Re: Vengeance Libertarianism and Hot Black Chicks
Tim May wrote (and fairly cogently, I might add)... If a person thought he was not being paid enough, it was his option to go elsewhere, to start his own business, etc. If a business wanted to raise or lower prices, their option. Customers were free to purchase or not. This is an idealization, of course, and to the extent that it was true I agree with some of the main conclusions here. Another idealization is that, once in a while, someone will get caught in a downsizing or without a job for a while. Knowing that some small cushion existed allowed those with fairly minimal capital to take the kinds of risks implicit in what you're talking about. The meme which Tyler Durden and John Young--not surprising to me that both are Manhattanites, representing the East Coast view of capitalism--are popularizing is the one that says that what made companies successful was *government spending*, not this compact which needed little or no government role, and that this makes government intervention in business justifiable. Even more mendacious is the claim that those who worked hard and risked their capital by investing in companies are profiting at the expense of the less privileged. Well. I wasn't exactly trying to say that. At least, Intel was successful because the government gave it tax breaks..that's what I'm NOT saying. However, add my point above to the notion that the whole American social fabric probably can not be separated into small discete chunks, and you get my point. Or at least, the logic that compels one to conclude that the murder of 40 million African Americans is justifiable should somehow make one take those notions with a grain of salt. Intel or National Semiconductor doesn't and never did exist in a vacuum. They were started by great engineers and physicsts that were educated in places like Stanford, or that worked in Bell Labs. And this isn't an argument for tax-and-spend 'statism' per se, but simply that there's a social/political/economic environment that can't be diced and sliced. You'd dice and slice an African American population, but then again it's from these inner cities that much of popular American culture has arisen (ie, between pro sports, various forms of music and so on...). Who knows the impact these people have had in terms of providing 'content' for the chips and TV screens and so on. Am I therefore arguing that this justifies US tax policies? Hell no. I might bother trying if I thought $$$-towards-blacks amounted to anything more than mere mollification and storage. (Hell, my household probably pays more than the whole rest of the Cypherpunks list in annual taxes...including May, I'd bet.) No, blacks aren't the enemy. I'm not even convinced that the basic notion of the state is the enemy. But those who currently adminster the state and utilize it for various ends have morphed themselves, and (most likely) the American State into the defacto enemy that billions of people throughout the world are starting to resent. For that reason I'd like to cut out the cancer that eats my hard-earned resources and utlizes them to benefit a preselected few. -TD PS: Is there any comment that Mr May would like to profer on the issue of having been rejected by some hot black tail back in the day? (ie, aside from I'd like to see you are your infant children stripped of epidermis and dipped in seasalt) From: Tim May [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Vengeance Libertarianism and Hot Black Chicks Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:06:29 -0800 On Dec 31, 2003, at 10:51 AM, Tim May wrote: Add to that the fact that Mr May seems to lead a fairly bucolic life (from his accounts)...working in his gardens, installing tripwires and landmines and so forth, apparently without worrying about cash or physical needs. So this system has served him pretty well, insofar as there was a place for him to apply his skills in order to make his $$$. That system was payed for by somebody else's taxes, and now it's asking (well, demanding from) him for some $$$ that he apparently can easily afford. Nonsense. The chip companies were NOT payed for by somebody else's taxes. (Nor was the invention of the IC or the microprocessor paid for by DARPA or anyone else in government, despite factually incorrect lore to the contrary. I was there, at least for the onset of the micro, and I can say precisely what role government contracts played: none.) Engineers and scientists who work an estimated 8 months out of each year to pay their taxes (Federal plus state plus local plus payroll plus property plus sales plus.) see the minority layabouts working not one _day_ for their entitlements and benefits and social services. I'm going to elaborate on this point, as there seems to be a growing meme in the tech culture (especially amongst the anti-free trade, twentysomething, self-described geeks) that somehow government built or paid for technology
Re: Vengeance Libertarianism and Hot Black Chicks
On Dec 31, 2003, at 5:53 PM, Tyler Durden wrote: PS: Is there any comment that Mr May would like to profer on the issue of having been rejected by some hot black tail back in the day? (ie, aside from I'd like to see you are your infant children stripped of epidermis and dipped in seasalt) First, please stop including the entire message you are responding to, plus the parts you comment on. I dislike editing other people's sloppiness as much as I dislike paying for their breeding choices. Second, your comment above merits no response. --Tim May
Re: Vengeance Libertarianism and Hot Black Chicks
On Dec 31, 2003, at 9:27 AM, Tyler Durden wrote: Nowhere in Tim's spew is the recognition that the largest beneficiaries of government favoritism are corporations and wealthy individuals like himself, especially those associated with the greeders of the defense industry, rather the national security state. Yes...that's the thing I don't fully get. If we assume that Mr May made a big chunk of $$$ at Intel, isn't it rather naive of him to assume that the same system that helped make Intel the global $$$-generator it is isn't the same system that keeps black folks quiescent and so on? I think it's doubtful that Intel could have become what it is in any other country in the world. What's this nonsense about keeping black folks quiescent and so on/ I saw minorities practically float under the Golden Gate Bridge in inner tubes, coming from Vietnam. A few years after arriving, they were opening small shops and restaurants, then leading the way to opening screwdriver shops for building white box PCs. As with most past minorities--Irish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, etc.--they buckled down and worked their butts off, often living 5-10 to an apartment, saving for the day when they could buy their own house. Huge parts of Sunnyvale and Cupertino, to name just a few of the communities where this happened, became largely Asian during the 1980s. Meanwhile, the black folk kept listening to Rev. Jess Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton tell them that they were owed reparations, that they were owed a series of entitlements. No suprise that a large fraction of negro teens subscribe to the view that reading be for whitey. In fact, negroes have invented a whole series of insult terms for those who study too much, for those who break out of the field worker status: Uncle Toms, Oreos, etc. Imagine where the Asians would be if Asian kids who did well in science and math were taunted as race traitors? Today, Intel's engineering staff is about 75% minority, mostly Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Pakistanis, and assorted other minorities. More than half of all entering students at Berkeley, in all majors summed together, are Asian. At Intel, we had very, very, very few blacks apply for engineering jobs. I recall three of them, and one of them was from Sierra Leone, not the U.S. All three left after various problems of their own making. When I was interviewing candidates for engineering, I interviewed a bunch of Asians, about the same number of whites, and no negroes. Not by my choice, but because the negroes had largely ghettoized themselves into Black Studies, Sociology, and Yoruba/East African languages, or had not made it to graduation. There are no negroes in senior high tech positions at any of the companies I am in investor in for some very obvious reasons. Math be for whitey. Reading be for whitey. We be owed repa-ations for diskiminashun!! Add to that the fact that Mr May seems to lead a fairly bucolic life (from his accounts)...working in his gardens, installing tripwires and landmines and so forth, apparently without worrying about cash or physical needs. So this system has served him pretty well, insofar as there was a place for him to apply his skills in order to make his $$$. That system was payed for by somebody else's taxes, and now it's asking (well, demanding from) him for some $$$ that he apparently can easily afford. Nonsense. The chip companies were NOT payed for by somebody else's taxes. (Nor was the invention of the IC or the microprocessor paid for by DARPA or anyone else in government, despite factually incorrect lore to the contrary. I was there, at least for the onset of the micro, and I can say precisely what role government contracts played: none.) Engineers and scientists who work an estimated 8 months out of each year to pay their taxes (Federal plus state plus local plus payroll plus property plus sales plus.) see the minority layabouts working not one _day_ for their entitlements and benefits and social services. Do the math, unless you think math be for whitey. Therefore, any thought system that has as a corrollary ...and 40 million negros should die... should immediately be suspect of having been based on a foundation of non-mathematical muck, likely relating to penis envy and getting rejected by some hot black chick Mr May tried to date back in 1957 or whatever. You are contemptible. --Tim May
Re: Vengeance Libertarianism and Hot Black Chicks
On Dec 31, 2003, at 10:51 AM, Tim May wrote: Add to that the fact that Mr May seems to lead a fairly bucolic life (from his accounts)...working in his gardens, installing tripwires and landmines and so forth, apparently without worrying about cash or physical needs. So this system has served him pretty well, insofar as there was a place for him to apply his skills in order to make his $$$. That system was payed for by somebody else's taxes, and now it's asking (well, demanding from) him for some $$$ that he apparently can easily afford. Nonsense. The chip companies were NOT payed for by somebody else's taxes. (Nor was the invention of the IC or the microprocessor paid for by DARPA or anyone else in government, despite factually incorrect lore to the contrary. I was there, at least for the onset of the micro, and I can say precisely what role government contracts played: none.) Engineers and scientists who work an estimated 8 months out of each year to pay their taxes (Federal plus state plus local plus payroll plus property plus sales plus.) see the minority layabouts working not one _day_ for their entitlements and benefits and social services. I'm going to elaborate on this point, as there seems to be a growing meme in the tech culture (especially amongst the anti-free trade, twentysomething, self-described geeks) that somehow government built or paid for technology, business, high tech, etc. What built our system was essentially a _compact_, an agreement codified in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and even centuries of common law that a bunch of things would happen: -- that interference in the business choices of a business would be minimal -- that failing businesses would not be bailed out (and, indeed, none of the leading companies in 1850 last much beyond 1900, few in business in 1900 are still dominant, etc.) -- that owners, employers, etc. and their employees, customers, etc. would themselves negotiate wages, prices, benefits, etc., without a top-down order about who might be employed, at what rates, etc. (This of course began to change when the socialists assumed power in the 1930s, and then dramatically changed when the Great Society socialists assumed power in 1961. It then came to be seen as the role of government to set wages, to force businesses to deal with those they wished not to, to let debtors off without repaying debts or even having their kneecaps smashed, etc. This was the start of the Era of Entitlements, when some ethnic groups decided that reading be for whitey and that they would coast on freebies paid for by the suckas still working.) This compact, based essentially on voluntary interaction in trade, employment, and investment, worked quite well for many decades. This compact, this way of doing things which is usually called liberty or laissez faire, was not built by government...until relatively recent times the size of government was small and tax rates for most workers and investors were low. What made the system work was that the system largely worked on the non-initiation of force principle, which is what begets voluntary transactions. If a person thought he was not being paid enough, it was his option to go elsewhere, to start his own business, etc. If a business wanted to raise or lower prices, their option. Customers were free to purchase or not. The meme which Tyler Durden and John Young--not surprising to me that both are Manhattanites, representing the East Coast view of capitalism--are popularizing is the one that says that what made companies successful was *government spending*, not this compact which needed little or no government role, and that this makes government intervention in business justifiable. Even more mendacious is the claim that those who worked hard and risked their capital by investing in companies are profiting at the expense of the less privileged. You are successful because of the taxes paid by the less-privileged, so now it is right that you be taxed at high rates so that welfare benefits can be maintained. is the essential message here. This is hokum. Very few U.S. or even European and Asian businesses were built with public funds. Neither Sony nor Honda, two examples of post-war successes, were built by MITI (MITI, in fact, frequently criticized Sony and Honda for the courses they pursued...meanwhile MITI was funding the now-defunct TRON microprocessor and the Fifth Generation Computer, utterly missing out on workstations, PCs, modern microprocessors, CAD, routers, and the Internet). None of Intel's achievements, whether the first dynamic RAM (the 1101), the first EPROM, the first microprocessor, the first single board computer, the first, etc., was paid for by any kind of DARPA or DOD or government grant. In fact, the military was pissed off at us for not developing their kind of mil-spec components, for not bidding on military contracts. We made our
