Existing Alternatives

You should absolutely take economics in school. Especially, if you are not planning on pursuing an economics-related major (i.e. business). I would not worry too much about Keynesian side of things because, on one hand, it is not likely to be taught on the intro level, on the other, if it is, you will learn enough of it to debunk some of its misconceptions. Keep in mind that Keynesian is just one of the many schools of economics, along with Classical, Austrian, Chicago, Marxist and many others. They all are based on the same foundations and frameworks. Personally, I think, those frameworks will allow you to improve your ability to think critically and rationally. Although, I would not recommend majoring in it. You will indeed end up having to prove that the state knows better how to manage your money for the next four years. And after that, there are no clear career paths. True, some economists (usually the very brightest ones) end up making a killing working for hedge funds or governments, but the rest get a career in business. At which point, you might as well study business. Don’t fret, most people change majors through school and end up working for yet something else. For the first two years take anything you feel you have a heart for.

Having a little bit of medical background particularly in the field of virology (orthodox medicine, if you’d like), I was always taught to be very open-minded about effects of any medication or internal ecology changes on the virus itself. Viruses are still extremely under-explored and there is no clarity of what they are, where they come from or most importantly how to combat them. It appears that viruses are very capable to adapt and even strive in changing ecologies. Most victories declared by the medical field have been proven short-termed at best. By extension, immunization has its own set of challenges: 1. With constant virus mutation any immunization effort is a catch-up defending against viruses that are no longer posing the most imminent threat (threat nonetheless) 2. Immunization does bypass usual immune system defenses signaling that there is no longer need to have certain guardrails in place, thus potentially lowering overall immunity of the body. This is all scientific in a sense that it’s all provable / disprovable and this subject is nowhere near being an open and shut case. Let me make myself clear: I am all for immunizations, but I am against ignorance, when people blindly state that whatever (government-paid) doctor says must be best for my body. My major beef is with immunization programs themselves. Some of them are plain forced upon populace, others are usually surrounded by enormous hysteria and fear propaganda. The whole swine flu debacle made me wonder: within days of the breakout (literally days), we still didn’t know what impacts this virus would have on our bodies; there was no way to develop a reliable and well-tested vaccine; the only way to grow cultures even remotely useful would be by including ingredients that we know are harmful to our bodies; the only company that is capable of manufacturing the vaccine has all kinds of problems with their plants; and yet the government already spent millions of taxpayers’ money on this substance, while spinning this huge campaign of fear. Hmm! It sounds to me that John’s comparison to War of Terror (I mean “on” of course) is very appropriate – it’s all just a huge money transfer from many to few.

I’ve read a couple of his books (The Ultimate Happiness Prescription, The Third Jesus, etc.). I find his approach to life in general to be very peaceful and relaxing. Most helpful piece of information I got out was to always check whether your opinion of others is simply a reflection of your own actions. I often find myself disliking someone just to realize that it was me being dickish and change in my attitude / actions may improve my opinion of the other person.

I’d say, don't worry about the “clean slate” and let them keep the loot. The current state of capitalism in the US was able to produce enormous amounts of successful producers in one generation, just imagine if the capitalism was un-impinged… The history suggests that most of the stolen fortunes are usually lost within a generation or two anyway and usually ruin the heirs in the process. There is a recent example of what you are “not advocating.” In 1990s upon fall of Communism in former Soviet Union, every citizen was issued a so-called voucher, which was supposed to enable him/her to acquire a piece of formerly common pie. There were three major challenges that almost immediately arose… 1. Valuating these vouchers – what is the value of the total property that was owned by the Communist system, which currency do you use (Russian Ruble was experiencing huge bouts of hyperinflation at the time), should the pieces of the pie be equal (some people lived productively in the country all their lives, others were just born) 2. Matching the properties with these vouchers. Let’s say everyone wants the oil refinery, but no one wants the “Ole’ Horse Whip” factory, is the refiner now worth 100% of all vouchers and Whips is worth zero? 3. General population knowledge – in the country where nobody had any private property before, people had very little understanding of what they were getting into. As the result, the whole system went crazy: those who figured out how to exploit it and bribe their way to most promising auctions became billionaires, vast majority of population sold their vouchers for a bottle of vodka in the best case scenario or ended up with useless pieces of wallpaper for their washrooms in the worst case. And this is an example of only distributing centrally-owned assets that were submitted voluntarily.

You may find this interesting as far as reasons for gold plunge go (or governments' interventions into banking). Basel III agreement has removed gold as possible liquidity carrier in a move regarded as effort to keep USD as the main reserve currency. http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/04/17/gold-will-get-the-last-laugh-on-central-banks/

This is perhaps a tasteless joke, but at least Canadians don’t stage “Rest in Shame” protests during people’s funerals. Being nice is just another form of propaganda in Canada. Having to travel back and forth between US and Canada on a very frequent basis, I seriously do not see any differences in niceness. At the same time, “nice” citizens are so much easier to rule, aren’t they?

You are effectively asking a power-hungry bully to relinquish some of her power… Best of luck! Are there lobbyists in Sweden? These folks usually know how to bribe a politician in a way that makes everyone feel good about it. Maybe you can raise enough money for that. If that’s not an option, you need to evaluate what keeps you in a certain country – maybe moving could be beneficial on more than just education options.

Stefan's book Real-Time Relationships http://www.lulu.com/shop/stefan-molyneux/real-time-relationships-the-logic-of-love-extended-edition/paperback/product-2367788.html;jsessionid=E53BD096563A8C2CA2681AC5B7A08DB0 http://freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks.aspx Gotcha! Haven't made my way to it yet...

Finally! Somewhat sensible analysis on the reasons behind the fall. According to this author it comes down to some countries (Cyprus and Spain) having to use their gold reserve as collateral for further bailout loans. http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/04/16/gold-inches-up-as-goldbugs-seek-reasons-for-historic-rout/

Looking at this , it feels like the most of homescholing is done for religious morals, It looks like your link is broken. But according to the Wikipedia article, I think, you were trying to reference, only 38% of homeschooling parents cite religion as the main reason. The narrative bundles moral and religious education together quoting 80% respondents. I cannot seem to find a reference to this. You would think that it is one of the reasons why people homeschool to provide additional perspective to the single-mindedness of government schools. I have not explored the concept of unschooling in depth, but it appears that it is set apart from homeschooling by the presence of a formal “curriculum.” To be fair, most people aren’t mentally equipped or ready to oversee child’s development without any plan or guide. This is where these curricula come in handy – I don’t think anyone advocates a strong adherence to them. Also, in many jurisdictions it appears to be illegal not to follow an approved curriculum.

Here is something… a bit of a hearsay, but still… http://etfdailynews.com/2013/04/15/how-the-gold-market-was-crashed/ Highlights: - Unusual FED’s transparency - Leak on Cyprus sale intent (not official information) - London system freeze - New York markets stays open past 5pm (since when?)

I’m sure everyone here heard of Ron Paul’s new project – the home schooling curriculum. I was wondering if anyone has any ideas and or details on it – the website seems to be very broad and is still building up to the September launch. Although, it already receives a lot of negative press. I was reading either in NYT or one of those rags how this curriculum will oppose “so-called government” schools (it escapes me why this is “so-called”). They also mentioned that it will focus on morals. And here is where it struck me that most people don’t understand what morals are. The rag automatically assumed that the morals will be Christian-based; I don’t think they can imagine any other non-religious morals. That is an interesting barrier for us (the movement) to consider and figure out a way to overcome. What are your thoughts on that? As an aside, when will we see the Molyneux curriculum?

Maybe like, "If you like government healthcare/subsidies/regulations so much, just move to the EU." Then perhaps ask them how the Euro's been doing lately. That's funny. I usually refer them to North Korea. I've seen an interesting study somewhere which compares not national averages US vs. Can, but rather regional. The mix of population is very different natonally, but there are certain regions that are very close both culturally and geographically. Some examples would be Greater Vancouver to Greater Seattle, or Saskatchewan to Montana / North Dakota, or New Brunswick to Maine. I don't have the numbers handy, but when I saw them, I was floored!

@Lightningrod, thank you for sharing this. @Alan, do you have a link to what he said the reasons for his recommendation would be? I am still not clear on the “why”. GS issued their forecast on Wednesday, the market started going south mid-Friday – there is no way 24-hr market would take that long to respond. On top of that GS has been shorting gold for some time now – COMEX saw a notable increase in short positions for the last three months. “US economy growth to accelerate”, “support for real rate” – What growth? What rates, near zero? In terms of issuing recommendations, it’s hardly worth considering – any given day there are tonnes of both “buy” and “sell” recommendations out there, extremely few of them ever hitting the target. Even them it has much more to do with luck than any kind of substantiated analysis. If you’d know how the market would move you would not be prognosticating – you’d be buying and / or selling.

You’re stuck, buddy! It seems like you KNOW that your wife is lying to you about something that’s explicitly important to you. What does it say about the relationship in general? If it’s not the case, then you should really figure it out where your daughter is getting these ideas from. There is also school, friends, books, etc. All that aside, your agreement is about “stating things as beliefs,” so, now it’s your turn. Have you made a compelling presentation to your older one about your “beliefs”? Presentation about atheism does not have to be anti-religion, or ridiculing anything. Perhaps, maybe even your wife would learn a thing or two about you and your belief and atheism. Disclosure: I’m not an atheist, but the question of spiritual influences on children is very dear to me.

Fantastic opportunity to be a buyer. Bring a bag, a truck, whatever you got – buy! Buy! Buy! The only reasonable explanation of this that I heard was Cyprus being forced to sell off their gold reserves to cover the costs of the bailout. Makes you wonder, if they had enough reserves to move the market like this, why did not they sell it in first place, why bother with the whole “haircut” bs? Isn’t it why they have those reserves to begin with? Anyone heard of other reasons?

Welcome! And hope you find this to be a proper outlet for your thoughts and discussions. It is indeed a lonely place to be an anarchist, so hope we can help with that.

Yep. Was pulled over for what I think was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Got pulled over, waited for two backup cruisers to arrive. One guy approached on the driver’s side, the other on the passenger’s leaning on a car with a gun drawn (I was clearly by myself). Was finger printed through a slightly opened window. Received a citation for driving without a license, despite having an out-of-state license, being a student from out of state. (They must have seen my license from the outside!) Next day went to DMV, got an in-state license, all charges dropped by a judge a week later. All-in-all, a fun day. Driving while downhill! That’s awesome!

Makes sense now! Thanks!

Provided that I have not been paying too much attention, the message strikes me as socialist because of the whole “we live as one happy village”, “we’ll do whatever the princess says”, “put yourself at great risk for the betterment of others” premises. What’s the little dragon’s relationship to Sparkle? Is he like an indentured servant? Ok, I get it, you are good at planting apples – so your whole personality is reduced to that? Is it also not your regular “labeling”?

I’ve never heard of “Bronies” before, but I do enjoy an occasional MLP episode. I watch it mostly because my 4-year old son really enjoys it. It is a big challenge for me, which would I prefer for him to watch: Transformers (macho, but very aggressive and violent) or MLP (feminine, but with subtle life lessons). I never really analysed the messages behind the show, but it always seemed a bit socialist to me. And what's with wearing your only strength on your... sleeve? And never mind the whole magic aspect of it… As far as finding an approving mate is concerned, well, if a woman were to leave you if you were to show her your true self, then maybe she is not much of a soulmate, is she?

Can you clarify how “initiation” is different from “use”? And how would that change the author’s point? Sorry, but I’m a bit confused - they both seem the same to me.

Disgusted? No. Concerned for that man’s sense of logic? Yes! He kind of lost me with the whole premise that libertarians can “usually say” things, which implies both groupthink and general inconsistence (all libertarians usually say the same thing; and usually they say one thing, but sometimes another). His examples are mind-blowing though – I had to read each of them more than once, just to grasp his meaning… This whole thing reminds me of the old podcast Stef did about orthodox jews attacking the conservative ones (or was it the other way around?). I’m assuming this guy is a Libertarian, because only a Libertarian will invest so much effort to put down another Libertarian. The question is why? So, you don’t think that non-aggression should be absolute, great, just don’t come to my house with a gun to demand for me to feed those starving children with your “tiny tax” argument…

I always wondered why none of these “leaked” documents were really “earth-shattering” or even news-worthy. Where is the 9-11-like stuff? It did put the message that secrecy has no place in government front and centre, though.

Ever since I started realizing the role and pervasiveness of violence in our lives, in no little part thanks to Stefan and this site, my interest in “action” movies has all but vanished. Most interestingly it seems to go beyond conscious – e.g. I enjoyed Expendables (pre-FDR), but had to stop Expendables 2 (post-FDR) half-way. Exposing oneself to violent imagery cannot possibly be beneficial to one’s mental health. As one experiences a movie one cannot help but project oneself into the action, which implies committing said acts. Is wishing someone dead unethical? I actually don’t know, but if it is, doing so while viewing vivid images of murder must be as well. I have not had much experience with violence in video-games (likely due to age – I actually recognize actors in Expendables), but am sure it is similar to movies with an additional factor of first party interactive experience.