Re: High strength fibers for high pressure tubes.
- From: Mitchell Jones <mjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 08 Jun 2005 13:16:46 EDT
In article <Xns966E81E6AEF9EWQAHBGMXSZHVspammote@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
bz <bz+sp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Mitchell Jones <mjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> news:mjones-CB4350.14321106062005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
> > In article <Xns965C896D7950AWQAHBGMXSZHVspammote@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> > bz <bz+sp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> Mitchell Jones <mjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> >> news:mjones-48FCE2.15552215052005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
> >>
> >> > In article <Xns96547B76FCD6DWQAHBGMXSZHVspammote@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> >> > bz <bz+sp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >
> >>
> >> Note: the article had grown too long. I have broken it into 4 sections
> >> and tried to rearrange things to that it is a bit more coherent. Other
> >> segments to follow as they are completed.
> >>
> >> > ***{You have a rather odd take on things if you think the goings-on
> >> > under feudalism can be used to judge the workability of a system of
> >> > private ownership.
> >>
> >> Perhaps so. I am just looking back at history. "Those that fail to
> >> learn from history ...."
> >
> > ***{There is an extensive analysis of the failings of feudalism in the
> > book I mentioned to you earlier. Such an analysis is useful if one's
> > goal is to uncover the crucial differences--that which blocks progress
> > under feudalism and, when removed under capitalism, permits progress to
> > resume--but to suggest, as you did, that the performance of toll roads
> > under feudalism tells us how they would perform under capitalism, is
> > simply wrong. The devil is always in the details. A practice that works
> > fine due to mitigating circumstances (e.g., competition) under one
> > system may fail utterly under another system, where those mitigating
> > circumstances are absent. --MJ}***
> >
> >> > Leaving that aside, the main problem that has been laid at the feet
> >> > of private ownership of roads has been the difficulty in acquiring
> >> > suitable property on which the roads were to be built. Eminent
> >> > domain, the power to force the owners to sell the desired
> >> > right-of-way at a price specified by the government, was said to be
> >> > required. Otherwise, one recalcitrant property owner could block an
> >> > entire project, by either refusing to sell, or by demanding a
> >> > ridiculous price. Thus, based on such excuses, governments have
> >> > retained their control of roadways, even as private property has
> >> > progressively intruded into their other traditional functions.
> >> >
> >> > There is, however, a way to extend the private property system that
> >> > is not vulnerable to such arguments. What you do, basically, is
> >> > create a government based on a contractual agreement. Those who
> >> > become citizens (a) agree to maintain on record in a government
> >> > office the lowest price they would be happy to accept for each piece
> >> > of land or land based rights that they own, and (b) agree that their
> >> > share of taxes each year is to be the sum of those prices, Si, for
> >> > all the land they own divided by the sum of such prices for the land
> >> > all citizens own, Sa, times the projected total spending of the
> >> > government for the coming year, T. In other words, (Si/Sa)T
> >> > represents the taxes payable by the individual at the beginning of
> >> > each year. The government only has to project its total spending for
> >> > the next year by sometime in December, and after that everyone will
> >> > be able to compute the tax payment that they owe, and send it in. The
> >> > government then sends out a tax receipt to each citizen, and the
> >> > number of ounces of gold on that receipt is the number of votes the
> >> > citizen can cast in any election that may be held.
> >> >
> >> > Under such a system, of course, you would have to sell any piece of
> >> > property you own, if someone offered you the price you had on file
> >> > for it in the government office. If you didn't, that would be proof
> >> > of tax fraud. Result: you would have an incentive to keep the
> >> > self-assessed price you had on file high enough so that, if someone
> >> > paid you that amount, you really would be happy to sell; and you
> >> > would have an incentive to keep it low enough so that you didn't
> >> > overpay on your taxes.
> >>
> >> Wow. Everyone is FORCED to either sell or pay taxes proportional to the
> >> price they would have to sell at if offered.
> >>
> >> The idea certainly has some attractive qualities but that 'forced'
> >> doesn't sound so good. I will have to sleep on that idea for a while.
> >
> > ***{You have leaped so far beyond the implications of anything I said
> > that it's your idea, not mine.
>
> Reading over what you wrote and what I wrote, I don't see a leap.
***{You ignored the phrase "Those who become citizens..." which preceded
my description of the requirement to self-assess the value of one's
landed property. That phrase was intended to suggest that citizenship
was voluntary. --MJ}***
> "...everyone will be able to compute the tax payment that they owe and send
> it in...." hm... I missed the 'number of ounces of gold on the receipt is
> the number of votes...' part. It is very close to my exponential sliding
> scale, but you have a linear scale and I have an exponential scale. Mine
> has an advantage and a disadvantage over yours. I think I like mine better.
> Those who can afford to pay more, pay more.
***{There is no reason to think that the cost of protecting property
increases at a faster rate than the value of the property. Quite the
contrary: economies of scale would apply, meaning that the costs of
protection would rise more slowly, on average, than the value of the
property protected. But I prefer to keep it simple. That's why I used a
linear scale. There would, of course, be nothing to stop a person who
preferred an exponential scale from writing up a contract based on that,
but I suspect that large property owners would simply not elect to sign
such a contract, just as small property owners would probably avoid a
system that gave a volume discount to the big owners. But, hey, let a
thousand flowers bloom, and see which ones survive! That's the right way
to do it. --MJ}***
> How about each vote costs 1/N of the voters total assets, where
> N=(total governmental annual budget*number of citizens).
***{Total assets would include every item of personal property an
individual owned, including grandpa's gold wristwatch and other family
heirlooms. Keeping track of such items would be a nightmare, and listing
them would be an invasion of privacy. (What value would you place on
your collection of porn videos? :-) Fortunately, there is no need to
list such items, because the need to store them *somewhere* would raise
the demand for, hence the value of, landed property. Even those who own
no land have personal items to store, which would increase the demand
for rental property, hence the value of land. Thus the quantity of
movable property, by affecting the value of landed property, would
factor into the tax load even if movable property did not have to be
listed. Rents would be higher; hence rental property would be more
valuable; hence the owners of the land would place higher self-assessed
values on it; hence they would pay higher taxes. And they would, of
course, charge higher rents to recoup the costs of those higher taxes.
In effect, everyone would pay their share of the costs of government,
even if only landed (immovable) property were taxed directly. --MJ}***
> > If XYZ corp is trading at $50 per share and you place a limit order with
> > your broker to sell 100 shares at $60 or better, and he executes your
> > order when the price is hit, were you "forced to sell"?
> >
> > Obviously not.
> >
> > By the same token, if a person voluntarily places limit orders to sell
> > his landed property with an agency of government (or, for that matter,
> > it could be done with a private realtor), in order to establish a basis
> > for the calculation of his taxes, it doesn't follow that if the limit
> > price is hit and his property is sold, he is FORCED to sell. He chose
> > voluntarily to place the order, because he wanted to qualify himself for
> > citizenship under, and protection by, that government. And he chose the
> > price at which he would sell. If the price he chose was ten times the
> > market value of the property, that's fine.
> >
> > Bottom line: since participation in the system is voluntary,
> > participation is NOT forced.
>
> So, anyone can opt out, not value his property nor pay his taxes? He can
> pay for services he uses on a per-diem, pro-rata basis, rather than an
> annual basis?
***{The way I would do it would be to offer a choice between full
participation or no participation, meaning you self-assess the value of
your property, calculate your taxes for the coming year, pay them, and
you are entitled to full access to the arbitration system and to
protection by the police and military, as needed, during the time when
you are a paid-up member of the association. If you opt for no
participation, then you have to protect your property yourself, or
contract to obtain protection elsewhere. --MJ}***
[snip]
> >> > ***{As already noted, governments
> >>
> >> A rather recent invention, invented to deal with those that controlled
> >> the roads before governments existed.
> >
> > ***{Government is the strongest organized force in a society. Hence (a)
> > all societies have governments, and (b) government is not a recent
> > invention. --MJ}***
>
> That is rather a broad definition. Even so, it is only a few thousand or
> tens of thousands of years old. More recent than fire. Maybe invented about
> the same time as the clovis point.
***{Organization requires two or more individuals acting jointly. To
qualify as a government, those individuals must act in a way that
renders them the strongest force in the group. An alpha male in a troupe
of chimpanzees would not normally qualify; but if his alpha status were
due to the able assistance of his brother, he would. Hence "government"
goes back a lot further than a few tens of thousands of years, though
exactly where the line ought to be drawn would be hard to specify.
Fortunately, we don't need an exact answer, for the purposes of the
present discussion. --MJ}***
> >> > have always controlled the major roads
> >> > and shipping lanes. This is merely an area into which the private
> >> > property system has not yet been extended. It can be so extended,
> >> > however, as demonstrated above. --MJ}***
> >>
> >> Private ferry boats and toll road were once the ONLY kinds of ferry
> >> boats and toll roads available.
> >
> > ***{If you are once again claiming that private ownership came first,
> > that's wrong. Property was collectively owned before it was privately
> > owned, with the head of the strongest organized group deciding its use
> > and disposal. Under such systems, large canoes, rafts, barges, and
> > similar devices were held in custody by those who operated them, rather
> > than privately owned. What is the difference? The difference is that the
> > chief, at his whim, could dispossess the present custodians in an
> > instant. --MJ}***
>
> That was after there were chiefs.
***{Does an alpha male, ably assisted by his brother, qualify as a
"chief"? :-) --MJ}***
> If you want to understand how things were before that, look at monkey/chimp
> tribes.
***{It isn't clear that troupes of monkeys/apes do not have
"government." They certainly are, in most cases, ruled by an elite the
members of which cooperate to retain their privileged positions. While
lots of distinctions can be pressed into service to try to separate them
from us, it is not at all clear that such distinctions really apply.
--MJ}***
[snip]
> Thee and me are not going to change things here. We need to work toward the
> orbital colonies.
***{We have just as good a chance of changing things here as we do of
changing them in space. I, personally, would be just as happy to live in
a free country on the bottom of the sea, or underground, as in space.
"Where freedom is, there is my country," as someone once said. --MJ}***
> >> ....
> >> I am saying that there are activities that can not and should not be
> >> permitted in populated areas. (prime candidates for orbital operations,
> >> however).
> >
> > ***{It depends on the kind of area and the distribution of rights. If a
> > dynamite factory is in an area, and you buy the lot next door and build
> > a house there, you voluntarily assume the risk of an explosion.
>
> As long as there is a sign out front saying 'we make dynamite here', I
> agree with you.
>
> > And if
> > ten thousand other people do exactly the same thing, that is their
> > choice as well. And if their collective number comes up, too bad. And
> > the same applies to those who choose to live in a valley beneath a dam:
> > if the dam collapses and the flood kills them all, too bad. Nobody is
> > exempt from experiencing the consequences of his actions, and nothing
> > any government can do will ever alter that state of affairs in the
> > slightest. --MJ}***
> ....
> >> I hope we both live to see such a place, in orbit or on the moon or
> >> mars.
> >
> > ***{Or on the bottom of the sea. Or beneath the polar ice. Or in caverns
> > under the surface of the Earth. All of these venues would be easier to
> > colonize than space, due to absence of vacuum, proximity to already
> > inhabited areas, etc.
>
> None of those get our eggs out of one basket.
***{True, but freedom is the essential means to the eventual end of
getting humanity's eggs into multiple baskets. If there had been a free
country, anywhere on Earth, in the last hundred years, we would have
colonies in space already. With freedom, the available technology can be
used; without freedom, restrictions on technology "in the public
interest" (ROTFL) will ensure that we remain here on Earth like sitting
ducks, awaiting the next killer asteroid, supernova, passing black hole,
global pandemic, change in solar luminosity, supervolcano eruption, or
whatever, that will bring our species to an abrupt and ugly end.
--MJ}***
> Only by crawling out of the cradle can mankind hope to survive LONG TERM.
***{Yup, and political authoritarianism is what is keeping us in the
cradle. In the long run, the choice is simple: live free or die. --MJ}***
> > If a tenth as much had been spent developing the
> > technology to live in such places as has been spent on space, those
> > regions would already be colonized, and there would be many
> > opportunities, in such remote settings, to set up new and less
> > oppressive forms of government. --MJ}***
>
> Buy an island. No one is stopping you. You can set up any government you
> like.
***{Ha, ha. Tell that to Mike Oliver and the dozens of others who have
tried it. You will find that even attempting to set up a free society on
an island in the Pacific unclaimed by anyone does not work. As soon as
you try it, the nearest thug government is going to claim sovereignty
and try to either tax and regulate you, or run you off. If you are not
out of sight and out of mind of those unwilling to live and let live,
you are toast.
Of course, there is an alternative approach. If a colony were remote
enough, it could negotiate for favorable tax and regulatory treatment,
and, if an acceptable deal were struck, it might by simply waiting
patiently, eventually be able to exercise complete sovereignty. A global
economic collapse, for example, might distract the existing thug
governments long enough for a free country to become strong enough to
defend itself. Such things can only happen, of course, if people are
thinking seriously about contract-based arbitration associations and
taking every opportunity to set them up and experiment with them.
Surprisingly, there are many opportunities to do exactly that.
For example, I read literature awhile back about a real estate
development in a remote area on the west coast of Nicaragua. (It was
called "Rancho Santanna," if memory serves.) It seems that an expatriate
American millionaire with libertarian leanings had bought a ranch,
subdivided it, and sold off tracts to freedom loving persons similar to
himself. Many of them had built homes on their land, moved to Nicaragua,
and retired there. Result: there was, and is, a sizable community of
well-off, libertarian oriented Americans in that area. Those individuals
have accepted the sovereignty of the Nicaraguan government, and have
assumed that their present idyllic situation--low taxes, virtually no
regulation, etc.--will not change. It would, however, be a simple matter
for them to structure an organization within their community along the
lines of the arbitration association I have described, to prepare
themselves to deal with possible changes in their situation. They could
have their own police, their own self-defense force, their own
arrangement for arbitrating internal disputes, their own elections, etc.
Such a system could be in place now, functioning smoothly and without
conflict with the Nicaraguan authorities. And the important point would
be this: if the opportunity presented itself--due to a global economic
collapse, say--such a system could assume full sovereignty.
Unfortunately, they are not thinking along such lines; and neither are
the members of any other remote communities, anywhere on Earth, insofar
as I am aware. Result: no one will be prepared to seize an opportunity
to become truly free, if it should present itself. Instead, if this
global civilization goes down, the result will be another dark age, in
which the survivors live in tyranny and misery, just as people lived
after the fall of the Roman Empire.
--Mitchell Jones}***
> --
> bz
.
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