TheRobin

If there was life after death (and it could be proofen with good certainty) then death-threats (and so governments really) would become useless/powerless almost overnight. Helping the straving people would be pointless (as they'd be happier dead and in the afterlife). You would live your own life very differently, as there would be no limit to how long you'd exist, there would be no need for urgency in anything, as you've got time for all you want to do in the end. Also everyone could just go on a huge spendthrift and then suicide themselves once the bill comes (since they would still be alive anyway afterwards and supposedly in a lot less stresful place in terms of survival etc.)The question of whether you'd want to stay and do something here or "move on" would be a very important one before every new undertaking. Also assuming a less stressful (and presumable) more happy afterlife, what WOULD there be to stay for in comparison? If only say 30% just went and killed themselves, that would alos mean a lot less productivity here on earth and less life quality. Also how many people would still want to have children then?These are just a few things that come to mind.

I got Kant as my number one. (Stuart Mill as 2nd and Any Rand as third)

Well, the basic idea here (when it comes to reality and truth) is to not be bothered with opinions, but adhere to reason and evidence. Which is why I asked how much time you spent looking for counterarguments. And if not, why not? Apparently it's important enough for you to ask, so it certainly has some influence over your life imo.And it would be the single biggest thing if it was actually true. I mean, that would totally turn around how we would perceive everything and how we would live our lives, so I don't see how you can say it wouldn't influence how we'd act.

The NDE often get cited as a proof, but whenever I googled to claims and/or experiments, there was a lot of error in the methodology and/or reasoning behind it. Given you have the internet: How much time have you spent searching sites that give counterarguments to the NDE/OBE stuff?

I think the reputation system is more aimed at giving the broad strokes of a person's posting quality. I too find myself disagreeing with certain up or downvotes, but if a person accumulates more than around 20-30 that's usually a very reliable sign.

The main problem of all the occult stuff is the absence of a consistent methodology. I listened to some Mark Passio podcasts too before I ever heard of Stef and FDR and he always just lays out these things as if they were proven somehow, but never shows or talks about any actual experiment or methodology that was behind estabslishing the claim in the first place. And that's also true for the sources he uses to base the occult claims on. Just people that have written down stuff as truth without reference to any methodology.That doesn't mean there can't be some intuitive insights that occur in these ideas (especially when it comes to the human psyche), but even if something turn out to be true, it's accidental and not a result of rigorous adherence to reasonable pricniples and a consistent methodology.To tie this to your dimension though-experiment. Assuming what you say was actually true, how could you know? What experiment would confirm your hypothesis and what experiment would prove it false? If there aren't any, then it's not an idea that can be used as a model of (how ) reality (works), as, even if it WAS true, we could by definition never KNOW it (and as such would be completely useless as a guiding principle or idea for our actions)

http://bitcoinmagazine.com/9411/new-report-details-bitcoins-potential-threat-federal-reserve/ For those who haven't seen it, shot article summarizing some of what the FED think tank thinks about bitcoin

To point 1. Taken from the interview (here: http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/38394-christensen-interview-on-the-capitalists-dillema/) it would appear it's more a problem of investement than incentives.

Ah, neat . Thanks you

That'd be awesome :)btw Mike and Stef: I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new, but beware of Jetlag. It can take a few days to be your normal self again after flying half way around the globe.

I don't plan to go to the event itself (the TNW-thing where Stef is one of the speakers), cause even the reduced price is almost 500€. But I'd sure would want to get to Amsterdam for a meet up. That would really be awesome.regarding the Dam and Hamster: Now I'm even more confused.. -_-' (to the googlemobile, I guess )

http://thenextweb.com/conference/europe/speakers/ yup, weekend of April 24/25 in "the Dam" (I'll just take your word for it that that name is actually used in England )

Might also be in part because he kind of got "free" fame and fortune without much struggle. (Maybe not true I dont even know).Like if he was a talented musicion for years had albums and struggled to be known and then became famous I dopn't think he'd get the hate he does, but with the modern music industry, people that look pretty and are willing to do the job get picked to be made famous without too much initial effort on their own I think.That being said, I look at him more in a sad way. Growing up like this, being the golden goose for other people who want to squeeze out all they can of him. Probably very rarely getting real honest feedback or even true empathy I could imagine. Certainly not someone whom I would ever want to switch places with.

According to the reasearch done by Donna Laframboise, a big number of scientists that work for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are also enverinmentalist activists and affiliated with Greenpeace, WWF and such organisations.So they already held the conlcusion that human beings should "exploit the earth" less, and seemed to use the Climate Change as an possible way to facilitate change. So even aside from monetary issues, there seems to be an ideological bias of a good number of the people who are paid to evaluate the science on Climate Change.

What makes you think that?This sounds more like an anarcho-socialist (or -primitivst) thing than anarchy as a whole.Plus, money wil always emerge, as it's just so much more convenient and efficient, so you can't "do away" with it anyway (unless via the use of force, which is against anarchistic prinicples (at least in the libertarian sense of the word "anarchy"))

ah nevermind, I just saw there's a small icon on the windows tray, where the quote stays.

I don't think the premise is false. I don't know how much goes into pencilmaking ofc, but only gathering the materials alone (including all the travelling and such), plus the machinery necessary to make them into something useful (machinery which you'd have to build yourself first, and gather the materials etc.) would take more time and energy taht you can have in a lifetime. Also knowing that you also need to produce your own food and clothing and shelter the whole time etc. I can imagine there might not be much left to do pencilgathering work.And the same with a couch. I can't lift my couch alone, but with another person helping we can lift it together, so there certainly are emergent properties that come from having mroe of the same (or another more obvious example would be atoms )I don't know who Rocking Robin is though (I'm from Switzerland, maybe that's why )

The quotes disappear very fast. I just had two relatively long ones the last time I started it up and couldn't even get halfway through them before they closed down again. Is it supposed to automatically close or is that somethign on my end?Other than that, I find it a cool idea, and am curious to see what coems of it

Cultural Prejudice?

even if they wanted to, their hands are still bound by the system (curriculum, school rules and such). Iirc John Taylor Gatto was very motivated and tried a lot of stuff to provide the best help for his studentsbut in the end he still quit, cause he realized that despite all that, he's still holding them back more than helping them reach their potential. edit: (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/prologue2.htm) yeah I remembered somewhat accurately it seems

Michael, unless something has changed recently, the "ignore chat" doesn't work for that. All it does afaik is that you don't get private chat invites, but you still see the text afaik.

The existence of consiousness (I assume that's what you meant) is needed to make any claims whatsoever, so that's a priori true I think. BUt claims such as "I feel angry" can not be considered truth claims because there's no way to verifiy it. That doesn't mean it can't be true, but you have no objective way of figuring out whether I deceive you or not, which makes it not a truth-claim in the strict sense. As far as I understand it at least.

no, not at all. I'd assume art is a very good place to put and express a lot of emotional/psychological side of being a human being.I'm not sure, why you bring up art though, when I talked about religion. Is your claim that religion is not more than art?Maybe I should add, that I haven't watched the video, my response was purely to your comment, so it might not make much sense, when it's viewed in the context of the video.

Well, yeah, I watched the video, I get what it's supposed to do(i.e. explain the supposed problem with exponential population growth). I just don't see any argument there, except static math and invalid metaphors with the word "growth", which isn't an arguement at all. Hence why I asked what I missed, cause I still see the argument as being pretty stupid. Like, if this guy believes that humans just breed uncontrollably regardless of the environmental context and circumstances, then idk even where to start to make a meaningful rebuttal.

Science already has a field that deals with and tries to understand emotions and feelings, which is Psychology.And if religions wouldn't continually make objective truth claims, then they'd die out pretty fast, as then they'd just be an inferior option to Psychology. (Plus, if you can't threaten children with eternal torture when they're young and dependant on you telling them the truh, then who's gonna bother with religion anyway?)