Jinr0h

From my point of view, I think that a secular confession is an admittance of the acceptance of reality (on your actions). In terms of religious confession, I would say it is the admittance of the acceptance of an ideological filter over reality ( confirming that you buy into the ideology). In my experience (raised a Catholic) as far as I remember the admittance of the immorality of your action is required for penance not just an account of a past action. You are required to indoctrinate yourself further to counter the manifestation of the guilt triggered by that ideology in the first place. You have to double down on your ideology to avoid asking questions regarding religious morality that might arise from the experience of committing sin. To tie this into the question " Is there any merit in confession?" I would say yes, but that is relative to who you are assigning the merit to. If you mean "is non-secular confession moral?" I would say no and again relative.

You are assuming rich people do not spend money. If I have inherited money, then I would imagine that I would be involved, to some degree, with purchasing things unless we are also assuming rich people do not spend money and are entirely self-sufficient. In this way, the rich would lose money analogous to Hawking radiation and, therefore, disappear (unless they are protected and funded by an immoral government). Do you think that innovative solutions can compete with corporations? If so then how do you reconcile that fact, with your desire to steal from other people? If not then how do you account for individuals like Elon Musk? Saying that "If they buy and occupy all the land and refuse to sell any, how could anyone build anything?" is unrealistic, how do you propose the 1% occupy the entire globe? The reason Microsoft gave away the terrible IE is because they realised that most people just want stuff for free and would accept a bad product if it were free (socialist policy), people who would steal inheritance for example. They took advantage of the same mindset within society that the argument that you put forward exhibits. It occurs to me that there is a culture of individuals who are highly charged due to their inability to reconcile reality (existentialism) with the effort required to become successful within the lifetime limitation we all share. This should be a motivation but due to the narrative pushed forward by those who have taken over the social justice movement it instills a sense of hopelessness instead. So how do people who feel hopeless, feel better about reality? I would say they would find an ideology that justifies their mentality rather than challenge it, socialism. It is unfortunate however that socialism has been shown to prey on the people they claim they are defending. However, as long as the populace who are supportive of socialism aren't forced to face the issues that propagate the movement, they will accept their lot and push for more and more extreme versions of socialism. And here you are pushing for what I would consider extreme socialism. This is inevitable because the reality is socialism does not work and facing that truth can be a painful process.

This point of view is disturbing. I cannot understand how people justify robbery (which is what taking an inheritance is) just because the resources they are stealing belong to another tribe and call it social justice.

This is such a good topic! I am an amateur compared to you guys with just taking part in one moshpit but being quite tall and stout I had an easier time than the friend I was with that was half my size and weight. He loved it just as much. We were both from the military and explosive release is a regular theme in the military. The moshpit made me feel both physically and emotionally returned to a state of relative peace afterwards, much better than the typical drink until your brain loses the ability to notice reality. I wonder if its causality that lead to the moshpit? As society gets pressurised through the internet and knowledge, it is forcing society to deal with reality more and more than ever before and so the need for a way to dump that pressure in a fun and safe way gets generated. It's interesting that there are examples of this in so many subcultures, maybe rather than life imitating art or Visa Versa, perhaps art is a reaction to life? The more I think about various things the more I arrive at the conclusion that most of what humans do if not all of what we do is due to existentialism. In my view, there is nothing quite as motivating as an encounter with death and there is no force in nature more creative than death, death is everywhere, always....... I need to go back into the moshpit!

Please excuse my ignorance when it comes to global finance but isn't this the same as a government bail-out just cutting out the middle-man? I get that its voluntary but in terms of a permanent solution isn't it just kicking the can further down the road? Have the donators provided any conditions to their donations?

Hi Bruckner, welcome. I am new as well, and I am also from England, although I am not English, my wife is, and I served in the Commandos for a time. I live in Northern Italy. If you wanted someone to email or skype to discuss any ideas you have I would love the conversation.

I have written an article regarding many aspects of the police use of body-worn cameras for work and during the process of researching the topic I became quite interested in the subject. After writing the article, I thought that in conclusion the motivation for the implementation of the cameras was not to provide sound evidence for use in court but rather to take advantage of a current social issue and make a profit for the "police industrial complex" while appeasing the public to an extent. The reason I came to that conclusion was because of the following: 1. Mount - results in shaky footage or if central officers arms and service weapon blocks the view. 2. Distortion Rolling shutter effect - produces a particular distortion explained here Barrel distortion from the wide angle lens - curves the outer edges of the frame making measurements and perspectives difficult. Forced perspective - due to the close-up nature of the instances where the footage will be required, the suspects features will be geometrically distorted 3. The FBI can confiscate every single server in a private data center if only one client that uses that data is considered to be committing an illegal act. By moving video data into the private sector and not on government servers they can access any other data that is housed in that center, sorry for any amazon.com customers out there. 4. Resolution - to save money on storage costs (so they can spend more of that tasty civil forfeiture money on Martini machines) the resolution will be lower than we can technically achieve and this hurts evidence and also the number of pixels forensic enhancers have to work with. To sum up my argument, I would say that if I were to design a device to record interactions between police and the public I would do it differently. Also, I want to make it clear that I think this is all an attempt at treating a symptom and not the core problem. That being said I realised that this might not be the full scope on the move to using body-worn cameras, I received an article that said that these cameras will be "making their way into Iowa schools" to protect both the student and the teacher. This is interesting and is the reason I am posting this thread. Has the government used recent instances of lethal force to introduce the idea that body-worn cameras are better for the public? Have they set a precedent that makes it socially acceptable for all government officials to wear cameras and gather data on everyone to protect "both" parties? If this is the case, then it will become a huge cost to taxpayers, pushing money into selected corporations in the same way as the military industrial complex. Worse still is the possibility of lobbyists pushing for legislation that requires the use of this technology in everyday business. I can't even think what the rape culture and human rights lobbyists will propose in order to protect us from threats that don't exist. I am just one person with limited resources, but I would love for Stef and his researchers to do a video regarding this topic.

Hi Kurtis, I have no problem sharing my thoughts with you. It was very difficult at first to understand my drive and way of life but I developed a process that helped me and that process is what I will talk about and I hope that it helps you understand where I am coming from and how it may relate to your circumstances. It's important to note that everything I have done has occurred organically in that I have never spoken to anyone about this or sought out help in any way, I have never even written about this on any forum either so these are just my thoughts and I will admit that they are still in progress. I am not dead, therefore, there is still progress yet to make. Living in South Africa and witnessing the slow painful death of my sister has no doubt played a part in why I chose to face my fear of death but be that as it may I still think that this should be the starting point for everyone in their journey of introspection, for a number of reasons: The first reason is that the mind is a tool for dealing with reality and the way that it does that is through emotion and senses, bear with me... I think when the mind processes reality it does it in these steps, 1: Awareness 2: Acceptance 3: Action So for example, In objective reality I have violently ripped off my big toe, my mind becomes aware of the loss (pain, fear) then I have to accept that what I am sensing is reality and then I can take action to sort it out. Secondly because I think that debating points and arguments in our current state is highly inefficient and also possibly another blocker in terms of acceptance of reality. I think that in order to assist society into freedom we must first agree on the methodology that is required to get us to that state and unless we are able to accept that there is a problem then we can never expect an action. So we all share the fear of death and by challenging that fear and by focusing on the acceptance of death we can remove a huge hurdle in terms of theocracy and the ability for people to discuss reality without the fear of eternal damnation. Thirdly in my own experience the ability to accept the fear of death whenever it strikes and take action accordingly has enabled me to do many things in my life that most people find extremely challenging and I take that as me being free. So by dealing with death I have given myself the tools to remove anything that could mentally stop me from doing what I want, I have given myself a valid chance of achieving my potential locked with my DNA and finally I have freed myself from the manipulation of others. I think that it is through this process that we can gain strength and gain depth in understanding and freedom, we are all active within the same reality and stressors make us aware of our reality and acceptance of that awareness can provide the required information to take action. The selector for reality acceptance is philosophy and the scientific method which to me boils down to repeatedly asking the question why ( I also constantly ask myself if I am happy with my lifestyle and legacy to provoke awareness of my life and kick start the mental software into eventual corrective action). So when we live in a society based on feeding fear coupled with an ideology that blocks the step of acceptance we arrive at our current state, buying into misinformation and remaining in mental infancy. A theory I became aware of through my experience in relationships with people who have had great tragedy in their lives, these extreme events create the pinch points we require in order to activate a stress response and grow, some of these people did not have it within them to accept their tragic past and continued to live a lesser person than they could have been if the events did not occur and lesser still than they could have been if they had the ability to accept those events and take action. I have read that this is similar to the way the body works. I do believe that there can be events so bad that the mind is broken, but I feel that is the mark of an individual. I have also repeatedly heard from successful people when I ask what their secret was, many of them said they simply took action. Anyway society, for the most part, keeps the majority in a state of minimal stress and misinformation in order to fool the mind into thinking its taken action or ideology can completely block this process, indoctrination IS the process of eliminating the option of accepting reality contrary to what that particular ideology prescribes and that stops us from achieving our potential as individuals and as a group. And this is why I chose to deal with that one fear / stressor we all share, death. We cannot successfully be trustworthy or achieve our DNA potential unless we overcome and transcend our humanity, The key to this is philosophy. Murder, death, kill, fear; this is who and what we are as much as empathy, unity, peace and love. Until we accept this is a part of our nature we cannot take action to transcend it. It boils down to this, good and evil do not exist there is only human nature. The mind and its ability to process reality and make judgments on reality is what separates those who practice what is considered evil and those who do good. Due to reaching this conclusion I decided to take action and remove all things in my mind that hindered the process of me achieving the potential locked within my DNA. By accepting and dealing with my fear I was able to not only see truth ( which many of us can) but also I began to lock on to the principles behind the truth and that is something many people fail to achieve. They might be aware of a truth, but they do not accept it, theocracy, statism and those types of things supersede what they have become aware of and due to a mind in the state of infancy and by taking advantage of evolutionary traits (such as not wanting to be separate from the herd) we are controlled into thinking in very rigid and predictable ways. There was also this girl who liked strong guys and I wanted her eggs so...... just kidding. I have read this a few times and it seems jumbled up so I will alter my state of mind slightly, return and edit. Upon reflection, these are my final thoughts, Fear is the reason why smart men believe and not know. When death stops being about what you lost and how real it has all of a sudden become and is replaced with an understanding that a person is gone and how fragile and important life is and a new motivation to achieve potential and make it better for the next before death strikes, then we can agree what the best way is to form a society worthy of our achievement. When fear gets defeated, eagerness and freedom get the upper hand.

Hi Mr. Binary, Thanks for the welcome, I was hoping to find a fellow thinker in Northern Italy! Let me know when you are back in Veneto. As a South African, I would recommend a BBQ or "Braai" as we call it for the meet-up.

If attraction to a specific genre was typical of a specific childhood trauma than wouldn't that be universal? I know that when I was in Afghanistan there was no metal around and I can assure you that children there are severely abused. There are so many factors to take into account as mentioned in some of the replies but for example if you have never been exposed to a genre then that can never be an option, unless there have been instances of genres being invented multiple times in cultures with no contact. If we take music to be an expression of the self then we could say that as individuals we can relate to that emotion / story being expressed but that is a very honest conversation that requires introspection and I do not think the majority of music listeners in popular culture do any of that, I would say that a music genre or song may not be what an individual is relating to but rather the community that surrounds that genre as a place to feel that your existence is justified in some way. Kind of like gang signs or prison tattoos. I also think that music can be used as a tool, I do better working out listening to metal but I do better gardening whilst listening to a podcast so maybe music can be used as a frame to structure an action or thought?

Hi Kurtis, Thanks for the welcome and kindness. I feel like I got out while I was up, I know a lot of people who are unable to make that choice through fear of civilian life and feel that dealing with the prospect of a violent death easier to deal with, also I have heard the local hierarchy feeding the younger guys horrible stories of their chances of success outside the military ( no work, homelessness, suicide etc..) but saying that there were times when almost a whole troop of guys handed in their notice. My fear of death came through introspection, I wanted to round myself off in a similar way to how any skilled professional would, so to that end I searched out all the holes in my game and corrected for them, it's through that process as well as my constant fight to be a stronger person and through choosing to face reality no matter how difficult (I am extremely unsatisfied by the lies we are forced to swallow if we are to be content in current society [i have a theory on this]), that (inevitably) my awareness of that fear developed and then I followed my own philosophy (awareness, acceptance then action) to deal with it. I would rate that one as the most deeply rooted and difficult to deal with but the most rewarding afterward. Thanks for your support of these ideas I have. I was considering if it would have been better to be a few steps further towards the achievement of those goals before posting them because I was afraid that the people on the board wouldn't take me seriously and then I accepted that it was my issue that had nothing to do with the board and thankfully I have found another little gem to work on personally. I hope that I can accurately represent my motives and intentions regarding those ideas and myself so that I can build trust with the community and get them behind these ideas and help me get to a place that I can better help others.

Hello from Northern Italy (Friuli Venezia Giulia), I have been on a 13 year journey of introspection, skill acquisition and searching out the limits of my DNA potential, it began with the death of my sister (CaNcEr) and witnessing the breakdown of my family during the time of her death, a story quite long and complicated, I was born in South Africa, grew up not seeing apartheid (due to living in an Italian built small town with very liberal views). I became a musician and pursued that as a career successfully until I moved to the UK at age 24. I worked in London for a boring company doing boring stuff but I learned a lot about business in the process, after I succumbed to the boredom I resigned and began training in MMA (mixed martial arts) to get over my fear of conflict and working in bars to get over my social anxiety. I then joined the Royal Marines Commandos to face my fear of death and also see the truth of the war in Afghanistan for myself. After seeing the truth of the war in Afghanistan I promptly resigned from that organisation with my newly acquired skills and knowledge and moved to rural Italy to live with my wife and 2 children in a way consistent with UPB, it can be very difficult at times. I am now working for a small company to make ends meet while I work on two things: 1. I want to develop my property to become a halfway house to take up the challenge Stefan has laid down so often by providing a place for people within our community who need a place to go to, when trying to leave a cult/religion/violent situation. 2. I plan to develop a small team of people (8) to donate one hour a day to focus on assisting a single individual at a time, to transition from a job where their sole motivation is making enough money to survive to their dream job where the job itself is the motivation and the money made is a by-product. I will go into as many details as possible regarding both those things in future posts to ask for help and advice, I will be adopting Stefan's approach to providing these services for free and allow for the possibility of donation if my service is worthy of any. I am happy to answer any questions that anyone might have about anything I have written.

Hi, I am working to determine authenticity in digital images, but I am unsatisfied with the definitions I have been given. They all leave room for interpretability and that is where I have an issue. Here are the definitions I have been given to work with: 1. “The application of image science and domain expertise to discern if a questioned image or video is an accurate representation of the original data by some defined criteria. These criteria usually involve the interpretability of the data, and not simple format changes that do not alter the meaning or content of the data.” (SWGIT) www.swgit.org 2. “An image made simultaneously with the visual events it purports to have recorded, and in a manner fully and completely consistent with the method of recording claimed by the party who produced the image; an image free from unexplained artifacts, alterations, additions, deletions, or edits”. (Adapted from AES) www.aes.org Do you agree with these definitions? My issues edited red, I have a problem with the subjectivity of these definitions, I have a problem with the word of an expert being a key aspect in a definition (an example: truth is only truth when truth expert Jinr0h deems it so). If evidence authenticity is based on expert opinion than that cannot be proven to be authentic, over time we have had quite a few experts being convicted of lying. Also, we have examples like the following; An image was taken via smartphone then uploaded into social media, the original image was not saved locally and the image uploaded to social media has had metadata edited and the image has been compressed losing data in the process. Is that image on social media authentic? It could be, and the fact that there is a possibility for opinion, to me, points to either an incomplete understanding in of the technology or a failure of the definition. I have added the definitions for evidence given to me below: Physical (Classical) Evidence: Physical objects that establish that a crime has been committed, can provide a link between a crime and its victim, perpetrator (Saferstein, 2004) Digital Evidence: Digital data that establish that a crime has been committed, can provide a link between a crime and its victim, or can provide a link between a crime and the perpetrator (Carrier & Spafford, 2003)

Hi #6, I have some experience in this. What I found helped me was picking a sport, having a leafy green juice in the morning, being ruthless with carbs ( which all break down into sugar which has been said to lead to inflammation and a number of other complications least of all gut biome changes which can alter your body's ability to create tryptophan [important] ) and most of all being honest with myself. Awareness, acceptance then action. If you accept that you have an issue that you have become aware of it is harder to fool yourself into thinking its ok to start your new diet tomorrow or just have one slice of pizza. What you need really is a lifestyle change and as with many unhealthy lifestyles it can be difficult to break without introspection and the 3 "A's". I hope that helped, FYI I lost 9 stone and still suffer from knee issues due to being fat growing up so act now.