Pepin

I'd agree that visibility is an issue, which is why organizations have goals of raising visibility. For instance, many charities buy up large portions of ad time on TV networks and show nothing but starving children in Africa. These same groups send out mass amounts of mail to potential donors. They get stories published in newspapers and magazines to spread the word.

think in a society which bases itself on positive early childhood experiences would have a huge motive to fund initiatives to help orphans. The idea of a child growing up without stable caretakers would probably rip most people's hearts to shreds. I think the issue of money and profit may be confusing you. What may help is to think of children in general. Having a child is the worst possible financial investment you could make, yet most people have children. People who only seem to care about money have children. Why? Well, it has a lot to do with evolution and emotion. People get an emotional satisfaction when then have a child. It is easy to think of markets in terms of profit and loss, but they are much more complex than that. There are many emotional and ideological aspects which play into market forces. Empathy is a huge market force, and can be used to great effect. People really don't like the idea of there being orphans and will pay money because of how they feel. Just think about what the average person would do if they saw a young girl on the street. Would they ignore her? Would they give her a couple of dollars? Neither. The vast majority of people would be compelled to get that child a home, even if they had to pay some money. A podcast that might interest you is Freakonomics.

Them: What about Somalia? Isn't that your perfect libertarian paradise? Me: The place that the government was so bad that it collapsed? Them: Yes. Me: A society with a totalitarian government with no respect for property rights instantly becomes libertarian as soon as it collapses? Them: Well there is no government, right? Me: A region where people have little familiarity with property rights, where the economy is still in a primitive state, where argument is not as valued, where the NAP did not apply will not suddenly become the opposite when the state collapses. These are skills which need to be learned and take many generations to be incorporated into social structures. A state collapsing is very disruptive because people are very very slow to adjust. Most people will continue on like nothing happened, and this includes the thieves and murderers.

I really dislike the use of narrative in the article. There is no thought or complexity as well, it is just a narration about a previous state and how the change to a new state is happening, all with the assumption that it is good. I suppose I can't complain too much, because the article presumes their audience. As far as skin quality goes, well if people were more rational, then I think they would want to see the difference makes on the people with the worst skin. Like with an acne product, you want to make sure it works, so you want to see pictures of people with awful acne who have been cured by the product. You don't want to see people who barely have acne use the product, because there won't be any real difference. The issue with that is that most people don't really want to see people with lots of acne. Worse, putting people with lots of acne on a box may send out the wrong message. It is like if you were selling supports for a bridge which would prevent it from falling down, would you really want to put a pictures of a broken bridge on it? I am for lessening consumer standards in regard to beauty, and to some degree weight, but I don't like the narrative nature and this idea of labels. I do think an honest conversation needs to happen about why worst case examples are not chosen for advertising. Why do consumers choose products that more beautiful women promote? Certain people will start going into how the media brainwashes people into buying stuff they don't want, and making them feel insecure about their skin, but you can only go so far in throwing out consumer choice. To end this rant, I do have a theory that this whole "don't label me" concept resonates with women because they are more sensitive to social disapproval. I am quite certain that men receive amount if not more of this, but they really don't care as much. Another way to put it is that women are better at socializing, and because of this they have a harder time coping with social expectations because going against the grain is kind of the opposite of being sociable. It is kind of like a catch 22. Whereas a man under the same social pressures might decide to rebel against them because he doesn't care as much. My wording isn't the best here, but I do believe this sort of idea is found in evolutionary psychology.

I understand that you want feedback on your ideas, but I am not really sure what you are saying. I think you'd far prefer that people understand your ideas and give good feedback, as opposed to thinking they understand your ideas and give you feedback on a misinterpretation. For instance: I'm not sure exactly what the first statement means and why you are finding it tough. Not exactly how or if the second statement is connected to anything else, or is a new thought or statement. And the third sentence doesn't help because I don't know what question is being begged. I think you might be saying that you aren't sure if unethical behavior is limited to the initiation of force, that we may know how to be ethical, but we don't know how to be virtuous, therefore we are stuck in the realm of moral neutrality, and if being virtuous is dependent upon self direction action and not initiating force is morally neutral as you aren't actually taking self directed action, then what does it mean to be virtuous...but I am not really sure. If it is anything close to that, then there is a bit too much going on in such a small space for someone to really process the argument. Someone might get it after a couple of reads, but on the internet, people are not likely to reread anything. I hope this was helpful.

That is a very difficult question to answer because rent prices depend a lot on the area. In cities, the price to rent tends to be much higher due to increase demand. Plus, there are big differences in where you live. I'd look at the cheapest you can find what they are offering, the most expensive you can afford and what they are offering, and decide if you want something in the middle or something cheap. I don't recommend going all out on an apartment because you have no savings and no car. Ideally, you want enough money saved up to cover you for about 3-6 months, that way if something goes wrong, you have at least that amount of time to handle it.

The Onion is pretty good at catering to different audiences. This is funny to me because of how true and blatant it is. It may be funny to someone who is against gun rights because the ides of a child being safer by learning how to use a gun is ridiculous. Statistically, the anti-gun person is out of phase with reality. You should be far more afraid of driving, swimming pools, and plastic bags than guns.

What do you mean by real?

Sounds like a waste of time.

No, you do not need any agreement from another to act in self defense. Ethically, a human attacking you is just the same as a bear, and there are no implicit contracts between humans and bears. This is just not understanding the concept. You cannot force the NAP on anyone, just as you can't force non-rape or non-violence on someone. All the NAP does is give moral justification to individuals who believe in it to defend themselves when aggressed against. It isn't a concept that depends on anymore than a single person. What your friend is getting at is that people who believe in the NAP will group together. In such a circumstance, the promise to retaliate with force in one of these groups is not forced on you, rather you are forcing your will on others if you are being retaliated against. To make this clear, the NAP can only enforced if an individual is acting aggressively, meaning that the individual is forcing their will on others, not the other way around. The issues with the argument get even worse with respect to UPB, as someone who does ethically acknowledge property rights and violates them cannot have any ethical issue with someone who violates their property rights. Such an ethical claim would not at all prohibit people acting in self defense, as it is not as though you can have the claim that "those who don't acknowledge property rights and the NAP don't have to act on property rights, while those who do acknowledge the property rights and the NAP cannot enforce the NAP on those who do not believe in the NAP". It gets pretty silly.

I am going to attempt to not go into essay mode and to not be super technical, but this is a complex subject. Concepts are formed by perceptual concretes. The concept of tree for instance is formed by perceiving many discrete entities with similar properties, and putting all of those perceptual measurements into a conceptual container. To identify a tree, we employ the measurements given by the definition, and if they fit, we call it a tree. On a perceptual level, we are very capable of saying that a tree exists. The concept of a forest is measured through identifying large number trees in some particular space. What is important is that the unit, that is the discrete entity that is necessary for the further abstraction, remains consistent regardless of the quantity or packing. This isn't to say that each individual tree will not behave differently with respect to neighboring trees and their quantity, but rather that the identify of each tree is preserved. A way to think about this is in terms of emergence. A forest has no emerging properties, rather all of the properties which make it up are preserved. Though a tree is made up atoms, the combination of all those atoms give the tree its emerging properties. One way to formulate this is to say that a tree is made of atoms bound by physical law, but atoms obeying physical law are not trees. When we refer to any particular entity, we are not referring to any fundamental unit, but rather the conceptual unit. This is not because the behavior and properties are not dependent on molecules, but rather because it is only the particular configuration of those molecules in the form of a tree which cause the properties and behaviors of a tree. It is also good to point out that an understanding of physics at the molecular level is not needed to define a tree. To say trees exist but a forest does not is to say that a tree meets the criteria for a discrete entity, while a forest does not. I do agree with you that the language is not very good in differentiating concepts with direct perceptual references from those which are built upon hundreds of concepts, but tracing back the dependency to the concrete is usually easy to do. In the instance of a tree and a forest, the concept of forest is obviously dependent on the concept of a tree. which is dependent upon the perceptual concrete of particular trees. It is also confusing to refer to tree as both a perceptual concrete and as a concept, which I think you are pointing out. I would say that the concept of a tree is close enough to the perceptual level to be considered real, and that it isn't so much a problem so long as you differentiate between the concept and the entity... Though I wonder if there is a way to make it less confusing. There are certain concepts like that of "justice" which are very difficult to trace back to perceptual concretes. I believe Ayn Rand did so in a couple of steps in her Epistemology book.

Not quite because there decisions are based on market information, such as competitor data, consumer data, and the price of all other goods. A large company is not an economy in itself, but is rather part of a much larger economy. It is the interface to the economy which is important. The calculation problem in a company is more a problem of being able to respond to guesses and the required resources to make a guess. To put it this way, it takes a lot longer for a larger company to discover the optimal price for anything, and this leads to a longer period of loss. Another somewhat connected problem is the top down approach corporate models often have. They fail for many reasons government programs do.

Honestly, this subject is a bit beyond the scope of FDR as it takes a huge expertise in many different mathematical theories to answer.

When I did a lot of research on this topic back in the day, I found that there actually have been no natural monopolies ever. Most mainstream economists agree that the idea of the robber baron age did not exist because it doesn't fit the data. The issue with bringing up this point though would be that it could be ignored or laughed at. The idea of monopolies of the past is quite hammered in during school, that it seems dumb to question it, regardless of the current economic research.

Pretty much what people said here. To rephrase it in my own way... Market economies produce more wealth than alternatives, so when there is a market economy, the government gets a huge boost in wealth due to taxes. As the unowned pool of money grows, people attempt to claim part of it. The government will up its military force and so on to deter invaders. Granting special privileges and using laws to reduce competition becomes more frequent because there are the resources to do so, and because the military force needs to do something. A lot of these problems arise because of the nature of democracy. It isn't so much an issue with monarchy because the monarch owns the wealth as opposed to nobody.

So long as you aren't going to use your education to develop weapons or become a government worker, go ahead. A good rule to play by is "would this be a thing in a free society?" and if it is, just act like it is. In a free society, you'd likely receiving college funding if you were smart and capable. Now if you were going to become an IRS agent on the other hand...

From a lecture I heard about him, an issue is that he doesn't really provide a historical context and just starts arguing. It assumes you are familiar with the history of philosophy as opposed to giving his account. This is just something to keep in mind, as it may be a bit hard to follow when he starts referencing stuff.

I'm not quite sure I understand the thread. Can you give some context?

It is more a risk to your relationships than anything. Governments are not likely to do anything, though you could be unlucky. That sort of stuff has been happening to me a lot too. I have emailed Mike about it as well as wrote a thread about it that never showed up. Not too sure what is happening, but I think it is a bug.

I'd agree, though i would like to clarify that it isn't exactly my claim that it is a high risk investment, but rather it is a common perspective of outside investors. I think BTC is one of the best long term investments you can make. With your point about proof of work perhaps being broken by quantum computing or something similar, I was listening to an interview today on proof of stake, and that could actually provide a lot of protection. I am still not quite certain I understand it so I can't say how good it actually is, but if there is something which is more efficient than proof of work and is just as secure, then I would be in favor of it.

When I was 8, I was 8. -Ayn Rand.

I think what makes large purchases of BTC confusing is that if they happen to be rich, they are more likely to hold on to them as an investment. The appeal of BTC as a high risk investment is gaining attraction in finance, so the possibility of losing it all its value isn't much of a problem.

I'm not really sure. The photoshop is a bit too unrealistic, so I felt like there may have been a joke there. The blatant narcissism also seems like a joke, though maybe unintentional. Though then again, it is kind of true that so many men are obsessed with those sorts of pictures. The downvotes signify a backlash to the trend, but it is likely one of those Justin Bieber type backlashes, where people hate it because people love it.

I think there is a lot that needs to be said about the treatment of women in third world countries. It is illegal for women to drive in many, and under some laws, women are punished if they are raped. A minor argument I think may be valid is that men offering to buy females drinks is a little exploitive. It creates a pressure for the woman to do something for the buyer, because most people have an instinctive to provide reciprocity. Though, I feel like this isn't really a big problem, because as far as I am aware, most females use this as a method to get free drinks and will go after whoever they like most. I also think that they are right about many men being a little too creepy among women, at least from my experience. I work at a coffee shop with mostly women, and the guys can be so creepy to the girls here. Every day, 40+ year old men will attempt to flirt with 16 year old girls here. The other week, my 16 year old coworker bent over, and these 35 year old men took pictures. That's pretty messed up. This isn't a general problem with men of course, as most male customers don't act like this, but I think more men are creepy in this way than women. I've gotten a couple of girls, mostly old women, doing something similar to me, but it isn't that bad. But anyway, I think we need to ostracize those creepy people a lot more. The whole topic of feminism gets so confusing as there are so many different conflicting theories within the group.

Perhaps nitpicking, but the term profit may not be accurate. I believe the theory of debt is that it can be useful when there are initiatives taken that will increase your income by more than the total borrowed amount. For instance, you may choose to go greatly into debt, but you may use the money for a college education. If all works out, though you are paying 7% interest, your income will likely increase by 15%. Bad debt is debt where there is a net loss in investment of the borrowed money. This is somewhat subjective on the individual level. Someone who goes greatly in debt to buy a brand new car is probably not making that great of a decision, as the car's value will depreciate by 25% after the first year. But, if the individual really cares about the car being brand new, then this decision could be said to be profitable. But on an institutional level where there are clearly defined goals, a net loss can clearly by measured. A government program which is debt financed whose returns are less than the borrowed amount were not worth it.