patrick.net

Onvacation says

For people who spend hours every day talking on their cell phone, no doubt it is easy enough to remember how to turn it on and off. But, those of us who have a life to live, and work to do, cannot spend our time yakking it up with all and sundry. We may keep a cell phone on hand just for emergencies — and months can go by without using it, or a year or more in my case.

Why would anybody have a cell phone, pay a monthly bill for it, and only use in once ever couple of months?

Onvacation says

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Oh, apparently somebody who is 92 and still has money to burn.

He's living in the past, nearly nobody has a cell phone AND a land line. They have one or the other. He just doesn't realize this.

I've not had a land line in 30 years. I had to have a cell phone, so what was the point of having a land line?

In 2000, Skype was able to make free phone calls all over the United States, during that time, I didn't bother with a phone at all, I just used skype and logged in wherever I was at.

I'm actually considering getting rid of my phone again. I mean, I will have a phone, but no monthly payments, I'll just use wifi. I tend to do that in telegram and google voice anyhow.

I doubt I'll make it to Sowell's age, but if I do, there will be no concept of a "phone" at that point, at least as we have it now.

We really should get rid of them. Call somebody on Telegram/Skype/Google Voice/Whatever and compare the sound quality of that to a phone call. The phones are using ANCIENT technology from the 1980s. uLaw is OK for voice, but it's hardly as nice as just about anything else. People being born today will be looking at "phones" as being antiquated technology in just 20 years - like a 20 year old looks at a CRT television screen. It "works" but, why use that when what we have is so much better?

HeadSet says

richwicks says

ZipperTits says

Doubt he uses a computer, for example.

Of course he does. They've been around for a solid 40 years.

Mr Sowell could likely school you on the Osborne.

The Osborne computer? I'm sure he could!

I've never used one, and I've never even seen one or fired up a simulator of one.

I know people that know NOTHING about computers that own one.

richwicks says

I've not had a land line in 30 years. I had to have a cell phone, so what was the point of having a land line?

Same as me. The taxes on landlines were more than the cost of the service. Fuck them!

The man is catching on to cellphones, though. Planned obsolescence is getting vicious - as little as 2-3 years. At least landline phones could function perfectly fine for decades.

stereotomy says

richwicks says

I've not had a land line in 30 years. I had to have a cell phone, so what was the point of having a land line?

Same as me. The taxes on landlines were more than the cost of the service. Fuck them!

The man is catching on to cellphones, though. Planned obsolescence is getting vicious - as little as 2-3 years. At least landline phones could function perfectly fine for decades.

The planned obsolescence is coming to an end. They're going to keep pushing it, but we are rapidly approaching the point where we cannot improve anything and there will be a company that will step up and just provide a stock machine which you're going to use until it stops functioning.

We're so close now. I'm working on a machine that's around 7 or 8 years old. It's almost certainly more powerful than your machine that you're using now. I'll be able to use this until it stops working.

richwicks says

I'm actually considering getting rid of my phone again. I mean, I will have a phone, but no monthly payments, I'll just use wifi.

I would love to do that, but the catch there is getting driving directions, or getting contacted when you are en route to some event.

I did use to drive without phone directions, and actually kind of like paper maps. But the ability to tell people you're running late or for them to tell you something is cancelled or the location has been changed is pretty important.

richwicks says

He's living in the past, nearly nobody has a cell phone AND a land line.

Landline is bundled (whether you use it or not) with DSL and (most) fiber service.

Often power is substituted for on and all sorts of words or symbols are substituted for off.

This bothers me to no end. Icons with symbols on them that I have no idea what they refer to. I have to click and see what the result is and then commit that to memory instead of reading a simple word.

I get that they ship this same software to every country on Earth and don't want to have to translate words to every language, but they're doing that with the manuals anyways, and locales have been a thing with computers for over 30 years now, so it's not like it's much more effort for these billion dollar corporations to do.

I remember telling my daughter to hit the button with the "3 lines on it". And she says "oh, you mean the hamburger button?" I thought she was joking, but no, apparently that's what it's called.

It's kind of like learning Chinese. You just have to memorize all the symbols. I much prefer the alphabetic system.

A Chinese friend once asked me why the dictionary has pronunciations separate from spellings. His point was that we could just write with the pronunciations as given in the dictionary instead of inconsistent English spellings. He didn't want to memorize all the spellings, lol.

I replied that the varying spellings give you some additional info, like the difference between they're, their, and there. But he had a point for English, anyway. German, Spanish, and Italian spelling are pretty much phonetic.

ZipperTits says

Ceffer says

This guy is really genius in abstract thinking.

Patrick says

I would absolutely vote for Thomas Sowell as well.

He would not run if nominated and he would not serve if elected. He's a wise man.

Onvacation says

not run if nominated and he would not serve if elected

Anybody know who I was paraphrasing above?

Wow. Espousing facts and common sense is "owning the Libs."

cisTits says

richwicks says

He's living in the past, nearly nobody has a cell phone AND a land line. They have one or the other. He just doesn't realize this.

I do.

I said NEARLY nobody, some do. My parents do, they are in their 80's.

cisTits says

I use the number when I have to provide one on a firm. Spam callers hit that instead of either of our cell phones.

Well, it's only 5 bucks a month or so.

My parents have theirs because it's easier to have both my mom and dad on the line at the same time, and they ran a business off that number for a long time. It's not really a phone line either, it's a cell line that connects to standard phones. It's kind of neat in a way, when the power goes down, it's got a battery backup and will continue to run for several days - so it acts as a lifeline. That being said, it's a bit buggy.

I also have a land line. The wife wanted it because she wanted something that would work when the power went out. Oddly enough, my daughter bought a rotary phone at an antique shop, I plugged it in and it worked - even calling someone using that dial. I am surprised that touch tone copper still supports the old rotary system.

For "centuries?" I wonder if meant "for decades."

Sowell new book out:



https://a.co/d/1YpRjWu

PumpingRedheads says

Is this true? Is there some documented history of this?

GNL says

Is this true? Is there some documented history of this?

@GNL Yes, it's true. Easy to look up.

GNL says

Is this true? Is there some documented history of this?

Arab slaver/pirates terrorized shipping in the Mediterranean for hundreds of years, stealing cargo and selling crew and passengers into slavery. They raided coastal cities in Italy etc. kidnapping entire villages. The numbers over centuries was in the millions.

UkraineIsFucked says

The_Deplorable says

Saying the government is dependent on you is like saying the wolf is dependent on the sheep.

HeadSet says

"Saying the government is dependent on you is like saying the wolf is dependent on the sheep."

Only if you believe that the tail is wagging the dog.

HeadSet says

Saying the government is dependent on you is like saying the wolf is dependent on the sheep.

When people stop paying taxes, the government goes bye-bye pretty damn fast.

UkraineIsFucked says

HeadSet says

Saying the government is dependent on you is like saying the wolf is dependent on the sheep.

When people stop paying taxes, the government goes bye-bye pretty damn fast.

That is like the sheep telling the wolf "I forbid you to eat me." The wolf then helps himself to a few bites. In the same manner, people who refuse to pay taxes get their assets seized and jail time. Even the Amish pay taxes.

HeadSet says

That is like the sheep telling the wolf "I forbid you to eat me." The wolf then helps himself to a few bites. In the same manner, people who refuse to pay taxes get their assets seized and jail time. Even the Amish pay taxes.

Tax revenue receipts are dependent upon monetary velocity.

The more transactions that go on, especially between businesses, the more tax revenue is raised.

This is true for both VAT and corporate income tax.

Income taxes on individuals is likewise the cream on top of that.

Contrast that with property taxes that can only be taxed once per year.

This is why states like California go from having huge revenues one year and collapse in said revenue in the next.

This is why cities are far better tax revenue generators both in total $$$ and per capita $$$ than rural areas, with few exceptions (Permian Basin oil/gas fields or Black Hils gold mines).

Overall monetary velocity has been been falling the past 30 years, btw.

So, this is how people can stop or severely reduce overall taxes to the government. By reducing activity that lead to taxeable transactions. This will require a reduction in the hyperspecialization that our modern economy has become. But tech is developing that will make that possible. Both that and reducing cost of production a lot.

Simple example: Just by cutting down eating from home 50% per month, you are fucking with the government's tax revenue cow. Less revenue for restaurants = less taxes they pay. Employees get hours cut/not hired, so less taxes from them, top. Less sales taxes.

Sure, you are buying more groceries to help make up for SOME of that loss. But if you are saving the net savings - especially in the form of assets that don't get taxed (much) like land or gold, or (later) an eDrexler NanoFab - you are fucking this up.

This is why GDP growth is important. GDP is calculated by transactions. Difference betwen 3% vs 2% annual GDP growth is even a big ass deal.

So when we have localized homesteading of the kind not seen in 100 years, the era of Big Government will truly be fucked.

And that day is coming because of technology. Indeed, most of us will be forced into it.

So yes, the Amish pay taxes. But not as much as they would generate if they bought all their clothes at the store instead of making them themselves, ate at McDonald's instead of cooking for themselves or bought all kinds of shit on Amazon with internet service they would pay for but are not doing.

Wolf starves when the sheep doesn't produce enough lambs, dude.

UkraineIsFucked says

So, this is how people can stop or severely reduce overall taxes to the government. By reducing transactions.

That is like the sheep going on a starvation diet in order to get so skinny the wolf won't eat him.