> If the source is available to the public it is open source.
That's not the usual definition. The usual definition of "open source" revolves around having an open source license.
> I may not have a copyleft license, but for that we have other terms like "Free Software".
"Free Software" and "open source" are approximately equivalent (the FSF "free software" definition and the OSi standards for "open source" aren't identical, and there are probably some license that meet one but not the other, but they are close enough in practice that its not a huge difference.
"Copyleft" is a much narrower term than either "open source" or "free software". Most open source or free software licenses are not copyleft.
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.
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.
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.
My only disappointment is that I was hoping to get in on the software market that would have been required to track all of this nonsense. It was a gift in that regard.
I've talked about this quite a bit in the tax industry, and there are a few popular opinions. My favorite so far is that this was designed to fail to show just how bad our tax code can get, which would then be used to usher in simplification/reform, i.e., VAT.
(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.
I think it would be more accurate to say the market is regulated by laws.
"laws are created by politicians" probably differs between countries. I wonder which is worse, politicians that don't really care about what they sign or politicians that do care. An incompetent politician that do care is a frightening combination.
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:
If you trust native code simply because it's open source, why don't you trust browser-interpreted code?