Hugh Akston

Funny that you accuse me of a lack of empathy, when I explained that I had this exact same fear and had overcome it. That you chose to dismiss without explaining how my experience is not relevant. All the "exploring" and "psychologizing" in the world will not help if you don't DO IT. I have plenty of life experience to base my evidence upon.I think people who start sentences with "no offense" are passive aggressives that might mark someones post down for instance (yes I noticed) because they do not like what is said instead of courteously addressing their points of disagreement.

I don't know why I cringe so much when people say they 'found' FDR. I must have some negative connotation to that phrase. Where have I encountered this specific turn of phrase before? I must have some latent unresolved issues. What's the big deal with someone finding a website?

Well there's clear evidence of intelligent design, must therefore have been the goddess of culinary delights.

... I have a theory about people who start a sentence with the words - "no offence". What you have to learn is that what someone needs to hear is not always what they would like to hear. You don't get to overcome your fear of water by never getting your feet wet. As they say, it's not because I'm older and wiser, it's because I've already done all the dumb shit! http://tkcoleman.com/2013/11/06/act-now-believe-later/ A tidbit of wisdom from T.K. Coleman.

Here's my take on it. I am a Grandfather and have raised three children. I have a son that experiences the exact same anxiety you describe here, which oddly enough, I experienced myself as well young man. I think it is a huge leap to jump to yelling or discipline as the root cause. My parents did have poor childhoods as both their dad's died at a young age and my mum's mother was an alcoholic and my dad's mum put him and his siblings in a orphanage in order to marry a guy, although she did maintain contact through the years. I believe this has contributed to their lacking sense of self-worth, which they have transmitted to me and I in turn to my son. Ironically I overcame many of my anxieties regarding girls, when as part of the hazing at our uni we were forced to ask the girls to dance. The threat being that if one of the girls was standing around at the dance, regardless of how fat and ugly she was, there'd be hell to pay. My advice therefore is to overcome your fear by confronting it and not dwell on the reasons for it. Understanding will come later. Don't look for excuses to be a coward. The faint heart does not win the fair maiden.

I read a lot of bad writing and nobody is talking about it. Something is not bad because you disagree with it. 1984 was a brilliant dystopian novel written by a socialist. Does not make it bad at all. You might not like the "romantic realist" style, but that is a matter of taste. If it was bad you would not be talking about it at all. Bad being defined as something of no value? What boggles the mind is why these people with such insights regarding the ills of the world could not identify the root of the problem.

Ok, pretend I'm her dad and ask me if it's ok and see if I'll respect the non aggression principle. Does that answer your question?

Could there be a grain of truth in it? I can understand that if your behaviour is unconsciously influenced by your upbringing that this angry rant has no standing. If you however have come to understand, and have gained knowledge regarding the reasons behind your personal issues, you also have gained responsibility to improve yourself and I believe some might start using their upbringing as an excuse not to improve themselves and gain deeper self knowledge and understanding.

Your thoughts on this? http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/if-your-childhood-sucked-its-time-to-stop-blaming-your-parents.html

You win the argument with your carefully constructed arguments and avoidance of logical fallacies. Truly a master at work. I bow to you oh great one. Google "gold" or "bitcoin" shortage hurricane sandy.

People do in fact currently store more fuel than they consume. Currently this is being done by governments and they typically call it a strategic stock and the costs of this are hidden in taxes rather than it being determined by the market as it would if it was being used as a store of value. The point I'm making here is that the utility of a commodity in an economy is an important determinant of its quality as a money. The consumption of fuel does not necessarily have to increase as it will not be "shifted" to a different use as you claim as it does not necessarily follow that the stock would grow larger than it is at present and I believe the "invisible hand" of the market will correct any dislocations caused by relying too much on a particular commodity to serve as medium of exchange. Money to be usefull has to be the most marketable commodity in a society and gold has lost that status many, many years ago. Unlike bitcoin I do not have to rely on blind trust if I can redeem my currency at a trusted storage depot for some real value (that can be determined objectively . I think that Bitcoin is a poor example of what a currency should be.

I am not convinced that Bitcoin is money. The best money will have value and utility in its own right to serve as a quality money. I've heard the "all value is subjective" argument so many times now and have read Mises' works too and I disagree with him. Just remember to apply that subjective theory of value to the value of your own arguments as well if that is the argument you wish to make. Gold has siginifcant weakness as a money due to the same issue. Money that represents real value in society will be the most trustworthy source of value. If I gave you a storage credit for some fuel, you would frequently go and redeem it, keeping the "banker" honest. I believe the problem that led to fractional reserve banking, was that no one ever felt the need to redeem their credit notes for the gold that backed it. This in itself was a huge temptation to the banker.

I've been training my dog and getting him to socialize with other dogs, and I notice a lot of similarity between the way humans respond to aggression and the way dogs do. My dog simply ignores other dog's when they start "misbehaving" and it seems very effective, this has worked well for me at work too! Unfortunately he behaves very badly when he encounters overly submissive dogs and quickly becomes aggressive, just like some humans do.

Quantative Easing does not steal from the future, that is clearly impossible. It steals resources in the here and the now. It results in the transfer of resources in the here and now to those receiving the "easing". The problem is not merely malinvestment, but the fact is that it artificially increases the prices of capital goods and property (residential housing being an important item in this regard). This results in a great deal of indebtedness of the people to the banksters receiving all of the "easing". This is slavery carefully constructed.

As I see it, most of these extreme cases that seem to challenge the NAP is typically a challenge based on perceived violations of the NAP where an individual's survival is at stake. The NAP is derived from the individual's right to life as a moral absolute. So if I am dying of thirst in the desert and I forcefully take water from you that you refuse to give me, this is not a violation of the NAP. This is exactly why the Sophists use these cases. They understand that if they rationalize violence as an attempt to secure survival for others and themselves, they will have a plausible excuse for their immorality. That is why they thrive on promotions of fear, why every policy must be painted as a defense against some apocalyptic scenario. This is why the statists are the true extremists. Their justification rests on the extremes, on projecting the basest motivation and behaviour on your fellow man. The war of all against all is the only possible outcome in the absence of their benevolent presence.

I remember watching his video and thinking that something bothers me. I will have to watch it again, I also think there is something off. I just couldn't lay my finger on it.

Consider the possibility that this man is an agent of the state. Reason alone would argue against the cause of action he promotes. Agorism is a laudable aim, but then again it does not get you any publicity by its very nature does it [6]

Agree. The natural response to having your beliefs challenged is to defend them. If your objective is to convince a more subtle approach is far more effective.

I think you might be wrong, there are a lot of anarchists out there. They just don't define themselves in this way. I was at the airport the other day and a guy approached me and asked me if I required a car. I was walked to the limo, the guy had an umbrella so I did not get wet walking to his very neat and luxurious vehicle. All this for the same price as the legally licensed taxis, that are deteriorating by the day. My daughter could not find any daycare (heavily regulated in this country) for my granddaughter, eventually found a lady who does a brilliant job and gets paid in cash. These people do not think of themselves as Anarchists but in reality they are more Anarchist than someone like me who espouse libertarian philosophies but do not engage in the free market (unless you consider selling my time to a big corporation as free market activity). A simple thing I can do to promote Anarchism is to provide word of mouth advertisment for these people's services to others who support my worldview and help these people avoid the risks associated with trying to promote their services.

Good Cogent Reasoning!