yontherubicon

I typed in "It was a dark and stormy night" and didn't get any reference to Paul Clifford or Washington Irving.

I dig the project. I think it's cool. Would love to see it grow.

You know you can get the cloud implementation for free, right?

When you create a website, and it gets users, that's what you want, right? But now your massive number of users become a problem. You need to scale to handle the number of users.

Same thing with wealth creation. Too much wealth creation is the problem, the same way having too many users is the problem. It's a good problem. It's a problem you're delighted to have. But it is a problem, and one you have to solve.

Disclaimer: I have very little idea how to get SF to scale. I don't even live there.

Is it just me or is this terrible advice?

What?

Doctoral programs pay you through stipends. You shouldn't have to pay for any doctoral program, ever.

Sure, but emissions testing after you've got the car would be utterly useless.

>it pisses off trade partners who may not act as rationally as you expect

It forces trade partners to lower their own protections, resulting in freer trade than before. People respond to incentives.

>it might not be possible to manufacture an iPhone without cheap labour

Automation.

> Also manufacturing jobs are crap.

Manufacturing provided decent jobs for many American men feeding their families. Next you'll tell me that trucking is terrible and we should get rid of that too. Schumpterism is probably a necessary trait for ambitious people, but don't be cavalier about jobs that provide respectable livelihoods to normal people.

Is your country not sharing in the spoils? I'm not saying that offensive wars are moral, but it is in keeping with your duties to the group.

And certain offensive wars are for the common defense, usually against neighboring countries over scarce resources, or against other imperial powers.

Not what I'm referring to. I'm referring specifically to those who owned land and bore arms and were referred to as Citizens in Rome.

I find both the notions that conscription=slavery and that taxation=theft can only be held by someone who does not believe in any sort of duty or obligation to one's community, country, nation, or God, and that self-interest must necessarily be one's sole (or at least primary) motivating factor.

Was referring to the Romans. Perhaps I'm exaggerating.

My point is that military service is a responsibility, not a chore foisted upon us. If it were, we would be subjects. But we are not subjects, we are citizens.

All true. And yet still we have to grapple with the reality that our public square is in the private sector.

Citizenship has historically been defined by military service, in that you are not merely subject to the security apparatus of the state, but a part of it. Because you are a part of it, you have a say in it. It was the removal of the draft which necessarily removed the role of service from citizenship.

What do people who are not a part of the military care about non-intervention? There is a reason we viliify the draft-dodger who becomes a politician and sends others sons off to war.