Bullshit. Go ahead: quote me where I did that.

What the fuck are you talking about, man? There's a difference between 'big government' and totalitarian genocidal dictatorships.
You should really try to get over your irrational, perpetual and unwavering disliking for the word 'government'. It's a sign of indoctrination.

I was trying to point out that bacteria will never be able to do so actively. I was never claiming that humans will (your /.siblings both seemed to have missed that point as well).

But if you must know, in fact I believe that humans will not. Even though I respect the fact that the human biological form has gotten us to where we are today, I don't believe it is very futureproof.

Our society may become powerful enough (for some definitions of humanity), but humans as a species most probably will not. Well, who cares about species anyway?

That is a misleading statement. Humans are a single species. 'Bacteria' is a ridiculously large set of species, with each of them being adapted to quite a specific environment.

In addition to that, they will never be able to actively prevent their own extinction on a solar or galactic level, nor will they be able to actively spread on those levels. They might by chance, but not actively.

FUD? You mean history.

You're a spoiled brat and don't realize that at all.

You didn't answer my questions.

So you agree with taxation, but not more than what people feel benefits their interests? Protip: the only place feelings have in science is when they are the subject of investigation.

I'll tell you something else: the concept of 'stealing' does not exist in the animal world. It's simply about who is able to dominate who. As highly intelligent, social and cooperative species, we have created laws that have us all respect possession because it benefits society as a whole. Never forget that it's not about the money or the things, but about living in a society that functions well and promotes progress and prosperity. My point is: we need to make sure that our system of government, our monetary system and our laws in general work towards that, instead of mentally clinging to a manufactured absolute concept of "what's yours is yours".

For the most part, people live their own lives relying on running water, roads, electricity, safety standards for food, cars and houses, centralized conflict resolution and prevention. Wherever you are: take a look around you and realize that there are loads of things that would be an absolute fucking mess if there wasn't some regulation making sure it wouldn't be. I'm talking about child labor, carcinogens in toys for children, rampant crime, etc.

The layer of civilization is very, very thin and fragile. Living in the jungle is cool, until you get eaten by a tiger or poisoned by a venomous insect.

Yes, they are. Interest rates are set, tax rates are set, legislation around working is set up, crises are dealt with, etc. You can believe the fairy tale that an economy without rules benefits the people, but it would be just that: a fairy tale.

Actually, ARPANET was pretty important in the development of SMTP.

Yeah. One of the main reasons the empire fell is because it became so big that it became hard to keep the distant parts of the empire in check (information pretty much traveled at the speed of a horse). They found a real physical limitation to their political structure. Not some made up bullshit story about 'big government' always being 'inefficient'.

The thing is: you have no idea how it would be like without that hamburger. Would you want to eat dog poop every day for $2?
Because that's what you're looking at: something really cheap and really shitty.

That something occurs locally, doesn't mean that it is efficient to govern it locally.

Calling train transportation or education 'local' is absolutely retarded. Good luck running an economy with people that have diplomas like 'Smartest kid in the world. Signed, mom' or getting trains to run on railways with different widths.

The Romans figured out why centralized government works for a lot of aspects in life 2000 years ago. You should take (or at least fucking read) a page from their book.
Also, you should appreciate what centralized government has already done for you personally instead of taking it for granted.

Really now? It's just a sick aggressive dog that is unnecessary?
How do you envision your world without (meaningful) government? How would that work?

So the best way to get an economy to flourish is to have everybody put their money into savings accounts and not buy anything anymore?
Do you have any idea why the concept of inflation is popular among economists?

Anyway, the problem is that it is just not doable to get wealthy people to spend money the way you want them to. The thing is that they are very good at managing their money and have the resources to do so. Dislike it as much as you want, but a lot of the economy is driven by (non-wealthy) people buying stuff they don't really need (instead of investing their money for the highest ROI and instead of finding loop holes to avoid losing their money).

No, you said: "a better plan to get less money in politics"
As long as a company has money burning in its pocket and ways and means to get it to people that can greatly influence the operations of that company, it will throw the money at those people. Parliaments must be held to the strictest of standards when it comes to corruption and nepotism, not stripped of power.

So the money in all those accounts in various island states, Switzerland and Luxembourg is what, 'invested'?
Also, 'investing' in commodities isn't really investing. It's more like a currency exchange; the only jobs that such activities drive are in the financial sector.

Ultimately, an economy is demand-driven; if you want to stimulate a certain economy, you need to look at what that economy can provide (without to much extra effort) and then put money into the hands of the people that want what said economy can provide. That is very hard to do, because who knows what people will spend their money on?

One of the things we do know is that when it comes to 'buying local', poor people are a lot more effective than rich people (they tend to go for 'exclusive' and 'exotic' things).

Right, because lobbying and funding political campaigns to influence what laws are instated will disappear because of the FairTax (tm). If you think tax breaks are the only thing these lobbyists are interested in, you are blissfully naive.

- "My computer is broken."
= "Throw it away."

Although you've technically resolved the initial problem, it's not a very good solution. I hope you realize that.

What's your plan?

Ah, so it's the lefties that are violent.

You have absolutely no clue how urbanization works, do you?