ribuck

If you call it that, your book will only be read by those who think that America is the root of all evil, which would be a vanishingly small number of people. But if you call it "States of Delusion" or somesuch, you may appeal to a wider range of readers.

I think you've nailed it there, Nathan. I would certainly read that book. The only point that's slightly awkward is number three, because a term like "American child" could also be used geographically, and such usage would be legitimate. For example, "Most American children speak English or Spanish". But I can't think of a better term right now ("Comrade children of the nation-state" comes to mind but it doesn't work for me either).

I don't think it's meaningful to ask whether a freely-traded commodity such as gold is over or under valued. It just ... has a value.

People keep saying this, but I think the risk to the "economy" is overblown. Remember about six years ago when people were saying if the price of crude oil reached $40 per barrel it would damage the economy? But the economy didn't blink at $40, nor at $80, nor when it was over $100 for extended periods. Sure, the economy blinked in 2008, but not because of oil prices. It's also now clear that shale oil is going to be plentiful over the next decade or two.

Really you mean that he "predicted" this (or even "speculated"). He's not in a position to meaningfully "state" it. If the market shared your certainty, the price would already be at almost $3,500. So it's not so simple...

Lots of people reprint Shakespeare's work, but no-one else claims that they wrote it.

It doesn't work that way in the real world. Search engines can work out which is the original site, and will send the majority of search traffic to it. Users will soon work out which is the responsive, up-to-date, authentic site, and will spurn the copy. The Wikipedia-scrapers of a few years ago soon learned that it doesn't work out economically. They have more-or-less died out. But someone really does need to try this, just so we can lay this meme to rest. So please do it!

In 2005, Stefan did support copyright, as discussed in some of his old podcasts. It would be nice to see the assertion of copyright removed. I don't think it would change the legal position (because creative work is copyright by default in Canada), but the claim would then be made by the state rather than by Stefan personally. To change the legal position one could dedicate the work to the public domain or license it for wider use (as Stefan has done by applying the Creative Commons Attribution license to some of his YouTube videos).

Most people "know" that prices are going up faster than the statistics suggest, so it was great that Peter took the time to dig up actual numbers.

Perhaps there will be some gameplay where spanking achieves some immediate short-term goal but proves disastrous in the longer term.

For a critique of science, you sure speak a lot about religion. I was hoping that I might find a mention of "truth" in the first paragraph, and less pseudo-science in the rest of the article. By the way, you have included the "Universality" section twice.

There are plenty of objective essay-like writings available from others. For example, the writings of Murray Rothbard make many of the same points that Stefan makes, in a careful reasoned way without the toilet jokes. Stef has his own strengths though. I think he's astonishingly good at looking beyond the small details and seeing the big picture. And he can convey that picture very clearly to those who have the right background to understand it. I recall a video which discussed how the freedom movement needed to become more effective, and that it could do so by adopting some of the tactics used by religious movements. Sorry, I can't find the video (I'm not even sure if it was by Stef, or whether it was one of his interviews, or whether it was by someone else). Anyway, one of those tactics was to maintain motivation amongst the faithful by providing a place for them to gather together regularly, to hear a sermon that will keep them motivated. And Stefan certainly does that.

Mike, by posting an edited version you risk misleading people. John Noveske started his post with the following sentence, which changes its emphasis and significance: "Not sure about the facts here, I received this from a friend."

You must have an odd definition of "socialist"! The linked article is not socialist, and if you click "About the Author" the text starts with "Free Software Engineer, Freediver, Free Thinker and everything related to freedom in general". Maybe you consider everyone who rejects IP to be a socialist.

Anyway, whether it's property or not, homesteading locations in imaginary space isn't going to work out economically. It's only the "old generation" like me who even take issues like copyright seriously. Here's what the new generation thinks of it: "Why I'm a Pirate" http://ploum.net/post/im-a-pirate

Stores sell a lot of bottled water, even though people can get it almost for free from the tap, or can collect rainwater. Restaurants sell plenty of spaghetti bolognese, even though you can cook the same thing at home without any IP problems. Hairdressers cut plenty of hair, even though families can cut each other's hair for free. In the absence of IP laws, there will still be DVDs for sale. You can be successful in business by giving the customer what they want, when they want it, in the format they want it, for the price they are willing to pay. In the absence of IP laws, there will still be blockbusters made. I can think of a couple of business models, and I'm sure there are many entrepreneurs who will find additional profitable business models. For example, tickets to watch the movie on the day of release might be priced very high, and it would become a bit of a status symbol to see a new blockbuster before others have seen it. Or, the movie distributor might simply announce that screenings will start when the first million seats have been pre-sold. Or perhaps the producer won't even make the blockbuster until the first million seats have been pre-sold. Who knows what ingenious ways people will come up with to fund blockbusters.

It's probably the other way around. A copy-protected product is an inferior product (because you can only view the movie when and how the corporation wants you to, and it might stop working if the manufacturer stops supporting the authorization scheme). As such the copy-protected product has difficulty competing with a product that can be viewed anytime on any device. Apple's music sales have increased greatly since they abandoned copy protection on iTunes music.

I think much of the explanation is that since WW2 Scandinavian countries have had relatively little involvement in global warfare. Either they have small military budgets, or they have average-sized military budgets but mostly spend the budget locally rather than on blowing up stuff in another continent. In either case, the economic benefit of a few percent per year adds up to a lot if you compound it for decade after decade.

That is the situation in which many people would tell a "white lie". Personally I've never done that. I just tell a different truth, for example: "I'd rather not say".

I don't consider lying to be immoral, but it's almost always stupid and counter-productive. The exception, of course, is when you're lying to someone who wishes to harm you. When the ax-murderer asks where your chldren are, feel free to say they're with their aunt in Africa. In other circumstances, lying is counter-productive. You can achieve more by building long-term trust-based relationships, than by seeking short-term exploitation.

Hello, and welcome to the FDR forum. For sure. Voluntaryists never deny this. Maybe a "government" will emerge. Maybe not. Current governments clearly have not solved (or even alleviated) the problem of the "people in society that do not want to behave in voluntary, peaceful ways with other individuals". As Stefan has been known to say, why avoid removing a cancer just because there's a possibility that it will grow back? In the future I hope that the "certain interests" to which you refer will realise that it will work better to create a non-violent organization that will achieve vastly superior results through social exclusion of wrongdoers (ostracism), and removing the constraints currently imposed against those who want to behave in voluntary, peaceful ways.

I can measure the physical characteristics of matter (mass, charge, momentum, color, density, etc). This tells me that physical matter is indistinguishable from something that physically exists. That's good enough for me.

If we are going to make progress, you will need to convince me that "intellectual space" exists and that it has "locations". Then you will need to explain to me how you can know that multiple copies of the same song occupy the same location in intellectual space.

Copying is copying. Example 1: You see your neighbor making a new type of chair, and you make one too (by copying the process that you saw). Example 2: You hear your neighbor performing a new piece of music, and you perform it too (by copying the sounds that you heard). In neither case was there trespass, nor theft. You are simply making assertions founded on your initial assumption... OK, let me re-phrase my statement as "I see neither trespass, nor theft". That statement is free of assumptions. If there is trespass or theft in either of those examples, feel free to explain it to me.

Sorry, this doesn't help. As argued, it may be true but it misses the point. If I copy something, it doesn't invalidate the concept of property (physical or otherwise). You still own the original piece of property, and in addition to that I now own a copy of your property. You can't really make useful analogies between physical and "intellectual" property, because the term "physical property" is used to refer to one instantiation of the item, whereas the term "intellectual property" refers to any number of instantiations of the same idea/creation/process.