If the handover of ICANN turns bad, DNS will be replaced by an alternative technical solution. Such solutions are already worked, based on DHT and blockchain storage.

You don't want to associate with me, so I try to force you (via government)?
We don't accept that in dating and marriage, as it's called stalking and rape, yet somehow it is virtuous to force in the context of other human relationships?
The "cure" seems even less civilized than the problem. It is using aggressive force against people who act peaceful (although distastefully in some cases).

Everyone should be able to drive the fastest car.

Having your property searched (trespassed on by police) is different than not getting a loan. You own your house. You don't own the bank's money.
If police were not a privileged monopoly, they would owe restitution for bad searches, just like a trespasser does. But given that it is a monopoly, we try to rein its power in with rules.

The idea that the world is better or more rational by ignoring rational inferences is mistaken. Take for example the effort to "ban the box" (which means employers don't get to ask if you're a felon). Although such legislation are intended to help black people, but the the results appear to have been opposite [1].
People (including employers, creditors, insurers, retailers, ...) try to evaluate risks as best they can. If you make them blind to a signal, but they are unwilling to increase their risk tolerance, they will behave more conservatively, not less. They will decrease their service and use even cruder methods to control their risk.

[1] http://phys.org/news/2016-06-e...

Counting deaths is the wrong measure. The average number of days lost is more typical and informative to evaluate the impact of such problems.
I tried to find the paper for this WHO study, but couldn't find it. Pointers appreciated.

This US data is a big dated but useful as order of magnitudes:
Plane crash (200 deaths a year, 1 day lost per average person), house fire (18 days), pesticides (16000, EPA: 27 days), air pollution (50.000, 61 days), crime (26.000 murders, 113 days), driving (43.000, 182 days), smoking (5.5 years lost for average smoker), poverty (7 to 10 years lost).

It is also useful to point out to people who freak out when they read such headlines that air pollution was far worse in the past. From soot to manure particles, not to mention unsanitary housing, there are reasons why life expectancy has increased dramatically (although, water and food sanitation, as well as waste disposal were bigger factors).

Consider how cheap cellphones are helping pretty much everyone (even the poorest) across the world, with communication, texting services and payment.
Or real-time translation, educational resources, or even sign language.
Not to mention drug design, logistics, financial services, weather forecasts, ... The list goes on.

It sounds like the majority of people don't share your priorities or preferences, as their actions demonstrate. Resolving the problems that you care about are not on top of their ranking.
Maybe you should persuade people to see your way. Instead of some spending that you think is not essential, they should spend their money on some more worthwhile project.
For example, I like Literacy Bridge, which is a device to spread important knowledge in remote and under-developed regions of the world.

"Literacy Bridge saves lives and improves the livelihoods of impoverished families through comprehensive programs that provide on-demand access to locally relevant knowledge. At the heart of the programs is the Talking Book, an innovative low-cost audio computer."

There are recurring political strategies: (1) under-budget and over-promise, (2) spread the money in every jurisdiction.

The first one makes it easier to get the foot in the door. You'll have a fantastic plane with a gazillion features, but it will only cost a few millions over a couple of years.
A few years later, when the plane barely flies and a bunch of millions have already been spent, the second strategy comes into play. Not only is it really hard to resist spending "just a little bit more" when you're "this close to being done", but it is really hard to stop spending once you have concentrated interests that have their livelihood depending on the pork.

On the other hand, biomass has been increasing, arable footprint is likely to shrink, people are better fed and live better, no shortage of wilderness.
http://www.econtalk.org/archiv...

Let's ignore all the known problems mentioned by other commenters (such as the Mises' economic calculation problem, Hayek's knowledge problem, and other incentive problems, which you can read more about in [1]) for a moment.

Try it:
1. Buy a piece of land, organize as a commune with a master computer program and plan.
2. Because your commune will work so well (very effective production and happy participants), you'll be able to expand.
3. Take over the world (peacefully)!


[1]: https://mises.org/library/end-...

EPA
PNAS

Raise some money and buy a redistributable license to the content. Alternatively, purchase or take over the company.

More generally, I must call out what appears as a contradiction: (1) this content is extremely valuable, (2) I'm not willing to pay anything for it (it should be zero-dollars-free).

"it represents a potential assault by Tesla Motors on the right of vehicle owners to report defects to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's complaint database"

I have a right to drive a car. Which means I have the right not to drive a car, or not to drive one conditionally on some contract.
In other words, a right is not a right if I don't get to decide whether to exercise it. If a person agrees based on some conditions not to exercise a right, there is no "assault on his rights".

It's well known that greedy capitalists like to sleep on beds of Rupees, so India definitely should be scared of those Rupees not getting spent.
After all, even if the only place Rupees can be spent is India, they might get trapped in one of those beds, which would mean that those Indian consumers would essentially be getting iphones without having to pay them back with any real resources (only some bits of paper or electronic bits)... That's tough...
[/end sarcasm]

Yes. Unfortunately, most of the recent bills passed to fight actual slavery (including sex slavery) have been used to fight sex work instead.
With legalized prostitution, it is much easier to help actual trafficking victims escape. This is the real harm of conflating trafficking/slavery with sex work.

As this article titles: The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs. And the results will be just as disastrous, for "perpetrators" and "victims" alike.
http://reason.com/archives/201...