cynicist

That is really awesome to hear, thanks for sharing the update with us! I have one follow up question if you don't mind: Do you think taking an active role and being more visible to your managers is what made the difference? I have this suspicion that people's perception of your work has more effect than even the work itself much of the time, although that may not be the case here. It's something I have to keep in mind since I value results/effort and I'm proactive when it comes to finding out what I need to know to do my job, so I view a lot of what goes on at meetings/pep talks as boring formality that makes management feel good rather than being an effective use of my time. (may not be the case in your organization) I hope things worked out with your team lead btw.

Thank you. I'm sick of these 'wage-slave' arguments. There is absolutely no such thing. You can work for a voluntary wage or you can be enslaved, and no, hating your job is not the same as being forced to do anything. If your terms of employment are vague, get clarification. If you don't like a particular responsibility at your job, then either explain that you won't do it or find a new job. I've refused certain things without being fired but yeah, if you just do everything you are told then people will abuse the hell out of that. That's the sad state of the world today. I wish robots did my laundry but while I wait for Google to get around to that I'm not going to complain that I'm forced to fold clothing...

Yes it's quite funny to read. How exactly would they be able to confiscate the coins? There are no technical means by which they could actually implement any of this so I assume they would be relying on the threat of jail time to get compliance. Of course even associating wallets with people would be tricky, especially if the user has knowledge of the technology to any degree. (which is why they are requiring registration to purchase coins) Say for example that I create a new bitcoin address and transfer funds to it. This is indistinguishable from a transaction between two individuals. So how could they know that I own both? At best they could watch for patterns like transfers occurring between the same two addresses consistently. (which is why the recommendation is to use a new address for every transaction to avoid this kind of tracking) If the government shuts down exchanges it doesn't do anything to the coins you possess. (just like shutting down gold providers doesn't affect your stash of gold) I can bury the hard drive containing them in the woods as well, but there are much better ways of securing bitcoin. The government confiscated the coins held by Silk Road, but one advantage over precious metals is that they couldn't take Ross Ulbricht's (owner of the site) personal stash of coins because his wallet was encrypted and they didn't have the private key to unlock it. Not encrypting your digital wallet is like leaving a real physical wallet on a bench somewhere. It doesn't sound as impressive to 'confiscate' a wallet that someone left unattended, does it?

It's fascinating how much random nonsense you can stuff into a single sentence.

Ok something new. Here is some Industrial Metal. Two because I feel like it.

You can pretend that I didn't show the logic behind it in my post if you'd like, but then I don't see why you started this thread. Wouldn't it be much easier to pretend if you weren't posting here?

Excellent. You'll get your honorary hooded robe and copy of 'The book of Stef' shortly after the initiation ceremony. Please don't share the map to the hidden compound, we've had a few.... unpleasant visitors recently.

I could be wrong, but I don't think he was stating a fact or quoting a study. The more time we invest in a relationship the more we are affected emotionally by it, so it makes sense that it would take longer to recover. I also wouldn't recommend approaching relationships as if they are math problems...

Sure but then we wouldn't get the wide-eyed stares. I like those.

Pecking order indeed. They abuse your brothers and your brothers abuse you. I hate these fucking people. How are you supposed to 'stay away from them' at eight years old? Please guard your heart. These vile people will stomp on it just to hang on to the empty fantasies that they call their family history.

Here's a fun song with summer vibes.

Thanks, that explained a lot. I want to compliment you on quality of the video. You are an excellent speaker. The core problem with saying that mysticism should be rooted in science is that they are fundamentally in opposition. Based on your description of mysticism, it is not verifiable in the external world through either logic or empiricism since it relies on subjective experiences. (In the video you said that a scientist would have to experience it in their own minds and then translate the experience into the material world) If you accept the scientific method as your primary tool to separate truth from falsehood then anything that comes from the mystical approach is invalid. Stefan goes into much greater detail in the video series. What you describe is very similar to Plato's higher realm, the idea that there is some divine/spiritual source of knowledge that we access internally. I think you might appreciate the comparison.

Exactly what you said above. It's what you would expect on a philosophy forum and yet it's so rare.

You know, I just realized how rare your response is on these forums. It's pretty hilarious actually.

You could explain the difference between honesty and being mean

You can literally paste the youtube link into the textbox and the forum will automatically handle all that for you. I think that used to be the case but now it is as simple as can be.

Yes, at a minimum. If you didn't have the intent to do it then the hurt would be accidental. The reason he makes those arguments is to help people learn the truth and be more rational, he's not trying to hurt people. The fact that it hurts the interests of bad people is just a side benefit. If I trip someone, is it hard to tell my intent? If I punch someone in the gut? If I yell at someone for making a mistake? If I use my key to scratch up their car? I don't think it's hard at all. And you can't be unconsciously mean since it's deliberate.

The main problem with your definitions is that people who are mean are sensitive to how other people will feel about it, that's why they are doing it in the first place. I would define being mean as 'acting out of spite' (a malicious desire, as in to hurt/humiliate/annoy/frustrate/etc).

That's fine, it just means you value friends/conformity over virtue. There is nothing that says you have to take philosophy seriously.

The problem is they will just say that people need to be more vigilant about who they vote for, and if we could just get the right people in there...

Yeah that's exactly why I used those two examples. Preferences like 'I like to eat cheesecake' are what you might call non-binding. That means that I can say it without it applying to you as well. You can hate cheesecake and we can still get along fine. Morality, on the other hand, is both universal and binding. That means when I say that 'using force is wrong', it's not only wrong for me but for any human being. If it didn't have this characteristic then it could not be objective, and would fall into the category of opinion. (for more detail on morality in particular, I'd recommend reading UPB) Now, saying that something is wrong/bad/evil is an explicit disapproval of that behavior. If you then consider people who act that way to be friends, then you have a contradiction between what you claim to be your values versus what you actually do. What does it mean to condemn someone for being a murderer if you treat them the same way you would treat a friend? It would be no different than claiming to prefer exercise and healthy foods while eating fatty stuff on a couch. I used those examples because Hitler and racism are recognized as obviously evil by the majority of society. The reason you feel comfortable around statists is because what they are advocating is not yet viewed the same way. If they suddenly talked about how glad they were that a black person got lynched or that some woman from work was robbed in an alley, you wouldn't hang around them right? But they are cheering for guys with guns to take your money and kidnap you if you should refuse.

The only reason evil continues is because it can masquerade as the good or the necessary. If I told you I know this guy named Hitler who wants to help make the human race stronger you might think that was admirable... at least until I told you the how. Soldiers fight to protect their country, or invade another country in order to liberate it's people. Elliot Rodger was being robbed of the attention he rightfully deserved from blonde women. That guy I beat up fucking deserved it. All evil is paired with justification because the minute it is in plain sight people recoil from it. So you take your time and try to help the other person understand their error with sympathy and curiosity towards the history that helped lead them to it, but at the end of the day (not literal, it could take months) if they persist in spite of the rational arguments then they are advocating force against you.

What is the point of having principles? I see them as a method of guiding your actions, a set of ideal standards for you to live up to in your life. If I'm a fat person who sits on a couch all day and eats cheesecake, but claims that eating healthy and exercise are really important to me, would you take my words or my actions more seriously? Clearly my actions, because it takes a lot less commitment to say something than it does to do it. You might be saying, but it's my friends who are fat, not me! Except that, with regards to statists, we're talking about morality and not dieting. The difference being that morality is a universal, and dieting is a personal preference. (If I say that something is evil, it is evil for everyone, not just me) So to take the above in a moral context, if I say that I think murdering innocent people is an evil of the highest order, but I'm also friends with Hitler, what would you think of that? If I am making the claim that murder is abhorrent to me, but I'm fine being around people who murder, then clearly what I call a 'standard' is just a nice idea that I don't practice in reality. But if I don't practice living my standards, then what's the point of having them? At best it would be a kind of convoluted mind game.

It means that you value your relationships more than your principles. So philosophy is more of a hobby to you than a serious endeavor.

It's a funny joke but I'm not sure it's a sign of progress. I've seen many instances where politicians are considered thieves and liars, but that's a long way from recognizing taxes/government as institutionalized theft.