shirgall

Today's spelunking features NERRRRRRRDS. We're all invited to the play misery poker: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120653/nerd-entitlement-lets-men-ignore-racism-and-sexism and and the empathy that can only come from Y-chromosome deficiency: Enjoy your privilege you had no choice in obtaining, folks. They're coming for the nerds, because they're almost done defeating the jocks. If you can handle the rest of the reading, look out for a meme cribbed from Peter Joseph: "structural misogyny"

Actually, in my experience, most players shut or mute chat (either typed or spoken) unless they join a guild or solid group of players with whom to regularly play. Casual pick-up groups just plain suck at team tactics, and teaming in general.

Indeed. "Garbage In, Garbage Out."

A variety of diets and exercise were tried. Often initially successful but ultimately I gained the weight back, and more.

Any compulsion should be self-examined, be it to self-administer psychoactive stuff or play video games all day or anything else. Dopamine management is also an area that needs self-awareness. The two in combination are even more important to understand. Your friend should trust you enough to recognize your empathy and advice about his long-term physical and mental health to take your concern at face value and evaluate it. If that trust isn't there, I doubt you can have an impact. No one can say at such a distance as a message board if the trade-offs are worth it--or not worth it--for your friend. You are close to the situation and can help, but it's really up to your friend to figure out the best path for himself.

Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy. Lost 50 pounds in 3 months. Now I have no high blood pressure or sleep apnea.

http://thesummitblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/grahams-hierarchy-of-disagreement.html While the essay (and the essay to which it is linked) is good reading, it's this graphic that I particularly like:

Stef is going to kill me.

He did, but the BLM had been gradually weening all of the ranchers from the previous access they had to public land, so it was more a question of eroded property rights. Land use stuff gets really messed up, but the basic idea was that since no one else developed the land all of the ranchers could use it for additional grazing so they did not overgraze the land they had developed, increasing the capacity for all ranchers. The BLM wanted to restrict the land use due to environmental lobbying. The BLM was not developing the land for some other purpose, which is the traditional way that open country becomes private property. At first blush, I would think the BLM should offer to sell the land to the ranchers, or the environmentalists, and get out of the way. Heck, they could use the money to pay down the national debt or something. In either the Garner or Bundy cases, the State is the root cause of the problem.

I've heard metabolic syndrome called the warning sign of oncoming Type 2 Diabetes. Because it does not prevent normal activity, it can't be a disease--but that doesn't mean it's not harmful. For the record, I had metabolic syndrome and had to take fairly extreme measures to combat it.

I have reported it as well as "Father batters son at :37."

Legal terms like "good faith" and "made whole" are ancient constructions from the same kind of people that write dictionaries. It's no small wonder that there's a lot of value packed into such small terms of art.

Garner probably would not have had much of a market without the force of government. He probably didn't do nearly as much "compliance" work as the store did. When was his last OSHA inspection? Where's his business license? Construction permit? Sidewalk obstruction easement? Accounting audit? Public statements on business financials?

Just remember that the real reason behind the wars on Iraq and Libya were because they wanted to change to the non-petrodollar based exchange for their oil. Syria is about the Leviathan gas field. Ukraine is about Gazprom's supply to Europe. Greece (and Cyprus) are about natural gas terminals (they sold swathes of beach, and Greece's energy company as part of the bailout)... etc. etc. Follow the money.

The test I like to use here is whether they are willing to overpay their taxes if they like them so much. Usually, the willingness I observe is related to the universality of the taxation, and not the amount. There are some I've encountered who gleefully pay their taxes only so long as someone else is getting it worse. I am not fond of the "victimhood culture" that has engendered such things. Back to the shopkeepers, though, we have no idea what their motives are, but I tried to paint a scenario where could be seen as victims, not where they joyfully pay taxes. If I were to go in that direction, they would joyfully pay taxes if it keeps competition away by erecting barriers to entry of their market and indeed avarice drives them to report sellers of untaxed loosies.

While it's definitely inappropriate to teach risk analysis by claiming that all risk is unacceptable, everyone needs to learn to avoid being eaten by whatever the local variant of the tiger is. It is more difficult to teach critical evaluation skills, but it's definitely worth the time. This mom is not taking that time in this video. An important scenario to teach is "who do you trust when you are lost?" and "no" is not the right answer.

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When a imposingly huge person towers over you says "That's a nice watch, will you give it to me?" and you you rationalize that they need it more than you and comply... does that negate the threat of force? This is the very basis of strong-arm robbery.

Not a crime, but certainly unfair, and certainly an incentive for them to report the infraction. There's plenty of other reasons, like an overdose of statist Kool-aid, but I think it is the central one to considering them victims of Garner. I don't entirely agree with it beyond the fairness aspect, but I understand why they would feel the need to go a step further. A lot of people grow up learning that if they complain about something being unfair and seeing other people get away with the deal with the devil that starts with "there oughta be a law".

It's still the case that the stores are forced to pay the taxes or get business-threatening fines (or worse) and Garner was getting away with not paying those same taxes. Not a libertarian scenario, grant you, but its how they would see it.

The "sunk cost fallacy" is where you put too much value into what has been spent than the value of what you need to spend to rectify a situation. You don't have to deal with it when you haven't started work, but if you have done a bunch of things and realized the agreement is failing, you hold in your mind the cost of what has already been done which makes negotiation harder. The negotiation is better able to succeed if you focus on fixing the situation. Remember that to me the contract is not the piece of paper it is the notion of agreement that the piece of paper attempts to document. What compensates you is the willingness of the parties to execute the agreement, a willingness exposed through the process of negotiation and reinforced by the trust both parties engender in each other in both the negotiation and execution. If I approach a party that is not known to benevolent I might start with contracts of smaller scope and cost than I would if I approached a party with a huge track record and a reputation to protect. I don't predict the future perfectly, but I evaluate the risks in every engagement, and act accordingly. The essence of contracts is the agreement and the steps you take to make the agreement work. The piece of paper and signing it are only some of those steps.

If this issue wasn't charged enough, let me add this without comment: http://www.amren.com/features/2014/05/confessions-of-a-public-defender/#.U3GDQBBUW99.facebook

I did admit it was the devil's position. Garner may have been a gnat in the side of the business of the local drugstore, that doesn't change the fact that they had to comply and he was getting away with not. I suspect if they didn't comply (especially as a policy) then the punishment would have been steep fines or loss of business license, not necessarily arrest. Unequal parenting is an interesting question, though. When parents of a child differ in their response to that child, you have to recognize it leads to problems, no? Mom says yes and Dad said no stuff. Different parenting of other children can lead to the "How come my friend Blearga gets to buy new clothes and take a limo the dance and I don't?" kind of situations. Peaceful parents get it a lot less, I bet.

No, the rant is good. Don't be sorry about it, you should feel as this is a safe place to rant anyway. It sounds to me like you need to find more supportive and stimulating people to talk to. You might want to consider joining or organizing a meet-up just to get a chance of pace. If people are abusive and unlikely to change, then yes, you have to investigate how to protect yourself from their actions and influence. This is not easy. I think the first steps involve self-knowledge and therapy (a safe but insightful emotional coach, if you will), but everyone is different. The reason I keep trying to make things personal is that there is very little that can be done about the state as an individual, It is better to identify the actions you can take and the other individuals you can influence and/or help you grow in return.

I think you are testing us, because there are five components in your quote.