Re: Democracy
Well we will never agree, you've decided it was free so you conclude it was. You've asked how someone could control a decentralized anonymous market. I did tell you how which you did conflate with government intervention where I only said you just had to control the material supply chain, nowhere did I said anything about government. The thing is your free from anything except coercion market you like is bound to be subverted because we don't live in a care bear world proof is silkroad is closed. Don't tell me it is the fault of government... thing is it is closed. Regards Le 14 janv. 2015 01:00, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com a écrit : On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 8:18 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-01-13 16:24 GMT+01:00 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:14 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-01-12 18:01 GMT+01:00 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: Ok, I think we ended up deviating from the reason why I introduced the silk road theme. You argued that free markets are not possible, that force is necessary to prevent unethical agents from destroying the market. Alberto did to. You did not provide proof that it is possible and stable and no powerful agent would in fine control it. I don't see how I could prove such a thing -- or how anyone could proves such a thing about any system. What I offer is empirical evidence: yes it's possible. It existed and it exists again today. It's been stable for some years, even against a very hostile environment. Could a powerful agent gain control of a decentralised, global and anonymous market? I don't see how. Can you suggest a strategy? By being the only one able to provide the products... as it is the case with drugs such as cocaine and heroine... in the end you sell material goods who are not decentralised. So you're saying that a free market won't work because government intervention can kill it? The mafias are the only ones capable of providing some products because of prohibition, not because of the free market. I presented silk road as a counter-example. Due to its circumstances, the identity of its participants was unknown. It was unknown to governments and mafias (until the FBI finally figured out a way to crack this anonymity). There was not way to use force on silk road. Mafias could not prevent you from selling drugs there by physical violence, But mafias *used* it... the drug sold on silk road was not from a free market in the first place, it cannot be rendered free after... You're using the term free as if it were some mystical property like kosher or halal. A free market is simply free from regulation from a central authority, that's all. Then any illegal market is free... that's nonsensical. I said that an illegal market could be a free market, not that an illegal market implies a free market. Free means everyone has access to it and the same information available... that's barely the case with silkroad where only illegal goods mainly provided by markets controlled by mafia where available... The silk road is free from regulation. Any illegal market is free from regulation.. as they are illegal. Many illegal market are controlled by illegal central authorities. Anyone can participate, including mafias. If mafias couldn't participate, it wouldn't be a free market. Well I don't want a free market then... You should be free not to participate. because they had no way of discovering your identity. Still, silk road did not collapse under unethical sellers receiving payment for cannabis and sending packs of dried lawn grass instead. Why? Because the reputation system was enough. If you convince of that... Do you have any evidence to the contrary? How do you explain the enormous wealth that the creator of the market had amassed in commissions when he was arrested? Because every he got a tax on every illegal transactions, like a pimp... He provides an essential service that enables the market and charges a fee for it. He does not have the power to tax. If his fees become unreasonable, a competitor will takes his place. This is a crucial point that distinguishes his actions from taxation. The pimp is like the drug cartel: a side-effect of government interference in private transactions. Surely the thing would collapse quickly if people were being ripped off? Surely people who wanted to bough anonymously drugs while where they were it was difficult were happy sure... you can't go to the hypermart next door to buy cocaine... so what ? So bad behaviour is prevented solely individual self-interest. This is the entire reason why I brought this topic, to provide a counter-example to something you and Alberto claim to be impossible. That was the point. It has nothing to do with the origin of the drugs It does, because if the
RE: Do viruses make us smarter?
Interesting bit of news… makes one wonder to what extent viruses are involved actors in a co-evolutionary relationship with “us” and with our self-aware conscious mind? Who are we? Are we distinct organisms formed by cells containing human DNA or actually walking talking ecosystems that co-evolved together with a plethora of other micro-organisms and viruses? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150112093129.htm January 12, 2015 / Lund University Inherited viruses that are millions of years old play an important role in building up the complex networks that characterize the human brain, researchers say. They have found that retroviruses seem to play a central role in the basic functions of the brain, more specifically in the regulation of which genes are to be expressed, and when. [article: follow link] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Samiya Illias Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 2:43 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 2:48 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Samiya Illias Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2015 11:58 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 11:09 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR On 11 January 2015 at 15:50, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: When people criticise others' faiths, firstly it hurts others feeling making the criticism fall on deaf ears. When people criticise others' faiths, it's more than feelings that get hurt. Have you seen the cartoons… that went beyond criticizing or poking fun at someone else’s faith… the portrayal of the prophet (for those of that faith) is obscene, insulting, gratuitously degrading in overt sexual manner meant purely to offend. It has no redeeming quality to it. They published a stream of disgusting bigoted religious, ethnic and racial stereotypes; not just a single time – it was that papers bread and butter -- including such gems as a stereotypical portrayal of pregnant African woman (with exaggerated racially offensive features and fat post rape bellies) with the caption casually and cruelly calling them welfare mothers. That is just offensive to me, in the fucking extreme. It is pornographically ugly racist sexist hate speech to portray those underage victims like that – IMO. I defend their right of free speech in the same manner as I defend the right of the KKK or Nazi skinheads to march. Free speech is only free as long as it extends to even the most obnoxious hate groups (including the racist newspaper Charlie Hebdo)… Free speech extends to racists, fascists, sectarian, nationalist, and ethnocentric bigots. I abhor their message, yet support their right to speech *on principal* -- even though they would and are doing their best to take away my freedom of speech. But there is nothing noble or ennobling about Charlie Hebdo, or the hateful racist people who made a living producing and disseminating such racist filth and ethnic hatred. The person I feel sorry for is that poor on duty cop, who got wasted. For those who may not be following the news, please note that this cop was a Muslim, who gave his life defending the right of free speech of the people who were insulting the cop's religion. As for the editor and staff they got the Darwin Award as far as I am concerned. Fuck them, they were fucking racist assholes who did their best to make this world uglier and bring it down to their level. The Takfiri Salafist brainwashed assholes who did this are also exemplars of the same disease, coming from a different direction. Nor am I sad that they are dead either. I abhor and condemn their actions, and don’t think anybody should die for expressing their thoughts – even if those thoughts are repugnant racist crap like Charlie Hebdo excelled at sullying the earth with. But in the same breath, I find nothing, even remotely admirable in the ugly stereotyping ethnic hatred that was their staple fare. Nor do I mourn their loss, they did their level best to piss off 1.2 billion people on this planet and eventually some really pissed off violent crazies – from the group their hate speech targeted – took matters into their own murderous hands. It also would have been much preferable if the terrorists had been captured alive, so they could have been tried for their crimes like common criminals. -Chris Thank you Chris for your post -- appreciate it! Samiya – I grow weary of the selective nature of what can be and even more telling what *cannot* be mocked and satirized in our putatively free speech defending societies. There is a lot of deep seated hypocrisy in the West about European racism – IMO. When Westerners depict other ethnic groups using grotesque caricatures, this makes me queasy and uncomfortable, given the well know history of European racism, slavery, and genocide. All cultures (I am aware of) seem guilty of this practice – the practice of de-humanizing the identifiable others – but this cannot be cited as a defense of this practice. It would be like using the fact that other people commit murder as a defense for murder; just does not fly. This world of ours is sick enough as it is; we do not need to drag it any further down into
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/12/2015 8:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Atheism is a variant of christiniaty, because for non atheist non christian, God, like any term in a theory, is defined by axioms or semi-axioms indeed. I suppose by semi-axioms you mean definitions by description, like ground of all being or creator of the universe or that of which we cannot speak - which are used to define God by Christian theologians too. But I'll bet you $100 that if we pick a person at random who is neither a Christian nor an atheist and ask him if God refers to a superpowerful, immortal person who judges human behavior he'll say Yes. That stars weren't holes in the celestial sphere didn't mean stars didn't exist, it meant we had to update our conception of what stars are. That Earth wasn't flat didn't lead to people denying the existence of Earth or throwing out the word altogether, it meant we had to update our conception of the Earth to something more like a ball. Two people might both say they believe in Quantum Mechanics, but yet they might have very different ideas about what that means. Person A might mean they believe in the Everettian view, while Person B might believe in the Copenhagen view. Such it is with the concept of God. That some, or even most people's conception is faulty is not justification to throw out the term. It means only that there is room for progress to better approximate reality with our conception. Furthermore, the possibility for the same word to mean different things to different people make a word useless. As we see with the various interpretations of QM, there is common-root meaning, and minimum set of ideas commonly held ideas, even if they aren't exactly the same. You may find some particular tribe's conception of God to be ridiculous and unworthy of acceptance, but to reject the notion of God altogether on this account alone would be like rejecting the ground you walk on because flat-Earthers are mistaken about that ground's geometry. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 8:29 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 5:04 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: O'Brien knew that who controls language controls thought. So peace is war. Atheism is Christianity. And God is whatever you want it to mean. Bruno has a specific definition of God, He says he does, but when you probe a little deeper you find that he does not. In fact he has specifically said and I quote This is useful to realize that the question is god a person or a thing is an open problem.. So when Bruno talks about God he quite literately and by his own admission doesn't know what he's talking about. So I take it number theorists have no idea what they're talking about either, because the Goldbach conjecture is still an open problem in their field. Specific definition my ass. which is separate from all other definitions. He could have called it something else He could have but he won't. Why? Because he is in love with 3 little letters, O and G and D, although not necessarily in that order. maybe The One would be clearer, It wouldn't matter if he did because Bruno still couldn't not say I don't believe in God I am a atheist, the words would stick in his throat, I find that a lot of religious people are like that. What does atheist mean to you? That you reject the God of every religion or only that you reject the Abrahamic conception of God? At least answer this: Do you think there can be more than one possible definition for god? Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
I have to admit I have a hard time going with the idea of Platonism or mathematical constructs existing somewhere that no one can see or test. I sure can't rule it out, but I'd like to be able to know where it is. Where? You seem to assume a sort of geometry at the start, but with computationalism, geometry is among the emergent phenomena. Where does not apply to numbers, except in the large sense of being between two numbers, with the usual ordering (defined by x y if Ez(x+z = y)). All you need to believe in is that proposition like (786899543211 is prime or is not prime) is true independently of you and me. Of course by 786899543211, I mean the number denoted by this base ten description of a natural number. Are you OK with this? that type of assumption is weaker than the assumption most scientist are doing when using mathematics in their domain. The arithmetical platonism (realism) used in computationalism is the same amount than the one used in computer science, physics, etc. Roger: My view is that propositions like 786899543211 is prime or is not prime, 1+1=2, etc. are mental constructs/entities that exist in our minds (e.g., in our heads from my materialist point of view) in order to describe existent entities that exist outside the mind such as 786899543211 existent entities, an entity and another one next to it, respectively. Mathematics and arithmetic are mental constructs we've created to manipulate these outside the mind entities. When I say Please point out this Platonic realm, what I'm getting at is that I don't think propositions or anything else can exist somewhere that's not in the mind/head or in the physical universe outside the mind. Where else would such propositions exist? I'll need something more than just a statement affirming that where does not apply to numbers. This doesn't seem to be evidence. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On 1/13/2015 11:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/12/2015 8:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Atheism is a variant of christiniaty, because for non atheist non christian, God, like any term in a theory, is defined by axioms or semi-axioms indeed. I suppose by semi-axioms you mean definitions by description, like ground of all being or creator of the universe or that of which we cannot speak - which are used to define God by Christian theologians too. But I'll bet you $100 that if we pick a person at random who is neither a Christian nor an atheist and ask him if God refers to a superpowerful, immortal person who judges human behavior he'll say Yes. That stars weren't holes in the celestial sphere didn't mean stars didn't exist, it meant we had to update our conception of what stars are. That Earth wasn't flat didn't lead to people denying the existence of Earth or throwing out the word altogether, it meant we had to update our conception of the Earth to something more like a ball. Two people might both say they believe in Quantum Mechanics, but yet they might have very different ideas about what that means. Person A might mean they believe in the Everettian view, while Person B might believe in the Copenhagen view. Such it is with the concept of God. No it's not. As Bruno says God is defined by description. Stars are defined ostensively. That some, or even most people's conception is faulty is not justification to throw out the term. It means only that there is room for progress to better approximate reality with our conception. Furthermore, the possibility for the same word to mean different things to different people make a word useless. As we see with the various interpretations of QM, there is common-root meaning, and minimum set of ideas commonly held ideas, even if they aren't exactly the same. You may find some particular tribe's conception of God to be ridiculous and unworthy of acceptance, but to reject the notion of God altogether on this account alone would be like rejecting the ground you walk on because flat-Earthers are mistaken about that ground's geometry. I only reject the concept of God that I understand to be designated by the word God, and I've specifically explained that I understand the term to refer to a supernatural, powerful person who created the world and judges human behavior. Some people say God is love, Bruno says God is unprovable truths., Paul Tillich said God is whatever you value most. But just because somebody says Unicorns are rhinocereses doesn't mean I have to start believing unicorns exist, or that that when I say unicorns don't exist I'm denying the existence of rhinocereses. Brent Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On 1/13/2015 11:13 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 8:29 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 5:04 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: O'Brien knew that who controls language controls thought. So peace is war. Atheism is Christianity. And God is whatever you want it to mean. Bruno has a specific definition of God, He says he does, but when you probe a little deeper you find that he does not. In fact he has specifically said and I quote This is useful to realize that the question is god a person or a thing is an open problem.. So when Bruno talks about God he quite literately and by his own admission doesn't know what he's talking about. So I take it number theorists have no idea what they're talking about either, because the Goldbach conjecture is still an open problem in their field. Number theorists have a precise definition of the Goldbach conjecture and they have some axioms and rules of inference. So their uncertainty is mainly whether one leads to the other. However, it might turn out that they don't know what they're talking about; it might turn out that the Goldbach conjecture is undecidable and that it can be added as an axiom or it's negation can be added as an axiom. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
cannabis permit the access to repressed UDA computations although not as much as salvia. So better build your car with cannabis and don't drive salvified 2015-01-12 18:23 GMT+01:00 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com: 2015-01-12 18:20 GMT+01:00 Platonist Guitar Cowboy multiplecit...@gmail.com: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 5:39 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Ok, then fine, believe what you want to believe and cannabis is as good as anything... With your type of reasoning you should conclude alcoholism does not exist and only prohibitionist pretend it does... I disagree with such bombastic statement. Alcohol is dangerous, so is cannabis, so are windows, depending on particularities. But relative to other poison, cannabis is relatively safe. Also, what is my type of reasoning and how does this relate to this discussion? Your type of reasoning is simply denying a lot of studies with correlation between depression and heavy cannabis usage as being prohibitionist propaganda... as such my bombastic statement is the same... alcoholism does not exist, it is prohibitionist propaganda... and you can link all the studies you want, they're all financed and done with a prohibitionist agenda... any persons who pretend to be an alcoholic and that alcohol has affected is life is a liar... and should have gone to a psychiatrist.. am I resuming it well ? Quentin PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 1:54 PM Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On 12 January 2015 at 14:46, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: I believe the wise way to evaluate whether something is funny or not; whether it is satire or just a slur is to see how members of target feel when exposed to it. If a person of color feels insulted by some cartoon, a white person does not have the right to say that it’s just all in his head and that only a fool would see it in any other way. Wise words. Someone who insults someone else then expects them to laugh at themselves is known as a playground bully, pure and simple. Seeing the imagery of those cartoons I really don’t think that anyone would be able to find a lot of French of Arab or African descent laughing along with the “ironic intent”; rather more likely that they would feel humiliated, insulted, and certainly *unwelcome* I certainly felt a bit queasy from the two supplied, but I don't consider myself able to judge, especially with my very limited French. By that metric, by the metric of the effect those cartoons had on the targets of its “irony” the merit and intent of that published work should be judged. Perhaps this is a uniquely American view and sensitivity not shared in Europe, but it is a necessary behavior in order for any multicultural/multi-racial/multi-sectarian/multi-ethnic society to work. Certainly not uniquely American. Indeed America has a reputation of being culturally insensitive, of thinking that its own viewpoint is the only right one. Not all Americans of course but that's the impression one gets from outside, from simple things like Bill Gates pretending that there is a difference between UK English and New Zealand English to invading countries to enforce democracy it's all cultural imperialism to the non-American. Point taken. The USA is a boorish super power that throws its weight around the world stage -- just as other dominant powers have done during their heyday. And yeah there is a grain of truth in the stereotype of the Ugly American. What happened to the Golden Rule? It got left in the Golden Age? No, seriously, I don't know what you mean here, is this a do unto others thing? Yes it helps us be, at least a little, human to each other.-Chris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
From: Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 10:43 AM Subject: Re: Democracy cannabis permit the access to repressed UDA computations although not as much as salvia. So better build your car with cannabis and don't drive salvified And you would know... how?-Chris 2015-01-12 18:23 GMT+01:00 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com: 2015-01-12 18:20 GMT+01:00 Platonist Guitar Cowboy multiplecit...@gmail.com: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 5:39 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Ok, then fine, believe what you want to believe and cannabis is as good as anything... With your type of reasoning you should conclude alcoholism does not exist and only prohibitionist pretend it does... I disagree with such bombastic statement. Alcohol is dangerous, so is cannabis, so are windows, depending on particularities. But relative to other poison, cannabis is relatively safe. Also, what is my type of reasoning and how does this relate to this discussion? Your type of reasoning is simply denying a lot of studies with correlation between depression and heavy cannabis usage as being prohibitionist propaganda... as such my bombastic statement is the same... alcoholism does not exist, it is prohibitionist propaganda... and you can link all the studies you want, they're all financed and done with a prohibitionist agenda... any persons who pretend to be an alcoholic and that alcohol has affected is life is a liar... and should have gone to a psychiatrist.. am I resuming it well ? Quentin PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Alberto.-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
2015-01-13 16:24 GMT+01:00 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:14 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-01-12 18:01 GMT+01:00 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: Ok, I think we ended up deviating from the reason why I introduced the silk road theme. You argued that free markets are not possible, that force is necessary to prevent unethical agents from destroying the market. Alberto did to. You did not provide proof that it is possible and stable and no powerful agent would in fine control it. I don't see how I could prove such a thing -- or how anyone could proves such a thing about any system. What I offer is empirical evidence: yes it's possible. It existed and it exists again today. It's been stable for some years, even against a very hostile environment. Could a powerful agent gain control of a decentralised, global and anonymous market? I don't see how. Can you suggest a strategy? By being the only one able to provide the products... as it is the case with drugs such as cocaine and heroine... in the end you sell material goods who are not decentralised. I presented silk road as a counter-example. Due to its circumstances, the identity of its participants was unknown. It was unknown to governments and mafias (until the FBI finally figured out a way to crack this anonymity). There was not way to use force on silk road. Mafias could not prevent you from selling drugs there by physical violence, But mafias *used* it... the drug sold on silk road was not from a free market in the first place, it cannot be rendered free after... You're using the term free as if it were some mystical property like kosher or halal. A free market is simply free from regulation from a central authority, that's all. Then any illegal market is free... that's nonsensical. Free means everyone has access to it and the same information available... that's barely the case with silkroad where only illegal goods mainly provided by markets controlled by mafia where available... The silk road is free from regulation. Any illegal market is free from regulation.. as they are illegal. Anyone can participate, including mafias. If mafias couldn't participate, it wouldn't be a free market. Well I don't want a free market then... because they had no way of discovering your identity. Still, silk road did not collapse under unethical sellers receiving payment for cannabis and sending packs of dried lawn grass instead. Why? Because the reputation system was enough. If you convince of that... Do you have any evidence to the contrary? How do you explain the enormous wealth that the creator of the market had amassed in commissions when he was arrested? Because every he got a tax on every illegal transactions, like a pimp... Surely the thing would collapse quickly if people were being ripped off? Surely people who wanted to bough anonymously drugs while where they were it was difficult were happy sure... you can't go to the hypermart next door to buy cocaine... so what ? That was the point. It has nothing to do with the origin of the drugs It does, because if the origin is a controlled non-free market, the enduser market cannot be a free market... do you deny this ? Only if the participants in the upstream market are prevented from sourcing their wares elsewhere. Could you give me an adress where cocaine and heroine are harvested and transformed in a free environment and where I can buy it being sure all the chain was free from coercion ? This is not the case with silk road. Even if it's impractical to escape the mafias with things like cocaine and heroin, there are many other classes of drugs that can and are trivially produced and sold on silk road. So you have proof those drugs where being manufactured free from any coercion ? do you ? We've been through this, you just refute it with arguments from authority. I don't, you claim something extraordinary, you have to give evidence of your claim. Yet it is trivially true. A lot of people admit to growing cannabis in their homes, for example, and it is now legal in several parts of the world. A lot of people grow cannabis for their personal use, not a lot of people at all are dealer of cannabis... and all the dealers I've ever approached to buy cannabis, where not growing it themselves... Only where cannabis is *legalized* such thing could be true and verified it was free from coercion... any illegal market is bound to be controlled at least with how the products are available to it... or on weather they are bad or good for you. I don't care also, and this is not part of the argument... also I find it odd to call me a prohibitionist when I explitely says I'm against prohibition... but it's not because of that that everything is good and canabis could be sold like chocolate bar in a supermarket. I did not call you a
Re: Democracy
On 1/13/2015 7:34 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Really? On this list? Where? I read criticism of the NSA, of Obama, of U.S. foreign policy everywhere. There's a whole industry built around it on radio. That sort of criticism is innocuous and everyone knows it. The powerful are not threatened by that sort of stuff. They probably even like it, it only reinforces the two-party system. What they are threatened is by people openly discussing experiences with things that the social norms forbid. This guarantees, especially for political candidates, that only the most bland social-norm-abiding candidates will ever make it to power. And thus we are dead-locked into total conformity. So in what way are you forced to conform? Do you want to have sex with sheep? Do you want to shoot up heroin? Do you want print your own money? Do you want to own a machine gun? I know email lists where all those things are discussed. There is no loss of freedom if you are merely forbidden to do something you never wanted to do anyway? Of course political candidates are bland and social-norm-abiding. What would you expect in a democracy? Are you hoping for Le Pen or Emerson or some new Hitler? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 8:42 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/13/2015 7:34 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Really? On this list? Where? I read criticism of the NSA, of Obama, of U.S. foreign policy everywhere. There's a whole industry built around it on radio. That sort of criticism is innocuous and everyone knows it. The powerful are not threatened by that sort of stuff. They probably even like it, it only reinforces the two-party system. What they are threatened is by people openly discussing experiences with things that the social norms forbid. This guarantees, especially for political candidates, that only the most bland social-norm-abiding candidates will ever make it to power. And thus we are dead-locked into total conformity. So in what way are you forced to conform? Do you want to have sex with sheep? Do you want to shoot up heroin? Do you want print your own money? Do you want to own a machine gun? I know email lists where all those things are discussed. There is no loss of freedom if you are merely forbidden to do something you never wanted to do anyway? Of course political candidates are bland and social-norm-abiding. What would you expect in a democracy? Are you hoping for Le Pen or Emerson or some new Hitler? I'd appreciate a link to sex with sheep list. Not for personal but for scientific reasons. For example, to find out: Do Le Pen, Emerson, or Hitler frequent such list? Are there more Christian or Muslims participating? The distribution of Plato and Aristotle theologies on that list, like is the sheep immaterial or primitively physical etc. Pressing questions. The world needs to know. We can't hide from the truth forever. PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 4:19 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 12 Jan 2015, at 16:55, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: But if you don't want to believe it... fine. What I say is that I'm relieve to be an ex canabis addict, and that over usage didn't help me at all and certainly if not the cause did enhance the problem... do what you want with that. I will: your history is not 3p fact. You pretend it is and base statements concerning nature of global prohibition on this, for which you repeatedly deliver no evidence. Mafia does not conclusively include the diverse and complex mechanisms of how people extract profit from prohibition. Gangster might, but this is so general it is worthless, except maybe in pub conversation. The studies you cite are based on authority of mental health prohibitionists who have financial interest to control psychoactive study and debunked correlation: their job security. You appear naive on the effect of prohibition here. Old news/propaganda. So yes, you appear to use prohibitionist type argument and their science. PGC Actually, the papers you find by google on depression and cannabis are not that bad: the one i read all conclude that their sample are not big enough to conclude anything. Psychiatrist and mental health sector do not consider Cannabis for PTSD as treatment possibility for example. If for every 50 studies made on correlation with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia etc. there was one made on checking for effectivity in PTSD treatment or for effects of various methods of vaporization... then you can begin to convince me on this. But the state of affairs with prescription medication system on which psychiatry rests, wherein we treat with medications far more dangerous than cannabis routinely, does not convince me that raising these type of correlation questions to stigmatized conditions (depression, anxiety etc.) is innocent scientific questioning. This is begging on institutional level, benefiting more the psychiatrists' publication history and their expensive treatment models, than anything else. If not, then where are the studies on psychiatric benefits of Cannabis and the medical institutions prescribing them? There is a lot of power in merely posing the question; even when sample size is insufficient for conclusion. Who cares, the headline is made? I do, so I fund efforts to conduct that research. There is red tape everywhere in this process and such studies do more harm than good. PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?
On 1/13/2015 2:03 PM, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 5:07 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: The question is better phrased as why does anything exist? But that question is logically equivalent to why doesn't nothing exist?, and the answer is that if it did't then nothing exists and so something does. Logic says something must exist or you have a contradiction, but where logic came from I don't know. Logic was invented to avoid self-contradictions in language. If you say X and not-X you will fail to say anything so it's considered good to avoid it...except when X is claimed to be an attributed of God. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Do viruses make us smarter?
It has long been accepted that mitochondria were once separate organisms that were incorporated into eukaryotic cells. They have their own DNA. So incorporating some retrovirus that is regulated by the cell DNA is not far fetched. Brent On 1/13/2015 10:35 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: Interesting bit of news… makes one wonder to what extent viruses are involved actors in a co-evolutionary relationship with “us” and with our self-aware conscious mind? Who are we? Are we distinct organisms formed by cells containing human DNA or actually walking talking ecosystems that co-evolved together with a plethora of other micro-organisms and viruses? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150112093129.htm *//* January 12, 2015 / Lund University *//* Inherited viruses that are millions of years old play an important role in building up the complex networks that characterize the human brain, researchers say. They have found that retroviruses seem to play a central role in the basic functions of the brain, more specifically in the regulation of which genes are to be expressed, and when. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Do viruses make us smarter?
From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
It has long been accepted that mitochondria were once separate organisms that
were incorporated into eukaryotic cells. They have their own DNA. So
incorporating some retrovirus that is regulated by the cell DNA is not far
fetched.
Yes... and don't forget about those Chloroplasts (for plants at least). The
thing that I find interesting is the role this retrovirus seemingly has in the
regulation of which genes are to be expressed, and when. Their results suggest
that, over the course of evolution, the viruses took an increasingly firm hold
on the steering wheel in our cellular machinery. If these findings are
confirmed and the fine structure's in our brain result from a process that has
a key non-human (DNA) actor involved in important regulatory functions.. this
is interesting.It's news to me.-Chris
Brent
On 1/13/2015 10:35 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
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{}#yiv5639490831 Interesting bit of news… makes one wonder to what extent
viruses are involved actors in a co-evolutionary relationship with “us” and
with our self-aware conscious mind? Who are we? Are we distinct organisms
formed by cells containing human DNA or actually walking talking ecosystems
that co-evolved together with a plethora of other micro-organisms and viruses?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150112093129.htm January 12,
2015 / Lund University Inherited viruses that are millions of years old
play an important role in building up the complex networks that characterize
the human brain, researchers say. They have found that retroviruses seem to
play a central role in the basic functions of the brain, more specifically in
the regulation of which genes are to be expressed, and when.
--
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On 12 Jan 2015, at 20:28, meekerdb wrote: On 1/12/2015 5:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Like universe meant a tortoise on the top of another tortoise, except that in the field of theology, the corresponding tortoise has been made into a dogma. And evidence came to change that meaning. Like evidence, or theoretical consideration can change the meaning of any terms used, including God. If someone now wrote using universe to mean a tortoise on the top of another tortoise he would be thought either crazy or guilty of deliberate obfuscation. Yes, and when religion is imposed to people: it means deliberate obfuscation. The God of the abramanic religion is closer to the god of plotinus than most people thought. They have just added the fairy tales, which is usually not believed by the kind of people interested in science and having enough maturity. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On 12 Jan 2015, at 17:46, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2015-01-12 17:32 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: On 12 Jan 2015, at 08:27, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2015 10:52 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On 1/11/2015 8:05 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of meekerdb On 1/11/2015 6:39 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: Once Bruno explained to me how he intends the term god when he uses it I understood his intent. Clearly he is not connoting some biblical deity when he uses the term. While it may be a continuous source of confusion for him as others who are unfamiliar with his meaning of god, encounter his usage of it; it is his prerogative to decide to use that term. That's how O'Brien explains it to Winston Smith. Come on now... how does an allusion to George Orwell’s 1984 enter into this? O'Brien knew that who controls language controls thought. So peace is war. Atheism is Christianity. And God is whatever you want it to mean. Okay at least I know you are not comparing Bruno or myself to O’Brien… whew J I don’t think Bruno (or me for sure) is trying to say that God is whatever “you” says it means. He uses it in a fairly precise and defined manner, that has a historic tail to it as well, which is distinct and different from “whatever you want it to mean”. Thanks Chris. Jason also did send a nice post summing all the uses of the term God, but atheists seem to disagree on this. Atheists seems to insist that God means only what the christians mean by it, and nothing else. But with your way of defining it, it means anything... you can't and never be able to say I do not believe in god... because you could always find a meaning that suits you... the problem with that approach is that you're simply misunderstood... because if you say so to a christian/muslim/... believer, he will understand the one god you say is a fairy tale... and so you cannot communicate... So if everytime when you say I believe in god you have to describe exactly what you mean by it... what's the point of saying god ? The point is mainly to avoid the boring God/Non-God debate, which usually assumes the Aristotelian theology. A more general definition of God is needed for not imposing theological or metaphysical assumptions at the start. We can define God by the the big thing from which all the rest follows, and then inquire of what that God can be. A person? A physical Universe, a mathematical reality, etc. It is simpler to consider that we all believe in some God, but disagree on its nature. We can discuss the nature of God. It might be the creation (a primitively material universe), like for many materialist atheists, or a personal creator like with the abrahamanic religions. Or it can be a universal dreamer, or arithmetical truth, or a more complex mathematical reality, etc. As we don't know the answer in advance, this way of proceeding works for a larger public. All believers (including atheists believing in a physical universe) agrees with such large definition. Then, proceeding from some hypothesis, like computationalism, we can better circumscribe the possibilities, and compare with different theologies. I use the same meaning of god as the one used by philosophers, comparative theologians, the ancient greeks, etc. Note that usually, I don't use the word god at all, and have use it in this list because others have use it. If I use a more specific word, like Allah, or Tao, or One, ... people are more easily inclined to believe that I defend a special religion (muslim, taoism, plotinism, etc.). Then with computationalism, we recover quickly many propositions already accepted by numerous religion, like God has no description, God is not finite, using God in an argument is not valid, etc. Bruno Regards, Quentin I guess they need that notion, for atheism making sense. That would explain why they slip from no fairy tales to no theology at all. Of course, this forces a status quo in theology, preventing any progress in the field. Bruno -Chris Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On 12 Jan 2015, at 22:39, meekerdb wrote: On 1/12/2015 8:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Atheism is a variant of christiniaty, because for non atheist non christian, God, like any term in a theory, is defined by axioms or semi-axioms indeed. I suppose by semi-axioms you mean definitions by description, like ground of all being or creator of the universe or that of which we cannot speak - which are used to define God by Christian theologians too. But I'll bet you $100 that if we pick a person at random who is neither a Christian nor an atheist and ask him if God refers to a superpowerful, immortal person who judges human behavior he'll say Yes. If you pick a random person and asks her some principle of mechanics, they are usually wrong on this. That's my point, if we allow to reason in the field of theology, we get counter-intuitive definitions and results. That's science. Very often, the people are wrong, and doubly so, when the domain is still in the hand of non academical authoritarianist authorities, and this since centuries. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On 13 Jan 2015, at 05:12, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Platonist Guitar Cowboy Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 7:39 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 4:14 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: The world does not need another large scale war in the middle east; there are powerful forces that want that war however. Now talking – once again as they always do in times like these -- in Manichean terms about a clash of civilizations, and lining up support for the next major war. War is business; and these people mean business. I agree. There is no clash of civilization going on. In fact, it just seems that the second WAR is not finished, and it opposes Nazi (christians and muslims) and good willing people (christians and muslims). In this case, the nazis are infiltrated by many special criminal interests, which explains why we side with them and those who finance them; like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?
The question is better phrased as why does anything exist? That avoids 50 shades of nothing, or whatever it is you're worried about. So far the only coherent suggestion is that some things must logically exist, or at least be true, like 1+1=2, and that everything else can be leveraged from that. If anyone has any better ideas for why anything exists, please let me know. On 13 January 2015 at 17:16, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 10:27 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Empty space still, in some sense, contains the laws of physics.[...] the question that we're attempting to answer is, how can *anything* have come to exist? Well, there is *NOTHING *and then there is *nothing. * Some on this list are wasting their time trying to figure out how a nothing that is so full of nothing that it doesn't even have the *potential* to make something can produce something. I'll tell you how that works as soon as you tell me how a black that is so black it can never become white can become white. You could say that absolute nothing, not one thing exists, is a logical contradiction because then nothing can't exist and so something must exist. But that assumes the existence of logic, where did that come from? So people need to prove how something that can't produce something can produce something, and they need to prove it without using logic. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 2:48 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: *From:* everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto: everything-list@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Samiya Illias *Sent:* Saturday, January 10, 2015 11:58 PM *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 11:09 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: *From:* everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto: everything-list@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *LizR On 11 January 2015 at 15:50, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: When people criticise others' faiths, firstly it hurts others feeling making the criticism fall on deaf ears. When people criticise others' faiths, it's more than feelings that get hurt. Have you seen the cartoons… that went beyond criticizing or poking fun at someone else’s faith… the portrayal of the prophet (for those of that faith) is obscene, insulting, gratuitously degrading in overt sexual manner meant purely to offend. It has no redeeming quality to it. They published a stream of disgusting bigoted religious, ethnic and racial stereotypes; not just a single time – it was that papers bread and butter -- including such gems as a stereotypical portrayal of pregnant African woman (with exaggerated racially offensive features and fat post rape bellies) with the caption casually and cruelly calling them welfare mothers. That is just offensive to me, in the fucking extreme. It is pornographically ugly racist sexist hate speech to portray those underage victims like that – IMO. I defend their right of free speech in the same manner as I defend the right of the KKK or Nazi skinheads to march. Free speech is only free as long as it extends to even the most obnoxious hate groups (including the racist newspaper Charlie Hebdo)… Free speech extends to racists, fascists, sectarian, nationalist, and ethnocentric bigots. I abhor their message, yet support their right to speech **on principal** -- even though they would and are doing their best to take away my freedom of speech. But there is nothing noble or ennobling about Charlie Hebdo, or the hateful racist people who made a living producing and disseminating such racist filth and ethnic hatred. The person I feel sorry for is that poor on duty cop, who got wasted. For those who may not be following the news, please note that this cop was a Muslim, who gave his life defending the right of free speech of the people who were insulting the cop's religion. As for the editor and staff they got the Darwin Award as far as I am concerned. Fuck them, they were fucking racist assholes who did their best to make this world uglier and bring it down to their level. The Takfiri Salafist brainwashed assholes who did this are also exemplars of the same disease, coming from a different direction. Nor am I sad that they are dead either. I abhor and condemn their actions, and don’t think anybody should die for expressing their thoughts – even if those thoughts are repugnant racist crap like Charlie Hebdo excelled at sullying the earth with. But in the same breath, I find nothing, even remotely admirable in the ugly stereotyping ethnic hatred that was their staple fare. Nor do I mourn their loss, they did their level best to piss off 1.2 billion people on this planet and eventually some really pissed off violent crazies – from the group their hate speech targeted – took matters into their own murderous hands. It also would have been much preferable if the terrorists had been captured alive, so they could have been tried for their crimes like common criminals. -Chris Thank you Chris for your post -- appreciate it! Samiya – I grow weary of the selective nature of what can be and even more telling what **cannot** be mocked and satirized in our putatively free speech defending societies. There is a lot of deep seated hypocrisy in the West about European racism – IMO. When Westerners depict other ethnic groups using grotesque caricatures, this makes me queasy and uncomfortable, given the well know history of European racism, slavery, and genocide. All cultures (I am aware of) seem guilty of this practice – the practice of de-humanizing the identifiable others – but this cannot be cited as a defense of this practice. It would be like using the fact that other people commit murder as a defense for murder; just does not fly. This world of ours is sick enough as it is; we do not need to drag it any further down into the gutter of ethnic and sectarian hatred than it already has been dragged down into. Our world seems increasingly ruled by the lowest vibrations of mutual hatred; mutual misunderstanding; mutual de-humanization. We are all of us, brothers and sisters, we forget this
Re: Democracy
On 12 Jan 2015, at 16:55, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: But if you don't want to believe it... fine. What I say is that I'm relieve to be an ex canabis addict, and that over usage didn't help me at all and certainly if not the cause did enhance the problem... do what you want with that. I will: your history is not 3p fact. You pretend it is and base statements concerning nature of global prohibition on this, for which you repeatedly deliver no evidence. Mafia does not conclusively include the diverse and complex mechanisms of how people extract profit from prohibition. Gangster might, but this is so general it is worthless, except maybe in pub conversation. The studies you cite are based on authority of mental health prohibitionists who have financial interest to control psychoactive study and debunked correlation: their job security. You appear naive on the effect of prohibition here. Old news/propaganda. So yes, you appear to use prohibitionist type argument and their science. PGC Actually, the papers you find by google on depression and cannabis are not that bad: the one i read all conclude that their sample are not big enough to conclude anything. Now, by experience, I know that some people can abuse cannabis, but that fact is aggravated by the prohibition (I think Quentin already agreed on this). All medication can be abused, and there are very good medications to cure addiction, when they are not made illegal 'course. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On 13 Jan 2015, at 05:29, 'Roger' via Everything List wrote: Bruno, Hi. I'd like to propose that we get back to the subject of discussing our ideas on how the universe works, why it's here, etc., And if there is one. Normally, we already have debated that if there is no magic operating in the brain (another way to assume computationalism, once we assume Church-Turing thesis), then the physical universe is a first person plural sort of hallucination, and we must derived the laws of physics from the laws of thought (Boole and Boolos, say). Roger: Even if the universe is a hallucination, purely based on thought, or a computer simulation, where does the hallucination, thought, or computer come from in the first place. It comes from the relations which exist among the natural numbers. You can even restrain the relations to the one which provably exist in simple Turing-universal theories. Then we can explain, indeed all machines can explain, why it is impossible to explain the existence of a Turing-universal system, without assuming a Turing-universal system, so we have to assume at least one of them. I assume arithmetic, because it is the one which everyone is familiarized to, by high school studies. (Since the failure of logicism, we know that we cannot derived the numbers from logic alone). I have to admit I have a hard time going with the idea of Platonism or mathematical constructs existing somewhere that no one can see or test. I sure can't rule it out, but I'd like to be able to know where it is. Where? You seem to assume a sort of geometry at the start, but with computationalism, geometry is among the emergent phenomena. Where does not apply to numbers, except in the large sense of being between two numbers, with the usual ordering (defined by x y if Ez(x +z = y)). All you need to believe in is that proposition like (786899543211 is prime or is not prime) is true independently of you and me. Of course by 786899543211, I mean the number denoted by this base ten description of a natural number. Are you OK with this? that type of assumption is weaker than the assumption most scientist are doing when using mathematics in their domain. The arithmetical platonism (realism) used in computationalism is the same amount than the one used in computer science, physics, etc. To start, I'd like to propose the following: We all have different views on the question Why there is something rather than nothing?, if that question even has value, how the universe works, etc. I think it's safe to say that, unless you're an academic, our ideas are also routinely ignored, criticized and made fun of by academics. Not really. I defended a thesis in mathematics, on the neceesary mininal common (to all machines) amount of theology, and got no problem in academies, except for some rare one, known for defending religious conviction (usually of the atheists type). Those just ignore facts, proofs, and argument, and I have been unable to ever met them. But most academicians don't take them seriously, despite some bad local influence they have on the media. Roger: Well, I admit not all academics make fun of amateurs, but a lot do. I'm happy that you've had better luck than me. I've had a few very nice academics give constructive feedback and comments, but they are few and far between. - I suggest you read my paper sane04 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html Roger: I'll look this up tonight. Thanks! You are welcome. Don't hesitate to ask any question, or make any critics. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:14 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-01-12 18:01 GMT+01:00 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: Ok, I think we ended up deviating from the reason why I introduced the silk road theme. You argued that free markets are not possible, that force is necessary to prevent unethical agents from destroying the market. Alberto did to. You did not provide proof that it is possible and stable and no powerful agent would in fine control it. I don't see how I could prove such a thing -- or how anyone could proves such a thing about any system. What I offer is empirical evidence: yes it's possible. It existed and it exists again today. It's been stable for some years, even against a very hostile environment. Could a powerful agent gain control of a decentralised, global and anonymous market? I don't see how. Can you suggest a strategy? I presented silk road as a counter-example. Due to its circumstances, the identity of its participants was unknown. It was unknown to governments and mafias (until the FBI finally figured out a way to crack this anonymity). There was not way to use force on silk road. Mafias could not prevent you from selling drugs there by physical violence, But mafias *used* it... the drug sold on silk road was not from a free market in the first place, it cannot be rendered free after... You're using the term free as if it were some mystical property like kosher or halal. A free market is simply free from regulation from a central authority, that's all. The silk road is free from regulation. Anyone can participate, including mafias. If mafias couldn't participate, it wouldn't be a free market. because they had no way of discovering your identity. Still, silk road did not collapse under unethical sellers receiving payment for cannabis and sending packs of dried lawn grass instead. Why? Because the reputation system was enough. If you convince of that... Do you have any evidence to the contrary? How do you explain the enormous wealth that the creator of the market had amassed in commissions when he was arrested? Surely the thing would collapse quickly if people were being ripped off? That was the point. It has nothing to do with the origin of the drugs It does, because if the origin is a controlled non-free market, the enduser market cannot be a free market... do you deny this ? Only if the participants in the upstream market are prevented from sourcing their wares elsewhere. This is not the case with silk road. Even if it's impractical to escape the mafias with things like cocaine and heroin, there are many other classes of drugs that can and are trivially produced and sold on silk road. We've been through this, you just refute it with arguments from authority. Yet it is trivially true. A lot of people admit to growing cannabis in their homes, for example, and it is now legal in several parts of the world. or on weather they are bad or good for you. I don't care also, and this is not part of the argument... also I find it odd to call me a prohibitionist when I explitely says I'm against prohibition... but it's not because of that that everything is good and canabis could be sold like chocolate bar in a supermarket. I did not call you a prohibitionist, nor did I attack or defend the merits of cannabis or any other drug. I entered this discussion purely to give an example on how reputation-based markets can replace force. These things are irrelevant to the argument I was making. Still I didn't see how silkroad which was an illegal market, with product coming for the large part from illegal controlled market, could be free at all ! It depends on what you mean by free. For the purpose of my argument it's free enough -- nobody can prevent you from selling or buying there, not even the mafias. which was prohibited and owner by mafias market... Are you implying you can *ḧere and now* sell cocaine and heroine without resorting with the various mafias ? That's what you're saying ? How the hell do you suppose dealers had drugs in the first place ? I'm not an expert by any means, but I can speculate. Some drugs like cocaine or heroin require plants that can only be grown in specific geographic regions, so it's likely that mafias control those supply chains. But other drugs can be grown in people's houses, synthesised by amateur chemists, legally bought with a prescription, geo-arbitrated (drug laws vary a lot across the world) etc etc. Yeah, yeah, silk road was provided with drug with chemist apprentice in their garage... you got better joke ? It's ok that you don't know certain things, my knowledge has gigantic gaps too. What I don't understand is why you embarrass yourself without at least googling a bit. https://www.google.com/search?q=amphetamine+lab+arrests Yeah and so these lab are not done under mafias controls ? you're joking
Re: Democracy
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 7:13 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/12/2015 2:23 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 11:00 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/11/2015 12:27 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 7:14 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/10/2015 12:54 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 7:19 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/10/2015 2:00 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 12:24 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/9/2015 3:11 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: -- *From:* meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net meeke...@verizon.net *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Sent:* Friday, January 9, 2015 2:45 PM *Subject:* Re: Democracy On 1/9/2015 1:08 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: -- *From:* meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net meeke...@verizon.net *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Sent:* Friday, January 9, 2015 12:25 PM *Subject:* Re: Democracy On 1/9/2015 4:55 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Money becomes coercive under statism, because it becomes illegal to use alternative currencies, operate outside of the banking and taxation system and so on. Banks used to issue their own script and in principle anyone could do it. The trouble with anarcho-capitalism is that there's nothing to prevent a group from organizing, forming a government, raising an army a conquering people around them. In fact that's exactly the arc of history. If you want anarchy you can go to Syria or Somalia right now. What you describe is not the political philosophy of anarchy; what you describe is life under warlords, and the susceptibility of anarchy to such organized groups of thugs. Functioning anarchy would require a level of individual ethics that does not yet exist (or at least is not widespread). Anarchy is vulnerable to being destroyed by thuggery and mayhem; no doubt about that; however it should not be confused with that heartless outcome. Every form of government will work well with perfect people. That is side-stepping the point that some forms of social organization require a much higher degree of civic involvement than others do. Exactly, and anarchy that functions as well as constitutionally limited democracy would require angels. This overestimates the importance of things written in a piece of paper and underestimates the importance of social norms, culture and education. The reason why I don't go and loot my neighbours is not because a piece of paper says I can't, or even because I am afraid of the police. Remove this too things and I still wouldn't do it. I suspect everyone participating in this discussion is the same. Why? On the other hand, the Weimar constitution was powerless to stop the nazis, and the American constitution appears powerless to stop the NSA. And I think you underestimate it. It is something any citizen can point to as a norm. Notice that everyone who complains about the NSA's invasion of privacy cites the Constitution as evidence their complaint is justified. That is true, but it's far from the only argument. Now my question is: do you figure that people think that invasion of privacy without a warrant is wrong think that because of what the constitution says, or do you figure invasion of privacy offends their sense of morality and then they look for arguments to justify their position and find the constitution? That's a good question, and the answer supports my point. When you poll people and ask if they think it's right to wiretap people suspected of plotting crimes the majority say yes. So in a way the Constitution informs and bolsters people's understanding of the importance of freedom from government surveillance. If they were just morally offended by surveillance then they would be equally exercised about ATT, Google, Time-Warner, Verizon, and a dozen other corporate organizations that spy on them. But because they know the Constitution forbids the government from doing it they are much MORE offended when the government does it. Without it they would have to give a long argument based the prior abuses that the founding fathers used to to support the right to privacy. This would be a good argument had the Constitution actually succeeded in preventing total surveillance from the government on its own people. But it didn't. But it did. The NSA is only allowed to track who-calls-who, not what is said. Unfortunately, after Snowden we know better. No, we don't. First, while I approve of Snowden I don't think he *knows* everything attributed to him. I'm referring to information contained in the internal presentation that he leaked. Are you unsure about the authenticity of these presentations? One of the important tricks here is
Re: Democracy
On 1/13/2015 7:24 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: You're using the term free as if it were some mystical property like kosher or halal. A free market is simply free from regulation from a central authority, that's all. The silk road is free from regulation. Anyone can participate, including mafias. If mafias couldn't participate, it wouldn't be a free market. The trouble with the idea of a free market, meaning free of government regulation is that a market is a place where things are traded. To trade something you need to own it. But without government or its equivalent you can't */own /*anymore than you can carry at a dead run while firing your AK-47. The first function of government is to provide safety for its citizens (mostly from each other). The second is to define and defend property rights. And governments have done it differently. In England, at one time, all land belonged to the crown. Even today a lot of real estate in England is not owned by its occupants, it's on a 100y lease from the crown. American indians didn't have any concept of personal ownership of land. Ownership of intellectual property is defined by the government and they keep changing it - extending copyright duration at the behest of Disney Corp. Stocks and bonds would be just paper without a government to enforce ownership. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 8:42 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/13/2015 7:34 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Really? On this list? Where? I read criticism of the NSA, of Obama, of U.S. foreign policy everywhere. There's a whole industry built around it on radio. That sort of criticism is innocuous and everyone knows it. The powerful are not threatened by that sort of stuff. They probably even like it, it only reinforces the two-party system. What they are threatened is by people openly discussing experiences with things that the social norms forbid. This guarantees, especially for political candidates, that only the most bland social-norm-abiding candidates will ever make it to power. And thus we are dead-locked into total conformity. So in what way are you forced to conform? Do you want to have sex with sheep? No. Do you want to shoot up heroin? Not now, but I would like the option if I were terminally ill. Do you want print your own money? Maybe. Do you want to own a machine gun? Yes! I know email lists where all those things are discussed. I have stopped myself from doing Google searches because I was curious about something but then realised how it could sound. Maybe I am very paranoid, but I suspect this is not such an uncommon experience. There is no loss of freedom if you are merely forbidden to do something you never wanted to do anyway? Of course political candidates are bland and social-norm-abiding. What would you expect in a democracy? Are you hoping for Le Pen or Emerson or some new Hitler? No, just something a bit less Orwellian than what we have: http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/13/technology/security/cameron-messaging-data/index.html Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 , meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: So PPA's have laws Certainly the PPA's have laws. and enforce arbitrartions Yes. PPA's are governments. The only difference I see is that they aren't defined by territories, but by memberships. The difference is that unlike government membership in a PPA is voluntary. So they're like crime cartels, mafias - organizations not noted for their encouragement of free markets. On the contrary the Black Market provided people with things that they want and is the freest form of market. Yes it's true that there are a lot of unpleasant characters and violence in the illegal drug trade, but as I said before if government made chocolate bars illegal then people would still demand candy bars, and the underground Hershey candy company and the underground Mars candy company would have no way to settle disputes except through baseball bats and machine guns. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
I believe the wise way to evaluate whether something is funny or not; whether it is satire or just a slur is to see how members of target feel when exposed to it. I believe a better way to determine if something is funny or not is to record in your lab notebook if you laughed or not, and when I first heard that 17 cartoonists were murdered I did not laugh. John K Clark On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 2:06 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: -- *From:* LizR lizj...@gmail.com *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Sent:* Monday, January 12, 2015 1:54 PM *Subject:* Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On 12 January 2015 at 14:46, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: I believe the wise way to evaluate whether something is funny or not; whether it is satire or just a slur is to see how members of target feel when exposed to it. If a person of color feels insulted by some cartoon, a white person does not have the right to say that it’s just all in his head and that only a fool would see it in any other way. Wise words. Someone who insults someone else then expects them to laugh at themselves is known as a playground bully, pure and simple. Seeing the imagery of those cartoons I really don’t think that anyone would be able to find a lot of French of Arab or African descent laughing along with the “ironic intent”; rather more likely that they would feel humiliated, insulted, and certainly **unwelcome** I certainly felt a bit queasy from the two supplied, but I don't consider myself able to judge, especially with my very limited French. By that metric, by the metric of the effect those cartoons had on the targets of its “irony” the merit and intent of that published work should be judged. Perhaps this is a uniquely American view and sensitivity not shared in Europe, but it is a necessary behavior in order for any multicultural/multi-racial/multi-sectarian/multi-ethnic society to work. Certainly not uniquely American. Indeed America has a reputation of being culturally insensitive, of thinking that its own viewpoint is the only right one. Not all Americans of course but that's the impression one gets from outside, from simple things like Bill Gates pretending that there is a difference between UK English and New Zealand English to invading countries to enforce democracy it's all cultural imperialism to the non-American. Point taken. The USA is a boorish super power that throws its weight around the world stage -- just as other dominant powers have done during their heyday. And yeah there is a grain of truth in the stereotype of the Ugly American. What happened to the Golden Rule? It got left in the Golden Age? No, seriously, I don't know what you mean here, is this a do unto others thing? Yes it helps us be, at least a little, human to each other. -Chris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 5:07 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: The question is better phrased as why does anything exist? But that question is logically equivalent to why doesn't nothing exist?, and the answer is that if it did't then nothing exists and so something does. Logic says something must exist or you have a contradiction, but where logic came from I don't know. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 8:18 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-01-13 16:24 GMT+01:00 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:14 PM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2015-01-12 18:01 GMT+01:00 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com: Ok, I think we ended up deviating from the reason why I introduced the silk road theme. You argued that free markets are not possible, that force is necessary to prevent unethical agents from destroying the market. Alberto did to. You did not provide proof that it is possible and stable and no powerful agent would in fine control it. I don't see how I could prove such a thing -- or how anyone could proves such a thing about any system. What I offer is empirical evidence: yes it's possible. It existed and it exists again today. It's been stable for some years, even against a very hostile environment. Could a powerful agent gain control of a decentralised, global and anonymous market? I don't see how. Can you suggest a strategy? By being the only one able to provide the products... as it is the case with drugs such as cocaine and heroine... in the end you sell material goods who are not decentralised. So you're saying that a free market won't work because government intervention can kill it? The mafias are the only ones capable of providing some products because of prohibition, not because of the free market. I presented silk road as a counter-example. Due to its circumstances, the identity of its participants was unknown. It was unknown to governments and mafias (until the FBI finally figured out a way to crack this anonymity). There was not way to use force on silk road. Mafias could not prevent you from selling drugs there by physical violence, But mafias *used* it... the drug sold on silk road was not from a free market in the first place, it cannot be rendered free after... You're using the term free as if it were some mystical property like kosher or halal. A free market is simply free from regulation from a central authority, that's all. Then any illegal market is free... that's nonsensical. I said that an illegal market could be a free market, not that an illegal market implies a free market. Free means everyone has access to it and the same information available... that's barely the case with silkroad where only illegal goods mainly provided by markets controlled by mafia where available... The silk road is free from regulation. Any illegal market is free from regulation.. as they are illegal. Many illegal market are controlled by illegal central authorities. Anyone can participate, including mafias. If mafias couldn't participate, it wouldn't be a free market. Well I don't want a free market then... You should be free not to participate. because they had no way of discovering your identity. Still, silk road did not collapse under unethical sellers receiving payment for cannabis and sending packs of dried lawn grass instead. Why? Because the reputation system was enough. If you convince of that... Do you have any evidence to the contrary? How do you explain the enormous wealth that the creator of the market had amassed in commissions when he was arrested? Because every he got a tax on every illegal transactions, like a pimp... He provides an essential service that enables the market and charges a fee for it. He does not have the power to tax. If his fees become unreasonable, a competitor will takes his place. This is a crucial point that distinguishes his actions from taxation. The pimp is like the drug cartel: a side-effect of government interference in private transactions. Surely the thing would collapse quickly if people were being ripped off? Surely people who wanted to bough anonymously drugs while where they were it was difficult were happy sure... you can't go to the hypermart next door to buy cocaine... so what ? So bad behaviour is prevented solely individual self-interest. This is the entire reason why I brought this topic, to provide a counter-example to something you and Alberto claim to be impossible. That was the point. It has nothing to do with the origin of the drugs It does, because if the origin is a controlled non-free market, the enduser market cannot be a free market... do you deny this ? Only if the participants in the upstream market are prevented from sourcing their wares elsewhere. Could you give me an adress where cocaine and heroine are harvested and transformed in a free environment and where I can buy it being sure all the chain was free from coercion ? This restriction is imposed on some of the products by the government. The other products are also traded without the market collapsing under mis-behaviour. The fact that a couple of specific drugs have monopolistic suppliers because of the government does not invalidate my argument. It
