Comment Re:This FIRST example? (Score 1) 74
Uhm... Aphids ARE multicellular.
So, what else will you meekly accept as the majority's will? 100% taxation for anybody, whose Slashdot username begins with "Cyber"? People of certain skin color not allowed to own a computer? See, certain things aren't — nor should be — up to the majority...
That's an argument from absurdity. You see, we have a framework of mutually agreed obligations (we call the "laws") and a process to change them. They are not perfect but they are much better than nothing.
And the framework that you propose quite demonstratably leads to a fucking mess. Yet you persist on forcing it upon everyone. Why? Are you a communist or something?
If you have a connection for a gas stove, you are paying for the connection and the ability to use it. If I traveled for a month I'd not be using my water connection, but it is still connected and it is still available for use with the turn of a tap.
And how is that different from the fast Internet connection?
You want another example? I have lots! Last month my council decided to fund a new park. By your standard it should be a commercial park with fee paid each time you step inside. You see, not everyone will use this new park!
If you think the fees will go down, you're naive. Since your argument depends on an impossibility, your argument fails.
Not true. My new housing development paid quite a bit of money to connect to the electric grid. Once the connection fee was paid (about 4 years) the monthly electricity bill went down. So yes, it happens a lot. So your argument fails.
But just for the sake of argument, let's assume a miracle happens, a green unicorn runs the city and the fees go down. Should newcomers pay the lower fee? OF COURSE. Two reasons. First, their tax dollars paid for the initial build, too.
Certainly. IF the buildout was financed from taxes then everyone is entitled to the same low fee. However, what if it was financed only by the initial subscribers? What should be done in this case?
When you eventually get service, you will pay THE SAME RATES EVERYONE ELSE DOES
No. You don't get it. The cost of fiber optics is basically a $lotsofmoney to dig trenches and lay the backbone fiber. Then it's a couple hundreds of bucks to connect your apartment/home to the nearest point of presence. That's why most of the subscriber fee will go towards repayment of the initial $lotsofmoney lump. Once it's repaid the subscriber fee can go down a lot. Should the newcomers pay the low fee?
But Toyota, Honda and BMW pay taxes to America only on their profits in America. Ford and GM pay taxes to America on their worldwide profits. This is a HUGE incentive for companies to be non-American, and base their headquarters (and the well-paying jobs that go with it) somewhere else.
If these cars are not American then they are not produced in America and so taxation change doesn't cause any issues. If they ARE produced in America then they should pay taxes here. And competitiveness argument is bogus - it won't affect cars exported from the US and for the domestic market it will simply level the playing field.
The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.
