Anarcho-capitalism, It appears we have moved on but....

[Coffee]

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Shows that a company is willing to pay significant money to oppressive government rather than improve their ways of doing business ( building better pipelines, paying people for their property, etc ). If they are willing to pay significant money to this government of thugs for this service, it follows that they, in the absence of any government, would be willing to pay thugs for this service. That is why I said remove the government and how does any of this change? Shell is willing to pay thugs significant money rather than improve their processes. This stands in direct conflict to AC philosophy that companies will not use the power of their money in ways that oppress individuals.

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Okay...for the sake of argument, let's say that you're correct in that it doesn't matter whether there is government or not, and companies will seek to use oppressive thugs no matter what the situation. If that is true, then why do we need government? If the outcomes of Action A or not doing Action A equals the same thing, why go to the expense of Action A?

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Yes it is an activist site, but finding anything completely unbiased regarding such a topic would be hard. Do you doubt such things are happening there? This topic has been reported on by several different entities, but somehow is not worthy of much attention from major new agencies ( old news really as far as they are concerned ).

[/ QUOTE ] Alright...then why not give a link from one of these different entities, preferably one from the other side of the political spectrum? Wouldn't that head off this question of bias and strengthen your point?

As far as example 2 goes, you are correct in that you never mentioned libertarianism...we get roped in with ACers so often I sometimes have trouble distinguishing. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] But...here's my point...this example is really irrelevant to AC, because neither company is making a good business decision. The "white hat" decided to fight back, but ended up in a war of attrition with the "black hats." Business is not about heroism...it's about survival...at least, that's what I thought it was about. It is certainly admirable that this guy wanted to "get" the spammers...hell...I might have wanted to do the same thing(or done the same thing). But...part of competing is sizing up one's competition, wouldn't you say? So...that doesn't really make the "White Hat" wise...just brave.

The thing is...the "Black Hats" don't win, either...because it's not like they've suddenly gained a client base. In terms of business, they have simply added an inefficiency in order to prove their "superiority," wasting time, money, and effort. That doesn't seem to be a very competitive thing to do, either. Meanwhile, the rest of the market continues its routine.

So...to sum up...you are describing a situation akin to two fish trying to suck out on each other and bully each other out of the pot. Meanwhile...the Grinder market will be over in the 1 seat, waiting for Aces.