>It's 2015. Why does transferring money in the US take more than a minute and a few cents? I transfer money via ACH all the time for $1 per transaction.

Manual wires are different, and have a lot of costs associated with them. There are people involved, not just data being pushed.

Yes, but you claiming that it must be cyclical to be truly organic... well, "No true Scotsman..." seems to apply.

You are co-opting the term organic to mean something extra.

Reddit was started as an experiment in free speech.

Wait, what?

I recall Alex coming on Slashdot a lot to promote Reddit when he first launched it. "An experiment in free speech" was not anything I recall being discussed. I also remember him posting on Slashdot while still developing reddit.

What I recall, is promotion of a general interest platform that was more open than Slashdot (unlimited moderations for all!) and less susceptible to vote brigading than Digg.

It was while ago, so I may be a bit foggy on the specifics.

I think what the Libertarians fail to realize is that farmers, as a general rule, are not smart enough to diversify or maintain course.

First, I think that's a ridiculous assertion. Smart farmers don't diversify because the taxpayers bear the risk of their crop failure, or of crashing prices; they have insufficient incentive to diversify.

Second, if we had a true free market, dumb farmers would go out of business and we would be left with smart farmers allocating resources efficiently. Isn't that the point of economic libertarianism?

Note: I am far from libertarian.

What do you mean by cyclical? Do you mean the livestock/fertilizer/crop/fodder cycle? Do you mean crop rotation? Or something else entirely?

Just curious, since I'm not aware of either cyclical production or crop rotation being a requirement for organic farming (although both are considered best practices).

He's been at it for years. Don't feed the troll.

It's also a terrible measure because giving to a church is not always the same as giving to a charity. Not saying that all churches aren't charities, just that some spend quite a lot less on charitable works than some other charities.

Not very familiar with trademarks, huh?

You're referencing a character who first appeared on the Simpsons in the 90s... before SAP software as a class even existed.

What? ERP systems have been around since the 70s... SAP released R/2 in '79. If you're talking about R/3 (when they introduced server-client architecture), it was released in 1992.

Today, you usually know who's calling before you answer. It may be appropriate to take a call if it's more important than the meeting. If you're in sales, a call from a major customer is probably more important than a meeting.

Sure, but not in the meeting. Excuse yourself, and explain it's an extremely important customer call that absolutely cannot wait.

And even if this is the case, you're still being rude... just with an excuse. The call may be more important to you, but the other people in the meeting? You're wasting their time.

If you've blocked out time for a meeting, don't take calls during that time. It's rude and unprofessional.

Note: This is for orgs that have effective meetings. If your meetings are generally unproductive, it may be a different story...

Part of the list of things I go over with my new hires is basic business etiquette. I spend at least an hour per employee on it. The most annoying thing I find is people who have a mother/father/significant other who expect them to always answer the cell phone when they call it. My experience is that a lot of people we hire have never worked in a professional atmosphere before... I'm not sure if this is because of our hiring practices, or is because of the general habits of today's younger workforce. If I am in a meeting I scheduled, and someone my rank or lower answers their phone, I almost always immediately end the meeting, to be rescheduled later. I run meetings so as to waste the minimum amount of time required for everyone; I expect the same from others. The public shaming seems to work well at my current workplace.

Sure they are, but that doesn't stop 90% of people from filing on time, or at least filing for the automatic extension. For that matter, nearly every church in the country manages to do the same.

Actually, churches are an exception. Churches that have been granted 501(c)3 status as a church under 170(b)(1)(A)(i) are not required to file information returns with the IRS. They get special treatment.

Taking a two-decade-old trend is not cherry-picking.

It can be cherrypicking when there are cyclical trends whose period is longer than 20 years.

I didn't make any kind of judgment about the assumptions, sorry if you took it the wrong way.

It was a feeble attempt at a joke, playing on the multiple meanings of "pass". I guess it wasn't obvious enough.

Hammurabi, benevolent as he may have been, didn't have to "pass" anything. He simply decreed it.

Assumption 1: Hammurabi was personally responsible for all laws under his reign
Assumption 2: Taxes singling out specific types of businesses are shit.

Reasonable Conclusion: Hammurabi did, indeed, "pass" that tax specifically targeting breweries.