Zavier

Maarten, make sure you are taking into account the fact that the embedded taxes in the new goods and services that we buy will be gone. You are adding 23% to the cost of all goods and services without removing the tax compliance costs that will be abolished. Pay special attention to the imbedded tax vs. surtax portion of the document. According to the Harvard research that the 23% revenue-neutral rate is based on, goods and services will only go up about 1% on average. You will be buying roughly the same amount of product with substantially more income, reducing your total layout in the end by increasing your buying power. It's the 1.00 can of soup argument, which is basically mathematic semantics. If the soup is 1.00 at the register, then you can say it was a .77 can of soup with a 30% tax on it or 1.00 can of soup with 23% of taxes embedded. At the end of the day, .23 of my dollar are going to the government, so the latter is more logical to use because of clarity. The FairTax is supposed to be included in the sticker prices and not added later at the register for this reason.

Thank you for the replies! I had since found McKeever's video (which was funny) and Ghate's debate (which made Huemer look like an idiot.) I'm reading through Lawrence's paper now.

Has anyone else encountered this? After reading through it once, I can see several holes and misconceptions. It seems to be getting copied quite a bit. Before attacking this myself, has anyone else seen it? http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand5.htm

I would suggest starting by appealing to some of the Objectivist virtues that "everyone knows." Independence and standing on one's own two feet appeal to most people as do creating things and not relying on others. I admit it's difficult to keep an audience when you say selfishness is good because even most dictionaries these days append the "regardless of others" to the original entry of "in one's own interest." I'm looking at you, dictionary.com!

Scientists discover that the properties of a certain protein act to "discard" random mutations that aren't helpful before they really take hold, steering evolution towards a state of order. http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive...tion=topstories It's kind of like in Spore, where the programmers found that if there weren't predetermined rules, things just wouldn't evolve correctly (i.e.: symmetry, devolution restrictions.) This protein is those rules in reality.

To avoid starting a redundant thread, I'll just necropost this here: What is the standard best argument against those who say we cannot know anything for sure? I have a friend that has a philosophy degree, and is quite the fan of Kant. He's subsequently very socialist. We have some pretty interresting (heated) conversations over cards. (I'll briefly mention how infuriating it is to argue against someone who has a degree, and views you as some lost fawn who will eventually come to the same conclusions that he has, and thinks your opposing arguments are cute, but mostly to be ignored.) It seems that the root of Kantian philosophy is that facts aren't facts because there is no way to be sure that the information we receive is accurate. When he says "How can you be positive that you are not dreaming right now?" and I reply that if I were dreaming, then I would be able to change what I perceive as reality merely by thinking about it or willing it so and I cannot. He just responds "but can you really, really be sure?" Is he just being obtuse or is there a better way of stating this in epistemological terms? Repeating the axioms don't help. He's just not a primacy of existence kind of guy. Sorry to present this as a personal battle, but I'm sure this gets played out elsewhere.

One year, this past weekend.

This is just a quick introduction here: Hello world 32/M/Southern Indiana - Married w/one little squirmer. See you all in the forums!