ribuck

There was a time when whale oil was used to light lamps. With the growth in lamplighting, it was feared that the whale oil would run out. The whale oil pretty-much ran out, but the world survived peak whale-oil just fine. Today we have more and cheaper lighting than ever. The world will survive peak fossil-oil just fine too.

Evolution doesn't relate to the species as a whole. It's only the survival of each gene (and meme) that is significant in natural selection. So if something changes such that the abusers produce fewer offspring (or people raise their children to become less abusive), the balance of your "two character types" will shift. It's not pre-destined in any way, if that's what you were implying. Humans are not stuck with a fixed proportion of character types.

If the state apologises to enough people for enough things, perhaps eventually its livestock will expect the state to stop doing things for which it will need to apologise in the future. Except that the state only apologises for things that it did a LONG time ago.

At 2:20 you state that it is a "fundamental principle of law" that a crime requires a victim, but that is not a principle of English law. A defendant pleads guilty to breaking a law, not to harming a victim. It is always wrong for a state to threaten violence against an adult for private consensual activities, whatever those activities are. But Parliament is not apologising to all the other homosexuals who were imprisoned in the past. They are only apologising to Turing, perhaps because he did cool stuff and was patriotic.

Parenting fail! The mother just needed to explain to both of them that there's no marriage unless both people want to marry. In the future, I see the girl becoming a wife with a henpecked husband.

I'm an old guy who grew up before gaming existed, so I won't comment specifically on gaming. But in general I think one's childhood interests will fade over time. Friend-groups will shrink as people go their own way. Some friends get caught up on the career treadmill, others start raising a family, etc. It might be worth looking for something completely new to invigorate yourself. Perhaps learning another language in a group setting? Joining a hiking club? Contributing to an open-source software project? As a teenager, I was made keen on ham radio. I thought it was going to be a lifelong interest, but after a few years the passion faded. In my twenties I took up outdoor pursuits (hiking, mountain-climbing, caving etc) and three decades later I still find these things pleasurable.

Do you have any hobbies that used to be fun? If so, in what way has that hobby become less fun?

I discussed the creation earlier in this thread. My "easy solution" was just showing how, when there are "n" road users, you don't need "n times n" contracts. I happen to live on a privately-owned road. There are 20 houses, and each owns a portion of the road in front of their house, up to the center-line of the road - except for two houses at the end whose driveways connect to the road without any ownership of the road. Without any fuss, 19 of the 20 houses contribute a very small monthly payment into a fund that pays for repairs and re-surfacing as needed. The 20th household doesn't want to do this, but they happily pay their fair share whenever work needs to be done. This is all done without any formality or contract! The property deeds do specify an obligation to jointly maintain the road, but don't go into detail about how it would be organized or paid for. And we connect our road to the public road network without any problems.

The market can resolve this type of situation fairly easily. Look at how the commercial part of the internet got established in the 1990s. Instead of each user (or ISP) having to negotiate connection and packet forwarding with each other user (or ISP), they just negotiate it with their immediate peers using contract wording that is roughly equivalent to the following: "You will accept my connections (and the connections from anyone else who connects through me), and will forward my IP traffic (and the IP traffic from anyone else who connects through me). I will accept your connections (and the connections from anyone else who connects through you), and will forward your IP traffic (and the IP traffic from anyone else who connects through you). There will be a payment to reflect the imbalance in traffic between the two parties to the contract." In this setup, there's no need for payments to be disbursed beyond the immediate peers. When working out a contract price, peers take into account any increased payment they will need to make to their other peers as a result of a new peering arrangement. In this way, the whole system networks together without the need to consider more than say half a dozen peers. It would be the same with roads. Each road user would purchase service from their local "road service provider". That provider would have established reciprocal peering arrangements with the road service providers to whom their own roads connect. The agreements would of course be transitive so that the road user would gain access to the whole network with a single payment or subscription.

Auction them off, so that some "public debt" can be settled.

What outcome are you anticipating from talking to the padre? I've never been a christian, but I think in your situation I'd just leave "cold turkey".

Does it really work like this? The police handcuff those who are not the subject of their arrest warrant?

I think in the days of the dodo, there was not much understanding of the consequences of species extinction. I think that's how humans accumulate knowledge. People can't live their lives evaluating hypotheticals; they need to see the consequences first-hand. As the song goes, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone". It's the same with engineering: the knowledge of how to build better bridges arises mostly from analysis of previous bridge failures. Only in the past few decades has there been enough awareness of the consequences of species extinction that the motivation exists to do something about it.

Great thought experiment! Slug is the most offensive, for the violent beating he gave to Gregory. Abigail is almost as offensive. She was happy for Slug to beat Gregory. Plus she's a jerk. Sinbad the riverboat captain offers Abigail what appears to be a win-win proposition. Can't fault him for voluntaryism! And yet ... he is somewhat offensive. I think Sinbad is trying to exploit the situation, because I reckon he knows that Gregory won't be happy and that this isn't going to work out well for Abigail. Ivan has my respect. No-one needs to get involved if they don't want to. Gregory is the least offensive. We assume that Gregory is in love with Abigail, so it's natural that Gregory won't like that Abigail slept with Sinbad. I can identify personally with Gregory. The preferable outcome? Abigail should have waited a few days until the bridge was fixed, or gone the long way round, instead of sleeping with Sinbad.

Or caffeine, certainly.

If the bed wetting is regular (i.e. most nights) there is another possible cause. If the child has always been put to bed in an ultra-absorbent diaper, their body has never experienced the wet feeling (which is necessary so that their body to learn not to wet the bed). If that's the cause, a bed-wetting alarm (which wakes the child when they wet the bed) will allow the child to become dry at night within a few weeks. I would hate for a child to be treated as if they were suffering psychological problems, disease or stress, if it is just that their body hasn't received the sensory input that is necessary for the normal functioning of their body.

Indeed! But it's not surprising. You have chosen the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license, so you are allowing your work to be copied by govt-controlled and partially govt-funded nonprofits such as NPR, but not by productive enterprises. So the context in which your work is used is likely to be skewed in that direction.

Congratulations, Nathan, on re-licensing! I hope that in time you will find yourself able to un-clench your teeth in relation to this. Regarding the use of your photo by NPR: it just shows that it's a great photo. It doesn't show that you support the article it's used with. At least they did credit the photo, although a clickable hyperlink would have been nicer. Incidentally, I see that you have also re-licensed your photo of Lori Earley's artwork "Drained". Was this an oversight, or do you consider that you are licensing the value that you added by photographing the work? Great photos, by the way. I see a strong environmental theme throughout, and a really sound command of the technical and artistic aspects.

Pronouncements about future spending are cheap to make. Let's resurrect this thread when France actually cuts government spending (without fudges like redefining current expenditure as capital investment).

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z55sKnmrcsA:640:480]

To that list, I'd add "an outdoor lifestyle". People tend to be much more outgoing and friendly in a place where people spend time at the park, at the beach, walking, at barbecues, etc.

If you have the time and the patience, you can say "sure, no problem" and let her have a go at doing it herself. Obviously, you will hover close by in case she is about to get into a hazardous situation. When our children were younger (they're teenagers now), they would sometimes reject our offers of help because they wanted to do something themselves. Sometimes they would succeed with an ambitious task that we had thought was beyond their ability. More often, they would abandon the task halfway and say "now you do it". You can't expect a two-year-old to deduce things in the same way as an adult, so yes there is a risk that she will try to put logs on the fire in your absence. But there is also a risk if you previously said "no", because when you leave the room she might decide that she is now free to put the log on the fire. So you need to make the environment safe for her either way. If a child perceives that you are thwarting their desires, it increases the incentive for them to be "naughty" (by your standards) when they think you're not watching. If a child perceives that you are "on their side" because you are always helping them to achieve their desires, they are more likely to respect your decision when you really do need to say "no". A couple of other points. Is their mother around? If not, being a single parent makes it more difficult. Also, sometimes the older sibling will happily help to look after the safety of the younger one (yes, even at age 7) if they are given some encouragement and shown that they have your confidence.

Sure, I agree. Intent is irrelevant to the philosophy and practise of peaceful parenting. But if someone has claimed ill-intent by tasmlabs, and if I don't see evidence of that ill-intent, I think it's reasonable (and couteous to tasmlabs) to say so.

Joseito, in my experience it rarely leads to edification when a discussion starts focusing on tedious minutae, so I'm not going to pursue it.

A big city has so much more to offer to anyone who doesn't just want to be one of the sheeple. I think going to a big city is a great move for a person in your situation. This doesn't mean that the transition will be easy. Having some savings is a good start, but getting work (or some other regular income) is the key. If it were me, I'd start by accepting almost any type of job, and would rent the smallest possible place (probably a room in a shared house, rather than an apartment). Once you have a positive cash flow, you can make friends and start discovering what the city has to offer. You can improve your job, and upgrade your accommodation, after you settle into the city and start to reap its benefits. Jake (of The Voluntary Life) did a great podcast about city life, entitled City Air Makes You Free.