h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"It's only possible to work for more money if there's someone who will pay you more, and that won't happen while there's someone who will do the job for less. That's true now, and that's even more true in the Propertarian worldview. Because resources aren't infinite, there will always be a bottom rung of society, and the only question is who is going to be on that rung, and where exactly it is going to be."

You answered your first statement with your last. Someone actually WILL pay more EVEN if someone will do the job for less. This is BECAUSE, "there will always be a bottom rung of society" -- and also a mid rung and a top rung. The "someone" that will do the job for less will be that same "someone" on the bottom rung". The others will be paid more, thus keeping wages from falling too low. Have you noticed that jobs for teens have decreased now? Companies can't afford to hire them. The teens would gladly work for less rather than not have a job, yet it is illegal.

I have not "buggered" anything , anyone or anywhere, thank you.

You should. It's fun.

(As, indeed, is being the buggeree)

Me:
"Women give birth, women decide. No one has that right on My body nor on My life."

you:<<Nor did I say anyone does<<

What you said is that abortion is a crime and the woman must go to prison.
If the law forbids abortion, it means that some people have taken a decision on what I should do with my body and with my life.

Fortunately, most countries havent that law and women can have an abortion if they decide so.
Reality says that women will have the abortion be it legal or not. Many die when done out of hospitals, that´s why most legislations are pro-choice, somehow.

<<<If I kill you, I go to prison. Yet if a pregnant woman kills a human that happens to be living inside her,she doesn´t"

I don´t see how can you compare a potential life with an already existing life. I would never send a family mother to jail because of that.

"Women can get pregnant without wanting it."

Yes, in the case of rape. Or maybe sleepwalking sex. But other than that, I am pretty sure sex is consentual. I am also certain that sex has been scientifically proven to be a leading cause of pregnancy.<<<

I´m afraid that you or me were thick.
A woman can get pregnant without wanting it because the condom is scractched with a ring, a nail or it had been for too long in the pocket of someone (that must be taught to teenagers, btw) Or because... many more reasons.

<>

you should be!!!!!

Reply to post 778 (My American friend).

>>>
Postal systems are provided for in the US Constitution, but it's interesting to note that the private companies (FedEx, UPS, DHL) are cheaper -- and that the US Postal Service has been losing money continuously since the early 90's. We've sunk billions of dollars into it, but it can't turn a profit even though it's run by the most powerful government in the world. Meanwhile, UPS and FedEx are doing fine.
<<<

I would hazard a guess that the USPS is not in exactly the same business as FedEx and DHL. It's in a similar business, but not in exactly the same one, just as the BBC is not in exactly the same business as Sky or ITV.

Here in Ireland, An Post has a legal obligation to have post boxes every so many miles (differing in rural and urban areas: and I read this only the other day, but cannot now find the figures), and they are obliged to deliver to the entire country. One can easily imagine that some of these services must run at a loss (which wouldn't be helped by courier services poaching the profitable bits).

The Post Office doesn't make money. It's subsidised by taxes. At least, it doesn't make money directly. It stimulates the economy. Most post is business post. And it's an equaliser. Governments realise this. (This is also why governments encourage the introduction of high-speed internet connections.)



As to mass-transit and sewerage (not sewage!), the point is that these, by their very nature, have to be communal endeavours. We all get a chance to speak, and then the decision is made. Some of us may disagree with the decision, but this is how people work. Communal decision-making is an essential part of human psychology. We are, as has been said before, a social species. We always have acted in groups; we probably always will. And we're never going to agree with every decision the group makes. But still we will contribute to the group and work with it. It's what we do.

Over the years, we've worked out different systems for working together as a group. The best to date is democracy. Why strip away so many years of progress? I really don't understand your aims.

As Julez has said, government would arise again. Of course it would. We need it. So libertarianism is pointless. As anhaga has said, the welfare state is the mature libertarian state. And, as Julez said again, the interim period would be messy.

Libertarianism: messy, unpleasant, and ultimately pointless.

I've said this before: One of us is mad.

TRiG.

I understand that the chap I know doesn't actually disagree with democracy, as Iluvatar has very clearly said he does.

I get confused. Half the time, I don't even know what these people are saying.

TRiG.

IluvatarL
maybe your problem is withe the word 'State'. Well...how do you define that?

Well, Marx predicted its withering away and we have already seen examples of this dialectic at work in my spiritual homeland of Free Christiania and ESPECIALLY (mar and Dogster would both kill me if I didn't make this point) in 1930s Catalunya'

So, agreed, no sensible person wants the State to interfere in their lives. A few problems, though:

1 We ain't there yet, baby. Until we get to the mythologised Great Emergence Into Communism, there are many things we still need our States for. (Chomsky is excellent on this) Sorry to break this bad news, Il.

2 OK parents can educate their kids with books, keep ne'erdowells at bay by patrolling their neighbourhoods with Remington rifles....etc. BUT SOME PROBLEMS ARE JUST TOO BIG! who's going to, say, run, organise and (especially) supervise nukular powerstations. The Neighbourhood Watch scheme? The Ladies' Lunch Club?

3) THIS ONE'S THE BIGGIE! Libertarianism never, ever works on a dog-eat-dog, sauve qui'l peut basis. Look at Somalia. The list of things we need to help each other on to our mutual benefit ranges from birth to burial to health care in between...and I could go on. There are so selfless many things we need to do daily, hourly (Like...where would we be if none of us hat the common decency to...put litter in bins...stopped at red lights...failed to provide aid after a hurricane...and so on) that it simply stops making sense to count them as financial transactions.


So...what is property for again? And why should there be rights in relation to it? Please...remind me.

And, of course, protecting public health: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/10/swine_flu_is_officially_a_nati.php

TRiG.

>> So...what is property for again? And why should there be rights in relation to it? Please...remind me. <<

Property is for personal use, sustenance, shelter and pleasure.
One doesn't want gypsies camping in the flower beds, buggering the livestock and throwing their dead down the wells.


~jwf~

This post has been removed.

'If I kill you, I go to prison. Yet if a pregnant woman kills a human that happens to be living inside her, she doesn't.'


Ignoring for the moment the obvious question of whether a fetus is an independent human being or just a part of a larger human being . . .


Is killing always immoral? Many states execute criminals. Many soldiers kill other soldiers (and civilians). Executioners and soldiers are not generally thrown in jail for the lives they end.


So, the woman gets thrown in jail for aborting the result of the torn condom. What happens to the man who was wearing that condom? Does he not have some responsibility for the situation? Is he some sort of accessory to the crime. The doctor (assuming doctors still do this proceedure in this strangely un-libertarian nightmare world)?

The real world is not black and white. Societies must respond in a more nuanced way to reality than Iluvatar seems to be responding to it.

I have a bit of a complaint. I have some evidence that I'm sort of like the one guy that most religious people expect, but with the twist that I'm just providing new contradictory facts and modern arguments to religion--other than being that one guy. Now, my complaint is that atheists would rather deny that my evidence is worth anything without contemplating it, even though my arguments are more scientifically rational than theistic; and this is apparently because of the two facts that I've chosen to adapt the word 'God' to the reality and that mathematics is involved (with so few people really being very happy with using numbers here--or anywhere--in a careful way). On the other hand, the people who seem to have appreciated what I say have mostly clammed up, and I can only guess why this is (There are several possibilities). Truly religious people here are few to my knowledge, and I don't particularly get along with those who are because I'm really basically an atheist. What do I do? Drop 'God' or become a religious convert? The closest thing I have to a natural religion is Baha'i, but I live so far away from any Baha'i community of size (Aside from one person I am friends with who comes from the religion but doesn't know much at all about it, I only know that I've met one Baha'i in my life) and don't speak Persian or have any of their books. Plus, even though it's closest, there are things in what I understand of the religion that I just won't go along with like the parental involvement in a couple's marriage and prohibition against certain sexual behaviors, and also the blanket adoption of the claim that there is no reincarnation without researching the possibility first (probably true, but until I know how they handle it it looks like an anti-Hinduism thing while the Baha'i religion should be about world peace and want to study the matter with Hindus).

If anyone has any advice on this particular matter--my questions, not my assertions or what they mean--I would like to hear it.

Hi.

I'd like to see some explicit statements *from the original posters* that certain anti-Romani statements are intended as 'ironic humour' before I Yikes. I still won't approve of the humour, I'm afraid, but at least I won't be Yikesing what, at present, has the outward appearance of racist filth.

Sorry to be po-faced, but as Jimmy Carr has so ably demonstrated on Live TV, anti-Romani racism has become The Acceptable Face.

>>'If I kill you, I go to prison. Yet if a pregnant woman kills a human that happens to be living inside her, she doesn't.'

Who was the OP on this one? (sorry - lost track. I suddenly have a busy life!)

Happy to debate. I have *some* experience in this matter, albeit second hand, being the son of a quietly radical abortionist who worked in 1970's-80's catholic Bootle.

BRING IT ON!

From earlier...
Taff, re Canadian Army:
>>
i meant operating with a bilingual army

Like the British Army which, in some parts, operates bilingually in English and Gurkali? They seem to manage OK.

Ed, it was Ilu that came up with that gem.

It's the comment that convinced me they've made the step from being the idealistic blind, to the willfully witless.

Not the biggest of steps, I'm sure you'll agree, but there is a step to take, and that was a jump over the line, both boots at once.

Ilu, I'll give you a chance to see if you can convince me otherwise on that one...

When do you think a foetus becomes a seperate person, approximately?
It's certainly before birth, but how long before birth? A month, two months? When the child could live unassisted if an emergency birth was forced? When the child could be kept alive using all possible medical intervention to force it to live? At conception?

>>'If I kill you, I go to prison. Yet if a pregnant woman kills a human that happens to be living inside her, she doesn't.'

Who was the OP on this one? (sorry - lost track. I suddenly have a busy life!)<<<

I also have a busy life, honey, and don´t post much lately, but because it´s you who asks...

Caractacus asked Iluvatar about the right of abortion (post 747)
Ilu´s answer it (post 754)
I answered Ilu (post 757)
He answered me (post 797, that´s the OP you were asking about)
I answered him again (post 797)


The important point for me has to do with the right anyone has about its own body. I see that legislations against abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality violate that right.



time for and that´s cigar smoke

<>

most queens gurkha officers learn gurkali, and most gurkhas have some english, and learn more as they progress up the ranks so the chain of command can operate in either language

e.g. oficer gives orders to nco in english, nco gives orders to his troops in gurkali

what i was getting at was at as strange was the fact that people who spoke different languages were operating at the smae echelon level in the same formation, and could only comunicate with the aid of a translator, things could become very difficult, very quickly in a combat situation,specially if the translator was killed

I gave Taff an opportunity to clarify that a post of his referring to an anti-Romani stereotype was ironic rather than racist. He declined the opportunity. I have now Yikesed.

Squiggles is on a different time zone. I shall give him longer.