From: Damien Raphael (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 04 2002 - 13:06:20 MST
On Sun, Feb 03, 2002 at 06:33:31PM -0800, Sehkenenra wrote:
> >government give Bill Gates $60 billion? How has it given Harvey, or
> >Brent, or any other successful extropian their wealth.
> repressive totalitarian regime? No, Bill Gates did not get $60 Billion
> handed to him by the US Government- it was the fact that we have a stable
> social order and economy that allowed him to earn $60 Billion, which would
> have been impossible under anarchy.
Not to mention copyright enforcement. Intellectual property rights are
completely a government construct; the Appeal to Bill argument has thus
always struck me as utterly bizarre. It's possible Gates would have
done well in an anarchy; it's also possible his particular business
skills would have been useless in that environment. Or that he never
got the chance to try. All we can say is that the first-order effect on
Microsoft of removing all government would be _horrible_. Ask him if he
wants to live with totally legal software piracy.
> >It's tax system is rigged so that you either surrender any margin that
> >would serve to make you wealthy, or you have to become a tax criminal to
> >escape wage slavery.
So Bill Gates and Harvey and Brent are tax criminals? They did become
wealthy, after all.
-xx- Damien X-)
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