Des

Oh, yes. I think I understand science and technology, but the wikipedia article on the wheel (which I may never have bothered to skim if I had not typed that post which mentioned the wheel), clued me in that the basic wheel-and-axle machine reduces frictional load by reducing the distance across which the surface must move. Sure, the lubricant to reduce co-efficient of friction is a huge improvement, but even comparing dragging wood over wood, the distance of travel (and work done) is reduced by having the frictional drag over a shorter distance inside the bearing of the wheel-and-axle machine. I just feel like repeating my point here. The dude who, 8000 years ago, would figure out principles of friction (not that the wheel was invented that way, but one might wish for science to precede technology), would be wasting his time in terms of how much extra fun and how much extra life he is going to get - so the motivation for doing science is relatively recent and dependent on so much social and technological innovation. It is different now. Innovate me 20 extra years of healthy life: I'd pay a big chunk of what I can earn in those 20 years - there's a big fat motivation to do the science and build the technology for all people who look at it as I do. Those pyramids and other monuments, though: how many workplace injuries and deaths? Wouldn't the workers have had more fun just farming and living in stick-and-mud buildings (you know, if they could socially innovate their way out of using the off-seasons for raiding / being raided by neighbouring clans).

I am delighted with the internet. I am impressed that people can make tall buildings and aeroplanes, but I really wish they wouldn't. Machines in general: great! Nanotechnology and nanomedicine extending our lives: give me more of that! I just listened to the audiobook The Origins of War in Child Abuse, and I get it that people living in clans were fighting neighbouring clans in reaction to scary progress and were warring and raiding in an ego-state of a killer-mother alter-ego, responding to the damage done by adverse childhood experiences. I don't know why sub-saharan Africa, and Australia, each did not independently invent the wheel and progress from there. I don't know why each did not think of improving the lives of children as a first step into a better future. On the other side of those questions, I don't know what got the wheel invented in the first place. I have this question: did the people who independently invented wheels, have a life that was longer than or more enjoyable than those around them who did not? My guess is "no", so at a personal level the invention of the wheel was of low or possibly negative real value to it's inventor and for him personally he need not have bothered. The first wealthy trader to see a wheel used to move goods: he must have had more fun from using a wheeled wagon to trade faster, for profit. For that to happen, there had to be a religion/culture in which wealthy traders were not killed for "bewitching others into relative poverty". That gives me a guess at the interplay between religion, trade, horrible childhoods, and technology. On the other hand, there is not deep hierarchy when people are killed for "bewitching others into relative poverty", because people keep their necks relatively low.

Avoiding thinking a thought which disagrees with the thought of another person is "thought" and not "behaviour", therefore avoidance of unwanted-disagreement cannot be an UPB, because it is not the B part of UPB. If someone proposes the moral standard that unwanted-mentioning-of-disagreement is evil, we can dispose of that by saying he has violated his own standard by mentioning his disagreement with my understanding of standards of good and evil. "Avoiding looking" is behaviour, and unless someone can show otherwise, it is theoretically possible for avoidance of unwanted-looking to be universally preferred, so it is universally preferable. Now, if someone proposes the moral standard that unwanted-looking is evil, then what practical people will ask is: How will I know he does not want me to look? How do I know he is not preparing to kill me with some type of missile? What harm does he suffer if I look, and how much of the harm is attributable to my looking, and how much is attributable to unnecessary social standards like not picking noses, for example. So, since I construct a definition of evil based on the preference for life, I will not accept that unwanted-looking is evil, because that runs counter to my preference for not dying by being struck by any type of missile. Preference for life gets a mention in UPB. I can't see how to make ethics/morality relevant to person who is truly without a preference for life. Tell me if you can. Preference for life, as a [primary, I estimate] support pillar of morality/ethics, is the resolution of the lifeboat scenarios: When a person acts consistently with that preference for being alive, then I ask: why would you expect them to act otherwise in order to achieve moral behaviour, the fruits of which they can never pick when dead? My conclusion is that you rate the problem severe, when it is not severe at all, and is easily resolved.

Okay, if each member/citizen signs a contract, then each one's participation in the system is in terms of that signed contract. Then my focus shifts to advising people what contract terms will endanger their lives. For example, I would advise: don't sign if there is to be a class of citizen/member who is exempt from any of the rules, especially in the case of a rule prohibiting a form of aggression. Members can agree to a monthly subscription, can agree to rules, can agree to a voting system. I would advise prospective members to be careful how the subscription fee is calculated, to insist on 100% consensus before adoption of a new rule, to insist on being able to sell the share of communal assets (and emigrate), and to choose a community with a voting system where each member votes his share of communal assets (as with company shareholder agreements). Naturally, all are free to disregard my advice and join a commune where you can be cast out without your shirt - I can put advice out there - I can't insure people against what happens. I predict that societies like this will be small (a few thousand people in an area of suburb size, or in a bigger area of rural territory). That is a guess which I make while thinking how much people like to try different ideas, and guessing an answer to: "How many people with very similar preferences - does it take to make a community which does not feel so small and stifling that it will probably dissolve?". Having 319 million people agree to one contract with many specific terms: Unlikely, I say. Billions of people agreeing to just not aggress: possible, and I hope it will happen.

People around the world, built structures which their leaders ordered them to build. In Sub-Saharan Africa, not so much.

Would "voting your share of communal assets" in a community in which each member/citizen has actually signed a contract which specifies the powers and limitations of the voting for communal decision - would that satisfy your preference for democracy?

This is a link to the above post (Which I now see you do not need, because there is a link in the top-right of the above quote box)

Would you regard a contract actually signed by each citizen (substituted for the fictional social contract), as a refinement of the principle of the nation-state?

I am reflecting on the idea of being a new person, as an ancient observation, incorporated into religions in the past, indoctrinated into me as the christian doctrine of salvation. I was supposedly a new person after my father ceremonially baptised me at age 16 (in the community swimming pool at a rural hospital [founded by a Swedish mission society], here in South Africa). I heard many stories, at christian camps and such, by other teens or young adults who had tried drugs or something, and the story would go that they were saved by Jesus and now a new person. I just did not really feel different, though, I felt as I had always felt. Both before that, and after that, I had tension between my desire for sexual pleasure and what I understood to be god's restrictions on that. I remember fear of hell, in childhood. I remember my father explaining that a man should be celibate, but if he can't manage that, he should marry one wife (this his advice in response to the tension I have just mentioned). I remember being angry, when I was a father of two young children, angry at my wife for not participating in creating an image of a perfect christian family (I only wanted the image, for social coinage, actually I still refused to accept the sexual restrictions [my wife and I had that refusal-to-accept, in common]). I remember suddenly realising that I am atheist. I had made marriage vows addressed to a non-existent being (I faced an [Anglican] priest, who asked me on behalf of the non-existent deity, and my answer was to the deity]), and now I comprehended what I had done, saying that I had a deity inside me, inspiring my decisions, when I had always had doubt about that, had allowed my doubt to be overridden by parents who were very attentive, and poured their beliefs into me with their attention. Before that point, I had felt suicidal at one time, over my wife's disregard of my reasonably valuable social image. I actually faked a suicide attempt, to make my point. At the point, a year or two later, with my children aged 7 and 8, when I realised I am atheist, I had a crisis, and at first found no support for my position of unbelief. At that point I felt different. I had been doing what I understood I ought to do, and adding my preferences on top of that. At that point I realised that the whole family life thing was not my choice by my free preference, but by the assumptions that people around me had made, which I had absorbed, and by my father's advice on sex, and my mother's talking about male children and the family name. Within a year or two, I had processed the divorce, and understood that I was most angry with myself, and that the resolution of my anger was to identify my error that helped lead to the angry emotion, accept that it was my error, and go back to "counting my blessings"(god-free version). I felt different again, when I practiced resolving my feelings of anger. Since then, anger has felt much more like mild annoyance. Many years and a number of girlfriends later, when I read about Julian Assange, and I searched for a book he mentioned (The God that failed), and found instead Hans Herman Hoppe's book of similar title, I read Hoppe's work, and understood why we need to retire all governments. At that point I did feel really new. I was never again going to do fundraising for a political party, as I had, some years earlier. Some years and another few girlfriends later, I started watching Stefan's videos, and some time after that, I realised the role of my childhood of being dominated by the hierarchy of god, father, mother and older sisters - in my anger - and I realised I had done wrong to my own children, and to those of more than one ex-gf, by dominating them like that. Again, I am different. I play with the child of one of my ex-gf's, regularly about twice a week, either swimming or cycling, and I have no desire to dominate her (the child) (or the ex-gf, for that matter ).

I understand that the point of a written contract, is then parties to the contract know what to trust the other person to do, in each of the specified contingencies. As in : If I don't make this payment by this date, I will contact you to explain my circumstances, and accept that interest accrues at this specified rate. As in: I will put up 70% of the initial investment, do none of the sales or production work, and expect 50% of the profit. The trust is about trusting the other person to do as agreed, or to re-negotiate if he wishes to vary, or to compensate me (somehow) if I suffer from his variation from agreed action: if he did not first re-negotiate the contract. It is not that your priority is to prepare to sue each other, but rather that you have a clear understanding of what you are agreeing to, so you as trustworthy people, can each do what the other is trusting you to do, and can then be clear what was previously agreed, before you re-negotiate to a new contract. If someone says "just trust me", and we have no contract, I must trust him to do what? I don't know.

I estimate that the best plan for ending our participation in organised immorality (primarily statism), is: Keep speaking the truth until enough people have corrected their internal errors. Keep re-evaluating the "until" condition in that loop of step one. What does it take to fulfil that condition and end our participation in organised immorality, without having to do immoral acts to exit from participation, and without having to sacrifice our lives (which are the very reason we care about morality [none of us will care when dead]), to exit from participation. Plan the exit from all organised immorality, and publish the date of the exit, widely, so that people can prepare (e.g. I must take insurance against missile strikes, so that someone's money is riding on: me not suffering a missile strike). Hand out shares in assets (and liabilities) that were regarded as public, and cut over to acting morally, on pre-published date Trade shares (sell what you can least understand or influence, buy what you can influence to increase in value). While we are on step one, I am not very interested in adjusting the immoral system(s), because I don't know if anyone will really benefit in a way I care about. I go vote, but never ask anyone else to vote differently from what they would vote otherwise. I avoid facebook politics and twitter politics, I just post links to Stef's videos. links to my few vids, and say what I think, and reply to the 3 people who care to respond.

"Are we going about discussing these topics the wrong way?" I expect you agree that "the wrong way" is conceptually associated with a goal. So, let me ask if we all share a goal of convincing every person [with whom we interact here] that false statements are false. Do we? Am I correct in my assessment that my primary aim in participating in these forums (fora, as a former president of South Africa known to be both intellectual and incorrect, would have said [forum is a latin word{by origin}, with a latin plural]) is: to check my own information for error, and to correct errors I can identify - with secondary aims of co-ordinating action for the increase in the length of my life, and of getting intellectual stimulation for the pleasure of mental exercise. I was an "adult-baptised" (meaning I was 16yo) Baptist, and I get it, that: the committed Christian is under orders to make converts. I am under no such orders. What do I care about, wrt others holding that a given false statement is true? Well, I care that this may delay the development of a panacea made with nanotechnology, and I care that someone may murder me out of ignorance - so, yes, the less ignorance, the better, on each of those two scores. Also, this preference is consistent with empathy for the person making the error - I estimate he is better off without internal logic errors and without significant errors of data representation in his mind. At the same time, I won't know if his error is internal, or if he is typing words for the sake of maintaining an external image to preserve relationships which are important to his goals.

Interesting. One of a number of insights I have brought with me from the (Baptist) religious views of my father (who spent a lot of time with me), is that I can re-create the calming and surrender of prayer (without actually thinking I am speaking to any being), and get suggestions from my subconscious by not beating at the issue with my conscious mind. What can I do about "the stuff I pretty much can't do anything about" - I can type into the internet and hope someone else changes something and helps me fix it. So I do that. That is a suggestion from my subconscious. The "how" of communicating it : also from a subconscious level, operating under a calmer conscious mind. I want clarity about what I should do, and there is no god to give me an order, but I still need a bunch of good suggestions from which to make a choice.

I am thinking you meant visit. Did you mean migrate to South Africa? I am in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Welcome on board. I hope I chat with you soon, on some interesting topic.

Below is a link to something important which just happened. In the linked post I add some details about my circumstances. <Relief at the end of a horrible experience>

Sure, have a flag go up on "lots of men friends" - however - if a person can successfully negotiate the less simple waters of friendship across the gender gap - that is a sign that says: "self-knowledge within".

I had tears rolling down my cheeks today when a colleague (named Norman) at our small company stopped at the office this afternoon, to let us know he found his son. I just checked, and it is 9 days since the day an older child went to the school and did not find the young boy there. The child was found at Baragwanath Hospital here in Johannesburg, South Africa. I told my 2 friends when the child went missing, and I told my girlfriend. I did not mention it on this forum, but I was about to share it with all of you, would have shared how I felt, if the child had not yet been found. It is just so much less horrible to do this sharing with the child already found. Not that sharing is horrible, perhaps I mean less awkward, but I will leave my words as typed, with these added words to explain. This has been a horrible and a stressful experience. I'm crying again, as I type (I've just opened the gate for the 3rd employee to leave [i say 3rd employee, because the others who work for the company, are members of the family who own the business, so they are co-owners, and there are 4 of them, plus 3 of us employees, making up the full team of 7]) My feelings are of huge relief after the helplessness of knowing someone whose child is missing. The child is apparently uninjured, except for a scratch on the leg. He is 7 or 8 years old. Norman (the dad), does not know if his son was abducted, or was taken/sent to hospital by someone who failed to inform a parent. The child has been sickly, has been in-and-out of hospital (but not that hospital, I guess). I was just feeling so horrible about being this close to someone with a missing child. We know it happens to strangers, but for it to be closer than that just does not feel as tolerable. Norman is not a close friend of mine. I see him almost 6 days per week, he repairs machines (technician), and he sweeps, tends the grounds and does building maintenance and painting. I travelled to his village and stayed in his home 2 nights so I could attend his wedding (which was when the found child was about a year old), and Norman had been working here about a year by then. I have worked here since January 2007. Norman, his wife and sons are black and have a home in a rural village (and a rented place in Tembisa), I am white (the categories of this divided society are relevant, and people here in South Africa would understand this story better, knowing our ethnicity). My two best friends are female, one of them a black prosecutor (State's attorney) of major business fraud cases, the other a white divorced (formerly employed, now living from a modest family trust fund) mother of 2 adult sons (one working, one taking drugs), and my girlfriend (last one, for as long as she lives ) is black and from Durban. **Edit: the owners of the business which employs me: are from Taiwan (they are Chinese). My relief is in huge part for myself. Now I don't have to think how to treat a man with a missing son! Norman did not come to work while his son was missing, perhaps he will be here on Monday, and now I don't have to stress about how to speak to him (my title is Sales Manager, and my role includes supervising Norman and the third employee (who mostly does the work of a technician, and has few other duties, and is also black). When the son was missing, I said to my friends how I hated imagining what I would feel if that were my son. I had started to tell the few customers who know Norman and asked about his absence, had started to tell them the horrible story (I left out the story the first few days, so it was more bottled up, then, and more suppressed in my mind). I think it was for the best, to continue to work and produce value for the company. Our founder (the patriarch of the family who own this family business), pressed some notes into Norman's hand as Norman sat here, telling us the few details he had, and now I am glad I kept the money rolling in, so we can offer some of the money in support of a man whose latest family problem is worse than I have ever been close to. One of my 5 sisters took her own life many years ago, just before I turned 18, and for my mother (born 1920, has outlived my dad, is still alive) to bury a child, was a terrible pain for her to bear, but in her case: she saw the crumpled corpse and saw the scattered ashes of a child feeling no more pain. Maybe I am not doing well at expressing my emotions, but I am feeling them, I am feeling them. Here is a link to the thread where I introduced myself: Desmond Gorven I'm going to put a link from there to here also, because this is a really important event in my life, and because I have added so many details about my life, here, to give context to the story. Ask what you want to ask. I will stop now and go home. Work ended at 17h00 SAST and it is after 18h00 now (now that I have reviewed and edited this post). I won't answer here until about 10h00 SAST tomorrow, later if my tea-break is delayed for any unexpected reason.

After typing below, I have re-read the proposed flag, which reads: "Claims to have a lot of male friends" (emphasis added). My two best friends are women. I am in a relationship with a woman (I count her as lover and she is not one of the two I count as friends). I have no male friends. I would happily have sex with either of my two friends if I were single (but I rarely am single, and I don't expect my current relationship to end until I outlive my [younger] lover). If a potential lover of either of my friends, viewed me as a circling Beta, he would be incorrect, and if he were were to investigate with an open mind, I could answer honestly as I have done here: I enjoy sex, but I weigh it up against the cost of the drama that comes after. I really don't need life-threatening drama for a little pleasure. One day one of you may have a deep, meaningful, platonic relationship with me, and that would be fine, but I'm keeping the two friends I made before FDR, and if they lack depth to some extent, they are at least people with proximity and can give and receive a hug and some meaningful empathy in person, often enough to matter. I see now that I do not object to your premise in the case that the males have been single all the time whilst circling (i.e. if they [would] move off [if]/when they have/she has a lover, but come back when single). So my objection to your premise for the other cases is the threat cost of drama (from cheating on monogamy), and my answer to your question is: the reason is a (rational) fear of drama and empathy for other actors in the drama. Perhaps I am quite exceptional in being a man with only two friends, both female. Tell me if you think that is how it is and if you think a person should use what we have discussed to explore below this flag, or if you think this flag has explanations too simple to explore. "a lot" of male friends could mean she does not carefully distinguish friendship from acquaintanceship (is that worth asking, or would a deeper person use words more carefully?). Claiming to have a lot of male friends could be some manipulation wrt competition. One or two male friends could be friendzoned suitors or genuine friends. Are the "claims to" and "a lot" part of this flag, key to having the flag go up? What if she introduces you to 8 male friends [technically that is a claim to have enough male friends to count as "a lot"], but is qualitatively different from saying "I have lots of men friends", which creates a suspicion of manipulation or of superficiality. Also, saying "This my friend Bob" is warm, compared to "This is Bob, from the hiking club" (somewhat colder). Let me just add here that I am finding not so much to add to discussions on this forum. When someone says something I can object to, there is usually someone else who will object before I do. This is not a complaint, it is an observation. I am having fun here.

I have few friends, and they don't understand my thoughts very well, but they treat me well. With the person that is the best friend you have now, could you give me an example of what you would like to say (something that really matters to you), and how the conversation would probably go?

I think many people don't compare performance against estimates, or do it in an odd way, like yes, it does take only 30 minutes to drive from A to B, but the walk to/from car at each end always gets ignored as if you can drive from 5th floor cubicle to 3rd floor meeting room in the nearby city. Also hair, make-up and outfit-selection time: do people actually check the before and after times of an actual event to use for the next estimate? Oh, and if my having agreed to be somewhere at a given time, will be used as leverage to get me to do something first, can I have the list before I agree to the time? (I left that woman long ago)

Your logic steps are correct. Oh, wait for it... However, if your desire (e.g. for freedom) adjusts reality, then you need to ask yourself if I exist outside your mind. Can we jump over that (unless something in that interests you) and can I ask how you would reach a conclusion about whether or not a deity exists (in order to also believe that the deity created life as a gag, say) ?

I'd like to divert this side discussion to this thread

For those who like to peer into the future, as Asimov attempted to do, I think it is fun to imagine what people will do when they can change every aspect of their bodies, using technology to achieve fully reversible results. I am sure we will never have everyone looking close to some idealised human form: as soon as anyone can have the looks we idealise now, many people will go for differentiation. I expect many people will have pictures on their skin, for that extra differentiation. With apologies: my style of living in the present includes much dreaming of futures I want to reach, by just holding onto life that much longer.

If/when body art and body modification is easily, cheaply, painlessly, and completely reversible, I would/will try it. Before that time arrives, tattoos (generally) say a person is oversure of his future preferences, or is willing to make an imposition on the preferences of his future self. Also, how tattooed people act in movies and TV shows tends to be physically aggressive, and I want to steer away from being perceived to be aggressive. A "stuff-you and what you want" attitude to the future self and to other people. This is of course a generalisation, I hope there are some very nice peaceful people who login to FDR and have tattoos. A google search let me know that some tattoos are used to cover scars from abuse - now if one has processed the emotional trauma from abuse, and used tattoos to make the physical scars more presentable, that would seem like a rational exception to the generalisation.