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I'm not someone who downvoted you but would like to discuss your points. Lets start bottom up. 1) You cannot legally collect berries in the woods. That may hav

by turnip1979 12y ago

I'm not someone who downvoted you but would like to discuss your points. Lets start bottom up. 1) You cannot legally collect berries in the woods. That may have been possible a few hundred years ago. For all my life, I've lived in concrete jungles where pretty much every shrub was manicured and every tree was allowed to survive for aesthetic reasons. More so that that, we don't have commons any more. In the stone ages, I could go and cut a tree or hunt deer. Doing that - without paying for permits and usage rights - would get you in a heap of trouble. Now, in the stone ages, you'd have to worry about bears and neanderthals coming and ending your existence. We don't have to worry about that since the state has a police force, courts, laws, animal control, etc. And that's the same state that's requiring permits. So it is a choice the current and previous generations have made. 2) I hated the idea of the welfare queen growing up. My parents never took welfare and I'd take it as a failure if I ever had to do the same (personal choice). If you do a bit of research, you might be surprised to learn that welfare queens don't exist in the vast numbers you think they do. Not anymore and not for a while. 3) Starting any business requires capital. You were lucky because you had access to it. A lot of people have no savings at all. That's the reason they work hard jobs (typically unskilled) for very small compensation. 4) Thought experiment. Lets say, you go to Africa. You see a village that's suffering from famine. You can take 10 bucks and that feeds them for the day. Would you feel disgusted that these people are mooching off of your hard earned cash? I don't think you would. I think you (and I) would feel grateful that we had the opportunity to help our fellow human beings. This is a complex topic that's not black and white. I wish people didn't downvote you. This is the kind of stuff that should be discussed.

quasque 12y ago
> You cannot legally collect berries in the woods. A minor point, but this is generally legal in the UK if you're doing it for personal consumption [1]. I expect other countries have similarly permissive exceptions. [1] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/4 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/4
- bjelkeman-again 12y ago
  In the Nordic countries and especially in Sweden everyone can collect berries, flowers and mushrooms in the woods. It is the law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden
  - vidarh 12y ago
    And to strengthen that: We're talking not just on public land, but in privately owned forests too. When I grew up in Norway, the notion of whether or not a forest area was owned was moot - many of the places we went for walks or went to collect berries and mushrooms probably were, but I can't tell you which were and which were public, as it was totally irrelevant to us as we have the same legal rights of access either way.
    - _dark_matter_ 12y ago
      Man this is cool. It's a little scary here in the US when you could be shot, or at the very least arrested, for a similar act.
      - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        You are free to pick black berries in much of Friday Harbor and the rest of the San Juans (and they are everywhere). Many people hunt shrooms in national forests, and then there is the sea. The Pacific Northwest is a nice place for these kinds of things.
      - ghaff 12y ago
        Oh please. Yes, if land is posted "No Trespassing" you shouldn't be, well, trespassing. And, indeed, if you're doing something like hunting you could get in trouble, arrested even. Otherwise I expect if the property owner saw you, you'd simply be asked to leave. And that would be it unless you refused to leave or made a habit of it. That said, there are lots of places where there is a mix of public and private where no one is going to bother anyone if you're just walking around. There's plenty such property in my town in the US. As for getting shot, maybe if you run across someone's marijuana crop, still, or other illegal activity. But any property owner that starts shooting at a trespasser is going to be in very deep trouble. And I'm quite confident in saying it's not standard practice.
WalterBright 12y ago
> Starting any business requires capital. Not really. A large number of businesses can be started with essentially nothing. Rowling wrote "Harry Potter" on a yellow pad, for one example.
- Terr_ 12y ago
  Inversely proportional to your odds is success, though. For many people the stakes are a bit too high: people who are already affluent with safety nets can tolerate more risk.
  - WalterBright 12y ago
    > Inversely proportional to your odds is success, though. I seriously doubt that is true. > For many people the stakes are a bit too high: Starting a business with little capital has little downside risk, especially if you are already unemployed. BTW, I started my business with nothing more than an ordinary computer. A friend of mine started his own businesses tuning up peoples' cars in their driveways so they didn't have to go to a shop. His investment and risk was essentially zero, he already had the hand tools needed. Etsy.com and Ebay.com are packed full of people who started their own businesses with nothing. Heck, the other day I was at the local public library when they had a book sale. There were people in there scarfing up boxes of books, and checking the value of them with an iphone app. They were clearly intending to resell those books online and make money.
    - DougWebb 12y ago
      BTW, I started my business with nothing more than an ordinary computer. Really? Nothing more? You were out in the middle of an empty field, with a computer that you somehow acquired for free, and with that you were able to start a business? What kind of business was that?
      - alayne 12y ago
        Why are your comments in this thread so rude?
electronvolt 12y ago
> If you do a bit of research, you might be surprised to learn that welfare queens don't exist in the vast numbers you think they do. Not anymore and not for a while. I was under the impression that they never really existed in any meaningful way. The example that Reagan used, which is when most people think the idea entered the popular lexicon (although there's no record of him actually using the term) was of someone who was essentially committing identity theft on a large scale in order to collect welfare for something like 30 different people.... which just makes an argument for good oversight and unified systems to prevent that kind of fraud, which the kind of large scale networked computer systems we have now could make much more difficult.

quasque 12y ago

> You cannot legally collect berries in the woods. A minor point, but this is generally legal in the UK if you're doing it for personal consumption [1]. I expect other countries have similarly permissive exceptions. [1] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/4 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/4

bjelkeman-again 12y ago
In the Nordic countries and especially in Sweden everyone can collect berries, flowers and mushrooms in the woods. It is the law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden
- vidarh 12y ago
  And to strengthen that: We're talking not just on public land, but in privately owned forests too. When I grew up in Norway, the notion of whether or not a forest area was owned was moot - many of the places we went for walks or went to collect berries and mushrooms probably were, but I can't tell you which were and which were public, as it was totally irrelevant to us as we have the same legal rights of access either way.
  - _dark_matter_ 12y ago
    Man this is cool. It's a little scary here in the US when you could be shot, or at the very least arrested, for a similar act.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      You are free to pick black berries in much of Friday Harbor and the rest of the San Juans (and they are everywhere). Many people hunt shrooms in national forests, and then there is the sea. The Pacific Northwest is a nice place for these kinds of things.
    - ghaff 12y ago
      Oh please. Yes, if land is posted "No Trespassing" you shouldn't be, well, trespassing. And, indeed, if you're doing something like hunting you could get in trouble, arrested even. Otherwise I expect if the property owner saw you, you'd simply be asked to leave. And that would be it unless you refused to leave or made a habit of it. That said, there are lots of places where there is a mix of public and private where no one is going to bother anyone if you're just walking around. There's plenty such property in my town in the US. As for getting shot, maybe if you run across someone's marijuana crop, still, or other illegal activity. But any property owner that starts shooting at a trespasser is going to be in very deep trouble. And I'm quite confident in saying it's not standard practice.

WalterBright 12y ago

> Starting any business requires capital. Not really. A large number of businesses can be started with essentially nothing. Rowling wrote "Harry Potter" on a yellow pad, for one example.

Terr_ 12y ago
Inversely proportional to your odds is success, though. For many people the stakes are a bit too high: people who are already affluent with safety nets can tolerate more risk.
- WalterBright 12y ago
  > Inversely proportional to your odds is success, though. I seriously doubt that is true. > For many people the stakes are a bit too high: Starting a business with little capital has little downside risk, especially if you are already unemployed. BTW, I started my business with nothing more than an ordinary computer. A friend of mine started his own businesses tuning up peoples' cars in their driveways so they didn't have to go to a shop. His investment and risk was essentially zero, he already had the hand tools needed. Etsy.com and Ebay.com are packed full of people who started their own businesses with nothing. Heck, the other day I was at the local public library when they had a book sale. There were people in there scarfing up boxes of books, and checking the value of them with an iphone app. They were clearly intending to resell those books online and make money.
  - DougWebb 12y ago
    BTW, I started my business with nothing more than an ordinary computer. Really? Nothing more? You were out in the middle of an empty field, with a computer that you somehow acquired for free, and with that you were able to start a business? What kind of business was that?
    - alayne 12y ago
      Why are your comments in this thread so rude?

electronvolt 12y ago

> If you do a bit of research, you might be surprised to learn that welfare queens don't exist in the vast numbers you think they do. Not anymore and not for a while. I was under the impression that they never really existed in any meaningful way. The example that Reagan used, which is when most people think the idea entered the popular lexicon (although there's no record of him actually using the term) was of someone who was essentially committing identity theft on a large scale in order to collect welfare for something like 30 different people.... which just makes an argument for good oversight and unified systems to prevent that kind of fraud, which the kind of large scale networked computer systems we have now could make much more difficult.