User:Circuitloss

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Userboxes ?met? This user prefers metric units and cannot figure out why Americans have such a hard time with them. n? This user has no idea how many edits he's made This user finds copyright paranoia disruptive. dar This editor is a darwikinist. This user is a Citizen of the World (Terra, ⊕). This user is an adherent of Anglican Christianity. This user opposes oligarchy by supporting the progressive tax and public education. This user would likely die without eating the occasional curry. This user contributes using Mozilla Firefox.

I'm a professional geek, part-time writer, sometime philosopher, and closet mystic.

Contents 1 Wikipedia Projects 2 About Me 2.1 My Blog 2.2 Politics 2.3 Travel 2.4 Wikiphilosophy 2.5 Inspirational Quote

[edit] Wikipedia Projects

My biggest edits so far are to Alessandro Valignano and Backpacking (travel). I just started Matt Lamanna and I'm hard at work on Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

[edit] About Me

[edit] My Blog

Theological Static is a little notepad/journal/random thoughts receptacle that I post to from time to time.

[edit] Politics

Politically, I'm a Social Democrat with Libertarian leanings. (I know that's a little strange...) In general I tend to think of myself as classical moderate. (The classical "extremes" in economic theory being pure Capitalism and Marxism.)

In a purely capitalistic system, wealth creates wealth. Thus, the wealthiest individuals tend to become more and more wealthy over time. However, in a purely Marxist system, the removal of incentives (like becoming wealthy!) also removes any real desire by workers to achieve, and in the long-term, lowers production and make the general populace poorer. (See for example, the ugly history of Soviet collective farming.)

The most ideal system is a mixture of the two, where individuals are allowed to create and use wealth for personal gain but a certain percentage of their success is reinvested in the lower classes, generally in the form of health care and education, in order to keep them competitive and fend off oligarchy. Ideally, there is a large amount of turn-over between rich and poor and middle class, with individuals belonging to at least two socio-economic classes in their lifetime.

Thus, a successful government does a number of things.

1. Free individuals to create businesses, and in turn, new sources of wealth for themselves.
2. Collect taxes fairly, in proportion to total wealth.
3. Prevent the creation of monopolistic entities that impede innovation and growth.
4. Prevent legal systems that foster proto-oligarchy. For example, maintain an estate tax and rein in the stifiling effects of intellectual property law.
5. Provide health care.
6. Provide education. (one of the strongest indicators of individual success)
7. Provide public transportation.
8. Expect that corporations and other business entities share these values.

This is the European system, which by most calculations, in the second half of the 20th century, has created the highest overall standard of living for the greatest number of people. The political system in the United States shared many of these values up until the 1960s, and then became increasingly focused on maximizing corporate efficiency over the "greater good."

[edit] Travel

I'm totally obsessed with travel. Some good sites are:

• Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum
• Kayak
• Great site for getting Russian Visas

[edit] Wikiphilosophy

One day the Master announced that a young monk had reached an advanced state of enlightment. The news caused some stir. Some of the monks went to see the young monk. "We heard you are enlightened. Is that true?" they asked.

"It is," he replied.

"And how do you feel?"

"As miserable as ever," said the monk.

[edit] Inspirational Quote

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed; those who are cold and are not clothed." --President Dwight D. Eisenhower