dsayers

It's much more than a currency even in the ways it's used as currency. You can't just ignore these characteristics. Cosmin says it could land somebody in jail even though being anonymous, it couldn't realistically even be tied to somebody. Assuming this is true, would the risk of getting caught be valued different if it meant the difference between incurring $50,000 in transaction costs vs a few cents? The frictionlessness alone makes it highly valuable even in the event of a ban. The fact that its security and anonymity significantly reduce the chance of getting caught almost nonexistent, you can't just ignore these characteristics. Your original claim was that it proves your point. It doesn't disprove Stef's either, and partially for the exact same reason. A single point on a graph cannot indicate a trend. You need at least two points and the more points you have, the more accurate the trend is. Plus, I pointed out that this was a first time occurrence. People panicked because they didn't know what to expect. The population of the largest country seemed to drop off the landscape. In fact, that's not even what happened. What did happen is measures to subvert the ban. Just as with currency that has backing, speculation is involved. This happening for the first time ever in the largest way possible would cause a huge spike in speculation. Saying that what came next is what will always come is unfounded. Finally, I wanted to point out that the difference in market value now vs then isn't the whole picture either. Then was after a significantly large surge in value as a result of the Fed saying they were not going to attack Bitcoin. In other words, the value at the time China said no hadn't normalized. I don't think this is controversial considering that most people who wish to speak ill of Bitcoin will cite its speculative nature as a currency.

The whole story was indeed truly horrific. I'm glad that it's getting out now. One of the things that truly disturbs me about stories like this (after the content itself of course) is how many of these stories there really are. It puts into perspective how important discussions of child abuse and what constitutes child abuse really are. Anyways, I did want to point out that the bed wetting you opened with isn't actually the beginning of the story. It's an effect of abuse even if the abuse was "only as mild as" the neglect of not teaching her to manage her need to expel waste by using devices we have for it. Though it's usually more than that. I wet the bed until I was about 10 even though I was mimicking toilet use as early as being one year old. I emphatically disagree. Acquaintance with a person is not necessary to have an emotional reaction to their behavior. Take this thread for example, I am angry to learn of the abuse described. I don't know the victim, the abusers, or even the person telling the story. Anyways if somebody dies and it was a horrible person, then yes, pointing out that they were a horrible person to somebody who is grieving isn't useful or appropriate. However, you're talking about abuse she's lived with for decades. The period of just being "supportive" for the sake of calming them is way over. I think displaying and speaking of anger if that's how you feel is not only appropriate, but important. She needs to see SOMEBODY get angry about it. Given her reactions and what she's said since, it's clear she normalized it. Probably nobody ever got angry, so she just accepted it as the norm. As I understand it, this is one of the most important reasons why we should say something when parents abuse their children in the open. If nothing else, it shows the child that this is NOT okay. ebrink, I'm really sorry for the position you're in. Do you feel that it was a good move for you to commit to somebody you didn't know that well or to somebody that was that broken up and not repaired before committing to another person? I ask because I have a feeling that what you expect to follow and what could actually follow do not overlap. To that end, have you thought about what would happen or what would you do if it turns out that who you married and who you're married to are different people? Or if who she discovers that she is requires your absence? Unless you have a deep understanding of psychology, the development of self-knowledge of another person almost has to happen without you. You might be able to provide perspective IF THEY SEEK IT. Plus, the fact that you are part of her history at this point will cloud both your ability to help and her ability to receive help from you. To avoid this, you would both have to be steeped in self-knowledge and have a grasp on psychology. I really hate having to be frank in such matters

I agree. However, human gestation is on average nine months long with the woman knowing that she is pregnant as early as a few days in. Would you revise this position in light of the option of abortion where she can still choose to not gestate a child? Or to not abort, but avail herself of adoption arrangements in advance to voluntarily transfer the positive obligation (if there is one) by choosing to not abort?

I said, "If you accept." This is not stating a position. In order for you to accept self-ownership of you, but reject self-ownership of others, you would have to make the case that people are fundamentally different in way that denies them that which you allow for yourself. Slavery is theft of free will. I invested my time in exchange for my keyboard or money that I chose to use to acquire my keyboard. If you steal my keyboard, you've stolen my free will during the time in which I exercised it to acquire the keyboard. We only know that the keyboard is mine because of this chain of events. To claim that theft does not violate self-ownership contradicts this. It's not up to us. The definition of value includes that it is relative to who is evaluating. That is to say that the objective truth of value is subjective. Is a sandwich worth $10? What about when you're really hungry and don't know when your next opportunity for food will come? What about when you've just had a filling meal? Value fluctuates even within the person doing the evaluating based on any number of circumstances. It's not like tilling the soil. I don't know if he gets to own the land. I know the answer to that isn't relevant to a debate on whether or not theft violates self-ownership.

"Their logic," "our reasoning," it's not up to us. Absolutely not. Some of its claims are internally inconsistent. A buddy of mine is an engineer for Ford. He's never created anything that went on to be more than the sum of its parts. That life is an emergent property of matter is not proof of creation at all. That matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed and that the sum of all matter and energy is constant leaves no room for creationism. Then a deity would not be all powerful if they were bound by real world constraints. You went on to speak about faith as if its necessary, which begs the question. Faith simply means, "I believe because I want to believe." Like, "I had a dream about a sparrow," it has no use in a conversation between people who are bound by the objective world.

This is presumptive. Assuming that religious texts are not what they claim to be, it's far more likely that they were created for the purpose of power and conquest. Not the other way around as you posit. We know this because religions do not change and punish anybody that asks questions that could lead to change.

Except that Bitcoin isn't just another currency. It's virtually frictionless, anonymous, and inherently secure. Additionally, something that is secure and anonymous is literally unbannable. The only proof that a singular example provides is that something CAN happen. Bitcoin had never been subjected to a country banning its use to any degree, so of course people who don't fully understand are going to be panicked. China has the largest population of any country, so that's quite the impact. Just to be clear, the supply is constantly rising for now.

Does the decision between two people to have a child together create a positive obligation to that child? If so, is that obligation to guide and provide for the child until such a time as they're able to do so on their own?

Less important than top stuff: What lines would I need to use to remove most of the bottom stuff? Under the reply windows is a few icons I don't need, an "also tagged" section (on threads were the author used tags), and the section with all the social media and iTunes links is what I'm talking about. I'd like to keep the reading this topic section if possible.

I never said it is desired to feel obligated. Calling the positive obligation in question arbitrary is begging the question. "Initiated" substantiates my interpretation and "irrelevant" in response to my using the word shows it persists. My use of the word irrelevant spoke of items that did nothing to establish or refute that choosing to have a child is choosing to create a positive obligation to it. Your use spoke of appeals to emotion, which I haven't used. The only mention of emotion I've made was not part of my argumentation. It was brought up to show you that you tried to punish me for being honest with you. Something you're continuing to do even after I explained that me experiencing frustration doesn't mean YOU frustrated me. Did you notice that we both perceive being attacked but only one of us feels it justifies retaliation? I mention it since it can help to establish the validity of the perceived attacks. By this I mean that if a person senses an attack and tries to continue discussing rationally, it is clear he does not want attacks to be part of the discourse. Whereas somebody that senses an attack and retaliates might have only seen the attack because they were looking for it. Pride has no place in a productive debate. My claim either accurately describes the real world or it does not. Either way, it is no reflection on you or me.

I guess I'm proof positive about the knowing your audience point she made. I became much more resistant once the focus turned almost exclusively to "climate change" and using the word "green" to mean something other than the color. Partially because almost nobody talking about conservation, climate change, pollution, etc EVER brings up that coercion is the biggest polluter of all. I disagree with when she said that when building green buildings, saving money is secondary. Everything we do is motivated by profit. Even if that means building a building that might cost more, but will be more appealing and therefore generate more revenue. This is one of the fatal flaws in things like the Americans with Disabilities Act and smoking bans. If it's good for business, people will do it without the gun to their head. If it's not what people want, putting guns to people's heads won't be helpful. Oh and she went on to say eliminate waste when waste can only in fact be reduced.

I found "We've got to stop asking what it will look like, how and when it will happen, and start acting" to be valuable. So many people think that it's a thing being talked about when it is in fact an idea. The "thing" aspect of it is what we make of it. Not acting is just making the thing not very useful at all. Which is ironic because inaction in this context probably comes from fear of numbers, but they're adding to those numbers with their inaction. In a tug of war, those who are just putting their hands on the rope will invariably travel in whichever direction has the most effort being put into pulling on it.

Welcome to FDR. I wish you didn't have such a large problem to post about, but I'm glad you felt like you could share. I was wondering if you could elaborate on what "her childhood was very difficult" means. Also, "She left home at 15, has always taken on a lot of responsibility" sounds rather mundane and voluntary, but I'm guessing it was significantly more traumatic than that. Finally, do you know why it is that she has never been single? I have some thoughts, but would like to hear your elaborations to these items first if you don't mind.

I have just made the case that property rights is what follows self-ownership. If my methodology was flawed, please point out where. This quote here is repeating what I have just refuted as if it was not addressed at all. I would ask that if you wish to continue the conversation, that you at least acknowledge that I've already addressed your claim. I also noticed you went on to say "your subjective values." Self-ownership is neither mine nor subjective. Footprints do not exist. Impressions made in the sand by somebody who doesn't own the land that it is on cannot claim to own the shapes left behind.

I've always thought that if I called in, I would write down in advance what I wanted to say. Hell, I wrote down the points I wanted to cover with the mechanics today when I went to get some preventative work done to the car. It's a form of visualization and it helps to unburden the mind. A couple months ago, before I learned to appreciate the value of visualization, I would not have done this. I can sympathize with weeb's sentiment (haven't heard the show in question, but I know what he's talking about), but I can also empathize with those calling in. What some people have to talk about is very difficult for them. Knowing that it will be published certainly makes it that much harder. If I could offer some constructive criticism to would be callers, it would be to ask the question. Stef is good at asking questions and will solicit any necessary backstory or side details.

"I like the way things are and I understand it's not the best way to do things, so I will divert attention and put down competing ideas just for being different." Don't know what exactly they're talking about, but I think that's a fair translation.

Yes. My first course of action in continuing an unraveling debate on whether or not choosing to have a baby is choosing to create a positive obligation to it was to not spend time addressing questions that weren't conducive to it (false premise according to your label which I disagree with). You took issue with my not answering the questions and said I was rationalizing, so I gave you that paragraph to indicate why each question was disregarded and how doing so is rational. The series of irrelevant questions was frustrating to me. Something that I was open and honest with you about. You responded with a verbal slap in the face. I tried to reply while not focusing on that too much (in case my interpretation was in error) by actually addressing the questions. Now you've slapped me in the face for that too. I'm referring to your sudden issue with the length of my posts. To recap I'm wrong to disregard the questions and I'm wrong to address them. I realize this is just text, but it seems as if your disposition has changed to one of retaliation as if my acknowledging my frustration was the same thing as placing blame or fault on you. Which I was not doing at all.

One of the most interesting parts of pursuing self-knowledge to me is in the minutia. The things we do, think, or say that is imprecise and we never even realized it. I was hoping to start a conversation about some of these habitual speaking errors. For example, I've noticed that sometimes when speaking about my childhood, I'll say "we," "us," or "our" when speaking about my sister and me. Sure I can be accurately describing things that occurred for both of us. As a broken person trying to heal though, I think it's probably better if I stick with speaking on my own behalf and my own experiences. Similarly, there are times when I'm speaking about something in general that also applies to me and I'll unwittingly shift between first and third person. I just had to edit a post where I had said "I grew up with a father who would intentionally speak in roundabout ways so that he could use your lack of frame of reference as an excuse to attack." While this may be true for others, it's important to speak of MY lack of frame of reference in order to come closer to facing this manipulation of ME. So what are on your guys' to do list in terms of habitual speaking error modifications?

Happiness isn't an involuntary response of virtue, it's the effect of living virtuously. Ironically, this would be to redefine virtue. Virtue IS logical and it is objective. I'm with you that language is important. People who are not virtuous want to call their view virtuous so that it will not be scrutinized. People who cannot negotiate will pass their opinions off as facts. People who want you to not question their decrees will call them laws. And so on. The point being that somebody that says that communism is virtuous is being dishonest. Because assigning different rights to different humans is morally invalid. Virtue denotes an adherence to morality.

I find it strange that somebody using that many footnotes can make the fundamental mistake he did. When he got to natural moral law, he simply renamed it to supernatural law just because a few people that talked about it spoke as if there was a deity. But I can't make a mountain into a Toyota just by calling it one. Just as I cannot turn natural law into supernatural law by saying "God."

That's the biological description. Reduction of pain and maximization of pleasure is present outside of humans also. Happiness requires reason or biologically, the upper brain.

It is all the same thing. If you accept self-ownership, then you accept the self-ownership of others and property rights. If you own yourself, you own the effects of your actions. I'm currently typing to you on my keyboard. I paid for it with my money that I earned by investing my time and labor. If you steal it, you are enslaving me for as long as I worked to earn it. The only difference between theft and assault, rape, and murder is that restitution is more realistic and easier to calculate.

Detroit got better thanks to free market entrepreneurs once the state was effectively defunct. Not saying it's the ideal example, but this is why it's more important to ask, "what would *I* do?" than it is to ask what would happen. Because what will happen is what people make happen. We'd have a lot more of that now, but as Mr. Chapman pointed out, the state pushes out competitors. When you're hungry, you grab something to eat. We're naturally born empirical problem-solvers. You take away the coercive central planning and you suddenly get many more, better ideas that will compete until the best answer surfaces. If that happens to be a voluntary central system, hey, I'm all for voluntary solutions.

In that first scenario, I would try to point out that her baby needs its mother and the damage that can be done to a child that thinks they're going to die because their caregiver abandoned them. Maybe even ask if she's ever been abandoned and if so, see if it was at least at a time she could fend for herself. If she needs to work, she needs to not get pregnant. The two will be in heavy odds for the first 5 years or so. In the second scenario, I would've replied, "How does reproducing make the immoral act of assault suddenly moral? On somebody 1/10th my size? That cannot escape? That is dependent upon me? Whose entire world and example I've created, thus making me responsible for anything I see in them that I do not like or want to keep them away from?" Did these examples occur before you noticed that pregnant women made you sad? Because I could definitely see how, "I'm going/I want to abuse my child," would be a very saddening thing to hear.

"not drink sewage?" No moral component. "keeps you from sabotaging a nuclear plant?" Negative obligation. "stay on the high wire?" No moral component. "shopkeeper behave with you if he feels obligated to serve you?" No positive obligations prior to interaction. "How about feeling obligated towards a child? How would that make your parenting?" Do not address whether a positive obligation is created or not. I didn't answer the questions because they're not germane to the topic of whether or not choosing to have a child is choosing to create a positive obligation to that child. Hence the frustration. Upon exploring that frustration is when I noticed that you appeared to be begging the question. Since I feel that that is an unlikely behavior for you, I explored further. This is when I saw what was I thought you taking the question for granted, which is perfectly fine if you've made the case that would provide the answer to the question. Which I then noticed you did from your perspective. This is my experience. If I am in err, then a patient correction would be welcomed. Do you accept that if a long mathematical theory is based off of 2+2=5, we can dispense with the later steps altogether? To do so would be rational. As such, somebody who did so could not be described as rationalizing since that which is rational is ineligible for rationalization. The quote here really stung. I've tried to address it rationally here, but will be taking some time to look deeper into it.