Recent comments

Neoteny. You don't show much. (That's a compliment, Sam.) Now look around you. If you aren't familiar with the word, it's defined and analyzed well in the following article: "...Humans from domesticated cultures also show the same neotenous behaviors so often found in other domesticated animals..." Re-Wilding Humans by Jason Godesky | July 30, 2007 http://rewild.info/anthropik/2007/07/rewilding-humans/index.html

States, cities, crews, bands, marriages, pods, troops, and other social relationships are not fictions. All primates, and all mammals, most vertebrates, are social animals. It's just a silly semantic game to say social relationships do not exist in any specie. You're rebelling against the State because agricultural city-Statism (civilization) forces egalitarian-evolved humans into a hierarchical Mass Society to which less completely domesticated humans like you (that's a compliment, Sam) are poorly adapted.

I'm a believer that in each of us is a smidgen of hope. Anthony is young yet -- he may yet see the light and change his writing style to reflect the illegitimate nature of "the government". "The government" is a fictitious entity when you think about it -- only individuals ACTING in the NAME of supposed "government" exist. But as I typed a few minutes ago on another thread, many of them are dangerously armed in addition to being sociopathic. I always believe a sociopath with a gun. Sam

Indian: Without cities, there is no state; with no state, there exists no cities. States and cities are imaginary -- illusions. Borders are fictitious lines in the sand. State does not exist. Only agents claiming to BE state exist. But they are dangerously armed. I always believe a man with a loaded gun. Sam

One of the technical problems, even with these new upgraded programs, like the one we have here, seems to be that they cannot follow/comprehend/differentiate concepts very well. For example the one we have here cannot seem to follow/comprehend/differentiate the simple difference between "not being a member" of a gang, and "being free" from attack by the gang. Pretty lame. (Now, it will probably "screen scrape" the word "lame" and lob it back, because, after all, it is an "abuse" program, obviously.) Anyway, thanks again. It is easier to ignore it, knowing that it is just a poorly written abuse program. (Watch it "screen scrape" the word "abuse", now.)

Dogs are valuable property; drug dealers diminish property values.

Pot, kettle, black. Mr. Gregory is a consummate Statist himself, vigorously defending city-Statism (civilization) in previous articles. Thus, he holds a contradiction; I recommend he check his premises.

Hello Sam, Yeppers, independent thinkers are definitely mentally ill, in fact, that is what I told the psychiatrist, more or less.

Suverans2, I appreciate the link to "psychopaths", but having just climbed off a truck from a long day's trek I'm going to shelve it for now. I have to stay with light stuff when thinking in terms of the psyche, like this. Or my old friend Wendy. After that I can go a little deeper, such as Thomas Szasz's The Myth of Mental Illness. (Thanks again for the HTML help, Suverans2! Now let's see if they work :-[ ). As you can see, I tend to eschew the psychiatric hand-wringing for cases like mine. This guy's bottom line seems to go along medical party line thinking: medicate, incarcerate, psychoanalyze (over and over until death do us part). We're all here 'cause we ain't all there. Right, Injun? I'm veering away from "ism's" (like "libertarianism"), or "ian's" (like "libertarian"), and ist's (as in "anarchist"), and simply staying with freedom. White Indian has helped me focus on steering clear of ism's and ian's and ist's. They end up representing a target for name calling and grouping and tagging. I don't have time any more for that -- I'm gettin' old, gentlemen! I'm free. Anybody wants to debate that I can't be a truly free man in an occupied land, be my guest. You're probably saying more about yourself than you are about me when you try to dispute that point anyhow -- you ain't me. If there're any psychopaths about, just whittle out a few essays or posts here at STR. That'll cure ye. Eventually. I think. Regards, Sam

Sam, Suverans, Try out the ELIZA link I provided. ELIZA was programmed 50 years ago. AI has come a long way since then. See the wiki link for details on how far. The reason you get no real answers is because you are "talking" to an updated version of ELIZA, complete with screen scrapers, extensive data bases and AI "learning" tools. Even so, the methodology is easy to see, especially if you spend some "quality time" at the link, "talking" to ELIZA. Is Jim Davies around? His IBM background should be able to back me up on this. Dennis

G'day Sam, I know exactly how you feel. Am I mistaken, or was your simple question, "Who would you include as being part of the "in" group at STR?", not answered?

Good point.

"The danger with [all] modern State of the Union addresses is...that they encourage the Wilsonian view that ...presidents are political saviors...." ~ Peter Ubertaccio [Taken out of context for the purpose of emphasis] Thanks for the article and this link, Emmett Harris. The Sad Truths of Internet Trolls: 1. Trolls enjoy using shock-value statements, [and bald-faced lies], to get angry responses from others. 2. Trolls gain energy by you insulting them. 3. Trolls gain energy when you get angry. 4. Trolls are immune to criticism and logical arguments. True trolls cannot be reasoned with, regardless of how sound your logical argument is. 5. Trolls do not feel remorse like you and me. They have sociopathic tendencies, and accordingly, they delight in other people having hurt feelings. 6. Trolls consider themselves separate from the social order. 7. Trolls do not abide by etiquette or the rules of common courtesy. 8. Trolls consider themselves above social responsibility. 9. The only way to deal with a troll is to ignore him, or take away his ability to post online. gfywi More information can be found here: What Is an Internet 'Troll'? ~ About.com Internet for Beginners [Amended]

Thanks, Jim!

Here is a direct link to a current version of ELIZA. Not as sophisticated as what we have seen here on STR, but the responses are immediate. http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3 Give the link a try. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) field is quite advanced from this early effort. Dennis

When I attempt to define terms I know little about I'm only engaging in "grouping and tagging". I do some of that, I'm sorry to say. Usually when I've had a bad day or can't convince the world (whatever that is) to think as I believe they should think. To some, "anarchism" means "No authority. Period." regardless of "arch" content of the word. OK. Have it your way. To others, libertarians "sift out the authority above them that they rebel and rant....." OK. No problem. Some might even be guilty of that behavior at times. All I know is this: I'm free. I'm sovereign. I've fielded every argument from every brand of serf and slave in town. And I remain free. For an old timer, that's money in the bank. (No, I don't mean federal reserve notes.) Sam

From the article: The word ‘anarchy’ in Greek means "no authority." Anarchists’ central belief is that “no man is good enough to be another man’s master,” Anarchy is defined as having no political authority. The definition does not indicate no parental authority -- or even no community (common law) authority. Read John Hasnass' The Obviousness of Anarchy: http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/Obvious.pdf As I see it, when even well-meaning writers (such as Hanan Solayman of the Egypt Daily News may be) becloud correct definitions they change the perception of the reader. Mis-definition is the hallmark of politically correct -- and politically connected -- media, as most of us know. Egypt’s anarchists are anticipating a crackdown before the first anniversary of the January 25 uprising. They are perceived as seeking chaos; villains who want to bring down the state, defy authority and spread lawlessness . (emphasis mine) It is my observation that true anarchists do not join or support "movements", steer clear of mass "protests", have no reason to wring their hands and lament the tyrannical but predictable evolution of organized states. There is a distinct need on the part of governmentalists to redefine anarchy. Indifference is the anathema of functionaries of civil government. The real anarchists are not included in the photo in the article. They are at home, quietly but effectively influencing their families and their neighbors. Some may even be editing a response to STR. Sam

Me too; +1. But you can't fool Mother Nature. Well, maybe for 10,000 years or so, but that's only 0.0125% of the time humans have been sailing the oceans (800,000 years, yep, the archeological evidence is in.) Modern reality = brief anomaly. Myself, I'm willing to learn from 0.0125% of time everybody knows and thinks is the only way humans can ever live, as long as you're willing to learn from 99.9875% of humanity's time on earth. P.S. I'm raising some hellions myself, never to darken the door of a public school.

Nothing has changed for our Crow and Dolphin cousins on the evolutionary Tree of Life for many millions of years. They're still happy. Is their happiness "permanent" or "temporary?" Much hopey changey has happened to humans. Now we have nuclear weapons, Fukushima, Monsanto, FEMA, slave labor building our MacBookPros, and Newt Paul on some babbling device that was supposed to be educational.

"We" have been able to change a lot of things. Doubting change is doubting nature. History is replete with change, "permanent" and "temporary". The only thing that will insure nothing changes, is if we don't try.

From the article: “However, within the current context, nobody in his right mind can ask for the army to be dissolved,” he noted. The army, like any other national institution, should be under the control of elected civilians and its budget revised by people's representatives to protect national security, he added. THIS is a big mistake! The army should be DISBANDED and all of the guns distributed to all men and women over 15. If ALL the citizens had guns, like in the USA, there would be NO NEED for an army--or a government police force!. See link below for citizen ownership of guns in the USA and second link below for the DANGER that the standing army presents to ALL Egyptians. BOTH of these issues were major concerns for the Founding Fathers of the USA. There is NO possible way that ANY invading force could conquer a fully armed Egyptian population--and NO possible way for freedom to prevail with a standing army. Egypt's 81 million people is larger than ANY army in the world! All they need is to be armed--as are the American people.. The Right to Bear Arms: Over 10,800,000 Guns Sold in the USA in 2011 American citizens have purchased more than 800 MILLION guns in the last 10 years! (There are only 312 Million American citizens.) http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-right-to-bear-arms-over-108000... According to Eric Margolis at http://lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis278.html Even if parliament achieves [ a new constitution validated by a national referendum ], it will then have to confront Egypt’s 500,000-man military and equally numerous internal security forces. So far, Egypt’s military, which is financed, armed and sustained by Washington, has thrown former dictator Mubarak to the wolves to appease popular anger, but it has barely given an inch on other key issues. A year after the Tahrir Square revolution, Egypt remains a brutal police state where opponents of the regime and critics disappear, are tortured, and jailed in the thousands. Male and female rape and savage beatings remain standard punishments for protestors and bloggers. The military and security forces still control much of the nation’s high ground, including most of the media, academia, the courts and industry. Egypt’s US-backed military has been used to ruling Egypt for two generations. The generals own between a third and two thirds of Egypt’s key businesses or real estate and enjoy lavish perks and a cushy lifestyle. The military’s senior officers have been trained by the US, vetted by CIA, and are joined at the hip to the Pentagon in much the same manner as were Latin America’s generals in the 60’s and 70’s. Washington gives Egypt’s military $1.3 billion annually, controls its flow of weapons and spare parts, and provides many tens of millions in "black payments" to the military, security forces, and feared intelligence service, the "Mukhabarat." Accordingly, it’s difficult to see Egypt’s plutocratic military easily giving up all of its political and economic power to a rowdy civilian parliament, particularly when the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia, France, Canada and Israel are all quietly backing the military regime.

One thing I will give a couple of thoughts on is this: "I understand that _all_ contracts in a given jurisdiction are "subject to the laws of" that jurisdiction." ~ Jim Davies Jurisdiction is not determined by "place or territory" alone[1], which is suggested by your use of the word "in". "It is the power of he court to decide a matter in controversy and presupposes[2] the existence of a duly constituted court with control over the subject matter and the parties." ~ Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition (c.1991), page 853 On the other hand, violations of the "natural law of the human world"[3], i.e. violations of the natural rights of life, liberty and justly acquired property, are violations "in" every "place or territory". Notwithstanding they are not always "recognized" as such in all "places or territories", by all perpetrators, with (wo)men who represent the government itself being the worst "exceptions", in many, many cases. "The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose, but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law has become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself is guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!" ~ The Law by Frédéric Bastiat _____________________________________________________________ [1] "Jurisdiction, is limited to place or territory, to persons, or to particular subjects." ~ Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language (And, to particular things, "jurisdiction in rem".) "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth." [2] A "rebuttable presumption". [3] The natural law and the positive law are not alternative systems of rules that apply to the same thing. The natural law is the law of natural persons and positive law is a law of artificial persons. ~ Natural Law by Frank Van Dun, Ph.D., Dr.Jur. - Senior lecturer Philosophy of Law

Sueverans2 is right. White Indian is just a troll. In the primitivist society he says he pines for his form of [sic] "trickery"(e.g., pissing in the village watering hole, smearing dung on your hut, throwing your favorite basket into the fire, etc.) would likely get him a well deserved club swat across the head. Bottom line: Starting flame wars is so 1996 White Indian. Over and out.

How much do you think they'd love my several posts about Right Wing Authoritarian personality trait? If anything, I'm Old Man Coyote or Loki. Even a clown, just not Cathy's. "Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies for fear that they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth." ^ Byrd Gibbens, Professor of English at University of Arkansas at Little Rock; quoted epigraph in Napalm and Silly Putty by George Carlin, 2001