"it just sounds like a return to feudalism."

How so specifically? An agrarian culture based on farmland ownership?

It sounds to me that your imagination is getting the best of you. Creative, but not at all what I am describing. Somalia is a failed state, and a socialist failed state at that. However, as you know, things from medical services to life expectancy to infrastructure to child mortality to crime all dropped in the 20 years in which Somalia had no functioning government. Things got better not worse. Why do you think that is?

Saying a free market would be like Somalia is like saying that a government-regulated market would be like North Korea. There are other issues to consider.

Libertarianism does not posit that a free market automatically means a perfect or even a great society. But it does posit that a free market system will ease poverty, increase wealth, and ensure peace at a faster pace than a statist one. At whatever level a culture/society starts at, they will improve and be better off in a free market rather than under state rule. Somalia started off in a mess, caused by its failed state circumstances. You cannot seriously expect to go from one day to the next, eliminate the state, and expect that overnight all that damage will sort itself out just because now -- a day later -- there's no state. You have to rebuild and accumulate wealth over time. And Somalia did remarkably well considering the mess it started from.

A society like the US, which is much better off (for the time-being!), would improve even more, rather than deteriorate, with less or even no government. But of course, if a meteorite wipes out DC overnight, that does not mean overnight improvement. After all, the government has wiped out many private institutions that would need to be in place to take over from the government in providing the services they put out of business.

On the other hand, the road towards more state control (which you, strangely continue to support and defend) leads to more deterioration of the society/culture. The US is doing better because of all the capital it accumulated during the century in which it functioned under little government intervention with regards to its economic matters. That wealth has been badly squandered, and now Americans are living off what remains, slowly but surely bankrupting the country though more government interventions, currency inflations, needless war, bailouts, surveillance, ad infinitum.

But make no mistake: whatever wealth the US as a nation has came about though free exchange in commerce, and was not the result of government regulation. The more government interferes, the slower the growth, until now it has reached the point where there is no growth, only debt. (The Treasury should be renamed the Department of Debt, because it has no money, only debt -- just like a majority of Americans.)

In sum: Somalis are improving. Americans are not. Whoever you are, I assure you, you started off in a much better place than the average Somali did. But look at their rate of change!


EDIT: Somalia also did not have a "free market" when it came to warlord gangs. Unless people had a choice as to which warlord to hire for protection or not, then that is not a free market when it comes to protection services. If allegiance to a particular warlord was voluntary, then you could more honestly make the claim that they had a "free market." Still, the situation is improving. And I think it would have improved faster had there not been the (UN-fueled) expectation of a future centralized government, had the UN not been financing groups towards this end, and had they not been incentivizing gangs to fight each other for position in a future "government."

There is nothing "free market" about forced conscription. I don't know why you would even say that.

I've seen this a few times in life. Once it was a flock that was so much larger than this I can't even make a good estimate because I think most people would believe I was exaggerating. It covered most of the sky. Was driving on the I5 freeway in Northern California, midday, slightly overcast, farmland everywhere around. It was like the sky had a blanket that came loose in the wind. They just morphed and undulated for hours. I wasn't the only person who stopped on the side of the road to watch. It was one of the few breathtaking things I'll remember for as long as I live.

I would call America the Greatest,but I judge Greatest by different criteria.

Resources,and the management of them,basicly. How self sufficient a country can be if the raw materials the land posesses were properly utilized. We have farmland,oil metal and other harvestable materials ,industry and tecnology ,and the space for a huge population. If our corporate masters had an interest in it,we could provide ourselves the highest standard of living for all citizens if these phenomenal potentials were focused to that end. What other country commands such wealth of assets? And imagine our Gross National Product if we STOPPED tossing money at these other nations.America need Noone in the end.

But,I dream. America was an interesting experiment:give common people the Vote and they'll vote for the happiest Fiction they are shown,and soon our politicians will just do away with that illusion of choice and bring us into the new Corporate Feudalism where we'll be serfs enthralled to the yokes of global conglomerates.

He's certainly sincere,and utterly mistaken to think such starry-eyed idealism would shift as massive and entrenched a concept as Oil a foot towards a better enviorment when there are profits to be made.

And these selfsame unnaccountable titans want to send a pipeline down the center of Middle America,corrupting Lord knows how many acres of farmland with an even dirtier type of oil. And not even to wean America off of foreign imports,but to fatten already swollen wallets by exporting it to China and other third world labour camps. The poor kid thinks his father's industrial peers have souls.

I found it amusing towards the end the moderator trying to steer him into "safer" waters and shut down his blind enthusiasm for wanting change. A surprise Enviormental Radical in their midst...

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/sustainability/2012/01/30/enbridges-northern-gateway-pipeline-joint-review-panel-explainer

People who decide these things ultimately will be able to afford a 5 dollar loaf of bread,the imported clean bottled water,the filtered air. We don't matter in the world they exist in.

Not yet.

>> ^cosmovitelli:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^artician:
I'm so curious to why people reject that notion. Is it purely fear of other religions and cultures? Are that many americans actually for invading other countries? I've never encountered that state of mind before, at all. From my experience most people are pretty quick to equate War with Evil.

I have a theory that most Americans know pretty much what we're doing. The fight between the indoctrinated (both the right and the left) is actually a fight about how we should go about doing what we're doing in the world..
Democratic presidents aren't any better on war crimes than Republican presidents. They just seem to be in the business of trying to tell everyone they're being nice and when they have to do something awful it's all the other countries fault...
This is also helped along by the media who play their role well.

Exactly. Without war America goes back to the 30's - California's border closed, 400,000,000 acres of farmland turned to dust by greed and lack of regulation, stillbirths due to malnutrition, bank of America paying people (WHITE People!) 5c a day for picking lettuce and beating them in some cases to DEATH for demanding a liveable wage (it was 25c before the excess labour turned up from the dust bowl).
Then corresponding communist organisation by the workers, FBI involvent in repression via total constitutional breaches, etc etc.
Without WW2 it looked like civil war - or reduction to a slave force for big east coast finance. Then the massive battle fleet parked off the coast of Japan mysteriously provoked an attack - and whammo - a job for everyone, a new massive industry (still what America spends half of all it's money on to this day), and a border extended effectively all the way around the globe, allowing the cycle to start again except on a much bigger stage.
What happens now when the organisms reach the edge of the petri dish? Well, better stick some of that annual $1 trillion into FTL research cos we're going to need a new planet.
The choice - face up to it, or shout boo at anyone who tries to tell you the truth.


Welcome to the world of bullshit for people who only speak and know bullshit -- that's everyone, FYI. And it's going to be that way for all of time, whether it's at the workplace of 2012, politics in 3012, or Sunday school at the Grand Cabal's Science Center for Observable Theological Theory in the year 100,012. I already have FTL drives and I keep em powered up wherever I go.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^artician:
I'm so curious to why people reject that notion. Is it purely fear of other religions and cultures? Are that many americans actually for invading other countries? I've never encountered that state of mind before, at all. From my experience most people are pretty quick to equate War with Evil.

I have a theory that most Americans know pretty much what we're doing. The fight between the indoctrinated (both the right and the left) is actually a fight about how we should go about doing what we're doing in the world..
Democratic presidents aren't any better on war crimes than Republican presidents. They just seem to be in the business of trying to tell everyone they're being nice and when they have to do something awful it's all the other countries fault...
This is also helped along by the media who play their role well.


Exactly. Without war America goes back to the 30's - California's border closed, 400,000,000 acres of farmland turned to dust by greed and lack of regulation, stillbirths due to malnutrition, bank of America paying people (WHITE People!) 5c a day for picking lettuce and beating them in some cases to DEATH for demanding a liveable wage (it was 25c before the excess labour turned up from the dust bowl).
Then corresponding communist organisation by the workers, FBI involvent in repression via total constitutional breaches, etc etc.

Without WW2 it looked like civil war - or reduction to a slave force for big east coast finance. Then the massive battle fleet parked off the coast of Japan mysteriously provoked an attack - and whammo - a job for everyone, a new massive industry (still what America spends half of all it's money on to this day), and a border extended effectively all the way around the globe, allowing the cycle to start again except on a much bigger stage.

What happens now when the organisms reach the edge of the petri dish? Well, better stick some of that annual $1 trillion into FTL research cos we're going to need a new planet.

The choice - face up to it, or shout boo at anyone who tries to tell you the truth.

@visionep I come from a farm family in Kansas, so I'm a bit biased, but I tend to disagree with you on a few things. So upvote for your comment starting the discussion but here's my rebuttal --

1. "Not much" has the potential to be pretty good, considering that sources of ethanol are much more renewable than oil. Plus, a lot of the energy balance reviews of ethanol that I've seen or heard of talk about the input cost to produce the first gallon of fuel, ie. they include construction, fermentation tanks, etc. etc. That is fair, but it is worth noting that over the long term those startup input costs become less and less of a factor because the infrastructure already exists. The cost to refine the first gallon of crude oil into gasoline was higher than the bazillionth, also.

2. Some of the food production competition will remain long-term, and some is temporary. Right now in the US, we mostly use corn (field corn) to produce ethanol. Field corn can be ground into corn flour, but at least where I come from the majority of it went to feed lots to be used as food for beef cows prior to introduction of ethanol plants. Now, the produced corn is split between going to beef production or into ethanol.

Competition between beef vs. ethanol industries raised the price of corn some (both industries want that corn) which makes farmers happy. That in turn raised the price of beef a bit, but it didn't do much to prices for human-consumption food other than that, because field corn isn't used for that very much.

The reason that we use corn for ethanol now is that corn is plentiful; it is the major crop in my neck of the woods with wheat being the second but lagging far behind. Ethanol producers need something that ferments, corn fits the bill and is available. Minor crops like milo work basically just as well as corn, so if some weather event damages a corn field and it can be replanted with milo later in the season that is great for farmers because they now have a buyer that is willing to take milo.

In the future, we could use non-food cellulose crops like switchgrass for ethanol production, and the processing will only be slightly different. Switchgrass could be grown and harvested on land that is unsuitable for corn (corn does best with a lot of water), but there isn't a large supply of it right now because there hasn't been any demand for it historically.

So yes, there will always be some competition between what crop people decide to produce on a given piece of farmland, and that can affect food prices. But I think that over the long term, ethanol production could provide useful fuel that has positive benefits that outweigh impacts from potentially slightly higher food prices. Maybe. But then again, I am a biased source!

We've had two motorcycle fatalities in my area in the last little while.

The first one is literally two blocks from my house, an idiot was riding down and weaving between cars.
A truck wanted to turn right onto the street (it's a two lane road he was turning onto) and looking at the road, there was nobody in the right lane, giving him clearance. As soon as he pulled out, the biker decided to weave again and pull ahead of the truck it was following, and slamming into the one pulling out, killing him instantly.

The second one was a little ways out in more farmland area. A biker ran a 4 way stop, not even slowing down, and slammed into the driver door of a car. He was pronounced dead later, and the driver of the car is still in critical condition.

Honestly, People look at bikes and say "people die because of those."

I hear this and reply "No, people die from stupidity."

>> ^possom:

Which came first, the market or the train?


My wife (Thai) says that the train was there first, with the original line going in perhaps in 1905 (not 100% sure), and the market being started in 1984 according to a quick google search in Thai.

The original center of the market was in vacant area next to the train line. However, the rental prices for a market stall in that original area were set high enough that it was hard for people to make a profit. Apparently someone with the state railway service decided to rent out space adjacent to (read: *on*) the tracks at a much lower rate than the privately-owned market area. The majority of stall vendors moved onto the railway line in spite of the inconvenience of trains going through, and the "gimmick" of the train interruptions increased business from tourists both Thai and foreign.

The state railway owns all of the land that train lines run on in Thailand, and I guess that leasing out that land is very common. In the province that I live in, the land surrounding the tracks outside of town is leased out as farmland, and some of the length that runs through town has been leased out by builders that put up rows of shop-houses that are then rented out. The back walls of the shop-houses are probably 1-2 meters or so away from the tracks, so not quite as close as the market stalls you see in the video but still plenty crammed in.

So anyway, I guess that the land with railway lines is frequently utilized by 3rd parties here in Thailand, but the Maeklong market is the only place where it is encroached on in this way to be used as market space. My guess is that there are probably rules that prevent other areas from doing likewise, but that the Maeklong market got grandfathered in due to its status as a tourist attraction.

I've never seen anything like that tsunami water rushing at what looks to be 80mph over farmland. People driving down the road when their cars are swept away like toys. The water so thick with debris it looked more like churning earth than water.

There will always be people who want to ride fast and we can't change that. Just like there will be people who always want to own guns, or drink alcohol, or whatever.

The only thing we can hope for is that people do it in the safest way possible.

Now I know not everyone that drinks alcohol rents a room for the night to make sure they don't drive drunk, or stumble into the road and cause an accident, or throw up on some strangers shoes igniting a huge drunken brawl.

I know not everyone that owns a gun will always shoot it at a range or in a sanctioned hunting area.

It's the same way that not everyone who wants to ride a motorcycle fast will always take it to the track.

I understand why everyone here is upset. But we can't stop everyone from doing everything that is wrong all the time. Is what these riders doing wrong? Yes. Is it dangerous? Yes. But at least it's on some middle of the road nowhere (yes there are houses in the beginning but after that it looks like farmland) place. I didn't see a school bus stop or an orphanage or some kind of cute animal factory. I'm not saying it wasn't there, but I highly doubt these people would take their very expensive motorcycles on this road in such a large group if they thought there was a chance of their bikes getting wrecked.

If anyone here truly truly can tell me they always take all precautions necessary in life, then they are a better person than I am. Otherwise I suggest everyone take a look inward and realize they do things that can potentially hurt other people too, but just always minimize the risk.

Yeah, to be honest I was being a bit of a troll, I thought that obvious enough considering what you quoted from my spiel. Human food production creates just as much of an impact when we ship oranges from asia, and eat too much meat and so on. In my defense I remind you that I did say "Personally, I think you should get rid of your car before your pet." I read the article you linked and it definitely sets the record straight. Sort of, of course he makes his own errors like assuming that all dog food comes from American farmland... anyways, you have my permission to keep your pets and get rid of your car.

But as for citing quantitative evidence? Hah, I didn't claim anything that requires citation. Instead I'd like you to prove that dog food isn't transported by truck, or that our beef isn't corn fed.

"43 m^2 of land to generate 1 kg of chicken" is nonsensical. How long does it take 43 m^2 of land to generate that much chicken? Yeesh. If you assume it takes 4 months (I have no idea how fast chickens grow), and that a chicken weighs 3 kg (a little high, but it makes for easy numbers), and there are ~550 million acres of farmland in the world, and ~8.4 chickens are killed for food per year, then 1/6 of all farmland is devoted to raising chickens? That seems a little extreme.

I've heard this argument before, and even aside from the above it's pretty ridiculous. 1) I think most of that dog food is not meat and 2) what meat there is is the leftovers from what people don't eat. It's not like we're grinding up chicken breasts and compressing it into kibble.

[redacted]

I don't think that was a locally made video, as the cheesy effects seem to prove. It is an outsider looking in. So.... your complaint is ridiculous?


>> ^Mcboinkens:

They're lucky they get imported foodstuffs that far north. Complaining is ridiculous. If you want to live there, deal with it. If not, move closer to the farmlands that produce all of it and then get lower prices in return.