Saving the Internet from the NSA

[JimC]

This comment from rEvolutionist

"Wow. You are spectacularly deluded. I don't even know where to begin."

You can begin by telling me why official United Nations statistics represent delusion!

Because they don't address in the slightest what I'm talking about. If you can't see the damage we are doing to our environment, and our unsustainable use of resources, then you are off with the fairies.

I think BG would recognise the environmental damage being done, but is optimistic (somewhat over-optimistic, IMO) about our abilities to fix the problems in future.

[Seth]

Can it wait until I get off ur mom?

Thanks for letting us all know you're a necrophiliac. A really gross necrophiliac who likes to "get on" 12 years-dead corpses. Gross. Disgusting. Perverse.

Racism is at the core of Conservative resentment to entitlements.

Unsubstantiated assertion. False claim as well. I can be considered "conservative" insofar as entitlements are concerned and it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with race, it has to do with the core philosophy of redistributionary entitlements (socialism). One may be "entitled" to enjoy some aspect of life or government, but that does not translate into a right to impose the cost of that "entitlement" on others against their will by forcing them into involuntary servitude.

One may have a right to obtain birth control or even abortifacient drugs to control one's fertility but that in no way means that anyone else is obliged to labor on your behalf to pay for it. That's the actual objection to Obamacare's mandate, not an objection to such drugs per se. If you want a Morning After Pill, then go to the fucking pharmacy and BUY IT with YOUR money. That's your right. But you have absolutely no right whatsoever to compel me or anyone else to pay for it.

Shame you have to talk in code these days, but you fit the profile...

As I said, go fuck yourself. This is the second personal attack that I will have reported in this thread.

[Seth]

Seth

Couple of corrections to your post.

Subsidies are the antithesis of the free market.

Yes, they are. They are the government picking economic winners and losers. However, the point I was trying to make is that there are aspects of commerce that may need to be favored in order to protect national security and sovereignty.

The way a free market works is that it permits cut throat competition, and any industry that cannot compete goes bust, and gets replaced by those others that can.

Yup. The problem is twofold: First, the reason American agriculture is more expensive than importing many foodstuffs is a) regulation, and b) labor supply and demand. The second part of the problem is the susceptibility of the consumer to politically-motivated control of OTHER markets. If every market everywhere were a totally free (but not unregulated) market, then this wouldn't be a problem, but the fact is that they aren't. International geopolitics complicates things enormously in a practical sense. This is here theory meets practice.

The American government provides subsidies precisely because the agriculture and industry it subsidises are too damn inefficient to compete otherwise.

Well, yes and no. I suspect you'd be complaining about "living wages" being paid to farmers in Mexico or wherever who are paid a pittance compared to what American farmers get paid. We could be "competitive" with third-world nations with a surplus of available cheap labor and arable land available year-round too...if agriculture wasn't burdened with reams of regulations and rules that raise the cost of labor and production. That means that the "inefficiencies" of American agriculture are not inherently a factor of the free market, they are artificial inefficiencies imposed by the government for various reasons that make the market an un-free one.

Nor is NZ's unsubsidised agriculture unable to compete. In fact, our farmers have got so incredibly efficient that they shit all over others. That is why NZ is now the number one greatest exporter of dairy products in the world, accounting for 40% of all dairy exports globally. Our farmers were exposed to cut throat competition on the basis of adapt or die. They adapted.

Good for them. However, I don't want the US dependent on NZ for it's essential milk supplies. I want the US to take care of US dairy farmers to keep them in business not because it's cheaper, but because it's safer for the people of this country to have a reliable source of milk that can't be cut off at a moment's notice by politics, geological forces, or catastrophes.

One result is that desperate governments, like the USA, lump excess tariffs on NZ imports, and subsidise the shit out of their own suppliers. That is a tacit admission of incompetence.

No, it's a desire to support domestic milk production for national security and strategic reasons. It IS a distortion of the free market but the purpose is perfectly valid in a non-free-market world.

The result of a true free market is a culling of those who are incompetent and inefficient, replaced by those who can do better. The end result is a level of productivity and a reduction in costs that is shown by the NZ dairy industry.

All well and good, but profitibility is not always the sole metric involved. Just as I support subsidizing the American domestic energy extraction industry I support domestic milk production, domestic wheat production, domestic steel production, etc.. I support such things because it is not in our political, sovereign or physical interest to be unable, as a nation, to provide for ourselves should imports be cut off for any reason.

[piscator]

Racism is at the core of Conservative resentment to entitlements.

Unsubstantiated assertion. False claim as well.


I can be considered "conservative" insofar as entitlements are concerned and it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with race, it has to do with the core philosophy of redistributionary entitlements (socialism). One may be "entitled" to enjoy some aspect of life or government, but that does not translate into a right to impose the cost of that "entitlement" on others against their will by forcing them into involuntary servitude.

That "involuntary servitude" spooge has been rejected by the courts. No one's making anyone work. You probably don't work anyway.

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

-- Lee Atwater, when he was Chairman of the RNC

One may have a right to obtain birth control or even abortifacient drugs to control one's fertility but that in no way means that anyone else is obliged to labor on your behalf to pay for it. That's the actual objection to Obamacare's mandate, not an objection to such drugs per se. If you want a Morning After Pill, then go to the fucking pharmacy and BUY IT with YOUR money. That's your right. But you have absolutely no right whatsoever to compel me or anyone else to pay for it.

That won't fly either in this secular nation, as it doesn't violate the Establishment Clause or impede the free exercise of religion.
But you started this by criticizing "Central planning and production" and blaming it on President Obama. Now you're giving vent to your religious manias? Conservatism really is a fully fledged spiritual pursuit for you, isn't it?

Shame you have to talk in code these days, but you fit the profile...

As I said, go fuck yourself. This is the second personal attack that I will have reported in this thread.

Maybe that lack of response is a polite way of telling you to go fuck yourself, but you're just missing it?

[Seth]

Racism is at the core of Conservative resentment to entitlements.

Unsubstantiated assertion. False claim as well.


I can be considered "conservative" insofar as entitlements are concerned and it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with race, it has to do with the core philosophy of redistributionary entitlements (socialism). One may be "entitled" to enjoy some aspect of life or government, but that does not translate into a right to impose the cost of that "entitlement" on others against their will by forcing them into involuntary servitude.

That "involuntary servitude" spooge has been rejected by the courts. No one's making anyone work.

Pettifoggery. Taking the fruits of someone's labor without their permission for your benefit is functionally the same thing as forcing them to work on your behalf. Unless the worker has incurred some obligation to you that demands compensation, by what ethical argument do you justify taking the fruits of his labor against his will for your benefit?

You probably don't work anyway.

Go fuck yourself.

And whether I work or not is irrelevant. What's important is whether I demand that other people to labor on my behalf and forfeit the fruits of their labor to me for no better reason than that I want them.

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

-- Lee Atwater, when he was Chairman of the RNC[/quote]

So what? I'm not Lee Atwater and neither is anybody else. And "doing away with racial problems" is a good thing, not a bad one. The important consideration is whether or not the action's intended purpose is to advance racism or address a legitimate need in order to achieve a goal that just happens to disparately impact one or another group of people. The critical word is "byproduct." The meaning of "byproduct" is "a secondary or incidental product, as in a process of manufacture; the result of another action, often unforeseen or unintended."

Just because a program or regulation or law or practice produces a byproduct of impacting one group more than another does not mean that either the intent or the practical effect is "racist." Whether it's racist or not depends on the actual intent of those in charge, and to be racist it requires a specific intent of disparately impacting or denying the members of a particular race or races for no other reason that their race.

Take for example the population of US prisons. The largest number of prisoners in prison today are black. But that fact does not in and of itself indicate, much less prove that the criminal justice system is racist. It may be that it IS racist, or parts of it are, but the disparate impact does not in and of itself prove or point to anything at all because there are many reasons why blacks may be in prison that have nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture.

So long as the action is neither overtly nor covertly intended to disadvantage any particular group based on race, the fact that the action may have disparate impact that correlates to race does not prove causation. More is required to demonstrate a deliberate intent to disadvantage by race to make a disparate impact an indicator of racism.

One may have a right to obtain birth control or even abortifacient drugs to control one's fertility but that in no way means that anyone else is obliged to labor on your behalf to pay for it. That's the actual objection to Obamacare's mandate, not an objection to such drugs per se. If you want a Morning After Pill, then go to the fucking pharmacy and BUY IT with YOUR money. That's your right. But you have absolutely no right whatsoever to compel me or anyone else to pay for it.

That won't fly either in this secular nation, as it doesn't violate the Establishment Clause or impede the free exercise of religion.
But you started this by criticizing "Central planning and production" and blaming it on President Obama. Now you're giving vent to your religious manias? Conservatism really is a fully fledged spiritual pursuit for you, isn't it?

Shame you have to talk in code these days, but you fit the profile...

As I said, go fuck yourself. This is the second personal attack that I will have reported in this thread.

Maybe that lack of response is a polite way of telling you to go fuck yourself, but you're just missing it?[/quote]

[rainbow]

So yet again your claim is thoroughly debunked.

Not really, no.

The problem is that you actually believe that you have a "free market" where consumers make the decisions.

Maybe a reality check is required?

[pErvinalia]

This comment from rEvolutionist

"Wow. You are spectacularly deluded. I don't even know where to begin."

You can begin by telling me why official United Nations statistics represent delusion!

Because they don't address in the slightest what I'm talking about. If you can't see the damage we are doing to our environment, and our unsustainable use of resources, then you are off with the fairies.

I think BG would recognise the environmental damage being done, but is optimistic (somewhat over-optimistic, IMO) about our abilities to fix the problems in future.

I don't think he understands the problem. He points to economic growth in the third world as if that's an answer to my point that most of our economic growth is unsustainable and pretty toxic to the planet. The key point is that much of our prosperity is funded out of borrowed natural capital (which we are starting to repay now via the deleterious effects of global warming and pollution in general, and ecosystem destruction), and in the extreme case of the US (and to a slightly lesser degree the other western consumerist countries) a massive debt to some of the third world and a shift in productive force to the third world. And on a personal level, westerners have NEVER been in so much personal debt. The whole western system of alleged "prosperity" is a façade. And God do I get tired of pointing out these simple facts to people over and over. I would have thought BG would have groked this.

[Seth]

So yet again your claim is thoroughly debunked.

Not really, no.

The problem is that you actually believe that you have a "free market" where consumers make the decisions.

Maybe a reality check is required?

For you perhaps. But not for me. I actually understand what "free market" means. You don't. Maybe some education is in order for you.

[Blind groper]

To rEvolutionist

Your comments are just one more in a long litany of doomsday prophecies.

The reason I am optimistic about the future is simply that humanity has a long record of solving problems. Note that I am not denying problems exist. Just that there are solutions, and these will be implemented. Not necessarily the best way, but in a way that works.

The last 50 years has seen a long list of people predicting global catastrophe. From pesticide disaster, to nuclear war, to nuclear winter, to famine from overpopulation, to pandemics, to Y2K, to ozone depletion, to resources running out, to global warming. What all the predictors of disaster have in common is that they all, always, turn out to be wrong.

The reason they turn out to be wrong is, of course, that humans are not totally stupid, and we can see the writing on the wall, and take appropriate action.

On resources.
These are always, and I do mean always, more abundant than is predicted. That is because more get discovered. Also new technologies get developed that do not depend on the scarcer resources.

As an example, take phosphorus. Vital to agriculture. Up until about 5 years ago, the known reserves were 80 years, after which we would be in trouble. However, recently it has been discovered that there are massive loads of phosphate on the sea bed. The biggest found so far is off south west Africa. But they are present off the USA and Canada, and even off NZ. That 80 years now looks very, very pessimistic.

Another recent discovery is fresh water under the sea floor. Well, to be exact, it is slightly saline. But it is much fresher than sea water, requiring much less purification, and there is enough to supply the world for a long time to come.

As far as economic growth is concerned, there is still great potential, especially for third world nations. The global economy grows almost every year, with the exception being those periods of recession we all know so well. However, the long term over the past 200 odd years is growth. That long term growth is showing no signs of easing.

[pErvinalia]

You don't seem to understand the problem. You point to continuous growth as if that's a good thing. It's not. There's been MASSIVE environmental consequences (as well as financial consequences in the consumerist west) because of that growth. If you can't see that, then we have nothing to discuss here. Continue on in your state of delusion.

[JimC]

You don't seem to understand the problem. You point to continuous growth as if that's a good thing. It's not. There's been MASSIVE environmental consequences (as well as financial consequences in the consumerist west) because of that growth. If you can't see that, then we have nothing to discuss here. Continue on in your state of delusion.

Does economic growth have to be forever tied to continuous growth in resource consumption, energy consumption and population growth? Is it perhaps possible that future versions of economic growth could accrue from continual increases in both information flow and technological efficiency?

I'm not convinced that it necessarily will be, and that technological advances will always fix our problems, but neither am I certain that we are doomed to a Scrumplesian doomsday...

[pErvinalia]

Essentially denying the problems facing us and just expecting that we'll eventually find a solution because we always have, is too faith based for my liking. I've never seen BG change his mind on anything, whether that be things I agree with him on or not. I think you know how much I hate a pointless debate. I'm not wasting any more time on him.

[pErvinalia]

Regarding the growth thing, sure it's possible that we could decouple a lot of growth from primary resource extraction. That would require incredible recycling technologies and essentially cheap renewable energy (the latter we will eventually get). Will it ever happen? I don't know. But it's certainly not happening with our current system. Resource use and pollution have continued to rise with economic growth. But BG can have a second plasma and a fancy car (all of which he can dispose of for essentially free, and then buy another set of toys), so everything must be alright.

[rainbow]

So yet again your claim is thoroughly debunked.

Not really, no.

The problem is that you actually believe that you have a "free market" where consumers make the decisions.

Maybe a reality check is required?

For you perhaps. But not for me. I actually understand what "free market" means. You don't. Maybe some education is in order for you.

No Seth, you are the deluded one.


The free market doesn't exist any more than Santa and the Tooth Fairy.

[Blind groper]

On economic growth and resources.

Of course resources are needed for economic growth. However, what resources?

The late, great economist, Professor Julian Simon, said that the only real resource needed is human ingenuity, and that is a growth resource. Every year, it porduces more ideas and technologies.

Most of the economic growth of the past few decades has, however, been in the service sector. Manufacturing has tended to move to using less material resources. A modern car, compared to its equivalent of the 1960's, weighs half as much, and uses a lot less mined metal, and more materials like plastics, which can be made from biomass.

However, what is even more important, is that we have not even scratched the surface when it comes to the Earth's resources. The vast bulk of the mined minerals, for example, come from the top 1 km of the Earth's crust. Yet the crust over the continents averages 40 kms thick. Not to mention the oceans. For example, the oceans contain 50 million tonnes of uranium 235, and another 10 billion tonnes of uranium 238. Japan has a pilot project to extract this resource.

Longer term, there will even be asteroid mining. A bunch of robots land on an asteroid which has an orbit taking it close to Earth. When the asteroid next (many years later) comes close to Earth, the robots flick pure and precious metals into near Earth orbit, from where they can be retrieved. Google "Planetary Resources", and check out the high powered brains behind this scheme. A single 20 km diameter asteroid, according to New Scientist, contains $80 trillion of precious metals like platinum.

I do not know (and neither do any of the doomsday nutters here) how long, or how much economic growth can continue, but I do know that there is potential for very, very substantial growth beyond what we already have without any disasters.