Livemike

I think it's more a matter of opportunity. Those who think they can get away with it go open aggressive, those who don't go deniable passive aggressive. But remember you wouldn't call me passive-aggressive if you knew how much it hurt me. (not an original, don't know how said it first)

It's only when someone wants to praise or condemn something without reference to morality that "normal" and "abnormal" need to be brought in.

If your culture tells you that your job is to protect the family against invaders even if it means your death, it doesn't make a difference. One armed robber, 100,000 it's all the same, your honor demands you defend. I'm not saying this idea is right, merely that it was prevalent in many parts of the world and still is in some.

Ahh yes, he's speaking out against those who believe in the "absolute autonomy of the market". So much less risky than speaking out against those with actual power. The real corruption here is MORAL. He isn't targeting the free marketeers because they're a problem but because that way he can look moral while not making any powerful enemies. That's the key to successful moral putrescence, kicking the innocent when the guilty know they can cause problems for their accusers. But hey at least they cracked down on child abuse by priests - only 4 centuries after they became aware of it. I have a blog post on the subject of the Pope's economic "wisdom". http://credible.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/the-economic-wisdom-of-pope-ironically.html

Ok, I've listened to 1:11:01 to 1:31:00 and nothing new and plenty that is simply wrong.

This is an analysis of the economic commentary in the pope's little document. Evangelii Gaudium. "I. Some challenges of today’s world 52. In our time humanity is experiencing a turning-point in its history, as we can see from the advances being made in so many fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve people’s welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications. At the same time we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day, with dire consequences.A number of diseases are spreading." Which diseases and why are they spreading? The fact that "His Holiness" doesn't mention a certain retrovirus and why it is spreading as much as it is doesn't bode well for forthrightness in this analysis. " The hearts of many people are gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so- called rich countries. The joy of living frequently fades," Frequently? How frequently? More frequently than previously seems to be the implication, but there is no evidence, let alone statistics to support that. " lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise," Again, not sure what he bases this on or even the timeframe. Historically violence has been going down for centuries. "and inequality is increasingly evident. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little dignity. " This has always been the case for many, why is the Church suddenly concerned about it? "This epochal change has been set in motion by the enormous qualitative, quantitative, rapid and cumulative advances occuring in the sciences and in technology, and by their instant application in different areas of nature and of life. " Note the reference to an "epochal change" directly after the reference to the struggle to live and live with little dignity. Is the pope actually claiming this is a "change"? Because if he is he is horribly ignorant of economic history. "We are in an age of knowledge and information, which has led to new and often anonymous kinds of power." Actually what's led to new and often anonymous kinds of power is government. It wasn't simply knowledge and information but their gathering by secret intelligence organizations for instance that led to enormous numbers of people's emails being surveilled. "No to an economy of exclusion 53. Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not Kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and Inequality." And how is such an economy defined? "Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?" Well because when the stock market loses two points that can mean that many, many people are poorer and therefore cannot spend or invest the money that would save the lives of many such women. Also because the first thing happens every day, disproportionately in areas where the Catholic Church was influential in economics and politics, I might add. "This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving?" Food being thrown away by who? In any case the cause of starvation isn't food being thrown away, it's government interference in the economy that has historically led to starvation, not people not finishing their dinner. "This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest," Really? Because last I checked huge areas of the economy were not only not under those laws but were being actively preserved from any "survival of the fittest" test. The banking system for instance is full of firms that survive due to government action, despite their lack of fitness. In fact due to the expansionary monetary policy of most of the Western world (especially the USA) many firms are surviving only due to government largess. "where the powerful feed upon the powerless." And how do the powerful "feed upon the powerless"? Is it a market process or one initiated, supported and continued by government? Is it competition or the lack of it, guaranteed by government, that is allowing the powerful to feed on the powerless? Look at the most egregious feeding and the answer is clear, where government is powerful, the predation is worst. This is true in terms of geographic area (e.g. Africa), and area of industry (e.g. finance). " As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized:" And what maintains this exclusion? Why are not people able to find a way to include themselves in the economy? Blank-out. "without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. " By who? "We have created a 'throw away' culture which is now spreading. " Who is "we" how does this supposed "throw away" culture differ from any other culture and where is the evidence that it is spreading? "It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. " I don't suppose he's going to define "exploitation" at any point is he? It's always used as an expression meaning something bad, but I never know what bad it represents. It is simply an "anti-concept" a word designed to make it impossible to tell what the speaker means, and therefore impossible to dispute the condemnation implicit in the phrase. "Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the 'exploited' but the outcast, the “'leftovers' " So who is doing this exclusion? Who is making them not a part of society? How would that even be possible? Well of course it's not. These people aren't being rejected from society but merely from being paid. And the reason they're being rejected from that is because they don't generate productivity, that is they don't make things others want. This is not exactly new. "54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts," I see, and where exactly does the Pope, who is so ignorant of economic history he doesn't know what's happening NOW get that knowledge? How is it that he can confidently proclaim something on such a profound and controversial topic? Well let's look at the bibliography, the cited references. Oh wait there are no cited economic texts, only citations of the bible and church documents. Needless to say they weren't peer-reviewed. " expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power" Oh god, is it really possible that he is that ignorant of economic theory? Surely even he has heard that the whole point of economics is that incentives can ensure good results without anyone wanting good for others. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Adam Smith. No? Well what can you expect. "and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system." The prevailing economic system is not the free market, and anyone who even casually follows the news knows this, or has deliberately avoided the knowledge. Note that he nowhere talks about exclusion that results from anything other than the market. There is no mention of trade walls, immigration restrictions or anything else that might cause someone to be excluded. This is highly significant given the Church's support of highly interventionist governments that excluded people very effectively. An honest review of the situation would require a few "mea culpas" in the form of appologies for all the victims of governments that deliberately enriched the rich and impoverished the poor, and which the Church was all in favor of. Various fascist regimes for instance. "Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed." Has developed? Since when? There has been a large amount of indifference towards the poor of other countries for as long as I can remember, and the Catholic Church can fairly be pointed to not only as participating in it, but in actively courting governments that made things worse for the poor. "Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. " Compared to what? When exactly has compassion and charity been so much more than now? Because it certainly wasn't when the Church and it's friends were in power. "The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us." Prosperity has been a greater promoter of concern for others than anything else in the history of the world, including the Church. "No to the new idolatry of money One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies." I'm not sure what this means. We accept that we have to pay people to get them to do lots of things for us. Not sure how that means we "accept it's dominion" over us. "The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person!" No it originated in governments monkeying around with the money supply and lying about their accounts. "We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose." Again I have no idea what this means. I don't know about you but my purchases have a truly human purpose, to fulfill my needs as I perceive them. Calling a process that allows millions of choices a "dictatorship" is hardly accurate. You choose what you want and how you want to pay for it, within constraints of productivity. That's reality not dictatorship. "The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption." Wow, consumption is "one need" rather than thousands. All right, fine. The problem is that the crisis doesn't reduce him to one need, it simply means one set of needs is difficult to satisfy right now. That doesn't mean he suddenly becomes inhuman just because people are focusing on that need right now. It simply means that there is such a thing as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. "56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation." Really? Who holds these ideologies and how are they imposing their will on the economy? Because I know of not one believer in the "absolute automony of the marketplace and financial speculation" that has any position of power. Blaming it all on "market fundamentalists" may have flown back in 2007, when some people might not have noticed Bush, Greenspan and Paulsen were highly interventionist and always had been. Now after the bailouts, QE I, II, and III, trillions of dollars in secret government loans, only a complete fraud or ignoramus would go that route. "Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, " A charge for which there is no evidence and which can be dismissed. "to exercise any form of control." Yeah states have been exercising quite a bit of control. In fact an overwhelming amount. "A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules." Nope, same old tyranny, government. "Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. " Yeah and who's debt is that? "To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. " Again "taken on", since when? How is this different from what always happened? "The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits." Indeed, and who is statisfying that thirst most effectively and most harmfully?" In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits," Government stands in the way of many people's profits, in fact it stands in the way of people even keeping their own money, like in Cyprus. Yet I do not see it being devoured. Note the weasel words here "tends to". "whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule." Again the market is hardly the "only rule", if he had bothered picking up a paper he would have found quite a lot of rules regarding many things including greenhouse gases, monetary policy, and regulations on practically everything. "No to a financial system which rules rather than serves" And what sort of financial system is that? Is it based on government control of the money supply, or private? "Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. " By who? "It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative." Seen by who? And since when were power and money not relative? "It is felt to be a threat, since it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person." And what does this "debasement" consist of? Again who feels this? "In effect, ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response which is outside the categories of the marketplace." Firstly ethics don't lead to any god, capitalised or not. Ethics lead to conclusions about what is appropriate behaviour, not whether or not there is a "God" to witness it. I understand you have no knowledge of real morality but you should do some research. Not every moral system is based on your imaginary friend. But what does the phrase "outside the categories of the marketplace" mean? The marketplace includes all who are capable of trading and they have different categories. Some of those categories include benefits to others. People trade in the marketplace with the aim of benefiting others all the time. "When these latter are absolutized, God can only be seen as uncontrollable, unmanageable, even dangerous, since he calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement." Actually God was fine with enslavement, read your bible. "Ethics – a non-ideological ethics – would make it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order. " A non-ideological ethics, and what exactly does that mean? How can ethics NOT be informed by what you believe to be true? And why would such an ethics, even if possible lead to a more human, rather than more insane, social order? "With this in mind, I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: 'Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs'.55 I'll ponder it for them. It's bullshit. The fact that you don't give someone something that they did not create, did not pay for, and you have not in any way promised them or obliged yourself to give to them, doesn't mean you stole from them. The fact that you continue to breathe doesn't give you the right to all my stuff. Note that the church was OK with lots of ACTUAL theft for centuries. "58. A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders. " Why yes, and we've seen the results of such a "change of approach" a number of times. It's not pretty. Fundamentally it's an approach where no man can count on a single hour of his effort remaining his, a slavery of all to all. "I urge them to face this challenge with determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics of each case." Note the weasel words here. If disaster happens when following the Pope's advice it's because they ignored "the specifics of each case". "Money must serve, not rule!" Money by definition has only the power of consent, you cannot be ruled by money, since you can choose to ignore what it offers. "The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings." As opposed to what, favoring lizardmen? "No to the inequality which spawns violence Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence." Of course he offers no evidence that this is true or that once "exclusion and inequality in society" is reversed the violence will abate. " The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence," Note "accused" without any comment on the accuracy of the accusation. Whether someone accused is guilty or not is significant to me, but then I don't have ethics that lead to God. "yet without equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode." And how are "equal opportunities" defined? Are we talking "everyone gets an education" or "everyone's parents get the same income"? No indication. "When a society – whether local, national or global – is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility. This is not the case simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root." By what definition of justice? Who is doing the "excluding" and in what does it consist? Is he saying that not giving people stuff is "unjust at it's root" without any reference to whether they created any value? " Just as goodness tends to spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence and quietly to undermine any political and social system, no matter how solid it may appear." Note that the Church tolerated far worse evils than merely not giving people free stuff. They were OK with slavery, serfdom and racial and other discrimination in economic matters. There is no mention of this, yet we're expected to take their criticisms as valid? Sorry, if you're not prepared to acknowledge your own mistakes I don't have to listen to your theories of what is right. " If every action has its consequences, an evil embedded in the structures of a society has a constant potential for disintegration and death. " And when is this fraud going to get to the the actions of governments? When is he going to say "Oh and there are bad things done by governments too, and here they are."? Never. "It is evil crystallized in unjust social structures, which cannot be the basis of hope for a better future. We are far from the so-called 'end of history', since the conditions for a sustainable and peaceful development have not yet been adequately articulated and realized." He's right they haven't. Certainly not in this pile of offal. "Today’s economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption," Which mechanisms and how? "yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric." Oh yes it is evident. I can see that in the imaginary peer-reviewed research papers you cited. Oh course what "unbridled consumerism" actually means I don't know. Since 2007 it's been fairly bridled, certainly compared to before. "Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve. It serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security, even though nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create new and more serious conflicts." And your own solution of dissolving property rights, how has that worked out for solving violence? Not well IIRC. " Some simply content themselves with blaming the poor and the poorer countries themselves for their troubles;" Again, no mention of whether these accusations are accurate. "indulging in unwarranted generalizations, " Yes, I hate it when people indulge in unwarranted generalizations. Particularly for 190 goddamn pages. "they claim that the solution is an “education” that would tranquilize them, making them tame and harmless. " Who claims this? What are you talking about? And sine when is this a stone the Church should cast? They've been "educating" the powerless to be accepting of tyranny for a long time now. "All this becomes even more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries – in their governments, businesses and institutions – whatever the political ideology of their leaders. " Finally a mention of government evil. Note that he doesn't draw any conclusion from the presence of evil in government, it ignores the implications for his own plan of giving governments power. This is this part of the statement's real function. Not to deplore exclusion and inequality but to selectively excuse and hide it. When someone says they hate the harms of usury, but mention only Jewish usury, you know they really hate Jews. When someone mentions that they hate totalitarianism but only mention either fascist or communist crimes and not the other, you know they hate fascism or communism, not totalitarianism. When someone says they hate inequality and exclusion and they ignore the centuries of such enforced and encouraged by government, you know the do not hate inequality and exclusion, they hate the market.

What does it mean "the people choose to regulate the extraction of this finite resource through government."? It means they choose to use force to control the extraction. But why do they have a right to do that? I understand why they do it, they want to gain the benefits of controlling the resource without having to personally threaten or inflict violence to do so. But their desire isn't a justification. The resource is going to be depleted anyway. The question is who has the right to say who can deplete it and how fast? Saying "the people" doesn't tell me why. Why "the people" meaning the people of a country, as opposed to the people of a smaller area, or the entire world? Why is the line between who can control and benefit from a resource determined by that result of ancient feuds, double-dealing and battles known as an international border?

Recently the Swiss had a referendum of the so-called "1:12" law, which limited the highest paid employees of a company to 12 times the wages of the lowest paid employee. It failed by 35% to 65% but only after an aggressive advertising campaign against it by corporations. At times support was running neck and neck with opposition. Anyone knowledgable about economics will know that this law was a very bad idea, but the fact that struck me stongest was it's complete immorality. That anyone needed to run a campaign against it, that it wasn't simply dismissed out of hand as impractical, immoral, uneconomic and unenforcable shows the fundamental failure of public education. Of course it's proponents pushed it in moral terms claiming it was about "fair" pay, but even a cursory look at it's intended effects disproves this. Employees of large corporations would either get large raises so that the corporation can continue to attract the high-productivity people it needs or those people would have to take a pay cut. Indentically skilled, identically hard-working people in identical positions with identical levels of productivity would not get the same raise. Why? In terms of their own abilities, histories, personalities and everything morally relevant about them the answer is "No reason". Morality by definition must be about an individual's choices, but this law benefits people on the basis of only one choice, the choice to work for a company that employs highly-paid people. The extent to which a person applied himself at study or work, learned new skills, researched what employers wanted in an employee and got it, made himself easy to work with, modified his personality through therapy or honest self-examination to be more curious, none of that mattered. One morally trivial choice is more important than all the choices that actually reveal the character of the person. Let's take a look at who loses pay under this system and why. The proponents claim that this is a morally positive feature, that they actually want a ratio between highest and lowest. But employing low-wage employees isn't something done for meanness. Executives don't sit around in meetings and going "I'm feeling really evil today, let's hire some people and pay them $8 an hour. We can use the extra profits to build child torture centres in our basements. BWWAHAHAHAHAHHA!". So why should they be punished for it? People hire people for low wages because nobody else will hire them for high wages, generally because they don't have the skills, habits, abilities or talents to be productive enough to justify high wages. Conversely the choice to hire high-wage workers isn't done because they are nice people but because they believe their higher productivity justifies the wages needed to get them. Not hiring high wage employees simply means they take the next best offer, which since they are productive will probably be quite a good job. If they didn't have the alternative potential employment that was so nice you wouldn't have to pay them so much if you did hire them. In fact this law penalises the executives who employ those who most need the work and are least able to get it. At the extreme consider an executive who commits to modifying his business plan and plant to be able to use the intellectually or physically disabled. He invests in extra plant and equipment to be able to achieve the same production with less productive workers. He calculates that this is profitable provided he can pay them $X less a year. If the disabled people agree to work for that money then who wins? He does because he found a way to use resources that were not being used or not used efficiently, the disabled do because they get a job that is better than what they had (which is quite likely sitting around the house feeling useless) and probably the government budget does because they're no longer on welfare. Who loses? Able-bodied workers who might have done the work but who can do plenty of other jobs so they do. Yet this law would punish this move by cutting the executives pay, because he did what he's supposed to do, use the resources that other people find least useful. The case of non-executives whose pay would be cut is even worse. While the proponents talked only of limiting EXECUTIVE pay it in fact limited the pay of accountants, actuaries, scientists and researchers, lawyers and salesmen as well. These people have little or no ability to affect the pay of the lowest paid workers in the firm, so they are being punished again, for something outside their control. Note that it's not just the disabled this applies to, the new immigrant who doesn't speak the language well or know the customs, the school leaver with zero experience, women who've been out of the workforce and don't have current skills, ex-convicts anyone other employers don't want to use and therefore can be had cheaper, this law will penalise employing them. Despite being advanced by leftists this law acts to ensure that white, highly-educated, native, able-bodied men get the benefit. Now some people will say "Hang on a second, you can't judge what someone _morally_ deserves by their level of productivity. They might be less productive for any number of reasons, some of them having nothing to do with the morality of their actions, and some even praiseworthy.". I agree wholeheartedly. A woman who chose to spend years looking after her disabled child and searching out and applying every therapy to improve his life cannot rightfully be condemned for it. But she cannot expect that she be rewarded for this effort by her employer. Her employer is not the beneficiary of the effort and was not set up to reward such effort. While you could argue that her efforts saved society considerable problems and she should be rewarded, that will have to be left for some sort of charitable or government organisation. There is no reason why a commercial concern is obliged by it. The employer's job is to reward for productivity, not to correct the moral imbalance, however heinous in many cases, that afflicts their actual and potential employees. The economic effects of course deserve a mention. Assuming that firms that pay large salaries do not simply leave Switzerland they will face a dilema. They can either pay too much for their least productive employees or too little for their most productive or both. Either approach causes problems.that reduce the actual amount the economy produces. If they pay their least productive too much then they will attract to the lowest paid jobs people who would be more productive in other jobs. For instance suppose they want to pay some people $480,000 a year and therefore have to pay their lowest grade clerks at least $40K. People with the skills and experience to earn $35K will be attracted to these positions, even though the company only gets $30K worth of productivity out of them. The company loses $5K, the other potential employer loses $5K and the employee gains only $5K for a net lose the economy of $5K. Paying too little of course means that people don't have the incentive to become highly productive. Why spend years of your life improving your skills when it will mostly serve to raise the wages of people who haven't? Nothing in this piece is hard to understand. It doesn't require specialised economic knowledge. It requires only that people be prepared to think before forcing choices on others. Yet 35% of the voters voted to force those choices and of the others many had to be persuaded of things that should have been self-evident. So what use were those years in school if they can't figure out something that requires the most basic of reasoning skills combined with knowledge common to almost everyone?

"In the experiment, when scientists watch a particle pass through two slits in a barrier, the particle behaves like a bullet and goes through one slit or the other. Yet if a person doesn't watch the particle, it acts like a wave, This means it can go through both slits at the same time." Nope, that's not what happens at all. What happens is that whether or not the scientists watch it the pattern is the same. It is a combination of the pattern you would expect if the photons were waves and the pattern expected if they were particles. Getting such a basic fact wrong is not encouraging. Neither is this: "Lanza added that everything which can possibly happen is occurring at some point across these multiverses and this means death can't exist in 'any real sense' either. " This is simply wrong. The fact that in another universe something is happening doesn't mean something else isn't happening here. While it's true that, in a very small number of universes, something is massively against the odds happening to reverse or delay my death, that doesn't make my death in this universe any less likely. Sure some subset of all the possible universes might have me live 1000+ years by some random quantum event(s). But that event(s) is/are so unlikely that the chances THIS is one of those universes is much less than a trillion trillion trillion to one. So the effect on the relationship between death and the me in this universe is immeasurably small. It is nowhere near true that death is made meaningless by the odd happenstances in parelle universes, even if they exist which they might not.

"He says he sexually assaulted me because he didn't know how to cope with me growing up. " So of all the possible responses to a totally predictable process he went with sexual assault? HE could have gone with being emotionally distant, talking to other fathers about how they coped, telling you that he would listening and then doing so, running away to the Bahamas or pretending to be in a severely disfiguring accident and then paying a substitute father to pretend to be him under a face-bandage. Any of these would clearly be better than raping you as a response. No he didn't sexually assault you because he didn't know how to cope. He raped you because he could do it, he thought he could get away with it and because benefitted. And now he is lying about why he did it because he can do it, he thinks he can get away with it and because he benefits from it. The same behavioural pattern is continuing. When that happens forgiveness is insane. Imagine a bank robber who severely mentally traumatised you in this last job. He's out of prison now and shopping for groceries when you meet and he claims to be reformed and asks your forgiveness. If he wants that then the stockings in his basket better be for his wife.

"So if I understand correctly, no one has to use the scientific method, but if they don't, what ever conclusion they come too will be incorrect. " No, you can't conclude that a conclusion will be incorrect simply because it's not arrived at by logic and evidence/ the scientific method. For instance I could conclude that Dr. Rosenbaum is a better doctor than Dr. Price because I believe he is Jewish and a I believe Jewish doctors are best. Your conclusion that he is the better doctor might be right, even though it's based on a false assumption (Jewish doctors are always best) or even two or three false assumptions (Dr. Rosenbaum is a Jew, Dr. Price is not). What you can conclude is that there is _no reason to expect a conclusion to be true_ if it's not arrived at by reason and evidence.

It might also be that they think what is being done is not permissable. Sure if I invaded your house and started smashing things, using your stuff and beating up anyone who I wanted you could just leave and find a new house. But why should you have to? Why not give the oppressors what they deserve?

Everyone seems to be talking about "fair value" I'd like to talk about the concepts of "the people" and why they should get any value at all out of the oil. Currently states claim ownership of the oil beneath their territory, allegedly on behalf of "the people". Clearly however states use the money paid for the oil on themselves and their allies, not "the people" of their nation in general. So it's easy to argue that States don't deserve the money. Do "the people" deserve it any more? To deserve something you must possess a morally relevant quality that causes you to be entitled to that thing and overrides any other morally relevant qualities of other people. If your employer has $1000 in his hand that he got by consensual trade, and he agreed to pay you $500 for the services you provided, you both deserve $500. He deserves it because he has the quality of having provided $1000 worth of G&S and only agreeing to pay $500 to you. You deserve it because you provided $500 worth of G&S. So what qualities do "the people" have? They reside within a boundry (called a "border") that also contains the natural resource. Is that a "morally relevant quality"? Being inside a state boundary does not mean you helped discover, develop, or otherwise bring into the productive stream a natural resource. There is no causal connection between living near a resource, even right over it, and that resource being used to satisfy human wants. So why then should "the people" be entitled to be paid for satisfying said human wants? Why do people who live in the desert of Saudi Arabia deserve payment for the oil under it but the people in the Kalahari don't? Both contributed exactly the same effort, zero, to making the oil useful. Now you could argue that we all own the natural world equally, Georgist style, and so everyone is entitled to a share of the value of the raw materials. But there is no reason why people north of an arbitrary line have more of a right to a particular resource than those south of it. So "the people" in the sense of the people of a particular nation have no right to be paid for the resource at all.

Ok the central question should be not "Why are we excusing men going to (female) prostitutes?" but why do they need an excuse? The transaction is consensual. Both parties benefit from it, but one is expected to appologise for satisfying a desire that is entirely natural. When someone wants you to appologise for natural desires it's always because they want to limit access to that satisfaction and effectively charge you for it. That's where your resentment comes from*. Yes you could they would be happier in a relationship that was based on mutual respect and admiration. But you could argue that about a lot of the sex men have, including much if not most sex in relationships. "Men buy sex because they think they can treat prostitutes differently than they can treat their wives, girlfriends, and dates." Well yes, that's right, we do believe that because it's true. Beyond the play acting that prostitutes provide the relationship is pretty honest. As long as you factor in that you're probably not really their favorite client and they're don't really sexually desire you with a white hot passion they won't decieve you. Nor need you decieve them. If you think feminists are deliberately undermining society for money and power you can tell her. She won't not have sex with you because of it. If her dress sense is bad, she go off in a huff (indeed she might agree). So what's wrong with wanting to treat women differently from how we treat our girlfriends, wives and dates? Wouldn't condemning that imply that the way we treat our girlfriends, wives and dates is either desirable or virtuous or both? The nature of the prostitution relationship is uniquely equal in today's society. It is the one sexual opportunity where men don't have to censor themselves. There's a line in Tootsie where the female lead say to Dorothy wouldn't it be nice if a man just said "You know, I could lay a big line on you and we could do a lot of role-playing, but the simple truth is, is that I find you very interesting and I'd really like to make love to you.". Dorothy is in fact Michael Dorsey, so he tries that exact line on the women, to the word. Naturally she throws a drink in his face. It's funny because it's true. Women say they want men to be honest, but confront them with their own lack of virtue and you're not getting any. There might be a few exceptions to this rule but I honestly don't personally know any. Fundamentally when someone pays a prostitute they're saying "I would rather pay money than do the things required to get sex with someone else.". Now historically given the problems of ensuring support from males females made it hard to get sex so this was understandable. The burdens men had to bear to get "free" sex were considerable and it's not surprising many went the monetary route. Now however there are many women who will have sex regularly with much less effort. Even "The Rules" that handbook of manipulation, recommended sex on no later than the 12th date. Assume each date lasts 3 hours and that you can get sex 12 times in total with say 24 more dates . That's a total of 108 hours to get 12 sessions of sex or 9 hours per act. Prostitutes cost about $80 for a half hour at the more basic establishments. So paying a prostitute is basically saying that not dealing with the woman you could date is worth $9/hr. * This pyschological advice is based on zero years of professional training and practice. I am not in any way professionally qualified to give pyschological or pyschiatric advice. Use of amateur pyschiatric advice may cause confusion, depression, anxiety or anal leakage. Just read a bit of the article. "Men buy sex because they think they can treat prostitutes differently than they can treat their wives, girlfriends, and dates. They buy sex in order to project what Moran called “evil arousal” onto a human being, guilt and consequence-free. They buy sex to experience dominance and to make rape and abuse “consensual” (as we’ve convinced ourselves that payment = consent)." Ok there's a number of claims here, firstly that men buy sex to "project' emotions. Wouldn't it be easier to explain men buying sex becasue _they want sex_? Why would the arousal projected be "evil"? Yes, most men who hire prostitutes want them to be aroused (although they probably don't care as long as it's convincingly faked). That's because sexual arousal in a partner is sexually attractive to relatively normal people. Only sadists desire sexual partners who are not aroused over those who are. Yet Rachel Morgan is equating the desire for a sexually eager partner with rape, which is the opposite. "They buy sex to experience dominance" And yet many pay for submissive experiences and others don't make dominance and submission part of the scene. When someone is so convinced of someone else's motives despite directly contrary evidence that's generally projection. " and to make rape and abuse “consensual” (as we’ve convinced ourselves that payment = consent)." No we've convinced ourselves that someone saying "Would you like sex for $80?" = consent if you pay them. Now of course it's possible that there is an evil man hiding somewhere who will shoot or beat up the prostitute if she doesn't propose sex and then go through with it. In that situation of course there isn't consent. But that's not the situation that Rachel Morgan is talking about. She's saying that somehow, despite a woman clearly saying "I will have sex with you under these conditions" and you satisifying these conditions, the sex isn't consensual. The argument I suppose is that the woman is doing it only because of economic need, not genuine desire. But factory workers are doing it because of economic need not genuine desire. Are they slaves? Many Marxist feminists would say "Yes" but that's why we don't have to take them seriously.

You're assuming it's possible to maintain a government without the abuse of power. And it's not. By definition to have a government you must abuse the power it grants. You must force people to do things not in their own interest. While many parents force their children to do things not in their own interests this is not mandated by parenthood. You don't stop being a father because you don't force your children to fight your wars or pay for your violence. You do lose your kingship if you don't force your peasants to do that.

Because governments are created by people who want to use the power of force on others to escape from accountability. Parents are created by people whose condom broke and who stick around to face accountability. Imagine if you came across a man with serious head injuries, whose reason and physical abilities were that of an infant. You would have as much power over him as any government has over you or a parent has over a child. But you didn't plot and scheme to get that power. If you abuse it you are held responsible. You can't use your power over him to avoid the consequences of how you exercised that power. Well you could but when he recovers or the body is found you'll be held accountable.

Recently Obama tried weasal out of his lie that "You can keep your plan, period." by claiming that he was helping the "Underinsured" by making them lose their crappy plans. Allegedly there are all these people in America that haven't bought enough insurance and he'll fix that by making them buy enough. Yes it's the standard paternalist claptrap, we know better because you're a five year old. However because these people can't actually imagine someone else's situation I'm going to give them a theorectical understanding of why To understand why underinsurance makes sense for a lot of people let's look at why people want insurance at all. People want insurance because the financial loss from a disaster causes more dissatisfaction per dollar than the financial losses from paying premiums. We know this is true because policy holders pay more on average than they recieve in claims (absent idiotic government mandates to insure people at a loss). So they don't expect more money, yet they expect more value (otherwise they wouldn't do it) on average. So why would some dollars be more valuable than others? This is due to the "Law of Returns" that says the more you have of a resource the less valuable each additional unit of it is. Consequently the LESS you have the more valuable each unit of that thing is. In the event of a catastrophic event like your house burning down, a health problem that requires expensive surgery etc. you have lost things worth a lot of $, so you effectively lack a lot of $. Therefore each $ is worth more. While before that you have (relatively) a lot of $ so each one is worth less. Therefore it makes sense to sacrifice a lot of $ in premiums for a small average number of dollars in post-disaster dollars. Consider the accompanying graph. Point A is your income without paying premiums. Point B is your income minus partial premiums and point C is your income paying full premiums that make good all losses in the event of whatever you're insuring against. Point D is where you are if you have a disaster and are only partly covered, "underinsured" in Obama's terms. Point E is where you are if you are totally uncovered in the event of a disaster. Notice how the majority of the benefit of being covered (the dark blue area under the curve from D to E) is provided by only partial insurance. The benefits from being fully as opposed to partly insured is the light blue area. Notice also that the pink area representing the additional cost of full premiums is larger than the red area of paying partial premiums. That's because what you give up to pay the extra premiums is more valuable than what you give up to pay the basic premiums. That's because you give up buying less valuable things first, that's how you know you consider them less valuable. So say you insure your house would cost $100,000 to replace it it burnt down. Suppose also that you could afford to pay for $50,000 of the cost of rebuilding your house, either from savings or from making loans at reasonable rates. You no premiums and if your house burns down you have to spend money on rental accommodation until you scrape up the money. Maybe you even give up on owning a house and sell the land (maybe in a buyers market, since you don't know when your house will burn down). Or you could pay for a $100,000 policy and if your house burns down the cost is minimal (other than the sentimental value of heirlooms etc). I'm assuming here everyone gets out safely BTW. Or you could get a $50,000 policy and if your house burns down you can rebuild, but you have to work overtime to pay off the loan, the holidays for the next few years are at your sister's place etc. The middle course obviously avoids the majority of the harm of a fire, while only costing half the cost of full insurance. That doesn't mean that everyone is better off underinsuring, it depends on how you value the various outcomes. It does mean that it is possible to want insurance and not full insurance, so "under-insurance" can make sense for some people. Of course there is additionally the fact that people who underinsure are sometimes lower risks on average. For instance if you know that you are unlikely to have a car crash (because you don't drive much) you might be more likely to underinsure. If this is true in a market then under-insurers might get a better deal from insurance firms who know the risk of insuring them is lower. However whenever I've heard of "under-insurance" on the news it's always presented as a bad thing, whether by the Obama team who criticize other's healthcare choices or in bushfire season, where fire insurance executives will often warn of under-insurance. Don't listen to them. If you want to under-insure, do it. EDIT: Just click on the attached thumbnail to get the picture to a reasonable size.

People who wanted to make a shitload of money? Ok, each sex slave is probably being forced to perform at least 2-3 sex acts a day against their will, for at least months. Assume at least $1,000 each compensation owed by the slavers to the sex slaves once it gets to court. And that's conservative, historically people who have been raped by slavers get a lot more. So say 2-3 times/day * 6 months * $1,000 = $360K-$540K. Assuming their rescuers get only 10% of that you're talking a decent income for a year from simply finding two prisoners, freeing them, and getting them to court with the evidence. And that's not even counting potential payments from DROs whose clients you free. Of course this begs the question, why would anyone be a sex slave trafficer in the free market? They get shot at by DROs marksmen trying to rescue their clients (and bear in mind the more they physically wound they wound or kill sex slavers, the more people will want to be their clients) roving bands of rescuers break in and they're competing with people who actually WANT to perform the sex act for money, who don't need fortifications or guns to guard their business.

Miniguns? To fend off pirates that have, at best RPGs? No way you need that much. Bear in mind that they have to climb up what is effectively a castle wall. All you need is a few shotguns, and rifles plus some fortified postions (weight doesn't matter so just weld enough standard grade steel around where you want to fight from). As long as you have a place you can safely fire on them while they are climbing you can take them out easily. Remember you're dealing with predators and the number one rule for a predator is "Strong prey are no more nutritious than weak prey, and they get you killed or crippled much more.".

The fact that something hasn't been tried yet doesn't mean it will work. Nobody has tried using CO2 as a lifting gas in a lighter-than-air craft. That doesn't mean it will work and it won't because CO2 isn't lighter than air. RBE doesn't work. It isn't even really a system, it's a wishlist of things they want to happen without any means to have it happen.

Is the problem different IN KIND to the types of problems that get solved if the incentives are right? For instance providing cardiology services is a complex thing, but with the right incentives it gets done. I don't understand how it gets done (I'm still confused about how we make pencils) but it does. Now is something like the provision of protection services a different KIND of problem than this? If so why? They can't just say "You don't know how to solve this problem in a free society, therefore it cannot be solved.". I don't know how to solve many problems in an unfree society (in fact I know how to solve less than 1% of them) but they get solved.

Voluntary exchange, with or without money, means that each person expects to be better off. Generally that expectation will be met. The reason H. Sapiens is more concerned with property is because we have more durable things. We create things that take long enough to produce and/or last long enough that preserving access to them is very important. Other animals are concerned with "their" stuff to a much lesser extent because they either don't have much or they don't keep it long enough to make developing a complex theory of property worthwhile.

I'm completely broke, which means I need a bailout. So $10mil shouldn't be a problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-sdO6pwVHQ Can't wait to get my own Senator.

The clock stuff was one of the stupidist creationist arguments I've ever heard. He argues that clocks MADE BY MAN are astonishingly accurate. They're so accurate they make previous attempts at telling the time AGAIN MADE BY MAN look bad. The argument seems to be that physical processes have a high degree of consistency in regards to their how often they happen/how long it takes them to happen and this couldn't happen by accident. Well no, it happened due to the nature of the physical processes, which does not vary because it's their nature. It's no more an "accident" that Cesium atoms vibrate a certain number of times than that the speed of light is 299792458 m/s. It's how the universe is. It doesn't imply that a God made it. It simply implies that whatever made it made it consistent, which we've known for a while now.