Romulox

What I am trying to understand is why you believe that 9/11 truth is the most effective way communicate that people like Dick Cheney and George Bush use lies as justification to start wars and kill millions of civilians. I don't feel that I need 9/11 truth to accomplish this; I can show any number of clips with George Bush talking about WMD threats and about how God is telling him that he should go to war with Iraq. If someone's psychological defenses prevent them from accepting that the Iraq war was started on false pretenses from a lie that is 100% provable based on George Bush's own words, what chance do you think there is of penetrating those defenses (which will be inflated 100x over when discussing 9/11) with theories about how 9/11 was carried out. Even if you are right, people will listen to the answer they are looking for; a rebuttal to every one of your arguments (no matter how inconsistent or detached from reality those rebuttals may be), is out there in order to calm peoples anxieties over the possibility of their government being evil. If someone is shown the horrors imposed upon the Iraqi civilian population alongside the lies straight from the mouth of George Bush, and can't accept that the government is evil, then I see no point continuing to waste your time with that person. The truth of 9/11 did bother me for a time, though I did not take the time to actively research it. That changed after accepting the truth of anarchism though; after that, the truth of 9/11 doesn't really have any impact on my opinion of the state. If 9/11 was an inside job, then the state is an immoral institution that lies and murders civilians for its own gain. If 9/11 was carried out by muslim terrorists, then the state is still an immoral institution that lies and murders civilians for its own gain. Given this perspective, I feel far more free from the state if I don't feel compelled to spend my valuable time disproving their lies while trying to convince people who don't want to be convinced. In this way, I hope to be an example of how to minimize the impact of the state on my personal freedom, and lead a more peaceful, productive, prosperous, open minded, and enlightened life.

For those in the 9/11 truth camp: If you successfully convince someone that 9/11 was in fact an inside job, what conclusions do you hope for them to reach? Am I correct in assuming that convincing someone that 9/11 is an inside job is not an end in itself but a means to an end; that is, to have them reach a conclusion regarding the morality of the state? Putting it another way, at the end of a conversation about 9/11 truth, how do you hope the following sentence ends? "You make a very convincing argument, and I now believe 9/11 is an inside job; therefore..."

The next Liberty On The Rocks event is next Friday, July 10th at 7:30 PM at Gus's Cafe in Lawrenceville. Here is the link to the Facebook Event, though you may need to join the group first. I plan to get there around 7:30, and it looks as if the few AnCaps in the group will be there as well. Hope to see you there; if you have any questions, let me know. If that doesn't work out for you guys, I would be ok with setting up an informal FDR gathering between those of us in this post. Let me know what you think!

The type of reactor in that story is not the same as the one in the video; it's water based like the rest of the commercial reactors in service. However, it is different than most, as it is a type of "breeder" reactor that makes more fuel than it consumes. The thorium is added around the core, and as it absorbs excess neutrons that are not consumed in the fission reaction while the reactor is operating at power, its converted to uranium which can then be used as fuel. The upside is that you don't have the costly step of uranium enrichment, but does have all the problems of the water cooled reactors that were explained in the video. The neighborhood nuclear reactor would be amazing and is totally feasible; I would look to places like India for these new innovations as the regulatory burden to make something like this happen in the US hurts my brain to even think about. The simple explanation for an explosion is that it's what happens when air tries to expand faster than the speed of sound. When this happens, you don't need a container to build up the pressure, as the pressure builds up behind the leading edge of the expanding air (better known as a shock wave). As discussed a few posts earlier, your basic gas laws show that one way to cause an expansion of air is to increase its temperature. For example, when lightning strikes, the air is heated to about 50,000 degF, and the resulting shock wave/explosion is better known as "thunder". When you take an amount of energy equal to the output of a nuclear reactor over 8 hours (in the case of Fat Man) and release most of it instantaneously in the form of thermal radiation, you heat the immediate area to somewhere in the neighborhood of the sun's core temperature. As you can imagine this sort of temperature increase will cause a shock wave with a huge pressure drop which will propagate for miles and destroy a lot of stuff along the way. I think everyone on this board will agree that if this sort of weapon is possible, the state will pursue it at all costs in order to be able to impose its will on other states that do not possess this weapon. The laws that govern the operation of nuclear reactors show that imploding a plutonium sphere can result in the destruction of a city, so I have no reason to believe the various states, by their very nature, haven't produced as many of these weapons as possible. I see no reason why they wouldn't then test a few of them and videotape the results for further study.

You are correct that nuclear power stations use steam to turn turbines that generate the power. They are exactly the same as coal or gas fired power plants except that they boil water in a different way. However, the high pressure that is used in a nuclear plant has nothing to do with the nuclear reaction itself. The pressure is elevated so that water reaches a higher temperature before it boils. As steam pressure and temperature increase, the efficiency of the turbine increases significantly. Some of the high-end coal power plants can reach nearly twice the pressure of the highest-pressure nuclear plants. The danger of nuclear power is not technically the uranium, but the radioactive elements that are left over from the fission process (referred to as "fission products"). As you saw in the video, a human can safely hold an unreacted uranium pellet in his hand with no consequences whatsoever. However, anyone exposed to a recently spent fuel assembly that isn't covered by several feet of water would receive a lethal dose of radiation in a matter of seconds. Its these fission products that continue to generate heat after the fission reaction is shut down that will cause a meltdown if cooling capability is lost. The problem with the pressure required for a water cooled reactor, as explained in the video, is that if a pipe breaks and suddenly releases 650 degF water into the airtight containment building, the water will instantly flash to steam and increase the pressure inside the building. If the pressure exceeds the structural limits of the containment building, and the containment cracks, there is now a path for radioactive gases and particles to escape to the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner (given that the fuel is damaged or melted), at which point you would have to evacuate the area. Since a thorium reactor is not pressurized, and the salt would not turn to vapor in the event of a pipe break, cracking a containment building as a result of overpressure is extremely unlikely. Thanks for posting the video; it's an excellent introduction to thorium reactors for those without a nuclear or even a scientific background. The only thing I see missing from the video is how you actually get power without boiling any water; I expected that the heat from the molten salt would be used to boil water and generate high pressure steam for a turbine-generator. Not sure how the heat could be converted to electricity on the moon. I personally would love to see innovative new reactor designs such as a thorium-molten salt reactor. We easily have enough thorium to last until human civilization moves off the planet (I've heard you can actually extract it from seawater), and it doesn't require enrichment like uranium reactors do. I expect the regulatory hurdles are far to high for any commercial power generation company to overcome though. The thorium reactor in the video is only one of many of the new and much safer nuclear reactor designs; the pebble bed helium cooled reactor is one of my favorites. The only uranium based bomb I know of is the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima; the Fat Man (Nagasaki) and subsequent bombs were made of plutonium. Plutonium bombs do require immense pressures in that a sphere of plutonium is crushed/imploded to initiate the explosive chain reaction. This is easily accomplished by surrounding the plutonium with conventional explosives, which will raise the pressure to hundreds or thousands of times higher than that of a power plant. I'm pretty sure there are a ton of links for how a plutonium bomb works in earlier posts. Since they don't really use uranium in nuclear weapons anymore, I imagine the uranium tipped missile you are referring to is likely a bunker buster type missile that is designed to penetrate deep underground before exploding. The uranium shouldn't have anything to do with the rocket or explosive itself.

I am always more than happy to answer questions about nuclear power to anyone who is interested. Contrary to what most people think, most of what we do is completely public and is available on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's website. First off, here is a link to a simple description and diagram of a Fukushima type plant. You are correct that the Fukushima reactors melted down because the cooling systems for the reactors were not functional, and that they rely on an external source of power to operate. External power to operate these systems comes from two sources; 1. the electrical grid, and 2. backup diesel powered generators (literally locomotive engines inside of a protected building). Each reactor has two diesel generators, each of which are capable of powering 100% of the safety systems required to shut down and cool the plant. I assume that the 9.0 earthquake quite easily took down the grid; however, the diesel generators survived the earthquake intact. Things started to turn ugly when the tsunami overcame the seawall around the plant and simultaneously flooded all the diesel generator buildings, which were located underground for reasons I will never understand. In order for a nuclear reactor to produce power, it must produce steam which is directed to a very large turbine-generator. In order for the turbine-generator system to operate, a series of support systems, such as lube oil for the turbine bearings and cooling for the generator coils, must be functional as well. Since the safety and cooling systems must be protected against earthquakes and tornadoes, cost much more to construct, and undergo a more rigorous maintenance schedule, sticking two locomotive engines inside of their own protected buildings is a much more reliable and cost effective plan than protecting and maintaining the entire turbine-generator system. If something such as a large earthquake happens, you want to shut the plant down as soon as possible in case there is a problem, such as a broken pipe or a fire. After you shut down, the waste products left over from fission continue to undergo radioactive decay, and thus generate heat. The amount of heat generated due to radioactive decay of the waste products is relatively high at first, but decays exponentially over time, so the sooner you shut down the easier it is to cool later (though it never reaches a point where it generates zero heat, so some amount of cooling is always needed). However, a reactor that is shut down produces at most about 3% of the heat of a reactor operating at full power. As for location of nuclear plants in general, it is a question of both money and wishes of the population and politicians. Populated, industrial areas will have more demand than remote areas, and there is a significant cost to transmitting power across long distances. However, people generally don't want nuclear reactors in their back yards, so you will rarely find a nuclear plant inside a large city (though they make small/medium sized towns very happy with lots of jobs and tax revenue). Small commercial reactors are currently in the design process and may start popping up in the next decade or so, but I don't think the financial incentive is quite there in Antarctica. I've brought several things to the control room, but doughnuts haven't been one of them. Maybe they would be much happier to see me if I did. I've heard more Homer Simpson jokes than I can count, so go ahead and get them out of your system if you must I hope this helps, and I will be more than happy to answer any other questions you might have.

I couldn't care less about the photo, I picked a random image off of Google. I'm asking if you believe that nuclear power generation is state propaganda. If so, please explain to me how the governments 31 countries have collaborated in perfect harmony to fool the population into believing that there are 435 nuclear power facilities operating around the globe, generating 375,000 MW of electric power. Note that the world population includes the tens of thousands of workers who build, operate, and maintain these facilities. As one of them, if you have some information that would lead me to believe that my professional career as of now has been an elaborate state-created lie, I would be forever in your debt, and will certainly start pursuing alternate career paths. It absolutely does, as both processes are two predictions made by the same set of physical laws with different input parameters. Though 20 gallons of gasoline burning in a controlled manner inside an engine may not look the same as dumping 20 gallons of gasoline on the ground and lighting it on fire, the same laws of chemistry and thermodynamics can predict the results of both outcomes. If you conclude that nuclear power is in fact not the greatest hoax in the history of mankind, then you accept that the laws that govern nuclear reactions are valid, as reactions must be controlled in order to produce electrical power. These same laws that predict the fission rate inside a nuclear reactor predict the fission rate inside of an imploded ball of plutonium in the center of a nuclear bomb, as well as the resulting release of energy. 88 Trillion Joules (output of the Fat Man bomb) released instantaneously is certainly enough to destroy a city.

pretzelogic, boethius, Do you believe this image to be a piece of state propaganda as well? Yes or No?

Great article! I highly recommend the previous article in the series that is linked in the first sentence of this article. It focuses on the long term effects of academic training outside the classroom; the results of these studies are equally if not more mind blowing:

I live just south of the airport, but frequent the south hills area quite often.

Agree 100%; a healthy body is essential to a healthy mind. A good portion of the US already doesn't want anything to do with the medical profession, present company included. Sharing ideas, articles, and especially first hand experiences seems to be a very effective way to break people away from the idea that the medical profession is infallible.

The closest thing to a liberty meetup is the Liberty on the Rocks group that I mentioned above. We usually meet once a month, but nothing is planned for this month that I know of. I doubt we would have the attendance for an official meetup.com group, but an unofficial gathering would be a good start. Though most of the LOTR group is in the minarchist camp, there is a chance I could get a few people from that group to show up. What area of town are you from, Tservitive?

The fact that I can spend 40 hours a week a few hundred yards from two 2900 Megawatt nuclear reactors and come home with as much hair as I left with is enough to convince me that those high priests got something right. I guess it might be too early to tell how President Obama will use the Higgs Boson take away my few remaining freedoms, but if you can give us a heads up when you figure that out, it would certainly be appreciated.

I might agree with you if we were able to directly vote against individual policies; then one would be able to vote against government policies as a matter of self defense. Unfortunately, I am not able to vote for "gridlock" in this system; only a Republican or Democrat. I may only vote for politicians who SAY they will vote against certain policies, are not in any way obligated to do so, and may enact or vote for other policies that were not known to the voters at the time of the election. Though you may be voting for Republicans to gridlock the Democrats to fight Obamacare, what happens when Jeb Bush gets into office in 2016, has a Republican house and senate, and decides that Iran would make a nice parking lot? I'm sure that the Iranian refugees will be comfortable in knowing that Obamacare was reversed for 4 years or less. Voting for a politician in the current US system is an implicit consent for any action that politician is able to carry out using the force of the US military and police agencies. These actions include the murder of thousands of innocent people, which the Republicans have consistently voted for in the recent past and show every reason to believe they will continue the future. So if you are thinking about voting Republican for gridlock now, please consider the consequences of when that gridlock finally breaks in their favor.

I agree that public school provides students with valuable life lessons and experiences that may help you interact with your peers. I also see that as the problem; in the real world, you very frequently have to interact with people who aren't exactly the same age and didn't grow up in your home town. That kid who harassed you in Catholic is a perfect example; look at how he responded when he met someone different than himself. He'll probably got quite the rude awakening when he found out that almost no one in the real world shares his beliefs. I have recently taken two trips to Ecuador since summer of last year. These were my first international trips of my life (not counting Canada), and during both trips I couldn't shake the thought of what an amazing educational experience it would be for a young child. Spending two weeks interacting with both children and adults who are living on top of a mountain on $2 a day, no running water, and don't even speak your language; that was one of the greatest educational and social experiences of my life and I hope to share that with my children someday. I would trade 12 years of public school socialization for those two weeks in a heartbeat.

I would have to agree with both of the above definitions of luck in a way. While the multitude of variables in our lives produce random successes and failures that we cannot directly control, the actions we take can increase or decrease the long term ratio of successes to failures that we experience. I wouldn't call Opportunity + Preparation + Action a definition of luck itself, but a strategy to improve or "make" your own luck. Being aware of random events that may lead to success, knowing in advance how turn opportunity into success, and committing to act on these opportunities will obviously lead to more success and less failure in the long run. Though possibility of failure is still there, given a stroke of bad luck, it will be less likely. For example, if my goal is to date a good woman, then the action of volunteering at a soup kitchen will obviously produce more opportunities for success than going to strip clubs. Who we meet at either location is still completely random and beyond our control, but the action of volunteering will in the long run positively impact my results. Meanwhile, the guy looking around at strip clubs may say that he is just unlucky as a way to justify his poor decisions and take no further actions to improve his situation. Wishing by definition requires inaction, at which point you are really only relying on pure, random luck to achieve success.

When people cast a vote, it's reasonable to believe that they are doing so because they believe that they have some measure of control over the state, or that it represents them in some way. Every vote then perpetuates the mythology of "government by the people" or "the government is us", or (insert 3rd grade social studies slogan here). If no one were to vote, then it would be clear that no one consents to be governed by the ruling party, and any myth that government is a voluntary institution would disappear. The gun in the room would then fully revealed; the only basis for rule at this point is that the state controls the police and military. Therefore, every person who decides not to vote is one small step closer to revealing the gun in the room, and will make the violent nature of the state that much more apparent. Though we may still be subject to their whims, the first step to eliminating the police and military would be to identify what their true purpose is; that is, to impose the will of the rulers over the domestic population. A withdraw of consent seems to me to be far more effective at achieving this goal than voting in a party who basically worships the police and military, and relentlessly perpetuates the story that they are selfless crusaders for justice whose only interest is protecting the citizens from the evildoers plotting to destroy America.

I seem to have the opposite experience, at least if I am focused on upcoming events that I am looking forward to. That last hour of the workday on Friday always seems to be the longest of the week. Unless of course I have something due at the end of the day, at which point I am wishing time would slow down for a bit. If I am focused in the present, for instance getting lost in some riveting freedomain radio podcasts while driving, the hours fly by like I just drove to work. My dad brought also this point up several times while we were on a 2-day road trip recently, where I played a series of very well done history podcasts that were each several hours long to pass the time in the car. I certainly agree that it feels like the years are flying by faster and faster though. At 30 years old, it feels like the 4 years of college passed by far slower than the 8 years I have been working since graduation.

The last time I heard that issue come up, the consensus was that any black holes formed by CERN would be a fraction of the size of a proton, in which case it would evaporate almost instantly. Though there were a few outliers who thought CERN would form a black hole that would sink to the center of the earth, slowly growing in size until it gobbled up the entire earth a few years later. Since that theory was fairly well known a few years ago, I can only assume the black hole has finally reached its critical size and the apocalypse is nigh Do you have some links to any good articles on the subject? Hopefully something that will relieve my fears of impending doom...

Libertarian Podcasts: The usuals - Tom Woods, Lew Rockwell, Peter Schiff Mises.org has thousands of lectures as well, mostly geared towards Austrian economics and sometimes history. History Podcast: Hardcore History with Dan Carlin - Dan is quite possibly the best storyteller I have ever heard, and he uses this talent to narrate various events and time periods in history. Examples include series' on the 13th century Mongol empire, end of the Roman Republic, and the eastern front of WWII, with shorter commentaries that fit into single podcasts as well (e.g. Atomic Bomb, Spanish-American War). Each show is incredibly well researched; not only does he use primary sources when possible, he notes the bias of the sources as well. Individual podcasts can range from less than an hour to as much as 5.5 hours. Science Podcasts: Radiolab - NPR show about random science based topics (1 hr or less) Star talk Radio - Neil deGrasse Tyson's show generally centered around astronomy, but occasionally branches into other topics as well. Very informative if you can get past his complaining about NASA's budget. (45 min) Health and Fitness (for those in the Paleo camp): Primal Blueprint Podcast with Mark Sisson (30-60 min) Not Just Paleo with Evan Brand (1-2 hours) Others: Coast to Coast AM - Though greatly outnumbered by the shows about ghosts or aliens, their guests that talk about science, health or current events are pretty solid. (40 min) Kick Ass Life with David Wood - Generally themed around self-improvement (30 or 60 min) Rich Dad Radio with Robert Kiyosaki - investment commentary, generally real-estate themed, discussion of economic current events (though not exactly libertarian) (50 min)

What system of public accountability to you propose that is superior to the freedom of association that results from the NAP? A government run police force implies that they hold a monopoly over the legal use of force in a given area, which requires the initiation of force to maintain that monopoly. Otherwise it is just a private security firm. Please help me understand the term "voluntary tax". Isn't a tax by definition an involuntary payment demanded by a government? If a government does not have the power to collect payments through the use of force, how is it different than a private company that you can freely associate with? This is a great example of why asking "What is True?" is the ultimate question. Instead of arguing whether a governmental police force with public accountability is more effective than private security firms through the "What is Best?" argument, we establish whether a governmental police force that does not violate the NAP can logically exist in the first place. This also applies to the voluntary tax concept. If we find this concept to be logically false, its effectiveness in providing judicial or military services is irrelevant.

How do you expect children from low income families, who are affected most by the unemployment caused by the minimum wage, to initially get those skills to put towards bettering themselves and their community (such owning or managing a business)? Are their single moms on welfare going to send them to school to get their MBA? The path to managing a McDonalds and witnessing first hand how an efficient business is run is open to anyone willing to put up the effort.

Wow that's great; the Caribbean real estate plan sounds like a great supplement and/or backup plan to motorcycle brand development. By all means get out of this arctic hell and enjoy your new winters in paradise!! (Paradise not just because of the weather, but for being a magical place without property taxes)

Perhaps you already decided to escape the post-singularity world and you're living in the supercomputer now. My estimated ETA for the singularity is -50 years ago (whatever year that might be). I'll be that guy

I have also found myself in a similar situation, as I have been working as an engineer at a nuclear power plant for the past 7 years. The pay is approaching 6 figures, and it's as secure of a job as anyone can hope for, but I can't relinquish myself to the cubicle life for the next 30 years. The biggest difference in my situation is that I don't have that dream career picked out quite yet. While I am trying figure out what exactly that dream job is (which I only hope can be at least half as cool as glass sculptor or inventing my own motorcycle brand!), As a start, I've looked into alternate sources of income in order to lessen my dependence on my current job; in this case, I took the real estate investing path. I took a fairly in-depth class about a year and a half ago and bought my first rental property, a small duplex about 30 minutes away, in January 2014. Though it cash flows less than 10% of my current income, getting that check in the mail is just so liberating; going to work becomes so much easier when you know that you don't need that job to survive. Though I don't have a long term career plan, it doesn't really bother me anymore; if I can acquire a few more properties, I can try any number of things while still maintaining my standard of living while having that safety net in place if things don't work out as planned. Do you currently have any properties or experience in the real estate field? If this is your first go, I would consider keeping those first properties within driving distance until you get your feet wet, and perhaps taking a class or two to get the basics down. While RE investing can be immensely profitable, there are plenty of ways to get yourself in trouble, and I imagine having to deal with those problems in another country for the first time would make them exponentially worse. But if this isn't your first rodeo, the Caribbean plan sounds fantastic! Writing off beach trips to the Caribbean as business expenses can be part of anyone's dream.