T-Mobile has pretty bad coverage. But if you don't mind paying a little extra for a smartphone (I believe even some non-smartphones support this) you can get one with UMA support, like Bold 9700, and wherever you have wifi (even abroad), you have cell coverage. You don't have to pay anything extra with T-Mobile. Some AT&T phones support this too, but I don't know if they'll bleed you dry for it.

Not if you clear cut the forest so that entire species get wiped out or troll the seas so that all that will be left are mussels and algae. Renewability requires that people who use the resource act within the natural restraints of the system. But anyways, as far as any aliens are concerned, so far, we may not have existed at all.

There is a recent case that shows the opposite. The FDA wanted to revoke the approval for Avastin for use in metastatic breast cancer threapy due to the severe side effects and almost no measurable benefits, not to mention the expense. But some people went hysterical claiming that the FDA is taking away a valuable drug (lot of name calling and mud slinging there) despite that fact that the drug only made you more miserable while the prognosis did not change. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000352/ http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/ucm193900.htm

You're refuting a argument of your own making. The OP said regulations are there to save lives, not so much money. That's just a hypothetical positive side effect. In this case what we're left with is wishful thinking. Wouldn't it be nice if I could get a heart transplant at the back of a Chinese restaurant for 200 bucks and live!

From Wikipedia: The United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) is a multi-part professional exam sponsored by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). Medical doctors with an M.D. degree are required to pass this examination before being permitted to practice medicine in the United States of America.[1]

Both FSMB and NBME are independent organizations much like UL. The doctors are tested by a third party. In licensing them the state simply verifies that they have passed the tests from these organizations. Getting back to the topic, no matter how much you wish you can get your broken finger completely fixed for mere 50 dollars by the hedge witch, reality may strongly disagree with you.

I think you are missing the point. Genetics only makes sense in light of evolution. While you may not have explicitly had a section called evolution, it is implicit and informs the entire topic of genetics or microbiology. Mutations and polymorphism, inherited diseases, phylogenetic releationship are all brought together by evolution. You do not need to spend a semester studying finches in Galapagos to discuss evolution, rather it is the best explanation for common phenomena such as antibiotic resistance, variation among individuals, etc. While the the word evolution may never have to be mentioned in a basic biology class, it is understood to be relevant. Furthermore, for advanced classes, evolution MUST be taught. The days of biology as simple observation and cataloguing are disappearing, instead much of current biology research focuses on modeling, and elucidation of the "big picture". This reseach is driven by an understanding of evolution. If you agree that we ought to teach children the best current understanding of a subject, evolution is unavoidable.

I'm not suggesting that the current way of things are right or that we continue keep doing it. I simply wanted to point out that people don't like to let go of things they have sunken time and money into. Fallaciously reasoned or not. If we are to change the way we live, it's only reasonable that we explore paths that do not require catastrophic changes. Agorism requires overthrow of present institutions. No one is willing to cede the power and position that they have acquired without a struggle. Neither are they going to allow such a dramatically different alternative to society to exist anywhere within their reach. The Soviets ticked off America from day one.

You may find that it is difficult to get people to accept that there are no authorities than not. If there are no explicit authorities then implicit ones will exist. It's simply that people who seem to know a thing or two will get listened to. (Sometimes.) Despite the assertion, telling the difference between good doctors and quacks is not an easy thing. Sometime the cost of that is your or someone else's life. A bad doctor is more likely to kill you than a bad sysadmin. I'm not trying to introduce fear, but I doubt that most people are willing to give up the certainty that they have now (whether valid or not) so they can supposedly have more freedom. And your solution seems to rely on the availability of perfect information, a fallacy if anything. Since no such thing exists.

I have lived in a place where your connections and likability are more important than the rule of law. If anything it's worse or equally bad as the cruel, cold, alienating society. At least they will leave you alone if you keep your head low. Without a proper outlet for people dissatisfaction (like lawsuits or appearance of justice) people will react violently.

The point is, the majority won't let you have your utopia. No matter how perfect and foolproof. They like what they have and know. They won't join it. And if you force them, one day the unenlightened will have their revenge (again look what happened to the Communists).

That idea seems equally misguided. The main purpose seems to create your own artificial tribe that is against most things that the society supports. One might be able to find meaning in that, but it's only a matter of time before the harsh reality catches up.

Yes, property taxes mean that you can never be secure in your home, but it is simply a side effect of what we have done. My parents' house is in the middle of a drained swamp. There are houses in Nevada that are in the middle of the desert. These modern houses and the people in them cannot survive naturally. Millions of dollars are needed to ensure that these houses don't sink into the swamp or disappear among the sand. The drains, pumping stations, etc. cost more money that one person or even a small group can muster. Primitive people built a small number of houses at the very few rare locations that were safe and survived floods and droughts. That meant fewer humans, today, people can choose to live in places that are naturally unfit for human occupation but it allows us to flourish (at least in numbers).

I don't believe that making yourself less powerful (as in forming a small group, which leads to loss of accumulated knowledge) does much for survival. If anyone can be a doctor and you don't know what a proper doctor should be like, you are more likely to be deceived by a charlatan. The fact is that there are assholes, and small groups are less powerful against them and they are also less powerful against the forces of nature. This Liberterian utopia, it seems, will turn into nightmare before you know it.

+1 for MediaTomb. I built it on Ubuntu and couldn't get the javascript stuff to work, so I wrote a shell script to enumerate my media and create organized folders with symlinks. cron runs the script at an interval and now I can have media group by the date they were added and such. Ideally either with the javascript or a shell script, one should be able to create multiple organizational schemes, based on filesname (or metadata--given cli tools exist to read them.) It may not be the sexiest way to organize things, but these days even the kitchen sink has DLNA support and being able to use your media anywhere is really nice.

PS: If you use Adobe Acrobat (the horror!) to read pdfs, in Preferences, in the Documents category, you can set it to 'Restore last view settings when reopening documents' which will 'bookmark' the books you're reading, very useful when reading long eBooks.

Actually, there is a significant Brazilian community in Japan