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For decades, people in the US have been given a song and dance by the telecoms about how tax cuts, surcharges, and a long list of other expenses are necessary for telecoms to "invest" in infrastructure. The concessions are granted again and again, but the investments are never actually made. In all, US taxpayers have paid $400 Billion in taxes and Internet surcharges for fiber optic upgrades that never happened.
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Americans Taxed $400 Billion For Fiber Optic Internet That Doesn’t Exist
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Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.
-- R. Heinlein
(Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Monday December 04 2017, @10:54PM (26 children)
When you remove the government from bb (big business) what you get is a mafia.
The power vacuum would still be there. If a government isn't there, then what's stopping bb from usurping their powers and more? What's stopping them form muscling anyone who doesn't play ball out of bussiness? It's not like anyone can pass a law against it and you know damn well that people won't vote with their wallets, anymore than they did against Sony and Microsoft's repeated anti-consumer actions. That is, the handful of people who know about it at all, because you can be damn sure that if you buy your crippled internet from the supercartel, you will not hear about any of their violations and they sure as hell are not going to advertise it in the media, which is fully in their control.
Granting people more personal responsibility does not make them more responsible. Humans are poor long term planners - we didn't evolve in an environment where it helps us much and our brains aren't wired for it. Believing that your magical economic model will change human psychology is a pipe dream, if your model isn't designed to address the failures in human psychology, it is destined to fail.
The reason this is idiotic is because libertarians seem to fail to realize that capitalists in a capitalist system have all the economic power, and the typical peasent does not. If you remove representative government from the picture, the peasant has NO POWER at all, and thus they can be coreiced into just about anything unless driven to the point of rebellion.
BB has no incentive to do anything but fuck you over just slightly bellow your breaking point, if the only thing that motivates them is "rational greed".
Oh, I'm sure corporations will not create their own private armies [bbc.co.uk] if they could, no sirrr, that would NEEEEVER happen.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @11:35PM (25 children)
Why didn't you just say that from the beginning?
"Government is magical."
It would have saved a lot of arguing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by unauthorized on Tuesday December 05 2017, @04:11AM (24 children)
Because I don't think it is. The existence of a state is inevitable, we can either have a representative democracy which at least nominally serves the people, than a plutocracy which serves the interests of morons who win the generational wealth lottery.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @10:50AM (23 children)
You trying to have it both ways: You're trying to say that the world of Men is awful, so we need an organization of Men to make sure that Men don't do awful things.
It makes no sense.
The Founders of the U.S. saw the solution: Separation of Powers. Of course, their attempt at creating competing, separated powers was quite naive; it was mostly smoke and mirrors. The most general and truest separation of powers is competition within a market. That's why there has never been and there never will be One World Government.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 05 2017, @12:06PM (22 children)
> The most general and truest separation of powers is competition within a market.
It's also the most temporary. Your competing businesses will quickly either kill one another off and/ or join up to form cartels, creating a powerful and completely unaccountable monopoly that will naturally use its considerable resources to consolidate, maintain and extend its power. Then your separation is gone and along with it any chance of a free and informed citizenry.
I keep hearing in this thread that the US form of government is a failure because it is now so completely rotten, but they all seem to ignore the fact that it took a couple of hundred years to get that way. If we have to have a clean out and start fresh again every hundred and fifty years or so, I'd say that's not too bad. Now, does anyone know how to clean house that without a civil war and/or bloody revolution?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @01:23PM (21 children)
Firstly, capitalism is the philosophy that trade must be voluntary, as defined by the enforcement of contracts that are negotiated in advance of interaction; your violent cartels are not an example of capitalism, but rather an example of authoritarianism—as pointed out elsewhere, their coercion means that they are a form of government.
Secondly, when one such cartel arises as the monopoly, then people just call that cartel "government"; whether a warlord or a monarch or a representative democracy, the result is the same: "Do-as-I-say" coercion rather than "Do-as-we-agreed" cooperation.
You keep referring to government as though it is this magical other thing. Well, it ain't. It's a cartel, and it's composed of Men, not angels. There's nothing magical about it. Yelling "But muh Government!" doesn't solve anything.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 05 2017, @02:43PM (20 children)
YES! My violent cartels ARE a form of government. A particularly shitty form of government at that. They are also the INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCE of what you are proposing. Pretty much all of recorded history backs up my claim.
You want a system where anyone is free to interact howsoever they please as long as everything is contractually agreed in advance. But you have ABSOLUTELY NO SYSTEM IN PLACE to enforce those contracts! Nothing except Johnny Sixshooter and his Posse of Questionable Morality. You believe that if we abolished all government everybody would instantly live in rayndian hugs an harmony and nobody would seek to exploit that complete and utter freedom in order to elevate themselves by treading others into the dirt.
And YOU accuse ME of magical thinking?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @07:02PM (19 children)
Stop replying seriously to the troll, they've just been doing the same thing for months now. Every good point you bring up is met with a repetition of the original "argument". Either they are a troll or yes, they believe in "free market magic". Stop engaging.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 06 2017, @12:30AM (18 children)
Sounds like someone's tired of the holes being poked in that authoritarian drum you're trying to beat.
If you keep posting in favor of slavery, and/or using contradictory arguments, we'll keep calling you out.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday December 06 2017, @10:25AM (17 children)
Oh for fuck's sake, if you're not getting whipped in a cotton field 16 hours a day for no money, or if you're not locked in a bedroom being forced to give blowjobs to strangers without recompense, please stop referring to yourself as a "slave". It's pretty disrespectful to actual slaves, who are unable to speak for themselves in this discussion because their captors don't generally let them have access to the internet.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 06 2017, @11:06AM (16 children)
So according to GreatAuntAnesthesia, a "slave" is strictly limited to 'getting whipped in a cotton field 16 hours a day for no money, or if you're not locked in a bedroom being forced to give blowjobs to strangers without recompense'?
What about getting whipped in a tobacco field? For 12 hours a day? Not getting whipped?
How about a bedroom? No blowjobs, but anal sex? What if you can keep half the cash you receive?
What if you can choose which landlord to which you pay rent? What if you can choose your own vocation (from a limited palate, of course)? What if you can keep a whole 70% of what you are paid?
Can you not see your own reasoning's fatal flaws? May your chains set lightly upon you.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday December 06 2017, @12:14PM (13 children)
According to GreatAuntAnesthesia, it's pretty crass for wealthy westerners like us[1] who can count themselves in the richest and most unfettered 10% of people in the world and who live more comfortably than perhaps 99% of humans who have ever lived to directly equate their luxurious lifestyles with the brutal hell of forced servitude that countless millions of people have endured in the past, and continue to endure today.
[1] I'm making some assumptions here but from what, when, where and how you are posting it seems likely to me that you are an educated European or American in possession of some expensive computer technology with internet connection, a home and at least a half-decent income. That puts you in the top 20% at the very least, more likely the 10%.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 06 2017, @12:22PM (12 children)
How do you define slavery?
I define slavery as a human being living under another's claim of ownership (of ANY percentage) on his body. I do not define slavery based on quality of life.
Ah, but perhaps you do see the unpleasant truth laying directly in your path.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday December 06 2017, @12:51PM (11 children)
Nobody owns me. Yes, I was born into a social and economic system that I didn't build or design, and that I have only a tiny amount of power to change. Do I lose some freedoms in return for a quality of life that would have made the pharoahs boggle? Sure. But those freedoms are mostly pretty shitty ones that I didn't want anyway (the freedom to hurt and kill people, the freedom to steal stuff.) The ones that I do think are unfair - the freedom to use pot, for instance, seems to be one you are pretty hung up on - can (and almost certainly will) eventually be won back from within the system. That doesn't make me a slave.
Look, life is a series of compromises. To live without compromise is to burn up and die in short order, like the replicant from BladeRunner. That's a tragedy when it happens to individuals, but ultimately it's up to them. What I won't accept, however, is to see our entire society go that way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 06 2017, @01:24PM (10 children)
Sadly, that is not so. There are a great many claims of ownership on you and your body. You cannot sell any of the parts of the body you inhabit - your owners forbid it. You cannot craft and sell many varieties of non-drug goods [thesmokinggun.com] that willing customers would like to buy from you - your owners forbid it. You cannot honestly buy or sell sexual services for or with the body you inhabit - your owners forbid it. You cannot withdraw your consent [abovethelaw.com] for the government to rule over any aspect of your life that it sees fit to - your owners forbid it. You cannot keep that which you earn from others [taxpolicycenter.org] - your owners forbid it. You cannot ease your physical pain beyond officially-approved thresholds [slate.com] - your owners forbid it. And yes, you cannot possess or consume plant matter of your choosing - because your owners forbid it.
You seem to have fallen for the Newspeak. There never was "freedom" to trespass on the property or person of another human. You have power (the ability to do work, which in these cases could include the work necessary to drill a hole through another human being) and you have authority (the justification to use power). Your force may differ wildly from that of another human's, but your authority remains exactly identical. (I've been discussing this in more detail with NotSangine over in another thread [soylentnews.org].)
Very few remember the lives of the dead, obedient slaves. To burn shortly but brightly is something many have willingly spent their life in pursuit of.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday December 06 2017, @02:23PM (9 children)
I still think trying to equate "I have to pay tax" or "I can't grow pot" with "Slavery" is absurd.
Your comments about growing and selling things also raises something that hasn't even been brought up yet: How can you be sure that goods produced are fit for purpose? If I decide to raise chickens and sell the meat, how are you going to make sure that the meat is disease-free and in-date? OK, you can say that anyone selling bad goods can expect to lose reputation and business (a position I would refute - there are plenty of ways for powerful bad actors to dodge the consequences) but that's entirely retroactive. "He won't sell chickens in this town again" is poor consolation for someone who has lost their kids to salmonella. Hell, even "let's go shoot the guy" would be a pretty crappy consolation prize.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 06 2017, @02:43PM (8 children)
I try to limit myself to identifiable reality and try to eschew speculation. I do realize my claim appears outrageous, particularly for USians. I don't think there is a flaw in my claim that USians (and sadly effectively all humanity) are owned humans, literal slaves. The good news is that I believe I have also made a rock-solid case that such human slavery is illegal insofar as the US is concerned, and criminal in principle everywhere; further, that it does not take that large of a percentage of a populace to grasp hold of a verifiably-good idea and peaceably yet vigorously implement changes.
I am very interested in learning of flaws in my assertions. If you have found one, I am very much interested in discussing the matter further. (Again, I fleshed out my argument more fully in a discussion with NotSanguine in another thread here [soylentnews.org].) If I'm wrong, so be it - it wouldn't be the first time, and it won't be the last.
For fictional speculation on how voluntary societies may work, I'd recommend you look to someone more thoughtful and talented than I. Perhaps someone like L. Neil Smith and his Probability Broach?
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Wednesday December 06 2017, @10:22PM (7 children)
Link was missing, FTFY
Hooray, you took my reading advice! [soylentnews.org]
How far have you gotten?
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @03:34AM (1 child)
Different AC; I try to focus on fundamentals, not speculative details. There's not just a single advocate for exclusive self-ownership out here.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Thursday December 07 2017, @01:44PM
Holy cow, my mind is blown. From the similar writing style I was sure the two of you were the same person. The both of you would benefit from making accounts so we can tell you apart. I can't imagine your Karma would be any worse than aristarchus' or TMB...
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @03:39AM (4 children)
I was referring to the proper novel entitled The Probability Broach [wikipedia.org]. While I'm sure it's also covered in the graphic novel, a key concept of the novel is:
That concept of just powers being derived from unanimous consent, notably along with the fact that consent can be revoked at any time and for any reason, is completely in harmony with the concept of a human either being the exclusive self-owner of the body in which they inhabit... or they are an owned person, a slave.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Thursday December 07 2017, @01:59PM (3 children)
I haven't read the novel, I'm sure it is much more in-depth than the graphic novel. Same concepts are covered, though, so I think I have a good idea where you're coming from conceptually.
I'm glad to hear you're at least well-read on the topic, the previous AC didn't seem to have done his homework.
PS - I owe you an apology, having confused you for the other guy. For clarification, are you the same one who was spamming the "banned beer" posts? Are both of you posting in this thread? If I've made accusations that should have been directed elsewhere, please take them with a grain of salt.
Cheers!
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Thursday December 07 2017, @02:08PM
Self-replying due to no edits:
I just noticed that the online version of the graphic novel has been truncated, and is now only a preview.
Anyone interested in reading the full version online should turn to the Internet Archive, where it's available in whole:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070909124231/http://www.bigheadpress.com/tpbtgn?page=1 [archive.org]
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @03:00PM (1 child)
Does it seem like the AC you're currently replying to is prone to copy-paste spam? No, I am not the spammer. I asked the spammer to stop spamming.
I post AC to let the idea speak for itself.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Thursday December 07 2017, @04:34PM
Thanks! No offense meant, I'm just trying to get a handle on this new reality I'm finding myself in. I may be able to tell the two of you apart by tone of the post; you seem more level-headed. In all likelihood, though, I'll just stop assuming that I know who I'm talking to and reply to each post as if it were in a vacuum. This conversation is going to get interesting...
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @07:59AM (1 child)
Obvious troll is obvious [pelicanparts.com].
All you get is a tired meme.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 07 2017, @08:04AM
With the resounding intellectual strength of your compelling and intriguing argument, I can see why they made you the one to Deem Things So!