ribuck

I have a similar situation with my brother-in-law. When I first met him I thought of him as a friend and a good guy, but then I came to realise that I find his behavior and values totally repugnant and I wish to have nothing to do with him. Although he lives in a different city, our paths do cross from time to time at social occasions. I could avoid situations where I would meet him, or I could ask the hosts to un-invite him. But doing that would elevate him to someone "important" that I need to worry about. Instead, I just ignore him. There are plenty of other people with whom I can socialise at these gatherings. The only way in which I bother about him is to ask the host not to seat me next to him at a meal. It works fine that way. Even if everyone is in the same room, I just hang out on the opposite side of the room from him.

When I was a child, more than half a century ago, only gypsies and prostitutes had pierced ears. In those days, clip-on ear-rings were widely sold. A quick visit to Amazon confirms that clip-ons are still available, and there are many styles designed for children. If you gave your niece some really classy clip-ons, perhaps that would reduce her parents' desire to mutilate your niece's ears.

That's an interesting observation, wdiaz03, and I think there's more to it than people choosing between a cheap disposable item and an expensive long-lasting item. I think the driver is insecurity. People who are not confident of their own abilities will pay a lot to buy something that gives them every possible tiny advantage. I have experienced this myself with photography. Sometimes when I take a photo that's not very sharp, I think "if I had a camera with a higher ISO rating I could use a faster shutter speed and get less blur". If I take a photo that has loss of detail in highlights and shadows, I think "if I had a camera with a larger sensor, it would capture the highlights and shadows better". While those thoughts are true, they miss the point. The biggest thing that limits the quality of my photos is my skill as a photographer. To see this, I only need to look at the superb work uploaded by skilled photographers when they only have a cheap compact camera with them. When I have needed to replace my camera, I had to strongly resist the urge to pay for a very expensive camera that would only give a very small improvement to my photos. There's an old proverb that says "It's a poor workman who blames his tools". Obviously that's from the days before the average workman could contemplate buying upscale tools. The modern equivalent, using your terminology, would be something like "It's an insecure enthusiast who feels the need to run to the extreme".

Monopoly already comes pretty close to your needs. You could start with that, and tweak it a little. Revamp the "Chance" and "Community Chest" cards to replace the cards that deal with taxation etc. Require some type of productive activity instead of collecting $200 merely "for passing GO". Allow free-market actions to break monopolies. For example, if someone has all of the railroads, another player could convert one of his properties into another railroad. Property improvements wouldn't be limited to building houses and hotels; other types of productive investment would be allowed. You could spend your funds to boost your education, for example.

No, that doesn't make sense. It's an interesting hypothesis but there's zero evidence for it (either in the video you linked, or in evidence-based research). We know very little about the nature of consciousness. It may even turn out that the "one entity" hypothesis is correct, but there's no reason to assume this. There are other hypotheses that, based on current research, are more likely to explain consciousness. The two most promising directions being successfully explored at the moment are quite bizarrely different, which just shows how little we know yet. One of the two mainstream hypotheses holds that we aren't really conscious, that consciousness is just a useful illusion that provided an evolutionary advantage. This sounds bizarre indeed, and it flies in the face of common sense (as did relativity and quantum mechanics at first). However, it's serious science. The arguments being put together are rigorous and logical as far as they go, but they run out of steam before reaching any breakthrough. There is a really good video explaining this hypothesis, but I can't find it right now. Personally, I don't find this hypothesis interesting because I can't reconcile it with the intensity of my own conscious experience. If it weren't for the rigor of the research, I'd be describing this hypothesis as sophistry! The second mainstream hypothesis holds that consciousness is a local phenomenon emerging from certain types of complex physical interaction, by some undiscovered mechanism. The arguments are based on solid science, but they don't take us very far because again the experimentation barely scratches the surface. According to this hypothesis, consciousness manifests itself at the interface between the part of the brain that processes information and the part of the brain that drives the physical body. Interestingly, they have managed to localise the conscious experience to a specific area in the brain stem. People who have had one part of their brain stem destroyed (e.g. by a stroke) have physical body functions but no consciousness (they are in a coma), and people who have had another part of their brain stem destroyed have consciousness but no physical body functions (they have "locked-in syndrome"). Here's a video which describes the current understanding of consciousness. It's an informal overview, and the presenter isn't a neuro-scientist. He's a "philosopher" in the sense that he studies consciousness but does not do original research. As you will see in the video, he's clearly not convinced by the first mainstream hypothesis.

Maybe you're right that I misinterpreted his argument. In that case, he makes his logical error further along. He argues that consciousness is a universal phenomenon shared by all brains. At this point he's really just saying that all brains work according to the same laws of physics (just as all magnetic fields work according to the same laws of physics). Then he changes the meaning of "shared" for the rest of the video, to imply that the different consciousnesses share some kind of connection. And from there he waffles on about the ethical and philosophical aspects that follow on (from his logical error). Maybe I'm misinterpreting him again, but in that case the ethical and philosophical stuff at the end of the video is a total non-sequitur.

I watched the video and found it interesting, but unsatisfying. He starts with a premise about souls which I don't share, but he rejects it anyway. Then, at 4:35, he makes a gaping logical error, somehow jumping from "consciousness is a universal property that all conscious things have" to "all conscious things share the one consciousness". That's as invalid as saying "all animals eat food, therefore they all eat the same food". Wrong! After that, he's just speculating and making stuff up. Which is a pity. Consciousness is probably the largest gap in our understanding of physics. Despite MRI scans that can to some extent localise consciousness, we don't have even the slightest clue how the experiential aspect of it works. There are some much better videos around that are actually science-based. I'll see if I can find some to post.

It's not "a link to a website", but there are some very good side-by-side experiments showing that the less-governed country ends up with the stronger economy every time: West Germany vs East Germany Hong Kong vs China Taiwan vs China South Korea vs North Korea Chile vs Venezuela etc.

The most effective way to eliminate poverty is to remove violently-enforced trade restrictions. But the figure for people lifted out of poverty is actually 70 million per year, not per day, so it will take more than a few weeks

Anyway, the GDP statistic is a useless statistic for many reasons. 1. The GDP statistic is an aggregate figure, but what's relevant to a person is their own well-being. If the GDP rises 5%, but all of the growth and a bit more goes to the richest 20% while the rest have negative growth, then most people are worse off despite a rise in GDP. 2. GDP takes no account of lifestyle choices. If everyone builds a nice house, it bumps up the GDP figures. The next year, everyone decides to take it a bit easier and relax and enjoy their nice new houses, but this shrinks the GDP statistic even though everyone is better off than ever before. 3. GDP does not correlate with quality of life. If GDP increases but there is more stress and pollution or more industrial accidents, the quality of life has reduced despite the increase in GDP. 4. GDP takes no account of barter. If Sue and Jane go out on alternate Fridays and pay each other to babysit their children, it boosts the GDP statistics. But if Sue and Jane look after each other's children for free on a reciprocal basis, the GDP shows a lower figure, despite the outcome being identical for Sue and Jane. 5. GDP includes government expenditure. So if GDP rises, but taxes rise and the government spends the money on stuff we didn't want, it boosts the GDP figures even though people were better off before the boost. 6. GDP statistics are adjusted for inflation by a figure known as the "GDP deflator", which is DIFFERENT from other measures of inflation. So you can't even meaningfully compare GDP figures from year to year. 7. GDP statistics take time to prepare, by which time they're out of date. Then, as new facts and figures come to light, the GDP statistics are regularly adjusted. By the time the statistic is stable, it's way out of date. GDP statistics are so worthless that they shouldn't even be calculated.

If you save, it has two effects. In the short term, your saving provides capital to those who can use it productively (e.g. to build a factory). Those borrowers will pay you some interest in return. In the long term, you will eventually spend your savings (perhaps to buy the future products of the factory). If your society already has enough capital items (factories, roads, etc) then you won't be offered any interest for saving your money, so you'll perhaps spend it sooner. It's a beautiful automatically-adjusting mechanism, regulated by market-determined interest rates. If people mess with interest rates (e.g. by quantitative easing), you lose the feedback mechanism.

If you give a lollypop, you're not giving a reward. As you imply, you're giving a diabetes bomb. If you give a pencil or a flower or a balloon or a bitcoin or an outing, or some of your time, then you're giving a reward.

The real genius formula: 1. Be curious 2. Be observant 3. Be rational 4. Be virtuous 5. Become happy You can have the last word if you like, JackClap, then I'm out of this thread.

Another negative indicator is gratuitous "TM" signs, to try to make an idea appear more valuable.

Community credits are fungible. Issuing community credit is not like giving your girlfriend an I.O.U. for a free backrub. It's like giving her a credit that any other participant might be called upon to fulfil.

Everything that's worth doing has a reward. The reward might be uncertain, or it might be very long-term, but it's there. A parent can offer a tangible short-term reward when the child may not yet be mature enough to appreciate the subtle long-term reward.

Community-based "currencies" have been adopted in many places, and over many decades. A few, such as Ithaca Hours, have been quite successful. Others have faded away. My own city used to have one, but after a while people lost interest. That idea sounds great, but I don't think it can work that way. Either the money is issued centrally by the organisers of the scheme (e.g. the Ithaca Hours board), or it's issued by the consumers (those who accept other people's production in return for a promise of their own future production). I don't see how it can be issued by the producers. Therefore, community currencies tend towards failure due to a centralised issuer inflating the supply (usually for their own political objectives), or due to consumers issuing credit then leaving the scheme or moving out of the area. I think Bitcoin has a much brighter future than community currencies. I also expect that future community currencies will be "layered on top of bitcoin" rather than being standalone, because this reduces overheads and keeps the scheme honest.

Don't be discouraged. Deep down, there's not such a big gap between Voluntaryists and Hobbesians. They both want a better life for themselves and their friends and families. It's just that the Hobbesians haven't yet worked out that their ideas entail more disadvantages and contradictions than those of the Voluntaryists. Just as communism had its decades in the sun and failed, so will socialism, and so in turn will the ideas of Hobbes.

As you imply, no "win" is possible from an "us v them" mentality. Just work towards true freedom; an environment in which neither feminism nor masculinism can flourish or is needed. Just ignore political feminists; they crave recognition.

Your posts are empty spam, JackClap. Post something of substance please, or stop wasting our time.

In my experience, whenever people will only share ideas on very narrow terms (instead of being happy to promulgate the ideas widely and wlldly) nothing good comes from it.

Just keep it positive. Giving a child a reward for doing something that you want them to do (that they mightn't otherwise do) is OK and is usually effective. Taking away the child's own possessions is always wrong, and it's counter-productive. It takes away the child's sense of self, and poisons the parent-child relationship.

Aw, sounds like a great kid. Just let him keep playing with the glass on the shower. His mom can leave his towel close by so that he can start learning to dry himself, when he is finished playing. Then there will be no yelling.

You and your husband could ask your sister to name her price for not going ahead with the piercing. Suppose she names a price that is acceptable to you, then you pay that to her. Your sister-in-law gains a payment which is worth more to her than a hole in her daughter's ear. You lose an amount which is worth less to you than having an undamaged neice. The market at work! I will contribute one bitcoin (approx. $120) towards this. Perhaps others will chip in too. --- or --- You could stand outside the piercing salon holding a placard that says "Piercing a baby is child abuse".

Because the person who made the copy used his own materials and his own labor to make the copy. The originator still has what he created. The originator created the original, not the original plus all subsequent copies.