Existing Alternatives

How did you find him? Any others you considered? I'm looking for one myself, but dont know where to start... Unionville is way too far for me...

We have been seriously brainwashed into getting into enormous debts to support these pyramid scheme called real estate market. Unfortunately, you are indeed powerless trying to overcome all that. Any argument you can make, regardless how rational, will be perceived as that coming from a kid who is yet to learn the “ways of the world”. At the same time, you said it, this is not your money, so… Just make sure your mom understands all costs and risks associated with ownership: likely to increase maintenance fees, taxes (also likely to increase), utilities (if not included), mortgage (likely to increase in 5 years), potential future problems with the neighbourhood, resale value (likely to decrease), transactional costs (lawyers both on buy and sell side, realtors, luckily only on sell side), plus, the general upkeep. In case you feel like being perceived as completely uncooperative smartass (I, obviously, do), you can always get her to take another look at the first picture (http://www.remax-premier.ca/listings/1262302-5-parkway-forest-dr-toronto-ontario-c2725528): the façade is crumbling (not a priority for the management company) and there are two security cameras in plain view (I bet as a response to being such a safe neighbourhood). At risk of beating the dead horse, I did a quick search on MLS and found this beauty http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=13480168&PidKey=-59303180 $1,500 a month. I'm sure you can find even better and cheaper properties in that area...

I never thought of that... Why is family considered the only people to go to in emergency... hmmm...

Rent! On top of all things mentioned above, you really need to consider three things: Flexibility. If you don’t like the building, neighbourhood, the country, if you rent, you can always leave on a month notice, even before your lease is officially over. If you own, you are stuck – selling a place at a good (not fire sale) price is a very long process. Plus, if the neighbourhood turning bad, you may not even be able to sell at any price. Monthly cash outlay. Mortgage + maintenance + taxes vs. rent. There is also a matter of utilities, but they could be included either with maintenance or rent, so you really need to figure it out. Your knowledge of the market. You mentioned your timeline is possibly 5 years. Do you know what the place is going to be worth then? Will you be willing to take a loss when you decide to sell, can you afford to? Also, be careful when forecasting your long term mortgage costs. Unlike our American brothers, Canadian mortgages are usually 5 years in term, meaning 5 years from now you are looking at most likely much higher interest rate and resulting higher payment. Specifically to Toronto. By any analysis and account the market is super-over-heated. Everyone agrees: banks, government, city, developers, everyone except for real estate salespeople. What can possibly sustain this market when there are plenty of brand new units being dropped on the market every month? Even more specifically, that building. There must be some reasons why it is so cheap: how old is the building? I would guess over 30 – it probably requires some serious capital repairs, which means huge increases in maintenance (btw, unlike rent, maintenance can go up by any amount each year). Also, Don Mills is not exactly the best neighbourhood to settle in. For the amount you planning on paying in all the related expenses, I’m sure you can find a nicer, newer condo in a better neighbourhood to rent. Even better, see if you can rent a place in that building and see if you like living there.

How would you go about testing it? (I have not read RTR yet) Very good point. At some point, it would probably be cheaper to buy simple insurance against whatever event you are preparing for. I am sure there insurance products out there, when someone will sit by your bed 24hrs. Although, I think the problem is with events that you can't plan for - rent obviously isn't one of them.

Any luck? Wonder if Christina can recommend someone in Toronto core... This guy, Ken Hundert (http://www.selfleadership.org/ken-hundert-toronto_practitioner867.html) seems to be the only one IFS-certified in TO. Does anyone know / heard of him?

Fair enough. Offense withdrawn. You are probably right. Having studied economics for quite a long time in the ivory towers of academia, I have never heard of the Austrian school. I came to it only by means of my political exploration. So the bias is definitely there. At the same time, Chicago school (Friedman, Hayek, et al), which in my view is well aligned with Austrian does get quite a spotlight. In defense of Keynes (yes, I just said that), he was a pretty clever man, despite some strange ideas. He himself admitted that his theories (and he had a number of them, often times contradictory to each other) were just that and were subject to rebuke. The fact that statists latched on to it is entirely different story. Sort of like socialists latched on to Marxism. My point here is that it does not hurt to study all of them, at least just to understand what statists are talking about. Although there is no way of ensuring that one discovers TRUTH at the end of this journey. All we can say that Austrians are probably right.

Resources - yes, money - no. If you pay me money to break my bike, the bike is gone and it may seem like a waste of money to you, but in reality you just made me a little bit richer.

Let me try and rephrase the argument: “When you get into real trouble, who will come to your help?” Once again, in every movie we see that: If you need rent money – you run to your parents If you are bed-ridden by an accident – your mom will spend days and nights by your side Your brother will (sometimes reluctantly) join you in your fight against the bad guys What do you think about these? And sorry for using movie examples, I am sure they show more than normal society’s bias.

Nobody cared for Soviet rubles by the end of the 80s, but people still care for US dollar. So, Soviets simply could not afford any more wars, whereas Americans can keep on borrowing (until China says “No”). Btw, to be clear, wars don’t “waste” money, but rather “transfer” them from society in general to companies that supply the war effort. In one of the recent podcasts (on Syria) Stefan pointed out that the vast majority of jobs created in the US over the last couple of year were in the “defense” industry, when the rest of the economy actually bled jobs.

Are we still talking about economics? I mean the social science that attempts to explain productive relationships among people and other agents in a society. If so, it does indeed consist of a number of various and often contradicting schools of thought, with none even pretending to claim being the only true explanation. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but even Mises and Rothbard can only present yet another theory that may or may not be a plausible reflection of truth.

All true, but let’s try this… “Remember that time when they really came through in a big way…” (followed by an example) Or, “I’m sure they will come through” (meaning, “what you experienced so far from them isn’t really that bad” I guess, I'm looking for a solid counter-argument. I like the "convenience" factor, but you can't really use it in the "future" events... True, blood also makes you blind in a sense of evaluating other people's virtue (not just in a pool) That's the problem. Here you have a baked-in answer, because they will come through.... The counter here is that those were not really tough times. If anything, those times would have made your relationship even stronger. "Pressure creates diamods" type of bs - it is always hard to argue with truisms. Once again, "this would make it even stronger" argument... Let me throw in another one on top: "Who will push your pushchair around if you are immobilized in some way?"

Have you seen the movie Premium Rush? Without getting into too many spoilers, in the movie two bike messengers are constantly competing with and undermining each other, but when one of them gets into real trouble the other instantly comes through. Because… that’s what bike messengers (apparently) do. I was discussing this movie with a friend and the conversations switched over to family (of origin). My friend used the movie to validate the idea that you should hang together with your family regardless of how much you dislike them, because, when the times get tough, they will come through for you. “Blood is thicker than water.” What do you think of this argument?

In Economics there is this concept of sunk costs. It basically refers to the fact that the amount of money you already sunk into the project is really irrelevant to the decisions you make now. If EE does not work for you, whether or not you’d get stuck with $60k debt should not have any bearing on your future course. At the same time, having spent countless years in school, I can attest that it could become boring and unrewarding after a while. In my outside view, engineering in general is one of those “neutral” disciplines that rely mainly on facts and science without many moral biases. Also, it pays quite well at the end. I would advocate “sticking with it”. But before you make a decision, you should really examine where this apathy is coming from – you could be just burning out, or you really don’t feel for electricity. Burn-outs are actually quite common in any field and should be examined just as such, and not necessarily as a sign for need for change. Could you take another semester off and do some introspection? See a therapist, travel the world, work as an electrician?

You could be right. Aside from violent and abusive methods, this could be just about getting an important life skill. I mean, some parents do get quite abusive when it comes to learning violin or something like that. At the same time, the fact that there appears to be a link between behavioural traits and handedness leaves me suspicious that there is more to it than just a way of holding a pen. This is why I am looking for an actual study either supporting or debunking the link.

I read somewhere that boys and girls learn best in different settings, for example boys prefer early learning to happen while lying on the floor, while girl sitting at the table. When these boys go to school their learning suddenly switches to the “girly” way. Imagine the confusion, left alone their propensity to succeed. Closer to the original post, I wish that child was old enough to ask, how his mother wanted him to act, like a girl?

The immorality of calling a child evil or forcing him to do anything is not in question. My concern is more about the psychological impacts after the fact. If there is some kind of effect on corpus callosum, as @kevin_beal, or maybe something else. I hope somebody somewhere did a study to show what happens to those little brains. Beating is one of those conventional methods, unfortunately. It would probably be difficult to separate the impacts of the "correction" from beating. Funny, wouldn't christians consider all children "evil", simply because of the "original sin"? Why single the lefties out? The problem isn't with acquiring a "useful skill", but rather forcefully changing one's possibly genetic predesposition. This is why I am looking for psychological or physiological impacts of such actions. On top of that, you can gather from the posts above the methods of the conversion are usually quite violent and abusive.

The purpose of a job is to provide you with a steady stream of income. It’s not meat to cause happiness. Being able to keep a job for longer than a year does speak about one’s commitment and is appreciated by future employers. At the same time, it is normal to constantly search for better (paying) jobs. One inherent risk with switching jobs, however, is the unknown – you really have no idea what the future job/environment/co-workers/bosses will be. There is also a matter of disposability – you are much more likely to get laid off from a new job than from the one where you spend longer period of time. For those risks you must be sufficiently compensated. Your business idea seems to require a lot of research and understanding of the market and regulations, left alone capital. Perhaps there is a reason why there are no cabs when you need them. As tasmlab pointed out in most cities getting a taxi license is an adventure that only highly connected corporations can embark on. Although, things could be easier in Houston (I mean, it is Ron Paul’s land, right?). Taxi industry in general seem to be highly regulated – beyond licenses, there is a matter of passenger rights, driving histories, insurances, etc. Cabs in some areas are apparently also controlled by mobs, so there is that. My advice: evaluate your new job thoroughly, jump if it pays MUCH more. If not – stick it with the old one. In the meantime figure out your business plan. The beauty of cabs is that you can do both, work your regular job and drive on the side. You can also use it as your personal vehicle. Good luck!

Apparently, one of the books on the petition list “To Train Up a Child” was an “inspiration” to a number of recent children’s deaths. Particularly the death of Hana Williams. In the book’s description on Amazon, they are pretty up-front about their methods of teaching the child “obedience.” So, this book will only appeal to those already in the “child abuse” camp. Another scary tidbit is that they do not “advocate” abuse in anger, but rather cold, systematic, pre-meditated approach. There is absolutely nothing wrong with petitioning, and there is obviously no obligation on our part. My concern here is more about the efficiency of such actions. These books exist because there is a market for them. And this is just one book that may or may not be pulled. Furthermore, there are other book outlets out there (albeit, Amazon being the largest one) for that type of nonsense to be disseminated.

I came across this pile of literature on possible effects of vaccinations. Maybe could be of use.

Wow, in Canada kids start school at much more mature age of 3.5. (Canadian children attend JK the year they turn 4, which means they could be as young as 3.5 as of September)

http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/When_Flanders_Failed/Quotes Season 3 Episode 38

Have you seen this thread? It might be helpful. To be fair, I am yet to come across a strong response to this. So far, the strongest ones were something along the lines of “Go where? State is everywhere” and “You have the right and moral responsibility to change your environment for better” (the abolitionists’ argument).

I’m torn on this: both @Carlip and @Nathanm make sense. Amazon carries a lot of morally objectionable material. We do have an option of not buying. Or, maybe even buying it, studying it and leaving a constructive review for all those abusers-to-be to see. At the same time, they constantly do pull all kinds of books because this or that group complained, so petitioning could be actually effective. The only problem with that, is that after this book there will be another and another after that, are you prepared to continuously scan the shelves at Amazon (and every other bookseller out there) for future petition-worthy material?

Thanks everyone for the input. Just for the record, I do not intend to “convert” my child. I am not sure what the actual practices are, but it does come across as a form of abuse. Especially, when the benefits aren’t quite that clear. My concern is that if left-handedness is indeed driven by some chemical / genetic peculiarity, wouldn’t reversing it affect such peculiarity. I recently found out that I was a “beneficiary” of this “conversion.” I have zero recollection of this, so I must have been fairly young. As the result, I am as right-handed as they come. Something must have snapped completely deep inside my brain. I did not know about dyslexia. It is indeed sad and outright neglectful to focus on some inconsequential “side effect” instead of the much serious problem. That whole “re-wiring of the brain” is what concerns me. There has got to be some issues coming as the result. Btw, didn’t Flanders’s Left Handed Emporium go broke and Libertarian party HQ moved into the property? (Ned: “I hope they have better luck”) Indeed, “smudging” seems to be the most important reason for this abuse. And yes, in this day and age even personal notes are entered into the smartphone. Did they actually use “left is satan” BS? I guess, Wikipedia should have been a good place to start, thanks. Spending time retraining can actually be considered a benefit. I heard somewhere that in general doing things with your less-dominant hand (yes, I went there) actually stimulates and develop other areas of your brain. I had to look it up, but that’s an interesting fact. Now this is the real question, whether Corpus Callosum is affected as the child gets remolded into more society approved orientation.