[tossacct]

I think it is a good thing that individuals control their own money, and can choose to give it to whomever they want.

Can we agree that people with no money will starve to death unless they use violence to take food from someone, or the government uses violence to take food from someone on their behalf? The foodstamps of this great depression are equivalent to the soup lines of the old great depression: they prevent people from robbing, looting, and starving in the streets.

[yaix]

I don't know in the US, but here in Europe the gov't does not need to "use violence" for that. It is pretty much general consensus that people with no monies should get money (not "foodstamps") from the gov't, payed by our taxes, so they can live with dignity, independently of what the reason for their unemployment / poverty might be.

[vidarh]

When Americans use the "use violence" argument, your argument doesn't work as a response, I'm afraid.

It is a libertarian tactic of assuming that anything the government does they don't like is use of violence, except for government protection of artificial property rights which is somehow usually magically exempt.

[tossacct]

Just because naive libertarian polemicists use an argument doesn't make that argument incorrect.

>>>It is a libertarian tactic of assuming that anything the government does they don't like is use of violence, except for government protection of artificial property rights which is somehow usually magically exempt.

In my experience, libertarians universally agree with me when I say "artificial property rights are completely protected and propped up by the government's threat of violence". It is their favorite part of the how governments operate, because they do not recognize the benefits of collectivism (socialism, communism, prisoners dilemma, tragedy of the commons).

Notice how I have not told you anything about my personal political views.

[tossacct]

I agree that the governments typically don't need to "use violence". Do you agree that the "threat of violence" is sufficient?

I can't speak to Europe as a whole or the specific country you are from. In the US, you can be put in jail for non-payment of taxes. We have good old debtors' prisons. Also, if you are hungry and take food that does not "belong to you", there are certain criminal laws that can result in imprisonment. How do European governments deal with non-payment of taxes and the taking of food?

By the way, US "foodstamps" are now called "EBT" and you get a normal looking debit card that has certain restrictions on how it can be used (no buying shoes, only food ingredients).

[StavrosK]

Healthcare, too, and jobs, if possible. It's not working very well here in Greece, due to the economy, but we still try.

[sliverstorm]

I don't think anyone really objects to food stamps; rather, the expectation of a living wage for doing whatever suits your fancy.

[tossacct]

Agree for the current US, which is likely a large part of why they have food stamps, but no "living wage for doing whatever suits your fancy".

An argument could be made that much of the government funded research done at Bell Labs is worthless. An argument could be made that of the worthwhile things that have come out of this government research, transistors, lasers, and CCDs are the most far reaching (since transistors begat miniaturized electronics begat cell phones and computers begat the internet).

These government researchers were largely doing "whatever suited their fancy" and most of it was wasted effort and tax money. An argument could be made that the money and effort wasted was worth the amazing results.

[sliverstorm]

The government and by extension its citizens acknowledge and accept that most government funded research won't pan out. Important details that make this work:

1) Only a very small fraction of the population is doing government funded research. Large population supporting small research operations is sustainable.

2) The research is vetted on some level, and it is in a technical field. Technical research has an established history of paying dividends (even though it finds many dead-ends)

[tossacct]

I agree with your point 2).

I disagree with your point 1): very many Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and being supported by welfare initiatives such as unemployment, medicare, and food stamps. Some significant fraction could be employed doing basic research instead of sitting at home watching TV and looking for jobs that aren't being offered by corporations that are making more profits than ever through fractional reserve lending and bailouts.

An example of underemployment in our industry: there are very many individuals with government funded computer scientists with BS, MS, and PHD degrees, that are employed in lucrative positions as code monkeys and computer janitors. These people should be inventing the next UNIX and IPV8 and advanced networking algorithms and image recognition and self driving cars. I'm not educated on whether strong AI is a pipe dream or not but weak AI has helped with image recognition and encryption breaking and genetic learning and spam filtering and web searching.

I think your initial point that "citizens acknowledge and accept that most government funded research won't pan out" is highly highly controversial in the US among some democrats, republicans, and most libertarians. Many want to cut non-military blue-sky research completely. These people call themselves neo-conservatives, President George W. Bush was a champion of the ethos. Liberals and normal conservatives are a bit sneakier on their wishes to de-fund research.