Existing Alternatives

There is also Podcast #243: Reclaiming Masculinity that deals with the subject.

Forgive my technological ignorance, but I just discovered Podcast service on BlackBerry. For those who’s in the same boat, keep in mind that even though the Podcast icon appears on the screen, you still need to download and install the app itself. There is also a matter of setting up whether or not you want to use wi-fi or your cell network for downloads. Main advantage of using it over direct downloads, is that you can start listening to podcasts while the download is still going on.

http://t.co/Ycfe7zeD67 I came across this set of toy soldiers in a toy store. The whole concept of toy soldiers aside, the set comes with two colours (good/bad guys, I assume) and six flags. The flags represent: US, UK, France, Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Who do you think the good and the bad guys are?

Well, if the “linguistics professor” says it is so, who are we to argue?

What kind of relationship you have with this person? (Most importantly why?) Is your relationship of the kind that you can yell random stuff at each other? He seems to be doing just that! I don’t know if there is a room for a rational discussion here. But if you want a yelling match, you could come up with some interesting answers: Granted by who, exactly? So, you should only “move” if you disagree with the “original founders”, everything else is ok to dismantle? How exactly is it “backed” by my production? How do they know how much I produce? So, “private monopoly corporation” is a good thing? Insurance companies enter a contract to pay in the case of the underlying event. And yes, this makes them a risk management tool. And no, there is no such thing as “risk-free” If a bully steals your lunch money, do you have any recourse? Boycott? You can buy insurance for pretty much any event, including poisoning your water. Yes, there is such thing as bank insurance, despite being forced on people by government US does not have the lowest taxes nor the least amount of regulation. Technically 20th place out of 165 isn’t that bad. I doubt that is true for “every single measure of quality of life”. Name one! Was it too much? Sorry, but I enjoy yelling at idiots on occasion! Btw, your friend sounds very angry, he might have some deeper issues. Are you in a position to help him resolve those?

Too many possible answers... Some of them already covered - translation errors, polytheism influences, trinity. I will throw in “royal we” and, my new favourite, the “intentional contradictions.” There are many (was it 5,000?) contradictions built into the book to make it impossible to prove or disprove while appealing to the widest audience possible. Btw, while Trinity is the New Testament thing, technically speaking, it is still the same god, and the structure should not change from one chapter to the next. People who wrote the New Testament would have been justified to edit the Old one. There is also a matter of language inconsistences – there are many versions of Bible in English alone that vary widely in possible interpretations. On top of that, there are still so many other languages.

I can just see “affirmative action” police forcing lesbians at the point of the gun to copulate with men, and men with other men, while ensuring that none of the “interactions” is of the same race – brilliant! On a serious note, freedom of association is paramount – while you can force a lesbian to date men in the name of “equality” or “anti-sexism” or any other made-up or misapplied term, it does not make it any more moral – the key term here is “force.” I don’t see any abhorrence as far as personal preferences are concerned. It is not clear from your post whether or not you personally discriminate who you have sex with, but the moment you start forcing people into sexual relationship against their preferences, you enter the realm of rape.

Documents like “Our Processes”, Mission statements, etc. do not serve any particular purpose. Ultimately, everything relating to you is determined by your immediate manager (and everything relating to him/her is determined by his/her immediate manager). HR’s role is more of a lubricant, to ensure that nobody goes postal or sues the company. My advice – shut up and do the best job you can coupled with a fair amount of brown-nosing. Your job is to solve your manager’s problems, and not to question his judgments. I recognize that this is not your usual pep-talk, but it is the tough reality of working world.

I'm still in 200s, so my enlightment is still a couple of months away...[]

Wasn't familiar but it sounds a lot like state-sponsored terrorism used to strengthen the idea that governance is required. It is unethical and is what militaries/agencies do now. It could have been state-sponsored, although too many fairly influential anarchists called for it... Bakunin, Brousse, Berkman (and these are just the ones whose names start with B – not sure what’s the significance here). There is also a matter of Regicide (where the head of state is targeted), which weighs the argument away from state sponsorship. Agreed. What better term or subject/field do you think would encompass the principles of non-aggression and property rights? Agorism? Voluntarism? Golden rulism? Don't tread on meism? These seem to carry less violent baggage along with them. Its that common "law" that keeps people from butting in line at the market or forcing a relationship. It seems like the non-aggression principle and property rights are already preferable behaviour... seemingly universally in the private lives of people. What is that thing called? Maybe a contest for a new term is needed? Although all good labels tend to get hijacked and tarnished – look what happened to “Liberals”!

Btw, these are not the rates that YOU will be charged. These are the rates that GOVERNMENTS pay on THEIR loans. Since governments are by far the largest borrowers, this will create a trickle-down effect and *may* result in lower rates for consumers.

Negative yields aren’t that unusual. A number of government issues currently show negative yields (future returns / current price). Most of the time these are tiny short lasting dips, but there is no real reason why they should not last. Some of these examples include US, Germany and Netherlands. In addition to what Arius said, there is also a matter of (perceived) safety of certain governments. It demonstrates investors’ willingness to pay significant safety premiums. Especially now with all that’s going on in Europe many money managers flee Spanish, Italian and even French government issues (while driving their prices down and yields up). Some of them have mandates that limit their options to European government issues, hence the flight to safety of German bonds, for example. In these situations Treasuries have very little leverage and usually don’t deviate from markets by much.

Is there a similar process for BlackBerry (or other smartphones)? Other than downloading torrents on desktop and then synchronizing.

Both hoodies and hats look awesome. I want the hat.

Coming in late into this conversation… Maybe this has been already addressed, but I have not seen any evidence of it… I think there are three questions that need to be answered prior to starting the debate: 1. What do you mean by “absolute knowledge”? Does it even exist? 2. If atheists are required having it to make their case, would not theists be required having it as well? 3. If neither party has it, can they still use the labels?

You are (probably) correct: 1) One can say or even convince himself that he is 100% confident. That actually would be a pretty good definition of a “fundamentalist.” 2) I am sure there are plenty of 51% and 99% Atheists. If they focus on the “numbers” instead of the label, they would have plenty to debate about.

I don’t think I actually attempted to make any arguments at all in this thread. I merely stated the reasons behind my personal belief in response to your and Endostates’ questions, and RoseCodex’s helpful proposal on how to resolve some of the perceived inconsistencies.

I’ve been following this debate with great amusement for some time now. I think what STer is saying (pls forgive me if I'm wrong) is that we make most decisions in life not based on absolute truth, but rather on our estimate of what being presented is indeed truth. Every estimate has a confidence interval around it, as one can never be certain without complete evidence. For example, I am pretty sure the original asker (who seems to have received his answer long time ago, btw) is under 25 years of age. Why I say that, is not important. But what is important is that I am 80% confident that he is. Is there a chance that he is older? Yes! Could I be over confident? Maybe! Could somebody else be more or less confident in this estimate? Most likely! The reality is that I will never be 100%, or absolutely, certain of his age. Can I just ask him? Yes, but he can lie. Although, his positive answer will increase my confidence, perhaps, to 90%. Can I ask him for a birth certificate? Sure, but, you know, people forge those. Although, this will once again increase my confidence, to let’s say 98%. Can I perform some kind of DNA test? If he lets me, but even that could be faulty. At some point I will reach some crazy 99.99% confidence, but NEVER 100%. More thread-appropriate example would be that when an atheist saying “there is no God,” he is likely somewhere between 51% and 99% certain that God does not exist. Or, to flip that, between 1% and 49%, that God indeed exists.

My point here is less that the Universe is irrational, but rather that I am not in a position to comprehend whether or not it is. The theism vs. atheism conflict, in my opinion, has more to do with the tools you use to solve that. Atheist may use “rational theories,” theist may simply chalk this “incomprehensiveness” under “higher power,” or “Bob did it.”

Are you familiar with the concept of "propaganda of the deed"? The idea is to convince your opponents not by words or ideas, but rather "deeds," which would include assasinations, bombings and other terror tactics. It was developed and perfected by early anarchists. Also, the motto of the only libertarian / anarchic "country" that I am aware of (Free Territory of 1918-1921) was "Death to all who stands in the way of freedom." My point is that the subject and field of anarchy goes way beyond pure non-violent anarcho-capitalist utopia and has a very complex history. Whereas we accept it all or just a part of it is a different story. Whereas the label itself had been tarnished - also another discussion. I just don’t think we can conclusively state that there is no violence, irrationality or inconsistency in it as a whole.

That’s very good paraphrasing. I don’t think we have neither emotional nor intellectual capacity to “understand” everything. “Rational theories” may only begin to scratch the surface, whereas “irrational theories” help us accept the complexities.

I find Stefan’s interpretation of anarchism to be very rational and consistent, which is why I am attracted to it. For me it was the violence factor that got me over the fence from small-government libertarian to anarcho-capitalist. But Stefan’s ideas are, at best, on the fringe of anarchism. Anarchism in general is very violent and neither rational nor consistent.

Each asset in the investment portfolio has a purpose, which is usually determined by investor’s personal economic outlook and investment horizon. For example, gold is preferred when your outlook is negative (economic-collapse type of negative) and your investment horizon is long; Common Equity (stocks) is preferred when your outlook is positive and inflationary with an unlimited horizon; Cash works when your outlook is deflationary or horizon is short, and so forth. Investment decisions are highly personal and dependent on one’s level of comfort with the tools available. And ultimately, any combination of the assets may work for an individual portfolio. My feeling is that majority of members on this board fall into the category of “economic-collapse type of negative” outlook, hence, gold would be an appropriate asset to hold (in a portfolio along with other assets). The reason why gold is generally treated separately is that historically it has been used not only as a store of value, but also as a valid currency. This historic notion is what gives its value, nothing else. Industrial and jewelry uses has very little to do with it. If tomorrow, everyone decides that sea shells store value better than gold, or if someone uncovers huge deposits of gold somewhere, the value of gold will plummet to virtual zero. Gold buyers bet that the probability of either of the events is negligible. Silver is less reliable as a store of value for two reasons: there is more of it, and, most importantly, investors (such as central banks, which are by far the biggest holders of gold) do not see it as such. Having said that, some investors use both gold and silver as speculation vehicles betting on short term price fluctuations. And yes, there is a system in place for accepting gold as payment – it’s called barter. You can generally trade anything for anything. Under these conditions gold is used as a common denominator in the exchange. And yes, in the absence of paper money, you can always offer your wedding band as payment for your groceries – I’m sure storekeeper would be more than happy to accept it.

Short answer: not convinced. Long answer: I believe that the world we live in is way too complex, irrational and inconsistent. There are too many things that require significant effort to understand and be explained, be it at all possible. Thus, I think, there is a pretty good chance that a higher power, energy, whatever you want to call it, exists outside of our current realm of understanding. At the same time, even inside our minds we are full of irrationalities: we eat way too much carbs, stay up too late, drive too fast, maintain too many destructive relationships – why not throw in this one on top? But, having said that, I am not here to convert, convince, condemn or otherwise offend anyone.

Long time ago I started as a Harry Browne’s fan and a daily reader (first investment-wise then philosophy). Through him I discovered Ayn Rand and Ron Paul. First heard of this forum and Stefan at last years’ Liberty Now event. Have been making my way through the podcasts ever since. My major interest here is around peaceful parenting. Stefan was able to convince me about anarchism. Atheism – not so much. Looking forward to the debates. Please be nice, remember, I’m new!