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Amazon later reinstated my review, claiming it was a "mistake" to reject it. I added this comment to the review: "Note: This review, in the form above, was initially rejected by Amazon with little explanation but that it violated their guidelines. It was actually not published by them until Dec. 20, 2012. I've left in an error from my quoting of the first sentence, which should have read "The purpose of this book is to gain an understanding of our past and on that basis to predict our future." I stopped posting here for the simple reason that I was threatened with moderation while trying to initiate a sincere discussion about whether discussions here should be sincere, and whether the intellectual equivalent of schoolyard bullying (i.e. the insincerity of attacking people just to get a rise out of them) should at least be condemned if not moderated. The result was that I was implicitly threatened with moderation. I left the forum on my own terms rather than being explicitly banned. I posted the review SOLO for the simple reason that I thought the review should be available to Objectivists somewhere, and it was the only place I knew of that didn't censor people for being sincere. I certainly didn't post there because I think it's a great forum. There are no great Objectivist forums, or even good ones. This might have something to do with Objectivism itself. Shayne

Rand primarily advocated a return to reason, not individualism. (All the rest did not follow... but that's a separate issue)

Meanwhile, even Google can't escape the fascism: http://www.forbes.co...googles-android Imagine if you had a dozen engineers who want to create a brand new smartphone. Even Google can't keep Android alive without forking over billions of dollars for the fascist patent system. This effectively means that only about 5 people in the world have a right to create a smartphone (the 5 CEO's of the respective companies that have enough money and patents). Something is wrong when it is illegal for anyone other than 5 individuals out of 7 billion people to create and sell a given category of product. Shayne

What a dishonest representation. It was only when Ninth brought up the "pink sheets" that there was some evidence (if paltry) I was aware of to suggest that maybe it's not illegal. Do you have any idea how big and complex the legal code is? You can't even get lawyers to make definitive statements about anything. And again -- this complexity makes my case. Not knowing whether what you are thinking of doing is legal or not paralyzes your action. But you don't know the answer to my question, you know some of the complexity, and you don't give a damn. You're an amoralist. You're an amoralist who doesn't care when someone's rights are violated. You incessantly distort and misrepresent, as you did yet again in this post. Why should I apologize? You've wasted a lot of time trying to attack instead of trying to learn something. The "engineer" is a hypothetical Valve employee. And you are blaming the victim whose rights are violated. What a sick man you are. I can only wish that you get an awakening (rude or otherwise) concerning whatever it is that is sustaining your delusions about the system. There are many people who are unjustly ground up in the wheels of the statist machine. Too bad it's mostly random, if there were any justice it'd grind up only those who condone the injustice. Shayne

Ditto. And you are oblivious to fraud. Wrong. I'm going by what an accountant and lawyer told me, and by what I've found in research. I can't say that it's conclusive because nothing's conclusive given the complexity of our legal system. That you can't readily know what's legal proves my case. And I'm quite aware of fraud. E.g., you three have been fraudulently pretending to know something when you in fact don't. Also, nothing I've suggested implies that I approve of fraud. Obviously all fraud should be punished, but that doesn't mean that it should be preemptively prevented, which amounts to attacking someone on the grounds that they might possibly do something (there's a legal term for this I forget at the moment...) Shayne

Resolved: you don't know what you're talking about. Your guesses here are completely irrelevant and self-serving. What matters is whether someone's right to trade value for value has been interfered with, not whether you think the transaction is worthy. Of course, as a fascist, you don't care about violating rights now do you? That's why you incessantly shift focus away from rights violation and toward "but it doesn't matter anyway." You don't know whether it matters or not, and you don't care that someone's rights are being interfered with -- a patently amoral response. Shayne

What does any of this have to do with the "crowd funding" approach that Valve was entertaining doing, where people would chip in $50 in return for right to the game plus stock in it? You continue to fail to understand (purposefully I think) the Valve scenario I put forth. What we have here is a trusted game developer with an idea and no money, who is asking his fans for $50 in exchange for both a right to play the future game and stock in the company. Your task is to show that this is legally feasible, not only for Valve, but for an engineer who quit working at Valve and wants to go it alone. He has no capital, just ideas and a reputation and an ability to throw a website together. The shares of stock will stipulate whatever the engineer wants, including that the investment is risky and the contributors can't sue if the game doesn't come off, and they are free as consenting adults to agree or not. I think the truth is that all three of you know it's not legally feasible, but you refuse to actually admit it, and everything you've been saying so far is you trying to say in some terms or other that it doesn't matter if it's illegal. If so you should come out and say it so we all know what this "debate" is about. Shayne

What's your point? That you condone and want to license fraud? If you're that dumb that you can't see what the point is I think there's no point in you continuing here. Go do something you're actually capable of, that's fitting to your appalling lack of intellect and imagination. Like nailing some boards together with Bob. Shayne

... Are you serious? Do you even read the words you quote? Nothing about that stock was demonstrably tailorable in the sense I've been specifying all along, nor was there any evidence given that any person, small business, or company had an equal right to offer custom stock to the public. It's just a website with stocks listed. Shayne

The aspect of fascism we're talking about here is corporatism (see Mussolini). It has nothing to do with leftist-code for authoritarianism. America's economy is very highly regulated. You have no idea what you are talking about. You either have no idea what that phrase means in a pro-liberty context or you are a very twisted person. Shayne

Bob and Merlin are fascists, and ND doesn't care that they are. That's the "ethos." So yes, I trust someone with actual real-world experience with startups over them. Shayne

Selene, why are you listing a lawsuit about some other random attorney as if it's connected to the author that I cited? Shayne - What a weird ad hominem attack.

Ninth, the fact that you found a website that sells stocks does nothing to address the legal questions at issue here. All I can discern at the moment is that on the one hand, we have an expert attorney specializing in start ups saying, "to avoid jail, don't sell stock to family and friends" (and doesn't give any qualifications concerning "pink sheets" as a way out of this), and on the other, your claims about pink sheets. There's nothing definitive enough in what you're saying to actually risk acting on, and therefore nothing that actually furthers the case you are trying to make. Shayne

http://walkercorporatelaw.com/securities-law-issues/ask-the-attorney-securities-laws/ So should we trust Ninth, Bob, and Merlin, or an expert attorney? Shayne

http://walkercorporatelaw.com/startup-issues/how-to-launch-a-startup-and-avoid-ending-up-in-jail/ Shayne

http://walkercorporatelaw.com/ask-the-attorney/%E2%80%9Cask-the-business-attorney%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-what%E2%80%99s-wrong-with-an-llc/ I don't know exactly what he's talking about, but that's one of my points. Shayne

It should be easy for Ninth to prove his case. All he needs to do is list some websites from companies that are selling custom stock to the public. It should demonstrate a good variety of terms, such that we can infer that Valve can readily solve their "buy stock in a single game" problem. If he can list a convincing range of websites then I'll concede this point, but again, conceding this point does nothing to my overall case, and it does nothing to absolve Merlin & Bob from their fascist arguments. Shayne

I seriously can't believe you haven't noticed the fascist grounds which Merlin and Bob have been arguing from and that the major issue here hasn't been about the facts of whether you can do what you claim, but the moral grounds that one ought to be able to. Further, I seriously can't believe that you think what is important here is to quibble over a single non-critical point in my argument while ignoring the point at issue. The fact remains that, even if this point is in error, the rest of my points are valid, and the overall argument still stands. I will have to research pink sheets in more detail. As it happens, my position here isn't based on idle speculation, I have had both an account and a lawyer tell me that in order to create shares of stock with custom stipulations, you have to offer to qualified (i.e. rich) investors only. If they are in error, then this only further highlights why my view is correct. It's impossible for a layman to reliably navigate the legal code and know what is approved and what isn't. Even now you haven't made a complete case, you've just pointed me to pink sheets and asserted that it's legal to create custom shares and trade them. Nothing at the link you posted affirms this. How do I know from any of this it's legally safe? Are you giving me official legal advice? Can I come sue you if it doesn't work out? (Just for the record, I'd never sue you unless you were paid and made a guarantee). Shayne

"The company simply facilitates the exchange of securities between qualified independent brokers." I.e., not open to the general public. I continue to be amazed by incompetence/dishonesty of the posters here. Shayne Another non sequitur. How it is a non sequitur to conclude that "qualified independent broker" does not mean "anyone and everyone who wants to trade"? And anyway, it's not a conclusion, it's knowledge of the securities laws. Sufficiently rich people are free to buy stock with fairly relaxed regulations, but people who are not rich are highly regulated from doing so. This favors the rich over the not-rich, with the pretense being that it's to "protect" the not-rich, whereas the fact of the matter is that it is interfering with independent judgement and preventing average people -- who are in the vast majority -- from actively shaping the market. Shayne - Annoyed at the new OL forum software that inserts extra newlines.

Such as Pink Sheets? http://en.wikipedia....iki/Pink_sheets "The company simply facilitates the exchange of securities between qualified independent brokers." I.e., not open to the general public. I continue to be amazed by incompetence/dishonesty of the posters here. Shayne

Stunning. In a free market, the rules are: don't violate anyone's rights. There are no other rules unless you've consented to those rules, e.g. by joining a voluntary association like the Majors. I don't object to your SEC-sanctioned stock market, what I object to is that we aren't free to create alternatives. Shayne

Because that is not what I asked for. I specifically asked for how they can fund individual games by directly and publicly selling individual stock in each one to individuals, and without submitting to SEC jurisdiction. So yes, either you are very dishonest, or you can't read. Further, either you are for respecting the wishes of two consenting parties or you are not. If you are for respecting their wishes, then why are you arguing with me? If you are not, then clearly, you are both fascists in the technical sense of the term. Brant bemoans fascism in the US, but when he meets two fascists, he doesn't have the stomach for the word anymore. Where does he think fascism comes from if not from fascists? Shayne

Says you. Over and over again. I've told you I'm willing to hear why you think I should do such and such, but you expect me to change my behavior on your say so without providing reasons. And at the same time, you cowardly stand with GHS who posts with the sole purpose of provoking me. Don't tell me about "stupid, disgusting, uneducational, unproductive and just wrong." Look at GHS, and then look in a mirror. Did you ever think to lecture at GHS the way you do at me? No. Never. Why? Because you're his little pet? Shayne - Brant is a "Rational individualist"?

Nobody "made them invest." My comment related to this: It's a hypothetical security that Shayne believes a company like Valve Software should be able to use to raise money and the insiders retain their "creative control." It would presumably be another class of publicly-traded common stock (else, the SEC would be irrelevant) with no voting rights to be sold to outsiders. The insiders would retain all voting rights. With their "creative control" they could ruin the company, but the outside shareholders would have no recourse -- like voting in a new board of directors -- except selling their shares at a great loss. Incidently, the SEC has no law against common stock with no voting rights. I used fascism -- in quotes as an analogy -- because one of its main features is ownership in the hands of some (private individuals) but control by others (government). In the hypothetical it is ownership by outside shareholders but all control by insiders. Doublespeak. The simple truth is that we have two willing parties, buyer and seller, and you argue for forcing them to comply with your twisted view of how the world should be. You use "fascist" in quotes to try to make it appear as if you're not the fascist when clearly you are. This is not an insult, it is a technical definition -- you argue for a kind of government that distorts free market decisions, that leaves a kind of pseudo-ownership in the hands of property holders, with the government determining how that property is to be used. You are a fascist. So is Bob. A very dishonest reply. I've asked several times how Valve can legally offer the particular kind of security that they have expressed a desire for and Merlin has failed to answer. That is because there is no answer. It is illegal. So another epithet technically applies to Merlin. I don't know why Brant complains about calling things by their right names. Merlin is a fascist, and he is either dishonest or is completely incompetent at reading. Shayne

GHS purposefully evades substantive discussion and instead dishes out insults with the sole purpose of provoking me (his words). Brant laps it all up. He positively loves it. I always engage ideas to the best of my ability, never trying to merely provoke, but to state the truth as best I can. Brant positively hates it. Shayne