Dead Man Blogging

Mark Byron discusses what it would take for the government to implement a nationwide purchase-tracking system. He calculates the approximate cost of such a system, using quite reasonable estimates, at $30 billion just to get it started.

I disagree with his figures. I don’t think the economic costs are nearly this high. Consequently, it’s a lot more likely to happen.

The bulk of the cost Mark estimates revolves around the need to issue and scan national identity cards to link together purchases. He reasonably estimates the cost of issuing such new cards, as well as the cost to businesses of installing the hardware necessary to use these cards. Such costs are astronomical.

The thing I think Mark misses is that we already have this kind of identification system in the form of our credit cards and checking accounts. Virtually all Americans have at least one credit card and/or checkbook. And virtually all businesses (especially the ones that sell the “interesting” purchases the government would want to track) are equipped to handle credit card transactions. It’s a conceptually straightforward effort to record purchases against the credit card number used - either at the point of sale, or at the credit card company’s end.

At that point, all you need is a fairly large chunk of hardware running a good database (didn’t Larry Ellison offer to donate enough Oracle instances for something like this?) and some straightforward code. This is very much like an operational data store, which is a pretty well developed science. We already know how to design or model these data stores, and how to mine the data in them. The only hard part is how to populate it, and that’s not really too tough if you use the existing credit card infrastructure.

It doesn’t get you Total Information Awareness, but it gets you close. The economic costs of such a system are far less than Mark estimated, but he nailed the civil liberty costs dead on. Unfortunately, I think the folks who make decisions will be more concerned about the economics than the liberties, and this system will be entirely viable and affordable.

Found this online

a. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
b. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
c. Colt: The original point and click interface.
d. Gun control is not about guns; it’s about control.
e. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
f. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
g. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
h. If you don’t know your rights you don’t have any.
i. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
j. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights reserved.
k. What part of “shall not be infringed” do you not understand?
l. The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others.
m. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
n. Guns only have two enemies: rust and liberals.
o. Know guns, know peace and safety. No guns, no peace nor safety.
p. You don’t shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
q. 911 - government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
r. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
s. Criminals love gun control - it makes their jobs safer.
t. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
u. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
v. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.
w. Enforce the “gun control laws” we have, don’t make more.
x. When you remove the people’s right to bear arms, you create slaves.
y. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
z. “…a government of the people, by the people, for the people…”

Rachel Cunliffe is toying with the idea of a buynothingchristmas.

First, let me say that I am all in favor of taking extreme steps to reduce the commercialization of Christmas and keep our focus on remembering the birth of Christ. I plan on a very low-cost Christmas. I am going to suggest that people who wish to give me something would either (1) not give me anything but maybe a card, or (2) donate money to a charity instead. At the very most, give me a mathom. But I will maintain an extensive Amazon wish list for the stubborn ones - if I’m going to get a gift, it might as well be something I’ll love rather than a shiny new piece of junk, right?

So I am generally in favor of voluntary simplicity, and of reducing the commercialization in our world, and especially around Christmas.

But as I perused buynothingchristmas.org, I noticed some things that I wanted to point out.

From Why Buy Nothing?:

In the case of the Mennonite church in Canada, the majority of its members, including me, has benefited from the current economic arrangement (free market capitalism). But our affluence has come with some expense to others. Participating in a Buy Nothing Christmas is one way for me to continue looking at peace and justice issues in terms of global economics. It gets kind of heavy.

Being affluent in a free market does not come “with some expense to others”. It’s not a zero-sum game. I remember at college, a professor tried to tell me that by going to that university (a pretty expensive private one), I was oppressing the (minority) cleaning staff! Oppressing them? I was giving them a job! Without my tuition dollars they would be unemployed.

I would want to work at ways of reducing systemic poverty. …
I wish to address how our society is structured and how it tends to favour the rich over the poor.

I can’t speak for the Canadian economic system, but I can speak for free market capitalism. Capitalism does not favor the rich over the poor. It favors the bold, the talented, and the diligent over the timid, talentless, and lazy. (That’s not to say that all the rich people are bold, talented, and diligent and all the poor ones are timid, talentless, and lazy, of course. Sometimes there are other factors, but that’s the exception that proves the rule.)

If you want to end systematic poverty, get rich. Invest your money. Start your own business. Buy things. Your money will directly or indirectly translate into expanded businesses (perhaps even one that you open!) that will hire more people. That will end systematic poverty. How many common people has Sam Walton enriched?

You cannot get a job from a poor man. You can get a job from a rich man much easier. Companies that are losing money have a tendency to lay off workers and close plants. Companies that are making lots of money tend to hire more workers and build more facilities (which creates lots of construction jobs too). And when lots of companies are making lots of money, wages skyrocket. Which system - companies losing money and laying off workers, or companies making money and expanding - is more likely to reduce poverty?

If you, like me, simply want to keep Christmas simple and spiritual and non-commercial, then great. But don’t knock capitalism. Capitalism works. It has been proven over and over again. Support capitalism.

There is a really popular Christian talk radio station here in North Texas that I listen to a lot. It has a lot of good preaching and teaching as well as an afternoon talk show I like.

But I don’t like the commercials much. Some of them are good, but what bothers me is the number that are designed to appeal to human vanity and consumerism.

For example, there are regularly ads that try to get you to buy a new car. Or worse, to lease one so you are always in a late model car. But that’s nothing compared to the plastic surgery ads! Or the ones featuring laser hair removal and microderm abrasion.

If this were a secular station, they wouldn’t bother me at all. But there seems to be an incongruity between these stations and Christ’s teachings. Excellent Biblical teaching is followed by 30 second ads that are begging you not to “seek…first the kingdom of God” but instead desperately want you to lay up treasures here on earth.