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Comment Re:AG == Righthaven? (Score 0) 170

Laws are intended to force the will of others on you. This is as far as it can be from egalitarian.

It is similar to when someone takes the kidneys of another person against their will, sells them, and donates the money to charity. Is that egalitarian?

The copyright system was created by special interests and now we are witnessing how a different, more powerful special interest is challenging that system. I predict victory for Google. Though neither Google, nor the Authors Guild cares about you, or me, or egalitarianism.

Comment Re:The alternative? Greece (Score 0) 190

The only country like that today is Somalia, but they had their problems even before they lost their government, so that mess is caused by reasons other than their lack of a government.

You want to grab all the benefits of a functioning society without taking any responsibilities that come with that.

No, I don't. I always pay for goods and services, and would not take them against their owner's will. I'm not a thief.

And just because I was born here doesn't make me a property of an imaginary "society" to which I own things. But even if we accept that such a society exists (it doesn't), I would be also a member of it, and so I would own things to myself then, which would be meaningless (because I would "owe" them to the "society" of which I'm also a part of).

A "society" does not exist in the way a corporation or a government does because it has no ability to interact with people and other entities. It's just a comfortable illusion.

Comment Re:No thank you (Score 0) 152

Thanks for mentioning negative externalities, which was new to me.

Here is a short definition for negative externalities

A negative externality occurs when an individual or firm making a decision does not have to pay the full cost of the decision. If a good has a negative externality, then the cost to society is greater than the cost consumer is paying for it. Since consumers make a decision based on where their marginal cost equals their marginal benefit, and since they don't take into account the cost of the negative externality, negative externalities result in market inefficiencies unless proper action is taken.

When a negative externality exists in an unregulated market, producers don't take responsibility for external costs that exist--these are passed on to society. Thus producers have lower marginal costs than they would otherwise have and the supply curve is effectively shifted down (to the right) of the supply curve that society faces. Because the supply curve is increased, more of the product is bought than the efficient amount--that is, too much of the product is produced and sold. Since marginal benefit is not equal to marginal cost, a deadweight welfare loss results.

That sounds like it was written by environmentalists rather than economists. Who decides what is "too much"? The market already has mechanisms for deciding that. Negative externality seems like a redundant concept.

Comment Re:The alternative? Greece (Score 0) 190

Tax is the price for the privilege of living in a country, don't want to pay? Then the privilege is revoked. I at least am willing to pay the extra tax for the bullet of revocing.

Are you suggesting killing people who don't pay taxes?

How can you be against slavery if you would happily kill someone who doesn't play by your rules. That is slavery. Suppose your rules are the tax system. People who don't play by the rules, you kill them.

Comment Re:Short Answer (Score 1) 657

Ok, let's do that. I will let the market decide. I'm all for new technologies, just let's not push it on people. The price of a technology should also be considered besides it's other coolness factors, and weighed against other choices.

Maybe we could electrify all trains for example. But maybe the costs would be too high compared to the savings. Making those kind of decisions is one of the strengths of the market system. I'm not worried about that.

Ultimately it comes down to political issues, and that's where we have our real problems.

About radiation, I think that it's only an issue until we find an effective cure for cancer. Being able to clean out the contamination from a body would be nice to have too. As soon as we have those, radiation will stop being the threat that it is now.

Comment Re:Short Answer (Score 1) 657

Well the energy cost of transporting nuclear fuel is an incredibly small fraction of the energy that can be gained from the fuel. Really the whole point of nuclear fuels is that they are so dense energy carriers, the amount of energy that can be extracted is so huge, that really such trivial energy costs as transportation become negligible in a nuclear powered economy.

I agree with your other points though.

In the end the difference between a nuclear power plant and, a battery, is energy density. Neither of them actually "generates" the energy, instead both are releasing it. Even our Sun is just releasing energy from the materials it converts inside itself. I could for example take energy from a Wind turbine and store it in combining the end-products of a nuclear energy generating reaction, and gain nuclear fuel as a result. And power a vehicle with it. Very portable, very efficient. So would I be using renewable energy or not in that case?

My only problem with Solar, Wind and renewable energy is that, I can't take it with me into space, underwater, in a dark place (can't use it at night), and can't power my cars and other vehicles with it.

I also don't like the religious side-flow of the environmentalist movement, who are also the most vocal in pushing the renewable energy sources.

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