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America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

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Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#81

Post by baddox »

clavalle wrote: post #55
baddox wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can use private litigation (sue someone for poisoning you) but that is wholly impractical. I'll never understand how people can suppose that a government solution, which consists of a massive nation-wide bureaucracy as well as an immense violent army of what I endearingly call "the conflict resolvers" (law enforcement, courts, etc.) funded mostly by compulsory financial levies on working residents, is by any de…

'Private litigation' is my new favorite oxymoron. Litigation cannot exist without your so-called 'conflict resolvers'.

That is false, and I don't understand why you think conflict resolution works better when it is violent and compulsory.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#82

Post by baddox »

vbuterin wrote: post #41
baddox wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can use private litigation (sue someone for poisoning you) but that is wholly impractical. I'll never understand how people can suppose that a government solution, which consists of a massive nation-wide bureaucracy as well as an immense violent army of what I endearingly call "the conflict resolvers" (law enforcement, courts, etc.) funded mostly by compulsory financial levies on working residents, is by any de…

Private litigation ALSO has a nation-wide bureaucracy with an immense army of "conflict resolvers", and is often so inefficient that the litigation itself if often used by powerful corporations as a means of harassing their enemies. We need massive legal simplification, I agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean just moving to private litigation and being done with it.

Some private litigation firms will probably always be bloated and inefficient, but that's just great news to their competitors. It's no different than private retail stores: some are inefficient, but the more efficient ones tend to do better (or pressure the inefficient ones to improve).

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#83

Post by sophacles »

baddox wrote: post #81
clavalle wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Private litigation' is my new favorite oxymoron. Litigation cannot exist without your so-called 'conflict resolvers'.

That is false, and I don't understand why you think conflict resolution works better when it is violent and compulsory.

How do I sue you if all you have to do is say "no thanks, not playing, fuck off"? Sure, some theoretical bs about how you're not playing the arbitration game may result in longer term loss of business etc, but isn't me hurting you (via badmouthing your business, causing others to refuse to enter agreement etc) for not compensating me via arbitration merely me enacting violence on you?

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#84

Post by wickeand000 »

maxerickson wrote: post #51
etherael wrote: post #49

Interesting case, the formatting of the article is a little foreshadowing of where my research into this led me. The scenario with the state taking credit for the decline in crime based on their policing rather than as is very convincingly demonstrated, lead poisoning. Lead poisoning has been a well known and understood phenomenon for a very long period of time, people understood even at the time of the discovery of…

Somewhat amazingly, Midgley then went on and worked on the development of Freon.

I believe I read this in Bill Bryson's `A Brief History of Nearly Everything', which is a great book if anyone is interested in the history of how scientific discoveries are made and how credit is taken for them.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#85

Post by sophacles »

baddox wrote: post #82
vbuterin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private litigation ALSO has a nation-wide bureaucracy with an immense army of "conflict resolvers", and is often so inefficient that the litigation itself if often used by powerful corporations as a means of harassing their enemies. We need massive legal simplification, I agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean just moving to private litigation and being done with it.

Some private litigation firms will probably always be bloated and inefficient, but that's just great news to their competitors. It's no different than private retail stores: some are inefficient, but the more efficient ones tend to do better (or pressure the inefficient ones to improve).

Or more likely just result in the inefficient one (almost always an indicator of having more resources) buying the efficient one or simply undercutting them out of business, in order to maintain their status. It is cheaper to just get rid of the competition than to actually improve your own practices.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#86

Post by baddox »

sophacles wrote: post #83
baddox wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is false, and I don't understand why you think conflict resolution works better when it is violent and compulsory.

How do I sue you if all you have to do is say "no thanks, not playing, fuck off"? Sure, some theoretical bs about how you're not playing the arbitration game may result in longer term loss of business etc, but isn't me hurting you (via badmouthing your business, causing others to refuse to enter agreement etc) for not compensating me via arbitration merely me enacting violence on you?

The simple answer is private insurance. More detailed answers can be found in all sorts of essays, books, and propositions regarding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#87

Post by baddox »

sophacles wrote: post #85
baddox wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some private litigation firms will probably always be bloated and inefficient, but that's just great news to their competitors. It's no different than private retail stores: some are inefficient, but the more efficient ones tend to do better (or pressure the inefficient ones to improve).

Or more likely just result in the inefficient one (almost always an indicator of having more resources) buying the efficient one or simply undercutting them out of business, in order to maintain their status. It is cheaper to just get rid of the competition than to actually improve your own practices.

And how, pray tell, is a government solution (which is not only monopolistic, but uses violence rather than shady business tactics to maintain its monopoly) any better?

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#88

Post by sophacles »

javert wrote: post #78
jere wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Objectivism holds that the only social system which fully recognizes individual rights is capitalism,[72] specifically what Rand described as "full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)#Politics... And here's a freebie from some googling: >As far as the role of government is concerned, there are laws--some of them passed in the nineteenth cent…

Ayn Rand thought the role of government was to protect individuals from initiating force against one another. Period. If you poison the air in a way that harms someone, that constitutes initiation of force. She called the economic and political system resulting from this "laissez-faire capitalism," or more commonly just "capitalism." In context of the partial quote you gave, "unregulated" means "without economic regu…

Reconcile your weird semantics of "laws" and "regulation" with the constant screams of "oh no regulation" every time there is an attempt to pass laws preventing harm to people?

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#89

Post by archangel_one »

ars wrote: post #35
archangel_one wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read about that contributing to the fall of their empire before - I guess we'll never really know, but if it did then the impact of that element on human history must be massive. Wikipedia puts it out as an option: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_roman_empire#Lead_p...

I'm actually thinking less of them being poisoned but rather if their aggression levels went up as a result, i.e. more wars.

I'm no historian, but I don't think more wars would have been the problem - they had plenty of wars before their downfall. If anything I thought things got worse once they were expanding less, because they no longer had an influx of resources from conquered territories.

Re: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead

#90

Post by sophacles »

baddox wrote: post #87
sophacles wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or more likely just result in the inefficient one (almost always an indicator of having more resources) buying the efficient one or simply undercutting them out of business, in order to maintain their status. It is cheaper to just get rid of the competition than to actually improve your own practices.

And how, pray tell, is a government solution (which is not only monopolistic, but uses violence rather than shady business tactics to maintain its monopoly) any better?

How is me depriving you of your ability to live (you know, get food, etc) via economic harm any different in violence than a government depriving you of your ability to live (via guns)? Is it because slow painful deaths by starvation, caused by a guy with a grudge are what you want for the world? Is it because that threat isn't really different other than the totemic difference of the removal of the word govermment (aka your magic symbol for evil)?
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