Troll summaries are the norm here. slashdot is the fox news of tech journalism. There should be an article moderation flag for "not a troll".

I used to work for an ISP in New York. The ACs always ran. Although maybe outside air exchange could have prevented that a few days a year,

Also, Morgan Freeman used it to get Batman out of China without taking the bat boots off for the TSA.

Perhaps its a matter of "whats the best course of action." He knows how to sell them. He knows how to give them away. He knows how to throw them out. He is looking for an out of the box solution, or third party moral justification for any of these actions.

So Lex Luthor ruined you on the idea?

Yeah The Oracle from Omaha should give away large chunks of his wealth to philanthropic causes. Oh wait . . .

I can't see a Hitler taking over the entire US by persuasion. The union would split up first, and a large chunk of the contiguous 48 states might be lead by a dictator. Said dictator might reunite the country via military conquest though.

I live in Jersey city (literally right across the river from manhattan). After taxes I pay just under $100 for the FIOS double play (phone and internet). It might get cheaper if I drop the land line, but I don't think I can do fios or cable for under $50.

I've worked at places without matches. Its not a guarantee. That being said, its worth the tax savings.

Lex Luthor finally gotten rid of that pesky illegal immigrant and can continue his real estate development!

Or wait for Indian cost of living and salaries to rise, while mean while manufacturing moves to third world states like Alabama.Be patient, everything is cyclical.

I actually agree with you that no government social safety net is the best. Your analogy is a little oversimplified, but your preaching to the choir. The one time I was laid off and out of work for two weeks I took neither state unemployment or my companies severance package. If I was out of work for an extended period I'd take the private charity of the severance package before I took unemployment. However, accepting the current system as it is, or privatizing unemployment insurance, I do think that a system based on income makes the most sense. I also think that yes if I was a charity that offered some sort of handouts besides basic food or shelter, I might consider allowing a millionaire whose donated to my cause to "make a withdrawal" under certain conditions.

First of all, you were a rare edge case, so I don't think its "ridiculous" that you qualified for handouts. Your a really strange edge case if you're floating R&D people and your accountant told you not to pay yourself a salary at all for 2010. I think that if every person in America that was in your boat took advantage of the hand outs, its effect would be negligible. Secondly, lets say you continued to operate this way until you lost the house and car, wouldn't it be nice to know that you could just walk down to the benefits office and file for benefits.

Playing devils advocate, assume some portion of these athletes manage to keep enough of their fortune at age 35 so that when they have all sorts of weird medical issues then can travel to Sweden for all sorts of weird expensive treatment. Lets go on to assume that some of this treatment works, and has application in the sorts of diseases that sometimes normal people get.

I'm not saying I'm necessarily for this, I'm just saying there could be positive unintended consequences.

So you are suggesting:

• There is zero genetic component to intelligence. Nurture has a lot to do with it, but I find it hard to believe there is no genetic component. I've seen a lot of variation between siblings, but if we consistently remove the above average IQs from the gene pool, that can't be good long term.
• That we force these dumb people to give up their kids to be raised by smarter people. While we are at it we somehow convince smarter people to adopt. Even if you started mandatory education at age 3 and kept the kids all year for 10 hours a day, parents are still a big influence. I don't know how you'd do that.