Bay 12 Games Forum

So, under your proposed model, how would a company like Netflix function?

Say that I live in a worker utopia, and want to watch a movie at home. Currently, I would have an EULA on my computer locking the wealth made from that device into the hands of the company that owns it. I have the subscription I pay to another company that supplies my internet line. Then I have another license I pay separately to Netflix to access their particular library of works. Netflix itself separately pays the rightsholders of the movies I watch for the right to offer those to me. Those companies might pay royalties to the writers of the work it was based upon, the license fees for the music created or adapted for that work, and a bunch of other stuff.

If the concept of rent-seeking and private property isn't legal, who would ever go through the veritable mountain of work it would take to duplicate the above? Take the profit incentive away, and nobody's gonna go putting in the effort to offer me stuff without the hope they can gouge me for my cash doing so.

You're also ignoring that most of the police who are shot, are shot by other police officers. It turns out when you give people with poor impulse control steroids, a gun, and free reign, they aren't careful.

Interesting! Source?

So, 55 actual murders of police officers, out of 686665 means a murder rate conveniently close to 8.0 / 100,000. Now that's not actually much more than the average murder rate of the USA in general, which is 5.0 / 100,000. And it's a lot less than the average murder rate of dozens of US cities in general.

Also note your 1/20000 figure turned out to be a bit low. And it's just the average murder rate for Americans of all types. So if cops had that murder rate it would mean they're a safe profession, since murders of them would be at "background" rates.

Those are some great stats, thanks! It's interesting to see how different the numbers become when using different sources of information. As a wise man once said, 'the two greatest liars are politicians and statisticians.'

While the numbers using these are therefore lower, it still shows a cop is nearly twice as likely to be murdered as a civilian, and this is even given that they wear protective equipment and have training to specifically avoid this outcome. I think my original point still stands up to scrutiny as to how this could serve as a motivation for the patterns of behavior we see in law enforcement officers in the USA.

Check the packaging (yes, I'm admitting to buying it). It's listed as a wine on the label, even though it's sold in plastic soft drink bottles. Thus, bypassing the bloody ridiculous taxes us aussies pay for beer, cider, spirits and pre-mix.

Here in kangaroo land, the alcohol taxes mean that our local bottle shops sell a 'wine' called Little Fat Lamb, which has a similar reputation as Four Loko. Namely, being cheap, high ABV, and tasting like soft drink and bad choices.

I dare say there's a point to be made somewhere in all this about companies who manufacture military equipment seeking to expand their market into the civilian police sector.

They're not, though. Cops face less gun violence than a whole host of professions, including some that aren't very dangerous at all. Cops aren't getting in gunfights with people and winning. They're just murdering people who mostly can't fight back.

That's why I support gun control, but only for cops. They're the ones who have proven they can't be trusted.

Interesting statistics regarding police!

This site lists 1,070 police killed by gunfire between 2000 and 2020.

This wikipedia article estimates the frequency of justifiable homicide by police in the line of duty (a.k.a. shooting people dead) as roughly 1,000 per year.

According to this article, there's a little less than 18,000 police in the USA. So if we compare the statistics...

If you live in the USA, your odds of being shot by police are about 1/328,000 per year.

If you're a cop in the USA, your odds of being shot in the line of duty are about 1/360 per year.

Did I do the math right here? Seems pretty skewed towards cops getting gunned down.

Brought to you by the half bottle of sav blanc left over from dinner and an evening of mashups from YouTube.

Sweet Fat Bottomed Alabama

I use planter boxes for my herbs. Anything that doesn't look like the surrounding organisms is treated with extreme prejudice. Think white cop on a black man kind of aggression. Purity of breed to the exclusion of all reason.

Then, when the crop is ripe, the culling.