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1

Serious Business / Re: Sometimes it's okay to give up and walk away.

« on: October 15, 2012, 03:40:37 PM »

I think I found something like a happy medium between caring too much or complete resignation. I've decided to ignore politics altogether and just concentrate on my own community, at least until/if I move to NH. I help run a food bank, and I've convinced a lot of my friends to stop considering the government as a means for solving their problems. And I've got almost all of them using bitcoin and/or precious metals.

One of the biggest problems is that it's almost all people my age and younger who listen. Our parents and older friends? Forget it. My dad voted for Ron Paul in the primary but now he's convinced that anyone who doesn't vote for Romney is a secret Muslim extremist. The hardest part has been for me to stop caring about my parents enough to try to convince them.

But anyway, my point is, there's always SOMETHING you can do to help make yourself and your neighbors more free. It doesn't make the frustration go away, but it takes the edge off sometimes.

2

Serious Business / How paranoid are you?

« on: October 15, 2012, 03:32:53 PM »

I recently had a scary brush with ID theft. Some cocksprocket broke into my brother's car where I had (stupidly) left my wallet on the front seat, took my license, social security card (which I had in a custom-made, hidden part of the wallet) and debit card. I never found the rest, but they left those items in the alley behind the house of someone who, thankfully, knows who I am. I got my debit card canceled before they got anything out of me.

But it made me really paranoid and I started looking into security for my electronic stuff. I encrypted everything, and now do just about all my online stuff involving finances with a VPN and TOR, a MAC address altering program, and use PGP to communicate a lot.

It was weird - I actually felt MORE secure once I got my debit card changed and before I started doing that stuff, but once I started I felt like I had to do it all. Now I'm equipped to have a completely anonymous online fingerprint if I wanted to (obviously I'm not doing that now - I have a Facebook and such), and I'm getting more and more worried that maybe I should, although I don't have a really good reason for it other than maybe the government will someday try to round up Ron Paul supporters or something.

Anyone else experiencing this or anything like it?

3

Serious Business / Re: Health scares.

« on: October 15, 2012, 03:17:27 PM »

Almost died from hypoglycemia because of an insulin overdose, three times. The third time it actually made me start being more responsible with my 'beetus management. I think the difference was that the first two times I was depressed and sort-of suicidal.

4

General / Re: Tobacco snobs unite!

« on: October 24, 2011, 02:47:25 PM »

That macenudo is probably gonna be interesting.  I might get a bottle of Bushmills to go with it.

I think Rocky Patel is my favorite brand overall, but I still say that Macenudo is the best price/quality compromise. Especially the Maduros. Strong but not harsh.

5

General / Re: Why are gay people so afraid of vaginas?

« on: August 13, 2011, 09:52:10 PM »

I dunno, Dale. I don't think vaginas are gross at all, and I just think penises are funny more than gross. As for anuses, as long as they've been washed recently I'm okay with them. But then, I've never actually had physical contact with a vagina, so it's really just the idea that I've evaluated rather than the thing itself.

6

General / Re: Ian gets 1 year in jail, all but 90 days suspended.

« on: August 10, 2011, 09:04:09 PM »

I wonder if some of the older, less often heard cohosts will show up while Ian's in the rape cage.

7

General / Re: The Annals of Ignominy

« on: August 10, 2011, 08:47:06 PM »

I've always wondered what it would be like to bang a female bodybuilder.

Seriously

I'd hesitate to bang anything of which I could wonder what it would be like.

8

General / Re: The Annals of Ignominy

« on: August 10, 2011, 08:45:49 PM »

Harold Camping

9

General / Re: Tobacco snobs unite!

« on: August 10, 2011, 08:38:50 PM »

There are much better cigars than the gas station variety that you can get for less than Cubans. See the recommendations in my last post.

10

General / Re: Liberty Graphics

« on: August 10, 2011, 07:22:12 PM »

Good idea. I had in mind to start a site like this, but I'm already maintaining two and working on a third.

EDIT: I just added a crapload.

11

General / Re: Ian gets 1 year in jail, all but 90 days suspended.

« on: August 10, 2011, 07:15:42 PM »

Damn. That really sucks. 

12

The Show / Re: Right on, Ian.

« on: August 10, 2011, 04:07:52 PM »

No, I got your point - it has to be presented palatably for normal people. I don't think there's a better way to do that than to say the problem is with the system rather than the people in it.

13

General / Re: Racism

« on: August 10, 2011, 12:07:31 PM »

But the point I am trying to make (as far as metaphysics goes) is that one cannot argue for biological causality without implying determinism, nor argue for choice without opening the issue of biological causality to question. And once that question is on the table, then I repeat my assertion that environment is a more likely cause than biology for group behavior. Nurture over nature, in short.

14

General / Re: Racism

« on: August 10, 2011, 11:37:03 AM »

So you are a determinist, then?

Did you just learn that word?  Don't label me motherfucker.

I didn't label you. I asked you a question. Your reaction was irrational and juvenile. That's telling, as well as amusing.

I said I don't fucking know and neither do you.  I sure as hell am not going to have a discussion about race and genetics that requires we take a human soul as a given.  Then we're not talking about What IS but What IF.

Of course we don't know. It's a matter of belief. Nor does this discussion require that we take such a thing as a given - but you have to take either one side or the other. Either take a monist position on the human mind, in which case there is no such thing as free choice (which is the only position that can consistently be taken by someone arguing for biological causality), or take a dualist position, which makes biology subordinate to the mind, and opens biological causality to question.

You've effectively already taken the former position. I'm just asking you to admit it.

More likely....  More fucking likely?  How can you use language like that but not admit, you don't know.  And if you don't know than why would you take any firm position other than "I don't know"  cuz motherfucker.... You don't know.

Wow, you're really desperate to keep your strawman erect here, aren't you? I NEVER said I knew. I only said that environment was a more likely cause than biology. But of course it's so hard to address my actual argument, isn't it?

So can biochemical reactions be subject to genetics?

Edited out your stuttering.

I already said they could, and if you were even the slightest bit interested in addressing my points you would have maybe quoted one of the times that I did so and addressed the argument I am actually making instead of deliberately misunderstanding me. But the latter is far more convenient, and race does seem to be a theory for the intellectually lazy, so I'm not surprised.

So....  you admit here that biological tendencies towards certain behaviors might exist.  You mean you don't know?  Why...  If you think biological tendencies might exist and agree that biological tendencies would be, if they exist, caused by genetics, would you EVER some around here talking about RACE DOES NOT EXIST and I'm so fucking sure of it I'm gonna run around telling people to stop using that word for any purpose whatsoever when you know that you don't fucking know.

Trying to parse your childishly emotional tirade here... and I THINK you're saying that admitting that biological tendencies towards certain behaviors exist is an admission that race exists.

It's not. As I have been saying all along, the theory of race asserts biological tendencies towards certain behaviors as the cause of cultural differences between peoples, whereas I have been maintaining that physical and cultural differences between peoples are parallel effects of environmental causes. And if you weren't so busy clinging to your misrepresentation of my argument, you might have noticed the fact.

I suspect you are deliberately misunderstanding my position at this point. The fact that you keep quoting me out of context and not addressing some rather important points I am making certainly doesn't indicate otherwise.

Can genetics affect behavior?  That's the ultimate disagreement here.

No it isn't. I have never claimed it hasn't. I have only claimed that (1) genetic causes for individual behavior do not, by themselves, constitute a theory of race, and (2) that genetic causes for behavior are less likely to effect things like evident intelligence and culture than environmental causes.

You don't answer my important questions either.

Which one? You mean the one that you're asking for the first time here about genetics affecting behavior, which after re-reading all of my posts I can definitively say I have never claimed to be false?

15

General / Re: Racism

« on: August 10, 2011, 12:49:18 AM »

Now we get to the meat of it.  All SOULS (or whatever the fuck you want to call it) are the same when detached from their bodies.  Ok sure, whatever if that makes you happy but don't ask me to agree with any of that shit you have no evidence whatsoever for.

So you are a determinist, then?

No....  we can never ever agree definitively that the human mind is anything but the human brain until you can prove otherwise.  It's interesting to me that you suggested there could be biological tendencies that would have to be overcome by the human mind.  HAHA YOU"RE A RACIST

I suspect you are deliberately misunderstanding my position at this point. The fact that you keep quoting me out of context and not addressing some rather important points I am making certainly doesn't indicate otherwise. I never once said that biological tendencies did not exist. I have only said that environment is more likely to effect certain behaviors than biology. Nurture rather than nature, in other words.

Furthermore, if biological tendencies towards certain behaviors do exist, but can be overcome, then they are NOT causal factors behind culture and society, and since race posits that they ARE, then someone who believes in the supremacy of mind over matter, so to speak, cannot be a racist.

But there is no proof that biology is the cause of any behavior. There is only a theory of nature over nurture - a theory just as unproven as its opposite. But as I previously demonstrated (and which you have yet even to challenge, much less refute) it is more likely that culture and biology are parallel effects of the same cause (environment), and that culture effects behavioral traits far more than biology does.

So ultimately, it gets down to whether or not people can choose (and hence be responsible for) their actions. Apparently, you say not. In which case, what's the point of arguing? It's not as if either of us chose our positions. It's just our respective genes that are making us take them, and essentially fooling us into thinking that we had anything whatsoever to do with it.