ruveyn1

think about this. If the state can require Atlas Shrugged be required reading and subject to a qualifying text, then why not The Bible or The Q'ran? This kind of required reading has some consequences that the originators of the idea might not favor. ruveyn1

The problem with colonies of any kind, be they on the land, under the sea or in the air is the problem of -critical mass-. One needs a sufficient number of people with a proper mix and temperments and skills to forge a functioning self-sufficient community. Even the Galt's Gulch of AS did not quite make it. They still needed to bring in material from the outside to continue to function. It is not clear that a group of dissident folk could find someplace on, in, or under earth/sea to make a clean break with the larger society with which they wish to part company. It is a nice, fine romantic notion but it exists in stories like More's Utopia or in AS. ruveyn1

How can anyone make a living without using the roads one way or another. If you wish to obtain goods and services, they will come to you by way of the roads. If you wish to go and deal with folks, there is only so much that can be done with telecommunications. Eventually one has to get up close and personal. ruveyn1

If a private defense agency, be it ever so just, tries to detain anyone by force they will soon be in trouble with the Law. It is one thing to have private watchmen and guards. It is another to detain and punish or even recover stolen goods by force without a proper legal process. Vigilantes are not legally kosher. ruveyn

If I recall the novel correctly one mother with two children age four and six. This is the child population of a community with several hundred people. With that kind of a reproduction rate, the Heroes of Production will be extinct in 70 years or so. The only way to assure a future for mankind is for enough people to make babies. ruveyn1

Whoa! Whoa! This is supposed to be a polite forum. Easy on that language. ruveyn1

Are you saying that the executives of government A should not enter into agreements (treaties, protocols, etc.) with the executives of government B? ruveyn1

Species of biological entities that do not have a value for reproduction (i.e. do not reproduce) are either extinct or will be shortly. Anyone who is alive at this late date in the unfolding of our planetary biota is living proof that someone or something took reproduction to be of value, since they did it. ruveyn1

There is lots of stuff on Krugman on the Web. So one does not need either newspapers or t.v. to know something about him. And he won a Nobel Prize to boot. That would give him some publicity. I met Krugman at the studio where I record books for blind and dyslexic folk. We did not discuss economics at all. ruveyn1

Perhaps it is the movement of atomic and sub atomic particle (under the probablistic laws of quantum physics that produce what you call "free will". Look at it this way. Our brains are as physical as physical gets and all of our thought are brain activities which makes them rather complicate electro-chemical reactions. ruveyn1

And the bastards with their guns, clubs, whips, chains, water boards, dungeons and their injection of "truth serum" will be frightened to death of the rhetoric. Sure they will. The way to deal with thugs is to either drive them out of the land or kill them deader than dust. ruveyn1

You can always spot the UU churches. On their steeples you will see a thing that is shaped like this "?" and when they ring the bells the sound comes out like a question. However do not underestimate the UUs. If you get them ticked off they will come to your house and burn a question mark on your lawn. ruveyn1

That is an interesting point, but it does not answer the question I put. ruveyn1

How does one represent rational numbers in a base pi system? ruveyn1

an infinitely long non-repeating decimal expansion is the name of an irrational real number. Now consider this: 0.333.... (forever) what is wrong with that? nothing. It is just 1/3 in another guise. ruveyn1

What should they put on their steeple? I suggest an "0" or a "?" ruveyn1

Really? There are now some effective -medical- treatment for depression and some forms of schizophrenia. We still do not know how to cure psychotics but we can render a significant percentage of them functional in society so they can earn their keep and not be kept in an asylum. As to neurotics, neurosis is mostly a result of either bad thinking habits or a reaction to abusive and sometimes brutal treatment. I doubt whether there is a medical cure for bad parenting or bad mentoring. ruveyn1

The most help the poor get or will get comes when the real producers are free to do their thing. It took industrialists and inventors to make the life of the "poor" more than just survivable. The poor live 30 to 40 percent longer than that did at the end of the 19th century. Krugman does not appear to appreciate this point. I suspect that he denies this. I will bet he believes any prosperity we do have (enjoy it while you can!) comes from the government. ruveyn1

Just a small reference to a previous posting. We know pretty well what energy is and how it manifests itself in the spacetime manifold. Our most common experience with energy is heat and the motion of matter. In the most general abstract sense energy is a Laplacian which is invariant under the know symmetries and when extremized (maximized or minimize) gives correct equations of motion (change) with respect to time. Energy in its most general sense is abstract, like number. Sorry for the interruption, but I just had to reply to this point. ruveyn1

The irony is so many of the Lefties were brought up Jewish. I can testify to the efficacy of the -ethical content of Judaism-, as I not only was brought up Jewish, but still am Jewish right down to my toenails. I just do not need the theological baggage any more. The ethics and the resistance to dogmatic thinking is what is important to me. Jews generally do not have to park their brains at the curb to be Jewish. Even some of those of Orthodox persuasion still know how to ask pointed questions. What other religion teaches one to ask "Mah nishtanoh...." (Why is this different from that?) ? Not too many. And we learn not to worship idols, not only stone, wood, metal, and plaster idols, but idols of the intellect. The disease of the ultra liberal types is their imaginations are paralyzed by the political and moral idols they have not only construct, but -worship-. If there is a G-D, then that G-D is the rock bottom reality of the cosmos, not our wishful longings and daydreams. When Moses asked G-D what His name was, the reply was: Existence. I am That which is. Sound familiar? ruveyn1

Why all this concern with homosexuality? The real problem of Christianity is that it promote sacrifice and altruism. It denigrates self interest as sinful or promoting of sinfulness. In addition extreme forms of Christianity promote Creationism and Intelligent design which if pursued will degrade the instruction of science in the schools. The long term effects of that could be a disaster to our economic future state. ruveyn1

The explosion was a literary artifact to set up The Trial at which the protagonist presented his views and won the jury over. In the real world, such move would have gotten Roarke at least ten years in the pen. ruveyn1

The problem with torture is that one may only get the answers one wants to hear, as opposed to the truth of the matter. ruveyn1

Krugman believes in fairy-dust and magic. However lowering taxes on the real producers is a step in the right direction. The wealth of the nation is produced by people doing useful things, producing useful products and useful services. It does not consist of rigging up phony baloney bank accounts or printing bogus money. ruveyn1

That is because he was up against a highly unjust system. When the opposition plays dirty, all get are off. When one is up against the Bad Guys, then one has to kick, bite and cheat. ruveyn1