Mister Mister

I have heard it argued by some, that the problem with a deflationary currency like gold or bitcoin, is that it screws debtors. For example, if you are a dairy farmer and you borrow $1000, at interest, but over the course of several years, the price of milk goes from $5 a gallon to $1 a gallon, you now need to do 5 times the work in order to pay back your debt. Does this make sense? Am I missing something?

I still go with slander and shaming

...also it says he committed suicide. doesn't really sound like a completely sane, rational authority.

Your use of the words inferior and superior need clarification. But my impression is, that this is not a philosophical issue, but an emotional one. The way you use the word "inferior" implies that you experience a visceral horror towards physical weakness. I'm just guessing of course, but I don't want to dwell on abstractions with you if the real issue is something else. What I mean by there being no good or bad in evolution, is that evolution describes what IS, whereas ethics describes how humans OUGHT to behave. To elaborate, evolution is a process whereby genes and organisms adapt to survive and procreate in different environments. There's nothing moral or immoral about this. Genghis Khan was very successful in terms of evolution, by committing mass murder and rape he propagated his genes across continents, and they have survived for many centuries. But we wouldn't call him a moral person. S Furthermore, there are conflicts of interest in the biological world, just like there are conflicts of interest in an economy. Saying something is "good/bad" for evolution is just like saying something is good/bad for the economy, it's mostly nonsense people use to claim their own interests and preferences as universal. What's good for mammals was bad for dinosaurs, what's good for rabbits was bad for many now extinct species in Australia, and so on. It's true that competition drives evolution as well as economies, although both involve a great deal of cooperation as well. Also, evolutionary traits are good/bad in different niches and environments. To take your chihuahua example, it's true a chihuahua couldn't survive in nature. Neither could most humans. But they/we didn't survive in isolation. Chihuahuas were bred for a specific purpose (sheep herding I think?), in a specific environment, to which they are well adapted. That's why there is such a thing as a chihuahua. When you call them "inferior" this has no meaning to a biologist, again I think you just don't like them. Which is fine, it's just your aesthetic preference, not ethics. But from the perspective of evolutionary biology, there is only superior/inferior, or good/bad with regards to a specific niche in a specific environment. Can I ask what do you think ethics is? Because it sounds like we are coming from different starting points. I really appreciate the question though. The dynamics between ethics and evolution are really fascinating and complicated, and are central to understanding the modern world I think.

great post Joel, and really touching and thoughtful response brucethecollie. I am curious if you can elaborate on this last part. In particular, do you think we should just treat boys and girls the same, and adapt parenting to their particular individual personalities? Or do you think it makes sense to have differing approaches from the get go, to prepare them for the unique experience and challenges of life as a man or a woman?

right, that's not exactly a debunking of the content, but a debunking of the value of this approach to "truth".

Perhaps, but it is put forward as an assertion, not a theory.

A conspiracy within a conspiracy within a conspiracy. Very sexy, I assume you will be forthcoming as to how you could know this.

There's no evidence to suggest that government is good at protecting your property. I'm guessing you've never had to call the cops about a property crime, or had to go to court over a dispute. And since the government takes your property by force in order to protect your property, the burden is on you my friend, to prove that governments are the only and best way to protect property.

to own land you must develop the land, and compete through claimstaking/homesteading with other people who might want to own that land. governments just draw lines on maps and claim taxes. this is an arbitrary distinction in property rights, between the citizen, who has to work and produce, yet still owes everything to the state that it claims, and the government, who just gets to claim whatever it wants. also, the discrepancy in enforcement is great. if someone owes you money, it is not acceptable to send an army to their house. but of course this is how the state enforces its debts. however I will say its fascinating that a statist would admit that government owns everything. I might add to the argument, the fact that governments not only tax people on land, but borrow against the future labor of people who will be born on that land. So this implies that the government owns not only the land but the people who are born in that land. Does this person agree with this as well?

these are two different things. there is no good/bad in evolution, and evolution has no bearing on ethics.

I was listening to that podcast, and I remember getting incredibly emotional when he was reading that poem, almost to the point of tears. I don't entirely know why. I did have to memorize that poem in 8th grade, but haven't thought that much about it since. great poem though

Ya this is so gross and infuriating. First of all, doesn't the fact that all the men run into the stall, presumably to stop what they assume is a violent assault going on, call into question the idea of rape culture? Secondly, like dsayers pointed out, the parents completely failed in terms of identifying a potential predator, and establishing the secure bond which would give the girl confidence to resist, or at least tell her parents, which I'm assuming she didn't, she kind of skips over this so I don't know. But they use this girl's horrible, tragic story to promote their bullshit anti-male propaganda, rather than ask the questions that would actually lead to less rape. Because there is absolutely no difference in psychology between you or me or your average man, and the kind of monster who would rape his 13 year old cousin. Drives me fucking nuts. Also what does it mean at the beginning, "Rape is the only crime in which the victim becomes accused?". I assume they are talking about a woman's character coming into question when she makes an accusation? I've heard a lot about this, obviously a common strategy for defense attorneys (like Hillary Clinton), but also allegedly cops and judges as well? Is there substantial proof of this being widespread practice beyond the odd anecdote? Also, what does this have to do with the story in question?

oh I'm sorry, I misunderstood, because of Ano's comment "The guy consuming without contribution is arguing that it is ok to consume without contribution? I'm absolutely shocked." I assumed that he had read in an earlier post that you were taking state benefits. As for your initial question, I think dsayers explained it the best. The point is to explain the reasoning behind many peoples' hostility towards immigration, beyond racism and xenophobia. In the same way that fear of young black men in America is partly due to their statistically rate of violent crime, and isn't necessarily racist. In fact, I think if we can't talk about this stuff openly, it will lead to more hatred and violent conflict between native and immigrant populations. If you suppress legitimate anger, you only prolong and escalate violence.

My understanding is that it has very little effect on most people, which makes sense as we have such a long evolutionary history with domestic cats. That said, once my mother got partial blindness from Toxoplasmosis, and needed surgery.

@Torero being dependent on the government, or on anyone, for that matter, unless you are a child, is incredibly corrupting to one's character. I've never been dependent on the government, but have on my parents, which is similar in many ways. As soon as I made the commitment not to be, I became independent in short time, and have benefitted greatly from it personally. also, I think people can tell your lack of integrity to the values you argue, whether by explicitly knowing your story and history, or through non-verbal cues demonstrating lack of confidence. so I can't accept that you are taking government money as some sort of statement, but rather I think that you are accepting a poisoned apple out of convenience, at the expense of corruption. I would strongly urge you to detox yourself of this poison before the corruption becomes permanent.

I totally agree with you Torero! And I take issue with many assumptions of QM, and the pattern in the last century, of using abstract theoretical mathematical "objects", as ad hoc solutions to equations which don't jive right, i.e. strong/weak nuclear forces, virtual particles, dark matter, dark energy, black holes, string theory, and so on, not to mention the Big Bang itself. To me, the issue is, that most physical models are built off of "objects" in Space, then more complex concepts like fluid dynamics, angular momentum, and so forth, are built off of that. The basic assumption that drives nuclear physics, is the idea that matter is built from fundamental particles, which carry some objective property, which is responsible for the seeming solidity and consistency of matter and energy. What others have suggested, and what I hypothesize, however is that seemingly solid physical objects are an appearance created by continuous spiral motion, and that it is not a fundamental particle at the foundation of reality, but a fundamental pattern, regardless of scale. But the actual mechanics of how the incredibly consistent and ordered qualities of matter, such as spectral lines, chemical properties, hardness, color, crystallization, mass, charge, attraction, repulsion, and so on, can be created by continuous motion, are not well understood. Maybe this should be moved to a new thread, as we have drifted far from the original topic, but I wanted to give some examples of some empirical observations I've seen that would help us to discover how this process works, and be able to DEMONSTRATE it to the layman, rather than patronizing, oversimplified stories, based on non-falsifiable mathematical abstractions. "Electron" moving down a wire. Appears to be more like ripples on the outside of a wire, than billiard balls rolling down a pipe Tungsten atoms under electron microscope I was struck by how they look like standing waves, ripples in a pond Light & Color An old video, but some cool ideas, especially the TWO color spectrums, one from diffracting light in a dark room, the other from diffracting darkness in a light rooom, also the experiments at 35:00 really blew my mind, and are as compelling as the double slit experiment to me Gyroscopes by Eric Laithewaite, especially the experiments in the second half of the video This one is also cool, shows the connection between rotation and mass Cymatics experiment with sand on a plate, maybe demonstrating some principles of crystallization? This one shows different "forms" simulated by a fluid medium in continuous motion Toroids again, a simulated form maintained by continuous motion Cool Tumblr on Fluid Dynamics Jay Harman and Vortex Engineering potential advances in engineering using vortex forms from nature

An honest person would say "you're right, I was exaggerating. to be more clear, I should say..." and either recant or reclarify their statement. This is what I meant when I said you don't know how to talk to people.

Ok, I don't know why you're yelling at me. Do you mean that businesses won't consistently set prices below their cost of production? Yes that seems pretty logical to me, again I don't know what we're arguing about. I can't say what a hypothetical painter would or wouldn't do, but there are many artists who don't make a profit, it's called a hobby. Not all human decisions are about monetary profit as I'm sure you know. Also I don't know how you can say the State is a specific type of capitalist land owner. Do you not understand the differences? Because they are very significant.

I hear what you're saying, and of course I agree patents are bad. But I kinda get a consequentialist tone from what you are saying, that we need to justify private property and free trade by arguing that the results would be more "equitable", satisfying the socialists' objectives. Even if this is true, freedom isn't dependent on others' idea of a perfect world, but on the acceptance of rational ethics which can be understood and practiced by most everyone.

I don't understand what it means to measure "electrons" in a laboratory...what is actually physically going on from a layman's POV?

I worked with a Puerto Rican guy briefly, and was quite shocked when he told me that he used to be a cocaine dealer, and had beaten and tortured people to get money they owed him. But he had confessed his sins before the Catholic Church and told me Jesus had forgiven him. I wanted to ask "were you also forgiven by the people you harmed?" but I didn't. But I think you are right, I've heard many people with stories like this, which leads me to believe that religions like Christianity, among other things, serve as an emotional coping drug for abusers. In fact, one of the biggest objections to Jesus' gospel is "turn the other cheek", which basically says, offer yourself up for more and more abuse, again and again. No thank you.

Yes but apparently Secret Torture is okay with Jesus

The LTV is demonstrably false because value is subjective. A good is valued by an individual based on their belief in its ability to satisfy a particular want, and where that want ranks in their hierarchy of wants at the moment. The amount of hours of labor put into producing that good is irrelevant, its not as if you magically imbue your labor into matter. Can you measure the difference between two identical items, one of which took 10 hours to produce, and the other which took 1 hour? Will's example of the "vase" is very illustrative. If no one is wiling to give anything up for the vase, even if I spent 70 hours piling clay together, then it has no value. Any sane artist knows this - the amount of time you put into your work does not mean people are willing to give something up for it. And by imposed hierarchy, you mean an established business? Many members of this board have higher up positions in business, are you openly saying you would use force against them? This is what I don't understand, you've also said that "worker"-run businesses are more effective, but you aren't willing to compete fairly with them? You have to use violence? Well I'm sorry, but this makes you my enemy. I've really tried to give you respect and consideration, but if I understand you rightly, you've shown your hand and I can't take you seriously anymore.

Hi Robert, welcome. Can I ask what you mean by liberal? And I'm so sorry to hear about your history with discrimination. Would you care to tell us more?