Philae has landed • Hacker News Board

Re: Philae has landed

#231

Post by scentoni » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 11:03 PM UTC

mtbcoder wrote: post #185

innguest wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Income tax, when used smartly, can be one of the greatest things a nation has at its disposal. A nation is just its people. People are already in possession of this money before the income tax takes it from them. I agree that this money can be one of the greatest things that people have at their disposal, which is why I'm arguing we should not let government handle it. Why are you against peacefully convincing peop…

Crowd-funded projects fail all the time. What do you do when your local police or fire department fail to meet their crowd-funding goals? How do you handle those that donate very little or nothing at all but consume large amounts, if not most, of the services/resources? How would an individual possibly have the time to adequately research and figure out what to crowd-fund? How would you stop outside interest groups f…

This actually happens in some unfortunate places: "Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee." http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-...

Re: Philae has landed

#232

Post by bdamm » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 11:22 PM UTC

prawn wrote: post #216

jafaku wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can one care about what will happen within the next 10,000 years?

How can you not? We are not talking about throwing away everything to insure ourselves against future catastrophe, we're putting a small portion towards a bit of futureproofing. Seems smart to me.

Ah, that's just your DNA talking. Otherwise we could be immensely pleased with the amazing experience of being alive, and when our time is up allow Mother Universe to move on without us. Perhaps after we are wiped out, another better form of life will take hold and really do amazing things, fueled by our decay.

Besides, it looks like our own behavior is going to do it for us, so might as well "love the bomb".

Re: Philae has landed

#233

Post by jedp » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 11:27 PM UTC

india_congrats wrote: post #44

Congratulations Europe. But why don't we hear people saying that the EU should focus on their poverty first and would be better off putting this money into getting the Greece, Spain, and Italy economies in order?

I'm reminded of http://xkcd.com/1232/

(Edit: Not intended to be snarky; I just think people do ask those questions all the time, and this xkcd answers it well.)

Re: Philae has landed

#234

Post by rybosome » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 11:27 PM UTC

mycroft-holmes wrote: post #228

rybosome wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we simply have different core values. It appears that you believe that the ability for an individual to have total control over their money is a basic right. I believe that an individual has a fundamental responsibility to the society into which they were born; this is vague and nebulous, but a portion of this responsibility includes funding scientific and educational projects if they are so able. Science has…

> I believe that an individual has a fundamental responsibility to the society into which they were born Why exactly?

Being born into a society (particularly a wealthy one) bestows many gifts. Chance of survival increases drastically, and the new member is given access to a treasure-trove of information accumulated over tens of thousands of years. Take growing crops, for instance; such an essential part of human life, it is something that we ("we" being humans) have earned. The acquisition of this knowledge was hard-won, requiring the effort of countless human beings. How many people starved to death, teaching the survivors that a particular strategy was bad? How many people collaborating did it take to develop a language and writing system with which to communicate these teachings? This goes on and on; modern society, for all its faults, is a towering monument to the best of human potential, and to the incredible sacrifices made by our ancestors so that we could be here and alive today.

Given that we all owe our existence (and current level of comfort) to the social responsibility born by our progenitors, we must shoulder that same responsibility for the sake of our peers and our descendants. Someone who does not wish to take on that responsibility has no reasonable claim to the continued benefits of society - e.g. if you won't foster an environment in which medicine can be studied, then you do not deserve to benefit from the years of medical study prior to your interference.

This is a fundamental value for me; I'd be interested in hearing a counter-argument, but I highly doubt that I could be dissuaded.

Re: Philae has landed

#235

Post by jafaku » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 11:28 PM UTC

prawn wrote: post #216

jafaku wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can one care about what will happen within the next 10,000 years?

How can you not? We are not talking about throwing away everything to insure ourselves against future catastrophe, we're putting a small portion towards a bit of futureproofing. Seems smart to me.

To be clear I love to see funding going towards science. But 10,000 years is too damn much. People are placing chronologically the technological singularity within the next 100-200 years. For all practical purposes, 10,000 years ahead it's simply a different universe for me.

Re: Philae has landed

#236

Post by FD3SA » Wed, Nov 12, 2014, 11:55 PM UTC

ahallock wrote: post #186

yequalsx wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few people agree that taxation is the same as theft. You appear to be someone who does have this view. That is fine but it is not a commonly held belief and generally is subject to derision and down voting. This should not come as a shock to you. A very large percentage of people believe that having a functioning government is necessary and taxation is a necessary component for this. There are no examples of large po…

Taxation might not fit the strict definition of theft (easy when the gov creates its own jargon), but it is the threat of force to take property from someone against their will. I mean, how many of us are giving money directly to the gov by our own volition? I don't know of anyone. We were born into this system and we never agreed to it. Let's at least be honest about that. > There are no examples of large population…

> but it is the threat of force to take property from someone against their will.

So are laws. Your right to kill me is impeded by the justice system's threat of force to imprison you as a result. This is where most rational people come to understand that personal freedoms must be limited for the sake of peaceful co-operation.

But good luck establishing your Utopia without Laws and Taxes. I look forward to reading about it in the news.

Re: Philae has landed

#237

Post by ameister14 » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 12:21 AM UTC

ahallock wrote: post #208

phaemon wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is the threat of force to take property from someone against their will. No it's not. It's the threat of force against people who use that market and then refuse to pay the fees they owe. Any service can (and would) do the same via the legal system. I've never paid the US government a penny, because I don't use their market. > We were born into this system and we never agreed to it. You certainly have the option…

You're making a false equivalency between the State and other market actors. You may not be using the US government's services, but you're probably using your own government's. Forcing a service on people (say the War on Drugs) and then demanding payment through taxation is different from competing in the market. Even if you cite paying a fee for using the roads--not too controversial--to gain a monopoly on road-buil…

>For a price, and then only to enter another country.

Yeah, what would you expect? If you leave the social contract, you have all your rights back. Then again, you are no longer entitled to the protections society affords you. In an abstract version of this, upon completely leaving the system you were born into, you are subject to the state of nature and so the state can kill you if it feels like it. Or it can enslave you, or take all your property; what are you going to do about it?

You don't have to pay taxes, though.

Re: Philae has landed

#238

Post by ameister14 » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 12:29 AM UTC

ahallock wrote: post #186

yequalsx wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few people agree that taxation is the same as theft. You appear to be someone who does have this view. That is fine but it is not a commonly held belief and generally is subject to derision and down voting. This should not come as a shock to you. A very large percentage of people believe that having a functioning government is necessary and taxation is a necessary component for this. There are no examples of large po…

Taxation might not fit the strict definition of theft (easy when the gov creates its own jargon), but it is the threat of force to take property from someone against their will. I mean, how many of us are giving money directly to the gov by our own volition? I don't know of anyone. We were born into this system and we never agreed to it. Let's at least be honest about that. > There are no examples of large population…

There are a lot of books you should read about this stuff; it'll make you more educated on it than any reply here can.

I'd start with Rousseau's 'The Social Contract,' Locke's second treatise on government, Hobbes' 'Leviathan', John Stuart Mill's 'On Utilitarianism,' Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and Hume's Political Discourses.

Re: Philae has landed

#239

Post by icebraining » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 12:45 AM UTC

dwild wrote: post #163

icebraining wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in favor of the space exploration spending, but your argument is terrible. (S)he could just as easily reply that if you believe that space exploration has so much potential to transform civilization, why don't you donate all your entertainment budget & etc to NASA?

He said that it wasn't worth it because it doesn't really transform civilization. That's his point. If it's the criteria to fund something, then how his expense can be worth it too? Why don't I donate all to NASA? Because I never said that it was worth our money more than something else that worth more than what my entertainment is worth. (Sorry if it a little hard to understands, english isn't my first language, I'm…

Also I never said that it has so much potential, I'm curious to know where you found this in my comment.

What. The first two sentences of your comment:

> Does space exploration has the potential to transform civilization? Yeah it actually does.

Re: Philae has landed

#240

Post by icebraining » Thu, Nov 13, 2014, 12:47 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #173

icebraining wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in favor of the space exploration spending, but your argument is terrible. (S)he could just as easily reply that if you believe that space exploration has so much potential to transform civilization, why don't you donate all your entertainment budget & etc to NASA?

He could easily reply with that, but it would be dumb. There are many causes I believe in strongly but I don't donate all my money to them because I don't have enough money to make a bit of difference to them. Big projects must be taken on collectively.

Yes. Likewise, it doesn't make sense that just because you spend money on entertainment, you can't oppose (what you see as) frivolous projects by the State.

I was just using a similar argument, to show that they're both flawed.