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dsayers

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Everything posted by dsayers

  1. Still watching, but I got angry 3 minutes in. The most recent data is 2012?! In a free market, how assistance is handled would surely be more rigorously monitored than "when we get around to it." Also, I didn't know there was a program called Women Infants and Children. Must be that patriarchy I keep hearing about.
  2. Well it's a testament of how political voting in a rational world would exclude everybody on the basis of a conflict of interest. You're either going to be the one getting stolen from or the one getting the benefits.
  3. This is like saying a car thief owns whatever car he takes. When you say somebody else controls it, you're leaving out that it is already owned, so controlling it requires consent. Also, for somebody else to control your body, they are controlling their own body while denying you the very same. This is the very contradiction I just spoke of. They're telling you with their very actions that it is unprincipled. Undisclosed period of time doesn't sound like a valid contract to me. I missed this scenario. I guess I don't get the question then. If consent is present, where's the confusion?
  4. Identifying a problem isn't identifying the end of a story, but rather the beginning of a new chapter. People once predicted that we'd be extinct by now due to food constraints. So we acknowledge the problem as a species and improved upon our technology to farm in different places, more efficiently, etc.
  5. At which point I pointed out that belief is only useful if used as motivation to test the theory and that the Bible says 7 days and scientific record says otherwise. At which point you brought up that 7 days wasn't literal and human logic doesn't apply. At which point I pointed out that omnipotence is incompatible with ambiguity and that you revealed you reject that human logic doesn't apply when referencing homosexuality. At which point, we have this post, which is basically just repeating yourself as if no challenges were brought forth. In your initial post, you mentioned respecting other people. Do you feel my interaction with you has been anything short of respectful? Do you think that ignoring somebody's large investment to the point of pretending it didn't happen is respectful of them? This is the second time I've identified a double standard. Double standards are a form of manipulation, which isn't compatible with truth. I ask that you rectify this please.
  6. If you and I trade, we each value the thing we don't have greater than the thing we do. Obviously it would be impossible for us to both be objectively right simultaneously. But value is subjective, so it's entirely possible. If going by your last quote that such a claim is objectively impossible, then the law of the conservation of energy says you are wrong. While casting your rod, you lost energy to atmospheric resistance. When reeling it in, you lost energy to water resistance. In other words, not all of your labor translated into the received fish. Not to mention that the received fish will require more labor to convert it into a usable form. When all is said and done, you will likely find you've expended labor more inefficiently than somebody who specializes in catching fish. Why then do people fish recreationally? It's because they profit from it. They expect to get more out of it than they put into. See my list above and keep in mind that things like pleasure and other intangibles are valuable to people.
  7. This is why we need to be precise with our language. There's a lot of problems with this thread based on language alone. From the beginning: "guaranteed by the Constitution" - Laws of physics are binding, which is why they're called laws. A piece of paper is not binding. History is rife with empirical evidence of a piece of paper being unable to protect property rights. "limits the power of politicians" - Again, "politician" refers to somebody by their imaginary status of existing in a different, opposing moral category. It does not accurately describe the real world. You cannot limit people's imaginations. "taxes are completely voluntary" - Taxation is theft, which is taking something belonging to somebody else without their consent. If something is voluntary, it is not a tax. "laws are defined around libertarian principles" - Man cannot make laws. Presumably, this is referring to commands backed by threats of violence. Which obviously could not be based off of any principle. The problem with the minarchist position is that it's like rewinding Titanic and thinking that THIS time it won't sink. This is like opening a hotel that patterns itself after prisons. It's like getting excited about an ad in the back of a comic book. "But it SAYS it provides x-ray vision!" I don't mean to be a naysayer to those acknowledging that there's a very real problem in our world. However, pursuing a non-solution has the opportunity cost of not pursuing an actual solution. If you want to know if this is likely to be successful as the beginning of human freedom, just check the media. Obviously when cancer is comfortable, it's because cancer is not threatened.
  8. The point I'm making, it doesn't matter if this is true or not. The text is written by human beings and human beings have the capacity for error. Since everything it contains has been passed down for centuries and re-translated many times, this capacity for error is exponential. Doesn't this strike you as a ridiculous way for an omnipotent being to communicate what the rules are? Knowing full well how the brain develops, how bias enters into our considerations, etc? Communication is the responsibility of the communicator.
  9. Facts have no moral component. Morality refers to behaviors that are binding upon others. Slavery is possible now. Slavery is only possible BECAUSE people own themselves. I'm sure one day the technology will exist where people could be remotely controlled. In this scenario, a person would choose to use their body to deny somebody else choice over their own body. In other words, the perpetrator is telling you with his very actions that his actions aren't principled. I've pointed this contradiction out to you and in your presence a couple dozen times in the past week alone. Please stop pretending it's never been pointed out. Maybe it's Greek to you because you're intentionally ignoring it.
  10. As I read, I was surprised to see little reference to laugh tracks. Then I saw the copyright date. Nothing really ground-breaking, but the way it put a couple ideas was interesting. Half of what it said could be applied to reading also, so it was unclear as to where it was going. I've never been much for television programming in my adult life. I've always preferred controlled media. Tapes and discs rather than TV or radio. It's probably been close to two decades since I watched something in a way I didn't have the power to fast forward or rewind. In more recent times, it seems like there's been a much larger push for such things. Like there's just so much more "must see" TV. It's acted as a turn-off for me and I watch even less as a result. Although I enjoy it more with self-knowledge because it's like practice for spotting coercion, abuse, logical fallacies, and so on. While I tend towards activities where I'm more in control, there are times when I'll partake out of abnegation. So I guess it helped me in pointing out that it's not actually downtime. Though I will say that I disagreed with the part about how every moment has to be engaging. I've always been against the obnoxious and the over-the-top. I almost always prefer a movie that uses pacing to make you think, rather than just perpetually shoving stimulus down your throat.
  11. You cannot use a term to define itself You're pointing to the middle of a story as if it's the beginning while rejecting what I'm pointing out as the beginning of the story even though it's the exact same thing! Whether you own a hammer, a lawnmower, a truck, or a factory, you could not own any of it if you didn't own yourself first. Because it was plying your capital to profit (get more capital out than you put in) that allowed you to go from just having your body to also having a hammer, to also having a lawnmower, to also having a truck, to also having a factory. You're speaking as if crapitalists grow on trees and own a factory as a feature of nature. A factory is a HUGE investment. Of course the people who did the investing own it. Somebody else owning something doesn't mean you are owed equal access to it any more than they are entitled to equal access to your body or anything else you own. Already covered this: "We don't have to agree on that, but unless you tell me what you mean by it, you know this is how it will be received." By my count, you are up 1) the "equal product" that you didn't have before 2) rapport with the person you sold the chair to 3) rapport with whomever you bought the "equal product" from 4) expertise in fashioning a chair 5) fame as somebody who can make a chair 6) reputation as a trustworthy trade partner 7) reputation as somebody who doesn't engage in violence to achieve their goals 8) empirical evidence that voluntary trade is a viable means for achieving your goals 9) first hand knowledge of how "equal product" works The list could go on in light of brain chemistry alone. The point is that if you weren't going to profit from this course of action, you would not have engaged in it. Or, you would have engaged in it, not knowing that it would not be profitable, and you would've profited by way of learning that this course of action was not profitable, there are more efficient ways of doing the same thing... You know what? I covered this already also. False. You sell it for whatever you can get for the chair factoring in how many people you choose to bargain with and how long you're willing to hold onto it rather than get whatever it is you'd rather have. You speak as if "hour's wage" is defined. As it is not a constant, it's not even define-able. People provide different levels of value based on motivation and experience (just to name two), and so what their labor is worth differs. In order for this claim to be false, everybody would have to be identical down to the amount of plaque coating their arteries. I hope I don't need to point out that this is not the case.
  12. It is a claim, not an argument. I don't want to point out that your body, time, and effort is your capital every post. Maybe you could address the performative contradiction of rejecting something that the very act of rejection demonstrates that you accept? We're just talking past each other because I accept reality as the method by which to resolve conflict while you accept your bigotry as the method by which to resolve conflict. We might as well be speaking German and French when the other doesn't understand it. I never said unwilling pawns. I pointed out that there is a chain of causality that you are intentionally dispensing with in order to make your bigotry fit. You're pointing State-aggression backed, State-created-fiction corporations and saying that it's representative of a free market. In other words, you're starving and beating a pitbull, then pointing at it and saying "look, dogs are naturally feral!" Maybe YOU could qualify your support of violence by referring to it as crony Capitalism or any of the other words that indicates that it's not capitalism, but masquerades as such. I've already identified that you're being intentionally deceptive and why. It "makes sense" to define your terms instead of dancing around the challenge time and time again. You won't because the moment you reference violence, you reveal that violence is the issue, not what profit actually is. This would usurp violence as a valid means of achieving goals and then you wouldn't be able to use that violence to force everybody else to provide value for you without having to earn it.
  13. I have tattoos. I've never understood the regret question since what a person's skin looks like mostly doesn't matter. I think a tattoo is likely an indication of trauma. At the very least, it's prioritizing working on outer self over working on inner self. In fact, if I had any regret, this would likely be it. Maybe I meet somebody of quality and they see tattoos and write me off as traumatized even though the trauma has since been processed. For this reason, I try not to write off others even though I'd wager this is the exception rather that the rule. I am ambivalent, though not out of bias. In the end, it is a person's body they're doing it to, so it's not really up to me. I'm even a bit of a hypocrite since I do increasingly judge the use of makeup. Though to be fair, that is an ongoing process and more about presenting yourself as something you're not and/or drawing attention to (parts of) yourself. *shrug*
  14. First of all, it wasn't meant to console a fictitious character. It was meant to reveal the fictitious nature of the matter up for consideration. Secondly, do you not see that you're trying to "win" by pulling at heart strings rather than offering rational thought? I didn't. What I did do is emphasize that this is a fictitious scenario. It would be as useful to explore how Leprechauns deal with falling off of Pegasi in flight. You are again proceeding as if a rational counter-argument hasn't been raised: "I'm not going to spend 10, 20, or 30 years of my life growing a business from the ground up just to wake up one day and say 'I've amassed all this by way of voluntary trade, but I'm going to squander it all overnight in an attempt to control the very people who have helped me build all of this.'" and "A person might not steal from their neighbors to pay for their kids education, but they might vote for a levy to pass. It's the exact same thing except it is theft by proxy. It is irrational to expect that in the absence of the State, the person would suddenly start going door to door and steal from their neighbors directly. They won't do this because now they are taking on the risk personally as their theft would be identified as theft." You're neglecting the fact that "business owner" isn't something that is naturally occurring. It comes about as the result of successful hard work and investment. To suspect they're going to risk that over something that would ruin them and almost literally cannot work is like suspecting that a safe driver of several decades is going to try his hand at getting to his destination safely by accelerating into stationary objects and traffic moving in a perpendicular direction. It is antithetical to the point of being ridiculous. I've belabored the risk associated with just attempting price fixing. To escalate to violence is a whole new level of risk. Say business owner X offers to pay you to violently tamper with business owner Y. You could take the money and run. You could solicit Y for more money to NOT do it or more money to do it to X instead. You could go public with the information, which would make people not support business X, possibly seek justice, and maybe even take it too far given the nature of the proposition. Would YOU take on that risk and expense when you can instead just continue to grow your business by engaging in voluntary trade?
  15. Do you think this perhaps is a conclusion you've arrived upon amid the luxury of an excess of food? When I was a kid, being punished one night, I nicked some of the dog's food because I was that hungry in the moment.
  16. Damn, I'm on a roll! I've lost track of how many consecutive times now I've successfully identified an appeal to insecurity only to be met with a subsequent appeal to insecurity. As if the reason the first one didn't land was because it wasn't surgical enough.
  17. "There are two things that make a free market self-correcting: competition and consequences." I pointed this out already. If you disagree with it, please say so rather than continuing on as if you haven't been presented with it. Let us suppose that all restaurants agreed to sell a burger for X where X is greater than market value. People can eat not burgers. People can make their own burgers. People can find other ways to get burgers. But most importantly, you artificially tilt supply and demand. Enter competition and consequence! If people want burgers and don't want to pay X, then the first person to provide a burger for less than X is going to enjoy 100% market share and the "cartel" will be no better off in the moment. In fact, they will be damaged well beyond the moment once their attempt to artificially alter the market is revealed. The beauty of a truly free market is it is self-correcting. As I pointed out in another thread (forget which one), it's about network strength. There are WAY more people that wish to trade fairly than there are that want to make all of their profit on a single burger sale. As such, this simply could never happen. It's a common and heavily debunked scare tactic used by those who oppose a free market, usually by people who don't realize that the very claim actually discredited the State, not those engaged in voluntary trade.
  18. When you speak of business and cartel, you're obfuscating the analysis. Behaviors are engaged in by people, not concepts. A person might not steal from their neighbors to pay for their kids education, but they might vote for a levy to pass. It's the exact same thing except it is theft by proxy. It is irrational to expect that in the absence of the State, the person would suddenly start going door to door and steal from their neighbors directly. They won't do this because now they are taking on the risk personally as their theft would be identified as theft.
  19. Other way around. By using general terms and concepts, you're no longer talking about anything tangible. War is a concept, not a behavior. "Western power" is a concept, not a person. Yes. Force is a continuum and using excessive force is no longer defense, but retaliation, which is itself the initiation of the use of force. The person initiation the use of force is creating a debt to his victim in the amount of value stolen, plus the amount of value needed to settle the debt. If somebody was to take value not comparable to that amount (as in the example of shooting somebody for theft of candy), their behavior can be seen not as settling the previous debt, but creating a much larger one.
  20. I did. But I don't think there'd be anything wrong with somebody getting rich making movies to stand up and say, "Hey, I think we place too much value on celebrities and over the top movies." Then again, I'm in the camp that was sick of CGI in movies the first time I saw it.
  21. I get that. I'm just trying to help you be more precise with your topic. Personally, I wouldn't even limit it to emotion. Plants are life forms too and if we can co-exist with them, this might very well be preferable. But people come first. If ants have to die so humans can live, I'm for it. Given their numbers and life span, this is a sustainable proposition:
  22. I am more likely to listen to somebody who just says fibber and leaves it at that than somebody that tries to justify assaulting defenseless, dependent, not-their-by-choice children. Also, threatening to not take somebody seriously is not an argument. It is an appeal to insecurity. What you're saying is that manipulation was modeled for you and that it is a valid way you know to achieve your goals. Pretty juvenile and immature if you ask me. Again, I am sorry that you were abused in this fashion.
  23. A person engaging in theft, assault, rape, and murder are contradicting themselves by accepting property rights with regards to themselves, but rejecting them for others. I'm not sure if that fits into what you're asking. I think you need to define your terms or provide some frame of reference.
  24. Thank you for doing this. It's mind numbing how much people will be up in arms about this or that, but never about the State power that allows this and that to be problematic. Look at things like racism, gay marriage, marijuana, and all the hot topics. None of this would be talked about with such fervor if we didn't collectively believe that a group of people who exist in a different, opposing moral category had the ability to "alter reality" by threatening violators of their arbitrary decrees. It's sickening. So she thinks that in order to avoid the possibility of localized aggression, we need guaranteed, widespread, institutionalized aggression, right? This is why principled conclusions and precision are so important. She's telling you that she's not interested or talking about aggression, but a bias that businesses are corrupt. Since this isn't a conclusion arrived at by way of logic, reason, or evidence, I'm afraid these things likely won't convince her otherwise. There are two things that make a free market self-correcting: competition and consequences. Imagine two businesses that provide product/service X. One of them focuses on this while the other tries to control people. People don't want to be controlled and the business that just focuses on trading with people will be able to do so more efficiently. She appears to reject that the reason businesses might use State power today is because the risk involved with doing so doesn't accrue to them. I'm not going to spend 10, 20, or 30 years of my life growing a business from the ground up just to wake up one day and say "I've amassed all this by way of voluntary trade, but I'm going to squander it all overnight in an attempt to control the very people who have helped me build all of this." It just goes to show how effective the State has been in indoctrinating people into thinking NOBODY CAN BE TRUSTED... except for us.
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