Topic: 92 year old WWII veteran kills intruder with rifle - page 2. (Read 8643 times)

so you really wrote that long a text trying to tell me that, after all those changes, the company owner is still good?
lol yeah, thanks for the info 



no, its not.

drive them out to where exactly? the country where all the poor people are armed and starving? not likely  
a country that takes care of its poor people is massively favorable for the rich. unless you like to live in said castle with a moat.
in my sports club like we got a guy that is the owner of his own insurance company and one with a software company. both are likely filthy rich. i think they like to be part of a prospering society instead of a protected enclave inside an ocean of misery.



greece failed because the EU managed to create a financial system along with the euro that basically encouraged and rewarded taking more debts than you need. they lived at a level way above what their own economy could sustain. basically they were the top of the food chain, consuming products produced by others. it's not a problem of social market economy as a whole. we could sustain those punks forever. we just don't want to  
plus, when greece, italy and spain go broke, holidays at the sea are cheap again  



not everything. child and health care, education and most creative jobs are pretty safe. but you dont need 100% unemployment rate for civil unrest.

just look at ATMs and online banking. i still remember a time when you actually had to talk to people to transfer money. shops selling media like books or dvds are already on death row. fully automated supermarkets are likely a thing for this decade.

for a practical example, take a look at this:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HHLA_Container_Terminal_Altenwerder_(CTA)_in_Hamburg_-_Winter_2010_-_04.jpg
what you see there is the container terminal altenwerder. look at the full size picture too. all vehicles, the storage cranes and the whole storage organization are fully automated.
wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_Terminal_Altenwerder
and a boring video without sound: http://hhla.de/de/foto-film/filme/der-weg-der-box.html

Here we go with this again.  Reminds me of the thread about venus project and Zeitgest movement.

Let me explain you that what you describe is not much different than the current way capitalism works.  A robot is a mean of production, just as is a share of a company/firm/factory (I don't know exactlly how you call that in english).  And those means of production have to belong to someone.

From the point of view of the owner (i.e. the capitalist), it does not matter much if the worker is made of flesh or steel.  What matters is that it behaves as such:  it accepts to work, to give away its production and to receive a predetermined money amount in exchange.  The robot does not demand much wage, basically it only requires maintenance costs which is equivalent.  But otherwise, to the capitalist the robot and the human are not much different.  One is just much cheaper than the other.

So the situation you describe is just a fancy, science-fiction way to describe what currently exists already.  I do own shares of companies and most of my income come from that.  I don't care much about what kind of workers work in these companies.  Hell, I guess there is a fair amount of robots already.

Now, I guess you're going to tell me that we should give shares of companies to everyone, on an equal basis.  Ok so that means first that you have to steal mine.  Ok I'll try to ignore that and do as if it was moral.  Now, everybody has the same amount of shares.  Great.  I'll go see someone and I'll tell him:  « dude, you have 10 shares of company X and they give you 1 bitcoin a year.  I'll give you 10 bitcoins now if you give me those shares. »  The guy does accept because he thinks it would be cool to have 10 bitcoins now, and not to have to wait ten years.  So he gives me his shares and go buy some now legalized drugs with the money.  I, on the contrary, will keep on underconsumming or working harder in order to keep saving capital.

Eventually, people who tend to work and save will tend to have much more shares than people who tend to consume and be lazy.  And you'll end up with a situation which will be no different than the current one, except that you would haved passed through a phase where you expropriated people (remember the part when you to steal my shares to give them to everyone?).

Is that your plan?

indeed. And your proposed system will drive out the rich, the intelligent, and the ambitious. Leaving only the poor, stupid, and lazy.

Alone, no. but don't forget the other options I suggested.

Really? Are you that blind? Maybe it's just because you're in Germany, and not, say, Greece. The top of the food chain always feels the drought last.


... You're... you're actually serious about that, aren't you? You really think that robots will do everything, including build, program, maintain and repair the other robots. Well, if that's true, then we don't need to worry at all, since all our needs will be met by the robots. Until they overthrow us anyway.

Automation doesn't reduce employment - not long-term, anyway - it just changes the industry. And it's especially funny considering the industry I used as an example is one not subject to automation... Unless you'd trust Robo-nanny 9000?

- right now the taxation system favors the rich because it is so complex that only those benefit that have the money to pay advisors and don't have to spend most of their money on necessities so.
- i don't need anyone to save millions and millions. leave your family one house instead of ten.
- drugs are way way overpriced and low quality right now. illegal production and transportation is costly. just make the taxes high enough so that you end up with comparable prices and a regularly controlled, quality product. in the end you have extra tax income, less criminalized drug users, less rich drug lords and police officers that can focus on actual crimes


- i am not talking thousands of dollars here. just enough to buy food and shared living space. thats 300-600$ in most western countries. in nothern europe we spent that money for welfare anyway. except right now we spent half of it on the needy and half it on the bureaucrats determining need. rather give that money away equally. not only do you save lots of bureaucracy, the low, flat amount also encourages to look for work and spend your money more efficiently.
- of course education costs money. for a society though, uneducated workers are practically useless nowadays. giving people no chance to realize their potential because their parents are poor places a huge burden on a high tech society. putting money into education always pays off.
- in the end, people have to vote with their feed. you dont have to go to a bad doctor. or school.
- regarding sport you might want to take a look at the german model. for membership in a sports club you pay roughly 100-300$ per year. those are charitable clubs with a lot of volunteers. the state usually supports those with the open slots in school sports halls and others existing facilities and sometimes help for bigger investments.


i also think that kickstarter is, in the current system, a very welcome innovation. its a huge improvement over conventional funding methods. i am not sure it is enough to challenge the status quo though.


i am not at all in favor of communism. its more of an improvement upon social market economy. you might have noticed i did not propose any kind of planned economy. unlike communism, social market economy is working pretty well. you might want to travel to europe and take a look at that barely subsistent populance. free income is not a degeneration into an already tried and failed experiment. it is an adjustment to get rid of bureaucracy and unjust distribution of funds we spent anyway.



once you have free income you can easily remove minimum wage  .
seriously, the problem with your proposal is that it's a solution for yesterday. automation is an ongoing process and full employment is a dead concept. for example, in the next few decades, jobs like truck driver, pilot, ship captain, pizza delivery or mail man won't exist anymore. the whole transportation system and many other things will be automatic. most machines will be built and maintained by other machines.
poperty will produce property. work as a mechanism to distribute wealth will cease to function and we better get rid of the dependency on that mechanism before it fails completely.

But myrkul, your forgetting we have legal access to books. I'm sure students who go through ALICE training will be just fine. See link below. 

http://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/students_fight_gunmen.html

Communism, in other words. That's been tried, and every time, it kills people, or reduces them to poverty. I'll explain why:
Your funding(note that these are corresponding, ie the first response is for the first statement, and so on):
- either taxes the poor disproportionately (flat tax) or encourages the rich to leave (scaling tax). And this ignores the fact that taxation is theft, even slavery if looked at from the right perspective.
- removes the incentive to save, since your family will not benefit.
- encourages a black market to avoid the tax.

The other two I agree with. (Imagine that, an anarchist agreeing with reducing gov't spending.)

Your social programs:
- removes the incentive to work, since even if you do nothing, you'll still be fine.
- denies the fact that education is not free, someone has to pay the teachers. And if it's not the students, the teachers have no incentive to perform well.
- Second verse, same as the first, just replace teacher with doctor.
- I actually don't disagree with this one - in principle. One catch: Who pays for the space and equipment? It's likely to be the poorest quality available, if it's on the state budget.
- I have a suggestion for this one: Kickstarter. And that's only one option. Lots of people are doing pretty good by giving the product away and asking for donations, or selling the item cheap directly to the fans. Piracy is less likely when you're stealing from the artist instead of some company. There's also the option of giving away the music and selling merchandise and, of course, the experience of a live concert. (Can you tell I've thought about this one?)

When you combine the bad ideas in the first list, with the bad ideas in the second list, you get a listless, barely subsistent populace with crappy clothes, crappy food, and no hope for the future. I would have thought a German would know better than to think socialist plans would work... Maybe you're simply too young to remember, but it wasn't that long ago that East Germany collapsed. Oh, and don't just take my word for it, here is a fellow German warning you from the past: https://mises.org/document/4994 That is an English translation, perhaps you can find it in the original German in a local library.


But any moral code, to be fair, must apply to everyone. If you start applying exceptions, where do you stop? And yes, firearms are suited for aggression as well as defense. However, until you find a better defense for a firearm than having one of your own, it's the best we have.

Now, lest I be accused of tearing you down without offering any better suggestions, let me provide a counterpoint:
To reduce poverty, I suggest we remove the minimum wage and reduce or remove the licensing requirements for many industries. That allows people to work for whatever they can get, rather than being excluded by low skills from the workforce. Open up the market, allowing, say, a poor mother to apply the skills that she's gained raising her children to care for the children of others. Now she can feed herself, and her children, by offering those skills to her friends and neighbors.

ok, a few things.
get the money from:

- flat, low, simple, unavoidable taxation. no write-offs, exceptions, subsidies, total economic isolation from all governments supporting tax evasion
- high inheritance tax for big inheritances and reduction of possibilities to avoid that tax
- decriminalization of drug usage and instead high taxation similar to alcohol or tobacco
- massive decrease in military spending (thats mostly for the us)
- massive decrease in financial support for the state churches (thats germany...)

spend it on:
- flat basic free income for everybody, zero requirements attached. on the other hand, no special treatment or extras for anyone
- all education including university is free
- basic healthcare is free
- access to the first sports club or similar institution known to improve health and social integration is free
- find a way to make all digital products available to everybody without depriving artists, programmers etc of their income (culture flat rate?)



obviously not. he has no chance to act without harming himself. i assumed that goes without question. regarding the first question: if those tools were not equally suited for aggression than for defense, i would agree with you. but overall fire arms just do more harm than good. i know you disagree, but i won't change my opinion on that.

Again, I'm going to take the liberty of increasing the readability of your post.

You would be wrong. I would also like to build a society where crime is prevented by reducing poverty, social isolation and lack of access to education and culture. What we disagree on is how that should be achieved.

I have an idea. Why don't you suggest a few things? Like, say, specifically how you intend to reduce poverty? Or increase access to education?

Oh, and any time you feel like, feel free to answer these questions: If you seek to prevent someone's death by gunfire, perhaps they should have the tools to defend themselves? And if you say you judge actions, why then are you judging failure to act? If a paralyzed man does not jump into the river to pull the drowning man out, does that make his lack of action evil?

i think we are already pretty clear on that. i like to build a society where crime is prevented by reducing poverty, social isolation and lack of access to education and culture. you like to build a castle and outfit it with a moat and catapults.

I've taken the liberty of correcting your post for you:


And already you're wrong.

Remember this post?

There's plenty of common ground. You don't like getting murdered, raped, or robbed, I assume? Neither do I. We both agree that that's wrong behavior. Now we just need to discuss what to do about it.

i dont think we will ever agree on anything. at some point when talking to a moral absolutist, you just have to recognize there is not enough common ground for a discussion to take place.

Enough "protecting" and the society will fix itself. Honestly, I think that's what fornit is afraid of.

Ok, so according to you in the particular case which is discussed in this thread, the old man should just have let the burglar help himself and get away (I don't see any other alternative if you don't want to kill nor imprison anymore).

Yes, there might be something wrong in the american society (I don't know, I'm european).  But until society is fixed, people should have the right to protect themselves from the consequences of this wrong society.  Don't you think?

I doubt people who favors gun ownership think this would improve society.  They just think it can help prevent people from undergoing the fact of living in a wrong society.  This is quite different.

reading this makes me sad.. and makes me wonder why the USA has one of the highest crime rates in the world and has the highest prison population in the world. and has the highest % of its population imprisioned. Incase you havent noticed already something is fundamentally wrong. something isnt working and it needs to be fixed. i dont think the answer is killing more people/ imprisioning more people. its not the people that are neccarily broken. its the society itself. wake up and realize what isnt working and maby you can start finding out what will work. the world needs to change.

And I have seen 1st graders with better writing skills than you. This isn't ad hominem, it's simple fact. If you would like to make a point, write it clearly, and cogently, and your readers will take it seriously. Scrawl it in crayon, and you will be laughed at.


Do you think that is making a point? It's not. I've given you a resource to educate yourself on the rationale behind my ethics. If you choose not to take that opportunity, don't be surprised when your ignorance runs you afoul.

I'll ask again, since you completely avoided answering me: If you seek to prevent someone's death by gunfire, perhaps they should have the tools to defend themselves? And if you say you judge actions, why then are you judging failure to act? If a paralyzed man does not jump into the river to pull the drowning man out, does that make his lack of action evil?

and where is the coercion again?