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Post 20

Thursday, January 1, 2009 - 4:55pmSanction this postReply
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You're scaring us, Ted.

Post 21

Monday, January 5, 2009 - 2:51pmSanction this postReply
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"In other words, we have 100,000 or a million people doing odd jobs for each other and the engines of creation were never engaged."

There are some that would argue that was -precisely- Richard Stallman's original goal. You can't underestimate nihilism as a motivating factor, underpinned by a heavy dose of narcissistic megalomania.

Today's brave new world runs on code maintained by armies of folks like 'DoomWiz' when they're not at their day job at the call center...until they get bored, self immolate in a flame war, or anonymously move on to the next hobby project. Folks bit hard on all that 'free,' and as a result, when it comes to 'odd jobs,' "Elance" is proof that, a million times practically 0 is still $2/hr.

As if, we actually needed proof of that. Oh, well. The engines of creativity have apparently all camped out in hobbytown, living the good life in Mom's basement.

regards,
Fred























Post 22

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 6:25pmSanction this postReply
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Quote from Thomas Sowell:

War should of course be "a last resort"-- but last in terms of preference, not last in the sense of hoping against hope while dangers grow, and wishful thinking or illusory agreements substitute for serious military preparedness-- or, if necessary, military action. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "If you wait until you see the whites of their eyes, you will never know what hit you."


Post 23

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 8:53pmSanction this postReply
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We can already see the whites of his eyes - all the way to Washington...

Post 24

Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 8:20amSanction this postReply
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"People would have to operate in "cells". The anonymity required would obviate the personal recognition and trust needed for people to feel comfortable trading with one another. It would be hard to build a reputation of character. That's my take."

Is there a possibility of using cryptonyms or alter-identities and a rating system similar to say ebay where you never gain much info about a seller other than their reputation as a client?

It would be a beautiful thing if the internet was truly untaxed and unregulated.


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Post 25

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:57amSanction this postReply
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Please forgive my newbeness  for though I've but rapid read the thread I shall there afford my whack to the cord and dispel all worry and dread:
 
In Atlas, Dagney Taggart sent a bullet through the heart of the man who could not make up his mind.  Although fiction, we the readers permit that the imaginary projectile must have obeyed the the rules of physics and that Dagney must have possessed the necessary experience to achieve the arc of trajectory required to sever the man from his life.  Ballistics then, if you would allow me the same courtesy as you have the fictional Dagney, wiil assist us to conceptualize the means of shrugging looters and gulching earnings.

Extropolated by Post-Renaissance man from Greek-thought plane geometry, trigonometry  gave the soldiery of the day the ability to remotely sensor the data needed to drop cannon balls over fortifications and onto the heads of their enemy without having their own heads blown off.  Soon, however; upon the enemy having ferretted out trigonometric functions for themselves, a race ensued among evolving nation-states to equip their respective militaries with artillery capable of standing ever farther back from their enemies' guns while still invoking the angel of death from the heavens above.  By the time industrial capital had Rearden-metalized the formula and ever deadlier warheads could be launched far beyond the horizon, the sheet of calculations had become complex enough to kill one's entire population should the enemy perfect its targeting solutions first during the lag time required to make them.  This problem led to the development of both the software and hardware you are reading this posting on, as well as the Internet this signal is thunderbolting across.

Trade on a slightly divergent but often closely proximate trajectory, too found itself pushed toward maximum effeciency by physics and Reardon-metalization.  In the rush to deliver payload in the form of marketable goods to population centers between conflagrations, ahead of like-minded others, and despite the constraints of distances and the hazards of navigation, capital creators moved ever more rapidly from oar and hull, to hull and sail, to steel and steam turbine, combustable engines, flight, and eventually jet turbine engines until the critical factor became the lag between loading and unloading ships, trains, planes, and trucks.  The ultimate solution here became the intermodal shipping container.

I know "capitalism to be the sole moral means of exchange between men"  therefore I do not beg permission of  looters to do what is morally correct but rather shrug them and gulch my capital -- the means of production -- empowered by the synergy of the two developments above.  My computer and Internet connection allow me to deposit my currency in small amounts scattered in financial institutions around the globe.  This places it below the radar of most.  And yet it is summoned lightening speed to nearly any vector on Earth.  Further, the means of my production are one-factory-cell-per-shipping-container just-in-time configured and deliverable, operatic and at the click of a computer mouse, to almost any location.  My product designs perform two functions -- peaceful subversion of the established order and provision of the mechanism for lawful self-governance in its absence.

Gone. 


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