Paul and Kitty,

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that anything I sent was open to being
posted for publicly. If it will help, I'll post it here though. :)

[While it is correct that anything I or Kitty receive which has no prior
agreement to confidentiality is "open to being publicly posted", it is much
better if the person sending us something posts it hirself. The reason for this
is three-fold (at least):
1) It saves us the work of having to do the posting portion and we only have to
do the commenting reply portion.
2) The authorship of the post is clearly the person who sent it, so that it does
not look like I and Kitty (the owners) are doing all the posting and are the
only ones really interested (as appears true with some other groups).
3) By posting it oneself, you get your own name out there to be searched and
increase the amount and fluidity of the information that is easily available
about yourself. This is in the best interest of everyone. --Paul]

LFNO

[Which stands for "Live For No Other", a quote from Ayn Rand.
Upon thinking about it, I have decided that the quote (which I have always liked
and agreed with since reading Ayn Rand over 40 years ago) needs some
explanation. The reason for this is that it has led far too many people to
conclude that it and Ayn Rand were promoting nothing but greed, self indulgence
and to hell with everyone else.

[Insert - we watched the movie "Dirty Dancing" last night and there is that
terrible short shot of the cover of the Fountainhead as one of the yucky
characters is bragging about being out only for himself. **Kitty]

Of course, this is totally wrong as any deep and thoughtful reading of her
writings makes very clear. Unfortunately, however, her drive was so strong to
combat altruism and place egoism front and center as the purpose of a human's
life, that she never fully developed nor explained how really rational
self-interest (in the longest range, widest viewing sense) would not only be
best for oneself but would at the same time be best for everyone else. And
furthermore, that *only* when others were also free to and were actually
operating in way that would be most likely to maximize their lifetime happiness
would a person be able to maximize hir own. In fact, I don't think Rand every
fully understood this last, partly because she preached and practiced not being
"other-oriented" at all (as in the quote that Ryan uses) whereas in truth one
must be somewhat oriented toward others if one is to gain the highest possible
benefits which only cooperative action can achieve. In fact, I now much prefer
the old quote from Dumas', "The Three Musketeers" which goes "One for all, and
all for one", since, as it turns out, one must be for all others attaining their
goals, because they must do so if one is to fully attain one's own highest
possible goal. --Paul]


RG

[This post began with the following email correspondence. --Paul]

---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Kitty Antonik Wakfer" <kitty@...>
To: "Rion Gregorri" <dcyphyr_all_things@...>
Subject: RE: MoreLife - Comments - Supporting
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 17:15:48 -0700


Hello Ryan,

Your message below was very nice to see - and Paul agreed when I
read it to him. We ask that you make it a post to MoreLife Yahoo so
that we can answer/comment publicly, thereby letting others benefit
also. Remember that the posts can be read by anyone and are
searchable by Google, so this is an outreach in itself.

Also please, just address us as Paul and Kitty - only strangers use
Mr/Mrs Wakfer ;>)

**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Rational freedom by self-sovereignty & social contracting

-----Original Message-----
From: Rion Gregorri [mailto:dcyphyr_all_things@...]
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 4:41 PM
To: kitty@...
Subject: MoreLife - Comments - Supporting


Hello Mr. and Mrs. Wakfer,

I regret that you have not heard more from me since we last wrote.
I have been buried in research, the fruition of which should be of
great value to any Self-Sovereign Individuals and especially myself.
I'll explain further if your interested.

[Please do so. I would be delighted to hear more about what you have been
researching and a summary, at least, of what you found. --Paul]


The time I have spent on this has given me very little time to
increase my income, so I am inquiring if there is any non-monetary
needs that you have that I may be able to assist you in. I recognize
you may have all you need, but you deserve my asking.

[LOL. I will never have all I need unless you can find a method by which I can
increase my productive time 10-fold (and that's just to start with). More
seriously, while we are not destitute, we too are putting very little effort
into increasing our income because we have decided our Self-SIP work is simply
too important to spend the time. The major downside of this is that we do have
to work somewhat less efficiently than if we had more to spend. However, now
that we have got high-speed Internet in Casa Grande Internet oriented tasks are
really not that inefficient. --Paul]


I'm not
exactly sure what gopher/flunkie means (beyond what I considered
myself when helping my father work on a car! lol!) so if you'd
consider further explanation I would consider my abilities to
accomplish that.

[A gopher/flunky is a helper who provides assistance in areas that are of
benefit to us that we would otherwise have to pay someone to do or take the time
to do ourselves (if we actually knew how). I'll give you an example by way of an
email I recently received. Here is my reply inline to the contents of his
message:

> your site requires JavaScript.
> I have disabled JavaScript in my browser due to security reasons.
> All past browser vulnerabilities required JavaScript.

I appreciate your desire to keep your computer functioning at full capability.
However, don't accept computer viruses as a fact of reality, a product of a
non-thinking nature/universe. They are created by evil thinking/doing people.
You likely have the option to click the Trusted Sites icon (or equivalent) in
your browser for MoreLife and Self-SIP. If you don't think you can trust us,
then first do your research on us at other locations. That's a viable
alternative always open to you and others since we are very public people.

>
> Please don't make using JavaScript mandatory.

There is nothing "mandatory" about using JavaScript in order to enter the
MoreLife and Self-SIP websites. We cannot and would not attempt to force anyone
to JavaScript enable their browsers. We (I and my husband Paul Wakfer) simply
make it clear to viewers that they will not be able to make full use of the site
if they do not enable JavaScript.

>
> Here is an example that does not:
>
> http://www.netrition.com/
> http://www.iherb.com
>

Both of these are pure sales sites with a large income stream (perhaps you
didn't notice that we don't sell any products on MoreLife.org - or SelfSIP.org),
plenty of staff and likely even outside computer software consultants. We are 2
people only from start to finish of everything at MoreLife and SelfSIP - there
is no one else behind the scene writing code. If you want to provide coding as a
value for value payment (see http://morelife.org/supporting.html ) for an
alternative to JavaScript for *everything* that it allows us to do, that would
be great - and you'd have public recognition of your real support for our
efforts.

>
> Attachments and web sites that require JavaScript and java are
> the way viruses propagate.
> Without them, viruses cannot propagate.

And without people who would do harm to others, without this impractical
penchant for a "commons" Internet with mostly flat rate charging and with the
help of all those who currently do not socially preference against such doers of
harm, there would be no computer viruses.

>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Thank you very much.
> If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.
----------------EOM----------------------

I have yet to hear back from this individual who is part of an IT support group
at a large university in California. Had he offered to write code for us as I
suggested, that would have been a value to us and I would have gladly listed his
name w/ a gopher/flunky icon and even more if his assistance significantly
improved the websites.

Regarding your question - anyone interested in providing us with non-monetary
aid, should send me a list of hir capabilities/skills that s/he thinks might be
of use to us in the areas of MoreLife and/or Self-SIP.

Very early on in MoreLife's "life", a person Paul had known for many years
provided some useful legwork at the University of Toronto libraries. Now with
the vast majority of published papers available online, these papers are much
more convenient when in .pdf format. However, virtually all of these have a cost
associated with them (from $15 to $35 for a single paper), so Paul only rarely
obtained one. Over the past year, Olafur Pall Olafson has been very helpful by
providing numerous papers (those for which has has access) to Paul when
requested. This has allowed him to do more in-depth review of certain subjects
related to areas on MoreLife than he could do strictly from reading the
abstracts. I should probably add a gopher/flunky icon to Olafur's name on the
Supporting page ;>)

I hope this has helped, Ryan, to give you a better view of how non-monetary
return of value for value received can be given. **Kitty]


One thing I could most definitely do is help spread the idea. I do
not know that either of us would say it is perfected yet and my work
addresses the difficulties I have personally noted.

[Then you definitely need to post details of those "difficulties [you] have
personally noted" here so that they can be discussed. It is also possible that
some of them have been resolved already by the massive rethinking and rewriting
that I have been working on (and which hopefully is nearing a stage of
completion). In fact, making these known is very important right now so that
they can be addressed/included in the work that I am doing. --Paul]


Still, I would
be remiss if I did not credit you and your massive dedication to
this exciting paradigm. I could spread word of your work far and
wide. I know of so many places where a well placed link and
condensation of this idea could become the lightning strike on the
summer prairie where any minds may still search for hope in this
mindscape that is so very, very overgrown with lies and halftruths.
If I did this I would, of course, post exactly what you wanted
posted, no more or less ( something you'd write, preferably ). I
have not seen or heard of your idea ANYWHERE else, and I found it
only after much searching and knowing precisly what I was looking
for.

[It would be good to describe to us exactly what you were searching for which
led you to us, and perhaps how you arrived at the stage of searching for that
(which, clearly, very few people are). --Paul]


So that is one thing I would happily work to change.

[It would certainly be highly useful for you to do such outreach work. Kitty has
recently being doing some, but the more the better. However, it would also be
best if you would write about the ideas in your own words, perhaps with the
occassional short quotes from writings on the SelfSIP website or from
discussions in this group, both of which would entice people to come and read
more detail, and hopefully get involved. The only thing that I would ask is for
you to send me a copy of your proposed post and where it is to be posted so that
I can make suggestions before you post it. This is actually just what Kitty and
I do for each other. We post or respond to virtually nothing related to SelfSIP
without the other reading it first. --Paul]

[If you've read my articles/essays/dialoges (in Focus and Misc Dialogues
sections) over the past few months, you will note that virtually all of them are
in response to something I read somewhere. And then there are numerous posts to
groups and at websites that show up if you google my name. Yes, some letters to
editors have not been published; but I keep a copy and maybe I'll have an
opportunity to post them somewhere else. (Acutally I've done this a few times by
way of the Comment portion of Rational Review's website,
http://rationalreview.com from which the news link originated.) I'd suggest the
same type of technique for finding places to "make an appearance". I wouldn't
suggest just popping in and posting a link to Self-SIP without it being well
related to either the thread or the site. Best IMO is to directly relate it to
the topic of an article or essay by someone else.

I know that the items I've written have brought readers to Self-SIP (and to
MoreLife) because I can see that by way of the referrals on the two Self-SIP
pages on which there is a tracker - the front page and the Social Meta-Needs
Theory essay. And many "visitors" have come from sites that have links to
Self-SIP, periodically from mention of our website in an online discussion by
others. And then there are the interesting referrals when a person uses
particular search strings that result in one of the Self-SIP pages being very
high (sometimes first) at one of the search engines.

I have made 3 submittal requests (August 2004, Feb and Sept 2005) for the Social
Meta-Needs Theory essay to the political philosophy section of dmoz.com (under
social science), the open directory project. While there has been no named
editor all this time, new listings have taken place, but Paul's essay has not
been accepted so far. I will submit again next February. I'd like to see this
essay appear here because it would get even more visibility with searches.
**Kitty]


I don't expect my financial situation to remain challenging
forever, but I know it will be so for some time to come. That is
longer than I wish to ask you to wait, especially considering how
important your ideas are to the future...to my future.

[Your time doing the right things to attract more people of like mind would be
more valuable than money. --Paul]


LFNO

Ryan Gregory