mikl

(Also posted to mailbag@fdr, but since that rarely gets discussed, I figure it was worth bringing up here) I hope it's not just me, who think Europe is worth saving.

In your Facebook post, you mentioned breaking the law, but there's an important distinction there. Breaking a contract is not the same as breaking the law. (Caveat emptor, I am no lawyer, I'm just going off my basic understanding of civil law as it applies in most western countries). If you just leave, and then mail her a letter stating that you find her in breach of contract because of the mold problem, and you consider your contract thus void, she can't generally call the cops on you. Depending on the amount, she can either take you to small claims court, or file a real civil suit, and only with a judgement against you, would she have something legally actionable. She can of course engage with a collection agency. At least where I live, these guys will usually stop pestering you, once you make it clear to them that you're disputing the charge and why. So in short, depending on where you live, and how crazy your landlord is, you might be able to walk away, losing no more than your security deposit. Of course, you should do some research to find out how matters stand in your jurisdiction. Maybe talk to renters union or something like that.

Yeah, it's not the teaching them how to shoot, I'm questioning. It's more the part where you'd keep the gun somewhere where 8 year olds would be able to get them. If I owned a weapon, I'd be very sure to keep it out of reach of children.

Sorry if I'm being dense, but would you really agree that 8-year-olds should have access to firearms? While I agree that having firearms for self defence can be reasonable (depending on where you live), I would certainly not keep them somewhere my 8 year old could get to it. So it might well be that Kevin's dad had a gun, he just kept it locked safely away.

I don't think that video contradicts what Stef was saying. Restitution is not necessarily money, it can be actions, like what Dr. Johnson describes. So if that kind of really sincere apology and change of behaviour is enough to make someone feel forgiveness towards the perpetrator, that is fine. But in some cases (like rape, violence, murder, etc.), no amount of apologies and changed future behaviour can offset the emotional or physical damage someone has done to you. And in those cases, forgiveness is not possible. That is all.

After seeing this video, it seems pretty inevitable that increasing automation of everything will cause the demand for humans doing stuff to shrink rapidly. All the ideas we have about economy are based on the basic assumption that human labour is valuable, so any person can have economic freedom by selling his labour, and thus generating the necessary capital to sustain himself (and hopefully, more than that). But as demand for human labour dwindles, the supply side is more difficult. We have long lifespans, and take 10-20 years to become productive. And the production of humans is governed by highly irrational forces, namely our desires to self-reproduce. All this taken together could work to drive the price of human labour below the cost of living for billions of people. What happens then? The statists would simply prescribe more redistribution of wealth, likely creating a huge, permanent underclass of “undesirables”. I see this as a huge threat to the creation of a free society, because as long as we have large groups of people depending on the state, they will (violently) oppose freedom. Can you imagine some way we could achieve equilibrium? Some way we can preserve the ability of all humans to contribute something they can be paid for?

I have the greatest sympathy for your situation. Until april last year, I was a member of one of those fundamentalist christian cults, where ex-members are shunned. All my “friends” and my wife of two years turned their backs on me, when I decided to leave. Throughout my stay there, I was also criticized heavily for my mindset, which was too rational for their tastes. I can't say I've had much luck in making friends since then. I have nice and friendly colleagues and a decent social network, but if I tell people about my past or start talking about philosophy, most people seem to recoil in horror. If you'd like to talk, and/or share experiences privately, feel free to message me

Yeah, I think Sweden (if you discount the huge population of muslim immigrants) is one of the most secular/atheist countries in the world (just 17% of the population considered religion as an important part of their daily life in 2009).

It just struck me that there seems to be a powerful correlation between religion and violent parenting.It might be a coincidence, but the western european countries that disallowed or restricted violent parenting in the seventies and eighties seems to have slipped into complete religious apathy within a single generation. In Denmark, many people still call themselves christian, but they mean almost nothing by it. They usually only visit the church for christmas, weddings and funerals.Conversely, USA is probably the most violent of the western cultures, and also the only place of them, where religion hasn't “given up the ghost” yet (ie. it is still a powerful force in society). And in the middle east where Islam flourishes, children are raised in the most reprensible fashion, so violent and debilitating probably even the most fundie christians would consider it “slightly over the top”. I wonder, could it be shown that religion requires violent parenting to inflict the required doublethink and self-flaggelation for religion to really take hold in the majority of children?

I am also Danish, but I live in Switzerland, just south of Zürich. You'll also find me on the aforementioned Facebook group

The coming three weeks, I will be in the US (first going to Austin for a conference, then to California for vacation).Since philosophers are about as rare as unicorns where I live, I'd love the opportunity to meet some fellow thinkers. I'm pretty flexible with time, so I'd love to hear from anyone willing to drink a beer and chat

So do I