New California Ballot Measure Demands Groundbreaking Privacy Rights (mercurynews.com) 180
Supporters gathered 625,000 signatures to put the "California Consumer Privacy Act" on the ballot in November -- far exceeding the 365,880 signatures needed to qualify. The Mercury News reports:
The proposed initiative aims to allow consumers to see what personal information companies are collecting about them and ask the companies to stop selling that information, and also seeks to hold businesses accountable for data breaches. "Today is a major step forward in our campaign, and an affirmation that California voters care deeply about the fundamental privacy protections provided in the California Consumer Privacy Act," said Alastair Mactaggart, the San Francisco real estate developer who is bankrolling the measure. He has spent $1.65 million on the effort, according to filings with the California secretary of state.
The measure is opposed by companies such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Google, which have all donated $200,000 each to fight the measure. Facebook has also given $200,000 to the opposition. However, Facebook last month said it would leave the effort to fight the initiative.
The article notes that Facebook's decision to stop publicly opposing the privacy measure occurred "around the time Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was testifying to Congress about the company's Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal."
The measure is opposed by companies such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Google, which have all donated $200,000 each to fight the measure. Facebook has also given $200,000 to the opposition. However, Facebook last month said it would leave the effort to fight the initiative.
The article notes that Facebook's decision to stop publicly opposing the privacy measure occurred "around the time Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was testifying to Congress about the company's Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal."
Only one fix for this mess (Score:3, Insightful)
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There's a huge loophole even in that plan - what happens when you liquidate the company? Does the data become available to whoever purchases the assets, in whole or in part?
If you allow the data to persist through the death of the company, that can be exploited to sell the data, or just allow it to enter the hands of an entity that the users themselves never expected nor desired to have it.
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Forget liquidating the whole company. What if the company merely sells off a part of itself, such as its business interests in a market it's exiting? Do any customer names associated with the company remain with the portion of the company that goes to the buyer, or do they stay with the seller company, or do both the buyer and the seller get to have them since those are customers for both of them?
This is why we see things like poison pills occasionally pop up in the privacy policies of ethical companies: sh
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Marketing companies existed long before the kind of demographic data collection we see now. There's no reason they can't still do their jobs, it just doesn't need to be with private personal information.
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So what would you consider private, personal information? Not being a dick, just trying to see what people are worried about. Is private, personal information the information I have never shared on the Internet or in public? Or is the issue that - rather than having an investigator take a few months to collate all the public information on me by hand - these companies can scape and collate publicly-available data in a matter of a few seconds?
Just my opinion (subject to being convinced otherwise), since you asked...
What web sites I visit is nobody else's business.
What I share with my "Facebook Friends" (not to everyone) should not be made available for resale.
What I share on Facebook (or other forums) openly should clearly be fair game.
Siri, Alexa and others shouldn't be allowed to take my words and use them to target advertising for me w/o my express permission.
I could go on and on, but that should give you an idea of where I stand.
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Siri, Alexa and others shouldn't be allowed to take my words and use them to target advertising for me w/o my express permission.
I could go on and on, but that should give you an idea of where I stand.
Even if that advertising came from Apple or Amazon? If I go into a store and ask a lot of questions about leather belts, should I be surprised if the next time I come in to the store - or get an advertisement from them - they ask or talk about belts?
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I don't think that most people view Siri and Alexa as storefronts, but rather as tools to help them with their schedules, check the weather, and essentially google questions for them. Now, your example of going into a store, I'm fine with, or if I were to say specifically request info from those tools on the new Mac or iPhone, I'd be fine with Apple knowing that I'm interested, and sending more info, But, ideally, I wouldn't want them selling that information to others so that they could target me as well
But....but...but that is un-American! (Score:5, Funny)
Protecting people against activities that make the rich richer and violate the non-rich? What is capitalism coming to! This must be socialism, right?
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Satire-challenged much? Or are things in the US now so bad than anybody could actually believe that is a real opinion?
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You _must_ be stupid. My condolences.
so stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Fuck direct democracy and fuck California ballot measures.
This kind of stuff is what gets us into such a mess in the first place, where policymakers and regulators get their hands tied by people voting (or being asked to vote) on things that are beyond their level of knowledge to make a judgement call on, even if you're super informed about the issues.
In the next June election, we have the following ballot measures:
1. Authorizing a $4 billion bond (yes $4 Billion loan) for environmenta
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California is trying to implement the tried and failed system called a democracy. No, the United States isn't a democracy, it is a representative republic. Democracy have been tried through out history and if history shows us one thing, they do not work. What you get is tyranny of the majority, or mob rule. This is the reason that California is in the mess that it is in.
Re:so stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
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The 9th Circuit, which bothers to abide by things like the 4th Amendment and implied privacy rights, which other "American" courts find antiquated and quaint? That rules against police when they abuse their power?
After all, the only amendment that really matters is the 2nd, right? I love the Nutty Ninth, one of the last bastions of freedom and Constitutionality in the US. May they never change...
https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com]
https://www.kmm.com/articles-3... [kmm.com]
https://www.seattlepi.com/loca... [seattlepi.com]
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The 9th Circuit
The most over turned court in the land.
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No. It's because the 9th circuit has been wrong about more things than any other court in history.
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No. Wrong as in "unconstitutional." Wrong as in "not in line with what the law says." Wrong, as in "overreaching and beyond their legal authority."
As for your independent California Republic. I think we have wasted enough time with that foolishness. It's not going to happen and would fail anyway, So lets just put that topic to bed.
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30 years ago, the Soviets said an independent Ukraine, Latvia, and Estonia will never happen ... times change. Empires collapse, for better or worse, but mostly for better.
As I've said, the 9th is awesome -- it has been protective of privacy rights and Constitutional rights. A techie should applaud that, not deride it.
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Before you continue to bray about a free an independent California you should become familiar with US law. Specifically, 18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 - TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES.
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The 1st Amendment doesn't protect you from sedition of slander. Remember who is in office too. The only reason Calexit hasn't been prosecuted is because nobody takes it seriously. You can get as many signatures on that little piece of paper as you want. In the end it will be worth just as much as the paper you wipe your ass with. It will never see a day on the floor of California legislature.
I think we are done here. Not happening.
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Re:so stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Having a large economy doesn't necessary mean you have a healthy economy. You also have the largest debt of any state in the union at over 700 billion. The highest tax rate, one of the highest homeless population in the country, and the fastest shrinking middle class. You know the ones that actually pay all those taxes. You have junkies shooting up in your subways. An a complete and total dependency of surrounding states for water.
So, yes, California is a complete and total mess.
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Oh and you have idiots like governor moonbeam and that shreeking fool maxine waters to compound your problems.
Re:so stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Having a large economy doesn't necessary mean you have a healthy economy. You also have the largest debt of any state in the union at over 700 billion.
In absolute terms, the debt is the largest of any state, but of course, that is entirely expected because the total California economy is the largest of any state. In terms of debt as a percentage of GDP [usgovernmentdebt.us], California is about in the middle in terms of ordinal ranking as well as being very close to the aggregate percentage of all states combined.
The highest tax rate, one of the highest homeless population in the country, and the fastest shrinking middle class. You know the ones that actually pay all those taxes.
Well, that's a nice populist sentiment that is not necessarily supported by actual numbers. Looking at slightly old (from 2015 [ca.gov]) numbers, half of all income tax revenue in California comes from those in the top 1% of income earners. For 2003 to 2014 [ca.gov], all years except for one saw at least 40% of total income tax revenues coming from the top 1% of income earners.
An a complete and total dependency of surrounding states for water.
Well, sort of but not really. California uses about 40 million acre-feet of water per year. About 10% comes from the Colorado River system. One third comes from ground water. Another third comes from the Sierra snowpack. The rest comes mostly from in-state reservoirs.
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Well, that's a nice populist sentiment that is not necessarily supported by actual numbers. Looking at slightly old (from 2015 [ca.gov]) numbers, half of all income tax revenue in California comes from those in the top 1% of income earners. For 2003 to 2014 [ca.gov], all years except for one saw at least 40% of total income tax revenues coming from the top 1% of income earners.
I wonder how many of those 1%ers earn their income from CA-based companies that would effectively be shut down by this law? Google, Facebook, Twitter, Uber, etc.
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one of the highest homeless population in the country,
Well, stop sending them here [theguardian.com].
An a complete and total dependency of surrounding states for water.
Around half the food people eat in the USA is produced in California. Besides not sending us your homeless, you can also stop eating our food.
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That's absolutely true [redstatesocialism.com].
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Of course, California would have less debt if it were its own country, since Federal tax money is constantly taken from CA and used to support red states.
We have been over this before too. California wouldn't have any less debt if it was it own country. It would have exactly same amount of debt because you assume that you would be free of your debt if you did secede. Which isn't going to happen anyway. No, what you would do is you would be taking your debt with you.
So lets just say for shits and giggles that you did find some way to go your own way. Here is what would happen. You would be taking your $700B debit with you. But then you would have n
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That could happen but I'm betting it wouldn't. There is already some resistance to the current deals in the surrounding states with the water issue. I would think that once they see a way out of it that there would be no deal.
It would take years to renegotiate those water deals. Years that California wouldn't have.
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And as a sovereign state free to issue its own currency, it would also be free to tell those debt holders to pound sand. And given the industry in California, it would find no shortage of people, institutions and countries willing to buy new bonds issued by the new country.
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And as a sovereign state free to issue its own currency, it would also be free to tell those debt holders to pound sand
That would be the absolute worse thing California could do. Not only would you default on your debt, you would be showing the rest of the world that you can't be trusted to honor your commitments. Nobody would do any business with California at all. Being both a new and untested country and one that defaulted on a 700 Billion dollar debt. It would pretty much seal any new country of California doom.
An since most of the industry in Calif. is tied up in that debt, the moment it was defaulted on that
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"...it would also be free to tell those debt holders to pound sand."
Yeah, that wouldn't affect their ability to borrow money at all, right? Go read a book and fucking learn something.
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Yes - it would make it easier to borrow money as their GDP wouldn't be sucked into making useless, imposed debt payments that are a drag on their economy with nothing to show in return. Same reason people who declare bankruptcy are inundated with credit offers, same reason countries that have defaulted on colonialist debt have been able to attract investors.
You first, dipshit. When red states
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Just look at brexit to see what a terrible idea leaving is. It's not simple, it will carry huge costs, and you won't get all the great benefits of the union that you have now.
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So lets just say for shits and giggles that you did find some way to go your own way. Here is what would happen. You would be taking your $700B debit with you. But then you would have no way to pay it because what makes you the "5th" largest economy is being attached to the largest economy, The United States.
California gets back somewhere between $0.78 and $0.99 for each dollar paid into the system, while the average return is $1.22. But hey, Trump is literally talking about withholding federal funds from California if it doesn't follow along with his executive orders [latimes.com], so the return could be $0 which would leave us with really no choice but to secede if we wanted to pay our bills.
Once you go your own way that support will go away as will all the federal contracts you have plus most of the tech industry will vacate too. So you will lose all that and you can say bye bye to that large economy.
HAHAHAHAHAno. The tech industry is fed up with the federal government dicking them around over data security. Instead of leaving, the
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HAHAHAHAHAno. The tech industry is fed up with the federal government dicking them around over data security. Instead of leaving, they would be staying in droves. And go ahead, tell us exactly what those federal contracts are worth. Meanwhile, marijuana production and tourism would explode, oh and by the way we grow half of the food the nation consumes. If you want to eat more than corn and wheat, you'll pay what we ask, fuckers.
The USA needs California far more than the other way around.
Well let's spend some time and look at that shall we? First let's look at what article this thread is attached to, "New California Ballot Measure Demands Groundbreaking Privacy Rights." That is a referendum put to a public vote to put restrictions on these tech. industries you say are fed up with the federal government dicking them around. So now instead of being regulated by a government body where they have a recourse in court, they would now be regulated by whelms of the public with no recourse in
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California is moving to restrict the way these tech. companies do business so what are these companies going to do?
It's good for some of them, bad for others. The ones it's good for will stay, the ones it's bad for are on the road to destruction anyway. The government can't afford not to regulate them.
Yes, you do grow a lot of food in California, but you only do that because you take water from the surrounding regions. If that was to go away you wouldn't be farming any where as much.
Less than one-fifth of our water is coming from out-of-state. And it won't go away. Those other states don't have the climate to grow food with the water, and will still want our food.
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No you will pretty much be deserted by the good ones. Nobody wants to do business in a questionable political climate. We won't mention the tax hikes that will be coming to finance the large public debt. They won't be coming from the middle class because there is no middle class. The only sources left to milk will be the industry. For this reason alone will enough to leave. An knowing that these industries will be looking for a new home other governments will offer crazy tax intensives to move ther
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California is trying to implement the tried and failed system called a democracy.
No what they are doing is called "direct democracy". There are plenty of democratic systems around the world that aren't / haven't failed. The most prominent of which is a representative democracy which works best in countries which haven't tended towards 2 party politics.
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No what they are doing is called "direct democracy".
Stop talking about things you don't understand. It only makes you look foolish. An makes my job so much easier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Direct democracy, in other words a democracy. They do not work, they never work. Our Founding Fathers saw this and it why we have repressive republic. Another name for mob rule, or the tyranny of the majority.
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Why? Because the state's Constitution requires all bond measures to be approved by the public. Would you really rather that the California Legislature be allowed to sell bonds and mortgage the state's future with no oversight? I've lived in California for over half a century, and I certainly wouldn't!
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What makes you think your elected officials are any better informed? It's a rarity for any of them to even know wtf is in the bills that they're voting on.
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Yes, the peasants are revolting. Alas, this is what happens when their betters ignore them. Your distaste for them is what makes them cause problems for you. Perhaps those who think they are leaders should take the concerns of ordinary people into account when making their plans. That way, the ordinary people do not become so unhappy as to take matters into their own hands.
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Why do you see this as only a "flaw of democracy"? Don't any other forms of governments rely on experts who are putting their own self interests first, having conflicts of interest?
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People are already doing that from California. Why do you think that there's a mass exodus.
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People may be leaving CA, but the population is increasing and CA just became the 5th largest economy in the world, overtaking the UK.
We all joke about it (Score:3)
We joke about Google cutting off companies or groups they disagree with, but with this ballot and the right to get companies to stop selling your information, they may just find themselves cut off.
Right.... (Score:2)
Yes, because Google has stopped doing business in all of Europe due to the GDPR (which I will add is much more strict and has more teeth than this proposed legislation).
OH WAIT that is not true at all. It turns out that folks DO want Google services? You don't say...
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FWIW, Google isn't that much better than AltaVista was. In some ways I preferred AltaVista. If Google were cut off, something like AltaVista or WebSpider would quickly pop up. And I don't use any Google services except their search, because I don't like something intrusive.
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Yes, because Google has stopped doing business in all of Europe due to the GDPR (which I will add is much more strict and has more teeth than this proposed legislation).
How did you get from "companies or groups" to "all of Europe". Maybe re-read my post, and the GDPR, what has that achieved? Oh that's right: Opt into everything Google, or opt out of using Google, which was exactly my point.
Those people who crave to starve the revenue for their "free" services will find their "free" services cease serving them.
A direct threat to California’s tech Leaders (Score:2)
Since when is social media, free stuff where you are the product, and business models which treat employees like contractors considered tech leadership?
Maybe Silicon Valley should get back to doing things which made tangible products such as CPU's, and specialized chips.
Maybe instead of "Silcon Valley", it should be called "Silly Ventures"
GDPR (Score:2)
Since all California-based multinationals modified their practice for EU's GDPR [wikipedia.org], asking them for provisions covered by this legislation should not cost them much (except in lost data sales, of course).
More info... (Score:2)
Looks like this is an opt-out bill, but one thing I don't like about it is how it literally requires the link to be called "Do Not Sell My Personal Information".
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If there was a way he could make this law apply only to him and his family, he would have done it that way, but there is not.
He'd have to be much, much richer, or a politician or some other big celebrity. Then he could use the relative difference in his "importance" level in society to argue for special rules that applied to him but not other people. Kinda like how leaked personal information can hurt the image (and therefore career) of movie stars. Or legislators claim that it's "risk to national security"
Re:Why is a real estate dev funding this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Occasionally there are people with money that also have a conscience and do not only care about themselves. Shocking, I know. Don't they know that in true capitalism such behavior is anathema? These dangerous deviants sometimes even happen to live in the US.
More like hypocritical (Score:2)
The CA state government is serious about controlling and/or protecting its environment, gun ownership, etc.. They also tax its citizens more than other states by a significant margin. To be effective in this endeavor, they "state" has to collect a TON of private data - far more than any corporation.
Yet they want to protect individuals from corporate abuse of data collection and sale?
While the effort is noble and I agree that corporations have long overreached on data collection while keeping the federal gov
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They just use their "government" face (lobbyist politicians) whenever they do something you livestock might not like, to get you to hate the very and onl concept that could save you from them: An *actual* government. Like an *actually* democratic one. Aka without "representatives" (aka corporate lobbyists), let alone senators (aka "former" nobility old boys club. *literally*.).
Keep in mind that your freedom as a human being is a zero-sum game.
The more power you give to others and/or government, the less freedom everyone has.
A large government is large basically because it has many things to do, and that's because it has many powers.
Because a large government necessarily has many powers by definition, the people it governs have less freedom.
If the federal government was small and didn't have a lot of domestic power, scope, and control, it would not be such a target and opportunity
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False. People may have more power under a big gov, because it can keep corporations in check.
LOL! "Keep them in check"!?!?
Look around you. How's that been working out?
Large government and corporations merge.
It's been called the "Military-Industrial Complex" but more accurately today it would be the "Military-Industrial-Information Complex".
Strat
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Just because our government is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of BigCorp does not make OP's assertion untrue; it simply means our government has been corrupted because it was infiltrated and co-opted.
But the point is WHY is it corrupted, besides basic human nature?
The answer, young padawan, is that government becomes corrupt when there's enough power and control concentrated in one place to make it worthwhile. It's impossible to corrupt a federal regulatory agency that does not exist, and corrupting fifty or more independent regulatory bodies while remaining unnoticed while each is corrupted in turn is equally impossible in any realistic scenario of a functioning government.
Ironically, the best way for
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So for everyone to maximize their freedom they would need to live alone and not rely on anybody else
Your logical failure is: "False Dichotomy".
You can be free (not in the absolute sense, we are not Sith here) and live and work among millions of people.
If you're "maximizing freedom" (maximum freedom is "anarchy" BTW and nobody wants that) you're also "maximizing" the freedom of association. If I voluntarily trade something that I have that someone else wants for something they have that I want, no freedoms have been lost on either side. That changes if there's someone else standing there with a gun forcing
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Somehow, libertarians never live in countries with true libertarianism, like Somalia or Chad.
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Somehow, libertarians never live in countries with true libertarianism, like Somalia or Chad.
Nearly all sane libertarians understand that there must be *some* government for the exact reasons you mentioned and more.
Libertarianism =/= Anarchy
Nice job killing that stereotyped and propagandized image of libertarians all being extreme zero-government anarchist nutcases that you parroted like a good tool, though. A fine piece of political/ideological bigotry by anyone's standards. [golf clap]
Strat
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The problem is that the voters don't have much input into the selection of candidates. This is something that can be addressed by things like Instant Runoff Voting. (Well, I prefer Condorcet, but IRV is a lot easier to explain, and it's nearly as good.)
As it is, there wasn't a single candidate in the last Presidential election that I thought desirable. Not in any party on the ballot. Decent candidates know better than to run in minor parties, and the major parties intentionally reject them.
FWIW, I did v
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It would make that worse. Condorcet doesn't work that well on a hand count system, because there's too much shuffling of ballots. And that isn't even the big problem in most places. In most places the big problem is the amount of additional information the voters need to process to vote as well as they can. But it's still better than "plurality takes all", which is the main US voting system. (It's not majority wins, as most elections are decided with no candidate getting a majority.)
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What is this "free market" you talk about? Where can I find it?
The only approximation of the "free market" I can think of is the underground market in illegal drugs. If that's your ideal, then I don't really care for it. I prefer something where one can ensure that one is getting what one purchases, and where one isn't stolen from. That's also an ideal the doesn't exist, but I find it a much more desirable one.
P.S.: When a drug starts getting too profitable, the approximation of a free market disappear
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The libtards in California have now made it the #5 economy in the world passing the UK.
Good on California, though we did give you a hand by shooting ourselves in the foot, then kicking ourselves in the nuts for good measure then arguing with each other about whether we'd prefer to be shot in the foot again or kicked in the nuts even harder.
For some reason deciding to not do either is not on currently the cards.
You're welcome by the way.
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Actually, another few years of Trump and the US might just ask England to take us back.
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If you don't live in California, you wish you lived in California.
No, not really. I lived in California for awhile. I was very happy to it as a I left it going back to sane states. A place where I can water my lawn and not paint it. Yes, they where painting their lawns green when I was there.
You may have one of the highest economies but it isn't a healthy economy, with 700B in debt. At 13.9% you also have the highest tax rate. Do you know what the tax rate in that my state is? It's 0%.
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
You also have one of the fastest growing
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Oh you also have the highest rate of junkies shooting up in the streets and subways.
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That's just what we tell the rest of the country to keep you from coming here.
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But the worse sin that California forces on the rest of the country is that shreeking fool Maxine Waters. You know if you would get rid of her then we could work together on the rest of your problems.
This is the only part of your post that is sensible. It would help if she could correctly remember the names of people she is talking to (she called him Zuckerman in the hearing a few weeks ago). But most of that House committee was a dumpster fire. Questions about conspiracy theories, questions about FB's biz model ("We display ads Senator") and little to nothing of any real insight or value. The only thing I'm certain of is that there is no way any regulations that might come out of that group would b
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I'm not sure what parts you would consider un-sensible. They are all true. High tax rate, high homeless, large public debt, and water dependence on other states. This is all public record an known issues.
The only thing that I have any personal with is calling Maxine Waters a shreeking fool.
"Impeach!! Impeach!! Impshreeek! Shreek!!! Shreek!!!"
Crazy fool has no clue what happens if they Impeach Lord Trump. We get Mike Pence and then God help us all. That crazy fool thinks he is on a mission fr
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You'd make yourself look less silly if you tried checking your spelling.
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Like Iowa, which just passed a law based on heartbeats?
Yes. That happens in a society that frowns on infanticide.
A place where I can water my lawn and not paint it. Yes, they where painting their lawns green when I was there.
That happens nationwide. You can go into any Lowes, Menards, Home Depot and get it. They even sell little colored succulents. Yay?
Which is why I chose not to live in California. I actually like trees and other plants that don't require a desert climate. Please don't try to turn the rest of the country into one.
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2) Low taxes have high costs
Yeah, like an electorate from CA that's fleeing to find them.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/1... [cnbc.com]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/p... [forbes.com]
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"If you don't live in California, you wish you lived in California."
What are you smoking? The weather is nice if the state is not on fire. Otherwise you have endless freeways with endless traffic, endless taxes, endless welfare, endless regulations, endless people, and endless stress. A large GDP has NOTHING to do with quality of life. California is to America what America is to the rest of the world, a place of masturbatory excess best to be avoided.
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You've never been to California, have you?
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That's total horseshit. I just today drove from Cambria to Santa Barbara to see visit the Channel Islands and will drive home to the Central Coast tomorrow. It was a perfect Saturday with all sorts of stuff going on along the coast. There was hardly any traffic and certainly no delays. I've ridden my bike during the week alo
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To be fair, I've only lived in Austin an
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"If you don't live in California, you wish you lived in California."
I manage people in CA, but don't live there. I've visited frequently over the last ~30 years, and spent about a total of a year of my life in the state. It's a great place to visit, but no fucking way do I want to live there. And clearly, I'm not alone...
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/1... [cnbc.com]
https://www.nbc26.com/news/nat... [nbc26.com]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/p... [forbes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Let's hope California cuts itself off from social media. Would make the Internet a much nicer places without all that SF-based outrage over everything.
Careful, they might take offense.