Steinhauser

The video game market is fine. There will always be a demand for good and challenging games. Video games are super mainstream now, which means there will be a lot more Modern Warfares and Angry Birds out there than half decent games. But compared to the past, the technology available to small developers is cheap and sophisticated, and the internet allows for free worldwide distribution. Taking into account the sheer volume of games put out in a year, overall we probably see more good games per year than we did in the 90s, just hidden among the trash. EDIT: That said, I don't have good hopes for "gen whatever" with the new consoles coming out.

Is it worth mentioning the self-description portraits generally look more accurate than the stranger-described ones? And that's with TV makeup. I think strangers are just as or more likely to "polish up" their descriptions to avoid sounding rude as people are to understate their looks.

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUx9fArlqig:640:385]

I applaud you getting out there and engaging people like that. It's something I've recently tried and failed to do. A week or two ago I decided to take my philosophy on the road, and put it to the test. I started posting in the "philosophy, politics, religion" section of another forum, to see if what I've been learning since I started listening to FDR could stand up to the scrutiny of the most ardent statists, Christians, collectivists, feminists, etc. What I found was that arguing from the conviction of truth was rather trivial - the truth tells itself, after all. No one could catch me in a contradiction, or make a point I couldn't (immediately, or eventually) refute. But I also found out that it's very demoralizing. What statists and (especially) feminists lack in debate ammo, they make up for in sheer numbers. Both reasoned and irate replies piled up and it soon became impossible to address every wrong-headed thing I read. Every morning I would post replies to several topics, then go to work and spend the next 8 hours agonizing over the possible counter-arguments I might have to overturn later. I began to put off checking the replies for longer intervals, and eventually fear made me stop altogether. I had the know-how to defend my convicitons, but not the courage to keep going back and doing it. This has happened to me before, and could very well be a flaw in my character. I don't know if anyone has had similar experiences. But what you're doing is very difficult for me, so I guess I'm saying, way to go. Keep it up, and even if you don't change anyone's mind, you're reaffirming your commitment to truth and strengthening your own resolve.

An Antarcto-capitalist. Ask someone: "Did you know 96% of the world's population suffers from sociopathy?" (When they balk, explain the other 4% are sociopaths.) And something completely unrelated... Where does a hadrosaur go to work? The parasaurol-office.

Interesting - so, say, an environmental group who really cared about a particular region's ecology need only purchase some land in that region. Then any aggression toward the ecology is also an aggression toward their property. That sounds remarkably similar to the current practice of sponsoring trees in the rainforest, etc.

Okay, here's my attempt. 1. Prohibits all pollution In a practical sense, pollution only constitutes initiation of force to the extent that it measurably inhibits another person on his own property. (Thanks to Andrew and Magnus for clarifying this point for me in another thread.) A person cannot reasonably claim to be transgressed against, or demand restitution for that transgression, unless the effects of the pollution are readily apparent, and it interferes with his making full use of that property. Driving a gas guzzler to work will not in itself make a difference to anyone's ability to breathe air on his own property, so could not be considered a real-world transgression against anyone. "Microtransgressions"/technicalities are generally victimless crimes, a throwback to the inflexible, precedent-based court justice system. They have no place in a society built on reason and industry. (Litigating such things would be financially untenable anyway.) Is pollution still a problem? Of course. But while we're on the road to cleaner technologies (the real solution to pollution, which only industry can provide) there's no abject "sin" in polluting a little. And hey, if anyone feels guilty about it, some company out there will gladly let you pay them to atone for it. 2. Prohibits small harms for large benefits If life-saving vaccines can be provided by taxing billionaires, they can also be provided through nonviolent means. Violence also begets more violence - the infrastructure required to enforce vaccine-providing taxation today doesn't take much manipulation to enforce overseas-war-funding taxation tomorrow. Next! 3. All-or-nothing attitude toward risk Intent, not outcome. If you're pointing a six-shooter with one bullet at my head, you have the intent to cause me harm, and are violating the principle. If you point a six-shooter with six bullets at an oncoming bear, and manage to shoot me standing behind the bear, you did not intend to cause me harm and thus did not violate the principle. Next! 4. Fraud Caveat emptor. All voluntary transactions carry the risk of fraud, and there is no fundamental human right to reward without risk. 5. Parasitic on a theory of property rights Property rights are just an intrinsic part of the NAP. If the initiation of force was always acceptable, property could not exist (beyond one's ability to defend it with force). If the initiation of force was acceptable some of the time, it stands to reason that in the cases it is acceptable, you don't have full ownership of whatever property is being aggressed against (be it your person, or possessions). I haven't studied property rights, so someone else can expand on this if they want. 6. What about the children?? The decision to become a parent includes the responsibility to care for the child until able to fend for itself. Parenthood is, in effect, a one-sided contract. (One-sided because, having had no say in its own birth, the child has no responsibilities to the parent.) Creating a person without the ability to fend for itself, then leaving that person to fend for itself or die, is a breach of contract on the same level as agreeing to care for an invalid, then denying him care. (Actually more egregious, since the child was not able to consent to the agreement.)

So any polluter is considered to violate property rights the moment the pollutant enters someone's property, regardless of where that pollutant was originally disposed. And companies are liable for containing their own pollution, or else for paying restitutions to any property owner consequently affected. Okay, that actually makes far more sense. I get it! Thanks, Andrew and Magnus.

Immoral? No. Potentially psychologically harmful or damaging in some way? Sure. What matters is whether you have the self-control to reject all real-life violence while still enjoying fictional violence. And hey, you're here, right? If real-life pacifism translates into some reduced enjoyment of fictional violence, then great. If it causes no change in your level of enjoyment of that material, then perhaps you should look very critically at how dedicated to peace you are. If you're still convinced your dedication to peace and enjoyment of fictional violence are in no way related, great. If you're not convinced, then perhaps look into making a conscious change in your entertainment sources.

Marge: "That video lets me see I'm a passive aggressive co-culprit. By nagging you all the time, I'm just just enabling your life script."Homer: "And that sends me into a shame spiral!"

I was under the impression that the insurance companies are paying out incentives to the polluting companies to curb pollution, not demanding compensation if they don't. How would the polluting companies be beholden to the insurance companies? Rest assured, the irony of his statement (and "is that not theft?" as well) were roundly noted. Thanks, I'll give it a look-over. I've never thought about it this way before. Thank you. I still see a problem existing with extortion, however - the blackmailer demands further and further payment to temporarily refrain from spilling beans. In effect the blackmailer is breaking his contract not to talk, and the blackmailee has no recourse because inviting a third party means spreading the information he wants to keep secret in the first place. Or is that just a case of caveat emptor? Yes, this can work provided enough of the polluted territory is privately owned. I guess the problem hinges on property rights. On the other hand this simply invites the same extortion from before: If the company makes more money not using filters, it has no incentive to accept the offer. If the offset costs of the filters allow it to make more money, it will reinvest its earnings into increasing its production, and then demand more filter-money to curb the new higher levels of pollution. I suppose that using this option as an incentive, alongside the abovementioned damages claims as a deterrant, could work to good effect. Without having skimmed Walter Block's book yet. Is there a quick and easy-to-explain process for the transfer of things like atmosphere and oceans to private ownership?

Hi! So, I was arguing with some statists, and the topic of externalities comes up. His reply: On a slightly different topic, he asked what I considered moral grounds for ownership of property. Among the other ways of acquisition (and not really having researched this point philosophically), I said: His reply: I had to admit to him, both his points had me stumped! (Don't worry, I got him back on other stuff) Perhaps I'm not thinking far enough outside the box. How does an insurance company make sure local polluting businesses don't just ring them through the cleaners by threatening increasingly more pollution? How do we avoid the problem of the commons with "shared" resources like the atmosphere and oceans? Am I even correct in assuming nature can be owned by claiming it?

[spoiler ALERT] So who saw the first episode of season 3? Remember when Joffery's new fiancee went down to the orphanage? I thought that was brilliant. At first, it looks like she's doing some charity for the poor children, out of the kindness of her heart. But listen to what she tells the children: "Your father was a brave soldier, who died in defense of the king." Those children would probably have grown up to be violent criminals, resentful toward the king and the system who took their fathers from them, and left them with nothing. By framing their fathers as noble heroes who died at the hands of the king's enemies, while defending a just cause, instead those kids are going to grow up to be violent soldiers, bent on revenge against the enemies of the king. Before discovering Stefan's work, I would never have noticed that. Or any of the hundreds of other causal links between adult violence and child abuse the show is about.

I don't know much about transgenderism, besides that trans people are usually very, very sure that they know. I'd like to bring up another possibility. Have you ever considered you might have an autism spectrum disorder? Paying less relative attention to biological motion (the way human bodies move) in one's vision field, and staring at mouths instead of eyes, are both hallmarks of autistic behaviour. Check out Ami Klin's research with autistic eye-tracking: As an aspie myself, I found Dr. Klin's work very enlightening, particularly in explaining WHY most people are so damn preoccupied with each others' eyes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism#Characteristics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome#Characteristics

Partially, but not totally. My knee-jerk reaction was to assume he had some kind of agenda, and I pounced on the argument geared for a battle that didn't exist. That prevented me from properly analyzing his posts and seeing where we really disagreed - not the premise of his point, just the wording. This was the bad habit on my part. It takes two to miscommunicate! (Almost always)

Careful with that Huffington Post! It is rotating at very high velocity! From the opening paragraph: Parents in Dietrich, Idaho, say the word "vagina" has no place in a 10th grade science class, according to news website MagicValley.com. I checked that link. There is no mention of the word "vagina" in the article. There is some mention of "inappropriate language," but it seems most of the parents had a problem with his discussion of safe sex and STDs. (The article was updated at some point, so it's possible that the word "vagina" was mentioned in a previous edition. But it was clearly not a central aspect of the story, and the accompanying Huffington news video shows a screenshot of the updated site.) The story is not about the word vagina. It's about some religious prudes who don't want their kids to learn about sex ed. No, that's not good for the children, who will probably go through adolescence without knowing some basic information about their genitalia. But it's also not unusual or unexpected - religious parents find out their kids' (ostensibly nonsexual) biology class is teaching sex ed, and they get in a tizzy. The story is being spun so it looks like there is sexism involved. Of course it's the word VAGINA these people are against, not the context in which it was used. This is like the Lisa Brown story all over again. If you're not familiar, watch about 4 minutes of this:

Captain, we've encountered a planet whose inhabitants are made entirely of straw! This makes me ponder though, was the Federation of Planets actually run on taxpayer dollars? That would explain their eagerness to seek out new civilizations to join them...

Oh yeah, I've had teachers like this before. Thankfully, none were quite so bad as this guy. When I was in elementary school (~1994-2003, in suburban Boomer-run southern ON), any kind of overt display of physical aggression was cracked down upon with the full force of, like, the superintendent or diocese overlord whoever runs the Catholic school system. Bullying or aggressive behaviour is something I often see paired with charisma or glibness. I think people with those kind of crowdpleasing social skills learn early on that when they're in the public eye, they can paint over their negative actions with a veneer of words. The person creates a dichotomy within the social narrative between what's "correct" and what's "cool." Any weight the moral argument might have is more than counterbalanced by the weight of the social pressure on the other side - that feeling of discomfort most people have going against the social norm. It's a risk-reward assessment that people do in every day social situations. Thus, the bully (your teacher) gets used to the power of victimizing others and grinning his way out of it. I think your locker room example illustrates very well how the desire to fit within the flow of a social narrative often overrides better, objective judgment. Then, when you got in trouble, you didn't immediately call the teacher out on his hipocrasy - why? Because deep down you knew that wasn't an excuse for your actions; you knew he knew that too; and you knew that even if you passed the buck to him, not only would you still be guilty of your own actions, but he would now have special cause to target you in the future. Perhaps not overtly through bullying, but the casual social smoothness that allowed you two to be in the same room or conversation together would never be the same. And at least subconsciously you didn't think the rewards were worth the risk. These are just my own theories of course.

Phew I'm glad we actually do agree after all. I had a feeling we were saying the same things but using the wrong words. I'm retaining too many bad habits from arguing about gender politics...what a toxic dump that landscape is.

If we live in a rape culture, you can't dispute we also certainly live in a murder culture. Far deeper in one, to something on the scale of probably 1000 or more murders depicted for each rape depicted. (That's a blind and probably way too conservative guess.) But no one says we live in a "murder culture." Why? Because it's not a gendered issue! (Well, not one that benefits feminists - 76% of murder victims are men.) The only reason to turn "[atrocity]" into "[atrocity] culture" is to blame society, or a large subset of that society as a whole, for the crimes of a few individuals. The only reason "rape" is the atrocity in question is because rape is a gendered issue. (Mostly due to feminist spin; more men are raped than women.) Everyone inside the "rape culture" becomes easily identified as victims (women) or perpetrators (men). If your point is that people use force over people as a matter of their day-to-day dealings, and that none of that force is justifiable yet most is culturally accepted, fine. I agree with your premise. But calling that a "rape culture" gives it the unnecessary and specific distinction of sexual violence, which (outside of prisons) has never been condoned by those in power, and has never been socially acceptible (at least not this century or last). If you must call it a culture.... it's a child abuse culture.

Oh sorry, when you proposed violent people be dealt with violently, it lead me to assume that you considered that to fall under defense, because defense is what you (in your "unrelated" post on exactly the same topic) called the "one, and only one exception" to the rule that all violence is wrong. If your rant was simply an emotional venting, and nothing more, than okay. I apologize for my misunderstanding, if you can understand how your words might not have come across with the clarity you wanted. That aside, I'd love to get to the meat of the matter. If rape is bad, rape of anyone is bad. I think your last post establishes our agreement on this topic. If rape advocacy of the average citizen (male or female) exists, in any more sense than an ephemeral "force is used wholesale against people so those people get the subliminal idea that using force against others is justified," I have yet to see anything concrete to substantiate it. If there is any kind of rape culture in the West - if rape is considered acceptable, or justified, or "a laughing matter" in any circle - it is the rape of male prison inmates by other male prison inmates. This was my main contention with your Bubba comment. Perhaps I got emotional as well, but it so clearly illustrated the double standard that pervades common thought. No one in regular society advocates rape of a woman. No one advocates rape of a man walking down the street (although they will certainly discuss that topic less, and joke about it more). But can you honestly say that the rape of prison inmates is viewed with the same open revulsion and disapproval as rape of "innocent" victims? Or is it something regularly laughed at, considered par for the course in the (male) penal system, and written off as "they all deserve whatever happens to them in there"? Rape is not a feminist agenda. Lying about rape to cast women as perpetual victims, while writing off or ignoring male victims of rape is a feminist agenda. And that campaign has shaped pretty much every perception we have of rape in our culture.

Remember that scene in Scanners where the guy's head explodes? Imagine it here 'cause I don't want to find and post a .gif. How is locking a man in a cage to be raped "defense"? That is "punishment," inflicting negative conditions on a person in retribution for a past crime. You are clearly advocating not just forced confinement (an expression of force), but that a disarmed and restrained person be repeatedly abused (an expression of force). Wait, I didn't even need that first quote. The second one is immediately self-defeating. You're suggesting that a man who meets your definition of rape advocacy or apologism should be raped by "Bubba". Then it immediately follows that Bubba, who clearly advocates rape, should be raped. And who's raping his Bubba's rapist? Why, whoever it is, you better find someone to give him what he deserves. And on, and on. I'm not even going to touch on why feminists lying about rape is appalling and harmful to both men and women. It seems fruitless in the face of more basic contradictions.

Very true about the cops. They have quotas for catching crimes - that's right, if fewer crimes happen, individual police stand to lose personally. How's that for motive to prevent crime? Of course, if their numbers are low they shore them up by "farming" minor, ticketable infractions. And of course, while you're sitting in court without pay, they're being paid to show up. It's just another day on the job for them. My theory of why drugs are still criminalized is directly connected to how boring and harmless our government seems. Young people, the driving force of change, just don't care. 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. EDIT: Oh, I forgot the topic at hand, of course. Yeah, comparison to the States is probably the biggest mental barrier to Canadians caring at all about the government. It's true, compared to the fecal tsunami of the US govt, the relatively minor leaky-sceptic-tank lawn puddle of the Canadian govt seems harmless and not worth dwelling on. But this is based on sheer scale alone, the US has reached critical mass that allows for corruption unseen in Canada. Per capita, Canada probably has more violence than the States.

The same reason Amazon packages say Amazon on them. Branding. This story is saddening, though unsurprising. A lot of the devoutly brainwashed are completely lost to this life in their pursuit of the next.

Very few of the twisted designs of state thugs surprise me anymore. But when I saw this story I was immediately digging, hoping desperately it was a joke. It wasn't, and now I want to vomit. I'll let the video speak for itself. Putting aside the flagrant racism and sexism here. People are being locked up for wearing their pants a certain way. In the USA. In the 21st century. The scumbags behind this appear to be the Black Mental Health Association of Massachusetts, an organization "working to promote parity in mental health services." I'm sure putting more young non-offenders in prison, to be raped and training to become real criminals, is just the ticket to promote mental health in the black community. No, of course, it's the opposite - and of course, BMHAM will need more funding to process all those new cases. This is a fairly new story, and I'm not sure if anyone's been arrested for state-disapproved fashion yet. Will have to see where this goes. So far I have seen only negative public outcry, which at least is a little heartening.