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No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

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Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#91

Post by skwirl »

bogger wrote: post #39
lclarkmichalek wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you will get downvotes if you don't actually provide any evidence beyond "he looks funny". The whole beef hormone controvosy is complete bullshit; the EU has lost cases against the US & Canada in the WTO twice now, both times for lack of scientific evidence behind their decision. The ban happened when Europe was wrestling with mad cow disease, which in no small part influenced the populance against the scientifi…

I don't have evidence that hormones in beef affect humans. Do you have evidence that they don't? Personally I would rather not eat it without such evidence. I just quickly googled and found this on the website of the American Public Health Association: "By contrast, the US government position is that hormone residues in beef from adult cattle pose no threat to human health. This assumption of safety, however, has rem…

Do you carry a cell phone? Because a lot of people believe that carrying and using cell phones over long periods of time will cause cancer due to the long term exposure to electromagnetic radiation. There is no evidence that this is the case, however, nobody has proven that they DON'T. And not enough time has passed to really know the long term effects.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#92

Post by burntsushi »

tokipin wrote: post #82
dmix wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminded me of a famous libertarian quote: "If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Mises If humans are full of logical fallacies and poor decision making, just making a collection of humans and giving them unlimited power does not make the logical fallacies and poor decision making go away. It c…

i don't think it plays out like this in practice, for the reason that a government has to at least pretend it's for the people and there's at least some measure of accountability. the alternative is very, very different and I think libertarians really underestimate how evil and creative and corrupt people can be. there is a reason we have various regulations regarding child labor, for example. http://en.wikipedia.org…

> the alternative is very, very different and I think libertarians really underestimate how evil and creative and corrupt people can be

The entire point of the parent post is that we don't underestimate the corruption that humans are capable of achieving when given power. Hence the revocation of a monopoly on the use of legitimized coercion.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#93

Post by saosebastiao »

csense wrote: post #86

Why should the US sign free trade agreements? The US was screwed by signing NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the USA and Mexico beginning in 1994). A bit of history: From c. 1950-1980, unions had a monopoly on labor supply in many industries. This allowed them to charge monopoly pricing, so employees gained a greater share of the wealth generated by their businesses. With the opening of…

The answer is simple. Imagine how successful your manufacturing union would be if it had a monopoly on manufacturing labor within your state. Now imagine how successful it would be if your employer couldn't sell the products you manufactured to anyone outside your state.

Free trade gives American companies access to markets to sell their products, and it gives citizens (and not just those lucky enough to be in a union), access to products that would normally be more expensive if they were forced to buy from a monopoly (either on labor or on capital).

That argument is strong enough that 87.5% (in other words, a supermajority of economists on both the right and left) would abolish trade restrictions altogether if they had their way. http://ew-econ.typepad.fr/articleAEAsurvey.pdf

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#94

Post by burntsushi »

ihsw wrote: post #40
Kylekramer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An anti-GMO comment is the top comment on a story about US spying? This place is starting to veer into Alex Jones territory.

I may not be able to speak for anybody else but I find the GMO debate has many parties with multiple (even conflicting) goals. Personally the primary opposition I have with GMO is the very murky patent environment. It's no secret that Monsanto engages in patent warfare and manipulates legal systems across the world to stamp out competition. GMO foods can bring about a revolution to the world because it's an interesti…

> Personally the primary opposition I have with GMO is the very murky patent environment. It's no secret that Monsanto engages in patent warfare and manipulates legal systems across the world to stamp out competition.

I just don't see what that has to do with GMO. Your beef is with the IP system. It's like saying software sucks because software companies abuse the patent system.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#95

Post by betterunix »

dmix wrote: post #72
justin66 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When people will realize that the problem is always in the governments themselves as a concept, not in any particular issues? It's totally okay to be an atheist today, but we need just one extra little step to be anarchists and it's so, so, so complicated. While belief in a magical all-powerful and caring government is no different than a belief in deity. People "believe in" government not because they love it or t…

That reminded me of a famous libertarian quote: "If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Mises If humans are full of logical fallacies and poor decision making, just making a collection of humans and giving them unlimited power does not make the logical fallacies and poor decision making go away. It c…

"If humans are full of logical fallacies and poor decision making, just making a collection of humans and giving them unlimited power does not make the logical fallacies and poor decision making go away. It can often makes it much more harmful."

You know, this is not some novel insight. This has been known for a long time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_carta

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#96

Post by mapt »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #58
pvnick wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? That's not a good reason to restrict life-saving technologies.

The number one thing GMOing is used for is to make seeds resistant to pesticide. So now what Roundup/Monsanto farmers do is spread pesticide over the land, far and wide. The myth is that GMO technology lets us produce high yield crops and mix a caterpillars with bananas to get Butterbananas. But the truth is GMO just lets us engineer soybeans to survive Roundup, and then spray, baby, spray. The end effect of GMO is a…

There is a distinction between positions here:

"Being genetically modified always makes the foods inherently unsafe"

vs

"Being genetically modified cannot make the foods inherently unsafe"

Both are wholly incorrect positions to take, and the question is often posed as a false dichotomy between these two options. Attention to mechanism and importantly, to incentive, is going to be essential in any future detente we arrive at... and we will arrive at one, because genetic engineering is only going to get more useful.

Categorical prohibition of 'The Monsanto Roundup Ready Gene' and a temporary moratorium on growing GMOs until a resilient process for tradeoff consideration is created would be a much more reasonable process. Personally, I'm in favor of the state establishing high-value labelling requirements, and allowing alternatives. "Made with FDA Certified Pasturized Milk" vs "Made with Uncertified Raw Milk" is one we would appreciate in the US, where the highly nationalized agribusiness sector does not approve of giving us such choices.

"Certified Safe Local-Grown GMO" vs "Certified Safe Import-Only GMO" vs "Uncertified GMO" vs no label for natural organisms seems a perfectly fine way of doing things to me.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#97

Post by tokipin »

burntsushi wrote: post #92
tokipin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't think it plays out like this in practice, for the reason that a government has to at least pretend it's for the people and there's at least some measure of accountability. the alternative is very, very different and I think libertarians really underestimate how evil and creative and corrupt people can be. there is a reason we have various regulations regarding child labor, for example. http://en.wikipedia.org…

> the alternative is very, very different and I think libertarians really underestimate how evil and creative and corrupt people can be The entire point of the parent post is that we don't underestimate the corruption that humans are capable of achieving when given power. Hence the revocation of a monopoly on the use of legitimized coercion.

... in exchange for a system without even the pretension of accountability

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#98

Post by samstave »

justin66 wrote: post #28
oleganza wrote: post #7

Actual translation: because of the behavior of U.S. government, E.U. government(s) will make it hard for E.U. citizens to trade with U.S. citizens. So normal people get spied on and bullied by one government, then because of that their life is made even more complicated by some other government. Great outcome! When people will realize that the problem is always in the governments themselves as a concept, not in any p…

> When people will realize that the problem is always in the governments themselves as a concept, not in any particular issues? It's totally okay to be an atheist today, but we need just one extra little step to be anarchists and it's so, so, so complicated. While belief in a magical all-powerful and caring government is no different than a belief in deity. People "believe in" government not because they love it or t…

>People "believe in" government not because they love it or think it is perfect, they do it because they believe the alternative is something like the Hobbsian state of nature.

Utter BS.

People "believe" in governments largely because they are indoctrinated into the belief system prepared for them based on what country they are born into. Then, based on the actions of that government, their upbringing and life experience their worldview may-or-may-not be shifted.

There are plenty of brilliant free thinking people in the world, they just unfortunately live in a world mostly populated by those who do not have the chance to have a similar perspective, due to an infinite (yet very channeled) set of life-circumstance.

The human mind is the most amazing creation we know of. Yet, the "powers that be" want you to believe that you're worthless, un-guided and incapable. Yet - just looking at the amazing world around you - created wholly by the efforts of the minds of Man - would serve to prove that you and your mind is, actually, sublime.

There has been a centuries long war on the mind...

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#99

Post by blhack »

jussij wrote: post #46
pvnick wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't normally downvote comments I read here, but c'mon man. First of all, your comment was off-topic. Second of all, at least with the GM food, yours is a knee-jerk reaction unsupported by science. GM food has the potential to save billions (with a B) of lives, starting with Golden Rice.

The biggest problem with GM is it puts the world's food production into the hands of a select few multinational companies. Companies like Monsanto have already shown they are prepared to fight hard to keep control their GM monopolies: http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/monsanto-gmo-roundup-ready-se...

Oh yes that monsanto case that gets trotted out every freaking time this comes up.

The poor farmer didn't know he was using roundup ready seeds...and yet somehow also decided to use roundup on his crops anyway!

Except he did know that he was using roundup ready seeds, and thought he was exploiting a loophole.

Turns out he was wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_v._Monsanto_Co.#Backgrou...

This is absolutely not a case of big evilco going against the little guy.

Re: No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner

#100

Post by burntsushi »

tokipin wrote: post #97
burntsushi wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the alternative is very, very different and I think libertarians really underestimate how evil and creative and corrupt people can be The entire point of the parent post is that we don't underestimate the corruption that humans are capable of achieving when given power. Hence the revocation of a monopoly on the use of legitimized coercion.

... in exchange for a system without even the pretension of accountability

You did not respond to the central point of my comment. I will respond anyway.

Firms sell goods to buyers. If buyers stop buying said goods from a particular firm, that firm is going to be in trouble unless they get the buyers to start buying again.

Seems like at least a "pretension of accountability".

Accountability exists in forms other than democracy.

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