Paperweight

Rural counties are conservative, urban counties are liberal, and never the twain shall meet.

I posit that there will always be this conflict until cities have a blue federation superimposed on a red countryside. But the constitution isn't set up that way. Maybe next time.

Did you even read my comment?

Finance is always gambling, ponzis, and fraud. But hey, that's not a bad thing.

Gamblers add liquidity, which is better for society than them hiding in a basement playing cards.

Stocks are essentially ponzi scheme financing. They have all the hallmarks. Then often literally use the cash from sales of stock to pay dividends. Most companies will never pay dividends, though, so the idea for a purchaser is to hold on and cash out while it's big before everyone else does.

Fraud is the worst when people have an expectation of trust, assuming they're protected by regulators. They never are. Madoff. Bre-X. Enron. Even highly regulated markets are always riddled with fraud. People should expect the market to be riddled with fraud and act accordingly - it keeps the populace wise.

Regulations are an attempt to get something for nothing which always just ends up with a bunch of friction, corruption, barriers to entry, and lawyers.

Yup, but at least they're better than the black market alternative. :)

Since the curated boutique App Store idea got perverted, perhaps the cure is to go back to Steve Jobs' original plan to use PWAs.

But will the drug approval agencies allow genetically engineered therapies for anything disruptive? For example, they've been blocking the caries vaccine for decades.

Same goes for myopia and crooked teeth.

I've asked my optometrists and orthodontists what cause these problems and just got shrugs and big bills.

Where's the disaster menu?

The only problem with YouTube is that it's not organized. It's not indexable or printable. Videos are on Google's servers - here today and gone tomorrow. Videos are GREAT for stuff that you can't put into text, and YouTube excels at getting info out there from people who aren't that good with computers :)

What I'm thinking is a real-life open-source "tech tree".

I love this! Is there a larger technologist wiki from which you can learn the principles of how to actually build everything from raw materials and generic tools?

Examples: casting iron, making blades, making paint, making plastics, making printer ink, making pharmaceuticals that actually work, etc.

It really seems that at this stage in the game we should be able to form "off-grid" villages that actually have a pretty good standard of living. Or is that all forbidden knowledge in this stage of our technological enslavation? ;)

Honestly, it was corruption. The FDA simply made the requirements for human trials so restrictive as to be impossible.

Life is a series of realizations that you were playing the wrong game.

Political theory: The study of how to maximize the knowledge of decision-makers while minimizing their conflict of interest.