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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol
Your 1930's cartoonish view of weed smokers is hilarious.
You're the dick at the family parties that everybody else hides the weed from.
My god, you'd end up having to cut off more than half your family if you ever knew the truth.

JSF: The really cartoonish view of potheads is recognizing that they all get really, really defensive and offended in their denial, whenever reasonable folk point out any facts regarding their abused substance of choice.
Oh, wait......

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JSF, how do you feel about coffee-drinkers getting defensive about their coffee habits? Or tobacco smokers getting defensive about smoking? Or soda-guzzlers getting defensive about sugar? Same category as pot smokers, or different?

Yanno, people have been drinking coffee and tea, smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, chewing coca leaves, eating magic mushrooms, chewing betel, smoking hash and opium, starving or steaming themselves into hallucinations, drinking yohimbe, ingesting mescaline, chewing salvia divinorum, and in general messing with their brain chemistry for.... millenia.

Where do you draw the line between the commonplace (such as coffee) and the problematic (such as oxycodone), and why?

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I have not seen coffee drinkers getting nearly as defensive as illegal drug abusers.

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ETA: perhaps my primary dividing point is the physical ailments resulting from drug abuse.
Coffee = HBP, is that right? If you die from it, you win the Darwin Award for your end of the genetic line.
Sucralose = diabetes, HBP, migraine headaches, and a myriad of other health failures. But some folk demand to consume it.
Isn't most of the classification of drugs by our government based upon the permanent physical injury thy can produce, even if the injury is in the brain?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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SIGNYM:

SECOND? You have a lot of criticisms which [might] mean that you also have a picture of your ideal government policies (or, at least, your "better" government policies).

SECOND: Signym, you might have noticed that I don't think in generalizations and abstractions. Here is a very specific example, but there are a million things only the Federal government can do, but does not because too many Americans and Congressmen think in abstractions blinding themselves to the million things an engineer sees:

Ike Dike. It would protect property around Galveston Bay. It is an enlargement of the Galveston Seawall, which could only been built with Federal money, BUT CONGRESS WAITED UNTIL AFTER 7.000 DROWNED IN THE 1900 HURRICANE. America tends to wait too long to react to all problems, large or small or specific to one area. But if it doesn't react immediately, America forgets until a new disaster reminds Congress/America for a week or two what it had forgotten.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ike+dike+congress

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Actually, you Do think in abstractions and generalities, you just don't recognize that you do.
Here are some generalizations embedded in this specific example:

Property loss is a bad thing, protecting property is a good thing.

Loss of life is a bad thing, saving lives is a good thing.

Protecting property and saving lives is the business of government (not business, religions, other NGOs or individuals) and (especially) Federal government. (I'm curious as to why you think the Federal government should construct a dike protecting Galveston Bay, since it's an intrastate problem and not a Federal one. Is it the size of the project that places it in Federal hands, or some jurisdictional issue?)

Solving "problems" (however defined) is a good thing, proactively solving them is better.

Americans (and I suppose people in general) are bad at recognizing and responding to potential pitfalls.

Congress only responds to immediate political pressure on hot-button issues, and doesn't take a responsible managerial (or, if you will, engineering) approach. That is therefore a flaw in democracy.

See?

I think there really are abstractions driving your thoughts, which run in both directions (from assumptions to conclusions). Do you agree, in general, with my description of your values and assumptions so far?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Oh, btw Signy, here's another example of a government-created public good:


UK pledges to hit all-renewable electricity by 2035
https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-business-england-europe-bori
s-johnson-46ec6751e3f32cb998e8ae24a038a881

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:
The other thing I've learned over the years is that children believe what you tell them over what they see with their own lying eyes. What you tell them becomes their reality. (How does a mystery box work ... if you show a monkey a wrapped box and all the steps they need to get to the reward, once you unwrap the box they'll quickly figure out how it works and ditch the unnecessary steps. Children will keep doing what you taught them, even when they can see that all but 1 step is bogus.)

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SIGNYM:
SECOND? You have a lot of criticisms which [might] mean that you also have a picture of your ideal government policies (or, at least, your "better" government policies).

SECOND: Signym, you might have noticed that I don't think in generalizations and abstractions. Here is a very specific example, but there are a million things only the Federal government can do, but does not because too many Americans and Congressmen think in abstractions blinding themselves to the million things an engineer sees:

Ike Dike. It would protect property around Galveston Bay. It is an enlargement of the Galveston Seawall, which could only been built with Federal money, BUT CONGRESS WAITED UNTIL AFTER 7.000 DROWNED IN THE 1900 HURRICANE. America tends to wait too long to react to all problems, large or small or specific to one area. But if it doesn't react immediately, America forgets until a new disaster reminds Congress/America for a week or two what it had forgotten.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ike+dike+congress

SIGNY: Actually, you Do think in abstractions and generalities, you just don't recognize that you do.
Here are some generalizations embedded in this specific example:
Property loss is a bad thing, protecting property is a good thing.
Loss of life is a bad thing, saving lives is a good thing.
Protecting property and saving lives is the business of government (not business, religions, other NGOs or individuals) and (especially) Federal government. (I'm curious as to why you think the Federal government should construct a dike protecting Galveston Bay, since it's an intrastate problem and not a Federal one. Is it the size of the project that places it in Federal hands, or some jurisdictional issue?)
Solving "problems" (however defined) is a good thing, proactively solving them is better.
Americans (and I suppose people in general) are bad at recognizing and responding to potential pitfalls.
Congress only responds to immediate political pressure on hot-button issues, and doesn't take a responsible managerial (or, if you will, engineering) approach. That is therefore a flaw in democracy.

See?
I think there really are abstractions driving your thoughts, which run in both directions (from assumptions to conclusions). Do you agree, in general, with my description of your values and assumptions so far?

SECOND: Signym, for most people, problems are abstractions, unless the problem is happening to them. When dealing with abstractions, it is very simple to say that you don't comprehend the problem or why the other person is so upset about such an abstract notion and would they please be quiet and listen to my very concrete problems. In America, there are many people shouting that other people should just shut the hell up so that the government can hear me-me-me. The result is that 99% are ignored, leaving the 1% be heard clearly in Congress. They didn't get to be the 1% by calmly waiting until the other 99% finish their chaotic and incoherent bickering over whose problem is more important.

The ridiculous cycle could be broken by Congress fixing everybody's problem, but that won't happen because there is huge faction in Congress that has never seen a problem worth fixing.

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6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol
Your 1930's cartoonish view of weed smokers is hilarious.
You're the dick at the family parties that everybody else hides the weed from.
My god, you'd end up having to cut off more than half your family if you ever knew the truth.

JSF: The really cartoonish view of potheads is recognizing that they all get really, really defensive and offended in their denial, whenever reasonable folk point out any facts regarding their abused substance of choice.
Oh, wait......

SIGNY: JSF, how do you feel about coffee-drinkers getting defensive about their coffee habits? Or tobacco smokers getting defensive about smoking? Or soda-guzzlers getting defensive about sugar? Same category as pot smokers, or different?
Yanno, people have been drinking coffee and tea, smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, chewing coca leaves, eating magic mushrooms, chewing betel, smoking hash and opium, starving or steaming themselves into hallucinations, drinking yohimbe, ingesting mescaline, chewing salvia divinorum, and in general messing with their brain chemistry for.... millenia.
Where do you draw the line between the commonplace (such as coffee) and the problematic (such as oxycodone), and why?

JSF: I have not seen coffee drinkers getting nearly as defensive as illegal drug abusers.
And yes, abuse of pot is currently defined as smoking more than one tenth of one small joint per day. At the time of that line being established, the pot was 1/30 as strong as today, and the measure was 3 joints per day. Anything more causes permanent damage to the Immune System.

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JSF: I have seen coffee drinkers compete, wager, bet on who has the highest BP each day.
Coffee, sugar, chocolate, tobacco, are currently legal substances.
I recently have been consuming 2 aspirin per day, almost every day. It bothers me, but nobody else has been annoying me about it.
Consumption of unfrozen meats drenched in chemicals is currently legal, but for folk who want cancer, that is their choice.
Not long ago, absinthe was in some way legalized in the US, but there seems to be some vastly weakened version which is now available. I don't recall the permanent long term side effects of that - whether physical or mental.


If individuals are choosing to be criminals, knowingly perpetrating crimes, then that is different than the legal choices they could make. There is no legal limit on the amount of sugar, chocolate, or coffee one cna have possession of - but you can still overdose on too much caffiene.
Food makers pour poison like sucralose into foods currently, and this is still a legal activity.
Maybe I'm rambling too much right now. I am distracted. And have not had enough chocolate. Geez, just realized I had a Coke for lunch - maybe that is it.

ETA: perhaps my primary dividing point is the physical ailments resulting from drug abuse.

Coffee = HBP, is that right? If you die from it, you win the Darwin Award for your end of the genetic line.
Sucralose = diabetes, HBP, migraine headaches, and a myriad of other health failures. But some folk demand to consume it.
Isn't most of the classification of drugs by our government based upon the permanent physical injury thy can produce, even if the injury is in the brain?

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1KIKI:

Oh, btw Signy, here's another example of a government-created public good:
UK pledges to hit all-renewable electricity by 2035
https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-business-england-europe-bori
s-johnson-46ec6751e3f32cb998e8ae24a038a881


SIX: Incorrect. That's an example of baseless government platitude.
Pure fantasyland given in trade for votes.
We'll revisit this one in 14 years and see how it's going.

P.S. I thought we were past calling it "public good".

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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SIGNYM:
SECOND? You have a lot of criticisms which [might] mean that you also have a picture of your ideal government policies (or, at least, your "better" government policies).

SECOND: Signym, you might have noticed that I don't think in generalizations and abstractions. Here is a very specific example, but there are a million things only the Federal government can do, but does not because too many Americans and Congressmen think in abstractions blinding themselves to the million things an engineer sees:

Ike Dike. It would protect property around Galveston Bay. It is an enlargement of the Galveston Seawall, which could only been built with Federal money, BUT CONGRESS WAITED UNTIL AFTER 7.000 DROWNED IN THE 1900 HURRICANE. America tends to wait too long to react to all problems, large or small or specific to one area. But if it doesn't react immediately, America forgets until a new disaster reminds Congress/America for a week or two what it had forgotten.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ike+dike+congress

SIGNY: Actually, you Do think in abstractions and generalities, you just don't recognize that you do.
Here are some generalizations embedded in this specific example:
Property loss is a bad thing, protecting property is a good thing.
Loss of life is a bad thing, saving lives is a good thing.
Protecting property and saving lives is the business of government (not business, religions, other NGOs or individuals) and (especially) Federal government. (I'm curious as to why you think the Federal government should construct a dike protecting Galveston Bay, since it's an intrastate problem and not a Federal one. Is it the size of the project that places it in Federal hands, or some jurisdictional issue?)
Solving "problems" (however defined) is a good thing, proactively solving them is better.
Americans (and I suppose people in general) are bad at recognizing and responding to potential pitfalls.
Congress only responds to immediate political pressure on hot-button issues, and doesn't take a responsible managerial (or, if you will, engineering) approach. That is therefore a flaw in democracy.

See?
I think there really are abstractions driving your thoughts, which run in both directions (from assumptions to conclusions). Do you agree, in general, with my description of your values and assumptions so far?

SECOND: Signym, for most people, problems are abstractions, unless the problem is happening to them. When dealing with abstractions, it is very simple to say that you don't comprehend the problem or why the other person is so upset about such an abstract notion and would they please be quiet and listen to my very concrete problems. In America, there are many people shouting that other people should just shut the hell up so that the government can hear me-me-me. The result is that 99% are ignored, leaving the 1% be heard clearly in Congress. They didn't get to be the 1% by calmly waiting until the other 99% finish their chaotic and incoherent bickering over whose problem is more important.

The ridiculous cycle could be broken by Congress fixing everybody's problem, but that won't happen because there is huge faction in Congress that has never seen a problem worth fixing.

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SECOND, are you drunk-posting? Congress solving EVERYONE'S problems???? There is not enough money to do that.

And why is it Congress' job to fix problems that others (for example, businesses) created?

I have not a clue as to what you're getting at.

The Magic Eight Ball says Please try again

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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1KIKI:

Oh, btw Signy, here's another example of a government-created public good:
UK pledges to hit all-renewable electricity by 2035
https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-business-england-europe-bori
s-johnson-46ec6751e3f32cb998e8ae24a038a881


SIX: Incorrect. That's an example of baseless government platitude.
Pure fantasyland given in trade for votes.
We'll revisit this one in 14 years and see how it's going.

P.S. I thought we were past calling it "public good".

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I haven't been following this. YOU may be past calling things "public goods" but KIKI isn't, and neither am I.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol
Your 1930's cartoonish view of weed smokers is hilarious.
You're the dick at the family parties that everybody else hides the weed from.
My god, you'd end up having to cut off more than half your family if you ever knew the truth.

JSF: The really cartoonish view of potheads is recognizing that they all get really, really defensive and offended in their denial, whenever reasonable folk point out any facts regarding their abused substance of choice.
Oh, wait......

SIGNY: JSF, how do you feel about coffee-drinkers getting defensive about their coffee habits? Or tobacco smokers getting defensive about smoking? Or soda-guzzlers getting defensive about sugar? Same category as pot smokers, or different?
Yanno, people have been drinking coffee and tea, smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, chewing coca leaves, eating magic mushrooms, chewing betel, smoking hash and opium, starving or steaming themselves into hallucinations, drinking yohimbe, ingesting mescaline, chewing salvia divinorum, and in general messing with their brain chemistry for.... millenia.
Where do you draw the line between the commonplace (such as coffee) and the problematic (such as oxycodone), and why?

JSF: I have not seen coffee drinkers getting nearly as defensive as illegal drug abusers.
And yes, abuse of pot is currently defined as smoking more than one tenth of one small joint per day. At the time of that line being established, the pot was 1/30 as strong as today, and the measure was 3 joints per day. Anything more causes permanent damage to the Immune System.

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links please

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JSF: I have seen coffee drinkers compete, wager, bet on who has the highest BP each day.
Coffee, sugar, chocolate, tobacco, are currently legal substances.
I recently have been consuming 2 aspirin per day, almost every day. It bothers me, but nobody else has been annoying me about it.
Consumption of unfrozen meats drenched in chemicals is currently legal, but for folk who want cancer, that is their choice.
Not long ago, absinthe was in some way legalized in the US, but there seems to be some vastly weakened version which is now available. I don't recall the permanent long term side effects of that - whether physical or mental.


If individuals are choosing to be criminals, knowingly perpetrating crimes, then that is different than the legal choices they could make. There is no legal limit on the amount of sugar, chocolate, or coffee one cna have possession of - but you can still overdose on too much caffiene.
Food makers pour poison like sucralose into foods currently, and this is still a legal activity.
Maybe I'm rambling too much right now. I am distracted. And have not had enough chocolate. Geez, just realized I had a Coke for lunch - maybe that is it.

ETA: perhaps my primary dividing point is the physical ailments resulting from drug abuse.

Coffee = HBP, is that right? If you die from it, you win the Darwin Award for your end of the genetic line.
Sucralose = diabetes, HBP, migraine headaches, and a myriad of other health failures. But some folk demand to consume it.
Isn't most of the classification of drugs by our government based upon the permanent physical injury thy can produce, even if the injury is in the brain?

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There are a lot of things that can cause permanent physical damage, all of them perfectly legal and (in many cases) even generally useful.

Starting with the useless, damaging, legal drug - cigarettes - now THERE is a drug that (as far as I can tell) does no good at all, but causes addiction and lung cancer. According to the CDC, tobacco causes approx 1 in 5 deaths every year. So if something should be banned, maybe that would be a good start.
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects
/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm

Alcohol. A drug that may have SOME potential health benefits in moderation ... a drink (or two, for men) a day ... but causes approx 95,000 deaths per year.
https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-deaths.html

Properly prescribed drugs are the third leading cause of death in the USA, sometimes because of side effects and sometimes because of error.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25355584/ This amounts to an estimated 100,000+ deaths per year.

By contrast, according to some studies, people who use pot have THE SAME life expectancy as those who don't.
https://www.newhealthadvisor.org/How-Many-People-Have-Died-from-Weed.h
tml Marijuana can cause traffic accidents and so forth, so it's not entirely harmless but it doesn't generally cause the permanent damage that you fear so greatly, especially in the same rates as tobacco, alcohol, and properly presribed drugs.

In reality, marijuana as been MIS-CLASSIFIED by the Federal government to be as dangerous as heroin ... which hardly makes sense.
https://healthmed.org/what-schedule-is-marijuana-on-and-why/

As I posted, I'm not a big fan of marijuana, and I'm not a big fan of decriminalizing all drugs. Also, the THC concentration now is way too high, and it's easy to OD. (Edibles are another big problem) So maybe it should be treated like alcohol: sold in standard concentrations and not available to young people. It's not a perfect solution because we know kids can get their hands on cigarettes and booze, but it's better than what we have now.

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1KIKI:
Oh, btw Signy, here's another example of a government-created public good:
UK pledges to hit all-renewable electricity by 2035
https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-business-england-europe-bori
s-johnson-46ec6751e3f32cb998e8ae24a038a881

SIX: Incorrect. That's an example of baseless government platitude.
Pure fantasyland given in trade for votes.
We'll revisit this one in 14 years and see how it's going.

P.S. I thought we were past calling it "public good".

SIGNY: I haven't been following this. YOU may be past calling things "public goods" but KIKI isn't, and neither am I.

SIX: Public Good is a misnomer that is purposefully used to manipulate stupid people into thinking that the function of the Federal Government is a lot of things that it isn't.

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SIX: There is no but after that statement.

SIGNY: My question, SIX, is: do you recognize that government has ANY beneficial function?

SIX: Police and military. Shutting down monopolies. Protecting constitutional rights.
That's about it, and they're fucking terrible at all four of them.

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SIX: Our problem now is that they've cemented themselves into doing so many things that they've never had any business doing in the first place, that if we were to simply pull the plug on all of them now everything would devolve into chaos.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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1KIKI:
Oh, btw Signy, here's another example of a government-created public good:
UK pledges to hit all-renewable electricity by 2035
https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-business-england-europe-bori
s-johnson-46ec6751e3f32cb998e8ae24a038a881


SIX: Incorrect. That's an example of baseless government platitude.
Pure fantasyland given in trade for votes.
We'll revisit this one in 14 years and see how it's going.

P.S. I thought we were past calling it "public good".

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I haven't been following this. YOU may be past calling things "public goods" but KIKI isn't, and neither am I.

SIX: Public Good is a misnomer that is purposefully used to manipulate stupid people into thinking that the function of the Federal Government is a lot of things that it isn't.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Aside from the concept and phrase, which you have a animus against, what are the OTHER essential Federal government functions that I might have missed?

My way of viewing it is to substitute "state" or "local" into the "government function" to see if it can be handled at a lower level. Or perhaps dispensed with completely.

If neither of those happen, the we can call them essential Federal government functions and then discuss how they can be improved.

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P.S. I thought we were past calling it "public good".

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You'd get an argument from me about DoD spending

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Also, do you have a problem funding medical research? Bc you don't seem to have a problem funding space and possibly weapons research.

SOME disasters can only be responded to at a level higher than individual states can bear. Earthquakes in major cities. Hurricanes that wipe out cities in more than one state. Virtually every state is exposed to one form of natural disaster or another: tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, floods ... even volcanoes! It's like insurance: everybody pays into it even tho the probability of gacing catastrophe is small. But people like the assurance that they would be covered if catastrophe happened. Maybe consortia of states?

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:


I'm referring to the concept generally. One needs to be able to make distinctions when discussing abstract concepts. So just because there are evil people in the world doesn't negate using the term 'good' when discussing the concept 'good'. And just because there are bad governments doesn't mean there is no concept called the 'public good'.

When discussing the US in particular, I'll be looking at results before I apply a term because I think any term needs to be proven in particular instances. So, I'm not saying that everything the US government does, or that any government does, is a 'public good'.

Anyway, this should probably be n a different thread, so I'm x-posting there.

x-posted from
Biden wants Americans to Report All Transactions Over $600 to IRS Under Fed Plan?
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=64611&p=1

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Of all of the spending government does, there were 2 departments which gave back to the public, the economy, more than what was spent.
One was NASA, with $1.21 benefit per tax dollar spent.
The only other one was DoD, with $1.06 benefit per tax dollar spent.
At the other end of the spectrum, some Social Service department came in at $0.31 of value or benefit per tax dollar spent.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX: I think "public good" is a valid concept and phrase, even tho it's been used and abused throughout its lifetime. After all, you would probably accept the term "public bad" so clearly its opposite also exists, if only in theory.

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But let me get to perhaps a more essential question:

provide for the common defense
promote the general welfare
and secure the blessings of liberty for us and our posterity

Even governments that I believe work reasonably well ... NOT OURS ... achieve the top two, but not the third. It seems to me that, over time, most governments become more centralized and authoritarian.

SO is this inevitable? Can it be reversed without revolution, or external force being applied?

What do you think?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Of all of the spending government does, there were 2 departments which gave back to the public, the economy, more than what was spent.
One was NASA, with $1.21 benefit per tax dollar spent.
The only other one was DoD, with $1.06 benefit per tax dollar spent.
At the other end of the spectrum, some Social Service department came in at $0.31 of value or benefit per tax dollar spent.

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How have you defined and measured "benefit"?

Who benefits? In what way?

The only research that I can think of that came out of DARPA was the concept of the internet, but that was DEVELOPED by others, not the military.

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AFA the Democrats not defending Pearl Harbor, rumor has it that the top echelong knew the attack was coming but LIHOP (let it happen in purpose... like 9-11) because FDR wanted to get into the war. But that's just a rumor.

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:
The first transistor was demonstrated at Bell Labs.

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The first integrated circuit was demonstrated at Texas Instruments. The first monolithic IC was demonstrated at Fairchild Semiconductor.

The US military wasn't any part of the research, discovery, and invention process.

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

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Originally posted by 1KIKI:
The first transistor was demonstrated at Bell Labs.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_transistor
"The Bell Labs work on the transistor emerged from war-time efforts to produce extremely pure germanium "crystal" mixer diodes

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
JSF: You seem to resent people knowing more than you.

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BTW ... LEARNING doesn't just mean "reinforcing what you already know", it means advancing into new, possibly challenging and uncomfortable areas, and questioning your knowledge and (occasionally) admitting you were wrong and changing your mind.

Unless you can do that, you're not really learning.

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SIGNYM:
JSF: You seem to resent people knowing more than you.

JSF: possibly revealing perspective of yours, if not interesting. As a conservative living Free in America, I like and enjoy giving the less fortunate a hand, helping out when possible. When I encounter folk who are at a loss for information, I try to help out there too. When I help folk, I often ask if they want me to do it for them, or if they want the explanation for the solution. If they only want the work done by me, then I forego the explanation. For those who want the info, I try to explain at a level I think they can understand, and use in the future.
I can understand that you do not like such an attitude, perhaps you only want to keep the information to yourself, instead of share.
When I find folk who know more than me on a subject, I an eager to learn from them. Sadly, this does not happen much anymore, in personal life or in professional life.
I sometimes look at what you and kiki post, if I think you seem to know about a subject.

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JSF: Obviously, this does not apply to tech knowledge with you two. Knowing how to utilize tech and how the tech works are not the same thing, and I am not even sure you understand even that basic concept.

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SIGNY: BTW ... LEARNING doesn't just mean "reinforcing what you already know", it means advancing into new, possibly challenging and uncomfortable areas, and questioning your knowledge and (occasionally) admitting you were wrong and changing your mind.
Unless you can do that, you're not really learning.

JSF: Yes.
You should try to read what you just wrote. And then try it.
Just because you have been wrong for the past 55 years

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and become entrenched in your delusions does not inherently mean that you cannot try to learn, even then learn from your mistakes. But I don't really beat on those topics because I have seen no evidence that you will learn from your mistakes.

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JSF: Of course, now that Sol is orbiting Terra we should re-evaluate our assumptions because the facts have obviously changed. I understand the Jenners are leading the charge. But I am more likely to believe millennia of facts rather than your revisionist data and opinion of the past few years.

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Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
In what way do you think efficiency is not a good metric?

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
We've outsourced literally everything.

How do you suppose that's going to be done without creating a one world government now?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
We've outsourced literally everything.

How do you suppose that's going to be done without creating a one world government now?

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"That"?
Not sure what you're referring to.
You mean, rebuild a robust economy?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, it occured to me while I was noddling on the whole concept of "government", there is one function that society (or its surrogate, government) MUST provide and that is internal security and organization.

It is impossible to produce sophisticated goods at a high level when everyone is running around "doing their own thing".

If you have a society of completely atomized individuals (or factionalized groups) who have no binding ethics and understanding of the world, you wind up like ... say .... Mexico. Religion used to tie people together, but that seems to have gone the way of the dodo.

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One World Government means we're all Mexico. Or even worse, China or Russia.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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One World Government means we're all Mexico. Or even worse, China or Russia.

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No, One World Government is where the tiny elite represented by the Davos Crowd controls the entire world: a monolith.

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