vizier42629

FDR forum, It is a distinct pleasure to have finally made it to what I consider the edifice of self knowledge by joining this forum. I am a 24 year old 3rd year apprentice electrician living in west virginia. I have the great luck of coming up in the trade during what I think will eventually be described as the worst economic calamity of the modern era. My reasons for joining the forum are two fold. the first is I have had a difficult childhood, and after watching many of the call in shows I realized that i am a very traumatized adult. I need to investigate ways of coping with stress and understanding why I think negatively so often. I want to read about other peoples' victories and failures, continue to watch call in shows, and generally relate to others about the hard times they have overcome; all in the interest of gaining insight into my own life. perhaps I could even help others with my story. I am hesitant to start off just dumping everything and telling everybody everything. My first draft of this introduction was actually instructive in and of itself. I attempted to summarize everything, only to realize that I didn't have it all together. Funny how that sort of thing works out... I was completely unable to make any kind of coherent synopsis. I realized i had forgotten alot of things, had mixed or extremely strong emotions, and many open questions. it will take some time for me to work out and understand how exactly i feel about the past and my parents' illnesses. Ultimately I remain optimistic that any adversity can be overcome one way or another. The second reason I joined the forum is my sincere and abundant interest in free market capitalism, NAP, blockchain technologies like bitcoin, anarchism, and precious metals. voluntarism is a word i learned only two years ago but In learning what voluntarism meant, I was able to verbalize an idea I had already held for as far back as i can remember. I have acquired a taste for mature honest political discussions and I suspect this forum may be the motherload. I have never been in contact with anything in my life so intellectually stimulating. The seamless transition between arcane philosophical concepts, honest expression of human experience, economics, ethics, history, political science, and humor is astonishing to me. I admire Molyneux and the tireless contribution of his many equally admirable associates. By my appraisal they have managed to accomplish something truly monumental with FDR. In short, I have come to this space to learn from all of you and I am excited to participate in this forum. ~Ben from West Virginia.

I first heard about sesame credit on the corbett report. Although the idea of harnessing social rejection as a form of social control is as old as the hills, I think the refinement of this concept into a national "social credit reporting" information apparatus is far more insidious than older methods that I am aware of. I feel that it might be insightful to point out another recent example of this kind of social engineering. I remember reading years ago several articles Alan watt posted about "nudge teams" in the UK. Basically the idea was that these people would be positioned in public places or on the internet to encourage people to do things using sociology or psychology. Alan Watt is for the sake of brevity a conspiracy theorist. He considered these nudge teams a fiendish deception on the public by modern totalitarian governments. In fact the very reason he reported on them in this manner was to spread awareness of this perception of his. Keep in mind that the Alan watt i'm referring to is not Alan Watts, the renowned british eastern philosophy, meditation guy (for lack of a better description). Here's a link to the Nudge Team's website. http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/about-us/ Now from their slick government type website you would think its an innocuous program meant to encourage people to give more to charity, obey traffic laws, or recycle more often. Watt, insisted that it was utterly malevolent. I personally think its kind of creepy that tax payer money would go to paying people to goof around with the minds of unwitting consumers to get them to do stuff, whether good or bad. I think that suggestion of positive behaviors is generally ethical. People do it all the time if they have good manners, often times without even realizing it. I enjoy being reminded of things personally. "care to wash your hands before dinner?" "make yourself comfortable" The take away point that i get from sesame credit or nudge teams is that there is a difference between making people feel welcome or boosting their wellbeing with courteous suggestions, and altering the freakin' destiny of their life with a giant BF Skinner social control system.