Reader Mail #90

This article, via Hacker News, was amusing. It's on the "Great Zucchini", who is a children's entertainer whose life is otherwise ****ed up.

That sounds like a good potential career for an agorist. If you request your clients pay you in cash (instead of by check), that could be a good deal!

It the Hacker News comments, someone cited this article by the same author. He hired an expert violinist to play in a train station, to see if anyone would notice.

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This article, via Hacker News, had an interesting quote. It said that C students are smarter than A students. A students are spending too much effort on something that's ultimately irrelevant. C students have figured out how to do just enough work to get by.

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This article, via thestreet.com, had an interesting note. Many banks (Citigroup, Bank of America) now have single-digit stock prices. They are issuing a huge number of new shares as part of the bailout, which will severely dilute current shareholders.

Instead of being stuck with the embarrassment of a low stock price, they are planning a "reverse stock split" that will restore the share price to a "respectable" level. Old stockholders still get diluted.

Not mentioned in that article, Citigroup's CEO spent a ton of money renovating his office. That seems particularly stupid to me. Why not wait a year or two?

Previously, people said "FSK, if the economic system is biased in favor of the banksters, why not just buy banking stocks!" The recent banking crash indicates the problem. The banksters and insiders got bailed out. If you're a small shareholder in a bank, you lost most of your investment. The CEO gets to keep his cushy job and huge bonus. The banking system is set up for the benefit of insiders, and not small individual shareholders.

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In this thread on dailypaul.com, someone was asking about "monetizing the debt".

[What I posted on that forum]

I wrote a post on monetizing the debt. You might also be interested in the Compound Interest Paradox.

The Federal Reserve prints new money and buys Treasury debt. This increases the supply of money and drives down interest rates.

That's the reason Treasury yields are only a couple percent, even though inflation is so high. The Federal government (via the Federal Reserve) repurchases its own debt, keeping interest rates down.

If you really think about it, the Federal Reserve is a price fixing cartel.

[/What I posted on that forum]

Posting on other forums is mostly a waste of time. It's a lot of effort spent for negligible benefit. I'm probably better off focusing on writing good articles for my own blog.

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This post was interesting. It says that antidepressant drugs suppress many basic human emotions. I consider that to be "Duh! Obvious!", but other people might find that interesting.

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This post on out of step was missing the point. He said "I liked 'The Watchmen' movie. I wish someone would make movies for all my favorite comic book characters."

The problem is intellectual property law. I can't go ahead and make my own movie using copyrighted/trademarked characters. If the corporation that owns the character doesn't use them, or misuses it, then there's nothing you can do about it.

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Occasionally, I read stories about a policeman getting shot. When reading such stories, my sympathy now usually lies with the non-policeman. The person probably had a prior history of being unjustly abused by the State. The coverage of the story is almost always biased in favor of the police. I can't get the real facts of the case from the story presented, and now my sympathy by default lies with the non-policeman.

It's a very weird mental transition. The mainstream media portrays the police as heroes. I now see them as the violent enforcers of a massive terrorist organization.

There are specific instances where police do good things. However, they still have an unaccountable monopoly. Just because a policeman sometimes does something good, that doesn't justify the bad laws that police enforce. Similarly, just because police sometimes do something bad, that doesn't mean that all policemen are scumbags. Most police have good intentions, but are unaware that their efficiency is constrained by a fundamentally corrupt system.

Most policeman are not consciously aware that they are participants in a massive crime. Unfortunately, most people who work as policeman don't have the intellectual capacity to understand what's going on. If you're an independent thinker, you won't be successful as a policeman, and probably get weeded out by the training/recruitment process.

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I found this article, citing exactly how the IRS retroactively changed the tax law, because of the Madoff scandal.

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I'm on pace for setting a new monthly traffic record in March! My old record was in October, and this is the longest I've gone without setting a new record.

The reason for the drop is one that doesn't bother me, from what I can tell. "The Amero Subterfuge" was near the top Google SERP for "amero" for awhile, which drove a lot of traffic to my blog. Now, my post on the Amero isn't in the first Google results page for "amero".

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I have developed another amusing bad habit, that's gradually wearing off. I check my AdBrite statistics every hour or two. "Ohh! I just made another $0.10!"

I don't yet have enough traffic for "random noise" to not affect my ad earnings. As I get more traffic, the variance as a % of total income will decrease.

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I haven't participated in mises.org lately. An old thread resurfaced. (Mises.org gives you E-Mail updates whenever a comment is posted in a thread you subscribed to.)

I wrote "When the Federal Reserve, Federal government, and financial industry print and spend new money, they steal from everyone else via inflation."

A pro-State troll wrote:

Banks don't steal when they create money.

Fortunately, other people responded "You idiot! How can you be a regular reader/poster on mises.org and say 'Expansion of the fiat money supply is not stealing!'"

That's why I've given up on most discussion forums. It's too easy for an idiot to disrupt discussion. Some professional disinformation agents *INTENTIONALLY* build up a large posting history, so that they're above suspicion when they say stupid things. If spreading disinformation is your full-time job, that's very easy!

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Google had one of their (in)famous search engine updates. I'm getting a whole bunch more search engine traffic now.

My "Best of FSK" pages mostly have a PageRank of 3. My blog homepage changed to "unranked", which seems like a bug. It used to be a "4". I checked again just now, and it's a "4" again.

That's one slightly disappointing part of moving to my own domain. I'll have to rebuild my SEO and SERP. That's a necessary cost of moving.

The more I research WordPress, the more I realize how much Blogger sucks as a blogging platform. I'm a software engineer, and can easily write my own WordPress extension, or modify/enhance someone else's. For anything I could possibly want, there's probably already a WordPress extension for it.

For Blogger, I have to wait until the engineers at Google get off their ***es and fix it. Of course, updates to Blogger are slower than updates to WordPress. Google updates Blogger for everyone at the same time, and necessarily has a QA process. On WordPress, anyone can write their own extension or patch. If I update my WordPress install, nobody else is affected, which means the stakes are lower if I mess things up.

If I leave a link here, and leave this blog up, then search engine traffic should be able to find my new site. My regular readers should be able to find me no matter what domain name I choose.

I don't do any SEO-conscious activities. The only thing I noticed that really matters is suitable post titles. I follow Google's official SEO advice, which is "Write a site that's interesting for human readers." Google has exploitable defects in their search engine, because otherwise SEO would not be a valid business.

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I noticed this post on Road to Rothbard about "Minimum Wage Laws are Evil".

My effective earnings from blogging are about $0.10-$0.20 per hour, based on AdBrite. Technically, I'm earning less than the minimum wage. (If I stopped making new posts, I'd still have some earnings. I need to keep writing new posts to keep my regular readers.)

If minimum wage laws applied to my blog, then I'd be barred from bootstrapping it as a business. Currently, I blog as a hobby. I'm currently unemployed and have nothing better to do. I'm looking to earn enough to pay for hosting costs.

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My site traffic is increasing again lately. Is my writing also improving lately?

I feel much better overall. It's been 14 months since the last time I've been hospitalized, a new record since the first time I was kidnapped and tortured by the "mental health" industry. I did have mini-panic-attacks in April and November, that fortunately didn't lead to me being hospitalized. Hopefully, I'm (mostly) "clear" and not at risk for being re-hospitalized again.

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I read an interesting tip. It's called "manage your 404 errors". Look at your Apache logs. If someone gets a 404 error, you should look at the URL and set up a redirect to a suitable page.

Regrettably, that's impossible on Blogger.

I was looking at "Google Webmaster tools" and noticed some 404 errors, where people cited my blog via a malformed URL.

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"The Monetizing the Debt Scam" is suddenly nearly the #1 Google SERP for "monetizing debt" and variants thereof. It's driving a *TON* of traffic. A #1 Google SERP can be really valuable!

It's probably only a short-lived boost. In the next Google update, it'll probably get trashed again. "The Amero Subterfuge" had a short-lived high Google SERP for "Amero".

Hopefully, some of that traffic will be converted to regular readers, before Google updates its search results again.

I wonder if mentioning it here causes other people to target the keyword or phrase and drive down my PageRank?

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The IRS actually has a surprisingly well-written website. You can download all the forms and publications in PDF format, sorted by ID #. Except for the "Taxation is theft!" bit, the IRS has a pretty good website!

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "StackOverflow Sucks!":

Hmmmmm, Allthough I agree your questions are reasonable, you must see there not withing the rules of the site.

I'm interested to know in what way you thought questions about hardware were at all "programming related"

Someone who works as a professional programmer would reasonably be interested in "What's a good brand of external HD?" and "What's a good vendor for purchasing webhosting?" I believed such questions are appropriate.

(In case you're wondering, I decided my next external HD will be a Seagate. I'm going to use Linode for hosting when I move off Blogger. I'm waiting for my first AdBrite check to arrive before I move.)

I'm still stuck on choosing a domain registrar. When I asked here and on Linode's forum, I got as many different suggestions as responses.

My complaint about StackOverflow is that it's defective engine design. The "inappropriate" topics are closed and censored. All further discussion is barred.

A better solution would be to have an "offtopic" folder, rather than outright censorship.

StackOverflow is a classic example of "Defective engine design leads to abusive behavior by a website's users."

I'm exercising my right to say "This website is stupid. I'm not wasting time on it anymore."

Nick has left a new comment on your post "StackOverflow Sucks!":

You have to admit that your questions weren't programming related. Saying that a programmer would be interested in external HD is like saying a programmer is interested in what's for dinner tonight. They affect programmers, but aren't programming questions.

I also must disagree about your suggestion for an "off-topic" folder. If you want to discuss something off topic, you can go anywhere else on the Internet. Stack Overflow is for programming questions. Period. No one's being a "nazi", they're just following the basic rules as outlined on the site.

You are an idiot.

Jerks like you are the reason I decided "StackOverflow is a stupid website. I'm not wasting time there anymore."

StackOverflow is a great example of "stupid engine design leading to abusive behavior by a site's members.

I'm exercising my right to go elsewhere on the Internet, and not waste time on StackOverflow. Actually, I've been getting better help on Linode's user support forum, than from StackOverflow. Google also is better than StackOverflow (and StackOverflow's pages are indexed by Google).

You have the right to have your parasite-dominated StackOverflow website. I'm going someplace where the other users aren't jerks.

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Chrono has left a new comment on your post "AdBrite Observations":

I'm happy to see that there are not any posts on here (so far) complaining about 'you selling us out' to google or AdBrite or anyone else. I actually made a recent post about Google that you can find here:
http://chronosaidit.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/google-is-too-biggoogle-is-too-big/

This is the correct link.

WTF is up with your layout? Why is there only such a skinny strip for the content?

For beginning bloggers, I now advise Blogger over WordPress. On WordPress.com, you're barred from publishing ads. On Blogger, you can use ads. (When I get my own domain, maybe I should solicit donations and allow donators to put a blog on my site?)

I didn't get the bit about "If you host a forum, you shouldn't use Google as your search." There are a couple of points:

1. You'd be an idiot to host a forum that's open to the public and not have your pages be listed in Google's search engine. (AgoristBay will be invitation-only and not listed in Google. The regular forum should have all its traffic listed in Google. I'd be an idiot to not list my pages in Google's search engine.)
   
2. Google's search engine is better than anything else currently available.
3. On a forum, if you're having trouble finding something, *ASK THE OTHER FORUM USERS*. That's the whole point of a forum.

Google is too big for a serious website owner to not list their results in Google. I don't use post labels, partially because a "site:fskrealityguide.blogspot.com" search would get better results.

From reading your blog, most of the comments that mentioned that (by the sheer fact they would NOT LET IT GO) came across to me as trolling to start a flamewar.

I interpreted it as pro-State trolling. According to certain pro-State versions of anarchy, making a profit is immoral.

I do not like Google either, but your point is valid. If people do not like what you do with your blog, they should stay away from it.

Given that *GOOGLE OWNS BLOGGER*, the "Adding AdSense gives data to Google!" argument is silly.

I haven't found any good "ads in RSS feed" options. You may read my blog ad-free via the RSS reader. When I get my own domain (if I haven't found a good "ads in RSS feed" option), you'll be able to read my blog totally Google-free and third-party-ad-free via RSS. AdBrite does not have an "ads in RSS" option. AdSense via RSS was a flop.

I plan to include the Google Analytics tracking code for the first month or two, at least until my custom analytics code is working. I wish Google Analytics gave me full logs. I could do so much more with full Apache logs than Analytics provides. I keep thinking "****ing Analytics! Why don't they have a report for this!"

I'm not using violence to force people to read my blog. That makes any "It's immoral for FSK to put ads on his blog!" arguments stupid.

Via AdBrite, I'm on pace to earn $20/month. I probably won't make $20 in March, but I should make $20 in April. That means I'll probably move to my own domain in July.

Extrapolating my AdBrite page eCPM to a full month, I'm on pace to just barely earn $20/month. My site traffic continues to grow.

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Zargon has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #89":

"I've been thinking of starting a vlog (which would necessarily involve abandoning my anonymity)."

Would it? It seems to me you would give up anonymity only to those people who watch the vlog and then run across you by coincidence.

Sufficiently motivated state enforcers can already find you, and clueless employers still wouldn't be able to find you if you had a vlog, assuming you didn't attach your name to it.

That's a reasonable argument.

Ideally, I'd like to have enough blogging, "promote agorism", and free market income to not be dependent on a corporate wage slave job.

There's another reason I don't have a vlog right now. My parents would freakout if I started one. My parents have repeatedly said "FSK should not express his free market ideas in public!" There's no way I could buy a camera and start a vlog, without them noticing them and complaining.

My parents say "FSK, those people who leave comments on your blog are giving you dangerous ideas." Maybe they're backwards. I'm the one dispensing dangerous ideas!

My parents interpret "FSK has cracked his pro-State brainwashing!" as "Something is wrong with FSK!" I can't make them understand. It's very frustrating. As long as they don't involuntarily hospitalize me, it's OK. I try to explain a little bit to them occasionally, but back down when they start panicking.

It's very frustrating that I can't explain "Taxation is theft!" to my parents.

My #1 personal goal is "Get my own apartment!" That's a prerequisite for any serious agorism or starting my own business. I need a wage slave job to justify the expense (or a *LOT* more blogging income). Regrettably, the wage slave job market *SUCKS* right now.

I'm getting a ton of interest for "equity only" jobs. "You want me to implement your stupid idea for a website for free, give you allodial title, and I'm a minority equity owner? Where do I sign up?"

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Mike Gogulski has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #89":

Dude... nostate.org is owned by Charles Johnson, aka "Rad Geek", the same guy who I both bought the nostate.com domain for for a minimal and entirely reasonable sum, and the same guy who you slandered in a previous entry as a possible "pro-state troll" because he hadn't (yet) added your site to the anarchoblogs.org feed.

As far as I can tell, nostate.org is a blank site with nothing but an AdSense widget. Isn't that a violation of the AdSense TOS? That sounds like domain squatting to me.

It took a couple of weeks from when I applied for listing on "anarchoblogs" and when it actually got listed. I couldn't tell if it was a snub or laziness/incompetence/overwork. I didn't get added until after I complained about it. I've submitted to a couple "anarchist aggregators" and not been included, which seems annoying/suspicious to me.

"Anarchoblogs" is a pretty lousy website. According to Google Analytics, it's sent me almost no traffic. Anarchoblogs merely combines RSS feeds from a bunch of blogs, blindly including everything. Anarchoblogs would be interesting if it were a "best of" collection, like "Google Reader Shared Items". Anarchoblogs falls under "could have been interesting, but turned out to be lame". I'll leave my blog listed there, because it costs me nothing, but it isn't really generating much/any traffic for me.

The "Rad Geek" blog is starting to get somewhat annoying. It's mostly a collection of stories about police officers doing bad things. "Policeman X did something good!" doesn't prove "The State is good!" Similarly, "Policeman X did something bad!" doesn't prove "The State is evil!" However, it clear evidence of a problem, when a criminal gets away with a crime.

You couldn't think of a suitable available domain name, and purchased a domain? I hope you didn't pay too much. I've thought of a bunch of suitable names.

Sloppy, to say the least.

And as for your first comment with respect to my post regarding fundraising, listen, there is no "one true path", no matter how desperately you might cling to the idea. In the state, we face a many-headed hydra of an enemy, with roots down to places like religion, family, psychology, sex and even distorted cultural norms regarding love. It should come as no surprise to one who has professed to value reason that a great many of us believe that a diversity of tactics is necessary in proper.

You're certainly in a bad mood.

Your idea "solicit donations from wealthy people to support anarchism/agorism" is stupid. Which do you prefer:

1. Mike has a stupid idea. FSK lies and says it's awesome, just to please Mike.
2. Mike has a stupid idea. FSK points out that his idea is stupid.

It is possible that I'm wrong. I'm not using violence to prevent you from soliciting donations to support your efforts. I'm just expressing my opinion. I express my opinion as fact, because otherwise my writing sounds wishy-washy.

The fact that people prefer (1) to (2) is an aspect of pro-State brainwashing. In schools, you are brainwashed to think "It's rude to say that another person's ideas are stupid." If everyone refuses to call out stupid ideas, then how do stupid ideas ever get removed from circulation?

All ideas are not equal. Some are interesting. Some are stupid. Consider the comparison.

1. I start a gold/silver/FRN barter network. I start an agorist gold/silver warehouse receipt bank. I approach wealthy people, asking them to make an investment to diversity their savings.
2. I ask a wealthy person for money, in exchange for an unspecified future benefit.

(1) is creating wealth. (2) is not creating wealth. I'm not (yet) at the point to begin actual agorist businesses. I'm hoping to get there in a couple of years. If someone starts before me, good for them.

I'm not using violence to prevent you from doing whatever you want. Why are you getting upset? People usually get upset by things that are true. People don't get upset by things that are random incoherent gibberish.

By E-Mail, someone said (I'm paraphrasing, but this actually happened.):

Mike Gogulski is a douchebag. Why did he write such a stupid comment?

A wealthy person would be the last person you'd expect to support anarchy/agorism/free markets.

Ironically, the E-Mail came just after I finished this bit of the "Reader Mail" post.

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Greg has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #89":

FSK, You commented on my comment about domains, SEO,etc

Yes, I did. That's the way these "Reader Mail" posts work.

FSK:"
I assume that "MFA" means "made for AdSense".

Some of the sites are "made for SEO". I see a lot of spam blogs copying and republishing bits of my blog. It appears to be an effort to fool Google and boost their PageRank for certain keywords. Those pages appear to be auto-generated.

Fortunately, Google seems to recognize my blog as the original source for most of my content. I may have a problem initially, when I move to my own domain.

It must be profitable, because I see quite a few spam sites.

Very frequently, some of the top Google search results are spam sites. I can identify a spam site pretty quickly."

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Greg:
Yeah, MFA= Made for Adsense. There are many of these sites and blogs that use original content and don't copy others. I think there is a big difference. It is certainly possible to have quality content for the sole purpose of monetizing with Adsense.

I'm annoyed by the large volume of mediocre/lousy sites (especially when they copy bits of my content). Sometimes, they provide a link back to my site. Some sites copy the content and remove all citations to the original. For example, I link to the Compound Interest Paradox, but the spam site removes the link.

FSK:"I don't get it. Why would you buy a bunch of domains, and make a separate site for each keyword?"

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Greg: To Make Money? Niche marketing or owning a premium domain. Ask the guy who owned Sex.com and sold it for $12 million why he didn't just start a blog called "John Doe's World" and write about sex. Maybe you want to have one site about Agorism and another site about car audio or ice sculpture. People are interested in different things and obviously make money in different things." Sometimes it's all about money, and it's not always spammy or low quality.

I never understood why anyone would pay more than the basic registration fee for a domain. It's easy enough to come up with an original name that's easy to remember.

If I had $1M to blow on a website, I'd get *MUCH* more value spending that $1M hiring software engineers than spending $1M on a domain.

Most of the "top" web domains are words that only became popular *AFTER* the website became popular.

In retrospect, "fskrealityguide" is too hard of a name to remember, for someone who's never read my blog before. I'm going to do better after I move.

I thought about starting a blog on Contract Bridge, a card game I used to play but haven't recently. If I do that, I'd put it on a /bridge/ subdirectory, rather than getting a new domain.

(I briefly searched for Contract Bridge blogs. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly good.)

FSK: "You'd be diluting yourself too much.

I'd much rather have one well-written site, than a bunch of crappy ones."

Greg: Maybe but you are assuming I am writing a blog for some social interaction or something. I am mostly talking about making money. You could be diluting yourself by having a General site with no theme and talking about anything and everything, while not being an authority on anything. Of course if you have an authority agorist site and write exclusively about agorism, you won't have that problem.

I don't feel that my topics drift too much.

When I first started blogging, I briefly considered starting a 2nd blog. I rapidly realized "That would be wasting my time. It'd be 2x the effort, but I wouldn't be getting 2x the traffic."

There are guys that own 100,000+ domains and don't develop them at all and make millions of dollars. lookup Frank Schilling or Rick Schwartz, Yun ye ( OG, retired, I think),etc. They own domains people choose to go to- much like Google- and find information they find useful. How do you get to google.com? Do you find it on a search engine?

I never understood that. My favorite story is the guy who bulk-bought all the domains in .cm (Cameroon). If you go to an unregistered .cm domain, you go to his website. I can't believe he'd actually make any money off that. I'd immediately leave once I realized I mistyped the domain name. The idea is that people mistype ".com" as ".cm", and he gets the traffic instead.

Google is my default browser homepage! I never changed the FireFox default. Plus, I have gmail bookmarked, and there's a web search link on the top of the page.

I noticed that a lot of people use Google as their browser bar. I'm surprised how many people google "fsk reality guide" or variants thereof. Why don't they use a bookmark? That counts as search engine traffic according to Google Analytics, but technically it isn't.

While I develop content and get traffic from search engines, Some people completely go around the search engines. They are truly the Masters of Their Own Domains. They don't even care if they are listed in Google because premium domains get traffic regardless. Now personally, I don't own any premium type-in domains, but I own quality 2-3 keyword domains. Verticals have niches and sub-niches,etc.

I almost never type a domain directly. I usually use a bookmark or Google.

Ironically, I find it easier to use Google than my bookmarks, most of the time, except for sites I visit almost all the time!

FSK: "I'd have to see a sample of your sites, to see if they were genuine or spammy. I can't imagine seriously maintaining more than a site or two, if you want the quality to be decent."

I own around 300 domains over around 20 distinct categories. I'm pretty small time. For one thing content does not always need to be updated. Some sites can be 1 page and static and be useful. Blogs aren't the only sites, you know. There are commercial sites that can be run and updated from a feed or plugin, redirects, many different site builders and templates,etc. For example I have a site that I put up in 2004 that sells a product. I need to make a couple tweaks quarterly, if that. I might have a blog for that site as well, maybe some blogs and other sales sites for the 40-50 different niches in that category that all get significant search and cant be dominated by a broader themed site.

to me this is how I can win as a "little guy." I will never dominate ranks for "widgets" but I can dominate "cheap blue widgets, "buy widgets now, "upgrade my widget",etc.

I read stories about how people go through listings of Google search results and adwords. They find the "right" keywords, and then build a website around that keyword. That seems like a boring way to earn a living. That seems backwards to me. I'd first find a subject for my site, and then find a suitable domain.

I don't "squat" anything. I don't register Trademarks. I don't fully develop every domain right away, but I plan to. And if someone hasn't bothered to hand register or has previously deleted my domains- that's their loss.

What's "hand register"?

One of my "nightmare scenarios" of getting my own domain is that I'll have some problem with my domain registrar and lose my domain. If my site is successful, I expect all the variants and typos of my domain to get registered. I'm not playing that game. I'm only registering one domain. (If you want, other people can go squat all the variants after I announce I'm moving.)

My regular readers should be smart enough to find my site. I'll be the top Google search result for my content and the name of my site. That's good enough for me. If someone googles "fsk new domain" (the actual name), I want my site to be the #1 result.

I still don't see any reason to own more than one domain.

I have a mental illness. I am a libertarian-anarchist/agorist/

whatever. I don't have a "slave wage" job. But I'm mostly just "getting by." I'm not one of these guys living in the Cayman Islands, but I wouldn't apologize if I were.

I hope you aren't taking any drugs (anti-psychotic or anti-depressant). I've clearly said many times that the "chemical imbalance" theory of mental illness is nonsense. It seems that the primary purpose of the "mental health" industry is that "People who start to crack their pro-State brainwashing get labeled as defective." It isn't necessarily a deliberate conspiracy. It's easier to assume "This person is sick!" than "Everyone in the world, including me (the doctor/psychiatrist), is insane." Once I thought "Consider the possibility that everyone in the world is completely bat**** insane!", then I started seeing plausible explanations for my observations. It persists, because parents pro-State brainwash their children.

Suppose it's considered extremely rude to say "Everyone in the world is insane!" Doesn't that guarantee that, if everyone actually is insane, then that condition persists?

I'm taking the opposite approach to profiting off the Internet than you are. I'm trying to make one really good site, rather than a bunch of mediocre ones.

I wonder if that's why I have (relatively) high AdSense and AdBrite clickthrough rates. I have a genuine site and not a spammy one. Therefore, my clickthrough rates are higher than typical.

On the other hand, Google's AdSense banning algorithm could be defective and the management at Google is a bunch of clueless ****s.

FSK: "Some people hire others to write content for them, on their MFA/SEO sites."

Yeah, I have never done this but I would probably like to. As you've said, it's hard for one person to create a lot of content. This is an agorist/free market. Freelancers on the internet offer content creation and other services. They provide samples and feedback and do a good job to get return business. I doubt most of them are reporting fully to Uncle Sam. Many of them are from other countries. I'm not a protectionist and I don't mind geo-arbitrage or whatever it's called. if I want to pay someone to write an article for me and he agrees to the terms, what's wrong with that? Is there some requirement that I have to create all my own content without any help?

I didn't say it's immoral to hire people to write content. It seems silly in the context of a made-for-SEO or MFA site. That business sounds like "arbitraging defects in Google's search algorithm" or "arbitraging defects in the way that stupid people use the Internet" rather than a genuine business.

I'd rather have my business target smart people, than idiots. Any of my regular readers should be smart enought to bookmark my site or load the feed into their RSS reader.

FSK:"I'm going to pick a better domain than "fskrealityguide.com" when I move my site. The problem with "fskrealityguide" is that it's too hard to remember for someone who's never seen my site before. I have a bunch of variants in mind, in case the one I want is taken. I'm leaning towards a .net or .org instead of .com.

Someone's squatting the .com version of my proposed domain, after I did an availability check. I'll take the .net or .org version. As long as I become the #1 SERP in Google for my site name, that's good enough. I checked the top few Google results for my proposed site name, and it's all sites with very low PageRank."

Greg: What is squatting? They registered the domain you wanted. OK. Maybe that's a sign you picked a good domain! If someone else saw the value in it. Maybe you should just buy it.

It's too late now. Someone is squatting it now. It was a good name. I'm probably going to take the .net version instead.

I call it squatting because:

1. It's a lousy site.
2. They only registered it after I did an availability check.
   

Did you check the history of the domain, does it have age, what is it currently being used for?

It was registered a few days after I did my availability check. I later read that some registrars sell their "availability check" lists. That's probably what happened. Someone saw it on the "availability check" list and grabbed it.

I did a check on the .net version, but nobody grabbed it. ".net" is considered less valuable than ".com". I'm thinking of taking the ".net" or ".org". Some people have said that ".net" or ".org" is more suitable than ".com" for my site. Craigslist is a .org, but he also owns the .net and .com variants.

Does it have any current backlinks? Those are all things that could add value to the domain itself and worth considering. Is it for sale? Do people actually search for your proposed site name? If they don't then how is that going to benefit you? People who are already familiar with the site are going to type the domain in or bookmark it rather than go to a completely different domain ( search engine) first. Your individual posts will rank for their titles and longtails on their own, probably.

It's a practically unused search phrase now, but it won't be after I create my site.

That's my point. My individual posts will rank anyway. My actual domain name is irrelevant to the search traffic I get. My regular readers will find me, no matter what domain I pick. I could call my site "ijbwjucsubeiysczainvdepog.com" and I'd still keep my regular readers. Go ahead and register it. It has SEO value now, because I created a link to it!

(Note to self: How many times can I create a link to a random gibberish domain name, before some idiot goes out and registers it?)

Also if you get the .org or .net you might be giving free traffic to the squatter. Because once people become familiar with your site, they might type it in, and will most likely add the .com. I'd at least consider buying the .com or a variant with the .com available.

I'm assuming my regular readers aren't idiots. My regular readers will find me no matter what domain I choose. My search traffic should be mostly independent of my domain name choice. As you said, I'll be ranking for individual long tail keywords/phrases.

I don't actively write my blog for SEO, but I do notice occasional successes.

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By E-Mail, I wrote to someone:

"Imagine if I had never been pro-State brainwashed. How productive I would have been!"

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Sphairon has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #89":

After reading your reply, I thought "Most people must consider FSK paranoid for making a distinction such as 'parasite' and 'productive worker'", but really, you're spot-on. An acquaintance of mine has mastered the abusive/parasitic mindset frighteningly well. Towards others, he tries to be what they would like to see in him - religious, liberal or analytic thinker. But all he's trying to do is pacify them and abuse their carelessness at any given situation. He's confessed all that to me because I'm not a threat to him. He has sufficiently ridiculed me before all relevant individuals while he himself has too much of a good reputation for anyone to believe this. For example, one time in private, he told me how dumb people are to believe in state regulation of the market - that'll only help the big wigs at the expense of small businesses. In a conversation with a third party, he dismissed the idea as completely insane and made me look like an idiot.

Why are you wasting time hanging out with a parasite? The only attraction is "learn and study his methods". I'm beyond that now.

The parasite manipulation tactics are NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). They only work because most people have been brainwashed to think like pro-State trolls. The actual logical content of the parasite's speech is irrelevant. The parasite uses body language and other tricks to portray you as an idiot, even while he's ignoring the logic of your argument. For example, a cough or facial expression or interruption at the right time, portrays the other person's arguments as invalid. The parasite interrupts you, and you're polite and stop talking. You can't interrupt the parasite, to point out he's an abusive jerk. If you publicly call someone out for being abusive, then you appear to be the bad guy.

For this reason, I'm somewhat concerned about getting assaulted by the State, if I practice agorism. In a trial, if the judge is biased and the jury members are idiots, I could get convicted of a frivolous crime. A "jury of my peers" would be "12 people who also know that government is a massive criminal conspiracy".

It's also interesting to notice that the parasite knew that government is one big scam, yet argues otherwise. Based on some financial industry insiders I spoke with, they know that it's one big scam, but they'll never say it publicly.

Parasites do *NOT* want the State to collapse, because the current corrupt system is their source of livelihood!

Are the bad guys intentionally spreading lies? Or, are they so stupid that they believe their own propaganda? Either way, the State is immoral and must be eliminated.

Another expert parasite tactic is "Present a different personality type to different people." For example, the parasitic manager could be great at kissing up to his superiors, but behave abusively towards his subordinates.

Politicians consciously do this. They give different speeches, depending on who the audience is. They will go so far as to advocate for "A" in front of group X, and advocate for "not A" in front of group Y.

When two parasites deal with each other, they can interact favorably, if they think they can take advantage of the situation. When a parasite deals with a productive worker, the parasite wants to make sure he can manipulate and control the productive worker. The productive worker is accustomed to abuse, and accepts it. When a parasite sees someone who's on to their scam, like me, that's a high priority situation. Nothing unites parasites in cooperation like an productive worker who's on to their scam. They can easily pull the strings to eliminate the threat, having nearly everyone else subjugated by their mind control tricks. In that sense, parasites have a very strong union.

I believe you had a similar situation with one of your superiors at the Ruby on Rails facility. He could tell people the most bogus lies, but due to his good standing and parasitic authority, they complied and believed him, no matter what he'd said before.

That's pretty much what happened. It wasn't just the Rails Advocate, who had the parasitic personality type but wasn't very good at it. It was also the Idiot New Manager, who was an expert in evil parasitic tactics. It was painfully transparent to me (having seen it before), but he had everyone else conned. I was the only one who could see through him, and I wasn't in a position of authority, so it was very easy to eliminate me. I couldn't say "The Idiot New Manager is an abusive parasite!", because he had the owners conned that he was their buddy and would never cheat them. They thought that the Idiot New Manager was a genius who was going to save their business. Even after it was a failure, they're probably still thanking him for helping out. Highly skilled parasites can *ALWAYS* deflect the blame to others. (Their website is still up, but it hasn't been updated in awhile. The Rails Advocate Job could have been a $500M+ company, if only they hired someone competent to manage their software. That's a good lesson. One highly-skilled parasite can singlehandedly wreck a business. The skilled parasite will wreck your business, while you're thanking him for a job well done.)

For this reason, I'm getting skeptical of finding another wage slave job. On most hiring committees, the policy is "Only hire if every interviewer votes 'hire'." There will always be at least one parasite on the hiring committee. That parasite will know I'm not an easy victim, and automatically reject me. There's no point in saying "FSK should kiss up to parasites so he can get a wage slave job." I'm not playing that game anymore, and such jobs aren't worth anything anyway. I'm not interested in intentionally concealing my emotions, which is what most other people do by default.

I had a job at an options trading firm when I had my first panic attack. It was actually a very good work environment. Nearly everyone had the productive personality type *EXCEPT FOR ONE GUY*, who was a very skilled parasite. Naturally, he got himself promoted to leader of the technology group. As expected, it was a disaster.

It was amazing to see how one very skilled parasite can wreck an otherwise productive group of people, especially when he's in a position of State-backed authority. One lesson I've learned, if I ever have my own business is "Don't hire parasites!" That one abusive manager probably cost the options trading firm $50M+, and the blame for failure was directed to others.

As the "high-functioning autism" personality type, I was partially immune to his manipulations. I was evaluating the logic of his speech, and not his body language. I had learned to filter out body language communication. Therefore, I was very confused. He seemed like an idiot to me, but every else was talking about what a genius he was.

This guy was very good at spinning the truth after disasters, so the blame fell on other people. I wasn't fully immune to this. I noticed that my memories were changing, but I couldn't identify the source! It was pretty weird! At the Rails Advocate job, it was amusing to see the Rails Advocate and Idiot New Manager perform mindwipes on other people. It's an amazing thing, to see a mindwipe occur and not be affected yourself. The Sarah Palin Sucks Fnord is an example of a mainstream media mindwipe. Before the election, most/all published pictures of Sarah Palin made her look somewhat attractive. After the election, most/all published pictures of Sarah Palin made her look ugly.

I knew that I was a really skilled software engineer. The parasite manager used an amazing tactic, that's been used on me several times since. He told me that I was doing a competent job, while telling his supervisors that I was an unqualified idiot. This had an amazing effect of trashing my reputation, while I was unaware. Then, I when I told the parasite's boss that he was ****ing things up, it seemed like I was having sour grapes. I had already been established as the bad guy and "not a team player".

The parasite couldn't fire me, because I'd been doing an excellent job up until the point where he got promoted to manage the technology group. I didn't quit, for the same reason. It had been a great job up until that point. I figured that I'd eventually get moved to another group and I wouldn't have to deal with the parasite anymore. However, the stress got to me. I started to subconsciously realize what was going on. The net effect was that I had a panic attack. Instead of receiving humane treatment, I was murdered/kidnapped/tortured by the psychiatry/death industry.

I read that, if you have a dog, train it, and then subject it to extreme stress, then the dog forgets his training. Similarly, being exposed to extreme stress at the options trading firm "broke" my brainwashing. It was very traumatic. It probably happens to other people. "Mental health professionals" are trained to recognize those symptoms as those of a mental illness. Instead of treating me humanely, they gave me drugs that stopped me from thinking and interrupted my body's natural healing process. Last year, I had two panic attacks without being hospitalized. Hopefully, that led to enough healing for me to be mostly sane now, and not at risk for re-hospitalization.

Now, I'm keenly aware of parasites and their manipulations. It's a result of severe exposure. As a practical matter, that makes it very hard for me to get another wage slave job. In almost every business, there's a parasite pulling the strings. Even in a two-person startup, one of the co-founders inevitably has the parasite personality type, while the other has the productive personality type.

Also notice that "productive/parasite" personality type is independent of career. You can be Professor of Mathematics at a top university, and have the parasitic personality type. I've noticed some lawyers and VCs that have the productive personality type. Obama has the productive personality type. Obama has been thoroughly brainwashed as a pro-State troll, and is emotionally dominated by his parasitic handlers/advisors (who you don't normally see in public). Therefore, Obama is no threat to the bad guys. *SOME* State employees must have the productive personality type. Otherwise, the State wouldn't function at all! Someone has to do the actual work! The State employees with the productive personality type genuinely believe that the State is good; otherwise, they couldn't do their jobs.

That's also an argument for why it might be safe for me to practice agorism. Some State employees have the productive personality type. When such a person handles my case, he will notice that I'm getting a raw deal and my arguments are valid. That might reduce the risk of "FSK is harassed by State enforcers."

Of course, there are also abusive parasites who are unaware of their status and just do what they are used to.

Can parasites be considered intelligent life? Are they consciously aware of the damaging effect they have on others? Or, are they doing whatever they can to survive? It's the only tactic they know, so they've got to stick with it!

Either way, the corrupt system that lets parasites control things needs to be eliminated.

The main "bad girl" role in the movie "Odd Girl Out" represents a very shining example of such behavior.

I haven't seen that movie.

It struck me because it reminded me of my personal situation. Abusive predators seem to develop an ability to seek out incautious victims whose productivity they can then leech off of. Pro-state brainwashed victims will rationalize this behavior and think "That's the way a friendship works. I'll just keep going." This is bound to cause severe psychological and even physiological problems in the long run. I bet a good number of chronically depressed individuals are victims of abusive predators who have lost any incentive to live or work due to bad social experiences. I'm glad I broke enough of my pro-state brainwashing to be aware of predators and abusive parasites now.

Some productive workers figure "I'll stick with this parasite. He's less abusive than the others. It's my natural role to be abused by a parasite."

I've noticed some women appear *MUCH* less attractive shortly after getting married. They became tightly bound to their parasitic husband, and gave up.

Once you reach a certain level of awareness, it becomes a positive feedback cycle. The primary restricting factor is "Make sure you don't get murdered by the psychiatry/death industry!" Hopefully, it's easier for you to read my explanation, than figure it out the hard way like I did.

There's really three different personality types I'm discussing here:

1. parasitic personality type
2. abused productive personality type
3. sane productive personality type (FSK and maybe a handful of his regular readers, and maybe some others I've never heard about)

The "abused productive person" is naturally paired with a parasitic person. It's more of an anti-pairing, like two electrons with opposite spin directions.

My goal is to convert people from (2) to (3). People of type (1) are hopeless. Those are the pro-State trolls who react with hostility to my ideas. For this reason, I don't mind when parasites get disgusted and stop reading my blog. Interacting with parasites/idiots is a lot of work for negligible benefit.

The abused productive personality type has come to accept that being abused is their natural state of affairs. Their goal is to get paired with a parasite who isn't too abusive, rather than with another productive worker.

Further, there are some people who have the productive personality type, yet aspire to the parasite role. These are the people who study NLP tactics and try and use them to achieve the parasite role, instead of the abused productive role. They never thought of the "sane productive worker" role. These people are hard to reach, because they're aspiring to convert from (2) to (1) instead of from (2) to (3).

For this reason, I try to clamp down hard on people of type (1). Otherwise, they'll wreck my blog and dominate. It seems like there are State agents everywhere, because nearly half the population has the parasite personality type!

There also are some people who aren't very intelligent at all. They fall somewhere inbetween "parasitic" and "productive". Perhaps they intentionally stay stupid, as a form of self-defense. They aren't important.

As for our debate about children, I've read parts of J.T. Gatto's book on American schooling and one thing that caught my interest was the childhood of American kids from the colonial days until the dawn of modern schooling. It seems that schooling has also influenced parent-child relations at home. Kids in "untamed" times seemed to be fairly devoid of "single pole influencing", in other words, parents were not so keen to instill their particular value system into their offspring. Kids would stray around and absorb manifold ideas and skills. That's why you had universal geniuses such as Ben Franklin. I wonder whether that is still possible today and only blocked by schooling or whether scientific progress has rendered "universal geniuses" obsolete.

I read bits of Gatto's book (the online version), and then got bored. It had some good bits. If you're new to the idea of "State-mandated schools are evil!", then it's worth reading.

One problem is State regulation of the market. It's very hard for me to pick up a bunch of different skills. Suppose I want to work making clothes for a month, work repairing cars for a month, work making food for a month. It's hard to do that, due to State regulation of the market. Such experience on my resume would be viewed with suspicion by employers.

The wage slave job market discourages "picking up skills in a bunch of areas". Most wage slave employers are looking for a cog in a machine.

Even in the area of software, there's a trend towards over-specialization. Employers aren't looking for a "Software engineer". They aren't even looking for a "PHP programmer". They're looking for a "PHP programmer with 3 years of experience in ColdFusion" (or whatever other framework they're using). My experience as a C/C++ programmer has a market value of zero in the wage slave market, because the software industry has moved on to other languages. A wage slave employer isn't skilled enough himself to recognize my experience as valuable.

How do you spot women with high functioning autism? Is it plain shyness that you're looking for or are there other factors that spur your interest?

There's a couple of ways to identify someone with high-functioning autism. I've been performing this analysis subconsciously for awhile, and only recently have I been able to do it consciously. Some indications are:

1. overall appearance. Contrary to pro-State brainwashing, you can judge someone based solely on their appearance. More intelligent women tend to be more attractive. "Who FSK considers attractive" may not agree with other people's estimates.
2. body language. This is closely related to appearance.
3. self-confidence. The "high functioning autism" women tend to have very low self-confidence. This makes sense, because they're accustomed to being abused by parasites. They also walk hunched over a little, rather than standing straight. The "high functioning autism" women have subconsciously realized "I don't want to be with a parasite, because I don't want to be abused. I can't manage to hook up with someone else with a productive personality type." So, they're single. Eventually, they may compromise and settle with a parasite who isn't too abusive.
   
4. intelligence. You can tell very quickly by talking with someone. I go social dancing a lot, and you can evaluate someone's intelligence by how well they dance. If someone is learning a new style of dance, you can evaluate their learning rate.
5. breast size/appearance. I've noticed that more intelligent women tend to have bigger or more attractive breasts. That seems weird, but it also seems to be true. "Breast implants" are a parasitic woman attempting to gain an unearned indication of intelligence.
   
6. smell. Parasites tend to smell bad, and productive workers tend to smell good. Perfumes and deodorants don't cover up the stench of evil. My sense of smell has actually substantially increased, now that I've cracked my pro-State brainwashing.
   
7. Is she hanging out with a jerk? Someone with a productive personality is almost always hanging out with a parasite. The parasite can be male or female. Of course, if she's with a male date, it probably isn't worth the hassle.
8. I'm getting better at recognizing the difference of someone pretending they can't see me, and someone who actually doesn't notice me. People are pro-State brainwashed to act like they're not interested in someone, even if they are. People with "high functioning autism" do a poor job of pretending to not see me.
   

Here's a good exercise. Whenever you see two women together, almost always one has the productive personality type and one has the parasitic personality type. Learn to identify which one is productive and which one is the parasite. This applies to almost any pairing of two people, irregardless of gender.

This makes meeting women hard. Suppose there's a productive woman X hanging out with a parasite woman friend Y. Suppose I approach the productive woman X. The parasite Y will say (via body language and not necessarily explicitly), "FSK is a loser. You should not waste time on him." X is relying on Y as a substitute for her own judgement. Therefore, I am unable to approach X.

Even if Y is not around, X may think (subconsciously) "My friend Y will not approve of FSK. Therefore, I should reject FSK." As I get more in tune with the truth, I'm getting better at breaking through this type of obstacle.

Maybe I should get a wingman who will distract Y while I approach X? A productive woman almost never travels alone. She's usually with a parasite.

I've only discovered this recently, so I haven't fully put it into practice yet. I'm noticing more favorable reactions when I do go out. Now that I've mostly cracked my pro-State brainwashing, it's easier for me to approach women with the productive personality type. I'm getting better at quickly evaluating who's likely to be interesting.

Lastly, do you think that a parasite mindset can be cured? Since the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness seems to be rather bogus, what else is it that makes people parasites?

"The Dog Whisperer" (fnord!) says that there are "red zone" dogs who can't be cured. They have to be murdered instead. "The Dog Whisperer" sometimes rehabilitates such dogs. Presumably, if Cesar Milan fails, then they don't air that episode. In one episode, Cesar Milan adopted the problem dog and gave the owners a different well-trained dog. Similarly, there are "red zone" humans. The Idiot New Manager from the Rails Advocate job, and the abusive manager at the options trading firm are "red zone humans".

Due to a corrupt economic and political system, the "red zone" humans are the ones who control most businesses. The most abusive parasites manipulate and control the State for their own personal benefit. The parasites are the ones who will most strongly fight against an agorist revolution.

In a pack of wild dogs, an abusive insane dog won't be pack leader. The other dogs will merely ignore him. In a pack of humans, State violence demands that the insane leaders are obeyed. State restriction of the market makes it difficult for me to start a "pack" (business) that competes with a parasite-controlled State-licensed business.

Even if a parasitic person gets caught, he can always move on and find new victims. I refer to the "Rails Advocate", "Idiot New Manager", and abusive manager at the options firm. If I mentioned them by name, I'd probably be the victim in a libel lawsuit. I don't have the ability to warn other people to stay away from them, without placing myself at risk. In an agorist economy, parasites will *NOT* be able to cheat people and get away and form a new identity.

Initially, agorists must be open trading with everyone. I'm starting with zero agorist trading partners. After awhile, you only get admitted if another agorist says you're trustworthy. My ability to identify parasitic people nearly instantly should be *VERY* valuable. If I opened an agorist credit rating business, I'd refuse to cover people with the parasitic personality type.

With StackOverflow and abusive websites, it's easy for me to say "**** this! I'm not wasting time on this lousy website anymore! I'm starting my own website!" Via Blogger, the cost is $0 to me to get started. Hopefully, I'm going to move to my own domain in a few months.

Most corporations have a State-licensed monopoly. It's very hard for me to say to my abusive corporate employer "**** you! I'm starting my own competing business!" State restriction of the market makes this difficult. The parasites restrict competition via regulations, taxes, and a central bank credit monopoly. Most productive workers have been conned into believing that the rules of the parasites are legitimate. Agorism is a way to level the playing field.

The Internet has leveled the playing field *A LOT* in the area of software and sharing information. That model should be extended to tangible goods, and not just software. There's still State leeching in the area of small software companies. However, the rate of State leeching is less than the rate at which a skilled productive worker can outperform a parasite-controlled business. That doesn't apply in healthcare, where the State leeching absolutely bars competition from people without a State license.

There's a natural 1:1 ratio between parasites and productive workers. Once the productive workers are cured, then the parasites will have to adapt or die. Some will adapt, some won't. I consider parasitic behavior to be learned, and not natural. It's a consequence of the State. Being a skilled parasite actually requires a reasonable level of intelligence, although it's misdirected. A parasite won't be as intelligent as a productive worker, because false beliefs limit your intelligence and productivity.

My good ex-therapist had an interesting reaction towards my description of the Idiot New Manager. She said "It must be rough to be him. He must continually live in fear of getting caught!" That doesn't excuse abusive behavior.

As the parasites perfect their mind control tricks, that also improves the intelligence of the productive workers. I wonder if that's the reason for the increase of "high functioning autism" lately, rather than superficial reasons like mercury vaccines or fluoride in water. These people with partial resistance to pro-State brainwashing wind up drugged by the psychiatry/death industry. I managed to slip through and achieve a more sane mental state.

The more children that get drugged up by the psychiatry/death industry, the less productive workers there are to leech off. This feedback cycle accelerates the collapse. I estimate that the victims of the psychiatry/death industry fall more on the intelligent side of the population. However, it's hard to evaluate someone's intelligence when both me and the other person are doped into submission.

I'm not going to spend effort figuring out how to cure parasites. I'm more interested in converting "abused productive workers" to "sane productive workers". I'm spending my efforts where there's the most return on investment.

A parasite is used to being in control. Being treated fairly is a step down, in their minds. They won't be easily converted. The parasite would rather find an easy victim, than deal with someone who will treat them fairly. An abused productive worker can be converted to sane. Being treated fairly is a step up, and is what they really subconsciously want in the first place.

If there's someone with a productive personality type who aspires to the parasite role, then it may be hard to reach them. These people will defend the rights of the parasites (pro-State trolling), because they aspire to that position someday.

And thanks for your time and ideas, that's one breath of fresh air for me.

OK. I probably should make a more detailed post on this subject.

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South Park had an episode on the financial industry. It had some good bits, but it could have been a lot better. I really should attempt "Promote agorism via standup comedy!"

"Important Things with Demetri Martin" had an interesting bit. He had a sketch where an abusive person was plotting to break up with someone.

If you're more in tune with your emotions and not pro-State brainwashed, you should never be surprised if someone wants to dump you. It's only a shock when your conscious desires and unconscious desires are separate.