Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Unlike Eric, I believe that there are things that the private sector does well.

Unlike who?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Unlike who?

Doesn't it suck when boomers put your name on their straw-man?

Originally Posted by Copperfield

The response to project proposals scale as much as they need to, which is to say it corresponds directly to the desire and willingness of the investors balanced against the quality of the pitch being made. If one wants, one can even show projects funded by enough people to fill a small city (the product in question is also open source). Ideas start small of course. Good ideas (and people with the means to communicate the good ideas) tend to scale right up to the point that they bump against areas dominated by force-of-government (laws, regulations, etc.). Crowd funding being a relatively new thing will no doubt follow this same trend. So I guess we have to ask you Bob; what is your threshold? When does voluntary cooperation stop being "naive" and start being a sign of an intelligent person? What's the number necessary for you to overcome your values lock? 50,000? 100,000? A million? I just want to know the number so it can be pointed out to you as an example when it happens (and it will).

Please note that I know such an example won't change your mind on the matter. I expect your own naivety will be particularly hard to overcome.

Things do change.

As most people in suburban Boston, I live in easy walking distance to an old town center that has been there since long before the automobile. In my youth it contained a couple of grocery stores, several shoe stores, several hardware stores, several fabric stores, several of most everything. These were for the most part 'ma and pop' privately owned and operated by the owner stores. They were not national franchises. As shopping for something unavailable in the town center required trolly or horse and buggy transport, there wasn't all that much that couldn't be found in the town center.

With the 1950s, automobiles, interstates and major shopping malls, the town center approach took a large hit. One travelled further and found more options. Many more of the stores became national franchises. Retail moved from ma and pop to being dominated by corporations. Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Best Buy might be said to take this to the extreme.

Or they might be another paradigm. Wal-Mart and Home Depot often prefer not to be in a mall, but to have their own locations with their own parking lots. They are bigger than big, and prefer not to play with others.

And Best Buy is under threat itself. Another generation of retail, based on the web, is coming of age. Amazon, E-bay, and Apple's on line retail might illustrate the step beyond brick and mortar stores. Why build, maintain, staff and stock buildings when one can get by with a warehouse, shipping department and web servers? One's customers can go look at the product in physical stores, then shop from home to get the cheaper on line prices.

And even web retail might come to be under threat. It is already beginning in realms where digital reproduction is possible, when one is selling ideas or art that can be distributed by net. If one is selling a novel, a song, a movie, one might use social media for world of mouth advertising and sell over the web without a big distributor taking a large chunk of the profits.

I have also seen a distinction made in fantasy novels and games. Humans are presented a basic and practical. Their goods, services and attitudes are presented as basic. They don't go beyond good enough. Elves, in contrast, have time enough and practice enough to go beyond basic to elegant. It is said that engineers should not deliberately seek to design to be beautiful, but if the result in the end is not beautiful, there is something basically at fault with the design. Thus, beauty and elegance might be the next step beyond basic and functional.

If so, Steve Jobs might have been an elf, Bill Gates a human. Howard Johnson would have been a human, while more modern national chain restaurants have to be run by elves to compete. I am starting to see a trend towards taking things to the next step. It might be self delusion. It may be that I like elves too much. Anyway, Wal Mart and Amazon seem human. A world where a small social network savvy providers of goods and services letting UPS and its competitors handle logistics might make for a more elven culture. I'd like to see it happen.

But right now, an awful lot of folks will head to Wal Mart or Home Depot to get anything one might possibly need.

[scorn] Humans! [/scorn]

And right now the humans in control of big retail can afford to buy politicians, the better to maintain their position in the food chain.

It may be that Big Retail is doomed, that a networked economy is inevitable, that even a corrupt political system can't save old distribution models. I don't know. I might hope so.

But some industries might better resist the new model. Economy of scale won't instantly poof vanish. Basic products might remain cheaper than elegant products. Some products might not be best shipped by UPS. Big Oil, defense and automobiles might be example industries where new retail models won't apply well, where control of the government through bribes / campaign gifts might be problematic.

Now, I'm not sure I've entirely addressed what you are saying. My historical perspective on how retail has been constantly shifting in response to transport technology might not be yours. I am ready to concede, or perhaps even insist, that economic and social trends are significantly shifting. At the same time, the shifts, no matter how significant in one realm or industry might not be so strong in other realms or industries.

I don't see politics or campaign finance being rendered irrelevant in the short term. While in some cases electronic infrastructure might easily trump physical infrastructure, leaving corporations that once seemed anchored on bedrock sinking in quicksand, it won't happen everywhere at once or with equal ease.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

So your scalabality argument is corect, but full of essential holes. Pretending that they will be filled by charity or by the for-profit sector in pursiut of other goals is, frankly, laughable, and I've yet to see any other option given that even has the pretense of working.

Holes like the ones the current system already has you mean. Hell you, along with a substantial number of members of this forum just spent the past 6 months incessantly whining about countless holes you believe exist in your country (see this thread for reference). The majority of that whining was spent engaged in an argument over which one of the appointed Man-Gods would magically fill the holes created by the other Man-God and single-handedly save your fading republic.

If laughable is your thing, take a look around. I know there is no shortage of pretenses already in the system-in-place that get a chuckle out of me.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Doesn't it suck when boomers put your name on their straw-man?

Yes, or even if they aren't boomers.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Holes like the ones the current system already has you mean. Hell you, along with a substantial number of members of this forum just spent the past 6 months incessantly whining about countless holes you believe exist in your country (see this thread for reference). The majority of that whining was spent engaged in an argument over which one of the appointed Man-Gods would magically fill the holes created by the other Man-God and single-handedly save your fading republic.

If laughable is your thing, take a look around. I know there is no shortage of pretenses already in the system-in-place that get a chuckle out of me.

The holes are all being dug by the same ones who oppose the public sector and want to privatize everything. They put holes in the roof so that things will trickle-down a little bit more. But funny, it seems that pain and recession trickle up through those holes instead.

22Signs That Voter Fraud Is Wildly Out Of Control And The Election Was A Sham

After what we have seen thisNovember, how is any American ever supposed to trust the integrity of ourelections ever again? There were over70,000 reports of voting problems on election day, and there are numerous eyewitnessesthat claim that they saw voting machines change votes for one candidate toanother candidate right in front of their eyes. In several of the swing states there were counties where the number ofregistered voters exceeded the total voting age population by a very widemargin. How in the world does thathappen? Some of the vote totals thatwere reported in some of the most important swing states were completely andtotally absurd, and yet we are just supposed to accept them on blind faith withoutever being able to ask any questions.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/arc...ion-was-a-sham

ElectionFraud? Obama Won More Than 99 Percent Of The Vote In More Than 100 OhioPrecincts

Barack Obama received more than99% of the vote in more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on electionday. In fact, there were a substantialnumber of precincts where Mitt Romney got exactly zero votes. So how in the world did this happen? Third world dictators don’t even get 99% ofthe vote.

Originally Posted by B Butler

Things do change.

As most people in suburban Boston, I live in easy walking distance to an old town center that has been there since long before the automobile. In my youth it contained a couple of grocery stores, several shoe stores, several hardware stores, several fabric stores, several of most everything. These were for the most part 'ma and pop' privately owned and operated by the owner stores. They were not national franchises. As shopping for something unavailable in the town center required trolly or horse and buggy transport, there wasn't all that much that couldn't be found in the town center.

With the 1950s, automobiles, interstates and major shopping malls, the town center approach took a large hit. One travelled further and found more options. Many more of the stores became national franchises. Retail moved from ma and pop to being dominated by corporations. Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Best Buy might be said to take this to the extreme.

As late as the 1960s one could find honest-to-God department stores in small towns in rural areas. Really-small -- at times with populations under 1000. The merchants, by then Lost or early-wave GI, were leading families of the community. The tax structure well into the 1950s and so called fair-trade laws that set rigid prices favored the survival of small-scale retailers of any kind. Beginning in the 1960s there were far easier ways in which to make a living as well as opportunities to get away from the soul-crushing world of the small town. Grandkids went to college and got professional jobs and abandoned the family business.

K-Mart beat such places by bringing in cheap imports that were not subject to Fair Trade laws. Retailing became a preserve for workers at the low end of desirability -- increasingly mindless. The idea that the distant owner of discount retailer had to be a member of the community never took hold.

Or they might be another paradigm. Wal*Mart and Home Depot often prefer not to be in a mall, but to have their own locations with their own parking lots. They are bigger than big, and prefer not to play with others.

As a rule there is little development around a Wal*Mart except for dollar stores (see what Wal*Mart rejected), predatory lenders, fast food places, low-end dine-in restaurants, maybe a gas station, and a tote-the-note car lot (the sort that offers "convenient weekly payments"). Wal*Mart creates a retailing slum.

And Best Buy is under threat itself. Another generation of retail, based on the web, is coming of age. Amazon, E-bay, and Apple's on line retail might illustrate the step beyond brick and mortar stores. Why build, maintain, staff and stock buildings when one can get by with a warehouse, shipping department and web servers? One's customers can go look at the product in physical stores, then shop from home to get the cheaper on line prices.

In good times, retailers depend upon impulse purchases. In bad times they can't. We are likely to see impulse shopping become a luxury -- and remain one. Such is trouble for shopping malls. [url=http://deadmalls.com/features.html]Such could be their ruin in a 4T[/quote].

And even web retail might come to be under threat. It is already beginning in realms where digital reproduction is possible, when one is selling ideas or art that can be distributed by net. If one is selling a novel, a song, a movie, one might use social media for world of mouth advertising and sell over the web without a big distributor taking a large chunk of the profits.

I have also seen a distinction made in fantasy novels and games. Humans are presented a basic and practical. Their goods, services and attitudes are presented as basic. They don't go beyond good enough. Elves, in contrast, have time enough and practice enough to go beyond basic to elegant. It is said that engineers should not deliberately seek to design to be beautiful, but if the result in the end is not beautiful, there is something basically at fault with the design. Thus, beauty and elegance might be the next step beyond basic and functional.

People revert to the 'basic and functional' in hard times. In good times, or among elites, ornamentation becomes a means of distinction. We don;t know what the character of the next unqualified 'good times' will be.

If so, Steve Jobs might have been an elf, Bill Gates a human. Howard Johnson would have been a human, while more modern national chain restaurants have to be run by elves to compete. I am starting to see a trend towards taking things to the next step. It might be self delusion. It may be that I like elves too much. Anyway, Wal Mart and Amazon seem human. A world where a small social network savvy providers of goods and services letting UPS and its competitors handle logistics might make for a more elven culture. I'd like to see it happen.

But right now, an awful lot of folks will head to Wal Mart or Home Depot to get anything one might possibly need.

[scorn] Humans! [/scorn]

And right now the humans in control of big retail can afford to buy politicians, the better to maintain their position in the food chain.

Hard times promote the "mass-man", someone willing to be herded like cattle and regimented like soldiers just to get the basics of life.They receive propaganda telling them to be grateful to the political and commercial leadership, maybe to some ecclesiastical authority, and accept their lot as the best of all possible worlds -- or else!

It may be that Big Retail is doomed, that a networked economy is inevitable, that even a corrupt political system can't save old distribution models. I don't know. I might hope so.

We may also be going into a time in which blatant consumerism is evidence not so much of economic success but instead of personal failure, much as obesity is a commonplace mark of poverty in America.

But some industries might better resist the new model. Economy of scale won't instantly ... vanish. Basic products might remain cheaper than elegant products. Some products might not be best shipped by UPS. Big Oil, defense and automobiles might be example industries where new retail models won't apply well, where control of the government through bribes / campaign gifts might be problematic.

In 2012 the giant corporations seemed to derive benefit from economies in scale in buying lobbyists and paying politicians usually of the Right. Seemed -- except to be realized in the alternative universe in which Mitt Romney is President and Richard Mourdock is Senator-Elect from Indiana. Many people were certain that such would happen.

I don't see politics or campaign finance being rendered irrelevant in the short term. While in some cases electronic infrastructure might easily trump physical infrastructure, leaving corporations that once seemed anchored on bedrock sinking in quicksand, it won't happen everywhere at once or with equal ease.

Authoritarian models peak in a 4T. Even in the conformist environment of a 1T, institutions must adapt to the legal formalities of the popular order.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Holes like the ones the current system already has you mean. Hell you, along with a substantial number of members of this forum just spent the past 6 months incessantly whining about countless holes you believe exist in your country (see this thread for reference). The majority of that whining was spent engaged in an argument over which one of the appointed Man-Gods would magically fill the holes created by the other Man-God and single-handedly save your fading republic.

If laughable is your thing, take a look around. I know there is no shortage of pretenses already in the system-in-place that get a chuckle out of me.

The solution to too many holes is not a model that contains even more of them. Public safetyh is still a public good and provided that way, because the alternatives do no and have never worked. The same applies to defense. I don't see infrastructure bing a private good either, so the world according to Galt is still the fantasy is always was, and is not likley to become reality in our lifetimes.

... and the Man-God thing is cure, but it doesn't apply either. Leaders are not the issue, unless they wish to move the paradigm to a new place and have the capacity to do so. Most don't.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

The solution to too many holes is not a model that contains even more of them. Public safetyh is still a public good and provided that way, because the alternatives do no and have never worked. The same applies to defense. I don't see infrastructure bing a private good either, so the world according to Galt is still the fantasy is always was, and is not likley to become reality in our lifetimes.

... and the Man-God thing is cure, but it doesn't apply either. Leaders are not the issue, unless they wish to move the paradigm to a new place and have the capacity to do so. Most don't.

And here is where you leap to conjecture. Not surprisingly, only politicians and bureaucrats promise worlds-without-holes. No one else really even tries to cut in on that monopoly. The real problem are that an awful lot of people believe that holes are always bad and that holes will be better filled in by someone else.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

And here is where you leap to conjecture. Not surprisingly, only politicians and bureaucrats promise worlds-without-holes. No one else really even tries to cut in on that monopoly. The real problem are that an awful lot of people believe that holes are always bad and that holes will be better filled in by someone else.

This all-or-nothing, black-or-white, up-or-down thinking is at the heart of magic pony land. I thought Xers where suppose to be hard-nose pragmatists.

Let's just take one set holes - infrastructure; boil it down to Interstate freeways. As far as I know, all those old dudes in the Senate don't actually go out and pour the concrete. And even with all of Obama's minions (i.e. federal workers), I don't think the Congress actually has them go out and pour the concrete.

No, instead what actually happens is that some feds issue contracts to private firms, the Treasury backs the contracts up by using keystrokes to credit the bank accounts of those private firms, and some other feds might go out and inspect the work but more likely they send some state/local govt employees out to do that (or, they hire other private firms to do that).

Now I don't know if you have any experience in building an interstate freeway, but one can imagine that there are millions of 'holes' both figuratively and literally to fill. The govt contracts out to get those holes filled by the private sector. That puts food on the table for millions of workers and allows you to drive to work without having to pay a toll every 100 feet.

I don't understand why folks can't get the need for the balance and revert to this us/them mentality.

I guess it's because I don't live in magic pony land.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Not surprisingly, only politicians and bureaucrats promise worlds-without-holes.

As Playwrite started to say but never actually said, this is an example of binary thinking in a context that requires scalar thinking instead. The question is not whether holes exist but how many of them there are under a given regimen.

Originally Posted by playwrite

This all-or-nothing, black-or-white, up-or-down thinking is at the heart of magic pony land. I thought Xers where suppose to be hard-nose pragmatists.

Let's just take one set holes - infrastructure; boil it down to Interstate freeways. As far as I know, all those old dudes in the Senate don't actually go out and pour the concrete. And even with all of Obama's minions (i.e. federal workers), I don't think the Congress actually has them go out and pour the concrete.

No, instead what actually happens is that some feds issue contracts to private firms, the Treasury backs the contracts up by using keystrokes to credit the bank accounts of those private firms, and some other feds might go out and inspect the work but more likely they send some state/local govt employees out to do that (or, they hire other private firms to do that).

Now I don't know if you have any experience in building an interstate freeway, but one can imagine that there are millions of 'holes' both figuratively and literally to fill. The govt contracts out to get those holes filled by the private sector. That puts food on the table for millions of workers and allows you to drive to work without having to pay a toll every 100 feet.

I don't understand why folks can't get the need for the balance and revert to this us/them mentality.

I guess it's because I don't live in magic pony land.

Yes because as we all know, it takes hundreds of politicians and thousands of bureaucrats just to build a road.

As we also know, only those hundreds of ordained politicians and thousands of bureaucrats are able to successfully create and build collaborative projects.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

As Playwrite started to say but never actually said, this is an example of binary thinking in a context that requires scalar thinking instead. The question is not whether holes exist but how many of them there are under a given regimen.

This is fine to say as a blanket statement without depth or detail. The assertion that a given system creates or corrects for more or fewer holes is where the conjecture comes in. No one has shown evidence of more holes or less holes, no one has identified what those holes are (generally speaking they are different among different systems) and no one has identified just how bad those holes are (what are the moral implications of the hole for instance). As an example, let's throw out an enormous hole in today's world: nuclear weapons.

Here we have a hole created solely by governments for governments to use to use to destroy other governments they don't like (and kill a bunch of other people in the process). That's a pretty big fucking hole Brian and it's getting wider and deeper even as we speak. One could suggest that societies built on cooperation with each other and other societies would have little need for such devices. The thought likely would never even occur to them. The thought did occur to several states however, and they spared no expense in digging that hole as quickly as possible.

So yes, life is full of holes. I personally tend to make decisions on a hole-by-hole basis. Some holes need to be filled and some holes can be safely walked around.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

This is fine to say as a blanket statement without depth or detail. The assertion that a given system creates or corrects for more or fewer holes is where the conjecture comes in.

Yeah, but when you're arguing for statelessness, you have to engage in such wild conjectures to make it plausible even on the surface that it's not so much like an uphill climb as like scaling a glass wall without a rope.

It's easy to point to problems like nuclear weapons that are the result of governments, but we have no reason to believe that civilized life without government is even possible and overwhelming reason to believe the contrary. So it isn't even as if we were choosing between two doable alternatives based on benefits of each; we are choosing between reality and pie-in-the-sky dreaming. And of course, once that choice (as if it even were a choice) is made, we are left with the choices as to what kind of governing structure to have and how to make it work for the people instead of for the privileged elite -- no easy task, granted, but a necessary one, as the option to do away with the whole thing does not, in reality, exist.

Unless of course what you're arguing for is not to live in civilization without a state but to go back to hunter-gatherer, under which conditions no state would be needed (or possible). Nuclear war might accomplish that, assuming it leaves any human beings alive. So perhaps the state is its own cure, but if so, it's a cure worse than the disease.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Yes because as we all know, it takes hundreds of politicians and thousands of bureaucrats just to build a road.

As we also know, only those hundreds of ordained politicians and thousands of bureaucrats are able to successfully create and build collaborative projects.

OK, a society has X amount of resources to build roads, there are 3 different areas that want a road and the society can only afford a road in one place, who decides who gets the road?

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Yes because as we all know, it takes hundreds of politicians and thousands of bureaucrats just to build a road.

As we also know, only those hundreds of ordained politicians and thousands of bureaucrats are able to successfully create and build collaborative projects.

Show us the interstate, freeway or similar highway that was built any other way? How much does it cost to use it?

The Dulles Greenway is one, though not the only one I'm sure. It only exists because a bunch of powerful interests were able to get it as a concession during the Reagan era. How does it fare with the locals? They hate it.

We can also return to the era of truly private roads for truly private uses - like Motor Parkway. Of course, we're a bit short of hyper-rich Vanderbilts at the moment, so we'll just have to make do.

Originally Posted by Odin

OK, a society has X amount of resources to build roads, there are 3 different areas that want a road and the society can only afford a road in one place, who decides who gets the road?

How about the people whio are willing to actually pay for it?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Show us the interstate, freeway or similar highway that was built any other way? How much does it cost to use it?

The Dulles Greenway is one, though not the only one I'm sure. It only exists because a bunch of powerful interests were able to get it as a concession during the Reagan era. How does it fare with the locals? They hate it.

We can also return to the era of truly private roads for truly private uses - like Motor Parkway. Of course, we're a bit short of hyper-rich Vanderbilts at the moment, so we'll just have to make do.

You forgot the Massachsetts Big Dig.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Show us the interstate, freeway or similar highway that was built any other way?

Good point. Private groupings -- even very large ones -- are generally either unable or unwilling to establish such massive subsidies to toxic and harmful industry. Particularly when the only way a cost-benefit even to the project in the small-scale (to say nothing of subsequent harms) can be made to come out on the plus side is by stealing stuff from its present owners.

...Oh, but was yours supposed to be an argument for public provision of infrastructure?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Good point. Private groupings -- even very large ones -- are generally either unable or unwilling to establish such massive subsidies to toxic and harmful industry. Particularly when the only way a cost-benefit even to the project in the small-scale (to say nothing of subsequent harms) can be made to come out on the plus side is by stealing stuff from its present owners.

...Oh, but was yours supposed to be an argument for public provision of infrastructure?

So what you're saying is that the interstate highways and other public projects that improve transport are a net harm. You would prefer to see no long-range transportation infrastructure, so that all commerce was, perforce, local.

Do I have that right?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

So what you're saying is that the interstate highways and other public projects that improve transport are a net harm. You would prefer to see no long-range transportation infrastructure, so that all commerce was, perforce, local.

Do I have that right?

You do not. What I pointed out was that the interstate highways (the specific example David used) have come at the cost of severe, but unquantified harm. Certainly a person who believes that carbon dioxide emissions are a source of significant global harm would not argue that measures taken to encourage their use in relatively more widespread, inefficient manner -- and the engender dependency on such use, society-wide -- are a Not-Good?

Long-range Transport / Interstate Highways.

---
-edit-
Even aside from the arguable CO2, there's also the undeniable heavy metals, NOx, hydrocarbon byproducts, etc, etc. Just, you know. That, too.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

How about the people whio are willing to actually pay for it?

What do you think taxes are? Oh, and let's suppose this road project is too big for any one community to pay for through local taxes.

That is how the first urban societies in Mesopotamia originated, The climate 4,000 year ago was drying out and villages united together under a common authority, their priests, to build irrigation structures.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

You forgot the Massachsetts Big Dig.

The Big Dig was not private.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Good point. Private groupings -- even very large ones -- are generally either unable or unwilling to establish such massive subsidies to toxic and harmful industry. Particularly when the only way a cost-benefit even to the project in the small-scale (to say nothing of subsequent harms) can be made to come out on the plus side is by stealing stuff from its present owners.

...Oh, but was yours supposed to be an argument for public provision of infrastructure?

So you're back to the goat trails through the woods. I guess that's OK if you like that sort of thing.