RuralRon

There are a number of points that I need to respond to here Kevin, but let me begin by saying I feel some personal hostility. Perhaps I deserve it, I'm open to that. If I have been too strong in my choice of words or my position poorly worded I'll take ownership of that and apologize. Kevin, I didn't say that your position was that posting anonymously was courageous, I was asking a counter question of how it could be courageous, and you didn't answer that. I also never said or implied that "anyone who downvotes must be doing so cowardly". The key there is the extra word "anyone" you supplied, not me. I fully agree with you, that donvoting anonymously is NOT always an act of cowardliness. That's not what I said, that's not what I intended, and if that is the implication the words I used conveyed to people it was my mistake, and I analogize. My point is: it takes more courage to cast your downvote if your username is tied to it than if it's not. I can't be any more clear than that. Accountability is taking responsibility for your actions, in this case the action we're talking about is voting in the rep system. I also never raised the issue of real names. I have nothing to say about that other than I didn't raise, talk or imply anything on that. Who does know Kevin, isn't that why we discuss it here, to flesh out the merits, the pros and cons? That's my reason for posting here. And if the participants feel my position about anonymous rep voting has no merit, I've yet to see it discussed, at least not in any significant way. Instead I see alot of resistance to the idea, and it puzzles me. I'll also add, that if the consensus of the participants here wish to ban me from this discussion I will bow out right now and let the discussion carry on without me. If my input is not of any value to people here why should I stay? I won't. Good, a question! I don't know why that is either, but I will repeat what I said earlier: does it matter? Let's reason through what FDR wants to do and why, other boards have different standards of value. FDR's values should be the yardstick, not what other forums / services do. If the values coincide, great, no conflict, happy happy joy joy. My focus is on personal growth and the philosophy of freedom. This is a serious accusation in itself Kevin. Pls tell me if I'm missing anything: 1) censorship and 2) cowardly / irresponsible behavior. Does that about cover it? I believe I've addressed the second one here, and the first in my previous post, and you acknowledged that with your "Opps" comment. Just to be clear on censorship. Banning the discussion on determinism is censorship, as would be banning any topic. But I completely agree Stef is perfectly within his rights to do so. I never committed one way or the other as to the ban being right or wrong, only that banning it was inconsistent with keeping the topic of atheism. The disagreement I voiced at the end of my first post in this topic was poorly worded and inflammatory. Given that I concede it's within Stef's rights to ban a topic it was an unnecessary comment. I offered it in part to provide some balance and support to why it should not be a banned topic for the sake of freedom of speech, not for any merits or support of determinism. If an apology is warranted for saying banning any topic is inconsistent with freedom of speech I won't apologize. But I do apologize for saying Stefan "is a bit hypocritical" for making the choice to ban the topic of determinism.

I agree Compos, what shirgall suggested does sound sheepish. However, it's also important to count the costs of your actions. Given how cops these days are trained, and how easily they feel threatened (how insecure can that be, to feel threatened when you have a gun and the power of authority?), it's better to live another day to fight for freedom where you can be effective, even if that means you must give up some in the short term. It's not an easy call to make. I don't know if it was this thread or somewhere else but I saw video recently, something like "this is what happens when you call the cops", and it just really pissed me off. Big time

Granted, anonymous is convenient. But is convenience really the purpose of the rep system? Surely you must believe it goes far beyond that, at least I hope so. Given how much I've relied on the rep system I'd hate to think convenience is an important factor in it's reflection of a member's virtuous qualities, especially since it can be used (as evidence) to ban a member. That's pretty serious. I can envision that removing anonymous rep voting may reduce the number of votes, but the ones expressed will be higher quality if the voter can be challenged to defend their vote. I see that as a good thing, but it's clear not everyone agrees. Someone appears to disagree rather strongly, tho I'm not sure why

I have not yet donated, but I am accumulating funds to do so. I've commented on that elsewhere. You put a great deal of emphasis on the word seems. I agree with you "seems" is wishy-washy, non-committal language. I think more accurately it's passive aggressive, so I thank you for bringing it to my attention. As to whether hiding posts for posters below a threshold is censorship, I don't believe it is. That's a far less important aspect of the rep system behavior imo, than feedback and accountability about the voting. My first post in this thread made a point about the banning of the topic of determinism as censorship, but acknowledged it is within Stefs rights to do so. But rather than just reiterate the reasons (my previous post, last paragraph) why I think accountability and feedback (two separate items) is a good thing to have, I'll ask: do you think the opposite behavior of rep voting without accountability is responsible and courageous? Are there people who have a fear their voting record will reflect poorly on their own rep, or reveal a pattern unfavorable to certain members? Please, do tell how that's courageous! As to other services (google+, discus etc) that may or may not behave as I am suggesting, who cares? Aren't you interested in making the FDR forums better? Then say why you believe anonymous rep voting helps to encourage personal growth and responsibility, or how accountability (non-anonymous voting) for one's actions is bad or detrimental. How are the standards of any other service better than FDR to warrant such a comparison?

As I recall from reading the info James posted about the rep system, downvoting is anonymous. Addressing tjt's and Wesley's input, it makes sense to eliminate the anonymity of the rep system. What benefit does it provide to the FDR community as a whole to allow anonymous rep voting? The only benefit I can think of at all, is it makes the rep system easier to implement by not providing the means to track and display which users contributed to a member's rep value. But that seems like a minor consideration. It seems rather cowardly, or at a minimum to be irresponsible for a downvoter to be unwilling to have their username associated with their contribution to members rep. The same is applicable to upvoters as well. As for PatricC's assertion tjt's comparison is a strawman position, I disagree, it was a useful analogy. As tjt stated, this community should be focused on helping it's members improve their critical thinking, rhetoric and relationship skills. Why not utilize the rep system to provide the feedback it captures, and discourage "drive by downvoting" by eliminating the anonymity and encouraging responsibility? Wesley's idea is one way to add even more feedback by providing a reason (fixed set of choices) for the up or down vote. Granted, that takes more effort to implement a means of reporting that info, but it would be quite useful to all FDR members imo.

Thx for that, 3bobs. It's your second point that is the crux of it. In my case I'm not sure a "goal" is always the underlying drive. It certainly is in several of my pursuits, but it's unclear it's the same thing in pursuing a long, deep discussion. That is probably more closely related to a passion to seek truth. However, I also believe there is a great deal of overlap between passion, inspiration and the drive to seek truth. When I think of my research in "free" energy, my attempts to uncover the empirical truth that I believe exists but has not yet been repeatably and reliably demonstrated to exist (this is not faith, b/c a significant amount of empirical data has been collected by numerous people that can at least partially explain independent observations made. Each experiment is a test to produce another piece of evidence towards a tipping point called "proof"), my intuition and gut sense drives me to not give up the pursuit when many others condemn such efforts as irrational.

I'm curious about why nobody has commented on the info I posted concerning bitshares. Hasn't anyone else looked into it? If not I believe you're not being very thorough in your cryptocurrency analysis. Larimer has been interviewed by numerous heavy hitters like Andreas Antonopoulos and Mark Levine to name only 2. I find his perspective economically sound. Where I believe bitshares is weak is in the unproven technological approach they've taken around proof of stake (their implementation of it). He raises some excellent points about the long term viability of the bitcoin financial model that the "shares in a company" metaphor resolves. Their "prime directive" is decentralization all the way. I read the "disillusioned participant" thread I referred to above and my take is the guy makes some good points but he made a speculative decision and is now crying about his losses. He fails to see the tradeoffs, if made more in his favor, would have resulted in adjustments down the road when more participants might stand to loose rather than the limited number of early adopters now. The decisions weren't easy to make and they were carried out rather hastily without a thorough peer review process, and on that score the guy makes some good points. The thread is worth reading from start to finish to see how difficult it is to innovate in this highly technical and speculative arena where the stakes and the risks are as high as Mt. Everest. I'm highly impressed with the whole project and the innovation and dedication to the principles of decentralization and freedom Larimer is guided by. I would love to see Stefan dig into bitshares and interview Larimer, and perhaps help more people see it's merits. One thing I dislike about bitcoins and many alt coins is how mining is no longer possible except for major players and in my view that's a vulnerability waiting to be exploited. I wouldn't give you one shatoshi for the number of alt coins that have exploded onto the scene with little value to add to the world other than a new field to mine coins easily.

I was just listening to Stefan, and he used the phrase "convince people rather than inspire them" (he was actually advocating the later) and it "inspired" me to post this open ended question. I'm intrigued by how this "woke me up" so to speak to write this, how it stimulated me to focus my mind on the essence of inspiration. Stef's statement was interesting b/c he moved away from the ultra rationality of reason, logic and empirical evidence we typically see from him toward a more right brain perspective. I'm not saying Stef has changed in any fundamental way, only that this statement was a less common expression of his creative, imaginative side while being coupled to argumentation, persuasion, and the underlying mission of FDR to change the world by (inspiration | persuasion) ?. I have a related series of posts on this subject (just search "plenty to say" to find it), but I wanted this topic to be open ended and more of a solicitation / free association exercise to see if other people's input further inspire me and help me figure out why this is such an invigorating topic to me. When I think back over the course of my life going all the way back to high school, it's questions like this that drew me into philosophical discussions and motivated me to stay up all night talking to people about it. It feels kind of "electric".

Did he give a reason?

(emphasis mine) I have very limited financial resources (i.e. next to none) but I was excited by the promise of what bitcoin could do for freedom, so back in March I started to investigate it. At the time I needed to register a new Internet domain name for a group I was helping to form in my local community. In this process I discovered namecoin and .bit domains. One fellow I met online was willing to trade 6 namecoins he had for $10 of paypal fiat money. I was excited to put a fraction of that to use for as yet undecided domain name for the group. So I waited for the group to make it's decision. When they did about a month later I went back to the forum where I discovered namecoin and the guy I bought some from to review the registration process. Much to my surprise, Micheal Dean, who was the main spokesman who was such a proponent and who provided much explanation in favor of namecoin (he's also a major advocate for freedom) had become disillusioned with the direction namecoin was moving and joined forces with Daniel Larimer of bitshares where he is today. So my investigation took a twist, and I found a whole new well of information and perspective on the cryptocurrency world. If I had money to invest based on what I know now I would be putting some of it into bitsharesX (or whatever it is called today; that's one problem with bishares it's rapidly evolving and isn't stable in all it's aspects). But Larimer's an excellent spokesperson and teacher, and point's out how the financial model of bitcoin isn't profitable and argues based on that it isn't sustainable in the long run. He invented bitshares to address this. Using the metaphor of shares in a company instead of coins makes a great deal more sense as a foundational model. He calls it a Distributed Autonomous Company or DAC for short. One example is a cryptocurrency lottery that's profitable from day 1. I won't go into the details of that here but it's a good case study and comparison between the bitshares vs. bitcoin's model of operation. Proof of stake is a key differentiating factor in the two models. I also agree with WorBlux about the tremendous value bitcoin has provided in terms of providing the blockchain innovation. But even that has it's roots in the concept of distributed file sharing and bit torrents. I would encourage anyone serious about getting involved with cryptocurrency to look into Invictus Innovations, Daniel Larimer and bitshares.org. You might also be well advised to read this post from on the bitshares forum from a disillusioned participant and decide for yourself if this team is worthy of your support. I have no financial stake in this yet and am only posting my opinion here based on the technical merits of the bitshares model and the research I've done so far. When I move forward and make an real investment in cryptocurrency you bet I'll be looking into this guy's claims more carefully.

You lost me with that comment trodas. Good luck, I'm gone.

Unless the actual photo was cropped, which would explain it.

For any of you interested in further research into psychoactive substances you might want to check out Jan Irvin's Gnostic Media website & podcasts, in particular the Secret of Magic Mushrooms. He gets into some of the details of his experience with DMT in Peru in earlier podcasts. He has changed his perspective over the last several years, saying people should have a solid foundation of critical thinking skills before ingesting these powerful drugs. He has mentioned several times he no longer believes in their casual use.

My primary feedback to you trodas is about the way you're presenting your position, which I'm quite sympathetic and biased towards your perspective I might add. You have looked into this deeper than I have and possibly more than most have here on this forum. I can understand it's frustrating trying to convince skeptics of any subject. And I'm not always calm, cool and collected and matter of fact with my arguments either. But I have found the more you can be that way and present the data that supports your position and refrain from inflammatory adjectives and negative characterizations of your opponents or their statements, the will better it will serve you to get your point across. Not to mention gain you more respect here on FDR. We're all here seeking truth and that is best served with rational rather than emotional discussion. Something to think about.

Hey Mister, thanks for you question! First reason has to do with dancing. I've never liked it, and never got very good at it. And now I have a rather severe limp and my motion isn't very smooth. I feel self conscious about it, which in itself should be explored deeper. Second reason is I didn't find this person attractive, so her advances weren't welcome. Your question is actually very good. I am self conscious, or put another way I lack confidence in situations I have limited experience with or that I feel I might be publicly humiliated. And what popped in my head as I thought about humiliating experiences was back in the 4th grade I wet my pants and the entire class laughed as I ran to the door. There were others related to incidents of being bullied in school, tho none specifically come to mind.

Hi folks, recently a woman whom I have known since the first of this year revealed to me she was attracted to me and was fairly aggressive in her pursuit of me. This is the first time this has happened that I recall. I have a casual working relationship with this woman. Her husband is much older and his health is very bad. Lets call her Dolly. Her home life sounds like taking care of the elderly in a nursing home. Dolly has a little jewelry shop in a store run by another woman I'll call Stephanie. I run a small business next to Stephanie's. Both of these women are religious statists. I am not the type to flirt generally, and I never would unless I found the flirtee attractive. I have no attraction to either of them and they are both married anyways. Dolly & Stephanie have been friends for at least 10 years. The first hint I had was an email Dolly sent me saying "the next time you see me just kiss me damn it". I replied with a ? I thought I had missed something in one of her earlier emails. Dolly came over to my business just before closing time when nobody was there with me, and wanted me to play a CD. As it began to play she asked me to dance and I said what? As she moved towards me I moved away and said I can't dance with my limpy leg. I kept turning away to avoid her. She finally gave up. I've been on the other side of similar situations and know how much it hurts to be rejected that way, so I am empathetic to her position. But I felt very uncomfortable. All three of us often sit around a table when business is slow to have a quick sandwich or coffee and talk about trivial things or community activities usually. They typically find something to do whenever I talk about real issues or question the rationality of their statements. Dolly is always trying to do things for me, like make me lunch or cut my hair, or buy me a soda. There is an awkward silence whenever Stephanie leaves the two of us alone at the table. I asked Dolly the day after she asked me to dance if she has told anyone about her attraction to me and she said no. I believe she hasn't told Stephanie b/c Stephanie takes her religion more seriously than Dolly and her behavior would probably not go over too well. Plus Dolly's jewelry shop is in Stephanie's store. But they do have quite a long history so Stephanie may know. I feel a tension to ask Dolly why she feels drawn to me (they both know I'm no longer religious and how much I think the state is morally wrong) or why she thinks there's hope I'll ever be attracted to her, but I'm uncomfortable and afraid my questions would be misconstrued as romantic interest. So I'm posting this here to see what the FDR community thinks and hear any comments you may have on my situation. What would you do in this situation?

The above question is spot on imo. I find it really hard to get angry with women I have any affection towards, otherwise I have no problem standing up for myself. It's exactly what my dad modeled. I do remember how angry I got one time though when my first real girlfriend in my senior year of high school decided she wasn't going to talk to me anymore, but that is the only case I can think of getting angry with a woman I had feelings for. So I'm lead to ask, what was your relationship like with your parents? Are you repeating a pattern you learned from them? If so, how will you overcome that to change your future? How will you become aware of the underlying issues so you don't model this to your son? I have in many ways just begun my journey of self discovery, and can't offer much in the way of advice. You also have the complicating factor of a 9 year old child which needs to be your top concern. He is your future, humanity's future. I'll be honest, there's no quick or easy fix as you probably already know. The good news is you are here, and for me personally I am enormously grateful I've found FDR. It gives me hope for meaningful change as I hope it will for you too. But you will need to be very honest and work hard to cut through your defenses and develop close friendships to work through the challenges. Finding a good therapist is also highly recommended. The tradeoffs you need to make between healing yourself and providing for your son will be tough to make, in terms of time and money resources and how to split them. But FDR is a great resource to helping you figure things like that out. I'm truly sorry you have to go through this Brandon, my heart goes out to you and the pain you are feeling right now.

I've always been into music. From a real early age I went to bed with a radio going (remember the King Biscuit Flower Hour?), I was mostly into heavy rock: Led Zeplin 2, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heap... Aerosmith, Kansas, Kiss, Montrose, Yes, Grand Funk Railroad, ZZ Top, RUSH!!! Love Rush and have almost all of their collection up through around 2005. They're still going strong tho. Fantastic lyrics AND music from only 3 guys. Moving Pictures is one of my favorite CDs; love that Red Barchetta! Oh don't forget Triumph, "The magic of the melody runs through you like a stream, the notes you play flow through your head like a dream... I sing this song for the common man and the people in despair. I bring this song into the world and I sing it everywhere. This simple truth lies waiting here for everyone to share, so hold on, hold on to your dreams..." That all rolled out of my aged memory as effortlessly as Stefan can rant about philosophy! It is the melody, the intricate rhythms that draw me to a song, and as I grew older the meaning of the lyrics. There were even certain vocal tones that made me feel like I could melt they struck me so powerfully. I am familiar with Korn, Disturbed, Tool and stay fairly current from listening to the radio, but I don't buy music much these days. I never really got into the "screamfest" music like Korn, but I can appreciate the lyrics from Limp Biscuit and Marilyn Manson. Here's a tune I couldn't get enough of a couple of years ago: I can tell you that two major bands I still thoroughly enjoy listening to now and then, though quite dated now are Kansas and Creed. I own all but 2 or 3 CDs from their released works. The draw for these bands was equally the music as well as lyrics. Although the lyrics have far less impact on me now, being as they are mostly religiously inspired, they take me back to two important erras in my life and set my mood to times of deep introspection. Kansas' Lamplight Symphony with it's orchestral arrangement and story still really gets my emotions churning and feeling the old man's loss of his wife: But I also really enjoy contemporary jazz, such as Dave Coz, Richard Elliot, Special EFX, Spira Gira, Acoustic Alchemy and Peter White just to name a few. That often reminds me of my early 30s and the relationship I had back then. Man, sure dodged a bullet on that chick!

I read this entire thread, and also read others from a search on reputation. I see alot of good points being made about the rep system. I am not yet a donator, so my opinion may not be of much value on this topic. But generally it seems like a good system. I think a sticky is in order for it though. I asked Micheal about the rep system some time ago and didn't get a reply, at least not until after my question was already answered by someone else. His time is valuable and he was probably busy with more important things. No problem MMD This discussion and my own experience just highlights the need for a sticky. I'll volunteer to write it, and do the research about it from what I can gather from the posts about reputation here on the forum, but the sticky needs to reflect what the board owner desires, not my opinion or even an aggregate of posts about it. And I'm not sure looking at this on other forums would have value here. So if one of the staff can provide the definitive intent for the reputation system, what the threshold is for hiding posts, how members are banned and how (or if) that is related to the rep system and any other input about the rep system Stef / staff feels should be in a sticky I will go to work on it. Since I'm not a donator I'd like to help if I can by doing this. It's not much but it's something I'll offer. Lastly, I feel I must put in a brief comment about closed discussions. PatrickC and Mike Flemming among others were discussing such a topic, and Robert included a link to why it was closed. Although I feel Mike's comparison with atheism is on point, rational and is generally excellent, Stef is the owner of this board and it is his money being spent so he is the final arbiter of what is or is not allowed here. So I cannot disagree with him on the philosophical grounds of ownership or property rights. I do disagree with him on philosophical grounds of inconsistency and application of the principle of anarchy. IMO this is censorship. People are certainly free to PM Stefan or contact Micheal to schedule a call in to the show (better have something new!), but Stef has decided to stop discussion of this topic and has given his reason for doing so. Is this censorship limited to public posts or are PMs subject to this restriction as well? Stef is declaring he is not open to input about this topic. His mind is closed about it. I may get downvotes for saying this but I see this as a bit hypocritical. Nevertheless, I still must conclude it is Stef's choice to make, and I sympathize with the difficulty of weighing the practical application of resources and principles in making that choice.

It's funny for several reasons, the conclusion, the circular reasoning - I'm ROFL

Welcome to the real world. Is that blunt enough for ya coinflip? There are plenty of positive human interest stories out there too, many right here on FDR. Despite the "think positive" mindset which is out of balance the other way, what we choose to see is a matter of focus. I myself find it hard at times to feel much positivity in the midst of the massive bombardment of the tyranny, irrationality and negative press I face daily. I'm not even sure sometimes what drives me to continue striving for a better life, the search for kindred spirits and authenticity, but I know it needs to start first in myself before I expect it in others. It's always a great feeling though when you find those who have managed to overcome their inner demons and set an example worth emulating. That feels very positive to me, and gives me hope.

I agree with Wuzzums concerning this particular example. Not saying trodas is wrong about hos conclusion, as I have seen much stronger evidence that supports "man never set foot on the moon" position. It's been years since I looked into this, but one piece of evidence I recall, but I must admit I haven't investigated, is that the hatch size on the L.E.M. is too small for a man and his space suit to exit. That should be easy to validate or disprove. The moon landing hoax is an interesting conspiracy theory, and it doesn't seem like it would be all that difficult to pull off imo.

Unfortunately this type of incident is on the increase. All you have to do is search youtube and it's all too easy to find similar examples of police using fear, intimidation and strong arm tactics to exert their power over average people in trouble. Rather than help and become a hero, this one choose to behave in this sociopathic manor. I'm certain the policies of many jurisdictions are created with the intent to strengthen the power of police irrespective of what is best, and regardless if their are other means to facilitate a peaceful remedy or help people in need. Policies and power hungry politicians aside, it still comes down to the individual police person's choice and willingness to defer to authority under the excuse s/he is therefore not responsible for their own actions. This is the reason Larken Rose and Josie "The Outlaw" work to reverse the indoctrination and fallacy of authority. For those who have not heard of Larken Rose or Josie The Outlaw I encourage you to look them up on youtube. Larken also has written several books, one specifically about authority is "The Most Dangerous Superstition" available online as a PDF.

I for one would like to see it. I am highly skeptical of those statements, and without your supportive evidence I am biased to believe most of those characteristics are strongly molded by environmental influences.

I like that, well said cherapple. And I couldn't agree more with OzTrAlien when he said: That doesn't contribute much of anything towards the topic, but I figure affirmation is in short supply, and it shouldn't be withheld when it is well deserved.