Koroviev

Also, if ego-utilitarianism or "self-interest" as you are proposing it, is/should be a universal principle doesn't that make the current judicial system immoral. Although murder may not be in someone's best self interest because of the consequences they may run into in the current system, if "ego-utilitarianism" took hold then wouldn't "I thought it was in my own best self interest" then become a valid argument no matter what the situation? If it's immoral not to act in your own best self interest you can't really bepunished for trying to be moral can you? Also, doesn't this mean everything every corrupt politician has ever done is moral because it obviously was in their best self interest? Sooo, thanks George W.? Which, you can also deduce, would mean everyone who is not a corrupt politician is being immoral (assuming that legal immunity, power, and money is in everyone's best self interest). Furthermore, you kind of went over this in your video, but how is it in anyone's best self interest to take care of their children? Isn't feeding your children in their best self interest? What about helping them learn? Taking them to the park? From what I understand a lot of parenting is putting your child's interests before your own, which in ego-utilitarianism as your proposing it would be immoral. Also, natural selection has nothing to do with self interest, it has everything to do with survival of the species. i.e. one member of a species has an advantageous mutation it is the benefit of the species that that mutation get's passed down (no matter how much money they are offered not to). As opposed to the N.A.P. which says simply it is wrong to initiate force....

So, you agree then that self interest makes murder moral (at least in some circumstances) which would mean anyone who decided not to murder in those circumstances immoral. Also who decides what is in someones best self interest? If I get murdered by someone then am I being immoral? I can't imagine being murdered would ever be in someone's best interest. Couldn't I justify pretty much anything by saying it is in my best self interest? Who's to dispute that? I still don't see how the non-initiation of force is not a principal. It does not say you can never use force, it does not say you are evil if you ever use force. It simply says it is immoral to initiate the use of force against another person (Murder simply for money is always immoral). To be honest, I'm a little lost on what you mean by a "rigorous definition" but maybe that will make more sense when I read your other arguments, but isn't the "objective" based on the individual, i.e. if you want to be moral you'll do x, if not you won't, I don't think philosophy has anything to do with telling people what they must do. Send me a link I'd love to read your arguments as to the fallacy of UPB.

Doesn't ego-utilitarianism, or "self-interest" as you are proposing it just make murder moral? Especially in the life boat scenario you proposed isn't it in my self interest to murder someone if offered millions of dollars, which cannot be universalized because it would make the act of not murdering someone immoral. Also, maybe I have the wrong definition but isn't a principle a basic truth, law, or assumption? i.e a general rule that can be universalized. Again "self-interest" cannot be universalized. As Stef points out in UPB it may be in my self interest to steal something from someone (stealing is moral) therefor whenever I do not steal something I am being immoral (not stealing is immoral). As opposed to the N.A.P. which says "each person has the right to make his or her own choices in life so long as they do not involve aggression, defined as the initiation of force against others." In other words, initiating force against others is immoral and not initiating force against others is moral. The key point is initiation of force, not necessarily the use of force.

Terribly sad story but thanks for the great info guys. If anyone's interested I just heard similar info here: https://www.noagendaplayer.com/listen/732/1-36-04 A lot of it is similar to what is touched on above, but they also look a bit more into the website itself, the manifesto, the drug he was on, and the senator who was killed. If nothing else it's nice supporting research to what Stefan and the guys have found. Cheers

You're right this has gone on long enough. Up to this point I've given you the benefit of the doubt assuming I wasn't very clear in my explanations, but you continue to take the things I say out of context. I made generalizations backed up by evidence and you called me bigoted while arguing that all rich people are evil, all religious people are stupid, all poor people are helpless, and the only way to save the poor is through a system that is unsustainable and inevitably leads to communism. You've had no evidence to support your facts and have degraded this posting to personal attacks. It really was an enjoyable conversation however, and I hope you gained as much out of it as I know I did. If I can give you one piece of advice for your own health and sanity it would be to stop watching the biased media, they truly are trying to brainwash you into their thinking, i.e. what is best for them. Read some books, do some research, there happens to be some really great resources right on this site! Cheers, and I really do wish you the best of luck. - TYFYC

I'm going to try to hit all of your points and still keep this as short as possible. Let me know if I miss anything. Also, what if I have a kid and my wife wants to be a stay at home mom? is she forced to work or is my employer going to be forced to give me a raise? or can I apply for permanent "overtime" to support another person in my family, actually 2 other people if my wife was previously working? - Cheers

Also, the great thing about a free society is as long as it's not being enforced through the use of force you're free to experiment with any type of society you want!

Ah, thanks for restating the original point, I think it got lost in the details. I highly doubt Stefan would ever argue that everyone should, could, or would be employed, and I for one never would. Some people are purposefully unemployed (monks), some people cannot be employed (those with severe disabilities), some people don't want to be employed (retired people), and some people society doesn't want to have employed (children..kind of). However, I'm going to assume you only meant full employment for everyone not in those categories as including them would bring a whole other dimension to "unfairness." To this point I would argue that you wouldn't want 100% employment because what would you do if people got sick and/or died, there'd be no one to replace them. Meaning, if you're operating at full capacity you wouldn't be able to keep up with demand, and since everyone who can work already has a job it could be years before you have someone to replace them. So, yes, I completely agree with you that everyone would not be employed in a free society, but I'd also argue that for a democracy, a capitalist society, or any other society there is. As to the example of my work I don't think I explained it very well. I didn't mean that we all work 80 hours per week. Although, we do generally work more than 40 hours a week, especially if you count travel, 70-80 wouldn't happen unless you count business trips as work since you're away from home only because of work but then business trips wouldn't be possible at all in your proposed system. We do employ at least 1-2 interns a year who we train right out of college and they almost always get hired on. Unfortunately the job itself is a lot of work, and it takes a certain type of person to do. As fun as it may sound most people don't like lying to people all day and then writing reports when they aren't doing that, so many of them don't tend to stick around long. Also, it's not the case that we only hire people after other companies have paid for their training, in fact we only hire people looking for a career change (like most businesses). We just can't hire people unless they have certain skill sets, like every career, so I'm not sure this would effect whether we would be around in a free society or not. I do however agree with you that likely we would not be around in a free society, but mostly because our business is ensuring companies are meeting government regulations (which would not exist the way they do now). Although I suppose people will always want to know how safe their money and sensitive information is... Either way that does not change the point which is we would never be able to survive as a company if we had to double (or more) our wage expenses. Although, yes lower barrier to entry does not necessarily create the need for more working hours it absolutely does create the opportunity for more working hours. This is the key point. Whether or not those jobs actually get filled depends entirely on the environment. As to why a company would hire additional workers while they don't need more production? This is simple, to make more money. If they are selling all they are producing that must mean the demand for that is high and the supply is low therefore they need to make more. If they are not selling everything they are producing that means the demand is low and they need to put more effort into figuring out why, expand to other areas, or face the impending doom of going out of business. Just ask your farmer friend if he'd like to hire more employees I can guarantee he'll say yes, at least until he can afford to work only as much as he'd like to work and still be able to live comfortably. Also, how would he survive if he had to split up all the money he makes between the number of people it takes to cover the time he currently spends working. He probably "works" at least 70-80 hours a week. In a nutshell, the more employees you can afford to hire the more opportunities you have to make money, need is relative. Now, I hope this doesn't come off as "moving the goal post," but I still think there are issues surrounding the 3 main questions I had. First, while 100% income tax would ensure most law abiding citizens ("rule-followers") would abide by the hours cap that still does not answer the tracking part of enforcement, or the what-happens-when-people-work-more-anyway part. Both of which were stated previously, although in not so few words. That also isn't very fair to the people who have no choice but to work more than the allotted time. Even if that system was perfectly implemented there would still be situations where certain places were under-staffed, for lack of a better word, or where it would be required for the same person to continue doing the same job for more than 10 hours. Specifically, I'm thinking long and intense surgeries, custom coding jobs where there is a very specific style, or skill set, or even teachers who don't have enough time in a day as it is. I'm sure there are hundreds of other examples as well. Second, putting more people in college does not make them more intelligent. The reason (in general) college graduates make more money (in general) than people (in general) who are not college graduates, is because (in general) they already have the higher intelligence(in general)...generally. Also, I would not be surprised if that figure is decreasing now that more people are going to college for free (or getting in loads of debt), since it seems like a lot of people just assume that sending their kids to college automatically makes them smarter/more skilled/more marketable/more talented, etc. So, it's not that only a tiny amount of people are "allowed" to be professionals it's that there are only a tiny amount of people who can, or want to, be professionals, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just nature. Also, would the 10 hour cap relate to students as well? If so that would increase the time it takes to get a degree, and how would you pay for the degree? Now I'm assuming by educate you didn't necessarily mean college, but how are you supposed to get on the job training if you can only work 10 hours a week? Are all companies going to be expected to have dedicated trainers? That would double the wage expense for every new employee you hired, and you'd have to pay every unskilled employee (remember we're assuming they have no skills or education) at least cost of living plus full medical benefits, and probably extra so they have spending/emergency money as soon as they got hired since it is illegal for them to work any more than their allotted 10 hours (same for the person who trains them). Not to mention the, although iconic generally accepted as quazi-truth, 10,000 hours it takes to become a professional which would be more than 19 years of training! Yes, obviously a person wouldn't be "in training" for that long but I think the point still holds true, which is it would take too long and cost too much to get good at anything at 10 hours/week. Third, the statement you made about entrepreneurs not able to reduce the hours they work because someone else will take all the business is not true. There are lots of businesses that do just fine and only work the hours they want. They simply compete in other ways. Putting more people/companies that do the same type of work would only create more unsustainable companies since all of the demand would shift to the "best" companies. I'd still want the best people to do the job but an hour cap would just increase the time it takes them to do it, leaving all other companies/people without work,but still having to employ more people than they can afford. Also, wouldn't this situation create unsustainable and infinite inflation since it would cost the companies more because they'd need more employees, so they'd be forced to raise their prices, meaning workers would need to be paid more, which would increase costs to the companies, etc., etc. You still have to pay people living expenses (average cost of living in the US is $20,194 per person, per year http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Cost_of_Living) even though they are only working about 520 hours per year (assuming 10 a week every week). That's $38.83 per hour, minimum, per person, for every person. That's about $75,000 per year with normal working hours, and that's with vacation time. So, no one would be able to get sick, need time off, need an emergency fund, or be able to do anything with all of the "leisure" time they have. Finally, to your example I don't really think you could say that Italy is a free market society, or even that the market street you are talking about is really a free market, so I'm not sure it can be used as an example of how the free market would fail. Also, I would be very surprised if the Chinese workers were really the only reason, or even the main reason, the other stalls went out of business. And, if the Chinese were able to push the other businesses out because they did not pay taxes, which is if I'm not mistaken illegal, wouldn't they just do different "illegal" things to get around the system you propose?

Apologies, for the delayed reply just returned home from a business trip (another issue with your proposal get to that later). It seems to me that the free market would give more people jobs first off because there would be fewer requirements to get a job (I'm thinking all of the pointless certificates that don't really add anything to the profession but seem to be in place simply to make the government more money), employers would not be paying taxes so they would have more money to go toward wages (you could say this would just go into their pockets but wouldn't it be better to hire more people so you can make more profit for a longer period of time), and finally there would be little to no barriers for people to start their own businesses (employing themselves) and hiring more people. Also, wouldn't the removal of the welfare state force more people to become more marketable (hirable) since they wouldn't be receiving free living expenses from the state? The fundamental things I think need to be answered to make this proposal viable are: - it would have to be enforced so how would you enforce it? - what about all of the professions that require more than the allotted time (surgeons, teachers, etc.) - What about entrepreneurs or sole proprietorships almost all of whom work 60-70 hour workweeks to ensure the survival of their companies, and would fail if they had to hire even one more person, let alone five to six? I can give you a real example of why this would never work. I work for a small information security company in the United States. We do things like security audits, pen tests, and training mostly for small banks and credit unions all over the US. It is a job that takes a very specific type of person and a lot of experience so it's very hard for us to find new employees. There are four of us full time auditors, two sales guys, and an intern. Just this last week I was at a job in a different state (~1,500 miles away). The way the work is split up is one person onsite (travel, hotel, and food expenses), one person offsite, and the intern cleaning up the rest of the grunt work. There is at the very least 40 hours of work for the onsite person (not counting travel time), 30-40 hours of work for the offsite person (full yearly salary), and maybe 10 hours for the intern (per job paid hourly and he usually has multiple jobs per week, as do the rest of us). If we hired eny more employees the company would begin to lose money, and if we got rid of some of our employees we would be unable to keep up with the work. So if we're generous we can say 80 hours of work for a single job. By your proposed system this would mean we would need eight employees (each working 10 hours, again not counting travel time), which is double what we currently have, and four employees onsite (four times travel, hotel, and food), three employees offsite, and at least one intern per job. Not even getting into the chaos and space requirements this would bring about (some credit unions have set us up in a hallway next to a water fountain), we would either have to not make any profit and go out of business, i.e. lose all of our jobs, or raise our prices and lose most of our business (small businesses can only spend so much money). This doesn't even touch on the fact that usually we are all working on multiple clients at a time, travel time, administrative work, business meetings, or anything else that running a business requires. I can guarantee that this holds true for every single other business out there, and forced reduction of work hours would have major unsustainable consequences. Sorry for the long-windedness, free-market is just a very important topic that if people don't understand can have (and already has had) very negative consequences for all of us. -Cheers

First off, if car companies reduce production by 30% that does not necessarily mean they are firing 30% of their workforce. It still takes just as many people to run the machines, but I see the point you are making. Lower barrier to entry means employers can afford to hire more employees for higher wages since startup and day to day costs are cheaper. It also means the unemployed have more opportunities to start their own businesses and/or gain the skills they need to not be unemployed. Lastly, it places as much of the responsibility on each individual as possible therefor in all but rare circumstances if they do not have skills or a job it is entirely on them (most of those rare circumstances would be worked out through charity I'm sure). In the business world everything is a give and take since everyone has choices. If an employer decides to lay off his entire workforce and only employ a single worker there are very real consequences for the employer (what if the one employee gets sick, burnt out, or realizes the entire business depends solely on him and decides to take advantage of that, not to mention the magical and immeasurable goodwill every business strives for), just as there are consequences for the employee if he decides he will only work for 5 times more than he is worth (no one will hire him), and the customer who is only willing to pay 1/5 of the asking price (no one will sell to him). I'm not sure what population you are referring to that is competing to spend all of their wealth in leisure unless you mean retired people or those countries who have government required vacations (or maybe the super wealthy "playboys" who inherited all of their wealth?) but this is a very small percentage of the population and are not trying to work. Those who are actually running the businesses don't have time for leisure because they are running their businesses (hence why they get paid more). Also, I think your supply/labor/demand equation is a bit off since in reality there are shortages of all three, but again I think I understand the point you're trying to make (i.e. in certain countries at this point in time there are more people needing jobs than being hired). However, all of these situations in all of these countries can be followed back to increased government regulations (or corrupt government practices). Take increased minimum wage for example, when minimum wages go up employers are forced to fire the less skilled, or liked, workers because they know they can still get by since the more skilled workers will pick up the slack. For an example of how the agriculture industry got to where it is I recommend reading Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (yes the banks made it so people lost their land but they could only do that because the government allowed/enforced it not to mention most if not all of the government is run by those who greatly profit when the banks profit, etc., etc.). Finally I agree with you that it will never be 100% fair to 100% of the people 100% of the time, however I do not see how the solution of limiting working hours could come even close to being "as fair" (whatever that might mean) as giving people as much choice, and therefore as much opportunity, as possible. Especially since you still have not answered any of the original (and I think the most fundamental) issues I brought up. Once again life isn't fair and that's just nature. Increased government regulations will never make it fair but will only make it worse. P.S. I hope you're getting as much enjoyment out of this delightful conversation as I am, it's been truly challenging and very enjoyable for me. Thanks!!!!

No and no. The only way a stateless society will come around (barring some major crisis) is if people are raised better, and therefore better able to think for themselves. This is the trap of the Liberal media making people believe "the poor" are sad and helpless and that the only way to save them is for the government to force people to give the government money so the government can decide how to "save" "the poor". This is prejudiced and takes all of the responsibility away from the poor and pushes it onto the "evil people" who they say are not helping the poor. In a stateless society the barriers to entry will be as little as possible so more people will be able to hire more employees, and more entrepreneurs will be able to start their own businesses. Obviously things will still not be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is, and obviously there will still be "the poor" but they will have WAY more opportunities to not be "the poor" than they ever have. If society cares about "the poor" then society will find a way to help "the poor." If society does not care about "the poor" and needs the government to forcefully redistribute wealth to help "the poor" than we aren't even living in a democracy but a dictatorship. The question is what good is the welfare system doing for the poor? (If I remember right Stef also did a show on the effects of the welfare state I just don't remember which it was)

"if you have a problem with inequality take it up with Mother Nature" - Stef https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/44288-youtube-an-introduction-to-capitalism/

I still feel like a lot of the picture is being left out. First off in skilled jobs the most skillful employee will always get paid much more than "the most desperate unemployed" person waiting outside the door. This may not hold true in mindless or factory work, but it will always be the case in skilled positions. If I knock on the door of a hospital and say I will do all of their surgeries, no matter how little I am willing to work for the surgeon will always get the job. Now maybe this is an extreme situation so let's talk a little more along what I'm assuming you actually mean. Lets take 2 surgeons, both applying for the same position, one (Dave) has 30 years experience, worked in the same hospital for all 30 years never been accused of malpractice, and has as spotless a record as possible. The second (Jim) has 30 years of experience as well, but has been charged with malpractice many times has been fired from every hospital he's worked at and is in general not a very liked guy. As the hiring manager who are you going to want to hire? Who are you going to want to pay more? In real careers you are hired based on more than just how little you are willing to be paid. Lets say this same situation occurs but since both Dave and Jim are not allowed to work more than 10 hours, the hospital can "afford" to hire both, I'm assuming management can only work 10 hours too but we'll get to this later, who is going to be assigned most of the work? As a patient who do you want to perform your surgery? If you ask me the answer to both is Dave, every time. Again we have an issue with fairness because Dave is doing all of the work and Jim is reaping all of the rewards. Yes, the hospital could pay Dave more and Jim less but then wouldn't it be more fair to the owners of the hospital to not hire Jim at all? So by making it "more fair" to the workers you've in a sense made it less fair for the employers. The beautiful thing about a free market is that if my employer does decide to hire all of the unemployed and pay them nothing, then as a skilled worker I have the choice to go to the next employer and get paid more, or start my own company doing the exact same thing but pay more and get all of the most talented employees. Not to mention, as an employer how am I supposed to judge my staff if they're only there for 2 hours a day? As an employee how am I supposed to gain more skills if I'm only there 2 hours a day? Also, this still doesn't answer the 2 main questions of how will this be enforced if at all and what about jobs where people need to work longer than 10 hours? Wouldn't this cause teachers to stop teaching right when they hit their weekly 10 hours since I'm assuming they would stop getting paid at 10 hours? What constitutes working? When are teachers supposed to grade papers? What if a surgeon is in the middle of a surgery? or a firefighter? This system would have to be enforced somehow, otherwise why wouldn't I work more, or hire someone willing to work more, in order to make more money? If your salary is based on "skill, productivity, and qualification" isn't there still a "winner and a loser" since those less qualified would get paid less? Also what incentive do I have to be more qualified if I'm guaranteed a job? Finally, and I'm sorry that this may come off as a little rude but if you think anyone could start or even run any business on no more than 10 hours a week, then you must have no experience running or starting a business yourself. Read Atlas Shrugged and you'll see the effects of this theoretical policy (I'll happily give you my copy if you PM me ) Not to steal GasCap's thunder but I'm pretty sure the preference would be for the "starving people" to take initiative to gain the skills to make more money themselves. Everyone is responsible for their own choices and the consequences that come from them. 50% of the world is not starving. The WFP says about 11% (http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats) and since they are in business to make things look as bad as possible you can almost be certain this is higher than the reality. And the 4th "way out of this" would be to bring down all of the barriers to entry which would give the "starving people" as much of an opportunity as possible leaving all of the responsibility on them, as it should be. I don't even want to get into everything wrong with the rest of your argument, but to begin if there's only $900 in circulation and all of that is going to wages how are the companies in business? - Cheers!!

If I'm understanding correctly what you are proposing is that the way to fix the "unfair-ness" of competition is to limit the amount of time people are allowed to compete. Does this also include limiting the amount of wages people receive? Meaning a doctor would make exactly the same amount of money, and work the exact same amount of hours, as a 16 year old starting his first job flipping burgers at McDonalds. Is there another part of this plan I'm missing, because that seems far from fair to me. Also, who is going to enforce this work curfew, for lack of a better term, and how is it going to be enforced? As a citizen am I going to be forced to wear a tracking device that buzzes after I hit exactly 40 hours? What happens if I continue working? Does the SWAT team show up and force me to stop the task I'm in the middle of? What if my 40 hours ends right when said SWAT team's 40 hours ends, who stops them from working and am I free to keep working until the next SWAT team arrives? What if I'm, an entrepreneur starting my own business am I supposed to just sit around for the rest of the week once I hit my limit putting my brand new venture at risk? What about painters or coders or any other artistic workers who get into "the zone" and if were forced to stop would never complete their masterpieces? What about doctors in the middle of a surgery?? Also, what if I'm more technically or physically skilled that those who work the next shift, I'm assuming most jobs will need multiple shifts unless everything is just going to halt all at once when everyone hits 40 hours. Is it fair to me, my employer, or those who are benefiting from my skills if someone less skilled or knowledgeable is forced to finish the job I've started? What incentive do I have to do better work if it's not going to better my lot in life. Yes, the "Chinese" factory workers may be able to produce more goods cheaper but the artisan's goods will always be much higher quality. Finally, who decides how much money is enough money or how much work is enough work? Are we supposed to put one all-knowing supreme being in place to make that decision for us (dictatorship), elect a group of officials to do it (democracy)? Do those individuals get to say how much they make? Who enforces that? It seems to me like the only logical solution is to give people as much choice and freedom to make those choices as possible. Although, yes there still will be "the poor" at least then we can say for certain that they are only "the poor" because of the decisions they have made.

Ah, sorry, and I probably didn't make this clear enough, but my wife and I are collaborating on this, and have been the entire time. Whatever choice they make will have no effect on me since our friends will be the ones who have to live with those decisions (in this case for the rest of their lives). My wife understands and agrees with my argument, that households with two working parents are damaging for children, and damaging to your relationship with your children. Which stems from our shared opinion of "why even have children if you aren't going to be around to raise them." We both understand that 1. this is a very sensitive topic and could potentially strain or end our relationship with this other couple if we overstep our bounds, and 2. to avoid that it's best to avoid being confrontational about it so we are hoping to discreetly sway their opinion by presenting the best evidence we have as indirectly as possible. My personal opinion, as "Man she isn't sleeping with" not only has close to zero influence over what they think or do, it probably as a negative influence on what they think or do. Meaning they would most likely do the opposite of whatever I personally suggested. My wife on the other hand has some influence, since they are close friends, which is why the original goal was get more evidence on the effect of households with 2 working parents for my wife to suggest her friend looking into since this other couple seems relatively rational and want to at least appear to be doing what is best for their future offspring. I (we) are still looking for more evidence both to share with this other couple, in hopes of helping them to see the potential mistake (if it even is a mistake) they are making, and for our own knowledge because there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence (aside from what Stef has presented), which means we could potentially be completely wrong. The problem, and I assume it's a very common problem, is that the people we care about are lead by popular culture and current trends to believe that something which is (potentially) damaging is what is best. This is where I was trying to get in my last post, and as I said it may be a topic for a different thread, but is it our (in general not my wife and myself specifically) responsibility as moral, rational, and educated people to help to nudge those we care about in the right direction? If so, to what extent? Should we (again "we" in general) be ready to overstep the bounds of what is acceptable if it means those we care about may make better life choices? A very simplistic example would be if your friend showed up wearing skinny jeans is it your responsibility to tell him he looks ridiculous wearing them? What if he or she is marrying someone you know just wants him/her for his/her money? What if he or she is spanking his/her kid? It seems to me like a lot of problems in the world could be completely avoided if we all had people who cared about us enough to not be afraid to tell us we're making a big mistake.

Thanks hannabanna, I'd completely forgotten about this show, but it's exactly in line with what I'm looking for. Has anyone done research into attachment theory? I think this may be a good course to take with them. I'm going to look more into it but if anyone has knowledge on the subject or a good jumping off point it'd be much appreciated. I find your story very interesting, and extremely heart wrenching, no one should be subjected to that. Especially since it seems likely that such a small lifestyle change, or really change in thought process, may have changed your entire life. I'm curious though, and please do not answer if you don't want to, if I'm understanding correctly it sounds like there were some women in your life who you were thinking about settling down with and were not trying to trap you with their fallopian tubes, "Penis Fly Traps" as my wife likes to call them, yet you still called it off. Was this after conversations with them about what you were feeling? If not do you think having that conversation may have changed the outcome? Also, do you think if you had a support group who were comfortable enough to keep you in check, I guess that's the best way of putting it, the outcome may have been different? By "Keep you in check" what I mean is friends or family you could talk to about what you were going through who would be able to rationally tell you, with evidence, whether or not you're making a good decision. MMX2010 Thanks for the input. First off no I don't think the guy would "stand up" to her. From what I understand he never really wanted kids and kind of got sucked into it because she really does want kids. So yes he's just following along with whatever she wants to do (Happy wife, happy life right?). I think it's more we're trying to help people we care about make the best decisions for themselves and their future offspring, not necessarily directly telling them what they can or cannot do. I agree that approach would get nowhere. I also, definitely agree that it probably won't get anywhere anyway but I still think I would regret not giving it my best effort. I feel like a lot of the issues these days stem from too many people just "walking away" and not helping each other make better decisions in their lives (please understand I mean absolutely no offence by this). Thanks for the clarification!! That sort of leads to what I think may be an underlying topic, and maybe another thread, but as a friend it seems to me like it's your responsibility to help each other when you "go astray." Think skinny jeans or bad haircuts in the short term, but also relationships and life decisions (i.e. the situation I'm in) in the long run. How much is it really your "responsibility" to help those close to you? Is it better to potentially offend or hurt someone's feelings to try to keep them from making a potentially dumb choice or to keep your opinions to yourself and let them make their own choices? Do you think having a support group of friends could alleviate some of the issues we have due to our parents' poor choices? How much advise is too much? What if you, the advise giver, are wrong? Or am I completely off base? Also, just to clarify, this is in no way me trying to get in the way of some other guy and his wife. I am happily married myself, and wouldn't trade her for the world. This is my wife's really close friend, they were each other's maids of honor, so I've become close with them as a couple over the past few years. I'm simply helping my wife find ways to help her friend make good decisions and I offered to post here on her behalf to get some more input.

I always recommend for new listeners to listen to 3 shows before they make a judgement call. Thats generally gives you time to get used to their rhythm and what their goal is there's also a couple shows where they deconstruct their show to kind of give everyone a history of the show etc. (shows 200.5, 200.6, or most recently 681 the christmas special). ITM and TYFYC!

Matthew M. this is beautiful, thank you. It's definitely a huge help! Thanks Merrifield, I'm working on getting them interested in FDR. Unfortunately he seems to be very afraid of change, even though he's a finance major (sorry couldn't hold back the bad pun) or anything that seems to go against the crowd. He listens to NPR almost religiously and the couple times I've mentioned FDR or any other show that questions what is accepted I get this look of terror. She on the other hand seems to be a little more open minded, however it seems like sticking to her life plan (graduate, work, big house, work, baby, work some more) is at the top of her priority list. It feels like a hopeless cause, but my wife and I have agreed that we'd give it our best shot for the eventual baby's sake. We're working on turning them on to RTR and the Peaceful Parenting series, but just being very careful about how we go about it. Again you guys have been a huge help and any other advise or research is much appreciated!! -TYFYC

already been covered https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/44089-family-values-on-the-philosophers-zone-post-reading-to-your-kids-creates-a-unfair-advantage/

Just curious if there are many No Agenda listeners and what people's thoughts are on No Agenda vs. FDR. Personally I've noticed both shows come to a lot of the same or similar conclusions about current events, and have found it interesting to see things from different angles. - TYFYC

Hmm, I read that as in general you can trade 1/100,000,000th of a bitcoin. Not necessarily that they are going to be used in the Nasdaq transactions, especially since the article from Nasdaq doesn't mention it. It's hard to say though since there doesn't seem to be much other info on it... :/ "How divisible are bitcoins?A bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimal places. Therefore, 0.00000001 BTC is the smallest amount that can be handled in a transaction. If necessary, the protocol and related software can be modified to handle even smaller amounts." - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#How_divisible_are_bitcoins.3F Thanks for the links though!!

As far as I understand it this has nothing to do with Nasdaq using bitcoin as a currency, but simply using the blockchain architecture to speed up and increase the reliability and integrity of their current transactions. Also, out of my own curiosity what are your views on using bitcoin as money? I haven't heard many arguments against it.

Wow, thanks for sharing your story, and I'm really sorry you had to go through all of that. It's definitely something no one deserves to live through, and exactly the situation I hope to help them avoid. If you don't mind me asking, is there something in particular you think helped you overcome that trauma, and/or made you realize you didn't want to repeat their mistakes?

I agree that we should have some patience with and empathy for the closed-minded as a lot if not all of their closed-mindedness comes from how they were raised. However, I think this can only go up to a certain point. Similar to defooing, you can only spend so much time and effort trying to break through to people before you just have to let them fall by the wayside.

Looks like these links are still broken, it would be interesting see what kind of new information is out there. For posterity reasons here are links to the archived versions of the 4th and 5th sites. https://web.archive.org/web/20130515201647/http://cygnus-study.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080512000312/http://www.cygnus-study.com/bible.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080512000238/http://www.cygnus-study.com/extrab.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080512000501/http://www.cygnus-study.com/interact.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080512000347/http://www.cygnus-study.com/mystuff.html http://web.archive.org/web/20081014135247/http://humanists.net/jesuspuzzle/home.htm -TYFYC