snitko

Not sure I understand the question. Who is giving whom the contract? The idea is, if you don't like the laws your protection agency / law firm provides you with, you switch firms. And that way you have a lot more control under which set of laws you want to live.

You've got an excellent question and I've got an excellent answer for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkdEU_B4o It's a short video, but I highly recommend it to you (skip the first minute or so for a short historical intro). Please come back here and let me know if it answered your question. I also hope it doesn't just answer your question, but sets in your in a different mode for thinking, mode in which problems that seemed unsolvable can now be solved.

That's a statement, not an axiom, although it's taught as an axiom. Did you know that the US military is the biggest polluter? Who regulates it? If government can't regulate itself, what kind of regulation of private companies do you expect from it, when said private companies have money to bribe it?

In reality, what regulation comes down to in 90% of the cases is just granting monopoly rights and artificially increasing barrier for entry. That is all. Give me any example of a good (in your opinion) regulation and I will almost certainly find how it works to the benefit of a small group of people.

> The biggest defect is that government officials cannot be held responsible for their mismanagement and thus have no incentive to not screw up

Precisely.

> First, getting elected to an office and office in general has to stop being about who gets the most money and money/favors must be eradicated from lobbying totally. Second, voters must stop treating elected persons as if they're replacement monarchs.

My argument is that you should show a reliable mechanism of how we can elect the right people first. If you can't show the mechanism, I'm defaulting to the assumption that politicians will always be incentivized to be corrupt. And I'd argue that there is no such mechanism, because lying to people will always be easier and more profitable than telling the truth, and so only liars will get elected. In fact, that's the difference between a businessman and a politician: a businessman has to provide a service or product first, then he gets paid. A politician just promises things to get elected and then is in no way legally bound to keep the promises.

And you can't just say "we should...". I think we should all not work and just chill and enjoy life. If I find out a reliable way to replicate that, I'll be the first to share.

> The spending of taxes is broken and sadly you cannot hold anybody accountable.

And it will stay this way. How do you expect government to behave when they spend somebody else's money (taxpayers) on somebody else (government employees and subcontractors) (see Milton Fridman "4 ways to spend money) and are not accountable for any of it?

>5, 6) The guy who doesn't want to work but gamble or waste his life leading an unhealthy lifestyle won't magically become a productive member of society. He will find other ways to use but not contribute. Some might argue that by supporting him to survive one prevents a worse fate for him and the society.

Not convinced. If the majority agrees with you, but I disagree, does it mean you have the right for the chunk of my money that will go into financing those things? I'd say no, you don't have that moral right, even though the majority agrees with you.

Do you have to insert coins into your smartphone every time you call someone these days? And yet it's almost impossible to live without a smartphone today, so people buy them and pay for the plans. But, but, they do have a choice of which operator to use (and, frankly, US is the worst example here, Europe/Asia is much less regulated in this respect, so it's cheaper and simpler there). Do you see where I'm going with this example?

Yes, I only want to pay for things which I use. And have a choice of, for example, which school to send my kids to (if any) without having to pay the same price. I want things provided on the market, which generally makes them cheaper, not more expensive. Almost any example of a market you take, where government once heavily regulated or provided a product or service, but then deregulated it and invited private companies to fill in - you will find that the price fell and quality rose, giving more people (not less) access to the said service or product.

I don't want to pay for: 1) wars 2) torture 3) police abuse 4) government mismanagement 5) that guy who has no job and has a gambling addiction 6) that guy who smokes 3 packs a day and demands free healthcare 7) politicians flying big jets and employing goons with guns to protect them.

When you say "you don't trust Apple" it doesn't matter. Apple made its money honestly. It didn't steal from or rob anyone. More importantly, simply because Apple made so much money, it must mean it knows damn well how to invest it.

Nothing can be further from the truth. You don't have to go too far for the example. Cigarettes in prisons are used as money. People use all sorts of things as money. State wants to control it because it wants to collect some of the value produced by other people. That is all. Bitcoin is about not giving states these powers.

The real problem is absence of the market mechanism in law enforcement. A police officer, even though I basically am paying his salary, isn't working for me. He's working for the state. I can't hire another protection service and stop paying to the police. I can't complain. Hell, I can't even change laws that I don't like (except through a very long political process which is unlikely to give me any results in any meaningful timeframe).

What you should be thinking is, not how to make a government better, but how to make it less dangerous and influential.

I'm not concerned with corruption. It's a different side of coin. What happens in the US or in Europe is that if you need stuff done or if you need to win in court, you hire expensive lobbyists or lawyers. Either way, you spend money. It is practically the same, but legalized, so that you can say "oh, but this is civil". No it's not. It's still a government monopoly on doing stuff. Government should have no business telling people how to run a business or live their lives.

When you point out to them how internet or cellphone networks or taxis or a number of other things is actually cheaper in Russia (or in eastern Europe in general) because of the lack of regulations or government interference, they go in denial. People in Europe and even in the US are so much more brainwashed into believing they need a state that it's painful to even start conversations with them. The most notable case just happened in Finland, where reportedly the police asked citizens to rat on pizza places who sell pizza for less than 6.5 EUR because the government believes a place selling pizzas for less cannot be profitable. In my book, that's almost what a communist state with price controls looks like.

I'd like my kids to grow up in Russia. I like it that, at least when it comes to personal income, the tax rate is 13% (although fundamentally, I believe there should be no taxation). I like it that I have more freedom here than in Europe or the US. The only thing I don't like is the government of any kind telling me or my family what products or services I can use and for how much. Unfortunately that happens in many other countries too and especially so in Europe or the US.

Required skills:

- Javascript

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- basic Linux CLI skills

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- Bonus points for knowing Python & Django

This is a remote fulltime job, we are looking for someone who can start working right away and contribute significantly to a project currently in active pre-release phase of development. We have free hours and a distributed team. It is very important that you are fluent with Angular and can solve problems effectively and fast.

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If you’re interested, please contact me at roman dot snitko at mycelium dot com to set up an interview.

I am yet to meet a single person complaining that this is bad. There is no increase in road accidents. The service is great. The drivers are very polite and are always on time. One must wonder, how can you be so blind to an obvious example of free market at work?

Basically, what happened is that one small group of people sold everyone else into debt bondage. They had no moral right whatsoever to do so. Now these people lost their savings and face a daunting prospect of shortages and hardships. Call it democracy, but really it's just a crime. Perhaps it's time to rethink what role should governments play in our lives, if any.

It's the same thing. If you don't have enough money in the bank to make creditors whole, you print more (thus devaluing what everybody has). If you can't print, you cut their deposits. Either way, creditors are robbed. There is no magical solution here. Mathematics cannot be amended at will of any government.

If you spend more than you earn, someone somewhere someday is paying for it. And the longer you conceal that truth, the harder it is going to hit.

I don't think anyone with a straight face can now say that democracy is the best solution to running our society, when it, in fact, leads to the situation in which half the population (the ones who vote for the policy) unknowingly oblige the other half (and themselves) to lose their money. This situation is not an exception. This is what's going to happen sooner or later to every other country which has a substantial debt. You can't spend more than you earn without consequences.