Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (107991)	6/11/2001 4:21:01 AM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

CB - >>>> >>Neither the enlightening of the ignorant nor the enrichment of the poor is in your self interest.<< Oh, good. I wanted to say that this is what libertarians believe but didn't want to offend. And this is where I part company with the libertarians. Flats is right, there isn't a free market solution for taking care of the poor who don't have families, except "charity" - and charity may or may not be there, because it's voluntary.... >>>> I wish that you would keep your unrivaled ability to deliberately and selectively misquote out of context in court where it belongs to serve your client. My complete post - The probabilities are far higher that the program creators not only understand perfectly well that their programs will not and cannot work, but that they would have to sabotage them if they did. The programs are not typically about alleviating poverty, but rather about exploiting it. Every human action is intended to improve the comprehensive lot of the actor, in his own eyes. This is part of the human nature of rational man. When this action falls within the economic realm of mutual exchange, overall success depends on supplying wanted value to other actors. In the political realm, the acquisition and exercise of power depends on using deception of the ignorant and fantasy promises for the poor to destroy your enemies. Neither the enlightening of the ignorant nor the enrichment of the poor is in your self interest. By deciding to ignore the obvious parallel construction of the last two sentences, you have managed to move the meaning of the quoted sentence out of the political realm into the economic realm and have then spun a fairy tale out of the result. While there may indeed exist people with such beliefs as you express, they do not include me, nor likely most libertarians. When society is organized along the lines of the free market economy, the more participants, the greater the potential standard of living for all. A free market economy is of relatively little value at the level of the tribe, but becomes more effective combinatorially (much faster than exponentially) as the number and variety of participants increase. A belief in the free market and individual freedom should, for strategic and selfish reasons alone, if for no other, imply that it is a true tragedy when billions of children are not allowed to take their potential place in a growing and productive, free market economy. Out of every million conceptions, there is a potential Edison (or name an alternative), and 99% of the rest are entirely able to function as potential producers and consumers, adding their own unique values to the economy. The fact that a given conception, randomly selected from all over the world, has less than a 10% chance of surviving into adulthood and participating in an above subsistence level economy, is not the result of genetic factors, but rather of political structures that exist to enslave the many for the benefit of the few. This is a truly tragic and unrecoverable waste of human potential. The first step in combating poverty is to quit pursuing policies that provide incentives to create more of it. As long as politicians can exploit the poor and ignorant for their own political gain, large numbers of the poor and ignorant will continue to exist. Regards, Don