Magenta

"If violence is a great way to solve social problems through the power of the state, violence must be a great way to solve child-raising problems through the power of the open hand or the fist." http://youtu.be/sqpG-GQ96LI?t=15m45s

"The pursuit of truth is not dependent upon its acceptance by other people." FDR-271, 0:12

It's hard to predict when the markets are so heavily manipulated. http://www.gata.org/node/11507

http://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/1xnyks/a_quote_from_my_husband/?sort=confidence "You don't owe your family a thing. People who expect something back from their children have no business having children." "If this person wasn't a family member, would you ever talk to them again?" EDIT: Just found another great post: For those who've moved on from their narcissistic abusers and have achieved significant healing: /r/LifeAfterNarcissism http://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/1xpwz4/just_created_a_new_sub_rlifeafternarcissism/?sort=confidence

sdayers, if you went through Coinbase, a checking account works better than a savings account. If you wanted to save the hassle of setting up the account and want some better financial privacy, you could use LocalBitcoins.com. There, you can purchase Bitcoins from someone local or someone online though cash vehicles like USPS money orders, moneygrams, greenpacks, etc. I have not personally used LocalBitcoins, but I hear enough good things about them to trust using them. You will pay a premium when using LocalBitcoins, which is why I use Coinbase. EDIT: There are many more users on LocalBitcoins than when I last visited. Some sellers charge nearly zero price premium. Even more payments methods are accepted, like OKPay.

Welcome to the world of Bitcoin! The simplest and safest way for US residents is to sign up for an account at https://coinbase.com/ There, it is like PayPal, and every bit as easy to use. You link your bank account, which takes a few days to set up, and then you can purchase bitcoin, send bitcoin, and receive bitcoin. Because bitcoin payments are irreversible, Coinbase's default behavior is to not give you bitcoins until the ACH withdrawl transaction has cleared through your bank. This is to prevent you getting bitcoins (which can't be revoked) and then immediately cancelling your ACH withdrawl (which can be revoked) so that you get free bitcoins. Therefore, once you initiate a purchase of bitcoins, it takes a couple of days for your bank to clear the transaction, after which you receive the bitcoins. If you want bitcoins instantly, you can set that up, it just takes some extra effort. And finally, ENABLE 2-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION immediately after creating a Coinbase account - before you link your bank account or do anything. This feature makes your account much more safe from hackers. I suggest "Google Authenticator" for your smartphone. And in case you're nerdy enough to use Google Voice, don't give your google voice number to Coinbase because google voice numbers are internet-accessible and therefore more susceptible to hackers.

On a similar note, God could be a tactic for people to manage their own anxiety about ethics and science. http://pcasts.in/6PEh

I will quote the video and respond with my thoughts in real time, pausing the video after each quote to type a response, not taking the entire video into account, thus preserving stream-of-consciousness and simplifying things for me. "Rising from around $200 to over $1,000 ... this is obviously a speculative bubble. It will pop" Skepticism is healthy and there is a possibility that bitcoin is in a bubble. But price alone is nowhere near enough information to reach a conclusion. What if there were only 5 bitcoins available? That would mean the total value of the currency/protocol increased from $1,000 to $5,000. That's a tiny increase. In terms of percentage, it may be large, but in absolute terms, it is small. StormCloudsGathering (SCG) does not discuss absolute terms. Given Bitcoin's relative youth, it is not surprising for it to have rapid growth. Start-up companies also have rapid growth, but that doesn't make them a "bubble." And to define "bubble", let's say "overvalued". To conclude that something is "overvalued", you have to provide an estimated value and compare it to its actual value. What SCG's estimated value of bitcoin? What is SCG's stated actual value of bitcoin? Keep in mind, price is not a value. Price*Units is a value, but how many units of bitcoins exist? We know how many have been mined, but how many have been lost or forgotten? How many units remain? "Anybody who has any economic sense at all can see that" That's not an argument, that's simply calling those who disagree with you stupid. "Bitcoin is not scalable [due to blockchain size]" This is a FAQ and was addressed in the original whitepaper - the introduction to bitcoin written by its creator and released when bitcoin was launched. http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf See Section 7. Reclaiming Disk Space. This is just one of many possibilities for this problem, others discussed regularly on discussion forums likewww.BitcoinTalk.org and www.Reddit.com/r/Bitcoin. For some simple solutions that don't involve advanced functions like the above mentioned Merkle Tree: -- You don't have to download the entire blockchain. There are already bitcoin clients like Multibit, Electrum, and eWallets like Coinbase and Blockchain.info that store the blockchain for you on servers -- Storage capacities increase rapidly as technology advances. Do you know how much data is uploaded to YouTube.com alone every second? A quick Google search showed that YouTube uploads over 1,000 hours of video every minute. That doesn't even include how much is downloaded to the billions of viewers every month, nor the amount that is shuffled around due to editing and processing. If somebody explained the data usage of YouTube to you when the internet was 5 years old (let's say late 1980s), you'd think they're crazy, but here we are. "Of course, the average user will be unable to participate long before that happens [the blockchain reaches terabytes in size]. Somewhere along the way, Bitcoin will have to be restructured to allow individuals to use the network without downloading the entire blockchain". Bitcoin doesn't need to be restructured to allow, this - it is already possible. "Making the shift will involve introducing a degree of centralization" This is bad compared to what? Currencies and payment protocols that are entirely centralized? A better decentralized currency/protocol? Centralization offers convenience. If you want the convenience of a server-hosted blockchain, you can use those clients. If you want to download your own blockchain, you can do that. And you'll be able to continue to do that, as mentioned above. "Super nodes would handle the blockchain for you". OK, he gets into the super nodes now. Those are how the above mentioned server-hosed blockchain services currently work. "and you would communicate with the super node in order to deposit and withdraw, essentially like a Bitcoin bank". This is hugely different from a bank. A super node does not hold your coins. A super node does not have a monopoly on moving your coins, you could use any super node. You could leave the super node system at any time and run the blockchain yourself. The super node does not mine blocks (secure and confirm transactions), it only communicates them. He discusses that it would be easy to bring super nodes under regulatory control. How? Supernodes do not determine transactions, they merely broadcast them. They are like wifi repeaters. If they try to send out incorrect information, they will be denied by the system. Miners determine transactions. Now, a 51% attack on miners is an actual threat, but it does not appear to be a large threat from the research I've done. This is another top-5 FAQ that is discussed all over the internet. Here is a snippet from the original whitepaper: "The incentive may help encourage nodes to stay honest. If a greedy attacker is able to assemble more CPU power than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it to defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins. He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favour him with more new coins than everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth." "What's the takeaway here? Don't treat Bitcoins as a stable, long-term investment". Does SCG think he is presenting new information here? Bitcoin is a equivalent to a start-up that has barely moved out of somebody's garage and SCG is saying "woah, this isn't like Wal-Mart stock".

http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=8037720011 http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-60-minutes-surprise-2013-12 EDIT: I see now that it's actually an 8-rotor machine, not a 4-rotor as my thread title indicates.

CampBX and Coinbase have been good to me through several transactions.

CampBX and Coinbase have been great for me for several transactions each.

I just finished listening to the debate, got excited, and whipped up a personal response. I want to share it before I listen to the post-debate analysis podcast, to see if my thoughts change then. I think the Peter Joseph vs. Stefan Molyneux debate can be summarized into one unresolved disagreement, mostly due to misunderstanding of each other’s positions: What is the logical conclusion of the administration of property rights? Peter's Perspective: If you introduce property rights, the logical conclusion is that it is more economically efficient to abandon NAP and take up the initiation of violence in order to increase one’s wealth at the expense of others. Incentives do not align with principles and therefore principles are abandoned. Stef's Perspective: I agree that violence is more economically efficient than NAP, but violence is only tolerated (the incentives only exist) if you join property rights with the idea of positive obligations. If positive obligations and property rights coexist, then violence is the logical conclusion. But if you introduce property rights without positive obligations, then NAP is both the principled logical conclusion and the economically incentivized conclusion. What Peter fails to see is that the current state of the west exists only because positive obligations are believed. Remove those, and the logical conclusions of property rights change to follow the NAP and all of our agreed problems of today’s world then are resolved. =========================================================================================== =========================================================================================== Here is a long form of my above interpretations, in case the above short form was not a sufficient explanation: Allow me to attempt to explain Peter’s position better than Peter did. Definitions that I think Peter and Stef would have agreed on: Start by defining “capitalist market” as different from the “free market” in the following way: Free market = respect for property rights, which logically results in the non-aggression principle, division of labor, and trade. Capitalist market = the ecosystem that proposes property rights in the sense of resource ownership, division of labor, and trade, but whose actors do not morally adhere to the non-aggression principle because of economic efficiency. Companies = businesses without governmental protection. Corporations = businesses with governmental protection Governmental force is an initiation of violence and thus the terms can be used interchangeably. From Peter’s perspective: a capitalist market cannot exist in a state of non-violence (a.k.a. the “free market”) because the free market is only a theory and cannot exist in reality. Once property rights are established, NAP is a logical conclusion, but there are opposing incentives – NAP is not economically efficient, and therefore in practice, the NAP is not reached as a conclusion of property rights. People, in a system of property rights, respond to incentives and utilize economic efficiency in order to increase their wealth - violence is an extremely efficient way to increase wealth. For example, government is very economically efficient for its members. Therefore, corporations utilize governmental force in order to increase their wealth. And in the absence of governmental force, they would still clamor to use force to increase their wealth. Stef would say that without a government, it would be economically inefficient to use force and Peter might agree, but Peter would argue that companies have the fundamental incentive to use force to increase their wealth, and therefore they create a government so that they can become corporations and use force to increase their wealth. Evidence from Peter’s perspective: The current system in the west proposes property rights. NAP is the logical conclusion of property rights, but it is rejected, so my logical deduction is that the economic incentives of a system of property rights do not align with the NAP – violence is more economically efficient. Stef proposes that violence is only acceptable in the west because people are convinced of positive obligations. If they were not convinced of positive obligations, they would accept NAP as the logical conclusion. Peter thinks that people already accept the arguments of property rights and they clearly haven’t accepted NAP as the conclusion. Stef proposes that what is currently being sold to people by those in power is merely a veil of property rights, with a bag of positive obligations under the veil. Without the positive obligations, the violence would be unacceptable. I offer an additional perspective on Stef’s rebuttal to how a capitalist market makes decisions. I craft this perspective with the aim of it being easier to digest for someone with Peter’s perspective. Even if we ignore the NAP aspect of a free market and work purely within a capitalist market, the capitalist market makes decisions based on one simple principle: to please their customers. No drive for violence exists inherently. Here’s where the violence comes in: if customers become convinced of positive obligations, then their conclusion will be that the initiation of violence is a good way to settle decisions. Then, the result of the capitalist market seeking to please customers will be the capitalist market utilizing the initiation of violence to settle decisions. Stef’s argument: Government comes to exist due to the will of the people. If they are convinced of positive obligations, then they can be convinced that self-defense is not the only justification for violence and that mere inaction can be evil and therefore it is virtuous to use force against those not fulfilling positive obligations. If people did not believe in the illusion of positive obligations, government would not exist, as it is merely a symptom of that illusion. Government is a moral institution that can only claim justification for the initiation of violence if positive obligations exist. Evil people who want to initiate violence could never start a government because government is the lie that violence is virtuous and property rights alone opposes that idea. Without the support of virtue, violence would never be allowed, because people have a fundamental desire to be virtuous – where we deviate from peace is where we are convinced that violence is virtuous.

As usual, I don't have a lot to contribute, but I take lots of notes when listening to FDR, so here's a podcast that I recommend listening to if you haven't already: My paraphrase: "If parents just did the best they could, then there is no ethics its just determinism" - FDR-798 Sex and Enlightenment - Two Listener Dilemmas, @ 00:59:58

0:56 "A light spanking is not child abuse. Children are different, they're little animals, you have to civilize them." 24:11 "[My son] didn't want to brush his teeth, didn't want to drink his milk, he was a pain in the neck. I didn't engage in physical abuse, there are no scars." 25:19 On extending the NAP to children: "Only people that haven't had children think that this is sensible."

+1. Watching that video made me swell with joy. This is anarchy in action. This is philosophy working as it would without the guns of the state - through prevention rather than cure.

Have you considered seeing a therapist?

Stef's first trip to the topic of the romanticization of nature (caller @ 2:05:05) http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_690_Call_In_Show_Mar_18_2007.mp3

Please listen to podcast 777 "Children in Crisis", it covers this exact topic. http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_777_Children_In_Crisis.mp3

You have just created an infinite regression. If everything requires causality then your creator must have a creator ... which must have a creator which must have a creator ... Again, please define "exist". When it comes to positive rights, you claim that we live in empirical reality and therefore truth statements are derived from empirical reality. Then when you discuss deities, you say that we must consider alternate dimensions when evaluating truth statements. Have you listened to FDR 686 and 687? Their title is "What's Wrong with Believing in God?". The links are here:http://www.freedomainradio.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_686_Why_Not_Believe_In_God_Part_1.mp3 http://www.freedomainradio.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_687_Why_Not_Believe_In_God_Part_2.mp3

Therefore, can we conclude that, because we live in and can experience only this universe, that all other universes are the same as non-existence to us? Given that this universe is the only one that exists, "existence" must therefore be bound to logic and empiricism. Claims made about an existence might be reached through subjective means, but these claims are of objective reality and are open to evaluation against objective reality. Do you agree so far?

Using your arguments,Just because positive rights are not allowed in this universe doesn't mean they can't exist in another. Therefore, beliefs have moral value.

When multiple theories are presented, that which best conforms to reality is the most valid. Any theory that does not conform to reality is invalid. The criteria by which these theories are weighed is not subjective. Logic and empiricism. One's choice of a theory does not affect reality. Of course someone could chose to believe in any theory, but that does not make the theory correct. If one puts forth a scientific theory, they are claiming that it adheres to reality and therefore are making a testable claim. If one makes a testable claim, they are offering it up to be tested. An athiest can confidently claim that god does not exist because A) god is a logical contradiction and logical contradictions do not exist in reality, and B) god has no empirical evidence - he is actually purported to be impossible to empirically measure, which is the same as non existence. God fails the tests of logic and empiricism and therefore does not exist.

Are you forced to purchase their product at gunpoint?