James Dean

I'm less interested in the unprovable speculation of photographs from nearly 70 years ago. It's very interesting and I can tell that this is very important to the original poster, but in the end there is just too much removal from the actual events (of either the actual landing or the framing) to make any reasonable assesment. I'm much more interested in how people respond to, and are senitive in light of the fact that a moon landing hoax would represent a massive, illumanti level of conspiracy within, not just one government, but a near global cabal of unprecedented power and unity of propaganda. This is what trips me up in the moon landing debates, I'm very open to the possibility that such a conspiracy could exist, but it reminds me of conversations about the Roswell UFO crash. You could show be blurry photos of the a disc in the sky all you want, but until testable and verifyable evidence is brought to bear, I remain skeptical, which is the rational position in light of such a large and unlikely unity within the government. A theory based on weatherbaloons or whatever is much more likely (not to say true) and is the better theory by defitintion, because it makes fewer assumptions. For instance, the cost of the apollo space program was reported to be $25.4 billion in 1973. Again, I'm very open to the possibilty of such a conspiracy, it is certainly not a proposterous proposal, but where would you suggest all this money actually went? did it cost that much to fake a landing and pay off all the peope involved? More importantly though it really doesn't matter. If irrefutable proof came out in the next hour showing NASA never landed on the moon, it would change nothing. Do you think that a moon landing hoax is what they've been really trying to cover up all these years when they pretty braisenly and openly slaughter millions of innocent civilians, imprison people for non crims, destroy domestic families with the war on drugs, destroy foreign families with the war on terror, whether or not they fibbed about the moon landing is low on my priorities list. Even if the whole of america at this point knew without a shadow of a doubt that the moon landing was fake, it wouldn't change their fundemental attidute towards the state at all, far more aggregious crimes seems to pass them by like weeds in the sidewalk. I won't insult your itelliengce by suggesting that you don't already understand this, so I'm left wondering why this topic is so imporant to you? I'd be currious in knowing what you have to say.

Yes, I 100% agree, it is an amoral personal choice. However it's important to point out that this is a recent reality, it would not have been feasible before both vitamin supplements and the global agricultural market (and for a while, even when we had international trade, only the richest echelon of society could enjoy foreign fruits/veggies.) If that were the case, we would expect there to no evidence of human hunting at all, because they would only have scavenged other animals kills. The comparison with a cats claws is valid, both are tools. Tool: a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function. I think that it's fair to say both a cat's claws and a human spear are implements used to carry out a function. So if our digestive systems are able to get nutrients out of meat, and we have the physical capacity to catch prey, how does that not make us an omnivore? I don't have particular links at the moment, I've just been drawing on the knowledge of my previous education. We have molars and bicuspids that are adapted to masticate plant matter but your incisors, and canines are adapted to tear and chew meat.

That's what always confused me too. I was a vegetarian for 10 years and hated it, although I pretended I loved it at the time because it was, and still is, a trend. That being said, the west eats too much meat, for a variety of economic and political reasons. In my experience, I felt much better once I was eating meat maybe 1 or 2 times a week, and making sure to buy really high quality meat. Serving size is a big deal with meat too, we eat too much in one sitting. I guess that's where I loose the vegan crowd, I agree that our attitude towards meat has been turned totally back asswards, thanks for that, government subsidies. It's hard to classify animals as herbivores, omnivores, or carnivores when you look at all the factors in that organisms life; it's infinitely more difficult to classify them based on digestive tract alone. Take for instance the digestive tract of a bear, it is 40% shorter and more acidic than most herbivores. It fits the bill for a typical "carnivore" digestive tract, yet bears are omnivores. Bears will eat all kinds of fruiting bodies, the only consequence of their digestive system is a difficulty in digesting cellulose, they have no problem eating a whole bush worth of berries (trust me I've seen it!) A lot of lizards have primarily carnivorous digestive tracts, but a lot of lizards are omnivores. There are a bunch of examples for this. Why is it valid for a cat to hunt with tools (their claws) but invalid for a human to hunt with tools? And as was said before, although very unphilosophically, our closest evolutionary ancestors were not vegetarian. In fact, the process of encephalization in the species homo is linked with increasing meat in their (our?) diet. Over a long period of time, we have grown more omnivorous to better adapt. In other words, we owe our very large brain to steak. And if you've ever seen Man vs Wild, you'll know that rabbits are not the only meat you can catch with your hands. 7 days in the jungle and you'll eat anything that moves, beatles, snakes, termites, scorpions, any other animal's kill that you manage to scavenge etc. All of that meat is perfectly easy to catch with your hands (which are still tools by the way) I just wanted to point this out, as I run into this a lot, especially on this topic. It is very unphilosophical ( I think it's a religious hang-over, but that's just a guess) to say any biological organisms are "designed to" do anything. In biology, there is no design. This goes like 5000 times more for humans in particular. While a cat is not designed to hunt, it is largely slave to it's instincts to hunt and eat. Humans on the other hand have broken almost all biological constraints, we can change our habitat like it's nothing, we can conquer our base instincts with logic and reason, we can reject the perceived evidence of our senses, and we can choose what we want to eat. The fact that there are vegetarians, paleos, vegans, pescetarians and the rest just goes to show that the human digestive tract is not designed to do anything. I don't want to ad hom you here, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you don't know a lot about human evolution. I gather this from the basic factual errors that you made in your post. Let me address another here by saying humans began to cook food, not because we didn't like the taste of meat, but because it was more efficient. when you cook food you can eat it much faster, as it takes a lot of chewing and gnawing to get all the nutrients out of a raw cut of meat (think of why dogs like to gnaw on bones, because they spent their evolutionary lives eating raw meat). All this free time allowed people to spend more time making tools, making clothes, and making babies. ;D That being said, the human digestive tract is perfectly capable of digesting raw meat, I have eaten plenty of raw meat and I love the taste. Humans generally don't like vegetables either that's why we fry them, boil them, cover them in cheese, butter, bacon, the whole lot! Most humans would find it difficult to eat a raw potato, that doesn't mean we should never eat potatoes.

I have gods and kings but haven't found the good conscious to spend more money on brave new world.

Seems like more incentive to not be a porn star rather than a porn consumer. I share her criticisms of the mainstream porn industry, I think that a lot of those women and men have severe trauma in their past, and they should be helped, not so much to quit porn, but to quit being self-destructive. Like she said, she was addicted to drugs and alcohol, was a prostitute and a stripper, and she tried to kill herself. It sounds like porn wasn't really the problem... it sounds like she was already throwing her life away before the scary porn industry showed up. Edit: It seems like she could do a lot more for the people in the porn industry by trying to change the working conditions in the porn industry. Set up your own porn production company, ensure that your actors not only receive a physical before the shoot, but receive a full psychological evaluation to ensure that they are in perfect mental health and thus won't do anything they consider degrading. This is why I think problems will get solved infinitely more efficient in the free market. There must be much more people willing to pay for "humane" porn ( so to speak ) than people who will deny their own sexuality for the sake of porn star's health.

If your partner feels uncomfortable with it, then you two need to talk that out. Obviously there is nothing morally wrong with looking at porn, and I haven't seen a lot of research to suggest that it may be harmful psychologically in any way, provided you are of legal age in whatever country you occupy there's no legal risk either. Just talk to her about it and be honest, share your sexuality with her. Obviously there is something in your sex life that you find lacking, otherwise you wouldn't be watching the porn, considering your sexuality is healthy, I assume you aren't compulsively masturbating or watching porn. You don't keep eating after you've had a nice meal. Are the sex acts you watch on the videos similar or the same to what you and your partner do in the bedroom?

If any board members have been infected with this time suck of a hobby, I was thinking it would be cool to have an online space to hang out with other FDR members and play my favorite game. I often find minecraft to be isolating, even on multiplayer, but with a community like this one, we could build a truly epic server for people to relax and socialize with other FDR members. Don't get me wrong, I love the boards, and I love talking about all the important and difficult topics, but at the end of the day, when I want to give my cortex a rest, it would be nice to have people I respect as much as you guys to play with. I could certainly do work within the server itself, but setting that up would be a task unfit for me or my computer, so I humbly ask for the help of anyone more server literate than me. We could use an online server service, but then there would be the cost. Paying for 6 months up front (gives you a 10% discount), with a max of 15 players, would be $81.00 for vanilla or $162.00 for feed the beast. EDIT: just wanted to reiterate: If someone has the know how and the time to set up the server by themselves, it would be essentially free, the pay service would be if there was enough people interested but no one who was able/willing to invest in the time or the server space. Is there interest in something like this? Let me know what you guys think!

I work part time at a bakery, which is pretty freakin sweet I just wish I got more hours. I took the red pill at a really inconvenient time and really can't bring myself to endure the medieval trepanning that is higher education. Not only does the brain-dead academic life not appeal to me, there would be no way not to hate myself doing something I hate with stolen money. So I'm really at a loss as far as how to move my life forward in terms of career (I do have myself a pretty little lady who I'll start a family with and that makes me really happy. ) All you IT guys... how did you get into the field? Did it take years of schooling or did you just learn C++ or Javascript then start applying for jobs? Maybe something in between?

They basically said what Stef says which is stop talking about philosophy and go and live philosophy.

I'm not arguing that those books have tons of information, just that the information is all false.

"GOD" is not an axiom, is there a clearer axiom you work with, just so we're all on the same page...? Something along the lines of "god exists?"

I'm sorry, those articles were so poorly researched and made laughable claims with nary a source to be cited. I get quite annoyed at the "your body is not designed to X" argument. Protip, your body is not 'designed' to do anything. The Human body adapts. Life adapts! Now I know the food pyramid is bullshit and it's basically a map of who sucks the government tit the hardest, but the people who so boldly and errantly claim that "grains are killing you" with pretty much no research to back it up just make me laugh. Especially where the author of one article claimed that gluten is a self defense mechanism of grains. Plants that have developed that defense strategy produce toxins that present negative symptoms immediately so that the creature that ate it has a negative reinforcement reaction and can connect it with that plant. LOL. It's like you have hemlock in one corner, which will totally disrupt the functioning of your central nervous system and gluten in the other corner can... well.... it makes you kinda tired sometimes.... and something about intestinal mucous.

Shooting this woman in the face would not violate the NAP. It would be in defence of the helpless children she is abusing.

What do you guys think of these moral theorists? I've only done some light research, but I ran into a lot of confusing stuff. It's tough to navigate the usual academic milieu you inevitably get when you try to find sources more credible than wikipedia. I want your thoughts! what the deal with this stuff?

I thought the bitcoin speech was good, but this is just pure gold.

it seems like those are two different things? One is like the cane toad, an invasive species kills off native animals. Usually when that native species has no natural predator. But this happens all the time and has presumably been happening for a while. What's the problem with this in particular? The second example, with the dandelions, the problem is not that dandelions are an invasive species, but rather people's irresponsible use of pesticides; that is objectively bad and needs to stop. However I don't see what that has to do with invasive species. Maybe you could clarify it for me?

Sorry, I'm confused by the wording of your post... what is the issue that get's no coverage?

A revolution-esque transition to a stateless society might work, much later down the road. I would predict civil disobedience on some sort of large scale, a tax revolt (though they would just print more money) maybe a boycott of the current currency, pockets of agorism sprouting up everywhere, that sort of thing. I don't think that it would be violent at all, but the public consciousness needs to be there. You can't shoot a flare over a crowd of blind people. I don't know if this would even be possible in my lifetime, let alone Stef's. ALSO! a big problem with adam's plan is that once you return the power to the states, you create a mini minarchist problem, in that the reduce in bullshit from the federal level will increase wealth, and then the government will just get bigger.

I was thinking to myself today about the issues of domestic violence, and how most studies I've read show the perpetrators are men and women pretty equally, maybe with more men perhaps chalked up to the problems of male victims being shamed. I had a thought that seemed interesting and I hoped I could get some feedback. From the statistics I have found in my (admittedly sparse) research, it seems the incidence of child abuse is split down the middle the same way; half boys and half girls. Of course if you come from an abusive household you are far more likely to perpetrate some sort of abuse. It seems somehow feminists think that when girls are abused they come through it stronger and wiser yet boys degrade into these wife beating monsters. How could domestic violence not mirror child abuse in terms of gender? It just seems logical to me, maybe I missed something.

I was never saying those things were synonymous. the capacity to reason is not "equal to" or "the same as" self ownership. Our capacity to reason is a biological reality, self ownership, among many other things, just follow logically, the concepts are not identical. But I don't consider it a divergence. If you think that mentally handicapped are a subsection of all humans, then they have self ownership just by the law of excluded middle. If you assert that mentally handicapped don't have self ownership because of an impaired capacity for reason, then you are excluding them from the category 'human' because one of the properties of that category is the biologically reality of self ownership. Now this seems pretty silly to me, again, as it seems to rest on the assumption that our capacity to reason is the only cause of self ownership. I can think the exclusive use of our nerves, limbs, muscles and organs also plays a huge roll as we are the only ones for whom use of our body is even possible.

So it is your assertion that the mentally handicapped are not human?

I think stef has made this point many times, if someone could link to a podcast... just because sometimes horses are born with three legs or two heads, doesn't mean they are not horses. Yes, people with severe mental retardation may sometimes be born, but they are still human, and human beings have self ownership. Let me take a stab at a syllogism for ya 1. Human beings have self ownership. 2. the mentally handicapped are human beings 3. the mentally handicapped have self ownership.

children most certainly do have the capacity to reason, if they didn't, you would be saying you cannot reason because you were once a child. the thing that differentiates humans as a conceptual category from animals is the potential for reason to exist. Yes; some humans can't, some are in comas, some are born retarded, some just plain don't feel like it but this is irelevant! We all have the capacity to reason whether we utilize it or not.

I think cosleeping is one of the best things you can do with a child. I slept with my dad until I was 12 and my mom until I was around 9 or 10. Even when I was a teenager I would wake up at 6am and crawl into bed with my parent until having to get up 30 minutes later. It was nice and I got some extra sleep, which as a teenager, I would do anything for, we all know how that goes. My parents divorced when I was 6 and sleeping with them at night helped to solidify a bond that was really damaged by the divorce. All in all, it was one of the things they 'got right' as parents, albeit accidentally.

I'm not sure of this myself, I'm just sharing my thoughts and I appreciate you walking through this with me, I hope it makes sense. In a way, yes, but it's not the only factor. What's the difference between rape and sex? consent. Now, obviously, a child cannot consent to sexual acts, but are generally good at expressing preferences. I think it's reasonable to say that sexual abuse or inappropriate touching must involve some act that is inherently sexual like touching the genitals OR an act in which the initiator is seeking sexual pleasure, like attempting to tongue kiss a 13 year old girl; obviously icky. I would say the nature of the acts and the intention of the actor as well as the perception and preference of the child are all important to consider; I don't think there is a hard line you can draw. I also think it's important to point out that we shouldn't use "sexual abuse" so lightly. Being forced to kiss your grandmother on the cheek might be icky and unpleasant, and it's certainly reasonable to say the parents shouldn't do that, but it's not sexual abuse. again I don't really think there is this scale were at one end there's way too much affection and that's abuse and at the other end there is too little affection and that is neglect. Neglect is a reference to depriving a child of basic need, of which affection and skin-skin contact is one, but there are many others like food, shelter, safety, etc. Just like sexual abuse is a deliberate act to harm a child, neglect is a deliberate act and is not just, "whoops, i forgot to kiss little billy today before he walked to school." I also think (and this is just rank opinion, I have no research or anything to back me up, please supply hard science if you have it) that kids ask for affection instinctually, like they ask for food. Interacting with my half brothers, who are 1 and 2, they seem to ask for kisses and hugs just like they ask for food. There will be an age where they don't want that anymore, and I hope their wishes are respected, but if they were pressured to give family kisses or hugs, I don't think that means it's automatically rape. If you have deprived your child of food for so long that they no longer seek it out you have deliberately starved them, and they don't really have a preference, more like scar tissue. At that point, the child should be raised by someone else. Similarly, if a child 'wants' you to perform sexually inappropriate acts on them, it's not really a preference, it's a psychological leftover from previous rape. I wouldn't confuse healthy preference for pathology. I think there are very few defined lines in parenting, a lot of it is situation specific. I think the lines for kids are pretty much the same as for adults, the NAP, but that's the only hard line I can think of. Otherwise the maxims become more vague like 'provide for their needs' or 'don't do anything harmful,' and these are universal maxims, but they are less black and white. Again, i'm an uber ameteur at talking about parenting, so please correct me, this is what I think i've been able to reason out.