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[+] -10 points 1 week ago (11 children)

I want less government, not more rules and laws.

The only laws that should exist are those protecting people from things like murder, rape, theft, assault, and fraud.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (10 children)

    Here in the US, all we've done the last 40 years is pass fewer laws. (and you can check the count of bills passed, at least here in the US, if you don't believe me.) This last Congress actually passed significantly fewer bills than the 'Do Nothing Congress' of 1947-1949.

    All this has achieved is forcing states to lead and creating a patchwork of around 2/3 similar but different regulations and 1/3 that are not meaningfully regulated at all, leading to all sorts of problems. The one that comes to mind immediately is Freedom Industries in WV knowingly polluting a whole state's water supply on purpose, because it was legal. Your Smart TV is also now spyware, likely for China, because we don't regulate domestic surveillance and tech adequately. (Though that is changing fast because it affects the Epstein Class.)

    I have to conclude that you haven't thought this through if you honestly feel that way.

    Clearly, evidently, and objectively it's a bad thing that laws aren't being passed. That's especially true with the rapid and severe technological changes.

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  • [–] -1 points 6 days ago (9 children)

    I disagree with you completely.

    I'm not talking about the federal government, I'm talking about government, period. Any government that exists (and by government, I simply mean that relative force monopoly) in the form in which all governments exist today are nefarious and should be out right abolished.

    The ONLY thing that a force monopoly should be doing is enforcing just laws, and by just laws, I mean any laws that are not victimless crime laws. In other words, you protect people from things such as murder, theft, rape, assault, and fraud.

    More or less, the non-aggression principle.

    If you can give me any "problem" in the modern world today I can tell you explicitly how the government either creates the problem or exacerbates it.

    There is nothing, and I mean nothing that any government can provide that cannot be provided without a government. The very notion that you must be coerced and robbed in order to have a good or service is so utterly insane a thing to even say.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

    Let's do lightening cable, a terribly outdated port that keeps producing ewastes for many years, simply because apple can make money from it. It is only replaced by USB-C after EU passed a law requiring USB-C.

    So, I wonder why is lightening cabel a problem created by government regulation?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (2 children)

    In the US, phones in general are regulated by both federal agencies and the states. The FCC is a prime federal regulator, for example. The FCC auctions off radio bands to mobile carriers, it sets rules for signal power and compatibility as well. But I digress.

    You pointed out the lightening cable. Why is the lightning cable a problem? Is it not for the consumer to decide what they want to buy? If the lightning cable produces waste, and you care about that, then is it not incumbent upon you to just not buy an iPhone?

    Let me ask you a question here: Do you believe that if you and someone else had agreed to a trade of some sort, that your neighbor down the road would have any right to come along and mandate that this trade produces too much waste and therefore, threaten you with violence unless you change or nullify that trade?

    What you're referring to here actually isn't even a problem. It's just something people want. If you don't want it, you don't buy an iPhone. In fact, only 25% of active smartphones globally are iPhones. Android phones command 72.36% of the market. So 25% of the market clearly want the iPhone more than they care about any waste produced by an outdated charging cable.

    I don't buy Apple products, nor does any of my family. I don't buy them because I actually don't like how Apple does business. This is how it's meant to work in a society predicated on CONSENT. The moment you don't like something you don't have the right to start threatening people unless they do as you say.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 child)

    I mean your argument are entirely predicated on "free market behavior are not a problem", therefore "lightening cabel is not a problem". This is essentially the question you posed in your third paragraph is trying to convey.

    However, "free market behavior are not a problem" is the thesis you are trying to prove, so you cannot use that as a premise to defend "lightening cabel is not a problem". It i a circular argument.

    To demonstrate that lightening cabel is not a problem, you will need to show that the world is, in general, not better off by switching lightening to USB-C.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 days ago

    I need not demonstrate any such thing. There's a difference between subjective and objective morality. We live in a world where we humans have self-awareness, and with that self awareness comes concepts of logic, reason, and justice. Unfortunately for us, human conflict arises and it isn't always clear which side of said conflicts are good or bad.

    For example, maybe you don't like the existance of these lightning cables. OK, great. And you may have a lot of reasons for not liking them, but those are all subjective. Value itself, is subjective. Someone else might love the lightning cable. So who is correct?

    Even if you can come up with 30 ways why you think the lightning cable is bad that doesn't make your stance objective. You could say for example that the cable makes more waste. OK, but I don't have to value waste creation the same way you do. Maybe I don't care at all about waste.

    You could say that the cable is too expensive and there aren't enough alternatives. Great, I would agree with you on all of these fronts (remember, I don't buy Apple products. None) but that STILL doesn't mean they're not just opinions.

    Objectively, lightning cables aren't bad. If you don't want a lightning cable, don't buy one, and don't buy Apple products. I should be allowed to have them if I want them. It isn't for you or anyone else to tell me I can't, and it doesn't matter what justifiers you have for it.

    The only time when the lightning cable would become objectively "bad" is if there is something to do with the cable that violates the will of another in the same logical way that manifests concepts such as murder, assault, theft, or fraud. For example, if the waste is being dumped on your property and you don't want it there.

    But then the "problem" isn't the lightning cable at all, it's that Apple is dumping trash on your property without your consent. Again, the lighting cable isn't the issue, the act of violating property rights is the issue.

    Does this make sense? I want to make sure I am explaining these concepts in a way that make sense.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (3 children)

    Crazy take. You should go back 140 years and work in the mines for 80 hours a week. Maybe have some kids and bring them in the mines to work with you so you can get some company coins to trade for a dirty shirt and some grain to make porridge. Open a history book.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (2 children)

    What does this have to do with what I've said?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (1 child)

    I was referring to labor laws. Free markets with no rules lead to exploitation of labor.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 days ago

    How do you define a free market? The only laws you need - fundamentally - are those in which aren't victimless crime laws. A free market is predicated on ownership, and the fundamental essence of ownership requires two cardinal premises:

    1. You desire exclusive will over something.
    2. You obtain exclusive will over that something without violating the preexisting will of another to hold exclusive authority over it. I.E: You didn't steal someone to get it.

    If a third party (the government) can tell you what you can do with your property then it is violating your exclusive will over it. In short, the government is robbing you. Theft doesn't - and in fact cannot - simply mean I take a something from you. I could take your wallet off my counter because you left it in my home with the intent of bringing it back to you. You could borrow me your car with an understanding that I will give it back to you the moment you request it.

    But if I take your car without you knowing and without your consent, EVEN if I brought it back later that day and filled up the tank, I have robbed you. It doesn't matter that I brought the car back. Theft has very little to do with the location of property and certainly rarely ever to do with having property on ones person. The moment I leave my house almost everything I own is no longer on my person, but I expect it to be where I left it when I get home.

    The moment another entity can dictate what you can do with your property you no longer have freedom, because freedom requires your will remain unviolated (in a logical order of operations across time.) So I would argue that if your consent is being violated, you are no longer existing within the confines of a free market.

    Now if your argument is that an employer could ask you to work 24 hours in a day or terminate employment - there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. If YOU consent to it, then it's OK. What on earth makes you think that a third party has any right to come in between two consenting adults? Is that third party the wise and affluent intellectual, and the employee the simpleton barbarian?

    The mere fact that freedom requires violence utilized to protect from things like murder, rape, assault, theft, and fraud means that you do not need to really worry about things like labor laws. So long as an employer cannot force you to do something at gun point means you get to consent. In addition, so does everyone else.

    I'm not working for a business that forces employees to work 24 hour working days. I'm also not BUYING anything from those businesses, would you?

    And remember that if a business hides these facets from the market that fundamentally is what fraud is. Fraud, I would argue, is at its core about trying to get someone to consent to something by purposely (or by way of negligence) misleading them. I KNOW a lot of people wouldn't work for me or buy from my business if they knew I employed children, so I will hide that fact - that's fraud.

    And since you cannot live in a free society where there's rampant fraud, there would need to be individuals ready and willing to use violence against it. Frankly the proper answer to such a thing would be to just apprehend the owners of the business directly. The fact that we treat companies like individuals is nonsensical. If you want nefarious acts done via business to fade away, start imprisoning the owners/CEO's for what their businesses do.

    The good and just need not permit the machinations of the sinister. If someone shows up to your home to threaten you and your family, the just and proper answer is to end them. Violence is in no way intrinsically evil in its own right. The sword - it can be used in the defense of the innocent and goodly, or to enslave the masses.

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