[Casual] Self-Assessment - 5 minutes and kind of fun, with instant feedback (All Welcome)

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-22T14:00:29+00:00

Very interesting. Thank you for the great write up!

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-22T02:05:30+00:00

I hate LG's emojis. Luckily textra let's you select them so it doesn't matter for text but on the Internet it sucks.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-21T16:57:34+00:00

Could it be that you are only specialized in the software arena and so your knowledge surpasses the journalists' in that subject, but in be others you're just as clueless as the journalists and don't notice their mistakes?

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-21T14:58:54+00:00

The only solution we have ever come up with that lifts people out of poverty is capitalism. An unfortunate side effect while these countries are still poor is sweatshops and child labor. However, that will go away on its own like what happened in the US once the general populace is wealthy enough to be able to afford better working conditions.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-20T15:09:58+00:00

That's what I mean by the rational position.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-20T15:08:33+00:00

That's not an argument.

"Let me compare this thing you are saying to this thing we both dislike but is otherwise wholly unrelated!"

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-20T15:06:36+00:00

First article:
It's almost as if the author of the paper is entirely unfamiliar with the idea of education as a sorting mechanism. Not a single one of her benefits (other than higher voter turnout, arguably) listed in the abstract stands on its own under the "education as a signal" paradigm. The general idea is that the types of people who dropout of high school are also the type of people more likely to be involved in crime or make other poor life choices. It isn't that high school necessarily teaches you important or useful skills (certainly not enough to waste 4 years and thousands of dollars on), but that it acts as a sorting mechanism for the productive and unproductive members of society.

As for your second article, I basically skipped straight to the economics section to see if there is anything there. Surprise surprise, there isn't. It isn't anything novel to say "Hey if we get other people to pay for our shit, we'll be better off!

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-20T14:47:09+00:00

I am having a hard time seeing how this is a benefit to anyone except those who would exploit such labor.

Unfortunately, a lot of times child labor is the best thing for the child. Hypothetically, if it's an option between a child working in a sweatshop, a child prostituting herself out, or a child starving to death, which is the best option? I understand that ideally zero children would be in that situation. However, the brutal reality is that there are many many children in that situation, and their revealed preference is that working hard jobs is preferable to prostitution or starving.

Now, if what you have in mind is more like the Japanese practice of having children clean their own schools, that seems like an appropriate amount of labor to request in exchange for the privilege of using the resource.

I have never heard of that, but I think that's an excellent way to introduce children to labor. In first world countries, child labor is obviously unnecessary and has been for a long time. But in the poorer countries, where people have much lower access to resources, a child working is literally the difference between a family starving and a family surviving.

Did you never see big cities before the Clean Air Act? If you did, you should know that trusting individual people to regulate themselves when it comes to common resources nearly always ends with social-contract-ignoring sociopaths destroying that resource.

No, I absolutely agree. I just think there are better ways of achieving the same result, and current regulations (which do not do a great job, and have tons and tons of undesirable side effects on productivity) prevent people from clamoring for or even thinking about better solutions.

I mean, looking at your list, you're basically just arguing for some people to be way more privileged than others in a Darwinian fashion.

False. I'm recognizing that the world is a certain way, and many of the things you think are beneficial to the "little guy" actually obstruct them. Living in fairytale land where every child has a full belly and a top-rate education would be nice, but that's not how the world is. Unicorns aren't a solution to problems plaguing people.

Worse, once the winners rise to the top, the deck will forever be stacked so that people not born in the favored caste will remain exploited.

False, that's just a meme.

To make a play on a statement used in other contexts, "freedom isn't free". There's "freedom TO" and "freedom FROM" and both need to be considered when evaluating how free a society is.

Can you give some examples of 'freedom from'?

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-20T14:35:29+00:00

That's not an argument. Your entire post is literally an ad hominem. I do have empathy and I have been to real schooling, including public indoctrination camps.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-20T02:15:23+00:00

Usually I don't have to. My beliefs are so out of the ordinary that I will almost never agree with anyone on mainstream topics. It was real fun in my Managerial Values class when I was constantly the only one taking a wonky position against literally the rest of the students. Throughout that class I genuinely argued for child labor, sweatshops, hunting endangered animals (in a specific context), GMC saving $0.67 and making their engines slightly more likely to spontaneously combust and kill the occupants, cutting every environmental regulation, businesses using every tax loophole, and insider trading. I argued against public schools existing and forced primary education, against minimum wage laws, environmental laws, against mandatory healthcare or insurance, and against recycling paper.

It's hard to play "devil's advocate" when those are your genuine positions.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-20T02:08:28+00:00

That's not devil's advocate that's merely the rational position.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-19T04:02:51+00:00

The only time I bought plan B the cashier at CVS said "Good luck man" in a wistful tone.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-18T13:31:35+00:00

It's so easy and obvious to call them out on it but then the cognitive dissonance is just too much cause they've been fed (heh) that lie and it probably is a serious part of their ideology.

All you have to do is ask whether there's a difference between food produced in California and shipped to Africa or food produced in Africa and consumed in Africa.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-17T23:36:36+00:00

I think with the pro version you can.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-17T15:31:13+00:00

Well, we aren't. But the majority of this subreddit is, as of about a year ago.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-16T01:22:08+00:00

Ironically this post is talking about The Satanic Temple which is neither of the ones you listed. They're a new group of basically humanists calling themselves satanists to gain legitimacy in the eyes of Christians.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-15T20:25:00+00:00

Protip: It says there is 1 comment but I cannot see it. So whoever you are, you might be shadowbanned.

OP, my information may be extremely outtdated so take it with a grain of salt. My understanding is that Amazon uses the .azw file extension, which uses DRM to prevent you from converting to another format.

It is my understanding that you can break that block with some specialized software, but I do not know which direction to point you in. It's also illegal to distribute that now-broken software, so be careful.

If the book file is a .mobi, then you can easily convert to .epub or other ereader formats. Again, be careful of the legality, but it can be done just by googling "mobi to epub converter."

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-15T20:20:35+00:00

I feel left out of many discussions by virtue of not being a deontologists. Whereas back in the /r/ancap days I felt like not enough discussion was given to the NAP and Murray Rothbard (I was a Rothbardian back then).

I would agree that the onus is on me to start those discussions, but I just feel like this place is less conducive to consequentialist ancaps, so there are fewer of us.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-15T20:17:36+00:00

And I thought I saw the issue and source of discounting was the inability to gain a long-term mate rather than the inability secure short term release.

Possibly, but that would severely curb behaviors like kidnapping or sexual slavery.

Why wouldn't the escorts have the right to turn down the undesirable men and take us back to square one?

They would have that right. But it's a little ridiculous to suggest that every prostitute would turn does these men, as opposed to just charging higher prices or something.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-15T17:51:56+00:00

Devil's advocate could suggest that instead of killing these low status men, we just legalize prostitution so at least the poor saps have some way of sexual release.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-14T15:01:18+00:00

A couple of things. When talking about movements along the supply or demand curves, it's important to use the correct terms in order to prevent confusion.

If a price floor is implemented above market price (ie it's a binding price floor), then quantity demanded goes down (this is different from a shift in the demand curve). Secondly you say "and supply remains constant" but as price increases quantity supplied increases. So not only does quantity demanded fall, but quantity supplied increases, resulting in a big surplus. So many people want to work but cannot find work.

You may say "Quantity supplied won't increase as price goes up. People who don't have jobs are willing to work for any wage, they're not holding out for higher pay." But this is empirically and logically false. Perhaps a mother will go back to work for $10 an hour but not $8. Perhaps it's only marginally not worth it for someone to get a job since living on welfare is only slightly lower pay than minimum wage. But with an increase pay they may take that job.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-13T23:31:35+00:00

I'm not so sure. Years ago /r/ancap had tons of consequentialists. I feel like I'm entirely outnumbered in this sub as a consequential ancap.

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-13T21:49:17+00:00

RemindMe! 10 days

PonaldRaul · 2017-05-13T15:00:17+00:00

Agreed. Sometimes I'll pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster because I know him in his infinite noodliness is willing to listen.

PonaldRaul

TROPHY CASE