VParkh

I was thinking about how Santa Claus belief affects child's phychology. I remember as a child I was told that santa will bring me presents if I will be a good boy, so after that being told I was cleaning up the house for about hour certain that this guy will appreciate it. So sick. And another awful episode was when I had to lie my little brother about santa claus. It was when I already knew that was a lie but was convinced that my brother should not know it. I've always felt terrible for that. And I am wondering how comes there so many atheist movements that fight against believe in god, but I've never heard of somebody fighting against this cristmas lie. It may be much more easier but not less important I think.

I think that mysticism comes when we make up some not proven explanation for what's going on. For example we know how we can use electricity and we use it but we can be unaware of how it works. So we have 3 options: we can forget about this question and just use the results of electricity, or we can use scientific method to examine the origins of electricity and how it works, or we can make up some explanation, like some mistical deity forcing energy through cables. The same goes for many spiritual things: people can just get results from their actions and if possible try to find explanations scientifically, or they can make up some imaginary realm which give them that result. When they make up such explanations, that would be mysticism. So when we get some interesting or even controvertial facts we can resort either to mysticism or to scientific method. Or just say "I don't know" and forget about it. People often just don't have honesty and integrity to say "I don't know" and resort to mystical explanations.

Here's a brief review of the "The Trauma Myth" and interview with author: http://www.salon.com/2010/01/19/trauma_myth_interview/

I've found an article (it's in russian - http://vishka.livejournal.com/217836.html) It's about sexual intercourse or relationship with a child.Author says that often it's not the sex itself that makes phychological trauma for child, but societal pressure on the case. She starts article from this story and provides links for 2 books on the subject: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106971352/TheTraumaMyth.pdf - The Trauma Myth. The Truth About the Sexual Abuse of Children and It's Aftermath https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106971352/HarmfulToMinors.pdf - Harmful To Minors. The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex. I thought it worth sharing.

Hi guys! I am that guy that made second subtitles for "The Story of Your Enslavement". I live in Russia, Saint-Petersburg. My whole childhood till 18 years passed in Kamchatka and now I have my last year here in university. I've found Freedomain Radio while I was learning english) I was just serfing internet for some good stuff and came across Stef's video and it interested me. It was half a year ago. I was a supporter of free market but idea of anarcho-capitalism was very wild for me. It took about 4 month for Stef to prove me that anarcho-capitalism is the only good way. Now I've just read RTR and reviewing my own life and relationships. I've found that it's much more difficult and important than talking about politics.

I would like to clarify distinction between minarchism and anarcho-capitalism. What if all the governments of the world will reduce in size to only protecting of citizens life and property, without any taxation, regulation and other forms of coersion, wouldn't it be just 200 (number of countries) different organisations on Earth, providing services to people? Wouldn't it already be anarcho-capitalism? In this way consistently appliing ideas of minarchism we'll get anarcho-capitalism, right?

Oh, cool! Thanks, I'll make it!

You mean that somebody learning english will repetitively listen many times the same stuff? No, it doesn't necessary work that way. When you are on advanced level (which is needed here) you listen every time something new. For example I listen some podcast, read the transcript, note new words and go to the next one. I don't listen the same content more then 2 times! What about brainwashing, there are a lot of stuff that can be viewed as brainwashing! And you are often not agree with speaker but you view it just as another content for learning language. And if you become interested, you listen the next from this topic and maybe go to the host site. If not - you just change the topic.

There is a site: LingQ.com, it is for studiing languages. It has large audience and there are a lot of content with both audio and text. They always need new content and if we make text for some Stef's podcasts we can upload it there so people studiing english language will encounter our ideas and start to engage. My english still needs a lot of work so I don't quite understand every word and can not transcript any podcast into text. Maybe somebody will do that