catzaa

> even though every sane person has to acknowledge that legalizing drugs in part is more effective than enforcing more rigid controls,

No it is not. Two examples of this are Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.

In both these countries there are zero tolerance for drug users and drug traffickers and the results show. Smoking Marijuana almost teenagers in Japan is basically unheard of.

It seems that laws in the USA and Europe are not strict enough to act as a deterrence. If many of these countries adopted the death penalty or similar penalties for trafficking, then perhaps something could be done about it.

(Singapore executes drug traffickers. I don't know what legal punishments there are for traffickers in Japan, but I know the social punishments are severe. A family will often cut contact with a relative if he is sentenced for a minor crime. Sports stars, tenured professors and celebrities will loose their jobs if they had a criminal offence even for something completely unrelated to their career. Quite different from the attention that washed out American celebrities get.)

Why? Human beings have many lies that they belieeve are true, and we are not poorer for it.

(E.g. Unconditional love, true love, etc...).

> I took a step back on the big picture analyzing groups attacking "Climate Science" with obvious interests behind.

So? There are other groups promoting 'Climate Science' with obvious interests behind them (Al Gore's political interests, companies that may benefit from carbon trading, science cliques, companies working on carbon sequestration programmes, etc...). Don't think that those who promote global warming are as pure as the driven snow.

Trying to demonise all those who question the reality of AGW is not conducive to a robust debate on the topic.

Maybe. But I am sure that if records show that a product is delayed, then the customer service rep should have a bit of leeway to make the customer happy.

> When you say "someone else" in this sentence, you have to mean someone different.

I mean someone not part of the cultural, language or national grouping.

> I disagree. I believe someone with a different skin color or a different culture would fight for me and protect my rights

That may be a nice sentiment, but historically this has not happened (you also conflate skin colour with ethnic, cultural and language identity). Probably the best example where “other people” did not fight for a certain group’s rights is language rights.

In Eastern Europe, many Russians are finding their language and identity marginalised.

Tibet is another example where the majority does not protect the language, religious and cultural rights of a minority.

Other historic examples are the Basque in Spain, Pigmies in the DRC, Tamils in Sri Lanka, people of Chinese ancestry in Malaysia, Kurds in Turkey, etc…

> The Greeks had a nationalistic loyalty to their particular city-state. This ended when the Persians showed up, who were orders of magnitude less appealing to the Greeks, and that did away with a lot of inter-Greek warfare and nationalism.

By replacing it with pan-Greek nationalism? The Greeks shared a lot of attributes (language, ideology, etc…). What you are railing against is “Geographic nationalism”. There is more to nationalism than that.

> I believe the same can be said of races and religions these days. Conflict between races is like conflict between the various Greek city-states: A damn waste.

The word “race” is a loaded word.

IMHO nationalism is not a waste. Each and every group should have the right to their own culture, religion, language and self-determination. As the UN Charter states:

> To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace

> All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development

> We've got bigger problems to solve, and can probably work on a better level than that.

To what end? Are problems really so big that the religious and cultural identities should be destroyed? Are our “problems” really bigger than a hundred years ago (when almost everyone died of Polio)?

I think that the common trend in many places is to replace culture with some Americanised version of culture and replace all native languages with English. I think this is a huge step backwards.

There is nothing wrong with a group wanting to protect their language, culture and identity (what you label as XXX nationalism).

IMHO, it is naive for individuals to assume that someone else would protect/fight for their rights.

South Africa's national language is bad English :)

While I do think that everyone should learn English in SA, research has shown that mother tongue education (especially at primary and secondary levels) are extremely important.

There are a lot of parents doing their children a disservice by sending them to English schools.

The world is a lot more complex than that. Germany was not treated well after the First World War. It was almost certain that there will be another war and a dictator would come to power (the only question was when, and what the dictator's name would be).

This does not mean that everything the German army did was good or justified (e.g. the Holocaust). And neither was the allies knights in shining armour (firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo comes to mind).

My grandparents (although not German citizens) were fiercely supportive of Germany in WW2, as where many people. This stemmed mostly from the UK’s treatment of people in its colonies.

That may be true for most emails.

But I guess that large webmail providers can band together and ensure that e-mails between their systems are encrypted (i.e. all messages sent by gmail to other gmail addresses or hotmail addresses are encrypted).

Then users would just use HTTPS to check their mail and everything would be encrypted.

This is not perfect, but it is at least a stopgap.

> Just to pick on one point: what conceivable moral logic leads one to choose democratic representation based on the financial health of their existing government?

Wasn't the idea to give each state to senators so that populous states do not encroach on less populous states?

If California gets many senators, they will surely vote to get federal money to fix their deficit.

> Have you travelled in Europe ? Say from the Polish/Russian boarder (or the Romanian one) to the coast of the Atlantic? > In spite of those 'requirements' the differences are vast, and yet, for the most part people still live where they lived before the borders opened up. Not as stark as in South Africa, for sure, but very real nonetheless.

All the poorer countries in the EU are stable democratic countries. They are poorer, but are set for enormous growth (that is why the richer countries wants them part of the EU – because they have much better growth potential than the most developed countries).

Also note that those crossing borders in the EU can’t vote in their newly adopted country (since they are still citizens of their home country). So there are restrictions on many government services also.

> Borders are arbitrary constructs created to foster areas of artificial scarcity and control of people, the world is a much better place without them.

Private property is also an “arbitrary construct” but it doesn’t mean that they are bad. Borders allow government investment of taxpayer money in a country (this being used to benefit the tax payers).

> It seems to me that you are scared of something, South Africa is a place that has a history of very strong inequality, likely the shockwaves of the change there will reverberate for a long time, especially because of the enormous differences between those that have and those that don't.

Illegal immigration could cause the government to collapse, sending South Africa into a downward spiral and de-industrialising the country.

You have not addressed any of my concerns, but try to justify it with the EU (which is only a union with very select and stable countries, with them not becoming citizens of their “adopted” country).

> I've heard these arguments time and again while the European borders were dissolved, NONE of it came true.

There is a huge difference. For a country to go into the EU, it has a lot of requirements - it isn't just an arbitrary opening of the borders.

The EU would never allow a backwards developing country to become part.

> People that don't like a level playing field can't be much of a player.

The effect of mass immigration is usually worse on the lower strata of society (plumbers, manual labourers) - not me and you.

And yes, there are people who would not be able to compete - we can't all be rocket scientists.

> able to make forward movements rather than two steps forward one step back.

The result of such an approach would be a repeated one step back (as with the above process I described).

> It's entirely for selfish reasons

There is nothing wrong with rational self-interest. Whether you like it or not, you act in your own self-interest repeatedly. Nothing prevents you from moving to 3rd world countries (instead of moving a third world country to you).

> Pieces of paper to hold people out of places that they wish to go to ought to be a thing of the past.

Why? People only come into my home when I invite them inside. Why should it be different with countries?

> there is no way that 4 million illegal immigrants would converge on any place in the world because they would be bringing their homes with them, literally.

You would be surprised.

> The only people scared of that are those that are afraid to compete, and with the headstart that we've got competition should be the least of our worries.

Competition is the least of your problems. The first and biggest problem is crime – crime levels (including organised crime and violent crime) that increases extremely rapidly.

The second problem is any public services that will simply get flooded – a good example in my country is health care. You will simply end up without access to decent health care.

The third problem is private property. Immigrants will squat on your land depriving you of its use (without compensation). If you own land near the land where they squatted, it will be virtually worthless because of the associated theft and crime (see point one).

And fourthly, if immigrants vote, they will most likely vote for a kleptocratic socialist-lair which will increase your taxes and thoroughly destroy what is left of the country.

The UK has good laws (you can get a highly skilled Visa without major problems).

Unfortunately some of the nicest countries it is difficult (e.g. Ireland).

Be careful what you wish for. A world without borders might sound nice in a John Lennon song, but in practice it is not.

The domino effect can happen – one state collapses and the people move to another state, which strains that state’s government and collapses that economy too.

I live in South Africa, and we basically have an open border policy (since the laws do not get implemented). There are a lot of illegal immigrants which significantly increases crime, puts strain on services and creates social problems. We have a broad unemployment rate of 40% - we can’t even provide jobs for our own people, let alone 4+ million illegal immigrants.

You created a bit of a strawman in your post. But anyways, look below.

From http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/cri...:

> Past year illicit drug users were also about 16 times more likely than nonusers to report being arrested and booked for larceny or theft; more than 14 times more likely to be arrested and booked for such offenses as driving under the influence, drunkenness, or liquor law violations; and more than 9 times more likely to be arrested and booked on an assault charge.

You can look at that website for several statistics. You will note that that website shows increased offenses for drug users that are not related to traditional "drug-trafficking" or "black-market" activities (so this can’t be blamed on the prohibition of drugs).

> I understand the connection between the drug trade and the violent crime, pertaining to the criminal element of the black market; but the notion that I'm buying weed today, raping/murdering tomorrow, is nonsense.

You should make a distinction between hard and soft drugs. Claiming that weed is safe, therefore all drugs are safe isn’t correct – and it is a strawman. That website clearly states that drug-users have a significantly increased crime rate. I am not going to discuss in detail the causes of crime for drug users (which doesn’t have anything to do with any statement I made).

From the same website:

> Another dimension of drug-related crime is committing an offense to obtain money (or goods to sell to get money) to support drug use. According to the 1991 joint survey of Federal and State prison inmates, an estimated 17 percent of State prisoners and 10 percent of Federal prisoners reported committing their offense to get money to buy drugs;

And the conclusion:

> The evidence indicates that drug users are more likely than nonusers to commit crimes, that arrestees frequently were under the influence of a drug at the time they committed their offense, and that drugs generate violence.

I read the following in wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid):

> Flax, like chia, contains approximately three times as much n−3 as n−6.

> Oils from these fish have a profile of around seven times as much n−3 as n−6.

Obviously WP is not infaliable and needs to be corrected.

(I usually drink Flax seed oil because fish oil seems grouse).

> if only because their ambitions are fairly modest (they're seeking to build a better GA piston engine, not re-invent the industry) and because they're filling a fairly obvious gap.

The problem (IMHO) is that aircraft engines are safety of flight components. So, most engines are overdesigned by well reputed companies (definitely not start-up material). They may succeed and prove me wrong – I am not an expert in that area.

> it's important to understand that it was originally designed to fulfill a local need, not for export, and that not only was the project an engineering success which established

AFAIK, the whole idea of the rooivalk was to be a Soviet tankkiller (with obvious export potential). After 1990, there was no reason for continued funding of the project.

> which established companies like Aerosud and ATE (both doing quite well) but its development made sense under the circumstances at the time.

Maybe. But its development also established companies such as Denel (which is a continual drain of millions on the government budget).

> South Africa was one of the research leaders in Lithium-ion battery technology prior to '92, but has done very little research in the field since then.

A battery company will then make more sense than a car company (the market for Lithium Ion batteries are much larger).

My point is just that less grandiose schemes will probably have a larger payoff. The fairly high labour rate is an unfortunate effect of legislation (with 40% broad based unemployment, the cost of labour should be much lower). If the country wants to succeed it should become a lot more like china.

I sincerely doubt that these guys would be successful. In South Africa there is a habit to start impractical and expensive grandiose engineering projects with government money. Most of these will turn out to be white elephants (a few examples are the Rooivalk attack helicopter, pebble-bed reactor, Joule car, etc...).

The last one, they used funding from the DTI to start an electric car - even though it is not in SA's core competencies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_Energy_Joule). I have no doubt that that will fail and will cost a lot of money.

A much better model for an indigenous aircraft company is to perform the designs of low tech parts locally and import highly complex and critical (safety of flight) parts. That way you can utilise the strengths (design&low cost labour). A good example of such a model is this company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAC_Cresco.

As I understand it a high amount of Omega-6 means that you cannot absorb the omega-3. From WP:

> Thus accumulation of long-chain n−3 fatty acids in tissues is more effective when they are obtained directly from food or when competing amounts of n−6 analogs do not greatly exceed the amounts of n−3.

Fish oil contains a higher ratio of omega-3 to omega 6 than other sources (flax seed).

Also, fish oil contains Vitamin D which is very good for teeth (if you get enough vitamin D, holes in teeth repair themselves).

A lot of fish oil is also specified as "cod liver oil". So I don't think that it uses the above fish and i don't think that the cod livers is used in food (so it is a byproduct).

> Under communist command, russia rised to the status of superpower.

The Soviet Union was an energy superpower. They used this to built up their economy (and waste money on arms).

> I don't understand what's so interesting about MIT's linear algebra course

The lectures are free to download (which is awesome to 3rd world folks like me :) )

> However I've had trouble finding the people who find rote formulas a better way to learn.

Strang's lectures don’t just give you rote formulas. Most of his lectures he clearly shows you where things came from (i.e. how and why Matrix Elimination works, etc...). One of the reasons why he shows the different ways to multiply matrices in this lecture is because he uses it in subsequent lectures to show how null-spaces and column spaces work.

His lectures are not the be-all and end-all to linear algebra, but (IMHO) it gives you a great intuitive feel for linear algebra. Also remember that his particular course (18.06) is focussed on engineering students who tend to do less theoretic proofs than maths and natural sciences folk.

I personally like to get an intuitive understanding of how things work before delving into theory (maybe it is just me). I am currently (slowly) busy with a textbook called Linear Algebra (by Friedberg, Insel and Spence). This is a great textbook that shows you how matrices are defined from fields, etc… (i.e. theoretical). Yet it would be extremely difficult to understand without having an intuitive idea that Strang’s lectures give you.

> That's not poverty. Not even close.

In the USA even an unskilled person can get a fairly good job (as the above example shows). How exactly do you then have severe poverty (like the thing you talk about) when even unskilled people get work?

In my country you are dirt poor even if you work 8 hours a day. What you label poverty is not poverty at all. They show photos of poor Americans – eating a McDonalds hamburger.

I ate my first hamburger at a shop when it was my birthday. Poor people usually eat staple foodstuffs (not McDonalds).

> What happens if people stop doing their jobs? Shops close down, infrastructure fails, and no one can get any work done.

Shops stay open because the shop owner sells his goods for a profit. An open shop is not a gift from society; it is a shop-owner acting in self-interest by selling things for a profit. The same goes for people working in infrastructure (e.g. those employed by municipal roads agencies, etc…). As soon as people stop doing their jobs (as unionists often like to do) they stop getting paid.

Except in the basic income grant world that many of the left like to live.

> That's because the US put a lot of money into universities/research in the 1940s-60s, which attracted a lot of talent.

Not really. One reason is that the USA has high tuition fees that enable good universities. If people pay the tuition fees themselves they are more inclined to actually work (instead of the 4 years of party in many countries). You also have private universities (which are not government funded) which are very good.

> My point is that you have no idea what it's like for those who are poor in the US. To claim that they have abundant opportunity is ludicrous. I know this society inside and out, I've got friends at all social levels-- from dirt-poor to three-digit millionaires-- and I know that you're impossibly naive.

I think you are being deliberately deceptive. I have friends that went to work in the USA. One worked for a harvesting company and received a good salary. Another did long distance trucking. All of these are “low paying” jobs, yet in the USA they receive excellent salaries.

Many people in low paying jobs (such as plumbers) can own their own home – which is unheard of in many countries. The salary for manual labour is incredibly high.

> More desirable is a world in which people have the ability to maximize their contributions to society, because they're given the resources necessary to realize their potential.

You view someone earning money as a “gift from society”. If someone works or has a business, he owns his own money with no obligation to any other party. A lot of people on the left wants to view individuals as servants of society (as you do).

> Everyone pays taxes. Rich people pay more. I have no problem with this.

You do not have a problem with this, because you do not fall in the top tax bracket. That is the “not me” phenomenon in action.

> They get more out of society;

Again, you view any money an individual makes as a gift from society. This is not so. For a voluntary transaction (where there is no coercion) no one owes a third party anything.

> The only one of those that's been demonstrated to be a bad idea is the cash payment for having children (which encourages people to have kids they can't support).

Free universities tend to be of much worse quality. Two good examples are Germany and Greece. The qualities of Universities in these countries are much lower than countries such as the United States. Greece has the highest number of foreign students studying abroad for its population size.

The Basic Income Grant causes a lot of people to work and places an incredibly high burden on tax payers. In my country they want to introduce the basic income grant. Currently there are 13 million people on welfare (child grants which stretches until a child is 16, unemployment,) while there are only 3 million tax payers (i.e. four people getting grants for every one person on tax). BIG will push it to ten people receiving grants for every one person paying tax.

> Correction: You know nothing about poverty in the United States.

I guess America is special then.

> The discrete right/privilege distinction is a meaningless distraction from the more subjective issue of social justice.

The word “social justice” is a misnomer for a list of entitlements and an enforcement of equality of outcome.

> If the resources exist to give everyone healthcare, then everyone should have healthcare.

The only problem you face is that these “resources” belong to private individuals. So you only have to coerce these “resources” away from them and somehow force them to keep working and creating these resources.

One guy once said what you are trying to implement: “From each according to his ability and to each according to his need”. Was it Marx?

> spending trillions on "defense"; why not spend money to be defended against things like cancer, which are far more likely to kill most of us than any terrorist?

You are justifying one bad idea with another bad idea. This is a stupid line of reasoning. For a government with an incredibly large amount of debt, it is not a good idea to spend trillions on anything.

> > It looks like everyone wants free healthcare and no-one wants to pay for it. > Ridiculous assertion. No one with half a brain considers that possible. Someone has to pay.

Yes. And the answer is always, “not us”. The argument is usually that “rich people” will pay for it.

> > It seems that the list of entitlements only gets longer and the list of responsibilities gets shorter. > That's what happens as society improves.

Now, that is when society declines and decays.

> On the list of responsibilities shrinking: are you arguing that we should go back to an era when people spent a substantial fraction of their time making their own clothes, instead of buying cheap factory-made clothing at the store?

This has nothing to do with government entitlements or personal responsibilities and duties. Here are some example responsibilities and duties:

- Save for your retirement (don’t push this duty on the government).

- Save to send your children to school and hopefully university.

- Raise your children well.

- Volunteer to become an army reservist, police reservist or any other civic duty.

- Take care of your parents when they are old. Etc…

Here are some entitlements: - Free healthcare

- Free welfare payments

- Cash payments for each child born.

- Free education and university

- Gauranteed salary throughout your life (whether employed or not). Some countries call this a "basic income grant".

The above 20% is probably wrong.

Just note that the citations from the CIA world factbook is probably worthless. In the official demographics of South Africa for example, neither illegal immigration or temporary migration is noted.

This is fairly high though (as much as 3 million Zimbabweans and many people form other African countries such as Somalia).

I read this in a South African newspaper. But in fairness, without a citation this is worthless.

I see posts claiming a 100,000 works in the formal sector (i.e. working for formal companies). The number of Chinese working in the informal sector or illegally would be unknown.

But the 20% figure is most probably wrong.

> You know nothing about poverty.

I grew up in a relatively poor family in a third world country (in a rural area). So, don't make baseless assumptions.

> but we do want a world where people are free from worries about health care (due to our third-world health care system) and meeting basic needs.

These (healthcare, education, etc...) are privileges. You are lucky to have it – but it is still a privilege and not something that you can demand. Btw, Europeans go to the USA for advanced health care (such as Cancer treatment). Ever heard of the MD Anderson cancer centre? It is the best in the world.

Guess what, hospitals and doctors do not just pop into existence. They have to be paid and everything costs money. You want all this to be free (at least for you). I am quite sceptical of this – someone has to pay for it. It looks like everyone wants free healthcare and no-one wants to pay for it.

> You simply have a better society (more innovation, more creativity, happier and healthier people) if peoples' lives aren't clogged up by maintenance.

It seems that the list of entitlements only gets longer and the list of responsibilities gets shorter.

Wasn’t the USA founded on the principle that everyone can pursue their happiness? It seems more like you want government to guarantee it. I think that this says more about the current generation of young Americans than of the American system.