Ruben Zandstra

Why challenge anyone if you actually agree with yourself? Because agreeing with yourself isn't challenging :-) So you are proposing deadly challenges to people not to make any point in particular, it's just to break with the boredom of actually being one?

Why challenge anyone if you actually agree with yourself?

Hi Kevin Welcome to the boards! With all the ethical challenges around in everyday life, to me this is not too much of an issue. I think a comparison between the treatment of pets vs children can be interesting from a psychological point of view when talking about specific people in your life, or when examining yourself. Why is the question / comparision of interest to you? What comes to my mind: Philosophically speaking the comparison will go nowhere because one part of the comparison is non-existent: A human being cannot be the parent of a domestic pet. He may imagine he is, and perhaps a very gifted and symbiotic pet such as a dog can adapt it's behaviour to facilitate the illusion to some extent. Still, this will not make the dog child of a human being in reality: it's being projected on him. A human who is projecting like this on animals is probably not the best place to leave your children.

The way you put it suggests that the cause of distance between you and your family is because of some birthdefect that you have, which makes it impossible for your parents to reach you emotionally. Is this the actual case in your opinion / is there any evidence? The list and the questions I was suggesting wouldn't have to be used in any real conversation. It could be just a mental exercise, something to work on in a journal or whatever.

So this was a really dreadfull and probably dangerous episode in your life which has left you with a lot of loss and damage. This must have been completely evident to anyone who was even remotely close to you at the time. I'd begin with making a list of people who claim to have been close to you, and dedicated to your wellbeing prior to - and during this period of your life. And then add some questions you would like to ask them.

I know some of my anxiety was about my wife taking on the role of provider, and with me becoming dependent on her, without a place of my own etc. It could have all happened in a casual way back then if I remember well, but I was not comfortable in the beginning with the idea ( I was about to quit my job and follow her to another part of the country where she had found a promising job) I had some conversations with her at that point where I basically asked her if she was ok with providing for us both with me doing the house and future children, perhaps indefinetely, and if she was confident that she could do it. Not an unreasonable question to ask I guess, as I was about to burn my ship so to speak by quitting my job and giving up my house. I've been working a lot of the time between then and now, but now that I'm actaully at home I'm very gratefull I had the good foresight to have these conversations at the beginning and establish mutual clarity about our expectations of each other and our course together.

Hi Smooter, I've been a stayhome dad for about two years now, and all is extremely well with me. More sane than ever, still married, well-fed etc For me it has been a gradual thing, where I just went to work less and less ( I had the fortune to be able to do that). We have three children at ages 4, 6 and 8 and I'm extremely glad for the time I've spent with our kids over the last years, also giving my wife the opportunity to move up with her career. I'm gonna stay at home for at least another couple of years, and perhaps indefinetely. Depends on what crosses my way I guess. I can understand your anxiety about "stepping down", and I would honestly look at your ambitions concerning work. If it is your life's fulfillment then you should probably think twice.The anxiety of not working is something to mull over I guess. I've had it to some degree, but in a minor way (My fundamental adverseness to any kind of work is waaay bigger).If it's a real issue then you should probably invest some time to figure out why.

I appreciate your thoughts, Xelent. I'm not sure I understand what you mean about resettlement being a costly aspect for health care professionals, could you explain? My guess would be that it's going to be costly for the blacklisted patient, not so much for healthcare professionals. I imagine that a DRO ( and the healthcare professional) would demand participation in behavioral therapy or whatever, the presence of sturdy DRO employees at doctor consultations etc.

There's the issue of being part of a monopoly on healthcare, I agree. The state sold a bunch of promises (guaranteed high income, low competition) to medical professionals in return for their sovereignty, step by step, and they sold "the right on health care" to the rest of the populace. Now both groups are more or less being held hostage to one another, with a health care industry that has ballooned up to an incredible size, much if which is related to abuse, or is simply a continuation of abuse. I would say doctors will thrive or dive from their reputations[/font] And this would probably go for patients aswell. How would a highly manipulative borderline patient get his cardovascular disease treated, or even diagnosed in a more free society? Simply *not* ? I guess a fair answer would be that right now it is probably not dealt with so much either, even if there's a social worker stopping by twice a day, a doctor running in and out once a week, police or ambulance is frequently on the doorstep etc etc.

I was wondering how some of the current problems that medical professionals are dealing with would look like in a free society. In the current situation ( at least where we're at) a family doctor, as an entrepreneur, is more or less forced to treat patients that are registered at his/her name. A doctor cannot refuse to have patients assigned to his name, or unregister patients, without going through extreme amounts of bureaucracy / bearing the burdens of proof and accountability. Even after taking such measures, a doctor can be harassed, "warned" by state driven medical organisations etc. if treatment is refused. There are examples of doctors who after having been physically assaulted by a patient, filed this with the police, did all the paperwork, advised the patient by letter that medical care would have to be sought elsewhere in the future, unregistered the patient, such a patient filed a sucessfull complaint against their doctor because "the medical professional had not taken all necessary proactive steps to make sure the patient would receive medical care elsewhere". I am convinced that in a free society many if not most of the assholery that is now quite prevalent among some healthcare patients would simply not exist. But for the sake of argument, let's assume there's a patient like this in Ancapistan. How is it going to be like for him when he requires medical care? How is it going to be like for a doctor who refuses such a patient treatment?

Search google play for "podcast". I use doubletwist, which is pretty good for podcast downloading, but not free if you want the essential functions.

Did you have a go at Stef's books yet? Real Time Relationships and On Truth might be of particular interest to you. They're available in audio. So sorry to read about your brother / family in the other post.

Hi SPRNanny, welcome to the boards! I have the same thing with early childhood memories: not much to go on. But from the later stuff I do remember, I can make some pretty good guesses. Journalling, writing down dreams, therapy, talking with parents/ siblings / old neighbours and friends has been of help to me. How did you find out about FDR?

yes, that's what made us decide for this school in the end ( along with personal talks to the teachers): driven by necessity it's more montessori than most montessori ( we visited a montessori school while weighing our options). There's three classrooms here, each representing three normal school-years. Classroomdoors are open, at times the groups are mixed up further according to need ( during gym etc). The feel of the school is that of a large livingroom ( at least when you come from a 400 + pupil school). The children all have lunch together with their teachers on a half-hour break at noon, and they're off at 2 pm every day (except ages 4,5,6: those are off at noon). My eldest son (8) is now in a class made up of 8 pupils in the age range of 6,7 and 8. Thanks for the articles.

Interesting, are any of those articles available in English? So there's a couple of other questions you could consider to ask, or do a local google for. Even if you know the answer, having a school-official tell you the obvious on these matters (or fog the issue) might be interesting. how much does the state pay the school annually per pupil? (brace yourself) (how) does the school accomodate children with mental and physical disorders / disabilities? are there extra subsidies for children with diagnosed disorders?

Hi Paul, Kudos to you for investigating the matter on beforehand. I wish we had done so. We recently moved our children to a very small school nearby with combined classes: the school has only three different groups, and a total sum of pupils of 34. We're extremely happy we finally made the decision for this change (kids included!) Great questions! I have two more that might be of help: 1) what are a child's options are when his workload is finished for the day. Does he/she have a say in what's up next or not? 2) what position does the school take in matters of medical research in school, medication / ADHD issues etc. At the former school of my children I found out it's not unusual for teachers to actually call a families' medical practitioner in order to plea for psychiatric research / medication. In the netherlands a school can get additional funding for pupils that have been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. As to emigration to a freer country: you might want to check out Belgium. From what I know it's the only west-european country where you can legally homeschool your children without facing massive amounts of trouble.