Kevin Beal

Just curious, what qualifies as a full member? Is it a certain amount of points or reputation? Or is it for donators? Is the access control list something like: 0 - banned / non-member 1 - n00b 2 - full member 3 - bronze 4 - silver 5 - gold 6 - PK 7 - Staff + BCF ?? Just curious what hidden treasures thar be

This is vile, disgusting and horrible. But this is not what most people are referring to when they say "cat call". It just means that whistle that first goes up in pitch, then down. And I regularly cat call people that I am fond of and know well enough that it won't come as a shock, men and women. I'm not saying that men's issues don't affect women, but these women tend to be in their 20's and probably don't have husbands with ex wives or children. Most appear to be college aged women who come into a lot of contact with social justice warriors. Maybe you aren't off base at all, I'm just saying that I didn't have the same reaction. *edit Apparently, cat call is broader a term than I had thought. From Urban Dictionary:

I think that by and large, the signs they write are in response to the signs by the "i need feminism because..." campaign, rather than raising awareness of men's issues. The specific points about cat calls and the defense of stay-at-home parenting are popular "i need feminism because" signs where feminists equate cat calling to rape and stay-at-home motherhood to slavery. My guess is that they aren't even aware of the men's issues you mentioned. I think it's more about feeling fed up with the victim complex shit that many feminists are keen on pulling. Most of the signs are just a rephrasing of other signs already posted, but I generally appreciate seeing them pop up on my facebook feed. And to be fair to them, the sentence completion is directly to do with them, so if they are talking about themselves and how it directly affects them, then that's kind of to be expected. "I don't need feminism because of things don't don't really affect me so much" wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. That being said, it would be nice to see them acknowledge men and boys more.

For what it's worth, I think you make a really good point, but I'm reminded that technically speaking, the sexes are as genetically dissimilar as between a male human and a male chimpanzee (98.5%), or female human and female chimp. I hate the social disapproval children experience for such trivial things as playing with toys from the other side of Toys R Us. It makes me angry that people would put so much importance on that. I used to love doll houses as a kid and played with "girl toys" from time to time. I thought about what it would be like to have family of my own at a very young age. My best friend in kindergarten was a girl for a period. It wasn't until later that I became aware of how bad all of that is supposed to be. But regardless, the differences between the sexes is very real, and affects brain composition, the eyes, muscle distribution, how disease affects us and a ton of other factors that aren't just the naughty bits. And it's not very clear to me how these natural differences manifest, when there is so much propaganda about how men and women are and should be. Simply having a frank discussion about this has been really difficult for me, and I'm guessing I'm not alone in that. And the gender roles you mention, I'm sure, are a big reason why it's so unclear. I'm left with this compelling mystique about the "other" that is woman. How you ladies tick is a question I would pay very good money to finally have answered. I've read all kinds of things online and it all leaves me more confused or frustrated. It's part of what makes me attracted to women in the first place. I just don't understand how people can say that something is sexist when we aren't as a society talking candidly about our differences. It's all very political, in the worst sense of the word. And I feel betrayed by feminism. I was promised a true and unbiased examination of men and women, without the fog of patriarchy blinding me. My parents were are emotionally stunted half children themselves and were of little use in this regard. I remember after sharing that I had found one of the softcore porno channels on my friend's TV, my brother revealed to me the secret (unprompted) that women actually enjoy sex too. It was a shock to me! And I became aware of the secret nature of sex and gender. My friends and I would compare notes and the crazy degree of misinformation we all had makes me both laugh and grieve the desperate lengths we went to in trying to figure out the most simple of things. And it's frustrating that it still happens to me in my 27th year of life. Why does nobody know the relatively large genetic differences between the sexes or the difference in brain composition and structure? This should not be such hard information to find. Maybe it's the case that girls don't run or throw balls as good as boys. And maybe it's a pathetic thing for boys to hold over girls who gained this advantage by sheer accident. I don't know, but I'm tired of all the landmines that I'm supposed to navigate should I decide to try and talk openly and have the hubris of not wanting to blow my leg off. I'm not saying that you are doing anything to prevent open discussion, the opposite is true. I really appreciate your input on this subject. I'm just embittered by all the political correctness there is around sex differences. I hope you don't mind the rant. I've been holding this in for a while and took the opportunity to express some things.

As far as bitcoin is concerned, the 51% attack is not really something worth being concerned about. Andreas Antonopolous explains in some detail here (the whole video is great, but the relevant part is at 49 minutes). The incentives are such that GHash.io or any other mining pool which is able to collect 51% of the hashing power of the bitcoin network is going to stand to make so much more profit by being a good actor, and if they were able to do a single double spend, it could make the entire bitcoin network take a huge hit, enough that whatever they gained would quickly lose value, or the bitcoin public ledger is rolled back before the double spend and it was all for nothing and they go bankrupt with none of the people currently mining with them wanting to stick with that pool. But I think the analogy is fitting in that when you reach 51% of people voting they can achieve a new direction to point the guns of the state. Something you couldn't do with purely voluntary interaction where the incentives are such that free and voluntary actors in the market benefit by providing real value to one another.

There is a new trending hashtag out there called #likeagirl. I don't know if it was started by the Always marketing team or they just ran with it, but it's in the name of empowering women. The hashtag refers to taunts like "you throw like a girl!" Here's the video I was alluding to: Many feminists have taken the fact that this phrase exists as proof of sexism against women. In the video one woman claims that this phrase is used to put girls down and humiliate them. Despite a powerful video, I remain unconvinced. Here's what I wrote in response to the video: It may also be the case that "girl" implies being childlike, and being childlike comes with undeveloped coordination and physical abilities. If you had asked them to run like a "woman", I'm guessing that you would have gotten a different response. It's not like males don't get similar and equivalent taunting. To be a boy rather than a man is to be considered weak, out of control and spastic. I would hesitate to chalk this one up so quickly to sexism as people are want to do. To do this justice, you can't vaguely imply sexism and consider it explained. I won't pretend to know what it's like to be a girl, but I would just ask the same humility in return when it comes to the reasons boys say things like "you throw like a girl". Certainly there are boys and girls who are quick to humiliate others, and that's obviously destructive, but this same phrase was often used to tease. That being the way that kids express an interest in each other. And also, to ask to "run like a girl", you are asking that as compared to running like a boy or a man. And there are many studies that show a significant difference between the sexes when it comes to eye-hand coordination and other similar skills in the favor of the males of our species. Natural sex differences are exaggerated in contrast to each other If you asked these same people to clean up after themselves like a boy, or play nice like a boy, you'd get an exaggerated version of these acts. That is, very poorly executed. As a young boy growing up, I was told that my sex was responsible for all the war and suffering in the world. While I was going thru puberty and figuring out who I was and becoming a man, this was a source of a significant amount of conflict for me, as I felt as if I was being asked to apologize for things I had nothing to do with because I was born with a penis. If this is empowering to girls then great. How could I possibly argue with that? But if this is being used to promote the current zeitgeist, that women are uniquely disadvantaged, the one that I have come to resent, I would just like to instill a drop of healthy doubt. This raises some interesting questions for me, though. There are a lot of expectations put on children that they should conform to gender roles. One I remember very vividly was that I would be a sex-obsessed oaf of a man, and I remember girls telling me that I was a pervert for wanting to see women naked. I hesitate to just chalk it all up to sexism, though. I don't understand how it explains anything. It's not in the strictest sense the hatred or fear of men to label us sex obsessed oafs. I wonder how much of these accusations are really repressed fantasies that we have. Do a lot of women want men to be sex obsessed and barely able to contain their lust for them? Is the supposed rape culture really just a repressed desire to experience male domination? This is what JudgyBitch thinks. On the other side of the coin, the accusation that women are entitled or crazy or whatever other things men will sometimes toss out there (and some women too), are those repressed desires of men? Then there are people who own these accusations, like men who say "yea, all we care / think about is sex", or women who say "yea, it's true, women are crazy". Are they just like the most honest people and there are real biological explanations for all of this that we need to come to terms with? Or is it something less noble? Why are expectations about gender so incredibly controversial and fucked up? I really don't get it.

Yes. There are 60 Philosopher King podcasts.

There is no access to premium content on the mobile site AFAIK. You have to do it on a desktop. It's not easy to set it up for mobile, unfortunately. You may be able to get to a download button and download it to your phone, playing it in some other app. Here's the link.

I've seen every video there is on youtube of Andreas. Seriously, I'm stalking him, I want to have his babies. But this one is especially great. He goes into some really interesting topics you don't usually see from him, like currency as a form of expression, how cryptocurrencies will win, how financial markets are rigged, and just a generally enjoyable and fascinating listen. Ch-ch-check it out, yo!

I wonder if it's actually true that alpha males are very sure of themselves. I think of a Don Draper (from Mad Men) type character who has no problem convincing women to sleep with him. And how this type of guy's self esteem is so fleeting. That he needs to have another lay as soon as he gets too overwhelmed or insecure so he can feel worthwhile again. I think it's true that guys don't obsess as much as women (generally speaking) about their looks, but I think it may just be the case that this insecurity manifests itself differently. In some circles I think I had some status because I am quick witted and can make people laugh a while. In high school I remember a period where (for whatever reason) I couldn't come up with jokes that were very good, and I felt an identity crisis as I imagined myself slipping from beta to omega, or something like that. (I didn't think about it in those terms at the time.) And for a long time when I would tell a joke that bombed I felt terribly insecure. I don't think it necessarily has to be good looks that determines status. I would consider many moderately attractive celebrities to have much higher status than gorgeous non-celebrities (for example). I think it's got a lot to do with the groups you hang around. The image that comes to mind is the dungeon master among Dungeons and Dragons groups, or the guy who spends hours and hours painting in beautiful detail his WarHammer figurines and has the coolest set that brings into battle, or the Star Trek nerd who actually knows a friend of William Shatner's. REAL nerds, but they have have that cool factor within that environment. I think of it being like fashion. It's pretty arbitrary, but it can matter a lot, simply because of the way people will perceive you. And I think, for the most part, status is arbitrary in that same way, in how people determine that within their circle. I wonder if among a group of all zetas, or a philosophical group (assuming perfect virtue and self knowledge) there would be any status. Status has the negative connotation of "status seeker", like the person who acts simply to gain status, but I don't know if that's necessarily always the case. Like, is it fair to say that Stef has a lot of status among the listeners to the show? What do you think?

I mean it very generally. In this case, the same person can be crazy and sane at different times. Crazy describing an incapacity to see the world for what it is, especially if it involves repetitively un-empathetic or destructive behavior. People stuck in some psychological complex and negatively affecting the people around them as a result. The example I gave was really more specific to narcissists and exploiters, who I would put under the more general category: crazy. Does that help? Is that an unhelpful or otherwise lacking definition?

It's the kind of crazy relativism with people who want to treat everyone with the same degree of respect, care and attention. The "needs" of the crazy person doesn't fundamentally matter because it's all false self bullshit anyway, and so they get the sane person to treat themselves as if their own needs don't matter. And then the crazy person gets to feel like their own whims do matter. It's a vampiric process. When sane people empathize with a true self, this vampirism doesn't happen, so we might not develop defenses against it, becoming sensitive to the narcissism of that kind of interaction. And that makes us prey, and all their rationalizations and excuses serve to keep us that way. I didn't quite get the victory part, unless maybe it's crazy people maintaining that relationship generally, the vampires wanting to protect vampirism as a whole. What do you think?

It's all about status, isn't it? I think that by definition the alphas have the most status. Some people differentiate between betas and omegas and even zetas. The betas being the group that gains status by propping up the statuses of the alphas, and maintaining the status hierarchy so that they come out on top of the omegas. The omegas are on the bottom of the totem pole as they still operate within the social mythology around how people get status. Zetas reject that social mythology entirely. Warren Farrell is keen on saying "men's weakness is their facade of strength; women's strength is their facade of weakness." I take that to mean that women gain status by appearing weak, and men by appearing strong and competent. That's why the archetypal high status woman has long fingernails, hair like a house of cards, high heels, that is, markers that indicate she doesn't even know how to use a hammer. And the archetype high status man could build a house if he wanted to, but he's probably got other men he could pay to do it for him. I think that generally, people with a lot of status are people we are tempted to overlook for them the subtle irrationality in their comments, and the lack of compassion they feel for us normies. Pretty people are one example. Celebrities and rich people, also. I have known both types of the female types you mentioned, for sure. And definitely it would be frustrating to hear a guy complain about an alpha female not being into nice guys while not even acknowledging the romantic eligibility of a beta female. Especially considering how many men complain about being overlooked as betas. I kind of want to shake people like that by the collar. I won't pretend to know how women think about finding a partner. But I do know that I considered myself an omega growing up and there were plenty of girls who were interested in me, some of whom I could have sworn were "out of my league", and thus threatening the delicate balance of the social order! Maybe it is alpha females who are the most hypergamous and disinterested in beta males. I wouldn't be too surprised, myself.

This is the oedipal complex, isn't it? To sexually possess the parent of the opposite sex? There are some disturbing accounts online of people fixated on their mothers and saying things like they want to become one again and join with her. Or this is what the incestuous mother says. I get the sense that it's not even sexual in some cases, although often it is. I think I remember hearing that this is even more common among mothers and sons who are separated at his birth and reunite later. It's even got a name, apparently: genetic sexual attraction. Given the prevalence of pornography out there focusing on these themes and the desire of many women to be lovingly dominated by a "daddy", I'd wager it's more common than most people would think. I remember my earliest sexual fantasies, lacking any experience, were like practically being absorbed into some girl I was crushing on. It reminds me of breastfeeding babies. They look very satisfied from the oxytocin and milk, as if being absorbed into the mother. And I think some psychologists have suggested that this is where a child's sexuality is at in infancy: the "oral" stage of psychosexual development. I'm no expert, and I may have completely misunderstood what you were asking, but I would look at the oedipus complex. It's a much broader category than simply children seeking the affections of the opposite sex parent and jealousy toward the same sex parent. And it's not necessarily anything more to do with sex than breastfeeding (which is to say, only very abstractly).

Also, from a practical standpoint, when restitution is impossible, people are almost guaranteed to double down since the emotional pain they would have to experience would be far greater than the pain of continuing to diminish and trivialize the pain of the victim (if only in their own minds). These people do feel ambivalence though, if they have even half a heart. But what I've seen time and time again are the bullshit non apologies (BNAPs). They say sorry for the purpose of relieving themselves of their own guilt at the expense of the truth and the person they wronged. "I'm sorry you feel that way", "I'm sorry for whatever it is you think I did", saying sorry and then doing it again, demonstrating that the apology was without true empathy and consideration. I mean, just imagine how guilty you feel for accidentally stepping on your dogs foot and you hear them yelp. I feel terrible! Then imagine repeatedly abusing a child over a decade and witnessing them turn delinquent and depressed. That's infinitely worse than stepping on a dog's foot. I think that if you think that people who do things for which restitution is impossible, can be expected to really deeply apologize from the bottom of their hearts and work to do whatever they can to prevent future tragedy, etc, I don't think you are really empathizing with them. If they have any empathy at all, it will be a torture worse than hell to be relentlessly honest about, and if they have no empathy, then get as far away as you possibly can!

Most of the first 800 podcasts or so are available only as podcasts and not available on YouTube. At least, not on the main Freedomain Radio YouTube channel. They aren't being buried or anything. Nowadays there are videos that don't even go into the podcast stream or start on youtube by default, but that wasn't always the case.

The first post in this thread is the 3rd highest rated piece of content in board history.

And how much of the things that people can't see, are due to the choices that they make? To take an analogy, if you decide to drink a bunch of alcohol your response time is going to be severely diminished. If somebody who was sober could act quickly enough to avoid disaster, the fact that the drunk person could not is not sufficient reason enough to excuse them of the disaster they caused, even if they couldn't have helped it in that moment. Similarly, in the case of bad parents. A person who does absolutely nothing to take care of their mental health, nothing to grow healthy negotiating skills in that child, nothing to notice the negative effect their own parents had on them, they could still not have any control in the moment and act out their own pent up aggressions on their own children, but it doesn't make them any less responsible. Irritation is actually different than frustration. You can be frustrated by an uneven sidewalk you seem to always trip on, but you can't exactly be irritated by that. Irritation, whatever it is, involves people choices at some level. You can be irritated by someone who keeps getting you with a squirt gun from behind some random corner every morning you come in to work. I wonder if you know what the specific thoughts are that you think that come with the irritation? I can tell you that people who claim to value reason and evidence, but consistently and obstinately avoid providing any evidence of their own, while telling you that you are wrong, are people who irritate me. But a person who is truly so stupid that they can't tie their shoes cannot explain how to find my keys they were playing with, would frustrate me, because they lack the intelligence enough for me to find them to be responsible. Maybe it's willful ignorance that you are coming up against rather than genuine ignorance? I don't know. I thought it was an important distinction.

Mike Hearn, one of the bitcoin core developers does a really interesting presentation on the future of economics. The is self driving cars and other smart machines making money by providing services and spending money by purchasing repair and the services of other machines. The theories do not require the long promised and never delivered artificial intelligence. It's just really smart programming, micropayments and a series of connected networks reducing overhead of everything to being practically nothing. It's fuckin' wack yo! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu4PAMFPo5Y

That is fucking awesome man! Letting this poor boy know that it's not okay and there are people in the world who will stand up against that is really important. I was just imagining myself in this situation and stewing on it for a while and I thought of a reply that I wish I would be quick enough to say in the moment about how this woman says that you're not a parent so,... shut up, I guess. "If you had a husband and he was here pounding on you, should I just say to myself 'hey, I've never been married, so maybe there is a good reason he's beating on you' and be 'humble' about the fact that I've never been married?" And what a petty and cowardly bitch she is. Thank you for saying something. Massive kudos to you, sir.

If by technological singularity you mean artificial intelligence, this is not possible using the computers we use today. And it's not only because people don't understand human psychology well enough, but there are technological limitations. People mistakenly believe that this is an issue of better programming or faster processing, but that's actually untrue. No amount of processing power can make the symbol manipulation that computers do (1s and 0s == this message board) equal actual intelligence. The distinction between simulated intelligence and actual intelligence is more important than you'd think. Consider the following thought experiment (Searle's chinese room): You are locked in a room with no windows. All there is are a stack of cards with chinese symbols on them next to a desk with a giant manual on it (written in english) and a slit in the wall. Occasionally new cards with chinese symbols slide into the room through that slit. The manual has a reference for every card that you have or could get and shows a corresponding card that you should push back out through that slit in the wall. You don't know it, but outside the room a fluent chinese speaker is writing questions on these cards and pushing them through the slot. The manual is so good that the person outside actually believes they are carrying on a real conversation with someone in the room, who understands the meaning of what they are writing and writing thoughtful answers. This is essentially how computers work. The manual is the program, the cards are 1s and 0s or any other symbol computers could manipulate and you are the central processing unit. The computer is inescapably dumb. It doesn't matter how fast you reference and slip back out those cards, you still can't read chinese. A computer does not know the meaning of anything it does. Programs can only ever provide a syntax, and never a semantics to the programming language from the computers POV. All the meaning that we get from using computers is beyond the computer. It was either put there by another user, a developer, or as part of some dynamic accident. The assumption that people in the realm of machine learning and artificial intelligence often make is that human understanding, beliefs, desires, perceptions, consciousness as a whole is superfluous. The thought is that the brains are computers, neurons are the memory for computation and that some combination of past experiences, instinct and logical operations make up the computer program of the brain. This is useful as an analogy, but the mind appears to be another animal entirely from what I've seen researching neurobiology as a layman. If we actually accept the premise that our subjective experience of meaning, semantics, consciousness is superfluous and it's all really just underlying neurological processes, we run into some insurmountable logical problems. This position btw, is called "epiphenomenalism" and I think that it's bunk. If all of our conscious experience is simulated by the brain, the way a computer program simulates a weather pattern, then for the output of this process (e.x. me eating a sandwich) it doesn't require consciousness at all. The causal nature of this "computation" makes all of the beliefs and desires arbitrary data that does not itself work are required fields in completing this process. I could just be programmed to think that I am conscious (a contradiction because thinking is consciousness, but let's just roll with it). In other words, there is no meaning, just a simulation of meaning, at the computer level and at the human level. We are just deluded in thinking we're different. This is how many people see consciousness. What our conscious experience of the world is, however, is clearly linking a causal chain of events from the ontologically subjective phenomena of consciousness (beliefs, desires and perceptions) to our actions. My belief that doors open causes me to reach for the knob and turn. My perception that a ball is whizzing past my head causes me to duck out of the way. My desire for sex causes me to imagine that lady over there without any clothes on and think to myself "yum" But if the epiphenomenalists are right, it is only an illusion that my consciousness causes anything. Rather it has to be neurons and sensors and the wetware of the brain that cause all of these things. And obviously it involves these things, but here's where the problem is: if there is no meaning, we could never know it, or think it or believe it or conclude it or suggest it. All of that is an illusion. The proposition "humans only simulate meaning" could not be true or false or comprehensible or conceivable. If it is any of those things, then it's not true since you accept the reality of meaning. As far as anyone knows, consciousness is an entirely biological phenomenon originating in the brain. This does not limit it to the structure of the brain however. Nobody knows how consciousness works yet, but it appears to be a new state that the brain is in. Like h2o molecules do not splash or feel wet, neurons do not think or feel or desire. Liquidity is a state that the h2o molecules are in, not simply an aggregation of molecules. Solidity is a state that molecules positioned in a lattice structure create. Something about brains causes consciousness, where beliefs and desires and perceptions can subjectively cause things to happen in the world. It's completely amazing. Machine learning definitely has value, though. Google by implementing machine learning on the usage of their servers in an anticipation / reaction program have been able to save tons of electricity by shutting unused servers down when they are not going to be needed. It's amazing too what machines can do in that area.

It doesn't mean you've taken anything, it means something has been offered to you and you've accepted it. It's not a moral issue, you haven't stolen anything. It's both an invitation to support something you care about and a reminder that you are getting something of value. If someone gives you free home grown tomatoes every morning that are fucking great and you tell other people how great they are, it would be nice if at some point you gave back to the tomato grower who gave you so much value. The message has been consistently "pay what you think it's worth" since the beginning. It's not a charity. It's a freemium model. And you could argue that you are using up server resources. It costs money to host the resources you consume, mp3s, the boards, etc. But I'm curious, why don't you give back? Also, your post reminds me of nazism. You know, because of the similar phrases nazis used and stuff... wtf?

nevermind

Okay. Well, are you aware that this is exactly how you are affecting me with this post? I feel very caught off guard and defensive.

You seem to want feedback, but nobody can really offer much feedback without looking at arguments and claims. I can't argue that it doesn't feel a certain way to you. That would be crazy. I can't speak for Pat, but I had my own criticisms that I wanted to put out there. I can glean an argument that was implied that roughly takes the following form: p1. offering negative feedback that does not explain the error in reasoning is badp2. the forums are supposed to be a place where people growp3. people on the forums are engaging in p1c1. people are acting against the values the board is supposed to representp4. if you are on the boards, we can assume that you accept and sympathize with the values the board representsc2. people are being hypocritical and destructive toward their own values / goals c3. this behavior is unjust The problem with this argument is that the reputation system is not supposed to help people grow. The reputation is meant to help the moderators and discourage trolly / dishonest behavior. Hopefully they don't have to ban anyone, and people who get downvoted enough for shitty behavior choose to leave before that's necessary. And if a ban happens, there is a precedent the mods can refer to since people generally don't get downvoted to the point of being hidden without doing something to warrant it. The very types of people who would invite this ostracism are the kinds of people who in all likelihood are not going to take any kind of criticism seriously. And I think people get that, which is why they choose to downvote, rather than rebut them in a response post. And if they are required to post a response in order to downvote, they probably just won't do it at all, which completely defeats the purpose of the reputation system in the first place. Also, all I could glean from what you wrote was that p1 was bad in some way that was unspecified. Bad as compared to what? And p2, AFAIK is actually not true. Stef has stated that the boards are a place for people to connect. He never mentioned AFAIK anything about it being used to help others grow. And it's just about the worst format for that anyway. Helping people grow is infinitely easier and more productive live, preferably with voice and even better with video. There is just not enough communicated in text like this to do self growth justice. Is that helpful in the way you want criticism to be on the boards? I would hate to think that this is expected of me rather than a privilege. It takes a lot of thought and time for me.