Towards the end of my previous post I began to talk about the inevitability of a techno-anarchist future. Eventually we will have such powerful technology that is so widely available to the masses that it will be impossible to enforce any laws. It will be like living in a world full of wizards. Their vast powers allow them to do great good, and great harm. Those same powers also allow them to disguise or conceal anything beyond the point of deniability. If someone can snap their fingers to affect things on the other side of the world, you live in anarchy whether you like it or not.
It has recently come to my attention that there are far too many laws which outlaw harmless activities, simply because they correlate with other harmful illegal activities. It all goes back to the day when they had to get Al Capone for tax evasion. Rather than eliminate incompetency and impotence of the law enforcement, requiring them to work harder, we pass laws to make their jobs all too easy. The side effect is that many grave injustices are allowed to pass. Read more…
Anyone who knows me knows that snake oil peddlers rank close to the top on the list of things I despise. When someone is suffering from an illness, taking their money in exchange for false hope is among the worst things one human can possibly do to another. Evidence based medicine is the best medicine we have, and I wouldn’t let myself, or anyone I care about, receive any other kind of treatment. However, evidence based medicine has one major problem in that is is very unpleasant for the patient.
In recent years, people have been trying to “save” local businesses. It’s just that when you actually look at the practicality of keeping things local, it often becomes difficult if not impossible to get what you want, and also keep things local. It’s another one of those chicken and egg problems. Let’s see if we can figure a way out of it. I think a good way to go about this is to examine the pros and cons of local vs. big businesses, and try to solve them one at a time.
Over all the decades that piracy has been a hot topic the point often comes up that piracy isn’t stealing because those pirates would not have paid money if piracy were not an option. This point, while often brought up, is often ignored. There is no response to it, and yet it is perhaps the most central and crucial point in the entire discussion. I think one major problem is that there has been little actual investigation into the truth of this, at least that I have heard of. Allow me to begin that investigation with some common sense logic.
Look around yourself right now, and pick any physical object. Pick any normal every-day sort of thing that happens to come to mind. Now think of that thing not just in the context of itself, but in the context of all human history. Now go beyond and think of it in the context of the history of the universe. In the proper context, even some crummy YouTube video becomes absolutely miraculous.
To demonstrate what I’m talking about, I will use the example of this cute YouTube video.
Being unmployed, I took some time to visit my grandmoter in Florida. While there, I had a lot of time to observe and think about the state of things in the sunshine state. I came to a realization that things are probably going to get very bad down there in the coming years. Read more…
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