TheRobin

So the FED prints money to buy the bonds they sell?

Okay, but who do they sell the bonds to?

One thing I never quite understood (and still don't) is who is lending the money to the governments? I mean how can such a vast sum of money be aquired/lended in the first place, even if there are thousands or lenders? And what are the consequences of not playing them back?

Words are just sounds with concepts attached to them. But which concepts are attached to which sounds is completely arbitrary. Ofc once people DO agree to use a given sound for a given concept you have a standard for a particular language that's then no longer arbitrary. (As in, IF you want to speak german then the sound to use for the conept "dog" is "Hund" (i.e. you can't just make up stuff and call it "german language", though you can make up your own language ofc and it would still be valid in and of itself as long as it's internally consistent)) What counts as language isn't arbitrary either, as making random noises isn't considered language, but for language to be language it needs consistency (using the same word for the same concept, using the same grammatical structure and such).

In this case I was thinkning of the isolation tank as a/the tool (but ofc there'd also be the use of certain substances that some people use to help them relax (not that I'd recommend that)).Basically what I was trying to ask is "If you lie in your couch at home, can you relax or is that something that's more difficult for you to do even in the comfort zone of your own home?"In regards to the body not being in the way: How is your body in the way now?

I'd say: yes it is. Choice (and free will) requires knowledge. For instance, if the only cure you have is leeches, there's no real choice in how to go on helping people that are sick. Once you have more knowledge (and more tools) available you'll have more choice in how to respond to a certain illness.I'd also assume a baby doesn't have much if any choice (pr free will)at all. (In the same way I don't think mentally handicapped people have much if any choice at all). (But I don't have a baby and I don't know much about the development of babies and infants either, so I might be completely wrong here)

Hi and welcome to the boardsOut of curiousty: Doesn't that cut you off from other people though to a certain degree? I mean, if you can't share the reasoning you can't really share the understanding of the belief. Yet you still use it as a guide for certain behaviours and opinions, so to me it would seem to only two options are to either have people around that don't care abour your understanding and reasoning or to have people around who share the same conclusions so that there's a shared belief of understanding each other.

How do you think this would help you gain self-knowledge? (Also, how "good" are you at meditating/relaxing without tools to help you? (As I could imagine that, if you have trouble meditating/relaxing at all then the isolation tank won't help you with it either))

For me facebook is more of a news-site that I can tailor to my personal tastes and interests. Follow intersting people who put up daily content or news (like Stef or Jeffery Tucker for instance), or being in specific groups (like AnCap or Bitcoin) plus sharing some stuff that I find intersting (not that many care I think though, but it can't hurt I guess).

There can't be a universal principle that says that other people's lifes should be safed from aggression but not your own. If someone threatens you and tells you you can chose between being shot and them shooting somone else, there's no moral content for you in that question. A corpse can't act upon truth. If we accepted and acted upon the principle that self-preservation is something we shouldn't care about, then all human beings would be dead pretty soon. But then of course no one would be around to make the case for anything (uncluding that we shouldn't care about self-preservation). So it's even impossible to act on that principle and convince other to act upon it (as you do now), cause that would mean you have to actually preserve yourself long enough to convince other to not preserve themselves. So, if we are in an impossible situation. What that usually implies is, we're looking at childhood trauma and the philosphy is just there as an anesthetic.

Cool song. I defintely enjoy listening to it every once in a while

Teabager: So how would you deal with a guy sitting in front of your house (but outside your lawn/property) that was playing loud music 24 hours a day? I mean, given you can't avoid it and given they do control and force upon you their sound/noise in your own house, how is that not a violation of property rights?

Just stumbled upon this article today and found it quite useful and intersting for myself (given my lifestyle at least).A short summary would probably be: SItting is quite bad for your health if you do it a lot during the day and rarely get up. Even if you exercise, if you sit for long consecutive periods of time that's not gonna counteract that. Getting up once an hour for a short while would however.http://lifehacker.com/5879536/how-sitting-all-day-is-damaging-your-body-and-how-you-can-counteract-it

wow, cool find Very interesting video indeed!

Growth in economics terms doesn't mean using more of something. Or being physically larger. An economy also grows, when you use recources differently or more efficiently. Growth just means, people get more value out of their work it doesn't necessairly mean we use up more stuff.That being said. We ARE organism who need to consume recources, so yes, recources will be used up at some point, but that's not a fact of capitalism or growth, that's just nature. Even if we never invented tools, the sun who fuels the life on this planet would at some point be used up and the planet and all its organisms would die regardless. But given that we live in a realm of scarcity, free trade is the most efficient way to NOT waste recources unnecessarily.

Well, again, if the person making a critique isn't thoroughly scrutinizing his own critique beforehand, then I'm not gonna bother and I don't see a reason why I should. It doesn't matter what "people say" but when something has been long established through evidence then that does matter, and if that is not adressed appropriately then I don't see what the benefit would be of going through everythng again. Alos most of the time I don't even know how the original claim was established in the first way and unless it's a topic of great interst to me personally, then I'm not gonna go through all the science that leads up to it. And most people are in that category, which just means, if you're critiquing mainstream ideas, you're the one who has to put the work in, not the other party.

Hey everyone, I want to find a way to start a meetup group for talking about Anarchy and Voluntarism. Partly, because I think it's an essential thing to talk about when peopel are slwoly waking up but don't see a good or reasonable asnwer or diagnose to most of theworld's problems, but also, cause I want to find some Anarchists in my area.On the other hand it's not a topic I want to talk about during other meetups I attend, cause it feels a bit out of place there.So I wonder, has anyone any experience with how to best go on about doing that. I hesitate simply starting a group on meetup, cause I'm not sure it will be enough in and of itself to attract people to come by, but I also have no real idea how to promote it either.So if anyone who wants to give me some advice I'd really appreciate it.(ideally adviced based on experience, but feel free to just give me your thoughts either way ofc)

Mike, if you can show how a theory is flawed, either by the methodology that was used to prove it or by data that it can't explain, then that's certainly valid and encouraged. But simply using the word "perhaps" and then making some assumptions (without showing how they apply to a specific theory) is just an appeal to people's insecurity. When one argues against a well established concensus usually it takes a lot more than just a post or two. (iirc correctly Einsteins Theory of Relativity was 900 pages long or so). Also because you have to go over everythign that the theory has explained well so far and show how it comes that it is correct in all those areas, but not in another area, and how a new theory can explain both without contradiction. That's not to say, that people can just say "consensus" and then be done, but usually when someone argues against a well established position they very often don't to so very accurately. At times, all it takes is a simple google search to see good arguments against most of the common "anti-consensus"-theories, so when people then don't even list some counter arguments and show how they were misapplied and make their own counterarguments then that's not very thorough research on their part.

A definition can be invalid if the description is contradictory. This can be the case, when you use multiple categories that are mutually exclusive as a definition for something. A simple example would be a "square circle", as the shape of a square and that of a cirlce are mutually exclusive, the concept "square circle" is self-contradictory and as such logically invalid and meaningless. On the other hand, a word can used to represent multiple conecpts and the same conept can be represented by mutliple words, so it's importnat to not confuse definitions (concepts) with the words used to represent them (not that you did that, just came to mind as a small tangent). Other than that definitions can't be incorrect really, though there is a standard that's defined by the language you use as to what concept is represented by what sound/word, and while that's completely arbitrary its still the reference point to use, when one wishes to communicate with another person in a given language.

Because concepts aren't in the realm of truth-claims. Concepts and their definitions are there so your thoughts make sense and you know what it is that you're thinking of or talking about. Also so that language and words actually have meaning. Without them no truth claims can be made, but they're themselves not truth claims. Though ofc, if you define somethign in a contradictory way, it is not longer a meaningful word/idea and as such can't form a valid truth claim. For instance, when I talk of a table then I know what I mean with that (my understanding of my own thoughts and ideas is a 100% certainty so to speak), but I still might be in error when I then point to an object and say "This is a table" (as it might be a weird chair and I got fooled by the lighting or whatever). So the "This is a table" would be the truth claim that can be checked for but the definition of table preceeds that. I don't quite understand the second question to be honest. can you either simplify that a little and/or give me an example? It sounds a bit like asking me, whether I make the distinction based on a desired effect, but I make the distinction first and foremost cause they are two different things. p.s. maybe I'm the only one here, but your fonts are killing my eyes XD (not implying you have to change it for me ofc)

I'd differentiate between things that are mere conceptual definitions (like math, logic and praxeology) to claims that are made about the world or aspects of it. But I'd say that generally you can only "guess" the future, based on past, but ofc there's always a chance that new behaviour will show up that will then lead to an increased understanding of the operating principles (like gravity first got described using Newtonian phyisc, then later Einstein added a whole new layer to it). Though that doesn't as a whole invalidate past knowledge about the phenomenon, just usually shows how in a new and previously unexplored context the previously used principles might not be applicable. On the other hand 2+2 will aways =4 as that's a matter of defining the concept that way and not a result of figuring out reality. Like, if you only ever saw dogs and then saw a wolf for the first time, you might incorrectly call it a dog cause of some similarity. But that doesn't mean that the concept of "dog" will change, just that you incorrectly applied it and might need to invent a new concept to describe the new species.

I'm sorry to hear this was done to you and that this is the situation you're currently in. One thing that I immediately noticed was you saying you couldn't be luckier with your father. You could be a lot luckier, if you had a father who chose a mother that was a genuinely nice and caring person instead of having a father who chose your mother and left you alone with her. That might also be where still some of the resentment lies. In parenting it's always both parents who are responsible, both for their own actions as well as the actions of the spouse (at least, when it comes to how the child is treated), cause it's each spouses full responsibility that the child is well and no harm is done to it, even more so if that harm comes from the other spouse, cause they chose to bring the other spoouse into the childs life. Other than that I don't know. I'd say if you don't feel like talking to your mother about selling the house, feel free to let her know in writing once you're gone if that's easier for you. You don't have to write anything in it you don't want of course. If you don't feel like giving an explanation then simply don't. From what you tell me I don't see any benefit to trying to explain yourself either, as your mother seems to not care about you and your feelings anyway, so what could you possibly gain from trying to explain yourself there?Anyway, I wish you the best of success for your future and hope you're going to come out allright and can get your own life on back on track to something you want instead of being a victim of your mothers crazy and your father's choice of wife.I hope this was of some help, eel free to let me know what you think ofc

Idk, to me it seems like yet another person who uses the word "free trade" and completely misses the thousands of regulations and taxes and licencing etc that exists nowadays. Not to mention that msot of these huge corprations get enormous benefits from bribing the state for benefits.I guess if he wanted to make a good case here, he should start by clearly defining what he means wth "free trade" and where in the world that definition even applies. Else it's just either sophistry or lazyness to push an already held conclusion, in my opinion.

I'm not quite following that: Why is it necessary to delete an account with nothing in it?