I liked this post, via Hacker News. Someone is porting TortoiseSVN for GIT.
GIT seems cool. Unless it's a large open source project with many contributors, Subversion is good enough. I still use subversion for my personal stuff, but I may switch to GIT eventually.
There's no need for me to be an early adopter, because Subversion is good enough for my needs. With only 1 user on only 1 PC, there's no substantial difference between Subversion and GIT.
I liked this YouTube video, via Hacker News. It was a good speech, but it had only 10k views on YouTube!
He was talking about how a 1300 year old shrine made out of wood tried to be nominated for a historic building classification from a historic society. Wood rots, but every 50-100 years, the priests tore down the temple and rebuilt it to the exact same specification out of fresh wood. Therefore, they claimed their building was 1300 years old. The historic society said that doesn't count. It has to be the same physical structure for 1300 years, and not "software" for a building that is rebuilt every 50 years. That indicates a bias in the thinking of the historic society.
He also talked about C++ vs. Perl. Working on a contract for AT&T, the computer programmers at AT&T preferred C++ to Perl because you could purchase support for C++ but not Perl. The speaker said the online community for Perl was as good or better than professional support. The programmers at AT&T were not convinced.
(I prefer C++ to Perl for writing trading systems, for performance reasons. For a web application, I would use PHP instead of Perl, but PHP is very Perl-like. At the time of the project, I don't think PHP was invented or widely used. For a web application, I see the merits of Perl over C++, but PHP is better than both.)
He talked about how Linux started out as a hobby project for Linus Torvalds, and grew to be a production-quality OS. Similarly, agorism can start out as a hobby for a handful of people and become the dominant economic and political system used in the world. Already, there are a handful of people interested in discussing agorism, but no public practical agorists have emerged.
At some point, the techniques of "open source" software should move into the realm of tangible goods and services. Agorism is needed to facilitate this, because State regulation of the market prevents innovation. If you want to be creative in the area of tangible goods, you should ignore all the State restrictions of the market. If you work legally, the productivity leeched via taxes only supports the bad guys.
I hadn't heard of Clay Shirky before.
I should get a video camera and make some vlogs. My parents would not approve. (I have to do what my parents say, because all they have to do is call 911 and say "FSK is having a panic attack!" and I'm involuntarily hospitalized. Ideally, I should get my personal freedom back, but I really should make 6-12 months without another panic attack first.)
This post on BradSpangler.com debating limited liability incorporation was amusing. I don't voluntarily waste time debating pro-State trolls anymore. The pro-State troll arguments are unconvincing and it usually degenerates into a shouting match.
Limited liability incorporation is not a natural free market occurrence. Limited liability incorporation encourages dishonest behavior by management of a nearly insolvent corporation, such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, GM, Ford, AIG, FRE, and FNM. The incentive is for management to cover up problems and go into a bigger and bigger debt hole.
Limited liability incorporation always gives management and shareholders a free put option to declare bankruptcy and cheat creditors. The equity of a nearly insolvent corporation trades more like a call option, with strike equal to outstanding debt, rather than like equity.
Combined with a central bank credit monopoly and negative real interest rates, limited liability incorporation encourages the management of a corporation to load up on debt. If there is an inflationary boom, then there are massive profits, paid by everyone else as inflation. If there is a recession/depression, then there is a bankruptcy filing. Either creditors are cheated in bankruptcy or there is a State bailout, depending on the political connections of the creditors.
Further, "tort reform" means that, if there is a successful lawsuit against a corporation, then the compensatory and punitive damages are limited. Typically, the corporation is sued and not the individuals who committed the misconduct. Even if you sue the executives of the corporation, then the corporation typically reimburses the executives for their legal expenses and any loss.
The authors of the US Constitution were correctly very hostile to corporations. It took decades of bribing and lobbying to get the Supreme Court to legalize limited liability incorporation, which was a huge error. The 14th amendment was interpreted as justifying the rights of corporations. Limited liability incorporation is one of many ways that insiders loot and pillage.
Limited liability incorporation is not a natural free market occurrence. Limited liability incorporation is an artificial creation of a coercive government. In a true free market, management and owners are always personally liable for their debts. In the event of a negligence or misconduct lawsuit and victory, then management cannot declare bankruptcy to discharge the liability.
(This bit deserves its own separate post.)
I liked this post on BradSpangler.com. One fallacy of Austrian Economics (Mises) is that Austrian Economists expect monetary reform to be initiated by the State. Insiders love the fact that they may loot and pillage via inflation, and therefore they will not lead the way to monetary reform.
In fact, the opposite has been the case. There have been violent State crackdowns on Internet based gold and silver warehouse receipt banks, such as E-Gold and the Liberty Dollar. Anybody who tries to set up an alternate monetary system or alternate banking system finds themselves the victim of State violence.
Due to the risk of a State raid, the only way to start an alternate monetary system is in a decentralized off-the-books fashion.
I liked this article, via mises.org, on the possibility of a second American Revolution.
There were several interesting quotes (paraphrased):
Political theory has advanced substantially since the late 1700s, when the US Constitution was written.
Did the people who wrote the US Constitution have sincerely good intentions? They put in lots of checks and balances that restrained the evil power of the State. Over time, all these checks were removed.
Once you accept that government has a monopoly of justice and protection, things go downhill from there. Over time, the quality of justice decreases and the price rises. Eventually, the State operates more like a mafia protection racket than the protector of individual rights.
Like most/all mises.org articles, it falls short of the correct solution, which is agorism. People should drop out of the official State economy as much as is feasible. A strategy of individual secession is safest and most feasible.
Mises.org has a lot of stuff that's good for a beginner to the freedom movement. However, they fall short of the correct solution to solving the problem of the State.
I liked this YouTube video, via QuestionTheFed, on legalizing marijuana.
My favorite quote is "Just like there's a military-industrial complex, there's marijuana-ban complex." A lot of people, from the police to drug dealers, profit immensely from the marijuana ban.
In a true free market, possession of marijuana is not a crime. According to natural/common law, there's nothing wrong with possessing or selling marijuana.
Once you have a situation where a lot of people benefit from a bad law, it becomes practically impossible to repeal that law. The marijuana ban was used to justify anti-money-laundering laws which are used to catch income tax evaders in addition to drug dealers. There are a lot of laws severely restricting anyone who tries to operate a business outside the control of the State.
The "War on Drugs" is sustainable, because everyone can be forced to pay the cost via taxes. This creates the perverse incentive where police want the War on Drugs to be a failure, so they can demand more resources! When the State fails to solve a "problem" that the State caused, the usual solution is to give more resources to State enforcers and bureaucrats!
I also liked "Police don't speak out against the War on Drugs, because they don't want to lose their jobs." Those police are just as guilty as the politicians who pass bad laws. "I was following orders!" is never a valid defense. Sovereign immunity encourages that attitude, because an employee "just doing their job" is usually absolutely immune from personal liability.
Smoking marijuana really is bad for you, for the same reason that anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs are harmful. Anything that excessively messes with your brain chemistry is damaging. However, industrial hemp has a lot of industrial uses that were (intentionally?) quashed by the ban on both marijuana and hemp. Industrial hemp does not contain the active drug at noticeable quantities, but is banned because the plant looks identical to marijuana.
I found this post and this post by Kevin Carson amusing. Kevin Carson is wasting time debating economics with a pro-State troll. I've given up on such activities as a waste of time.
I do see the attraction somewhat. More popular websites are a good way to attract an audience. However, most popular political/economic websites are dominated by pro-State trolls. I've concluded that directly debating pro-State trolls in a forum they control is pointless. That's why I started my own blog. I found that even on the Ron Paul Forum, I was wasting time arguing with people who were defending the Federal Reserve and income tax.
Debating pro-State trolls is a waste of my time. I deal with enough pro-State trolls with my in-person friends and relatives and coworkers. Enough pro-State trolls comment here that I'm certainly still exposed to stupid ideas.
I liked one point that Kevin Carson was making (paraphrasing):
In a true free market, there's no such thing as bargaining power.
That's true. In a true free market, if your workers decide to unionize, then you have the right to fire all of them and hire replacements. In a true free market, if your workers decide to form their own competing business, there's nothing you can do about it.
In the present, the employer has a State-licensed monopoly/oligopoly. There are restrictions on workers forming their own businesses, so they have no choice but to work for the corporate employer. The State recognizes the bargaining rights of workers. The regulation of unions neuters their effectiveness. The union leaders become State bureaucrats, interested in keeping their cushy jobs instead of advocating for workers.
In a true free market, there's only market power, and not bargaining power. Bargaining power usually refers to the ability to use the State directly or indirectly for your own personal benefit. The State prevents an employer from firing everyone during a strike. This gives bargaining power to workers. The State prevents workers from forming new businesses. This gives bargaining power to employers. The market is not a factor in the interaction.
GM and Ford have a State-licensed monopoly. During union contract negotiations, the union leaders and GM executives are merely negotiating how the booty from this State license should be split. At no point will the the UAW seriously mention "**** you, GM! We're starting our own car manufacturing business!" State regulation of the market makes that impossible. A group of other skilled workers can't easily start their own car manufacturing business and wreck the monopoly.
With market power, if you're a skilled worker, you will always find a fair free market price for your labor.
Kevin Carson was debating the merits of corporations. Corporations do not exist in a true free market. Corporations receive massive direct and indirect subsidies. Limited liability incorporation is a type of State subsidy. A central bank credit monopoly and negative real interest rates is another subsidy for large corporations. State regulation of the economy is another type of State subsidy for large corporations, because the burden of regulation compliance falls higher on small businesses than on large ones.
Debating pro-State trolls always sounds like:
You need to have a strong central government in order to have a stable society.
Do not. (giving details)
Do to.
Do not. (repeating explanation)
You need a central bank to manage the money supply.
Do not.
Do to.
Do not.
You can't have a stable society without an income tax!
Can so.
Can not.
Can so.
You can't have a debate with someone if all you're debating is axioms, and the pro-State troll doesn't even realize that he has unstated hidden axioms. It is possible to deduce free market economics from other principles like "Stealing is wrong! (when individuals do it)" and "People own their own labor! (because otherwise why bother working?)"
This post on no third solution about reforming the auto industry sort of missed the full point.
For true reform, repeal all the State regulations that make it hard to start a new car company. For example, it costs millions of dollars to get a new car approved as "street legal", which means a couple of guys working out of their garage can't profitably make and sell cars.
Repeal all the regulations that make it hard to start a new car manufacturing business and allow the "Big Three" to go bankrupt. Instead, there will be a large number of small automakers.
When automobiles were first invented and the industry was unregulated, there were as many car manufacturers as there were .coms in the 1990s. (At that time, the Federal Reserve bubble creation mechanism was already in full effect.)
Bankruptcy used to be the way that inefficient businesses were reorganized. Now, insiders may always profitably lobby for a bailout. If one of the "Big Three" automakers were *NOT* controlled by insiders, then that one would have not qualified for a bailout, or for a smaller bailout. That automaker would have gone bankrupt first, and then the other two would have been bailed out. In this manner, the bad guys may eliminate any business that is controlled by people who refuse to play along with the scam.
It really is a good deal. The automakers receive billions of dollars in bailouts. The automakers spend millions of dollars on lobbyists and campaign contributions. It's a profitable arrangement for everyone!
This post on no third solution was also amusing. There was one comment by a particularly stupid pro-State troll. David Z was more polite than I would have been. I don't bother debating pro-State trolls anymore. (Some people say "FSK is a coward for refusing to debate pro-State trolls." My response is that I've made the rational decision to not waste time on fools.)
David Z pointed out that insiders profited immensely from the bailout. GM and Ford stock shot up when the bailout was announced, which leads to huge profits for anyone who knew about the bailout terms ahead of time. Alternatively, there could have been no bailout, or a bailout with unfavorable terms for current shareholders, in which case the stock would have tanked. As a non-insider, you have no way of knowing which will occur.
For this reason and many others, the stock market is a losing proposition for an individual without connections. Physical gold and silver in a secure location are the best investment available.
I liked this post on no third solution about labor in the auto industry being overpaid.
Due to State manipulation of the market, Ford/GM/Chrysler have a State licensed monopoly/oligopoly to run their business. The autoworkers' union is able to command above-market salaries due to the value of the State licensed monopoly/oligopoly. Due to this monopoly market position, the "Big Three" automakers are "too big to fail" and always qualify for a State bailout.
David Z points out that, in the 1980s, the automakers were very profitable and distributed huge profits. There were dividends for shareholders, big bonuses for executives, and bonuses for workers.
There's one point that David Z misses. In the 1990s and early 2000s, GM (and the others) were still paying a dividend and huge salaries, while going deeper and deeper into debt. GM's dividends were paid via bigger and bigger debt burdens. GM was losing money, but still paying a dividend, by borrowing more and more.
Negative real interest rates encourage GM to load up on debt. Since GM is "too big to fail", GM's creditors are taking no real risk by lending GM money. As long as GM's creditors can lobby the State for a bailout, they can keep lending GM money.
David Z makes another interesting point:
To argue for the bailout, on personal and emotional grounds, is to suggest that labor should always be paid the same amount of money, even when they’re producing too many cars that nobody wants to buy, which is to say that this particular type of labor should be paid in excess of its worth, which is to say, it will be overpaid. But even a proper reading of the labor theory of value implies that value is not the same as cost.
This is a reverse Labor Theory of Value argument. The autoworkers are paid well. Therefore, they provide a valuable service to society as a whole.
In a true free market, the Free Market Labor Arbitrage Process guarantees that salary and true value of work are proportional. In the present, lawyers and bankers and autoworkers earn salaries greater than they could in a free market. They provide no useful service, yet are paid well.
Pro-State trolls say that people who argue for the Labor Theory of Value are communists, even though I see it as a free market concept. The reverse Labor Theory of Value is used to justify a corrupt system. "Bankers/lawyers/doctors/autoworkers must be brilliant, because otherwise they wouldn't be paid so much!"
The current system is so corrupt that "ability to manipulate a corrupt system for your personal benefit" is confused with "Providing a useful service to society as a whole." The parasite class has successfully brainwashed the productive workers that their parasitism is beneficial.
It's always interesting to see who's quoting my blog in Google Analytics and Google Search. This thread was interesting, citing my post on The Federal Reserve and Income Tax Conspiracy Theory. That's from June 2007. That's "classic FSK" now. I should go back and make updated versions of all my old popular posts.
That thread included this chart, which was interesting.
It gives a breakdown of the Federal government's budget. Notice that there's only four really big items. There's Department of Defense, which is the military-industrial complex. Notice that "Veteran's affairs" is listed separately; they really should be combined. Other sources said that military was 50% of the Federal government's budget, but there may be some "off-balance-sheet" items not listed here.
Health and Human services is the Welfare State. Not indicated in that chart is that nearly half the money spent is on salaries for bureaucrats enforcing the Welfare State. Some welfare money is spent on murder; many welfare recipients receive anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs, paid by Medicaid.
Interest on the national debt is another big item. As I mentioned before, interest on the national debt merely shows up as profits for financial industry insiders. Wealth is stolen via taxes and spent on interest on the national debt. That wealth doesn't vanish into thin air. It winds up in someone's pockets, that of financial industry insiders. According to the above chart, approximately 25% of the Federal Government's budget is used for interest on the national debt, which then turns up as subsidies for the profits of financial industry insiders.
Social Security is listed separately, which is also one big Ponzi Scam. The above chart only seems to indicate money spent on Social Security. Social Security taxes collected exceed benefits paid out. The difference shows up as further profits for financial industry insiders.
Someone E-Mailed me this YouTube video, which is an interview with Dr. Peter Breggin, who is one of the few mainstream supporters of anti-psychiatry.
I liked his explanation "Some people feel bad when they stop taking anti-depressants. This is not justification for the drugs, but rather they are withdrawal symptoms." Dr. Peter Breggin says the withdrawal period is less than a month. In my experience, it's more than a year. Physical withdrawal takes only a few days, but it takes longer than that for your body to re-adjust after having its neurotransmitter levels messed up. In many ways, being a victim of the psychiatry industry is like being tortured as a POW.
I didn't like the attitude of the interviewer. Her attitude was "How dare this ***hole suggest that the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness is wrong."
There was one caller who said "I agree with Dr. Breggin" and there was no detailed discussion. There was one caller who said "I feel sick when I stop taking my drugs.", and the interviewer argued in favor of the caller's attitude. Dr. Breggin tried to argue "You feel sick when you stop taking drugs because of withdrawal symptoms", but the interviewer didn't seem to get or emphasize this point.
One caller said "My son tries to get out of the car when it's moving, because he's taking psychiatric drugs." I experienced that desire while taking anti-psychotic drugs, but I didn't act on it.
I liked his term "psycho-pharmaceutical complex". A lot of people profit from the current corrupt mental health system, making reform practically impossible.
This video was interesting, via this post on jwz's LiveJournal RSS feed. (Jwz was one of the initial programmers at Netscape, who cashed out his stock options for a fortune and invested the proceeds in a nightclub.)
When I first watched the video, I thought that the evil tentacles represented the evil power of the State. I didn't realize it was about child abuse. The video makes more sense under the interpretation "evil tentacles represent the State".
This article on the Picket Line says I'm not working hard enough towards practical agorism.
There are several problems I am currently facing.
First, my parents would freakout if I took an off-the-books job. They would be the first to turn me over to the State. I need to get my interpersonal freedom back. Practical agorism is very hard for me while I'm stuck with them. Given my circumstances, I can't say "**** you, I'm moving out!", because they would call 911 and have me murdered/hospitalized. I have enough savings to afford my own apartment, but my parents would veto the expense. I have to figure out a way to get my parents to consent to me living on my own again. This is particularly difficult, because my parents don't see anyone regularly besides me; they're afraid of being alone as much as they're concerned I might get sick again.
Second, I don't see anyone offering to hire me at a rate comparable to what I'd earn after taxes in a corporate wage slave job. Unless I can get equivalent after-tax income as a full-time agorist, it doesn't pay for me to refuse a wage slave job. I'll work towards agorism in my spare time, doing the best I can.
Third, I don't know of anyplace I can go to buy agorist services. Do you know an agorist near where I live that sells clothing? Food? TV repair? Health care? Anything useful? Regrettably, purchasing from an agorist is not feasible for me right now, because my parents would again freakout.
If I had greater interpersonal freedom, I'd make a more active move towards agorism. Regrettably, it will take me another year or two to recover the ability to live on my own.
This post on the Picket Line shows that we're still very far apart on the philosophy of resisting the State.
David Gross is writing about a war tax resister. The war tax resister withheld 15% of his taxes owed, but otherwise filed a valid tax return. That tax resister is an idiot.
It's pointless to resist taxes on income the IRS already knows about.
The amount of the Federal government's budget that goes towards war is closer to 50% than 15%.
Withholding only taxes that go towards war accomplishes nothing. First, the State may do whatever it pleases once it has your wealth. Second, this action presumes that you approve of all the other evil things the State does. The war tax resister approves of the financial industry bailout and other bailouts?
David Gross is highlighting a half-***ed means of tax resistance as proper resistance.
The correct answer to resisting the State is that a completely alternate economic system, monetary system, and political system must be developed. Otherwise, you're just fighting the bad guys on their turf.
I thought this YouTube video on the Price is Right was interesting. In the showcase, someone got the bid on their showcase exactly right. The odds of that happening due to random chance are essentially zero, because most contestants bid a multiple of $50 or $100.
Some people said "Cheater!". Some people say that he just watched the show and memorized the prices, because many prizes are repeated. Some people say that there are some dedicated fans who attend nearly every taping. Such a fan memorized the prices and helped him.
The commenters on YouTube said "Drew Carey should have acted more excited!" Suspicious of cheating, the producers of the show halted taping for about an hour. That probably drained all the enthusiasm out of Drew Carey. They probably concluded "There's nothing we can/should do about it. This guy wins."
There actually is a simple precaution to prevent this. In every showcase, make one of the prizes be something that never appeared on the show before. They have enough prizes in their rotation that they could feasibly do this.
I liked this YouTube video and this one about William Shatner playing on classic Pyramid. He was a really lousy player.
Surprisingly, I saw William Shatner on an episode of "Million Dollar Password". He was so bad that the show was actually a comedy.
A lot of people said "Show me the Money" sucked, but I actually liked it.
Shows like "Million Dollar Password" and "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?" practically guarantee that the grand prize will never be won, based on the format.
For the 2nd season of Million Dollar Password, they added a 2nd "safe point" at $250k. If you make it to $250k, you don't risk your $250k to go for the $1M. However, nobody even took the risk to go for $250k. You're risking $75k, and the words were very hard. They should change the format so that the player *NEVER* risks his money by continuing. Alternatively, they could arrange the show as a tournament, guaranteeing a winner.
Similarly, for "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?", you have to risk $475k to go for $1M, without seeing the question in advance. That makes it too hard. Even for a Math question, they could make it an obscure definition or something to hard to figure out on stage. They could ask something like "How many sides are in a dodecahedron or icosahedron?", which I should be able to figure out but probably couldn't on stage.
Contrast that with "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", where you get to see the next question before deciding if you want to continue or stop.
I'm always offended by gameshows where winning the top prize is theoretically impossible, or it would be against-the-odds for the player to go for it.
Ironically, the only grand prize winner on "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?" was a State school superintendent. In other words, the only person smarter than a 5th grader is a State bureaucrat in charge of brainwashing children. That was an amusing evil fnord.
(They interview the contestants before they go on the show, which means they could set up easy questions for someone they want to win.)
I liked this article. A scientist performed a study where he gave honeybees cocaine and proved that it had a damaging effect on them.
I'd like to see the same study repeated with anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs (Ability, Risperdal, Ritalin, lithium, etc.). I predict that they would turn out to be as damaging as cocaine.
Of course, no State-licensed scientist can perform an experiment proving that State-licensed drugs are harmful. Only State-banned drugs may be proven harmful.
This post on the Picket Line, quoting this post by Sunni, shows they disagree with my definition of agorism.
They are referring to counter-economic activity where people buy and sell goods on barter exchanges. Most of these people are operating on a small-scale, as a way to supplement their income. Most of these people are operating independently as isolated tax resisters.
By agorism, I mean "a group of people working together, organized along free market principles, with a goal of completely replacing all services currently provided by the State".
When I say "The agorist counter-economy is non-existent!", I'm referring to things like:
- Someone operating a restaurant or food delivery business out of their home, without a State license, and earning enough income for it to be their full-time job.
- Someone offering high-quality medical care without a State license.
- Someone performing medical research without a State license.
- Someone manufacturing clothing or appliances in their basement, and selling them on a large scale.
- Using real money (gold or silver) instead of direct barter. Direct barter is nice, but real money is more efficient. Gold and silver are the least-common denominator for barter. Using gold and silver as money allows to people to trade off-the-books even if the buyer and seller can't make a direct swap.
- A credit rating service for agorists, so that you don't accidentally trade with an undercover cop.
Most of the activities cited on the Picket Line are low-scale. People would have to be acting on a much larger scale for me to consider them to be a sophisticated counter-economy. My ideal of agorism is a bunch of businesses working together to completely replace the State, rather than isolated pockets of tax resistance.
BTW, for those of you who say "Craigslist is an awesome resource for agorists!", look at this article on Craigslist's blog. Craigslist is cooperating with State enforcers, cracking down on people who use Craigslist for illegal things. Currently, that appears to be directed towards prostitution and drugs. At any time, the spying program could be expanded to look for tax evasion.
If I were offering medical care without a State license, I would probably become subject to a State raid if I advertised on Craigslist.
In this article, the Picket Line also is missing the point again. He writes about someone looking into "innovative alternative currencies". Gold and silver are fine enough. For "alternate monetary systems", the simplest/obvious solution is the correct one.
I liked this post on no third solution about the 3rd amendment, which bans quartering of troops in people's houses. David Z was referring to an older post of his, where he says that the income tax effectively repeals the 3rd amendment.
When the US economy was mostly colonists, the only way to support troops was to directly quarter them with civilians. There were no sophisticated supply lines and taxation system. Direct quartering of troops was the most efficient way to collect taxes.
Via quartering, the tax paid for troops is too obvious to the cattle. The solider you're forced to quarter is directly using violence to force you to feed and house him. If a State agent steals from you and pockets the profit himself, that's too obvious. When it's indirectly obfuscated via a complicated taxation/tribute system, then it's less obvious.
The income tax effectively means that every US citizen works 3 months per year directly for the US military. (That assumes an income taxation rate of 50% and that 50% of the State's budget is military. I consider police to be military.) Suppose I had two choices. I could work as a soldier for $20k/year, or I could work in the slave economy doing $200k of work per year. In that case, my on-the-books job supports the US military more than if I directly worked as a soldier!
The Federal Reserve also allows the State to steal people's savings via inflation, and us the proceeds for war. The Iraq war was not funded via a tax hike. It was mostly funded via an increase in the inflation tax. Investing in gold or silver prevents the State from stealing from you via inflation.
Police are also a type of quartered troops, especially when they conduct para-militarized no-knock raids.
If you don't pay taxes, it isn't the US military using violence to force you to pay. It's the police that are more likely to terrorize the average American.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Value of Quitting":
fsk-I empathize with you. I. too, have found some value in Pragmatism and it is a pillar in Agorism, but I am looking for the other pillars.
As far as I can tell, the pillars of free thinking are:
- theoretical economic freedom - This involves recognizing the damaging effect of State restriction on the economy.
- theoretical monetary freedom - This involves realizing the corrupt nature of the US monetary system.
- theoretical political freedom - This involves realizing "Taxation is theft!" and "The State is completely immoral!"
- religious freedom - This involves realizing that most mainstream religions are pro-State brainwashing. I'm more agnostic than atheist. I now identify most pro-State gods as a version of the God of Absolute Unopposable Evil. Is there a God of Absolute Unopposable Evil? He seems as real to me as the Evil God of the US Constitution, if not more so.
- emotional freedom - This involves cracking your pro-State emotional brainwashing. It isn't enough to consciously realize "Taxation is theft!" There are many emotional/subconscious aspects of pro-State brainwashing. People are taught to suppress their emotions and desires, as part of their pro-State brainwashing. People are taught to not look out for their self-interest, instead relying on State agents (teachers, financial planners, psychiatrists/murderers, etc.). Unfortunately, cracking this aspect of pro-State brainwashing will cause you to have the symptoms of a panic/manic attack, and will lead to your involuntary hospitalization and murder by the psychiatry/murder industry.
- interpersonal freedom - This involves hanging out with people who share your pro-freedom philosophy. This one is hard, because nearly everyone is thoroughly brainwashed as a pro-State troll. For this one, find the most openminded individuals you can and work on enlightening them.
- actual freedom - This wraps it all together. Having achieved the first items on your list, you and your friends/trading partners can work towards building a true free market that decreases your dependency on a corrupt economic and political system. You can't make substantial progress on actual freedom until you've achieved all of the above.
I'm working on interpersonal freedom, but it's very hard to meet other freedom-minded individuals. I need to find reasonably openminded people and educate them, rather than expecting to find someone who already understands the philosophy of genuine freedom (instead of pro-State troll fake freedom).
(This bit deserves its own separate post.)
I thought I could do meaningful work as a salesman for Underwood Typewriters, but when that didn't pan out, I became a sales rep for Commodore 64. That, too, became obsolete, and I turned my skills to rebuilding auto carburetors and part-time snail darter fishing. I lost my clientele there and embarked on a new career of financial advisor and mortgage broker.
Notice your transition in your career:
1. typewriter salesman - This was probably partially parasitic and partially useful.
2. C64 salesman - Same as typewriter salesman.
3. Fixing car parts and fishing - This is actual real work!! How did you lose your clients? If you were good, they would keep coming back to you, wouldn't they? One common lament is "Finding a good/honest car mechanic is hard!"
4. Financial planner and mortgage broker - Purely parasitic. Of course, when the financial markets imploded, you were SOL. An honest financial planner would tell his customers "Buy gold and silver!", but high commissions cannot be earned with that advice. "Financial planners earn their income via commissions" cause them to give corrupt advice. The natural incentive is to advise people to buy a mutual fund with a sales commission paid to the financial planner.
That looked OK until now. I am still Pragmatic, so I am investing all my assets in becoming the oldest astronaut,and have begun physical training and aerospace engineering with the ultimate goal of taking the first voyage to Mars, where there is no competition in any of the fields of my expertise. I hope the voyage is scheduled soon, as I am in my mid sixties, and Social Security looks shaky.
Unless you're planning to finance your own space mission, I don't see how you're going to be an astronaut going to Mars.
My practical advice is to go back to working as a car mechanic, but look for off-the-books work if you can get it. If you have a garage, fix cars there and do it off-the-books.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "3 Month Treasury Yield Drops to 0.00%":
FSK-You have exposed the Grand Theft Ponzi scheme of the Federal Reserve in cahoots with the other gangsters in the House and Senate.
I describe the Federal Reserve as outright theft, rather than a Ponzi scam. Social security is more of a Ponzi scam than the Federal Reserve.
The Compound Interest Paradox and boom/bust cycles do indicate some Ponzi-like features of the US monetary system. Individuals usually buy at the top of the boom, lose everything during the bust, while insiders always qualify for a bailout. Thinking "banking stocks are safe and recession-proof", I bought a bunch of banking stocks.
I'm going to keep my existing State paper investments, but all futher investments will be physical gold or silver or GLD or SLV.
The assumption has always been that a dollar is worth more today than next month because you can spend that dollar now. Interest only verified that simple concept. Now it is even more apparrent that the dollar is worth more at noon that it is at 3PM, because inflation already has its gun and mask, and has announced that gold is money and paper is paper.
The US is not yet at that severe level of hyperinflation. In countries with a hyperinflation problem, people typically rush to spend their salary immediately after receiving it, lest their purchasing power be lost to inflation. In times of hyperinflation, it is common for stores to raise prices more than once during a day.
If inflation in the US got to severe hyperinflation levels, there are plenty of people who would say "**** this! We're using gold and silver as money."
It will soon become obvious that theft disguised as taxation is really Armed Robbery. Since nobody with a mind that has any money would invest it in a Ponzi scheme run by those who also understand that a bird in the hand is worth more than a flock in the sky heading out to sea.
I agree that the Federal Reserve is ultimately backed by State violence.
First, there's State violence that enforces the collection of the income tax, which prevents people from boycotting the Federal Reserve. Second, there's State violence that prevents people from operating a gold and silver warehouse receipt bank or a gold/silver/FRN trading business.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Senate Seat for Sale!":
He should resign . But on the other hand we should send the governor of Illinois a thank you note. Thanking him for just being a dumb ass and once again exposing a corrupt system.
Most people will believe the mainstream media explanation. "Illinois' governor was corrupt and got caught. Therefore, all politicians who are don't get caught must be honest."
We need more people like him in power so the rest of the public can realize what a scam things are. And also the more dumb asses we have as leaders, the faster this whole mess will collapse under its own weight!!
Thank you Rod blagojevich for bringing the word to the people. and if you have anymore friends just like you, please encourage them to run for public office.
The corruption level of the US economy is increasing, not decreasing.
The more I think about it. I think that Rob is an Agorist mole working for the cause. an insider trying to expose corruption in public office. A man of no morals,driven only by money and power, with an intelligence level low enough to join the other incompetent people who run our government. He is a mole who is doing his best to bring down the inept powers to be!!!!
The system whereby politicians accept bribes for favors is completely off-the-books, with no written contracts, yet it functions incredibly efficiently. It actually is a good model for agorism!
Due to risk of a State crackdown, agorists should work with few/no written contracts, whenever possible. The agorist economy should be as efficient as the State parasite economy, where favors are exchanged informally.
A corrupt politician is merely arbitraging away the inefficiencies of the State. By accepting bribes in exchange for favorable laws, the politician is increasing the cost of lobbying the State for favors. Corrupt politicians are good, because they accelerate complete economic collapse.
I was watching TV, and saw a fnord I hadn't noticed before. It was a Quizno's vs. Subway commercial, but there are many other types. The commercial said "A nationwide taste test proves that Quizno's tastes better than Subway."
Do you see the evil fnord? I'll give you a chance to figure it out on your own.
SPOILER SPACE
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The evil fnord is "A 'scientifically' conducted survey is superior to your own personal judgement." A sandwich only costs a few dollars. Why not eat once at both restaurants, and decide for yourself which tastes better?
Of course, if it's a Quizno's commercial, they're only going to include a study that proves "Quizno's is better". The researcher in this case was obviously biased.
This is a common evil fnord. "The judgement of State-licensed experts is better than your own personal judgement."
By E-Mail, someone wrote:
You'll like this link. It's an old Calvin and Hobbes article.
http://zarkseven.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/calvin.jpg
I wasn't that impressed. I like Anarchy in Your Head better.
I'm considering of expanding from blogging to vlogging or making my own flash animations.
Some people at work were talking about buying gold.
Did you tell them "Gold outperformed the S&P 500 by 12% *ANNUALIZED* over the past 10 years!"? I couldn't believe that calculation when I performed it, but I checked and doublechecked and found no error. That's a difference of 12% **PER YEAR**.
Speaking of Calvin and Hobbes, that's a good occasion to illustrate the immorality of intellectual property. The author of Calvin and Hobbes retired and said he is writing no new comics. However, he still owns the rights to the characters. If I wrote my own Calvin and Hobbes comics and sold them, I'd be committing a crime, because I'd be violating his copyright/trademark. In this manner, characters can be effectively "killed" if the original author retires or sells the rights to idiots. For example, I can't say "These new 'Muppet' movies are awful. I'll make my own movies with those characters that don't suck."
Interestingly, putting up an AdSense widget increased my blogging motivation. I'm making enough to make me say "Only 100x more regular readers, and I could do this as a full-time job!" That is actually encouraging, because the doubling time for my traffic is 3-6 months.
If/when I move to my own domain and offer services besides blogging, the growth could be faster. I want to write my own PHP forum engine, because existing engines are not suitable for discussing controversial topics.
Here's another amusing anecdote. I misspelled "Travolta" as "Travola" in "Was Brett Travolta Murdered?" In Google Analytics, I noticed a lot of people Googling "Brett Travola", copying my misspelling. That's an unexpected SEO success!
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Senate Seat for Sale!":
The funny think is that many think that he was the only or one of a few governors to do that.
Most/all politicians are corrupt. The only question is the degree.
Even worse are the politicians who are trying to be honest, yet are fooled by their lobbyists and handlers! Obama probably sincerely believes "A more powerful State can make people's lives better!", but his advisors know how to line their pockets. Obama must sincerely believe that lie. Otherwise, he would be unable to be a convincing shill for the establishment.
I am sure this is the most usual conduct in state and federal government.
He was singled out for his attempt to make a well known bank to issue a loan to some company. The bank said why should we? Blagoevich said because we owe you now, bitches. He was correct. That bank just received bailout and should have given credit to anyone of his saviors (the people).
He was doing a bunch of shady things. He was demanding too many favors from too many people.
That is the problem with State bailouts for businesses and cartelization of the financial industry. In a true free market with sound money, there would be no value in pressuring a bank to give someone a loan. It would be the bank's own capital that is being squandered, rather than that of society as a whole via inflation.
With a central bank credit monopoly, banks effectively get to choose which businesses succeed and which businesses fail.
The next day there were FBI facts flying all over the corrupt governor, and three days later the bank did issue tiny credit as requested, to finally calm down the waters and make Blagoevich look like there was only his activity in the beginning.
Now, the dupes believe the misdirection and think: "whoa, look at this corrupted governor!", in amazement and disgust.
The problem is that people think "Only Illinois' governor is corrupt!", rather than this being the general practice. The only difference is that he was too explicitly corrupt.
Now, I am not the communist. I think there should have been NO bailouts. But since there were, I say that I believe WE NOW OWN those banks and WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO TAKE WHAT EVER THE HELL WE DESIRE.
That is not my solution. I believe the Federal Reserve and entire US financial system should be forced into bankruptcy. People should boycott the Federal Reserve and use sound money instead.
But, we wont! How many times I have warned dumb stupid socialists and commies in this country who used to say "so, what is so bad about socialism?". I told them that "You will pay, but you won't get anything back, you dummy!".
The USA already is a nearly perfect Communist country! That's one of the big errors of people who say "Communism would be better than the USA!" Communists really usually mean "People should be free to get together and voluntarily cooperate however they choose!" In other words, they want a free market, except they don't know it!
The USA is actually more corrupt than socialism/Communism. In the USA, it's now officially "Privatized losses, public gains." If you take a risk and profit, you get to keep the booty. If you're wrong, you can default via bankruptcy and limited liability incorporation, or get a direct State bailout.
I am convinced that the large percentile of dumb people is the most prominent feature of our times.
I disagree with "People are intrinsically stupid. Therefore, the State is needed." The State *CAUSES* most people to be stupid, via mandatory public school (and State regulation of education that forces private schools to follow the defective public school model).
People are stupid because of pro-State brainwashing.
That's why I like the Internet and blogging. The most intelligent people can discover the truth first. The mainstream media can still broadcast its lies to keep the stupid masses complacent, while the most intelligent people figure out what to do about the problem of the State.
By E-Mail, someone wrote:
Check out this crazy NBA salary cap story.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3821503
That's a defect in the NBA salary cap rules.
The player had a huge contract. He was declared medically unfit to play, and waived. Because he was declared medically unfit to play, Portland gets a salary cap exemption. They still have to pay him the money, but it doesn't count against the cap.
After being medically waived, he is now an unrestricted free agent.
If another team signs him and he plays, then the NBA CBA says "I guess he wasn't medically unfit to play.", and the cap exemption is revoked from Portland.
Another team could exploit this to mess with Portland. The could sign him to an NBA minimum contract. They could have him play for a minute or two in garbage time. It might make sense for a team in Portland's division to do this specifically to mess up Portland.
Here's how I would patch the NBA's CBA. Player aren't allowed to sign contracts that are more than 50% guaranteed. This way, if a player doesn't live up to expectations, he can be profitably waived. The player still gets a decent chunk of money. A player's contract only becomes guaranteed once the season starts.
The way the NBA CBA works, a contract counts the same against the cap if it's guaranteed or not. Effectively, this makes it mandatory to make all contracts 100% guaranteed.
How about the cap implications of Brett Favre sticking around? Messy for the Jets, I hear.
Usually, players renegotiate their contract. It would be a problem if he refused. The Jets would be forced to waive him. For example, the Jets could say "If you want to play for us again next year, it'll have to be for a $7M salary. We'll give you a $2M signing bonus as incentive to agree." For that, Brett Favre might agree.
Also remember that, according to the now-expiring CBA, 2009 will be a cap-free year. The Jets would be better off signing a few competent free agents for $10M-$15M, instead of re-signing Brett Favre.
IMHO, Brett Favre will not play for the Jets again next season.
By gmail chat, someone said:
I like the tax preparation ads on your blog.
Really?
I thought they were inappropriate.
I haven't blocked any AdSense vendors.
By E-Mail, redpillguy says:
Explanation and download links here:
http://hourmoney.org/coopgame.htm
There are 4 sets of economic and monetary rules, one of which you choose at the start of the game. Explanation and summaries here:
http://hourmoney.org/The%20Economics%20of% 20Cooperation.zip
The 4 systems are:
- barter
- majority rule aka socialism
- making money aka "capitalism"
- "autonomy"
So players play the games and represent chunks of the population under the rules. In the end, society's "wealth" is measured in terms of median "income", free time, lack of poverty, etc.
The summary of his observations in the above zipped doc link is fascinating. After watching several games under the different systems, he has found certain patterns regarding them.
Under "Capitalism", the economy reflects the current banking system wherein money is created and loaned and needs to be repaid with interest.
My one beef is that he calls it Capitalism instead of Corporatism (or perhaps a better name is "Bankerism"), because the system of cartelized central banking and the debt-money system is NOT a true free market capitalist system. Interesting that under these rules people lobby for favorable laws from government LOL, just like the Corporatism we have today.
My beef with calling the system Capitalism instead of Corporatism, is that it feeds the false dichotomy that "if Capitalism is bad, Socialism must be good".
The results of Corporatism are predictable - large discrepancies in wealth distribution, and the bankers almost always make all the money, just like society today.
Under "Socialism", dissent is quashed and the system degenerates to an Oligarchy.
Under "Autonomy", he actually has a system much closer to a TRUE free market, but with a twist - fiat money is issued DEBT-FREE.
No surprise, that "Autonomy" runs away as having the best measures of quality of life, median income, and lack of poverty.
That seems sort of interesting, but I didn't read the full details. If the rules are complicated, a computer game probably is better than a board game.
The problem with any economic simulation game is that any observed outcome is a consequence of any bias in the rules of the game. That's the same way the actual real economy works!
For this reason, any "economics simulation" performed by State-licensed economists is pointless. The ultimate conclusion will reflect whatever the bias they put into the setup of their model.
I'm much more interested in "Is it a good game?" than any political meaning.
"Write my own economic simulation game" is one of my ideas for things to put up on my own site.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Bernard Madoff, a Typical Hedge Fund Manager":
Are you aware that the $1 billion dollar GABM Investment Fund III is also involved in Bernard Madoff 's fraudulent schemes. As a member of Global Association of Billionaires and Millionaires (GABM) I am absolutely shocked to the core about this situation. We as GABM members have established these funds to generate profits which we allocate to global philanthropic programs and towards the greater good of alleviating poverty all over the world. I am aware that some of our US members have already contacted the SEC and FBI to investigate this matter.
Anthony Reynolds
I thought "GABM" was a joke, but GABM does have a website (that doesn't make it legitimate).
In case you aren't paying attention, I'm not a billionaire or millionaire. If I had that much money, I'd be more likely to be saying "Hooray for the State!"
As a practical matter for investment, I've concluded that physical gold and silver is the best investment. If you have billions of dollars, you can't buy without moving the price. I'd still advice a super-wealthy person to keep some gold in a secure location. Ironically, Madoff had gold! He was accused of mailing expensive jewelry to relatives, so it would not be seized by the State/creditors.
macv has left a new comment on your post "Bernard Madoff, a Typical Hedge Fund Manager":
Everything is a scam. I am fully expecting this crisis to reveal that most highly respected institutions were simply a scam and a ponzi scheme.
You'll never see the mainstream media explicitly say "The entire system is defective!"
This is how it always happens everywhere around the world. I've seen it before.
Historically, no paper money system lasts more than approximately 100 years. Insiders can never resist the temptation to print more money and give it to themselves, leading to an eventual hyperinflationary collapse.
It is actually funny to watch this unfolding. You may not believe me when I say that most schemes and scams will be bailed out and legitimized when "discovered", thus making the problem even worse. This is how nations rot. It's like discovering that your friend stole from you, but instead of forgetting his name, you start to outlay 100 bucks a week for him to steal. This will happen, I promise.
Do not trust anybody. The "best" people out there that you think are running a good game are actually just scammers. Expect this. This is the true state of our world. It can't be any different when the scam is the underlying fabric of our society (fake money).
For this reason, I now advise that physical gold and silver in your possession are the best investment. Due to the Federal Reserve credit monopoly, it won't be practical to make gold-denominated loans until after the State collapses.
We drink the science of scamming with our mother's milk. We are The Con Nation. Everything else about us, is a lie.
The entire economic and political system is one big scam. The complete collapse is a historic inevitability. Severe abuses cannot continue for an extended period of time without a correction.
milt tomkins has left a new comment on your post "Bernard Madoff, a Typical Hedge Fund Manager":
This is a great blog!!! glad I found it..….very educational…thank you…I will put it on my favorites list..
You can also subscribe via RSS and use a RSS reader. Google Reader is my favorite. RSS is a great tool for tracking multiple blogs.
I hope GABM is for real... I also learned a lot about trading strategies from 3 other great books. Hedge Fund Trading Secrets Revealed..by Robert Dorfman..and Confessions of a Street Addict of course by Jim Cramer..written before he got really famous.and Richard ARMS..STOP AND MAKE MONEY….all 3 are riveting and very informative. You should check them out if you like reading behind the scenes stuff about hedge fund and what methods they use to make money. or lose
I already know "the financial industry is one big scam". I'm not interested in reading more in that area. Jim Cramer is a shill for the establishment as much as anyone else. Jim Cramer does give good "Think for yourself about investing!" advice. "Think for yourself!" is always good advice. However, advising people to invest in stocks over gold or silver is severe fiduciary neglect.
If you really are a billionaire, you can't buy a huge amount of gold and silver without moving the price. I advise buying a couple ounces here and there. If you're really that wealthy, you can buy futures, pay the full amount, and take physical delivery.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Mental Health Clinic Observations":
I attended a show in Seattle last year where they had posters, short videos about psychiatry. The session showed that psychiatry is not really a science but a scam.
Google for "psychiatry scam" - you will find videos, books, blogs on the subject. I encourage you to learn about it.
I already know that "The psychiatry/death industry in the USA is one big fraud."
I did some research after the first time I was hospitalized. Even though I was totally doped up, I did find some anti-psychiatry resources. Luckily, I convinced my parents to let me stop taking the drugs, even though I was re-hospitalized a few times while suffering withdrawal.
My own person experiences are more scientific than any FDA approved research study! I consider "The 'chemical imbalance' theory of mental illness is nonsense!" to be nearly completely proven. My semi-scientific observations of other mental health patients, plus reader feedback, reinforces my conclusions. (Of course, my readers are not a random sample of the population. A surprisingly large percentage of regular commenters claim they were abused by the psychiatry industry at one point in their lives.)
I am a new reader of your blog and really like the good writing. I find it hard to believe that you have any psychiatry disease.If you're a new reader, check out "Best of FSK" in the left sidebar! I plan to go back an redo all the "Best of FSK" posts, although I might wait until I get my own site.
I saw one guy I knew from high school and college on the train one day. I told him I had been diagnosed with a "mental illness". He said "You're not crazy, FSK!"
I was perfectly fine for 30+ years before I was involuntarily hospitalized. It seemed silly that I needed to take drugs that prevented me from thinking or doing all the things I normally like to do, and that I needed to take those drugs for the rest of my life. Based on my behavior for a day or two while I was under extreme stress, plus a 2-5 minute evaluation, my psychiatrist gave me a death sentence. Most people don't have the ability to say "Is my psychiatrist wrong?"
From the point of view of a State-licensed psychiatrist, my belief "Taxation is theft!" could, by itself, be considered a symptom of a mental illness. If I tried to represent myself sui juris in a tax evasion trial, the judge could have me ruled mentally incompetent. Most competency hearings are ordered when the defendant expresses a desire to represent himself. The legal system considers sui juris defendants to be wasting the court's time.
DixieFlatline has left a new comment on your post "FSK Asks - Google AdSense":
Drop me an email dixieflatline --- notreason.com and I'd be happy to provide some info and feedback.
Trying to answer people in blogger comments isn't conducive to a conversation.
DixieFlatline recommented text-link-ads.com. I decided on AdSense over that, because text-link-ads doesn't provide an RSS option.
So far, I'm satisfied with AdSense.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "FSK Asks - Google AdSense":
FSK, you are forgetting all the readers you get via RSS. I read your blog via Google Reader and I presume that I'm not the only one. As the median percentage of RSS readers is about 11% of all visits, you could say you have 220 visits.
I included AdSense for RSS. It was only 7.5% of my total AdSense revenue so far, which is less than I expected.
You have to use FeedBurner to get AdSense for RSS. Surprisingly, according to FeedBurner, more than half of my RSS subscribers use a Google-sponsored reader (!). I thought that Google had approximatly 10%-20% of the RSS reader market. I guess that "Google Reader Shared Items" is a powerful tool for other people discovering your blog.
Be careful when using FeedBurner. There are *TWO* Feedburners! You can login directly to FeedBurner, or you can use your Gmail/Blogger account to log into FeedBurner. You have to use the Gmail login to get AdSense-enabled FeedBurner.
On the hosting side, you should probably use WP and a cheap hosting service. Wordpress has all the relevant as spaces built into the system, so it's pretty easy to add the ad widgets.
I'm looking into lamphost.net as the #1 contender for my hosting vendor. I'm going to make a detailed post on my web hosting reviews.
I'm going to use WordPress. I may also put up a PHPBB forum engine or a MediaWiki installation. I'm going to roll-my-own PHP forum engine, but not on day one. Most/all current forum engines have a flaw. They don't handle controversial topics well.
DixieFlatline has left a new comment on your post "FSK Asks - Google AdSense":
FSK, check out TLA. I bet you could make a couple hundred $$ a year by selling ad inventory in the investing and financial categories.
Just do it. All you need is a paypal account to receive the money in (good for keeping away from parents too...)
Regrettably, my parents would veto me setting up a PayPal account.
I considered setting up an alternate checking account at a separate bank, keeping the minimum balance, and using it for PayPal. I've heard horror stories involving PayPal and having your checking account drained/frozen.
So far, Google AdSense seems to be worth it. I'll stick with AdSense until I can start selling advertisements directly.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "FSK Asks - Google AdSense":
FSK, you are a smart guy,
Based on my experience, whenever someone says "FSK, you're a smart guy.", they really mean "FSK, you're an idiot for disagreeing with me." "FSK, you're a smart guy" is a common evil fnord, because of the implication "You're an idiot if you disagree with me."
you have a sense of honor, and yet you are willing to sell your dedicated readers down the sewer to a corporation that monitors everything we do, including our email, our web searches and most small sites via atrocious google analytics.
Google already had the ability to monitor my blog. I'm hosting on Blogger!
The truth is that your writing has given some of us hope, and we follow you and your tribulations, you discoveries and disappointments because we actually like you.
This is the Strawman Fallacy. Even if you disagree with my decision to start using AdSense, that does not invalidate my other points.
I don't think you can make a living writing your blog, but if you are talking about $10 per month, I am sure you can raise that much through direct donations.
Actually, I'm doing better with AdSense than I would have via donations. I'm glad I didn't accept the "donations in exchange for saying AdSense free" option. When I get my own domain, I may offer people an option to donate to disable ads.
I am a bit offended that you would think of us as cattle to sell to Google at a penny per ad (not to mention that anyone with a brain loads Adblock Plus and NoScript and blocks all scripts and ads anyway, especially google analytics and the like).
Then you can install those two FireFox extensions and continue reading my blog the same as before. What's the problem?
Google is about as evil as it gets. The information Google collects is vast and most people are only beginning to understand what it means to have a log of all their email, every search they ever launch, and a comprehensive log of all the sites they visit. Google keeps that information, and sells it. If the government wants it, they will have it. The State no longer has to spy on people - Google does it for them.
Like all large corporations, Google is a branch of the State. However, Google does have some useful bits. Blogger is useful (but I'd use WordPress if starting over). Gmail has a better anti-spam filter than any other E-Mail client I've used.
There are many free thinking agorists in the making who right now will not visit any google-owned sites - the benefit is outweighed by becoming a Matrix-style 'crop' for the state.
Blogger is owned by Google. You just violated your own "boycott Google" policy.
Besides, just by using the Internet, the State may track what you're doing.
Please don't treat us as cattle. More and more of us are becoming educated with the ways of the Google.
You're free to leave. You aren't cattle. You may even set up a program that reads my RSS feed, strips out the ads, and republishes my content. There are spam sites that do this.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "FSK Asks - Google AdSense":
FSK..I think you should go for it. Do your research and give it a try.Because mainly you want to do it. And if it doesn't work out you can always move back to your blog.
You mean, I can always remove AdSense after putting it up.
I'm satisfied with AdSense so far.
I'm excited for you,you have a great way of seeing through the bull shit and telling it like it is. you will most likely pick up more readers and be able to spread in a greater way.
Overall, the long-term trend for my blog readership is increasing. December was a down month, because I was sick and people go on vacation at the end of December.
I feel that I'm writing good articles again lately. I'm still *WAY* behind on answering "Reader Mail". Treating my blog as a for-profit business is a good attitude shift. Based on preliminary AdSense results, I need only 100x more regular readers for this to be viable as a job! I consider growth from 200/day to 20,000/day to be attainable, especially since I estimate size of the Remnant to be 1M+.
Ironically, profiting from my blog has increased my motivation! If I only need 100x more regular readers to do this as a full-time job, that's definitely attainable!
Freedomain and Steve Pavlina are successful freedom-oriented Bloggers. I should be able to be as successful as them, but it takes awhile to build an audience. They weren't an overnight success. They spent several years building their site and their reputation.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "FSK Asks - Google AdSense":
I agree with previous Anon. poster.
How do I know you're not exactly the same person as the previous Anonymous poster?
Google is collecting a huge case on everyone whether they admit to it or not. Some, like myself and Anon. poster above, already understand it. Others, are waiting to be awaken some time later, by some horrendous court proceeding, where Google will be made to present their logs.
Google already has my full server logs. Blogger is owned by Google.
More importantly, this may not happen anytime soon, and the government may retrieve the information from Google quietly, without raising public concern.
They could do that by intercepting traffic as it crosses the Internet. Allegedly, the NSA has a filter attached in all major Internet hubs.
Does the NSA have the resources to filter out all Internet traffic? Yes. Are they capable of using that data intelligently? Probably not. The NSA is looking for flagrant terrorism, such as people performing assassinations or destroying State property. A State enforcer probably would consider harassing me to not be worth his time.
There are two types of State harassment:
- I could be frivolously charged with a crime. This could be embarrassing for the bad guys, because I'd choose to defend myself sui juris and it'd be a *BIG* embarassment if I got acquitted.
- I could be outright assassinated. The bad guys would do this, if sufficiently threatened.
Anyway, I am what, 1 out of may-be 300 posting to this blog? I am about to be sold to Google on conditions of Google? For about 3 cents a month?
Actually, fewer than 1-out-of-300 readers comment. I shouldn't let the active commenters speak for the people who choose to lurk. Someone else complained "All of FSK's commenters either say 'FSK is awesome!' or 'FSK sucks!'" If you don't feel strongly either way, you probably won't leave a comment.
I'm making approximately $0.01 per site visitor! That's pretty good. (So if you come to my blog once per day, it's $0.30 per month.)
And FSK, this is how your agoristBay is going to work? You are going to put us all under the gunsights of people like Google?
I'm going to initially have AdSense to support the site. I'll probably add an option to disable ads for users who purchase services from me or make donations. (The only problem is writing the code for it. Blogger doesn't offer the option to disable ads for only certain users.) Plus, I plan to Open Source my engine, so you're free to start your own competing site if you don't like mine.
I'm gone the moment I see an Ad. It would suck for me FSK, because I came to like this place. But here is the rub: You ain't much of an agorist if you can't refuse the bait.
OK, goodbye! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!
You're confused about the definition of agorism. Agorism is "build the new society within the shell of the old". It's acceptable to utilize the State economy until the counter-economy is a viable alternative. Right now, there are three ways I can get money to pay for hosting.
- Work in a wage slave job, and use the profits for hosting, paying taxes on my wages.
- Put AdSense on my blog, and use the profits for hosting, paying taxes on my AdSense revenue.
- Solicit donations. My donators will have paid taxes on any income they earned.
With AdSense, I can now promote agorism and show a profit at the same time! The State isn't just government itself. It's an evil State of mind that allows government to exist in the first place. Both government itself, and the evil mental State must be fought simultaneously. For now, I have to attack the evil mental State more than government itself.
And what's with this parent's thing? FSK, are you underage? I thought you're adult since you were blogging about job and being fired...
When I was involuntarily hospitalized, I moved back in with my parents. At the time I was first hospitalized, I was living in Chicago by myself and my parents were living in NYC. My parents came to Chicago to bail me out of the hospital, over the objections of the hotel staff. They brought me back to NYC to live with them.
They still treat me like a child. One of my main short-term goals is recovering my interpersonal freedom. I want to get my own apartment again, although I plan to stay in NYC. While I'm living with my parents, I must coddle their wishes. All it takes is a 911 call for them to have me involuntarily hospitalized/murdered. For this reason, I must tread carefully. I have the savings to say "**** you! I'm leaving!", but my parents would object. My parents want me to have a wage-slave job for 6-12 months and go 1-2 years without being hospitalized again, before giving me permission to move out. For now, I have no other alternatives and am working towards recovering my freedom and retraining them to be less abusive.
Actually, being stuck with my parents is interesting, because I can see how they pro-State brainwashed me without being consciously aware of it themselves. Children could not be brainwashed by the State without the cooperation of their parents. For this reason, there is excessive hostility between parents and children in our society. Children resent their parents for pro-State brainwashing them, and the parents don't have the skills/awareness to realize what they've done.
Sarah has left a new comment on your post "FSK Asks - Google AdSense":
I think another commenter hit on a good idea and that is ask for a donation instead. You could just try putting a little e-gold donation box on the side, and you would probably get a better response. Chip-ins work really well too.
E-Gold was shut down by the IRS/FBI. All E-Gold transactions must be reported to the State now.
When I move to my own domain, I'll offer donators the option to disable ads. The only difficulty is the time required to write the code for it.
I second the Google precautions. I don't know if I trust Scroogle yet either though.
Scroogle is separate from AdSense. Scroogle is a search engine. Scroogle submits the query to Google, then scrubs/anonymizes the results. Google still knows that a query was made, but presumably they can't link it to a specific person.
Hey, come check out my blog I just started, QuestiontheFed.com, I linked to ya!
I put you in my RSS reader. I cited one of your posts above. If you publish something particularly interesting and relevant, let me know! (Don't go overboard and do that for every single post, though.) I'm behind on my RSS readings. (Someone complained that I'm not quoting enough stuff from elsewhere on the Internet lately. I'm working on catching up on Reader Mail first.)
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "FSK Asks - Google AdSense":
Agreed with Anonymous 11:08p and 12:43p. I'll chip-in $5/mo for the great content if I don't have to see advertising. If it's $10/mo for hosting, you're halfway there.
I'm on track to make more than $10/month via AdSense.
Go ahead and install the FireFox extension that blocks AdSense. Alternatively, write a script that republishes my RSS feed and strips out the ads.
BTW, I have an amusing story. I "checked availability" for the name I was contemplating for my site. A few days later, someone was domain squatting it.
I read that some domain registrars filter through "check domain availability" requests, and then squat domains that are searched but unregistered. I find it suspicious that someone started squatting the domain after I did a "check availability" search.
I have a bunch of potential names in mind, so I'm not going to use the first one I was thinking about. It's amusing.
I noticed disproportionately many of the Google ads were for tax-related services. I thought that was inappropriate, but someone told me he liked them. Considering it's tax season, that might be a seasonal flood of ads.
I've decided that I'm not going to block any AdSense publishers, at least for now.
John Wallace has left a new comment on your post "The Federal Reserve and Income Tax Conspiracy Theo...":
AMERICA'S TREASONOUS LILLIPUTIANS
In 1726, Jonathan Swift wrote “Gulliver’s Travels” which was a story of an English surgeon, named Lemuel Gulliver, who takes to the high seas when his business in England fails. Gulliver's multiple adventures begin in a place called Lilliput when he awakens on a beach after a shipwreck only to find himself immobilized and tied down by thousands of tiny threads woven around him by the very tiny Lilliputians. If Gulliver had been awake, he could easily have snapped these threads individually or in small numbers and the Lilliputians would never have succeeded in taking control of Gulliver and making him their prisoner. Those tiny threads were multiplied and woven hundreds and thousands of times by the Lilliputians while Gulliver was sleeping. By the time Gulliver finally did wake up, it was too late. He was totally incapacitated and unable to do anything. He was at the mercy of his new masters, the Lilliputians.
Just like Gulliver, the American people appear to be either asleep or unaware of the growing danger of being incapacitated by America’s own version of the Lilliputians, who are nothing more than well financed traitors to this great country. Do not underestimate the danger. There is a network of prominent individuals and organizations, led by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), who are very much like the Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels. Pushing the globalist agenda of their masters, these individuals and organizations are extremely well financed by large international banking and corporate foundations and they currently pose more of a danger to America’s freedoms, liberties and sovereignty than any foreign enemy.
After World War II, this same network of individuals and organizations were instrumental in the founding of the United Nations, which was specifically designed to be used as an instrument in the creation of the New World Order. The American delegation to the San Francisco meeting that drafted the charter of the United Nations in 1949 included many CFR members such as Nelson Rockefeller, John Foster Dulles, John Mc Cloy and the Secretary-General of the conference, Alger Hiss, who was later arrested as a communist spy for Russia, as were several other prominent CFR members.
This growing network of individuals and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) have been instrumental in using our country’s membership in the United Nations and other international organizations to circumvent the US Constitution by gradually expanding the role and power of these international organizations in an effort to diminish our own sovereignty. They advocate giving a wide variety of international organizations ever increasing powers at the expense of the sovereignty of individual nations. They also advocate for the consolidation of international finances and money creating powers into the hands of a few private international banks. All of this is proposed for the benefit of all mankind, of course, and they always push for global organizations to solve global issues.
The individual “threads of change” that America’s own traitorous Lilliputians use against their fellow Americans are varied and if examined individually would not appear to pose to any big danger to our way of life in America. But added together, these individual “threads of change” are placing American’s freedoms, liberties and sovereignty at risk. This is one reason that many Americans today feel that the American way of life is being attacked and challenged every single day from a hundred different directions and they are right.
Here are a few of the “threads of change” currently being woven around America’s freedoms, liberties and sovereignty by these traitorous enemies within out own country:
a. Millions of dollars in “legal” special interest bribes to our politicians every year;
b. 12-20 million illegal aliens allowed to remain in the country costing the American taxpayers billions of dollars;
c. Election fraud through the use of new electronic voting machines without paper trails;
d. Downplaying of the importance of English as our official language;
e. Destroying our manufacturing jobs through unfair trade agreements like NAFTA that benefit corporations over American workers;
f. Growing influence of private, non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission on our government’s political leaders and policies;
g. Failed social engineering programs in housing, education, finance, employment, etc.
h. Expansion of underfunded entitlement programs;
i. Ever increasing taxation of the people at every level of government;
j. Frequent attacks on the Second Amendment rights of American citizens from every level of government;
k. Creation of one financial crises after another that are designed to allow the federal government and the Federal Reserve to assume a larger role in controlling the economy even though the federal government’s own actions, policies and legislation caused the crises in the first place;
l. Federal government’s use of the threat of terrorism as an excuse to become more intrusive into our everyday lives and thereby place more and more limitations on our personal freedoms and liberties;
m. Increasing use of prescription drugs to alter the behavior of more and more Americans. For example: At the present time, there are 6 million children under the age of 18 in the USA who have been prescribed mind-altering psychotropic drugs like Ritalin;
n. Deliberate “dumbing down” of the American education system through revised teaching methods and the re-writing of textbooks to include politically correct and globalist agendas;
o. Deliberate and frequent attacks on mainstream organized religions (particularly Jewish and Christian);
p. Surrender of our government’s constitutional power to create money to a group of private international bankers (the Federal Reserve) who answer to no one and who are slowly and deliberately bankrupting this country through the use of “fiat’ money;
q. Manipulated and biased news stories from the mainstream media that are too often designed to support the political agendas of their owners, international bankers and corporations, special interest groups and even their favorite political candidates.
r. Politicization and manipulation of science by special interest groups for political gain through the use of legal and/or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research and then using their own media outlets to control the way it is disseminated, reported or interpreted. Global Warming is a prime example of this process;
s. The endless cycle of war that has occurred since America became a member of the United Nations. The UN charter has allowed our politicians to send American troops into combat on foreign soil without formal Declarations of War;
t. The step by step surrender of our nation’s sovereignty to an ever expanding and un-elected United Nations bureaucracy in order to promote the need for a “New World Order” and “One World Government” under the guise of fighting common global threats against all the people of the earth including the pollution of the oceans, the aids epidemic, third world poverty, terrorism and global warming;
Unfortunately, the previous list is only a small fraction of the “threads of change” that are being woven around and through American society today by America’s enemy within. Although this traitorous network of individuals and organizations is relatively small, they have an unlimited amount of money at their disposal to use to pursue their globalist agenda.
They advance their agenda by:
1. Using their own group members currently in high government positions,
2. Using individuals and research groups financed by their own non-profit foundations, and
3. Using the media companies they own to bring pressure on government officials from several different directions at once.
The long term plan of America’s Lilliputians has been to use a small “step by step” process, or “thread by thread” change process that is designed to slowly but steadily advance their goals while at the same time going virtually unnoticed by the majority of Americans. Unfortunately, their success in implementing their goals will gradually convert the USA from a sovereign nation into a subservient position in the new world order run by non-elected, appointed bureaucrats selected by the international bankers.
The sheer numbers of these individual globalist “threads of change” that threaten America’s freedoms, liberties and sovereignty have been increasing dramatically in the last few decades. As these “threads of change” are very carefully woven deeper and deeper into the fabric of American society by the enemy within and are combined with other “threads of change,” they are steadily becoming stronger and more difficult to break.
If America fails to awaken soon to the danger that these traitorous American Lilliputians pose to this country, we too, like Lemuel Gulliver, will find ourselves totally incapacitated, without individual freedoms and liberties and unable to do anything about it. The grip of these international criminals must be broken and the threats against our liberties, freedoms and our nation’s sovereignty must be eliminated before it is too late.
If the plan of the international bankers is ultimately successful, the US constitution will gradually be superseded by international laws, rules, regulations and legal decisions of the International World Court.
If we do nothing and the traitorous Lilliputian international bankers are successful in fully implementing their globalist agenda for America, we will all be destined to be poor, overtaxed, unarmed, bound by the chains and shackles of servitude and at the mercy of our new masters.
By John W. Wallace
ttp://www.nycampaignforliberty.com
I don't get your point. Why not just post an article on your your own blog and post a link here?
I already know "The Federal Reserve and income tax are immoral!" I've researched the conspiracy theory arguments and there's some merit.
However, it's irrelevant whether the current corrupt system evolved as a deliberate conspiracy or via a series of bad decisions. Either way, something needs to be done about this problem.
I'm much more interested in "So what are you going to do about it?" articles instead of "The State sucks!" articles. If all you're saying is "The State sucks!", you're repeating something I already know.
I'm on the NYC Campaign for Liberty mailing list due to subscribing to the Ron Paul meetup group. They're a (L)libertarian group. They haven't come to the correct conclusion "The State is evil and must be completely eliminated." Unfortunately, NYC Campaign for Liberty is part of the problem and not part of the solution. Libertarians hold out the false hope that the corrupt system can somehow be magically be reformed via voting.
You can't fight the State via the wimpy act of voting. Real freedom requires effort and risk.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Canada's Prime Minister Suspends Parliament":
I think the Queen, in her capacity as Queen of Canada can suspend the Canadian Parliament. Canada is independent of the United Kingdom, they just happen to share the same head of state. If the Parliament of Canada were to decide to do away with the Queen the UK would have no say (Australia is in the same position and seems likely to remove the Queen at some point in the near future).
More practically its the Governor General of Canada who issues the order as the Queen's Viceroy - the Governor General is selected by the Prime Minister and the Queen only approves this (and does not generally refuse approval - due to the constitutional crisis this would evoke).
So, I suspect, the Prime Minister asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament, which is one the the few Royal Prerogatives left in Canada. The Governor General agrees to the request, because they're mates, or because the Governor General just does whatever is asked of them (as with signing laws).
Technically, Canada's Parliament should formally declare independence with the UK, in protest. If I were a Canadian member of Parliament, that's what I'd do. I'd ignore the Queen's order.
In the UK, Royal Prerogative is far more expansive, even including declaration of war, and this is exercised by the Prime Minister (although I believe Parliament's approval is needed to keep a standing army, but that's not ever going to be withheld). The Queen in recent years just goes along with whatever the Prime Minister wants... (if she failed to do so then there would be a considerable constitutional crisis - which would be interesting).
There probably would be a severe crisis in the UK, if the Queen refused to rubberstamp the Prime Minister's requests. The Queen currently has a pretty lucrative arrangement, so she probably won't rock the boat. If the Prime Minister's laws were that inappropriate (from the insiders' point of view), that would be fixed via a media outcry. In that case, the media would say "Go Queen for standing up to a corrupt PM!" That's the only circumstance where the Queen would overrule the PM, and there'd probably be a "no confidence" vote anyway in that case.
As for the nature of Parliaments, in the UK the Prime Minister is selected by the Queen, although custom dictates that the leader of the largest party in the Commons is asked to try and form a government (ie get the support of a majority of MPs). The Lords is currently unelected, consisting mainly of appointed members, a few remaining hereditary peers and the Bishops of the Church of England.
Also in the UK, we elect members on the First Past The Post system in the same way that the majority of US Representatives are elected and we have no multi-member constituencies (any more).
I thought that the UK had multi-member consitutiencies? Multi-member constituencies are great for allowing 3rd party formation, which is probably why they were eliminated.
Other countries work more like you suggest and others probably work in other even more weird ways.
All are illegitimate and immoral of course.
Once you realize "Taxation is theft!", all forms of government are illegitimate and immoral. That's the only important point.
Seeing State bureaucrats violate their own rules is interesting. It's always amusing when State insiders take action that makes the illegitimacy of their authority obvious.
"Government is a sophisticated extortion/protection racket!" is the explanation that best fits my observations.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Canada's Prime Minister Suspends Parliament":
Marx supported and desired Central Banks, which means he supported taxation, your Marx story must be false.
No. Karl Marx really did participate in a tax resistance movement. As much as I hate to link to Wikipedia, Wikipedia has the item on Karl Marx and tax resistance.
Ironically, David Gross' book is cited by Wikipedia as the source! (Technically, I should check David Gross' sources, but I'm not going to bother. I assume the Wikipedia fact Nazis got the details straight, since Wikipedia censorship usually has a pro-State slant.)
I consider Karl Marx to be a great free market thinker. When you consider the Labor Theory of Value as the Free Market Labor Arbitrage Process, it makes sense. Capital is entitled to its fair return, but the biggest component of cost in most products is labor. State restriction of the market allows insiders to earn returns greater than the fair free market rate.
The Communist Manifesto describes how to achieve a global free market. There were three stages to achieving a global free market.
- In the late 19th century, there still was a State. People in the USA had a certain degree of freedom, but the presence of the State meant the market wasn't really free.
- Then, the State seizes control of the means of production. This was achieved in the early 20th century.
- Finally, the State dissolves itself and a free market is achieved. This is the next transition that is about to occur. Instead of gradually shrinking and disappearing (as Marx described), what will actually occur is the State grows larger and larger until it collapses under its own inefficiency and incompetence.
Karl Marx is dead, so I can't ask him what he really meant. He would probably have found agorism interesting. There was one bit that Karl Marx could not have predicted. The invention of computers and the Internet broke the State mainstream media information monopoly.
(This bit deserves its own separte post.)
"Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" seemed like a movie that might have some good fnords in it, but I only watched the trailer.
Tristan has left a new comment on your post "Why is there so much Microsoft Hate?":
Big problem with Microsoft - it relies on state enforcement of copyright and intellectual property and successfully lobbies government for benefits.Even though Microsoft leaves a lot to be desired, they still are improving their product. Compare Vista to NT or 98 or 3.1. There has been improvement over time.
That is wrong, but as you say, this is usual corporate behaviour.
Where there is an alternative, I urge people to use it, especially if it is free, or open source software, just as I would suggest supporting a local cooperative rather than a multinational if possible.
For some things there is no alternative or the alternatives are vastly inferior- then, use the Microsoft product.
In other words, use the best tool for the job whilst leaning towards preferring open and free software.
On a technical level - much of Windows sucks. Then again, I think much of Linux sucks (just in different ways) as does MacOS X.
No software is perfect.
My point is that it's legally possible and technically feasible to boycott Microsoft. If I want to boycott Goldman Sachs' profits, that's legally impossible. State violence directly forces me to use Goldman Sachs' product (Federal Reserve Notes). State violence does not directly force me to use Microsoft's product.
State restriction of the market does provide pressure to use Microsoft and makes the creation of alternatives difficult. On the scale of corporate evil, Microsoft ranks far below the financial industry. The financial industry is purely parasitic. Microsoft produces a useful product that people may boycott if they choose.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Why is there so much Microsoft Hate?":
Boycott?
If you do not believe in 'intellectual property', then an operating system is not a product, the company selling it is not really a company and there is nothing to 'boycott'.
I don't believe that intellectual property is a valid form of property. However, if I am going to use Microsoft's product, I should pay for it.
For instance, in order to get microsoft 'products', do you really need to give FRNs to microsoft?
Legally, yes. In practice, you can download.
Paradoxically, Microsoft benefits from being dominant in the unlicensed/illegal software market as well.
There seem to be many places that distribute microsoft freeware packaged better than microsoft is capable of, at no charge (at the proper price for intellectual 'property').
These distrubutions are often much, much better than what msoft's. For instance, they often include all the junk you will usually want to install, such as microsoft orfice, photoshlop, etc. And the install is completely automatic! Many useful tweaks, etc.
I can handle installing Windows myself.
The problem with winders is that it is not a very stable system, and it is susceptible to viral havoc. With these new distros I can reinstall the OS and my favorite apps while having a coffee in the morning (without participating), once every few weeks.
I know, it sucks that I have to do it, (yes, I do know about Linux), but it is still often better than trying to get linux to print correctly on my printer, or using 'the gimp' or running FPGA software under wine.
Linux has not yet progressed to the point where the average person can use it as conveniently as Microsoft.
Due to pressure from Linux and Apple, Microsoft must keep improving its product. Otherwise, Linux and Apple will catch up, and Microsoft will lose its market position. This places a limit on how abusive Microsoft can be. If they're too bad, people will just switch to Linux.
When I purchase my own domain and hosting, it's going to be Linux/LAMP.
Anyway, boycott is too big a word for these guys slocking 'intellectual property'. They should pay me for wasting my time with the patented garbage they are trying to sell.
You're free to not use it at all if you choose. That's my point.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Why is there so much Microsoft Hate?":
Here is the problem I have with Microsoft. I'm a proud X box 360 owner, actually I have 3. 1 for me,and 1 for each of my boys. Everything has problems when it is first made. This system had a fatal flaw. When the mother board heats up it expends,if this happens to much a connection is severed. Your x box becomes inoperable ( the red ring of death). Now this has happened 7 times with my three systems( I have a warranty ) And many other people have had the same problem.
I know for a fact sony would have corrected this fatal flaw long ago, but not micro soft, They just say f##k it,lets pump em out and leave them like they are,,,this way we can sell more warranties.
As you can tell Im down on micro soft..mainly because my warranty has just expired,and Ive just gotten the red ring of death again, and the company pretty much told me im screwed..Im boycotting Microsoft now. Thats the last dime of mine they will ever get..I hope.
I heard about the xbox 360 problem. My personal solution to this problem is to not buy products when they are first released. Then, I can research problems on the Internet first.
I agree that Microsoft ****ed up with the xbox 360.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Why is there so much Microsoft Hate?":
It would be very interesting for you to analyze how Microsoft could possibly exist without copyrights.
It's obvious they could exist just fine without patents, indeed, they'd probably be more lucrative.
"Microsoft without copyrights" is very easy. They just have trade secret agreements with their employees. If they make sure that all source code is only stored on Bill Gates' servers, then it's enforceable.
In a true free market, market pressure would probably lead to an open source model. Plus, if someone leaked the source code, Microsoft would have a valid claim only against the employee who leaked it, but other people who have no contractual agreement with Microsoft would be free to use it.
In the present, there are laws restricting the extent to which other people may reverse-engineer Windows or offer other OSes with a similar UI. Those laws are not legitimate. Microsoft could maintain a dominant position as a closed-source software vendor, although there would be much more market pressure for open source software.
Copyrights, trade secrets, whatever. You guys are under this assumption that an operating system is actually necessary. Well, wake up, it is not necessary.
An operating system is the State on your computer. It precludes you from doing anything except in the way that is specified by the OS.
I have studied computer science. You do need an OS. The OS does things like manage disk I/O, printer I/O, output to the graphics card, the mouse, etc. Back in the days of DOS 5 (pre-Windows), each application had to configure the printer, graphics card, mouse separately. That's a PITA.
The OS provides a common interface for common tasks.
Without an OS, each application would have to manage its own disk I/O, its own graphics output, its own printer driver, its own mouse driver, etc. It would be a mess.
Whether Microsoft's OS has hidden State spying backdoors is another matter. There are so many hackers out there that if there were some funny business going on, someone would have discovered it by now. If a State enforcer decides he wants to spy on me, he can do it without a backdoor in my OS.
Even the Apple II, Atari, and Commodore has an OS.
After a while sheeple forget that there are many ways to write software, and the users are idiots anyway...
Vista ads I've seen focus on 2 points: you can spy on your kids, and you can stitch panoramic pictures easily. What the FU**? That is what an operating system is sold for?
In the old days I could turn on the computer, and 30 seconds later be in a word processor. Today it takes me a minute. And the computer has 20,000 times (that's right, twenty thousand times!) more memory, a terabyte of storage (that really keeps me busy, sorting all that crap), and is a gazilion times faster than say my old apple ][. Is that really progress?
You can install the old OS in your modern PC, and then it'll be just as fast! Alternatively, use Linux or leave your computer on.
My PC offers a "sleep" feature, where memory is dumped to a file for fast turning off and on.
Statist, wasteful government... Rigid, stupid operating systems. The two go together, and I am proud to be an anarchist in both directions.
A stupid $1.00 microcontroller is more than anyone needs for their home computer. But of course, we are trained to consume, and the seller's margin is better on $1000 idiot boxes. So a whole generation of software people is lost writing enormous, asshole web 2.0 or whatever applications with ruby on rails or php, or C++, or some other garbage dump of a language that comes on a DVD. No wonder my new machine better run at a multi-gigaherz and have at least multi-gigabtyes of ram, so that the next Microsoft os will maybe fit.
That actually points to agorist chip manufacturing techniques. If you use 5-10 year old technology, you probably can make computer chips in your basement.
This would only become an issue if the State mandated rigorous DRM in every OS/chip. I don't see that happening. State-mandated DRM-crippled PCs would ruin the computer industry. The media industry has lobbyists, but PC makers also have lobbyists.
There was one fear I read about that hasn't been realized. There was rumor of a State law mandating Intel to put code in their CPU so that only "signed" executables may be run. That would effectively outlaw operating systems like Linux, or anyone who wanted to compile their own kernel/OS. I remember reading a proposal for such a law once, but fortunately it hasn't resurfaced.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Why is there so much Microsoft Hate?":
Anon
I totally agree. The State and the millitary industrial complex created computing. The socio-economic system created the computer. The two go together, born from centralization of power... Computing increases the power of the State and gives it more control over us.
Computers, by themself, are neither good nor evil. That's like saying refrigerators are evil.
State agents use computers for evil purposes. Fortunately, their stupidity limits how efficient they are.
Overall, my computer and the Internet has been beneficial for me. Computer games have sharpened my logical thinking skills. I've gained exposure to new ideas on the Internet, such as real free market economics.
If the goal of the Supreme Leader of Humanity were to maintain absolute control forever, then he made a mistake allowing the general population to have access to computers and the Internet.
I consider computers and the Internet to be tools that will ultimately allow the State to be defeated. The Internet works along anarchist principles, with no centralized authority (except for domain name registrars and the way IP addresses are allocated; that could also be done in decentralized fashion). The Internet is an example of "an anarchist society can be stable".
The Internet was originally developed by the US military, as a network that could withstand a nuclear attack. I wonder if someone knew what the social impact of the Internet would be? Is the Supreme Leader of Humanity that clever, or that stupid?
We appear to be confused between means and ends. Our social project drummed into us by the State says the ends of our society is to increase production, efficiency and wealth, yet the means we employ to do this, have themselves become 'our ends'. Many of us spend a lifetime in a corporation working to live up to the social project and we are trapped in an endless process of loss of power and freedom, static, state centric, and without spontaneity, we have become less human, more machine like.
You are confusing two things. I like my "stuff" (computer, heated home, electricity, running water, stable food supply). I don't like the monopolistic control the State has over how I can purchase these things.
There's nothing wrong with liking material comforts. The problem is State distortion of the market. There's nothing wrong with having useful tools. By themselves, tools are neither good nor bad.
This is a common mistake that pro-State anarchists make. It is the State that is evil. The conveniences of our modern society are nice, and there's no reason to give them up. These conveniences exist in spite of the State, although State bureaucrats take credit.
Micro$oft SUCKS. Let me tell you why.
1. With every release of Windows, the default setup gets more and more dumb. Microsoft actively seeks to configure the default installation in the way it is most dumb. Everything they do is wrong, you have to spend hours to bring it back to usable.
The default setup should take care of everything the average person needs. Do you remember when it was a PITA to configure your Internet connection? That's very easy now.
a) Icon view? You kidding me? Am I supposed to be determined to make my PC less productive?I usually spend a minute or two fiddling so I can find what I'm looking for.
b) No icons on desktop?
c) No extensions visible?
d) Simple file sharing?
e) Delete my icons automatically?
f) No status bar?
g) Windows Firewall?
h) Restore point?
-tired of letters-
- Security center from M$?
- Messenger?
- Auto updates?
- Totally gay themes?
- Menus not showing all options?
.... and I could go on and on and on...
I was confused by the "ribbon" interface in the new Office. Once I figured out what is where, the new layout makes sense. I had remembered where all the functions I used were located, but it was OK once I re-located them. The new Office layout makes more sense to someone who's never used Office before, but it can confuse old Office users.
Microsoft is determined to dumb people down. Easier for the state that way. Just teach them to recognize colorful icons, and do with them anything you want.
You're confusing "Making a more user-friendly OS" with "Dumbing people down". I'm usually able to find what I want quickly.
Vista? That is THE gay O.S. Can't handle few thousands of files. Gay approach to file system. Idiotic helpful messages and warnings everywhere. "Detect it" "Repair it" "Identify it". Really? How about one big button: "DON'T SCREW UP ANYMORE"?
Internet Explorer 7? GAY! The most idiotic layout I have ever seen in a browser. Why do I need to change view to see FTP properly?
I use Firefox.
Office? All these new versions, coming out every frikin year, like shit out of rabbit, and for what good reason? All they have done is they changed the look and feel to worse, while making it less useful, more irritating and less reliable.
Use OpenOffice or Google's documents service.
I wish Microsoft would just die. I work in IT. I have to deal with it daily. I do all I can to give people alternatives. Every time I make a new convert, show a free program that works better than M$, or explain why Microsoft wants to dumb them down, and how their updates actually designed to break operating system so that they "FEEL" the need to buy a new computer, I know that I have spent my day usefully.
As a developer, Microsoft really is annoying. When you're troubleshooting a bug and it's really an OS bug, that's a PITA. With Linux, you could always patch it yourself or find someone else to do it, if it's a genuine bug.
When have I bought new computers? 1999, 2002, and 2008. That's not that often. I like Moore's Law working in my favor. My $1500 desktop computer is more powerful than the supercomputer I worked on in college (1995)!
I have seen very little improvement since W2K. Seriously. "Run As", and bigger file limits for PST. That is just about all.Actually, you could argue the State damaged Microsoft in the antitrust lawsuit.
Microsoft's whole business strategy is just one big scam since 2000.
One thing in favor though. Considering what was done to Microsoft in 2000 by the state, it is understandable they have undergone such a dramatic change.
Before the antitrust lawsuit, Microsoft didn't spend much money on lobbyists. You could argue the antitrust lawsuit was merely the State shaking down Microsoft for tribute. Microsoft allocated a huge budget for lobbyists, and their antitrust problems went away.
When anyone experiences a dramatic pressure, there is going to be a change. A hero, will rise higher. A limpy piece of shit will become an ugly monster, just like Microsoft. It's just a matter of inner content. All that the pressure does its just amplifies one's internal nature.
Do you blame Microsoft employees/executives, or the corrupt economic and political system?
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Why is there so much Microsoft Hate?":
anon, why do the things that make you mad about microsoft make it homosexual? from the very few of these fashion/design shows that i have seen here and there, it seems to me that if the layout was horrible, it couldn't be "gay". those guys seem to do a good job with decorating and layouts.
At this point, the discussion started degenerating into a flamewar.
Simple.
I is not taught today, for whatever the reason, but here it is:
Man design seeks to define edges, sharper corners, agression. Female design seeks to underscore roundness, beiges, soft colors, passivity, smooth transitions, friendly interface.
This is because females all know one universal truth, they are to be inserted with an object. That sits deep in their mind, and opposite is true for men, respectively.
If you like rounded, softer forms on things that are yours, and you're a male, then you're gay. No offense, as we know there is nothing wrong with being gay. I hold no animosity against gays either. it's just what it is.
Now, one may say that a manly man still supposed to like the soft and rounded woman. True, but here is the thing, nothing ever is to be accepted to compete with a woman.
If you accept competition, you're Bi. If you prefer the competition, you're gay.
To a normal heterosexual male all things like her are "her" things, that is it. He won't play with them, but he will hold them for her.
Now look at everything Microsoft has done since 2000. Vista is ultimately gay. You can see a definite shift toward 3 things: roundness, softness, helpfulness. Nothing bad is going to happen if you don't know what are you doing. If you think this is a heterosexual male's design principle, then you have been gay for so long, you can't even see the difference. There is nothing wrong with a woman liking new Microsoft. But if you're a gay, and you find it better, well, they you really are "in the closet" , may-be from your own self.
You're right, gays excel at shows and design. Do you enjoy their work? I, personally, couldn't care less. I want my things powerful and edgy.
Do you find iPod nicely shaped? This is because it isn't edgy, it is soft and rounded. It's non aggressive. It's as gay as it gets. If you were to be inserted with something, you'd rather have an iPod than an assault rifle, right?
I know this might seem soooo old and soooo politically incorrect, but the truth is what it is, and no amount of political correctness is going to change it.
Again, no disrespect to gays. I think no one has more rights to exist than anyone else. I am just pointing out, that Microsoft's design is clearly gay-oriented.
It appears that some trolls have been targeting my blog comment section for starting flamewars.
I really want to have an open comments section, but I'm not interested in debating the heterosexual/homosexual bias of the Windows Vista default desktop theme.
If you're going to troll my blog, you really need to do a better job. If comments start getting too silly and off-topic, I'm going to have to start filtering them out as spam.
How do you know "Certain behaviors are male, certain behaviors are female, and certain behaviors are homosexual" isn't just a consequence of pro-State brainwashing?
Jason Kolb has left a new comment on your post "The Compound Interest Paradox":
Nice post. I've been working on grokking this for a couple of years now, and I wanted to suggest a couple of ideas.
The Compound Interest Paradox is a subtle flaw in fiat debt-based money. It illustrates that the US monetary system is more evil than simple uniform inflation.
1) The Fed does not set interest rates.
You are wrong. The Federal Reserve directly sets short-term interest rates (the Fed Funds Rate). When lending, banks charge the Fed Funds Rate plus a markup. Notice that the "prime" lending rate goes up and down as the Fed Funds Rate goes up and down.
The Federal Reserve directly sets overnight interest rates. The Federal Reserve indirectly sets long-term interest rates.
For example, the 2 year Treasury Yield rate is currently 0.75%. This means that traders at banks and hedge funds expect the Fed Funds Rate to average approximately 0.75% over the next 2 years. If the expected average future Fed Funds Rate were less than 0.75%, then traders would borrow at the Fed Funds Rate and buy Treasury debt. If the expected average future Fed Funds Rate were greater than 0.75%, then traders would short sell Treasury debt and lend the proceeds at the Fed Funds Rate. There are transaction costs and limits on leverage ratios, so this is only approximate rather than perfect equality.
The Federal Reserve directly affects the yield on *ALL* Treasury debt. All private debt usually yields the Treasury rate, plus a fee depending on the creditworthiness of the borrower.
It follows short-term government bond rates. Interest rates reflect how expensive money is.
In a true free market, interest rates represent the time value of money. In a free market, interest rates represent the value of work in the present compared to the value of the work in the future. The central bank credit monopoly distorts the interest rate price signal to investors. By distorting the interest rate price signal, the central bank pricing cartel causes malinvestment and boom/bust cycles.
When the environment is more risk averse rates fall because of the flight into government safety, and when people don't mind risk they leave the safety of government debt to find higher returns.
No. The boom/bust cycles are directly caused by Federal Reserve manipulating interest rates.
Interest rates are not set by the free market, so the Federal Reserve must continually tweak interest rates to prevent a hyperinflationary or hyperdeflationary collapse of the monetary system.
The Fed is a facade used to slow deflation.
Now you're pro-State trolling. The purpose of the Federal Reserve is to obfuscate inflation and provide an illusion of legitimacy to inflation. "Deflation is evil!" is entirely pro-State trolling. In a true free market with sound money, there will be slow deflation over time as the economy becomes more productive.
Bankers and insiders love inflation, because they get to print and spend the new money!
2) The value of a dollar is set by supply and demand like everything else. When banks are manufacturing dollars for people in response to loan requests, the value of a dollar goes down. When people default on loans or otherwise deflate the money supply the value of a dollar goes up. Supply/demand, it's that simple.
OK, this one is accurate. When more money is printed, prices go up! Pro-State troll economists make all sorts of other excuses to justify inflation.
I heard somebody say once that if you can't explain something to a child you really don't understand it. I think that's probably the best way to learn economics, and the fractional reserve system in particular. Many, many rabbit holes you can fall into, but keep your eye on the prize (simplicity) and you'll figure it out.
The details of the current corrupt monetary system are incredibly obfuscated. The Federal Reserve and income tax were intentionally designed to be incredibly complicated, so that the average person could not understand what is happening. The legal system merely exists to provide an illusion of fairness and legitimacy to the actions of State enforcers.
"Inflation is theft!" is sufficient argument against the Federal Reserve. The Compound Interest Paradox illustrates a defect in fiat debt-based money that is more evil that mere constant uniform inflation.
There are a lot of intellectual traps (rabbit holes) that people can fall in.
- It's possible to reform a corrupt system by voting! No, you can't.
- Communism would be much preferable to the US system. The USA is already a nearly perfect implementation of Communism!
- The free market discredited a gold standard. No, government violence caused the gold standard to be abandoned.
- Inflation is beneficial, because it "stimulates the economy". The State is needed to "stimulate the economy".
- You need a State, because only a monopolistic State can provide police/justice/national defense, etc.
- The State is needed to "regulate the economy".
- There's a valid social contract that obligates everyone born in the USA to obey the orders of politically connected insiders.
- The Constitution is a magic document that guarantees individual freedom and liberty, even though the people who appointed themselves the Constitution's enforcers and interpreters completely ignore it.
- Taxation is a necessary cost of living in a modern society.
- State licensing requirements for doctors/lawyers/etc. are beneficial.
- If I want to avoid supporting the State, I should live in complete poverty!
- If a juror gives a defective pro-State conviction in a trial, that's OK because it'll be reversed on appeal.
- People are too stupid. They can't be trusted to own guns, work without a State license, etc.
- Property is theft! There's nothing wrong with private property. In the present, most/all property is stolen property. That's not the same as private property being inherently evil.
- People are inherently evil. Therefore, a State is needed. Of course, the most evil people then exploit the State for their own personal benefit.
- Large corporations are a natural free market occurrence.
- Limited liability incorporation is a necessary perk that business owners need in order to operate.
- If you didn't have a State with a violence monopoly, there would be bloodshed in the streets. Criminals would not be caught. Several groups of people would have open warfare.
One way that I avoid intellectual traps is that I remember ideas and not the original source. This way, if an article contains a good idea and a stupid idea, I'll remember the good idea. Most good ideas are repeated over and over again. A lot of conspiracy sites reference the Compound Interest Paradox, but IMHO my explanation is best.
When people start discovering the above ideas, it contradicts their conditioning. They start writing incoherently. It took me awhile after I cracked my pro-State brainwashing before I could start writing coherently. For that, blogging has been beneficial.
I've managed to avoid most/all of the intellectual traps. I've nearly completely cracked my pro-State brainwashing. I don't claim I've completely perfectly broken my pro-State conditioning, but I've gone further than the other people I read about.
(This bit deserves its own separte post.)
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Is Silver a Good Buy Right Now?":
I believe in silver. For the primary reason that it is the most useful of the precious metals. It is a great conductor of electricity, and used in many if not all electronic applications. So this alone will keep silver in high demand. Especially since china is in the business of making more computers every year. I believe silver has the greatest potential for sustained value.
Silver is attractively priced relative to gold right now. Both silver and gold should outperform all State paper investments over the next 5-10+ years.
One advantage of silver over gold is that central banks don't have any silver reserves anymore, but they still have gold reserves. Insiders try to keep the gold price down, but they can't keep the silver price down.
The primary demand for gold is monetary demand. The primary demand for silver is industrial demand. Therefore, silver's market is less manipulated than the gold market.
Really, Fritz should get his own blog.
cRavias has left a new comment on your post "Is Silver a Good Buy Right Now?":
The less silver there is, the less valuable it becomes as a monetary metal.
Wrong! In a true free market, people may use whatever metal they want as money. Scarce metals like platinum and gold can be used for large purchases. Silver and copper can be used for small purchases.
Silver and other metals do not get "used up". The supply is always increasing.
You've got to check your premises here, it's either valuable because it is a monetary metal or because it is a commodity metal that is being consumed. You can't have it both ways.
You're exactly wrong. Metal is sound money because it both has value as a commodity and value as money. In a free market, you may melt down your metal coins and use them for industrial purposes.
If you say that you value silver as a monetary metal, then all your arguments about silver consumption mean one sure thing: The less silver out there, the bigger in proportion to existing aboveground and inground stock is a new discovery of silver producing ore. This means that the silver then is less good as money because it volatility of value increases in proportion to silver consumption.
If you believe "silver is money", then the volatility of a silver investment is zero. There is some volatility in gold/silver, but it's much less than gold/$ or silver/$.
Of course, if you value silver for it's commodity value, then the less silver there is the more valuable will it become. But, this means that it is nothing like gold, and you should judge silver similarly to your valuation of sugar, steel or oil.
Gold and silver make better money than sugar or oil. Sugar spoils and not all sugar has the same quality. Oil also has varying quality and it's not practical to use oil as money. In some countries with a hyperinflation problem, gasoline ration coupons started being used as money.
Steel has too low a value per ounce to be usable as money.
I am not sure if my explanation is easy to follow, but it seems that majority of people can not make this very important distinction.
Your explanation is wrong. Wrong arguments tend to be confusing and incoherent.
Simply keep in mind, that the value of gold rests not on it's shininess or malleability or weight or even relative rarity, but on the fact that gold is not consumed, and therefore the more gold is dug out, the less of it can be expected to be dug out with respect to already existing stock.
Gold and silver have an intrinsic value based on their commodity value. That's why they're superior to paper money. Even if a massive huge new gold or silver mine were discovered, your existing gold coins might lose 10%-30% of their value. The earth's crust has been nearly perfectly prospected, making discovery of a huge new mine unlikely. Also remember that a gold coin includes the cost of mining and processing the ore!
With paper money, you are guaranteed to be ripped off by inflation. Paper investments will lose all their value when the State collapses. Gold and silver should keep or increase their purchasing power over time. Even though the return on a gold orsilver investment is 0%, your purchasing power should increase as the economy becomes more efficient. Regrettably, in the present, the economy is becoming less efficient.
I don't understand what you're saying. The people saying "FSK, you're completely wrong! Read a basic economics textbook!" tend to be completely wrong themselves.
Kristjan has left a new comment on your post "Is Silver a Good Buy Right Now?":
You have to take into account the fact that 80% of silver produced is a byproduct of mining other metals. The price of copper, iron, zinc and other metals has dropped significantly and miners have been closing mines. This has led the production numbers way down. If you want to invest in silver, the best buy would be a silver mine stock like SLW, which is the only pure-play silver of that size.
You are wrong. If you buy a silver mining stock, you don't get full allodial title. A silver mining stock has the same defect as all corporate stock. You can't prevent the CEO from giving himself and his buddies huge salaries. You can't prevent the CEO from diluting your ownership via option/stock grants. You can't prevent the CEO from short selling future production as a hedge, which means that the silver mining company stock doesn't rise in pace with inflation.
That is a common evil fnord on the Communism Channel (CNBC). They say "Now is a good time to invest in gold!", but they really mean gold mining stocks. They never advise people to buy gold or silver and take physical delivery.
The best way to invest in gold or silver is to buy physical metal and take delivery. "Where to store it" is a problem. For this reason, an agorist banking system is needed.
DixieFlatline has left a new comment on your post "What is a Conspiracy?":
There are conspiracy theorists, and then there are coincidence theorists.
Statists, are usually coincidence theorists when something goes wrong.
Pro-State trolls are always eager to place the blame somewhere other than the State.
It's a coincidence that Bernard Madoff ran a corrupt hedge fund.
We need $700B to bail out the financial industry.
The US financial industry is sound. There is no need to panic.
Who would have guessed that the housing bubble would collapse like that?
Enron and Worldcom were one big fraud. Sarbanes-Oxley will prevent a massive fraud from happening again.
Who would have guessed that the stock market .com bubble would collapse like that?
Long Term Capital Management nearly wrecked the financial system. We won't let that happen again!
Who could have predicted the stock market crash in 1987? We changed the rules regarding program trading, and there never should be a severe crash again.
The '80s S&L crisis was solved by the invention of the Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO). We will never again have a serious problem with banks and mortgages.
We need $160B to bail out banks after the S&L crisis.
I would extend this further back, but you should be able to see the pattern by now.
(As I write this, ROFLMAO. This bit deserves its own separate post.)
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What is a Conspiracy?":
What about a conspiracy to commit a murder? You don't need the state to conspire with others for this, do you?
Or murder is not a murder when it is not by the state?
That's a valid flaw in my definition. (See! I don't always insist I'm right.)
I should have said "large-scale crimes/murders are only possible via the State". The Iraq War is one big conspiracy to commit murder. There will always be small-scale crime. Large-scale crime is only possible with an assist from the State.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "What is a Conspiracy?":
I like the conspiracy of the federal drug administration.How they completely test drugs to make sure they are safe to administer to the public. When they are just a front for the drug companies to sell drugs and make lots of money with the ruse of endorsed safety ...I like this post a lot and will post a longer comment in the morning...
I've already covered that many times. The FDA is merely a rubberstamp for drug companies.
- The FDA provides the illusion of sound medicine.
- The SEC provides the illusion of fair stock markets.
- The Federal Reserve provides the illusion of fair money.
- The legal system provides the illusion of justice.
- Politicians provide the illusion that laws are fairly determined.
- The public school system provides the illusion of education.
- The mainstream media provides the illusion of honest critical debate.
- The "war on terrorism" provides the illusion of security.
- The "war on poverty" provides the illusion of solving poverty.
- The mental health system provides the illusion of medicine.
(This bit deserves its own separate post.)
Mike Gogulski has left a new comment on your post "What is a Conspiracy?":
Dixie has an interesting angle, and fritz has certainly been 'round the block more than once.
Anonymous raises a question, though, as Anonymous is wont to do.
I think Anonymous pointed out a valid flaw in my definition.
Sure, there can be criminal conspiracies that don't involve the contributions of state actors. When we talk about real crimes, however, such as murder, the "conspiracy" charge is one that is added on to give a hard-to-defeat thoughtcrime dimension to the prosecution's case. The person who pays a broker to hire a hit man to kill his wife for the insurance money, the broker who hire the hit man and the hit man himself (or hit woman, herself) all conspire to commit murder, but the charge of "conspiracy" was historically unnecessary to hold the hirer and the broker legally responsible as accessories to murder.
When you talk about conspiracy as a crime of state (and perhaps it should be distinguished from the pedestrian conspiracy outlined above, for example, by capitalizing it: Conspiracy, or by adding an article: the Conspiracy) however, you are talking about a set of secretly-coordinated actions which, while legal, result in the production of what would but for the perpetrators' access to the mechanisms of the state be victims of "ordinary" offenses, aided and abetted by people in power. In legal terms, The Con must be charged under a "conspiracy" law because the separate actions they took are legal, it is the pattern and the motivation which are criminal.
When a pro-State troll prosecutor uses the term "conspiracy", he usually adds the term to add severity to the charges.
For example, the operators of E-Gold were accused of operating a conspiracy, when they were really just running an honest business.
If an agorist counter-economy gets sophisticated, then State prosecutors will accuse agorists of "conspiracy to commit tax evasion/fraud". The mainstream media will write horrible stories about those crazy cultists who believe "Taxation is theft!" (but they'll rephrase it in pro-State troll jargon, instead of explicitly saying "Taxation is theft!")
The biggest Conspiracy and the biggest Con is the State and government itself. The State isn't just government. It's a set of attitudes that allow monopolistic government to exist in the first place.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Compound Interest Paradox":
Forget the economics and principles, look deeper. Think of it like this, who ever controls the money supply controls you.
I already knew that.
Why are we all caught in this massive con. There has always been in man's DNA,which is exactly the same as when we were cave men, greed and power or strength if you like.
I disagree with "People are inherently Statist." It is a consequence of massive pro-State brainwashing.
My retort to "People are inherently Statist!" now is "I guess I'll have to start my own species and let the inferior life forms die!"
I would argue that a system that is based on debt is unfair , enslaves the majority , creates all the worlds woes and is responsible for wars, death, murder, crime, corruption , bad health and has a complete disregard for life itself. Dont trust me look at what is happening and has happened.
I agree that the current economic and political system is completely corrupt and should be discarded. (People really should read more than one article before posting a comment.)
Not to many Rockafellas or Rothchilds , or Bushes or Chennys killed in war are there. Not to many members of any royal family either. This system attracts the sociapaths, the narsistic, the psycopaths. Truely people with no empathy, compassion or kindness.
That's one reason the draft was eliminated. It was too embarrassing that politically connected insiders' children dodged the draft. Economic conscription is a much better system. Economic conscription means that people are so poor that the military is their most attractive career opportunity.
That is the problem with government. The most evil people wind up exploiting the government to line their own pockets.
They are our so called elected leaders or dictators or royal families.Some talk so eliquintly their speeches prepared to move your soul, anger you to war at some ghastly terrorist act, demand we all share the burden fiancially , increase your taxes for the benifit of us all. Care about our envoirment , global warming. YOU ARE BEING CONED ALL THE WAY THROUGH YOUR LIFE AND IT IS DISGUSTING.
I can see the fnords now, so I merely find it offensive when I see politician speak. I don't bother watching anymore.
The monetry system is completely flawed, the free market is an illusion same as democrocy, so what can we do. Biggest problem is human nature, it is not federal reserve banking.
I disagree with "People are inherently Statist/evil/stupid". Pro-State brainwashing is so pervasive that you can't know what a "normal" person would think.
Power is our greatest enemy not our saviour, If we operate a fair livable system that all the resorces are shared, Utopia in itself, we may have a happier existense. But to put so much misery and difficulty into life because a few want everything in my humble opinion, goes much too far.
You're advocating for one of the pro-State versions of anarchy now. There's nothing wrong with private property. There's nothing wrong with economic power, *PROVIDED* you don't use violence to gain your resources or use violence to impose your will on others.
The language of economics is diliberately made to sound complicated.
Whenever something is deliberately made complicated, it's a sure sign that a scam is occurring. There are lots of intentionally complicated things:
- the monetary system
- the legal system
- the way a psychiatrist acts
- accounting laws
- most State regulations
- most academic papers
You can safely say that 1913 Federal reserve act, opened a door for a few clever minds of the day, bearing inmind at that time in America there was plenty of tough resourceful people about and this with the prohibition law created two things which are still previlent nearly 100 years later, Organized Crime and private and i mean private groups of privilaged players who are above any law or political control who pick presidents, are at the reigns of this out of control car and can never stop. What purpose is life if all that we do to educate and care for our children is a lie. Why have doctors . teachers. nurses. scientists. jobs, farmers, geologists, historians, and on and on. Notice i have ommited soliders, police forces and politicians and BANKERS.
This Federal reserve Banking system is doomed by its own paradox. the more you fix it, eventually and probably sooner than later the home made bomb created by these sociapaths , which has been used time and time again to keep everything running along will blow but the reaction might not be the required effect.
I agree that the collapse is coming. It's still 15-20 years away.
If someone had as an electorial mandate, VOTE FOR ME, I PROMISE TO CAUSE A CONTINUAL SERVING OF WAR, TORTURE, FAMMINE, AND GROW RICH ON EVERY ASPECT OF THESE PROMISES AND I PROMISE ONLY TO ALLOW THOSE WHO SERVE ME WELL TO BE LUCKY ENOUGH TO JOIN AS A JUNIOR LAP DOG AND SERVANT. I promise to give you an unpayable debt that keeps you and your family worrying and slaving without any regard for your well being and provide a media that tells you what i want you to believe . I promise to have no interest in human life only the continual abuse that i can bring.
POVERTY, KILL ANYONE THAT DARES CHALLENGE OUR RIGHT OF CONTROL, PLEASE SIGN ON THE DOTTED LIME NEXT TO MUG
If you find this proposal idiotic then why VOTE for it. Eventually everthing will become value less. I say teach us simple folk truth and let the governments print money not private commercial mad men
Voting is pointless. Of course, a politician who told the actual truth would never get elected. It's pointless to try to reform a corrupt system. Complete collapse is the only fair solution.
You should read here a bit more before commenting. I've noticed that people tend to have rambling thoughts as they start discovering fragments of the truth. I'm mostly on the other side now, so I can write and think clearly, mostly aware of the truth. It's very hard to crack your pro-State brainwashing.
Make sure you don't get involuntarily hospitalized and forced to take anti-psychotic or anti-depressant drugs! That's a key component of the scam, because psychiatrists murder people as they start discovering bits of the truth.
I updated the "Best of FSK" list in the left sidebar. It's somewhat tedious, since I do it by hand. On the other hand, it's interesting to see what posts are most popular.
When I move to self-hosted WordPress, I'll write a widget that does this for me, if it doesn't already exist.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #71":
Fsk,,Thank you for taking time to respond to the comments I have left on your blog. It means alot to me.
I try to take every comment seriously, except for spam and blatant pro-State trolling.
You should get your own blog instead of posting long comments here.
It's feasible for me answer most comments now, when I have only a few comments per day. That could be infeasible if I become more popular. I'm still about a month behind answering comments. I'm trying to catch up. Interestingly, converting my blog to a for-profit business via AdSense has increased my motivation!
I tried writing mainstream media personalities occasionally, or more popular bloggers. They never answer my comments or E-Mails. It is annoying.
Plus, reader feedback helps make my blog better. A mainstream media source pretty much ignores feedback from the audience, because of the monopoly/oligopoly.
Robert has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #71":
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I have "comment moderation" enabled, so comments don't get published immediately. I filter out only obvious spam, but I leave in pro-State trolling. Wait a day or two before whining "FSK didn't publish my comment!"
Fsk, Robert here.
I commented on your blog one year ago and have been following it for maybe two.
I vaguely remember you. I actually have only been blogging for 1.5 years, so you can't have been following for 2 full years!
When I think of specific questions to ask I'll do so in the future. For now, I wanted to make a thoughtful suggestion about your style with the bloggers who post on your site. I know that a lot of them may be either purposely trolling or unknowingly perpetuating troll propaganda. But I've been reading some comments that a few people have left on your site that seemed to be meant well where you were too hard on them. I know you have strong convictions and I understand your style, I'm a lot like that myself, but man sometimes just take it easy a bit. I don't mean "take it easy" on your content or convictions AT ALL, I mean the language you use sometimes in responding to people who may have nothing but honorable intentions in engaging in a dialogue with you.
I'm getting better at reading the tone of the language and seeing if someone's being sincere or pro-State trolling.
It's like the "Dog Whisperer". You have to correct a dog when it first makes an aggressive move, rather than waiting for it to start barking loudly. I can tell just from the attitude/language if someone is being sincere or aggressive/dominant.
I consider "stupid" and "evil" to be very closely related. For example, my psychiatrists sincerely believe they are helping me. Their intentions are good, but their stupidity makes them evil.
I get plenty of exposure to idiots in non-blogging contexts. I'm not going to coddle idiots here. Paradoxically, my "Zero tolerance for idiots" policy might make my blog even more popular. I'm going to stick with my approach.
If you don't like it, stop reading or start your own blog.
You are most likely going to respond to this very defensively and call me a troll or something and at the very least question my intentions, which is fine, but I really think if you were just a bit more gracious in your style you would be able to better achieve some of the goals you've mentioned that you have set for yourself.
I disagree. Stupid ideas should explicitly be called out as stupid.
I am not a mainstream media source. A mainstream media source must coddle every viewpoint, lest they cause a controversy and lose viewers or advertisers. I am targeting a very niche audience. It's acceptable for me to have a correct attitude, even if other people misinterpret "thinking clearly" as "hostile".
If you think you can do better than me, go ahead and start your own blog.
You want to put in some ad widgets and maybe generate revenue for the cause of agorism? Great! Want to expand the number of visitors on the site? Great! But this cult of personality, "with me or against me" mentality is not going to get that done. Again, I am not encouraging you to dilute your content or betray your convictions one bit, only to maybe just HELP some people along who may not know all the things you do yet but are not pro-state trolls and want to learn more! Help that person FSK, don’t excoriate them or that will be an honest visitor who could have joined the cause but will never come back because of a lashing they received from you.
I can tell whether someone has slightly defective thinking and needs encouragement, or if someone is trolling/incorrigible. I don't mind if idiots get disgusted and leave.
Besides, you're free to comment Anonymously if you're afraid that I'll publicly call you out for being a fool.
I can already see that, slowly but surely, the only two types of people who are commenting on your site are either criticizing you or are butt-kissing sycophants.
I haven't noticed any severe butt-kissing (although Fritz above is starting to come close in that direction). People are still criticizing me, and I still answer them.
If people are still criticizing me, then how can you accuse me of driving away all my critics? Also, people are criticizing me on other blogs, which I notice due to Google Analytics referrals.
You're also using the Strawman Fallacy. I typically say "idea X is stupid", and that does not mean that I think everything you are saying is stupid. I try to evaluate each idea independently.
There's also selection bias. People who don't strongly agree with me or disagree with me won't leave a comment. The people who comment do not speak for those who lurk.
That's like one of the worst pro-state trolls ever, Rush Limbaugh. If you notice, his callers on the radio are either on one extreme or the other like that. Is that what you want? That was not a rhetorical question by the way, I'd really like for you to answer it if nothing else in a response. I'm afraid you'll have some harsh comeback to this, but there's no need for a "comeback" because this comment isn't an attack in the first place, only a suggestion from an admirer of yours, who wants to see your site expand, and has a lot of the same profound goals for humanity that you do. Take care and keep up the good work!
Robert
I've thought about this, and I'm sticking with my policy. I'm going to continue to call out stupid ideas as stupid. If most people either severely agree with me or severely disagree with me, that's positive indication, especially when you consider that nearly everyone has been brainwashed as a pro-State troll.
Can you find any flaws in my key arguments?
- The Federal Reserve is immoral.
- The Compound Interest Paradox is a subtle defect in the US monetary system. "Inflation is theft!" is sufficient argument against the Federal Reserve, but the Compound Interest Paradox is a flaw in the US monetary system that is more evil than constant uniform inflation.
- The income tax is immoral.
- All forms of taxation are theft.
- Since government is ultimately funded by taxation/theft, all forms of monopolistic government are immoral.
- The "chemical imbalance" theory of mental illness is a mistake/fraud. A corrupt mental health system is a key component of the scam, because people who discover the bits of the truth are murdered.
- A true free market, where nobody had a monopoly of violence or anything, would be superior to the current system.
- It is possible to have a stable society with multiple competing police forces, none of which have an absolute monopoly.
- Agorism is the best strategy for achieving a true free market. I'm looking for refinements for agorism, which probably won't be attained until I attempt practical agorism. People should boycott the Federal Reserve and income tax. They should build an alternate economic system that's completely independent of the State economy.
The final definitive answer on this subject is "If you think you can present my ideas better than me, go ahead and start your own blog." If you don't like it, you're free to stop reading. I spend time answering almost every comment, and I want to discourage people from posting stupid things and wasting my time. You're free to post Anonymously if you're concerned that I will ridicule you. If you start your own blog and it's good, I'll read it and maybe improve my own thinking.
Even though my blog is a for-profit enterprise now, it isn't my primary source of income. If I abandoned my key values and start coddling idiots, my blog might lose the attractiveness it has for my core audience. I have no patience for fools anymore.
(This last bit deserves its own separate post.)
When going on job interviews, if their website is a "parked domain", that's a *BAD SIGN*. A "parked domain" is a placeholder site with no content.
It's very annoying that some interviewers say "It's an equity-only job" or "It's an unpaid internship with a vague promise of future regular employment." I'd be better off working on my blog than completely for free. Do people actually agree to do that? Is there a nonzero chance of hiring someone qualified with such an offer?
Ironically, my blog now is profitable with zero capital invested except for my time (I would still be blogging for free anyway. I've benefited from my blog in other ways more valuable than the tiny AdSense revenue.) My blog is now probably more profitable than most/all the startups I've worked at and interviewed at!
I'm probably not going to purchase hosting until my first AdSense check arrives from Google, meaning that my blog will *ALWAYS* be cashflow positive as a business. My father made an "I'm playing with the house's money!" analogy. I'm only reinvesting blogging profits in my blog.
Google AdSense pays you 2 months late for income. Google only mails you a check once your earnings go over $100, which will be every other month or every third month based on trends so far. If I go over $100 in February, I won't receive a check until sometime in April. I'm probably going to wait until my first AdSense check arrives before purchasing my own domain and hosting, so that my blog will always be profitable as a business.
I went on an interesting job interview at a startup. Normally, I don't mention my blog during interviews. However, they were a small 2 person startup. They hinted at the possibility that my salary would be mostly in the form of equity. I pointed out that I'm probably better off working for $2/day in AdSense via my blog (keeping 100% ownership), rather than working for the vague promise of equity in someone else's business.
There were 2 founders interviewing me. It was hilarious. One of them had the productive worker personality and the other had a parasite personality. In most 2 person startup teams, there's always a productive worker and a parasite paired together, exactly like two electrons with opposite spin ratings. I never noticed it as obviously before. The productive worker usually likes me, and the parasite usually hates me. Of course, the parasite has veto power over all decisions. Neither of them had software development experience, which makes them seem like idiots for starting a software company. People who can't write software have no business starting software companies. If a software company doesn't have a qualified software person as co-founder, the business is worthless.
I asked them what they wanted to do for their business. They said "iPhone games" or "g-Phone games", but didn't provide much further details.
Realizing this job opportunity was probably hopeless, I figured I'd express my free market economic principles. I explained "The financial industry is purely parasitic". The parasite had an investment banking background, and strongly disagreed. He gave the usual pro-State troll arguments. My favorite is "Truth is relative." My opinion is "The financial industry is a parasite." and his opinion is "They are brilliant leaders and businessmen." Both opinions are equally valid. That's false. Those beliefs are opposite and contradictory. They can't both be true.
I also pointed out the immorality of income taxes. The parasite said "Income taxes aren't a problem. If you're a multi-millionaire, you can use tax loopholes to shield your income! It's your fault for not being a multi-millionaire!" He just didn't get it.
I argued, "The CEO of a large bank is a parasite who does no real work yet earns a huge salary." The parasite retorted, "FSK is being a parasite, because he earns income from his blog without doing real work." I pointed out that I provide something useful to people, in exchange for AdSense revenue and I don't use violence to force people to use my product. State violence forces people to use bank's products (Federal Reserve Points).
That's a point I'd never noticed before, "Earning profits is a parasitic behavior!" is an attitude proposed by the parasites themselves! Parasites can't understanding the distinction between "earning profits by stealing/violence" and "earning profits by producing something useful". Profiting directly or indirectly from State violence is immoral. Profiting by doing something useful is morally acceptable, when violence doesn't force customers to buy your product or ban alternatives. A parasite can't tell the difference between "Profit via theft!" and "Profit by doing something useful!" Therefore, it's acceptable for a parasite to steal from productive workers, because productive work is a form of parasitism!
In the context of blogging, there's plenty of competition and you're free to start your own blog if you choose. You can't validly argue "FSK's actions on his blog are immoral!", because you're free to leave if you don't like it. With physical State-sanctioned communities, State violence prevents people from saying "**** this!" and starting their own business/community. With the Internet, it's very easy to say "**** you! I'm leaving!"
The productive worker seemed seriously interested in my blog. I gave him the URL. I wonder if he's going to be a new regular reader? I wonder if he's reading this and figures out I'm talking about him? (I interview at a bunch of startups. I can't get past the HR screen at most large corporations anymore. With a lousy economy, you need strong connections to get hired at a large corporation right now.)
I don't normally mention my blog at job interviews, because I don't want future employers discriminating against me based on my blog. I'm pretty much SOL in a wage slave job, because the parasites are always pulling the strings and they know right away I can see through them.
My stories of problems at former jobs, combined with my status as a victim of the psychiatry/death industry, might make people reluctant to hire me. That's the main reason I don't want my real name associated with my blog. Someone doing a Google search on my name should not find my blog, at least not until I can earn full-time income from my blog and agorist activities.
The parasite also had a very weird counter-argument. I said "Why should I work for you in the form of mostly equity? Why aren't I better off just starting my own business and keeping 100% ownership?" He said (translating) "Productive workers must always be teamed up with parasites when starting a business. When you deal with other parasites (venture capitalists, corporate clients, etc.), those people want to deal with other parasites, instead of productive workers. The parasites' union prevents productive workers from forming a business without the involvement of any parasites."
DixieFlatline has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
Time is money (opportunity cost). The deeper the economy gets into recession, the less you will earn from advertising.
Yes, but I'm only making $1-$2/day on AdSense. It's not like I suffered a severe hardship by waiting to set it up. You might say "$1 is money!", but I also invested time setting it up and configuring it. If I had put AdSense in my blog from day one, it might have only been $100-$200 in income total. I didn't waste anything by waiting. Plus, it's better that I didn't put up AdSense until the revenue/readership totals reached something respectable; otherwise, I might have been discouraged.
AdSense revenue may or may not be correlated with the rest of the economy. Many businesses are cutting back their mainstream media advertising budget and increasing their online advertising budget.
I considered an AdWords campaign for search phrases like "Federal Reserve". There are no paid ads for that search! For now, I'm sticking with organic blog growth. Google doesn't let you automatically reinvest AdSense revenue in AdWords (avoiding income taxes on the amount reinvested). I'd have to take payment, pay the tax, and reinvest the profits.
Mike Gogulski has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
Your profits, should you realize any, will not only be moral, but virtuous. Go for it.
Actually, my tiny AdSense revenue feels more morally acceptable than any income I've earned from any wage slave job.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
FSK, there is nothing wrong with having ads on your site. It is the ad companies tracking us that are the problem.
My blog is hosted on Blogger. Google already has full server logs for everyone that reads my blog.
The ad itself is a fnord. Sure, the ad company makes a penny or a fraction of a penny, but the real cake is the profile of each user as he/she traverses the various websites carrying the ads.
A single, unconnected ad that resides on your server would be fine. But the ads are fetched from the web server of the ad agency. The web agency leaves a cookie on my computer and logs my ip address along with the referer information (the page I was looking at when I saw the ad).
You can use the FireFox ad blocking widget. You can use NoScript. There are workarounds.
I'm looking to sell single ads eventually. That won't be practical until I have my own site and a larger audience. I'm particularly interesting in selling ads to other agorist businessmen and getting paid off-the-books.
The next web site I go to probably has an ad from the same company (because there are only a handful of them). Now the company recognizes the cookie, logs my ip address again, and the page I was looking at. It correlates it with my last record. Now I have a permanent record. They know what kind of web sites I look at and when. From the IP address they know where I live.
When I go to my local coffee shop and turn on the computer, my ip address is different. But the cookie is still there. Now they know where I drink coffee. They know what mood I am in today, too.
You could say "turn off the cookies". But then most web sites will not come in correctly. And the advertisers are tricky and use scripts and CSS stlylesheets to trick my browser into giving up some identifying information.
I'm using a plain vanilla Blogger layout.
Google is even worse - they literally know what I am thinking! When I have some idea and search the web, they know it. They put it in my file along with my email, map searches and god knows what else. I would venture to say they know me better than I do!
You might say "so what? That's so much information that it's useless", or "I have nothing to hide". Well, you can think that at your own risk. Google NEVER deletes that information.
The information is so hard to find that it's practically useless. You're assuming that the bad guys are omniscient and omnipotent.
You may remain anonymous for months until that time you forget to turn on the filter to read FSK's blog, and BAM - you are correllated to your other recods! Just because FSK wants to know how many unique visitors he has and is too lazy to do it himself. So google provides this little service TO FSK, but gets all of my information as a payment.
That is immoral - FSK sold me to Google to satisfy his idle curiosity. Google will turn this information over to the state if they ask persuasively enough. Therefore, FSK has effectively sold me to the state.
There still are workarounds for you. You can write a script that fetches my RSS feed or my site, stripping out the ads. You can program your browser to not fetch the ads from Google. Spam sites already republish my RSS feed.
By your reasoning, I've sold you out to the State merely by hosting my blog on Blogger. You know that Blogger is owned by Google, don't you?
Sure, the cowardly 'anonymous' poster is blabbering nonsense again. But, FSK, I like your blog, and would gladly give you a buck a month or more for the pleasure of reading it, and prodding you to stop using google every so often until you realize how evil it is to let your readers be sold down the river.
When I get my own site, I'll offer an option to donate and disable ads, if there's sufficient demand. I'll even scrub your IP address from my server logs! (But I can't promise my hosting vendor isn't keeping extra copies. Plus, you'll have to take my word for it on the server-side. I'm not giving you access to my mySQL database!)
Getting my own site is only possible due to AdSense in the first place!
I think there are many who share my opinion who would never compromise their anonymity by posting a comment. You will not hear from them and they do not show up on your 'google analytics' charts (why they hell would you care anyway? Are you really that vain, or is it some narcissistic disorder as your shrink would put it?)
I think Google Analytics is a neat tool. I'm aware that some people block it. It's probably a lower percentage than I originally suspected, based on my AdSense statistics. (unless everyone with NoScript also has the FireFox AdSense blocker)
It's kind of cool to keep track of how many readers I have. It's like bragging about your highscore at Tetris. Viewing "blogging is a game", my reader statistics are a way of keeping score.
But there are others, who have little technical knowlege and you owe it to them. You know better, deep in your heart. How would you feel if years from now someone drills down the google analytics logs (with much more detail than was given to you), and cross correllates it with purchasers of say silver, and goes and arrests everyone involved? Or puts them on a list of potential agitators and makes it hard for them to fly or even cross the GWB?
If you're that paranoid, you should cease using the Internet altogether. From my point of view, the Internet was a useful tool. I'm not going to drop it. Based on my readings on other blogs, the philosophy of true free markets is spreading. I'm even starting to see some cracks in the mainstream media.
I'm going to write an AgoristBay engine and Open Source it, so you can just install that on your PC. If I do it well, it would give you *MORE* Internet privacy than available otherwise. For example, I'm going to have a strong-encryption feature with AgoristBay. I don't know of any other forum engines that have a "strong encrypt everything" feature. (In order to utilize the strong encryption feature, you'll have to install the program on your own PC, of course. It'll be Open Source, so you can check that there's no flaws.)
FSK, you know that there is right and wrong. It is not the ads that make it wrong. It is that everyone looking at networked ads on your site gets seriously tracked, and you are the facilitator.
My blog is already hosted on Blogger. If you're that paranoid, you shouldn't even be reading my Blogger-hosted blog in the first place. If you're that paranoid, how do you know that your ISP isn't logging every single byte? Your ISP doesn't have to log everything. The sites you visit is sufficient to develop a profile.
Besides, the bad guys are looking for terrorists, and not agorists or free market activists (yet).
One reason the State lasts is that most enforcers aren't consciously aware that the State is evil. Only a State enforcer who's consciously aware that the State is evil, and wants to preserve that evil he fully understands, would crack down on me based on my blog. One reason the State survives is that most pro-State trolls are unaware that their actions are evil. They're so stupid and brainwashed that they sincerely believe they're dong the right thing!
Overall, the good of AdSense (I can get my own website and blog as a job maybe someday) outweigh the evils (I pay income tax on blogging revenue, and Google gets some data it probably already has anyway).
AzraelsJudgement has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
Go for it
My decision has been made (obviously).
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
Embedding information that is not served by your own computer compromises you and your readers simultaneously!
Then, you may install the appropriate FireFox extensions and block that information.
The blogging phenomenon is a blessing for the State. People are shamelessly listing their innermost thoughts for anyone to see!
I disagree that the State is capable of acting on that information. So far, me and the other free market Internet thinkers have not been harassed by the State based on our writings. As more and more people become aware of real free market economics, the risk decreases instead of increases. For a controversial and important and dangerous idea, the more people who know about the idea, the less risk each of them were facing. If I were the only person anywhere that knew about agorism, it would be a huge victory for the State if something bad happened to me. If 10,000 people know about agorism, then the bad guys accomplish much less eliminating one of them. Eliminating all 10,000 simultaneously is infeasible, especially if my readers mention agorism to their non-Internet friends.
Blogging is important because it breaks the mainstream media information monopoly. That is more valuable than the ability of State agents to track what people are doing.
By itself it is a windfall for the State and private information networks.
By tracking your users via advertising network, the blogger creates a 'friendship map' between their files with his own. This map is one of the few data mining tools that are functional in the sea of information that is collected. It is used successfully by various agencies to find out who knows whom.
This information is forced out of the users of 'social networks' by the very nature of the sites (you list your friends voluntarily!). Bloggers give up all of that information and more via various scripts run by the conveniently free blog providers, and even more (and to more parties) by placing ads, VeriSign logos, Visa or Mastercard logos, PayPal scripts, links to various 'paedias or booksellers, and even innocent-looking 'no rights reserved' logos from well-known public domain promoters.
The only morally acceptable way to advertise is by serving ads directly from the server you own and keeping no logs.
It isn't feasible for me to do that yet. There aren't any free market online advertising networks. Google is your best option. (I considered and rejected text-link-ads.)
It is a good practice to avoid releasing any information to information collecting agencies by never embedding third-party links into your pages.
As I said above, if you don't like it, you're free to leave!
I have a higher degree of computer literacy than most of these Anonymous commenters. All the extra information you claim I'm giving the State via AdSense, Google already has because my blog is hosted on Blogger! Even if I self-hosted, your ISP could intercept traffic as it crosses the Internet.
This appears to be another common evil fnord. "The State and the bad guys are omniscient and omnipotent!" That seems to be false. If the bad guys are that evil and that powerful, then how was I able to fire my psychiatrist/murderer and stop taking anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs?
If the State is that powerful and that evil, then I should have been murdered before I started blogging!
Before I started blogging, I tried to get other people to publish bits of my story Anonymously. I decided to take the risk of starting my own blog, and it's worked out fine so far. It's much better to have a forum you 100% control, instead of being reliant on someone else.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
Like another anon above, I just want to emphasize that it is not the display of ads that bothers me.
Instead it is the fact that of all the people, FSK is going to sell me off to tracking companies for a penny!
Do not pretend that you do not understand our concern, FSK.
I don't understand your concerns at all. Your concerns are wrong. I don't understand the arguments for "FSK should not put AdSense on his blog (hosted at Blogger)!" as much as I don't understand the arguments for "Taxation is not theft!"
Don't ask if advertising is immoral. You have accamulated a group of people around you that can read fnords, ok? So, when you do ask a question like that, it is painfully evident that you just trying to evade the question of selling of your visitors to trackers.
I am surprised actually. I did not expect to ever see YOU issuing a fnord. Now is the chance for you to analyze this, and to find out how good people eventually will become evil and start issuing fnords.
If this is what you always planned to do (making money by selling your friends into tracking slavery), then may-be you should have been blogging on military forums. You know where they all post nuclear blast pictures and call for turning this or that problem into a "glass lake". Those with mission, believe that as long as they do no wrong, there is nothing to worry about.
But you have chosen an agorism blog...??? As your way for paying expenses by selling visitors for tracking?
I don't get how "FSK puts advertisements on his blog" is a fnord. If I started writing "Large corporations are a natural free market occurrence", that would be a fnord. The ads are explicitly visible and labeled as ads. One person even said he liked them.
Agorism's theme is "building a new society in the shell of the old". You cannot completely abandon the State economy, because of the State economic monopoly.
Look at it this way. If I work in a corporate wage slave job, I can only spend an hour or two a day working on my blog and promoting free markets. If my blog becomes profitable as a full-time job, then I can work on raising awareness of free markets full-time. That will accelerate the collapse of the State. Once I can work full-time promoting free markets, then I can start making the transition to actually working in a free market myself, rather than in the slave economy.
The stages of an agorist revolution are:
- Someone discovers the idea of agorism.
- People who think agorism is a good idea spread the idea to others.
- People start practicing agorism in local small groups, perhaps only part-time initially.
- People start working full-time as agorists. Larger trading groups develop.
- All services currently available in the State slave economy may be purchased in the free market.
- Areas, or groups living in certain areas, become free of harassment by the State. The State can no longer use violence to impose its will on agorists.
- The State is eliminated.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
Fsk..Again I say go for it. As far as putting your readers in some sort of compromised position,and your self also. By making your site more available to big brothers eyes, that's nonsense. You already tested the powers to be by putting your address and full name on line. And I see that they didn't kill you or sensor your blog. I would bet that they didn't even pay you a visit. They're not that organized yet and can't sensor all opposition.
I believe it is your destiny to reach the remnant ( many of which don't even know they are) and spread the word. Fsk you have a unique talent of true vision and purpose. Again I say to you to take your time,do the research, calculate the best method to spread your message, and fallow your heart.
I'm doing the best I can. For now, my goal is "Promote agorism and show a profit at the same time!" I'm looking for ways to start practical agorism, but I haven't seen anything promising yet. Hopefully, something will come up in the next few years.
My best "promote agorism" idea is via standup comedy, but I haven't tried that yet.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
This takes us slightly off topic, I guess. The fact that FSK is still alive after posting his address does not prove that the State is not interested. If the State cared, obviously it was easy enough to get FSK's address without waiting for him to volunteer it.
Hiding from the State is not the issue (or an option anyway). The State is much better off having someone like FSK blogging away to compile a list of readers/dissidents and cross-check it against other sites, such as the NRA or an Afgani newspaper.
That is true. However, that assumes that the bad guys are omnipotent/omniscient.
This actually appears to be a problematic evil fnord. It is "The State is ominpotent/omniscient!"
If you believe my "aliens exist" hypothesis. Then the alien overseers would be helping State enforcers who read my blog think "FSK is a harmless fruitcake."
I can never convince you that I'm not a deliberate spy planted to harm you, or that the State is making a list of my regular readers, planning to harass them later. However, some of my regular readers are now converting their non-online friends to agorism, and I'm being quoted on other discussion forums. Isn't the State going to have to arrest them also? At some point, if too many people understand agorism, then it becomes impossible for the bad guys to stop it. I'm not the only person writing intelligently about agorism, but IMHO I'm more advanced that the others.
Paradoxically, for controversial and dangerous and important ideas like mine, the best defense may be the best offense. By spreading my ideas to as many people as possible, I reduce the amount that the bad guys could potentially gain by violently silencing me (or by violently silencing me and all my regular readers).
The question is: is it moral to impose your opinion of safety upon others? If I feel driving without a seatbelt is safe, should I make everyone in the car take off their seatbelt? Should I cut the seatbelts so that they are no longer functional even though they appear normal, so my passengers won't know as they strap themselves in? Do I know better?
By allowing analytics scripts and ads in my website, I am effectively turning my logs over to third parties. If someone objects, I just wave my hand and call them paranoid. Is that morally right?
You're missing the point. Blogger is owned by Google. Google already has access to my full server logs.
Calling someone paranoid by the way, is just a way to change the subject and discredit them. Mental institutions do that. It does not really matter if I am paranoid anyway, the question at hand is your own privacy and security.
Privacy and security are different. Do I mind if the bad guys spy on what I'm doing? Not really. Do I mind if the bad guys use violence to silence me? Yes, I do.
It's valid for me to say "You're overly paranoid" if you're actually overly paranoid. I claim you are being irrational, and you claim that I am being irrational. I haven't convinced you, and you haven't convinced me (and you probably aren't reading anymore anyway, unless you're lying). You're free to go start your own blog.
By saying 'the information collected is not important','there is too much of it to be useful','honest people have nothing to hide','you are paranoid','my right to blog is my right and don't tell me what to do', etc, you are making a certain trust assumption that are bound to be incorrect:There's another problem in your reasoning. Suppose Google gave its data over to the State, and that information was used to friviolously harass people, and people figured out that Google did it. That would be a huge loss of reputation for Google. Also, the State can only get away with such a crackdown once. Everyone else would compensate by becoming more careful.
ALL PARTIES INVOLVED IN COLLECTING THIS INFORMATION ARE TRUSTWORTHY AND RELIABLE AND WILL PROTECT MY PRIVACY, MY RIGHTS AND MY LIFE FROM NOW UNTIL THE END OF TIME.
If you don't honestly believe this, you should not release your own and other people's information, and better yet, you should collect it in the first place.
Thank you for letting my humble opinion be heard on your blog.
In the USA, there's still a presumption of freedom of the press. A State enforcer can't violently silence me and my readers based on my blog, without himself becoming consciously aware that he's a participant in a massive crime. In the trial, I'd be explaining free market economics to the judge, prosecutor, and the jury. It could be very uncomfortable and embarrassing for them. In a 5 minute discussion, they could dismiss me as a fruitcake, but not in a drawn-out trial with me explaining my ideas to them every day.
There's always the "assassinate someone and make it look like an accident" approach. If that were a real risk, it would have happened by now.
Anyway, if you don't like it, you're free to start your own blog.
The final definitive answer is "This is my blog, and I'll do what I feel like doing."
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
Sorry, a typo in my last post should read
'you should NOT collect it in the first place'
Thanks
I didn't notice.
Interesting, those who agree with you are 'intelligent' and those who don't are not?
Yes, when I'm sure that I'm right. I'm not just evaluating their conclusions. I'm also evaluating their reasons. None of the "FSK should not have advertisements on his blog" arguments convinced me (obviously).
There's also a type of advertising that I'm *NOT* doing. I'm not accepting payments in exchange for ads on a specific subject. For example, a mainstream media outlet will do a story on "Drug X is wonderful!", while receiving advertising money from that pharmaceutical company (for the same drug or another drug). Such behavior compromises journalistic integrity.
I'm not changing my content based on AdSense. (I looked in AdSense/Analytics to see which articles are most profitable, but the results so far are random noise. It's mostly my homepage with random results elsewhere.)
Obviously those who are not anonymous don't give a rat's ass about information collection (or they would try to be anonymous). They will say 'sure, whatever'.
Alternatively, by giving the same Blogger login, I can identify repeat commenters. If someone has given intelligent comments in other areas, their opinion here is more likely to be useful.
Besides how do I know that all the Anonymous "FSK should not publish advertisements on his blog!" posts weren't posted by the exact same person! Or, each of them could have been published by a different person! With a Blogger login, there's continuity, even if it's a made-up name.
Those who are anonymous do not want you to sell their information to google or others. They say "make money, but don't sell me".
Fine. You can install NoScript and the FireFox AdSense blocker.
FSK, your remarks about 'there is too much information for the state to bother' have been addressed by anonymous. Your 'safety' has been addressed as well.
So far, nothing bad has happened to me based on my blog. It's actually been beneficial for me, as a means for clarifying my ideas, getting feedback, and now as a slight source of income. $1/day is trivial now, but it pays for hosting, and maybe I can get 10x-100x the traffic a year or two from now. At that point, blogging becomes comparable to my wage slave job.
Is everyone who disagrees with you a state troll by definition?
When I'm right, people who disagree with me are wrong/trolling. This is a different type of disagreement than in other areas. The "Google will collect information on my blog" argument is obviously stupid, because Google owns Blogger.
Google Analytics and AdSense and FeedBurner are useful. I'm going to stick with them, even when I move to my own site.
Let's examine this. Not releasing information to unknown third parties does not help the State. Releasing and collecting information may help the State.
Putting ads on my blog helps me, which indirectly hurts the State. If I spend more time on blogging, that will hurt the bad guys more than the bad guys gain from the information they collect or the taxes I pay on AdSense revenue.
Creating fear about blogging may help the State. However, pretending that there is no possible problem with releasing and collecting information may help the State.
You're the one creating fear about blogging. I actually was very scared when I first discovered bits of the truth and started blogging. Now, I'm less afraid. Blogging has helped me unravel bits of the truth more. Writing down my thoughts has helped me. Getting feedback from others was beneficial. Seeing an increase in the quality of free market thinking elsewhere has been encouraging. I'm also getting better at identifying stupid ideas as stupid. "FSK should not put AdSense on his site, because it helps Google collect information" is obviously stupid, because Blogger is owned by Google.
I was on the commuter train with a parasitic co-worker. (We were going to a meeting in Connecticut.) I explained to him my "The financial industry is parasitic" arguments on the train. He said "SSHHH!!! Some of the people on this train probably work in the financial industry. They might hear you!" What was he worried about? They were going to assault me or have me arrested for saying "The financial industry is parasitic!"?
There is no absolute safety and anonymity. However, you sound a bit like a Statist troll by refusing to weigh the possibilities with an even mind, like you do on other topics.
I was openminded. You're accusing me of being narrowminded for disagreeing with you. I haven't convinced you and you haven't convinced me. We are at an impasse. I guess you should get frustrated and leave (if you haven't already).
By outright refusing to consider that letting google into your bedroom is a possible problem, you sound very much like a troll yourself.
By definition, I cannot be trolling on my own site. You're free to leave if you don't like it. You can start your own site "fsksucks.blogspot.com" and complain about what an ***hole I am. If I comment "I'm not a jerk" on your blog, you can then validly complain that I'm trolling.
I checked, and "fsksucks.blogspot.com" is available! Go ahead and register it before someone else does!
Google's tools are very useful. The Internet is very useful. If I drop them, I'm giving up something useful. So far, the invasion of privacy problem has not been an issue for me.
Who do the bad guys gain more by harassing? You or me? If the bad guys want to keep their power forever, and they're that efficient, they should have assassinated me when I first discovered bits of the truth and started telling others.
Everyone here is saying 'make money'. Some are saying 'don't make money by collecting and selling information about us'. Apparently, the idea of not making $10 a week by turning us over to google is offensive to you and those daring to say it are statist trolls and idiots.
Non-anonymous users have 'intelligent' comments, such as, 'go for it' and 'nothing wrong with making a buck'.
Very interesting.
Those non-Anonymous users have made intelligent comments in the past on other issues, making me value their feedback on this issue. Remember that there have been other regular non-Anonymous commenters who have said "**** you FSK! I'm leaving!" I don't automatically agree with someone, just because they're not Anonymous.
I was not convinced by any of the "FSK should not put ads on his site" arguments.
Whenever someone says "**** you FSK! I'm leaving!", that's always correlated with an increase in my site traffic!
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
FSK, you seem to value anonymous readers less than those who use made up names. Why?
With Anonymous readers, I have no way of knowing if they were all made by the same person, or each by a different person. With non-Anonymous commenters, if they've made intelligent comments in the past, then I'm more likely to value their feedback on this issue. Besides, they could make up a consistent fake name like "FSK".
If I really wanted to, I could disable Anonymous commenting completely. I haven't done that.
If you believe that I'm unable to tell the difference between intelligent discourse and gibberish, then why are you bothering to read at all?
Also, you say 'the state can already get this information, so what I do does not matter'. You know that is morally wrong. The state collects taxes and does other morally wrong things. Perhaps you should become an IRS agent or a cop, since the state is already doing this thing. Does it absolve you of your own moral responsibility?
That is different, because an IRS agent or policeman is using violence to impose my will on others. You are free to not read this blog, if you choose.
Suggesting that any profit-seeking business is equivalent to State violence is ridiculous. (Don't be confused with a related statement, which is "Any on-the-books business supports the State via taxes." That does not justify violence against people operating on-the-books businesses.)
Overall, Blogger and Google and the Internet have been beneficial for me. I'm continuing to use them.
Based on the subject of your blog and the responses on various topics I've been reading, I would guess that most of your readers are anonymous and the rest use fake names. You'd be a fool to use your real name unless you want to be a martyr, especially if it's not their own blog.
That's an interesting question. What's the risk of being a blatant-in-public critic of the State? Stefan Molyneux is a blatant-in-public critic of the State and he's still alive and not in jail.
If I attempt blatant-in-public agorism, I'll have to give up my anonymity. If I attempt "promote agorism via standup comedy", I'm giving up my anonymity.
The main reason I desire anonymity now is that I don't want a future corporate wage slave employer discriminating me based on my blog's content. If I can blog or do other agorist activity as a full-time income, then that won't be necessary.
I would suggest treating your anonymous friends with more respect. Not all of them are one state troll, some of them are individuals who believe in the same ideas as you.
Then don't use the Strawman Fallacy. I try to evaluate each comment and each idea independently, even if published non-Anonymously. If you disagree with my decision to put AdSense on my blog, that doesn't invalidate my other ideas. You're free to leave and start your own blog.
Actually, agreeing with someone, even when they're wrong, is a form of disrespect. If I let the Anonymous critic(s) bully me into not putting up Google AdSense, then I'd be disrespecting all the more intelligent commenters.
Besides, I shouldn't hear any more comments from the "It's immoral for FSK to put AdSense on his blog!" crowd now, right? If you've stopped reading in protest, you're gone by now.
barry b. has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
I currently earn an average of 2.5 to 3 cents per visitor on my blog. I don't know if this is higher than average but it's my experience. However, my blog is driven by search engine traffic and my ad layout is heavy.. hell I don't even like the layout but the results were good so I've left it heavy.
That's about what I'm making, even with my non-optimized layout. I'm going to stick with my current AdSense setup. I only have 100-200 Visitors/day, and only a couple clickthroughs a day, so there's a lot of fluctuation in my AdSense profits. I suppose it also varies based on the articles I publish and how much traffic I get and other random factors.
$0.02-$0.03 per visitor is nice. That means I only need 100x more regular traffic for this to be viable as a full-time job. I had a spike initially, and it looks like $0.005-$0.01 per visitor is more realistic.
As far as immorality goes there's nothing immoral about placing advertising on your site. I don't see it effecting your readership.
I haven't noticed an abormal change in my Google Analtyics statistics. December was a down month. I don't know if that's seasonal, or attributable to my illness. Of course, the "Anonymous" paranoid person/people are probably using NoScript, so they won't be reflected in Google Analytics statistics anyway.
That would be one benefit of my own domain. I could see my full Apache server logs, even those of people using NoScript.
As for those worried about the 'tracking' of their thoughts and web history... well I say get over it. The government isn't likely to target anyone for the type of rhetoric on your blog... unless of course it becomes very popular.
Once my blog becomes very popular, then it becomes impractical for the bad guys to go around harassing all my regular readers!
Either way life is too short to spend it worried about what if the government does this or that. My best friend told me NOT to put my real name on my blog. I finally did and am glad I did so. I figure if I run into trouble I'll deal with it when it happens.
My primary concern is that a future corporate wage slave employer could discriminate against me base on my blog. That's the only valid reason I can think of for blogging anonymously.
If I can start working full-time on blogging or promoting agorism or practical agorism, then I'll probably fully give up anonymity. For now, I want to blog as FSK. I'm less paranoid now, and I'll give my real name and location to anyone who asks politely. I just don't want my real name publicly associated with my blog, because of possible future harassment by a corporate wage slave employer.
Until then I've decided not to spend my life hiding anonymously behind my opinions. We all have to answer this question for ourselves. But how would anything ever change unless good people stand up and make charges against the status quo?
Someone has to take a stand somewhere. I don't see anyone else doing as well as me at taking a stand, so I guess I have to do it. For now, for tactical reasons (primarily the wage slave job thing), I'm sticking with "FSK".
Besides, I don't plan on living forever.
What's wrong with living forever? If the State collapses in the next 20 years as I predict, then Moore's Law will affect all areas of the economy. There will be exponential improvements in medical care. There may be technologies discovered that allow human life to be extended indefinitely.
For now, I do realize "I only have 20-30 years until I'm too old and senile to effectively resist the State." That should be sufficient time. Also, children now are growing up with computers and the Internet, which should improve their logical thinking ability.
"Should FSK put an AdSense widget on his blog and in his RSS feed" really was a contentious issue.
All the intelligent comments seem to be by the non-Anonymous regular commenters who say "Go ahead and put up ads, FSK!"
The Anonymous comments were concerned about data collection by Google. If you are concerned about that, you should use Tor (but I think the NSA has infiltrated the Tor network anyway). I tried Tor once, and found it to be too slow to be usable. Just by hosting my blog at Google, Google can collect the IP address of everyone who reads my blog. Without adding an Analytics or AdSense widget, the bad guys may track my blog.
Blogger is owned by Google!
Suppose I purchase hosting. The bad guys can still subpoena my IPS's records, and according to national security rules I don't even have to be notified. Alternatively, they could intercept traffic as it goes across the Internet.
There is *NO* option that doesn't give the ability to spy on what I'm doing.
Even if I don't use the internet, there's phone wiretaps, bugs planted in rooms, being turned in to the State by friends/relatives, etc. There are many dangers. The "friends/relatives/coworkers" as unpaid/unknowing State spies leads to the illusion of State omnipotenct.
I haven't (yet) been the victim of State violence based on my blog. If silencing me was a high priority for the bad guys, then they would have done it when I first started blogging, rather than waiting for me to get a wider audience.
Is it risky for me to write my blog? Apparently not, so far, although I was very scared at the beginning.
The truth is so traumatic that, when people discover bits of it, they become very afraid and paranoid. It's very stressful and traumatic to realize the massive crime that has occurred.
One reason for the illusion of State omnipotence is that, in most social situations, one or more of the people is a member of the parasite class. These people will always use psychological manipulation tricks to disrupt discussion. There is an illusion of State omnipotence because approximately half of the humans are members of the parasite class! It appears that there are a nearly equal number of "parasitic personality types" and "productive personality types", and usually a productive worker is paired with a parasite.
Is it risky for you to read my blog, whether I have Analytics or AdSense widgets installed? I doubt it. The bad guys are collecting lots of information, but that doesn't mean they're capable of using it intelligently. You're just a blip in a huge mass of barely comprehensible data. The bad guys are much more concerned about Al Qaeda and other acts of violence and property destruction. They aren't capable of making the connection "Agorism could lead to the collapse of the State", unless they also agreed with my main points.
When you consider that complete economic and political collapse is coming, doing nothing is also risky. I'm doing the best I can, given the circumstances. I want to make the transition from theoretical agorism to practical agorism, but that really is risky. In the USA, there still is the presumption of freedom of the press, but not the presumption that individuals own their own labor.
Due to the fact that nearly everyone is brainwashed as a pro-State troll, the State appears to be more powerful than it actually is. You believe that the State will violently crack down on you for your beliefs, because everyone around you is nearly completely brainwashed. Whenever you suggest "Taxation is theft!" to your pro-State troll friends, they will respond with "You're an idiot!" The State doesn't need to spy on everyone all the time, because your friend and relatives and coworkers will do the spying for the bad guys! Your enemy is not just the police. Your enemy is also your friends and relatives and coworkers, who will try to politely "correct" you when you tell them bits of the truth.
When I explain free market economics to a member of the productive worker class, their reaction is "I never thought of it that way before!" When I explain free market economics to a member of the parasite class, they recite all the incoherent pro-State troll gibberish. They go through all sorts of intellectual hoops to avoid seeing my point. I'm getting very good at immediately noticing "This person is a member of the parasite class." or "This person is a productive worker." This is a dangerous skill. In most corporations, the parasites are the ones pulling the strings. Knowing I can see through them, parasites always make "Eliminate FSK!" a high priority.
If I start my own business (agorist or even on-the-books, but preferably agorist), and I filter out all the parasitic class members, I should be *SPECTACULARLY* successful. A parasite-free business probably must necessarily be agorist, because on-the-books businesses need to deal with parasites as part of their State-induced overheat.
So far, I'm satisfied with my AdSense experiment.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Compound Interest Paradox":
Notice the aggressive/dominant pro-State troll language. It's just like the "Dog Whisperer"!
Oh my god. Where to start. You talk of investment. Where is the difference between the bank 'investing' in you and charging interest and you depositing in a bank and getting interest. NO moral high ground to be had there.
When I deposit in a bank, I get less than true inflation in interest. Bank depositors are ripped off by inflation.
Yes, all the financial instruments (futures, loans, etc.) have only one product: inflation.
That's exactly my point. The financial industry's only product is inflation. They package it and bundle it in clever ways. Why should I subsidize the financial industry's profits, when my savings lose their purchasing power to inflation?
The natural counter to this is the fruit of human labor: manufacturing. The conversion of low value items into high value items. So long as the GDP, which holds up the currancy tokens, holds up then the interchange of wealth holds up.
You are exactly wrong. I can create all the wealth I want via productive work, but only banks can legally create money. No matter how much wealth the productive sector of the economy produces, they are still prisoners of the Compound Interest Paradox and slaves of the financial industry.
Wealth and money are NOT THE SAME. In a true free market "wealth you produce minus wealth you consume" and "money you have" are nearly perfectly correlated. In a completely corrupt system, the money creation process and the wealth creation process are anti-correlated.
Look to Zimbabwe to see what happens when the manufacturing base (in this case farming) of a nation fails. The cost of product (food) increases at a rate that far outstrips the capability of the financial institutions to keep up and the net value of the currancy bombs whilst the issuing authority prints more and larger denominations in an attempt to keep up.
I don't see how "Zimbabwe has ****ed up hyperinflation." leads to "The USA has a fair monetary system." as a conclusion.
The fedreal reserve isn't the monster. Greed, complacancy and foolish thinking are.
You are wrong. Greed is fine, provided you don't have the ability to use violence to impose your will on others. The Federal Reserve and financial industry are evil because their product is backed by State violence.
This pro-State trolling comment illustrates why "FSK should not respect stupid pro-State trolls." This comment really didn't contribute anything, and I'd prefer that people like this get disgusted and leave or stop posting stupid comments and wasting my time.
If I took this idiot seriously, I'd be wasting a lot of time. If I encourage this sort of foolishness, I'll be flooded with stupid comments from idiots. Even though I'm doing all I can to discourage idiots from commenting, they still do it. I'm not worried about "There will come a time when idiots stop posting comments on FSK's blog." If there's anything I can do to accelerate that process, let me know!
This gets back to the "productive worker" vs. "parasite" dichotomy. Productive workers tend to say "FSK is awesome! Go FSK!" Parasites tend to say "FSK is wrong" and give a pro-State troll false argument. Is this my own personal bias, or is it the truth? If you think I'm full of ****, then why are you reading this?
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
10 slave points per month seems like a pretty small amount. I'm sure you could easily get donations for that amount. Is there anyway to transfer slave points anonymously? If so, I'd be happy to start the donations. But, if not, I'd be scared of the state if they knew I read your blog.
I'm doing better than 10 slave points per month with AdSense, so I'm glad I put up the advertisements.
There is no way to donate Anonymously, unless you live in NYC and make the donation personally.
PayPal, checks, and even E-Gold report all their transactions to the State. Congress recently tightened up the law, making *ALL* forms of payment reportable to the State. Any on-the-books business that handles financial transactions must report all activity to the State/IRS. There was concern that people were developing online businesses and avoiding taxes. (i.e., concern that people were getting accustomed to freedom)
"Develop an alternate financial system" is one of my agorist business ideas. It would have to be completely decentralized and off-the-books, to have a chance of success.
My level of "Fear of expressing my ideas!" has decreased a lot since I started blogging. Based on my analysis, the primary cause of this comes from my pro-State troll friends, relatives, and coworkers. If I say "Taxation is theft!", most people respond with "You're talking stupid, FSK!"
I'm getting better at reading the fine print in job ads. "We want someone entrepreneurial" means "We're looking for a loser dumb enough to work for a minority equity stake instead of cash, yet still smart enough to write software that actually runs." An minority equity stake in a business that's just two guys with a business plan is worth $0. Instead of working for equity-only for parasites, I'm better off working on my blog or buying some hosting and putting up my program there.
I'm surprised by how many people with *ZERO* knowledge of software are starting software companies. If you don't have a very skilled software engineer on your startup's founding team, your startup is worth $0.
eagledove9 has left a new comment on your post "The Real Meaning of Santa Claus":
I have a book that criticizes Christmas and Santa Claus ("The Trouble With Christmas"). It said that post office employees were explicitly told NOT to reject letters for Santa Claus.
In other words, there's a proven conspiracy to provide the illusion that Santa Claus is real.
Questioning the idea of Santa Claus or revealing that he's imaginary is something that makes brainwashed adults very, very angry. No joke. They are actually told to keep the letters.
If you're an independent thinker, you're probably not working at the post office anyway.
Suppose I have children, tell them the truth about Santa Claus, and send them to a State-sanctioned school. I'll probably get harassed for abusing my child, by not lying to them about Santa Claus.
If you ask adults why they continue to tell their children that Santa Claus is real, some of the adults might still be able to hold a conversation with you, but others will have such an intense, crazy reaction that you can't even discuss the subject. They freak out about Santa Claus even more than if you question religious ideas about God. I've actually had fights with people about this subject.
The problem with telling your children "Santa Claus is real!", it that it's an outright lie. It's as immoral as conditioning your children to believe "Taxation is not theft!", although almost no parent explicitly tells their children "Taxation is not theft!"
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "NFL Fnords":
Regardless of whether much of what they do is illegitimate, we need soldiers to defend the continent from foreign aggressors. Even if you got your way and the government collapsed, there would need to be a seamless transition from the military to some sort of "agorist continental defense" or you'd be learning Chinese after you got your way, and then wishing you could have the US government back. Who'd make up this defense if not the guys who are already doing it.
You're assuming that the State collapses in the USA and not elsewhere. I predict a total global collapse, everywhere at the same time.
"The State is needed to provide national defense" is pure pro-State trolling.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "NFL Fnords":
I like your fnord posts, they are very interesting.
I can see fnords (both good and evil) better than almost everyone else. That's something I can provide that isn't available elsewhere.
Patriotic soldiers fighting these wars for american ideals is tragic.
It's more accurate to say "Patriotic/brainwashed/foolish soldiers fighting these wars so insiders can profit is tragic." I feel bad for the soldiers who were duped/conned. On the other hand, they're adults and are technically responsible for what they do.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "NFL Fnords":
I have thought long and hard about what anonymous has said. And this idea for me is the only problem I have had with no state and pure agorism.
That's because you haven't thought about it enough. Private police forces is a workable system.
What incentive do State bureaucrats have to "solve" the terrorism problem? If there's another successful attack, they can merely claim more power and resources. Do State bureaucrats lost any of their own wealth because the Iraq war was a disaster?
Only a free market can efficiently provide real security. Freed from market competition, the State has no incentive to actually solve the problems and fears it creates.
Until I thought out of the box. See we can't be the police of the world and we cant be isolationist either.Once the collapse occurs and the rest of the world fallows.When people see how productive true free market really is they will fallow suit.
And during the transition stage a private army will be enough to stem the tide. When we are not the worlds police we would have so much extra assets for homeland private security forces.
You're thinking better now. During the transition, many State policemen will also be on the payroll of agorist police businesses. When the final collapse occurs, they already will have other jobs arranged. For this reason, a nonviolent collapse is possible.
sure we would have to man our nuclear weapons. But not all of them,just a few.Im sure we could find some people as trust worthy as say our government to do the job. And as far as technology goes,Im sure we could keep our edge or do even better than the government. we wouldn't lose defense contractors,they would be driven by the free market with less waste and fraud.
Nuclear weapons aren't worth anything as a deterrent. You can't really use a nuclear weapon, because many innocent people will die in the process. If a State leader is about to lose his power monopoly, he might go ahead and use his nuclear weapons anyway. Fortunately, in the event of a frivolous nuclear strike, the soldiers might disobey orders. (I wonder if the soldiers manning the nuclear weapons silos would really fire, if given the order, knowing what would happen?)
there would still be a market for advanced weapons.
Handguns, assault rifles, and rocket launchers are sufficient deterrent against invasion. Without State restriction on gun ownership, everyone would be armed to resist an invasion! One reason countries like Switzerland were never invaded is that everyone is armed and knows how to use a gun. The mountainous terrain is usually given credit in pro-State troll history, but the Swiss government's "arm everyone" policy also is a factor.
But I believe that once the movement truly begins It wouldn't be long before it went global. People would feel empowered and realize that there is a way that their labor wouldn't be siphoned off. That they could really have something for the labor they gave forth. The playing field would be level for all people.
I like to have faith in man kind. And sure most people are under a trance right now. But there will come a time when the awakening will happen. and people everywhere will come to a higher level of understanding..
because if not we will surly destroy ourselves. And this whole movement can begin right here right now with people like us..
Sounds silly, but we have the opportunity to save the whole world
Agorism is a way to dramatically raise everyone's standard of living and eliminate poverty in most parts of the world. Agorism will probably be developed in places like the USA, and then exported. Once there's an advanced free market economy in the USA, some people will conduct the natural arbitrage and set up comparable businesses in other countries. For this reason, the collapse of the State should be global, rather than occurring in some areas first.
It's hard to tell the difference between "People are intrinsically stupid" and "Pro-State troll brainwashing is very effective". I'm inclined to blame pro-State brainwashing. I predict most people will be able to adapt to a real free market. There would be so many productivity gains that there probably will easily be charities/businesses to help the rest.
AzraelsJudgement has left a new comment on your post "NFL Fnords":
Anonymous - soldiers do not defend the continent, militaries throughout history do not protect freedom and people they crush them. Last time I checked the USA has nukes that seems to be a good deterrant if you are intertested in defense.
The primary use of militaries is usually against their own citizens. One of the main purposes of police is tax collection/intimidation.
One of the first things George Washington did as commander in chief was that he sent troops around the country putting down tax revolts.
I'm not sure that nukes would be a deterrent to insiders when they're about to lose their power monopoly and gravy train. The collapse of the Soviet Union was nonviolent, so hopefully the complete collapse of the State will also be nonviolenct.
Here is an idea stop leaving innocents un-armed to be murdered by governments?
That's the "everyone who wants to own a gun should have one" argument. Some of the biggest dictators who murdered their own people were also the strongest advocates for gun control.
Chinese or USA government both are corrput and immoral.
All forms of government are corrupt and immoral. Once you realize "Taxation is theft!", you can't support any form of government.
citizen stefish has left a new comment on your post "NFL Fnords":
what the first anonymous poster doesn't realize is that all of this ridiculous military nonsense is *purely the invention of governments*. anything like that *must* be funded through taxation and violence. i don't believe that most people have the potential to be total zombies running around with guns and murdering people for no reason. the military is a very small minority with massive funding that comes from the violence of the state. a stateless society would still have defense. it's about risk. if you live in a far away, secluded place that can sustain itself, you may be able to get away with none since there's no strategic reason for you to be conquered. the small enclaves of ethnic peoples in eastern europe / russia that are the subject of manic war fervor right now are there because they're on top of valuable energy supplies. since they can't possibly use all of it themselves, they have a reason to trade it for things that they need. without large gangs in different parts of the world claiming that the supplies "belong" to them, there couldn't be a war over it. the *state causes this*.
The Anonymous poster who said "You need the State because only a government can provide national defense" was pro-State trolling. Such arguments seem obviously false to me now.
The logical arguments against monopolistic government seem obvious now. The pro-State troll false reasoning is so pathetic that I have zero patience for it anymore.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
You know that it will be very easy to get caught of evading taxes on your Adsense income. The fruits of your labor be recorded be third parties, it is very easy for the third parties to rat out your tax evading techniques.
Regrettably, I will pay tax on my AdSense revenue. Still, I'm overall better off with AdSense, because it lets me pay for hosting and expand to other things.
So what I endorse is either direct donations or set up your own advertisement placing system. In that way, it will be much harder for the state to find out your tax evasion techniques earned from your agorist activities.
I'd like to set up an agorist advertising network, along with an agorist banking/payment system. That's one of my free market business ideas. To do that, I need my own domain where I can put up my own PHP programs. Blogger is very limiting for what you can do.
For now, I'll put up AdSense and use the reinvested profits on other free market business ideas. I'll take down AdSense when it becomes negligible compared to other blogging/agorist income.
It is contradictory, for a true agorist, to pay taxes, especially from agoric activities such as income earned from this blog. It is like advocating tax evasion while paying taxes from the income earned form the same blog that tells you to evade taxes. A true agorist stays on principles, and never conpromises his strategy both in theory and practice.
Agorism is "build a new economic system in the shell of the old". It's acceptable for me to utilize the corrupt old system until a replacement is in place. For now, I accomplish one good (promoting agorism) while doing an evil (paying taxes on blogging income). It is still better than a wage slave job, where my time is wasted and I still pay taxes on my labor.
I think you have to first offer advertising services only to the ones you trust, to evade your taxes from the advertising income. You therefore will have a much lesser chance of getting caught of your tax evasion techniques. No third advertising party has a record of your advertising deals and income earned through. The ones you trust will eventually get larger, and your agoric advertising network will begin to attract commercial ventures.
For now, my agoric trading network is zero. When I move to my own domain, I'll work on offering an option to disable AdSense for donators or agorist trading partners.
The web has an easy technique of evading taxes of your transactions by using encryption. Set up your own website, and use a web authentication strategy to leave the important content away form the statists.
There's a flaw in your reasoning. You still have to transfer money or goods to me somehow to pay. Pure digital money is useless. Money must ultimately be converted to tangible goods.
For this reason, I recommend that agorists simply use physical gold and silver, rather than anything fancier.
And, by the way, most web hosting services prohibit content that advocates "illegal activities." If your web hosting provider finds out of your activities, they will rat out to the state.
Technically, I'm violating Blogger's and AdSense's TOS, if you consider "advocating for agorism" to be "advocating for illegal activities". That's an argument for moving away from Blogger, because Google could shut me down at any time.
If I had my own domain, and my vendor kicked me out, I can always move to another domain.
Also, I consider "agorism is illegal" to be unproven. If you ask a pro-State troll lawyer or judge or IRS bureaucrat, they'll say "Agorism is illegal!". If you ask an intelligent openminded person and explain the arguments to them, maybe not. In practice, if you're the victim in a trial, there's a big risk that the jury will be filled with parasite class members who are pro-State trolls. However, there's no guarantee that the prosecutor knows to put only abusive personality types on the jury, or even can effectively screen for them!
In practice, unless some State agent files a complaint against me, Google will still allow me to host my blog here. There are other free market thinkers who host their blog on Google. I'm not concerned about that problem yet.
I'm better off with my own site and my own domain, but there's no need to rush to move.
In theory, someone could phish or guess my gmail password, and then I'm SOL.
citizen stefish has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
do what you want. if google adsense works for you, go for it. i have been reading this blog for over a year now and wouldn't care one bit if you had the ads on here. i don't care if google is watching me. i don't care if the government is watching me. what can i do to stop it? completely shut down my life? vote? ha! if you set up a donation option, i'll send over some money when i can.
I decided to put up AdSense. I'll probably put up a "donate to disable ads" option up sometime after I move to my own domain. I'm not going to offer "premium content for donators", because spreading my ideas is more important.
to the anon poster (#17 post), it is impossible to avoid taxes altogether. we pay taxes on our internet connections. that doesn't mean we're hypocrites or selling out. it is impossible to live completely tax-free.
Any activity in the slave economy supports the State. Whether I work in a wage slave job and use the profits for hosting, or put up AdSense and use the profits for hosting, I'm supporting the State either way.
The only way to avoid taxes on your labor is to work 100% as an agorist. I'm working towards that, but I can see that will take at least a few years.
i agree with barry. don't hide your opinions. i used to do that, and got nowhere. so i started polite discussions and got nothing but blank stares. i tried using logic, and it just doesn't seem to work.
I'm getting very good at telling "This person is openminded" or "This person is a brainwashed hopeless pro-State troll." I can tell from body language now, even without discussing free market ideas.
For this reason, I have no patience for fools anymore. If someone is a brainwashed pro-State troll, I'm not going to convince them, and I'm just wasting my time with them.
but people know where i stand. one time i laid all of this out (state as violence, taxation as theft, etc) to someone i had marked as a possible convert (a person who rambles on about socialism constantly) - and was accused of being a socialist. the amount of brainwashing in society is a real spectacular achievement for the propagandists.
That's an interesting question. Is this the result of a deliberate scam? Or, is it the result of a series of bad decisions? Did the ruling class drink their own Kool Aid, and now believe their own lies? Or, are there a group of humans somewhere who really know the truth and are secretly helping me, and encouraging total economic and political collapse? Are there a group of evil humans pulling the strings, believing they and their children will secretly rule the world forever?
Is there someone, somewhere, who knows the truth and says "HAHAHAHA!!!! I tricked everyone into believing my lies!!" Or, are humans collectively so stupid that the completely enslaved themselves? I can't believe that anyone could be fully aware of the nature of the scam, and still be acting to keep it going.
I believe "Humans are individually smart, but collectively stupid." In a real free market, the collective action of indviduals usually optimizies; most of the times this fails, is due to a non-free market. In a State economy, there are too many distortions of market signals, and the overall outcome is an evil one.
"Stupid" and "evil" are almost nearly the same. If my idiot pyschiatrist was intentially hurting me, or was so stupid that he believes his murder is beneficial, makes no difference to me.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Real Meaning of Santa Claus":
Just last week there was a story on yahoo news about a temporary teacher (known as a supply teacher here in the UK), told the children she was teaching that 'santa is not real' which caused trauma to children and made parents very angry leading to her losing her job.
Really? That's amusing. I didn't bother googling for the story.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Real Meaning of Santa Claus":
Funny cow some folks actually are trying to minimize the pains of their kid realizing that Santa was a lie.
The only way to do that is to not lie to them about Santa Claus in the first place.
In other words, they don't want their kid to learn this most valuable lesson, a lesson that teaches us that everything is a lie.
That is one beneficial part of the Santa Claus scam. It teaches children "Don't believe everything that parents, adults, and other people tell you!" That part of the lesson is not emphasized enough. "Taxation is not theft!" is a bigger lie than "Santa Claus is real!"
I'd prefer to lie to my children as little as possible.
Ignorance is a bliss... Anyone who knows about the truth can attest to the sadness on knowing it.
Initially, it's a shock to discover the truth. It's depressing when you can't explain the truth to the pro-State trolls around you. I've mostly recovered. I'm now thinking in terms of "I'm going to find some good non-pro-State troll friends and start an agorist trading group!" It's slow progress, but I should succeed eventually.
Some people choose for their kid to just be a mindless but happy robot.
I can't imagine anyone intentionally choosing that. I always chose the truth over lies. However, the shock of the full truth is *VERY* traumatic!
fritz has left a new comment on your post "The Real Meaning of Santa Claus":
I had a hard time with the idea when my sons were young. See my father once told me that we are tight, and the most important thing was for neither of us to lie to each other.
I believed him, and trusted that he wouldn't lie to me about anything. We made a mutual non lying pact. OHHHH,,than I found out about good old santa..believe it or not I'm still hurt.My father and I shook hands. And he proved to me how much of a sucker I was to believe in a non lying pact with your father. Than i'm wondering when am I going to be told there is no god, because that must be next.
That is one bad part of the Santa Claus myth. It teaches children that their parents are liars.
Don't worry. There probably really is a God of Abosulte Unopposable Evil, who created everything that exists anywhere.
Now,,lets jump forward 40 years or so. And there I am brain washing my own sons about good old santa..Not because I wanted to,I was under great pressure. From all the grand parents, because they wanted to perpetuate the myth, from the wife who said if I told them the truth early they would go to school and ruin it for the other kids. I never felt good about lying to my sons about something so large. I understand that the idea of some magical being giving presents is some how uplifting to children. But I think the perpetuation of the myth is wrong and flawed.
How about you tell your children that Santa Claus is a lie, and get them to play along? Tell them to tell other people that they believe the lies, so they can fit in.
Its the idea of christmas that should be brought forward. Not how many things you can buy. I almost believe that modern santa claus was developed as a marketing tool for retail markets to prosper from Xmas..Whats else could it represent??
merry christmas to all ..I mean it..
I read that Santa Claus only became popular in the past 75-100 years. He wasn't a permanent part of Christianity.
There is a legitimate holiday near the end of December, the Winter Solstice. Allegedly, the original Christians scheduled their celebration at that time, so they could celebrate without being harassed by the State. (that was before Christianity *WAS* the State)
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Real Meaning of Santa Claus":
FSK, yesterday you chastised me and called me a pro-state troll because I pointed out how Google is a Statist tool. So let's see, according to you:
-Santa Claus is a massive pro-government conspiracy, and by going along you are teaching your children to become Statist trolls. AGORIST!
-Google collects inexcusable amounts of information and compromises the bloggers, readers, email users and searchers. STATIST PROPAGANDA!
I have no idea what your point is. It's like you left a comment that says:
- Seguh iysgotrhu gh,x yutgp tghpb stypg rsept eg srpt 5ypp4ehg;ro. DSHGPU SGRUIHRPSI!!!!!
How can I make a response to that? (Maybe I should just post incoherent gibberish when responding to pro-State trolls from now on. That would be amusing for people who don't get the joke.)
I am beginning to think you are a mid-level filter troll. That is you are far-out enough to attract those interested in opposing the state, only to bog them down in idiotic drivel such as "santa clause is a communist tool".
When did I write "Santa Claus is a Communist tool"? (except just now in the previous sentence)
You are either disingenuous about the whole thing, or have surprising lapses of reason when it comes to computer technology.
I probably know more about software than you. Yes, the State and Google are collecting a ton of information. Do you know how hard it is to write a data mining program that filters that successfully? Besides, the bad guys are looking for *OTHER* things. The bad guys are targeting "blow up State property" anarchists, and not people like me.
Yes, the press is corrupted by the State, we know it. Santa, global warming, crime, whatever sells the product goes on TV.
How about not beating a dead horse and focusing on some active ways all of us can benefit? How about constructing an anonymous darknet, an encryption scheme that would allow an agorist market to function (that would require you to get off your google-ass and doing something yourself instead of dreaming of becoming financially independent from google adwords)
I'm working on building something more than just blogging. I need my own domain for that. Google AdSense is a starting point, and not my definitive final attempt to implement practical agorism.
It would be nice if I could promote agorism as a full-time job, instead of working in a wage slave job. I'm slowly working in the direction of agorism, but it takes time. When nearly everyone else is thoroughly brainwashed as a pro-State troll, there's a limit to how much I can do.
Based on results so far, I could do blogging/AdSense as a full time job if I had 100x more regular readers. You might say "pipe dreams, FSK", but my readership growth from December 2007 to December 2008 was 10x. Getting 10k regular readers is attainable, especially since I estimate the size of the Remnant to be 1M+.
I've concluded that "An actual agorist trading group" is more valuable than any piece of software. "There's a magic silver bullet software program that defeats the State" is itself pro-State trolling. At some point, I need to move away from the Internet towards the realm of actual physical goods, if I want to achieve freedom. If I had a few trustworthy agorist trading partners, I could keep track of things on a piece of paper without any software at all.
Theoretical freedom is the first step. I need to help others make it this far, before I can do more myself.
Yes, I am anonymous and proud of it. Why do you think users with made up names are more legitimate when you belittle my posts?
I belitlle your posts based on the content, and not the fact that you are Anonymous.
One advantage of a consistent made up fake name is that I can identfiy the same person over multiple comments. It's definitely the same person, even if it isn't your real name.
I have no idea if all the "FSK is evil for putting up AdSense" comments were posted by the same person (you) or if each were posted by a different person. With a made-up fake name, there's continuity.
Santa has left a new comment on your post "The Real Meaning of Santa Claus":
Was this comment left by the actual real Santa Claus?
May-be he thinks that way because users who make up fake names are in fact anonymous, but do not appear as such, meaning that they are one step smarter?
Yes, that's exactly the point. For example, you know all the content on this blog was written by "FSK", which is the exact same person for all posts. Is "FSK" more or less valid than my State-licensed name?
I prefer a consistent made-up name to a completely Anonymous post, because then I can keep track of the same person over time. If the person has their own blog, and their comments are intelligent, then they get added to my RSS reader.
(I'm way behind both on Reader Mail and on stuff in my Google Reader, which is the reason I haven't had as much content from elsewhere on the Internet lately. It varies. I'm working more on catching up on reader comments.)
Josh has left a new comment on your post "The Real Meaning of Santa Claus":
Convenient how NORAD can track Santa all night but not 9/11?
Santa's at the North Pole in September. Why would NORAD be tracking Santa in September?
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
to the anon poster (#17 post), it is impossible to avoid taxes altogether.
I mean avoiding taxes on the advertising income. You still have to pay taxes on Adsense income. It is immoral to pay taxes form the Adsense income earned from the same website that tells you that voluntarily paying taxes is immoral.
Why? Which is more immoral?
- I work in a wage slave job, and use the profits to pay for web hosting, supporting the State via taxes.
- I put an AdSense widget on my blog, and use the profits to pay for web hosting.
Ideally, I want to sell advertising to other agorist businessmen and get paid off-the-books. That isn't viable yet. Until "work off-the-books as an agorist full-time, for a comparable after-tax profit as my wage slave job" is viable, all my economic activity supports the State. I'm not going to give up pursuing a wage slave job until I can do better as an agorist or promoting agorism. Until them, agorism and blogging will be a hobby.
What I meant is to minimize taxation by setting up your own advertising service or by direct donations. Your advertising provider's terms of services will probably forbid the "illegal content" found on your website anyway.
I'm working on that. Blogger/AdSense haven't kicked me off for TOS violations yet. I doubt that Google will care unless a State enforcer complains. Why don't you click on "flag inappropriate content" and see if you can get me kicked off Blogger?
Look at the Adsense ToS:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py? hl=en&answer=48182
"iolent content, racial intolerance, or advocacy against any individual, group, or organization"
"Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others"
Adsense will not approve your blog that advocates "illegal" activities.
The Blogger TOS is probably the same. I haven't been kicked off Blogger or AdSense yet, based on my blog's content.
That's actually an argument for moving away from Blogger towards self-hosting. It'd be harder to shut me down in that case.
Besides, is agorism illegal? I consider that "not proven".
It is immoral to pay taxes form the Adsense income earned from the same blog that tells you that voluntarily paying taxes is immoral. You are using agorism to fund the state, because you are paying taxes from income earned by Adsense. Therefore putting Adsense ads on this blog will not make this blog by definition an agoric organization anymore, since paying taxes from the Adsense income generated form this blog will make this blog a pro-state institution, not an agoric one.
This is more of a "promote agorism" website. I'm not doing *ANY* practical agorism at all (yet).
If I were to completely boycott the State economy, I would be unable to purchase Internet access or electricity or anything. Are you suggesting that it's immoral for me to purchase Internet service, because my purchase supports the State?
Is it acceptable to utilize State services, even if your goal is "Eliminate the State"? I say "yes". I have to do the best I can in the context of a corrupt system. Would I prefer to do work without supporting the bad guys and parasites? Yes, I would. Is that a viable option yet? No, it isn't. I'm working towards building a free market alternative to the current corrupt system.
It seems your attitude is "FSK put AdSense on his blog. Therefore, the evil State wins and will get to crush humanity forever."
Overall, most of these Anonymous comments have not lent credibility to the theory "FSK should respect Anonymous commenters more."
Josh has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
Hosting your own site does NOT cost $10 a month (while I would love to charge you that much).
Ads on your site is NOT immoral. Nothing on your own site is immoral as you are neither harming a person, nor do you owe any reader an ad-free space. As long as you don't engage in piracy, defamation...etc.
Some pro-State trolls might argue that saying "Taxation is theft!" is treason and a crime.
One thing I've learned purchasing things is "Cheapest price isn't always best". I'm leaning towards lamphost.net. I was impressed with the quality of their website, and the way they answered my questions when I E-Mailed them.
I can have you hosted for $55 a year domain name included. (feel free to talk me down if you insist)
E-mail me if you got any questions, I'm here to help.
Your offer is attractive, but I liked lamphost.net. I'll do a more detailed web hosting review later.
Josh has left a new comment on your post "Is Silver a Good Buy Right Now?":
You did a good piece on Hunt brothers. And I'd pretty much take silver over gold any day if I had to choose, unless the price was too distorted.
Silver is better because
1. It's industrially consumed
2. It's cheaper (more people buy it)
3. It's been used as money, and you can still buy old coins.
If you're worried about counterfeit, I recommend using a digital scale.
I'd probably go with half gold and half silver. One advantage of gold over silver is that gold has a higher value per ounce. I'd even go with platinum, because that has an ever greater value density than gold.
A digital scale (or Fisch instrument for gold) only does a specific gravity test. There are alloys of cheaper metals that have the same specific gravity as silver, which would fool a scale. With gold, you can counterfeit via gold-plated tungsten.
Allegedly, someone with a lot of experience handling gold and silver can detect counterfeits. I asked elsewhere, and people said "If you're dealing with only 1 ounce silver or gold rounds, counterfeit is not a problem. Counterfeiters attacked 100-1000 ounce silver bars during the Hunt Brothers' silver bubble."
I'm going to buy some gold and silver, but probably not worry about counterfeit until I accidentally buy some counterfeit coins and someone notices. (Or someone tries to sell me counterfeit coins and I notice.)
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "NFL Fnords":
What's been true throughout history is that megalomaniacal governments WILL conquer more peaceful ones unless a VERY rigorous defense is established. Just look at what happened to Athens.
You people need to get your heads out of the clouds and read some history.
This is a good example of "FSK shouldn't worry about insulting Anonymous commenters."
"You need a strong State to provide national defense" is pure pro-State trolling.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Football 2 Point Conversion Trivia":
I could never understand why people care about sports. I understand playing them, I enjoy that too.
But what do you care if someone else lost or won, who, how, where? Especially when it is a business sport, where everything is a setup to make the most money, where all the judges are paid and everything is supersafe with a state license?
Wish I could understand this sport thing...Then again, may-be I don't.
It's just amusing. It's like saying "Why bother watching a movie?" It's entertainment, and it's harmless enough if you can avoid being brainwashed by the fnords.
My interaction with TV sporting events is voluntary. Nobody is forcing me to watch.
Of course, I'm not forcing you to watch sports. I don't write many articles on sports, so it's easy enough for you to skip over them.
Amusingly, ESPN and CNBC use very similar tactics when presenting their content. An NFL game is *LESS FIXED* than the stock market. I used to really follow the market, and now I've completely lost interest. Realizing that the stock market doesn't provide a positive inflation-adjusted return was a big disappointment.
citizen stefish has left a new comment on your post "Football 2 Point Conversion Trivia":
why do some people care about stamps, or coins? or bird watching? or watching porn? it interests them, and entertains them.
i'd rather watch a good game than most other stuff. i could sit here and read another post on LRC about how evil the fed is, but then again i already know that. i don't know, however, who is going to win the game.
I'm starting to get bored with most (L)libertarian/anarchist writing on the Internet. I already know "The State sucks!", and I'm looking to move on to the next level of thinking. "The State sucks. What are you going to do about it?" is much more interesting. Regrettably, many anarchists/agorists are focused on silly things, due to pro-State brainwashing. There's practically no good information on practical agorism on the Internet. Some people are confusing isolated pockets of tax resistance with a real agorist free market economy.
If all you have to write about is "The State sucks!", then my attitude is "Tell me something I don't already know."
that's why i still read this blog, because it actually offers some new info.
One nice thing is that I can see the fnords better than most, so it's interesting when I point them out.
I'm trying to move forward, and agorism seems to be the most promising direction. That's one advantage of driving stupid people away. It's reverse "evaporative cooling". In the State economy, the parasites drive away the productive workers, leaving an economy nearly completely controlled by parasites. For example, the financial industry and mainstream media are nearly completely controlled by members of the parasite class.
I'm actively trying to do the reverse. I'm getting rid of the parasites, and trying to get a core group of people interested in started a real free market economy. Once it gets started, a free market should spread exponentially, due to the productivity gains. The first computer and Internet users were top Computer Scientists. Similarly, the first agorist businessmen will be the best free market thinkers. Then, the techniques can be polished and released to everyone. However, you need a dedicated and talented core group to get things started.
i am done with actually paying attention to anything political, what politicians are doing, what the thieves over at the federal reserve are doing, etc. i have stopped worrying about these people and have decided that since there is really very little that i can do to stop them, i am going to just let them keep stealing and murdering and kidnapping people and bringing The End a little closer. i have turned my thoughts toward agorism and trying to come up with something workable. but i am not going to spend my days being miserable anymore. sometimes i like to waste time by watching a decent athletic competition.
I've given up following most mainstream media outlets also. I still follow occasionally, because the antics give me interesting things to write about. I get all my news from the Internet, the Daily Show, and the Colbert Report.
Sometimes, I watch a mainstream media outlet just to observe the fnords.
There's nothing wrong with watching sports occasionally. You don't have to work towards agorism and free markets and saving the world all the time. You can take breaks.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Football 2 Point Conversion Trivia":
Good point, citizen stefish. But then, this could be easily replaced with another binary questions, such as:
- Will there be rain tomorrow, and if yes then at what time and how much?
What's wrong with watching it rain?
- Will my cat go to the left or to the right of me, if I stand in it's way?
If you have a pet cat, you're probably interested in such things.
My point is that first, there isn't much to know. There will be a draw or one of the teams will win with some count.
Secondly, it has already been decided who and with what count, and so, it is not really "happening" in front of your eyes. It is sort of like watching a prerecorded event on VHS, and although you already know the outcome, still losing your cool rooting for a team.
No, the events are usually broadcast live. I can't personally affect the outcome, so it's been predetermined in that sense. However, the Super Bowl is probably much less fixed than a political election. The NFL executives go to great lengths to insure that the game is conducted fairly, lest they lose their customers in a scandal! The NFL does a pretty good job of making sure that players and referees don't bet on the game or otherwise unduly interfere with the outcome of the game.
The players have an incentive to try their best, because a Super Bowl victory usually leads to endorsement deals. Even the minor players benefit from a Super Bowl victory. The "players' share" of playoff money is a couple hundred thousand dollars more (each) for the Super Bowl winners than the Super Bowl losers, which is an incentive for the non-star players to try their best. The star players get millions more in endorsements for winning.
A sporting event is fair. Politics and the stock market are unfair. Coverage of sports is much more fair and unbiased than coverage of other "news".
That being said, you right, may-be the problem is with me, as I could never understand collectors either!
You're free to not watch sports. You're free to ignore that article. I don't write about sports that often.
My interaction with TV sporting events is completely voluntary. I'm free to watch or not watch. For this reason, I don't consider it abusive.
Would I prefer more sporting event choices in a true free market? Of course I would. Is the current selection of sports good-enough entertainment. Yes, it is.
I mean I do understand a pleasure of having a rare coin in your possession, only if it had some history to it, otherwise any old (not rare)coin is the same pleasure to hold and to think of. I could never understand collectors of pokemon cards, postal stamps, coins in those cases where they collect items specifically manufactured for collectors!
I'm going to buy coins based on metal value, and not collectible value.
For the pokemon cards, there are some versions where you can play a game with the collectible cards. For example, I understand why some people would get addicted to "Magic: The Gathering". For rare cards, I'd just buy blanks and use a magic marker, rather than paying for them.
I also play computer games (although I don't write about that much). There, I'm usually directly affecting the outcome. For most commercially-developed games, the publisher can't make the game too hard, lest the average person be unable to complete it. I'm looking for games that are a suitable challenge for me.
I was looking for "hard" 16x16 and 25x25 Sudoku and Killer Sudoku puzzles. I'm considering writing my own program in PHP, and then later putting it up on my website. I'm looking for *MUCH HARDER* puzzles than the average person does, so I have a hard time finding puzzles that meet my desires. I see "easy only" Sudoku books published, but I haven't seen any "hard only" books.
Anyway, FSK will probably say this is off the point and be right at that.
That was mostly off topic. However, this specific Anonymous comment wasn't pro-State trolling.
You're free to ignore the occasional post if you don't like it. I try to write about a variety of things, whatever seems interesting at the time. The financial scandal stuff seems to be most popular overall.
See, not every Anonymous commenter is an idiot!
You can say "I enjoy watching a football game." without being a pro-State troll. As long as you're aware of the direct and hidden pro-State advertisements, then watching a football game is harmless.
You don't have to always work towards a free market agorist revolution. You can take breaks and do other things.
The Presidential election was in many ways fixed so Obama won. The Super Bowl winner probably hasn't already been determined, and will be decided based on the merits of the players and the luck/circumstances of the game.
In many ways, coverage of sports is actually honest. It's one of the few things the mainstream media covers as honestly as possible. Nearly completely honest coverage of sports helps provide an illusion of legitimacy to coverage of other "news". The designated hitter rule in baseball is debated more honestly than any mainstream criticism you'll see of the Federal Reserve.
Of course, professional sports leagues have a State-endorsed monopoly. That doesn't mean it's immoral to watch the game.
I was watching the Communism Channel and the comedians said "Bank of America executives are negotiating with Congress for a bailout. Bank of America used previous bailout money to buy out smaller banks, and now they need more bailout money."
"Negotiating?" Doesn't "negotiating" imply that both sides are providing something of tangible economic value? Here's how the negotiations probably went:
Bank CEO: I need $10B
Congress: Here's your check.
Bank CEO: Here's your $100M kickback.
The comedians on the Communism Channel were saying "Why does the Federal government keep bailing out these stuggling banks? They're just flushing money down the toilet." The answer is "Duh! Lobbyists!" Congress isn't spending their own personal money on bailouts. They're spending everyone else's money via inflation.
This is the Agent-Principal problem. Congress controls wealth that they don't technically own. Therefore, there's no negative consequences personally for members of Congress when they waste State money.
As Mike Gogulski said, all State property is unowned, and therefore stealing is acceptable. Why shouldn't Congress give millions of dollars to their friends?
How about thinking of the State this way? The State is a private for-profit business, run for the benefit of a handful of politically connected insiders. It is immoral to steal from the State, because then I'm stealing from these politically connected insiders who control this massively profitable business.
Josh has left a new comment on your post "The Principal-Agent Problem and the Psychiatry/Dea...":
There's not much more I can add. Unless you've been disruptive or harmful under drugs or due to mentally instability, you have the right to be yourself and tell the docs to FUCK OFF.
A psychiatrist disagrees. Psychiatrists say "The patient/victim does not have the right to refuse treatment."
Also, the withdrawal is very traumatic. Suppose I am forced to take anti-psychotic drugs. I then do something stupid while suffering withdrawal. Am I to blame, or my now-ex-psychiatrist?
In many states, laws have been passed mandating State-forced treatment for psychiatry victims/patients. I am lucky that no such order was ever obtained against me.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Principal-Agent Problem and the Psychiatry/Dea...":
To be fair, though, your parents are doing what they think is right, even if it is misguided.
Of all the participants, my parents get the least blame. I haven't managed to convince my parents "The 'chemical imbalance' theory of mental illness is nonsense." That's *TOO BIG* a concept for them, and they can't accept such a massive conspiracy.
I did manage to convince my parents "In the special case of FSK, drugs may not be a good idea.", which is sufficient for my own survival. Some of my other relatives don't get it, and I just tell them I'm taking the harmful drugs rather than get into an argument.
I actually think I've finally "broken through" to a higher level of awareness, and am less at risk for being involuntarily hospitalized or having a panic attack. The only way to be sure is to wait and see if I relapse again.
I have less sympathy for the psychiatrist who should know better.
Psychiatrists are murders. It doesn't matter whether they're genuinely that stupid, or deliberately hurting people. The outcome is the same either way.
You don't get a State license to do X, unless you're thoroughly brainwashed as a pro-State troll when performing job X.
I'm beginning to consider "Stupid and evil are the same!"
Is there any type of document you can sign to show your willingness to NOT go on these drugs under any condition.
None that is legally binding. The legal system and mental health system does not recognize such documents. Once you're in the emergency room mental ward, you're their prisoner.
Also, did you tell your therapist why you're unwilling to try the drugs again, or confront anyone about their actual effectiveness?
That's like saying "Why haven't I confronted my elected Congressman about 'Taxation is theft!'"
I have tried explaining the truth to each of my psychiatrists and therapists. None of them get it.
Here's what my psychiatrist and therapist probably hears:
Muderer: FSK, you should take these drugs.
FSK: Ezojvs repsrfh stgs oig sdgtrhotg hsg orgh.
Murderer: Why aren't you taking the drugs?
FSK: Ej srhupirg tsyoiy opco08rxd rxhur;h4nrxd rdx.
Murderer: These drugs are going to help you. Why won't you take them?
FSK: Zhioas uarfsh d tduhrdo; rzdz;zsrhors z;oz;s zseo;hszo; z.
I shouldn't waste time on stupid people. When I tried explaining my concerns to my psychiatrists and therapists, they just don't get it. They have the exact same reaction as when you discuss with a politician or pro-State troll "Taxation is theft!"
LovinItAll has left a new comment on your post "Is Selling Advertising on Your Blog Immoral?":
Hi,
Just found your blog and your writing is compelling and interesting to read. I have a dedicated server (not a vDed) with SingleHop, and you are more than welcome to host on my server for $0 (that's zero dollars, as in free). I have plenty of drive space, sync. 100mbps dedicated port, etc. You would have cPanel as your control panel.
If your interested, shoot me an email. Always happy to help people that are delivering messages people should ponder.
Best ~ RLR
I'm going to go with professional hosting. For now, Blogger is good enough. "Move to my own domain" is on my agenda, but there's no need to rush.
One reason I liked lamphost.net is that they offered to configure PHP and other things for me. For example, if I want to provide strong encryption on AgoristBay, and I need lamphost.net to configure the PHP "big number arithmetic" library (for 100,000 bit RSA encryption), they'll do it.
citizen stefish has left a new comment on your post "Football 2 Point Conversion Trivia":
yea i have learned to ignore that stuff. if a game starts at "3", i won't turn it on until 3:10 so i can skip the flag-waving, national anthem, the salute to "our heroes", etc. it sickens me.
When I had a DVR card on my computer, I set the game to start recording at 1pm, waited until 3pm, and then watched the entire game in an hour!
Most DVRs don't have a "jump forward 10 seconds" button. You need a DVR card on your PC, plus appropriate software. Due to mainstream media lobbying, commercial DVRs don't have a "automatically fast-forward ahead of commercials" feature.
"Make and sell non-crippled DVR units" is one of my agorist business ideas. There are some open source Linux ones out there.
but if the state collapsed tomorrow, football would still be played. we can't erase "football" from our collective memories. as long as humans exist in the land currently called the USA, this game will be played. if the nfl collapsed with the state, the guys would eventually get together and play the game anyway if they truly loved it. eventually salaries would be worked out with the best players making more. someone would broadcast it on the airwaves, and people would watch by the millions.
Football will probably still exist as a game after the State collapses. Even though football is a dangerous game for the participants, at least they have informed consent.
There's one other thing that annoyed me about football announcers. A player is seriously injured, and taken off the field in a stretcher. The announcers get all teary-eyed. My reaction is "It's football! You shouldn't act surprised if someone is seriously hurt."
Monkt has left a new comment on your post "Scientology, Anonymous, and the Pharmaceutical Ind...":
Trust me Anonymous is not funded by the Pharmaceutical Industry.
You can't prove that one way or the other. Besides, I'm just saying that Scientology's anti-psychiatry attitude, via the Strawman Fallacy, causes people to not take the anti-psychiatry movement seriously.
I'm not saying it's proven either way. I'm just wondering "Are the bad guys really evil enough to do that? Is most negative mainstream media bias against Scientologists really due to their anti-psychiatry stance?"
Scientologists do many other shady things. I'm evaluating their anti-psychiatry belief separately from the rest. For example, I disapprove of the Church of Scientology copyrighting their religious documents, and using that to silence critics. If Scientology is a wonderful religion, then shouldn't they put all their materials into the public domain?
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Scientology, Anonymous, and the Pharmaceutical Ind...":
Have you researched or tried a homeopathic approach? There are no drugs involved and countless people with mental illness have been greatly helped..
I've been taking SAM-e, which is beneficial.
Homeopathic treatment operates on cure by the law of similars, the only true way to cure an illness.Get yourself a Homoeopathic Materia medica and repertory, find the one that most closely matches you,,and bang,,you got it...look at Gelsemium first,,focus on the mind when looking for a remedy...
Over time, I'm just naturally healing from my pro-State brainwashing. As long as I don't get murdered by a psychiatrist, I should recover. I don't think that I had any vitamin or other chemical deficiency.
I take SAM-e primarly for the placebo effect *ON MY PARENTS*. My parents have been brainwashed to believe "FSK must take a pill so he will get better." I've convinced them that anti-psychotic drugs are bad. I take SAM-e to satisfy my parents' "FSK MUST TAKE A PILL!" brainwashing.
SAM-e is either irrelevant or slightly beneficial, so I take it.
Josh has left a new comment on your post "Scientology, Anonymous, and the Pharmaceutical Ind...":
S-ist have it right on anti-psychiatry, but wrong on just about everything else. They believe that brainwashing and lying is acceptable.
I'm not defending the other things that Scientologists do. I'm just observing that their anti-psychiatry belief is correct.
A public school teacher believes that brainwashing and lying are acceptable, and they aren't even consciously aware that they're doing it! All the things people say that Scientologists are bad for doing, the State does!
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Scientology, Anonymous, and the Pharmaceutical Ind...":
I would never take funding from big pharma, I don't know where you got the idea and you seem to abandon it after the first paragraph. U be trollin?
I just mentioned it as a joke.
Besides, even if you personally have no association with big pharma, you don't know that big pharma isn't planting moles in your Scientology protest group. That's a common Statist tactic.
Interestingly, we raise the an-com flag at the protests.
Really? What's an-com flag? Do you mean anarcho-communism? So you're one of those pro-government anarchists?
So I herd u liek agorism?
Yes. That's different from anarcho-communism. There's nothing wrong with private property, although in the present almost all property is stolen property. People do own their own labor (otherwise why bother working?). If you own your own labor, then you have the right to use your profits to purchase land.
The only way you can enforce communism is with a State.
Besides, if you're a communist, you should love living in the USA. The USA is already a Communist country!
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Participating in the State Economy Immoral?":
FSK, you are pretty good at detecting SOME forms of brainwashing, but unfortunately, either by choice or through a mental defect you refuse to even acknowledge a simple point I've been trying to communicate. Apparently, the fake name 'anonymous' makes me less credible than other fake names.
How do you know that you aren't the one that's brainwashed and I can see things clearly?
Google is engaged in the most massive information collection campaign in the history of mankind. This cannot possibly end well, and I ask that you and your readers read rather enlightening books, "IBM and the holocaust" and "Cryptonomicon" for more detailed explanations about why this is a really bad idea.
I already know how this ends. The State is going to collapse. What's the problem?
Your desire to work and get paid in whatever currency is not an issue.
That was something I feel slightly bad about. The income on my AdSense revenue is taxable, along with taxes on Google's profits. My AdSense profit supports the State. On the other hand, a wage slave job also supports the State.
I makes no difference if I put an AdSense widget on my blog to pay for hosting, or if I pay for hosting via salary from my wage slave job. I'm supporting the State either way.
Ideally, I'd like to have free market income. That isn't viable yet.
Your desire to sell large amounts of information about your readership to Google in exchange for a penny a pop is possibly the lowest, most desperate form of supporting the machinery (or soon-to-be machinery) of the State.
My blog is hosted on Blogger, which is owned by Google. They already have my full server logs.
Besides, you can install the AdSense blocker Firefox extension, if the ads bother you. Alternatively, write a script that reads and republishes my RSS feed, stripping out the ads. There already are spam sites that republish my content.
Yes, you are small potatoes. So are your readers. The government does not really care about us. However, by doing a massive search through Google records, the State can isolate a few or a few million 'dangerous individuals' by cross-correlating various small potato sites they visit.
OK, the State identifies a few million "dangerous individuals". How exactly are they going to murder/harass all of them?
Besides, the State already has a means to identify and brainwash "dangerous individuals". It's the public school system and the mainstream media.
My main risk is not that some State agent will figure out I'm dangerous and eliminate me. My risk is that my parents will call 911 and have me murdered (involuntarily hospitalized for a "mental illness"). My risk that a parasitiec coworker will try to get me fired for my "radical" ideas (or refuse to hire me in the first place).
You are a logical, intelligent individual.
That's one of the key phrases that abusive people use. "FSK, you are a smart guy." or "FSK, be logical" has a hidden evil fnord "If you diagree with me, you're illogical." A lifetime of people saying that to me has caused me to refine my logical thinking skills considerably, when the abusive person always meant something else.
You're quoting Star Trek (fnord!), where Mr. Spock was berated for being "too logical". You can be logical *AND* understand your emotions. When you aren't pro-State brainwashed, your logical thinking and emotional thinking are correlated. If you're pro-State brainwashed, you're forced to suppress your logical thinking or suppress your emotions. Parasites focus on emotions and ignore logic. Productive workers, under pressure from parasites, focus on logic and suppress emotions.
Why is it that you will not address this issue in a logical manner you are known for? Research, think, and consider the cost/benefit in the best and worst scenario. A penny for you in exchange for a possible disastrous raid and concentration camps filled with people whom you sold to Google for a penny? Probably not, but is it really so impossible?
There are plenty of other ways the State can crack down on my regular readers.
Besides, what are the State insiders going to do? Send all the productive workers to death camps? Then, who's going to be left to create wealth to leech?
The benefit is "With AdSense revenue, I can justify purchasing hosting and increase my offerings." That's the upside. Also, "Eventually, maybe I could do this for part-time or full-time income. That'd accelerate the collapse of the State more than working full-time in a wage slave job and blogging in my spare time."
It looks like I'm going to make enough via AdSense to pay for hosting, so I'm going to move on with that sometime in the next few months.
Thanks for being reasonable this time.
Cowardly anonymous reader.
By your standards, I was unreasonable, because I decided to put up the AdSense widget.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Is Participating in the State Economy Immoral?":
I think Anonymous is really on to something.I don't know the ins and outs about computer security. I personally don't care.
The flaw in Anonymous' data privacy argument is (repeated many times already) "**BLOGGER IS OWNED BY GOOGLE!!!**" Google *ALREADY* has the ability to track every visitor to my blog.
Besides, you can install NoScript and the FireFox AdSense blocker, if you're that paranoid. Or, you may use Tor for more privacy. Or, write your own browser/script that fetches my RSS feed but doesn't fetch the ads from Google's server.
The day the government starts rounding up citizens for the concentration camps is the day I begin to lead the peoples army against government forces. And on that day we will all have lost.
The problem is that the cattle are needed for productive work. If the State enforcers go around rounding up productive people, then who are they going to leech? Plus, the police might have a hard time complying with that demand. If the orders get too silly, then the police will start disobeying them.
If it really goes that far(which it very well could)we are doomed to fighting on the streets. And im sure that most people won't be held up on their computers waiting for the gestapo to come and grab them..On that day people will come out of their trance and fight for their lives. And the possibility for a peace full transgression to an agorist society would be lost. Do you have any idea what would happen if martial law was ordered??
Matial law was already declared, several times (I've been over this before):
- in 1933, when President Roosevelt defaulted on the gold standard
- in 1913, when the Federal Reserve was created and 16th amendment was fraudulently declared ratified
- in 1861, when the southern states walked out of Congress
- in 1787, when the Federal government was formed and George Washington started using violence to force people to pay taxes/tribute to the new Federal government
I know lots of people with arms who wouldn't stand for it. And I know most people wouldn't stand for it.On that day people would really begin the fight to take back our rights..If it really is coming to that than you should join a para military group,store arms,food,and camping gear, because you will certainly need it..
Fritz
I'm planning to have established agorist trading groups by the time the end draws near. I don't need to learn fighting skills myself if I've already made arrangements with a private police force.
sunni has left a new comment on your post "Is Participating in the State Economy Immoral?":
Right now, the agorist counter-economy is non-existent.
Perhaps for you, and perhaps in your location, but not elsewhere. I've been making and selling a variety of candies—mostly caramels and truffles—for a few years now. I know of others who have a more general approach, but they still consistently and actively seek out informal exchanges of goods and services rather than the licensed and taxed guy with a storefront on Main Street.
You still haven't made the transition from isolated pockets of tax resistance to full agorism. You're confused.
Do you know anyone selling doctor services without a State license? Do you know of any private police forces, that can credibly defend you from a State raid? Are you using slave points or real money? Do you have a trusted gold and silver warehouse receipt bank? Do you know anyone who runs an unlicensed restaurant or food delivery business out of their home? How do you know that a potential new customer isn't really an undercover cop?
What you're doing is a start, but it isn't anywhere close to my definition of agorism.
Some people consider garage sales, Craigslist, and Freecycle groups part of the counter-economy.
If I'm selling health care without a State license, can I advertise on Craigslist or Freecycle? Do State agents patrol Craigslist? (hint: they do)
By its very nature, "the" counter-economy is harder to see and track, but it's there, and probably closer than one realizes. Any time a neighbor borrows a power tool instead of buying (or renting) it, or a friend helps another with his vehicle, it's counter-economic.
Yes, but it needs to be more organized than that. Suppose I want to hire an unlicensed taxi. Do I have to call all my friends and hope to find someone, or is there an unlicensed taxi service I can call?
The unlicensed taxi driver can't advertise on Craigslist, because he'd be raided by the State.
It's the way humans have done business for far longer than shops set up outside the home, with only credentialed individuals permitted to engage in certain activities—and that's an important key to turn in others' minds, it seems to me.
State licensing requirements are one of the main evils of the State.
You (and David Gross) appear to be confused about the difference between simple tax resistance/evasion and agorism. Tax resistance/evasion is a starting point, but not full agorism.
DixieFlatline has left a new comment on your post "Is Participating in the State Economy Immoral?":
As I posted on my blog, FSK, Kevin Carson all of the BLOGGER bloggers, are ALREADY ON GOOGLE'S PLATFORM.
Has that point been repeated enough? Google owns Blogger and already can track everyone who accesses a Blogger-hosted blog. Even if you disable cookies and block all scripts and block all AdSense, Google gets to record the IP address of everyone who accesses Blogger.
They are already data mining you. Your use of "Anonymous" is futile.
The "Anonymous" label does provide some protection. Blogger still records on a server somewhere the IP address of every edit.
If you made an Anonymous blog comment where you threatened to assassinate a State employee, you can be sure the police would track down the IP address!
If I really get disgusted by Anonymous pro-State trolls, I could disable the ability to comment Anonymously.
Your paranoia however is well founded.
I'm not sure what level of paranoia is appropriate. At some point, some people must become advocates for blatant-in-public agorism, trying to attract as wide an audience as possible. A handful of others are trying a little, but I believe I can do better.
The only way to be sure is to conduct an experiment! So far "Is it safe for FSK to express his ideas on his blog?" has been a successful experiment. The feedback has been valuable. The ability to nearly instantly recognize pro-State trolling is also very valuable.
"Is it safe for FSK to practice blatant-in-public agorism?" I don't know. As a scientist, I should try, focusing on low-risk activities.
GooFighter has left a new comment on your post "Is Participating in the State Economy Immoral?":
Simply because I am paranoid, does not mean that the Google isn't really after me.
I do believe that eventually, the Google's databases will be used to determine who will go to a death camp.
In that case, I'm already in Google's database, and I'm already on the "go to death camp" list. Rather than accept my fate, I should fight as best I can.
This is because it is simply the most efficient approach, from a point of view of a dictatorial power.
The State only survives because most people are not consciously aware it is evil. As things get worse, there will be more and more open revolt. Would police obey a "round up these people up and bring them to death camps" order? They usually do it one at a time, accusing them of frivolous crimes like possession of marijuana or tax evasion. It becomes harder to justify rounding up a big list of people all at once.
We will get under the dictatorial power, because this simply is the only way for currently powers that be, to remain in power after the con game collapses. Sheeple are not going to want to participate in the scheme any more, but the government doesn't want to just go away. They would want to preserve their power, and the only way to do it is to force the sheeple into the system.
I'm not sure how the collapse is going to play out. I'm leaning towards "an agorist revolution will occur", instead of a bloody total collapse leading to billions of deaths.
So, do not ask on who the Google collects the data, for it collects it on you.
I'm already in Google's database. I even gave Google my slave ID number (SSN) as part of my AdSense account registration!
One really useful trick for identifying spam comments (other than the content itself) is to search for the exact same comment on other blogs.
Zargon has left a new comment on your post "The Principal-Agent Problem and the Psychiatry/Dea...":
Of course his parents are doing what they think is right. So is everyone who would be involved in his kidnapping & forced drugging from the police who show up willing to stick some guns in his face to the psychiatrists who would drug him into submission against his explicit will.
My parents are the least blameless, compared to the psychiatrists who mistreated me and the police who kidnapped me and brought me to the hospital. On the other hand, I've been trying to explain "The 'chemical imbalance' theory of mental illness is nonsense!" to my parents and they just don't get it. Such a massive fraud is *TOO BIG* a concept for them.
You can easily verify "The financial system is a multi-trillion-dollar fraud." Some mainstream media sources are starting to vaguely hint that. If that's true, then why would it be hard to believe "The mental health/death industry is a multi-billion-dollar fraud"?
One problem that many mental health patients have is that their psychiatrist/murderer cons their relatives into believing "The drugs are absolutely necessary!" I am lucky that I was able to convince my parents to let me stop taking the harmful drugs.
Good intentions don't mitigate evil actions because the consequences are exactly the same either way.
That's right. It doesn't matter if my psychiatrist is intentionally murdering me, or merely that incompetent. The end result is the same.
I'm starting to seriously consider "Stupid equals evil."
As an aside, the psychiatrist went through many years of brainwashing telling them the current practice of psychiatry is correct. So therefore, lay people can be expected to better understand the problems with current psychiatry than psychiatrists.
That's the problem. The psychiatrist has been completely brainwashed as a pro-State troll. A psychiatrist can't understand "Anti-psychotic drugs are harmful!" any more than an economist can understand "Fiat debt-based money is a corrupt system!" or a politician can understand "Taxation is theft!"
That is one common evil fnord in our society. "The advice of an expert is better than that of a non-expert." For objective skills, like fixing plumbing or cooking food or writing software, you should trust the expert, especially since you can evaluate the end result. For "soft" professions, like financial planner, lawyer, psychiatrist, politician, journalist, or economist, the advice of experts is usually wrong.
If a career has profits backed directly or indirectly by State violence or pro-State brainwashing, then its practitioners are likely to be incompetent or inefficient. If a career requires actual useful skills, without State violence assisting, then its practitioners are likely to be competent.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Principal-Agent Problem and the Psychiatry/Dea...":
Arm yourself FSK.
Are you seriously suggesting that I resist violently if the police try to kidnap me and involuntarily hospitalize me? I would just get myself killed if I tried that. Violently resisting State police, once they're targeting you, is pointless. It's better to avoid the confrontation in the first place. Alternatively, I can take my trip to the mental ward prison unit, and stop taking the harmful drugs when released.
One of the questions on a State gun purchase screening form is "Were you ever involuntarily hospitalized with a mental illness?" Since I was, I'm ineligible to purchase a gun. If I really want a gun, I'd have to get it from an agorist. In NYC, private gun ownership is nearly completely illegal for non-policemen anyway; if I want a gun, "get it illegally" is my only option, even if I weren't otherwise ineligible to purchase a gun. I don't know if the State information engine would be able to catch me if I lied in response to that question, but that probably won't ever be an issue. I don't need a gun. If I had that much wealth or fame that I needed protection, I'd just hire a bodyguard.
When I do store gold and silver in my residence, I'll keep some cleverly hidden and some in plain sight. This way, any common criminal will steal the hidden-in-plain-sight savings, and think he got everything.
By E-Mail, someone wrote:
Check out this article on child pornography laws being stupidly applied.
As far as I can tell, child pornography is one of those "non-crimes" that are used to justify more State power. "Child pornography is a serious problem! We need to censor the Internet!"
Laws criminalizing child pornography assume that parents are unable to check on what their child is doing. Also, parents who take pictures of their child while giving them a bath can then get busted for child pornography. The clerk at the photo store calls the police, turning in the parents.
Also, if you're old enough to get pregnant or make someone pregnant, you're an adult. I don't consider a picture of a 16 year old to be "child pornography", because they're an adult.
Did you know that E-Gold's founders were accused of "facilitating child pornography"? Allegedly, someone used E-Gold to purchase child pornography, making them guilty. According to Federal sentencing guidelines, the accusation that they "facilitated child pornography" made their sentence more severe.
That's another very corrupt legal precedent. "Owners of a business are responsible for what their customers do." If you provide any generically useful tool, it can be used for a "crime", especially when the behavior is falsely labeled as a crime.
That's another very corrupt legal precedent. "Owners of a business are responsible for what their customers do." If you provide any generically useful tool, it can be used for a "crime", especially when the behavior is falsely labeled as a crime.
I'm still about 3 weeks behind on answering reader comments. I'm catching up! The "Should FSK put advertisements on his blog" discussions were interesting and amusing. Obviously, I've made my decision.
2 comments:
While i like your commentary, having a singe entry as large as this one makes your blog hard to read. Personally, i look through headlines and the first paragraph of a post when determining which ones to read. A single post with such a variety of topics placed in a seemingly random fashion is difficult to sort though.
Regardless of how you proceed, keep blogging!
I concur with TJC. You should find out what Feedburner's size restriction is and, at minimum, restrict your Reader Mail posts to under that size.
I would also prefer to see a little more organization in your Reader Mail posts. For example, put together all comments and responses related to a particular post, instead of answering them in the order you receive them in your comment queue. You may be doing this already, but it is hard to tell as there is no obvious organization at work.
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