shirgall

I once believed that businesses would make a rational decision that selling to 10 by not taking a position was better than selling to 5 because they did take a position. What I failed to realize is that once a business takes a position, they are pretty much stuck because they will lose the other faction if they change to pick up the excluded one.

My favorite version of this is when George Carlin says we should take movies and change every instance of "kill" with "fuck". "Well, sheriff, we're gonna fuck you now. And we're gonna fuck you slow."

I'm all for voting with the dollar, but Levis has not gone under because I dislike their funding of gun control organizations despite not buying from them for twenty years. Please forgive my cynicism of boycotts.

It *is* how it works. But somehow natural scarcity is not inherently unfair, but artificial scarcity leading to higher prices because someone didn't predict demand for more widgets is "the [structural] violence inherent in the system." Shortages always happen, no matter what the system, because of our friend Murphy. I think voluntary systems respond to such situations more quickly, based on what I've seen, but I am neither a historian nor an economist.

Non-sequitur for the win! Might as well change your Twitter icon and Facebook background for a trifecta of impotent rage.

Says you. To me, science is one of two method for determining truths about the universe: * deductive reasoning: testing hypotheses with careful experiments that can be replicated by others. * inductive reasoning: determining hypotheses by observing patterns in the behavior of the universe. Both methods lead to universal "laws" by volumes of evidence and elimination of counterexamples. The authorities of merit in such a system are those that make insightful contributions anywhere along these paths.

Snark aside, how is giving men advice "Don't drink too much" to avoid false rape accusations not victim-blaming too?

Stef has been counseling better parenting for a long time now, and I believe it is the long-term solution. No more single parenting. No more child and spouse abuse.

If my circumstances change during a long transaction, I re-negotiate... but I'm an old database guy, it's kinda expected.

The 750Ti in particular is the latest generation chipset from nvidia, and uses considerably less power at idle and at full power than a similarly capable device of the previous generation. You are right that TDP all by itself doesn't tell enough of the story, but I can attest that at idle it's pretty mellow. I got my 750Ti from EVGA. Check out this article from Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-750-ti-review,3750-21.html

When I was a hiring manager, appearance was an important element of deciding who to say "no" to. Appearance in an interview reflects on the judgement and preparation of the candidate. Did they do their research? Did they set the stage to talk about capabilities instead of "style over substance"? What kind of manager would I be if the clothes impressed me and not the capabilities of the candidate? Honestly, the same thing goes for dating.

In the US there are 7.1 military personnel for every 1000 people, which makes it seem unlikely that such a scenario could happen. It takes a lot of effort to imprison a populace with 40% firearms ownership. However, Obama did indicate he wanted a civilian police force as least as large as the military, so we could conceivably increase the number of jackbooted enforcers to 14 or 15 per 1000, After all, the Feds issue automatic weapons and sidearms and millions of "practice rounds" to the Department of Agriculture already. They test public sentiment by sending SWAT teams to collect college loans. The zombie and epidemic end of the world movies work because they kill so many people on the outbreak, reducing population by a 100 to 1, or even 1000 to 1 ratio. There would have to be some similar level of killing to make a sudden change as seen in this trailer.

I think it is more important to understand the implications of state actions than the deep history of them. There are two factors that hurt deep knowledge: unless you were there, nuances are lost or glossed over or impossible to confirm except by the official historians and there is just too much to absorb in a reasonable amount of time. The skills that must be developed are "connecting the dots" and "critical evaluation of claims". Of course, these are incredibly hard to teach.

It was marketed to women but open to all. It was usually 90% women. We did *not* talk firearms in that course. If they asked, we referred them to a different class (Personal Protection in the Home, to be exact). This was all about avoiding risky behaviors and taking reasonable precautions. A little bit of gadgetry too.

As a result of the effort to gild those designer blinders than certain people wear, check out the latest unintended consequence: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/colleges-struggle-with-protecting-students-without-being-accused-of-victim-blaming/article/2556509 I used to be involved in teaching a course called, "Refuse to Be a Victim". I can't imagine how these lunatics would treat me if I was still doing it.

Yeah, it's a spectrum... but I'd be surprised if most people have even made it through "An Introduction to Philosophy" http://feeds.feedburner.com/FreedomainRadio-IntroPhilosophy ...or have even read the UPB and RTR books from cover to cover.

This is actually the reddit model. All posts start with one upvote from yourself.

Plenty of people that claim to be rational, and are rational about some things, but nonetheless are not rational about other things. They don't have the self-knowledge to recognize the dissonance or perhaps the will to take steps to deal with it. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that.

To be fair, the sheer volume of content can be daunting. At least we don't hit people too hard with the "that was addressed in podcast #1631 at the 3h21m mark" shenanigan.

As you mention, in our culture I think it works out that way. Look at the difference in weddings for most people that get married a second or third time. It gets more low-key. The ostentatiousness is still there for some (that does seem to be a bragging rights thing) but the guest list is usually shorter.

Because of the prevalence of weapons of incredible destructive power and cost amongst states, your friend is probably right. The only way to dismantle such things is a global transformation of the people to be skeptical of such devices (and the other trappings of the state) and dismantle it all. One can always hope.

Yes, a public demonstration of commitment is intended to make that commitment stronger as you will feel shame to all of those witnesses if the relationship fails.

What is the benefit to them of this? It seems more like a detriment, because it undermines the support for their culturally-mandated benefits and advantages.

Hrm, shouldn't a therapist be more concerned with helping you understand yourself and helping you get enough information to make good decisions rather than pressing you to "take more responsibility"? While therapists have an incentive to continue earning more business, I suspect that the therapist believes there is more about yourself that you need to discover. Most people are averse to therapy because of what they will learn about themselves. I have my own issues there, but it doesn't hurt to try a few different ways to gain self-knowledge and see what works well. The trick is to do any of them long enough to get to something really valuable.

To be fair a "Big L" Libertarian is merely a member of the party, and a "small L" libertarian is someone lives and supports the principles. Speaking as a former Membership Director of a state party, I know these two sets intersect, but are not equal. The party is a bigger tent in that it accepts the disaffected from other parties and hopes to introduce them, shape them, or persuade them to reason.