crack).
    I personally don't enjoy smoking weed, but I use it as an example because it is such an obvious case of government ignorance and control by wealth business owners. It is harmless and the only reason it is becoming legalized is its popularity. Government tried to ban both alcohol and tobacco and only failed because the drugs are so popular. It is unfortunate that the other popular drugs continue to waste money and kill thousands of innocent people each day to protect the monopolies held by pharmaceutical drug makers.
  11. #761
    a500lbgorilla's Avatar
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    Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex | Video on TED.com

    Really great video I watched early today, reminded me of this thread.

    edit And because it's hilarious

    YouTube - Principles of economics, translated!
    Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 01-19-2011 at 07:27 PM.
    <a href=http://i.imgur.com/kWiMIMW.png target=_blank>http://i.imgur.com/kWiMIMW.png</a>
  12. #762
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex | Video on TED.com

    Really great video I watched early today, reminded me of this thread.

    edit And because it's hilarious

    YouTube - Principles of economics, translated!
    Funny? Not so much.
  13. #763
    Quote Originally Posted by Lyric View Post
    Funny? Not so much.
    Possess a sense of humor? Not so much.
  14. #764
    bigred's Avatar
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    Lyrics are srz businezz...ask Rebecca Black
    LOL OPERATIONS
  15. #765

    Default Hello people!

    Hello people! My name is Tileromix. I from in Russia.
  16. #766
    Solid bump
    Check out the new blog!!!
  17. #767
    CoccoBill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lyric View Post
    No, the point is to show that a society with a wealthy top 10% is better than an equal society with less wealth. Does that make sense? This is very important. Allowing wealth to pool at the top is fine as long as those wealthy people can't force me to do anything or pollute or do any harm to anyone. Money by itself can't hurt me.
    Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies | Video on TED.com

    Had to ponder this one a bit.
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

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