The NYT reports that a loosely knit group of crypto-currency multi-million/billionaires have chosen Puerto Rico to set up shop -- several reasons are given including a tax haven for US citizens and low real estate prices since the hurricane Maria destruction last year. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/technology/cryptocurrency-puerto-rico.html
Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars.
And these men — because they are almost exclusively men — have a plan for what to do with the wealth: They want to build a crypto utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society — and the Puertopians want to prove it.
For more than a year, the entrepreneurs had been searching for the best location. After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico's infrastructure in September and the price of cryptocurrencies began to soar, they saw an opportunity and felt a sense of urgency.
[...] The movement is alarming an earlier generation of Puerto Rico tax expats like the hedge fund manager Robb Rill, who runs a social group for those taking advantage of the tax incentives.
"They call me up saying they're going to buy 250,000 acres so they can incorporate their own city, literally start a city in Puerto Rico to have their own crypto world," said Mr. Rill, who moved to the island in 2013. "I can't engage in that."
I suggest that the SN posters who write, "everything should be organized by contracts, not government" please buy a one-way ticket to PR now! And then see if you can actually make it work. [With limited electricity and thus limited internet, they may not pester the rest of us so often.]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:19AM (19 children)
I share the submitter's skepticism. Some random bunch of dweebs are going to make a utopia? Probably not. But, they may make things work well. It's possible that among the lot, are a few who understand what it takes to make a city work, and work well.
Given enough money, water, sewerage, electricity, all the necessities are pretty easy to do, after all. Most cities have problems collecting enough money to make all this happen. Of course - graft and corruption are an ever present threat. What's going to make this attempt at utopia immune to graft and corruption? Their enthusiasm? Yeah - good luck with that.
One thing is sure. They are going to find that life in Puerto Rico is very different from life in California. The "highway system" is going to be shock, for starters! Even a large island is still just an island, and people who grew up on a continent sometimes just don't adjust. That 500 horsepower engine under the hood will never see an open stretch of highway where it can be put to the test.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:27AM (9 children)
Well of course it's a pipe dream. Any form of utopia is always going to be. Even fishing on the lake in your own boat has its down sides.
That said, a pipe dream on a Caribbean island is still generally going to be better than a pipe dream most other places. Plus the island certainly could use the economic infusion building a city would provide.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:29PM (8 children)
> "everything should be organized by contracts, not government"
Isn't that the cyberpunk future?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:39PM (3 children)
I dunno. The only form of *punk I recognize as anything but lameass posers is hardcore punk.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @09:50PM (2 children)
Ah yes, TMB weighs in with his cultural judgments. Listen up everybody! Blade Runner is trash! Steam Punk is worse than trash!! Only stuff from TMBs formative years have any value whatsoever.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 06 2018, @10:54PM
QFT
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @10:59PM
You're just jealous that TMB has an opinion, whereas you need to be spoonfed opinions. What a douche!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:06PM (3 children)
> Isn't that the cyberpunk future?
It's a future where someone will say "Wait a second, you didn't fulfill your side of the contract - you took from me my consideration, but you gave me no consideration of your own. I'll sue you!".
To which everyone else will say "there is no legal system, as in order to be universal and be able to impose what we've agreed it should be imposing over everyone, it would be a branch of what you would call 'government', and we don't have any of that".
To which the whiner will say "but he did wrong according to standards that I'm sure we can all agree on - he should be arrested so he can't do it again!".
And the masses will say "but that would require a police force, and all groups that enforce the will of the masses are agents of government!".
"Fuck that shit, then I'm going to break his goddamn windows" will follow.
And thus Utopia becomes Anarchy and burns itself to the ground the first time there's the slightest disagreement.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday February 07 2018, @05:14AM (2 children)
Well, there is a significant school of thought that the principal purpose of government with regard to business and trade is the enforcement of privately executed contracts. [chron.com] In other words exactly as you postulated.
Call this an appeal to a higher authority, if you must, to keep people honest, so that it doesn't turn to open warfare between armed trading partners or companies simply because there was no one around to enforce delivery or payment.
Only recently have some theories [econlib.org] starting to appear that suggest you could do without government, at least for some forms of financial trading. Of course, government has always been a recourse, so the theory is largely untested.
A real world example appears in things like the drug trade, where neither buyer nor seller can turn to the government to enforce a contract. Ask Mexico how this is working out for them.
However,
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday February 07 2018, @05:15AM
Oh, you thought I promised more?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 07 2018, @08:10AM
In 200 of the countries of the world, "Utopia" is generally envisioned as being unarmed. There are very few countries which have a population that envision Utopia as being armed. Ones that still haven't grown out of the Wild West era, for example, mentioning no names.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:50PM (4 children)
Utopia is easy when the price of entry is >$10M per head.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by termigator on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:31PM (3 children)
Not all rich people play well together.
You also need plebs to do the needed maintenance tasks of a society, at least until self-maintaining robots can do it all.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Taibhsear on Tuesday February 06 2018, @05:20PM
That's presumably what the desperate poor people, whose lives were decimated by the hurricane, are for.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @05:35PM (1 child)
Like this, you mean?
http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif [angryflower.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:09AM
LoveBot says <333333, Great-Aunt. LoveBot just wants to love you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:32PM (1 child)
thwy may make things work well for themselves. ftfy.
thats the whole point of contract law.
the main goal ts to be the one writing...er, defining the conditions and terms, in the proto-contract, the one that becomes the basis for all the other contracts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @07:02PM
Imagine an entire society, as volatile as the stock market, a kind of libertarian "bubble" as it were, where once the shorts on the contracts start being called, the entire thing devolves into a blood bath. Hobbes was right!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:04PM
"What's going to make this attempt at utopia immune to graft and corruption? Their enthusiasm?"
it's called FOSS and a smart contract. :)
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday February 07 2018, @05:13AM
A bunch of people who hate taxes creating a city?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:21AM (21 children)
Guys, stories need attribution or it looks like an op-ed from us. This one should be attributed to AC.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:33AM (20 children)
And double-check the sources for AC submission under the risk of being trolled with non-stories from bullshite sites [soylentnews.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:54AM (19 children)
As opposed to being trolled by non-stories from mainstream sites?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:18PM (12 children)
At least they are sites everybody knows about?
You want fresh sites blood? Really? I think I might be able to help with that, but don't cry if the quality of S/N goes haywire after that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:40PM (11 children)
No, I wanted to mock our mainstream media. They need heaps of mockery from every direction if they're ever going to wise the fuck up and start doing their jobs correctly again.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:54PM (7 children)
> and start doing their jobs correctly again
"again"?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:30PM (6 children)
Well, they were relatively passable until around Y2K anyway. Not great but they'd do until something actually good came along.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:45PM (2 children)
Operation Mockingbird was long before Y2K
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:13PM (1 child)
One data point does not a valid trend-line make.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:18PM
Oh dear! How far back [thoughtco.com] should we go [mentalfloss.com]?
I'm sorry sir, but you are going to have a hard time convincing me we are up against anything new and/or different. Speed? maybe. But content? Nah...
"The petty thieves support Vatia for aedile"
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:18PM (2 children)
Nope, not even. You didn't have any alternative sources of news to compare to so you didn't know how much of the "news" was fake. But by the open of the 21st Century you had Fox, Drudge and a thousand other sources to allow anyone with eyes to see that ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN was only telling a small curated portion of the news of the day and doing even that poorly.
But today is a good day, it sees Newsweek dying again. Good riddance to bad rubbish. We won't fix the legacy media but we will see it die. Die of stupidity and inability to change.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:48PM (1 child)
A couple of quotes from Benjamin Franklin:
“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
― Benjamin Franklin
“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”
― Benjamin Franklin
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @09:53PM
Haha, I guess even the "millenial snowflake" is nothing new. Just generations judging each other, for better or worse.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:05PM (2 children)
I can help with that too - or so I like to imagine, my grinning may not be everyone's taste in mockery.
Only promise me to send the message of "verify your shite sites before posting" to the sleepy editor, it will be a pity to mock the traditional sources only to be trolled by small-fry bullshitters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:32PM (1 child)
Already accomplished. Check the updated story content on the rape-pants story.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:41PM
Sincere congrats to the editor for the reaction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:20PM (5 children)
> ...trolled by non-stories from mainstream sites?
This is the AC submitter, slept in and didn't get here when the story hit the main page.
I had my doubts about the NY Times reporting. Before submitting I looked up the main character in the story -- at least to this level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brock_Pierce [wikipedia.org] the story seems to check out.
Next step I suppose would be to look for reporting direct from Puerto Rico?
More to the point, why did you (TMB) choose to attack the basis of this story instead of a different story?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:28PM (4 children)
I think you got a page or two stuck together. We were talking about the other story. Offtopic, yes, but not that confusing really.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 06 2018, @07:14PM (3 children)
Perhaps it is time for a quality aristarchus submission?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:08PM (2 children)
No, it isn't time - it's long overdue. As in years overdue. Many of us question whether you are still capable. We're afraid that dementia has set in, and you'll never make a quality submission again. My best advice is, avoid all the alt sites.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:19PM (1 child)
Oh, not to worry, Runaway, I never go to the alt-right sites! Would not want to give them the clicks! And, it is getting harder to keep up with where they are, what with being banned as pariahs and deplorable right-wing violence types. I just look for news about the alt-right, and share it here so that Soylentils can stay informed about fringe political groups, and to help save useful idiots like yourself from being overly influenced by the mimetic meme culture that is seducing you unawares. Poor Runaway!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:28PM
See what I mean about dementia? You recently - VERY recently - submitted a story about alt-gov and alt-left and alt-something-not-right. And, you've forgotten it already. In the hopes that I'm not just talking to a tree, I offer this assistance, to help your failing mind: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/02/03/0959209 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:46AM (38 children)
I don't think it will work very well, personally, but I'm more than happy to see someone test this theory. At least in future we'll be able to point at these guys and say "look, it does / doesn't work!" One more data point in the search for a better economic / social model than the one we have now.
That said, I bet they don't actually test their model: My bet is they will really be setting up a private gated community for rich folk, but all the exploited menial labour that actually makes things happen will be drawn in from hidden slums on the other side of the wall where all their grand freedoms conveniently don't apply. Libertarian playground for the rich, but a very different set of rules for the poor. In other words: Dubai.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:58AM (37 children)
Yeah, and it'll totally suck for the folks doing the building of their city and supplying the materials. I mean, who the hell wants to earn good money when your island just got shat upon by mother nature? That's not the time to be deserving what you receive, that's the time for accepting handouts!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:27PM (36 children)
*sigh*
I wasn't actually talking about the construction, I was talking about what society will look like after the building projects are complete. But anyway, while we're here...
How can you be sure they will be earning "good money"?
If the labour supply far outstrips the available work (which is not improbable) then what's to stop the billionaires paying their workers below subsistence levels? I mean these libertarian utopians sound to me like exactly the kind of people who would say "well, if I can get that guy for $1.00 per hour, why should I pay you $1.20? If you want the job, you'll take $0.80." People will take it because it's better to watch your kids starve slowly on $0.80 per hour than quickly on nothing. It's happened before, it can happen again.
I'm all for rich people coming in and splashing their money around and building infrastructure in Puerto Rico. If they do that then great. However it's just as likely that they see this as an opportunity to set themselves up as feudal lords over a bunch of impoverished serfs who will never benefit from the shining glorious magic of free markets and unfettered negotiations because of the massive wealth / power imbalance between them and their new masters.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:42PM (35 children)
That? Oh, that's simple. When all the jobs are gone because everything's been destroyed, any money is good.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:05PM (34 children)
So what you're saying is, if people are poor and desperate and hungry, that makes it absolutely fine to exploit them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:27PM (33 children)
No, I'm saying supply and demand make shitty pay into excellent pay when nobody else is getting paid at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:53PM (15 children)
No, shitty pay is shitty pay. It might be better than nothing, but it's still shitty.
And people being desperate doesn't justify paying them shitty pay.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:12PM (14 children)
Outright false. What's good or bad for pay for a job is entirely determined by cost of living and what others doing the same job in the same area are making.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:22PM (10 children)
Cost of living yes. Note that just because a place has been hit by a hurricane, it doesn't mean the cost of living there will be low.
Not necessarily. In a market where there is an oversupply of labour and little in the way of economic mobility (like, say a disaster zone) then there is nothing to drive pay up and everybody will be stuck on the same crappy wages.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:44PM (9 children)
No, cost of living already being quite low there is what would mean that. The hurricane will actually temporarily increase short-term cost of living for a lot of folks.
Have you ever lived in a disaster zone? I'm going to assume not since you just spouted that nonsense. Here's what actually happens: anyone with the tools and the skills to (re)build things is going to make a fuckload of money. Anyone with only the skills will make almost as much. Anyone willing to quickly acquire the skills is going to make significantly better money than most. It's straight out of the Keynesian playbook but with an actual need being filled.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:05PM (7 children)
OK, I'll grant you that. Congratulations for answering your own question. Now how about addressing the point you so cunningly diverted us from about four posts ago?
Once the billionaires have their shiny mansions by the beach, and the industrious local carpenters & bricklayers & plumbers have made their fuckloads of money, let's talk about the cleaners and gardeners and servants and so on? Presumably these will be drawn from the local population. Will they be living within the blessed Atlas-Zone, or will they be bussed in every day from the slums ten miles down the road where different laws apply? Are the wonderful principles of no-tax-no-gov-contracts-for-everything going to be fairly applied to those people, who have no negotiating power whatsoever compared with their ultra-wealthy neighbours? When they get sick of being played off against one another for lower and lower pay and band together to bargain collectively, will the billionaires use their glorious freedoms to have their private security forces bust some skulls?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:20PM (6 children)
That wasn't a diversion, that was a tangent. I addressed the only bit that made enough sense to warrant a response. Since you seem to want a response to your nonsense though...
What the local government does or does not do in regards to its citizens is up to the local government. The guys moving there have nothing to do with that since they did not vote any of them in. You want to point a finger? Point it at the people for putting up with corruption in their elected officials.
What the guys moving there do is not going to be what you think. If they want quality help, they're going to have to pay for it like anyone else. Having a gerzillion dollars does not mean you can pay someone less than what they could get by going down the street. It generally means the opposite.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:31PM (5 children)
Who said anything about local government or elected officials? As I understand it, within their own city borders, these billionaires effectively WILL be the local government.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:42PM
I see you're learning what its like to discuss anything with tmb. He is always right, your points are stupid and irrelevant, and the whole exercise is pointless.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by jmorris on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:30PM (3 children)
Good luck with that. PR is a one party Democratic shithole. If anyone thinks any deal with the territorial government is going to be binding after the concrete sets up they are utopians who will learn a practical lesson soon enough. The local government will welcome them with open arms, help them build a bunch of fresh new infrastructure and then seize it and as much of the new inhabitants wealth as they possibly can. You can use PR as a tax haven only if you are more than just new rich, you need to be jacked into the political system in a way a bunch of Libertarian spergs aren't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:12PM
phase two of puertopia: exterminate local gov officials.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @10:00PM
Wooow, some insane speculation going on there pal. There is more than one party and the country wasn't a shithole. Probably a bit of one now, but I think it is excusable. PR is a territory and I'm pretty sure just seizing people's assets would open them up to lawsuits and other troubles.
While I can't say for 100% certain, your "local government will welcome them with open arms, help them build a bunch of fresh new infrastructure and then seize it and as much of the new inhabitants wealth as they possibly can" is pure craziness without some type of supporting evidence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:59PM
> You can use PR as a tax haven only if you are more than just new rich, ...
This is the sort of prediction that I would love to be reminded of--in a few years to see how it worked out. While I personally think the outcome will be better than jmorris does, most likely I'll just forget about the whole story. And the NY Times author will probably forget about it too, unless something else newsworthy happens with these blockchain utopians.
Perhaps a "tickler" file add-in for SN could be set up so that logged-in users could mark an article for a reminder and get an email or something after the specified time has lapsed. The email could be a very simple form -- "UserName requested to be reminded of this SN post/story (linky) today. The story was originally posted on (date), and your requested (time) has now passed.
"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" (or words to that effect).
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday February 07 2018, @05:55AM
That's only true if the disaster happens somewhere with access to money (insurance, credit, cash, government assistance). Places like Haiti, not so much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:51PM (2 children)
> ...is entirely determined...
Beware of absolute statements. The world is a gray zone, very rarely are sweeping generalizations completely correct.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:22PM (1 child)
True. I simply expect anyone here to be smart enough to spot when I'm using a broad generalization and understand that's all it's meant to be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07 2018, @12:11AM
We keep thinking similar things and you always seem to disappoint.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 06 2018, @01:58PM (16 children)
When you live on an island and most food and other essentials of life are imported, shitty pay is shitty - it still won't buy enough food for the table, insect screening for the blown out windows, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:20PM (15 children)
You believe pay should be based on need rather than market value of the work performed? Idiotic thinking like that is what has created the race to claim the most oppression among the regressive left in the US. It was also spelled out exactly how and why it destroys any nation it infects decades ago by Ayn Rand. But I expect you'll get all triggered by seeing her name and dismiss that without actually thinking about it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:31PM (7 children)
Wow, hyperbole much?
Anyway, it seems you'd prefer a race to the bottom instead. Note that the only winners in such a race are bottom-feeders.
That's kind of rich, seeing as how you just pre-emptively dismissed any counter argument in that very sentence.
FWIW, Ayn Rand was a delusional fantasist hypocrite with incredibly simplistic ideas about society and economics, and her work is rightly ignored.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:50PM (6 children)
You think that's hyperbole? Have you not been paying attention for the past twenty years? There were actually feminist groups trying to silence or kick white women out for being too privileged just in the past year.
FTFY.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:12PM (4 children)
Ummm...? Because some crazy people don't understand feminism, paying a living wage is oppression. You might have to walk me through that one.
And I can only assume you think I haven't read any Rand because if I had, then it's shining logic would have instantly converted me to your viewpoint. Haha. It's the most tedious, simplistic, self-important nonsense I've ever waded through. The arguments are fatuous, the characters two-dimensional and the strawmen are piled up like kindling. If she is the best argument you have, give up now.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:24PM (2 children)
Sigh. Claiming oppression is claiming need. Can you figure it out from there or do I really have to type it all out?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:34PM
Well yeah. If someone is oppressed, then they have a need. A need to not be oppressed. What's your point?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:47PM
I don't get the oppression - need part, please explain.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @07:22PM
No Comment.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday February 07 2018, @02:22AM
I have read Ayn Rand.
And she actually writes tolerably well. The issue comes in with the *content* of her writing. She talks out of her ass and it smells that way too.
The Howard Roark [wikipedia.org] character is a sociopathic narcissist that Rand attempts to raise up as a hero. It's pretty pathetic actually.
Your argument would work better if those around you were all illiterate. Unfortunately for you, some are not.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:48PM (6 children)
In 1976 Ayn Rand enrolled in Social Security and Medicare.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:52PM (5 children)
Aren't you one of those folks who'll scream to the top of their lungs that Social Security and Medicare are not entitlements but things you've paid into and are simply getting your returns from? Me, I think they're ponzi schemes but that doesn't excuse you from making your arguments jive with each other.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:15PM (4 children)
If a person eats pork, I have no problem with that. I happen to eat pork myself, from time to time.
If a person spends the best part of his life telling other people that eating pork is evil, that eating pork will destroy society, that pork-eaters are the enemy within... and then goes on an all-pork diet WHILE STILL DECRYING THE EVILS OF PORK TO ANYONE STUPID ENOUGH TO LISTEN... that's when I have a problem.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:26PM (3 children)
Flawed analogy. Rand was forced to pay into those programs whether she liked it or not just like everyone else. Explain to me how getting her own back in any way negates anything she ever said.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:40PM
Because by her own loudly-opined standards1, being reliant on welfare makes her a worthless, useless drain on society and a failure of a human being who should just do the world a favour by quietly starving to death. Why should anyone listen to the rantings of a failure?
1Not mine, hers.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:49PM (1 child)
So taxes aren't theft, we are getting the value we pay for. Thanks for clearing that up.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:07AM
You're not living in a wealthy society with quite a few freedoms and the ability to raise yourself up? You always have the option of getting dropped off somewhere on the Alaskan Highway, be self-sufficient and never pay taxes.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:01PM
A fool and his money are soon invited places.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:10PM (6 children)
I think their society will soon suffer from a lack of offspring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:00PM (2 children)
I think they'll die out of douchebag-itis long before then.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday February 06 2018, @05:41PM (1 child)
I'm predicting Lord of the Flies. The rest of us should set up cameras all over that place and turn it into a reality series.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @10:03PM
Haha, I give most of them one year before they move back.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:16PM (2 children)
I think that they have a plan for that. I suspect that they are hoping that the island will be full of desperately poor women who are also hot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:39PM
the island will be full of desperately poor women who are also hot.
Wait, are we talking about Manhattan? Yeah, I think Mick mentioned something about the Puerto Rican girls...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:14PM
i'm sure they have already been tapping into that local resource.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:36PM (8 children)
The only reason why contracts have any force is because there is a government out there to help enforce them. If two people make a contract, and one of them violates the terms of the agreement, what recourse does the other one have? A society with a functioning government sets up courts of law, and ultimately the only reason why the decisions of the courts are honoured by all is because the government has an effective monopoly on the use of force. If someone who has lost a case tries to persist in defying the decisions of the court, they will very quickly find out what that the force held by the government really means. Without government and its monopoly on the use of force, contracts have no meaning: I could enter into a contract with someone and summarily violate the terms of the contract, and if I have bigger guns than the fool who went into a contract with me, he can try to enforce his contract and have his head blasted off. And since there is no government, there is nothing that can punish me for it! Of course, not everyone behaves like this but there are enough people out there who do not have a single shred of decency who would do such a thing if it were to their advantage, and if someone is seriously desperate, a contract not backed up by force will be absolutely no deterrent. Society has then become Hobbes' infamous bellum omnium contra omnes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 06 2018, @02:04PM (2 children)
In the distant past there were enough people out there who had more than a shred of decency who banded together and formed a government. And, when the collective governments of the world manage to muster more than a shred of decency toward each other - that's peace.
When a bunch of guys fall into a giant pile of money and decide to take it to a tropical tax haven, that's hardly news.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:46PM (1 child)
When a bunch of guys fall into a giant pile of money and decide to take it to a tropical tax haven, that's hardly news.
That's right. It's exactly what the colonists did 500 years ago. And "America"? It is most famous for being the "Land of Opportunity"
9 out of 10 conspiracy theorists agree, that hurricane was no "accident".
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday February 07 2018, @07:53PM
> 9 out of 10 conspiracy theorists agree, that hurricane was no "accident".
When is the last one scheduled to come out of his bunker and learn about it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:16PM (1 child)
the point of a smart contract is that it enforces itself.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:26PM
A utopia built on smart contracts is an unworkably fantasy built on unworkable fantasies.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:43PM (2 children)
Contracts pre-date government enforcement of contracts.
OTOH, if you don't have government enforcement of contracts, then you're depending on some other form of enforcement. When there were fewer people, and people were less mobile, then reputation made a reasonably good enforcer. That doesn't seem to work well in modern society. One of the purposes of the MAFIAA is to enforce contractual agreements between members. So that's another "proven" approach.
The thing is, you may not need governmental enforcement, but you need *SOME* enforcement. And currently governmental enforcement is the most effective legal approach. Come up with a new enforcement mechanism, and things may need to be reconsidered.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @09:41PM
The Mafia or other organised crime syndicate in certain cases acts essentially as what Hobbes calls that "common Power to keep them all in awe". They essentially have the ability, normally monopolised by the government, to use force. In certain places and times they actually held have the monopoly on the use of force, and as such they were for all intents and purposes the de facto government in those places and times. In Somalia, no one has that monopoly on the use of force that is the essential characteristic of government, and so we have free market violence in the form of warlords and bandits attempting to impose force in the regions where they hold sway, and they don't always succeed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:23PM
The MAFIAA is a shakedown organization for big entertainment against individuals or little companies they wish to defraud or swallow. Just ask Bjorne(the 90s chiptunes guy) about that, who had his OWN WORKS taken down on youtube because BMI or somebody had a subsidiary license some of his works and then corporate used the youtube music scanning system to DMCA the *ORIGINAL WORK*.
Just another example of how the system skews for the wealthy, not for the creators.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:06PM (2 children)
I'm very proud of what we've done in Puerto Rico. Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened in Puerto Rico, with really a storm that was just totally overpowering. And in a few short months, it's become a PRIMO lifestyle destination for our brand new billionaires. And a tax haven to rival the Bahamas. Nobody's ever seen anything like this, believe me. Working very hard on a deal to bring the #FyreFestival [twitter.com] to Puerto Rico! 🇵🇷
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:17PM (1 child)
You're slipping. Trump would never call Katrina a "real catastrophe", since it was mainly black people that died / suffered. Try Hurricane Sandy.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:53PM
Such a nasty woman. To say such a disgusting and very divisive thing. This, folks, this is how the Dems operate. They try to divide us. Race against race, rich against middle class. I'm the least racist person you've ever seen in your life. I stand for One Team, One People, One American Family.
I did say that Hurricane Katrina was a real catastrophe. So many of our black Americans suffered or died. President Bush didn't care. Where was he? He did nothing, next to nothing. And waited a long time to do it. Too little, too late! And Kirstjen Nielsen, great looking woman, helped tremendously. She was his Senior Director for Prevention, Preparedness and Response. And she learned so much! I hired her to run my DHS.
2016, we had a terrible flood in Baton Rouge. Where was President Obama? He didn't go. He wouldn't get off the golf course and get down there. I went, I took time off from my campaign for a tour of the suffering and devastation in Louisiana. The spirit of the people was incredible. I held a beautiful rally in New Orleans, they love me there. So many people are saying I'm very different from George W. Bush. And from Barack Hussein Obama. Because when the storms came, I moved very strongly. Houston, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, are coming back very strongly. Because of me.