₦airaland Forum

Eastcoast:
Many times we all want to be famous and recognized like hollywood/nollywood celebrities and if that's you, you've just reached the right place. Welcome to 5ways to achieve instant fame on nairaland
[SNIP]
3. Have a big EGO.
Yes, have a big Ego. i'm serious, people love to hate people with big ego's. You could just offend people without apologizing or post whatever regardless of others opinion, afterall, you're entitled to your opinion. ok, Did i just hear you say who does that? . the likes of Seun(our honorable admin) and nferyn, have proven that you don't always need to apologize or be right in order to become famous. and if you've stepped on so many toes, you could just post an apology as your signature. it will definitely get to those you've hurt and they'll forgive. ok, don't start complaining again, i know, your mama taught you to always be right with folks, so if this isn't for you, just try my number 4 suggestion
[SNIP]

Hey, now I'm offended.
I may very well have a big ego (that's not up to me to decide), but I never play the man/woman, always the ball (except maybe with Eddy Tells, but he tries to insult me at every occasion he gets). I've never felt too good to appologise when I'm wrong or when I unjustly offended someone. So please, it's not because I hold opinions that many here don't subscribe to that I'm out to offend people.

Any system where you've got to jump through countless hoops to register to vote cannot be called a democracy, especially when the number and size of these hoops differs greatly between people.

simmy:
It's never ceases to amaze me how cocky and confident people can be in dismissing religious claims as nonsense without an inch of evidence!

Where's the evidence of these religious claims? Maybe they should produce evidence [b]prior [/b]to making these claims. As these claims are quite extraordinary, extraordinary evidence is required. Some scribblings in an ancient book does not suffice.

simmy:
Notice i'm not insisting that the biblical versionof creation HAs to be the true one but it is obvious to any INFORMED person that there is more evidence supporting a sudden appearance of complex organisms of earth (which supports creation) than a gradual increase in complexity as claimed by evolutionists.

Where's the evidence? Empty assertion.
Maybe you can present a falsifiable scientific theory of creation. That would be a good start.

simmy:
Note that nferyn and kag have still not taken up my challenge on giving me specific examples of speciation based on THEIR own knowledge, not some crap they pulled out of some crank evolution obsessed website.

You mean that we cannot use credible scientific sources, but need to pull information out of the place where the sun doesn't shine? I suppose if we did that, you'd probably loudly proclaim that we pull things out of our asses. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

simmy:
I have decided to stop posting serious threads until one of them has the courage to take up my challenge as I have noticed they seem to present speciation as the basic evidence supporitng evolution.

Interesting. We did take up your challenge, but you dismissed the information, as it was some crap they pulled out of some crank evolution obsessed website. You continuously shift the goalposts.

simmy:
It is easy to claim speciation, i myself can give millions of examples but i can also show anyone who's willing to learn that every single claim of speciation is nothing but variation, elaborate, sometimes dramatic, but still simple old boring variation

It's indeed a matter of degree. Speciation is a consequence of genomic variation that leads to reproductive isolation (among others through the mechanism of natural selection) and even that is a matter of degree, as lions and tigers can produce offspring. According to your [i]variation [/i]logic, these are not different species?

supaguy,

Assertion is neither proof nor evidence. One can repeat the claim that the earth is flat as much as one wants, that doesn't make it any more true.

food4tot:
Looking at the world through your lense again.

It ain't the the same through mine.

I've seen it being done. (lie, it was a friend who acutally did)

A man shagging a sheep. They acutally put the sheep's hind legs in Welis ("rain boots" so that the poor thing can't walk. They even pay Nigerians girls (rumour) to shag their dogs for a good sum of Dollars and from what I heard, the girls loved the dollar more than their intergrity.

I think you should really take these kind of rumors (or friends who've seen it done) with a bucketload of salt.

The rumour about Nigerian girls you're referring to comes from a real case where a few Nigerian girls were kidnapped in Belgium, brough to the Netherlands, tortured and forced to have sex with animals and other degrading acts. Luckily, the perpetrators are convicted and put behind lock and key.

Whenever something deviates from the norm, people start to have all sorts of wicked and weird phantasies. Sometimes I wonder if the people phantasising aren't the weird ones.

Back to the topic at hand, as long as an organisation doesn't break the law, it can do whatever it pleases. Rest assured though that that political party will be monitored very closely by the police.

dakmanzero:
Give it a rest, dude!

I'm staring to think I should follow your advice. It does diminish my faith in humanity though

xkape:
Interesting deduction, since you're the one who brought up religions and demigods here
I see u are all conveniently quite on my rebutall of some of your illustrious evolutionary writers i did somewhere back there

I decided not to enter into the discussion you had with KAG, as he has been quite able to counter whatever you've been throwing at him.
If you would like me to rebut something you wrote, please be so kind to tell me where that rebutal of illustrious evulutionary writers is, as I have not been able to find it burried between your attempts at argumentation.

simmy:
My guy you just shot yourself in the foot. If that is the case, then 99.9% of organisms that live on earth today are not and have never been subjected to your so-called evolutionary pressure

On the basis of what do you come to that conclusion? Or are you just specialising in repeating your unfounded assertions in the hope they become more truthful? Something resembling an argument wouldn't hurt you in asserting that I shoot myself in the foot.

xcape,

If an organism is well adapted to it's environment and the environment doesn't change that much, there's litle evolutionary pressure (or to use a more accurate term, selective pressure). In that case, changes to the phenotype due to mutations do not lead to a significantly increased reproductive success. Coulacanth's haven't changed much over millions of years because the environment in which they thrived didn't change much either.

Ka:
Nferyn, I'm following your debate with interest - but could you explain what a 'coercive monopoly or oligopoly is, just so that I'm clear?

I was actually asking Seun to provide me the context, as the term he used wasn't exactly crystal clear.

xkape:
@nferyn
Thanx for the link

But prithee, how does a fruit fly in a banana blown in a hurricane to an island where it becomes reproductively isolated from the main gene pool differ from an aborigine seperated from the larger continent by continental drift.
By the logic so meticulously expounded in your link, the aborigene should develop speciation different from the main strain of humans
your strawman is still alive and well

Maybe you can compare the lifespan of a fruitfly to that of a human and you'll get the idea. 40.000 years of separation without much noticably different evolutionary pressures is extremely short to effectuate speciation. Possibly you didn't fully comprehend the logic you're trying to invalidate. Mind you, the aborigines were not separated by continental drift and there's no reason to think that they should have undergone speciation, unless of course you believe that there's a direction or need in evolution. Species that undergo little evolutionary pressure hardly change over time.

xkape:
@nferyn
maybe u should explain reproductive isolation

Have a look here

mrlawng:
[quote author=spikedcylinder link=topic=13880.msg416267#msg416267 date=1149885879][quote author=mrlawng link=topic=13880.msg407501#msg407501 date=1149612500]I presume you are not really sure you want to ba an atheist.

Really?I believe you should read more of his posts before making presumptions like that.

Babysomebody,thanks for pointing it out but no thanks,am not starting a new thread,do you have a problem with that?Sacarstic b!tch!

Bolex,your general point of view amuses me!How on earth do you reason?[/quote]You are definitely confused. What post are you replying to, Cos I don't get your point.[/quote]Your assumption that somebody can choose what he/she believes if faulty. Belief is something you don't have any control over

xkape,
good to know that all of a sudden I'm the one coming up with strawmen. Maybe you can explain me how my agrument could somehow be described as setting up a strawman?
Anyway, reproductive isolation is an a priori condition for speciation to occur. It is not because a gene pool is geographically isolated that this means that it is reproductively isolated. As history has shown us, there is no effective barrier (either behaviorally or genetically) for e.g. Aborigines and Brits to produce offspring. Your point is mute.

simmy:
@kag and nferyn
u've made my point 4 me! It just shows you how easy it is to cclaim speciation. I'm now in the place of the evolutionist and ure the ones refuting my claims of speciation by showing thtat the differnces i mentioned can be xplained away as variation. Notice that this is a very 'uncomplex' (if im allowed to use that word) example relative to most evolutionist's claims of speciation but the same logic holds.

Either you don't read the posts in this thread or you don't want to comprehend what they're saying. In each and any definition of speciating I've come accross, a minimal condition for speciation in reproductive isolation. If anyone in his right mind would imply that such a thing is the case among different races of humans, he must be living on mars.

simmy:
By the way, nobody has taken me up on my challenge to give me a concrete example of speciation and expalin exactly why it should be taken to be speciation.

Read the thread from the beginning and you will find them. If you're not satisfied with the examples, explain exactly why they don't met the criterium of speciation or even better, define speciation yourself and explain why your definition differs from the commonly accepted one.

simmy:
@kag's response to donnie
Please do not bandy around as fact contentious issues! Many scientists believe that there is enough evidence to suggest that dinosaurs existed side by side with homo sapiens. There are many others who think this is false. I'm not stating my opinion on this issue because i don't know which is right. The bible might have been describing a dinasour in the quoted passage and it might have not, the bible didnt specify,

Could you please give some examples of these scientists? I guess they don't go by the name Steve?

simmy:
@kag
thats semantics!! who cares what word is used, better, superior, more evolved,better adapted, the point is some races ought to have evolved further than others if they really got here by evolution.
Nb: I think we should all remember that the Nazi's justified the supremacy of the Aryan race by concluding that they are the most evolved of humans wich led to the gruesome happenings of the holocaust.

The Human race is only one species with a rather limited genetic variability due to a bottleneck event some 70000 years ago if I recall correctly. There are no human subspecies and even though there are phenotypical differences between 'races', the genotypical differences are all but insignificant and certainly not up to a level to call any race more or less evolved (as if that would be relevant in the first place, humans are not more evolved than bacteria).
Your point is completely irrelevant and only a consequence of your imaginary theory of evolution; it is in no way a consequence of the theory of evolution as understood by the scientific community.

Seun:

In a free market system without regulation, you would have these same big corporations bribing their way to favourable deals and employing anti-trust policies anyways.

I challenge you to give me an example of a coercive monopoly or oligopoly that was established without the help of the government.

There are no examples of a completely free market without government intervention, so in each and every case, the government will be involved, if only by enforcing the law. Could you tell me what in a completely free market prohibits the formation of coercive monopolies or oligopolies? Do I have to accept that on faith alone, maybe?

Seun:
Sometimes people make the mistake of classifying excellent companies who are extremely good at serving their customers as monopolies.

Can you explain me the pricing policy of microsoft and how that relates to free markets? That alone should make some bells ring. It's not because Microsoft does not fit the ideal category of a monopoly that they were no acting like one.

Seun:
That is not fair at all. In a free market, a competitor can jump in anytime and innovate your cash cow into obsolescence.

You mean, just like Netscape did with their browser? The first versions of IE were an extremely bad implementation of Mosaic, while Netscape untill version 2 was far better the IE. It's only the bundling that allowed IE to get a foothold in the market.

Seun:
In the real world, government regulations will force the small guy to sell his startup to a larger company. Example: Paypal having to sell their company to Ebay.

I would be very interested to hear that story and how it relates to the government

Seun:
IBM was not able to prevent the rise of Microsoft, which couldn't prevent the rise of Yahoo, which couldn't prevent the rise of Google. Auction houses were not able to prevent the rise of Ebay, which couldn't compete effectively with Paypal in e-payments.

Irrelevant.
Yahoo, Google and Microsoft never directly competed. Ebay is not in direct competition with auction houses, because they tapped a non-existant market.

Seun:
Anti-trust laws are over-rated. Politicians always feel the need to flex their muscles.

And you base that feeling on what observations exactly? The problem with politics is that politicians tend to project an image of ability that they can never live up to. Because of the further progressing movement to a fully integrated world economy, those politicians have less and less muscle to flex.

This depends on the visa requirements. If you don't have a return ticket, other requirements may become more stringent (e.g. funds your bring along). If you are a US citizen, you don't need a visum but only a valid passport.
Once you obtained a Schengen visa, you can travel freely through all Schengen countries

Seun:
I have studied the way banks work extensively, and you are absolutely wrong. Perhaps sincerely wrong.

Well, maybe I could be wrong about the specific Nigerian case (and the motivations there), but I'm certainly not wrong on principle.

Seun:
Yes, there are day-to-day variations in volume of bank deposits vs withdrawals, but a larger bank will have larger customers and therefore experience a proportionally more volatility in that demand for cash.

Meaning?

Seun:
Central banks all over the world deal with this problem by
1) Asking banks to keep a certain percentage of their deposits in reserve at all times, and
2) Facilitating inter-bank lending markets.

All depends on access to both of these. I'm not entirely familiar with the Nigerian situation, but access to international lending markets may be less than ideal over there.
Capitalisation requirements indeed don't mean much if one is not properly insured against overall volatility. In Belgium, banks cannot, under any circumstance, use the money of their customers that is floating on their current or savings accounts. Only interests on that money and money that is put into more risky investments (loans, bonds, etc) can be used.
In a situation where this kind of regulation is not in place, capitalisation requirements may be a first, necessary, but not adequate measure to ensure smooth operations of the banking sector, as is well understood, a smooth functioning of the banking market is essential for an economy.
The US is really an odd case in this, as the USD functions in effect as the world reserve currency. The FED has far more muscle and influence than any other central bank and as such, they have adequate means to protect their banking sector.

Seun:
If, on a particular day, a small bank experiences a random increase in demand for cash, it can simply borrow from a larger bank that has excess deposits on that day. If a large bank experiences the same, it can borrow money overnight from several small banks. This system works very well against volatility. Nothing more is required.

No it doesn't. This does not protect people's investments in case of an outright market crash. I know for certain that my money on a Belgian bank is safe, which is not the case for e.g. the US or (probably) Nigeria.

Seun:
Naive commentators might assume that larger banks are less likely to go bankrupt, but this is also false.

All depends on the allocation of their funds. Regulation can ensure the protection of these funds in case of a market crash, but capitalisation requirements are indeed not a sufficient measure

Seun:
No matter how large a bank is, it cannot survive the loss of public confidence without going bankrupt. All banks are bankrupt by nature. What matters is the confidence people have in the bank. That's all. Size doesn't matter.

Bull, Belgian banks may go bankrupt, but all money on savings accounts and current accounts is insured and secured. But indeed, it's not size that matters. If you're not big enough, you cannot operate profitably under the strict Belgian guidelines.

Seun:
Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_funds and related topics.

Well, I can always learn more, but what's the specific point here?

Seun:
It is true that some (not all) small banks were corrupt, but one shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Banks executives that engaged in illegal practices, whether big or small, should simply have been prosecuted; their banks only be need to be liquidated or acquired if the public has absolutely lost confidence in them.

Maybe it should have been handled differently, but public confidence is no guarantee. Too many times the markets went belly up when no adequate insurance measure were taken. Capital markets are anything but rational. That's what the public should be protected against. Capitalisation requirements are only one way of doing that, other additional regulation is necessary

Seun:
Small banks which have been serving their customers well should have been left alone. A wise man knows how to weed his garden without destroying his own plants. Would you use a gun to kill a fly on your head?

Well, I wouldn't use a knife to kill a bacterial infection if that's what you mean. Antibiotics are more appropriate. Maybe that was the case in the banking reform in Nigeria, I don't have sufficient information. Anyway, only recently can Nigerian banks operate properly on the international markets. Would the reforms have something to do with that, I don't know

Seun:
The US banks do not have any minimum capitalization requirements (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_requirement). They only have capitalization ratios. Are we saying we are smarter? Very funny!

As I mentioned, the US is an odd case out.

Seun:
So you see, our Central Bank's decision to eliminate smaller commercial banks was not necessary, and hence can only be regarded as an abuse of power.

Possibly, but I don't have sufficient information to judge and the previous discussions didn't give me enough info either.

Seun:
To a hammer, everything is a nail. To a politician, every challenge is an opportunity to intervene.

You project the Nigerian situation on the rest of the world

Seun:
The exercise of the central bank's power has turned the Nigerian banking sector into a 25 member oligopoly, which is the very thing you are saying is caused by a free market!

I have never heard a situation with 25 competing market players being described as an oligopoly. Anyway, Belgium doesn't have more than 10 non-specialised banks that are licenced to offer the full range of banking services. Some players only target niche markets, because they don't meet the criteria for everything or because that's their target market.

Seun:
Are you a liberal? (so I can google the objections against liberalism and supply you with a link)

I don't really fall under the US political classification. I'm a social democrat at heart.

Seun:

Your're right but, free markets need to be heavily regulated and monitored

Government regulations tends to favor big business because of corruption. The little guy always suffers more. Recently our senate approved a law that requires palm oil exporters to obtain a 6,000 euro license. In a free market, anyone who has palm oil would be free to export it. The biggest players tend to benefit from government 'regulations'. 6000 euros is nothing to them!

I don't know about the specificities of that law, but licences are usually introduced when:
1. one needs to prove a certain level of expertise to operate in a line of business (e.g. medical practitioners can only operate with the proper licenses. Companies that clean up polluted sites need 'proof' that they can handle hazardous materials safely). When these things do not constitute an immediate public danger, self regulation can work (e.g. ISO certification)
2. There are other needs to ascertain the continuance of business and engender trust in the parties involved. Capitalisation requirements for banks ensure that, when the markets get a little volatile, the banks don't go bankrupt.
I do agree thought that many regulations are unnecessary or out of date (as the legislative system works slow compared to changes in the marketplace)

Seun:

as [free markets] tend to encourage corruption.

This is simply wrong. Can you give an example? I need examples to demonstrate why this is so wrong.

Here I agree. This argument is a misrepresentation of the real situation. Free markets, without regulation, tend to evolve into oligopolies, which undermine the very freedom of these markets. Freedom is not a given, but needs to be protected and introduced by a body that has the power to ensure the continuance of freedom. Usually that body is the government, as it is the most legitimate representative of the people's interests.

Seun:

freedom can only be defined in relationship to others, there is no such thing as absolute freedom

I agree with this, but we should try to maximise individual freedom. There are so many missed opportunities for this, partly because we rely on governments that have no incentive to promote individual liberty.

I really don't see how you can claim that governments have no incentive to promote individual liberty. As long as a proper system of checks and balances can be set up between the different branches of government (executive, legislative, judiciary), government is the best agent to protect and promote that liberty. I do agree that such a thing is not the case for Nigeria, but that does not mean that it cannot be done, on the contrary.

Seun:

in a capitalist economic system, the main actors strive to eliminate the freedom that markets provide, there is a definite need of regulation in order for that not to happen

In practice, it takes the cooperation of the government or the use of force for markets to be made less free. In real life, the main actors strive to eliminate competition by pushing the government to 'protect' the market from their competitors. For example, our CBN governor is 'protecting' us from banks that seek to compete with the existing 25 banks by imposing an arbitrary capitalization rule. Labour unions 'protect' employed, highly educated workers against unemployed, less skilled workers by violently pushing in minimum wage legislation.

It does not. I would like to see some empirical proof for that assertion. The weaker and less representative the government, the more market freedom gets crushed. I think Nigeria could serve as a prime example with it's behaviour in the oil industry.
Your slur against labour unions is a joke. Without labour unions, there would not be a middle class in the western world. The British Empire, for all it's might, was only there to serve the interests of the upper class, at the height of the inductrial revolution, living conditions for the average Briton were probably far worse than those of the averag Nigerian.
It's only the complete collapse of laisser-faire capitalism after the Wall Street crash, that ensured that government intervention created the middle class. Only direct government intervention in the market could save capitalism. Without the application of Keynes' theories I would probably be suffering from a serious lung disease after having spent my days in the mines since my 12th birthday. I might still enjoy life 'till my 55th birthday, If I were very lucky.

Seun:

freedom means nothing without opportunity. It is up to society to ensure that those opportunities exist, a laissez-faire capitalist society actually destroys these opportunities

That is simply not true. A laissez-faire capitalist society makes it easy for people to start businesses. This way, even if you can't find a job that suits you, you can start your own businesses. In heavily regulated countries, it's very hard to start a business. This makes youths to be dependent on government to "secure jobs" for them. It also ensures that those who own large businesses will continue to control the economy.

A laisser-faire capitalists society leads to oligopolies, which lead to less choice in the market, which cannot be filled by smaller companies as they will be competed out of the market by dumping or other strategies that only the biggies can afford. Only an active agent with enough power can prevent that. In the EU, you have a DG that is just doing that in order for monopolies not to form and ensure freedom on the market. Without a big stick to protect it, freedom is empty.
I do agree though that starting up a business should be made easier and encouraged, but that is not going to protect you from the big boys. I know from experience that the financial muscle alone from the big boys is enough to effectively elliminate competition. Either you temporarily drive down margins so much that your smaller competitor goes bankrupt or you elliminate competition through mergers and acquisitions. There is
very little innovation in the big publicly traded companies as the eye on the next quarterly results prohibits long term investment (here you can see how rational behaviour by the stock holders prevents rational behaviour in the market)

Seun:
For example, it takes 50,000 euros to incorporate in Germany. How is a young person going to get that kind of money? Not to talk about what it will cost to maintain workers that can hardly be fired, will not work more than 40 hours a day, and whose health and retirement must be catered for?

No need to come up with straw men, Seun.
1. When you start up your business, full incorporation does not make sense at all, as the administrative and accounting requirements are too heavy
2. It's not all that difficult to begin as a self-employed person or start another type of company, where the administrative and accounting requirements can be met more easily
3. full incorporation offers some benefits (mainly trust) that need to be earned by proving that your business is sustainable in the long run. One cannot have it both ways
4. Health and retirement benefits are met by the government through taxation, this is not something the individual employer needs to worry about
5. The social protection in Western Europe applies mainly for full time employees after a testing period (usually 6 month), before that, they can be fired immediately. You also have contractor and temp contracts that work under different terms.

Seun:
Free markets are best at providing opportunities for people who are ready to provide value to others. In a free market, even when jobs are not available, if you are willing to provide what others want you'll be able to gain wealth. In a heavily regulated market, its very hard for dependent people to gain economic independence from their 'masters' the right way: creating value.

1. Value is only a function of market demand in your picture. Caring for the handicapped and elderly has little market value. Do you want to elliminate these and if not, how are you going to pay for it?
2. Please give me some empirical evidence for your assertion and define your terms properly, I cannot address your statement without that context.

Seun:

how to handle externalities (e.g. pollution) in the absence of a regulating body

If no-one is willing to pay for something, it might not be so important. If someone's body or property is damaged by pollution by a class of industries, legal bodies can intervene to exact just compensation for the victims. If this is known by the industries beforehand, they would be very careful about how they pollute the environment.

How convenient. Why don't you go ask the people in the Niger Delta how to redress the damage to their farm lands and health?
Industries will do what they can get away with. Without regulation, all costs and negative effects that can be handed to the common will be handed to the comon, that's exactly the problem.

Seun:

to provide wants and needs in free market system, one assumes that economic actors behave rationally. This an absolutely ridiculous and ungrounded assumption.

Markets work quite well when most of the participants behave rationally. Those who don't behave rationally will likely lose money, which translates to loss on influence in the market. Example: people who participate in pyramid schemes even though they know how each one is likely to end. The minimal welfare government will keep them alive while they try to figure out a more rational way to make money so they can purchase life's pleasures.

That's an easy way out, define everyhting in economic value and you solve the problem. People can subsist in the streets, but that's no problem, as they do not provide any value.
Have you ever wondered whether those people:
1. have the opportunities to enter the market?
2. have the marketable skills?
3. have the opportunities to get themselves marketable skills?
4. need to enter a system where value is solely determined by the market?

Seun:

individual rational behaviour does not imply collective rational behaviour. Even when it is perfectly rational to do something as an individual, the collective consequences can be disastrous. Maximisation on an individual level does not automatically result in a maximisation on a societal level.

I agree. I believe that the government should intervene to prevent economically disadvantaged individuals from death, serious illnesses, serious disabilities, and serious injuries. However, a lot of what real life governments do is very unfair and unecessary. They are not committed to efficiency in their redistribution of wealth. This is only natural because no competition within their territories (governments do compete with each other).

How do you know that governments (as if they are one entity) are a priori not commited to efficiency. The health system in Belgium is a prime example of a system that is far more eficent than any pure market system around: excellent healthcare, universal coverage at low costs. No market system comes even close (and especially not the abmyssal system that they have in the US)
There are political systems where governemtns on different levels compete and where different branches of the governments compete. A proper federal system with subsidiarity at it's core is very efficient and competitive. By the way, governements do compete with each other and other entities of representation.

Seun:

Government does enjoy competition, it's called elections.

Elections are not equivalent to government competition any more than elections within the board of directors of Microsoft would constitute competition in the PC market! Elections are about who controls that uncompetitive entity called Government.

And you can change the way that entity works through elections. If your views on how society should work are gaining ground in the political marketplace, the party representing those ideas will get control in that marketplace. If your customers are dissatisfied, they will elect another party with other ideas.
If you are dissatified with the overall functioning of that entity and feel you cannot operate under these conditions, you are free to choose another one with your feet (emmigrate), but you will never, ever get something for nothing, just as you won't get something for nothing on the marketplace of goods and services.

Seun:
Competition is more like people having the choice of which police unit to patronize and paying for their protection services. Competition is when a bad police unit is driven into bankruptcy because people refused to demand and pay for their consistently inferior service, while a rival unit with better performance prospers and grows.

I would like to see an example where the privatisation of the legitimate use of force (police, army, , ) has worked to the benefit of the population. This is a very naive view on what power really means.

Seun:

People are not naturally selfish, we do all have a selfish component to our being, but we cannot e defined as selfish

Everything we do is done to benefit us in some way. Either by providing tangible benefits like wealth or power, or by making us feel better about ourselves. I think the right term to use is self-centered, not selfish. You can be primarily interested in what's best for yourself (as we all are) and still have the capacity to feel and act for others in order to feel good about yourself or get respect or future favors from those people.

Actually that's not even the level of analysis you should apply. Ultimately, we are only vehicles for the selfish interests of our genes, which can be against our own interests (e.g. why don't we all live indefinitely).
In reality, whatever the ultimate source of it, we are a social species that has got egoistical and altruistical elements. The realisation of self only happens within a social context. Wealth and success can only be defined in relation to others. That context is for a big part our making and can be steered by us a a collective. As I mentioned before, my vision of the future would be a Star Trek like society, but to achieve that, we rather need to curb our egoistical tendencies than encourage them.

He probably believed in the wrong god

Ogisosoft:
creation is what the bible said, evolution has no biblical backup.

You give new meaning to the phrase blind faith

Seun:
Well, the link you supplied doesn't address my own beliefs or why I believe what I believe.

I could only imply things from what you wrote before, so sorry if I misrepresented your views. It was not my intention.

Seun:
So, what do I believe? I believe that human beings exist to make themselves feel happy and fulfilled during their short lives. In the pursuit of this happiness, they need goods and services provided by others, who also need goods and services provided by yet others. Their wants are unlimited.

Good so far

Seun:
Free markets are intensely competitive, and in the absence of widespread fraud they tend to concentrate more resources in the hands of those who contribute more to the satisfaction of the desires of others within the market - the happiness of others.

This could only be the case under the assumption that the cumulative effect of all actions of all people within a free market system really addresses happiness and that happiness can be seen as a function of value in a capitalistic system. Mind you, free markets do not equate a capitalist society or vice versa.

The biggest problems in this view are that:
* freedom can only be defined in relationship to others, there is no such thing as absolute freedom
* in a capitalist economic system, the main actors strive to elliminate the freedom that markets provide, there is a definite need of regulation in order for that not to happen
* freedom means nothing without opportunity. It is up to society to ensure that those opportunities exist, a laissez-faire capitalist society actually destroys these opportunities

Seun:
So I see the free market as being by far the most efficient system for getting as many goods and services produced to satisfy as many human needs or wants as possible to people.

I see three main problems here:
* how to handle externalities (e.g. pollution) in the absence of a regulating body
*to provide wants and needs in free market system, one assumes that economic actors behave rationally. This an absolutely ridiculous and ungrounded assumption.
* individual rational behaviour does not imply collective rational behaviour. Even when it is perfectly rational to do something as an individual, the collective consequences can be disastrous. Maximisation on an individual level does not automatically result in a maximisation on a societal level.

Seun:
Believing that, I want all providers of goods and services (or as many as possible) to be made to partcipate in efficient markets where they get compensated based on how well satisfy the needs of others.

I could more or less follow you in that, but there are a lot of ideologically biased terms you use there: what is efficiency, how do you define compensation, what is satisfaction of needs?

Seun:
Since the government does not enjoy that sort of competition, I want as many services as possible to be moved into the private sector. I like free market systems because they give naturally selfish people an incentive to serve others.

Government does enjoy competition, it's called elections. See how rational consumers behave in the electoral market?
People are not naturally selfish, we do all have a selfish component to our being, but we cannot e defined as selfish

Seun:
Ok, that's some of what I believe. Any questions so far? Anything unreasonable so far? I have more to say!

Looking forward to it.

Seun:
I believe in reason and I believe in self-ownership. I believe in some things!

(emphasis mine)
Even though libertarian thought does have some appealing elements, it has the same flaw as all utopian systems (such as communism), they're based on unproven assumptions and show framing bias.

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html#intro

Bolex, you're quite funny. It's hard to find such a huge collection of prejudices in such a short post. maybe you should meet some real life atheists, they're not the devil incarnated, you know
By the way, who's the cock and who's the duck and what are your reasons for that choice?

Afeni:
Yes, I believe in money ritual things. Once all the stupid people are done killing themselves, there would be a lot of money to be made in burying the dead. Right?

<IRONY>Always on the lookout for another business oportunity. Maybe you could promote the existence of money ritual things, your undertaking business would flourish, just have to make sure that you're untouchable </IRONY>

All of you gullible people should read Sagan's The Demon Haunted World. I've uploaded it here for free