Torero

Ha thanks, but Spanish is my second language, English my third. Actively; passively English would be my second. And yes, I cycled around your Grand Bretagne comment, but still, maybe finding the French connection in Wales wouldn't be a bad idea? So to have your unique selling point? If you want to teach French, look for the connections. Try to position yourself in a niche where nobody (in Wales) has been before? My profession is the same as Stefans father; I'm a geologist. But on a deserved sabbatical now, great moment with these ridiculously low oil prices... Oil at 100 dollars a barrel is still 1/3 the price of beer, which cannot be; the former takes millions of years to form, the latter is easy-peasy to make... Cheers

It's late as we are in the same timezone, but there are some 199 countries to go outside of the US.... Will read your topic tomorrow, good night, sleep is not taxed still...

The word "so" is pretty strange in this respect. What is the causal relation between the two parts?

Priceless (pun intended)

Utopian, in short your response boils down to two points: 1 - things are determinable 2 - economy/costs are the highest, most valuable (pun intended, as always) benchmark the first point is only valid in a "god-like" environment, which we humans can never reach. Yes, in a "god-like" state, there's determinism; all our choices are bound by physical laws, so in that sense it's "determined". But to us, simple, ant-like humans, we have a zillion amount of choices. At any moment. And thus exponentially; the outcome of a series of choices, however physically determined (better: predictable) is impossible to outline beforehand. The second point I very much object to. Humans are far from pure economical beings. We care so much more about quality, respect, love and understanding than about pure economics. Measuring life purely and solely along the economic measure is a very limited view on life. Examples are all around. A simple example; if economic/finance would be our only measure in life, everyone would drive the cheapest car, dress in the cheapest clothing and live in the cheapest homes. Evidently that's not the case; humans are so much more than economic machines....

Stefan, let me add one here: The 16th economy of the world; the Netherlands. A socialist country in terms of people's behaviour, perception of the world, hardly any private education, taxes up to >50%, a general feeling that income inequality is wrong and a big big self shame on the colonial past (we foolishly "traded" New York for Suriname + 1 dollar ), wildly spread in media and education.... Oh and many users of this forum are from Holland...

What NumberSix pointed out; Unique Selling Points. What about combining your French tuition (in Bretagne I understand) with French culture, French cuisine? Study your target group; what are their desires, why would they pick you? Not having read your post on relationships, I think in business and in getting attention from the desired sex, both work on what you have to offer compared to the competition. Where and how do you stand out? If I may give 1 example of a French person doing just that, it's a hotel here in the country, in the most touristic city of Colombia; Cartagena. It's a very competitive market with lots of great hotels, but we selected a French-owned hotel and were surprised by: - personal attention (a personal letter to us left on the bed, with rose petals all around) - professional attitude - free massage - excellent food (with French chefs that's more the rule than the exception, still in Cartagena you can eat very well elsewhere) Price is usually not the deal breaker or maker, in my experience both as a client and as a business person people care for much more than mere economics. Being the cheapest is also that; the cheapest (in a figurative sense). Best of luck with your business plans.

ProfessionalTeabagger, sorry for cutting your quote, it's NOT what you said, but I had to think of it and thus have to respond. Socialism is nowhere social. Social behaviour in anyones opinion doesn't include force. An example: most of my friends back home (so not in Colombia) are poorer than me. To me, that's not a problem, on the contrary; I have no problem supporting them directly (if they cannot afford a train ticket to see eachother, I'll pay). In my experience it also works much better and the non-socialists are actually the more social people. Social behaviour is actually increased in a non-socialist state; non-leftists in my experience are far less concerned about "spending a penny more to make people happy", regardless of their personal wealth. I highlighted it because still so many statists/leftists are following the Newspeak of the word "socialism", they really are convinced that socialism leads to social behaviour or that people opposing statism/socialism are a/antisocial human beings. So no attack on you or anything of that kind, just wanted to make the point, which is floating in the back of my head all the time.

Excellent elaborated points and well-explained. I agree with almost everything. Very good post. What I do not agree with -although I very much like the oneliner- is "Design vs Emergence". I remember from one of Stefans videos (I think it's the outstanding video on "Why Nazism is socialism and why socialism is bad" (paraphrased)) where he points out that socialism is NOT a planned economy (contrary to what the school books say). I suffer from limited bandwith now, so cannot look up the exact quote, but it was very well argumented why socialism is a chaotic and not a planned/designed economy. Another point is the proposed impossibility of monopolies in a free market. This is not "putting on my red hat", yet something I struggle with for real; how to prevent a monopolist monster in a free market situation. What would be possible for a powerful individual/group of individuals in a free market, with absence of states, is taking full control over a niche market. Either by controlling the product itself (highly advanced rare technical knowledge for instance) or by completely wiping out the competitors by force/threatening/buying off all competition. Of course the approach that is taken in Freedomain Radio is of "philosophy via the womb"; i.e. developing more and more morale and statelessness through education and upbringing based on principles, so creating a "society" of moral individuals, but is that enough to prevent monopolies from emerging? Coming back to your post, which I think is an example of rational response and detailed discussion, there are many examples of agorist (my pragmatic philosophy in this immoral statist situation) solutions already working now (and you see the states and their useful idiots -statists- fighting to stop these initiatives). The YouTube vs TV example is a great one, which I used in previous discussions with statists as well. Another example I want to add (and promote) is AirBnB. For those who don't know it; it's a system where people rent their houses/rooms/apartments to serve as "hotel". You simply look for the accommodation you like, talk to the owner directly and pay him/her without interference of immoral power players. It's my favourite way of travelling, something I do a lot both business-wise and privately. But thanks again, DavidOttinger, great reaction.

Wow, many replies, I was without internet a few days. And wrote a response to the first three offline: Thank you all for your interesting and well formulated answers, Let me put my statist red hat on (no, I don’t really own one ) and play devil’s advocate. Because if it would be so easy and people would read, capture and understand philosophy, we would already have abolished statism just like slavery long ago and because there’s more than ratio, reasonable debate. Especially statists will try to avoid that debate and start throwing in non sequiturs and emotional arguments (which are not necessarily invalid as we are emotional creatures and ratio alone is thus not enough to convince people) to maintain the illusion of the need for states/governments/whatever kind of system based on coercion. I do remember this from Stefans video and of course I agree with the rational response and compelling comparison, but red hat me, “your typical statist”, will answer along the following lines: “Governments protect the people from slavery; in a stateless society there would be nobody to stop immoral people from keeping slaves” – spot the utopian trap I set here; using the present day statist situation to discard and disgrace a stateless one. On the second post Also here, wearing my red hat, I’d say that “governments prevent wars [and I will downplay the wars caused/started by governments – nearly all]” – here the trap is not utopian but the fallacy is clear as well; it comes from the (arguably false) belief widely held amongst both socialists/leftists and conservatives/rightists that people are intrinsically bad and “should be governed, otherwise they will turn out to be the barbarian monsters that they are from birth”. That it’s a fallacy that humans are barbarian monsters is clear every day. All around us we see that the vast majority of people are not vicious or monstrous, because that would destroy business, social structures and respect and confidence. Yet the mass media are painting a grim picture with false pencils showing (sometimes faked, many times exaggerated, always with an agenda) the immorality of men and the morality of governments. The response by user utopian: 1 – I think you use a different definition for utopia than me, and probably most people. To call utopia an “inevitable future” in my opinion is not right. A utopia is a desired, wanted, idealised, instigated and ‘perfect’ future, not an inevitable one. If you can even speak of “inevitable futures” anyway, because for an inevitable future to exist, one needs determinism (I understood a very dirty word on this forum, and just as “we have no free will” or “free will is an illusion” a nonsensical word anyway; at every moment every individual has choices; in a deterministic world something like creativity would not exist). It may well be the statist will portray the “utopia” of a stateless society as “inevitably immoral and wrong, leading to the first two points (slavery and wars)”, but that doesn’t make it an inevitable one. It would be falling for the fallacy, or willingly stepping into the trap set by the statist. 2 – the example of the hamburger flipping robot is a funny one but I think it is not the best argument. You say “burgers can be produced by a machine (a robot), which would make hamburger flipping people redundant, because of costs [and solely that]”. In theory that may be true, but in practice we already see it’s not. In Portugal you have machines like a soda dispenser, where one can ‘order’ a burger. I haven’t tried it myself, a friend of mine living there has and of course it is horrible. Rather than the hamburger flipping example, let’s take another, similar example; Starbucks. Or any similar brand of coffee preparing business (here in Colombia the concept was already working (Juan Valdez & OMA) long before Starbucks entered the country, which only happened a year ago). It is already very easy to not have to stand in line and order your favourite coffee from a machine and it’s not too hard to program a machine/robot such that it would make equal or even better coffee than someone pushing a button on a machine and adding some syrup and cinnamon and all. Still, people are people, emotional, social beings and we like the social interaction, the possibility to outline what we want and how the coffee should be. And on top of the joy of meeting a (hopefully) smiling person behind the counter, we want to be able to communicate with the coffee maker in case things go wrong. A funny dystopian movie which I reckon most of the people here have seen (if not, please do so!) is Idiocracy (2006) with this scene as a gruesome example: Although it is a comedy and of course exaggerated to be funnier, the underlying fears, objections and problems with such a society/situation are very real and in my opinion well presented. People will be people and want to interact socially with other human beings of flesh and blood. That makes the “inevitability” of the argument tricky. Another example are these horrible menus and options of call centres. How many of us really do want to evade human contact and are happy with the limited, preselected, prefab options and on the other hand how many of us want to talk to a human being to explain a problem, file a complaint or any other necessary interaction? If a “robotic society” is the inevitable one, it would already be embraced by us in cases where it’s possible. Luckily that’s not the case. Back to the burgers; you’re right robots could “take over” and flip hamburgers faster, cleaner and cheaper. But those rational arguments are not enough; the interaction, ability to intervene, change, communicate etc. are more important than pure rational financial numbers. Of course in a free market (or the current corrupted “free” market) there would be companies starting businesses like this; with robots and without humans. But I do not think they will be very successful and only be a niche market. For the reasons outlined above and although human failure can be a pain in the ass, machine/robotic failure is far more impacting, frustrating and less quick to correct. 3 – the idea that “humans will have no jobs (anymore) when robots ‘take over’ their work” is a typical statist/leftist meme (no, utopian, don’t worry, I am not calling you a statist or leftist! ). In their minimalistic mindset a job is a “god-given right for life” and a job is a fixed, static object that “disappears” and that ‘fact’ will be “bad for workers”. A job is simply the execution of a vacancy; an amount of work that needs to be done. It is far from static and fixed, yet dynamic and mobile, just like we humans are (otherwise we would never have evolved/adapted so quickly). After the inventions of so many mechanical, “robot-like” goods for humanity there was no “sudden shortage of jobs” or “miserable conditions for workers as machines took over”, the job market simply shifted. For example washing machines, weaving industrialisation and (robotic) vacuum cleaners did not make people jobless [and needing government support, see I am still wearing my red hat ], yet opened up new opportunities, shifted the attention to new areas. Suddenly there was more time for other activities and new vacancies appeared. And still up to today we have tailors, cleaning persons and people washing by hand. And the list is virtually endless; despite Amazon.com we still have book stores, on top of massage chairs we (still) have massagers, good hotels have personnel leading you to your room, etc. etc. If one vacancy disappears, another vacancy will open up and people will jump into that and so shift the professional participation in societies. ---------------- In short; you see I, as the red hat wearing statist, will start to throw in irrationality to keep defending an irrational and highly immoral system; statism and I am looking for more arguments and discussion to tackle these. If pure philosophy, reasonable rationality and mere morale would be enough, “we would already have won” as nobody would defend or even fight for growing such an immoral system...

I would say that environmental protection, or the care for endangered species is not at all contradicting a libertarian view. What is a trap or false dichotomy, set by statists, is that they portray the current situation as "governments do their utmost best to protect these animals [so in a stateless society there would be nobody to protect these species and they would get extinct by the millions]". That is obviously not the case; the current picture is painted with false colours and the picture of the future is a strawman. For an excellent documentary about this topic, where you see the active involvement of statists in failure to protect a beautiful and closely related endangered species, I recommend watching Virunga (2014). Care for animals, and subsequent "arranging animal societies" is different from forcing humans into arrangements and society building (brrrr). Animals do not have the same powers, consciousness and moral as humans and thus cannot fall in the same category. What if it would be possible to just privately buy pieces of land and breed endangered species? That's now blocked by governments/states/organisations wanting to maintain the status quo. Preventing animals to go extinct is a moral, wise position (so would follow from an increase in philosophical thinking), not a call for the need of governments (which is the destruction of philosophy).

Hi all, I want to touch on a subject that I think most of us are familiar with. In discussions with statists, anti-libertarians and others, even just open minded intellectuals (so recognising moral and ethics), at one moment a false trap is set to disgrace the call for libertarianism/end of statism. Many times the question comes up "how would this and that be arranged in a libertarian society?" (see for instance a call for "how will the poor and homeless be fed?" or "how would X work in a libertarian society?"). This utopian trap is a false question for two main reasons. 1 - it is impossible to portray a libertarian society from the current situation. It would be like someone in 1880 asking "how would X work in 1990?" when all the factors are different. It is the positioning of an unknown future based on the present day factors, technical developments, risks and status of society. The "picture" of a stateless society cannot be painted with the pencils and paint that are created in a non- or even anti-free (statist) situation. 2 - the question itself, the desire for an utopia, is a question based on statist doctrine; statists want to "arrange" societies, want to "create and impose things using force". For an anarchist/libertarian/voluntaryist that is an intrinsically impossible standpoint, as the idea of the philosophy is that things are not "arranged", yet follow the natural order, the outcome is based on what people do, how they behave and is thus a logical, non-imposed situation. Stefan in one of his videos (please comment which one it was, I've seen so many) comments on it, but I think it should be spread more and more and even be a standard counterargument against the statists with their imposed arrangements they think of to modify societey. It's a trap set by those people because they can then attack this strawman. Questions like "how would X work, how should Y be arranged, what happens with Z in a stateless society" are trapping questions. My answer would be (and that's what Stefan pointed out in that video as well): "I don't know, and why should I?" I am curious to hear your thoughts, experiences and methods of rebuttal of these intrinsically impossible and trapping questions.

Rrright. Are you posting this because you really think so, because you want to defend NASA (why??) or because you do not want your world view to be shattered by the reality of space fakery? In any case it's hard to connect what you say to your own signature We are allowed to criticise NASA, but it will only provide ridicule and evading answers. Similar to the NASA is a government-funded organisation that doesn't allow the public to check the facts (i.e. they rule over space), as nobody is able to get there (just like NASA by the way) to check the facts and scrutinise that organisation and all the related space agencies. How do you know Pluto has an albedo of 50-70% (statement)? What about the brown part in the lower left versus the "clouds" in the centre, that's the 20% difference you're telling me? And this quote is also really cryptic: The probe is "coming" from "very close to the Sun", so...? The narrative is that Pluto is some 30-48 AU (Astronomical Unit; distance Earth-Sun, about 150 million km) from the Sun, that this probe flew all the way there and took this "photo". It means the probe is at roughly the same distance from the Sun, which shines at a distance of this ~40 AU on the surface of Pluto. No matter how you twist or turn the story to maintain the impossible position that this is a real photo, the background can never be pitch black. Where is all the light from the stars behind Pluto? Why is every NASA fantasy showing a pitch black background wihout any stars? Because they started doing that with the Apollo hoax and have to maintain the same lies to keep a consistent story. And yet, all other depictions of space show stars, always. Pretty amateuristic for these heavily state-sponsored, non-merited, anti-scientific clowns.

I agree very much with this. And I am wondering what is the "agenda"? What and how does one identify that there's an agenda? What's the goal? How could gay acceptance (which I think is key to any anarchist/libertarian; i.e. respecting the differences between us (the similarities will find their way by themselves)) ever "destroy" the family? The vast majority of people are not gay, yet heterosexual. They may or may not choose to have children. How are these families bothered or influenced by the fact that other couples are of the same sex? Or do people see the agenda as "making people gay/more gay"? I also wonder what the biological basis for that reasoning is, as far as I know hetero/homosexuality is a product of nature, not nurture. In extreme situations where horrible abuse by one sex is inflicted upon an individual he or she could turn to the same gender for love and intimacy, but I wouldn't call that "making someone gay", it's more of a personal trauma which could be solved with good therapy. On the "traditional family"; I agree that two parents (preferably of different sexes as they both have their unique input in educating children) is the best situation for children. But there are examples of polygamy where children are well off as well. If a collection of people (multiple wives or husbands) have a good system of educating the offspring (of some or all of them), what's the big deal? Shouldn't we respect others' choices like they should respect ours instead of forcing others to have a "traditional family"?

Well said jpahmad, when looking at free will within humans it's rather useless to focus on animals or paleontological ancestors/relative branches. Among the first intelligence (and imo free will; if it's not, what drives dolphins to play with bubbles?) has been identified in many ways, but is still irrelevant to Homo sapiens and for the second it's impossible to verify. Proxies like tool use and cave art can be used and point to intelligence, but other than that it's a dead end (pun intended). I really don't see how we humans wouldn't have free will and less that it is an "illusion", like the OP stated. Awaiting iBlaggs arguments for those two points.

Yes, I know the narrative. And it is flawed. It's not "the stars are too dim, so they cannot be captured". Single stars are indeed too dim to capture them on camera. But, we're not talking individual stars, but a whole array of stars, galaxies etc. like shown in the picture. For Pluto the narrative of the Moon (which is flawed in itself but not too relevant for Pluto) doesn't hold: - let's assume NASA really sent a probe to Pluto -which is physically impossible, but let's assume they did- - they take a "photo" of this dwarf planet at some 40 AU from the Sun (which should look like a big Venus from distant Pluto) - hence the Sun as a light source on the surface of Pluto is negligible - the surface is lit somehow on the "photo" - so even if the Sun would play a role, it's behind the "camera" - if that camera would be able to capture a dwarf planet with so little light, so with the right camera settings, all the stars and galaxies should light up like in the picture above That NASA still presents pitch black (without any contrast) "photos" to the public, only gives away their hoaxing even more. Even in the case "stars are too dim to capture nicely", the amount of combined light coming from aaaaalll those millions of stars and other celestial objects can never ever produce a contrastless pitch black background.

I consciously stopped voting some 10 years ago, after the brutal slap in the face the EU gave the Netherlands when we said no against the EU constitution. It's meaningless, because even with a decent majority (2/3) it's clear those psychos didn't give a sh*t about the people and the Lisbon "Treaty" was installed to humiliate some 7 million voters even more. Arguments against voting: - first of all, it doesn't make a difference even if you vote, see the EU constitution, a crystal clear example - you've been fooled once, twice, 10,000 times, when does logic kick in? - if you vote, you support/give consent to the system; you essentially give an approval stamp of the system of "democracy" and politics/statism to deal with societies (so people, or livestock in the eyes of government), George Carlin has a famous rant about it, it's so strong, check it out - the "argument" of social pressure like in your T-shirt example is similar to the "argument" of "you have to pay your taxes [otherwise we have to pay more]". It's a fallacy; every individual has the right to choose differently, there's no ratio in social pressure needed to make other people do stupid or immoral things (supporting a malicious system or letting themselves get robbed), those people are willingly following the system of sheeple simplicity and preaching the propaganda of the psychos - also the argument of effect; it's said that you "shouldn't waste your vote". But the problem is that if everyone votes, every vote counts less. A tiny drop of 1 vote in an ocean of immorality of let's say 300 million voters doesn't make a difference. If 99% of the people wouldn't vote, suddenly 1 vote is much more effective (in the election result, not in political progress of course) And as indicated, those videos contain many more good arguments against voting.

The video: I am watching it now and Stefan very well points out the utter hypocrisy of McCain in his comments on Trump by showing his own promo clip on Arizona. And at 11:00+ it's pretty clear Stefan doesn't support Trump, compares him to Muhammed Ali and says "neither pulls any punches" and "I do not want to speak for Donald". But I very much agree, an interesting addition to the circus that politics is. Mainly because he stirs up any discussion that he participates in; allowing others to reveal their thoughts. And what's worse? Sweet talking politicians who are just as evil and abusive as others, or the most obvious clown who will never reach office anyway? Better have a laugh and fierce discussion with the trumpling (no typo) clown than keeping the lid on the Pandora box and listening to psychos pretending to care for the people, I'd say.

I have to disagree with you. Playfulness can be considered a result of Free Will; no reward other than pure joy. Dolphins are intelligent, playful creatures. Do you reckon they don't have Free Will?

Hi Slavik, I wouldn't want to see your thread go to waste. Rather on the title question than on the video (limited bandwidth and YT demanding a lot, so sorry for not having watched the video, but from the title and image I get the idea of it). Your question "who is going to feed the homeless?" We as modern 21st century people, used to socialist governments (Europe) or other huge governments (warfare, programs, Obama'care' etc.), I'd say that people in general are very well able to feed (and house) themselves. It's simply a matter of survival. The ridiculous notion (not yours) that without government (that doesn't feed people anyway) people will let themselves starve to death does not have any logical nor historical basis. People will always look for survival, food, shelter, the basic needs. And find them when not blocked by others (including governments). So back to your video (or at least what I think it shows); it's the force of governments, with their police apparatus that hinders the development of the homeless. Anyone supporting homeless people from voluntary standpoint should be praised, not taken hostage (arrested) nor being robbed (fined).

This. Don't forget lots of people profit from these psychological operations of "predicting" the "global" climate. The Antropogenic Global Warmongering Scam is not scary anymore (as real warming is absent), so they'll look for other ways to guide the public opinion the way they want even if their "new baby" is contradicting their previous fantasies.

I've visited the neighbouring country twice (before the oil price crash) and have many Venezuelan friends. It's truly horrible to see the potentially richest country in the world (having the most of the most "valuable" -sold far below intrinsic value- product in the world) be in such a miserable state. Luckily Colombia is very different. The only big country in South America not having suffered from socialist governments, you see the attitude and will to grow, excel and work in the country, the people and the economy. Venezuela and Persia are two countries which are very much alike. Great friendly people, lots of oil and suppressed by the most monstruous governments possible.

Hi Allen, I fear I have to agree with you. Unfamiliar with this Katie Hopkins, this quote by her reveals her sick mind: But on the other hand; how seriously should we take a columnist of The Sun?

Great trodas, to have started a topic on the NASA scams. After all it is a government body that controls every "data" point "acquired" above the Earth's atmosphere. For everyone not familiar with Dave McGowan, his Wagging the Moondoggie is an extensive and witty analysis of most of the lies on Apollo that we've been told: http://davesweb.cnchost.com/Apollo1.html And the latest scam on Pluto, if NASA would do their homework, the presented "photo" of Pluto should look more like this:

I took the test many times over the last 12 years or so and have moved more and more into the purple quadrant. I feel comfy here although I agree with the others that some questions are almost impossible to answer.