Well said! Theft is not only a matter or ownership. In fact, the biggest problem with theft, especially when from someones house, is the breach of personal integrity that leaves people feeling violated. I respect ICJ as an intelligent and in many areas knowledgeable person, but I still agree...

It certainly could. :) The principle of subsidiarity that I mentioned before is imo a good guiding principle for how democracies should work - that decisions cannot be taken on a higher level if they can be taken on a lower, more local level. I think this concludes the debate. ;)

Evolution is a physical change in a species, not a change in the knowledge they acquire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

This is a great post. Discussion should be about learning and testing ones opinions by exploring arguments, not about winning (there is nothing to win anyway). You’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this so I hope I can add something meaningful. :) Let’s see… 1 : Communism and the problem...

Traditionally teenagers would have learnt from their elders or been expected to learn for themselves by having real responsibilities. Now we cram them all in together with barely anyone to learn from but each other. Teachers are (generally) too few and subjects too limited. So anyone who has or...

Sounds good. :)

It’s early in the morning, we’ll see if I can think clearly. :D Absolutely. Being very liberal myself I see no reason to restrict peoples lives the way we do. This is just tragic. Even if he was trying to get rid of / overthrow the state, that in itself shouldn’t be illegal in a democracy...

As you should. :D Imo, while we should be open to examining our views through discussion, we should also stand for what we believe in.

I agree that anarchism or communism could work on a small scale (even if I wouldn't want to live in such a society, for various reasons). The problem is largely, imo, a problem of scale. There is a NEED for control in any system which tries to coordinate millions of people, a large percentage of...

This is the normal way to pay back loans. Except in a more complex system you wouldn’t trade actual commodities, but money that represents them. (A) might watch (C):s kids and pay the (B)ank with the money received for those services. The (B)ank not having any children, would probably pay for...

Google tracking and ads based on that info are what pays for the search engine. An excess of 1 000 000 servers don't run themselves. This is rubbish (I'm being generous).

Someone needs to examine this. For various reasons, I can't, at least currently. Perhaps take an iq test before and during while letting some time pass? Granted, the same test is not supposed to be taken more than once so the second result would definitely be higher. The question is if its...

OP... ;)

I thought it was a corporation?

Maybe this is obvious, or maybe I’m wrong, but there seems to be some confusion about what money is. Hopefully this contributes. Imagine an island with a population of 100 people. Every year each person creates 1 unit of goods and services and receives 1 $ in pay. So, each year: - Total...

@ IJesusChrist This is a long one. :) Perhaps. :) It’s interesting how discussions on complicated topics often tend to border on being about semantics. So what’s a winner? Smartass answer Depends on the scale against which you’re measuring. Slightly more informative answer In my last...

Hmm sorry but this seems factually inaccurate. Communism in its current form started with Marx and the communist manifesto, which can be summarized as: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. As far as I recall from reading the manifesto years ago, Marx wanted...

WHY haven't we seen pure capitalist or communist governments? Imo the reason is that the concepts are flawed and CANNOT be successfully implemented. For instance, about communism: - A basic idea in communism is that we should be "paid" in accordance with our needs and not according to how we...

I see the industrial revolution and the recent technological progress we’ve made as being largely based on the current economical system, a system which rewards innovation on the individual level. In other words, a system based on harnessing human selfishness – an apparently innate property -...

Far from it... :) Consider yourself lucky.