gwho

I've recently run into people who follow the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. I hadn't heard of him, but they are like, the ultra statists, who have a particular penchant for demonizing libertarians/anarchists.The level of misunderstanding they have of the evidence, history, and track record of governments, along with their starkly diametrically opposed approach to things that I have is just so bewildering and astonishing. I had a lot of hope of how clarifying and sobering, and just logically comfortable the way Stefan approaches things, but once I ran into these Hobbesians, I became so discouraged. Like, as strong as we believe in logic and peace, there are those who so strongly believe in the state as a "place for people to come together" and the only method for protecting against criminals, and just the delusional, delusional track record of the government, and just... so much misattribution, and so muchdelusional fact-twisting. It made me think that people stick to waht they want, for all the emotional reasons Stefan mentions in his podcasts. You do go for the redeemable ones, and use your time effectively. I suppose it might help me if i looked at it with true statistics, just as I told the Hobbesians to look at a holistic view of the fruits of government.Anyway, this is partially my reflections of my encounter with Hobbesians, and my open invitation for discussing the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes as far as the an-caps are concerned. I'm not about to devote a ton of time reading books on Hobbes, but if someone is familiar already, I'd really appreciate distilled points that come down to the most fundamental level as possible (for example, NAP, empiricism vs mysticism, etc), and i'm sure it will be beneficial for the rest of us an-caps when we encounter, what seems to me as the absolutely possibly most opposite camp... possible.

forgot one big reason: they don't believe it is so, and think it is the best choice out of all the alternatives. more sensible people who don't believe such will always say, "but it's the best system we have, and anarchy is so much worse." source: empirical conversations.

I came across this video on money.com regarding India's gold influx. I wanted some freedom-oriented analysis so I come to you guys. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/07/24/n-india-gold-imports.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=V_Taboola I can't work through the steps of what she's saying. This leads me to think through them and verify them mentally myself. But I cannot do it. It also feels very wrong. This is one of those things where I know it's wrong, but cannot pinpoint or show it exactly. So I ask you for help., 0:20 "The rupee is hovering at an all time low vs the dollar." 0:25 "Since India pays for gold in dollars, it puts a massive strain on its account deficit." 0:41 "To reduce gold imports, the finance minister doubled the tax on gold imports." 1:04 "If the people stop buying gold for ~1 year, the account deficit will improve and the stock markets would improve. 1) Milton Friedman explains the negative feedback on the value of currencies when you send them abroad. I'm not quite sure I understand Milton Friedman's scenario and dynamics fully, but maybe you guys can explain. Also note, Friedman's scenario is with both native currencis... whereas this Indian scenario is India buying gold (let's assume from America) with dollars... so we have to adjust our knowledge and approach a little bit, relative to Friendman's scenario with domestic currencies. So here is an inconsistency I'm wondering about: Mainstream economists normally talk about currency wars, where each country prints more and depreciates the value of their nation's currency as if it were a good thing. So if the Rupee is low, aren't they winning the currency war naturally.... all the while getting ACTUAL PHYSICAL GOLD? sounds like a double win. So what is the reasoning behind this contradictory perspective? is it simply that the rupee is TOO low? if so, what is the criteria to to determine that? 2) So Friedman, as well as Bastiat, in his books, explains the fallacy of export-import = net foreign trade balance. I get this. The imported goods have an inherent value, so important doesn't necessarily mean a loss. so that equation is misleading. k. 3) So ofc raising import duties will reduce import volume. But is this good for the economy? The goal, supposedly is to raise the rupeand stock markets, assuming that importing gold with dollars is not good. 4) ok, if ppl stop buying gold... we hvae to work through all the mess of #1-3... but why would the stock markets improve???? and after we work through that one, why is that necessarily good, or better than getting gold?

I find meditation to be done after you solve and figure out things, or as you solve them out.closing your eyes and sitting still and thinking about things isn't exactly the best first step in solving repressed, calcified problems.

There is a concept called "heaven", which is sky/god/heaven. so god is a concept rather than a personage. so they still used false morality to tell ppl it's bad to overthrow the king.

i can't remember exactly either, but i recently started listening, and so i'm familiar with the earlier podcasts.try #238 (false forgiveness will destroy your joy) #109-112, (but my parents were really nice!) #196-198 (parenting series) #70,71 (how to control/enslave a human soul - the invisible apple story) #89-92 (the state and the family series)

agreed. it's simply annoying when people just start redefining god.

hahahah this makes me laugh so hard. if politician was an employed position that you had to interview for, i can imagine going down,, hmmm ok, why dont you show me how well you can weasel and bs your way out of this tough question whose principle you clearly are violating.... go.

#5 If you're on FDR, you're probably already investing a lot of time and energy into politics and matters of bettering society. again, if you define "getting into politics" differently from being aware and listening to information about economics, morality, and principled politics (as opposed to the details of current events), then those topics may already be of interest to you. So it becomes a sunk cost. To me, all this is very enjoyable. And I can choose to engage in it with as much time and as much depth as I please. Seeing articles about a 12 year old egyptian kid who knows principles and current events more than the average adult, subscribing to facebook pages that publicizes cops robbing citizens, or illegally pulling a woman over and sending himself her porn pix while tying up 3 hours of her time.... it's all of interest, and doesn't take that much time. With internet tools, you can position yourself to be in the stream of information, and choose to read entire articles when it pleases you. #4 every pleasurable thing can be, but you're saying you would be very into it, to the point of interfering with other things in your life? each individual responds to it differently. It certainly isn't for me. Work takes up a lot of time, and interefers with waht i want to do in life, and i think about it soo much. is that an addiction? I don't really know where you're coming from, when you say politics can be an addiction. #3 it's long term, and be aware of the critical mass effect, or tipping point. also, be personally free. being aware of freedom, being logically and morally consistent, will grant you that, and affect the people you interact with, whether it be one on one, or to a wide audience, like Stef is doing. #2 so if someone is holding you up at your house, are you going to ignore it because it's violence? our aim is to get rid of it. #1 until you get rid of it, it will be the very real present. gotta be aware of it to get rid of it.

It depends what you mean by being political. following posts, debating people, etc. I have always had a disgust of politics becaues it felt so illogical and full of people who reject logic and reason. So I worked things out on my own. I was interested in economics and efficiency. this naturally lends itself to being concerned with what is good for society. You get a sense of u have the tools and framework for what is good for yourself. For example, voluntary exchange results in increased wealth for both parties or all parties involved. The very fact that this involves someone else means you're dealing with people and society. Then you get to something like a job for yourself. There aren't enough... you ask why? and the answer becomes societal. minimum wage is outlawing of poor workers, just as a thousand dollar minimum wage would put almost everyone out of work. so then government is intricately tied to prosperity. And I began to see this policy affects me and society this way, that action does that, etc. And then I worked things out for myself, which led to principles of non-aggression, mutual exchange, freedom. Then that spills over into morality, since almost every political discussion appeals to morality, but with partial truths, bad analogies, cherry picking, etc. And i'm a pretty logical person and I value truth. So all of this naturally drove me towards being aware and developing a framework from my own perspective in combination with information i hear and see.... even though I initially hated politics (or at least the left-right, dem rep, issue-based, principle-devoid version I initially was expoesd to). So politics to me is how to live better, and not just for myself. Does government being involved help this end or hinder it? Does law help it or hinder it? What principle is this ruling based on and is it consistent with principles that apply for a person as much as a big collective entity? What economic effects will policy X have? What are the causes of the current economic state? Instead of jumping to some government action to alleviate an action, what if we analyzed the causes and simply removed the negative causes? What are the costs and disadvantages of implementing a new government action? So as you can see, my interest isn't politics itself, but how sweeping policies affect outcomes and fit in with principles that were developed based frameworks developed on my own with a lot of information scouring and processing.So I would say be apathetic to politics if politics to you is that superficial kind, and don't bother debating or discussing based on stupid, unrefined paradigms such as conservatism/modern liberalism. But I'm sure you want to be a good person, value logic, and have frameowrks for truth. Just pursue those as you see fit, and simply being morally consistent and wanting a better life will naturally lead you to politics, either because you will see the government is messing up your life so hard, or because you will actively want to better society and see all the hindrances... which coincidentally are caused by government. Approach politics with by developing your consistente world view and logical facts and principles about life, economics, and society, and you will come to politics with a far clearer and more consistent framework than trying to "force" yourself into "getting into politics."

interesting how the mom cuts the video off when the kid is probably appealing to her mother, "Mom why are....[you not defending me or doing anything about this]?" ["Come one, wtf, man?"]