This post on BradSpangler.com was amusing. Statists justify torturing as a means of extracting information. The problem is "How do you know if the witness has enough knowledge to justify torturing him?" If you already know that the witness has valuable information, then why is it necessary to torture him?
When you torture someone, they'll agree to anything. If the torturer wants the victim to say "I know someone who tried to purchase uranium.", then the victim will say he knows someone. Then, the torturer can say "See! It was justified!"
In this post on the Picket Line (and a few others), David Gross was arguing with a pro-State troll about tax evasion/resistance. Arguing with idiots is usually a waste of time.
This is a common false debating tactic. Just because an idiot makes a bunch of stupid points, you don't have to address all of them.
The bottom line for tax evasion/resistance is:
- Taxation is theft! Any tax or law is backed by violence. Once you understand this, it's obvious that government is just a massive extortion racket.
- If you voluntarily pay taxes, you're partially responsible for all the bad things that government employees do. Of course, you should use effective tactics when you resist evil. You should try to get the most benefit for the least effort.
- If you resist taxes, you increase your personal wealth, even if the State doesn't collapse during your lifetime. This is the reason agorists can achieve freedom one person at a time.
David Gross seemed to be describing a stupid form of tax resistance. You calculate your tax bill, but then only pay part of it. This is a stupid form of tax resistance. For example, in protest of the Iraq war, you don't pay the portion of your taxes in the same percentage as the Federal military budget.
This is stupid. You can't "purchase" government a la carte. Once a State bureaucrat has your money/wealth, he may spend it as he pleases. Plus, reporting all your income and then paying a fraction of the tax is a particularly stupid form of tax resistance.
Don't forget the Free Rider Fallacy, when discussing tax resistance. A pro-State troll says "If you don't pay taxes, you're stealing police/roads/schools/etc. from people who do pay taxes." The fallacy is that, via taxes, I am a forced rider. I have no option to fire the State and purchase from someone else. I'm willing to pay the fair free market price for police/roads/schools/etc. I object to being forced at gunpoint to pay the extortionate rates that the State charges.
It is better to focus on generating wealth that is not reported to the bad guys at all.
This post on the Picket Line seemed wrong. It's a list of "What percentage of US households owe no income tax at all?"
The fallacy is that, if you work in a wage slave job, you still pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, even if your income isn't otherwise high enough for you to owe 1040 income taxes.
I liked this post on the Picket Line. Some comedians on the Fox Comedy Channel were suggesting that tax resistance might be a good idea.
This post on no third solution had some interesting bits.
When new cars are designed, it is not via a true free market process. A bunch of bureaucrats decide what type of cars to build, and then marketing tries to sell them. When a customer visits a car dealership, he's offered a bunch of choices on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
It's very hard to get firm quotes and compare prices. This is a symptom of a non-free market. Could you imagine purchasing a hamburger like purchasing a car? (I should write a sketch for this.) "If you buy the hamburger right now, we'll throw in ketchup for free! Lettuce is $5 extra!"
A bunch of small car manufacturing businesses would be much more responsive to the needs of customers. With a State-licensed monopoly/oligopoly, it makes no difference if car manufacturers are efficient or inefficient. With a State-backed monopoly and the principle of "too big to fail", the incentive actually favors inefficiency.
The reason there are no small car manufacturing businesses is that the auto industry is heavily regulated. Contrast that with software, where the overhead for starting a web-based business is very low.
I was searching around on sui juris representation and found an interesting Supreme Court ruling. The Supreme Court ruled that it is possible for a defendant to be ruled competent enough to stand trial, yet incompetent enough to represent themselves. That ruling makes no sense to me. It sounds like a loophole to deny people the right to represent themselves in court.
This article was interesting. According to that article, the "Adoption and Safe Families Act" provides a payment of $4000 to state welfare agencies every time they take a child away from its parents and then place it up for adoption. This provides an economic incentive for bureaucrats to seize children from their parents.
That's very interesting. Taking children away from their parents is a for-profit business! This theft is paid via taxes.
Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "I Got My First AdBrite Check!":
Here are my articles
http://cheapogroovo.vox.com/library/post/google-tools- cost-the-entrepreneur-more- than-they-make.html
http://cheapogroovo.vox.com/library/post/google-checkout- and-paypal-limit- entrepreneurial-opportunities. html
There was a lot of debate regarding my decision to use AdSense back in January.
The summary was:
- My blog is already hosted on Blogger, which is owned by Google. Google already knows the IP address of everyone who reads my blog. I don't give Google extra information when I add an AdSense widget.
- It's easy enough to block AdSense or use Tor, if you're concerned about privacy.
- I'm planning to switch to self-hosted WordPress, once I generate enough ad revenue to justify the expense.
- It isn't immoral for me to profit from my blog.
I was banned from AdSense due to "invalid clicks". There is no way to appeal or reverse Google's decision. I switched to AdBrite. My page eCPM is lower, but at least AdBrite aren't defaulting deadbeats.
Google has a near-monopoly position in the online advertising market. When I switched from AdSense to AdBrite, my rates decreased a lot. Of course, my actual AdSense earnings were $0, because Google defaulted.
On Blogger, there's an "edit raw html" feature, so I was able to add the Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools tracking code. I'm going to stick with Blogger for now, and my next hosting vendor will be one I completely control. I don't know why you're using a hosting vendor that doesn't allow you to directly edit your raw html.
Buying a Google AdWords campaign seems silly now. Click fraud seems to be a genuine problem. I don't spend money on advertising. "Organic" search results and people citing my blog seems to be good enough.
Regarding PayPal and Google checkout, for awhile E-Gold was a viable method for buying and selling on the Internet. For awhile, eBay even allowed gold-denominated auctions. However, there was a crackdown by the FBI and IRS, and E-Gold is no longer viable. It was regulated out of existence. Under pressure from the IRS, eBay stopped accepting gold-denominated auctions.
Barry B. has left a new comment on your post "I Got My First AdBrite Check!":
For the record I get around 18,000 hits per month and make over $600 per month on google adsense. I think I'm above average. I think some of the problem is your website and some of the problem is adbrite since it doesn't read your posts and place ads based on the content. The key to making money is traffic. The more traffic the more money. But also producing content that helps people solve problems that exist in their lives is a driving factor for my site...That's pretty good. That's an eCPM of $33, which seems really high. How many pageviews are there per hit? I was making about $2-$3 eCPM when I was using AdSense. My actual earnings were $0, because Google banned me. There's no appeal, so I'm SOL and trying other vendors. Google has a near-monopoly position in the online advertising market, so other vendors necessarily have cheaper rates.
I've considered experimenting with other advertising vendors. I'm sticking with AdBrite for now. I probably will revisit this issue later. I've considered "Yahoo Publisher Network". I don't have enough readers for it to be worth my time optimizing more. For now, I'll focus on "write good content".
AdBrite is non-keyword-targeted, so there's no point in doing anything other than "attract more readers".
I always thought that blogging to target specific keywords was a pathetic way to make money. I prefer to focus on writing good content, rather than target specific keywords. The only conscious optimization I use is my choice of post titles, which seems to matter for SEO/SERP.
I've seem spam blogs that are obviously designed to generate search traffic for a specific keyword. I'm not interested in doing that.
I need about 4x-6x more readers to make $20/month so I can buy hosting. I probably need 1000x-2000x more readers before I could seriously consider doing this as a job.
My most likely "profit from blog" ideas involve using it to bootstrap other businesses.
I've considered "promote agorism via standup comedy"; blogging has been a way to refine my material. At this point, I should be able to do a live improv performance. If a pro-State troll in the audience decides to heckle me, I already know how to ridicule the most common pro-State troll stupid arguments.
I've also considered starting actual agorist businesses, and using my blog to attract customers. "Write AgoristBay software!" is one of my ideas. To minimize the risk of a State raid, I'd necessarily have to open-source it.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "I Got My First AdBrite Check!":
I made money before, but the trick with adsense/adbrite/whatever is to actually have targeted traffic for terms that advertisers actually pay for.
For example
go to
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
type in a keyword.
Now click the dropdown and "show estimated PPC"
Now change broad match to exact match...
Now CPC*monthly volume=estimated revenue going to google.
Now google will share that revenue with you. Google doesn't share that much.
The key is to leave one on a few months, then put the other on a few months and test because some niches just don't have advertisers for smaller networks.
If you're number 1 you don't get all the search volume, and if you get a click, you don't get all of that reveune...
but it's a starting point...
Then you just have to learn good seo, figure out how to find a keyword that is attainable in your niche, and go after it.
AdBrite is not keyword targeted. That advice is irrelevant.
I actually rank pretty well in Google for some common search phrases. "Hunt brothers silver", "Ruby on Rails sucks", and "monetizing the debt" are all good for 1-2+ new visitors per day. Via Google Analytics, I don't know how many of them are converted to regular returning readers.
I could do so much more with full server logs than with the pittance that Google Analytics provides. I'm looking forward to getting my own domain and own hosting. That will have to wait at least a few months.
Jack c has left a new comment on your post "I Got My First AdBrite Check!":
The ads are completely irrelevant so that's going to hinder making much money. That said, I can't think of what would be better. I normally match my sites to high paying affiliate programs and other things, but it's not like there is an affiliate program for an "agorist kit" or something. Maybe if you found something reputable in investing, books, I don't know.
AdBrite is not targeted, so the ads are never going to relevant. I've considered experimenting with other ad networks. AdBrite is good enough for now. Besides AdSense, there don't seem to be any good content-targeted ad networks. My content probably is not of interest to many advertisers. Most of the people that advertise online seem to have spammy/scammy content. It'd be nice if I could find an ad network where all the ads were relevant an on-topic.
AdBrite actually gives me a summary of what ads were published, unlike AdSense. There's the occasional non-spammy ad. I've seen ads for AT&T and Toyota published via AdBrite.
I probably have to sell ads directly myself to get good rates and quality ads. That probably won't be viable until I have a *LOT* more regular readers.
"FSK should write content that will be attractive to advertisers!" is missing the point. My goal from blogging is to write about things I find interesting. The ad revenue is a side benefit.
Bootstrapping a web-based business seem *VERY* hard. With a page eCPM of less than $0.50, I need *LOTS* of traffic before I can do this as a full-time job, much less hire other people. If I raised VC to implement my ideas, that'd be missing the point. When you raise VC, the terms make the VC the effective owner. I'd become an employee in my own business.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":
with regards to investments not beating inflation, why not just short the dollar. That should equal the exact rate of return of inflation. If you put $100 in a short dollar position and the dollar goes down 20%, you then buy it back at $80. Sure, you can't protect ALL of your money this way, and you have to have extra cash to manage the price fluctuations, but at least some of that money will be protected.
Afterall, if the price of gold is being supressed anyways, shorting the dollar if not a better option will at least be a decent option.
You're confused about the way currency markets work. You can't merely "short the dollar". In order to short the dollar, you have to go long another currency. Going short the US dollar and long Euros won't work as a true inflation hedge. The European central bank is inflating just like the Federal Reserve. Over the next few years, there is no guarantee that one will inflate faster than the other.
Other countries try to inflate in lockstep with the Federal Reserve. First, the USA is a lucrative export market, although I never understood the point of exporting to the USA in exchange for a piece of paper. Second, if all countries inflate in lockstep, that keeps the illusion that inflation is low.
Also, it isn't going to lead to much profits unless you use leverage.
One way to short the dollar is to buy a gold future. There are flaws in that strategy, if you maximize your leverage. The long-term trend for the price of gold is increasing. However, there may be an occasional decrease of 30%-50%+ during a deflationary recession/depression. If you maximize your leverage while investing in gold, you'll be wiped out during the next bust.
As a non-insider who isn't "too big to fail", your only recourse is to invest in gold or silver, pay the full price, and take physical delivery. That will yield a 0% return on investment. I don't see how a non-insider can do better than that.
My blog is a type of investment, because it's generating income now. However, I need to keep writing good new posts to keep my regular readers. Presumably, my regular readers will keep coming back as long as I keep writing good content.
If I become a standup comedian, then my reputation as a performer is a type of investment. Unfortunately, without a mainstream media outlet promoting me, it's very hard to build a large audience. I'm doing decent progress with 5%-10% monthly growth via blogging and self-publishing. That's still a long way away from a decent-sized audience.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10479221/Amanita-2009- Forecast-49-p
Once I saw the section on the correlation between astrology and financial markets, I decided "This is nonsense".
All you need to know regarding boom/bust cycles is:
- The Compound Interest Paradox is a fundamental structural flaw in fiat debt-based money.
- Insiders cannot resist the temptation to print and spend new money. This leads to inflation over time.
- A historic back-test is invalid. The conditions of the market are changing. The rate of looting and pillaging is increasing.
- As the final collapse of the State draws near, inflation should accelerate.
- As a non-insider, you shouldn't try to time the market. You aren't "too big to fail", and you don't know what decisions State bureaucrats are going to make.
- Gold and silver (real money) should be the best long-term buy-and-hold investment. You don't need to try and time your purchase. All State paper investments lose their value over time. If you're concerned about buying at the worst time, then buy a few ounces every few months or whatever your investment budget allows.
cyberTrebuchet has left a new comment on your post "The Myth of Job Creation":
Well hello again FSK. I have a couple of thoughts I want to share quickly with you and your other readers.
1) I'm pretty much ready to concede the Liberty Dollar vs. Plain Old Silver debate. It does make more sense just to buy the silver with FRNs and try to trade it at spot price. My continued appreciation goes out to Mr. von NotHaus, though: I still don't think the Liberty Dollar is a scam, and at the very least it led me to find the simple solution of agorism.
If I had to rank monetary systems in order of evil, I would rank them:
- Federal Reserve Notes (pure evil)
- Liberty Dollar (mostly evil)
- gold and silver rounds, with no State regulation of banking or money (free market money, not evil)
Given the free choice, I'd use generic silver rounds instead of Liberty Dollars. If someone tried to buy something from me with a Liberty Dollar, I'd only give them credit for the spot price of silver, and not the face amount. I wouldn't accept paper or electronic Liberty Dollars.
Federal Reserve Notes are nearly 100% seignorage. A 100-point Federal Reserve Note costs only a couple of cents to print. The difference is pure seignorage profit for financial industry insiders, who print and spend the new money in collusion with the Federal Reserve. A Liberty Dollar is approximately 67% seignorage; it varies based on the spot price of silver.
If you use silver rounds, there is 0% seignorage. When you buy generic silver rounds, you pay the spot price plus a minting fee plus a transaction fee.
2) I'm currently working two wage-slave jobs - both of them in food service because I'm a starving actor - and there is a (sort of complicated) way out of the false "get a wage-slave job supporting criminals or be unemployed" dilemma. All we have to do, for now, is dissociate ourselves from all contracts with the US Government to which we have inadvertently heretofore been bound. I've been plodding through the meticulous legal research found on http://sedm.org and http://sedm.org/Forms/FormIndex.htm , and they outline how to get free of all contractual obligations to the parasites. Read their stuff; it's very good and very important. Tomorrow I think I'll email you one or two of the most important huge pdfs they have on their massive form index page. Goodnight!
One nice thing about food service is that there's opportunities to work off-the-books and get paid in cash. It depends on your employer.
You're missing the reason that most actors are underemployed/unemployed. It's the Screen Actor's Guild! The minimum scale wage for an actor is something like $150k+ per year. This means that unionized actors spend most of their time unemployed, but then get paid a lot when they do find work. If someone wanted to hire an actor full-time, but pay them only $30k-$50/year, that's illegal according to the union contract. This means that actors on the low-end of the market are continually unemployed/underemployed, because their labor isn't worth $150k+ per year.
I answered your E-Mail, regarding stupid tax resistance arguments. I'll include my comments but not yours. (Some people get offended when I publish their E-Mails. You didn't say anything interesting anyway.)
I already addressed this point several times, regarding stupid tax resistance arguments. For example, consider this post.
Getting freedom is more effort than filing certain bureaucratic paperwork. If there were a legal loophole, then Congress and the Supreme Court would close it.
I don't know of anyone successfully using such tactics when defending themselves from State harassment. It is possible that the State bureaucrats may have merely decided that the tax protester isn't big enough to bother cracking down on, and pursue softer targets elsewhere.
If I become a high-profile advocate for blatant-in-public agorism, then I almost definitely *WILL* get assaulted by State enforcers.
These legal arguments are missing the correct point, which is that the income tax is immoral. If you make legal arguments against the income tax, then you are fighting the bad guys on their turf. The rules and procedures for the legal system were written by Statists. They are designed to prevent fairness, rather than encourage fairness, especially in the area of taxation.
If you are assaulted for income tax evasion (i.e., working without permission from the State), then you don't recover the time and expense of a trial, even if acquitted.
I'd advise an agorist to focus on stealth first. If you get assaulted, then rely on other tactics, including a sui juris "jury nullification" defense. If you file such paperwork with the IRS/State, it's like filing a tax return with "**** you IRS!!" written on it. I'd focus on generating wealth that is not reported to the IRS, rather than such legal paperwork. I advise agorists to file a tax return that includes all on-the-books income, and not mention any free market income.
If you work in a wage slave job for a corporation, you probably have no choice but to pay income taxes. You should focus on building an agorist counter-economy, if you're really interested in freedom.
If there were some easy legal loophole to avoid taxes, then everyone would be doing it.
You still were persistent promoting your stupid ideas. I then added:
You're still missing the point. I disagree with all those arguments as pro-State trolling.
- I use government roads. Therefore, I owe income taxes.
- I accept mail with a zip code on it. Therefore, I owe income taxes.
- I once got a social security card or birth certificate. Therefore, I owe income taxes.
- I have a State ID card or passport. Therefore, I owe income taxes.
- I use slave points as money. Therefore, I owe income taxes.
There is no simple bureaucratic process for acquiring freedom. Freedom is more work than that. You're still thinking in terms of fighting the bad guys on their turf. If you're using the legal system in *ANY WAY*, you're fighting the bad guys on their turf. All of the legal loopholes have been closed by the Supreme Court.
There's a fallacy of saying to the IRS agent "I have no contract with you. Go away!" The IRS agent will promptly call the police and they will raid your home.
Arguing with a judge is pointless, because he is a brainwashed pro-State troll.
I doubt the tactics you suggest actually work. If they did, then everyone would be doing them.
What probably happens is that the tax resister is judged by the State bureaucrat to be small fry, and they pursue softer targets elsewhere. That's not the same as those tactics actually working.
One advantage is that, if a lot of people simultaneously resist taxes, then it becomes hard for the bad guys to crack down on all of them at the same time. They'll only go after the biggest offenders. If I become a high-profile advocate for agorism, then I *WILL* become a target.
I've also heard stories of such people being arrested/assaulted for "Promoting false tax evasion schemes."
If you are serious about freedom, just try agorism. Don't file any belligerent paperwork with the State. That just draws attention to yourself. File an "honest" tax return, with all your on-the-books income, while working on the side as an agorist. Don't report your agorist income on the tax return. If any State agent ever discovers your agorist activity, your defense is "I thought that wasn't taxable." If necessary, represent yourself sui juris, but if you're a skilled agorist it won't come to that.
You also mentioned buying gold and silver, I decided that I'm going to try APMEX for my first purchase. One way to minimize your risk is to buy a couple of ounces at a time. Then, you know if the vendor is trustworthy. All of the widely-cited online dealers are probably good enough. When I did my evaluation, APMEX has a well-designed website and good prices. Kitco is another vendor I'd seriously consider.
Cheapo Groovo has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":
RE: Ron PAul
I would love to jump to a complete free market system w/o any government, but your blog misses the psychology of getting there.
We can only get there incrementally, not all at once.
Going back to a limited government with increasing individual freedom is simply the path to agorism.
The State using incrementalism all the time in taking away our God given rights!
No. The path to agorism is that the power of government increases until there's a complete collapse. The larger the government grows, the more people can profit by saying "**** this!" and start working as an agorist.
Paradoxically, it's best if the government gets as big and inefficient as possible. That accelerates the collapse. That increases profit opportunities for agorists.
The way to achieve agorism is for a handful of people to start working as agorists. As they are successful, they should bring in more people.
"Achieve reform by voting" is a proven failure. You're wasting your time thinking in that direction. If there's a good true libertarian candidate on the ballot, I might vote for him. I'm not waiting for that to happen.
Greg has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":
Re: my comments about Ron Paul and his business partners. Well, I was mostly referring to the guys who have made a living for the last 30+ years because they were paid staffers and then partners in the newsletters,etc. The newsletters were million dollar business and you had the usual guys involved in that. You had Blumert publishing, Rockwell writing, campaign workers and so on. If his claims are true that he didn't write certain newsletters and that someone ( his very close associates actually) was using his name to make money, they did so because there was money in publishing a "Ron Paul" newsletter. And that was back when he was just ex-Congress, ex-Libertarian candidate. Some of his 2008 POTUS staff were well compensated in relation to their actual accomplishments. A lot of people got paid off that fundraising. Ron Paul is a cottage industry for loyal yet ineffective campaign workers, writers,etc. I'm not saying a bunch of people got rich, but he had wealthy backers as well as people who have made a living at least partially due to their Ron Paul connection/stamp of approval.
That's very interesting. A lot of the money that a candidate raises winds up in the pockets of his campaign managers and handlers. For example, a job working in the Ron Paul campaign for $50k-$100k per year is a cushy setup. All that money that Ron Paul raised in 2008 wound up in someone's pocket.
I'm surprised that a Ron Paul newsletter was a profitable business. The cost of printing and mailing a physical newsletter are high.
It's very hard to find out who the true backers of a candidate are. If Ron Paul didn't exist, then the bad guys would need to invent someone like him. He's attractive to foolish (L)libertarians, as an intellectual distraction from "Who needs a government anyway?"
Greg has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":
I disagree with the first comment. I don't see any kind of incrementalism ushering in agorism.
You're missing the point of agorism. Via agorism, you can achieve freedom one person at a time, as people start working as agorists. Via agorism, you can keep a wage slave job and work part-time as an agorist on the side. Via agorism, you increase your personal freedom even if the State doesn't collapse during your lifetime. Based on the trends I'm seeing, the final collapse is approximately 20 years away.
Any State-sanctioned reform method requires 50%+ of the people to care strongly about your issue, and even then you might not succeed. The bad guys receive massive State subsidies. They can then use this stolen property to profitably block reform.
Probably the opposite. I think if we have some superficial appearance of "limited government" it will probably make people more complacent. And I don't even see that happening. We have gone too far. It's going to take bad bad things to turn the tide towards agorism IMHO.
In case you aren't paying attention, things in the USA are getting very bad. The trend is for further decay, rather than recovery.
I'm not saying I want it that way, but I think people have to get to the point of being fed up and mad as hell and ready to throw away the government. Incremental "limited government/constitutionalism" is a way for pro-state trolls to calm everyone down and encourage statism.
If you evaluate the Libertarian party as a for-profit business, with the goal of reducing the size of government, then the Libertarian party is a miserable failure.
"Work within the system to achieve reform" is pro-State trolling. The system is completely broken. It is impossible to work within the rules of a corrupt system and do good things.
Sometimes, it's necessary to say "This isn't working. It's time to try something completely different."
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Reader Mail #100":
Saying anything "is" is objective. We can know how things currently seem, how they seemed to have been, and how they seem they will be. But even if you could say that someone has done evil, and intends to do it again, does that mean they are an evil person?
whats to say they arent faced with a choice at this moment and see it in a new light, and therefore take the "good" action.
Even that assumes that there are good and evil as tangible definable things rather than objective opinions that cannot be defined unless you give them a set or rules, words, or description.
I disagree. There is an objective standard of good and evil. There is an objective standard of truth.
Pro-State trolls say "Good and evil are relative. You should never say 'X is evil!'" This belief prevents people from explicitly calling out evil as evil.
Consider a psychiatrist. No matter how hard I try, I am unable to convince a State-licensed psychiatrist that "Anti-psychotic drugs are harmful." The psychiatrist has too big of a financial and emotional investment in their career. Every day, the psychiatrist murders his patients, while sincerely believing he's doing good. That makes the psychiatrist evil. The psychiatrist might otherwise be a good parent or do good things in other situations. As a psychiatrist, he is pure evil.
Consider the Rails Advocate or Idiot New Manager at my job last summer. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn't able to convince them to change their ways. If someone is a skilled parasite, they will not change their behavior. Evil is working for them, so why should they change? If a large number of "abused productive" people became resistant to their manipulations, then they might learn to change their tactics. Until then, an evil person will stick with what's been working for them.
If you believe "Truth is relative!", then the psychiatrist, Rails Advocate, and Idiot New Manager are good. In their version of reality, they are heroes. They all are responsible for the destruction of property and squandering of wealth. They are evil. The parasites are the ones most loudly advocating for "Truth is relative!", because they don't want people to discover their scam.
Some people are just evil. There's a common misconception promoted by evil people. "People aren't evil. They're just confused and need to learn." That's wrong. Some people are skilled manipulators and outright evil. You can't convince them, because evil tactics have been working for them their whole life.
A Federal judge isn't going to say "Maybe the income tax really is immoral!" after you explain it to him. He's been brainwashed to think in a certain way. That corrupt behavior has been working for his whole life. He isn't going to change. He'll get offended when you challenge his brainwashing. The judge has the power to rule you are in "contempt of court" and jail you indefinitely. Such evil should be avoided.
Due to the nature of the State and the Matrix, half of the people have the parasitic personality type and half the people have the "abused productive" personality type. A productive person is almost always paired with a parasitic person. This guarantees a 50/50 split. Some people are in the middle, and take the productive role in some contexts and the parasitic role in other contexts. The most skilled parasites play the evil role almost all the time. Based on my experience, only 1%-3% of the population are true psychopaths. However, those are usually the people in a position of State-backed authority!
That is the evil of government. The most evil people gain control of the government. Then, their theft is cloaked in the illusion of legitimacy. People like Obama are figureheads. Obama has sincere good intentions, which makes him an effective liar and pro-State troll in public. Behind the scenes, Obama's parasitic advisers are making the real decisions. Obama doesn't recognize which of his advisers are parasites, or would even consider the possibility that some people are that evil.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Iran's Fake Election":
Ahmadinejad isn't our president we vote Mr Mousavi but fake election's result show us Ahmadinjead your President!!
All elections are fixed, even those where the votes are counted honestly.
Another defect of an election is that, when the outcome is close, you need to wait 4 years or whenever until the next election. Even then, you're presented with a fake choice of candidates that were pre-screened by the Supreme Leader.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Iran's Fake Election":
you said:I'm thinking of ways to become a mainstream advocate for agorism and real free markets. My best idea is "Promote agorism via standup comedy."
I think this would work great.
It's on my list of things to do.
I read that, even if you're good, it takes several years to build a reputation and start getting paying gigs. There's no harm in waiting a few months.
That's the nice thing about living in NYC. There's lots of nightclubs with "open mike" nights. I'll go as an audience member before going to perform. My guess is that I'll be way better than the others, but I won't know for sure until I try it in front of an audience.
I read that you don't know how good an act or sketch will be, until you try performing it in front of an audience.
When I gave Math-based talks in college and grad school, people said that I was a good public speaker.
I read that, in NYC, there are more nightclubs than there are standup comics who don't suck. That's good if I'm going to try to make a career out of it.
Remember that my goal isn't "Make millions of dollars!". My goal really is "Make as much as I would as a slave software engineer!"
The nice thing about standup comedy is that, like agorism, I can start for a few hours a week until I get a reasonable rate of income. There's enough competing nightclubs that it's a reasonably free market.
I read that the most important asset for an aspiring standup comic is "stage time". It might pay for me to rent space in a nightclub in an off-peak time. It'd be nice to tape the performances and publish them on the Internet. If I could get 10-20 people attending, that'd be a good start.
Also, you could try to contact various famous stand up performers. Carlos Mencia for example is known for "stealing material" but because he's such a great performer, and more famous, he gets more laughs. He has often dried up on material and had to do rewrites of other people's stuff. I think there are plenty of stand up artists looking for material. If you can give them all variations of the same material they can perform.
Drawback is lck of control, if the people you provide content to are pro state trolls, or if the major networks are going to edit and limit what they can say, it might not work. What's more, if they take the materil and spin it to instead attack agorism, it could be bad.
But The bennefits I feel outweigh the cons.. Why?
First of all a better performer who's already created the market and found the popularity already sells out and already has the attention is going to command a lot more people's attention. A lot more reward for less effort. Working smarter, not harder.
2nd, if you submit material to multiple people, you can command more attention to what a scam taxation is, and possibly get more aspiring commedians to continue to spread that message.
If any professional comedian or journalist wants to read my blog, then here it is.
I tried contacting mainstream media personalities before. I didn't get a response. The problem is that they get a *HUGE* volume of mail. Many of them don't read it themselves.
I'm sure that mainstream media personalities get pitched all the time for "Here's an awesome idea!" It's actually risky to accept ideas from strangers. If they later do something that's similar to my suggestion, they could get sued for violating copyright law.
If I wrote a mainstream media personality, I'd probably just seem like some random fruitcake. They get so many garbage letters that mine would be lost in the noise.
As you pointed out, if I work as a writer for someone else, then I give up creative control. I'd be an employee, rather than someone promoting their own ideas. If I landed a gig writing for someplace like the Daily Show, I'd probably be most interested in writing and performing my own material.
As I mentioned before, I'm planning on performing as The Supreme Leader of Humanity. I don't know of anyone else currently performing under that name! I've mentioned it here first, so someone can't steal it from me. (Intellectual property isn't a valid form of property. However, I don't want someone else claiming ownership and then suing me!) I don't think that someone else could portray the character as effectively as me. Someone who didn't understand the evils of government, the State, and the Matrix would not be able to portray the character well.
Also, I'd be able to improv free market arguments. Other mainstream media personalities are only funny when reading from a teleprompter. One criticism of Jon Stewart is that he isn't funny without his writers. He can't ad-lib or improv well.
Also, you could be subtle, using good fnords, or point out how stupid the bad fnords are...
"I was watching wheel of fortune and someone got bankrupt and he said "it's okay"... Hello! I just went bankrupt you moron! If you think it's okay, I got an idea... go to the bankrupcy courts where real people have lost everything because the entire system is made up of lies and you tell them "it's okay"... Acttually Pat Sajack, if you think bankrupcty is okay I got a great deal for you. You give me your money, and I'll give you the opportunity to declare bankruptcy!... don't worry Pat... it's okay"
That is an interesting fnord. Financial success or failure is a random event.
Another point I'd ridicule on Wheel of Fortune is their "politically correct" choice of puzzles. If I were a video editing expert, I'd make a clip where the puzzle is "Taxation is theft!" or "War is the health of the State!" You'll never see such phrases as the puzzle on Wheel of Fortune.
If I did have my own comedy show, then pointing out fnords would be one of the regular features.
Some pro-State trolls say "Fnords can't exist. Otherwise, someone would go around pointing them out to people." The problem is the mainstream media information monopoly. Even though I can see the fnords pretty clearly now, I can only reach 200 people via blogging.
(repeat same joke with deal or no deal)I like Deal or No Deal. It's a game show that has some interesting math and game theory content. It's interesting to study "bankers' offer" as a percentage of "theoretical value" (the average of the remaining cases.
One of my sketch ideas was "Bailout or No Bailout". It's the reverse of usual. The banker is the player, and the taxpayer is forced at gunpoint to play and make an offer. "There are 26 cases, each containing an amount from $100,000,000 up to $10,000,000,000." When the banker accepts the bailout, instead of ending, the game keeps going. "Congratulations! You just accepted a bailout of $500,000,000! In the next round, you have to open 5 cases."
One evil fnord on "Deal or No Deal" is when they go rabbit-hunting after the player accepts the deal. After the player accepts the deal, they keep opening cases and show "What the offer would have been." When actually playing, the offer is almost *ALWAYS* less than the average of the remaining cases; otherwise, it'd be a no-brainer decision to accept the deal. When showing "What the offer would have been.", the theoretical offer is almost always *HIGHER* than the average of the remaining cases. This helps provide the illusion that the player did the wrong thing by accepting the deal.
That's an evil fnord. "What's actually in your case affects whether you made a good deal or not." Since the case locations are random, "Did you make a good deal?" is independent of "What was actually in your case?" That's an example of a mainstream media show promoting innumeracy and the inability to make proper risk calculations. "Did you make a good deal?" only depends on the deal accepted and the value of the remaining cases. Based on my observations, any offer greater than 80% of the theoretical value is pretty good; when you open one of the big-valued cases, the banker drops both the offer and the percentage.
If I had my own show, I'd do a combination of sketch comedy, along with talk/news. There really aren't any good sketch comedy shows on TV right now.
When I watched Saturday Night Live, my favorite sketches were the game show parodies. Lately, Saturday Night Live seems intolerable to watch. It's a combination of "the quality deteriorated" and "FSK's awareness has increased."
I think the great stand-up comedy performers would be able to not only take that as is and make it funny, but provide some of their own ideas on the situation, mixed with timing, funny voices, etc. But giving them these type of things, even if they're not neccesarily funny will get their mind thinking...
I think it's probably easier to contact these performers than people probably think. there's a lot of fakes out there, but celebs often do have myspaces, and twitter accounts, and blogs, and they actually do use them.
The easiest way to attract the interest a "name" performer is to perform my material myself. If I'm good, then I'll get invited as a guest on other shows. For example, some of the people who organize "open mike" shows in NYC also work as writers for the Daily Show, Colbert Report, or David Letterman.
This comes down to "If you want something done right, do it yourself!" I don't have any contacts. The best approach is to perform the material myself, and hope to attract interest. I'm more interested in writing my own bits, rather than working as a writer for someone else.
I am concerned about mainstream media censorship. They way to bypass that is via live performances, and by self-publishing on the Internet.
At this point, "promote agorism and real free markets" is more important than being an actual agorist myself. If I get a contract with a mainstream media corporation, I should take it and pay tax on the income. I'll still try starting agorist businesses, or help other people start agorist businesses. It depends on how much interest I get.
Another advantage of "promote agorism via standup comedy" is that a group of people interested in freedom would be in the same place. They could trade goods and services before and after the performance. That would facilitate the growth of a free market economy.
johnny moss has left a new comment on your post "Iran's Fake Election":
economic solution... in some sense that might work, but read what this post says in response to those about ron paul. if the government is reformed, it might be better than maintaining the status quo, but working towards government based solutions won't help.
Real reform, via State-sanctioned means, is virtually impossible. The bad guys make too much money off of government, and can always profitably lobby to block reform.
It would be nice if the size and power of government could be reduced. I'm not waiting for that to happen. If you want freedom, you should start working as an agorist and grab it yourself.
The size and power of government are decreasing as the economy collapses. As the economy shrinks, there is less wealth available for the parasites to leech, and less wealth available to spend enforcing stupid laws.
fritz has left a new comment on your post "Who Owes the National Debt?":
Our children don't owe crap.
Imagine if your parents took out a loan to work on their house while you were in high school.And they told you that when you graduated you had to help them pay back that loan.Because they fixed the house for you.
Or imagine if your slave master went bankrupt. And the person who purchased the plantation told you you owed money because the last master went broke.
no one asked me if they could barrow on our future. There was no referendum . I tell all people that you are not responsible for any of it.
Our slave master is bankrupt. And when our master is forced to give up the farm. We can pummel our ex-master with the bags of fiat money we were forced to use.
Don't be fooled by those who control you.They took out a loan to keep the slave farm operating. The slaves on the farm are not responsible for their masters folly.
The way to default on the national debt is to boycott the Federal Reserve and income tax. You support parasites when you let your savings be stolen via inflation. The wealth stolen via the income tax is then used for interest payments on the national debt and to pay for other parasitic activity.
Economic Solution? has left a new comment on your post "Iran's Fake Election":
You're commenting on the wrong post.
The government shouldYou're entirely pro-State trolling.
-buy out the federal reserve permenently
-form a new currency that doesn't require exponential creation of money to keep the system going (such as a 0% interest loan that must be secured by the value of the asset they are buying)
-Create a fixed amount of dollars that is constantly monitored like the population is monitored via a census... as nanotechnology will eventually allow counterfeit money and paper currency in it's current system won't last for much longer anyways.
-Have the currency/dollar expire every 4 years, to prevent hoarding of wealth and power, and promote exchange and value creation. Interestingly enough, as more and more is created the value of a dollar actually should go up naturally but much more gradually. If there was only 1 house in the world it would be worth a lot, but if there was enough houses for everyone to have 3 of them, they're is no scarcity factor, there's much more houses available, and with the same amount of dollars in existence, it only makes sense that people wouldn't give up as many dollars to get a house, nor would they need to, and wealth would go up.. In addition, this would create more economic activity as more stuff is created because things would become more and more affordable.
-Have the dollars be a certain color, size, shape, or with the current presidents face on it, so people know that when the next dollar is issued, the old one is no longer acceped.
-An economy that runs like this will not require inflation to keep it running, it will only require that we maintain our productive capacity. Unfortunately we won't be able to inflate away our current debts to other countries anymore, but eventually we will get to that point if not by diplomacy, by force. It would be much less costly to start producing and creating.
Although it would seem that the governmnt would lose it's ability to provide pension and such, in fact, retirement would occur faster, because if the money supply remains constant, but more and more is produced, provided the population doesn't grow out of control, the cost of living will gradually go down.
If there is excess economic activity, without excess creation and production, there is likely to be counterfeit money held somewhere. However, with a design of a new form of dollar every 4 years, the money would have to quickly flow into actual economic activity, so the counterfeiters couldn't really debase the currency for very long, and if they did, it would have to create economic activity to do so.
Your dollars must be exchanged if you want this new currency, although there should be a 1-2 year overlap of currencies, in which the old dollar actually would inflate but safely without hurting the economy as replacement dollars could be obtained. The more counterfeit there actually is, the less that money will be worth during this 2 year period. If people are holding money or laundering it and refuse to turn it in, there money "expires" worthless. There could be multiple currencies at once some backed by various things, others just backed by debt like the current dollar if there are concerns.
Some might think that under this system no one could ever afford a home without a mortgage, but the truth is, the prices of housing would become affordible under a currency like this, it is only because so much debt is allowed, and people need shelter that homes have become something that we're willing to pay and slave away, 30 years worth of our lives of work to have. The housing industry has grown plenty, so costs to create new ones won't be an issue, even if they are, the production that normally is used to go towards a home will instead go into the rest of the economy, and other areas will grow, allowingmore value that workers get from their jobs, and as a result people will have the money to pay for the production of a new house without requiring them to mortgage away their lives.
A corrupt system cannot be reformed. It must be discarded and replaced.
There are plenty of reasonable proposals for reforming the State and the Federal Reserve. Do you know why none of them have been implemented yet? Insiders make a fortune lobbying the State for favors. They aren't going to give up their gravy train. They can always profitably lobby to block reform.
This gets back to "Some people are just plain evil. Evil people won't change their ways. Evil has been working for them their whole life!" Necessarily, some State enforcers have the productive personality type; otherwise, the bad guys wouldn't be able to accomplish anything at all! However, they are blissfully unaware that they are participants in a massive crime.
If you desire reform, you shouldn't wait for politicians to get their heads out of their ***es. They and their backers are collecting huge paychecks from their theft. If you want freedom, grab it yourself via agorism.
Some people just are evil. They won't give up their perks unless they're forcibly taken away from them.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Are you a Slave?":
I don't know though, because if you are homeless, does that somehow make you more free? You cannot live life to it's fullest, so in my view you are a greater slave without a home even though technically no one owns you.
I am in my 20s, but I live at home with my parents. Because I don't have a home am I less of a slave? Or am I move of one because I not only do not have a home, but I have parents with rules that I have to live by. Technically I am not required to do so though, I could say 'screw you' and go out on my own.
I wasn't advocating for homelessness. What gave you that impression?
Some homeless people have a reasonable amount of mental freedom. However, they lack material resources. I like my computer, Internet connection, running water, shelter, and regular food source. I'm not giving those things up!
I'd have more freedom with my own apartment, than living with my parents. I'm looking to get my own apartment again. I lived on my own many years before I was involuntarily hospitalized and abused.
For now, I'm accepting being stuck with my parents. The economy sucks right now, making it hard for me to get a new wage slave job. At least I'm saving the rent expense.
I need to acquire physical freedom in the form of my own apartment, before I work on other types of freedom. Regrettable, a wage slave job is necessary as an intermediate step.
m has left a new comment on your post "Stupid Equals Evil":
I think intentions make all the difference in the world.
I disagree. That allows an evil person to escape by saying "My intentions were good." Then, all sorts of evil can be justified.
This also comes back to Christianity and the religion of Absolute Unopposable Evil. If you do evil things, but believe in God, you are forgiven. What kind of lousy stupid policy is that?
It doesn't matter if your intentions are good. It's results that matter.
Of course, if someone has sincerely good intentions, they will change their behavior when they see. One important aspect of evil is that evil people don't learn. When a skilled parasite fails, he doesn't think "How can I stop being a parasite?" Instead, he thinks "How can I be a more effective parasite? How can I prevent people from discovering my scam?"
By demonstrating true leadership, I'm actually educating the parasites. They copy my behavior and body language, but not my actual thinking ability. They're pretending to be leaders, but they seem like obvious fakes to me.
For example, when discussing a software issue, I act like I'm sure because I really know my stuff. When a parasite is discussing a software issue, he acts like he's right, even though he's spouting incoherent gibberish. In software, there's an objective standard of truth. Either your software behaves as desired and is bug-free, or it's lousy.
If you say "the result is the same" you are being results oriented. Under a different circumstance the stupid person would realize the evils of their actions, and they would no longer do it. But they need to have a eureka moment. We all have had mental lapses, and usually it's the really simple things that we miss. Maybe we look everywhere for our glasses when they're on our heads. Then we have a good laugh and it never happens again. But people who have not thought about what's obvious and right in front of them can still be smart, yet ignorant.
No. This is an excuse that parasites make to distract productive workers.
There are some people who have sincere good intentions. They have the abused productive personality type but are frustrated by the parasites around them. I'm actively trying to help these people.
There are some people who are on the fence. They will just follow the majority. I can help these people, but my time is better spent on the true Remnant. In the present, parasitism is held as the role model, so these people try to be parasitic.
Then, there are the skilled parasites. They are just plain evil. These people are true psychopaths. Once there is nobody left to play the "abused productive" role, then these people might change their ways. Until then, these people will continue to use the evil tactics that have been working for them their whole life. These people cannot be convinced by logic or other arguments. Force is the only thing they will understand. The way you force them to change is by educating the people they exploit to stop being victims.
The fact is if someone is stupid and doing evil or doing something both stupid and evil, it doesn't make them evil. If they awake to the fact of what they are doing, they would quickly stop. Is it not until that moment that they "become good" or were they always good but they just did evil things?This is the Nuremburg defense. If you're doing something evil, but were conned by someone else, then you're still evil. Everyone is individually responsible for what they do. "I was following orders!" or "I was tricked!" is not a justification for doing something bad.
If that is the case, these people are merely "useful idiots" who have been used to do something stupidly and evil. They don't realize what they are doing. Knowledge and intellegince are different. There are sometimes brilliant people who know very little.
There are also other forms of intelligence
Consider a mother whose son died as a US soldier in the Iraq war. On the one hand, I am sympathetic because she and her son were clueless brainwashed slaves. On the other hand, I say "You got what you deserved! You didn't teach your son that war is one big scam! You're personally responsible for your son's death!"
It's irrelevant that psychiatrists have been brainwashed to believe "These drugs are beneficial!" The reality is that they're hurting their patients. Once you're brainwashed to be evil, it's very hard to change. By its very nature, the psychiatry industry attracts evil people.
People don't realize it, but an NFL wide receiver actually can have a very high intelligence. It takes a high opperating brain capacity to be able to move through the air, catch the ball gracefully, and keep both feet in bounds. It's not what people are programmed to think of as "intelligence" but it is one form of intelligence.
I never said that professional athletes are stupid. Actually, most professional athletes have the "abused productive" personality type, based on what I've seen. I haven't spent time hanging out with professional athletes; I'm judging based on interview clips.
For example, is Terrell Owens (NFL wide receiver) a jerk? Or, is he reacting naturally when his coach makes stupid decisions? It's hard for me to judge his personality type, unless I spend a few minutes seeing him in person. Is Terroll Ownes chided for not playing the "abused productive" role well. In contrast, most coaches have the parasitic personality type.
There are many forms of intelligence. Someone who is uncordinated is not intelligence in that form... That does not make them evil.
Being uncoordinated is not evil, unless you're injuring other people. If would be evil if someone with bad coordination got a job as a surgeon and injured his patients.
Besides, evil is just a perspective, right? Is a baby born evil? Yet he throws tantrums selfishly because he has no other means of communications because he is unintelligent.
Babies are brainwashed to follow the model set by their parents. If your mother has the parasitic personality type, then a baby girl will also be a parasite. If your mother has the "abused productive" personality type, then a baby girl will also be a productive worker.
However, once you're an adult, you're responsible for what you do.
Generalizations like "evil" and "genius" are just a point of view.
Your point of view is stupid. By your logic, it's acceptable for me to say that, because it's just one point of view!
If you believe "Truth is relative!", then you shouldn't offended when I say "You are an idiot!" If truth is relative, then my viewpoint that you're a fool is just as valid as all others.
Do cats think humans are geniuses? probably they don't even understand beethoven or mozart, they think humans are only good for getting them food.I don't know. I don't speak fluent cat.
When I see a dog behind a fence barking, it now seems like he's saying "Help! Help! Help! I'm trapped here!" As another analogy, the singing of wild birds is friendly. The singing of caged birds usually has a lot of tension. It's something I didn't notice before, but now stands out as obvious.
Is the human race evil? when compared to other animals yes, no other animals have genocide. yet we engage in MUCH more sophisticated behavior.
Maybe your stupid=evil is some attempt at a good fnord, but from my perspective it's just not true.
Your perspective is a stupid one. I shouldn't waste time debating idiots.
Humans are not intrinsically evil. The nature of the Matrix means that a lot of humans are engaged in evil acts, even while they think they're doing good.
Most people, even skilled parasites, don't think "Hooray for me! I'm evil!" The reason it's possible to do evil is that the criminal thinks he's really the hero.
There are math geniuses that can't interract socially, or there are idiot savants and they can play the piano like no other, but can't perform basic functions. In certain areas they may be a genius, or perhaps they are a genius who has not acquired the right knowledge, or a genius under hypnosis.
Either way, you can't label people as smart, dumb, evil, and good, because there is a dualism, a thirst to quench physical and biological needs, emotions of fear, and reactions triggered by our surroundings, and also a desire to help other people once those needs are met, and there is an understanding of how the other people feel.
I'm labeling you as an idiot. This isn't bias. It's my objective conclusion based on your comment.
The reason there are people who are technical geniuses but awkward socially is the Matrix. When everyone is insane, the most intelligent people are made to be very socially awkward. Consider the cumulative effect of a lifetime of manipulation by parasites. This makes intelligent "abused productive" people very unsure of themselves in social situations.
I used to think that it was random if I got along with someone else or not. Now, I see that parasites are jerks and I can't please them no matter what. People with the "abused productive" personality type are easy to get along with. When a parasite rejects me, he doesn't say "It's because I'm an ***hole parasite!" The parasite makes up a superficial unrelated reason, seemingly random to me. Over a lifetime, the cumulative effect is that I became very awkward in social situations. This leads to me making a list of "social interaction rules", a list of seemingly random contradictory advice.
I finally cracked the code, which is "Some people are just plain jerks. They'll automatically look for ways to discredit people who are resistant to their manipulations. You can't logically convince them to behave honestly, because evil has been working for them their whole life." Regrettably, in most corporations, a parasitic person is pulling the strings. Even if your boss has the "abused productive" personality type, then his boss will usually be a parasite.
This seems to be a common point by pro-State trolls. "There is no objective standard of truth. There is no objective standard of good and evil." I disagree. There is an objective universal standard of truth and goodness. If you disagree with my viewpoint, then what kind of pathetic loser are you for wasting time reading and commenting?
There is a universal standard of truth. Determining the truth exactly is tricky. That's why I use Bayesian Reasoning instead of binary logic. I write "I'm sure that ..." instead of "I'm 99%+ sure that ...", because that isn't the way people normally write.
Pro-State trolls don't want people to think that there's an objective standard of truth. "Truth is relative" allows all sorts of evil acts to be disguised.
I really shouldn't waste time debating idiots.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Attention Deficit Order Explained":
I was diagnosed with ADD my senior year in high school. Funny because it wasn't until then that I really started to be more of what they'd consider a "rebel". My grades were better than ever though, but my parents were worried that when I went to college things will change.
I remember coming back from the doctor, and people asked me why I was at the doctor. I joked "I don't know, I think it was something about A.D.D. but aparently I wasn't paying any attention. One of my friends got it, some slave of the matrix girl had a blank stare.
Were you forced to take drugs? I hope not.
I've noticed that the most independent thinkers tend to be the ones labeled as "defective". That's what happens when nearly everyone in the world is nearly completely insane.
m has left a new comment on your post "Is Real Estate a Good Investment?":
Real estate can be a good investment. The thing about investments is, if you're betting on the price going up, it's not a true asset, it's a speculative bet. It's a investment of "hope" which is only a step up from despari because you're living in an illusion wishing for a better reality and admitting your reality isn't good.
That's not exactly true. If you use leverage and buy, you're speculating on a rise in price. If the price declines, you get wiped out. An eventual deflationary recession/depression is guaranteed. You're guaranteed to eventually get wiped out if you continually maximize your leverage. For example, during the housing boom, some people kept refinancing for bigger and bigger mortgages. Then, during the bust, they lost everything. The mortgage on their house became bigger than what they could sell it for.
If you make an unleveraged purchase, then you're buying it to use or hold onto.
As another example, buying a gold future and making the minimum margin payment is speculation. If the price of gold declines, you lose; if the price of gold increases, you get a windfall. If you buy gold and pay the full purchase price, then that is not speculating.
The Federal Reserve credit monopoly and negative real interest rates encourage speculation over investing.
If you bet on it beating inflation, it's even more speculative. Banks in some sense are being sligthly speculative because they're speculating that things won't get so bad that the fed limits new money printing so much that they can no longer print money, or that it will be worth the costs to play the game.
If you buy a rental property, and secure cashflow, you technically have people playing musical chairs for you. If the music stops and a tennent loses his job and can't pay, then someone else has to fill in his place, but if you can't find anyone, you face the dangers of being forced into the musical chairs game.
Fortunately, you can also find a new player, who was previously playing a game of musical chairs. When their music stopped and they lost their houses and got demoted, they suddenly decide to move into your game of musical chairs and play for you. If eventually things get bad and the amount of money in circulation slows down enough, then you yourself have to play a game of musical chairs with other apartement owners, a reasonable amount of the people actually understand the game.
Now you're describing how a free market would work.
In a free market, when someone loses their job, there's always someone else looking to hire. In the present, there are State overheads that add an extra cost when hiring or firing an employee.
In a free market, if you decide to move, you should be able to find another apartment for a comparable rent. Similarly, if a tenant leaves, you should be able to find a tenant who pays a comparable rent.
Even in a free market, there are some friction costs. A skilled employer can find good employees at a bargain. A skilled landlord can do a better job screeing tenants. A skilled landlord can do repairs/enhancements that increase rental income by more than the cost of repair.
In the present, there is not a free market. Where I live in NYC, there are rent control laws. At any time, the law could be changed. It would suck to buy an unregulated apartment building, only to see the regulation be changed so that I'm not allowed to charge the free market rent. If you buy real estate, you're subject to the risk that the laws can be changed. As a non-insider, law changes can be unfavorable to you.
For example, I can buy a house. Nearby, someone gets a zoning variance and builds a big condo apartment building. The extra traffic now decreases the value of my house. "Get a zoning variance" isn't an option for me, because I don't have political connections. Plus, the new construction might get a property tax exemption; I pay the cost in the form of higher property taxes.
This is the state of the economy we're in. Unemployment has shot up, people have been forced into early retirement, forced out of homes and into rentals, home owners lose their homes, and now it is the apartement owners who must play their game. Many of the banks get to stay one step ahead, but as all these apartment owners start to default, the banks will play in a massive game of musical chairs at an epic level. The next step is governments as they try to bailout the banks, and keep people/corperations playing for them, because they know if they do no, they will play musical chairs.
Unemployment is a consequence of the status of Federal Reserve Notes as slave work permission points. When the money supply crashes in a depression/recession, people literally don't have permission to work.
Countries will go to war and take over each other, and eventually all countries will be in trouble...Soon their country is soon 100% owned by the federal reserve, rather then just a partnership where the secretary of treasury actually has a say in the economy.
When this game stops, the federal reserves around the world play musical chairs, and when that game stops, the master of humanity can choose who he wants to keep.
If nothing else, real estate is a good investment because you can stay one step ahead of the rest of the world. But getting into real estate is like getting into a car. It doesn't matter the safty rating of the vehicle, if the driver is bad and inexperienced.
If you're a stupid investor, you'll get ripped off no matter what you do.
If you're a skilled landlord, then real estate might be a good investment. There still is a cost paid via property taxes, zoning regulations, and rent control laws. Also remember that State law makes it hard for a landlord to evict a tenant that refuses to pay rent.
I don't know enough about real estate investing, and I'm not interested in investing the time on being an active landlord. At some point, it may be profitable for me to buy a rental property and rent to other agorists. In the meantime, gold and silver are probably my best investment choices.
I'm seriously considering cashing in all my State paper investments and buying physical gold and silver. When you consider that the State and financial system will collapse within 20 years, then I should even cash out my IRAs and 401(k)s. I'm not 100% sure that the State will collapse by then, so I can keep my State paper investments as a hedge.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is Real Estate a Good Investment?":
actually chapo groovo, china's problems not much better. they continue to lose millions of jobs that are outsourced just like us. They don't owe 60% of their debt to another country like we do, but if you think inflation is coming, oweing people money at least temporarily is a good thing, because you can pay them back with dollars that aren't worth nearly as much. China could sell all of their treasuries, and this would just cause HUGE inflation.
The problem of China is that they're inflating their own money, to keep stable exchange rates with the US dollar.
China's huge dollar reserves are an interesting bargaining chip. If China dumped its dollars, this probably would cause other countries to follow suit. This would lead to massive crippling inflation n the USA.
The insiders who control China won't try to change the status quo. China's leaders like their ability to exploit the slaves in China just as much as the parasite class in the USA.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Video Game Evil vs. Real World Evil":
There is another point of view in this fnord. I think that the message is "start on easy and build yourself up" "attack the smaller issues" "avoid going after the tough guys" "avoid going after the control...
In reality the "bosses" are probably the most vulnerable, that's why they must start with the "difficulty set on hard" for you. Because they need you to think that if you cant take down a level 1 police raid against protesters and you have them outnumbered, how can you ever take on a level 99 ill, loomed, and naughty matrix architect?
The way to attack the boss directly is via agorism. If you are a successful agorist, then the parasite class is no longer able to leech off you.
An agorist is directly challenging the State's core economic monopoly, which sustains the violence monopoly.
It's funny there's so much propaganda for "start at the bottom, build a base. Look at your computer. I'll bet you your "start" button is on the BOTTOM...
State-licensed reform methods have a serious drawback. You need to convince 50%+ of the population of the merits of your cause. Even then you might not succeed, because there are all sorts of ways to rig an election. A candidate might make promises of reform, and then default after getting elected.
I say start at the TOP of the pyramid, whether it's going after starting a big company, or going after a search term in SEO, the competition is actually the LEAST up at the top. It's easier to get the 10star girl at the library then it is to try to hit on the 6s, 7s, and 8s. Why? Because people assume they have to "build up experience points" or "start on easy" or "start at the bottom" in reality there is no greater competition then for a job, where there are 8 billion people in the world, and 7 billion of them have, had, or are seeking or were seeking a job.
That is the way an agorist proceeds. An agorist directly attacks the State's core monopolies. It'd be much easier to join an established agorist counter-economy. Starting a new agorist free market economy is much more work.
Regarding meeting attractive women, I noticed an interesting thing. "Attractive" and "intelligent" are highly correlated, at least by FSK standards. A really intelligent and attractive woman is almost guaranteed to be surrounded by parasites who make her feel unsure of herself. It's important to go by "FSK standards" rather than "what FSK thinks that other people want him to do". It took awhile for me to learn to trust my own judgement, rather than what I think other people wanted me to do. By having high emotional intelligence and logical intelligence, I should be able to present myself as more attractive than an abusive parasite.
I haven't put my theory into practice yet. It's tricky, because someone with the "abused productive" personality type always travels accompanied by a parasite. Even if it isn't a guy, it's a female friend playing the parasite role. The female "friend" will think "Oh no! FSK is trying to steal my friend/property!" instead of "This guy is a suitable partner for my friend. I will make helpful encouragement for her." The problem is that the "abused productive" person lets the paired parasite make all emotional decisions for them. If I'm strong enough at both emotional intelligence and logical intelligence, then I should be able to overcome this obstacle.
"You can't judge a book by its cover" is false. There are important cues both from body language and physical appearance. I'm getting very good at identifying such things consciously. Your brain is a massively parallel computer, and can make such judgements nearly instantly. People have been pro-State brainwashed to ignore their brain's own intuition.
Recently, I was on a job interview waiting for the interviewer to enter his office. (I had already met with some other people.) I had a feeling of "OMFG! This guy is a parasite!", just by looking at the the guy's office, even though I hadn't met him yet. It was a very weird experience.
BTW, I was watching TV and noticed another thing I hadn't seen before. I saw a news anchorwoman and thought "OMFG! She had a nosejob!" Her nose seemed obviously mutilated to me, in a way that most people wouldn't notice.
The US national soccer team upset Spain. Who cares about soccer?
Soccer isn't a good for-TV sport. Football is the ideal made-for-TV sport. Baseball and basketball also are presented well on TV. Hockey is very hard to follow on TV, unless you're a die-hard hockey fan.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Pay Attention When You Talk!":
I'm pretty sure you're probably right that if you published questions such as "aren't taxes stealing that they wouldn't publish it, but I'm actually not entirely convinced.
If I attempt "promote agorism via standup comedy", then one big goal would be to get invited as a guest on a mainstream media show. There are so many shows and a lack of quality guests. I should be able to get invited on something. My character will be so outlandish that it would be interesting!
However, censorship is a rampant problem. If an interview is pre-taped, then clever editing tricks can be used to make me seem like an idiot. It depends on the agenda of the show's producers. If I went on a mainstream media show, I'd make "FSK mentions his own website" a precondition. This way, if I'm unfairly presented, then viewers can go to my website.
For example, being a guest on the Colbert Report can lead to 1M+ visits to a website. Given that, it'd be profitable for me to *PAY* for the opportunity to appear as a guest on that show. I read that, for many shows, the host does not have "editorial control" over who is actually invited as a guest.
As an unknown amateur, any publicity is good publicity. It's worth my time to go on a mainstream media program, even if all they're doing is saying "Look at that FSK. He's such a fruitcake."
There are people that tend to succeed in things when they actually seek out proof, they run tests and case studies. It's easy to be convinced of something and be completely wrong.
The only test that will prove "Agorism is good!" is an actual experiment. I plan to conduct that eventually. It is possible to do thought experiments beforehand. Agorism makes logical sense. Once you realize "Taxation is theft!", you can't support any form of government that demands taxation power and a violence monopoly.
To think something is a good fnord when it's evil, or vise versa. Wor to think that we are making money off our blogs and maxximizing revenue when it's not even close to being true. It's only under intense studies when we actually have to go through failure that we learn. We have been conditioned against testing in this manner. We're taught that a test is only for people to test skills they already have, not fail repeatedly on the same test in a short amount of time, figure out which test got an "A" and continue to use that model of behavior so success is destined to occur.
I'm trained as a scientist and know how to do a proper experiment. If you look at FDA research, there are obvious flaws. For example, anti-psychotic drugsstudies are conducted for only 6-12 weeks when patients will be taking the drug for years or decades. The comparison with placebo is not performed properly. Patients under withdrawal from another drug will react favorably to a new drug.
Public schooling and school testing is an invalid model for evaluating learning. Suppose that one person can learn calculus, albeit at a rate 2x slower than most. In the present, that person is barred from learning calculus, because the class will proceed too quickly from him. If the class were taught 2x slower, then the smarter students would be bored.
Another problem is that the test affects the material taught. Frequently, the material for the test requires the entire school term to teach. This leaves the teacher no discretion to add their own material. If I were a public school teacher, I wouldn't have discretion to teach what I think is right.
I think you MAY* be surprised to find that they do publish it... However, I think that they will certainly put some spin on it, and probably bash you for even considering that statement. They will use it to Fnord ythe rest of the public "if you ask questions like that, you will pay", or the metaphor which is more effective fnord. "stick out like a nail, and you get hammered"
I see tons of internet videos pointing out the fnords, and questioning taxation. It is very rare for them to get removed, and even if they do, it's usually only after it cracks 100,000 views.
The point is, I don't think spreading a message that the system is broken is as forbidden as you think, and I don't think asking questions will be resulted in a negative outcome. It's rare, and is a case of fnord like john kerry speach and the don't taze me bro.
I'm going to try to get a mainstream media outlet to carry my content. I'm also going to self-publish on the Internet, like I'm doing now.
That is a risk I face. If I become a high-profile advocate for agorism, then I'm likely to wind up the victim of State violence. For example, Irwin Schiff and the author of "The Debt Virus" both went to jail for income tax evasion. As another example, Wesley Snipes was an example of someone trying to resist taxes and paying a huge penalty.
At this point, it'd be immoral for me to know the truth and not try to spread it as best I can. I'm going to be tactically intelligent in my approach. If I get a contract with a mainstream media outlet, I'll do that and work on-the-books; I'd accept the evil of taxation in exchange for the opportunity to enlighten many people. Otherwise, I'd work as an agorist. For example, a nightclub might hire me to perform and pay me in cash.
If you take a literal interpretation of the law, saying "The State is evil!" is not a crime in the USA. However, if you attempt to put your freedom where your mouth is, then you risk being busted for criminal activity.
m has left a new comment on your post "Fnords Setting up the Next Recession":
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's possible to write a book about whatever and get on CNN.
Just follow Tim Frerriss's 4 hour work week (google 4 hour work week filetype:pdf)
Then again, if you started getting on CNN and they were expecting you to tell one story and you started giving another, they would get angry and attack you most likely...
but the news is always in need of new materials to mix in so the propaganda doesn't look too obvious. If enough of us learned to use the right resources and get on the news, we could start FNORDing the opposite message.
You only get invited on such a show if your book is published by a mainstream publishing house.
Freedomain and Kevin Carson have published some books. I don't hear of them getting invited as a guest on CNN.
Bas has left a new comment on your post "Agorist Toolkit - Guns":
Responding to your reader mail comment to my post:My point is that you need permission from the State to own a gun, even if you assemble it yourself. There are restrictions on what type of gun you can build or purchase.You are exactly wrong. Quoting that page:
An application to make a machine gun will not be approved unless documentation is submitted showing that the firearm is being made for a Federal or State agency.
It's illegal for me to make my own automatic weapon. Plus, I have to get permission from the government when I make my own weapon.
Where I live in NYC, I believe it's illegal for anyone other than a policeman to possess a gun. I haven't researched the exact law.
I'm not exactly wrong, partly at most! You're right, you can't just build any 'ol firearm you want. The reason why someone would want to make their own firearm, is because there is no paper trail. You do not need government permission (background check) to buy an 80% finished receiver and an AK-47 parts kit and put it together. You do have to make sure the design of your gun follows the rules and that you're allowed to possess the firearm in your area without permit. So yes, you cannot build a fully automatic rifle, but you can build a semi-automatic version of an AK-47 which makes a perfectly fine defensive weapon and cheap ammo, parts and magazines are widely available.
"Assemble it yourself" is not a loophole you can use to get around State regulation of gun ownership.
A proper agorist gun dealer would not have this problem. Of course, there's a risk if a State enforcer finds out what you're doing. Unless you live in a remote area, it's hard to assemble your own gun and test it without anyone else finding out.
"Agorist gun manufacturer" probably won't be a viable business until the collapse of the State draws near.
I saw an interesting story in the local newspaper. Concerned about crime, a group of residents were planning on hiring off-duty policemen to patrol a park. Naturally, the city government quashed that plan.
The key evil of the State is its violence monopoly. Private police forces are not allowed to develop. Similarly, "vigilante" groups of unlicensed police are roundly decried as criminals.
The State does just barely a good enough job preventing crime, so that people don't feel motivated to form competing police forces. In this story, more official State police were assigned to patrol the park.
I've noticed that my blogging energy has increased a lot recently. According to Google Analytics, my readership trend is increasing again. It seems that it definitely takes at least a couple of months to fully recover after being involuntarily hospitalized. Some aspects of recovery might take longer than 1-1.5 years.
8 comments:
I'll post my replies from our email conversation. In the future feel free to post and then debunk anything I say; the truth is public domain.
1) I read that post [Fallacy of Tax Protester Fallacies], and I entirely agreed with it. The idea here is that I (and probably you too) have inadvertently but nevertheless contracted with the US Government. The income tax is indeed immoral, but it's essentially part of the terms and conditions of contracting with or being an franchisee or agent of the USG. A voidable contract, yes (it does not fulfill the requirements for a binding contract), but still a contract. Unless and until you and I take steps to make it absolutely clear in court that we have never willfully contracted with the USG, we are liable for all its immoral terms of contract (all of the USG's code and statutes). This isn't a legal loophole: it's a necessary and lawful voiding of an illegitimate contact. Once this is done, the only reply to a government official need be: "I have no contract with you." Once this is done, none of the value we create is reportable to the IRS, and we can be as in-your-face about agorism as we want.
APMEX and Kitco seem good too. I still have to do some back-and-forth price comparisons between all these guys.
I continued my stupidity, apparently, thus:
2) Yeah, they're silly, and it's stupid to thoughtfully accept them as terms of contract - only many people accept them unwittingly. You don't need to file anything with the state to get free of it - just stop contracting with it by using a social security number, state ID, gov't forms and slave points. The reams of material on that SEDM site are really just a detailed explanation of why and how to stop contracting with the state. My and their point is that US Code is legally binding contract to people who are dumb enough to inadvertently admit that they're bound by it. Again, it's no legal loophole - it's not fighting on their own turf - it's making it clear to them that you aren't on their turf at all, and so aren't bound to the rules of their game. Yeah, they're brainwashed state trolls, but so was I once. Perhaps I harbor more optimism than you of humans' rationality..?
And that was that.
But you haven't addressed my point (the whole point, really, of all this gibberish) that a contract is binding until voided. I am presently contracted with the US Gov't, although I never intended to be and was never told all the terms of contract. Now that I know, I want out, but to do so I must stop contracting with the USG by ceasing to use Gov't-issued numbers and forms. Otherwise I am liable, as part of the terms of contract, to pay income taxes, to pay into social security, etc.
I'm sorry to repeat myself, but it seemed as though you missed my point.
I just wanted to say thanks for the enlightening blog and discussions.
Here's a bold idea, although I don't know the ramifications so I can't reccomend it...
Sue the IRS/government/fed for stealing... (although I think the fed is exempt as they own the courts. I heard the gold bar around the US flag is symbolism and means "property of US government BUT controlled by the federal reserve"
I'm sure that's a bad idea in terms of personal risk, but the idea that someone is even attempting it would create a huge buzz and could have a huge shockwave... Obviously they could not let that person win at any cost or there would be protests and riots and revolution, but probably that's going to happen anways, it's becoming increasingly clear that the general public is becomming aware that taxation is theft and immoral, and the propaganda against it has been increasing, despite the fact that it doesn't seem to be working. I think people are starting to realize that everything they hear on TV is a lie, and the propaganda is becomming less and less effective. But that's just my personal observation.
Maybe I'm biased but it seems the majority of people ages about 18-25 or so seem to be a LOT more aware of what's going on.
In general I think more and more people are "waking up".
I have noticed a lot more propaganda lately in the most ridiculous forms, I don't know if it's desperation or what. But I saw them try to associate tax protesters with racists.
I am not sure if the younger generations will understand even more as they grow older, or if their minds have been put to sleep by the latest video games and such.
I read that Brain scans aparently show kids brainwaves in delta phase which is equivilent to deep sleep yet they're still awake even though they're just responding automatically. Although I and many in my generation grew up playing regular NES when I was very young, I did not grow up with the 3-d lifelike games. I could tell the difference, and I believed that just about everything on TV was make believe. The problem is the games are so real that I think the very young will not be convinced what is real, what is a dream, what is a game, and what is reality. It's kind of "manchurian candidate" like.
I think all sorts of fnords and suggestions could be and probably are used in video games, but would be many times more effective.
On the other hand, kids grow up on the internet. I am 24, so I was actually ot using the internet so regularly until probably early high school and college. I learned more from the internet then school both in academic terms and in real life useful knowledge. I think my generation and slightly younger is probably among the most "awake", because we learned to grow away from TV fairly early, but not to hypnotic games until after we learned a lot on the internet.
However, it's possible that many of the younger generations will grow more intelligent and realize everything as well.
I don't know what age you are, but I imagine you probably are in that 18-25 range.
I'd be interested in hearing what you think about this.
The declaration of indepedence states
...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
So we have the right to abolish the government... Now how exactly do we do this peacefully?
Okay, I'm starting to think that your view on good and evil is correct, but I think I have been too brainwashed/fnorded to think that intention is what is important.
So I'm curious. Is Robert Kiyosaki good or evil?
He has in the past talked about how it would take a return to the gold standard, but as much as he might agree with some of Ron Paul's ideas, he's not the guy because you need a charismatic leader to remove the gold standard.
Recently he is publishing "conspiracy of the rich", which is downloadable for free signup at conspiracyoftherich.com and he actually seems to be doing some good in exposing to a much wider audience then most can reach the evils of the federal reserve, how inflation is a hidden tax, how education is set up to keep us dumbed down, and all sorts of information that I think will be very eye opening to very many people.
He points out how guys like Jim Cramer are just working for the conspiracy of the rich, getting more people into the game of stocks and mutual funds so they can provide the capital and be the tuna for the shark.
The thing that really throws me for a loop is that he talks about "beating the conspiracy at their own game" and he basically reccomends you learn to become an insider and use the tools of a corperation to protect you, then use "good debt", (talks about how the banksters create derivatives getting a return greater than they borrow, at 3% to get interest at 6% as an example and shows how that's destroying other peoples wealth but advises the reader to start thinking about creating derrivatives), creating your own 'derivatives' of yourself(A website would be a derivative of your ideas) and so on.
This certainly may seem like it could perhaps be good advice financially if used properly, but that is not the issue.
The issue is how the solution is work smarter to create more which while good advice, will take people away from agorism. On the other hand, in the past he has talked about how corperations can defer taxes over and over again, and use the money in pretaxible income.
Yet if people are getting into "good debt" and buying rental properties that produce enough income to pay for the debt... This will keep the debt monster of the fed most likely going longer, yet could.
He shows the problems, he shows why the system is broken and why the government will never save you, exposing a lot of the governments lies and so on.
It seems he is good, but is he evil for misdirecting people to the solution of fanning the flames and essentially telling people to accept it and just learn how to become an insider because you can't beat it? Obviously if he advized agorism outright, he would be in serious trouble. Actually, I think because he does his book online he probably has the ability to say and do a lot more because it will already be out there. I'm curious as to how much the book will be edited by the time it goes to the printed version.
I think that he will do some good, whether it's his intention to be a disinformationalist and steer people away from agorism, or steal people in from all the making money schemes to show them how they are being scammed.
Isn't evil just an absense of good?
Darkness doesn't exist, it's just absence of light, just like hatred exists where there is a lack of love, evil doesn't exist per say.
But maybe I am wrong and that belief is a distraction.
Does evil actually have a scale? It seems to me that someone who has intention of good even if they're stupid, is only slightly evil, even more so if the effect they're lack of knowledge is only causing minimal damges.
Also it seems to me that someone who is indirectly responsible is less evil.
It seems that someone who pays taxes and in their own ignorance believes that the government actually will do good, isn't as evil as the government who takes advantage of that ignorance. It seems the person who loans their friend $5, trusting them, who then uses it to pay taxes, is even less evil then the person paying the taxes. Even more so is the employer (at least regarding this specific act) for giving the money to the employer who loans it to a friend who pays his taxes to the government who uses money to create war. And the consumer who buys the product, that funds the employer who pays the employee, who loans it to a friend, who pays for the taxes to the government who uses it for war. I think anyone in this situation could distort the truth seeing themselves as innocent and easily say "well it wasn't my fault". In a way they're correct because it wasn't 100% their fault, but that doesn't mean that if they took a different action that it wouldn't have happened.. It just seems to me that 99.9% of the world is evil when you combine your definitions with my perspective of it. People pay taxes, they're evil because they fund the wars. People join the army they're evil because they fight for the governments agenda. People work for the government they're evil. People pay for products they're evil because they pay sales tax and provide the medium at which the business earns which it uses to borrow from the banks which the banks use to steal wealth.
You need both parties for that evil to take place, both the person paying the taxes to fund the wars (and all other things the govt pays for) and the government to decide that the money should be spent on war. You also need most of the public to refrain from lobbying congress. Of course the people have learned that even if they do lobby congress (such as the bailout) to vote against it, days later the right bribes will be thrown in so it's passed.
Re: "Isn't evil just an absence of good?" by Anonymous
First of all, I don't think it's possible to correctly label a being - a consciousness - or any other thing as "good" or "evil." I think a perfect definition of good is "That which creates value." Conversely, evil is that which destroys value. Only actions can be good or evil, because it is action which creates or destroys value.
Evil, then, is not simply an absence of creation of value, as darkness is simply non-light: it is the active destruction of value.
There's nothing wrong with an absence of value, although I think such an absence is impossible: existence, I think, to quote God in Genesis, simply is good. Evil is that which insanely seeks to act against reality - against existence - against value - against Life.
Thompson
Post a Comment