Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

+ 1

It seems as though the software used to enforce SOPA takes China for example. Maybee not so extreme...

The whole idea is to prevent activists who disagree with government (military-industrial complex, financial sector, medical, tax code, etc, etc) policy from voicing their concerns and opinions in a free manner.
What we all need to do is just believe everything we hear and see on mainstream media, don't question a single thing and do whatever we are told. After all the government ALWAYS has our best interests at heart

I don't think it's about the Government at all, it's about corporations. Corporations are the ones pushing this, they are the ones with the big bucks that they figure they are losing... Government, especially in the US, are just the puppets having their strings pulled by the big $ backing them up.

The situation was put very well in something I heard recently, perhaps the link to the youtube video previously in this thread. The problem is not piracy and the means by which people are pirating, the problem is that the content suppliers are not keeping up with new means and methods of distribution.

If people could buy an electronic copy of a movie/album for a couple of bucks and download it straight away, people who currently pirate would do that... It's been shown to work well music, tv and movies are slowly catching up with movies on demand type services, but there's still a fair way to go yet..

I'm sorry EB but you are completely wrong, its a common misconception that corporations and capitalism is the cause of this and all the other problems going on, but it is not. It IS about government, more specifically the way politicians are allowed to have interests in companies. It the MONEY in politics that is the problem.

YES, the corporations are pushing this, but that is because they CAN. Its like blaming a child for being disobedient, a child will do the wrong thing if he can, however it is his PARENTS responsibility and fault if they keep letting him get away with it.

If politicians could not have business interests, (or accept money) especially in the areas that they are making legislation. Then this would not be possible !

Just like your online piracy example. Sure the corporations want protection from the government, so they try and get it. Yes the correct thing to do is to meet the market need correctly and thereby eliminate the need/desire for downloading illegal copies etc.

If the government were unable to provide this protection then the companies would be forced to do the right thing, as the free market requires.

Corporations, companies, small business always want to have an advantage over their competitors, that's the nature of business. If a politician offered extra tax incentives or some other protection to a company, of course they will say yes. So the problem isn't the business at all, its the government.

Of course, I'm completely wrong...

The government is guilty from the aspect of it allowing itself to be controlled and manipulated by large corporations. But the government has not come up with this idea of SOPA, this is corporations, why the hell would government care the slightest about IP issues, the corporations care and they are pushing and manipulating the government..

Both are corrupt and at fault and why we find these messes. I fail to see how you can claim that the corporations have no fault . Your idea is that corporations are only following down this path because government allows it to and so therefore it's all the governments fault, and if the government had no control over anything, then the corporate world would act with morals and ethics?

Who cares who comes up with the idea? Whats an idea without the means of implementation ?
Jealousy, greed and the desire to take out the competition are just human traits, and they can be used for good. But it will never be good if you have the government on your side.
Another example, the local baker has the IDEA that he get a law passed that only allows his bread to be legally consumed by the public...so what ? he can have all the ideas he like but that wont do him any good.
HOWEVER he manages to pay off enough politicians and lobby groups and he DOES succeed in making everyones bread except his own legal to buy.
So without the corruption of government his crazy greedy ideas are worthless.
Now say instead there were no powerful lobby groups and it wasn't possible to pay out corrupt politicians...
All this baker has at his disposal to become the biggest baker in town is just good 'ol entrepreneurship, making better bread, making it more efficiently, increasing his range of options, and better marketing.

Actually I didn't imply they had no fault, It seems you want business to always be nice generous entities that never take advantage and always do the right thing. This is not reality. I'm not saying its a good thing, it's just the way it is.

Yes! except corporations would not have the power they do now, and free unhindered competition from all players will keep the immoral ones in check.
Have a look at the business in a small outback town. Do you see any businesses doing the wrong thing? If you do then I garuntee that they would not be in business for very long. Without the government CONSUMERS are the ones with the control, they determine who is the most desirable to do business with, NOT the shady deals between business and corrupt politicians.

Isn't this a little like the idea of "it's cars that kill people not the driver" Yeah blame the car all you like but it was being driven...



You seem to be the one with the rose coloured glasses on , the corporate world on a national/international scale has nothing in common with a small country town and how shops might work in a small town, or a small time baker.



And as such, this is why there has to be some government control over capitalism.. Otherwise all the forests would be cut down, there wouldn't be any fish left in the ocean, the environment would be completely polluted.. How do these things get protected if there's no government intervention?



How does this work? How does a consumer know what's going on behind the scenes? They don't. Immoral dealings happen behind closed doors and no one knows anything about it to make educated decisions...

No it isn't. The driver is the company- OK- and the car is the government -hmmm... that analagy does not apply


Actually it has a lot in common. You are trying to apply a corrupt political corporate environment to this example. It is very hard to see what the world would be like otherwise. If you lived during the 1800s you would have a very different view of the world. There was much less legislation, a gold coin standard, a much less corrupt world.

This is where your understanding of TRUE capitalism in a free world with private property rights fails you. Any logging corporation who actually owned the land they were logging for timber would not just log it all and be done with it. They would HAVE to manage it sustainably, otherwise once the trees are gone they would go broke. And so if they DID go broke, the next company would come along and then operate sustainably so they DIDN'T go broke.
ALSO polution is a private property rights issue.
Unlike today in our corrupt world where the biggest bidder (for government protection) CAN and DOES polute the environment. Its ludicrous to say that the government is actually doing a good job at stopping the big polluters. Sometimes they do, but the BIGGEST polluters in the world get indemnity, and a slap on the wrist if they do something wrong. WHY ? follow the money..it always ends up in a politicians pocket.


First of all you need to see the world not as it is now (as i pointed out above)
The consumer will know, we have media, journalists, etc that find these things out. Also the companies that do the right thing will advertise and inform the public that they do things the right way. Today of course the mainstream media is totally owned by the same corporations, and the government makes it very hard for independent companies to actually report on REAL issues. The consumer also makes decisions on product quality and sourcing of ingredients or whatever. When a company advertises Free Range Eggs doesn't that pose the question "What is wrong with non-free range eggs?" Even if you didn't know anything about battery farming, the issue is raised.

It is very hard to apply REAL capitalism theory to a world that masquerades as capitalist but is so very corrupt (protected by the government).
The regulation that you believe should come from the government instead should come from the courts.
If you have ever read anything by Austrian Economists: Rothbard, Mises, Hayak(to some degree), and even todays writers such as Walter Block and Lew Rockwell I promise that you really will have a much better appreciation for the intricacies of how our CORRUPT capitalism operates today, and how more legislation is almost always a bad thing.

But the world isn't as it was 100 years ago.... We can't suddenly covert to a utopian society based on gold coins and small town businesses.

You say follow the money, and that it ends up in politicians pockets, why is that? Ahh, because the politicians are on the boards of the corporations or they are getting funding and kickbacks from the corporations. So in a way isn't it a chicken and egg thing...

Media and journalists will help control corporations and keep them honest? Aren't they just as open to the same corruption as governments?

So for me to try and understand this utopian society a little better perhaps it's best to focus on one area, pollution.
How is free capitalism going to stop corporations polluting? Yes things don't work well enough at the moment but only by strengthening legislations and controls on corporations and their polluting can you control it better (I know you'll be cringing at that statement)... I don't say that what we have at the moment works, it doesn't, but it can also be a lot worse. What do corporations currently do to get around the pollution control measures? Move production to countries with even less control. So how would a totally capitalist society control this, what feedback mechanisms are there that would come into play to save the environment?

The 1800's had railroad barrons, they were very corrupt. The 1800's was when the government paid $1,000 for toilet seats. Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906, coruption didn't just spring up in 1900.

Why are you saying utopian? I never mentioned the word, or implied any kind of utopia.
If you have listened/read anything Ron Paul who is currently running for president in the US, you will realise that gold as a currency (or any other commodity) is the only fair way to trade (prevents govt from creating/destroying currency) and that he fully intends to implement that if he gets elected. Utah has recently legalized gold and silver coins as currency and at least 10 other states have introduced similar legislation, but that's a different issue (well worth debating).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/utah-gold-standard-silver_n_865333.html
Under true non-corrupt capitalism small town business are EXACTLY like large corporations. The problem is most people don't know what that looks like. Its the corruption in politics that has allowed these corporations to become so big and powerful in the first place. Many of these corporations are so tied in the the government its hard to know where private begins and governement ends. Then there are the mutant half breeds like GSEs (government sponsored enterprises) like Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac, etc. These organisations were created for the purpose of removing real estate debt risk from the banks so every unemployed man and his dog could get a home loan. Which basically caused the US housing crisis.

I fully understand where your thinking is, but you just can't introduce enough effective legislation that will stop this behaviour. You would need to bring in thousands of new rules and regulations (presided over thousands more public servants = more tax) and still corporations will find new ways to get money to politicians. If it is not possible for the government to introduce rules on censoring the internet for example (because it is not their responsibility), then corporations would have no one to lobby and bribe to bring about this legislation. Problem solved.

Yes, but again this is because its the same people/groups who run the large corporations and are in government (or influence govt) that own the media. It's a great big interconnected corrupted mess that has slowly grown bigger and badder of many years.

This is a very common question when debating the present system vs a true market economy. I hope I can summon enough of what I have learnt to give you a proper answer.
Pollution is basically a private property issue. In this free market world we still have the courts system (private competing courts, no the govt run system we have now)
So upstream from your property is my property, and I start tipping oil into the creek and it gets all over your creek bank, and kill lots of fish etc.
So you take me to court, the court finds me guilty of infringing on your private property rights. And I get fined and/or made to fix the situation by rehabilitating the area etc. Of course this makes a precedent which is the incentive for others to not do the same thing.
The courts have the last say over issues such as these (as they should) not the government.

The difference with today is that in many cases mining companies etc are not punished (or not punished much) if they do this. And the people who are affected must bear the effects of the pollution.

You might be thinking what the big deal is about government having the last say and being the overall decider in how we live our lives.
I think the most important issue here is monopoly. The government has a total monopoly on the use of force. As a result we will see a steady erosion of our civil liberties and private property rights. This has been how governemnts have acted all throughout history. since even before the Roman empire, the state has always sought to increase its power, and therefore its taxes (and currency debauchery) until the people can no longer take it. Depressions, wars and civil unrest always follow. It continually happens throughout history, and this time is no different.

Utopia - no. But not getting screwed over - surely thats not too much to ask

Interesting article on internet censorship

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/megaupload-takedown-real-meaning

btw zerohedge is a great source of balanced ACTUAL news and articles, as opposed to the mainstream garbage we get fed on TV and in newspapers. Some stuff is full on trader type news, but lots of news for us normal people too

So more litigation is the key?

This sounds like a method invented by lawyers to make loads more money. What happens when there's a large corporation with dozens of well paid lawyers polluting onto some small holding poor guys property? He tries to take them to court, but his government (or wouldn't he even get one of these) supplied legal aid lawyer gets quashed by the huge lawyers of the corporation. He has no real rights, whoever can pay for the best lawyer wins.

Once again, that may seem to work fine in a small scale ideal world, hence my use of the word utopian previously. How does it work in situations where you have a huge corporation polluting into land or water not privately owned? Who is then there to sue the polluter?

Don't mean to be attacking or personally demeaning here SV, so please don't take it that way, I really just can't comprehend a some of the things you are suggesting.. I really am interested in what you say, but, I think from an almost completely opposite standpoint...

And one last question, are you from the US, just seems most things you bring up are based on US laws and politics?