Open Thread (2016)

the quote i'm replying to is from https://twitter.com/tangled_zans/status/743741896099405825

some things are good. some are bad. recognizing this is a step in problem solving. terrorism is bad. the way the physics community isn't interested in discussing whether FoR/BoI/DD is right or wrong is bad (not nearly as bad as terrorism, not trying to compare them, but there's something bad about it).

for some context on the person i merely said "I disagree" to (https://twitter.com/tangled_zans/status/743745683555901440): they are from a free speech forum on facebook. they banned me for speaking my mind there, doxxed me, and used automated software to spam my blog. also ppl trolled my blog and doxxed me again in my blog comments. ppl also wrote a bunch of lewd comments speculating on e.g. a young woman i'm friends with having a sexual relationship with david deutsch, for the purpose of hurting her, me, and deutsch.

both anonymous posts above are by me, i forgot to write my name.

i did not look you up on facebook.

are you saying you wrote that gender thing? i may have confused it with another discussion or thought you were someone else. if so, my bad. if you can link it i could figure out what happened more easily.

i can't find the quote you have a picture of on twitter. i don't know where it's from. never mind above. i retract all comments about it. i really can't comment on it without a link.

what? I have no idea what you're talking about.

I have had no interactions with you prior to this, and nothing that you've listen about the doxxing or those other allegations has ANYTHING to do with me, and I have no fucking clue why you wrote that about me to begin with, or why you've then linked to my profile.

You're a pretty fucked up person aren't you.

Don't speak to me again.

> You're a pretty fucked up person aren't you.

you seem pretty mean and eager to jump to negative conclusions. i am trying to be patient and open minded.

I thought you were saying all that stuff about me for some reasons, and that got me confused. Ok, can you please delete that pissed off thing that I said, that was kind of embarassingly in-the-moment and incorrect.

Ok! Well! So going back to my prior position: Yeah, you sound like you could be fun to discuss some ideas I have. But I need to go back to work and finish up some web stuff. I'll write something later today!

Thanks for your time and open mindedness. I have to admit that I rarely see someone with *that* much interest in understanding opposing view points.

my friend found the content on my ask.fm: http://ask.fm/curi42

i believe the anonymous person writing those comments was a very hostile person from the group of people that doxxed me and spammed my blog, and that they had no intention of having a real discussion. that's why i wasn't interested.

if you want to discuss gender issues or related topics i can try to do it in a more sensitive way.

FWIW, although i am right wing, i argued with people at a right wing discussion forum, and then left, because of their disgusting hostility to gays. i believe that more than 90% of people are bigoted against homosexuals, including most of the left too. i think this anti-gay sentiment is *bad*!

i also do not like people using homosexuality as a wedge issue for leftwing activism, such as to attack the freedoms of cake bakers and try to control the lives of Christians. i think bigots should have the *freedom* to e.g. decline some business they don't want or, gross as it may be, only hire straight white employees at their business that they own. i think all kinds of trade should be strictly voluntary at the discretion of both parties.

i also don't like the word "homophobia" because i don't think being a bigot is a *medical phobia*.

(i figure these opinions might interest you)

Thanks for your input on your views on homophobia.

I don't know where you get the 90% statistic, I personally would certainty refrain from making any estimate of form "N% of all humans are X" because of how hard it is to prove that with any certainty.

But if that is your perception then it does say a lot about your own world. Do you speak out against it when people around you voice your thoughts or do you ignore it?

As for a different word for homophobia, what do you suggest?

> As for a different word for homophobia, what do you suggest?

anti-gay. bigot (bigoted against gays). hater of gays. biased against homosexuals. dislikes homosexuals. very attached to cultural gender norms. a guy who is trying to conform and fit in and finds it hard enough to deal with the most common aspects of his culture (like straight relationships are more than enough to deal with). the best one varies by circumstances.

> I don't know where you get the 90% statistic

it's not a statistic, just an extremely conservative estimate from the news, talking to people, watching TV, reading books, etc.

> Do you speak out against it when people around you voice your thoughts or do you ignore it?

i speak out.

> But if that is your perception then it does say a lot about your own world.

i don't think so. i mean you could blame California, where i live, for being super bigoted. but i really don't think i'm only commenting on California. I think i can safely say it's no better in Alabama. i have familiarity with a wide variety of people and subcultures.

what do you think?

Oh cool, scratch that last thing I said, I saw your post on gender now. Will read it now.

> though I can see that being "right wing" and opposing "left wing" is a big part of your identity.

it isn't. it's just convenient for speaking briefly.

> heterosexism

not bad. one downside is people will have to stop and think to figure out what it means (and i guess some of them will misunderstand it).

> In terms of "limits of freedom that I am in favor of", hm, what an odd way to frame that question. I'd answer 無 (Mu).

i don't know what that means.

i think the limits on freedom that people are in favor of is a pretty core, defining feature of their politics.

basically my politics are pro-freedom in a pure and thorough way, whereas most everyone else either make some anti-freedom exceptions or is actually anti-freedom on the whole.

>i think gender roles are a social construct.

Agreed. I think a lot of feminists would agree with you there.

> i don't believe genes or chemicals determine people's opinions or sexual behavior.

I have no way to check that with my current understanding. Come back to me in a few years when my understanding of genetics increases.

>i have a big problem with *victimhood mentalities* and *learned helplessness*. pressure to conform to gender norms hurts everyone, not just women. and the pressure comes from everyone, not just from men.

Yep, pressure to conform to gender norms is bad and outdated, it hurts men a lot too, and there are indeed women who will try to coerce both men and women (and non-gender/binary people) to conform to them. Nothing controversial about that, even among feminists.

>i have a big problem with affirmative consent laws which put a large, unequal burden on men. the law has inequality built into it! it doesn't treat women as equally capable of making decisions about sex and standing up for themselves.

I don't know what the state of the law is where you are from so I can't say much about that.

In terms of consent in general, there have been a lot of good resources written on it by people who understand the issue better than me, so they will be better at articulating it.

I don't know of any specific links, but if it's something you want to learn more about, here's a google search that'll help you "site:everydayfeminism.com consent". You'll probably disagree with a lot of the stuff there in general, but I think the various articles that I've seen on there about consent are quite easy to grok, and if you approach it with the same open mind you have had so far, then you might be in luck. (You'll probably want to use a pseudonym though, I doubt many people will be as open minded to talking to you if they read your yahoo group stuff. You might consider that unfair, but that's life).

>on a related note, many people seem to think that raping women is the worst thing ever, but men being raped in prison is funny. that isn't funny.

That's quite creepy of them and hypocritical. None of the feminists that I know would share that view.

>i think it's very bad to call everything rape like some activists are now doing. sexual behavior is actually complex. people have sex with mixed feelings all the time, e.g. women put out sexually because our culture expects women to have relationships and put out and they don't know what else to do in life. there are problems there. calling those problems "rape" does not help figure them out.

On this, ignoring the stuff you've said about consent - as I've already adressed that - I'll only reply to your last bit.

It's not for you to decide what does or does not help women figure out their problems. Period. Just as it's not for me to tell you what helps or does not help you to figure out your problems.

>a lot of the affirmative consent stuff is insensitive to women who don't want to take responsibility for sex or speak clearly about it. it's trying to make up some new gender roles and get people to do them, contrary to the traditional ones that most women are more comfortable with (being more quite and passive about things). i'm all for advocacy of people taking more control over their lives. i think passivity and not wanting to be clear about sex are bad things. but i think advocacy should focus on voluntary persuasion, not laws that push people (including women too – everyone) around.

Well, again, that's for women to decide what is and what is not sensitive or insensitive towards them. I appreciate you trying to be considerate here, but consideration to a group of people comes from listening and asking *the people in that group* what is and what is not considerate, not speaking for them.

> It's not for you to decide what does or does not help women figure out their problems.

i didn't say that was for me to decide. i can offer written advice on a voluntary basis. but the important thing to me is **the law should not be deciding what does and doesn't help women, either**. let them figure it out themselves (with or without the advice of whoever each individual woman wants to listen to or not).

> Well, again, that's for women to decide what is and what is not sensitive or insensitive towards them. I appreciate you trying to be considerate here, but consideration to a group of people comes from listening and asking *the people in that group* what is and what is not considerate, not speaking for them.

i don't think that Sue can say more about other women than i can. she can speak to her own situation in ways i can't. Joe can also speak to his own situation in ways i can't.

i am focused more on individuals, not groups. i think putting people in various groups (such as female) should generally be avoided in the law.

the reason i spoke about women is because gender roles categorize women as a group, and i was commenting on those.

i think men can understand female gender roles just as well as women can, because they consist of ideas.

i also think it's common that an outsider has more accurate ideas about a person than their own introspection. and often not, too.

the important thing is people have their freedom. then it doesn't matter so much what others think.

>**the law should not be deciding what does and doesn't help women, either**. let them figure it out themselves (with or without the advice of whoever each individual woman wants to listen to or not).

Oh wow, maybe the law should not be deciding what does and does not help victims of car theft either, let them figure out what happened to their car on their own.

Anyway, that's not a branch of conversation that I care to proceed with, lets end it here.

>i am focused more on individuals, not groups. i think putting people in various groups (such as female) should generally be avoided in the law.

>the reason i spoke about women is because gender roles categorize women as a group, and i was commenting on those.

Female *is* a group and it will remain a group even if you remove gender roles from the equation. Gender roles are perscription as to how female and male people *should act*. The categorisation of people into male and female does not come from gender roles though.

>i think men can understand female gender roles just as well as women can, because they consist of ideas.

Yeah totally.

> But you telling people to "stop being offended", well, I don't like some random stranger telling me what is or what is not acceptable behaviour. Especially a stranger that's claiming to be pro freedom! That's a huuuge contradiction here, actually.

what contradiction? i'm writing ideas online. i'm not forcing you. writing moral beliefs is compatible with freedom.

Why do you proceed to call her Bruce? I can understand the mindset of someone refusing to use the right pronouns, but do you not think that it's being intentionally insulting to call someone by the name that they asked not to be called?

Hmm, I bet I can prove I'm more pro-freedom than you are.

>there's a truth of the matter about some things. you may wish to care in some cases to try to learn something. that's all.

*shrug* still nope.

>(btw i'm busy now, will reply to more things tomorrow)

cool, looking forward to it.

>how?

will leave that as a cliffhanger for tomorrow!

What? You're not making any sense.

And *you did not answer my question*

>do you not think that it's being intentionally insulting to call someone by the name that they asked not to be called?

i said i don't care about what name to call Jenner. that means it's not an important view. i'm not very interested in it. i didn't put much thought into it. i don't consider it a big deal. you are overreacting.

> And *you did not answer my question*

i literally hadn't read that question yet, i told you i was busy.

> do you not think that it's being intentionally insulting to call someone by the name that they asked not to be called?

i think it makes sense to identify actions done as Bruce (asking people to use the name "Bruce" at that time) with Bruce, and actions done today with Caitlyn.

also as a public figure with an established name, i don't think you can expect everyone to pay attention to name changes. i don't think that's a big deal.

a bunch of professional gamers have tried to change their gamer name and fans kept calling them by their old name cuz it's just what they were used to thinking of that person as. i don't think that's insulting or a big deal.

similarly i have no idea if Lindsey Lohan wants to be called lilo or not. i think it's ok either way. as a public figure, fans are allowed to make up nicknames for you. shrug. if she doesn't like it then i think people shouldn't use it when speaking to her. but i think it'd still be ok when speaking about her and she isn't part of the conversation.

> Oh wow, maybe the law should not be deciding what does and does not help victims of car theft either, let them figure out what happened to their car on their own.

protecting people against violence is the government's job. this happily doesn't involve the government trying to tell people what beliefs to have.

spreading ideas about how women should live is **not** the government's job.

women's preferences vary a great deal about what they want in their life, so a law that favors a certain female lifestyle would be bad for lots of other females.

people's preferences about car theft do not vary much. they mostly want their car back or money. it's usually pretty simple instead of involving a bunch of controversial ideas.

controversial ideas are something that should be left to individuals to freely decide for themselves. i think it'd be really awful if the government got involved with whether people should be straight or not, what type of men women should date, in what circumstances women should consent to have sex, etc, etc.

> "Right wing" people are pretty easy to model actually, I bet I could articulate your views on freedom as well as you can.

try it.

i think you're dramatically underestimating how complex people are. and also how atypical my views are. but go on.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fallible-ideas/conversations/messages/16847

this post is pretty bad.

>The first is as in already any good at philosophy. As in being able to

tell you anything significant about philosophy that’s both true and

you don’t already know.

...

>The second is as in already any good at discussion and learning.

these are irrelevant scenarios for FI. unless you're a known regular poster on FI these are assumed to not exist.

>I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t think there’s a high

percentage of possible universes where I’d be on FI right now.

a high percentage of an infinite amount? what does this mean?

>But of the possible universes where I encountered FI, I think I would

have persisted at it rather than gave up in most

how are you predicting your overall behavior across the whole set of possiblities? assume for a moment there is a finite number of universes where you encounter FI. how do you know this set isn't dominated by irrational versions of you? versions of you more like every fucking other person living right now?

> Was Ayn Rand a Drug Addict?

who cares?

#5967 you are right to criticize my use of universes - it was incoherent. It would be better said: I think finding FI was largely attributable to luck, but sticking with it was attributable to skills I had before FI. I would guess there are others with similar skills who have not found FI.

Who assumes the two senses of "any good " don't exist outside of known regular FI posters? I was pretty clear I think the second type do exist.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fallible-ideas/conversations/messages/16880

>to tell someone who says cat pictures should be valued at 400 and FI at 100 that they’re wrong.

have you ever met anyone who enjoyed cat pictures and would care if they are wrong? why would you want to argue with someone like that?

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fallible-ideas/conversations/messages/16885

>Or is it something else I’m not thinking of?

you're forgetting most ppl have crippling learning disabilities.

they suck at noticing problems.

they suck at communicating things that may not even be correct.

>Or is it likely they do actually care about the problems they say they

care about, but they aren’t convinced FI will actually help?

internal conflict.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fallible-ideas/conversations/messages/16886

>they should change to a lifestyle where a day is a joy not a burden. and FI and Oism can help with that...

how...? as soon as ppl realize you're selling them a solution that involves them having to change--that part of them has to die--they stop listening. it's like having to use a star trek teleporter: the 'you' has to die for it to work.

you are information. the teleporter sends the relevant information to a different location. what's the problem?

> as soon as ppl realize you're selling them a solution that involves them having to change--that part of them has to die--they stop listening.

suppose you have two parts of you that CONTRADICT. then your choices are to change at least one or be in a constant state of civil war.

perhaps some people could see some appeal of not having so much internal conflict.

"i want to have a bunch of incompatible parts and keep them all" isn't a really appealing line. it's like how are you even one person when you have a raging civil war of contradictory parts?

---

and also in fact lots of people do change their minds about some things during their life. voluntarily, happily.

and fixing some contradictions is a common reason people change their mind. like they want to be married and play video games. and the girls they find don't like video games. so they make a choice and give up video games. (this is often done unhappily, but still many people do it.)

#6036

so you're ok with being killed so long as a copy of you is made? ppl i've talked to about this end up concluding a transitional approach (parts of you are replaced at a time rather than an atomic copy and delete) is the only non-terrifying option.

#6036

this is a common argument even DD has talked about.

>David: This problem may be all part of the consciousness problem, or it may be metaphysics or epistemology or it may be something else: I'm not entirely satisfied that it's okay to use a Star Trek Transporter (which disintegrates you, sends information about you to another place, and rebuilds you there).

http://beginningofinfinity.com/interview

"not entirely satisfied" with teleporters being fine sure isn't agreeing with you. it's mostly disagreeing with you.

you're being biased/irrational/dishonest. you're trying to make one sided case for one side rather than objectively look at the topic.

#6040

what are you talking about? teleporters *in* star trek. what lore? why do you care?

> what are you talking about? teleporters *in* star trek. what lore? why do you care?

do you just not know what "lore accurate" means and are refusing to ask?

> this is the same situation as the academia reference yesterday. you're impossible to talk to.

no u

> > this is the same situation as the academia reference yesterday. you're impossible to talk to.

> no u

on consideration, i don't think you'll be able to understand this simple, literal 2-word comment.

it's entirely your fault. you are making large mistakes causing the problems here. you are bad at discussion and irrational, and then are lashing out and blaming other people for the problems you create. you are putting 98% of your effort into destroying discussion which is why things don't work well. you fuck up very basic stuff such an answering yes/no questions. you aren't at the level of discussion where you actually reply to short, simple things that people say.

i remain calm, patient, and tolerant. i have distance from this and perspective. it's typical. i'm already familiar with it. nothing new here. it's very deeply sad but i'm not emotional about it.

> so when i don't answer questions that have nothing at all to do with what i'm trying to talk about i fail at those things also.

the lore accuracy question had something to do with the topic that we didn't get to discussing yet because you didn't answer it or ask what the relevance was (and it'd be much easier to explain the relevance after you said the answer is "no". but you don't want to do that because [blank out].

you have nearly ZERO patience for other people's ideas or perspectives, and ZERO tolerance for dealing with any of their perspective by e.g. responding to messages that don't have high value in your current perspectives.

i do not ask irrelevant questions.

i could conceivably be mistaken about the relevance. but i have in mind a way it's relevant. i really doubt you both have in mind the same way as me AND a refutation AND think the refutation goes without saying.

the question:

> what lore?

indicates you don't even understand what either lore or lore accuracy is. so you don't even know what the "is it lore accurate?" question meant.

if you don't know what the question means or what lore accuracy is, how can you judge if it's relevant to what you want to talk about?

>you freak out over nothing rather than learn how to answer the most basic of questions. why?

i don't like watching my ideas become warped into other people's world views. it causes disgust and sadness. it reminds me of the reality of my isolation.

#6058

the warping came earlier. the simple questions are all downstream to that.

30 days have passed & I am back.

What should I do now?

1) you don't sign them

2) no. you actively cause problems by e.g. impersonating leonor

i take it you choose option 1. don't post again for a month. don't reply to this. in a month, only post what you've come up with about solving the problem in the mean time.

not marking quotes as quotes was one of the problems! i remember that! can you stop doing that?

here you should use email quote marks so it changes color

> quote

now please give the actual link for this

ok so it says

> in a month, only post what you've come up with about solving the problem in the mean time.

but i don't see your post saying your ideas to solve the problem.

Do you have any extra suggestions ?

Please tell me if you do.

I wanted to review what’s being discussed about the “warping my ideas” claim.

The discussion is between what I think is two different Anons, so I’ll label them Anon1 and Anon2.

Anon-1 said:

> i don't like watching my ideas become warped into other people's world views. it causes disgust and sadness. it reminds me of the reality of my isolation.

Anon-2 replied:

> this is nonsense. i asked if something is lore accurate and if you had a reference meeting certain criteria. simple questions. no warping.

Anon-1 replied:

> the warping came earlier. the simple questions are all downstream to that.

I wanted to check if the “warping” actually came earlier. So I reviewed the discussion from the beginning up top. Here’s what I found:

Anon-1 said:

> https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fallible-ideas/conversations/messages/16886

>> they should change to a lifestyle where a day is a joy not a burden. and FI and Oism can help with that...

>

> how...? as soon as ppl realize you're selling them a solution that involves them having to change--that part of them has to die--they stop listening. it's like having to use a star trek teleporter: the 'you' has to die for it to work.

Anon-2 said:

> i don't think that's lore accurate to startrek. i'm not exactly a trekkie but i've watched some and i have never seen the slightest thing about teleporters destroying your "you". people use them a lot without hesitation. SOURCE?

>

> i also don't think it's physics-accurate. ARGUMENT?

So, as far as I can tell, there was literally nothing between Anon-1 saying his idea that changing your mind is like “having to use a star trek teleporter”, and Anon-2 asking Anon-1 simple questions.

So Anon-1 is completely wrong about his claim that "the warping came earlier. the simple questions are all downstream to that.”

Some questions:

Why didn’t Anon-1 check his claim before saying it? Why didn’t Anon-1 check his claim before *believing* it?

It's arrogant, infallibilist, and immoral.

My guess is that Anon-1 just assumed he's right and doesn't need to check his assumption. He pre-decided the conclusion before doing the work of *judging* the facts of the case. He had a gut feeling that his ideas are being warped and he treats his gut feelings as infallible.

I like the design of this blog a lot..

The comment section with permalinks

The access to all the posts.

The minimalism

The ability to copy.

Anonymity

Gary Johnson is better than trump (protectionist socialist)

> jews? seems mean to *curi* to bring him up with Hitler.

Hmmmm... It is mean if you think about the evilness of Hitler

But it is the highest salutation.

Fallible Fool did not follow the instructions involved with his month ban (think of some solutions, come back and post them). He had zero of his own ideas/suggestions about how to improve any of the problems.

And he's still causing problems. He called me Hitler in public or something then refused to explain. wtf? i don't even know.

so my new policy for now:

FF is banned from posting anonymously. he must sign all posts as "FF" so people have the option to ignore him. This will also fix the issues where he impersonates other people or otherwise makes a mess – we'll know it's just FF messing up and ignore it.

If you are so busy to understand my intentions.. You can send one of your assistants or anyone you know who has too much time.

FF confuses defense with punishment.

Punishment is intended to hurt somebody.

Defense is intended to prevent hurt on oneself and if the other person gets hurt, that's not intended, it's collateral damage.

> Why is FF asking Elliot to repeat himself?

> It's as if FF doesn't know that Elliot already explained the answer to this question a month ago.

You are right. Elliot shouldn't be made to repeat himself.

I said that to announce I was back. It was hard not being on Curi for 30 days..

What should you do if someone calls you retarded?

a) Feel offended and judge the other person.

b) Go into depression.

c) not care at all.

#6111

> What should you do if someone calls you retarded?

>

> a) Feel offended and judge the other person.

>

> b) Go into depression.

>

> c) not care at all.

why do you care what people say?

if somebody gave you a criticism, that's something to care about.

is saying you're retarded a criticism? no.

if you care that somebody called you retarded, you're caring about people's approval. you shouldn't care about people's approval. it's second-handed. it's caring about status instead of merit.

> sign your name 100% of the time or you can expect permabans here and FI. not "most" of the time. (if you forgot and then, 2 minutes later, say "oops I forgot, comment #6666 above was me, FF" or something, i won't ban you. if you go much longer it may cause problems.)

I am typing my name before commenting so that I don't forget it later.

It would have been easier if this blog took usernames like blogger which remembers your ID.

You replied to some of my comments. It seems that if I follow rules, make sense, not troll.. people would read my comments.. I am very happy.

> and, like an anon mentioned, my goal here is *defense*. it has nothing to do with punishment.

Yes, you should protect yourself from trolls.

But asking them to not comment is not a good defense.

I have something to gain from not trolling. What would a real troll gain from respecting your permaban?

> FF wasn't helpful figuring out some good options, but I still, using my own effort, came up with something that allows him to post more.

Thanks for that.

most types of approval have no bearing on whether you get banned.

replies explaining points to disapproved-of people are common.

> why would you cry and hate yourself? what problem would that solve?

You are right.

Sadness & depression would make me more irrational.

You repeat & rewind bad ideas in your mind when you are very sad.

> also, i'm skeptical that elliot would say "you're retarded" without also explaining what retarded thing you're doing.

I will note it down the next time he calls me a " retard ".

> further, if you think it's a mistake for elliot to say "you're retarded", then criticize him for it.

I will.

wtf Alex Epstein?

You exposed Microsoft.. I didn't know that.

You have been mentioned in many news sites.

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-asus-tablet-vs-ipad-ad-2013-5?IR=T

Why don't you have Re-captcha or something installed for the comments to prevent spamming & other stuff?

> My VPN, Private Internet Access (PIA), just sent out a great email:

I use betternet chrome extension & Tor.

They are free but they make the internet slow.

> sounds bad for torrenting!

I use it only for browsing.

What does FI think of Torrenting & pirating stuff?

I download/steal stuff a lot. I don't really have a good explanation to defend myself. I feel like a moocher. I stole Ayn Rand's books too :-(

another question is why don't you pay?

there are lots of reasons to prefer torrents other than money:

- easy ability to play a file on the device of your choice with the software of your choice, rather than the vendor's video or audio player. a huge factor here is wanting to watch things in VLC at 2x speed and with VLC's navigation hotkeys.

(Or text reader. like kindle's reading software is ok but not great and doesn't offer some important features and isn't great for text search. i do buy kindle books, but then i remove the DRM and convert them to other formats for personal use. having to do that kinda sucks and really doesn't inspire me to pay for kindle books in cases where i can easily find a torrent.)

- the search features, ease of finding content you want, ease of DLing. it's better than various commercial sites in lots of ways.

- some stuff isn't for sale at all (especially old or foreign things), or isn't for sale in a good format (e.g. some books are for sale only as paper books but not ebooks, but you can torrent an ebook version)

- torrenting doesn't cost money. if this is a big factor for you ... **why**? why don't you make more money? what's going on there?

if someone knew you torrented something, would they be able to sue you in an Objectivist society? they'd have to explain in court what harm they suffered.

lots of things you torrent you would not have bought if you couldn't torrent it. i certainly download lots of stuff just to see what it is and then i delete it fast, but i wouldn't have bought it. or if you're poor maybe you'd just watch way less stuff if you had to pay. if you wouldn't have bought it otherwise, where's the harm? and some things you may have bought without torrenting, but how will they show that in court?

you may want to consider paying for things you think you would have paid for if you couldn't torrent them.

but i'd still consider lots of the other stuff too.

why don't you get a credit card?

> if someone knew you torrented something, would they be able to sue you in an Objectivist society? they'd have to explain in court what harm they suffered.

Would Peikoff be happy if I told him I downloaded Ayn Rand collection?

> you may want to consider paying for things you think you would have paid for if you couldn't torrent them.

I have bought Assassin Creed series, GTA 5 and many other games that I have liked.

Pirated copies don't have some features so I buy to get the extra features. Like getting updates, online play etc.

The govt is okay with harming people for giving stuff away for free. but it is not okay with pirating which doesn't cause much harm. lol

if you don't know what credit card to get, you can get an amazon visa card.

getting a card from your bank or airline can work too. or you can go to the money related blogs and get tips on what's a good card.

I think I will post replies to FI posts here.

Rami has said in one post that reading Elliot is better than reading Rand's books. I think I will read FI and think about the stuff written there.

> Do you think Rami's idea is universal to all people across all contexts?

I don't think whether it is universal. It might be helpful for others to do what Rami is doing.

Do you have reasons why others shouldn't follow it?

Is short-cutting in philosophy bad? FI has the essence of all the knowledge these books have and much more.

Rami said :-

"when it’s been suggested to read Popper or Rand, I thought it’s better for me to prioritize reading FI and curi blog. cuz:

- FI easier to understand. understanding FI requires less skilled reading comprehension. or at least my reading comprehension skill is more attuned to FI style text than to Popper or Rand style text.

- elliot is better than either Popper or Rand. sure Popper and Rand said things that Elliot hasn’t, or said them in ways Elliot hasn’t, which would be good sources of learning for me, but my idea is to learn elliot’s stuff first, then do Popper/Rand."

In #6177

think = know

> those are hard books

So am I right to read FI first?

FH & A is easier than Momi & VOS

> if i said "faggot" and then said i hadn't identified that "faggot" had

an association with gays, would you believe me?

When insults become overused.. people don't think about it much and use it freely. Am I wrong?

Louis CK uses Nigger for white bartenders.

Louis CK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NAUgCm-3Tc

> people often miss topic changes, although sometimes they notice. the more your topic is unconventional, **they** less they'll notice the change.

http://fallibleideas.com/lulie/social-communication

Are you pro Open source?

Stefan Moleneux selling Trump to Democrats..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-jSrS49dss

it was decent

Richard Dawkins and Neil Degrasse Tyson explaining why people can't study Math.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbrQ8F-LQNs

The Dawkins-Tyson video is shit. I watched about one minute of it. Tyson says our brain isn't wired for logic. That's a crap explanation. Humans are universal knowledge creators, so any person can learn any possible knowledge. Also, it's kinda dumb to say people can't learn knowledge without being able to explain how they managed to create that knowledge.

they are awful people and awful thinkers (with the exception of Dawkins is good at some limited stuff related to evolution). did you ever look at their stuff?

Sam Harris is super bad too.

they are left wing haters, super condescending. they love pretending to be smart and scientific while presenting their anti-life hateful ideas about the world. they hate capitalism, reason, discussion, criticism, and basically every good thinker ever. (Rand, Popper, Mises, Szasz, me, take your pick). (i mean either they hate the thinker or they would hate them if they bothered to learn about that thinker)

> dawkins hates christians and hates morality.

He hates other religions too.. He hates Islam more.

Doesn't Christianity deserve hatred? It is the most powerful propagator of altruism + other bad ideas. Their ideology starts with sacrifice of Christ.

Morality is said to be not exactly science so it is very hard to decide what is right and what is wrong in some cases. His field of study doesn't deal with morality so he might have a reason to ignore it.

> Sam Harris is super bad too.

You are right.. He hates Capitalism. I thought he was a weird libertarian like Penn Gillette.

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-rich-is-too-rich

> atheism is dangerous and helps convert people to left wing evil.

Stefan Moleneux will agree with you on that.

> he also hates discussion with people who disagree with him and avoids it (including with people already in his social circle)

On Camera he is quite calm while discussing with crazy Islamists and Christians.. He explains to them in detail about his criticisms. He engages in many discussions with people whom he disagrees with. On twitter though he is quite the opposite.

> long story short, atheism makes people bad because it alienates them from the major Western/American/Christian/Jewish traditions that make civilization exist and make people not suck so bad

What Jewish & Christian traditions do you think are good?

There are great Jewish & Christian thinkers but they are mostly irreligious or deistic.

The new secular Jewish people of Israel seem good though.. The orthodox jewish traditions look crazy like all other religions.

> GMO

You didn't say anything about this.. Are you pro-GMO?

I think GMO will be better at stopping malnutrition and hunger than socialism..

> they are left wing haters, super condescending. they love pretending to be smart and scientific while presenting their anti-life hateful ideas about the world. they hate capitalism, reason, discussion, criticism, and basically every good thinker ever. (Rand, Popper, Mises, Szasz, me, take your pick). (i mean either they hate the thinker or they would hate them if they bothered to learn about that thinker)

Popular people have to be left leaning or neutral to survive in the world of fame. Individuals become popular by emotional vote of the people. DD seems to have realized that. You need to possess bad ideas to be popular and to spread good ideas you need popularity..so it is hard to spread good ideas.. A million socrates need to be sacrificed before the masses accept a good idea.

PS: I have too many bad ideas which might be apparent from the above comments of mine. Please don't ban me..

Observations : I read stuff on FI and just nod or stay neutral.. I am not thinking much and changing my ideas.. I have started copying good stuff on my notepad so I can remember and think about it.

Stuff I like :

1. It's important to only care much about a small number of people. It's waaaaaay too stressful and time consuming to do more. Don't get dragged into a bunch of people's drama. Don't get very entangled in parochial relationships. Stick to really great people or limited interaction. Try to put life in perspective. There are big things at stake such as spreading TCS, or learning to handle your own life way better. Getting drawn into other unimportant people's parochial issues doesn't matter to this. It's a big distraction. Try to think about what you'll still care about in a year. What is just temporary and will be forgotten, vs. what matters in bigger way.

2. lots of people ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. that's stupid. how the hell should they know? people should do lots of things and see how their interests and skills develop.

3. Capitalism essay

4. Communication is Hard essay

5. Overreaching essay ( They need to back off and limit their activities until mistakes are happening at manageable rate. So they can solve problems as they come up, rather than having an ever-increasing list of unsolved problems. ) [ sadly I have not been able to follow it in my life.I overreach a lot on some stuff ]

6. Philosophy First essay

7. Why is Tradition Important?

8. procrastination essay.

PPS : sorry for wasting your time.. I should study grammar, reread and think about FI essays instead of just nodding, read anthem.. My lazy procrastinating stupid mind should have done these things before talking to you.

> Doesn't Christianity deserve hatred?

Doesn't civilization deserve hatred?

> Stefan Moleneux will agree with you on that.

who cares? why speak of him?

> Popular people have to be left leaning or neutral to survive in the world of fame.

false. see Ayn Rand.

> PS: I have too many bad ideas which might be apparent from the above comments of mine. Please don't ban me..

i don't ban for bad ideas, i ban for things like property damage and aggressive force.

> those aren't discussions, they are staged performances where he shows off that he has a better accent and more prestigious vocabulary and some related stuff.

True.. He is a great performer..

> I think ( guess ) most of them like him for his christian, Anti-IRS, Anti-obamacare stuff..

sounds right wing!

> sounds right wing!

My focus was on being pure Ayn Rand and atheist.. He would have been treated worse if he was that.

> True.. He is a great performer..

Dawkins is a shitty performer. you have bad judgement. that isn't agreeing.

>> Doesn't Christianity deserve hatred?

> Doesn't civilization deserve hatred?

Are you sympathetic towards Christianity?

> Good discussion places also do not moderate (block) contributions for "low quality", or for much of anything besides being automated non-human spam. Moderation policies are a way to keep some ideas out of the discussion, without answering them, even though those ideas could be correct. Moderation prevents some ideas from being discussed and answered. It's irrational (and authoritarian).

Why did you disapprove my low quality posts to FI then? ( It wasn't automated non-human spam )

your FI posts violated rules like post formatting.

for example people value freedom because it's part of the judeo-christian tradition.

lefty atheists, on the other hand, do not value, understand or respect freedom.

> for example people value freedom because it's part of the Judeo-christian tradition.

Google directed me to -

The term in this case referred to Jewish converts to Christianity

&

American civil religion is a sociological theory that a nonsectarian quasi-religious faith exists within the United States with sacred symbols drawn from national history. Scholars have portrayed it as a cohesive force, a common set of values that foster social and cultural integration.

&

Isolated strands of liberal thought had existed in Western philosophy since the Ancient Greeks, but the first major signs of liberal politics emerged in modern times. In the 17th century, political and financial disputes between the English Parliament and King Charles I sparked a massive civil war in the 1640s. The war culminated in the execution of Charles and the establishment of the Commonwealth of England. The period produced a significant amount of political and philosophical commentary.

I didn't understand how tradition helped.. I thought individual philosophers,experimentation, luck helped liberalism.

Christians burned scientific people who opposed them. I am confused.

> your FI posts violated rules like post formatting.

But doesn't that create a loophole for admins to censor stuff.

You only mentioned non-human spam there.

>> But doesn't that create a loophole for admins to censor stuff.

> it creates a loophole to not be censored – even if you're a bastard – by posting correctly.

I don't know about that.. The moderator has the final say.. He can make excuses for himself and point out a formatting problem and delete the post.

I wonder whether the moderation page of yahoo groups changes the post formatting.

Some of my posts were impossible to have formatting problems. They were one sentence questions. " Are Yeti's real? " or something like that.

Some were approved by Rami...

I think I know some of the basics.. don't top post, make space and write, make sure it is plain text, delete the yahoo stuff on the bottom, delete some of the piled up email ids on the top, don't post something without content, sign below ( optional )

> You must set your message format to "Traditional" on Yahoogroups. Send a blank email to fallible-ideas-traditional@yahoogroups.com and then reply to the confirmation email. Replying to any email from before you do this will be broken.

I didn't do this..

> the yeti post was intentional trolling. that's a fake question. you were trying to fuck with Elliot, not ask a question you were curious about.

I wouldn't call it intentional trolling.

It was :-

1. I was irritated that none of my questions were being accepted.

2. I saw a kid's post with a simple question.

3. I thought of a simple question I was curious about. I made sure it was very similar to the kid's question so the mods couldn't delete it for some silly reason. But they still deleted it :(

4. It was an impatient desperate attempt to get something through moderation.

5. I would have posted porn if I wanted to harm FI.

> people are civilized because they have ideas that come from the past and have been improved over time. the archetypical civilized person is christian or jewish.

Post Enlightenment Christian/jew?

> the values of civilization are roughly what people today would call center-right Republican.

Okay

(except leftists would call them "extreme right" because leftists are liars).

Is it good to generalize all leftists as liars?

They see the world differently and ask different questions.

Being wrong Fundamentally makes them see the world differently and get different conclusions. They think they are the most honest ever.

> many atheists still believe most of the same ideas as they would if they were religious. that's why you don't see all atheists being totally uncivilized all the time.

hmmm.. you are right.

> Is it good to generalize all leftists as liars?

yes

>> Is it good to generalize all leftists as liars?

>

> yes

Is having a bad idea and propagating it "lying"?

Religious people are experts in lying to themselves and to others...

I just found Thales of miletus ( c624-546 BCE ) on Philosophy DK PDF

don't post advertisements. there are tons of picture hosting sites that let you do public links where people can actually see the picture instead of just going to some marketing bullshit

Here..

http://oi66.tinypic.com/k9w3fk.jpg

#6273 #6274

Remain unanswered.. anyone can answer it at anytime..

no pressure..

> no it's not. you're probably logged in...

No.. I didn't sign up.. How is the second link I sent you?

If anyone wants to download the Dorling Kindersley philosophy book .. The link is above.

> it's literally a redirect to their homepage.

Strange.. It works fine here.

I think it remembers my cookie.

How is the second link that I posted above..

I am posting link again :- http://oi66.tinypic.com/k9w3fk.jpg

Book link:https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/7976994/The_Philosophy_Book_(gnv64)#filelistContainer

I just realized that nice people lie and mislead people by hiding and trying to sugar coat the truth.

i have very few decision points in my life..i behave like a automated retard .. i will try to decide more from now on

http://fallibleideas.com/lulie/initiative-and-responsibility

cuz BoI explains static memes and cuz they are DD's invention.

linking the book makes sense because they SHOULD buy the book.

it's good to do things correctly. if the book isn't linked where it should be, then how is anyone going to learn they should be reading it?

people who want to know more should ask a question, not expect a one-size-fits-all pre-written answer to magically address their personal questions.

I think FI needs a FAQ thing..

It is hard navigating stuff.

I had stopped saving important posts to my notepad.. I will start that again.

It is hard to find a post to disprove that FI isn't a cult..to LG

> Should a person give up philosophy if it doesn't help them in their current situation?

there's no such thing in regular life. you'd have to be like a soldier in the middle of a battle with people shooting at you right now. then you should focus on fighting.

Why Some Countries Are Poor and Others Rich By ADB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-4V3HR696k

An animated 8 min video on "Why Some Countries Are Poor and Others Rich"

Does anyone want to crit it?

Here is a transcript:

0:00There are 196 countries in the world. 25 of them are very rich, defined as having

0:06an average wealth per person of over $100,000 a year.

0:10They are:

0:12But far more countries are quite poor, and some - which we’re considering here - are

0:16very very poor.

0:18These are the 20 poorest countries in the world: where the per capital wealth is under

0:22a $1,000 a year, or under three dollars a day.

0:26Every country is now more or less on a path to growth, but the poor ones are growing very,

0:31very slowly. If Zimbabwe continues at its current growth rate, it will qualify as a

0:36‘rich country’ in 2722 years.

0:40What we want to know in this film is why some countries prosper and others stagnate:

0:45- so we can understand what rich countries are doing right

0:47- and get a better grip on the challenges and hurdles facing poor countries.

0:51There are basically three factors that determine whether a country will be rich or poor.

0:56The first is:

0:57INSTITUTIONS

0:58Institutions are beyond important. Broadly speaking, rich countries have 'good

1:03institutions' and poor ones have very, very bad ones.

1:06The correlation between poverty and corruption is direct. The richest countries in the world

1:11are quite simply invariably also the least corrupt ones.

1:15And the most corrupt countries are also the poorest.

1:19When countries are corrupt, they can’t collect enough taxes to get the good institutions

1:23they would need to escape the poverty trap.

1:27Half of the wealth of the world’s poorest 20 countries goes into offshore accounts.

1:31Lost revenues in these countries totals between $10 and $20 billion dollars a year

1:36Meanwhile, without an adequate tax base, poor countries can’t invest in police, education,

1:42health, transport.

1:43Now, a more generous way to look at corruption is that it’s really a case of clan-based

1:48thinking. Say you’re hiring someone. In the rich countries, you’re meant to do so

1:52simply on merit, interviewing lots of candidates then picking the best one irrespective of

1:57any personal connection.

1:59But in poor countries under the sway of clan-based thinking, that approach would itself be corrupt:

2:05it’s your duty to disregard the so-called best candidate from an anonymous bunch, in

2:10order to pick someone from your own team: your uncle, your brother, your second cousin,

2:14the guys from the same tribe.

2:16As a result, poor countries don’t allow themselves access to the intelligence and

2:20talent of the whole population.

2:22There’s a second thing that keeps countries poor:

2:25CULTURE

2:27- what goes on in people’s minds, their outlooks and beliefs...

2:30A striking statistic pops up here in relation to religion.

2:33If there’s one generalisation you can make about religion and wealth, it’s that the

2:37less people believe, the richer they stand a chance of being.

2:4119 of the richest countries in the world have 70% or more of their populations saying religion

2:47is not at all important to them.

2:50The exception here is - unsurprisingly - the United States, which manages to combine great

2:54religiosity with huge wealth (more on that in a second).

2:58And conversely, the poorest nations in the world are also extremely believing ones. Here’s

3:04how many people think religion and the supernatural is deeply important in the following countries:

3:09In the world’s poorest country, simply everyone is a believer.

3:14Why is belief quite so bad for wealth creation?

3:17Because in general, religiosity is connected up with the idea that the here and now can’t

3:21be improved, so you should focus on the spiritual and look forward to a next world instead.

3:26It makes quite a bit of sense when you live here.

3:31In the rich world on the other hand, people are generally great believers in their capacity

3:35to alter their destiny through effort and talent.

3:38Incidentally, to explain the anomaly of the United States, religion seems not to slow

3:43down economic growth here because it is a particular sort of religion: an overwhelmingly

3:47Protestant and exceptionally materialistic kind. The American god

3:52doesn’t want you to think of building the new jerusalem

3:55in the next world, He wants it here and now in Kansas or Houston.

4:00There’s another big factor that determines the wealth and poverty of nations:

4:03GEOGRAPHY

4:05Poor countries are overwhelmingly located in the tropical regions. This isn’t a coincidence.

4:11Life is, in many ways, simply far far tougher there.

4:14The problems begin with agriculture:

4:17Tropical plants are generally a lot less packed with carbohydrates.

4:20Poor countries have worse soil too. Also, and perhaps surprisingly, a tropical

4:25climate can be disadvantageous to photosynthesis.

4:28Historically, a key determinant in the likelihood of societies growing rich was their possession

4:33of large domesticated animals (such as horses and oxen) which liberated a huge part of the

4:38workforce from having to plough by hand.

4:41But in tropical africa, domesticated animals have throughout time been devastated by a

4:46further appalling scourge: the Tsetse fly.

4:50This small fly—exclusively present in Africa because of its heat and humidity— knocks

4:54out animals on an enormous scale, making them sleepy or inactive - and has had a profound

5:00effect on the ability of Africans to develop technology, increase agricultural productivity

5:05and amass wealth.

5:07-- It isnt just plants and animals that suffer

5:09in the tropics. In the middle latitudes, humans are open to a terrifying array of diseases

5:14including

5:18100% of low-income countries are affected by at least five tropical diseases simultaneously.

5:24The magical temperature which has helped to make rich countries rich is 16 degrees centrigade.

5:29However superficially unpleasant, that drop below 16 degrees as autumn starts to bite

5:34is quite literally, a foundation stone of civilisation.

5:37Geography also encompasses transport and poor countries are, on the whole, very badly connected.

5:44Landlocked Bolivia and semilandlocked Paraguy are the poorest nations in South America

5:49Africa has only one major navigable river, the Nile and hosts 15 landlocked nations,

5:5411 of which have average incomes of $600 or less.

5:59Not coincidentally, the poorest country in Asia, Afghanistan, is also landlocked.

6:04Then there’s the matter of natural resources.

6:07Natural resources (like oil or precious metals) can be real trouble - and, paradoxically,

6:11poor countries tend to have them in spades.

6:14These natural resources are what economists call intensifiers: they will help to make

6:18a country with good institutions richer, but one with bad institutions get even poorer,

6:23precipitating what’s called the resources trap.

6:26So the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the world’s most mineral rich countries;

6:31holding most of the world’s Coltan, which every mobile phone has a bit of inside.

6:36But natural resource wealth helps elites to grab money without requiring the cooperation

6:41of the whole society. If the only way to grow wealthy is to assemble high tech aeroengines,

6:46for example, you’re going to need your whole society to buy into the project but if you

6:51just need to extract a few minerals, you can do so with a small labour force, guns and

6:55an airstrip long enough to ferry your loot out to market.

6:59The wealth from Coltan keeps DRC armed rebels in guns and corrupts every level of society.

7:06So how should one weigh up the relative importance of all these different factors, institutional,

7:11cultural and geographic, in determining the wealth of a nation.

7:14There’s no hard and fast rules, but as a guide, one can suggest that:

7:1850% of a nation’s wealth comes down to its institutions

7:2120% is due to its culture. and 10% each can be allocated to latitude,

7:27connectivity with the rest of the world, and geological good fortune.

7:31If you’re a policy maker, this discussion has wide practical implications. But at a

7:36more personal level, one might take away two things from it;

7:40Firstly, Modesty: you should have a better idea of what you owe your individual success

7:44to - which is not so much your own hard work or fine mind, as the broader society you live

7:50in which was produced over centuries and which you now draw benefit from unknowingly.

7:55And at the same time, Sympathy: an ability not to see failing societies just as basket

8:00cases, but rather as countries facing comprehensible and hugely difficult problems. Our sympathy

8:06can be enhanced by reflecting that the troubles of desperate lands are to a considerable extent

8:12to do with malaria, a lack of navigable river and the horrific buzzing of the tsetse fly

8:16- rather than always some more intimate human failing which we would ourselves never manifest.

Israel is rich and religious too.

i kinda skimmed and saw no interesting idea about WHY countries are rich or poor.

I take the (#6446) comment back..

I googled..

> Individuals? No Lenin, no Communism, no 40 million dead. No Mao, no 70 million dead. -DH

I doubt that.. The ideas were prevalent and someone else would have taken their place..

I think atheism is neutral just like science. People need to have morality separately to prevent bad stuff.

When people giveup religion they should have kept some of their morals and improved on some. Atheism isn't responsible if people behave stupidly. Atheism/agnostic atheism is a way towards rationality.

> Atheism isn't responsible if people behave stupidly.

atheism is a word which refers to millions of people behaving stupidly and dozens who aren't. the stupid ones have slaughtered millions of people. so it's understandable that it's a smear.

Correction:

remove "power" from neutral things.

> lol precipitated myself

> there is more

> "the other part of me thinks it is really important, and i need to make progress now. i have problems in my life. i want them to be better"

> he wants a philosopher to tell him how to live. to give him

solutions. memes mottos.

> he doesn't want to be a philosopher.

> elliot is not understanding this. why?

> "but with posting it is different. sometimes it feels like i just have no ideas. other times i come up with some ideas, and write them down. but then later i just “forget” to even look at the ideas. i “forget”

to try them."

> he doesn't want to be a philosopher. he doesn't like philosophy. he

just wants life help so he can carry on doing the projects he likes.

> nobody else seemed to have responded to elliot's post. not even alan

or justing, his favs. he is biased cause they are his best friends.

sad.

> some might be on holidays at the beach without internet BUT ELLIOT HAS

CRIT OF THAT lol

> 4. the comments on my blog were hostile and destructive and i want my

> story to remain private until it's finished. i don't thrive on crit

> but on support. and why do you think i should care what benefits you?

this is dishonest. the comments she didn't like stopped after she deleted some comments and added rules prohibiting many comments. then she made the blog private, later, due to *offsite* commentary on posts, not due to "the comments on my blog".

on a related note, FF should not be posting private writing, from Leonor's private blog, to the public like this. he is betraying her.

I was being whimsical.. that was bad.

Can someone explain to me about consent?

When I get whimsical I go to my default mode.

My default mode on consent is:-

1. I don't need to ask for consent if the info being shared isn't too private (Eg: address, emotions,family info, pictures etc)

2. Sharing philosophical stuff is okay. There is no harm possible from that. We can gain knowledge from sharing crit and thoughts.

3. The content a person shares with through email is owned by me.

> 1. I don't need to ask for consent if the info being shared isn't too private (Eg: address, emotions,family info, pictures etc)

if you share someone's street address or phone number i will consider you a violent criminal and bitter enemy for life. that kind of posting is used to either harass people in person or to threaten it. it intimidates and scares people about IRL violence.

doxing is absolutely and utterly prohibited here. no exceptions.

the only comments i've ever deleted from the site are doxing and spam. (only literal uncontroversial spam posted by bots, like viagra and poker links.)

no comment on the rest. i just wanted to speak about doxing.

> if you share someone's street address or phone number i will consider you a violent criminal and bitter enemy for life. that kind of posting is used to either harass people in person or to threaten it. it intimidates and scares people about IRL violence.

That is what I said.. I am against sharing phone numbers, addresses etc.

> btw did you get consent to post here?

how is that your concern? i was already posting through you. why should you be my filter? why should what i say be shared in public by intermediaries?

why are you not posting my crits anymore? i guess it gave pleasure you when it was betrayal but now i turned the tables is not fun anymore.

> no comment on the rest. i just wanted to speak about doxing.

i'd comments on the rest.

what makes you believe your best friends will never doxe you? if people are fallible and can always change can't they go anyway, for good or evil? what makes you think their moral code makes it impossible for them to be evil?

> I was irritated with opposing ideas and wanted to get it cleared. I was being whimsical which is bad. I stopped after a while.

you make no sense.

People on FI had BCC'd you posts and claimed that you have intrusive preferences right?

> as i explained, it's gossip.

I don't think so.. atleast I don't consider it gossip.

Talking and critting Rand's ideas aren't gossip.. How is it gossip when your ideas get shared?

> sharing a person's ideas is gossip.

I don't think so.. SOMEONE PLEASE CRIT THIS ^^

> "essayish rant" dismissing hatefully what my ideas without argument or crit. how cute.

Why do you think it is hate?

tripped

Why does the IPCC claim that we are doomed if the temperature rises with 1.5 degrees Celsius and where did they get that number from? The former makes no sense to me and the latter is a mystery to me.

I have read *The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels*.

#12782 But I don't understand why people just believe this? Why do they follow suit? Do you mean that regular people want Marxism? Why?

#12784

> People like Milton Friedman, Hayek, and Ben Shapiro are considered right wing and pro capitalist and stuff, and they function as a sort of controlled, limited opposition that is actually sucking up to and legitimizing the bad guys, and undermining the actual good guys like Mises or David Horowitz.

Would you say it is pragmatism driving the former to do this (at least Friedman and Hayek) or was it something else (climbing the social ladder)?

#12786

> Don't know what you're referring to with pragmatism.

I was referring to that they might believe that "what works better", in the prevailing political climate, is what to pursue instead of what is truly the best system (capitalism / laissez-faire).

#12792 I see the entire Chicago school of economics as a "socio pragmatic" application of the Austrian. Pragmatic in the sense they use more mainstream methods (positivistic / mathematical) to gain more political influence.

Mening they (MF & FH) understood that Mises had the better arguments, but fearing losing all political influence they compromised (lacking the integrity Mises had).

#12797 Thank you for the Hazlitt gem. I had not read it before and I find Hazlitt a great source of sound economics.

> E.g. do you think Friedman knew he was mistaken about the negative income tax, and that it was bad, as Hazlitt explains in chapter 12 here?

If Friedman ever read Hazlitt's refutation of NIT (negative income tax), which I'm sure he did, he certainly had no answers to it - else he would have written his own refutation of Hazlitt. (If he has done that I am unaware of it.)

That leaves me to believe Friedman wanted political power / influence more than being correct in principle / being honest and lacking the integrity of Hazlitt who corrected his mistake on the matter as described in the chapter you mention (chapter 12, https://mises.org/library/man-vs-welfare-state-0 ).

> Would Friedman somehow advocate that anyway, while fully understanding everything wrong with it that Hazlitt lays out? Knowing it's just going to make things worse, as Hazlitt explains, why would he consider it practical or pragmatic? I think he disagreed with Hazlitt and wouldn't seriously engage in the pursuit of truth about the matter.

I think Friedman usually addressed issues where he disagreed with his critics and believed he was right. Here for some reason Friedman seemed to just evade the critique.

Thus this leaves me to believe he advocated a "less bad" system over a really bad one (despite knowing it was not the best available solution) since it was still close enough for the political elite to consider implementering it (even though it being wrong - perhaps he took a page from Keynes book regarding the long run ...).

This leads me to arguing pragmatism might be the underlying cause in Friedman's case.

> And here is Hayek sharing his perspective in an interview after Mises was dead: ...

> You can see the social metaphysics and the lack of understanding that Mises was right and why. Hayek was already indoctrinated with mainstream academia crap before he found Mises. And it's specifically Mises' arguments and reasoning that he questions and doubts.

Agreed. I'm starting to understand Rand's position on Hayek.