Many of Robert Heinlein works were truly Science Fiction. His characters' travels around the Solar System, for example, are described enumerating the challenges and details such travel are likely to have in real life. He also has several descriptions of human life outside of Earth — on Ganymede, on Mars, and on the Moon. None of the descriptions were patently unscientific, when they were written (knowing what we do now, he would not have described life on Venus as he did, of course).

He wrote many of such books for children (and published in children publications) or about children — so you can read them with/to your kids. The bonus is, such reading would not even seem like work — you are likely to truly enjoy it...

it's better for ten guilty men to go free than one innocent man to go to prison

I said nothing about "going to prison" — an overzealous pig would find nothing incriminating on my phone. It is not that "I have nothing to hide" — I do. But I have no evidence of crimes on my phone either. My dignity will suffer, sure, but I will not be imprisoned.

When the proverbial relation you quoted changes to "10 guilty men to go free than 1000 innocent men's dignity to be violated", the answer becomes less obvious...

the police have more than enough tools for catching criminals without needing to violate the constitution.

With this turn by Apple, the police have one less tool.

It sure is comforting to know, a pig would not be able to access the data on my phone until a judge agrees with him and orders me to divulge the PIN. Is such reassurance of dignity for millions of honest folks worth the increased chances for hundreds of criminals of getting away? Probably...

I work longer and harder than I want to

Could it be because you (or someone you love) want more and more things? A new iPhone, a better car, a nicer TV? But a single person does not statistics make...

allowing for extreme stratification of wealth

Allowing, huh? Is there something you'd like to disallow? Spell it out... And then explain, why it would be ethical for you to compel — with threat of arms — the more successful to share their wealth with you to let you work less.

For a long time, the Robin Hood of folklore was considered a hero for violating the private property of the wealthy for the benefit of those less fortunate

Sure. The beneficiaries of any action are always likely to consider the action "ethical". If you arguments are as tainted by an obvious conflict of interest as this one, you may want to reconsider your overall debating strategy.

I suppose, based on your ethical system, that you'd consider him a villain?

Like most other Illiberals, you got your Robin Hood analogy all wrong. He was not robbing "the rich" to give gifts to the poor. He was robbing the tax-collectors to return to the taxed. Sheriff of Nottingham was — Robin's main enemy — was not his target for his wealth, but rather because he was an agent of the oppressive government (of King John). He was no Che Guevara — if a Robin Hood-like figure were to appear today, you'd dismiss him with the derision you and yours have shown to the Tea Party.

And yet here we are, with you explaining to me that we need as large a percentage of our population to be working today as we did hundreds of years ago.

Nobody has to work longer — nor harder — than they want to. Everybody is welcome to work exactly as much, as they need to in order to be able to afford, whatever they want.

entertain a conversation about trillions of dollars given to the poor

Irrelevant. No one — not even a billionaire — can be ethically forced to give a crumb of bread to a starving infant. Convinced — yes. Compelled — no...

Irrelevant to what? His stated purpose was to make the public aware of what the NSA was doing

Irrelevant to the real — rather than potential — abuses of power by the government. For all the talk about NSA, none of the information they collected has been abused — not yet. The worst we've seen so far was the other law-enforcement agencies prosecuting people based on NSA-provided tips (and using "parallel reconstruction" to hide the tips), but none of those thus prosecuted has actually been innocent. The danger of real abuse is there, but it remains potential for the time being.

The actual abuse of the government power has taken place in a different Federal bureaucracy — one much dearer to Statists' hearts. For some reason, none of the people fighting that have made it onto cool T-shirts yet...

You people and your protestant work ethic. I just don't get it.

Neah, I'm a USSR-raised atheist, thank you very much.

Clearly the hundreds of billionaires we have in this country couldn't possibly afford to fund this kind of utopia

The cost of the "War on Poverty", since Lyndon Johnson first waged it 50 years ago, is 22 trillion of 2012-vintage dollars. That's more than all of the Republic's actual (as in military) wars cost combined. I don't think, the hundreds of billionaires could shoulder that kind of expense. They'd need help from thousands of millionaires — and millions of the rest of us. And even that would be insufficient — you'd need to borrow money from abroad...

But whoever wants to help others work less than their spending requires, is welcome to do it. My objection is to spending tax-monies (you know, the funds collected at gunpoint) on it. For it is not only stupid, it is also un-Constitutional — according to an educated opinion of one of the document's very authors:

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

—James Madison

people that otherwise couldn't afford it

Because for a person born and raised in America to be unable to afford Internet service (as well as a phone, vehicle, decent shelter, and food) is a shame. Millions of immigrants here — legal and even illegal ones — manage to not only do well for themselves, they are also able to support extended families back home. That's despite the culture shock, not knowing the predominant language very well, and — in many cases — dubious legal status.

But if you feel like continuing the failed "War on Poverty" for another fifty years — go ahead. Just don't force me at gunpoint (via the IRS, that is) to join you.

Because TCP is a separate driver, and tracks the TCP connections on its own. And in ISO-speak, TCP is in the Session layer, not the Network layer.

There are ways to do it without parading your "charitable attitude" in front of the world. "Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing," but in Bono's case, his right hand knows, and so do all of ours, whether we want to or not.

So you'll just accuse me of being "jealous." If having his resources goes hand-n-hand with being such an arrogant ass, I have no reason to envy him.

However, perfect information is never possible in the real world.

The growing proliferation of smart phones perfects the information access to the degree, where various governmental certifications are no longer necessary.

Without certification from a professional body, it would be very difficult for consumers to judge if a supplier is competent or not

The professional body itself need not be governmental. A consumer may not be able to judge the quality of electrical work, but comparing certification authorities is much easier. It will never be perfect, but it is unlikely to be worse than the current situation.