it is very much the definition of the opposite.

Wow... a desire for individual liberty is the "very definition of the opposite" of the principles upon which the USA was founded. Not only that, you are saying that you know what I believe, and you know with 100% certainty that my beliefs lead to disaster. And it is so obvious that you are right and I am wrong that it is "mindboggling", "hypocracy", etc.

It is clear that attempting to have a conversation with you is just a waste of my time.

Have a nice life.

steveha

We don't have any kind of "shields" technology, so a laser is a pretty useful weapon in space. You can aim it from a long distance, you can overheat just one spot on a target, and you can reuse the laser once you get it into space. So there is likely a place for lasers in near-future space combat.

And with the kinds of speeds that things travel in space, even small masses can wreak major harm if the vectors are opposed. If you can fling a cloud of ball bearings where a satellite's orbit will take it into collision, you can likely destroy the satellite pretty cheaply. So I'm definitely not ruling out some sort of kinetic weapons.

But the space weapons that are sufficiently non-classified that I have been able to read about them are all missiles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

I think for the near future, any space combat will be anti-satellite operations. For example, if the USA were fighting a land war, and the enemy could take out the GPS satellites, that would put a crimp in the high-tech armed forces of the USA. (A crimp only. As far as I know, they still train in the use of map and compass, and not all guided weapons are GPS-guided.) So I pretty much figure the first actual space combat might be someone knocking out GPS satellites. (I don't think Iran can do it, but they might try to pay someone else to do it.)

steveha

in prison the treatment is to some extent under the control of everyone while the alternative puts them at the mercy of the slavemaster with little oversight, or no oversight at all if government has been trimmed back that much.

This thought is not startling and new to me.

On the one hand, I see the appeal of making the bad guy work to benefit his victims. And in theory, maybe as he works he can become a better person (our current prison system is abysmal at actually rehabilitating anyone). But on the other hand, it seems fraught with potential for abuse. If you let companies bid for intentured service involuntary contractors, the high bidders might be the real bastards who will really abuse their indentured servants; it might end up being "cruel and unusual" punishment, to coin a phrase. And what if the companies start cooking the books, shortchanging the indentured servants to extend the amount of time they have to work before they get free again?

And if a libertarian says that prisons are degrading to the human spirit, how about the effects of a sort of slavery?

Anyway, you know by now that I think it's a very naive philosophy

And yet my philosophy is pretty much the one upon which the USA was founded. It worked pretty well for quite a while. It wasn't perfect, of course, but our current system is pretty far from perfect and I think we could improve things if we steer the ship of state more toward the libertarian direction again.

steveha

I have been wondering for a while now whether it might be practical to equip trains with little automated drones, which fly ahead of the train. The idea is to spot dangerous obstructions before the train gets too close to stop.

My original idea was some sort of little train car that ran on ahead of the train. You would have to make it able to carry enough fuel to run for a long-enough length of time, yet not be so massive that it has too much momentum to stop itself in time before its cameras see an obstruction.

But some sort of lightweight flying drone might be even better, flying ahead of the train looking down with a camera. The train could even carry several drones and they could change shifts automatically as they need refueling.

This only makes sense if the operational costs of the drones are cheaper than the expected cost of a train crash (expected cost: odds of a crash multiplied by cost of a crash). If it ever happens, it will be done first on trains with exceptionally dangerous cargo (refined petroleum, nuclear waste, whatever).

steveha

The Intel compiler, widely regarded as the best compiler available for x86, still produces code designed to make Intel chips look better than any others.

http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=49

That page was posted three years ago. Scroll to the bottom, and read the latest additions to the discussion there: "New Intel compiler version - still the same!"

http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=49#179

This makes it difficult to be sure how much better Intel chips really are than AMD chips. When the Intel chip scores higher on a benchmark, and the benchmark includes Photoshop, was the Intel chip actually better or was Photoshop compiled with the Intel compiler?

Sadly, I think Intel chips really are better now; given that Intel is leapfrogging past AMD on process technology, they have major advantages so their chips ought to be better.

But I still buy AMD. Yeah, I'm giving up some increment of performance... but the chips these days are so fast, I can survive on only 90% performance or whatever. And I prefer to avoid doing business with a company that continues to sell a compiler that sabotages performance on competitor's chips.

Personally, I would love to see AMD sell a line of processors that return "GenuineIntel" for the CPU ID, and thus run Intel compiler code at full speed. When Intel sues them, they can argue that this is necessary for full compatibility with the code produced by Intel's own C compiler. (Yeah, I know. It will never happen. It's a fun daydream but that's all.)

Even if AMD doesn't have the top performing chips, they continue to score very well on price/performance, and the performance is good enough for me. And they are less evil than Intel. So I remain an AMD customer.

steveha

If you remove the majority of government control what do you think moves in to take that control?

Since I am a "minarchist" and not an anarchist of any stripe, I am not proposing to remove all government control. I actually think control of pollution is one of the legitimate things government can do.

Yes, those links provide what you think it the definition is but there's a hell of a lot of loud voices that shout for something completely different, so that's as irrelevant as claiming that "gay" only means being happy. It's at the point where the label is contradictory.

Hmmm. So what you are saying is I need to pay attention to all the people who claim to be libertarians, and if some threshold is reached, I need to invent a new term for the same thing so that I can distance myself from the crazies?

Suppose a group of crazy people start calling themselves "the Democrats". Then suppose that some actual members of the Democratic Party start saying "not all Democrats are crazy"... is your reply going to be "my whole point is a lot of people call themselves Democrats"?

So it's not enough for you that I post links where you can read about libertarianism and its philosophical underpinnings. I can't call myself a libertarian anymore, because you have decided that "libertarianism" is just some false flag in which bad people wrap themselves.

I disagree.

the "indentured servitude" bit really shows what sort of person you are.

Really? Or maybe you just don't know what I'm talking about.

First, go back to the top of the thread and find exactly where I wrote "and by the way I think the whole indentured servitude thing is a great idea and better than our current situation." Good luck with that because I didn't say that.

Second, since you clearly have no idea what that was about, I'll explain it. Under our current system, if you cause someone harm, you can get put into a prison, potentially for life. Some libertarians oppose the idea of prison; for one thing, they think it is stupid to tax the law-abiding to pay the expenses of looking after the criminals (feeding them, etc.), but more to the point, they think that prison is demeaning to the human spirit. So these libertarians look for economic punishments. The idea is that if Mr. Evil CEO approves of dumping poison into water, he will be liable. Money will be taken from him and given to his victims. If he doesn't have enough money to pay his victims, he will then become an indentured servant, forced to work, and his net income will be sent to his victims. If his crime was small (say, he stole some stuff from an apartment) he might work off his indenture in a couple of months; if his crime was large (say, he poisoned tens of thousands of people) he might wind up indentured for life.

So, is indentured service with wages going to the victims a horrible idea? Is it more horrible than prison? I'm not arguing for it or against it. But I'm not sure that just mentioning it in a parenthetical comment proves that I am a bad person.

steveha

Where's the court? Isn't the Government too small to be able to provide it because it's not getting any taxes from those Libertarians?

In the days before the Income Tax was passed into law, I believe that the US government got most of its revenue from import duties from international shipping. They had enough money to hire judges.

Some libertarians claim no government is needed at all. Others want a government, just a smaller one. So take it up with the former group to find out how society will function with no courts at all; I think that's a fantasy, personally.

Consider what removing the authority of government and instead having a nation led purely by the wealthy and their descendants does after a generation or two.

Okay, I considered it. Now you consider that your little scenario has nothing to do with libertarianism, which does not mean "rule by the wealthy". Perhaps it is your opinion that the one will lead to the other, but it is not a self-evident fact you can just assume.

Of course "Libertarian" really is nothing but a meaningless self applied title for those that don't want to be labelled for what they really are, no matter what portion of the political spectrum they sit on.

I don't even see any evidence that you actually know what the word means. Seems like you are painting all libertarians with a pretty broad brush here.

If you would like to know what libertarianism is actually all about, here's a short intro:

Key Concepts of Libertarianism by David Boaz

And if you are willing to read something long and detailed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

That means any criticism hits the "real Scotsman" problem

Tell you what, you read the links I provided, figure out what "libertarian" actually means, and then you can decide for yourself whether someone is really a libertarian or is just a selfish person wrapping himself in some sort of metaphorical flag.

steveha

If you have a society where the restaurant pays a third party, it is still in the third party's interest that the restaurant stay in business.

No.

It is in the third party's interest that the people continue to trust that third party to review restaurants. "Hey let's eat at Acme Restaurant." "No way, their sticker is from XYZ Ratings, and I just read on Huffington Post that XYZ Ratings takes kickbacks from dirty restaurants." If this happened, what restaurants would pay XYZ Ratings for the inspection service? An endorsement by XYZ would be valueless and XYZ would go out of business. Of course, during the time when XYZ starts taking kickbacks and before they get exposed, there is a chance for people to get sick, thus proving that no system is perfect. (Unless you want to claim that nobody ever gets sick eating at a restaurant in the USA today, thanks to the government inspections?)

But why am I confident that this could work?

Did you know that there is no USA federal agency that tests the safety of small electric appliances? It's handled by a third party organization called Underwriters Laboratories. It is a quirk of history that in the USA, the government tests restaurants for food safety but doesn't test electrical appliances. I personally believe that the UL model could work for evaluating food safety in restaurants. And if history had gone differently, maybe we would have "Food Labs" evaluating restaurants and a government agency rating the safety of toasters and such.

Plus, just as in the USA today, if you give food poisoning to customers they are likely to tell people about it.

But if the government gets involved, their livelihood isn't on the line, so they can be expected to expose the poisoning and the patrons seek treatment.

Now here's a question for you. When I was in high school there was a scandal where a fast-food restaurant chain served some hamburgers made with tainted meat. Several customers got really sick and I think about two people actually died. My question: How many government food inspectors were fired for approving that meat? I'm pretty sure the correct answer is: zero. Maybe they had a stern note put in their personnel files or something.

The fact that government is disinterested has negatives as well as positives. I'd rather have two or three independent "Food Labs" sort of places in operation rather than one government inspection infrastructure.

One last question for you: do you think that turning airport safety inspections into a government agency (the TSA) improved our safety in any meaningful way?

steveha

The right-wing media finds the tiniest little problem they can, and blows it up into some huge threat to our way of life. They twist the facts, and even invent new ones.

It's amusing that you are so specific: the "right-wing media" does this? Do you mean to imply that the left-wing media never does this? (By the way, most of the media is left-wing, so there are more people out there to do it on the left.)

Shall we look up a few articles on nuclear power, or the Citizens United court decision, or people Bush attempted to appoint as judges?

You do so yourself..

Actually, no, I don't. And I really don't appreciate the suggestion that I'm dishonest, especially given the fact that you don't even know me. Go ahead, click on my name, read through my posting history, then point out please where I have twisted facts or invented new ones.

I do try to be gracious when I make a mistake and someone points it out. I do not ever try to just flat-out lie.

None of the sources you cite give any indication that they sent "a note home to the mother, chiding her for not packing a vegetable in the lunch, and warning (threatening?) her that in future the school might start charging if they felt the need to stage such an intervention again."

It is possible I am mistaken on this point. When I heard the mother on the radio, she said she carefully scrutinized the note sent to her to make sure she wasn't being charged, and that she wasn't being charged this time. I had thought the note was sent home with the child in response to this incident, but perhaps it wasn't. She also expressed worry that the school would do this again, but charge her.

Listening to her, I had two theories: 0) she really doesn't have much money and scrutinizes every expense no matter how small; 1) she's really cheap, perhaps unreasonably so. I have no data to decide, and indeed it's possible both theories are true.

But in your mind, it's a "threat".

"If you send the child with an inadequate lunch again, we will feed the child and charge you money." In your mind, is that a "threat"? Or a "promise" or a "warning" or what?

It could turn out that I misunderstood the situation and the note she received did not in fact say this. But yes, I would view such note as a "threat".

You even use the same tactics as the demagogues, by putting a question mark after the word "threatening" so that you can say it without really saying it.

It's interesting to have my every word deconstructed with this level of care. Kind of a new experience for me, really.

Feel free to spend a few hours going through my whole posting history and deconstructing the rest of it. I'm curious what you will figure out about me. Maybe stuff I never knew about myself!

Even if the story were honest which it is not,

Do you deny the assertion that the lunches of 4-year-olds were being inspected? Do you think that the 4-year-old was not told her lunch was not adequate, and/or wasn't given additional food?

We can have a healthy debate on whether this is legitimately looking out for the best interests of the children, or whether it is intrusive nanny-state-ism. We can discuss whether 4 years old is too young for aggressive nutrition enforcement. But multiple people here on Slashdot completely dismissed this story as a fabrication by the right wing, or perhaps by lies told by a 4-year-old girl. I have a problem with that.

It would just be a one-off event due to someone making a mistake.

So, you are basically okay with state officials inspecting lunches of 4-year-olds, as long as nobody makes a mistake? By the way, what was the mistake here? As far as I can tell, the state followed its own rules. There was in fact no vegetable in that sack lunch.

I guess after the second or third time a child gets upset by being told his/her parents packed an unhealthy lunch, the child will learn to deal with it and we won't hear about it anymore. Then you won't have to see numerous such stories or grow concerned.

steveha

I thought that was the sort of stuff that libertarians hated -- laws that say what they can't dump into the land, what they can't dump into the water, what they can't dump into the air, etc.

Most libertarians, when discussing pollution, bring up the Tragedy of the Commons. If nobody owns a resource, everyone feels they can dump stuff on it or into it.

If someone owns the water rights, and I dump poison into their water, they can sue me for putting poison in their water. If we are living on a river, and he's downstream of me, his river water rights probably give him standing to sue me for dumping junk in the water.

The other tine of the fork is the option to sue for harm. If I sell tainted water, my customers can sue me for the potential or actual harm suffered.

But actually, you might have noticed that I never said that I personally believe that the pure libertarian society is perfect and likely to be problem-free. I just was bothered by the conflating of "libertarianism" with "desire for total anarchy".

I personally have conservative tendencies. If something has never actually been tried, I'm suspicious of it; that's one reason I don't really believe in anarchocapitalism. And I do not believe that the pure libertarian model can really solve everything; for example, I'm not sure that private roads are really as practical as government-owned roads. I do see a role for government in enforcing air quality standards; I am not a pure enough libertarian to think that somebody should own the air, or that people will always voluntarily do the right thing. ("People will shun you if you pollute" or whatever. Eh, ask an anarchocapitalist how that would work; since I don't believe in it, it isn't fair for me to try to explain it.)

An example I like to bring up: 19th-century technology proved sufficient for hunting some species of whales to extinction. 20th-century technology is sufficient for overfishing some species of fish to extinction. I personally believe government should regulate fishing to prevent this, and I am suspicious of libertarian daydreams that say the free market can solve that problem. (And if we just agree that Bill Gates owns all the oceans or something, he might prevent the overfishing but I'm not sure we would be better off.)

The government of the USA used to be a whole lot smaller and do a whole lot less. I personally believe that we could drastically slash the size and scope of government and net be better off, but I don't believe we can do away with government completely.

steveha