I tried to drive a cab in Austin Texas for a while. It is a ridiculous racket. Further, the rules in place basically prevent people from organizing to carpool systematically, which is a gross violation of civil rights and a rather pathetic sing of just how not-serious American government officials are about saving gas.
It seems to me that most folks that frequent Tech Dirt would consider themselves progressive at least on this particular topic, and it is repeatedly dismaying to me to see that, even on those issues where I - a somewhat conservative person in times past, at least according to those who like to tag me - am a progressive, the Democratic party is not a viable alternative for me.
Here in the states, Libraries seem to be often at the forefront of trying to get information out in the open. Many academics and librarians are people who tend to lean towards the side of less stringent copyright.
Sad to see France heading off in the opposite direction.
"People who argue that gun ownership is such an inviolable right that there can be no reasonable restrictions on it tend to be the same people who have no problems whatsoever opposing equally protected rights such as free speech."
I could just as easily say that people who want to do away with gun rights are the ones who always want to promote smut and violence in entertainment. And I would have just about as much accuracy in the statement.
John, the only reason these issues split along such lines is because our politics are dominated by two parties. If Democrats decided to oppose gun control tomorrow, the Republicans would suddenly find a reason to support it.
You can verify my position by watching which party supports "nation building" at specific points over the last three decades.
The real issue is that video games and guns both have one thing in common - neither has ANYTHING to do with criminal behavior.
There's your trouble. Ask yourself why your government wants to ban things at all.
In banning guns, Feinstein and others also want to ban the manufacture of guns, which in turn brings up a thousand and one opportunities to go all Aaron Swartz on people who machine or work with metal as a hobby.
Stop allowing the government to convince you to ban things.
The issue here (touched on in the article with its mention of the demonization of pinball) is that people are tired of the entertainment industry in general being such an engine of filth. (The entertainment industry being filthy goes even further back...) People used to say, "Well, if you don't like it, don't watch it," but it is now more than clear that people will watch things specifically BECAUSE they do not like it, and in any event it's beside the point.
The point is that there are a metric f-ton of positive things that video games COULD do, but all they ever seem to do is make more smutty and violent simulations.
You're not going to talk away people objecting to making something horrific into the theme of your entertainment choices. Some people are always going to find that repulsive. Some certain percentage of them will even be able to act accordingly.
I'm still waiting for someone to point me to the video game based on teaching calculus.
We need to attack corruption on a broad array of issues.
1. Central Banking - this allows central control of the money supply.
2. IP Laws - These allow ownership of information, and central control over who is allowed to know what.
3. Limited Liability - this allows "owners" to have their interests protected from "labor" and "consumers" - an artificial and unjust separation by any measure.
The more I read, the more I realize all of history is a long, slow march towards totalitarianism. We are far less free than our Medieval cousins were, shockingly. We just don't comprehend it yet.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
Banks do not gamble with people's money. When they gamble at all, they create new money to do it with. In fact, though, it is not bank gambling that set this off. Banks have to use very specific types of things in order to create new money. Real estate mortgages do not count.
When banks could no longer unload real estate morgages, the financial system seized up. It seized up because banks are the source of our money. Bank failures mean the money itself is sucked from the system, as money IS one of the things banks can reserve that gives them the authority to create new money.
There is no need for the government to step in and regulate private contracts such as derivatives that you (and many others I have heard) seem so frightened of. If the monetary system itself were not tied to this, then investors, banks, indeed entire municipalities, states, and even nations could go bankrupt without the monetary system itself being hurt. This is what I am addressing.
I am not worrying with microeconomics, nor are the people who are thinking of returning money production and destruction to the government. What I and others are looking at is divorcing money creation and destruction - in effect the money supply itself - from banking.
So thanks, but it would appear you are not understanding the object here. Again, the main benefit I see with a system of LETS organizations is, "the money supply expands and contracts as needed, without any managing authority."
What I am discussing has nothing to do with microeconomic forces.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
Derivatives come in a lot of differrent shapes and sizes, and all they amount to is contracts. Futures, options, swaps - there's nothing wrong with these, and they are not the cause of the financial failure. The reason for these repeated failures is the tie between the bank and the money supply. When banks threaten to go under, they threaten to take the entire economy down with them because the money associated with them literally disappears from circulation.
THAT is the issue. Otherwise there would be no need for government bailouts of banks.
The solution being bandied about now is basically to go back to the old "Chicago Plan" where the government controls the money supply directly. This, to me, is little better than the current regime whereby banks control it through a combination of regulatory and market pressures. The bottom line is some oligarchy somewhere is in charge of the money supply, and while this system has a long and glorious tradition, it is mostly a long and glorious tradition of abuses and catastrophes.
That's my take on it.
My suggestion is probably reflective of something far more refined and well developed that someone has proposed before and that has been burried under a blizard of opposing scholarship. So far I haven't found it, but I have certainly found a ton of stuff indicating that we were actually more free and self directed in Medieval times than we are now, for example.
I think banking, Intellectual Property, and Limited Liability work together to effect fascist forms of government that look less centralized than they actually are. The banking part is possibly the trickiest, but I know there is a better way.
I once heard a fairly simplistic solution to base money on something akin to stock market.
And while I was looking for that, found this instead.
So yeah, it's nothing new. It just needs to be expanded and regulated. Note specifically this - "the money supply expands and contracts as needed, without any managing authority"
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
I'm not confusing them. I am suggesting purposefully conflating them so that there is no one in control of money. There is no need of artificial money. Comparative values can be worked out in the market, and whatever generic credits need to exist can be managed in that way instead of allowing any person or group of people to control the "money" supply.
People are constantly reminding us that money is not real.
Good, then bypass it and go straight to the source - relative trade values.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
There is a very obvious difference. The central bank does not get to pick and choose where the money goes in the system I am talking about. All the privacy concerns you have can be addressed through the mechanisms used.
I'm sure we all have our owl little reasons for trying to wring this guy's thought processes from out of him, but he doesn't know is the bottom line. He believes what he believes because someone he trusts told him so.
I tried to get him to talk about why copyright, fundamentally, is a good thing, and in the end he just punted with the comment, "You know nothing about how jobs work in the entertainment industry," or something to that effect.
As if the entertainment industry didn't fawn all over itself constantly, showing every imaginable detail of how it works. How the entertainment and media industry works is probably the single most documented method of any industry, seeing as how narcissistic entertainment industry people obsess constantly with making movies about making movies, music, and other purported art like "reality" tv.
Sorry, just had to vent. I just think it is a waste of time trying to get anything productive from the dude. It's kind of hard to write him off, because he starts out sounding lucid, but then just sort of peters out and talks in circles.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
I need to sit down and work out how to present this. I said, "They (banks) might as well...." What I really meant was "we". Although I suppose such clearing institutions could still be called "banks". Banks seem to have been the ones organizing the clearing in the 1893 example I was referencing.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
I did not say all informal systems of organizations don't work.
I first became aware of this sort of thing reading through Congressional records for the 1893 silver debate where it was pointed out that locally some folks had had success with what they were terming as "clearing houses". Today, a clearing house is mostly concerned with "financial" transactions, but the process could be used for goods and services as well, and apparently was. Instead of having it informal and local, it can be formalized and scaled for local, regional, national, and international trade.
International trade is sort of key. Much of modern inequality stems from the strength of western money in comparison to money in other parts of the world. It is no, in reality, "cheaper" to do things overseas. Rather, due to exchange rates and the fact that western money is the de facto international intermediate trade good, it costs less in Dollars, Euros, Pounds, etc, to do a lot of things overseas.
Point being, banks already just create credits. They might as well be forced to create them in accordance with real transactions and real goods and services, rather than just creating them and assigning them to whoever they suppose is the best risk. In the process of overseeing all these transactions, it will be possible to work out how much things are worth in comparison to other things, and just assign the credits while the clearing takes place behind the scenes.
I imagine before long it would look the same to the casual user as the present system, only it would not leave so much power in the hands of the few folks running the show.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
That's why I mentioned organizations and brokers to replace banks.
Banks are essentially just another layer of complexity added on top of existing trade exchanges. This stuff people are trying to say is so complicated goes on behind the scenes all the time. Futures trading, options, buyers and sellers for various organizations - they all work this stuff out already, using all sorts of information gathering techniques to try to find the most advantageous trades.
Just get rid of the bank portion of it and have these trades recorded and managed by brokers, with the option of assigning credits. Have the system, obviously, regulated and well watched over.
Police can take your money, never press charges, and never return it.
Sean thinks it's "convenient" that people are carrying all that cash.... even though it's perfectly legal, and pretty much the only way to stop feeding the crooked banking system.
Where are our banking prosecutions for the worldwide economic crash? But we can surely force citizens to stop taking pictures. Thank goodness for that.
It's not "convenient". It happens all the time, and is being documented. All you have to do in the USA these days is stand up for yourself when some security guard or police officer does something wrong and you are going to get nailed for it.
It is way past time to stop making excuses for the people doing the harassing. Did you see how long Carlos just stood there calmly explaining himself, explaining he had researched the law?
And he had.
You, sir, are part of the reason why the USA is falling to pieces.
On the post: And... Yet Another Regulator Flips Out About Uber, Tries To Kill It
Cabbing is a Racket
On the post: Obama Administration Considers Joining Publishers In Fight To Stamp Out Fair Use At Universities
Progressive
On the post: French National Library Privatizes Public Domain Materials
Amazingly Disgusting
Sad to see France heading off in the opposite direction.
On the post: Two More Politicians Claim Video Games Are The Real 'Problem'
Re: Hypocrisy
I could just as easily say that people who want to do away with gun rights are the ones who always want to promote smut and violence in entertainment. And I would have just about as much accuracy in the statement.
John, the only reason these issues split along such lines is because our politics are dominated by two parties. If Democrats decided to oppose gun control tomorrow, the Republicans would suddenly find a reason to support it.
You can verify my position by watching which party supports "nation building" at specific points over the last three decades.
On the post: Two More Politicians Claim Video Games Are The Real 'Problem'
Close
There's your trouble. Ask yourself why your government wants to ban things at all.
In banning guns, Feinstein and others also want to ban the manufacture of guns, which in turn brings up a thousand and one opportunities to go all Aaron Swartz on people who machine or work with metal as a hobby.
Stop allowing the government to convince you to ban things.
On the post: Two More Politicians Claim Video Games Are The Real 'Problem'
Well, once again
The point is that there are a metric f-ton of positive things that video games COULD do, but all they ever seem to do is make more smutty and violent simulations.
You're not going to talk away people objecting to making something horrific into the theme of your entertainment choices. Some people are always going to find that repulsive. Some certain percentage of them will even be able to act accordingly.
I'm still waiting for someone to point me to the video game based on teaching calculus.
On the post: Bad Week For Carmen Ortiz: Admits To Botched Gang Arrest As Congress Kicks Off Swartz Investigation
Re: Re: Consequences
1. Central Banking - this allows central control of the money supply.
2. IP Laws - These allow ownership of information, and central control over who is allowed to know what.
3. Limited Liability - this allows "owners" to have their interests protected from "labor" and "consumers" - an artificial and unjust separation by any measure.
The more I read, the more I realize all of history is a long, slow march towards totalitarianism. We are far less free than our Medieval cousins were, shockingly. We just don't comprehend it yet.
On the post: Bad Week For Carmen Ortiz: Admits To Botched Gang Arrest As Congress Kicks Off Swartz Investigation
Preach it Brother!
It's good to see this investigation, but it needs to go much, much farther.
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
When banks could no longer unload real estate morgages, the financial system seized up. It seized up because banks are the source of our money. Bank failures mean the money itself is sucked from the system, as money IS one of the things banks can reserve that gives them the authority to create new money.
There is no need for the government to step in and regulate private contracts such as derivatives that you (and many others I have heard) seem so frightened of. If the monetary system itself were not tied to this, then investors, banks, indeed entire municipalities, states, and even nations could go bankrupt without the monetary system itself being hurt. This is what I am addressing.
I am not worrying with microeconomics, nor are the people who are thinking of returning money production and destruction to the government. What I and others are looking at is divorcing money creation and destruction - in effect the money supply itself - from banking.
So thanks, but it would appear you are not understanding the object here. Again, the main benefit I see with a system of LETS organizations is, "the money supply expands and contracts as needed, without any managing authority."
What I am discussing has nothing to do with microeconomic forces.
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
THAT is the issue. Otherwise there would be no need for government bailouts of banks.
The solution being bandied about now is basically to go back to the old "Chicago Plan" where the government controls the money supply directly. This, to me, is little better than the current regime whereby banks control it through a combination of regulatory and market pressures. The bottom line is some oligarchy somewhere is in charge of the money supply, and while this system has a long and glorious tradition, it is mostly a long and glorious tradition of abuses and catastrophes.
That's my take on it.
My suggestion is probably reflective of something far more refined and well developed that someone has proposed before and that has been burried under a blizard of opposing scholarship. So far I haven't found it, but I have certainly found a ton of stuff indicating that we were actually more free and self directed in Medieval times than we are now, for example.
I think banking, Intellectual Property, and Limited Liability work together to effect fascist forms of government that look less centralized than they actually are. The banking part is possibly the trickiest, but I know there is a better way.
I once heard a fairly simplistic solution to base money on something akin to stock market.
And while I was looking for that, found this instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_credit
So yeah, it's nothing new. It just needs to be expanded and regulated. Note specifically this - "the money supply expands and contracts as needed, without any managing authority"
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
People are constantly reminding us that money is not real.
Good, then bypass it and go straight to the source - relative trade values.
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
On the post: California Senator Leland Yee Tells Gamers To Shut Up And Let The Grown Ups Talk
Re: Re: ROFL
The UK is no human rights daisy. Never has been. You didn't just let all your children fly free.... That's ridiculous.
On the post: Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I tried to get him to talk about why copyright, fundamentally, is a good thing, and in the end he just punted with the comment, "You know nothing about how jobs work in the entertainment industry," or something to that effect.
As if the entertainment industry didn't fawn all over itself constantly, showing every imaginable detail of how it works. How the entertainment and media industry works is probably the single most documented method of any industry, seeing as how narcissistic entertainment industry people obsess constantly with making movies about making movies, music, and other purported art like "reality" tv.
Sorry, just had to vent. I just think it is a waste of time trying to get anything productive from the dude. It's kind of hard to write him off, because he starts out sounding lucid, but then just sort of peters out and talks in circles.
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
I first became aware of this sort of thing reading through Congressional records for the 1893 silver debate where it was pointed out that locally some folks had had success with what they were terming as "clearing houses". Today, a clearing house is mostly concerned with "financial" transactions, but the process could be used for goods and services as well, and apparently was. Instead of having it informal and local, it can be formalized and scaled for local, regional, national, and international trade.
International trade is sort of key. Much of modern inequality stems from the strength of western money in comparison to money in other parts of the world. It is no, in reality, "cheaper" to do things overseas. Rather, due to exchange rates and the fact that western money is the de facto international intermediate trade good, it costs less in Dollars, Euros, Pounds, etc, to do a lot of things overseas.
Point being, banks already just create credits. They might as well be forced to create them in accordance with real transactions and real goods and services, rather than just creating them and assigning them to whoever they suppose is the best risk. In the process of overseeing all these transactions, it will be possible to work out how much things are worth in comparison to other things, and just assign the credits while the clearing takes place behind the scenes.
I imagine before long it would look the same to the casual user as the present system, only it would not leave so much power in the hands of the few folks running the show.
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: land of the free home of the brave
Banks are essentially just another layer of complexity added on top of existing trade exchanges. This stuff people are trying to say is so complicated goes on behind the scenes all the time. Futures trading, options, buyers and sellers for various organizations - they all work this stuff out already, using all sorts of information gathering techniques to try to find the most advantageous trades.
Just get rid of the bank portion of it and have these trades recorded and managed by brokers, with the option of assigning credits. Have the system, obviously, regulated and well watched over.
Instant non-centralized "money".
On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction... Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'
Re: Re:
Even if I read it once, I can leave it collapsed going forward to save time.
On the post: Carlos Miller Arrested (Again) For Perfectly Legal Photography
Cash Forfeiture fiasco has gone on for years. I think a couple of decades now.
Police can take your money, never press charges, and never return it.
Sean thinks it's "convenient" that people are carrying all that cash.... even though it's perfectly legal, and pretty much the only way to stop feeding the crooked banking system.
Where are our banking prosecutions for the worldwide economic crash? But we can surely force citizens to stop taking pictures. Thank goodness for that.
On the post: Carlos Miller Arrested (Again) For Perfectly Legal Photography
Re: Pretty convenient
It is way past time to stop making excuses for the people doing the harassing. Did you see how long Carlos just stood there calmly explaining himself, explaining he had researched the law?
And he had.
You, sir, are part of the reason why the USA is falling to pieces.
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