What about using animals to grow human organs? That's one of the main reasons to do any of this and it would be precluded by your suggestion.

The real power of the presidency is the bully pulpit. Bush Jr. used it to great affect. It's a shame his policies were so disastrous through.

As much as I liked "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Heinlein and "Earth" by Brin that aspect of the story always bothered me. Ultimately I think it is just an acknowledgment of the sentiment that utopia cannot be achieved by Human beings alone.

Super power is a new term, before WWII there were just world powers or (fading)Empires. The term super power came about due to the Cold War and the competing influences of the US and Russia across the economic(and real) battle grounds of the world.

Between WW I and WW II the US occupied a similar position to where China stands now.

What would be the incentive to invest and generate wealth in a deflationary economy? This is not a snarky comment, I'm genuinely curious why you say a deflationary model would be less painful.

Gold is in a bubble right now so it's kind of disingenuous to say "look how much value gold has gained relative to inflation, let's pin our economy on that".

I wish they had picked different wording. It's exactly the same as the pop ups you shouldn't click on.

Excellent article. His point on shields replacing agility is well taken.

Wonko is on to something here. Somalia isn't an example of utopian anarchist society, but that's only because real life gets in the way. Once we get rid of the "real life" problem all of societies' ailments will be solved! People will live in perfect harmony with their neighbors and no one will ever try to pursue their happiness to the detriment of others.

Also the world's energy problems will be solved because all of those theoretically 100% efficient models will work!

Clearly we must wage war on real life; I see there are several groups of people who have already started this process. Who to join...

Oh they're supremely competent... at gradually upping the invasiveness of their security theater. Scary passenger-thwarted shoe bomber! Take off your shoes. Scary passenger-thwarted underpants bomber. Go through this untested machine that takes naked pictures. Scary fictional pacemaker bomber! Defense contractors* profit.

*With connections to Chernoff.

Ajax considers sub-domain to be cross domain. GP is right.

So instead of seeking to prevent one person, the tyrant, from having that power you want to change everyone else's circumstances so that they have no incentive to follow a tyrant? This sounds suspiciously like socialism.

Except that one guy is not trying to feed his family but make millions of dollars. And he hiring thousands of people to do it using the collective money of millions of people. And those are the people that are trying to feed their family.

Sure it would be nice if everyone of those people said "Sure my kids will starve, but I can't go murder person for money". However the more realistic thing to hope for is that you nail the bastard causing the mess to the wall.

Airport security does not have to be this way as a matter of course. I reserve more blame for the one who shaped it, especially when that particular shaping ends in financial gain at the cost of the American people in terms of liberty and dollars.

Each security officer may have their "freedom gropes" weigh on their conscience, but this man should have every single one. There will always be people desperate enough to take distasteful jobs. However this man had the power to influence policy that few have and abused it.

Unless they can hire enough goons with the millions they made.