While there’s a lot of disagreement on where bands belong, I think Rage Against the Machine as the pinnacle of Angry Music is one we can all agree with.

I’m not sure Cake qualifies.

One of the biggest failings with a lot of idealist political systems (anarchism, libertarianism, communism, etc.) is that they try to do away with hierarchies and bosses. But, those are inevitable for great apes. A good setup provides a way to limit and manage the bosses that will inevitably appear. Yes, it legitimizes their power, but by acknowledging it, it also provides a way to limit it.

Or they’re so used to their privilege that they don’t understand how protected they are by society.

The basic principle of libertarianism is appealing: mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine. And I still agree with that in general — it’s just that a single generality does not make a complete worldview

The problem is obviously that nobody lives in isolation. Everyone takes actions which impact other people.

If there are going to be laws, then the government needs a police force and a judiciary that are big enough to enforce those laws. If there are going to be companies, the government has to be bigger than the biggest company, otherwise it won’t be able to effectively enforce anything. The bigger the biggest company gets, the bigger the government has to be in order to be able to enforce the laws. But, big government is antithetical to the libertarian philosophy. If you want to limit the size of the government but still want government to be able to enforce laws, you need to limit the size of companies. But that’s a regulation, and government regulations are antithetical to the ideas of libertarianism.

Arguing for the idea that the government should generally let people mind their own business as long as nobody is getting hurt, or that consenting adults are knowingly and willingly consenting to being hurt, that’s fine. Same with the idea that regulations shouldn’t be overly burdensome. There’s always going to have to be a line drawn somewhere, but it’s fine if you tend to want that line to be drawn in a way that allows for more freedom vs. more babysitting by the government.

The ridiculous bit is when libertarians try to argue that some extreme form of libertarianism is possible. Anarchy is certainly possible, but it isn’t something that most people, even libertarians, think is a great plan.

Good point.

I only see one downvote, but thanks for saying that.

I don’t think vacation homes should be banned, just heavily taxed. I realize that not everybody who owns a vacation home is a multi-millionaire. Some people have a crappy place that’s been in the family for generations. But, they’re still doing much, much better than the people who own 0 homes.

Anyway, it worked out very well for us

This proves the point. This is the kind of story that should end “so, in the end we ended up losing money on the place”. But, if an absent landlord can hire crooked and incompetent property managers, deal with deadbeat tenants, and still have it work out very well for them then it’s an investment where you really can’t lose.

I’m sure you’re lovely people. I don’t mean to criticize you in particular, just the game.

I agree, but I don’t know if it would work well today. In the 19th century, the only way to find that someone was living on your land was to either go there yourself, or to hire someone to look for you. That was complicated because even communicating with someone from east coast to west coast was expensive and difficult.

These days you just need to leave a cheap security camera and check in every few months.

I’m trying to think up a scenario where it’s fair. Something so if someone genuinely cares about the place they don’t get screwed, but someone who isn’t local and never visits loses their rights. Also something so the place can go to someone local, and it isn’t easily compromised by someone who lives far away.

I keep thinking that getting this done requires getting rid of the anti-circumvention rules in copyright law. If it’s legal to provide someone with a tool that tricks a home security system, then people can actually buy that tool, use it, and move into the place, and the absent owner won’t be aware.

I don’t like the idea of US government taking the property at below market value, since that would violate the takings clause of the Constitution.

I don’t like this phrasing because it seems like you only care that there’s a rule against it, and have no opinion whether that rule is good or not.

These days I use a pen maybe once a month. I’ve probably used some of these, I vaguely recognize 1 and 7. I use pens so rarely that I don’t really have a preference. I guess if one of them is best for avoiding dried-up ink, that’s the one?

It can’t just be me, right? I don’t use pencils either. I use keyboards, either virtual or physical. Other people must also do virtually all their writing electronically.

To me this is like choosing your favourite buggy whip.

And you were born in 2309?

Yes, it was at something like 30x overvalued, now it’s only 20x overvalued.

Glad you mentioned Toyota. Their P/E ratio is approximately 7. Tesla is approximately 100. If Tesla were a well run car company with a lot of good vehicles and an anonymous CEO who nobody hates, the fair value of their stock would be about $14 per share. It’s currently $236 per share.

Someone is going to make mountains of money shorting Tesla stock, but unfortunately it’s going to be someone rich. The market can remain irrational much longer than normal people can remain solvent. Some rich dude is going to take the risk though and make out like a bandit.

The best thing about this is that Tesla is massively overvalued. Like, the stock price is more than 20x what it should be based on Tesla’s earnings.

If Tesla had a reasonable value, then hedge fund managers and other rich people would probably be buying it while it was temporarily down and getting rich as it went back up. But, with it so insanely overvalued, it’s much more likely they’ll short it or buy put options and hope to get rich when it finally crashes.

I get what you’re saying, but it’s still just really clunky writing.

Like, you want to include children for the “think of the children!” aspect, then just add “and our children” to the existing clause. There’s no need for a whole secondary clause about the future of the children when that’s already covered by the clause about the existence of our people.

It’s not that I expect Nazi writing to be good. It’s just that someone has to have said it better than this, even just accidentally, and yet this version is the one that Nazis have decided to immortalize.

If this version was the winner, what were the early drafts like?

It’s funny because it’s hardly an inspiring or memorable 14 word sentence. It’s just awkward and clunky.

Like, why “secure”? Why not “safeguard” or “defend”? IMO those are stronger, more emotionally resonant words.

And why “existence”? Why not something stronger like “survival” or something more than survival like “prosperity”?

And just “a future” for white children? Not “a glorious future” or “a triumphant future”?

And, why “white children”? Not the white race?

Also, how is “a future for white children” distinct from “the existence of our people”? Are white children distinct from “our people”?

I could get it if it were framed as: we must defend our survival now so that our children can prosper. In that case you’re saying that the present might be tough but the future will be bright. But they’re not painting the future as bright, just “a future”, which is really the same as an “existence” so it’s basically saying “Our people must survive and so must our children, who are also our people, but smaller.”

Like, they memorized the first draft of some dumb saying and revere it as “the 14 words”, but it’s just badly written, nevermind all the racism.

I mean:

• rivers
• lakes
• fjords
• towns
• counties
• castles
• fortresses
• weapons
• admirals
• knights of the round table
• legendary heroes
• predatory animals

And if you really have hundreds of vessels (say destroyers) you could just number them.

Interesting, were there a series of ships named after mountains at some point? Seems like an odd thing to name boats after: the things the most distant possible from the sea.

What was Kearsarge named after?