>> finding (and keeping) a profitable niche is hard
...which is why evolution will have to regain control.
Governments are antinatural in their obsession with increasing the number of citizens - not healthy, prodctive, citizens, but SSNs.
Initially, living was for the fittest, not for everyone.
As someone extremely average, I will be among the first to go extinct. And I see no problem with this, as my disappearance will free up space and resources for those who are better.
This will be getting worse unless people disconnect themselves from the system that allows things like this to happen.
By "disconnect" I mean secessio plebis - either physical with a move out of $this_jurisdiction, or economic, when a person minimizes their participation in the economy of $this_jurisdiction.
By continuing to use money of $this_central_bank for selling and buying goods and services in $this_jurisdiction, a person sends the following message to the legislators and enforcers:
"No matter what I say, here's my money. Let it be the token of my willingness to take more abuse. If I did not like how things work, I wouldn't be supporting your pyramid."
PS
The main reward of government employess is neither money, nor vacation, nor pension, nor social perks, but immunity. It's getting away with holes in babies that makes the job attractive precisely to the people who like to make holes in others.
The problem with the West is that you guys _believe_ the law to be the same for those at the top and at the bottom of the pyramid.
Russians, on the contrary, _know_ that equality belongs on the same bookshelf with unicorns. That the government does not work the way the government tells kids it works.
Let me be blunt: To be a seriously profitable business in 2014 you must sleep with the government.
Those who disagree retire early. Ask PrivacyHarbor.com or that other more famous email provider who had to quit.
Let me be blunter: The public's Kardashian-Oprah-Fox-Oscar-elections megatrip must not be disturbed by the reports of how things actually work. There is simply no need for us to know, because today we can't legally act on this knowledge.
If history teaches us anything, you will agree with me very soon - but in retrospect[1]. The lines are being drawn as we speak.
As for Dropbox proper, they are wisely killing 2 birds with 1 Rice — demonstrating obedience to the ruling class and sending a clear signal to potential customers: "Choose us if you want to stay in business. We are on the right side.".
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1 - I am fully aware that you have no idea what I am talking about. It comes from experience, which you are only about to gain.
1. Uninstalled. 2. In 2014, every business faces the choice to either quit businessing or collaborate with the government. This choice will soon trickle to individuals, if Rome, Germany and the USSR are any reference.
Mr Stoyte broke the silence. 'How long do you figure it would take before a person went like that?' he said in a slow, hesitating voice. 'I mean, it wouldn't happen at once ... there'd be a long time while a person ... well, you know; while he wouldn't change any. And once you get over the first shock - well, they look like they were having a pretty good time. I mean in their own way, of course. Don't you think so, Obispo?' he insisted.
- Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.
...But I am sure this news makes banks, bureaucracies and big pharma mega-ecstatic.
>> the myth you are an individual completely separate from the world outside
Aren't you?
You were born alone, you will die alone, nobody can live your life for you, nobody can share the responsibility for your decisions.
You are alone. Everyone else is a script. The only thing that matters is whether your actions make you happy without a hangover. Why would you worry about anyone else's judgments?
(Sick people, who are made happy by abusing neighbors, will always exist, but they are, luckily, not numerous.)
Yes if you choose to identify yourself with small part of your being called the consciousness.
I don't find that view of self particularly appealing, I prefer to view my ego as part of me as my leg is a part me. You are not the image that you have constructed for yourself shaped by the society you live in. I don't want to identify myself with a tiny portion of thoughts that my mind has, I am not my ego.
Anyone interested in the mind-bending history of moistening the West in general and California in particular just enough to be advertised as paradise may want to do themselves a favor and read "Cadillac Desert": http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert-American-Disappearing-.... (Not an affiliate link.)
I was just going to recommend this book myself. Before reading it, I had no idea how long some of these aqueducts are and how many dams had been built nationwide (and why) - now when I fly I can't help but trace water paths and look for dams. It's a great look in to how cities in the arid southwest can exist and just how close some could be to non-existence.
EDIT: This article does a decent job touching on the scale of the water projects in California. Cadillac Desert provides a decent look into that scale on a national level (though, admittedly, most of the mind blowing information revolves around California).
If you're going to take the time to recommend something, go ahead and put an affiliate link. It's pretty obvious if someone is here solely to spam. We're capitalists here, and aren't opposed to people making money.
I actually appreciate the non-affiliate link. I'm possibly as capitalist as the rest, but I appreciate the recognition of self interest by anyone who removes the affiliate bit from the URI.
Well, by that token regulation is also the free market, by virtue of regulatory capture, and words cease to mean anything at all.
Fact is, as his high holiness Milton Friedman himself argued, business is not a friend of the free market:
Almost every businessman is in favor of free enterprise for everybody else, but special privilege and special government protection for himself. As a result, they have been a major force in undermining the free enterprise system. Stop kidding yourself into thinking you can use the business community as a way to promote free enterprise. Unfortunately, most of them are not our friends in that respect.
...which is why evolution will have to regain control.
Governments are antinatural in their obsession with increasing the number of citizens - not healthy, prodctive, citizens, but SSNs.
Initially, living was for the fittest, not for everyone.
As someone extremely average, I will be among the first to go extinct. And I see no problem with this, as my disappearance will free up space and resources for those who are better.