Wesley

Just an aesthetic thing as I looking over the ad. There is a hanging word in the line "- Connect with other peoples feelings in a way that makes them feel understood and cared for " which slightly bugs me. I believe it is generally a rule that hanging words should be avoided whenever possible. @luminescent did a much better job than I could with the rest of it. However, that was the one thing I didn't see listed.

mind-al·ter·ing (mndôltr-ng) adj.Producing mood changes or distorted perceptions; hallucinogenic: a mind-altering drug. Many would consider anything the distorts one's view of reality to be by definition an impairment especially when Stef's entire job is to best describe and create connections about reality. im·pair (m-pâr) tr.v. im·paired, im·pair·ing, im·pairsTo cause to diminish, as in strength, value, or quality

The first questions to ask are always of yourself. Why are you with her?

No, God kills millions. The devil only killed a few people in the Bible and after getting permission from God. The devil whom everyone knows is evil could never do the damage that a God could. If God were the devil he would lose most of his killing power.

Hmm... I get the feeling that you are trying to provoke anger in me. I was only attempting to show you Stefan's view in the past on drugs and correctly illustrate some of the risks that are present. I have not expressed agreement or disagreement with the idea of Stefan being on psychedelics. The edits to the first post where you claim that I have signed the petition (as well as some others in this thread) is a bit disingenuous.

What makes you think that I am not calm?

There are more risks than mental. Like the state throwing him in jail.

Cell phones must be equipped with teleportation devices. This allows phone to (in essence) be able to exist in all 10,000 people's locations whenever they may need the phones. There obviously are the resources to be able to do this and the supercomputer overlord will figure our how to be able to use quantum mechanics in order to allow larger teleportation than the single particles that can currently be done. It is not magic, it is science. Proper allocation of limited resources to be able to satisfy everyone. Of course, this also allows teleportation between uses to the "Maintenance and Gracious Improvement Computer" which would allow perfect resource maintenance and upgrade.

Um, well concepts do not exist. That is what makes them concepts and not something like energy or matter. This is covered in the intro to philosophy series.

I don't think Stefan's perspective has changed much since he did this show on drugs. He can weigh in if it has of course.

Here are some arguments I just came up with off the top of my head. Somewhat from more effective to less effective. I wouldn't use any arguments that you are not fully comfortable with and understand as that is how you could end up getting caught in a debate. If her argument is that "They have been physically or sexually abused and that is why we should use force and violence in order to throw them in jail or kill them" seems like an odd argument. Abuse victims should deserve help and counseling, not jail sentences. She will portray her side as compassionate and the more that you can take that away from her by saying "her solution is to throw abused people in jail and my solution is to recommend counseling and help from a de-stigmatized industry of voluntary exchange" makes your side become the compassionate side. You can also talk about the conflation between porn that is legal and prostitution. Pay for sex = illegal. Pay for sex with a camera = legal is a bit of an inconsistency. Even to bring more conflation (and to maybe stretch things a bit too far), lets take an amoral economic calculation of a date/classic relationship. A guy would tend to pay more for the activities or in a marriage would be doing more labor and providing more resources. A woman tends to provide sexual availability/ reproduction in exchange for those resources. Obviously, any relationship I would be in would have more to it than that, but it is hard to figure out in an objective, economic sense where the line is between a male providing resources and a woman providing sexual availability in the average person's date vs a prostitute. There are many women who date almost exclusively to get the occasional meals paid for and to have a fun time where they do not need to give up much themselves just like there are men who date exclusively to get laid occasionally.

Great video @Pepin

Well let us assume that this didn't happen to the dreamer. Thus, that is why you can assume it has other meaning. That story only has meaning to you because it analogizes with something in reality. The goal is to figure out what that would be. For instance, knowing what your favorite movie is can tell a lot about someone. Mine was Equilibrium. Not because anything like that ever happened to me. It was because my family was a society where feeling wasn't allowed in the name of creating peace until I was experimenting with feeling and was able to rebel against the society. That is why the movie resonated with me. I did not figure that out for years after that was my favorite movie. If it didn't resonate with me, then I wouldn't really care, I wouldn't really remember it and I certainly wouldn't originate the ideas in my mind. Does this make more sense?

Why wouldn't it mean something? I rarely ever see completely useless information relayed. If it was useless to your mind then it would not be thinking of that information. Unless I am missing something, this seems to follow logically. Feel free to correct me.

Dreams tell you things that you already know to some level, or else dreams would be coming from some mystical part external to you, which doesn't make sense. Dreams sometimes you know exactly what is meant. This would be conscious knowledge. When you have trouble figuring out what it means, then it is something unconscious. Thus, symbols and allegories that you understand consciously are used by the mind to express the unconscious thought. (For instance, try and explain the game of football to someone who has never seen an organized sport. You likely would use a lot of symbols and metaphors and such.) When I have trouble with a dream at times, I have a few people who I will ask or I can post it on the boards. Sometimes a theory will be presented and I just do not care and it doesn't seem right and just doesn't work for me. This will tell me that I need to look further or try going at things from a different angle. When it is correct, I feel it in my body whatever emotion is being portrayed. Like that feeling becomes conscious whether it was in my gut or in my chest tightening or in something else. I'm sure I got the term from the show, but this theory "resonates" with you so that you can feel that it is true and it bring something that you knew all along into your conscious thoughts. These are my thoughts on dreams along the lines of your questions. The best way to test is to test these things is to start a dream journal, write down anything you can remember in your dreams, do some analysis yourself, and once you get a dream that you are stuck on or have repetitively then ask for help from Stefan or post it on the boards or ask for a friend who is good at dream analysis to help you work through it. Once you get the feeling of an explanation resonating with you, then you will be able to understand what is meant by it.

It happened to me after dinner one time. (7 ish Eastern I think?) I was posting partly to see if someone else would respond saying it happened to them too and then a pattern could be established. I have been in chat a few times since then and it has not happened again.

You were not listening to what I was saying. I was giving you the opportunity to pick any definition you wished and I can continue to do so. If there is no definition of god that can exist, then the entire debate is won. You have to at least be able to present a credible theory of proposing what god could be. The things is that all definitions of God fit in at least 1 of the following 2 categories: 1. The Contradiction Square-Circle, yada-yada, we've been over this and agree here 2. The Attribution I will take something that does exist or could exist and attribute it to "Godliness". This was the flying example I gave, or "the process that created the world" is God, or "God is that which is part of all of us". The problem with the attribution is it means the "God" label is just meaningless garbage to create conflation with religious ideas of god. We have words called flying, evolution, and existence that define these terms. God is a terrible term to use for the attribution of these characteristics when other words are much clearer in their implication. For instance, it could theoretically be possible that aliens planted the first life on earth (though there are more credible theories). This does not mean it is possible that God put life on earth. It means that is is possible that an alien life form put life on earth. Labeling things god is the intellectually dishonest part as it only complicates things for no reason. Once we discover something, it no longer is god, but rather gets a meaningful term applied to it. If you can come up with a definition that isn't attribution or contradiction, then I would be happy to hear it. However, I have never heard one. God is a concept that needs to be banished from rational thought and instead replaced with meaningful words.

Well scientists can create life. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/scientists-create-first-self-replicating-synthetic-life/ Define immortal. Was it birthed? Can it be killed, but it just lives for a really long time? Does it not die of old age but could still die? Did it exist before life? Invisibility is not amazing at all. Single-celled organisms are invisible. Even so, these are attributions. "Let me find something that is amazing to be God! I think flying is amazing! Birds fly! Therefore Bird = God!" doesn't really follow. I can attribute whatever I want and call it God if it were to exist, but the "God" label is just a placeholder for my attributions.

That is not a definition.

Ok, touche on that. It is possible to have some sort of nuke-like device in a free society if nukes change to be a weapon of selective punishment or if they are used in harmless sport. However, not how they currently exist as weapons of collective punishment.

I am pretty sure Stef's position on nukes has changed as it is very likely that the market would not want nukes. Personally, I would not support a DRO that had any WMDs nor any friends who had WMDs. WMDs can never be used defensively (as they collectively kill a civilian population for the "crimes" of their government). However, I think the main point is how easy and cheap defense could be if there were a bunch of nukes out there because no one would do anything stupid. Many think national defense is the one area where anarchy won't work. If instead you view defense as so super easy as the costs of maintaining a few nukes, then it doesn't seem like a massive problem, but rather something that is easily solved for much cheaper than it is currently "solved". No one would use the nuke, for if they did, they would die/ be ostracized, which means that nuking someone would never gain you anything.

You have to provide a definition of "a God that could exist" or this entire conversation is pointless.

Why Bitcoin Boomed During the Government Shutdown http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/why-bitcoin-boomed-during-the-government-shutdown