Buford T. Justice

Just to be clear, the full AP filename was "secret-win-V2-060416c_02.png"

Fair enough.

Stefan -- I know you're no fan of Bernie but please consider doing a piece on the AP's attempted theft of the California primary with its Clinton Wins announcement -- which, as the AP graphic's own metadata reveals, was created a day earlier and held a day to do maximum damage to Sanders' prospects in California. Cheers.

Story in today's NYT.

Ach, I see the point now and my apologies. A much stronger argument.

Remember I'm taking the point of devil's advocacy here -- that's what made the Molineux talk so fun. So, taking your points one by one: dsayers: We live in a world where WMD technology is already out there and widely dispersed, licitly and illicitly -- I'm thinking of the Khan network -- and that bell can't be unrung. In fact I think Stefan's stated view in the above-mentioned talk would have been "I fully support your right to build and stockpile such weapons -- do you support my right to opt out?" nobody: Governments are indeed the ones with the nukes -- for now -- but that's a causal fallacy. The question before the panel is how to proceed going forward with the technology we're already swimming in. Will Torbald: Nice. My bet is Stefan would have taken up this line of argument. shirgall: No line of strategic defense I'm aware of assumes the creation of WMDs from scratch. The usual scenario is a rogue nuclear or biological researcher stealing material from a laboratory. But even if you discount this highly plausible scenario, the enrichment of uranium is time-consuming but incredibly low-tech: If you can build a clothes-dryer you can build a cyclotron. Existing weapons-grade biological agents are even easier to replicate on a massive scale. dsayers: To my earlier point, that just ain't so -- the tech is within the capability of any •undergraduate• physics or bio major with access to the materials -- I know this from a wee bit of personal exposure -- and, a statist would say, only the leviathan of government is equipped to meet the threat of weapons that, block by block and square mile by square mile, would violate the non-aggression principle in such a vast and cataclysmic way. Again I say all this from a point of devil's advocacy. I welcome and hope for a good refutation.

Just finished Stefan's amazing "Against Me" talk on rational debate with non-libertarians. In it Stefan asks the audience to hit him with their best statist arguments, and great fun ensues -- highly recommended YouTube watching. If I'd been there I would have thrown out this little bit of devil's advocacy -- a science & tech scare along the lines of... "You use the metaphor of a gun to our heads to illustrate the coercive force of the state in our lives -- but consider more modern weapons: Nuclear and biological weapons in the hands of a single bad actor would violate the non-aggression principle on a scale not seen since, well, ever. They'd wipe out huge swathes of humanity indiscriminately. Isn't •that• the real gun to our heads today, and don't we need the vast tentacles of government to meet such a threat at scale?"

btw if you continue with the Aristotle series you might find useful a complete online version of Liddel & Scott's Greek-English lexicon -- at Tufts, called Perseus.

Your intro was riveting.

I'm not but I've always wanted to try paintball sometime. Must run in the family :-)

Nope, you haven't... they are as a class decent people. For funeral protests you have to look to Christians -- Westboro Baptist Church comes to mind.

If you believe in heaven why are you in no rush to get there? Surely every close brush with an oncoming car must fill you with joy. ... reminds me of what Alan Watts said about Christians, that deep in their hearts they know it's a three-card monty. If they •truly• believed that the fate of their eternal souls depended on eighty years of life here on planet earth, they'd be tearing their hair out, paralyzed with fear.

Stefan -- Would your criticism of atheists pass muster with Aristotle? Yes they tend to vote Dem and misdirect their higher energies onto an enlarged state. Religious folk place their faith in God, family and their progeny. Therefore... what, exactly? Surely the truth or falsity of a religious belief, not to mention doctrine, counts for something in your reckoning.