luminescent

I found your analysis more interesting than quick barbs -- thank you for spending the time.

I like to look at how things are intertwined. As in, therapy for you would affect your brother as well. I find that often things feel better when I have them connected to each other, instead of in isolation. This probably is about me, more than about your situation though. Is it possible that you used "our youngest" in the past to mean "ownership" and now it's starting to mean "responsibility," and that's why you would have deliberately chosen it in your post? If your perspective has changed from ownership, then using an ownership term would have been off. But since it's an ambiguious term maybe it represents to you the psychological shift from one perspective to the other. A token from the past that is transformed into its opposite in the future. (I find it very interesting that you would state that you felt you chose it deliberately.) Yeah, I've had moments like this. I think that having a memory of those moments is sort of a gem... it's evidence to yourself that you weren't always like the "after" picture. It makes it easier to realize that it may be possible to back out of it, back into the "before" picture.I like your solution, I think it makes perfect sense. I'm not sure what you mean about "how much" for a savings plan though? I found all of your complicated, emotion-related stuff easy to understand, but here I'm at a loss :)Have you chosen a therapist for yourself yet?

Are you aware that by posting something like that in response, you *are* further engaging? (Also, "really manipulative" is not an argument, and doubled down is not an argument.) ------------edited to add: Why did someone give me a negative point for that? Everything I said was true.I'm not interested in defending the OP or defending some part of the topic with this post. What I don't understand is why baiting comments are used as often as they are on this message board. I thought that reason, evidence, and logic was supposed to be paramount. Also empathy and self-knowledge. Is there a valid use for these type of comments? I am open to the idea that with certain people "that's just how you have to handle them," or something like that, but I need someone to make the case for me.(I don't mean just you, RyanT. I see that you're fairly new to the board, so who I mostly mean is the people who have been here the longest, since they set the tone for the board.) ------------edited to add: And now I have two negative points, and yet no one will address my concerns. I do indeed find the "feedback" to be helpful information.

Please explain how? I do not understand. I do see how my post could have been offensive, but that seems to be where my understanding drops off. I have to say, I don't understand either. Why not tell philschneider what he's doing wrong? (In other words, "You're still doing it" is not an argument.)

Have you told him that therapy can help him with those things? I'd suggest emphasizing that (if you're not already doing it). That seems right, to me. Tell him the truth wherever possible, gently but consistently. Let him make his own choices but you don't have to agree with him. I think there are three possibilities that can come out of that:1. he becomes more agreeable to your point of view2. he stays the same3. he becomes more disagreeable to your point of view.If he becomes more disagreeable, then I would back off, because he's getting entrenched in his choice (and it is his choice). Maybe you should look at it like: Therapy for you might help you figure out what's best for you to do for him. I think therapy for either of you would be good for both of you. I have to say, this sounds especially warm to me. Maybe it's just an accident, but in english "our youngest" usually is used for "our youngest child" not "our youngest brother," so it comes across to me as though you feel as responsible for him as though he was your child too. It might have been just a slip of the keyboard, but that just feels to me particularly as if you really care. :)It sounds to me like you've got this right, deep down. Your actions and proposed actions reflect (in my opinion) your heart being in the right place. It's a good place to start.

I agree too with the basic idea. I wouldn't use the word non-violent however, because that already has baggage (for lack of a better word) attached to it too. I would try to talk about it only using plain language. That's pretty much what I do with most things. If you can tell where I got a concept from, then I'm not doing my job well.It also lets me know when I actually understand a concept rather than I just think that I do. If I can put it into my own words, I understand it, if I keep saying "capitalism" or whatever, I need to check myself to be sure that my meaning isn't going off target, due to my definition being different from the other person's definition. Also, it's good to make others define their terms, too. So, tell the person that you're talking with to that they can't use those terms either. In other words, ban anarchy.Wait, I don't think that means what I meant it to mean, really...

I think Stef has said that at the time he picked the name Free Domain Radio he hadn't realized that he would later make the site into something so big. If he could go back in time and change it he would, but other than that it is what it is. It's the same with his YouTube channel: "stefbot" is just what he had thought of at the time, not realizing how big he would try to make it in the future.Also the initials being FDR is a little unfortunate. :)The site's already got a reputation and changing it would lose a lot of people in the confusion, plus it would be a huge amount of work to change it everywhere, plus links on other people's sites would be outdated, etc. Once something's spread out on the internet it can't be controlled anymore, so for the rest of eternity (or thereabouts) people would be coming across the old name, written in articles and whatnot. It's not a bad name, just could be better, so changing it would end up being more trouble than it's worth. That's my understanding of it anyway.

I don't think there are any laws about it. I think it's something that the credit card companies are having the merchants do. The credit card companies either give an incentive to the merchant to do it, or they tell the merchant "you have to do this or you can't use our service."It's for internet and telephone transactions, and it's been around for a long time. Basically, when you order something online or by phone with a credit card, they ask you for your billing address. When you buy something in the store, they don't.I think all or almost all merchants in the US are doing it. I've never come across one that wasn't (although, I don't shop at a wide variety of places.) I think the reason that the Wikipedia article wasn't very complete is because this system has been around since before the internet.Does that help?

I think this has to be broken down into two questions: 1. does planned obsolence exist at all? and 2. if so how prevalent is it? Otherwise, everyone sort of works with a different definition of the question "is there planned obsolescence?"

My favorite was from the now defunct website anit-politics.ws: I couldn't find it for sale online anymore, but I think it would be cool to have a professionally done sign. Try searching "vote for nobody," a few variations come up.

child: What are you doing?dad: Reading.child: What are you ree-ding?dad: It's a secret.child: (thinking) Why is it a secret?dad: (turns page so she can see it) Can you read it?child: No.dad: That's why it's a secret.

In case you haven't seen this yet (it was posted after you started this thread), Ethan Glover wrote an article about the pros and cons of Liberty.me.This is the thread he started about it:https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/40562-libertyme-a-scam/?hl=liberty.meIn there he links to his article. By the way, thanks for writing in so much detail about it, I'm finding it useful.

@PatrickCThank you very much! I appreciate it.@tasmlabI'm very glad you enjoyed it! You said:> I guess there's a donation convention on the Internet that's easy to grab on to. I can't imagine buying someone else's dinner just because I liked their behavior.I agree with that, one seems awkward and the other doesn't. So, why? Is it because when it's for content it seems okay, when it's for behavior it seems weird? Or because rewarding behavior seems "parental"? Or because the internet was new so it was easier to adopt a different convention? Or because content seems big and measureable and behavior seems small and negligible? Or something else? Do you have any feelings about about any of those? Or other thoughts as to why?> It would be interesting if everyone was in the habit of physically rewarding things that they liked.I agree. Interesting.> How about this twisted replacement for government: Instead of everyone having to ship 30% of their income to Washington, it's instead a law that everyone has to spend 30% of their income rewarding other people's good behavior?I think that would be VERY interesting. I wonder what kind of behavior modifications might come out of it...? I like the donation model for intellectual property very much. I also like when somebody is selling something physical, charging a minimum amount and accepting donations on top of that. I'm not sure about just "yay you're a good person, here's a quarter" though. Being good should be the norm for everybody. I think it gets rewarded at this period in tiime because it's rare. And I have NO problem with it being rewarded and with the recipient being totally satisfied to receive it. Because, oy, when you find someone who's doing the right thing, it can feel like an oasis in a desert! You want to cry and hug them, and you want to buy them a car! Eh, but dinner is about all you can swing. (Plus, you don't wanna appear creepy or anything. You know?)I'm repeating:> How about this twisted replacement for governmentto add: It's more like some un-twisting of government, I'd say.

I just clipped this picture yesterday: This is another example that I think is related to the same basic subliminal theme of men-are-bad, women-are-oppressed, and it's also about college. Instead of me saying why I think that though, I'm wondering if anyone else has an opinion on what subliminals are going on in this ad? It's on the splash page for Outlook (hotmail).Okay, how can I make the ad big instead of clickable? --------------------------(I go to all of the trouble to write punchy text and then the site pulls my punch... grumble, grumble.)edited for: humor that's so mild it's hardly there and a partially aborted attempt at greater accuracy

I didn't watch the ad (bandwidth issues) but I did read the article, plus the first article linked within it.Yuck.Just one example, from the first sentence:"66 percent of 4th grade girls say they like science and math, but only 18 percent of all college engineering majors are female."So, what percentage like science and math *best*? 30 %? 18%? 0%, but 18% go into engineering anyway? What percent of boys go into interior design, fashion design, etc.? (Shouldn't they push more engineering boys into fashion design to free up more space for girls to go into engineering?) Some quotes about statistics:“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.” ― Mark Twain“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”"Statistics are like a bikini. They show so much, but they hide the most important parts.”If you feel irked by the article, it's because the article is trying to manipulate your perception subliminally. Oh, and it's not being manipulated about who's going to college for what, that's just the means to get there. The destination is the men-are-bad, women-are-oppressed paradigm. My guess would be that men are wising up to the fact that college is in a bubble, and women not so much. So colleges are advertising to women. This article could just be a subliminal advertizing piece for colleges, consciously written as that by the author. The best advertizing works subliminally, provoking unconscious desires (or revulsions), and many women are carrying around the men-are-bad, women-are-oppressed thing, and it feels good to them to have it reinforced subliminally. As irksome as it feels to you, I suspect it can feel equally as good to some of them.It doesn't matter how conscious the paradigm is to the women, however, what matters is how subliminal the reinforcement of that paradigm is in the advertizing. If it's subliminal, it can be a very powerful force.It's also possible that the subliminals of the article were sub-conscious for the author, or that it's somewhere in between conscious and subconscious. My opinion is that it was fully conscious, because the article's just too focused and a little heavy-handed. Anyway, just my thoughts.----edited to remove erroneous info and add clarity