DFPercush

The "you like " part raises a flag for me. Would that be a strawman - to make a claim about dsayers' motives? I think there is a non manipulative way to ask the question: "Why do you often say that others are being manipulative?" I think that would express genuine curiosity. Even better, would be to ask about the specific topic and say "Why is my argument manipulative?" But yes, I agree, given the way it's phrased.

Frequency: Once Severity: minor Can recreate? Not so far. Easy to work around: yes Clicking on the emoticons button in the chat window, makes the list appear, but instead of the various icons to choose from, there is only a message saying "no permission" in place of the first item, and the background of the list is transparent. Not 100% certain, but I think it was happening from the first time I tried to expand the list during that session. I had previously manually typed : bunny : which showed up in the chat log properly. This also came after other people had posted the : bunny : icon (we were breaking out in dance ^^) After that, when I clicked on the emoticons button, that's when I got that message. Refreshing the page fixed it. Refreshing, typing : bunny : and then opening the list did not recreate the problem. I have not managed to reproduce the glitch since then. This is the button element in the toolbar: <span unselectable="on" real_type="button" mode="normal" editor_id="message" cmd="emoticons_custom_menu" id="emoticons_custom_menu" class="ipbmenu rte_control rte_button rte_normal" title="Emoticons"><img unselectable="on" src="https://board.freedomainradio.com/public/style_images/overlayblue/rte_icons/emoticons.png" alt="Emoticons"></span> ...and this is the list element which shows the permissions error: <div style="position: absolute; z-index: 9999; top: 747px; left: 304px;" id="emoticons_custom_menu_menucontent">nopermission</div>

I had an uncle I was very attached to as a child, who died when I was about 10. I was surprised at myself, actually, at how stoically I took it when I heard. I made it through the visitation, funeral, and those days in general without any reaction at all. But then, suddenly, riding in the procession on the way to bury his body, I just lost it. I guess the reality of it hit me then. Let me give you a quote from an anime I'm watching called Planetes: (spoilers) "When you lose someone you love, there's no sadness. And there's no grief. You just don't feel anything. Nothing at all. You really don't think about it. It isn't good to think about it too much anyway. And you eventually have to say goodbye to everybody. And you don't know if that time will come sooner or later. ... If you don't think about it that way, it hurts, too much." Episode 10 "A Sky of Stardust" roughly 10 minutes in

How is your physical health? If you don't already have one, an exercise regimen can help you have a more positive outlook, more energy, and better concentration. A healthy body yields a healthy mind. I've just started getting back into it myself, but I can already tell a difference. I'm so much more eager to sit down and code, and I'm not so caught up in self analysis or worrying about whether I'm going to succeed - I just do what I need to do. Starting an entrepreneurial venture is a daunting task. I can't really speak from a position of success just yet, and I'm younger than you, so take that as you will. But just take a divide and conquer approach. One of my first jobs was at a motorcycle dealership and I remember having to completely re-sort an entire wall of helmets. I dreaded it at first and it seemed overwhelming, but my boss said that to me (divide and conquer) and so I just started pulling out one small section at a time. Of course my knowledge of sorting algorithms helped. Anyway, I got done a lot faster than I thought I would, because I had a plan, and all I had to do was take each small step at a time. If it's just you in your basement with little overhead (describes me) then you don't have to stress about deadlines so much. Just make sure you're putting in the work every day, with down time as needed, and monitor your milestones. You could be a great father with a home office setup. But you do need to commit to a plan. Get on a dating website, or go speed dating, or just go on the prowl, and just be honest about what you want. Don't feel like you have to be the model disposable male. Tell the woman your plans, and be shameless. "Hi, I'm looking to find a woman to start a family with, here's what I want, would you like to explore a relationship?" Your resolve will make her want to follow you. And if she doesn't, she's not the right one. She might have to help with the income at first, but it's not that unusual for both partners to be working this day in age. Just tell her that might be necessary at first, but that you're working to make a more secure future for the both of you. I would definitely talk about who's going to nurture the kids in the early years though, and arrange the finances of that first stage. If your savings can cover the breast feeding stage, that's all you really need. Anyway, that's some advice that a friend gave me last week, and it really gave me a new perspective. I hope it's somewhat helpful to you. Now I just need to follow it myself Best of luck to you. Let us know how it goes. PS As far as the betrayal thing, I think you can take a silver lining from that. Because now, when people reciprocate and treat you right, you'll appreciate it. Make sure you tell them that. You have to teach others how to treat you.

What's important is not where you are, but the direction you're going. "It's how you chose to respond to the truth and act on it." -Kevin I agree, but with a caveat. I think if someone presents something that's technically true, in a mean spirited or abusive way, you're not obligated to listen to them. But if you can extract the message of truth from their bitter vitriol without self attacking, then you get props for that. That also means we have a responsibility to present the truth with empathy and compassion, but still have firm resolve against the excuses and sophisms of a sick culture.

The link is broken for me - it just takes me to my feed. Are the pics posted anywhere else, or could someone link them individually as in Saarl's post?

That makes sense. My main beef though, is when those journals are the only place publicly funded research is published.If the individual teams and authors make their results available freely through other means, no complaint at all. But there's a coercive system set up around these journals which is what I'm complaining about.

Not a bad idea, dale_edg, I thought about doing that. Anyway, I guess I'll post my thoughts at this point, for the record. (I would say my final thoughts, but there's no such thing in my book.) I was attempting to use a consequentialist approach to argue for morality by outcome. I probably didn't do a very good job, and I let myself slip into internet attack mode at times, so sorry about that. I thought about ways to argue that voting is not legitimizing the system. However, the longer I think about it, the more difficult it becomes to escape that point. I thought that maybe the intent and awareness of the voter matters, but it really doesn't. Even if one is not happy about it or thinks he can outsmart the rulers, voting indicates one's acceptance that this is the way it must be. At first I didn't understand why dsayers brought up the point that I've heard Mr. Molyneux make, that "when you think you have the answer, you stop looking for the right answer." But I think he's trying to say that all the effort that politically active libertarians spend on trying to get people elected into the system, could be better spent educating and living your values. And if we're going to preach that the state is evil, to vote would harm us by displaying hypocrisy to those we are trying to reach. I find that to better understand things, sometimes it's necessary to take a journalistic approach and advocate for the opposite position. It's too easy for me to get sucked back into a statist mentality when I'm around the people from my past who put those ideas into me. I needed to see how more experienced voluntarists deal with these kinds of objections, so that I can harden my resolve and sharpen my wit around them. Thank you guys for playing that role. I can't say that I never believed any of what I said up there, because that is where I'm coming from. But you've basically been talking with the me from two years ago. I just want to remove all doubt and deal with my own personal ineptitude before trying to be a real voice among my community. An arrow flies further the longer you draw back the bow and all that. Anyway, maybe I'm just rambling trying to save face, but I hope this somewhat conveys why I came here and started all that. Hope it doesn't count against me too much. Cheers. P.S. I still don't know exactly what's going on with the OP. Is withdrawing from the EU something that everyone gets to vote on, or do you have to elect some asshole who's going to support that position? Sorry for hijacking your thread.

I could write a book for all the different directions this conversation is going, and I'm not quite done yet, but I'd like to get your response to one thing, dsayers, before I go any further. "Not voting IS casting a vote."Do you think that different people will interpret the meaning of this in different ways, and does that matter? You know it'll just get spun around to the advantage of the powerful. But at least we'll have a clear conscience, is that it?

I took it personally when you said "when you think you have the answer, you stop looking for the right answer." The last paragraph was talking about my feelings more than discussing actual philosophy. I should have made that clear. Maybe that's not how you meant it. "Are you suggesting that voting is immoral, except for you?" Not at all. Could you provide the quote that suggests that? "To grant permission to (vote for) somebody that will do this is the initiation of the use of force." Why??? This is what I want to talk about, but then you go "also" and start talking about something else. Could we maybe focus the conversation on this claim? (begin edit) This requires that the president is responsible for every action committed by government, but he's not. He is responsible for the policy decisions he makes. (edit #2) And if those policies involve raising taxes, criminalizing things, then yes the chain of culpability follows. (/2) If he starts a war, then yes, responsibility can be linked back to John Doe voter. But if the guy is cutting programs, then John Doe can proudly say "I helped end the Department of Education" or whatever. (end edit) Leaving the situation = not voting? In any case, I am trying to stop it. You can say I'm doing it wrong, but I think anyone that would be posting on here is trying in some way. I might be an idiot but I try. "If you think you can infiltrate a corrupt system and convert it to virtue" Ah, but that's not what I'm saying. I listen to the shows too, so I'm familiar with this line. That's why I said "I'm not saying that the end game for libertarians is the election of libertarian politicians, because at some point, it's still the state. I get that." So put guy #3 in the arena, and then call the police (for your rape analogy). Or maybe dial 911 while you tell the gang leader to put guy #3 in. Something like that. But surely don't stop at choosing #3. What if there was a "none of the above" option on the ticket? Would that change things? And for edit #3: I can see where you have a case in that it is extremely unlikely that all decisions made by one president would be of the nature of reducing violence. It would probably be a mixed bag. But that's no more or less speculative than a 3rd party president in the first place. Are we willing to run the experiment? Anyway, I just thought about that point, so I'm going to give the thread some time and come back later.

I see one other possibility. He thinks it's likely that one of you will steal her from him. So that's an issue of trust. I couldn't stand it when I was in school. All the hot girls wanted to be with my friend and not me. Did things like that ever happen to your friend, Grizwald? I have no reason to believe this is the case, but you can factor it in to your judgement if you wish.

I did answer you, dsayers. Ok let's have a look at your question marks again. "How do you minimize it by legitimizing it? How do you minimize it by adding to it? How do you minimize it by being a +1 in the participants of it list?" And I put forth my argument for how voting libertarian does not legitimize coercion or add to it. "No one is asking me whether I'd rather live in a democracy... ." If voting was legitimizing the system, then that would mean that Soviet Russia supports capitalism, and here's why. They sent spies and agents to the various institutions of democratic countries, specifically schools and churches, with the intent of subverting American patriotism and giving the youth a favorable disposition towards communist ideals. Their goal wasn't to be good teachers or be the best cog in the machine that they could be. Their goal was to take down the machine. I propose that minimalist politics is analogous to infiltration in this manner. Now in the case of voting Republican or Democrat, I agree with you, because those two have had plenty of time in power to demonstrate the effect they will have. I'm not saying that the end game for libertarians is the election of libertarian politicians, because at some point, it's still the state. I get that. But what I'm saying is that voting for politicians who will enact minimalist policies, for now, until we get the social momentum to heave the whole thing over, is just a part of the overall strategy of moving towards a freer society. Powder, when talking about the effectiveness of the LP as a public awareness medium, that's not the same as speculating what would happen should they actually be elected to office. Don't simplify my answer to just no. There's just no data. So you can't claim that state power would necessarily increase under third party leadership either. And I did provide evidence for the electoral process. The growth of state power was thwarted, at least for a little while, for those states who seceded from Lincoln who wanted to grow the scope of the federal gov't. I'm open to changing my mind about this, but I'm not just gonna go with the tide here. I have some legitimate hangups that I'd like to debate about so I can clear the doubt away. I might be a devil's advocate to you, but I'm honestly trying to understand. If you can convince me then I can fight for you, but I owe it to myself and to the truth to not simply accept what you say without challenging it. I think I want to be part of the community here, but this is the first date, if you will. Are you going to demonize me, or help me?

"Do you have any evidence to support your proposition that there is any effective way to minimize state power through the electoral process?" Third parties almost never win, so there's not much data either way about that. As far as electoral process in general, maybe the secession of the confederacy from the u.s.? But they lost the war, so they weren't able to carry their own policies very long. Still, look what Lincoln did to the federal gov't, that's what they didn't want any part of and voted to get out of it. Anyway, about a 3rd party president, were we to perform such an experiment, it would bring to light more clearly to what extent the President is a hood ornament, or if the office has the capacity to put the brakes on. I think a lot could be done, but isn't because of the collusion involved in party politics. If the LP gained a significant number of seats they would probably become corrupt as well. It's possible that by then there would be a new party that would be even more minimalist. I'd like to address this phrase "show your support for the system". No one is asking me whether I'd rather live in a democracy, monarchy, or anarchy. If the candidate proposes significantly changing the system, I argue that it shows exactly the opposite - my dissatisfaction with the system. The same applies to "You cannot minimize aggression by condoning aggression." Ball's in your court gentlemen.

I suppose my pendulum argument was one from utility and not morality. This thing about a hit man though, let me make sure I understand. The day to day operations of a state would continue even under libertarian leadership, including all the coercive practices of a central legal system and so on, and so that makes the election of any leader of this system immoral? Cause I don't see how that follows. If that's not what you're saying let me know, but by choosing the hood ornament I'm responsible for the design of the engine? The amount of coercion would be measurably reduced by libertarian policies, to the best of our knowledge. Doesn't that factor in to the morality? If this were a situation where a government was being founded over a new untouched land, things would be different, because the level of coercion could only go up. But if I have any amount of control over the amount of wrong done in the world, is it not my responsibility to minimize it?

What he said. It's not inevitable that the person I vote for will do it, because he might not win. Refraining from voting does not swing the pendulum any closer to freedom. One could argue that voting swings it away, and I say the choice is how far. The underground railroad isn't here yet; I want a nicer master.

The focus of the OP was the scenario where force is attempted and fails, due to self defense on part of the child. Therefore submission does not take place. The scope was limited to the time of conflict, not later when the parents try to justify themselves or dismiss the child. It's a very nuanced point I'm making. Of course when you pull out force in place of negotiation in general, the ultimate extreme of that is death. But if the one using force (parent) isn't strong enough to pull that off, the question becomes what is the link between the family and the state? Because the state most assuredly can pull it off. There is a probability X that the parents will call the police. X is raised significantly by excessive retaliation on part of the child. And I would like to examine the other factors in calculating X. That's the gist of it. Edit: Moreover, the police aren't the parent's personal lackeys who will enforce arbitrary decrees on pain of death - there must be legal grounds for them to use force against the child. Therefore not every call to the police has the potential to result in death. It's terrifying for the child, no doubt, and I get why you're referencing gaslighting when I used the word perspective, but I'm analyzing causality here. Does every situation in which parents initiate force have the potential to result in death? Not whether someone thinks they're going to die, but actual death occurring. Maybe that's not the way Molyneux meant it though. Still, it's an interesting exercise.

I struggle with this argument that voting means you personally condone any action taken by that person once in power. I don't think I'm endorsing the heavy hand of the state if I check the libertarian candidate for President and leave the rest blank. There's this underpinning idea that the state is going to be there whether you vote or not, and I'd rather have a small state than a big state. The acceptance of inevitability is perhaps the key to all of it. Can anyone show this to be false? Even if voting becomes unpopular, the power structure is set up such that one lone voter could show up and get his way. At least a libertarian presidency is something which hasn't been tried yet. The only message that you send by not voting is that you don't care, at least in the current narrative. Communication requires knowing how the other party will interpret your words or actions as well as clarifying your own intent. I just don't think anyone's going to interpret a drop in voter turnout to mean that we want anarchy. I think a positive endorsement of a minimalist would be more effective at communicating my will. Once a significant percent of the population is aware of ideas like UPB, it might be a different story. I'm willing to listen to criticism here, I'm just saying I haven't been convinced.

marginalist, that profile pic on this topic is just too much. Guilty laughter here. But yeah I can't imagine what kind of drastic effects this will have on those poor souls. Even more than the utilitarian aspect though, I find it sad that adults deem these children as needing to be "fixed."

Firstly, you have my respect for having the guts to publicly speak about your issues and ask for help. I would be careful about berating yourself too harshly though. Without specifics it's hard to objectively gauge where you fit on the spectrum. People always criticize themselves harder. You say you can't change, but you've already taken the first step toward doing so, which is identifying the problem. What made you have this epiphany? Maybe you saw or experienced something, an emotion that's been missing from your life? Or was it a matter of rationally evaluating your behavior as undesirable? Empathy is a language, and some people just aren't taught to speak it. But the last thing you need is to crawl in a hole and wither. A change of scenery might be in order, like surrounding yourself with people who speak this new language. Peers have the ability to bring out the best and the worst in us. I don't want to say too much, because all I have to go on are abstractions. I mean, "manipulating a symphony of events" taken out of context is morally neutral. Any position of leadership involves that. I don't know whether you're talking about playing pranks, breaking up relationships, causing physical harm or what. I mean, if it's illegal you might want to talk to a lawyer and not us, but what did you do that was so awful? Come in the chat some time, there are some real pros in there. I think talking about it interactively would help, because you don't get as much of a chance to run away with a thought before people check you on it.

Web design, honestly, is not my forté; I'm more of a systems programmer, but I do have a smidgin of experience with web backends. I helped set up http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/ and a few other phpbb-based forums. With that software, you have a directory of images along with some color settings for text and backgrounds, collectively called a theme. You can either replace the templates with your own images, or make a new folder and have users choose their theme. So even though it's stock software, it looks like you have a custom built site. Can't help you with graphic design though.

I saw a documentary on this stuff, and the closing statement was basically, have this stuff during the day when you're busy and on the go, but at home eat real food. They caught a picture of a rat in the factory where they make the stuff, so that alone makes me wary. It will suffice in a survival scenario, but this stuff hasn't really been properly vetted. About food pills, that's fine for vitamins, but that's just not going to have enough mass to supply the calories our bodies need. I myself belong to the "I would eat all the time if I could get away with it." camp. Maybe that comes from some past psychological issues, haven't thought about it that much, but I do so love the taste and texture of good food. I love cooking, too, but a lot of the recipes I know from family are high fat stuff like casseroles and other Southern comfort food. It's not a problem when you're working in a field all day like my grandparents had to do, but today's lifestyle just isn't friendly to that. Cooking is an activity where I bonded with my mother in the past, so I'm sure that has something to do with it. We would also critique and rate the meal, like "it's better than last time" or "I don't think adding X was a good idea." Also, I was able to get away with eating whatever I wanted as a youth, so I didn't learn what I needed to know about proper diet and exercise back then. I think I'm doing pretty good now and keeping it under control. but I thought I would offer some insight into my mentality, since Wuzzums made that comment about feeling sorry for people who enjoy eating for the pleasure of it. A lot of culture revolves around the preparation and consumption of food. It's where traditionally families would spend time together, so there's that aspect of it. My family had dinner around a table together, so there's kind of a nostalgia factor there I guess. There's also the pure hedonistic pleasure seeking aspect. Where it gets dangerous though, is treating it as some kind of escape from reality. There was a caller like that on the show one time. Some people find their lives dull or painful, and look forward to meal time as a sensual experience where they can forget about their worries for a few minutes. So food is like an addictive narcotic to them. That's where the feeling of sadness is warranted.

Are you wanting to host this on your own private website? For popular types of websites like blogs and forums, there are often lots of open source toolkits available to you. You just have to download one and follow the instructions pretty much. As long as you have the database passwords from the hosting provider, and access to the site's files, it's just a matter of uploading a directory full of php code and then running the install script. I don't have experience specifically with blogs though, so I don't know which package would be best. Go browsing on SourceForge or Github.

Fair point, but that necessitates a certain perspective, that is the child's point of view and personal impressions. Most parents would not kill their children, therefore for a child to make that extrapolation would not be accurate to the objective truth. Maybe it was at some point in history in certain cultures, but not now. I understand the child has no way of knowing all this, and it's all wrong, but the original claim that "all threats of violence are death threats" does not make room for variances based on perspective. Now if you say that "All threats of violence are intended as death threats, that qualifies the perspective of the aggressor, which is what I'm saying is not necessarily true. If, on the other hand, you say "All threats of violence can be as harmful to a child's psyche as a death threat." that qualifies the perspective of the victim. I just think a little more precision is necessary to close the case. I like this idea, I really do, and I hope that I can help to forge and strengthen this argument so that we have an airtight case to present to the masses.

From "Feminist Straw Woman Attacks!" Published on YouTube on May 18, 2014 I thought this might be a better place to have a productive discussion, so I thought I would get the other members' input. 49:00 "You don't think he'd call the cops?" Mind... blown. Stefan presents the argument that all threats of violence are death threats, and proposes that if the caller had used self defense, possibly armed with an implement much like the wooden spoon used against him, that the family would have called in the "authorities". Hope I got that right. And we all know what that means.Just thinking it over. Speaking in general terms now, not only about this caller. When parents use corporal punishment they do not intend to kill the child, only inflict pain. In order for this threat to become a death threat, the parents must be willing to escalate to that point. If they plan ahead what they will do when they meet resistance, who knows? Is that relevant to the conversation do you think - premeditation and moral responsibility? The behavior of the child is also still relevant here. Certain laws also reflect this principle, which is that self defense is fine, but excessive retaliation is not. The link you're making between the threat of corporal punishment and the force of the state, hinges upon a probability which is highly affected by the level of retaliation used. I suppose some parents wouldn't stop until you knocked them unconscious, but I think most would get that the technique does not work any more. Would they call the cops then? Maybe I guess, but they would look like imbeciles who can't handle a bratty teenager, rather than possible victims of a violent delinquent. So, I'm not sure where I want to see the discussion go here exactly, but maybe it's something to keep on the radar that "Hey parents, yeah you know that little person is gonna grow into a big person, what happens then?" And also to emphasize the importance of avoiding excessive retaliation to any young listeners out there. That's something that one can learn from martial arts, at least more traditional ones. I don't know about all this MMA stuff. But they teach you discipline and self control. They're not just for the placation of grown abuse victims who want to remain in their comfort zones, it's useful stuff. There is an entire realm of ethics involving the use of force which is kind of treated like black hole physics around here (my perception), no one really knows what goes on in there. If you're in an environment where force is applied often, it makes sense to know these things.

Someone posted in the YouTube comments on the recent climate video, a link to another series by a YT user Potholer54. Has anyone else taken the time to watch this? It seems passably objective and honest, but maybe other people will catch things I've missed. I'm in the middle of it now, but I wanted to at least write down my thoughts about one thing in particular before I forgot it. I'd be interested to hear what other people think. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL82yk73N8eoX-Xobr_TfHsWPfAIyI7VAP One particular thing I noticed - it's not like an "aha!" or anything, but he talked about the low concentration of CO2 compared to other gases - in the tens of parts per million - and follows it up by saying that it doesn't take a lot of something to set off a positive feedback loop. I didn't see any hard data in there about how we know whether this is happening. So I'm left thinking that the positive feedback loop is only an untested hypothetical scenario. And while it certainly makes sense that it could happen under certain conditions, I don't see any data or methodology for determining what that threshold is, given other variables. He just kind of leaves it there. Is that an actual blind spot in the science? So then I googled "climate positive feedback threshold". These guys say: "Unravelling the triggers of such changes and the internal dynamics of the Earth system that connect the trigger to the outcome is one of the most pressing challenges to improving understanding of the planetary machinery." http://www.igbp.net/globalchange/feedbacksthresholdsboundaries.4.1b8ae20512db692f2a680001664.html So I guess we don't know. P.S. Does it piss anyone else off that you have to pay to be a member of the club before you can read scientific publications? How much do these guys get in tax money again? argh!