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Everything posted by Wesley
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How to improve my credit?
Wesley replied to aFireInside's topic in Libertarianism, Anarchism and Economics
Important Factors in Credit Score (Somewhat Ranked): High Importance: 1. You pay on time 2. Derogatory Marks (Civil Judgments, Bankruptcy, Liens, etc) 3. Credit Card Utilization (Using a Card, but never being above about 30% of the credit line is preferred. Having a high revolving credit balance as a % of available credit affects you negatively) Medium: 4. Average age of open credit lines (Try to keep credit lines open for as long as you can and avoid closing lines to keep your score up. Companies like to know that if they extend you a line, you will be using it for a long time) Low: 5. Hard Credit Inquiries (If you are getting a lot of credit checks in a short period of time (2 years is the amount of time they are counted) then you could be acquiring lots of debt fast, or being rejected by other places. Both are less than ideal) 6. Total Number of Accounts (Even if you close a credit line, it still counts as an account that adds to your long-term credit history. Having many accounts shows a history of dealing with credit in some capacity) Thus, the best thing to do is not get hard inquiries, keep all current accounts open, avoid derrogatory marks and to pay on time every time with a credit card you use but never have a balance at the end of the month that is over 30% of the credit line. The longer that you stay like this, your credit will slowly creep up. Unfortunately, most of the things to improve credit are longer term reliability. I think the best option would be to raise money in some other way. Kickstarter, ask friends for loans, use BTCJam, or just pick up another job part time to save some money for a bit. Relying on quick changes in credit would be a difficult way to do it and you likely could save money yourself in the time it would take to get your credit score up. -
Well then its Stefan with an f and an a, which results in "Fatefan" as the official McDonald's spelling of Stefan's name. It should be pronounced "Fat-e-fan" because we know Stefan's preferences in the ladies! French Canadians often mispronounce it as "Fate-fan" but this is obviously wrong after all of those hours battling determinists and theists he is very much not a "Fate-fan", thus this is not the correct pronunciation. **At this point I decided I may have been going a little too far in this, stopped typing, and just pressed post**
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Hello, Came here because of the Stefan/Peter discussion
Wesley replied to PoopMeat's topic in Introduce Yourself!
Your subscription is not important (no offense, mine isn't either, and neither is Stef's). The important discovery is to figure out what is true. If you can correct a logical problem in a presented theory, I am very interested to hear it so that I can correct my false positions. -
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/starbucks-asks-customers-sign-petition-20533851 In case anyone goes to Starbucks and doesn't want to get startled by political fantasies. You have been warned.
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No, it presents that "we" have claims set forth that have yet to be disproven using science, logic, reason, etc. If someone can disprove them, then amends to theory will be made. Most other people do not even use logic, reason, or science for their claims. There is a theory on that too that is best spelled out in the Bomb in the Brain series. In science, the longer a theory goes without being disproven, the closer to "true" it is assumed to be.
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At my home computer I only use Chrome. At work I use Firefox during lunch and breaks and such. I have noticed it lag on occasion, but never miss entire strings of messages (that I have noticed) except this one time and it was with Chrome.
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Dog training ..without punishment or intimidation
Wesley replied to Nielsio2's topic in Peaceful Parenting
First of all, early in a learned behavior you use the clicker where later it becomes unnecessary. If my dog was just learning a mat or something in the corner, then even touching a may may be treated. Later, it would be after a longer period (maybe once in 15 minutes) and later, the clicker would be mostly unnecessary for that behavior. Now, there are a couple reasons why you mark good behavior. 1. You want the dog to like the sound of a clicker and to not punish or threaten the dog. If you mark bad behavior, then the clicker becomes the same as a verbal chastization that leads to the dog becoming aggressive or sulking in the corner whenever you get the clicker out. 2. Training would be almost impossible. Lets say you are getting a dog to learn to sit by marking sitting. Literally every other possible behavior would have to be marked as bad in order for the dog to finally get in the sitting position. This also would unlearn behavior as once you are teaching laying down, sitting would be marked as a bad behavior. Instead, you show indifference to things the dog has already mastered an reward the desired behavior. It becomes a game of "try to figure out what will get me rewarded" -
http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Shutdown-means-no-new-beer-from-craft-brewers-4880428.php That misdiagnosis...
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We will not get to a free society by using public policy. We will not get to a free society by incrementalism in a smaller state. We get to a free society by making a free world for ourselves in our personal lives and convincing those that we can until anything different is a laughable and absurd idea. We get to a free society by advocating parents to not abuse children so that the next batch of people are capable of living in a free society and desire to do so. You cannot change public policy. You can change your life and your relationships. That is all you can change.
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Taxes are not voluntary. Else, it would be purchasing, donation, loan, etc. Government requires taxation or monopoly service. Else, it would be a be charity organization, business, co-op, etc. You are conflating terms by asking questions like "What if government had voluntary taxes?" They would not be taxes, and it would not be government. Otherwise, everything would work fine in a voluntary system as people still will want to pay for the services they want/ use.
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Dog training ..without punishment or intimidation
Wesley replied to Nielsio2's topic in Peaceful Parenting
I would like to show my appreciation for this thread. I grew up with dogs and did much of the training. I rarely used punishment and as a kid somewhat "saved it for the really bad things" like most parents say they do with their children. More recently (post FDR), I had been at my girlfriend's parents house where her parent's and her brother's dog are and I couldn't eve bring myself to punish in anyway and would just try to be respectful of the dogs and they always seemed to do pretty well with me. I still had some issues with leash pulling and such characteristics that I kept having the feeling that there must be a better way to so this rather than checking the leash every once in a while. I felt really bad when I would see them punish their dogs in various ways. My girlfriend and I are now looking to adopt a dog and so I did some research and thought I would check out this forum and got this thread which has some great solutions for only using positive reinforcement to train and how to solve potential behavior problems that may arise through training, play, or giving the dog a job. I am much more excited to do a sport or give the dog puzzles. It seems much more enjoyable than classic dog training. I have ordered a book and a couple clickers for my girlfriend and I to read more thoroughly before we get a dog and reference once we have a dog. Thanks for sharing these sources! (Plus a bump for any pet owners out there. I understand it works for some other animals too.) -
I would disagree. True curiosity has no end as I understand it. If I had an end, then I would not be being curious. Some people feign curiosity in order to manipulate/ work towards a goal, but I would not consider this to be curiosity. Lets take discovery as you said as an example. "I want to see what I discover" is the definition of curiosity which doesn't seem to be any "higher order purpose", but a way to restate the same thing. If I am trying to discover a particular thing, then it defines it out of curiosity by manipulating/working towards a goal and would not apply. Manipulating/ working towards a goal is not necessarily bad, but it is less curious and more of whatever that goal is. I also was slightly angry when I read the sentence "Are you satisfied with this explanation?" It felt to me like a condescending teacher asking a child if they now understand that 2+2=4 after the 10th explanation attempt. I may be right or wrong, but I felt anger and maybe a tinge of shame in reading that.
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Question about an interaction with my therapist
Wesley replied to Gnostiphile's topic in Self Knowledge
To me it sounds like she was pressured and didn't like being called out on an inconsistency. Emailing can be used by people who cannot admit they are wrong (and get called on something that they need to dismiss) in order to spend an inordinate amount of time crafting the perfect response. The "getting a room full of psychology students talking" is as much a flattery of you as it is a reassurance to herself that it is ok that she messed up and she should think about it in an email longer. At least this is what I would read based on what you sent, which may not be recollected perfectly. You should express your worry and that you feel manipulated by the situation. I find that the therapist's office is a great place to be blatantly honest about your feelings. It may bring up a block or situation in your past that you are not aware of.- 16 replies
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I am curious for curiosity sake. (or at least I try to be) I used to have more "direction" with how I wanted to take things, until I realize how often I was wrong. Now I just try to be genuinely curious when I do not understand things in order to see where things may go. I think curiosity is a great value to have and it leads to greater knowledge to admit you do not understand and then ask to try and find an answer. Not to mention that it often lets the other person feel heard as they can clarify and explain in their own words. Thus, I am still a bit confused by the "higher order purpose" and would enjoy a more thorough explanation.
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I was looking for that too, but couldn't find one. Odds are it was because the government wasn't recording poverty before then in any helpful kind of way, but that is just a guess. I'm sure someone made a dissertation on poverty for all of American history or something, but I wouldn't know where to find that.
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I think the US Census Bureau, but I cannot verify as the website is shut down. I did a Google image search for US historical poverty statistics graph and most of the charts look the same. You may be able to find some sources from there. Then you just need to know when the War on Poverty started and plot that point.
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I do not know of anything in particular. However, I believe Stef has made the offer to businesses or projects who come from FDR to contact Mike at [email protected] and he would give some free publicity to the project. This is a bit of a vague memory, so I apologize if I was mistaken. I also would say that most of the people in the entrepreneur side of things aren't big fans of the state anyway and view it as a hindrance. It only becomes a help once you get up to the mega corporation with a lobbying budget. Thus, almost any entrepreneur group should be decent at least from the business side of things, but again I may be wrong.
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There are forums I think that when you are making a new post, after posting the title, first couple lines, or something they automatically do a search for you and ask you from the list of topics whether any of these match the post you are trying to make. I am not sure if this is possible or worth it, but I am just throwing out the idea as a possible way to help cut down on rehashing the same topics over and over.
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My computer has 16 GB of RAM. I do not believe I spent too terribly long in chat when this happened. However, I can try the refresh (if there is a next time) anyway.
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NAP Doesn't Apply to Children, Says Walter Block
Wesley replied to Magenta's topic in General Messages
I feel angry and disgusted by this.- 15 replies
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Do you have a "higher order purpose" when you are curious about the feelings of others? Why would someone showing you curiosity as to your experience bring up so many negative emotions for you? I am a bit confused why someone asking you how you feel means there is something wrong with you. I often try to ask people how they feel with regards to a topic, especially when it deals with history or emotions in order to gauge their emotional response and never with the intention of controlling or manipulating or implying anything, but to be curious as to their experience.
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Is it "healthy"/"okay" to have a "cuckold" fantasy/fetish?
Wesley replied to Filosophize's topic in Self Knowledge
I am not sure how much it relates or not, but there is a podcast in the Bronze Premium section entitled "Polyamory and History" and it has very good reviews and may be relevant to this conversation.