I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters.

Unless that person was black, that would probably win him votes. :vomit:

I think that will be my new favourite emoticon.

Cue Republican rationalisations why we shouldn't take the opinion of these students seriously. :vomit:

Exactly. If the customer flips a coin to decide when to pay, the time of his payment is still a constant with respect to the implication-proposition. — Michael Ossipoff

Exactly. That makes andrewk right.

...and when he has done so, by paying, his time of payment becomes a constant. For the purpose of the implication-proposition, the customer's payment-time is a constant. — Michael Ossipoff

That makes no difference I'm afraid. If it's random it becomes constant at the time of payment as well.

So you're telling me there aren't any politicians who are against opiate use, heroin, cigarettes and guns that you can vote for?

Children are dying from all kinds of threats Benkei and there are some threats that are 'hills I am willing to die on' to protect my children and others children from. A human out to injure others with a firearm is not the most prevalent threat to the greater population of children than those I am willing to take on. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

What threats?

Sorry, I thought you had an actual suggestion. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Meanwhile, children are dying.

See my earlier posts on gun control laws. This might *gasp* require you to vote for a Democrat who's pro gun control if there's no Republican option for it.

The time of payment is decided by the customer. It can only have one value, the one chosen by the customer. For the purposes of the implication, the time-of-payment isn't universally-quantified. It's a constant that has been chosen by the customer. — Michael Ossipoff

That's a bit silly. Yes it's chosen by the customer but he can choose any time.

I'm not sure what the purpose is of this thread. Is it to show that the truth table for material condition isn't an adequate reflection of how we actually speak?

you're solutions aren't tackling the source of the problem, only symptoms. I'll pray for all the US children that will die for years to come because grown ups don't have the balls to do what's necessary.

I'm perplexed, because I don't see the means by which we can undo decades of gun acquisitions by a good share of the population. — Bitter Crank

3 million extra guns sold is another 155 persons dead according to the correlation. So stopping the sale of guns can save lives. Of course, that's constitutionally not entirely feasible but...

You could outlaw carrying or keeping certain guns that are particularly effective in gun massacres (assault rifles, bump stocks). Fine to put them in a vault at the shooting range and use there under controlled circumstances but not something to keep in a home, on your person or in a car. Any gun bought should have extensive background check, ID number and registered. In fact, I don't see why it would be possible to have the barrel of a gun imprint a bullet with a specific pattern related to that gun much like a handprint. That should increase the chances of finding a lead. You can also limit the number of guns per person (really, how many do you need?!).

Put some hefty fines on possession of the wrong types of gun for 5 years after the law is enacted, meanwhile confiscate when seen or found. Reward people for turning them in. Jail time after 5 years.

And by the way, there's international statistical evidence that gun laws reduce gun homicides as other countries went here before. I definitely agree there's also a socio-economic dimension (Milwaukee anyone?) and a cultural one but it starts with the ready availability of guns. Throwing your hands up and saying "but there are already too many is too cynica"l. Guns break, they get rusty, they are lost etc. etc. Nobody is expecting the problem to be solved today but doing nothing is just immoral.

You also need to combat the "good guy with a gun" bullshit as the good guy is always too late and most people are a crappy shot any way. Even with regular training it's something completely different shooting in a situation where your life is on the line. Police miss in 57% of the time at a distance of 6 feet or less. Basically, if I fall over I have a higher chance of hitting someone than a police officer with a gun. Excellent.

He's fingering the wrong anatomical part if his bus-bragging is anything to go on.

You picked idealism? I don't think of Kant's transcendental idealism as idealism, just as I don't think of Putnam's internal realism as realism. Despite their names, I think they're very similar (if not outright the same), and neither properly counts as either realism or idealism (as traditionally understood), hence why I chose "Other". — Michael

Strictly you're correct, Kant (in his own terms) was of course an empirical realist and transcendental idealist. I opted for idealism because of Kant's position on correspondence theory of truth and knowledge. So transcendental idealism is a requirement in his view (which I share), the empirical realism less so. As Morrandir once explained it:

As a sidenote, for Kant a theory of knowledge is indeed possible (or so he thinks) and in fact he would claim that only for a transcendental idealist can this be possible. The reason for this might be constructed as follows. Truth is to be understood as correspondence between our judgments and reality. If reality is taken to be transcendentally real, then the correspondence is between our judgments and a reality wholly independent and unreachable for us. I cannot know whether my judgment "I have a blue shirt on" is true or false since this refers to some reality that is by definition inaccessible to us: we are doomed to mere beliefs and can have no knowledge. But if reality is taken to be transcendentally ideal, then the correspondence is between my judgments and the (REAL!) objects that present themselves in my experience. Then this correspondence can be established, and we can have knowledge. Of course, a hardcore proponent of correspondence theory could not accept Kant's formulation of it, since it is more properly thought as a sort of coherence theory instead of a proper correspondence theory.

I'm pretty much a Kantian, so that one was easy. ;-)

EDIT: interestingly enough you didn't opt for a correspondence theory of truth.

Donald — René Descartes

17,250 murders per year (which excludes many suicides by gunfire) is in all respects a policy failure, but it may be the case (I hate saying this and control) that it isn't the number of guns in American's possession that is the critical problem; it is the fact that we have no effective way of denying anybody a gun, should they wish to have one. — Bitter Crank

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/

Cool. I had to eyeball a few questions based on summaries because I haven't really given a few subjects much thought before.

Now I got a reaction in 2 hours. Quality was too low at 300dpi which they asked for. Just updated again. Grrr.

My dad decided to join me with the experiment. We'll have 200 EUR to burn, which is enough to test the system, trade costs, liquidity, settlement times etc. etc.

I had a reply within 48 hours that my copy of my driver's license wasn't good enough. Just uploaded it again. Seems ok. Must be a discriminatory thing.

We'll see. I'm not interested in going through other exchanges at this point. BitStamp is a one stop shop for me with low transaction costs for the cryptos I want.

They've got a big lawsuit with R3. It's not clear to me what the effect is if R3 is allowed to exercise its options on buying XRP against the option price. I'm withholding predictions on what XRP will do in the short term but do believe RippleNet is here to stay.

I finally got a wallet and I'm setting up with BitStamp (3 week wait) for 2 specific cryptocurrencies for the blockchain process they're trying to implement. I'll probably buy a few different ones for testing purposes as well. I'll get some XRP and ETH but no BTC.

These are excellent admissions. — Thorongil

Just what planet are you from? You are a native English speaker right?

https://www.bitsonline.com/japanese-korean-ripple-pilot/

This is what convinced me. — Michael

I thought this was funny.

ECB on their own TIPS system

Particularly:

TIPS is 10 seconds, 0.2 cents. DLT transactions are at best 30 euros and take at least one hour — Mersch

Uhmmm... Ripple is 4 seconds, 0.16415 eurocents (including fees).

that is an interesting complication. I'm not sure I'd like to go far with it though unless it contradicts the purpose of the subsidy. But it has a clear political dimension "my taxes paid for what?!"

Also, on this note. What the hell is the deal with Black Panther "finally" having a black superhero? And people celebrating Luke Cage as progressive. Really?



We're going backwards...

I wouldn't do anything and private owners of venues can do whatever they want.

My reason is that it has no effect. People hold beliefs and give answers that are socially acceptable within the group they wish to belong to and speech acts reinforce their bonds with each other. The reason the right has such a solid hardcore base is because they are very clear who's in and who's out. Mushy leftists who want everyone aboard don't have a core story around which people can rally, which is why the left is fragmented and less effective both socially and politically (or downright sabotaged by the democratic party itself).

What's needed is a stronger leftist narrative that enables people to categorise groups of people as in or out, including a broader narrative of socially acceptable responses. So rich vs. poor, people vs. corporations, workers vs. capitalist etc. Meanwhile, you start to demonize right wing bullshit.

The lie of trickle-down economics.
The right takes away our choices.
Nozick is evil.
Rand is a moron.
Peterson is gay.
Capitalism only makes us poorer while the rich get richer.
etc. etc.

A simple message repeated ad nauseum.

If you get enough people in your camp, others will want to join and that's how you'll marginalise the alt-right, neo-nazis and racists by making them socially unacceptable.

Are you sure Self-Determination doesn't equate to independence? — René Descartes

I'm sure that's the accepted legal interpretation. I note that your definitions speak of "countries" and they by definition ought to have independence (sovereignty) from other countries. The issue arises when we're talking about "peoples" and their right of self-determination. Your definitions have nothing to really say about that.

Scots and Welsh are certainly not self-determined as they are ruled by the government and parliament in London. If they were self-determined they would have their own parliaments and capitals and currencies and alliances and laws etc... — René Descartes

This is too simple a picture of the relationship between the UK government and Scotland. The various "kingdoms" of the UK have their own parliaments and the central government cannot rule by Royal Prerogative on devolved matters. They need the agreement from the various lower parliaments on a lot of issues. See for instance: http://www.parliament.scot/visitandlearn/Education/18642.aspx

Wales, Scotland — charleton

As I already wrote in an earlier post; self-determination does not equate with independence necessarily. Scots and Welsh have autonomy and there's a system of rules that set out what issues the lower parliaments of Wales and Scotland are to vote on (so-called devolved matters). As long as the UK abides by the rules that were, for isntance laid down in the 2016 Scotland Act, Scots cannot claim their right to self-determination isn't respected especially in light of the recent referendum on the matter.

I'm on my phone and about to fall asleep. First thing to think about is: Life is suffering, Peterson should just suck it up for being oppressed by cultural Marxists. Fucking pussy.

Kind of obvious. Good night.

I'll just wait until you've discovered the inherent contradictions in what you just wrote.

I'll watch it after you've demonstrated how Marx' theories on social and economic structures and how these should change to benefit all people fit into identity politics and the idea of white privilege. It's prima facie incoherent from what I've read of Marx.

So I asked him what he bases his predictions on and this is basically not something you can easily replicate:

I have applied a rather bespoke analytical framework. A combination of an overlay of historical bubble comparison (stage evolution, drivers, transparency, basis/lack of basis of intrinsic value) along with fundamentals and technical analysis. Fundamentals has included understanding the structure operates for an opaque pricing mechanism and Ponzi capability for releasing "physical" Bitcoin from those at the top of the pyramid to those at the bottom. Fundamentals have also included a fair bit of game theory and understanding the motivations of various key actors and how they would be likely to respond, from money launderers to speculators to Asians trying to move money out of jurisdictions locked down by capital controls to regulators, etc. — Kovacocy

Also note that he ultimately thinks the thing will fail. Not necessarily cryptocurrencies but bitcoin itself.

Even if you have that curve, you don't have timing. Michael Kovacocy is one person who seems to get timing, direction and price points right.

Ok, so one valuation theory is that transactional prices aren't really the most important factor for bitcoin valuation but the number of hodlers - people who hold bitcoin regardless of price movements based on the belief bitcoin will ultimately replace fiat money or because of political ideology (die-hard anarchists and libertarians probably). See for instance: macro-economic valuation theory for bitcoin. It would be nice to see whether this can be empircally backed up.

I suppose that can explain something (a lot?) about the underlying fundamental value but on the face of it, it feels to me it discounts the fact that ultimately bitcoin is intended as a means of exchange too much. If I take the paper to the extreme and end up with only hodlers, you won't have any transactions, no price information and therefore the value cannot be determined.

I see some people making consistently accurate predictions on price movements for bitcoin - both the rises and falls. That indicates there's more to it than simple market sentiment and herd mentality. I'm curious what.

Expected to slide down to 5k USD according to Michael Kovacocy, who's made pretty solid predictions so far. I'm trying to find what he's basing it on though as the underlying fundamentals for crypto valuation are a mystery to me. I'm thinking it could ultimately be a proxy for the black market but that relationship seems tenuous at best.

I still try not to watch him but he's fucking everywhere.

At the core of China's claim seems to be that it sees the current situation as a continuation of the relationship between Tibet and the Ching dynasty. That doesn't seem to be correct though as Tibet was not part of Ching "sovereignty" and the Dalia Lama was not a subject of the CHing dynasty. So we see a typical Western concept of "sovereignty" applied to a political and cultural situation that doesn't really fit.

Another approach is a rights-based approach. It is interesting to see that Lenin (and Woodrow Wilson) argued for self-determination. The USSR and early communist China recognised the right of secession. This was later removed from the Chinese constitution (1930s). The right has nevertheless been reiterated over time in several treaties signed and in some cases ratified by China; e.g. the UN Charter, the ICCPR and ICESCR. China at least pays lip service to the following idea of self-determination:

Article 1

1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

3. The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. — ICESCR

Obviously, taking into account how, for instance, Africa was carved up by colonial powers this raised some issues as people worried about the defragmentation of existing states. Prevalent view for the exercise of self-determination has become that self-determination only applies to: entire populations living in independent states, or entire populations of territories yet to receive independence, or territories under foreign military occupation.

This is a restrictive definition excluding groups of people we'd usually refer to as... well "peoples". It excludes Kurds and various African tribes for instance. We're also confronted with the fact that most states recognise the de jure or de facto sovereignty of China over Tibet, which is a strong argument for the current situation.

The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation. — United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples

This principle was applied to:

• the Russian invasion of Afghanistan
• the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia
• the occupation of Arab territories by Israel
• Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the former Soviet Union
• the Grenada by the United States
• the Iraqi occupation of Iraq

On the basis of the above, how are we supposed to interpret the independence of Kosovo? We see that the prevalent view doesn't apply unless you'd accept the Albanian Kosovars were under alien subjugation, domination and exploitation. In other words, despite sharing the same country for a long time the Albanian Kosovars were culturally sufficiently different from the Serbs to be considered "alien" from each other resulting in subjugation, domination and exploitation under Milosevic's rule.

Finally, self-determination need not mean independence. Autonomy is key. The Dalai Lama has repeatedly argued for atuonomy instead of independence and this could be supported by the Tibetans (I don't know if they do).

Based on the Kosovo example, I'd argue Tibetans are a separate people from the Chinese with a sufficiently different culture than the Chinese to be considered separate. China will argue primarily that Tibet has been part of China since the 1600s. However, it appears that the political and social relationship between Tibet and the Ching dynasty and Tibet and China since 1950 are different things. This is by definition reflected by the treaty ( Agreement of the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, or the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet) signed by Tibet and China which refers to the Tibetan people as separate from the Chinese but as "returning to the family" of motherland China. It is not clear either how you liberate people within your own country or why a treaty would be necessary to establish a situation that already existed according to the Chinese. That's only possible if Tibet was indeed autonomous from China.

Based on the above, I think a continuation of the relationship between the Ching dynasty and Tibet would be one where Tibet was autonomous. Chinese refusal to accept such autonomy is a "subjugation, domination and exploitation" of the Tibetan people and as such the right for self-determination can be invoked by Tibetans and should be pursued by the international community.

Test. It says "latest gurugeorge" but Michael's comment was last.

he doesn't lie about insignificant stuff and even if it were the frequency alone should be a problem for anyone with moral fibre. It's your dissonance in continuing to defend the indefensible and simultaneously claiming the absence of morals in society are a huge issue and if only people were more like you. From where I'm standing, if people were more like you society would be even less moral as lies are no biggy.