Wesley

What has been expressed before as what makes someone "human" is the ability to have moral reasoning. Moral reasoning is the ability to compare an individual situation or instance to an abstract moral principle. As far as I know, humans are the only ones capable of doing this, however I don't particularly aggress against animals that may be able to like monkeys or dolphins. Any animal who demonstrates the ability to have moral reasoning becomes a moral agent and ethics can be applied to them. It is somewhat of an imperfect idea, and there are gray edges that I am not sure exactly what to do with, but it is nearly impossible to draw hard lines when it comes to biology and ethics (which this question is a bit of both). This doesn't necessarily invalidate the principles, however. Did I answer this question to your satisfaction? Why is this question so important to you?

Definitely now considering putting the audiobooks on CD and listening to them on my drives the next few days/weeks.

I would like to clarify my post a little. I was not completely rejecting it, but saying that people should exercise caution. This was the first time I had heard about the coin, it honestly sounds like a joke, and I heard it from some random guy who was only making his first post. Not exactly the most reliable source. There have been several scams with crypto-coins in the past, so skepticism should always be the first course of action when it comes to a new altcoin. That being said, I have heard about it 3 more times since this post and done a little research on it. It seems to be somewhat solid in construction. The coin was based on litecoin. It is currently used in forums and on Reddit in the way that you describe, and it is used in "fun charity" promotional activities like sending the Jamaican bobsled team to the Olympics. It has the potential for growth and to become somewhat popular. I think its uses outside of Reddit having fun are somewhat limited, but the potential may exist. I also wouldn't put a ton of money into it, but right now $1 gets you 540 DGE, so if you have that lying around I wouldn't consider it to be bad to throw a small amount into it that you wont miss, but that could grow a few multiples in the future. If you are a part of that community and want to organize or participate those fun charity-type things you may also buy DGE, though that is somewhat for the experience and fun rather than for the merits of the coin itself. If they have another promotional event, many people will buy DGE in order to donate to the cause (and raising awareness) which will likely lead to boosts in price like what happened with the Jamaican bobsled event. I will at least be interested to see what other promotional events they do to raise awareness of the coin. Even if I don't enter the arena on this one it will be fun to watch.

The choice is only punishment. A: 89% suck B: 90% suck C: we choose A or B for you Choose!

Whether you participate or not, violence is still enacted against you. What is wrong with trying to choose the guy who hits you less? I still think voting is silly for many reasons, but I do not consider it violence. The initiation ofviolence is the political system that mandates a leader be chosen to be able to use force by a majority of voters. How people react in that situation is very much a state of nature. The moral responsibility should be at the feet of the culprits, and not the victims. Advocating the system is a different story. Doing the best you can in a shitty system I cannot blame people for.

For this metaphor, pretend you are a slave. Every 4 years, you get to pick your master. Some do not vote, because they realize it doesn't make a difference or think it would be choosing who the master is for others. Some vote, not because they like the situation, but if you have the choice you might as well pick the guy who you think would whip you (and others) a little less. My point is that I would not consider people in a situation of violence to pick a slightly better torturer to necessarily be initiating violence any more than I would consider someone who robbed from a store because there was a gun on their family's heads to be initiating violence. I still do not vote, but I do not consider those who do to be initiating force.

This is an assertion, but I still do not understand where it came from. I claimed that rights are positive assertions, and thus I do not understand how a negative right could exist. I would appreciate if you could explain to me what a negative right is. I said that private property and self defense are logically valid, but I was taking issue with calling them rights. Private property is not a right, but a statement of fact describing reality. It is like saying "This water has the right to be an ocean". It is describing something that is, but calling it a right doesn't make sense to me. Self-defense maybe could be considered a right as it is a positive assertion (though conditional upon another which makes it a bit shaky) however I prefer to justify it logically rather than call it a right. Rights, in general, were the arbitrary stopping points from which logic does not go further. It attempts to establish axioms that cannot be analyzed. If it is logically justifiable, then justify it logically and you do not need to call it a right. If you cannot justify it logically, then people muddy the waters by claiming it is a "right" which by extension means it is axiomatic and questioning it is beyond the purview of logic.

I would say that "rights" are always positive assertions and a "negative right" cannot exist. We have words for what I understand a "negative right" to be, namely a prohibition or an evil action. Property rights are not rights. They are logical extensions of the biological fact of self-ownership. Self defense is not a right, but a logical extension of the idea that if killing can be logically proven as immoral (see UPB, applies to all initiations of violence) then you must allow someone to be able to defend against an initiation. If you say something is wrong, but are not allowed to use force in defense against it, then it cannot be defined as evil and instead becomes an aesthetically negative action. What separates UPB from ANA and APA is the use of force in the act and, by extension the just use of force in self defense

I generally would agree. It is about characterization and interactions. The pilot is probably one of the best pilots in TV and you get little snippets into people's lives that provide context for what is going on. The show then moved slowly away from deep characters into abstract plots and confusion to provide mystery with a series end that is generally considered to be very unsatisfying. I think it is worth watching the beginning. You may find interest in it to watch until conclusion. If not, when it starts getting weird you can always stop watching.

1. Violence is abusive 2. Threats of violence elicit a similar response in the body as actual violence 3. Common law considers threats of violence to also be crimes 4. Threats of violence are abusive 5. Religion threatens violence through the eternal torture of hell 6. Religion threats violence against children 7. Religion that meets these requirements is child abuse 8. Religion endorses verbally or physically abusing children to scare Satan out of them if they question the church 9. Religion that meets these requirements is child abuse 10. People who tell things that are false and pretend that they are true are committing fraud 11. God does not exist 12. God's non-existence is easily verified through empirical evidence or a simple Google search for the logic 13. There is no excuse for not knowing that God does not exist and through empiricism, everyone knows God does not exist 14. Parents who tell their children that God exists are committing fraud 15. Children in a parent's home have no choice but to believe their parents 16. This could potentially be argued to be abusive 17. Spanking is assault and abusive 18. Parents who spank children are committing child abuse 19. Religion is highly correlated with spanking 20. Religious people are more likely to be child abusers than people not inflicting irrationality on their children when they aask questions 21. God often advocated slaying innocent children, men, women, and slaves 22. Many passages in the Bible advocate child abuse I could attack this from more angles I am sure, and it is possible that not all of my sections have perfect logic, but it should provide some substantiation that religion (in general, at least) is abusive. I also know from my personal experience (with a very progressive church) that many things I witnessed and experienced were abusive. That adds a tad bit more of anecdotal evidence. Feel free to tell me which ones I may have messed up on.

I am so sorry for what you are going through. I do not know of such a site, but working to find a good therapist would be a great step in the right direction. There are therapists who specialize in LGBT issues who may have many resources for you along those lines. There is nothing wrong with taking a break from the boards while you start to work through things and find support. It would not help things if you feel like you are continuing to victimize yourself or others.

What is your history with expressing yourself? Was it allowed? What were the consequences of expressing yourself in a way that made others feel anxious or angry? What is your relationship with making mistakes in your past? What would be the punishment for spilling water or misspelling a word? What were some of the instances where small mistakes lead to large punishment? What is your history with being empathetic? What would happen if you showed empathy to siblings, pets, parents, or friends? Feel free to point me to a thread post where these questions have already been answered, if it exists.

Rating is a privilege for donators. @Cornellius, dsayers is not a donator (that I can see at least) and thus, he does not have the ability to downvote. I do not know who is downvoting you, but it is not him. I am also discouraged by the insults and everything. Especially if you thought that it was justified because dsayers was attacking you by voting you down, which he wasn't because he can't vote you down. @dsayers I have been downvoted occasionally by someone I get into a spat with and then get upvoted later by third parties who will intentionally upvote me as they feel that a downvote may be unjust. Even if 1 or 2 downvotes stick, then it does not matter too much as a general trend of quality posts will lead to a general rating increase over time. In time, individual posts will fade away into the memory hole and will become irrelevant. Generally producing quality content and contributing to the community will be rewarded even if someone tries to punish you in one thread or something. If you are having a negative interaction on the forums, it often is better to not reply and continue the conversation if you feel someone is acting inappropriately in some way.

In general, I think everyone should have a good amount of skepticism toward altcoins. This would not be a coin I would put anything in.

You do not have rights. Rights do not exist. There is only private property and non-aggression. If you are worried about your safety, have another conversation with your boss and say that he did not quell your fears. If he still does not quell your fears, start looking for another job where you do not need to feel unsafe. Your solution will result in you getting fired anyway (or worse some sort of charges since you were especially told to not do this in conversation) so you might as well find a solution that allows you to feel safe and finds you another job on your terms rather than feeling only somewhat safe and eventually getting kicked out of your job with no fall-back.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ptsd-epigenetics-20140116,0,3934589.story#axzz2qgrflghM I am somewhat ambivalent about this. I feel like actually forgetting and changing the old, fear-inducing memory can lead to you not removing yourself from a potentially harmful situation (as well as other potential benefits of fear). If you do not feel the fear in response to a traumatic event, it seems like it could have negative results. I also feel like if someone has gone through talk therapy and still has something deep that they can't access that is debilitating for some reason, it would provide a way out. Also, I assume this method could be at least partially done to make a PTSD situation less debilitating so that treatment becomes possible in extreme situations where it currently is not. What are your thoughts?

I have the perfect part for Stef (as per the recent conversation with Jeffrey Tucker):

http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/38120-gummy-lsd-science-area-on-freedomain-radio/

This week is testicle staple removing I would assume.

I don't completely understand your story, however what I would do is point out a contradiction. Children are a great way to do this as they have no regard for culture and can point out things like this. So at some point when they were on tour, they did a similar thing to the native peoples or something. Now it is directly happening to him. Or he sees someone get killed and gets pissed as to how bad that is, but then someone points out that he did the exact same thing. Things like that where people realize that things they worship as moral goods and things they despise as abhorrent evils are the same thing. It can throw someone's world upside down. A character being presented with situations like this that he knows are bad, and having done them when he thought they were good but now he is made aware of the contradiction in some way.

Taxation is theft. Making it small may be preferable in the same way that I would rather be stabbed with a small spike than stabbed with a large sword, but it is still an evil initiation of force. I prefer the option of not getting stabbed and not getting stolen from. Inflation is also theft, just indirect. You decrease the value of my bank account rather than taking money out. It is like stabbing me with a small spike in my sleep where chances are good that most of the time I won't notice it is happening. Also, not exactly the epitome of goodness and virtue but still an evil action. No matter what you do, inflation will be higher than what you give people. If I take your 300 and then give you 300, I still am paid. So it costs you an amount to pay for me. You can't ever create this situation where you add labor and work and then make the inputs be exactly equal to the outputs when there are inputs that go to the salaries and overhead and paperwork and other such things.

So I am going to be somewhat annoying, but I hope that you understand what I am trying to do. To start with, if you want to add a component into your story, you should do a ton of research on the topic and what it means. I know that this hasn't been done because you called it volunteerism (the use or involvement of volunteer labor in community services) and not voluntarism (or some call voluntaryism which is the philosophy based on non-violence that is extended especially into the political realm). In a similar note, you called it Universally Acceptable Behavior when it is actually Universally Preferable Behavior. Thus, the first step toward adding these components into your stories is to understand the concepts thoroughly enough to talk about them in a fiction environment and would allow you to get the terms and ideas correct. UPB is a free book that is available here. You can read the .pdf or listen to the audio for free. If you want to take notes and really get into the book, you can obviously order a print book if you want which is very close to the price of printing. Finally, if you get stuck somewhere, there are many people on these boards who can help explain ideas. I think once you understand the concepts then putting your characters in blatant situations where they are faced with breaks in universality that are made obvious to them will become apparent to you and then there can be a lot of character development involved in how they resolve that contradiction. Let me know what you think and if I was helpful at all.

I have wondered this before, especially when 90% of the songs that people listen to have the same chord progression. (See Pachelbel Rant or 4 Chord Song) However, I am not sure. There are at least some objective requirements, like it needs to be in the audible range and not be so loud or the wrong tone as to induce pain or cause you to lose all hearing (though there probably are some masochists who would disagree there). There certainly are majority things, like most songs use established chords, beats, tempos, etc and just add one small thing on top of that. I still would have trouble defining these things as objectively better though. Even in math rock (which I know you listen to) with vary highly on the beats per measure within the same section, but most of the other components still follow similarly with other music, or else it would be just random noise that not many would view as musical.

I should not be held responsible for the crimes of my father. I especially should not be held responsible for the crimes of someone 8 generations back who I haven't even heard of. It makes as much sense as me going out and killing someone and the state coming to arrest me. You are very much missing the point as to why these inequalities of wealth exist and also that advocating the use of violence to solve perceived social problems is exactly why we are at this point.

So what do you propose for people who give a gift to their children? How much would they have to give before this step would be enacted?