Here's a wake up call-How much is a trillion

[lsiberian]

I didn't even mean it that way! Hey, I was bound to make an innocent comment sometime.

what is an innocent comment?

You aren't Alex so we can give you the benefit of the doubt. Of course their's always strube who's name gives him away.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I don't know atom a trillion is a lot of bits.

But he should have used something we understand

A trillion dollars is enough to buy nearly 1 billion SVS ultra subs

That means in 7 years every man, woman and child could have an SVS if we bought 1 each for them.

Now if we went with the Dayton 12" Most folks could get 2 of them for 1 Trillion dollars.

Fill the world with subs. That's my stimulus package. 1 Billion subs are enough to please even Basspig.

But, the question becomes, is that realistic? Can that 1 billion SVS be built in out lifetimes? And, will you force it on those poor souls?

 

[basspig]

If only we fought wars defensively and with the intent of winning, we could do so much more with so much less cost in lives and funding.

 

[lsiberian]

I agree with you. Everyone always seems to be messing with their neighbors. Not to hijack my own thread but how do you like your Dayton sub? My room is 15x20, do you think I would need 2? I guess my real question is will 1 do?
Would you say it's good for music and movies?

It really depends on your room and expectations. It's great for the price and far better than any other sub I've owned.

 

[strube]

what is an innocent comment?

You aren't Alex so we can give you the benefit of the doubt. Of course their's always strube who's name gives him away.

I seriously have absolutely no idea what you are referring to.

 

[lsiberian]

I seriously have absolutely no idea what you are referring to.

I don't think you want to. I'll just say it rhymes and works great in engines.

 

[Adam]

I don't think you want to. I'll just say it rhymes and works great in engines.

Great. Now I won't be able to see his name again without thinking about...



engines.

 

[strube]

I don't think you want to. I'll just say it rhymes and works great in engines.

I wasn't getting it because you are supposed to pronounce the "e" at the end. I am sure that is an unexciting revelation, but everyone reads it wrong. I can blame the Germans for not spelling it so that the pronunciation is obvious.

Actually I wasn't getting it because, well, that's just silly. I considered making fun of you again regarding maturity levels, but I think I did that once before and I only do it once because after that it starts to be less fun-making and more straightforward hostility, and that's not how I roll...

I might be a little cranky this morning. Sorry.

 

[Adam]

...you are supposed to pronounce the "e" at the end.

I did not know that! Thanks. Sorry for mentally pronouncing your name wrong all this time.

My ancestory is more German than anything else, but I'm a European and American Indian mutt. Umm, I mean - a finely crafted mix of select genetic lines that has resulted in a being who is well suited for interpreting owner's manuals and performing Google searches.

 

[strube]

My ancestory is more German than anything else, but I'm a European and American Indian mutt.

What kind of American Indian? I've got a tiny bit of Shoshone in my veins, but mostly Welsh and German.

 

[Adam]

What kind of American Indian? I've got a tiny bit of Shoshone in my veins, but mostly Welsh and German.

According to my grandfather on my dad's side, it's Apache. My mom isn't convinced that it's true, though. Apparently it changed over the years, but by the time that I heard it, it was consistently Apache.

 

[highfigh]

I wasn't getting it because you are supposed to pronounce the "e" at the end. I am sure that is an unexciting revelation, but everyone reads it wrong. I can blame the Germans for not spelling it so that the pronunciation is obvious.

It may be more that English speaking people don't use many of the same rules for their languages. In many languages, the letter e is used when a hard A is pronounced but an a is used when the ah sound is needed. In English, the letter a can be used for both. In the case of a consonant followed by an e, the e is often silent. A hard g in singing, bring or any other English word is common with Eastern Europeans because AFAIK, they don't use a softer g sound.

I don't envy anyone who has to learn English as a second language.

 

[lsiberian]

I did not know that! Thanks. Sorry for mentally pronouncing your name wrong all this time.

My ancestory is more German than anything else, but I'm a European and American Indian mutt. Umm, I mean - a finely crafted mix of select genetic lines that has resulted in a being who is well suited for interpreting owner's manuals and performing Google searches.

Now we got the dirty image out of our mind!!

Congrats. Maturity what's that?

 

[STRONGBADF1]

Now we got the dirty image out of our mind!!

Congrats. Maturity what's that?

Maturity....Highly overrated!

 

[rnatalli]

How much you want to bet that both sides of the aisle will approve raising the debt ceiling? Just goes to show neither side cares about being fiscally conservative.

 

[Schupo]

My opinion on this is that the government should stick to it's one and only moral purpose:

To protect individual rights.​

That would cut 98.4% of the cost of government and, had it followed that mandate 100 years ago, we would not be the target of foreign enemies who hate us for our meddling other nations' affairs.

There is no clear-cut definition as to what "individual rights" means. You may or may not define a business as an "individual". You may or may not define health care as a "right". While it's a nice thought to keep the government "simple" by sticking to it's "only purpose", when it comes down to implementing it, even those who would agree with your concept of government may disagree with the way you think it should be put into place.

 

[basspig]

There is no clear-cut definition as to what "individual rights" means. You may or may not define a business as an "individual". You may or may not define health care as a "right". While it's a nice thought to keep the government "simple" by sticking to it's "only purpose", when it comes down to implementing it, even those who would agree with your concept of government may disagree with the way you think it should be put into place.

There absolutely is a clear definition. If you want to know more about it, I highly recommend the works of Ayn Rand. She defines ALL of her terms, and then lays out the philosophical premises behind her ideas.

When it comes to government, going outside the bounds of defending individual rights cross the line into violating individual rights. There is no middle ground.

 

[Schupo]

There absolutely is a clear definition.

Is a police force a right?

 

[basspig]

Is a police force a right?

Government is the only institution with a legal monopoly on the use of force. Police are a necessary retaliatory measure that deal with situations where someone has violated another's rights.

The defining line between a right and a violation of a right is when someone asserts a right by necessarily violating another individual's rights.

Healthcare has come up a lot in this light. There are people asserting that 'everyone has a right to healthcare'. But what they fail to follow through with is where does healthcare come from? Does it come from thin air, or from the efforts of thousands of scientists, doctors, nurses, chemists, engineers, etc.? All of these people are morally entitled to be compensated for their contributions to their fields, for without them, we'd be in more primative circumstances.

When someone claims a 'right' to healthcare, whether they've earned it or not, that means some government agency has to enforce it. That means that some people are going to be forced to provide a service without fair compensation. Forced servitude is the definition of slavery. Nationalized healthcare would force medical service providers to treat non-paying patients and accept comparatively-small wages that would not compensate them for the years of education they invested in their careers, nor the lifestyle they planned for. It would drag down the quality of life for doctors, and fewer of them would practice under such conditions.

Read "Man's Rights" and "Collectivized 'Rights,'" in The Virtue of Selfishness, as well as "Government Financing in a Free Society."