Yes but now privacy geeks like me will object to being tracked even more by Facebook and Google.

Good point. That could be a problem. :-)

Considering that pilots are not flying their entire lives but only in the years in which they are in physically good shape; considering that they are not literally starving or severly dehydrated the chances of a pilot passing out or fainting - and except for drug and alcohol use - is much less than once-in-a-pilot's-flying-lifetime.

But even if my vote did actually count, I wouldn't buy the limited government line. It's never going to happen.

The government was much more limited (comparatively so) 20 years ago. While I don't think we'll ever get to a government as promoted by von Mises, Hayek, Rothbard or Samuelson it doesn't mean that I should not promote the concept of individual freedom and actively promote those factions within the 2 parties that would help push the country in that general direction.

The people in power and the people trying to push the country in one direction or the other are not identical. There is a party in which there are some trying to limit the size of the party who have been elected to political office.

There is another party (including almost all of its supporters) which has contempt for limited government.

As to making the government smaller - no it is rarely done. But what would you have done? Nothing?

I guess you and I have different definitions of "conservative." What does conservative mean to you?

Which of the two political parties in America want to roll back Imperial Washington?
Which of the two political parties wants an ever larger, ever more powerful government and which one has a large percentage of people who want to go to a government with limited powers as enumerated in the US Constitution?

It will take root in professional services (surgeons, architects, etc...) and if it never makes it into the consumer market for one reason or another (say privacy concerns) it matters not. Google glasses (or some variant) has it use and will remain.

GPA != intelligence and never has been. A "C" in organic chemistry shows more intellectual work and more capacity to do work than does receiving an "A" in basket weaving.

The real issue is that this will require investment in research and that means not making a profit in the next 3 years, which is about the duration of how far a CXO looks.

And yet money is being invested. How do you account for that?

use taxes != socialism. As a matter of fact Rand, Hayek, Rothbard and other proponents of free markets were also in favor of use taxes.

What's next? The government is going to tell us what to eat? Or force us to buy services or products we don't want?

So, then the definition of a free market only comes from it's detractors who come up with straw men definitions?

Free markets is not synonymous with anarchy. Believe it or not governments and courts ARE part of free markets, and the markets ARE supposed to pay for these government services through fees.

Black markets often exist because of government foolishness (banning alcohol) and sometimes because an action is prohibited due to use of force: ie sx slavery. Governments, from a free market perspective, exist to redress fraud and violence and not to enforce morality or use business transaction fees to set up a patron-client relationship with sections of the populace.

Anarchy != free markets.

NOBODY that's a proponent of free markets considers Black Markets to be models. Find where Menger or von Mises, or Hayek or Rothbard or Rand considered the black market to be something to emulate - a model, so to speak, of Free Markets.