Insurance Corporation of British Columbia

ICBC is British Columbia's only seller of car insurance. They have the Monopoly, and you can't drive a car in BC without their insurance, so they are the only authority that can give you a driver's license.

Anything the government does will be the worst for the end consumer, and benefit practical monopolies like Comcast. It's like trusting the FDA to regulate Monsanto for the good of the people. The FDA = Monsanto. Literally, they ARE the same PEOPLE. So it is with any "net neutrality" falsely so called.

For example: http://consumerist.com/2014/08/12/comcast-spending-110k-on-award-dinner-for-current-fcc-commissioner-doesnt-understand-why-anyone-thinks-thats-a-probl
em/

Neils thoughts on the viral video

*** August 3, 2014 -- Anatomy of a GMO Commentary ****
Ten days ago, this brief clip of me was posted by somebody.

It contains my brief [2min 20sec] response to a question posed by a French journalist, after a talk I gave on the Universe. He found me at the post-talk book signing table. (Notice the half-dozen ready & willing pens.) The clip went mildly viral (rising through a half million right now) with people weighing in on whether they agree with me or not.

Some comments...

1) The journalist posted the question in French. I don't speak French, so I have no memory of how I figured out that was asking me about GMOs. Actually I do know some French words like Bordeaux, and Bourgogne, and Champagne, etc.

2) Everything I said is factual. So there's nothing to disagree with other than whether you should actually "chill out" as I requested of the viewer in my last two words of the clip.

3) Had I given a full talk on this subject, or if GMOs were the subject of a sit-down interview, then I would have raised many nuanced points, regarding labeling, patenting, agribusiness, monopolies, etc. I've noticed that almost all objections to my comments center on these other issues.

4) I offer my views on these nuanced issues here, if anybody is interested:
a- Patented Food Strains: In a free market capitalist society, which we have all "bought" into here in America, if somebody invents something that has market value, they ought to be able to make as much money as they can selling it, provided they do not infringe the rights of others. I see no reason why food should not be included in this concept.
b- Labeling: Since practically all food has been genetically altered from nature, if you wanted labeling I suppose you could demand it, but then it should be for all such foods. Perhaps there could be two different designations: GMO-Agriculture GMO-Laboratory.
c- Non-perennial Seed Strains: It's surely legal to sell someone seeds that cannot reproduce themselves, requiring that the farmer buy seed stocks every year from the supplier. But when sold to developing country -- one struggling to become self-sufficient -- the practice is surely immoral. Corporations, even when they work within the law, should not be held immune from moral judgement on these matters.
d- Monopolies are generally bad things in a free market. To the extent that the production of GMOs are a monopoly, the government should do all it can to spread the baseline of this industry. (My favorite monopoly joke ever, told by Stephen Wright: "I think it's wrong that the game Monopoly is sold by only one company")
e- Safety: Of course new foods should be tested for health risks, regardless of their origin. That's the job of the Food and Drug Administration (in the USA). Actually, humans have been testing food, even without the FDA ,since the dawn of agriculture. Whenever a berry or other ingested plant killed you, you knew not to serve it to you family.
f- Silk Worms: I partly mangled my comments on this. Put simply, commercial Silk Worms have been genetically modified by centuries of silk trade, such that they cannot survive in the wild. Silk Worms currently exist only to serve the textile industry. Just as Milk Cows are bred with the sole purpose of providing milk to humans. There are no herds of wild Milk Cows terrorizing the countryside.

5) If your objection to GMOs is the morality of selling non-prerennial seed stocks, then focus on that. If your objection to GMOs is the monopolistic conduct of agribusiness, then focus on that. But to paint the entire concept of GMO with these particular issues is to blind yourself to the underlying truth of what humans have been doing -- and will continue to do -- to nature so that it best serves our survival. That's what all organisms do when they can, or would do, if they could. Those that didn't, have gone extinct extinct.

In life, be cautious of how broad is the brush with which you paint the views of those you don't agree with.

Respectfully Submitted
-NDTyson

The government regulation you have, the more susceptibility you create for crony-manipulations of the regulatory monopoly that is the SEC. If you freed the market, you'd give individuals the choice as to where and how to invest their money whereby the security and return would be a "selling point" and not an afterthought.

"Hit pieces" like this one may regurgitate a lot of the same findings but they always draw the exact opposite conclusion (as counterintuitive as it seems to most people who misunderstand human behavior and economics).

Big surprise that the existence of a "state" is causing problems...

The Middle East, Ukraine, wherever you have war, you have a fight over which state institution gets to rule over everyone else in a particular geographic region. Or it's a (violent) fight over what institution (and those who control it) will have a legal monopoly of aggression and ultimate decision-making over that geographical area. Just like other forms of organized crime, the capos will periodically engage in these struggles (regardless of the cost to the innocent bystanders) over its perceived territory/jurisdiction.

"The people" participate in these struggles because they expect rewards from a kind of universal "spoils system," hoping to become beneficiaries/cronies once their chosen warlords win/take over.

Or even if they don't hope to win much of the spoils, they fear being on the losing end of it. And who can blame them, given the pervasiveness of such a delusion? (Well, their victims I suppose could "blame them," but little good it would do, I suspect...)

Lord, I’m on a Permanent Holiday I’m goin outside to play.
I ain’t gonna slave away. Not for no corporate Babylon.
I’m never gonna be a pawn in their manipulation games
I’m taking the reigns, breaking the chains, I’m never gonna kneel, no way.
My prophet is heaven sent.
No preacher or president gonna lead I astray

I’m taking Jah highway home.
I’ve got my own path to follow
Don’t know if you’ll overstand , I’ve got my own truth to swallow.
And if I could you know I would throw my guitar on my back,
Pick up the slack and leave here tomorrow. But I know that I’m
A pawn of Babylon, I got to face the facts, embrace the axe
And cut these chains of my sorrow

10,000 years of captivity, we must eventually open up our eyes and see
They’re manipulating we. With so much uncertainty and so many mysteries,
Why are so few questioning the unnatural state of things.
It’s a nightmare, we’re living in a nightmare, everyone’s living so scared
They’re virtually unaware of this fear that rules their lives, occupies, consumes their minds
This fear of bankruptcy, financial impotency. It’s money, money , money.
It’s all this digital currency. It’s all this monopoly money that keeps us from ever being free.
And so it seems we’ll be in this prison for life
Cause If we keep buying then they’ll keep selling the lies
And so it’s up to I & I
I won’t be manipulated, mind-controlled and inundated,
I will seek the revelation, make my life a celebration.
I’m gonna be the change I’m seeking, manifest the words I’m speaking
I refuse to be imprisoned I will make my own decisions

I’ll never go astray no.
I’m leaving the past and forwarding fast cause freedom is here to stay.
We got to take back the knowledge, take back the power
Take back what they have stolen from our hearts
Take back the esoteric knowledge, for too long they’ve been keeping us apart.
We got to take back the knowledge, take back the power,
Humanity don’t let this be our final hour.

Seems like another non-issue. In other words, people who stream video should pay for it, and not the people who don't. Right now, people who don't are subsidizing some of the costs for those who do. I don't really get the "problem," but I haven't put a lot of time looking into it.

In other words, what's the issue with NN? That they won't let you access porn sites or whatever? I think freeing it up for ISP competition would take care of access and cost issues. Like if Verizon was to introduce "static" onto your calls, then AT&T would take a larger chunk from them by not doing so. In a free market, businesses have to compete for your business. In a free market, you cannot really introduce a false scarcity. Only if there is a cartel or monopoly can that happen (which, in this case -- and in every case -- is ultimately the government).

In a competitive environment, no sane provider would want a reputation as a bad provider who intentionally messes with their own quality of service. That makes no sense. The restriction of ISP competition seems to be more of a problem and it is for this reason that the whole NN issue strikes me as another unnecessary freakout.

He forgot the most important blow to the betamax: JVC licensed VHS, SONY refused to do it and wanted to take the whole video market as a monopoly. So VHS was available, in cheaper prices from multiple manufacturers and with ever increasing options while SONY and BetaMax had couple of models.. Not the first time SONY has lost something over greed, BluRay almost went with the same route (allthou there were several companies developing it from the start).

BetaMax cassette was 1h with the short play (and better quality), 2h with long play (later over 3h). Even on that machine he demonstrated.. The real reason for video cassette wars going for JVC was licensing and price dropped obviously with competition. But BetaMax was around almost for the entirety of video cassette history, collectors often wanted theirs in BetaMax for better sound and slightly better picture quality. Sound difference was noticeable, picture,, naah, not so much (i was there when this war happened...)

Sony was offered to join JVC before either had come out...

Classified as common carriers and de-coupled from content production/sales.

If they remove the providing of access to internet from the same businesses trying to push their own content....we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Even as common carriers if they are still selling content, it's quite easy for them to just avoid upgrading their backbones and infrastructure AS THEY HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS to give false priority to their own content through purposeful neglect.


I really haven't seen this aspect discussed...just them making companies pay to not have their particular offerings throttled. Which is just a natural evolution of having both the delivery means and major content production under the same roof.



It'd be similar to having a major trucking company or two own all the roads and couple major manufacturers. Once they block anyone else from access to those roads or creating new ones.... They will only be interested in repairing and expanding the roads where the most profitable business is done........... And no one can do a damn thing about it because they have monopolies and basically what amounts to non-compete agreements everywhere with no minimal level of service. The only way in this circumstance to really drive down their prices and create real competition is if teleportation of goods became available and you could bypass their strangle hold on roads. Which in this case........would be wireless and satellite......which........they own too.



So when it comes to internet speeds....the only reason for them to upgrade it for the common man is if the content they sell is becoming too slow for people to consider.


That's how I see it anyway....they really aren't competing with other internet providers in the vast majority of the market...because there's only 1-2 in most.....and they sell content. They view themselves as content delivery businesses, not high speed internet providers.

I agree, the whole bailout thing was un-American. Thanks W for starting the processes with the airlines and Wall street. At least we got something back with the auto bailouts, but we still artificially kept the near monopoly going strong when it should have failed and split into numerous smaller companies, and paid through the nose to do it.
I also wish we still broke monopolies instead of giving them MORE artificial advantages. It is disgusting how much of our government has whored itself out to the highest bidder.

On the other hand, apparently the US Government lost $11.2 billion on bailing out GM. They *spent* 50 billion bailing them out, the 11.2 billion is just how much dried up and blew away entirely.

Maybe if we'd have just let some of those corporate juggernauts fail, as should happen in a REAL free market, we'd actually have seen more progress. I'm thinking of, say, Tesla -- that got a $465 million loan from the gov. and paid it off in full 9 years early.

Not so long ago -- within my lifespan -- the government actually *broke up* giant corporate monopolies like Bell telecom. Now we can't throw money at them fast enough. I guess lobbying "works".

gotta love those gov't contracts.. thank the state for the broadband monopolies.

"You wouldn't accept lag offline, so why do it online?"

Because I live in the United States of God-damn America, and I already pay $90 a month for 340Kpbs! Insensitive fucks.
GIVE ME AN ALTERNATIVE TO THIS MONOPOLY!

I must say I find your sentiment is correct, but not couched fully in reality.
Most people use religion as a tool to foster distrust and hate of others, not love. If more 'Christians' would follow the teachings of Jesus (of inclusion, tolerance, and living by the 'golden rule') rather than couch their arguments and feelings of intolerance in the old testament, there would be far less need for laws to force their proper behavior and fairness. Sadly, that does not seem to be the case. Not only do more people use it to judge others rather than love them, rarely do we see that behavior called out by other Christians, making all of them somewhat guilty of it by complicity.
(I only single out Christians because 1)it's the major religion here and 2) it's the one being discussed here...not because I'm implying they have a monopoly on bad behavior).
Are you suggesting that religious marriage should no longer be legal marriage? If so, that's quite an interesting position to take as a preacher, one I applaud. I feel that if a church wants to remain 'separate' from government, it should not try to share ANY duties with it. If it wants to do things with legal civil implications outside religion, I think it's taking a dangerous road that puts it in bed with the current government, a road that may at some time force them to violate their conscience to remain 'compliant'.

Small concert venues are notorious for awful conditions and whatever monopoly controls venue booking in your country will ensure your booking fees are extortionate.

I mean the fact that ear plugs are pretty much a pre-requisite for most indoor events shows how little thought goes in.

I suppose the attitude is, when there's one venue for a band you might never get to see live again, you'll put up with and pay anything.