No borders, so yes, they would necessarily overlap physically. In more sparsely populated areas, of course, you'd likely find most people (and thus, their private property) falling under only a handful of different jurisdictions, and so mostly resembling counties/states as we have today.
But jurisdiction in cases between two or more parties who subscribe to different states/clans/legal systems could be determined in any number of ways:
- by (most commonly, I'd expect) arrangements and treaties between the most prominent/populous states;
- by having largely mutual sets of common law to begin with;
- by smaller states having statutes deferring to others' laws except in particular types of cases (a sort of inheritance system, allowing smaller states to mirror the laws of larger states which have existing treaties and case law);
- by arbitration through mutually agreed-upon services, or the federal arbitration service;
- or even by federal statute, in Constitutional cases, human rights cases, and cases against states/clans themselves.
Yes, inter-state law could in many situations become extremely complex, particularly in metropolitan areas with diverse populations; however, the low barrier to entry for states and the fluidity with which a person could change their affiliation would allow legal systems to evolve at such a rapid pace that overcomplicated, unjust, or murky bodies of law would be weeded out or refined by actually having to compete with the creation of simpler and fairer ones -- a process that politics today seems designed to avoid entirely.
As a self-described anarcho-capitalist, I have to say that most such theories of privately-owned and -operated courts and police that I see thrown about on the internet are terrible, extraordinarily simplistic systems that just make us all look like naive utopians.
To my mind, a much more sensible system would resemble the federalized structure we have now in the States, only without physical/territorial borders preventing an individual's migration from one jurisdiction to another, and without any considerable barriers to entry for emergent States.
Essentially, a minimal and immutable Constitution with a federal registry of member states and arbitration services -- member states which any group of people may establish on their own, and to which any individual may freely subscribe (or renounce); arbitration services publicly listed, from which the member states (and individuals) could select ordered preferences for, with a Federal arbitration council as a final fall-back option, should no parties have coincident arbitration services on their lists.
My notion of anarchism is not that it is against laws or the establishment of governments, only against compulsory subscription and subjugation to them. Removal of territorial borders as the basis for what constitutes a "State" and allowing a free market in decentralized legal systems to arise, under controlled conditions that provide rules and means for these budding governments to interact and cooperate with each other within a larger scope of law, is the only way any stable form of anarchism could ever occur.
tl;dr As an AnCap, I support a federalized breed of constitional clan politics, NOT Rent-A-Cops and Kangaroo Courts.
A quick and dirty workaround for fellow netbook users -- enter this into the URL bar (too lazy/disinterested to bother with a greasemonkey script just now).
A profoundly unrealistic tax law that, even if it were feasible, most people wouldn't have even tried to obey, anyway?
It would have only served to underscore just how out of touch the political class is, and to remind Americans that priority #1 is squeezing us for every cent possible without causing a riot. With the right spin from the smaller government crowd, perhaps, if it had lasted, it would have done more good than ill?
I guess I'm among the minority, though, in preferring more rapid oppression to the baby steps that our government is so good at. The boiling frog, etc.
(I.A.NOT.A.Dietician/Nutritionalist, so more lay/anecdotal/armchair discussion follows)
I've had the same problems in trying to sort out truth and nonsense, so I just try to maintain an elementary understanding of the basic components of our diets and experiment. List the fundamentals of human nutrition and spend a day on wikipedia taking notes on what we do know. My rules:
1. Know my calorie requirements. How many to maintain current weight, to lose weight, to gain weight?
2. Pay attention to calorie ratios - Protein/Carbs/Fats. Am I working out this week? Anaerobic or aerobic? Do I have extra energy stores right now? What am I burning and what am I storing?
3. Protein quality & diversity of protein sources. Highly bio-available proteins? Simple or complex carbs, high or low GI? Saturated, mono-, or poly-unsaturated fats? No trans fat.
4. Vitamins and minerals. Where are the major gaps in my diet?
5. As little processed food as possible.
There's plenty of information out there on these things. Do your own research. Every week learn exactly what is in one particular food. See what works for you, then eat what you're knowledgeable about and what makes you feel right.
I always thought that the market was created by two people engaging in a voluntary exchange of goods and services.
I'm not 100% sure about the "laws are created by politicians" bit, either, seeing as most politicians scarcely even read most legislation, much less understand it. Although I suppose you did qualify that as the way things should work.
Cool. Slightly off-topic, re: John Conway -- Some tangential wiki-ing led me to (what I think is) the even more interesting Look-and-say sequence & Conway's cosmological theorem:
Problems common to most of us, I think, though I can't say I've ever framed them as a matter of adulthood so much as a matter of motivation. Having something to look forward to, something that feels like a net gain to one's subconscious cost/benefit analysis, is probably the most important factor when it comes to deciding whether or not to get out of bed in the morning.
"without the ability to buy lottery tickets, [these people] would feel they have no possible way to become fabulously wealthy. ... For these people, there's no sense of hope for breaking out of where they are, and the absence of hope is very painful."
Which leads me to wonder, if they didn't have that ability to hope, and lives were more painful because of it, what might they otherwise do to try and improve their lot?
I.e., what is the true opportunity cost of the lottery -- not just in financial terms, but in terms of the future? More than anything, the lottery has always seemed to me like another ingenious way for the powerful to placate the doomed, and at their own expense.
Hm. I am certainly no economist, but I'm still not 100% sure that I have any logical reason to agree that "it should prove good for the EU" for the EU+IMF to "bailout the problem states", or even that "it was in America's best interest to bail out the banks"...
You say that "by bailing out Greece and demanding significant austerity measures, they are attempting to contain it locally", but doesn't the process of a group of nations bailing out a member nation (or, likewise, any multinational corporation), by definition, extend the problem beyond local/intra-national economics? Especially when a currency is shared among many disparate nations? What happens if/when a nation such as Greece decides that adhering to the Euro is more trouble than it is worth?
The idea of a "a bitter, deep, cleansing period" I can get on board with -- most nations seem to be due for a fundamental economic/structural revaluation -- but like you said, not bailing out Greece could have dire 'domino' consequences, and doesn't leave much of a choice. But then, when Greece is bailed out, a nasty precedent is set, and what reputation/value will the Euro have when Spain or Portugal inevitably start to experience these very same issues?
So, I guess I return to my original question: is it at all possible for Greece to play the "tank" and absorb most of the serious economic fallout from the present situation, or are the Greeks the canary in the global coal mine? Or am I presenting a false dichotomy?
Also, you suggest in another comment that printing their own money would be a worse scenario for Greece -- why? Many countries do so, and I'd suggest that most of those countries have "profligate governments", but as far as I can tell aren't facing these obstacles to quite the same extent.
Excellent comment, one of the most informative so far ITT. I realize that this borders on fortune-telling, but you seem to have a decent grasp on the situation, and you say RE: bailing out Greece that "it really is damned if you do, damned if you don't", so I'd like to ask -- in your personal opinion, what impact do you see this (the impending collapse of the Euro) having internationally over the coming decade?
In other words, is this necessarily the beginning of a chain reaction, or is there, in your opinion, some route by which the effects of Greece's economic death rattle may be confined locally?
Also, can anyone elaborate on "they all share a promise that no one will let any fail"? Does this 'promise' have a strong legal basis, or is that simply an implied economic obligation in the face of mutually-assured destruction (i.e., as per the California comparison, is leaving Greece out in the cold even an option, legally?)
The whole net neutrality debate scares the shit out of me.
One the one hand, we have ISPs, all with near-strangleholds in their area, making decisions that the market can't effectively retaliate against (high barriers to entry and whathaveyou).
On the other hand, we have the slippery-slope of government regulation of the internet. I know I'm in the minority, here, but frankly, I find this option the more unnerving.
Are we simply damned if we do, damned if we don't? How do we take power from providers without giving any more power to regulators?
Well, for now. If there are people who use the economy as a basis to keep immigrants from flooding in, just imagine the reaction if citizens start flooding out.
If you trust native code simply because it's open source, why don't you trust browser-interpreted code?