Oh shit! Well back to imperial.

"Your payout would have been double." When his tantrum escalated after that little bit, I said, "Look. The payout was a selection pressure designed to promote self-initiative and help you become a little more skilled in a craft. You're already a geek, no denying that, but if you have all of the likes of a geek but few of the positive technical skills, where will that leave you?"

I'm a dyed in the wool c++ software engineer and even I want to punch myself in the face after reading that. Perhaps he doesn't want to do exactly what already comes very naturally and easily to his parents. But hey, I guess you can always apply selection pressure. Geesh.

Batman's a scientist!

This is how an american responds to suggestions that work in other countries: "But we're like, so .. different man. You can't possibly understand the challenges we face."

It's horseshit.

It also doesn't apply to things people can go without and things people cannot go without. That is a sliding scale. I wish people would get it through their skulls that free markets are not free when consumers are not free to not participate at all.

To say nothing that market sellers have every reason to try and make those markets as non-transparent as possible - people do not magically gravitate towards honest sellers any more than they magically gravitate towards some kind of mathematically pure value. You know why advertising, marketing, customer relationship management, etc exists? You are easily manipulated. We all are. Doesn't matter that much when it comes to luxuries. When it comes to what should be basic needs, you really don't want every market seller to realize that 20% of their customer base accounts for 80% of their profits.

Holy fuck, did you just equate the law of gravity with ... laws of economics? You mean the equation that hasn't changed since the dawn of the universe with .. what the fuck, a law of economics?

Since that's a lot of information, and welcome at that, why wouldn't you specify your country?

Good god, that is some stupid sauce. It's a good thing you don't always act in your own self-interest, no matter how hard you try.

I wouldn't disagree with what you say, in general, except for, "Profit motive is the most moral engine of economic progress."

It's false to suggest that we are forced to choose and follow only one motivation for economic progress. Also, the profit motive may not explicitly discriminate (I find that assertion pretty assailable in and of itself), but it's perfectly capable of implicitly discriminating.

I believe you are confusing the simple elegance of the profit motive for inherent moral value.

Man, I hope you don't buy bottled water.

Which out of the many countries with single payer health care has outright banned smoking other than from public indoor places (and reasonably close to the exits thereof)?

Ironically, which country without seems to have more and more examples of governments that are enacting rules that punish smoking in private time/places?

Should it be any surprise that since a single payer system can spread the risk more since neither insurer nor insuree gets to choose whether or not they are in the pool, it tends to be less aggressive about attempting to regular personal choices in lifestyle?

To be clear, he just means all games will have an MP component, not that all games will required to be played online. The 'always on DRM' is falling out of favour with developers (Ubi has backed out this practice over the past few months) for all the reasons gamers dislike it.