Mod parent up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

After 2001-09-11 when the entire aircraft fleet was grounded, we saw a rise in sunlight (and temperatures).

This might be the first time I've ever heard anyone suggest that no lines at a government facility are a bad thing.

The Internet is a proper noun.

They have a network of some sort; it is effectively not the Internet.

You can't say "We provide Internet access!" and then deny access to a range of TCP/UDP port numbers. You might be able to say "Web connectivity!" (and I have no problem with this), but not Internet.

... because it wouldn't have happened if the FCC would just get their act together and enforce Net Neutrality, dammit! /s

Much of the problem is this is encoded into law in US banking regulations, including money laundering laws, the USA PATRIOT act, and the Check 21 Act that defined the now-antique process of electronic checks, and happens to make US checking horribly insecure without any legal fix (a very good example of why not to encode technical standards into law).

Banks wouldn't get any particular advantage over repeal of much of this regulation (except maybe the PATRIOT parts, which directly makes banking less accessible to customers), so they're probably not fighting for it. And to the contrary, it raises barriers to entry into the market and encourages vendor-lock in (I can transfer money within a company instantly; between banks takes 2-3 days).

It derives from cinema, where 2k projectors output 2048x1080: 16:9 productions still use a 1920x1080 subframe, but most movies are either in 2.40:1 or 1.80:1 which is wider than 1920x1080, hence the extra width supported by digital cinema projectors.

Somewhere along the line, someone figured 2160p was too strange a number to use for consumer 16:9 televisions, so they went with "4k" by which to mean "16:9 in a 4k frame."

You just need to track down a peer who's a member of the network, and you need to be able to get packets to them. Any peer will do; doesn't matter who or how much you trust them.

How is any part of that 'centralized'?

The very worst that can happen is you never get to download your file, or your payment never makes it to the vendor, if you have a bottleneck through your ISP, and your ISP decides to cut your service... but that's not a fault of the protocol, that's a fault of physics. If you have any connection at all to the network, Bitcoin and Bittorrent will work.

Just google "But who will build the roads?" and you'll find all the explanation you need. And anecdotes like this this:

"Who will build the roads?" is a question that belongs at the top of every libertarian drinking game. If we didn't have state coercion, the argument runs, there would be no roads. There'd be a Sears tower over there, and your house over here, and everyone involved would just be standing there scratching their heads.

(fwiw, we had private roads all throughout American history, and in fact the first government-funded transportation in North America was water canals.)

Please note the distinction between ethics and morals. The former is always objective. No matter who you are, no matter what race you are, it's always wrong to kill, steal, defraud, or otherwise initiate violence. The laws written down are just a codification on how to establish justice. They might vary, but they're all pretty good substitutes for each other. Some locales might have slightly different understandings: In the US, you're expected to pay for you food after you eat it; and not knock on people's doors at unreasonable hours of the night, so there might be a law saying "no unsolicited knocking on doors after 22:00". These are fine.

Morals, by contrast, are something we learn after reading a bedtime story. Probably good advice, but not necessarily true, depending on the person's exact situation. Don't go into excessive debt is my favorite.

The issue is never about government per se, but it's about rule of law. The Framers intended the Federal government to be as close to anarchy as possible while keeping rule of law, and indeed that is the only ethical thing is can do. If the government is indeed a government of the people, it can't do anything that one person couldn't do by themselves.

For this reason it's impossible to add "unlawful" to the definition of "theft" because then by definition, the government can't steal. This directly contradicts the notion that the government is accountable to the people. Theft is theft. If I own it, and it's taken from me against my will, it's theft, period.

If it's absolutely necessary to have some theft in order to keep rule of law for everything else, fine. But don't pretend that the trillions of dollars spent on warfare, welfare, and bailouts is protecting the rule of law in the slightest bit.

The stock market reaching record highs in the face of a bigger money supply is called inflation. That's a Bad Thing(TM).

It doesn't increase our productive capacity, but instead it's a form of theft from people who have savings (people who fund large capital projects), to the benefit of people who receive the money: typically banks, the government, the politically well-connected (in that order).

How about nobody steals from anyone?

Also, your anecdote is nice, but in reality there's very little evidence to suggest higher taxes means more prosperity. Prosperity is very strongly correlated with rule of law, however, which requires a minimum of taxes, if any.

If you think the government is the most efficient spender of your money, I have sad news for you. I scarcely have time to discuss the wars, failed projects, spying, or hell, the fact New York prosecutors couldn't even get a an indictment for police officers who killed a guy they said wasn't paying taxes. Killed a guy for not paying taxes, as a result of a direct order to NYPD to crack down on tax evasion. If he were smoking a joint it would have merely been a summons! But I digress.

No, the fact of the matter is without cost and revenue, there is no profit or loss, and we can't know if we're efficiently allocating resources or just wasting them. All other industry except government would collapse if they squandered resources as much as the government does. Yet they do it. Over and over again.

All other industry has to buy inputs - raw materials, labor, capital - and combine it and sell the result for a higher price than they bought it for, hence producing value. The government just shoves a gun in your face.

Anyways, if you're happy with giving away your money like that, then cut the damn check yourself. You most certainly don't speak for all of us, though.

That has to be the longest ad hominem I've ever read.

Very carefully, taking as little as possible.

If necessary at all: Also note that the US had no income tax until 1913.

Said worker didn't have any guarantee of employment, did they? No?

No one is stopping them from getting another job, right?

But they are seeing the benefits of increased marginal productivity of the workforce, in the form of lower prices. For the working class, you think that would be a good thing.

Your alternatives are (1) require people to hire employees (um, that's called slavery); or (2) prohibit companies from buying capital goods. Which is, like, 100% of the reason we have modern technology. But hey, enjoy your horse and buggy!