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I can prove my theory. Take a look at North Korea, a world of it's own, there is very little dissention amongst the people and the government. If there is dissent one day, it is usually totally gone by the next day, and the government is always right. There is little argument about any topic, the people mostly all think alike and just get along with each other. They have fewer auto accidents, much less crime, everyone has the same healthcare, and everyone has just about the same stuff as their neighbors, practically nothing. If you have nothing there is nothing to steal or fight for. Everyone works and exists under this peaceful regime. It’s leader is supreme, and he simply makes all the rules for everyone.
I say, if Bill gates really knows what he is talking about he should pack up and move to North Korea and experience his Shangri-La. I’m sure his father would like to go with him. His father has been pushing Washington State to get a State Income Tax. Bill, please stay out of politics, you and your father think too much like our president.
Beautiful!
Nobody ever asks morons like Gates any follow-up questions after Pronouncements like his...
Sad.
So now he wants to run your world, also?
Mankind’s entire problem is choosing to forfeit it’s intelligence and it’s Right to Life to a few other humans.
We call it GOVERNment, always with the powers of Force which are forbidden to it’s Subjects.
Such fools these mortals be!
Wait for Revision 3.0, because the first two Revs won't work worth shit.
So, BG... what changes do you have planned for V 2.0? How long will Support last?
:)
Gates did not "steal" anything, until he stole code from OpenVMS from Digital Equipment Corp., to make Windows clustering and multiprocessing work. Bill also "copied" the idea from Apple on the GUI interface when he put out the Windows OS...which did not become stable until Windows 3.11
They're 'just humans,' too. And from DOS 1.0 on, MS brought some good things to MY life, too. I didn't see the cost/benefit differential being worth the switch from MS to Apple and still don't.
But Android isn't MS in my view and experience, and Apple's phone products seem to do a much better job, both in hardware and software, and wife and I are probably Going to make that switch this year.
An Android "OS update" last year that took an hour or two to download and install, and in the process, deleted major lists of 'favorites' like weather reports and stocks I tracked put some of the final nails in the coffin. Between my (MS) PC, cable company and land line, they meet most of my needs and wants.
But that's me, not you.
Was he a copycat? Yes. Did his company use shady business tactics on their dealers to sell only Microsoft and dump their competitors? Yes. Did he benefit from IBM's disaster known as OS/2 Warp and Novell's failed strategy to compete with Microsoft on the desktop? Yes and yes.
But Gates also had the market savvy to buy out several other software companies such as FoxPro, Great Plains, and many others, incorporating their products into Microsoft's offerings.
I don't like the guy or his tactics or ethics, but I can't quite label him an intellectual lightweight.
I just liked the juxtaposition of the word, Gates = Moron. Yes, he has intellectual capacity, but he didn't need to go to the Darkside. Actually, you must admit, he was already there. What he sponsors, what he supports and what he donates shows a man who has never used his intelligence to understand the difference between feeling good and doing good.
Yes! MAJOR difference between intelligence, knowledge, experience, wisdom and the like...
Intelligence can help interpret experience 'into' knowledge and MAYBE extract wisdom from that, but it's a complex path with no guarantees of success or, imnsho, correlation.
:)
12th. Can you imagine how our elections would change if the runner up to the Presidential race became the Vice-President?
14th. Citizenship applies only to natural-born citizens of citizens the United States - not children born of illegals.
16th. Eliminate the personal income tax (which also eliminates corporate income taxes).
17th. Senators should be elected by their State Representatives as a check on Federal powers.
And add a balanced budget amendment.
Think about THAT "unintended consequence" of such an Amendment!
Also, the economy actually brings in more tax revenue when taxes are low, allowing business to thrive. This has been shown several times in the past 50 years and is highlighted by our current economic policy's disastrous outcomes. High tax rates create lower effective tax revenues - not higher.
I agree that it is the spending portion of the equation that is the main problem. IMO, however, the problem is that there are no limits on what the government can want to spend. They need to be constrained. If you have other ideas on how to accomplish this, I'm open to suggestions.
:)
I don't know how it's practical, but I also think employees should receive all their pay and then have to hand it someone to be delivered to the gov't. Imagine if a typical worker received $1000 for a week's work and then had to hand over $250 for various taxes.
You'd fill in dollar- or percentage-numbers to allocate your "fair" tax dollars to any and all 'eligible programs'.... and if any Program got below some minimum threshold number of dollars or percentage, they'd become ineligible to be on the list for several years!
Talk about "transparency" in taxation and spending? :)))))))
I had the same thought. One important thing is for people to know it's their money. Right now some people get a tax refund and feel like it's some gov't program to send them on a vacation. They don't realize that it's a little slice of the hundreds of dollars they pay every paycheck.
As I've said, I'm in the process of poisoning my grandson's mind by asking 'silly questions' for him to ponder, like "When the Government Spends Money, Where Did That Money Come From?"
Even at 14, he can understand the real answer...
and a Regulatory Bill of Rights
“The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become rulers in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”
― Plato, Plato's Republic
Bill knows deep in his heart that he is a philosopher-king and his destiny is to create a perfect society on Earth.
The problem is how can live together, separately, and still have a republic that represents only our common interest/needs.
Not sure if I stated that properly.
Gates, for all his wealth, keeps appearing to me to be dumber and dumber every time he floats one of his 'new ideas.'
"We" have not evolved enough to achieve that. WE can demand change, and demand it now, but it doesn't change the fact that WE are too immature as a species to achieve that ideal.
Instead of asking Billy Boy how to achieve that, ask, How would John Galt do it?
One World gov't can't work if the gov't is so big that the voice of the people can't be heard - ie, all power at the top, no local gov't.
It can only work if people assume responsibility for their own lives and don't have interference from gov't to entangle their lives. That then begs the question, if people just went about their lives, in a responsible manner, what would be the purpose of such a government? Build infrastructure?? It wouldn't be war, because we'd be responsible, respectful people and not step on others toes.
Property rights are probably the biggest problem in the world. I need land to live on, to grow food, and feel secure, and there's someone that wants to take it from me. Everything can be reduced to that. Perhaps that is what Agenda21 addresses. If all land is public land, for growing public food, then you've address problem one, food security. Now I just need "my space" to feel personally secure. I suppose 1200 sqft in a high rise apartment building would do.
I'm by no means advocating that, only pondering the origins of such a concept.
The other option is, maintain the world population to under 500Million (see Georgia Stones). But, that's probably what Armageddon will do which appears to be knocking on our door if Zippy keeps ignoring the threat. Then again, that could be Galt's societal collapse we've been waiting for. Just Saying. :-)
You, me, kHalling, et.al. are pretty amazing - the bulk of the population - not so much.
That was my point. When ALL of us, willingly pull our own weight, when we all "swear by our lives...", then WE are mature enough.
Most people can’t think, most of the remainder won’t think, the small fraction who do think mostly can’t do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self -delusion— in the long run, these are the only people who count. —Robert A. Heinlein
But that trait apparently isn't a negative to the race since it hasn't been evolved out of our gene make-up, so it may not be something that can be' matured' out. But what can happen is that Objective thinking can be brought to the fore again as something very like it was in the Founding Principles. Were our government not handing out goodies, those that don't or can't think and become producers would have no choice but to do so.
You can teach a Parasite about Objective thinking, but you can't make them live it <g>.
1."but it doesn't change the fact that WE are too immature as a species to achieve that ideal." I don't know if this comes from an original sin POV or simply Man cannot have perfect knowledge. Wherever you see a proper govt that protects property rights, you see people being productive, "mature" as it were. It is when we let govt over-reach its proper purpose and economic freedoms are reduced, you find all of this "immaturity" as you define it.
2. "The other option is, maintain the world population to under 500Million (see Georgia Stones)" that is an anti-human statement. If you want to reduce the overall population, let's start with you-for the cause ya know. :) There is no rational basis for limiting the world population. In the last 50 years, the number of people has continued to expand, but the number of people living on the edge of starvation has continued to decline. Earth's "carrying capacity" is not static. Go back to the 1800s where almost everyone lived on the edge of starvation and the population was significantly (10x) lower. The evidence does not support your point of view.
Mature in the sense that we accept responsibility for our actions, we don't steal from our neighbors, we respect others property - I guess that's the 10 commandments.
What's the role of govt - To resolve disputes (domestic and property, and provide for the common welfare (I really mean "common", not the individual) Infrastructure, security, schools, etc.
Where do we disagree on things - Property disputes for example, divorce (divide it in half, whose idea of half?), roadway (eminent domain - take someone's land from them) - these can lead to violence, or war.
How do you have property rights and ownership without disputes? I don't know. I don't know if you can - resolve that and you'll have world peace.
We need gov't to keep us from killing each other because we can't play nice together.
As for population. I did my part, I did not replicate so I did not add to the mess. :-)
Feeding more is not the problem. As our ability to produce more with less workers, those workers become displaced, and become the parasites we reject. Your word, "carrying", if they don't/can't work WE have to carry them. Fewer Producers providing for more Parasites. There are only so many jobs. And not all the land is habitable, further, there is a finite amount of fresh water, those are limiting factors to "carrying load"
By limiting the population you're less likely to crowd other peoples property and step on their toes and piss them off, and you assure there are more jobs then people thus reduces the parasite population (you'll still have slackers -that's another thing).
Not sure I agree that there are any less starving as a percentage of the population. Especially since WE are CARRYING them. If this population was providing that much for themselves you'd be right, but the fact is, the United States produces 25% of the food for the rest of the world (or it did, that stat might be a few years old), which means if we only produced what we needed, a good portion of the world would die.
We're talking about, if everyone grew their own food, or paid for some one else to grow it for them, and did not rely on someone else (aka the gov't) to simply give it to them. That is how you find the true carrying capacity.
Not sure if the helped, but that's where I was heading.
re: you didn't replicate 'and add to the mess.'
> neither have I, but neither one of us spawned an offspring who might develop or promote 'solutions to the mess, either.' ... although I AM working on my step-grandson to try to create that kind of thinking in him...
re: those [displaced] workers become parasites...
> ah, many of them discover skills that ARE marketable. If they don't, 'carrying them' might not be an optimal long-term solution, either... how about helping them discover or develop their 'untapped skills'?
re: There are 'only so many jobs'...
> you're kidding, right? Over the long term of history, the numbers don't support that assertion at all!
re: there is a finite amount of fresh water...
> um, only because we haven't figured out a cost-effective way to MAKE fresh water out of the unbelievable amount of UN-fresh seawater that IS available all around the world.
...... for now...
Thanks for posing your points!
Because we (as a whole) do not invest in things like desalination research. we can't have unlimited fresh water, and because we don't do that, we do have a finite supply of fresh water, and because we have a finite supply of fresh water - it limits the amount of food we can grow, and people we can hydrate, which means people starve because we produce more children then we can responsibly provide for and when people starve, they will kill for food which leads to property wars.
As for job limits, sorry, there is a limit. If I can produce everything I need with the aid of no one else, and if I'm the only one with that means to do that, and if the rest of the population does not have the means to provide for themselves, then they are in a world of hurt. In your "ideal" world, these people would learn another skill and continue on. But, that isn't what happens. Once again, that was my point, a mature, responsible society, adapts. Ours doesn't, it looks to assign blame to someone else, and demand the gov't pays them.
If a person won't find another means to support themselves, and the gov't can't give them a job, then they are surplus population (aka parasite, we provide for them, and they do nothing in return.)
I'm not anti-humanist, I do believe that your population should not grow faster then the ecosystem that's needed to support it. If it can't, then Darwinism takes over. Nature as to stay in balance.
Just another cult, imnsho...
Note the probably tens or hundreds of thousands of 'killer apps' available for smartphones... how many own anywhere near that kind of market share? Most are crap.
Governments must be subordinate to a culture of governance where social norms prevail over desire for individual control. Problems arise from the idea that those who “can” must retain some control over what those who “can't” are allowed to do in order to produce what is necessary.
In order to have a OWG it would take a complete re-think of what really is government. If you look at it from a rational and objective view, what could it be?