EFT reviewed on io9

This is an ad hominem attack, and logically without merit.  Such a reference may raise questions in cases where the arguments may reflect a bias in favor of the employer; however those questions must then be answered by finding that actual bias, and arguing based on the direct evidence.

Quite so:

Alinsky's Rule 12: Destroy the Individual
    "RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.) "

Similarly Lenin:
   "Why should we bother to reply to Kautsky?   He would reply to us, and we would have to reply to his reply.   There's no end to that. It will be quite enough for us to announce that Kautsky is a traitor to the working class"

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Know these guys are one voice speaking through a thousand megaphones, each one in perfect conformity to a line that has ten thousand points, and covers every issue in minute detail, though entirely without regard to any logical consistency - the line is emotionally and politically consistent, but fails to actually make any sense.

On many points, those points where the official line is most flagrantly and outrageously false, the official line comes in three similar but logically incompatible versions.  If you should prove A is false, they will call you a liar and a troll and will shift to B, if you should prove B is false, they will call you a troll and a racist and shift to C, and if you prove C is false they will call you a racist and a liar and shift back to A.

For some reason the line is always one version or three versions, never two, nor four.  Perhaps they are inspired by the doctrine of the trinity.

[T]he Laissez-faire group has the coal mines of 1900 to explain.

Check out:

 https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:8ZRM2ZtummoJ:www.be.wvu.edu/divecon/econ/sobel/UnleashingCapitalism/FinalChapters/Chapter4_booklayout_final.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiXnJ-GTkCuu8z8eqVZ-1fb8H4DLpWTMb1EuXntFqPyWUxkb7LR3poOzDxmwk1OIuI46sBaPVMbtRdfDPoplKvpH4Ve2jcLXVx7pw4j6CBJsggC17oAaXWuR2NB057MZUfdKfg3&sig=AHIEtbQaE_7d--oKN6WZ-WWrtxmj3Z5ewA&pli=1

or the underlying text:

http://www.amazon.com/Soft-Coal-Hard-Choices-Bituminous/dp/book-citations/0195067258

His main two arguments are to some extent disingenuous.

In and around 1900 transportation was slow. Horse and empty wagon can maintain 5 mph for a couple hours on flat ground, but then the horse needs rest. Add a load of goods on the wagon and speeds drop even more. The result is any shopping trip to the next town a mere 20 miles away for cheaper prices would constitute an all day trip to maybe 2 stores. The modern concept of driving around from store to store and from town to town for good prices practicality issues until Spindletop and the Model T.

Picking up and leaving town is an option, but as a child of modern day American nomads, I can tell you picking up and moving more than an hour's travel is financially destructive. If you bought a house, it is iffy if you will ever get out of it what you put into it, the money you spent of stuff is lost if you have to leave that stuff behind, and it gets quite expensive to move it. Moving around only really works if you live in a trailer/wagon and never buy anything that doesn't fit in the trailer/wagon. Then their is the loss of your personal network of people you rely on that doesn't move with you. If you have nothing and your name is dirt, then by all means moving will only help.

Really though, the free market system isn't the problem. Human behavior that is the problem.

It's the private rich dudes that hire there own private army and equip them with expensive advanced weapons the honest sovereign individual would normally never have a need for even if he could afford it. It's the Union thugs that forcefully takeover and damage a factory/mine that is legally owned by someone else. It's the rich guy that gobbles up vast amounts of land that effectively shuts out the individual from running his own operation. It's the mob boss with enforcers.

These elements have been a perennial element of human society that can only be countered effectively by specialists that do nothing but fight these groups. As soon as you assemble such a group of specialists, you are taking the first steps in forming a central government. Central governments work because they are organised. Central governments don't work because they are natural havens for con artists and other robbers and sociopaths. Thus the need for a government that isn't human.

These elements have been a perennial element of human society that can only be countered effectively by specialists that do nothing but fight these groups.

Perennial, but not constant.  Consider that, logistically, it is easier to hold a mine or big factory hostage than it is to hold a programming company hostage:  the latter could be X number of individuals scattered over the globe, communicating through a network.  If your operation can be decentralized, it will be harder for it to be taken over, and you won't need those specialists.

If your customer base would rather do without than do business with you because of [insert issue here], they're holding you (or your business) hostage until you conform with their wishes.  Maybe good, maybe bad, but I suspect that if you don't want to so conform, you've chosen the wrong community to live and work in.  Still, if you're sure they're wrong and if you're evangelical enough to want to cause them to change, then you go into the mass-entertainment business and start gently providing content more and more to your way of thinking. . . .

I suppose the issue comes down to that "symmetric power" deal.

Perennial, but not constant.  Consider that, logistically, it is easier to hold a mine or big factory hostage than it is to hold a programming company hostage:  the latter could be X number of individuals scattered over the globe, communicating through a network.  If your operation can be decentralized, it will be harder for it to be taken over, and you won't need those specialists.

Your describing a system that needs cheap, rapid, unhindered transportation and an abundance of territory. EFT has this, that's why it works. If you don't have such a transportation system your at the mercy of the most organised group with the biggest guns. That's why I see spindle top and the Model T as the biggest friends of the free market system of the early 1900's. It made neo-feudalism impractical.

Your describing a system that needs cheap, rapid, unhindered transportation and an abundance of territory.

And/or cheap, easy, widespread communications, like fax machines and the internet.

That's why I see spindle top and the Model T as the biggest friends of the free market system of the early 1900's. It made neo-feudalism impractical.

PCs, modems and cell phones may be the current friends.

Your describing a system that needs cheap, rapid, unhindered transportation and an abundance of territory.

And/or cheap, easy, widespread communications, like fax machines and the internet.

That's why I see spindle top and the Model T as the biggest friends of the free market system of the early 1900's. It made neo-feudalism impractical.

PCs, modems and cell phones may be the current friends.

Cheap, unhindered, fast, high bandwidth communication is the third leg of a free market system, but sooner or later you have to move real stuff, including yourself, and you need to do in somewhat rapidly and cheaply.

...but sooner or later you have to move real stuff, including yourself, and you need to do in somewhat rapidly and cheaply.

enter the TEU, stage right.

The comments on this article are disapointing to say teh least.

It seems that people FEAR others who just want to be left alone by government.

They FEAR that people with ambition and wanting to work won't continue to support the government teat sucking lazy people.

What is wrong with people today?!

What is wrong with people today?!

Since you're asking, same as it's been since at least the dawn of agriculture, only with new and improved firepower.

But we could build a possibly-constructive conversation off the same question sans the temporal qualifier.  Of course, that would mean also discussing what's right with people, if only to get clear on how to define "wrong".


(Yes, I'm quite sure that wasn't a real question but only a rhetorical device signifying extreme dismay.  And rhetorical devices are like grenades in that they should be handled with care, because the thought -> expression reaction is better written as thought <-> expression, as it flows both ways, and the incautious may find himself actively seeking to validate a position he never intended to hold in the first place.)

Read the article, disjointed by any reach, and wasn't impressed.  Too bad some of the commentators didn't take time to read some of our earlier threads.  Heck many of them didn't even read the story to date, before posting their comments.  TransProg education at it's finest.

  TransProg education at it's finest.

The modern educational system has nothing to do with a persons willingness to read.  You're complaint is that the modern liberal school system is not teaching to read; no school system ever invented or to be invented can teach someone to be willing to read.

Some of the commenters are typical Internet users, and only reply to the post directly above their reply, and some dont feel they have the time to read months or years of background information just to reply to one post.

What fascinates me about that thread is that two of the commenters are prime examples of a relatively new Internet beast, the "Libertarian-Hater." People who don't simply disagree with the philosophy but feel driven to rage and stomp on libertarians wherever they may find us. Several weeks back i09 reviewed QUANTUM VIBE, which is much less overtly ideological, and these same dweebs made a point of telling everyone it's produced by "those evil libertarians."

Strange.