You are vastly oversimplifying the skills that it takes to be a good physician. Books can teach you facts. Videos can show you skills. Virtually no one can teach themselves surgery from books and video. My role as a physician educator in the OR is to flatten the learning curve with the help of the experience I have gained over 21 years of practice and teaching others. Could I teach outside of a University ? Sure...but all the best doctors insist on being trained at the highest level they can acheive. That means Med School/Univeristy. Being a doctor is alot more than the mechanics of doing stuff. Reading emotions of patients and families, instilling trust, knowing when to say things and when to listen, knowing "how" to say things so not all hope is lost...these are all skills that are best taught at the bedside with the student/resident/pupil observing them first, and then using the lessons with their patients. The moral approach to patient care can be instilled as well. But it has to be hands on, by observation. Humans tend to know the right things to do but we are vastly swayed by the environment we are in. Teaching future doctors to put their patients' interest first by showing them what that means is the only way I know how to do that. That means, hands-on, face to face, for an extending time period.
Many Universities are putting their lectures for classes up on the web. Stanford has a iPhone programming class in iTunes, and just is currently did a Machine Learning class on the web where people on line could even do the homework assignment. (I don't have time right now, but will try to put up some links this weekend). MIT has many Engineering classes on the web, and I've seen some Biology classes from Berkeley. Many great lectures are available for free if you know where to look.
Maybe in my rush I missed the point of you post. This link has many of the really good classes. This is the Machine Learning class I was talking about. http://jan2012.ml-class.org/
Yes, I just wanted to point out how high quality education can and will become very accessible to everyone. Physical colleges won't ever be replaced, but if such online courses become very popular it will make it much easier for people to gain the knowledge necessary to enter high level graduate programs without having to pay extremely elevated prices for vocational and undergraduate programs. Depending on the field, even the highest level programs can be fully taught online. Professors and professional sources are often easily accessible, and will be more so as technology progresses. Eventually we get to a point where there will always be someone knowledgeable available to ask at least some basic questions, at least for the duration of a course, and video lectures are available to view at your leisure. As far as the social implications of this goes, we should ultimately arrive at a point where anyone can easily build themselves up in a new career as long as they have the will to learn. And all this gives a lot more opportunity for work across disciplines, which is where most true innovation occurs.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/alb...luding-stretch-regulatory-boundaries-article- Of course, promising to provide a service and then not providing that service is already illegal. It's called fraud. Maybe there's a tradeoff to be had here...revamp fraud laws and fraud enforcement, tighten them up, and then get state and local gvts. out of the hyperregulation business.
This is a backhanded attempt at putting yanky cranky shops out of business while making more money. Has nothing to do with fraud. And if you ask me, judging by who's writing the legislation and what part of Queens they are from racism is definitely part of this.
I heard on NPR the other week a similar story where the husband lost his job, and the wife started baking apple pies and such and selling them at fairs, farmers' markets, etc. and that was going to be a no-no after some law was passed. it might have been on the local Colorado Public Radio now that I think about it. seems pretty stupid to me. people know what they're getting when they're buying food items in informal settings like farmers markets and fairs. they know it's probably going to kill them sooner or later. deep-fried lard doesn't need to have a nutrition label that tells you it's bad for you.
Here's an interesting case. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/03/26/overbuilding_parking_in_chicago.html It seems that parking spaces are becoming less and less popular in big downtown developments in Chicago. But developers aren't able to respond to the market, because of minimum parking requirements. This is a very practical, local issue that the libertarians could get involved in and make a difference. Hopefully they can dedicate some of the time they currently devote to legalizing heroin and re-adopting the gold standard to creating a voice for change.
Oh wow, from the same blog. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/03/26/when_is_cooking_at_home_illegal_.html
My city doesn't have minimum parking requirements and as a good libertarian I will let Chicago figure out it's own stuff. Parking is not something the federal government imposes so why one should take precidence over the other is beyond me. Libertarians aren't able to muiltitask?
Along the same vein... http://reason.com/archives/2012/03/25/california-assemblyman-wants-to-treat-fo
Yep, Matt, that is one stupid proposed law. If I were a libertarian and I lived there, I'd organize against it and try to a) get a "win" and b) expand the libertarian umbrella. 1. Wait wait wait...so the gvt. can trample your rights if it's municipal, but not the feds??? I know you don't mean that! semi 2. Apparently not.
Nope. It's just not my fight to fight. I'd rather take on Bloomberg and his no smoking in outdoor parks nonsense since that's what's going down in my municipality.... ....while I continue to rail against the federal government for the shit that they pull.
You don't understand, Matt. Libertarians have to all individually and publicly show their every displeasure with every intrusion everywhere, or it means nothing.
Ya mean like how liberals have to be consistent on our opposition to war everywhere, even under a Democrat's watch? If I were to go back through these boards, you don't think I'd find you and Matt saying how hypocritical Obama supporters were on drone killings?
Not quite the same, actually. The left went completely silent as Obama continued Bush's wars and even stepped one up after spending the previous 7 years marching with papier mache puppets and other assorted performance art. I think maybe the only groups who maintained any semblance of consistency on that issue were possibly Code Pink and maybe Women in Black (if they even still exist). You're asking libertarians to loudly and proactively respond to every issue ever in exactly a consistent way everywhere (or superdave is, anyway), and to do so unabashedly publicly, then brag about it to anyone who will listen.
I am yet to meet a true libertarian in my life. Most people who call themselves libertarian, only take libertarian positions on those issues, where it is to their advantage. On issues where a libertarian position is to their detriment, they are the first ones screaming for government regulation. For example, consider all the proud libertarians arguing in favor of farm subsidies. (that's not socialism, it's patriotism) Or the proud libertarians vehemently opposing H-1B visas (because these private firm jobs belong to Americans, not to the owners of the firm)
Those aren't libertarians. Those are white welfare queens. What about your former governor? Does he count?
Wasn't living in NM at that time. So can't really comment. But at least he's not a hypocrite on social issues.
Unintended consequences - not just for breakfast anymore That and most (but not all) people who call themselves "libertarian" these days are only against intrusive and coercive actions when "government" is involved. They're perfectly fine with - indeed, they're outright supportive of - intrusive and coercive actions when corporations are the actors. By dumping libertarianism for corporatism, they've basically become the Right's answer to idiot stalinists on the Left and a society run on their "libertarian" beliefs would come to resemble stalinist societies because extremes meet, only it will be a corporatist dystopia rather than a statist one. Real libertarians distrust all forms of concentrated power, including private power. They know that the democracy of "one person, one vote" where the people ARE the government, not the "one dollar, one vote" of the few who control "the market", is the best guarantor of individual liberty yet devised. They have not forgotten the "enlightened" part of "enlightened self interest" in which the cause of individual liberty is often best served by recognition of the overall public good and the self-discipline needed to limit one's own actions in light of that public good. Sadly, the appropriate fight against the abuse of state power, state corruption, counterproductive regulations and the cause of the individual half of the individual/society dynamic tension has been twisted and deformed by plutocratic interests into the current vicious parody of the libertarianism of the Founding generation. Today's most (but not all) "libertarians" have been carefully trained to see only half the picture - and not the worst half at that. So their policies would not lead to real liberty but only to a different form of slavery than they anticipated. A bird with only one wing cannot fly.
I'm actually making the inverse point. I'm NOT saying libertarians should talk about every intrusion everywhere. I'm saying libertarians should talk about SOME intrusions on liberty that are a) local issues and b) they can actually impact policy. You know, practical libertarianism. It's awfully easy to sit in the peanut gallery and take potshots at our pot policy. You can't lose if you can't win.
Re: Unintended consequences - not just for breakfast anymore It's pretty apparent that media concentration has narrowed our practical scope of broadcast speech and that is a terrible thing. The focus is primarily on government because only under the state's permission or with the state's help can a private power become powerful enough to create real, systematic harms to freedom. Also, the state is legally allowed to kill you and take your money (although depending on the case in the SCOTUS today that could very well change). That's kind of a big deal as well.
The real problem with parking in Chicago is the botched privatization of the parking meters here. http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/06/17/chicago-pays-the-price-for-parking-privatization/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/11/20/its-official-chicago-parking-privatization-a-massive-rip-off/ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/u...=us&adxnnlx=1258725941-1V 7onrA6MBaXJWQYoz3Uw http://www.urbanophile.com/2011/12/06/three-years-down-72-more-to-go-on-chicago-parking-meter-lease/ As a lifelong Chicagoan, I fully appreciate what it's like to live in a one-party city-state that is basically a poorly governed, more corrupt version of Singapore but without the caning. Here, the government is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate interests that does not respond to "the People" at all. It used to be that the Democratic Machine here gained its power from courting voters. If you supported the Machine alderman, your cousin got a job in Streets&San, the alleys were kept reasonably clean, the potholes filled in and the cops didn't bother you when you staggered home from the corner bar. It was corrupt as hell, but at least there some small benefit to the voters. That was bad enough but nowadays the Machine has figured out that voters don't matter. Only corporate money matters whether in the form of "campaign contributions" or, more honestly, outright bribes. And so now, from the privatizations to unnecessary TIFs to zoning ordinances to selective law enforcement, everything in Chicago is done to keep the corporate masters happy while the voters just pay and pay for that happiness in the executive suites. The problem is that the corporate MSM here only rails against the government while ignoring the corporate hand that now animates the Machine sockpuppet. Changing the puppet without also limiting the hand that uses it won't solve the problem.