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[jaydub]

You shouldn't have any trouble finding brew shops in NYC.  Check out this board for a great online home-brewing community, as well as a live broadcast, weekly homebrew "radio" show (5pm on Sundays, plus archives/podcasts of past shows).

I've got 4 brick-and-mortar stores within easy range, so I never order online.  Beer, Beer, and More Beer is a major supplier, and they do custom fabrication for brewing systems as well.  There's a lot of cross-pollination between More Beer and The Brewing Network.

[KeithHernandez]

A-CAP:   Lots of times you have gotten negative cans for reasons that maybe aren't that strong, but, for my money, working where you do is hell of negative cans.  If I cared, maybe I will give you one for fun, but that is still a lame job.  Filling the world with shitty beer one bottle at a time.

[Arachno-capitalist]

You smoked 50 cigarettes in 9 innings? Jesus.

[littlefallsmets]

Boys, boys, boys... BOTH your icons are pretty. And they both have their flaws.

Keith's is not close-up enough to reveal that the baseball player's upper lip is covered in rich Columbia cocaine powder. A-CAP's is not close-up enough to reveal that the blue man is totally an asshole and deserves to be murdered and his inherited wealth redistributed to, like, orphans and foreigners.

Your icons are equal in the eyes of The Fun God. The Fun God does not abide fighting.

[Arachno-capitalist]

A-CAP's is not close-up enough to reveal that the blue man is totally an asshole and deserves to be murdered and his inherited wealth redistributed to, like, orphans and foreigners.

oh, hell no.

[KeithHernandez]

Keith Hernandez really did do that.  He did have some rich Columbian cocaine powder in his system though (probably, I don't know when it happened in his career, but it makes sense that it would be in his coke days).

[littlefallsmets]

Capitalism would be awesome except that invariably from the group of those with arbitrary advantages, there will quickly rise a group who are willing to use those advantages unscrupulously and game the system so that they don't have to follow the rules of capitalism.

The children and the grandchildren of the innovative will control resources so large that they will crush competition and innovation and form themselves into a ruling class. It may take twenty years, it may take five generations, but it'll happen. That's the end game of capitalism.

The unscrupulous will turn the rules of capitalism against itself so as to rule as tyrants.

Communism would be awesome except that invariably from the group of those in leadership positions, there will quickly rise a group who are willing to use their political power unscrupulously and game the system so that they don't have to follow the rules of communism.

The friends and successors of the politically powerful will control political resources so large that they can crush political competition and dissent and form themselves into a ruling class. It may take twenty years, it may take five generations, but it'll happen. That's the end game of communism.

The unscrupulous will turn the rules of communism against itself so as to rule as tyrants.

People crazy enough to want power for the sake of having power are going to come into any system and fuck it up, that they might pretend that they are gods and that their children or their ideological apprentices will be gods after them.

Stalin or Prescott Bush, pick yer poison.

Most people don't live long enough or live varied enough lives or learn enough to catch onto the fact that life is basically suffering and the only way we're ever going to get beyond that is if we all try our best to help each other out... that power or possessions are probably only going to bring you troubles, either through need or through want.

So there's a lot of motherfuckers out there who are going to hurt people to get stuff and to hold onto stuff.

Now, in theory, in the face of that truth, communism sounds like the best choice. But, of course, it is just as open to corruption, it's just that the corruption will come through the consolidation of political power instead of economic power as in capitalism.

And in other models, you know... the corruption comes through the consolidation of media power... or through the consolidation of royal power... or of military power... or religious power... or whatever.

History is not a struggle of races or economics or religions or even, really, classes. History is a struggle between a growing mass of people learned enough to realize that we're all in this together as humans and a more-and-more entrenched power structure doing its best to divide those people and conquer them by gaming whatever system is extant.

Whether that gaming is... religious scare tactics or military force or economic monopoly... isn't so much the issue.

I think the answer for real freedom and cooperation amoungst the masses is a system where all the different models for cheating are at each others' throats, fighting each other instead of human individuals just trying to be happy and helping each other out. Gridlock of the unscrupulous.

Turn the military against the business community, the business community against religion, religion against the government, the government against the media, the media against the military... and so on and so forth.

When all the motherfuckers trying to seize power by cheating in some goddamned model or another are too busy fighting amoungst themselves, therein lies freedom and cooperation toward an end to suffering.

Keep the monsters busy fighting each other, whatever ism you wanna call each beast.

Just my opinion, of course.

[theinevitable]

um, it seems to me that a lot of people realize that life is essentially shitty and so they do the best to help themselves and their families. I'm sure whatever academic first declared "Life is Suffering!" was met with lot of eye-rolling from the various serfs who were working so that he could sit on his ass telling them things they already knew.

[littlefallsmets]

um, it seems to me that a lot of people realize that life is essentially shitty and so they do the best to help themselves and their families.

But that's the thing, isn't it?

Power structures force us into situations where we are only able to look out for ourselves and "our own".

Keeping us busy just paying the bills and buying food, without being able to reflect on, let alone act on, fixing the bigger issues that could actually raise all ships on a rising tide, y'know? You can't amass god-like power without keeping the vast majority of people too busy to realize that you are not a god and if you were brought down, everyone would do a good bit better.

That's the game, keep people focused on the small picture and the short term... and run away with the large picture and the long term.

That's the game for a communist dictator who keeps the people hungry, that's the game for a pope telling people to have a bunch of kids so they have to work their whole lives just to feed 'em, that's the game of a capitalist plutocrat keeping the media full of stories about how awesome it is to be rich and just keep your nose to the grindnose and you will be a god too.

Keep 'em busy, keep the shells switchin'.

I don't think it's that we disagree, inev, I think I may have just not been clear enough.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Ok the thing is I spend my entire day writing papers on why and how you are wrong along with constructing pictures of curves and lines that no one save a TA will ever see. So what's more fun for me is the following:
1. Minimum wage laws serve to make people poorer and less employed
2. Drug companies and big oil are the coolest dudes on the block. Just try living without them.
3. The absence of a formal government would make people richer, more comfortable, and healthier.
4. Schools, health care, military, post office, police, and transportation all do better when they are owned privately and not in the hands of government bureaucrats who lack any incentive at all to perform.

And thats what is up. I'm just glad there are enough people like me to balance out people like you who want to steal all my money and drag the country into the ground by running some wealth transfer machine.

And all I wanted to do was ask if anyone else's beer cup broke. Go figure.

[littlefallsmets]

Well, A-CAP.

I don't want this to turn into One Of Those Internet Things where two bright young people debate something that much much smarter people than either of them have not come to agreement on in the last thousand years... and it turns into yelling and screaming and fighting and internet drama and so on.

You like the adventures of cynical cats and teddy bears. I like the adventures of cynical cats and teddy bears. For the purposes of this board, you and I are both rad.

But I've had a lot of people tell me the things you just said and... when I asked them why these things were true, they've pretty much never made sense to me.

The logic was always flawless but always came back to fundamental assumptions that I did not believe in. You are a smart dude, you must be if you like the cynical cat and teddy bears. Your reasoning will be sparkling and airtight.

But because our basic assumptions are at odds, we will both be airtight and still disagree.

I've been down that there road and I'm sure so have you.

One of my basic assumptions is that there are certain things either too essential to the public good or too easily turned into central monopolies that they cannot be trusted to the whims of free competition.

Open competition, where the economic bottom line is the only or main driving force, can be great for a lot of things. Things that are not essential to the shared human experience, things that can't be turned into rigged monopolies.

I don't trust the roads or the military or children's educations or people's health care or other such instituitions to dudes who are going to take every opportunity to cut any and every corner humanly possible.

That isn't a future I want for myself, that sure as hell isn't a future I would want if I ever spawned a mewling proto-human with the lady of my choice.

You clearly don't agree with that basic assumption. Which is fine.

But we're both gonna build airtight garages of logic out of our basic assumptions and it'll get ugly.

And I don't want that.

So let's agree to agree about cynical cats and teddy bears, huh?

[wombat]

You think the cats are cynical?

[littlefallsmets]

You think the cats are cynical?

You are can'd, W. YOU. ARE. CAN'D.

[AugustWest]

Ok the thing is I spend my entire day writing papers on why and how you are wrong

Hmmm.  Why don't you try summarizing one to prove your point rather than just making a bald faced assertion?

[Arachno-capitalist]

Because college papers are uninteresting even to those that require I write them. I dont see what's bold faced about the fact that I do spend my day writing papers on free market economics.