Alan C.

NASA’s $349 million monument to its drift

Being educated is not the same as being enlightened, nor is being intelligent the same as being wise (eg. Thunderf00t). It's possible for people to retain specialized knowledge and expertise while possessing no marketable or productive abilities. Although she was subjected to some unfortunate circumstances, she is responsible for her sexual proclivities and choice of degree and career which were like firing torpedoes into the side of a ship. On another note, there are many young people at the company where I work who pay $100/month or more for their smart phone plans and who complain about being broke all the time. It's ridiculous.

Although society largely benefits from the innovation of labor-saving devices which liberate people from tedious, repetitive work, the pernicious aspect of this that many adolescents and young adults have been deprived of the opportunity to get their first job. There are actually people in their mid-twenties who have never had a job. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. I don't blame the market for this; I blame the State.

Obama Administration Now Has 1,000 Government Investigators Targeting Businesses for Minimum Wage Violations According to the government's own statistics, less than 5% of American workers earn at or below the federal minimum wage. As a result of this rampage against businesses by the self-righteous crusaders, there will eventually be no minimum-wage workers at all because they will be replaced with automation.

Labor Force Participation Remains at 36-Year Low 17.7% Teen Unemployment in America – Still Above Rate of 6 Years Ago Maybe they should hike up the minimum wage some more.

What do you hope to accomplish that you believe a statist society would be more effective at achieving than a libertarian society?

Venezuelan President Announces 'Hotline' to Denounce 'Traitors, Spies, or Dissidents' Stasi

The market's means of discovering efficiency is profit and loss. What is the means of vetting in a political institution?

It isn't likely that prisons would exist in a free society. Locking people in cages is an archaic, inhumane, wasteful, and ineffective means of dealing with criminality. In a free society, ostracism would serve the same function to separate uncivilized and dangerous people from everyone else. In cases where people are not in control of their faculties, unable to restrain impulse, and pose a menace to others, there would be institutions to deal with them in a humane manner.

Try eliminating caffeine. I remember very little about my dreams if I've had caffeine the day before. I've almost completely eliminated caffeine altogether for health reasons. My body can't handle it like it used to when I was younger. As I've aged, caffeine began having unpleasant effets including poor quality sleep.

It's next week. Anybody else going?

More good news from the socialist paradise. Shortages, Inflation Threaten Venezuela Christmas Venezuela's Maduro to raise minimum wage In violent Venezuela, bulletproof everything

Naer, you lack empathy for people who work every day and are expropriated by the State. None of this has anything to do with helping the poor. This is about your fecklessness.

Some anarchists believe that voting libertarian is defensive voting. I disagree. I tell people that I don't vote because the act of participating lends sanction and legitimacy to the political process and the State. One should lead by example by responding to politics and the State with scorn, ridicule, and denunciation. Prosperity in society won't be achieved by giving power to a bunch of criminals and idiots, nor will tallying the ill-informed, unqualified opinions of millions of moronic voters and imposing the most popular ones upon the whole populace.

If artwork is the objective then one could simply frame it and place it within view (eg. wall, desk, table, etc.), or use it as a computer background, or carry it in one's purse or wallet. The fact that a person feels compelled to go through the pain and expense of permanently defacing their own skin when there are far easier ways to go about preserving and displaying artwork implies that artwork isn't the primary motivator. That the person considers the image to be artwork is simply incidental. The method involved reveals the true nature of the objective.

Taco Bell unveils mobile ordering I was recently at McDonald's and saw one of their new Build Your Burger kiosks.

Self-erasure. Asserting control. Attention-seeking.

People receive "benefits" because the State initiates force on their behalf. Unemployment isn't caused by technology; it's caused by regulations. Since you support a universal basic income, I was wondering when I can start expecting checks from you.

Venezuela seizes warehouses packed with medical goods, food

I don't enjoy gratuitous violence and gore. However, I do enjoy some horror movies. Some of my favorites from the 80s were The Thing (1982) and Fright Night (1985). I was never a fan of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13th.

I don't think it is. Why do you? parasite - a person who receives support, advantage, or the like, from another or others without giving any useful or proper return, as one who lives on the hospitality of others.

You asked two different questions. Social programs pervert incentives (eg. illegitimacy, fatherless homes, generational welfare parasitism, fraud and abuse, etc.). Whether or not they impede a person's creativity is another matter.

Anarcho-capitalism is Murray Rothbard's fusion of the social philosophy of 19th century individualist anarchism with the capitalistic order of production as explicated by Austrian economics (ie. anarchism with private property and free trade). The people who say that anarcho-capitalism isn't real anarchism define capitalism as a system of State privilege which confers benefits to a politically-connected capitalist class.

Another minority group which is doing well are Indians (from India; not native-Americans), especially in high-tech.

Police to Investigate Allegations of Labour-Libdem Rochdale 'Deal' on Paedophiles and Sex Pests