Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Actually its pretty simple logic.
Sure it is different to what you are used to, but that doesn't mean we can't have a good conversation about it and discuss it's merits and flaws.
If you think something is being oversimplified then lets discuss that in detail

As far as relevancy goes, the issues that affect our personal wealth and ability to purchase consumer items, and things that affect our business ventures are far more relevant to aquaponics than the latest joke we heard, the operation of a bedini motor or pictures of the new Holden ute we just purchased.

I have nothing against any of those threads, but if you want to debate relevancy then we can

Ron Paul, the voice of reason?!?!?!?

excuse me... i can't help chuckling..

In defense of SV, this thread does have some relevancy to Aquaponics. Regulations can be a double edged sword, and sometimes the people wielding said sword may have interests in keeping food production away from home. While I do not agree with SV on quite a few political points, it is important that we prevent any regulations that would prevent us from growing our own food, while fostering regulations that keep dangerous foods out of our food chain. (I.e anything patented by Monsanto.) If everyone would keep an awareness of what kind of laws are trying to be passed, people can stop corrupt businesses from pushing our elected officials into voting in bad legislation. The beauty of democracy is that people get to participate. The ugly side is that if people do not participate, someone else will!

Monsanto gives consumers what they want in an efficient manner; that is why they are the largest, best company. Why are you denigrating good and successful capitalists, RM?

I guess you are just being sarcastic ?

Monsanto does not represent capitalism in any way. How many politicians do they "own" ?

The power of the big companies is directly proportional to the power of the government that they lobby.

Thanks Ronmaggi. Yes I believe that we need to stay aware of these issues and talk/debate/argue them. This either makes us see what others think and start change our minds, or reconfirms what we believe in.

The debate can continue only if it becomes an actual factual debate, and not just a political platform blindly pushing to convert people to a particular idea, which is what it has become. I don't encourage pushing of any belief systems on this forum, whether they be political or religious. Of course you claim it to be relevant and important, just as someone with a particular religious belief may consider it just as, if not more important to tell everyone about their belief system.

The whole premise of your debate is based on "middle america", yet you are trying to apply it to every situation, of every person in every country and that just doesn't work.. What is it with this mentality of "I deserve, I want, I have the right." Most of the world lives with little to no rights, and very few choices in life if any. Yet, the wealthy middle class, still want to sing out "I want more..." And how will this ultimately come about? By taking an even larger piece of the pie, by taking even more from those with no choices and no rights..

Anyone watch the doco on global obesity last night? Is this not the results of unrestrained capitalism at it's best? Developing nations facing massive problems of obesity and related diseases while the giant food companies, nestle, coke, kraft, etc are on big pushes through the developing nations, schools are practically sponsored by coca cola.. Nestle has large floating "chocolate supermarkets", that go up the rivers selling their chocolates and biscuits etc, to people too far out to buy their products. Nestle trains people to offer dietary advice to families, they walk the streets knocking door to door under the guise of nutritional advice, they recommend and sell the locals nestle product packs of biscuits and chocolate.

In these places the corporations come across few if any regulations, they are taking advantage of the poorer uneducated population and causing a massive health crisis. But this is ok by libertarian ideals, this is free market at it's best.

Like I say, if you escape the middle class developed world and look at real world implications for the majority of the worlds population, such policies or rather lack of policies, just don't work. It's a cheap and easy motivation playing the "who hates government, who hates taxes, who hates laws and regulations" game, much like any tabloid media.

So you want to pick a subject and get to the bottom of how it might work, pick that one..

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-24/o ... ld/4133126



By libertarian ideals, that's fine, the government should not do anything about it....

It might be difficult define a "factual debate" when we disagree on the facts

I think most people who read the thread will not agree with this.. it's an opinion, not a fact.

Anyway, is there a single thread in the entire internet of forums where all participants agree it is a 100% factual debate ? All the AP threads are over differences in opinions and experiences.

The whole premise of your debate is based on "middle america", yet you are trying to apply it to every situation, of every person in every country and that just doesn't work.. What is it with this mentality of "I deserve, I want, I have the right." Most of the world lives with little to no rights, and very few choices in life if any. Yet, the wealthy middle class, still want to sing out "I want more..." And how will this ultimately come about? By taking an even larger piece of the pie, by taking even more from those with no choices and no rights..


I don't know, have you spent the time distilling down the political and economic situation in the countries to determine the level of government corruption? Because without doing that you can't say (as a fact) that it is the result of this. It is certainly easy for the left to blame capitalism for everything but we really need to dig a bit deeper to have an honest debate.

I'm interested to know what your solution to this is. Is it similar to New York's soda ban? Is it some kind of regulation that stops companies selling goods to the people. I'm just wondering how this will be administered.


I want to respond to this but after the above questions are answered...

Like I say, if you escape the middle class developed world and look at real world implications for the majority of the worlds population, such policies or rather lack of policies, just don't work. It's a cheap and easy motivation playing the "who hates government, who hates taxes, who hates laws and regulations" game, much like any tabloid media.

So you want to pick a subject and get to the bottom of how it might work, pick that one..

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-24/o ... ld/4133126[/quote]
Great, I'm keen to talk about this subject.
So what exactly do you feel the issue is. Is it that everyone is getting fat or that just 3rd world countries are getting fat?
Also I assume you are blaming fast food/confectionary companies for this? If you are does that apply just in poor countries or in all countries ?

[/quote]By libertarian ideals, that's fine, the government should not do anything about it.... [/quote]
Ill comment on this as we sort out the above issues.

Why is there government corruption? These corporations are in there making a killing doing good business, why does government corruption come into it?

You'll respond only when I have answered your questions first? I'm not jumping through hoops for you to play games.

You might be hard pressed to find a government with no corruption
To answer your question "why" though..
Because people can be influenced by money. Yes business can be corrupt too, but business is subject to its customers, a business does not exist without serving its customers. This means it must provide useful goods or services.
Governments however are very different. Government is defined by having monopoly over aggression legitimised by the people.

Anyway the reason I brought that up is because I am unaware if the corporations selling this stuff are doing anything illegal and not being brought to justice by the govt. Is the corporation paying politicians/police to force certain conditions on the people. These questions we should always ask.
I am not saying this is the case of course! I am merely asking the questions that need to be asked. If these companies are behaving lawfully then we can move on to discuss the ethics.


Well I am the only one really arguing the libertarian position so why is it too much to ask that I be allowed to present my case in a certain way ?
We need to follow a linear step by step line of reasoning so we can fairly address each point. Jumping around between different arguments is not helpful.
So please, humour me and answer the questions

I don't know, but this is beside the point. Under a libertarian rule the government can't do anything to help address the health problems of the people of their nation.

One might reasonably assume, at least for the sake of this argument, that the companies are doing nothing illegal in their sales. Not that I comprehend how this has anything to do with it.



This was in 2007, 1 in 10 people had diabetes.

So under a libertarian ideal, what would happen? How can these shocking figures be remedied for the population of the country? Government can't do anything..

Well from SV argument... that nobody should harm anybody else... then surely it could be argued that various corporations are doing harm to others...

And by his same arguement... people collectively... have a right to impose restrictions, or bans on this sort of corporation harm...

By definition, even if not by reality... the people's collective voice could be said to be government...

So government, on behalf of the "people" has every right to place restrictions on corporations... or even people for that matter...

And many "laws" are "pre-faced" on exactly that premise...

the only other alternative... would be unfettered anarchy...

Yeah, that's where it just kind of all falls apart from what I can see...

To me the ideals of libertarianism seem to be the epitome of selfishness, or more precisely "self". Community as such, doesn't exist. It's a world centred around "self" and business.

I was hoping to pit the libertarian solutions against your(whatever the accurate description of your political standing is) solutions. It might be easy to find faults in my solutions on their own, but it would be more useful to compare them with respect to the regulation standpoint.

Ok, we will run with that. It is important because with the backing of a corrupt government, corporations can force (in the libertarian sense) people into situations against their will.



One of the questions was if this only applies to 3rd world or everywhere. I will just assume we can apply this to any country including Australia. But we can focus on particular issues with Mexico/poor countries if you like (if there are any)

As you were suggesting, my view is that the government should do nothing (if it is helping the companies in any way whatsoever, then obvously it should stop doing that too)

I believe people are responsible for themselves. If I want to sit in the corner and drink 50L of coke per day then that is my problem. Why does somone else have the right to make me do (or not do) something? Libertarians reject all agression against someones private property and a persons body is included in their private property.

As we assumed above, the companies are not doing anything illegal. The people are exercising their free choice and clearly making poor decisions about what they put into their bodies.
A question that comes to mind is what can the government do ? Create a law that prohibits a certain number of calories? or just kick the companies out of the country?
But where do you stop this? Kick out ALL comanies selling "junk food" ? junk food by whose standards? One persons junk food is not anothers. One person might want to eat one mars bar per day, another might want one mars bar per month. As soon as you draw the line somewhere you are taking away from some for the "benefit" (in whos opinion?) of others.
Do you kick out just soft drink companies? Juices today are high in sugar so we have to kick them out too. Do we stop sugar as well?
How can group of people (experts/bureaucrats/officials) make the correct choices for others ?

Should we have a cake tax in Australia? or sugar rations? Sure it might help people become healthier, but at what cost of freedom?
Not to mention the extraordinary costs of policing these new regulations, this money has to come from somewhere..

In Australia we also obviously have obesity problems that are not going away. Personally I enjoy eating healthy and exercising. I know many other people who have made the choice to have a healthy lifestyle. I also know plenty of other people who have chosen to eat bucketloads of terrible food. Their health and body clearly show they consequences of their actions. They are totally responsible for their condition, especially today more than ever. Informaton is so much more available to everyone in the world. Even in the 3rd world most people have a mobile phone and internet connectivity is rapidly on the rise. People today have better access to information about healthy lifestyle choices than ever in our history.
However people have better access to junk food as well. It is their choice for a healthy lifestyle or an unhealthy lifestyle.
I really don't believe that someone can be convinced that a mars bar and coke is good for you, especially in the long term. Maybe once, maybe twice but people are not stupid. People know when they have been eating bad food, they don't feel good. People know when they eat good food, they feel better.

Prohibition also creates a whole host of problems itself. Prohibition of alcohol in the '40s was an absolute disaster. When something is made illegal or even restricted the supply and demand balance is heavily tipped. So in the '40s supply of alcohol became very low and so drove prices through the roof. The profits of providing bootlegged alcohol are what caused the gangs (Al Capone) to form. There was mass gang related violence, quality of the alcohol was also very poor. After prohibition was lifted, the alcohol related violence virtually disappeared.

Your getting side tracked.....

Can you explain this argument? Im not sure exactly what you mean.
No one has the right to aggress against another or their property (non aggression principle)


No, I don't understand how you came to this conclusion, please explain


Government is more than this, see previous post


In no way, under any circumstances is this true or implied in any way.

And many "laws" are "pre-faced" on exactly that premise...

the only other alternative... would be unfettered anarchy...[/quote]
Im not sure if you are using the correct definition of anarchy.
Did you mean "running around with flaming torches" because without the govt people would somehow be rendered incapable of maintaining a civil society ?