whatevsbro

20 ms·

61.
by whatevsbro 13y ago
Just in case you feel like responding, but would otherwise miss this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7307458 That discussion is relevant to this Schneier thread too, in fact :P
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> It was a straightforward attempt at a simple existence proof - you had said "things which meet these criteria are extortion", I provided something that met those criteria that was not extortion. I pointed out that taxation me
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> Reread the comment. I asked rhetorically if it was extortion, to raise the point of why it was not extortion, which I got at in the very next sentence. I got it just fine. But even if the laptop weren't my property (by social conv
64.
by whatevsbro 13y ago
> Indeed, you're taking the very concept of human rights itself as an axiom, and that's why everything follows so cleanly for you. Without axioms, we can't figure anything out. You say "human rights", but I'
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
>> If I take your laptop, is it extortion when you demand its return? .. > Yes, that's my point. Asking me if not-extortion is extortion doesn't make much of a point. > But it's your laptop by social convention. T
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> Imagine there are 10 people in a room, and 9 of them decide that murder is wrong and should be punished. Does that mean the remaining one has to accept that murder is wrong, because they have "collectively decided" that murde
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
>> Many people do pay taxes voluntarily You claimed people pay taxes voluntarily , but that is incorrect. Even if some people don't mind paying them now, they can't stop either. Your willingness to pay them is separate fr
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> If I take your laptop, is it extortion when you demand its return? Oh come on.. :p It's my laptop, my property. But if I tell you I'm going to hurt you if you don't give me your laptop, that is extortion. > Like
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> Many people do pay taxes voluntarily, because "it's their civic duty", and roads and schools and all of that. If it were genuinely voluntary, they could just stop any time they wanted to, without any negative consequence
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
I did list printing as one of the three way a government acquires money, and as "smsm42" explained, it's not a sustainable way to fund anything, let alone the massive expenditures required for UBI. > But we shouldn't
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> I'm not convinced that it is NOT financially viable. Especially in Switzerland where the governance is exemplary compared to other countries. It's not about the "quality" of your "governance", ie. "ho
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
Nevermind.
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> So what? He's pointing out that it's a practical impossibility. The money for UBI has to come from somewhere , and any money a government has at its disposal comes from: 1) extortion (ie. taxation), 2) printing, 3) borrowing
74.
by whatevsbro 13y ago
I was referring to NSA & Google monitoring everything anyone in the world does online. It's pointless to "refute" what I said with a "but what about criminal investigations?!" .. Well yeah, what abou them? You d
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
You know what I was referring to.
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
" This sounds like a great idea in theory, but in the current age of global communications I'm concerned that it's impossible to separate surveillance into "American" and "foreign"." I've got an
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> banks themselves together with government seem not able to come up with better ways of organizing this industry It's not that they couldn't , it's that entrenched interests don't want change.
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
"Back to the voting booths, peasants! Wait patiently for your next illusory chance to affect how you're coerced!"
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> You have a de facto monetary policy imposed on you whether you like it or not. It is "coercion" only in the sense that it is outside your personal control. No, it's coercion because I'm forced to pay taxes in a fia
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> Credit becomes scarce. Growth slows. Prices fall. You got one of those right, Mr. Money Expert. I'll let you try and figure out which one. > If a few rich veins are discovered, and gold pours onto the market, you effectively ha
81.
by whatevsbro 13y ago
You're right, your answers don't satisfy me, for example because your whole post is full of bullshit/misdirection. Not that it comes as a surprise. > 1. Central banks are ranked on two measures: a.) How independent are the
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> They put computers on my desk, paid for (nice) offices, paid the power, air conditioning True, but more importantly, before all of that, they made something people want to pay for and acquired enough customers to pay for that shit,
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
acting Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko issued a public warning at 4 p.m. to protesters to clear the streets within two hours: “If by 6 p.m. the lawlessness doesn't cease, we shall be forced to used all legal means to bring orde
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
>> Central banking is possibly the greatest human invention since sanitation. The U.S. central banking system ranks among the finest of its kind. > I came to this conclusion after spending a significant fraction of my too-short lif
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
I see where you're coming from. In a way, you have a point, and in another, you don't :) You've provided massive value to the business, but on the other hand, other people made your job possible probably by working pretty dam
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
All it takes is for the belief in political authority to dispel. Unfortunately, that's a massive change from where we are today.
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
Post-brainwashing, posts like these will look astute. I'm not saying individuals don't need to co-operate in countless ways, but collective thinking is misguided, because we actually are just individuals. We're all programmed
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
Quote from the article: there are plenty of reasons to believe that we may be at the beginnings of a post scarcity economy. We have a surplus, no doubt. Of course, we still have legions of people in the world that are starving, and even pe
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
Well that was bluntly said. I'm not sure it's accurate though, and besides, I was just talking about the nature of economies and Capitalism, which is certainly relevant to an article talking about, well, economies. But if you see
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by whatevsbro 13y ago
> Anyway, my thought is that if we can give people basic freedom from the inane logistics of life, they will free themselves up to do other things. Very few people will do nothing. I can't even imagine nothing. You need to realize t

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