No free trade agreement if charges of espionage are true, warns EU Commissioner • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by wybo » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 9:28 AM UTC

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…

Am I the only one here who can see the fallacy in this?

Government does not have unlimited power. Government is accountable, mostly democratically controlled power. It is, if there is a proper democracy (which there is in much of Western Europe, not the US so much) the exact opposite of unlimited power.

Anarchy on the other hand is (slightly) diffused unlimited power. And also power only dependent on wealth. And without anyone to protect the (financially) weak, without any laws or government-backed justice, this diffused power is much worse than anything a well-functioning democracy would come up with...

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

#142

Post by oleganza » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 10:44 AM UTC

wybo wrote: post #141

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…

Am I the only one here who can see the fallacy in this? Government does not have unlimited power. Government is accountable, mostly democratically controlled power. It is, if there is a proper democracy (which there is in much of Western Europe, not the US so much) the exact opposite of unlimited power. Anarchy on the other hand is (slightly) diffused unlimited power. And also power only dependent on wealth. And with…

Look into your own words and try to decipher them one by one:

"Government is accountable, mostly democratically controlled power."

What is "government" in practice? What does it mean to be "accountable" in practice? What is "democratically controlled"? And which "power" are we talking about?

Here's my rough take on deciphering this statement:

1. Government - a group of people that can employ violence which is disallowed for some other group of people. Some number of people outside the government will look at some violent action and think it's totally justified. But if the same action is done by non-government person, they will feel bad and call somebody to prevent it.

2. Being accountable: bear the consequences of one's actions. If a dude kills a dude, he will be kicked hard and put in special house for the rest of his days. If, however, government kills a dude, there are many sorts of laws (pieces of paper) that describe to public (stupidly watching from outside) that certain killings are okay. Like, if you are in uniform and in Iraq, you can kill people left and right (under strict "protocol" of course).

Does the existence of some sort of "protocol" written by some lunatics make killings "controlled" and "accountable"? How nuts is that?

Here's a test for your sanity: if you like your democratic government, I have nothing against it. I will never ever intervene and disallow you to pay to your senator/city hall/party/etc. I respect your right to choose the way to live. Will you give me the same respect to have my own opinion and to act on it? I don't want to support any government action. I don't want my money to be taken via taxation or inflation. Will you allow me to act on my beliefs peacefully just like I allow you?

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

#143

Post by oleganza » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 10:56 AM UTC

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…

I do not describe how people should or should not live. I only expose violence when they try to hide it. Of course, human nature is not perfect and of course there will always be bad guys, people believing in gods, socialism, nationalism, thieves, psychopaths etc. But this does not make any of those good or worthy.

If you like your democratic institute, feel free to participate. No voluntarist will ever stop you or threaten you. But will you allow other people to equally act on their beliefs and not participate in schemes they dislike? E.g. if you like your police dept, feel free to sponsor it. But if I think it's inefficient and behaves badly, will you peacefully allow me to withdraw my participation?

Just like with any religion, people make the same logical mistake with the government. They think it is higher concept than any individual (unproven fallacy), people should obey that concept (unproven consequence) and some people among people are in special touch with that concept and have the exclusive right to enforce this obedience (another unproven consequence). This all is utter religious bullshit. If you believe in this, no reason is possible. Once you allow yourself to think in abstract moral categories, you can justify any horrible stuff. And we have plenty of historical examples of how ideology allows murdering, raping and torturing people everywhere in the world.

I don't know and I don't care how we will live without all-powerful government, but it does not invalidate its murderous and manipulative nature. Just like no one knows what our morales and ethics should be, but the belief in magical Jesus will not give us any useful clue.

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

#144

Post by snitko » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 12:32 PM UTC

rorrr2 wrote: post #13

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…

It deeply saddens me that a tiny tiny percentage of the population can really fuck up the lives of everyone - financially, socially, politically, religiously. The real problem is in how we set up the governments. We give to much power to a few people. What we really need to do is let people vote on individual issues. Want to go to war that will affect everyone and will cost trillions? Let's have a vote.

So why don't you skip the government and vote with your own money for the things you support? If enough of people buy the product, then the company makes profit and the product deserves to exist on the market. Be it protection, war or helping the poor. Your choice.

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

#145

Post by notdang » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 2:12 PM UTC

mitchty wrote: post #35

notdang wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't taste good.

What doesn't "taste good"? Almost all modern food is Genetically Modified at some level, all meat has hormones as well so not sure specifically what constitues tasting good with that. Are you saying hormones make things taste bad? Have you blind A-B tested that assumption? Same for "GM" food? Also what exactly is constituted as GM? Is Corn a GM food or still "natural" because we just used selective pressure and chose…

It's not only about GM food, but about the taste of food in general. I come from a small country where the food is not produced by huge farms, but by the people in their tiny or small farms. The lack of money and technologies makes them use the same technologies like 100 years ago (except tractors). The downside is that they depend on weather, and the crop per hectare is not so big like in highly agriculture-industrialized countries. But the food tastes very different. Now I live in a huge country, where the small farmers won't be able to produce all the food that is needed and it took me a year to get used to the taste of the local vegetables and meat. I don't know and I don't care if GM is bad or good for my health, the same about hormones in meat. I just want my food to taste good.

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

#146

Post by Zigurd » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 2:27 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #117

burntsushi wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never claimed or believed otherwise. The absence of coercion would be Utopian. Also, you left out a key word: legitimized . It's important and absolutely essential to my point.

In the absence of government, all violent becomes de facto legitimate, as it is in the state of nature. It is meaningless to call something "illegitimate" versus "legitimate" when you have no recourse to stop "illegitimate" actions.

You are setting up a straw man. One level of government can lose legitimacy or the ability to operate without government at other levels losing the ability to perform.

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

#147

Post by asperous » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 4:35 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #116

asperous wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an in-between between no government and an all-powerful one: a government that solely exists to secure the rights of its citizens. "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,..." It is of my opinion tha…

> a government that solely exists to secure the rights of its citizens. The problem with such governments is that they cannot be truly democratic, and I think that poses a moral problem. In instituting government, we ask the people, every person, to give up the most fundamental freedom of action they possess in the state of nature: the use of violence. In sacrificing freedom of action, the people should be able to vo…

We are not giving up the right to violence, the point of a government securing your rights is that someone else can't take them away (through violence or other means).

It's true people can vote themselves into any government they wanted, but I wager that if you don't want a government running away with your rights, it's best to stick with a limited one.

It's much easier to control smaller gonvernments than super governments. It's doubtful that any 1 individual state (save california or ny maybe) could've created prisim.

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

#148

Post by wybo » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 4:51 PM UTC

oleganza wrote: post #142

wybo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one here who can see the fallacy in this? Government does not have unlimited power. Government is accountable, mostly democratically controlled power. It is, if there is a proper democracy (which there is in much of Western Europe, not the US so much) the exact opposite of unlimited power. Anarchy on the other hand is (slightly) diffused unlimited power. And also power only dependent on wealth. And with…

Look into your own words and try to decipher them one by one: "Government is accountable, mostly democratically controlled power." What is "government" in practice? What does it mean to be "accountable" in practice? What is "democratically controlled"? And which "power" are we talking about? Here's my rough take on deciphering this statement: 1. Government - a group of people that can employ violence which is disallo…

1) (Quite unclear what you mean by this statement) However government does much more than employ violence. In fact most government does has nothing to do with violence. Such as provide infrastructural and social services, stipulate laws, and negotiation on our behalf. What makes government different from a corporation is that in government it is one person one vote, while in the private sector value and power is not grounded in persons as humans, but is tied to individuals wealth and (usurped) power.

2) I was talking about proper democracies (like Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands). I dislike the war in Iraq (and similarly ill-conceived wars) as much as (if not more than) you do.

As for the sanity check; Government only works if everyone in a certain community / market / area complies. Ceterus paribus if I am taxed and you are not, and you would be allowed to sell in the same market, I will be driven out of business. Similarly, if you hire educated employees, or even benefit of services provided by them, but did not pay taxes to fund their education, you are leeching on the state and I (& other citizens) have a right to (part of) your profits... we call this tax; and it only works if we all pay our fair share.

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

#149

Post by rayiner » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 6:59 PM UTC

asperous wrote: post #147

rayiner wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a government that solely exists to secure the rights of its citizens. The problem with such governments is that they cannot be truly democratic, and I think that poses a moral problem. In instituting government, we ask the people, every person, to give up the most fundamental freedom of action they possess in the state of nature: the use of violence. In sacrificing freedom of action, the people should be able to vo…

We are not giving up the right to violence, the point of a government securing your rights is that someone else can't take them away (through violence or other means). It's true people can vote themselves into any government they wanted, but I wager that if you don't want a government running away with your rights, it's best to stick with a limited one. It's much easier to control smaller gonvernments than super gove…

> We are not giving up the right to violence,

You are. You're agreeing to act "civilized" instead of all the other things you can do in the state of nature. Animals are not obligated to respect each others' "rights." We collectively give up our natural ability to do that, in the hopes that "civilization" is better for us than a free for all.

I'm not arguing that bigger governments or smaller governments are better. I'm talking about the process by which we choose a government to govern us. My point is that a government that is small, where people can't vote to make it bigger, is immoral. If people collectively give up their natural ability to use violence on other people, they should get to collectively determine what system they want to put in place to replace the state of nature. Self determination, that's the most fundamental thing, and it's not worth compromising self determination to guarantee limited government.

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

#150

Post by Daniel_Newby » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 8:56 PM UTC

aqme28 wrote: post #106

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #102

Must we continue to carry water for U.S. political factions by discussing this manufactured pseudo-news? How about we get back to the real story of the IRS election rigging that the administration desperately wants to be forgotten. Or the insane war in Syria where they are backing Al Qaeda and their nasty friends. No, we have to keep chewing over these planted stories about how we are shocked, shocked to find spying…

How is this "pseudo-news"? It sounds very important and "newsworthy" to me.

Because it is not news! Every nation gathers as much information as it can, generally with total disregard for politeness and fair play. From time to time a competent journalist will write an exposé of the NSA, MI6, the FSB, etc. The exposés generally sink without a trace as the public finds signal and analysis nerds to be boring.

So why is this time different? Why does a narcissistic leaker like Snowden stay in the press for weeks, when exposés with deep, careful rsearch get ignored?

Because somebody needs the story to have staying power. It is a distraction from the real story, the wholesale rigging of the American politics by the IRS. We have a pretender in the White House and what we get are endless papparazzi stories about what hotel Snowden mght be staying in.