Garrett

Faking evidence? Are you serious? Of what crime?

I'm sure you've thought of these things, so maybe you can explain a few questions that seem to pop out of the mental chute right away. Wouldn't things like natural geographical resources, weather patterns and such things have either a direct or chaotic effect on census data? And wouldn't databases related to those be at least as large as the census data? If so, wouldn't that put a limit on compression using social causation theory?

My main criteria for choosing to watch a movie is: Will I be a better/happier person after watching it? Unfortunately for most movies the answer is no. I suspect "It" is no exception.

No. A free market is a market with no coercion. Not just a lack of a monopoly of force. Some markets have more coercion than others. I don't know of any truly free market anywhere, except maybe in very limited settings and scope. Not every international market is free of coercion. I'd be surprised if you find any at all. Just ask Saddam Hussein if he was free to sell oil for gold, or Qaddafi if he was free to create a north African currency that was gold backed, or Syria if they're free to build a pipeline wherever they like through their own country.

You seem to be confusing the directors of a voluntary peaceful organization like a corporation or a forum like this with the non-voluntary violent coercive organization like a government. Not all organizations are governments. Only governments are governments, by virtue of the non-voluntary attribute, and violently stopping any competing organization. I suggest you get your thoughts a little more untangled before wanting to debate someone like Stefan. Frankly if he were to debate you and publish the podcast, I might listen to a few minutes of it and just get bored from all the shallow sophistry.

I LOL with maximum smugness, until I trip over my shoelaces.

Did Berkeley move to Canada without notifying me? Or did we get some threads confused? Or maybe I missed the connection between Berkeley and Canada???

You've probably heard our hero "big chatty forehead" say that the government doesn't exist because it's just an intellectual concept and has no basis in physical reality. Alternatively, he claims that "cars" and "clouds" exist. People might form a group that is collectively identified as the concept of "government." Hmmmm.... Isn't a car also just a concept? Some molecules might come together in any number of configurations to be collectively identified by the concept of "car." Similarly a bunch of water molecules (with some other molecule types to act as condensation anchors) might come together to be collectively identified as a "cloud." But aren't they also just concepts? How about "person?" A colony of biological cells which have come together to form what we conceptually call "human being?" Those cells don't even all share the same DNA. *Kilograms* of you are symbiotes in your gut, and their DNA isn't even in the same genetic ballpark with your homo sapien DNA. And the symbiote portion of the "person" colony can vary drastically from one person to the next. So how does a "person" become something that exists in reality, and not just a concept? Would it be a collection of molecules that have a crisply defined configuration? "Person" and "car" are pretty difficult to get a hard definition. "Cloud" might be extremely hard. I was then tempted to say, "OK, only atoms, molecules and photons exist in reality." But then ugh, quantum physics says, "not so fast genius boy!" OK, Fine! Only wave functions exist in reality, then! The wave functions sometimes collapse into photons, electrons, muons, quarks, etc. But what about string theory?? Dark matter? Dark energy. AAARRRGH! Forget it! I give up. Nothing exists in reality!! I've become a radical relativist. Maybe I should be kicked off the board. OK, maybe I'll hold off going completely crazy. Maybe my FDR family will save me from the abyss! Save me all you rationalists!! Just kidding about the relativist thing. A little humorous drama is what every dry philosophical question needs, right?

Actually I don't think machines are responsible for the overuse of dangerous chemicals in farming or ranching, depletion of the soil, and the general crop malpractice that produces nutritionally depleted food. Farmers and the violent practices of GMO seed companies are. How did machines get all mixed in with this? If anything, all the farmer malpractice has motivated us to learn more for growing our own crops. So if somehow machines are co-conspirators here, they have actually provoked thought in our case.

Wow, I really do hope karma comes to collect on them as you suggest. Of course in the 60's it was known as a trouble maker campus also. It didn't slow them down much then. I know this is a bit different, but maybe in the 60's it wasn't perceived so differently than now. Personally I wouldn't get my hopes up for such karmic justice, because people so easily bury their cognitive dissonance.

Sorry for quoting a socialist web site concerning the news of Irish violence. I guess I should have searched for a arnarchist news portal instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence This war for independence started with the assassination of 2 British-backed police (RIC) by the IRA (not the retirement account), escalated to "Bloody Sunday" which included the assassination of 14 more British agents. The brits retaliated by killing a bunch of civilians at a football match later that day. The war bled over (sorry for the pun) into sectarian violence, and many bombings between catholics and protestants took place. Thousands died in what amounted to a guerrilla war. The body count is small compared to other things, but the insidious part is that the violence will just not go away. And guess what. The violence continues to this day. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/09/irel-s07.html I think the lesson is that violence, especially the assassination and terror type that inevitably crops up in asymmetric tactical situations, tends to get a life of its own, and is really hard to truly leave behind. Afghanistan is another example of guerrillas that started almost a 1/4 of a millennium ago are still fighting, both the empires that want to tame them (USA just being the latest in a long line) and among themselves.

Chile was fortunate to have been influenced by the great Friedman, which is why it's the most prosperous economy in all of SA. And also fortunately the welfare structures are sparse at best. I suspect it will turn out better than in Canada for that reason. Participate in the economy or be very hungry. The police down here are also not to be trifled with. Unfortunately Friedman's influence was small, and is fading with time. The collectivists are gaining ground all the time. The centerpiece F's influence was the retirement system here. Mandatory and personally segregated retirement savings, with investments somewhat under your direction. Nice idea. Not moral since it still involves force, but better than most. The problem that's come is that the "free market" of retirement savings turned into mercantilism of the rich and powerful. Chileans have only a few choices of companies to manage their savings, and the companies have a regulatory monopolistic strangle hold, owned by only a few of the bankster families down here, and now they're using the savings to suck the life blood out of people. So even though people have been putting away a lot of savings, it's turned out to not be much when it comes to retirement because they only get to choose among a few high load mutual funds that suck socks. So now the collectivists have stepped in, fanned the flames and are trying to talk people into a government run ponzi scheme similar to SS in the Estados Unidos. And of course the sheep go all in for that. So sad.

Since we're sort of out of land that isn't under tyranny to some degree, some people have gone into the concept of sea-steading. These are a pretty serious group of people with pretty specific building plans now. https://www.seasteading.org/

Last time I asked, the post office swears it doesn't get a dime of tax money, and that it operates financially independently of the government. I wouldn't be surprised to find they got a direct cash infusion bailout somewhere along the line, under the radar or not. But at least in concept it is independent of the government.