Wesley
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Posts
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Posts posted by Wesley
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Well, I wanted to present a sort of pursuit of knowledge/truth (when I'm writing it, it sounds so shallow). The angel figure being a guidepost, representing fdr, pointing to less obvious direction than the regular path. The knowledge is represented by the light. I wanted to "place" the viewer on this road through the perspective. And I guess I messed the concept up. Next time I will try to express my message more clearly. Cheers!
I don't think it is possible to mess up a piece of art, especially one that has personal value.
Regardless, I do think this piece has meaning to me.
Traveling through shadows in a valley feels to me like a large journey of self knowledge (going deep to explore what is in the shadows) in order to reach the area of light, aka enlightenment.
This may not be exactly what you intended, but I still very much enjoy it. Thanks for making this piece and please make more!
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It'd be great to meet some like-minded people in my area! Anyone who lives near Boston or the southern New Hampshire area shoot me a message.
Just in case you didn't notice, you should take a gander at the low bar of the page and click on the MeetUp link in order to start/join any meetups in neighboring cities. If you already did this, then pretend I didn't say anything!
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Negative reinforcement is modeling behavior by the use of punishment, positive reinforcement is modeling behavior by the use of encouragement, recognition, compliments and other positive attitudes.
It probably doesn't matter to your argument, I just wanted to say that this isn't exactly true.
Positive Reinforcement: Give someone something they want for doing an action. ie: Here is a tax break for supporting our political campaign.
Negative Reinforcement: Take something negative away (or the threat of something negative away) for doing an action. ie: I will take away a giant increase on taxes for your firm since you supported our political campaign.
Positive Punishment: Add something negative to discourage the behavior. ie: Since you supported my opponent, I am going to raise the taxes for your business
Negative Punishment: Take away something positive in order to discourage the behavior. ie: Since you supported my opponent, I am going to take away the subsidy from you that the other businesses in your industry enjoy.
Here is a chart from wiki if that helps more:
The vocab terms at the bottom here are the most helpful in discussing this topic, I think. -
wait......you mean everyone doesn't have all the podcasts saved to their iPod?
I mean, there are new people who just found the show today....
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Time to go boot up my torrent seed for anyone who can't go that long without their fix.
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FDR 440 - Sunday Call In Show (10/1/2006)
2:04:19 The Morality of Flashlights
http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_440_Call_In_Oct_1_2006.mp3
Just in case anyone cares for Stef's opinion on the question from 8 years ago.
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Good luck, dude.
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I am now far far dumber for having watched that video...
Oh no! We can't be having the brains of the operation getting dumber!
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Hang on, wasn't it mothers day recently.. Ding!
Oh, whoops. I guess I missed it.
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The mining pool is more powerful than the top several hundred supercomputers combined.
I think you do not understand the meaning of the word "specialize" in this context nor understand the costs associated with competing with an entire network.
Finally, the blockchain is at best pseudo-anonymous. Regardless, the idea that people can exchange money for goods and services doesn't make money a problem and is the point of it. "Gun-running" only exists because of state bull-shit and the dollar will be used for the foreseeable future in the vast majority of criminal activities.
I am going to recommend again that you start with an understanding of the basics, like what a blockchain is, what proof of work is, what the cryptography behind bitcoin is, what vulnerabilities exist in bitcoin and what the actual odds or likelihood of those things happening are. So far, all of your concerns show that you do not understand the basics or what fixes or checks are in place to prevent such things from happening. There are a lot of free and easily accessible resources available out there for understanding these concepts.
I would be happy to explain concepts or clarify things, but these broad assertions without understanding the basics are rather tiresome.
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There is no supervisory human. It is a cryptographic idea called Proof-of-Work.
There is a maximum number of bitcoins and it could never be raised.
Besides further reviewing bitcoin concepts, I also think you have some work to do on what a money is and how goods are priced in it.
Again, you seem to not understand the basics and are already trying to jump to long-term consequences. I encourage you to spend some significant time with the basics first and make sure you understand those thoroughly, and then try to apply them to complex and future possibilities.
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I can tell you have no idea what bitcoin is or why it is unique. I have a Bitcoin: Getting Started thread in my signature. Once you kind of have an idea what it even is, I will be happy to answer more specific questions.
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It seems to be understood among FDR folk that telling children there is a god is lying. Google gave me two definitions for the noun, lie.
an intentionally false statement."Mungo felt a pang of shame at telling Alice a lie"synonyms: untruth, falsehood, fib, fabrication, deception, invention, fiction, piece of fiction, falsification; More- used with reference to a situation involving deception or founded on a mistaken impression."all their married life she had been living a lie"
Can I assume that here, people use the second one? People telling children there is a god are only lying, if lying includes saying something founded on a mistaken impression. If the definition is limited to intentionally false, then a large chunk of these people would not be lying as they genuinely believe there is a god.
Why is this distinction important to you?
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I've recently been learning about Bitcoin, including SM's conference video. I can follow the very big points along with the supporting smaller points.
One thing nags at me: this is a human endeavor. Doesn't that always ultimately suck in the usual tricksters and vipers, in ways never appreciated or foreseen* in the early days? It's the feeling that Bitcoin is saying "we've figured out a way to circumvent human nature!" My intuition isn't buying it. I'm not referring to it's purchase value now, or especially it's revolutionary value. I'm just thinking about any revolution I can think of, what happens a few years down the road....
(*With the internet age, foresight is now in abundance. It can still be ignored.)
I am not sure what you are referring to. If you mean that you feel that human nature can be circumvented by math and algorithm, then it already has been. 2+2=4 no matter what anyone else says or does. If you mean something else, then I would be interested to have it explained more so I can understand what you mean.
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Pope Francis made his first public plea for forgiveness on Friday for the “evil” committed by priests who molested children, using some of his strongest words yet on the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis.
The Argentine-born pontiff said the Church, which last month named a high-level group on the scandal including an abuse victim, had to take an stronger stand on a scandal that has haunted it for more than two decades, and indicated there would be repercussions for perpetrators.
“I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil that some priests – quite a few in number, (although) obviously not compared to the number of all priests – to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children,” he told members of the International Catholic Child Bureau.
“The church is aware of this … personal, moral damage carried out by men of the church, and we will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem, and to the sanctions that must be imposed.
“On the contrary, we have to be even stronger. Because you cannot interfere with children,” Francis said in unscripted comments as he addressed the children’s rights body.
The comments, originally in Spanish, were translated by the Vatican Radio news service.
Francis did not specify whether “sanctions” would be church-enforced or involve civil justice authorities. In February the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child accused the Vatican of systematically turning a blind eye to decades of abuse and attempting to cover up sex crimes.
The scathing report urged the church to immediately hand over its records on the abuse of tens of thousands of children, immediately remove anyone suspected of abuse from their post and refer the matter to civil legal authorities. The Vatican called the report unfair and ideologically slanted.
Francis’ words strike a different tone to comments he made in March to an Italian newspaper in which he defended the church’s record.
“The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution that has moved with transparency and responsibility. No one has done more, and yet the church is the only one that is being attacked,” he was quoted as saying by Corriere della Sera in comments decried by victims’ rights groups.
“JUST TALK”
Criticism that Francis has not taken a bold enough stand on the issue, and did not meet sexual abuse victims in Italy and in a July trip to Brazil, has been a rare black spot in the overwhelmingly positive response to the pontiff in the 13 months he has been in office.
In particular, abuse groups have called on the church to discipline bishops accused of moving known child molesters from parish to parish, allowing abuse to continue.
“It’s nice to have expressions of concern. But actions need to happen, and people have been waiting an awfully long time for that to occur,” said Terry McKiernan, founder of BishopAccountability.org, which documents abuse cases.
“The best thing he could have done today would have been to step up to the microphone and announce that he is beginning to remove bishops who have behaved criminally in keeping priests in ministries where they don’t belong, moving them around so that they continue to be a danger to children.”
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which advocates for child protection and urges greater transparency in the church, said Francis’ words should be received with caution.
“We beg the world’s Catholics: be impressed by deeds, not words. Until the pope takes decisive action that protects kids, be sceptical and vigilant,” SNAP Outreach Director Barbara Dorris said.
“This may be the first time a pope has talked of sanctions against complicit bishops. But that is all it is: talk.”
Under Francis’ direction, the Vatican announced in December the creation of a new dedicated group to help the church deal with the abuse crisis. Its members were named in late March.
The body of clerics and lay people includes Marie Collins, a survivor of abuse in Ireland in the 1960s who has campaigned for the protection of children and for justice for victims.
Collins, a founding trustee of the Irish abuse victims’ organisation One in Four, has in the past pushed for punishment for bishops who failed to implement church rules on the protection of children.
Child abuse litigation has cost the Catholic Church some $3 billion (1.7 billion pounds) in settlements in the United States alone, and shaken the moral authority of leaders of the world’s largest religious denomination.
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I would just like to provide a quick update that it is April 9th and the world's population seems to be relatively stable and no massive disease is spreading and killing billions of people.
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For all of the old stuff, people should also use the torrent links on the podcasts page. That is a great way to spread out the bandwidth costs onto people's already existing internet plans and doesn't cost additional.
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Empirically, I don't know anyone who acts like they don't understand their pets. I mean, we all actually project human traits onto our pets!
Projection is very much not understanding. It is specifically not even knowing about the other entity, and just projecting your own stuff onto them.
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Saying you understand "X" pre-supposes that you think you understand "X"
Saying "I understand 2+2=4" means that you think 2+2=4
"I think I understand my dog" means the same thing as "I understand my dog."
Ok....
If we continue going around in circles I will not want to continue posting here as it will only frustrate me.
You seem to pick out small bits of my posts and address them while skimming over the main points and content.
I have pointed this out a few times and would like to point it out again.
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"I think I understand my dog" does not mean "I love my dog"
I think I understand Hitler" does not mean "I love Hitler"
You also are saying that I cannot love a frog, but if it was a pet then I could. What magically changes about an entity when it becomes a pet? There is a lot of ambiguity entering here and it is making me more confused rather than less confused.
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They can't understand something that they don't experience. Their understanding of us, is equivalent to our understanding of a frog; not a very high level
So your argument now is that nobody can understand anything to a high level that they do not experience themselves? By this argument I could understand nothing except myself and no one could every understand me.
If you say that something can be close to my experience and still count, then where is the arbitrary dividing line? Frogs and I both eat and breathe. Are you saying I can love a pet dog but I can't love a pet frog?
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Well, not exactly because I don't think it is on the right track. I have always been partial to how Stef defines love.
Love is the involuntary response to virtue.
Understanding I would consider to be a possible and small component of what is necessary in order to recognize and respond with love to virtue.
As I showed above, there are many possibilities where one could understand things, in actual or theoretical terms and it does not necessitate love.
I was only trying to show you that understanding was not the right path. In fact, a torturer or manipulator can fully understand you and your motivations in order to use them against you and may not even be capable of love, just as another example.
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Yes, let's exclude abstract concepts. Although I do love the fact that 2+2 reliably always equals 4
Your definition, as it stands, includes them. Your definition needs to be changed in order to correct it.
[insert motherland]coin
in Libertarianism, Anarchism and Economics
Posted
Well, if projects like Ethereum are successful and have altcoins built with turing complete programming languages, different systems will actually be able to implement sets of laws within code and people can choose which rules they want to abide by and participate within that system.
I forsee a large amount of experimentation in this sort at this time and will be excited to see what results from it.
PS. For anyone who doesn't know what turing completeness is, it came from a computer scientist named Turing who listed a couple commands that would be needed and if those existed then you are able to accomplish anything. Almost every programming language you can name is a turing complete language. However, within a cryptographic structure and blockchain-enabled system like that of bitcoin it allows things like systems of rules, smart contracts and property, digital autonomous corporations, and many other possibilities that have not even been imagined.