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1

General / Re: Bitcoin

« on: July 27, 2011, 02:56:29 PM »

But cash is universally accepted. And if instead of FRNs you use Silver (or convenient Shire Silver cards) as cash, you also have a store of value, which Bitcoint ain't.

Bitcoin: many downsides, no upside

I wouldn't say there's no upside. Bitcoin does not weight as much as silver does, and it can be stored significantly more secure that silver. And you can buy stuff with it significantly easier than with silver: just go to btcbuy.info and exchange it on amazon gift card, it only takes, like half an hour.

2

The Show / Re: Monkey-wrench vs "destruction" and violence vs non-violence

« on: July 08, 2010, 12:47:36 AM »

I think destroying government property and buildings is a very bad idea unless you want a full-scale violent revolution (and I don't).  I don't think that such people should be defended or encouraged, either.  Once you start using violence and force, you have lost the moral high ground.  Plus, there are a ton of peaceful things one can do to resist that it's not necessary.

I understand and agree this is terrible tactic, especially now. But, take a generic approach: those who respond to force, don't initiate it, only apply force to those who initiated it on them - how are they losing the moral ground? Rothbard clearly doesn't agree with this: http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/thirteen.asp. I'm not saying you should support those folks wholeheartedly, fighting cops is dumb, but at least admit that whatever those guys are doing, it is not unethical.

I'm not trying to agitate anybody here, god forbid, some asshole already got excited and called me fed here, but what I am trying to say is (and I'm assuming you listened to that show): if Ian took a position of not actively responding to even violence, it would be expected that he should oppose any other form of destruction of value, be it building or website. What kind of moral ground can someone talk about hacking website, sitting at home, not risking to be caught at all? That looks pretty low.

3

The Show / Monkey-wrench vs "destruction" and violence vs non-violence

« on: July 07, 2010, 11:24:54 PM »

I listened to yesterday's podcast (2007-07-06), and there was a discussion about whether it's ok to destroy the government property, or it's only ok to throw a little wrench into the system. I have a thought about this: Ian's position on "monkey-wrench vs destruction" is fundamentally inconsistent with his position on "violence vs non-violence" (which personally I consider is better described as active vs passive resistance to violence). Let me be more clear here: I am not discussing here which way to resist the government criminals is the best, or which way should one pick for himself, or recommend others. What I am talking about is: if one accepts that government is just a bunch of gangsters, why would it be okay to destroy the value that the gang controls, but not the gangsters themselves?

Ian was pretty clear that he does not encourage people to do either; but it looked like he morally allows destruction of the property of the gang, but at the same time he totally reprimands those who respond with force to actual gang members.

When I agree with him, that I personally wouldn't chose the path of destruction, shouldn't we express our moral support to everybody who is brave enough to resist the gang, in whichever way he choses? If one wants freedom to himself, then he should set others free to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt innocent people, and gang members are not innocent. Bad idea to fight fire with fire? In current situation: I think so, but it's not for me to decide for the others. In the end, bad people must be punished, and some of them will keep using violence on innocent people, some people don't get love and forgiveness. "What you do to others, someone might just do to you" - I think it is important to reinforce this message by giving moral support to those who actively resist aggression, at minimum not to reprimand them. Even if we don't accept their methods.

4

The Show / Re: Oppinion: spanking children

« on: October 27, 2009, 11:38:06 PM »

The way I see it the debate is split between people who think spanking is sometimes neccessary, and people who think its always unnecessary.

Then why are you using term "pro-spanking"? It is completely bogus, and absolutely inappropriate here. "Pro-spanking" is someone who advocates regular beatings as a form of parenting. This is absolutely not what's being discussed here, and you just said it.

5

The Show / Re: Wayne mentioned solar panels

« on: October 27, 2009, 11:28:39 PM »

I contacted the guys, they are not installing panels themselves, contractors install it instead. here's something I learned:

1) To get tax rebates and other incentives, you must have licensed contractor install 'em
2) for the same reason you must have city/county approve the stuff, and then power company
3) all of that pretty much doubles the cost of the installation before rebates. After rebates, it is still not bad, but significantly (several times) more pricey than I counted before. Although w/o rebates it would even more pricey.

4.8 KW system (worth ~15K) would be ~30K. Also, I don't know how good of a luck the whole rebate thing is, especially from government. Vendors say they would eat the utility company incentive and take check directly from them, but tax rebates are on you.

6

General / Re: Interesting document I found...

« on: October 27, 2009, 11:22:04 PM »

I was wondering if an exercise will make sense to split it by-chapter into a new forum and vote-up best rebuttal

7

General / Interesting document I found...

« on: October 25, 2009, 12:46:57 PM »

While bitching with someone on the Internet, I've been pointed out that all my arguments are bogus, and they have all been addressed in details at: http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html, so there's nothing more I could say  .

Here's why I'm posting this document here: the guy seems to have spent a bunch of hours debating with liberty people, he could summarized a lot. None of his "rebuttals", obviously, stand a chance, but I thought it could be a good starting point for many beginner libertarians. Get to know your enemy

8

General / Re: who uses RE sources?

« on: October 19, 2009, 07:37:42 PM »

I found this link http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=1600_grid_tie_system which seems to be an outstanding deal for 1600 watts.

This is a very good price, although 1600 watts is not too much power. I am in arizona, where it's sunny 300+ days a year, and my pretty modest house (1400 sq ft) needs ~5000. At any rate, doesn't matter, the price is right. Have you actually completed the install? I'm trying to get through to phoenix office of those folks and nobody returns the calls. It's very frustrating. Anyone knows other vendors, with better service quality?

9

The Show / Re: Oppinion: spanking children

« on: October 15, 2009, 05:07:36 PM »

I criticize spanking and proponents of spanking because I think its unnecessary, vulgar and an unthinking method of discipline. If I'm wrong prove it, because I don't really care if I'm "insulting" anyone by calling the truth as I see it, especially if those people aren't interested in defending their view of the truth with facts.

I agree in many cases its unnecessary, vulgar and an unthinking method of discipline. But I don't think anyone here advocates beating up children. The point that I'm making is it works. Maybe badly, maybe short-term only, maybe in a long run effects are worse than short-term benefits, but that's not the point.

Tell me this: would you agree that yelling, lying to, imprisoning, intimidating child without physically touching him is harmful to the same extent?

10

The Show / Re: Oppinion: spanking children

« on: October 11, 2009, 03:54:48 AM »

... Having grown into my ability to use hindsight, I retroactively consent to many of those instances of corporal punishment.

I don't know if there is such a thing as retroactive consent... What if you never give retroactive consent? What your parents did in the past, cannot be changed by something in the future

IMHO what really matters, is that children don't own self, they have no capacity to do that. I don't think anybody here talks about spanking 18 year olds. When children demonstrate their capacity to act like adults, they and parents are equals, but until then relationships have to involve coercion in some form, be it spanking, or yelling, or locking up, or lying, or bribe, or scaring, or having to submit to kid yourself.

11

The Show / Re: Oppinion: spanking children

« on: October 09, 2009, 07:02:01 PM »

I'm the only one who has posted stats in this thread. If not-spanking kids leads to negative effects on their development, prove it. If it causes them to get into accidents that spanked kids wouldn't, prove it. All I've heard is anecdotal bullshit on how "you don't know what kids are like". Anecdotes don't mean shit. I was never hit as a kid. Tuttle doesn't hit his kids.

Dude, you ignored pretty much every point that I made. Why would I be looking for stats? I am not making any points that could be proved or disproved by stats

12

The Show / Re: Oppinion: spanking children

« on: October 09, 2009, 03:10:16 PM »

If spanking is so effective why would you ever need to do it more than once?

See, I'm not suggesting that spanking is a good method to raise a child; what I am saying is that it is a _valid_ method. The brain of most highly-developed animals establishes a natural link between otherwise unlinked events when they happen in short sequence, and if the second event is shocking enough (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(NLP)). This works, for example, when you grab hot iron - it will for a long time get associated with pain and you would exercise caution when a hot iron is next to you. Spanking (same as angry yelling, by the way) when kid does something utterly destructive is a method to associate that behavior with unpleasant consequence. So, to address your question, oftentimes you only need to do it once, but is it _so_ effective? Sometimes, everybody is different.

I was never suggesting that spanking cannot be replaced with something else. If you have unlimited time and want to spend it on a kid alone - chances are you don't ever have to spank or yell. If you have money to buy safe equipment, get house in gated neighborhood, have areas to go with your child which are completely safe - you are good. No spanking needed. But not every parent has it. Some will work 10 hours and barely make ends meet to live in a crummy apartment in bad neighborhood, where every teenager is a gansta wannabe. You don't want your kid to learn hard way what it means - to runaway from a playground in that area.

Yeah you're right I don't have kids, I hope that isn't some disbarment to the discussion of how kids should be raised, just like not being black shouldn't be a disbarment to talking about racism towards blacks.

It kind of is... Your heart is i the right place, but there are things that kids do, which are very hard to mentally create without prior experience. They do things you can almost never expect from adult. In many ways, children are playing power games, they will constantly push the envelope. My 4 year old daughter, would demand something (watch cartoons for example), and if not given, she will stand next to you and yell very loud for half an hour, and in her age they yell really unpleasant, you cannot work, talk on the phone, it's very-very disruptive. And I believe she is very well aware how unpleasant it is for everyone else to listen to it, she just uses it as a means to get cartoon. Also, she will not sit in a timeout chair, neither stay in her room, nor she will listen to anything you try to tell her, she will walk back stand next to you and resume yelling. This is a scenario, where we have a locking room, and that saves her some swats, but what if we didn't? There are families living in 1-bedroom apartments, what you gonna do then?

If you let kids exploit your weaknesses, they will keep doing it. Children don't owe parents, I agree with that, but neither do parents owe their children anything. When such situation happens, someone must give up, by why does it have to be parent? If parent is willing to spend time and resources to sort this situation in a peaceful manner, good for him. Does he have an obligation to do so? Like Ian says, demonstrate me how was this obligation created. In example above, there is most probably some mistake on our part in bringing her up, we probably could have done something different and she would not give us such hell with her behavior. But we are not professionals, nobody is, yet children are happening

Can conflicts be handled in a calm, patient manner? Sure it can, but not every person has that much patience and/or skill. It would be a better world if only people who are really fit to be parents would be having children, but it isn't.

13

The Show / Re: Wayne mentioned solar panels

« on: October 07, 2009, 12:55:58 AM »

This is the best deal i can find.  http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=1600_grid_tie_system   This is without rebates of any kind.  Hell of a deal IMO

It is actually not bad at all!!! Although I would need a bigger one, at least 4KW system, it's not that bad either: $13,366.00

14

The Show / Oppinion: spanking children

« on: October 06, 2009, 11:49:09 PM »

I've been listening to a Saturday's FTL in the car, and I can't help bringing up some points regarding the child-spanking. I am a parent myself, I have 3 children, and let me say it straight I don't condone violence, especially targeted at the little ones. Beating the one who is not only physically incapable to respond, but also dependent on you is bad-bad-bad. But I also heard some points on the show which I really feel like addressing:

Issue #1: Non-aggression

One of the callers brought up non-aggression principle, and that hitting your child is initiation of force. The problem with this statement is that non-initiation of force is not an axiomatic principle, but derived from the principle of self-ownership. Exercising violence on somebody can be equated to a property damage. Since humans value their body very high, hitting someone, even lightly is like damaging a very expensive item. But violation of property rights does not occur every time you spank somebody. You can spank yourself, since body is your property and you can damage it plenty. You can spank your significant other, because significant other owns the body in question and can authorize that. Who owns the child? Obviously, child does only when (s)he reaches capacity to exercise self-ownership. Little children obviously don't have this capacity, so their parents temporarily act on their behalf. So, there could be cases when spanking little child does not breach non-aggression principle.

Issue #2:  IQ

I very rarely side with Mark, but this time he made a good point: difference in IQ between spanked and non-spanked kids does not establish causal link. It seems to me that it is very likely that children with lower capacity to understand others are getting themselves into situations where spanking is likely solution. Smart kids are likely to avoid those situations, so IQ difference simply reflects the fact that smart kids were smarter all along

Issue #3: Patience

One of callers mentioned that she believes that it is possibler to bring up a child with no spanking, but she simply does not have appropriate time, patience and resources to do this. I think this was the key. Everything is possible when you have infinite resources, time and skills. But not all of us are professional pedagogues, and/or own a fortune to be able to hire one. A lot of parents don't have time, a lot of them don't have skills. Some are lucky to have kids which could be brought without too much trouble, but other kids are not as easy. Being single mother with two boys of approximately same age is a whole different thing, than both parents with enough income, and with more evenly aged kids of alternating sex (I'm assuming she probably is not very well off financially, but of course I might be wrong).

Issue #4: Parenthood and individual liberty

Libertarians always talk a good talk about individual freedom, but somehow, when it comes to parenthood, liberty is forgotten. It is important to recognize that one human being cannot be made a serf to another one, simply because (s)he became a parent. While it's obviously a good idea to make sure you have skills and resources available for your children, it is not always happening. Children are people too. People should probably not look at their kids like they are saints, and expect the others parents to do same thing. It's where the liberty begins to end

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General / Re: Flex your Rights - BUSTED! Video

« on: September 05, 2008, 12:37:57 AM »

those who would prefer torrent - can someone post a link to good quality movie again? All I could find on the pirate bay is this: http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/3496964/Busted.3496964.TPB.torrent