DOJ moves to drop charges against Russians accused of funding troll farm — NOS4A2

Congrats to you benefactors. :party:

Simply put, Libertarians primary value personal liberty, whereas Liberals (American at least) value fairness and care above liberty.

Socialists can only be authoritarian as they think they know what is "good" for everyone, and want to impose their morality on everyone else. It really is no different than a religion.

Are you still equating liberals and socialists?

All political brands are like religion in the way that you mean.

I’m rather shy by nature so the social distancing thing is going to be a walk in the park. I imagine it will be tough for extroverts.

I said socialist-in-liberal-clothes', as in a wolf-in-sheep-clothes, as in knowing you're a socialist, but trying top pass yourself off as a libertarian (the only true liberal), in order for you ideas to sound more reasonable to others. — Harry Hindu

I think that a true libertarian’s ideas might sound more reasonable if they pretended to be a conservative or liberal. Anyway, a ‘socialist’ could stand for a wide range of things. An American liberal is much more specific.

I can’t make any sense of your question. — NOS4A2

The point is simple, other minds (environment) can deliberately condition or manipulate the conditioning of a brain. In this way, it cannot be said that stress is self-generated or begins in the brain.

To use your example with the orcas, someone who believes that they’re swimming with dolphins could be tricked by someone else into believing that they’re swimming with orcas in order to induce stress in that person.

Point is that the conditioning is in part responsible for the level of stress. Conditioning can be external to the effected brain, can it not?
—praxis

If you mean that one can train his brain by exposing himself to stressful environments, and that these environments are external, then yes. — NOS4A2

:lol: but not yes if others (part of an environment) deliberately condition a brain?

A person conditioned to swimming with Orcas may have less stress in that situation, but that isn’t because the situation was different, but because the body is. — NOS4A2

Point is that the conditioning is in part responsible for the level of stress. Conditioning can be external to the effected brain, can it not?

Stress, as a biological phenomenon, starts in the brain. This is a biological fact. — NOS4A2

A person may be conditioned to not be fearful of swimming with orcas, or at least be much less fearful than others.



Does instinct and conditioning also begin in the brain?

Another meaningless example.

An extreme (or stupid) position requires extreme support.

The only meaningful example you could give to support your position would be that of a human being who would not experience stress under any circumstances.

It seems that Trump has succeeded in getting into every socialist-in-liberal-clothes' heads. — Harry Hindu

The notion that liberals are closeted socialists is another sticky idea, apparently.

Italy has 15k cases and 1k deaths? That’s around 6.6%

I don’t consider all lending with interest a bad thing, whereas I consider all murder bad.

I think people would vote for legislation that restricted the worst payday lending practices, even though it might restrict the “freedom” of some to be predators.

Credit card companies are allowed to charge upwards of 30% interest for the remaining life of the loan if the borrower is late just once. That is predatory lending, especially given the way compound interest accrues and is satisfied. — creativesoul

It’s a little hard to consider that predatory when payday lenders, for instance, charge over ten times that interest rate and knowingly target those in a desperate position.

you give the impression of being a paid troll. — Baden

Hopefully someone is paying him. I hate to think he’s getting all butthurt for nothing.

In my defense I have hundred more mentions than I do comments, meaning I get thousands of emails notifying me of people commenting to me. — NOS4A2

How is that a defense? It could indicate trolling behavior.

Discard the voices of the poor as irrelevant, eh? Then what is relevant? The claims of some life-long politician who has lived off tax-payer dollars the majority of his life? Some other member of the professional-managerial class, perhaps? These people do not care about the poor; they use the poor. — NOS4A2

Punshhh has a point, you make a caricature of yourself with this kind of crap. Like a wind-up troll doll set to auto repeat.

Whereas personal borrowing tends to be more to do with a remedy for poor financial planning, or issues around poverty. — Punshhh

I don’t know the statistics but I would guess mortgages and credit card debt comprise the bulk of personal borrowing in the US.

The worst part is that this belief in poverty outcomes being affected by personal behaviour is that it actually compounds low socio-economic status. — Benkei

I believe that’s the point, maintaining the status quo, or better still, Making America Great Again (pre civil rights act).

I can only think of one person here who I feel is generally in the same philosophical camp as me overall, 180 Proof, with whom I can only recall one disagreement on one topic — Pfhorrest

I don't recall any disagreement with 180, but that doesn't mean my little pup tent is in the same campground.

Initiative is primary to opportunity. Without initiative, conditions and opportunity are wasted. — NOS4A2

Your view is clearly biased. Didn't you read the world bank study?

Actually, having just skimmed the world bank study that you link to, it appears you're being somewhat misleading. The study supports the importance of both initiative and opportunity for upward mobility.
– praxis

Given this information, is it then true or false that “personal choices have very little to do with socio-economic (upward) mobility”? — NOS4A2

As the world bank study supports, that depends on opportunity.

A prisoner can escape their confinement and validly claim that it was 100% their individual initiative that allowed them to escape. The ease of their escape would, of course, depend on the available opportunities.

Let's face it, it's an overmans world.

Then your aim is propaganda, nothing besides. — NOS4A2

Actually, having just skimmed the world bank study that you link to, it appears you're being somewhat misleading. The study supports the importance of both initiative and opportunity for upward mobility.

Despite that, over 87% of people reported that “individual initiative” is what helped them escape poverty. — NOS4A2

Around only 56 years ago the civil rights act was helpful. 100% of those who were discriminated against and escaped poverty prior to the act could legitimately claim that individual initiative helped them escape poverty.

Obviously a lot of people benefit in the short term from not emancipating poor people. In the long run it doesn't make economic sense though. — Benkei

According to selectorate theory it makes political sense in an autocracy, and that’s why democracy tends to be favorable for the masses.

I already offered an extreme example of predatory lending, that of payday loans.

If I lent you a sum of money for low enough interest you could make a profit by simply investing it. Is that a simple enough example of non-exploitive lending with interest? With a little imagination I’m sure you could think of many other non-exploitive lending scenarios that charge interest.

The basic principle you don’t seem to appreciate is that a borrower can produce something of greater value with the borrowed capital.

Lending at interest is a transaction where someone who started out with more than they needed (enough to let someone borrow some) ends up with more than they started with, and someone who started out with less than they needed (requiring them to borrow something from someone else) ends up with even less than they started with. That is inherently exploitative of the poor by the rich. — Pfhorrest

Nonsense. It’s basically an exchange of value (including future value), which as I’ve explained can be generous from the lender side, fair, or exploitive. Whatever capitalistic incentives may lead to exploitation aren’t inherent in lending itself.

My analysis of the root flaw of capitalism could be phrased as "all lending (at interest) is predatory". There are degrees, of course, what we normally call predatory lending is just such an egregious case that we can't help but see what's going on there. But fundamentally all lending at interest (and rent more generally, as interest is just rent on money) is of the same qualitative character: those who have wealth to spare can profit at the expense of those who need to borrow it just to keep going. — Pfhorrest

Lenders or renters may give more than they receive in order to help others, make a fair trade, or take advantage of those in a weaker position.

You seem to be claiming that lending is inherently predatory in nature.

Payday lenders have low losses and high profits (34%+ return on investment).

you can associate greater wealth with greater numerical gains just like you can associate greater wealth with greater numerical loss. it's two sides of the same coin and to ignore one side isn't right. at the end of the day though it's up to the portfolio owner how much risk they're is prepared to take on. i know plenty of well off people who take very little risk.

i don't necessarily associate less wealth to greater costs, but i do acknowledge that poverty has costs. if by costs you mean investment losses this is definitely not the case. — BitconnectCarlos

A clear example of the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer is found in predatory lending, which pretty much all banks are involved with, btw. With low-risk, someone with 10k to spare could get a high return. Low-income and desperate borrowers pay a ridiculously high-interest rate.

One must hedge for the notion of life allowing one to live in accordance to one's own Will... — Wallows

rather than the will of nature (will to live)?

I guess that I just don't see how the concept of nirvana or "inverted nirvana" (suffering) plays a useful role in what you're saying.

If we saw through the illusion then life/death wouldn't be so much of a concern, so they say. "Inverted Nirvana" is samsara or a continuation of suffering.

Perhaps you should use other terms.

"inverted Nirvana" is antithetical to the concept of Nirvana because the concept points to an absence of polarity. For instance, in Buddhism, nirvana is samsara. The difference is considered to be merely an illusion.

The difference between science and religion is the difference between a genuine openness to fruits of human inquiry in the 21st century, and a premature closure to such inquiry as a matter of principle — PuerAzaelis

What kind of dreamworld does Sam live in where this only applies to religion?

philosophically speaking, when do we require new technology? When do we decide that the human race has reached stagnation and cannot collectively produce new 'content' to keep itself fresh? — Jhn4

Practically speaking, no new content is required for freshness, and indeed it may only be the habit of desiring new content that leads to the dissatisfaction of stagnation. To imagine Sisyphus happy we must abandon our old habits.

... The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act had absolutely nothing to do with.

So we already have a number of mistruths in only a couple of your posts. That’s Trump numbers, pal. Better watch it. — NOS4A2

You wrote that EESA had nothing to do with it so if there's a lie it's your lie.

What are the other lies? You appear to read about as well as Trump.

The The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was under Bush. — NOS4A2

And that alone resulted in the economy that Obama left office with. Is that what they teach you to say in troll school?

The website for Obamacare cost over a billion dollars. — NOS4A2

Trump will probably spend half that much just golfing.