J-William

That's funny, because it seemed to lead to a very productive place for the caller. It's like if I walk into a political discussion and say that Lincoln was a genocidal racist, it may very well be true but I really need to look at how I am presenting myself, my arguments, and my evidence before anyone will listen. Stef did not call into the Rush Limbaugh show and tell everyone that the military industrial complex was ruining America, stop hitting your kids and the state is immoral, because they would have hung up on him as a crank. He took the long road, convincing people with gentle humor and engaging videos and whatever other candy he could use to sweeten the way to truth. So, as others have pointed out... if you wanted a biology discussion you could talk to biologists, but you aren't, so you must be looking for something else in this discussion. If you want to convince people of something it's more of an art than a science.

It's sad to see people advocating for liberty who don't choose to stand up for children. Reminds me of a shirt I saw "Fuck the whales! Save the children"

Hey thanks! I didn't realize that this book existed, and also didn't realize that in the course of changing PCs that I had forgotten to resubscribe to the voluntary life podcast! :-D

Well then what you're talking about is not god, so why do you call it god?

No, it is not possible for a self-contradictory entity made out of nothing and possessing infinite complexity yet evolving from nothing to exist. I ask you, is it possible that I am a wizard who can do magic like Harry Potter?

That's a great point, people starved in the large cities of Russia after the communist revolution because the previously functioning supply chains were broken by state controls on voluntary interactions. The worst part was that the soviets then continued the mass starvation by trying to replicate in a planned violent way what had been working... Anyway, to your point... I think Shanghai is utterly amazing, the average person there is much poorer than the average New Yorker, yet they are still able to get enough to eat, and the whole city is so active... though a bit shitty in many ways. I just imagine if everyone were allowed to trade with others for mutual benefit, in five years it would be the most amazing place.

Hey, this looks like a great topic! Thanks for the resources I'm looking into doing life-coaching (Is there a difference between that and therapy except for legal usage of the term?) I suppose that's a similar personal service type business. What I'd think is that you need to find a way to reach the people who might be interested in your services, so for music instruction, you should get to know people at local schools (primary through university). I took a guitar class at a local community college when I was in high school, they guy teaching it was not a professor or anything special. He also offered private lessons for students who were interested. I'm teaching English in China, and most of my private clients have come from referrals from schools I have worked with. One came from a post to a local message board.

Please read and review my book! I think it is amusing (and it's free). http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052275QS Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were caught in the middle of a monkey civil war? No... probably not? Well you can find out in "Pursuit Of Doom"! Do you enjoy mysterious tribes that are up to no good? I do, and I think they are pretty cool, especially when they are getting deep into parliamentary procedure during debates on whether "people killing" should be allowed. "Pursuit Of Doom" is a compilation of stories and plays written over the last ten years and edited down to the purest nectar of absurdity. It will fill your need for stories about beavers having existential crises, and murderous (but hilarious) lunatics. Don't forget the need you never knew you had for vibrating socks and men in leather pants! Indeed not a word goes to waste in the pursuit of anything but the finest craziness that would make Monty Python jealous. If Douglas Adams were still with us he would probably say "Pursuit Of Doom" is better than Vogon poetry. The creators of South Park would probably be very amused if they read "Pursuit Of Doom". So you see if these bright luminaries of comedy might have had something nice to say if I asked them, then certainly this is a book that everyone should read! I've set it to be free from Feb 17th to 21st... So if you would kindly download it and give it some reviews that would be swell.

So the idea is that automation will lead to mass involuntary unemployment and therefore starvation or some other really awful scenario, right? First answer, it has not in the past and there is nothing in the study of economics that would make one suppose that it will at any point in the future. Second answer... People provide value for things of value, so as long as you can provide enough value to other people they will provide what you value. In the past it was very hard to produce much more than you needed to sustain yourself and your family, as technology advanced that became easier and now it is possible to live in great luxury that wasn't afforded to the wealthiest people 100 years ago. If you simply want to sustain yourself you could probably get by only working 10 hours a month. In the future there will be better technology, and perhaps you'll be able to sustain yourself on 1 hour of work a month, and looking far into the future 1 hour of work a year... But few people would want that when they saw their friends wizzing around in flying cars...

I really wish someone would come up with a genuinely new argument for god instead of these reheated leftovers... I mean it's just so boring, I came into this thread hoping to read something interesting. I feel let down

Since the money is already stolen I guess it's good that it's being spent on socialism instead of cracking heads and throwing people in jail... Now if they could legalize drugs they could "save" all sorts of money. I mean if they're stealing money I'd rather it go to socialist programs than cops and prisons or to a military carpet bombing foreigners. At least there's some progress towards less violence.

BTC China (the worlds's larget exchange) says they are temporarily suspending CNY deposits. I needed about $200 in my US bank account and figured out that Bitcoin was the cheapest and easiest way to do that... and after I transferred the money the Chinese government realized the same thing. I'm not sure I should feel smart, or not...

Did anyone else listen to this and react the same way I did to the story about the autistic children? For the one boy who was banging on the keyboard I thought "why in god's name did no one in his life ever give him enough attention to think he might enjoy something like being thrown into a ball pit?" and for the other boy I really had to wonder how he had gone through his entire life without anyone taking the slightest interest in what he enjoyed. It sounds to me like maybe these kids aren't autistic, they're just profoundly lonely and disconnected from people in their life.

hahaha that's hilarious! My goal with facebook is to not have any people who find that funny as friends.

I wonder if a masters degree in CS would be worth $6,000? http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/07/georgia_tech_s_computer_science_mooc_the_super_cheap_master_s_degree_that.html?google_editors_picks=true

It's not terribly uncommon in China for children to be potty trained quite young (diapers have only recently become more popular.)

yep...

I like this reply, it is amusing and bizarre!

ooh, cool seems pretty neat!

Well, one thing I'd observe. The Dodo did not last long enough that anyone built their life and livelihood around catching and selling or eating the dodo. They were more or less killed off by tourists who had no incentive to preserve the species. Also, they were not very nice people, and presumably children raised without violence wouldn't be amused by killing naive defenseless birds. I think that answers for dodo vs. cod. The important question is whether we will save future dodos by having governments or freedom? I suspect that governments will make it illegal to profit off of or sell rare or endangered species. I say this, because that is exactly what they do! In africa certain big animals are "protected" by governments on large reserves. These animals are poached and not doing well. Others are privately (or at least tribally) owned and can be put to some economic use, and their populations are thriving.

yeah, I have a hard time remembering if it stopped before that or stopped at that time. The new mattress I used until high school, so I know I wasn't wetting the bed after I got it. The unreality of it is what makes it hard... you see if my parents had noticed that I wasn't wetting the bed anymore after that and said "hmm I guess we should have gotten a new bed sooner". then it would have made the experience more real, and I'd probably remember it, but instead it's just lost down the memory hole.

Yeah, I did that but was still dissapointed by the results.

People don't only see murder, theft and coercion by the state though. They also see the state locking up murderers and thieves. They see policemen working hard to catch murderers (in fact, they complain when they don't see....[blahblah] you're response was incoherent and had little to nothing to do with the objections I raised. No wonder this thread has gone on for over a hundred posts and you have not changed your mind or changed anyone else's mind.

The answer that comes to mind most readily would be my parents spanking me. It was humiliating and awful.

Hi guys! I've been meaning to share this for a while, but had some resistance to doing so. My daughter is 21 months old, and over the last two months she's become completely potty trained and doesn't need a diaper at night anymore... these are great! she's growing up, it's super! the problem, if I can call it that, is that my history is quite different... I don't know at what age I stopped wetting the bed, perhaps I did when I was very young, but then started again when I got older. What I do know is that I wet the bed quite frequently until the age of ten at least (maybe as late as twelve). So by this time I was sleeping on a very gross mattress, I was wetting the bed very infrequently, but my father said that they'd get a new matress when I stopped wetting the bed. I liked playing with fire as a kid. So some time later I was playing with a lighter and found that the lint inside the mattress smoldered in a fascinating way. (Did I mention that the matress had holes in the side where I could reach in a pull out lint? well it did.) After playing for a while at pulling out the lint and burning it I got more adventurous and burned lint still attached. lo and behold it got out of control and pretty soon the whole mattress was smoldering on the inside. After a few weeks of sleeping on the box springs and stern lectures about playing with fire I had a new mattress... strangely enough I don't think I wet the bed after that. Now, the comparison between my parents and my wife and I as parents is very much damning for my parents. My parents were neglectful, and authoritarian. They didn't hug or encourage much personal contact, they made a video of me sitting and crying by myself when I was less than a year old. They thought it was funny or something, and always used to joke about how difficult I was as a baby. On the authoritarian side, they would frequently yell, spank me and threaten me with spanking. We don't spank, yell, threaten, or let our daughter sit by herself and cry, we also hug all the time and make sure our daughter feels loved. Given what I've read about bed wetting, the cause is either physiological, disease or stress. Since I didn't have any diseases or physical problem it is clear to me that the stress of living with my parents was the cause, I also sometimes wet my pants at school, and school was extremely stressful as well... Reading the online resources I found about bed-wetting was very frustrating, because while most of them list stress as a possible cause not a single one talks about the stress of abuse or neglect. They only mention safe things like the stress of moving, or the stress of divorce. How the most obvious and prevalent cause of childhood stress would not be mentioned boggles my mind. These sites should be encouraging parents to stop hitting and neglecting their kids and talk to their kids about what's stressful in their life.