There is no "social contract."

This is all good. But first, how about simply removing the caseload by dramatically reducing the number of laws making stuff a crime like smoking a joint or even drug dealing? The funny thing about legalizing drugs is that "drug dealing" (all the bad aspects, gangs, thugs on the street corner, etc.) would go away. There would be hard drugs available from the pharmacist in bottles that look like they came from a chemical company (which they did) and legitimate businesses and www sites for soft drugs like cannabis. Now people doing legitimate economic activity would be able to participate in society instead of having to resort to a criminal underworld.

Legalize prostitution as well.

"Legalize" isn't even the right word for much of this. The correct answer is "rescind all laws pertaining to..."

And what's this shit about prosecuting kids for messaging nude pics. of themselves? It would be laughable if it weren't so sinister. Images of body parts cannot be a crime. Only kidnapping (to forcibly or deceptively gain access to someone to rape or photograph them against their will) can be a crime.

A human being's birthday suit cannot be a crime!

One more thing about prostitution for ex.: People whine that "I don't want that to go on in my neighborhood." Well fine, have a law that says you can be threatened with being charged with trespassing if you engage in such and such activity in the following private/public space. In other words, make it a matter of respecting private property, or cooperatively owned and administrated property (ie., the sidewalks and streets on our block).

But many laws are basically criminalizing things that someone finds aesthetically unpleasing. Like guys boinking each other in the butt holes. Gives me the creeps. But it's none of my business if they are doing it in private.

What about having a way for the people to vote directly to veto any law?

How about also automatic culling of case law more than say, 10 yrs old?

How about a Constitutional Amendment which requires that all laws pertaining to the ordinary citizen occupy no more than the front and back of a single letter sized page, in 10pt font, with 0.75in margins, with no more than 1/3 of the total printable area consumed by 8pt footnotes. The penalties for violating laws may consist of a single additional page, printed front and back subject to the same constraints as above.

Small businesses may be subject to laws+penalties comprising an additional 9 double-sided pages. Corps. may be subject to laws consisting of 90 additional pages, etc. Corp. law may refer to standards documents of unlimited size. Corps. and basically anyone may participate in standards setting bodies.

If you are out of space and want to pass a new law you are tough out of luck unless you rescind an existing law.

There, we've just reduced the entire CFR to a max. of 100 pages!

How about a citizen's grand jury, with the power to literally abolish government, incrementally (your local police dept. out of line? Vote them out of existence!) down to the Constitution if need be. This entity is empowered by the fact that it holds title to the National Bank upon which all gov. checks must be drawn, thus it can ultimately, if a vote of >50% of the adult population is collected to do so, completely shut down the Federal Gov. (likewise per state, municipality, etc.) by simply liquidating the Nat. Bank, thereby removing the government's ability to collect taxes or to issue debt.

This can in fact be a default outcome (sort of a dead man's switch) if the government fails to prosecute one of its own for charges brought by the citizen's grand jury (if the .gov is stupid enough to let it get this far by not prosecuting lawlessness within its ranks on its own volition.)

All laws must be written in common language. There may not be any meanings to words that the common man cannot garner by looking up words in a standard dictionary.

I'm just warming up. There are many, many more possible ideas for how to use the democratic process to restrain government. I'm usually dismayed by how utterly consistent nearly everyone's thinking is about all matters political. Hardly an original thought to be found.

I'll finalize with a few more ideas: It's likely provable that elected representatives who win popularity contests are far more likely to govern poorly than citizens selected completely at random. So I propose just that! But first there is another problem--how to solve one of the primary and legitimate complaints of libertarians: taxation is stealing!

Fixing this isn't that difficult. There shall be two kinds of citizens: 1. citizens; 2. lawful permanent residents. Everyone in those two categories can opt in to citizenship at any time, or opt. out to permanent resident status (at most once per year). Permanent residents shall have NO societal obligations except to not break criminal laws. No taxes, jury duty, draft, reporting requirements, etc. So it will be possible to just live on your land somewhere never interacting with government, and not wind up in administrative violation. This is not presently possible--which is absurd in a "free" society.

However, permanent residents must pay for all services used and they may collect no social benefits not paid for (this does not preclude voluntarily *purchasing* government sponsored "social security" insurance. It's as simple as that! You drove on the county road for 442 miles this month, you just pay the monthly bill, or toll, or whatever mechanism is set up.

Citizens OTOH have the obligations of paying taxes, jury duty, draft (very unlikely, since war would be avoided except when actually attacked by enemies not self-created), and most interestingly: random selection to serve in what used to be elected government offices such as president, representatives, etc. There can be some constraints here, such as requiring certain classes of college degrees for President and so forth.

The point is that citizenship is voluntary, and carries both privileges and obligations. But it is not enslavement! You can opt out, and back in.

Permanent residence is NOT intended to be a 2nd class citizenship. Rather, it may be an essential feature in enabling people to do things such as retire abroad without all sorts of totalitarian fetters, or temporarily deal with a lengthy illness making you incapable of responding to jury duty, tax returns etc. for a couple years. Right now, simply being infirm can cause you trouble with the law! Free people should be able to disengage if they choose, and not run afoul of the law.

Finally, If the government has knowledge that a citizen or permanent resident is about to commit a crime, it is obliged to warn the person that they should cease and desist from continuing what they are doing lest they commit a violation. Also, no government officer may lie about the law to any citizen, p.r., visitor, etc. Most non-felony type violations should have only a warning as the penalty for 1st time offense.

Finally finally: No one may be forced from their property for any reason if they haven't been convicted of a crime. The .gov may recommend evacuation for ex. in case of natural disaster, may offer a ride, etc., but if someone chooses to stay, it is a crime to force them to leave.

This is the shit!

This is the important bit of history that needs to be read before anyone comments on how in the world all this happened.

This wasn't a fault of "science" per se, since "science" is the scientific method, which is logically sound.

The scientific establishment (you know, the part with the humans involved) combined with government (don't even get me started) is where the mess arose.

The fact is that when large professional associations start to become integrated with government because their "scientific" findings influence policy, then you instantly create a massive impedement to the scientific method's ability to correct errors.

But this sort of screw up couldn't possibly have any relation to global warming, or climate change, whatever it's called these days ;-)

Yes, the land area numbers are large. But we shouldn't stifle options such as solar because of falsely thinking that it has to be the sole replacement for all electrical production.

Single family homes seem to have enough roof area to power themselves via solar in most latitudes which are not disproportionately cloudy. This is a no-brainer. That leaves industrial use, which will be powered by the remaining mix of production.

The only solution is price--markets, and freedom--if I want to put up solar panels and de-grid, there should be no way for anyone to stop me. Note that I don't claim any "right" to be able to sell surplus power to the grid. That would have to be a negotiated, with access costs implied.

There are ways to enable markets better than what we've tried and proposed. We need "real" rather than totally synthetic, politically fabricated markets. True markets spontaneously emerge where property rights exist.

"Why should nearby property owners get a disproportionate say?"

Obviously, because risk and property damage potential are roughly inversely proportional to radial distance from the nuclear plant.

How about we give them a choice - ..."

In a civil society, there really is no choice about giving property owners a choice. For protecting life, liberty, and property is the only legitimate purpose of governance, no matter how that is implemented. Property owners out to some cutoff radius should be allowed to submit a vote (weighted inversely with radius) to permit or veto the construction of a nuclear plant.

This is the true point of democracy--geographically contiguous groups of property owners should be able to democratically administer the rights to use property in certain ways within their region. Democracy is illegitimate if it is voting on how much to take from a minority group at gunpoint, to give to a majority group, while a criminal gang gets to take a cut off the top. That is the "democracy" we practice now.

Coal plants are actually in a different category. Since they continuously pollute, they should have to pay royalties to the collective owners of the atmosphere. That's basically everyone on the planet, though there is a case to be made that due to circulation patterns, the payment should be weighted according to the statistical distribution of pollutants.

People should be issued a share of the atmosphere at birth. They may be traded freely once one reaches adulthood.

ALL pollutant emitters should have to pay, both individual and large scale. So the power plant will pay, that cost will be included in my bill. It will make the power expensive. Thus, a true market price (with externalities accounted for) will exist. Renewables and nuclear can compete on this basis.

However, the waste disposal for nuclear MUST also be accounted for!

When I buy gas, interestingly, the oil co. should owe no royalties. Since I will be the one doing the burning. So I will pay, reflected in the purchase price. But the royalties will partly get paid back to myself. This is fine. It also results in a true market price for the procurement and effective disposal of the pollutants resulting from burning the fuel. This will make it more expensive. But the royalties are not taxes, so they DON'T go to politicians who will squander them. They will go right back to the consumers.

This is fascinating because, some of the royalty cost cancels itself, but the increase in the effective market price of the fuel remains valid nonetheless! Government can't accomplish this. But they have a place in administering it--only to the extent of formalizing the definition and judicial administration of the property rights.

Excellant! You understand the difference btw. technical vs. political/human challenges, unlike 99% here.

It doesn't matter what can be done technically. The fact is, people will fuck it up. That is why complicated technology is sometimes the very wrong choice, when compared to simple technology. Nuclear is complicated, with potentially huge consequences for error.

I'm not anti-nuclear, but very libertarian/capitalist. I'm convinced that if nuclear's externalities were truly priced in, it would be 10-20x more expensive. Coal would be 4-8x more expensive. And the current crop of solar & wind (even combined with large scale storage), would be no more than 2-3x.

I seriously doubt the LD50 for coke is 80g. I nearly had a heart attack myself once from snorting a bit too much at one time (probably 0.2 to 0.3g), which made me gag and laid out on the floor barely able to breath since my throat was too numb plus my heart was racing. And I wasn't an inexperienced user. That was the 80s, real quality Pablo Escobar stuff. Fortunately, getting addicted to the stuff is highly self limiting. After about a year of escalating use (eventually smoking it) and depressing comedowns, the day arrived after which I never wanted anything to do with it again.

And we're going to remove government indemnification for nuclear power plants too, right? It's simple really--get rid of most of the regulations, in exchange for the requirement that the plants purchase private insurance to a degree acceptable to the nearby PROPERTY OWNERS!

Yeah, it'll be real cheap.

Yeah, it really is simple, huh? Now all you have to do it get humans to do it all correctly.

Certainly then, you can us the market prices to dispose of high level nuclear waste and to purchase insurance sufficient to protect the property owners to the affected radii of the various levels of accidents?

Otherwise, what you are really saying is that it's cheap if the government indemnifies the nuclear power industry and shoves the risk down the throats of property owners, who will never recover their losses if a real accident occurs.

As well as allowing the industry to leave the waste sitting above ground forever, potentially wiping out large swaths of land and/or humanity under various, very plausible scenarios that may occur on timescales that cover millions of years. But of course, you neglect responsibility for those possibilities.

I don't support neglecting the "external" costs of coal power production, either.

Because it's just using a crummy sound card, initially AC coupled, then some hacked DC coupled one.

This would be much more interesting with 20-50x the bandwidth, which a scope like this could deal with easily. That would require a good data acquisition (DAQ) card with high sampling rate D/A converters.

Some low-end analog CRT scopes (like my 20MHz B&K) don't include Z axis inputs. I'm contemplating hacking one on to mine, and also building a generic set of deflection amplifiers to use old electrostatic CRTs for "fun" vector scopes, but with serious video bandwidth of 5-15MHz not the 50-100kHz shit that's typical.

High-res. vector display requires high video bandwidth on all 3 axes, unlike raster which only needs MHz bandwidth for the video, 10s of kHz for horizontal, and 100s of Hz for vertical.

What if you have Tourette's Syndrome and yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater?

What if you did that and had Tourette's Syndrome before it was understood to be a neurological disorder?

It's broken in the USA too. Just look at the fact that they told us to eat low fat and high carbs for decades, until we're all obese and dying of diabetes.

So what funding incremental research seems to do, is create a high risk that if initial research results are flawed in subtle ways, the error might compound for a very long time before eventually getting corrected. The probability of this is of course amplified if entrenched interests develop as a consequence of the research, such as when governments give scientific associations (AHA, ADA, etc.) power to write regulations, sit on licensing governing bodies, while holding patents and other means of creating a self-incentive to become corrupt and work to avoid correction of scientific errors.

People are correct when they say that science is self-correcting. However, due to the fact that the practice of science is still done by humans, the amount of time it takes for any particular correction to occur may be unbounded.

Of course, there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with climate change science...