On 06/20/2009 04:06 PM, freechad480 wrote:
> [Meta
> Although I rarely do so anymore, this message required a couple of
> quick responses from me before it was released from the queue. Please
> see them below within "[]" marks.
> /Meta --Paul]
>
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
>
>> On 06/10/2009 01:32 PM, freechad480 wrote:
>>
>>> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Antonik Wakfer" <paul@> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 06/09/2009 09:43 PM, Chad Nelson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I learned about you through one of the forum posts at www.mises.org
>>>>> <http://www.mises.org/> a couple months ago.
>>>>>
>>>> I think that I can guess which one, but I would like to know for sure,
>>>> please. And even better would be to know what about the post attracted
>>>> you to investigate further.
>>>>
>>> The article I was reading was: http://blog.mises.org/archives/009840.asp
>>>
>> That is what I thought. It was my critique of a section of Mises'
>> _Human Action_ Chap 2 on the principle of methodological individualism.
>> Unfortunately, as is so often the case with my critiques of revered
>> people, on sites or within circles that revere them, there has been no
>> response. I can only conclude from such lack of response that most
>> people who read it decide to simply ignore it since they cannot refute
>> it.
>>
> It is dangerous to idolize individuals to the point that they become
> Gods. There are no sacred cows. Mises, Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Walter
> Block, Marc Faber, and so on all fall into the category of human.
> I respect their contributions, but I also recognize that they do/did
> not get everything right.

Well stated.

>> Ignoring something that you don't like is a prime method of
>> relegating it to unimportance in the evaluation of others, no matter how
>> true it is.
>>
> Agreed. This is the trap that an individual should avoid to the
> extent that truth is the objective.

From the last, "to the extent that truth is the objective", I assume
that the "individual" about whom you write is the one who is ignoring.
However, then I don't see quite how the word "trap" applies,
particularly since a trap usually refers to something hidden and
accidentally "sprung", whereas ignoring something "disagreeable" is very
much an intentional act. But certainly it should not be done. However
disagreeable something at first may appear to be, it should always be
examined for potential reason and truth. If the disagreeable (something
not agreed with) is never fully examined and the possibility of its
being truth fully entertained, then one will never change that with
which one agrees, and thus will never find any new truths that
invalidate current convictions.

[Perhaps Chad is meaning "habit" of evasion as that phrase would make
more sense - at least to me - rather than "trap". But clarification is
warranted. **Kitty]

>> While it is true that my critique did not get posted until 2
>> days after the article (a simple reprint of Mises' text) because it was
>> long and got initially rejected by the system, clearly it did get read
>> by some people, you at the least.
>>
>> I would still appreciate your telling me what about it attracted you
>> to further investigate me.
>>
> I found myself in disagreement with the article in the I / We / Ego
> section. In reading your comment I found that you articulated my
> disagreement, and it made me want to learn more.

Thanks for letting me know. However, since you used an undefined "we"
several times in some of your other responses, you have clearly not yet
changed your own habits. This is understandable. I find myself still
reverting to that and similar old habits of expression occasionally, but
at least now I or Kitty almost always catch such things before they
become public.

>>>> This information will be valuable to me
>>>> because I am having some difficulty attracting people who are capable
>>>> of understanding my ideas and are in sufficient agreement to even wish
>>>> to engage me in dialog about them.
>>>>
> One of the reasons that it is difficult to attract individuals is that
> many people do not read the long comments (even the people that read
> mises.org).

Yes, this is a sad fact, particularly because the longer comments are
always the more substantive and interesting ones. The short "chat"
comments are a total waste of time, which simply clutter up the
Internet. I wish that more sites had a cleanup policy with some
intelligent software that would go through the site and delete all
comments without information content after 10 days.

> It may be wise to break the comment into bite-size chunks.

This reminds me of Jeffrey Tucker's "rule" that all Mises.org articles
must be composed in short paragraphs of no more than 2 or 3 sentences.

[Actually there are articles that do not fall into this "bite-size
chunk" category so he doesn't enforce it on all authors and/or subjects.
I can't imagine him suggesting to George Reisman or Frank Shostak (and a
number of other writers) that they write their articles in brief
paragraphs.
Paul is referring to an article of mine submitted to mises.org that
Tucker heavily edited citing a similar reason. We did not agree to many
of the edits and our rewrite was not acceptable to him - and he would
not even address our reasons. (See "Government Distortion vs. Market
Realism in Space or Is the GPS Worth It? Who Knows?"
<http://selfsip.org/focus/gps_iridium.html> and also "Publication
History of 'Is the GPS Worth It? Who Knows?'
<http://selfsip.org/dialogues/misc/gpspublicationhistory.html>" ) **Kitty]

The problem is that most everything that I write logically builds up
from certain assumptions to conclusions in a coherent whole. No sub-part
of it can logically stand by itself. And most certainly almost nothing
that I write can be meaningful after only a bite-size amount of text.
Therefore, I do not see the advantage of breaking it up into parts,
particularly since each part would need to say at the end "to be
continued" and at the beginning would need to summarize where the whole
stands up to this point, which is going to cause a lot of duplication
and even more time to read. Rather, what I try to do is to state quickly
at the start what I am going to do and hope that attracts the reader to
stay with my text until the end.

> I know some people that feel insulted by long posts.

I can't see how the length of a person's post can possibly be insulting,
so perhaps you meant to say "intimidated", with which I would agree.

> These individuals purposefully ignore the long ones.

Then, they must have very low self-esteem. But I don't then see how they
ever expect to learn. Besides all the works by Rothbard, Mises, etc are
not short by any means and are highly complex. Presumably the posters to
mises.org have read through at least some of these long works, so why
are they intimidated (or insulted, if that is what you really meant) by
a much shorter writing from me? No, I think the reason that people are
not reading my writings is for the simple and quite logical reason that
there is so much in print and on the Internet that they must carefully
prioritize their time. Their method of prioritization quite reasonably
involves mainly reading those people who they either know from the past
are interesting and informative, or who are recommended by someone who
they respect for hir judgment in such matters.

[In regard to commenters on at least the mises blog, many of them
are regulars - an "in-crowd" - who "know" each other to a certain extent
from having made probably daily comments (sometimes more than 1 on an
item) for many months, maybe even years. My observation is that many of
them ignore a newcomer or others who rarely comment and instead have
little chats between themselves. It is similar to a party where a group
of conversants ignore anyone attempting to join the conversation. Now
this is not true for all of them, since I did receive cogent responses
from 2 individuals to one comment of mine. **Kitty]

>>>> This is understandable since those
>>>> ideas are not part of any currently established and widely known social
>>>> model, and one of the major problems with current society is the lack
>>>> of truly open minded and analytical people.
>>>>
> The pump must be primed. Otherwise, individuals will feel like they
> are swimming in the ocean. What one doesn't understand gets ignored
> or blamed for the problem.

Yes, having been a teacher in one area or another for much of my life,
I understand that well. The problem with the social system that I am
promoting is that none of it can stand alone or as an add-on to current
practices. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce and convince people
of a lot of new and fairly radical ideas all together before they will
be able to understand fully how any one of them will work and
practically solve the problems that they immediately see (because there
are major problems in the current society). That is why I and Kitty have
decided to concentrate on two critical methods of the Freeman Society,
which are applicable to the current society, albeit in a somewhat
modified form. These two aspects are Social Preferencing and Value For
Value, both of them also requiring full openness of identification and
eschewing of anonymity and pseudonymity.

> Yesterday, my grandfather told me that the
> Internet is the cause of the world's problems. This makes no sense.

That is like blaming discovery of radioactivity and the binding energy
of the atom for nuclear weapons. Perhaps some people 75-100 years ago
thought the telephone was the cause of the world's problems.

> The Internet is just a tool. The reality is that my grandfather does
> not understand the Internet, and it is therefore convenient to blame
> the general problems of the world on this nebulous Internet.

Whereas the reality is that the Internet is the greatest liberating
factor that has arisen since the printing press.

>>> Something I have found is that individuals have to discover much of this
>>> on their own. You can provide a light or stretch out your hand, but
>>> they have to take the next step. The individual must also be willing to
>>> sincerely question every principle that they have accepted as "truth".
>>>
>> All of this is very true and I generally always act that way in all my
>> education endeavors. The individual has to analyze the data, digest
>> the information, extract the essences and make them a part of hir
>> brain by integrating them with all hir other convictions.
>>
>> Almost 30 years ago, I learned from Nathaniel Branden the expression
>> of "owning" one's ideas and emotions, which expression I greatly
>> valued and used for many years until reading your response and writing
>> this reply. I now realize that the use of the word "own" both distorts
>> the process of information integration into the brain/mind and worse,
>> confuses the status of such information with that of property to which
>> the concept of ownership does correctly and fully apply.
>>
> I have not thought enough about this to feel comfortable venturing
> beyond this depth.

Thanks for responding. I look forward to the time when you have read
and thought more about it and have some substantive comments.

>>> They must also acknowledge that ideas are not Self rather they are
>>> Possessions. Possessions with the unique characteristic of being
>>> possessible by all.
>>>
>> The first, "ideas are not Self rather they are possessions", is an
>> interesting expression that I had not seen or thought before, but I do
>> not agree with it. In fact, I see several problems with the approach
>> of these last two sentences:
>> 1) The clear distinction between "data" and "information" should always
>> be made. (In fact, I think that the Natural Social Contract (NSC) may
>> need to be altered in order to make this clear.)
>>
> I still need to read the Natural Social Contract. I am assuming that
> you are disagreeing with the possession part of the statement. My
> idea is not me rather it is an entity that was generated by me with
> the help of some stimuli.

Your idea is not an entity that is separate or even separable in total
from you. In that sense your idea is part of your self, just as my ideas
are part of my self. Yes the idea was generated by the self of which it
is part, but it is generated as an integral part, just as are memories,
emotions or any other brain patterns.

>> 2) "Ideas" are definitely information rather than data. They are a
>> product of the individual human brain/mind acting on the data that it
>> receives from some external source.
>>
> I am confused about the difference between information and data. I
> would lump them in the same category. Again I have not thought about
> this very much.

Data is the raw percepts emanating from external sources as received
by the human senses. Data is also those mental effects of such
percepts which are clearly objective and not subject to ambiguity and
interpretation, such as numerical data. The words you are reading here
are data. The semantic content of them as phrases, sentences or the
whole is information. However after examining the dictionary meaning I
find that my definition here of "data" is what the Merriam Webster
dictionary refers to as "sense-data".

>> 3) For that same reason each instance of an idea is actually unique to
>> the person in whose brain/mind it resides. It is uniquely integrated
>> with all hir other knowledge and is essentially inseparable from its
>> integration into the whole of the mind.
>>
> Never thought about this before, but I agree that each instance of an
> idea is unique to the person. This is similar to an individuals
> perception of a given event or object.

Yes. That is a reasonable way to look at it, even though an idea is more
complex and a more abstract product of mental processing than merely the
reception and filtering and interpretation of perceptions.

> If two people come up with the idea of creating a hotdog stand, then
> there will be differences it the specifics. However, the ideas are
> not unique at the highest level of creating the hotdog stand, but at
> the implementation level e.g. color, shape, size, portability, and so
> on they may vary greatly.

I think that perhaps you are still missing my point because you likely
have little detailed knowledge of the operation of the brain. Nothing
in the brain stands in isolation. Anything as complex as an idea (even
something as simple as the idea of creating a hotdog stand) is linked
to a vast number of other ideas and data - for example, the exact nature
of the purpose of the idea, when and how did the idea come about, etc.
There is no part of the idea that is in isolation and is not different
than anything in the mind of any other person who may think that s/he
has the same idea. All that one can do is to extract certain very
minimal attributes of an idea in one's mind and communicate this simple
extraction to another person. That is where the simple "creating a
hotdog stand" might come into being as information. (Although as
juxtaposed words they are actually only data. It is the semantics of
that data which constitutes the information, which leads to the next
consideration.) However, even then there will be differences between
the two people in the exact meaning of both the verb "create" and moreso
the phrase "hotdog stand", so it is still hard to put a finger on
exactly just what has been communicated.

[How each of 2 individuals arrives at the decision to "create" a hotdog
stand is unique. There are numerous possibilities that I can think of
and each of them would have a significant bearing on the "creation".
**Kitty]

> The other important point about an
> individual's specific ideas is that they are dynamic and change based
> on new data or information that was not previously available.

True and very important, but the amount of change due to such factors is
highly variable between different individuals and for different subject
areas. For example a true believer's true belief is impervious to any
new data or information. Ideas and decisions also change even without
new data/information as a result of thinking both conscious and
subconscious. Particularly the latter continues automatically in the
background, uncontrolled by the conscious mind.

What I seek are those people who are ready and able to reconsider any of
their ideas whenever there appears any new data/information relative to
that idea. My term for this characteristic is non-evasive open
mindedness. I suggest that this is one of the things that your
questionnaire needs to determine.

>> 4) Therefore, at best, any idea in a person's mind can only be partially
>> communicated to others. This is as opposed to an item of property, which
>> can be transferred in its entirety to another person.
>>
> Again I would agree at the micro level. At the macro level general
> ideas can be communicated completely.

I have explained above why there really is no such thing as a "macro
level" wrt the brain, information in it and even information being
communicated.

[Even what might be considered the simplest of ideas are often not
communicated completely - such as how to position/reposition something
- and necessitate repeated restatement until both parties are in agreed
understanding. Additionally, if there was something truly "macro" about
human communication (of ideas), there would not be the enormous amount
of dissension in the world between people who generally do not wish any
harm to others. **Kitty]

>> 5) The important social aspect of "possessions" is their ability to be
>> "property" - to be owned by a given person (or persons under the terms
>> of a contract among them). For that reason, it is important to clearly
>> distinguish between the concepts of "ownership", "possession" and
>> "control" as I have done within their definitions in the NSC.
>>
> I still need to read this document.

Yes. Any moderate understanding of the Social Meta-Needs Treatise
requires an understanding of the definitions in the NSC. And any
moderate understanding of those definitions requires reading the entire
NSC and all its annotation pages (37 in all - see:
http://selfsip.org/solutions/socialcontract_annotations/ but these are
all linked from the appropriate words and phrases in the NSC, which is
why that directory has no index page).

>> 6) Because data is possessable by more than one person, I think that it
>> is invalid, or at least confusing, to describe it as property (which
>> is not thus possessable), and this is even more the case for
>> information, which, as described above is unique to the individual
>> mind in which it resides.
>>
> Agree that it is confusing to think of data as property especially if
> classifying it as property conveys some entitlement(s) that assume
> unique or exclusive possession as opposed to distributed possession.

Good! You have seen the crucial point. It is the classifying of
data/information as a special kind of "intellectual" property which then
promotes the idea that it can be and should be controlled in a similar
manner to material property, even though everyone agrees that its
possession characteristics are different than material property.
Historically people have thought that creation and initial possession
(ownership by default) must necessarily entitle some kind of ongoing
control in order for the creator to be able to gain value from his
creation. But such ongoing control also makes data/information
completely different from material property for which control is totally
relinquished once it is transferred. Therefore it is clear either way
that data/information is examined and dealt with that it has very
different attributes than does material property and should be
classified as a different kind of entity all together.

My system divides all things that humans will voluntarily exchange into
4 distinct and mutually exclusive categories:
1) Material Goods - all Material Existents (objects, energy, lifeforms
including humans),
2) Real Estate - well defined volumes of space (exclusive of any matter
or energy therein,
3) data/information - elements of Meta-Realities greater than 0,
4) services - all voluntary human interactions exclusive of any
concurrent exchange of any of the others.

>> 7) The above analysis leads to the complete repudiation of the notion of
>> copyright (which was already not part of my social system). Because of
>> this, while the originator of data and information certainly has
>> contractual entitlements to that data and information given that such
>> contracts are concluded with the receiver voluntarily and prior to any
>> transmission, s/he has no "ownership" entitlement once the data and
>> information have been made "public" (since there can be no such valid
>> contract with everyone).
>>
> Agreed. Copyright is bad. Any individual that consumes public data
> is entitled to use that data. It is not possible to unconsumed data.

First note that the notion of "public" with respect to anything but
data/information is effectively invalid, since except for
data/information, only one person at a time can be possessing and
controlling either a Material Existent or the space within which hir
body exists. In addition, just how data/information has become "public"
is crucial. My definition of public data/information is data/information
that has been transferred from its creator to another person without any
contract covering transfer to others. Under such circumstances the
creator not only relinquishes exclusive possession of the
data/information, but automatically loses all control of its transfer to
others. This loss, however, is completely separate from the matter of
whether or not the creator should be rewarded by others who receive and
benefit from the data/information. It is this total separation of the
ownership/possession/control of data/information from its value to
others and value returning capability to the creator which
differentiates data/information from all other things that are exchanged
between humans. And yes, the fact that one cannot unconsume (or better
unreceive) data/information is a part of this difference, but it is not
the critical factor since that characteristic is also true for services.

>> 8) As far as I can see then, the only way that is left to reward the
>> originator of data and of information, even for the partial amount of
>> which a person is capable of transferring, is the method of value for
>> value - a voluntary transfer to the originator of the data and/or
>> information of an amount of value equivalent to that obtained from the
>> transfer by the receiver of the data and/or information.
>>
> An after-the-fact value for value transactions can be a way to reward
> releasers of data.

Yes, it is a more reasonable method of value transfer whenever, and to
the extent that, the value to the receiver cannot be fully determined
before the receipt of the good, service, real estate or data/information
occurs.This (value not being able to be fully determine ahead of time)
is probably just as common for services as it is for data/information.

> Donations and Advertising are used to accomplish
> this, however, individuals other than yourself might benefit from the
> advertizing revenue since they are free to distribute your work.

I have great difficulty understanding the above. The only portion that
I really understand is about donations.

Yes, donations are one method of returning value for value received to
the extent that they reflect the value gained by the donor. However, I
think that calling them donations is not going to change people's
thinking in the right direction because people normally associate
donations with unnecessary altruistic gifts. Instead what is needed is
for people to realize that being responsible and wanting to optimally
increase one's lifetime happiness makes it *imperative* (fundamentally
necessary) that one reward others for their productive efforts with the
amount and to the extent that such productive efforts enable one to
increase one's lifetime happiness. Calling such reward a "donation" will
not accomplish such understanding, IMO.

With respect to advertising, I do not see how that is in any manner a
reward transmitted from the receiver of the value to its creator or
transmitter. In times past, advertising played an important and
critically beneficial role in providing information about products
(including Real Estate) and services, including both the existence and
the descriptions/prices of them. With the Internet only the first
existence is a necessary function of advertising, since the latter two
can be easily found by searching. For this reason, except for very novel
products I see little need and place for advertising on the Internet. It
is more a detriment to information access than it is a benefit. One of
the purposes of the value for value approach is to decrease the need for
suppliers of information to rely on advertising revenue to the detriment
of the major purpose, the supply of information. This is the major
reason that I and Kitty decided not to have advertising on any of our
websites. An additional reason is that we do not support the benefit of
and therefore would certainly not promote many of those things which are
currently advertised on the Internet. I am always negative with respect
to anyone who takes copies of my writing, places them on their website
and gets advertising revenue from such pages. In one case, I did
complain to such a site owner and my description of the benefits of
pyridoxamine was removed. With respect to SelfSIP writings this is
hardly something that we need be concerned about at the moment, since
those writings are unlikely to draw sufficient numbers of readers to
benefit anyone from the advertising revenue on their pages.

> A before-the-fact value for value transaction can also occur. This
> is similar to the venture capital model.

Yes, but providing money before the value of the return can be
determined is only a trivial part of what is "essential" about the
venture capital model. The essential aspect is that there is a *small
chance* (small or it would not be described by the word "venture" rather
than merely providing capital via a loan or a share return) that the
production of the good or service being capitalized will create a *large
amount* of net value among those who purchase the good or service (and
for that reason they will transmit in return a *large amount* of value
to the producers and/or their capitalizers).

> One or more people pay me to
> produce and release a book or video.

Yes, but this does not equate them to venture capitalists. They may all
simply be willing to foot the bill in order to have the book or video
for their own enjoyment. Any additional, value received would then be
effectively profit (that beyond which is necessary to adequately cover
*all* costs), which profit is then promotional of, and incentive for,
additional similar production.

> It is a model that will be
> implemented by this website: http://www.piratemyfilm.com/

I can see no where to go to read anything about the concept and the name
immediately strikes me as *god awful*. If the concept is about many
people who wanting a film to be made cooperatively financing its
production (which is an excellent idea even though not particularly
novel), then using the word "pirate" is completely misleading and
distortional. It is similar to the use of the word "rip" or "ripping" or
"ripped off" which initially was a euphemism for simple and plain theft,
but has now come to mean the copying of the data/information from one
audio or video media to another where it is more easily both
duplicatable and distributable (even when such copying is totally legal
and ethical). This blending and mashing of the ethical with the
unethical is another one of the major faults with the thinking of so
many people in current society. Furthermore, if the concept is as you
described, then even the "my" is misleading, since if the film is
financed by others then it is not the property of its producers (they
are not its only creators), any more than the house that I live in is
"my house" while it still has a mortgage on it - which is a major reason
why neither of the residences of me and Kitty nor any other of our
property has mortgages or anything owing.

> Here is a link to a video explaining the concept:
>
http://maxkeiser.com/2009/04/08/stacy-blog-the-piratemyfilm-pitch-in-video-a-new\
-t-shirt-design/

Being on a dial-up in Canada we cannot get videos from the Internet, and
in any case, we refuse to attempt to gain information via videos, since
we are convinced that writing is the only means by which complete
information can be exchanged, fully considered, fully analyzed and fully
responded to. (And such exchange is hard enough in writing (as witness
this discussion) without all sorts of excess baggage of personal
presentation getting in the way of rational thought and deep analysis.)

Meta
Snipped thanks and "your welcome* (which last should have been "you're
welcome").
/Meta

>>>>> Yesterday, I completed reading your document about social meta-needs.
>>>>> I found that your arguments against rights were quite compelling.
>>>>>
>>>> Again that's great to hear. When I submitted the Social Meta-Needs
>>>> treatise to Libertarian Papers <http://www.LibertarianPapers.org> it
>>>> was rejected with the remark from one "reviewer" (I put it in quotes
>>>> because the speed of rejection was such that no one could have
>>>> actually taken time to study it in detail) that the paper was "just
>>>> providing a slightly new and modish vocabulary for the same things
>>>> that we all accept".
>>>>
>>> Have you sent any of your papers to Walter Block? I am curious as to
>>> how he would respond. He seems willing to consider many different
>>> points of view.
>>>
>> I first heard of Walter Block when I read his book "Defending the
>> Undefendable", probably a couple of years after its publication in 1976.
>> I immediately thought it was great, even though I was still an
>> objectivist limited governmentalist at that time. However, I also took
>> exception with his designation of "hero" status to pimps, slum-lords
>> and drug pushers, even though he was fully correct in defending the
>> legality, and to some extent even the value, of some of their actions.
>> Soon after reading the book, I and several other Toronto libertarians
>> heard that Block was speaking at a libertarian event in Detroit (an
>> easy drive from Toronto) and went to see him there. I happened to be
>> sitting in the front row with my copy of his book on the table in
>> front of me. At the beginning of his talk he needed a copy, spotted
>> mine and used it. As a result my copy now contains a written note of
>> thanks from him inside its front cover. So as you can see Walter Block
>> was one of my earliest libertarian heroes.
>>
> He has certainly influenced me during the past 2-3 years.

I am sure that he is playing a very useful role (as Murray Rothbard did
before him) of promoting, and exciting people about, libertarian ideas.
Such people are very beneficial for both slowing the growth of statism
and for starting people on the path to discovering the fundamental
truths of personal and social reality, which will eventually enable them
to develop methods to change the thinking of sufficient numbers of
people to actually create a society of total liberty, which is essential
for gaining highest possible lifetime happiness.

>> Fast forward to Fall 2002.
>> I and Kitty attended the Freedom Summit in Phoenix -
>> http://freedomsummit.com (my first winter at our home in AZ, after
>> having my entry ban to the US lifted). Part of the reason for attending
>> was that Walter Block was the after dinner speaker. Another major part
>> of the reason was that George H Smith was also speaking (another one of
>> my libertarian heroes for many years and at that time). What happened to
>> my connection with Smith is documented in the dialog section of SelfSIP
>> and even more and worse since has not been documented but is available
>> to be seen on the Internet.
>>
> I do not know much about George H Smith.

Google him. He was a founder of the Voluntaryist Society and some of
his writings are reviewed on Mises.org
There is also a dialog with him in the Dialogues section of SelfSIP.org
- http://selfsip.org/dialogues/ghs/index.html You can see the disastrous
result that came from my effort to pay him money to review my budding
ideas in 2003.

>> Anyway, getting back to Block, naturally I was looking forward to his
>> talk (which unfortunately now I cannot remember the title or subject
>> matter). After it was finished, during the audience question period, I
>> posed to him a question of some substance and foundational originality
>> (again I cannot remember exactly what). His response was very equivocal
>> and when pressed further, he simply relied on the opinion of Murray
>> Rothbard as an *authority* on the subject (argument from authority).
>> This single event of usage of such well-known false logic, greatly
>> reduced my respect for Block. Jim Davidson (http://indomitus.net/jdbio.html)
>> was sitting at our table, was a witness to the whole affair (and might
>> remember the subject) and agreed that Block's response was effectively
>> denigrating and evading the question.
>>
> This is disappointing. However, it does not seem appropriate to
> immediately move someone from the hero bin to the garbage bin.

That is a real leap! Nothing that I have said implies that I have done
that. I simply said: "this single event ... greatly reduced my respect
for Block". This does not imply that my respect was reduced to zero or
became negative. I still recommend his books. I also still highly
recommend Nathanial Branden's books and Ayn Rand's books even though I
have major differences with them and Branden would not even respond
reasonably when I recently made some cogent remarks on his blog that he
did not agree with. I and Kitty are both convinced that being completely
honest also implies being completely open about one's evaluations of
people both to them and to others. Is this not what you are doing with
respect to the things that I and Kitty have written and done? (This
bears no relationship to whether or not your comments are fair, complete
and useful.)

> It should be recognized that radical ideas are radical because many
> people have not considered them. Everyone disagrees with another
> person about something.

I have always known that, which is why I have come out so strongly
against judging and valuing a person as a whole. As I have stated and
written many times for each two persons A and B, there is some attribute
C in which A is superior to B (by some reasonable measure) and some
other attribute D in which B is superior to A. People are that unique
and different. The same will be true for the attributes of being
convinced of certain ideas, even though "superior" will not then be the
proper descriptive word.

> There does not appear to be slack in your system human error.

No. That is a general tendency of all Ayn Rand Objectivists, but I
stopped behaving that way over 40 years ago. What I do do is to hold
certain attributes of character to be essential - intellectual honesty
being the best description of such an essential attribute. I will even
go so far as to give Block the benefit of the doubt and agree that he
was aware of his own intellectual dishonesty with respect to the
incident that I described. (I sure wish that I could remember the
subject matter involved :( However, even that is negative since he
*should have* been so aware. I, myself, would never make such an
argument and I was really shocked that he would and did!) Doing so was
not an "error" in any sense of one that any rational intellectually
honest person could make. It was a deliberate evasion.

> I do not agree with everyone on everything. In
> fact, I expect a lack of agreement.

I go much further. Speaking of the general population, I expect that I
would not agree with them on the vast majority of anything about which
we would converse. And I don't expect to agree on much even with those
people who are not filtered out and I end up talking to about
substantive issues.

> If I agree with someone 80% of
> the time, then I will not toss them aside just because they do not
> agree with me on the other 20%. Rules for human interaction should be
> flexible enough to accommodate dissimilarity between human actors.

As I have stated before not all ideas and attributes are of equal weight
in the evaluation of the worth to deal with of another person, so
percentages have no meaning here. There are essentials with which one
cannot do without or else interaction of any kind is pointless. There
are people who one must simply *write off* - life is too short and time
is too scarce to spend time on them - better to get on with finding
someone with the necessary essentials.

[There are likely many government law enforcement agents (and military
participants) with whom I "agree" on music tastes, fiction genres,
life-extension health matters, cryonics, food favorites, and numerous
other areas of human interests. However if they are adamant in their
employment - have no intention of leaving it and doing something
non-harmful - then I will not voluntarily associate with them. **Kitty]

>> Walter Block is also one of the editors of Libertarian Papers, and could
>> well be one of those who peremptorily dismissed my submission. Yes, I
>> guess that I should send it to him anyway, but I have little confidence
>> that he would actually read it and think about it seriously, so I have
>> not done so.
>>
> I would encourage you to devise a plan that results in Walter Block
> reading and seriously reviewing all of your papers. As opposed to
> assuming that it will not work. Half-hearted efforts lead to
> half-hearted results. One way may be to pay him. Value for value
> typically gets my attention. Of course you shouldn't offer cash
> unless he declines the "review for free" option. I "believe" that he
> is on sabbatical right now meaning that he may have some extra time.

Last evening (6/22) I sent an individual email to 7 editors of
Libertarian Papers (including Walter Block) listing some radical ideas
from my treatise to pique their interest and asking them to make a
serious review of it. I don't expect that anything but a few replies (if
even that) saying essentially: "I am too busy right now, maybe later",
but we (meaning you, I and all other readers of Yahoo morelife) shall see.

>> I chose instead to ask Jan Narveson, one of the other
>> Libertarian Papers editors who I have also met and talked with, to
>> review it. He did tell me he had not seen it because he was so busy
>> at the time, but that it looked interesting and that he would take a
>> look at it when he was finished his editing of a book for publication.
>> But so far he has not and a reminder to him a few weeks ago went
>> unanswered. I have now decided that I will send it out to several more
>> people (including Block) because there is little loss in doing so and
>> if I don't send it then the response is automatically null.
>>
> Great!
>>> On a separate note: I have forwarded some of your links to a couple
>>> people who may be interested.
>>>
>> Good. I look forward to hearing about any response that you get.
>>
> Only received a response from one person. His response was that he
> did not like the way the website looked and that he thought this
> project was similar to that of the tower of Babel. This surprised me
> since I pegged this individual as more open-minded and less lazy. I
> made three attempts to get him to read the Social Meta-Needs document.

I am not surprised by this at all. I suggest that what you are finding
out is that certain people who you regard as friends and for whom you
have respect, are not in those categories. The reason why you are
finding this out is because you had never sufficiently tested and
challenged them before to really *know* whether or not your evaluation
of them was valid. This is not any kind of criticism of you. It is the
was most people in the current society operate. It is the way almost all
relatives operate with respect to one another. It is the way both I and
Kitty operated until after we met each other. In my case (and partly in
Kitty's case) it was a method of operation born out of the need to have
*someone* "close" to interact with. Now that we have each other with
whom we can be totally open and honest, we no longer have that need,
So we have totally eschewed any intellectual dishonesty of any kind,
including not being totally open with others or not requiring openness
from others. We are determined never to act this way with anyone again
(except of course those who would initiate violence against us), no
matter what the result, and additionally to clearly "test" others near
the start of any relationship, so that we do not waste time with
intellectually dishonest people.

>>>>> What struck me as more surprising, however, was that you are seeking
>>>>> to put the ideas of liberty into practise.
>>>>>
>>>> I have always been both a theoretician and practical person in many
>>>> diverse areas. I don't agree that there is any dichotomy between
>>>> theory and practice. If some theory is not practical then it simply is
>>>> not a valid theory (one that is true of reality).
>>>>
> I agree with and also possess the desire to put theory to the test.

Yes, that is the only way to validate it against reality.

> [Meta
> I have belatedly and retroactively changed the entire following dialog,
> and few other similar remarks later on, to Meta status.
> /Meta --Paul]
>
>> Meta
>> Chad, It is one of my requirements of dialog, that my respondent make
>> a response to everything of substance that I state. If one does not do
>> this, I take it as a kind of insult, equivalent to totally ignoring
>> something of substance that I have stated during an in-person
>> conversation. And I will not continue discussion for long with someone
>> who continues to ignore things that I say or write. Furthermore even
>> if you assure me that you always read and take in all of my responses,
>> without some kind of response text I have no way to know the level of
>> your understanding of it.
>>
>> So please respond to everything only if to say that you agree or
>> disagree, but do not currently have either the time or sufficient deep
>> thinking about the subject to give reasons for your agreement or
>> disagreement (particularly if the latter).
>>
> I understand your concern to a certain level and will make an effort
> to address all responses. As far as insults are concerned please be
> cautious about inferring insults. If I intend to insult you I will
> make it very clear by stating, "The following is intended to insult
> you" this would then be followed by clear and unambiguous insults that
> attack both the message and the messenger. Be advised that I do not
> toss insults around lightly. I also make an effort to understand the
> other individual even though a certain action or lack thereof may on
> the surface seem insulting. I expect the same from you.
>
> [Meta
> My usage of "I take it as a *kind of* insult" (emphasis added) was
> meant to signify both that the act of not responding to a substantive
> remark had a negative effect on me similar to that of an insult and
> that the effect was unintended. I guess that I should have used the
> longer phrase "I take it as a kind of unintended insult" to make that
> dual purpose clearer.
> OTOH, perhaps the word "insult" is always too "hot" and I would have
> been better to say: "I see it as discourteous".
> OTOH-2, once a person fully understands Social Meta-Needs and its NSC
> and Social Preferencing implementations, s/he will realize that
> intentions bear no relationship to harm. Unfortunately, because my
> creation has had such a revolutionary change on my own thinking, I
> often have trouble remembering how I must deal with others who are not
> yet so changed./Meta --Paul]

Nothing that I every say or write should ever be taken as an intended
insult. And I did not take anything that you have written as an intended
insult of either me or Kitty. My assessment of you right from the start
has been that you would not intentionally say anything insulting. So
that everyone is on track definitionally here, the following is the
meaning of "insult" that I think we are both using:
2 : a gross indignity offered to another either by word or act :
an act or speech of insolence or contempt <his words were a studied
/insult/> <such an offer was an /insult/ to our intelligence>
Note that intentionality is not necessarily implied. The first example
usage above is clearly intentional but the second might not be.
Unfortunately, as is so often the case, when looking up the word and
examining its etymology, it because clear that this is one more English
word distorted from its Latin roots.
Etymology: Middle French or Late Latin; Middle French /insult, insulte,
/from Late Latin /insultus, /probably from Latin /in- /in- + /-sultus
/(from /saltus /leap) (probably influenced by Latin /insultare /to
insult, spring upon); akin to Latin /salire /to leap -- more at SALLY
1 /archaic/ : an act of attacking : ONSET ATTACK
3 : damage or an instance of injury to the body or one of its parts
<repeated acute vascular /insult//s/> <any /insult/ to the constitution
of a patient suffering from active tuberculosis -- /Journal American
Medical Association/>; /also/ : an agent that produces such an insult
<a thermal /insult/> <damage resulting from malnutritional /insult//s/>

with meaning 1 and 3 still being the root ones. Interestingly enough
Merriam-Webster does recognize that meaning 2 is the most common one
because they list "affront" as a synonym for insult.

> Another factor involved in missing responses is that the inline
> comment form provided by Yahoo is very difficult to use. The forum
> interface provided at mises.org is years ahead of the text-based caret
> system. I will make an effort to remedy this by reducing the number
> of subjects discussed in a particular post.
>
> [Chad, As I have advised several others and they have found it to be
> far better, the best way to operate with Yahoo groups is either to
> respond at the group web interface, or far better still, get a mail
> reader on your computer (I use and recommend Thunderbird) to which you
> get your Yahoo group messages sent (individually, since the group
> traffic is very light) and then use the reply function in the email
> reader. This will ensure that the formatting of the message as
> received by us in the queue is also optimal - something that is not
> true now and we have to do a little cleanup to each of your messages
> before releasing it. --Paul]
>
>> /Meta

Meta
snipped previous dialog, not needing response.
/Meta

>>>>> My plan is to launch a web site by the end of the year that
>>>>> facilitates Social Preferencing.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> I also want to know precisely what you mean by the phrase "facilitates

Meta
snipped comment, not needing response.
/Meta

>>>> Social Preferencing" and how your plans will do that. I sincerely hope
>>>> that we can merge our plans into one effort.
>>>>
>>> This post is a good introduction to what I am interested in doing. It
>>> is the how that I am still working on:
>>> http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/2036
>>>
>> And I have now responded to that message about your plans, as much of
>> them as I understand. Most definitely the details of the "how" will
>> require a lot of deep thinking and major design/programming efforts.
>>
>>> It should be pointed out that this is only one facet of the plan. This
>>> sort of system will enable the connection of likeminded individuals
>>> which of course is only the beginning. Physical communities (not just
>>> online communities) could be formed anywhere that humans exist that
>>> follow a specific formula (still to be developed). Liberated
>>> communities will be as ubiquitous as fast food restaurants once the plan
>>> blossoms.
>>>
>> As I stated in the other message, I have a major problem with such
>> physical communities within the current statist societies. They are far
>> too easy targets for those in power to destroy. The US is not a free
>> country any longer (if it ever was one) wherein those doing no harm to
>> others are allowed to live as they want to. The only way that a large
>> liberty oriented movement will be able to survive and to successfully
>> undermine and replace any current society is for it to remain highly
>> decentralized and totally dispersed/immersed within the current
>> population, essentially succeeding from the current society as much as
>> possible. Besides which, such immersion is a far better way to persuade
>> others in society of the validity of one's ideas, and thereby to
>> greatly abandon using the methods of the current society.
>
> The plan may take a century to implement. Ultimately physical
> communities need to grow out of the system or all the talk about
> putting theory into practice is meaningless.

Yes to the former, but far much more than a century to effectively
achieve (get to the point where it cannot be stopped by statist power).
The current society has been around in essentially the same form for
millennia.
No to the latter. Strong physical interactions need to grow out of the
system, but separate physical communities are not needed and will be
unwise until there are sufficiently many practicing Freeman methods of
operation and the non-Freeman portion of society is sufficiently weak
due to attrition, non-sanction, and non-obedience to its dictates that
it will not have the power to greatly harm Freemen.

> Agree that the initial
> strategy should be to establish connections online. The true test of
> this system is whether it can be incrementally reclaim liberty and
> freedom for the individuals using it.

I see it as a set of stepping stone paths across a stream full of
alligators to the "promised land" on the other side. The goal society on
the other side is common to everyone, but many do not understand it well
enough to accept it. However, different people lack understanding and
acceptance of different aspects of the goal society. Therefore different
people take different paths to get there (even though each is not even
yet certain that s/he wants to get to the full goal society). Each
stepping stone is a little island of operational relative stability a
little bit closer to the goal society than is the current society. For
example becoming a libertarian, objectivist or Austrian school economist
are each such stepping stones. Accepting and practicing one of the
methods of personal interaction of the goal society (as well as and to
the extent to which it can be practiced in the current society) is also
one of such stepping stones. As each person steps forward and partakes
of new methods of living for a while s/he will both learn new things and
gain the desire and the courage to move a little further forward across
the wide stream.

[I think it is premature for Chad to be making strong statements on
strategy and testing "of this system", of which he still knows very
little. He has not yet read the NSC or any of its annotations and I am
not even sure, from what he has written, that he has read the Social
Meta-Needs theory essay more than once. Far more appropriate would be
questions on those items on which he is unclear or in doubt after or
during reading the fundamental items - SMN, Social Preferencing essay
(Paul's not my articles), and NSC. **Kitty]

It is clear from Kitty's comment that we interpreted your phrase "this
system" differently. My interpretation was that it referred to "the
initial strategy [of] .... establish[ing] connections online", stated in
the previous sentence and that was the basis for my remarks above
directly after. If instead "this system" refers to the operation and
viability of the Freeman Society as described on SelfSIP, then I agree
with Kitty and even go much further. Whether or not the Freeman Society
is viable as a near optimal adequately stable self-ordered society of
large numbers of humans enjoying total liberty is not related *at all*
to whether or not it will ever come into existence.

>>>>> Would you be interested participating in an online meeting with me
>>>>> to determine whether it would be beneficial for us to work together?
>>>>>
>>>> Absolutely yes! On the MoreLife group Yahoo would be best for me. All
>>>> such discussion will be eventually moved to the appropriate wiki
>>>> (Valu4Valu.org, OpenLives.net, SelfSIP.org or MoreLife.org) when they
>>>> are ready, in order to get more visibility.
>>>>
> Comments about the websites: The wikis appear to be unpopulated.

Yes. They are still in the development stages. There were and are many
software changes necessary to make them effective for usage under the
type of philosophy that I hold as opposed to the Commons - anyone can do
anything - approach from which they originated (even though my review of
wiki software decided me that wikimedia software would be best for me
all things considered). It would be great to have some help getting the
development completed so that I and Kitty could spend more time putting
content onto them. It would also be great to have some volunteers to
move content onto them from both MoreLife.org and from SelfSIP.org and
even to move the help information from mediawiki.org and wikipedia.org
OTOH, anyone who wishes to do so (after registration by me upon full
identification) can begin to place their own biographical information on
OpenLives.net and even to make Social Preferencing links to others who
have biographical pages on the wiki.

> SelfSIP.org is difficult and confusing to navigate and piece together.
> There are many links that are remote and difficult to access.

Since virtually all of it is set up as a simple inverted tree menu
system with each menu (index page) describing the purpose of that
section), I would appreciate more detail about what exactly you mean by:
"difficult and confusing to navigate and piece together".
Since any complex site will have many remote links, I would like you to
state in detail why this is a problem and what you mean by "difficult to
access" (unless simply that the links are now broken).

> The other issue is that encountering these ideas is like being dropped
> naked into Antarctica.

I smile with agreement. But remember my stepping stone description
above. I do not expect anyone but an objectivist, a libertarian or a
utilitarian (some) to have any chance of accepting any of it
sufficiently to delve more deeply. SelfSIP is not intended to attract
the (wo)man off the street of current society. Rather it is intended to
attract those people who are already on stepping stones part way across
the stream (people who are socially more advanced than most others in
society). Such people will then become a vanguard who will promote the
ideas to others and lead the way to stepping stones further out in the
stream and closer to the other side.

> I've been working on a system that attempts to
> gentle expose individuals to the implications of their views as a
> means of encouraging them to voluntarily change their ideology.

That is good and useful, but it was never my intention. There are
already many people doing this (not that one more new method may not be
more effective than all the past ones). I have always sought to be more
radical than those who are already most radical in society. In the
computer field I was an expert's consultant and teacher (in a narrow
subject area). I have always functioned best that way and such hardest
problems is what I always want to solve.

>>>>> I am most interested in learning more about the following two
>>>>> items listed on your site:
>>>>>
>>>>> * Outline of the Program of Implementation [in progress]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> I have written small items about this in several places, but have not
>>>> done any comprehensive work, since so far no one has really understood
>>>> my work, agreed with it (or got me to change it to be more correct)
>>>> and joined me to promote it. As I always state, before one starts to
>>>> implement a plan to attain a certain goal (a newly organized society,
>>>> in this case) one first needs to know that and how such a goal will be
>>>> beneficial (before one begins a journey one needs to know the
>>>> destination). Therefore, talk about implementation is a little ways
>>>> off, IMO.
>>>>
> I very much agree that a plan is important. I am working on such a
> plan with an eye toward sustainability. The plan goal has two parts
> outreach to the uninitiated and a support system for practitioners.
> The details of the plan are still under development, and I will reveal
> more details in the future.

It is clear that we are not meaning the same thing. By "goal" I mean the
fully worked out details of operation of a future society of which such
a large majority of humans are members that the externalities are
minimal. That is what is described by the sections of SelfSIP.org on
"Fundamentals" and "Achievement" (directory "solutions", but we decided
that word was too pretentious). Only relatively minor explanatory
comments in those section pertain to any methods of operation of the
current society (for example the section on "rights" in the Social
Meta-Needs treatise should really either be just a very large footnote
or deleted entirely).
The goal society is as opposed to a plan to get there ("Program"
section) and also opposed to critiques of the current society (not
really done or planned except for a little in the "Focus" section), of
the foundations of the current society (the "critiques" section), of
the record of dialogs with other thinkers (the "Dialogues" section) and
the application of some Freeman Society methods to the current society
(the "Focus" section).
As I said before, I have not yet worked much on the "Program" section
mainly because there has not yet appeared any vanguard of people (not
even one person after 6 years and dozens of potentials who appeared)
who appear to understand the goal, want to see it come about and want
to promote any of the goal ideas. The Value for Value and Open Lives
wikis will be an attempt to find such people.

>> Nevertheless I do have many ideas already formulated.
>>
> I would like to talk about these ideas.

We have been doing it as much as I am interested in and is appropriate
at this early point in time.

>>>>> * Self-Sovereign Personal Database Website [planned]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> This is already begun as the wiki http://OpenLives.net
>>>>
> It is unclear how the wiki will be used. Also, the wiki appears to be empty.

It is not totally empty, but yes it still needs a large explanatory
section about its purpose and usage. I only wish that I were a hundred
of me. Then there just might be a chance of completing the projects
and attaining the goals that I have set for myself.

>>>>> *My Skills:*
>>>>> Engineering
>>>>> Web Programming
>>>>> Enthusiasm
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Interesting, These match mine and Kitty's quite well. We are both
>>>> Engineering graduates (among other academic areas). I have been
>>>> involved with computers off and on for over 35 years. And under the
>>>> right circumstances we both have lots of energy and enthusiasm.
>>>>
> Maybe the key is that engineers tend to enjoy solving problems as
> opposed to simply identifying them and proposing solutions.

Yes, but unfortunately because they concentrate mainly on solving
problems, engineers can waste a lot of time and intellect on solving the
wrong problems, on problems which are unsolvable in principle, or worst
of all on solving problems whose goals and solutions are highly
unethical. Hitler had some brilliant engineers and also scientists at
his command. So it is highly important to be both a theorist logician
who understands well-posed and solvable issues, an ethicist who
fundamentally knows right from wrong and also an engineer who is a good
problem solver.

> Mises.org does a good job of exposing individuals to problems and
> offering solution.

Yes, for limited kinds of problems and limited kinds of solutions to
them. Mises was a very brilliant, honorable and steadfast man, much to
be respected, however, he could only go so far and, unfortunately no one
has extended his work farther in any really significant manner. By this
I mean that while his economics has been somewhat extended, no one has
done much to extend his idea on general praxeology to a much greater
range of humans actions. In fact, David D Friedman in the area of law
(see: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/laws_order/index.shtml ) is the only
one other than me who has done so, as far as I am aware. I have tried to
interest David in my work, but again got nowhere. I think that is
because he is no longer much interested in such ideas as he was when
he wrote "The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism" (see:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freedom/MofF_Contents.htm\
l )
early in his career, another book that was important in my
intellectual development. I have not read or critiqued his work on law
because it has no place in my vision of a future society of total liberty.

> However, it has done little for me as far as providing a system for
> implementation. One can say that societal system X would be ideal,
> but offering no mechanism by which individuals can migrate to system
> X from their current system leaves a person unsatisfied.

Not only that but no one at mises.org has described any comprehensive
realistic details of precisely how hir societal system would work. The
societal operations proposed by Rothbard, Block, Hoppe and others has
far too many unanswered questions and logical holes (Mises himself never
intimated that his ideas were a complete social solution, only that they
were a solution to the economic workings of society). Again it is the
project for some of my copies/clones to write comprehensive critiques of
many writings of Mises (for which I have completed the 1st chapter of
Human Action, but never posted online), Rothbard, Block, Hoppe, etc and
in this manner both attract some dialog and some attention from many of
those who read them.

> Statements like if everyone thought Y then system X could be
> implemented offers only an objective.

No. If the Y thought is clearly possible for reality, then such a
statement (if valid) is valuable as an *existence proof* that X is
possible. My favorite of this type is that if all the enforcers quit
enforcing and no one would replace them, then a market anarchist
society would be immediately achieved since all the laws, edicts and
regulations of politicians and courts would be effectively meaningless
paper.

Unfortunately, with the methods of thinking and operating in the current
society this result would definitely lead to chaos in short order and
probably result in the emergence of more enforcers under a dictator.
Still if somehow a miracle occurred and no one ever agreed to be an
enforcer, then in time even the current society would develop into an
advanced self-ordered society. Yes, I know it is a totally impractical
thought, but it still has important relevance as an existence proof,
because it is possible *in principle* - ie nothing in reality prevents
it from being the case. Perhaps you might like to search the Internet
for "existence proof".

> An objective with no means of achievement is referred to as impotence.

But a plan to get somewhere without a detailed description of the
destination is even worse. It is not only wasteful but can be highly
dangerous. All the revolutions in history were of that sort (except for
the American war of independence - which is partly why it succeeded)
and for some of the successful non-violent actions of the 20th century
(hopefully also the one taking place in Iran right now). The communist
revolution led to the Stalinist era and the Cuban revolution led to the
Castro era. Neither were beneficial for the people in those societies.

> I want to develop a method for changing the way people think.

Good luck! My view is that it can only be done by getting at people
young enough. The goal of a few of my copies/clones would be to get
involved with the home schooling system and develop initially self
(body/mind) centered educational tools for all ages. Without this I
currently look to people between 20 and 30 as possibilities to have
minds sufficiently open to my ideas.

>>>>> *My Vision:*
>>>>> Create a system that permits liberty to flourish anywhere in the universe.
>>>>>
>>>> Same here. But not only liberty - more importantly, maximum possible
>>>> freedom (in the sense of available actions).
>>>>
>>> I see. That is something that I did not directly have in mind, but
>>> expanding the boundaries on available actions makes sense.
>>>
>> Liberty per se, cannot increase Lifetime Happiness. Only available
>> actions that are chosen and acted upon can do that. Liberty is only
>> valuable as a *means* to aid the creation of more available actions
>> that can then be chosen and acted upon with the intention of increasing
>> one's lifetime happiness.
>>
>>>> See the definitions of
>>>> Liberty and Freedom in the Natural Social Contract
>>>> <http://selfsip.org/solutions/NSC.html> and their annotations to
>>>> understand the difference between Freedom and Liberty (the latter is
>>>> merely a prerequisite for maximal Freedom).
>>>>
>>> I have not yet read those two documents. I am currently in the process
>>> of writing a review of the paper about "Social Meta-Needs" there are a
>>> few spots where my understanding needs to be expanded.
>>>
>> Such "expansion" would likely occur if you read all the rest of
>> SelfSIP.org. It is all a coherent and related whole, no part of which
>> can stand entirely alone and each part of which will elucidate and
>> illuminate the other parts. That is why everything is so intensively
>> hyperlinked. Nevertheless, doing a review of each part, with some open
>> questions, is still an excellent way to organize your study of the total.
>>
> Portions of the review will be released soon.

My definition of a review is a comprehensive consideration and critique
of all aspects of a work (as in a peer review of a paper before
publication). My idea of a review is also related to science papers
called review articles, which exhaustively summarize and comment on
*all* previous published work in a given area. However, I admit that I
could not find that as a definition of review in Merriam-Webster.
Nevertheless, so far I have seen nothing from you that is not merely a
comment, mostly negative and often on parts of SelfSIP that are not even
related to the theory and operation of a Freeman Society (which is the
essence of the content of SelfSIP).

Meta
Big snip of physical locations, Sedona, yoga, exercise and Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy, not needing a response.
/Meta

>> Meta
>> Chad,
>> Please try to be more careful with your use of "their" versus "there".
>> It is always important to reread your writings for meaning, grammar
>> and typos before you send them off.
>> /Meta
>>
> I do re-read my responses, but being human I do not catch everything.

Sorry for any implication in my bad phrasing. I actually thought that
you did re-read and correct your responses, because they are generally
well-written and free of typos. I am fortunate that I have Kitty as my
generally sharp-eyed editor.

>>>> We sometimes visit people in between during our bi-yearly migration,
>>>> but we have rarely been to VA and we refuse to fly, the airport
>>>> regulations situation being as it is.
>>>>
>> This is one that did not really need a response, except to perhaps
>> comment on the no-fly decision, so strongly expressed.
>>
> If I am ever headed to Canada or Arizona I will make an effort to see
> if we can meet.

Good, and we have a spare room if you wish to stay over for more
conversation or to go to something else in the area.

Meta
Snipped portion about downsizedc.org not needing a response.
/Meta

--Paul