Michael Archer

Is that a truth claim which you assume everyone should adopt first and foremost before accepting any other truth claims? Not really. You're thinking of a logical axiom, like A=A. You must accept (really, you have no choice) that A=A before forming any logical conclusion. I do think you can't do anything else but ramble, until you find the purpose in your life

Something like the iMac is the birth child of Steve Jobs: he conceptualized it and brought it into this world. The factory worker did not create the iMac. Saying that he can't claim credit for that wealth, is like saying that you can't claim credit for making a child i.e. you can't say "this is my child." After all, you didn't create your reproductive organs, you didn't create the matter that your child was made out of, nor did you create the DNA. I never said it was random; I said that it's based on whim (that's usually unfair and non-objective), rather than facts. Ooh, a topic I know quite about! Why did the United States go into war? Well, Lincoln put it very nicely: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." The North was capitalist and industrial, while the South was feudal and rural. Capitalism is incompatible with slavery--that's why it wasn't in the North. Lincoln said that the country could not exist being simultaneously capitalist and feudal. The reason for that is the same reason why there's no compromise between medicine and cyanide: you either have one or the other--the two can't co-exist. So, are you telling me that the EU is mostly socialist, but it still retains some of the capitalism that made Europe great? Is that capitalism dying? Lol, my bad. I have no idea. That's one of my gripes with the leaders of an otherwise great nation: they think democracy is the final answer. United States is not lassiez-faire; it's a mixed-economy. Saddam Hussein was the dictator of a system and a country that violated the rights of the individual. That country also had a history of attacking Israel, not to form a freer nation, but to form a dictatorship. When someone tries to systematically destroy a system that protects the rights of the individual, that person has no rights; there is no such thing as the right to enslave, which was the "right" that people like Saddam Hussein was fighting for. United States was intended to be a lassiez-faire society, and I believe the founders made the constitution. If it is, then the only thing I have to say to the people who wrote it is: "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG" A constitution is always a constraint on the government, never an individual. If anything, the constitution is a dictatorship of the elders onto the new government--as it should be. The government should not be free to use force whenever they want to. Because a government holds a monopoly on the use of physical force, an unchecked government will, as history has shown, commit enormities.

It's a myth that "overpopulation" is a problem. Because the sun bombards us with so much energy every day, resources are only limited to how much humans can produce. If there's not enough food to feed everyone, that's an infrastructure problem, not a population problem. It's a myth that overpopulation results in famine and disease--it's simply not true. Case in point: The new country of South Sudan has a population density of about thirteen people per square kilometer. China on the other hand has a population density of about one hundred forty people per square kilometer. If overpopulation resulted in famine and poverty, South Sudan should be more prosperous than China. If you're still not convinced, here's a question: can you name any country on the planet that was richer when its population had half the people it does today? My sentiments exactly. I should save this for posterity.

Ruining ponies with science in 3...2...1... 0wzSjhPkLSM The whole video will ruin Applejack for anypony who still likes her, but a friend I was trying to convert pointed out very something about the scene where Applejack saves Twilight from falling: I'd really like to know what the coefficient of static friction is on Applejack's hooves--shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Given: a medium-sized pony like Twilight's mass~=300 kg. Acceleration due to gravity~=|9.8 m/s^2|. We can see that Twilight's force is transferred to Applejack, since Applejack appears to be being pulled down by a force equal to the force acting on Twilight. Thus: Force of friction on Applejack=The force of gravity on Twilight=|F|=|ma|=|2940 N| Since the force of friction of Applejack's hooves is equal in magnitude to the force of gravity, we can say that: |Force of friction|=u(Force of the normal)=|2940 N| Now we must calculate the force of the normal i.e. the force exerted by Applejack's hooves. This is tricky; a LOT of assumptions are being made: Twilight exerts a force upward relative to Applejack's hooves while Applejack's hooves exert a force down with the same amount of force: |Force of the normal|=|2940 N| Ergo, 2040 N=u|2940 N| u=1 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The coefficient of static friction on Applejack's hooves is one. That might not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that the coefficient of static friction of steel on concrete is about 0.45. Surely, I made some error in the calculation and I invite everypony to make a better calculation.

DO NOT install Halo 3 to your hard drive--it will make it slower; even Bungie says it will. Halo: Reach, you can install. I own a Wii, PS3, and an Xbox; my Xbox is my favorite console. I think it has the best library of games. My second favorite is the Wii, since the Wii store allowed me to try games that I missed out on as a kid such as Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. I don't care for the PS3 that much. At first, I was excited that my mom was getting one since that meant I could play Metal Gear Solid 4. Long story short, Metal Gear Solid 4 takes the prize for the most fucked up game I've ever played. Oddly enough, Majora's Mask is a close second...but Majora's Mask was actually good.

It looks like GTA IV. I'm going to pass. Don't get me wrong, I loved GTA IV. I think Niko Bellic is one of the greatest gaming characters ever written. I have Serbian roots too, so it's funny to see him act in the same way my grandparents do.

Good to see that you're ok, Ross. We lost George Washington to strep throat; let's not lose you too!

"Price fixing" is another thing forbidden by the antitrust laws. "Price-fixng" is subjective and literally any business can be guilty of it if government thinks they're too successful. Anyway... Yes, I would consider this "ethical". "Ethics" is how you should treat other human beings. The corporations made a product, they're legally entitled to own it, and the consumer is free to buy it or refuse it; no force is being used--the relationships are voluntary. To say that it would be "unethical", is to imply that corporations exist to serve consumers i.e. they have no right to exist for themselves. If corporations have a right to exist for themselves, it's not any of your business what they do with their own property; if they don't have a right to exist for themselves, then it IS your business what they do on their own time--only then, can this be considered unethical. I think that lowering standards for workers means that more people can get jobs, and thus, more people can have all these things. Take minimum wage for instance: all minimum wage does is outlaw jobs whose wages (determined objectively through supply and demand) are lower than that; owners will usually do the jobs themselves--this means that LESS people can get jobs and the things you said. This actually happened during The Great Depression: FDR, in his attempt to fix the depression, raised minimum wage; this put small businesses out of business, more people lost their jobs, and the economy got worse. But anyway, you asked who shouldn't be entitled to these things? Simple: nobody. Lemme explain: First of all, "entitled" implies "by right". Let's take something that I presume that both you and me agree is a fundamental human right: the freedom of speech. What does the "right to freedom of speech" mean? Because a right is a moral principle, this means that you can morally speak your mind--no one can morally apply force to you to make you stop speaking. You are free to speak and if anyone tries to stop you, then they're morally in the wrong. The "freedom of speech" does not mean that people have to listen to what you say and it does not mean that people are obligated to provide a microphone for you to speak. It simply means that on your own time and money, no one may morally force you to stop speaking. Take note that the only obligation this right puts on other people is the absence of force i.e. other people may not initiate force on you; because a government is instituted to protect rights, the government may punish anyone who initiates force on you and violates your rights. All these liquid commodities (protection against crime is a different issue that I'll address later), are valuable. Therefore, they must be paid for. If these are "rights", that means that the government must initiate force on people to compel them to provide your "rights". The obligation of your "freedom to health care" (or any other piece of value) to other people, means that other people are forced to provide it for you, or suffer at the hands of the government. Your right to freedom of speech recognizes that no one may morally compel you to do anything; the "right to healthcare" says that everyone must compel you to do something. This is why "the right to healthcare" can only be viewed as "good" if you drop contexts. The right to healthcare means that other people are forced, at the point of a gun, to provide your healthcare. This means that the government can legally rob you. The only difference between the armed robber and the government in this situation is that the government is sanctioned by a majority vote. It might be good for the robber if he has extra money, but it's certainly not good for the victim. Well, it is just a story. For me, "Atlas Shrugged" represents socialism and democracy. In it, life is going fine until more and more constraints are put on the people who run the motor of the world; the majority wasn't as successful as the minority, they were jealous, so they voted to constrain them. These producers eventually decide that they can't work under these conditions, so they abandon their posts. The standard of living goes down, as incompetent people and government bureaucrats take their positions. I think this is where we agree to disagree. I'm know; I'm talking about unbridled capitalism as well i.e. the state and economics are completely separate. The government only recognizes the right of the individual to be free of the initiation of physical force. People work harder for less money, yes; that's because capitalism doesn't support mediocrity. In capitalism, anyone who is willing to work and produce will do fine. Keep in mind though that less wages means lower prices; combine that with a minimalist government and what you have is a situation where someone below the poverty line in capitalist America is FAR better off than someone below the poverty line in the Soviet Union. Before purification companies, people DID have clean drinking water; just talk to the Amish. That being said: This is a really contrived situation, but I think people would find ways to purify it themselves. I would compare this to the automobile industry: there are different kinds of cars, some more expensive than the others. When you gave me this situation, this is kind of like asking me: "What if in a small town, the only car dealer that opened up was Porsche? Do you expect everyone else to walk ten miles to work everyday?" Also, this is how I append every perceived flaw in capitalism: I reject the idea that someone's "need" is a claim on the lives and effort of other people. I don't think that the robber's "need" justifies the robbery. It's an essay on tape, so there won't be any annoying dialogue.

Optional to whom? To child, I say no; to the parents, I say yes. Using the police to force children to go to institutions without the parents' consent is something out of a dictatorship.

I'm convinced that Communism would only work with robots. Robots: beings that have no free-will and can only make what they're told to make--they can't actually create anything from scratch. Because humans have free will and must create things to survive, communism (or any form of statism) can not result in prosperity. Heh, I never thought of it like that. I guess you're right! In S.T.A.L.K.E.R, your goal is to survive and just hope like hell you don't get looted or killed; you have to make sure you have the right friends if you want to live. You should tell BTGBullseye that when he gets back. It baffles me why people think that democracy and dictatorships are mutually exclusive. Democracy is no more than mob-rule; where the helpless individual or other minority is subject to the brutal will of the majority. There's no objective laws: there's only the brutal will of the majority. Isn't the European Union falling apart? Emphasis mine. Ah, so this is the mentality of a social democrat: the wealth is ours, despite who took the effort upon himself to create it. This is another reason why I reject any form of statism.

I think that it's up to every individual to decide what's the meaning of his or her life.

When Luna made her big appearance, I could almost hear the fanboys squeal.

This episode literally made me lol by myself. Most of the time when I watch Freeman's mind, it just makes me smile. This time, I actually laughed when: I hope that Freeman massacres the retinal scanner scientists after he's done with them.

If I've got this right, the protestors are protesting the corporations that made the very things that made this protest possible. I read this article the other day. One of the main points in it was--if you take away the things that they're protesting, you have a naked, disheveled ape. "A frightening, noisy, intimidating mob stripped of everything they are protesting against. A George Romero-like Dawn of the Dead. A phenomenon more repellent than a canvas by Pieter Brueghel the Elder of peasants cavorting in the mud. Coming at you, the middle class, the bourgeoisie, the producer of wealth." There's a picture included, but I think the link is broken. The government doesn't produce anything; everything they use to make their bills (e.g. printing presses, desks) are privately made. Even the military uses private contractors. The computer you're using to type, your desk, your mouse, your TV: all made by the private sector. There's a reason why our standard of living is higher than Africa, or North Korea: we have more economic freedom than they do and corporations are (more or less) free to pursue a profit to give us the wonderful products you see in the picture. There are some illegal things that corporation would do that aren't unethical e.g. violating antitrust laws. I thought of something unethical, but legal (it took me a while): hiring and paying someone based on anything but merit and performance (e.g. sex, skin color, religion). It shouldn't be illegal, but it's unethical; I think they'd lose to someone who hired based on performance. Another thing unethical: pursuing a loss, as opposed to pursuing a profit (not as commonplace as the aforementioned practice). It was hard for me to think of something, because corporations and businessmen really are the scapegoats for almost everything in America. In a real-life scenario, I imagine there being another company to meet the demand. In the free market, demand rarely goes unanswered. But even if I'm wrong, and the town would die: what is the only moral option? I mean, one could lobby to the government to force the corporation to stay and operate under their rules and regulations (*cough*Occupy Wall Street*cough*), but I think that would be unethical; that would imply that the corporation has no right to exist for itself and that its only purpose is to serve the people and to be disposed of when it's not needed anymore. That's kind of like treating the corporation as a slave. I'm not much of a technical economics kind of guy, so I like to talk philosophy. So, don't get me started on utilitarianism... "Societal good" raises the question: "good for what?", "good for whom?" "if the 'good of society' is independent of the good for an individual, how do you measure 'good'?" There are no objective answers to these questions. Usually, my response to hypothetical such as these ones (I'm not very good at dealing with hypotheticals or complex abstracts) is "you have no right to initiate force on someone else. If you don't have that right, you can't delegate the initiation of force to a government." In The Jungle, doesn't a lot of their strife come from con men, police and judges who all have to be bribed and have some sort of political pull? I'd actually say political pull is more an aspect of socialism and not capitalism. In capitalism, laws are objectively defined and enforced. You mentioned that "capitalism marginalizes workers' rights"; capitalism doesn't recognize workers' rights per se--it only recognizes the rights of an individual. This is because an individual does not gain more rights by joining a group i.e. you do not get rights to violate others rights, just because you're in a group. Socialism is a system "for the common good"; since their are no objective answers or measures to back up that statement, the system is run through pulls; whoever can gain favor with the politicians rule the society. Isn't democracy a fundamental value in socialism? If socialism doesn't get its values through political pull, it gets it through the majority (or anyone who claims to be the "voice of the people") i.e. if the majority says it's ok to rob one person, then it's ok--according to democracy and socialism. Because a capitalist society's philosophy is individualism, the majority (or even another individual, for that matter) may never initiate force on an individual. I think the water companies, fire departments, schools and roads should be privately run. I think police, court and military should be the only government services. If you're interested in how government financing in a free (capitalist) society would work, you should give this a listen. If you don't want to listen to it, that's fine; it's written by the same person who wrote Atlas Shrugged, so you probably won't want to listen to it. In summary, the author says that the government should be viewed as a servant who's paid for its services instead of a gratuitous ruler. Every time you buy something, there's a sales tax to protect that purchase i.e. if you have a dispute concerning that purchase, you can take it to the court of law--without this system, the market would collapse overnight. In a free society it would be completley up to you if you chose to pay this "tax" but if you didn't, you would not be allowed to use the courts to dispute it. Even in this scenario, Starbucks would still have to set their prices to what the market value of their services would be. If they charged higher, that would make room for more competitors. I don't think economic power is independent of performance either. In capitalism (lassiez-faire, anyway), there are no subsidies or government grants; the only way someone can get economic power is by being successful. In our current mixed-economy, I'm not sure how that would work--but it can't be good.

Doom Shepard, that's only possible if the constitution is not properly implemented. It's a complex, legal matter; I'm only talking about the philosophy and moral justification for capitalism. But as a start, maybe lawyers should help write the constitution then? If they ruined D&D, I'd HATE to see what they'd do to Trivial Pursuit; even I'm difficult to play Trivial Pursuit with.

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I loved Bioshock one and it's Objectivist undertones. Great, great, somewhat philosophical, game. Bioshock 2, in hindsight, was terrible. The Objectivist undertones were gone, and it just wasn't fun. Bioshock Infinite looks way too fast paced for me. Although it might be a little interesting, seeing the dead body on the sidewalk with a "capitalist pig" sign taped to his shirt.

That right, Hasbro: put a spoiler in the episode's title. It's not like we care or anything! Spoilers are the worst. They make me feel terrible.

I'm a pegasus pony, but I won't judge if you're an earth-pony or a unicorn.

I've seen way too many pictures of "tax corporations more!" posters in the Wall Street protest to be somewhat interested in their cause. Also, the "we are the 99%" posters are the worst: what the hell do they imply? Does it imply that the 99% has more rights than the 1%? Does it mean the 99% has the right to lynch the 1% because the 99% is the majority? It seems to me that they want socialism, with all the benefits of capitalism i.e. they want government support for the 99% and they want the corporations to be heavily regulated and taxed (i.e. punished for being good), but they still want the jobs and the products that the corporations make. I'd also like to point out that socialism involves corporations being run by the state. The protestors don't want separation of state and economics; they just don't like the current corporations being involved in the government. Well, that's not really making money by production; that's government favors. I was talking about people that actually create wealth. I think we can agree that the state and economics should be separate and that there's a difference to be made between hard working people and government favors people. I meant that the act of production does not come at the expense of anyone; in this scenario, no one is really being "expended"--new workers are just being hired. I meant that no one is sacrificed (i.e. no one is forced to give up something for someone else) when wealth is created. By the same reasoning, it could be said that by putting the factory in the United States, they were cheating the Mexicans out of jobs. There is no such thing as a right to a job--such a right would involve forcing businessmen to hire people they didn't want i.e. a violation of their rights. The very nature of communism (state-run education is one of the tenants in the Communist Manifesto) punishes success, and forces everyone to be legally dependent on everyone else. Because there is no such thing as a "right to another's property", it's not really "making money at the expense of someone else" to not pay as much as you should in taxes. I believe that you have to sign a contract when you get health insurance. If they denied you coverage for a reason that wasn't in the contract, I agree that that's making money at the expense of someone else; that's why, if that happens, you can bring a claim against them to the court of law for fraud. If, however, the terms of the contract explicitly say that coverage can be denied if you don't mention a "technicality" and you sign the contract, then there's no claim. If you don't like the terms of a contract, you don't have to sign it. It's not "making money at the expense of someone else" to uphold your end of a contract. I agree that the government (the teacher?) shouldn't be allowed to take bribes or have a say in the economic system, but I don't understand the second part of your analogy. The government doesn't force anyone to "flunk"; the government, like the teacher, makes sure you don't bully the other kids or cheat and assess your papers objectively--like she should. I think they provide a valuable service to many people, but the virtue of a company shouldn't by evaluated based on "how much they contribute to society." for reasons such as: Contribute to whom? What part of society? How much more do they "contribute" as opposed to other people? What objective standards are there for "contribution"? I think a corporation's virtue should be evaluated solely on how they earned their money: did they get their money and stay in business through lobbying and government favors? Or did they work honestly and never committed fraud? We have laws that are supposed to stop those called "Antitrust Laws". The problem with the antitrust laws is that law is supposed to be objective: every man needs to be able to know what exactly is against the law and what exactly the punishment would be should he choose to break the law. Antitrust laws are nothing like that; they're the most subjective laws in existence. Literally anything a corporation does can be considered a violation of the antitrust laws e.g. if he sets his prices around market value, he can be charged with "collusion"; if he sets his prices higher (or even lower!), he can be charged with "intent to monopolize." They're the most unfair laws in existence. In response to your other scenarios: Starbucks should not be punished for be superior and better than a local competitor. Clearly, Starbucks is a better chain than the local coffee shop; to make them pay the other coffee shop back or allow them to compete would result in the local coffee shop making money at Starbuck's expense and punishing Starbucks for being good. I'm sure Intel had contracts with the vendors and one of the details was not to buy from AMD. Contracts are holdable in force (as they should be), but the vendors are free to turn Intel away if they feel like it. "Blackmailing" implies that the "blackmailer" has something against you that you'd rather not have; it's not a good analogy, since the vendors agreed to enter into that contract.

How so? A capitalist government is strictly bound by a constitution and the majority has very limited power.

If she's around her friends a lot, try talking to her not-as-attractive friends. If you're attracted to a girl, chances are you'll stutter like a retard. You should try to talk to her friends, mostly, and keep your conversation with her limited to single sentences. You can try what people in "The Game" do: after talking to her friends and ignoring her, you drop a subtle insult; this makes her subconsciously try to gain a higher standing in your eyes. So yeah: talk to her friends and try to build your relationship from there.

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Woah, tread lightly, OP. TREAD LIGHTLY.

That's perfect! When Eli Vance says "M.I.T. graduates are far and few these days." Gordon says, "I know, especially the theoretical physicists. We're all getting killed by aliens and marines. How did you think Stephen Hawking got that way? Let's just say the bullsquid was a superior fighter."