shirgall

The holders of the national debt, perhaps? Those bonds need to be paid off, unless they are held by the Fed. Those should be forgiven.

I've got a 1W blue laser that could probably be pretty dangerous. It's useful for popping balloons that have dark marks on them.

Inventions that don't lead to something useful are kind of pointless. May as well be a hobby.

In theory, the operation of computers is deterministic, but research "chip level soft error" and why the big servers need ECC memory. As for watching the match on TV, so what? Time travel itself is probably branching the entire universe, as others have already stated on this thread. The Observer Effect shows up in lots of places in other parts of physics. Kevin has pointed out that pointless debates on determinism are off-topic, by the way, probably because the result of the argument is unalterable and unavoidable.

While not an expert on the physics of time travel, merely being a person that looks at a scene can change what happens in a scene. People react differently when they know they are being watched. There are many Observer Effects besides the quantum one.

As was pointed out, there should only be "copyright" if you contract with someone to share something they agree not to disclose to others.

There are works on logic going back to the 11th century BC... but I suspect we can skip all that and just start with Organon: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/ Not as accessible as these folks are trying to be, admittedly.

The situations cannot be identical because there is a difference in observers (called the Observer Effect). Determinism in general comes across as a way to destroy ethics and morality because we are playing the game "on rails". Did you choose to write the post asking the question or were you preordained to do it from the conception of the universe? If everything is preordained, why bother have feelings, or curiosity, or desires?

The General Messages forum is for items of interest to FDR members and the Miscellaneous section is for items that don't fit it any other category... so they'd be items NOT of interest to FDR members.

But his interest was actually in other people reproducing his results and moving forward the understanding of the universe. Patenting his product would not have advanced that interest, it would have retarded it.

Most of that happened because it was in the script (yeah, even news shows are scripted).

No, it's an empiricism and philosophy forum. Philosophy explores truth. What works for inventors is a solid business plan, not just an idea. Sometimes people try to prove a point in isolation, but when it comes to invention there's a *lot* of knowledge represented here about what happens to really make an invention successful. You can assert it is impossible, but you have not demonstrated it. We challenged your ideas and the assumptions that underlie them. You are welcome to accept or deny those challenges, but we encourage everyone to process what has been said and figure out the truth for themselves.

I disagree. You can have an objective morality. Many philosopher's have posited the same, going back thousands of years. Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB) is a recent example. Nicomachean Ethics was written by Aristotle in 334BC (well, I might not be right on that, but that's when he established his school). There is a rich and deep history of thought in this area.

When looking for that word to describe your feelings, the word wheel in this posting might be helpful: https://robbsdramaticlanguages.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/

As someone that was an official in a state party, and a candidate for public office, I have probably seen a lot more libertarians in action than you might expect. I am prouder of this community than most of them because this community has put far more effort into self-knowledge, clarity, and logical argument. This is not to say that everything here is perfect. We are all learners. But you presented an interesting sandwich, "opinions, criticisms, and insults." The middle item is expected but you present it as negative, the final item is certainly negative, and the way you write this makes me think you feel the first item is negative too, as in "only negative opinions." Criticisms are not negative. They are intended to help you either recognize an error or at least improve your argument. The people responding to the steering wheel thread are portraying important truths: It is not enough to invent a better mouse trap. It is important to figure out if people want it, to figure out how to get your message out so people know they want it, to make them at a cost that allows you a reasonable profit, and to be able to deliver enough of them to meet demand. These are business realities, and it is logical to point out reality whenever it appears to be overlooked. Make a car with the better steering wheel and demonstrate its value. All of the car companies that are out there started with people that had better ideas than someone else and banded together to make their own cars for the public. Do you know what the core competency is of the various car companies? For example, Honda was really good at making small, fuel-efficient motors when it started. It sought out partnerships for the rest of the car manufacturing and started making cars instead of just engines. The rest is history. When people claim an argument is manipulative, immoral, supportive of violence, etc. they are pointing out flaws in your arguments. I agree that the approach of saying *you* are these things is not the best. It is off-putting. I try to be clear that what I am criticizing is the argument. While I try to avoid metaphors, but I like to visualize the arguments and counter-arguments dancing on the stage, and the participants of the debate sitting in a box in the balcony (perhaps like Statler and Waldorf, but without the contempt). I think you find more people with empathy than contempt in this audience, but also a lot more people that have enough courage to tell it like it is. There's also a lot more lurking than posting in this audience.

I think it has been brought up before but I don't think it has been answered here. If someone invents a revolutionary solar panel, but is an incompetent manufacturer that cannot meet demand, should all the other solar panels be forced not to innovate in a similar direction simply because they didn't think of it first? What if Galileo had patented his telescope (he didn't) and then proceeded not to manufacture any for anyone else because he was only interested in his research? Would anyone have bothered to recreate his results?

I had a rough time getting started, but consider it a crucible where your assumptions are being put to the test. Don't be afraid to push back, but consider the way you push back carefully. There is a lot of respect here for experiences, because those are empirical. There is a lot of respect here for logic, because logical arguments are true whether or not people believe in them or not. You started this thread with a lot of questions, and that's great. What I think people have been weeding out is the underlying assumptions. Libertarians don't initiate the use of force on people and they don't do business with people that do. They certainly defend themselves from those that do. They don't form "private armies" to weed out unbelievers. They want to be left alone and they want to leave others alone. They want to do business with those they trust and not be forced to associate or do business with those they do not trust. As you say, the Statists believe that the government should have the power to initiate force and they lend it that power by tolerating the rules, regulations, powers, and penalties that the state grants itself and applies to others. Is that enough to start a war? Most don't think so. However, approximately 1/3 of a population of a culture socially conditioned to accept a King started a rebellion only a couple hundred years ago. Most libertarians are just trying to whether the storm with whatever dignity and freedom they can muster. No one wants to start or fight in a war. It's not rational to kill people and break things unless faced with an immediate, unavoidable danger of death or great bodily harm. So, to answer your starting questions: for the people that cannot cope with liberty, we hope to teach them about what liberty can offer. For the people that are not honest, we hope that educating everyone about honesty and about who is dishonest will lead to better decision-making. For the violence-prone we hope that a populace that is serious about self-defense and self-reliance will at least make the violent recalcitrant instead of aggressive. It's not what I'd call a project plan, but it's an idea that has more merit than a lot of other crap that's come down the road.

I think you are taking it a little personally. Many people here take an opposite position of an argument to ferret out the truth of the argument and discard the pieces that don't make sense. All of us are not perfect. Many of us are still learning to do this. If you are interested in Philosophy, check out this series of early podcasts: http://feeds.feedburner.com/FreedomainRadio-IntroPhilosophy This is definitely the place to come to have an argument and check your premises. It can be hard on newcomers sometimes, but for the most part we're plenty nice.

As you aver, the legitimacy of power comes from force, not ceremony. Ceremony only serves to comfort what George Carlin called, "The Symbol-Minded."

Are you interested in a discussion about how government intervention has actually made things harder for the poor than they would be without such intervention? How about a discussion about how the poorest in the USA are better off than the majority of the rest of the people in the world?

If it has an observable effect ("can affect nature and lives") it's easy to prove that it exists and the argument would indeed be over. Go visit the Amazing Randy and collect your $1,000,000 prize. If it does not have a observable effect then there's no point to it existing or not so why bother with a useless abstraction the unnecessarily complicates our life?

The logical logging patent was enforced for 22 years.

The appeal to vote in local elections is easy to understand. Your vote has more value, the consequences are more immediate, and you are far more likely to be able to express your opinion directly to a local official than a national or state one. The question is whether someone feels that voting or the government is wrong, as that would be the same whether it's local or statewide. I admit that I got elected as a delegate locally in order to push Ron Paul as the GOP candidate at the county level, but you can see that influence petered out pretty quickly. Even so, I accept the process is one of influencing and directing mob mentality and not rational argument and debate. I vote for gridlock, in hopes of slowing things down. It's a losing game.

People who are "open to reason" are capable of changing their beliefs if given a sufficient argument and evidence.

Frankly, I see the free availability of material as outreach to attract the few customers that will pay. It is abundantly clear that the team spends time looking at what is effective and what is not. So, for example, Stef spends less time arguing with us on the forum and more time posting videos that more people see. This is not an obvious choice from a distance. It's also clear he gets a lot of material from the call-in shows. It sharpens his saw, is often very timely, and gives him material to whittle down for the "stinger" style videos, which get wide play. Is there benefit from chasing down "freeloaders" comparable to the above? I think he gets more mileage from the occasional reminder, of "hey, if you can pay, please do" (which figure more prominently in the call-in shows than the stingers) than guilt tripping or creating tons of more content for for the anointed few. In the long run the idea of giving value for value sinks into the people we want it to sink into.