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[qvic]

Since I'm now  "slowly" reading each page from day to day, sometimes many times over in a single day, I'm enjoying her expressions more,.  This is in contrast to the too quick reading I did of past pages when I discovered  her adventures.  Or maybe I'm wrong with the impression and you're now putting even more work in her expressions than before?

I also enjoy the solid SF "punches" now and then, coming up when I least expect it.  The last one was when the thugs burst in and punched up that poor belt ape. Surprise!  This one is less physically violent but juts as "punchy".  The future holds new ways for ladies to die of embarrassment, and very suddenly too.  Behold the maglev pack and its potential for social discomfiture!

[Scott]

Thanks, qvic.

If Nicole is looking more expressive lately it's most likely because the more I work with the character, the more comfortable I feel in her skin. If that makes any sense.

She's loosely based on an actual, living lady scientist, in case I haven't mentioned that. She's a bio-chemist who lives and works in Texas, who I met on a comics-related forum. I won't name her because she values her privacy, but does follow the strip. I don't think she posts in this forum, though.

[Andreas]

Gah! Another tax-lover! Yes yes, gather round to see the freak, people! Bona fide (pan)Scandinavian, in the flesh!
Just so's y'all know, it's true what you've heard : we Scandinavians pay taxes around the 50% mark, and at the same time we lead happy, productive lives.
Yes yes, something in the ground water to be sure! (And we don't let each other carry guns, either!  )
Anyway, I had a great laugh at the "plus tax" page, believe it or not, it's even better when you can identify with BOTH sides of the matter.
Sales taxes, or Value Added Tax or whatever we call them ... it's a special flavor of crazy, definitely.
Gets even better if you're running a small one-man (freelancer) company, like I do. You see, I collect this tax for the state... but then, if my total turnover is less than a certain amount, the state pays it back to me! So, as I've failed to collect enough taxes, the State says "Pfft, you keep it!".
Makes me feel a little bit like Robin Hood, robbing the tax collector - and a little bit like a hobo, dumpster diving for quarters.
Couldn't get much more crazy than that, huh?

Anyway, I look forward to the "Great Anarcho-Libertarian Land Purchase", after which ya'll will show the world how it works in practice. It certainly beats the corporocracy.

Anyway; I follow these comics both for the storytelling (which includes the artwork) and the What-if Politics... if that makes me anarcho-curious, so be it 

[Scott]

Glad you like the story, Andreas, please tell your friends. 

But don't hold your breath waiting for any "Great Anarcho-Libertarian Land Purchase." That won't be allowed. We likely won't see that sort of experiment until we can start colonizing other planets and planetoids.

[macsnafu]

Anyway, I had a great laugh at the "plus tax" page, believe it or not, it's even better when you can identify with BOTH sides of the matter.
Sales taxes, or Value Added Tax or whatever we call them ... it's a special flavor of crazy, definitely.

Anyway; I follow these comics both for the storytelling (which includes the artwork) and the What-if Politics... if that makes me anarcho-curious, so be it 

Well, at least the U.S. hasn't really got the hang of the VAT.  Not yet, anyway!

"anarcho-curious"    heh.

[Andreas]

Glad you like the story, Andreas, please tell your friends. 

But don't hold your breath waiting for any "Great Anarcho-Libertarian Land Purchase." That won't be allowed. We likely won't see that sort of experiment until we can start colonizing other planets and planetoids.

BTW, that makes me wonder; how are cooperative efforts viewed within this community?
Seems like some efforts are too big for private individuals, and I really don't want to have to trust in benign CEOs (something I've come to consider a myth disseminated by our would-be corporate masters), so that puts the cooperative into focus (whether or not it's classified as a non-traded corporation or whatever).
I am originally from Denmark, and when I wanted to make sure I was using the correct term for what I refer to, I was surprised to find that it's apparently properly referred to as "the Danish Cooperative Movement" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_cooperative_movement

[Scott]

Among libertarians today, cooperatives are perfectly acceptable ways to organize group activity, provided participation is voluntary. Modern corporations, being creations of the state, are controversial. Some regard them as impermissible grants of unjust privilege; others see them as just another way of organizing that could have counter-parts within a stateless system (joint-stock companies with contractual arrangements limiting the liability of investors).

[Andreas]

I'm afraid I'm incurably pragmatic, so I don't really care about why the publicly traded corporations don't work, only that they don't work.
It's very intriguing if there could be a "natural" system which would remove all the perverse incentives we see.
The way stock markets work today, we're just running headlong from crisis to crisis; sure we see overall growth, but the total market worth (or rather the entire human value) would increase more without these wasteful crashes. The wastefulness of crashes can be seen in the thousands of foreclosed homes now rotting away around the world, or worse, the nearly-done construction projects that ran out of funding (those are going to be fit only for bulldozing by the time they could be needed again).
So, yeah, if we had to keep the stock market, we'd have to keep regulating it (forever). That's why I have a severe problem with many republican viewpoints, since they don't seem to want to do away with the sick market, only with the restraints keeping it from hurting itself and its surroundings.

So, yeah, anything less fundamentally flawed will get my interest.

[Sieggy]

The problem isn't as much the (or any) system, it's people. No matter what kind of system you have, some people will behave in an ethical manner, some won't, some will game the system (whatever it is), and some will behave like predators. Thus, any type of economy / society without some form of (gasp!) regulation and the ability to encourage proper behavior while discouraging predatory behavior won't survive for long.

This is why I look at the various 'anarcho-whatevers' with amusement. The idea that you can have a system dependent on ALL the people doing the 'right thing' is hopelessly idealistic. It only takes a few to screw everything up for everyone.

[macsnafu]

The problem isn't as much the (or any) system, it's people. No matter what kind of system you have, some people will behave in an ethical manner, some won't, some will game the system (whatever it is), and some will behave like predators. Thus, any type of economy / society without some form of (gasp!) regulation and the ability to encourage proper behavior while discouraging predatory behavior won't survive for long.

This is why I look at the various 'anarcho-whatevers' with amusement. The idea that you can have a system dependent on ALL the people doing the 'right thing' is hopelessly idealistic. It only takes a few to screw everything up for everyone.

And of course, anarcho-capitalism does *not* depend upon all the people doing the right thing all the time. It is simply a society with a different set of incentives, and relies on those incentives to encourage most people to do the right thing most of the time.

If you can see how the incentives in today's status quo work, can you not imagine how incentives would be different in a different type of society?

[Scott]

To put it simply, anarchists are against rulers, but not rules.

The problem with the state is that it creates a class of people (the "political class") who have power over everyone else, and are generally exempt from the rules they promulgate and enforce. Elections don't limit the political class' power, they only serve as protective cover for the political class' predations. Dividing power among differing groups (executive/admin vs. parliamentary vs. judicial) does help to some extent, and the political class will sometimes sacrifice one of their own if his actions are so egregious as to threaten the political class' apparent legitimacy.

In an anarchist system, rules are determined by general consensus (therefore they need to be simple and universal), there are no "crimes" that are not crimes against persons or their property, and enforcers are subject to the same rules as everyone else.

[Andreas]

So... a bit like the old Icelandic Althingi?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alþing#Foundation
Of course, Iceland was a bit rough around the edges.

[Scott]

Most people were rough around the edges in those days.

[Andreas]

Are there enforcers? Or do you mean the people who have happened to take it upon themselves to enforce in a particular instance?
Of course, I guess a Bar's bouncer is a kind of enforcer, in the absence of public enforcers.

[Carlyle]

Yo, I revised the QV TVTropes entry to better reflect reality. How do you like it?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/QuantumVibe