Thomas Knapp wrote:
> [Meta
> To place Tom's response in full context, it needs to be understood
> that it applies to both his personal life and his business activities
> as the publisher of Rational Review <http://rationalreview.com>
> /Meta **Kitty]
>
> My initial response to the article ["Libertarians Need less Strategy
> -- and more Principle!"
http://selfsip.org/focus/libertariansneedmoreprinciple.html]:
>
> I'm still trying to work through the apparent contradiction between this
> sentence under the heading "Visa and Mastercard" --
>
> "This lack of inaction to implement strong ostracism of all companies
> refusing to provide services to WikiLeaks makes it very clear that among
> those calling themselves libertarian, particularly among the free marketers
> and Miseans who still retain their Amazon links, the principled are damned
> few and far between at the present time!"
>
> ... and the sentence fragment in the penultimate paragraph of the article:
>
> "... McElroy is wrong to castigate others for doing their own cost-benefit
> analysis and criticizing her unnamed friend for inaction against Amazon."

What you have missed is the implication of the section of my article
entitled "A Unifying Approach to Action Decisions", which effectively
states that all thinking/acting description adjectives such as
"tactical", "moral", "pragmatic" and "principled" are totally subjective
to the individual and therefore *cannot* be objectively categorized. The
result is that anyone using such words as strategic, moral, pragmatic,
principled (me included - as you have just seen), to name just a very
few, must necessarily *always* end up "talking past" (being
misunderstood by) many (likely even most) readers/listeners. As I stated
in that closing section, the *only* objective categories of actions are
Violational <http://selfsip.org/solutions/MSC.html#violate> and
Non-Violational (thinking, although an action, can never, by definition,
be Violational). The extent of harm or benefit (never Responsible Harm
<http://selfsip.org/solutions/NSC.html#responsible_harm>) of any
Non-Violational action is totally the prerogative of the individual to
evaluate and to use Social Preferencing as a means of actioning such
evaluation. I knew that the relationship of that section to the use of
classifying words in general would likely be missed, but, if I had
written a sufficient amount to more fully explain, the article would
even be less likely to be read.

The way to interpret the apparent contradiction which you uncovered
above (and there may well be others) is to understand that in the first
(and all other statements prior to the "Unifying Approach" section) I
was using the standard vernacular approach that is the current paradigm
of discourse. But after starting that section I was describing how such
adjectives are generally totally subjective social preferencing
opinions. So to reiterate, in making those statements in the first
portion of the article characterizing certain actions of others, I am
making purely personal subjective statements, not anything which can be
taken as a "fact of reality". My main point is that other people seem to
be implying something objective when they make such statements. And that
is why I stated "McElroy is wrong". However in this case, based on my
fundamental philosophy there is something objective about my use of the
word "wrong" to describe McElroy's criticism of others for stating that
her (unnamed) friend's action is immoral. This is because the
descriptive use of the word "moral" to describe her friend's action by
such others has every bit as much validity (actually no objective
validity at all) as do her own thoughts about its valid use for that
friend's action.

Moreover because any such statements by me will generally be
misunderstood by others, I usually refrain from attempting to write
anything on topical subjects that might be read by large numbers of
people who know nothing of my philosophical basis. Preventing this sort
of misunderstanding, which is rampant within the current paradigm of
thinking for most people, is also why the precise definitions that are
provided by the capitalized terms within the most fundamental SelfSIP
documents are so necessary. It is also why such words as "tactical",
"moral", "ethical", "pragmatic", "principled" (and many, many others
which libertarians commonly use) do not appear in the documents
(although some of them do in the annotations).

> I do not know if McElroy arrived at the right answer through a rigorous
> reasoning process,

There is no "objectively right" answer relating to the situation of her
comment and no "rigorous reasoning process" can change that. All that
can be done is to go through a thorough mental evaluative process to
determine whether or not a given action is optimal for increasing
one's Lifetime Happiness. This is a purely subjective evaluation, but it
is the best that any human can do. "Rigor" is not the correct word,
because it generally applies to an objectively logical process, which
the computation of the contribution of some action toward increasing
one's Lifetime Happiness is not and cannot be.

> then failed to explain it in sufficient detail,

The only thing that McElroy failed to explain was that her evaluation of
the situation is merely that which she views as maximally increasing her
Lifetime Happiness and has no more objective validity than the
evaluations of others with respect to their own Lifetime Happinesses. I
do not describe this as merely her "opinion", because, unfortunately,
that word has come to be associated with something which has not been
accorded a great deal of consideration, particularly not consideration
of all the facts, surrounding environment and implications of the given
situation, and often even with something that is biased (held in spite of
evidence to the contrary). One fact that McElroy did bring out (and this
should have been the full extent and value of her comment) was that her
friend was highly dependent for hir current livelihood on Amazon. If
that had been the crux of the comment (as opposed to impossible attempts
to distinguish between acts of strategy and acts of morality), then at
least her readers would have more completely understood her friend's
situation and have been able to propose methods of quickly replacing the
ties to Amazon. But instead McElroy compounded this wrong direction of
her comment with the following:

"I applaud anyone who stands up against injustice but I cannot tell
anyone how or when to do so. It is the depth of folly to expend energy
on condemning fellow travelers because they pursue the wrong
strategy....that is, a strategy different from the one /you've/ chosen
...or because they decide to sit this one out."

Note that it appears to be okay to "applaud" others' actions against
"injustice" (presumably always "right" actions), but "the depth of
folly" to admonish the "wrong" actions or inactions ("sit this one
out"). What McElroy (and practically every other writer) constantly
misses is that the uses of right and wrong here are also totally the
subjective evaluation of the writer and that such evaluations are
equally valid when done by another person and with respect to that
person's own Lifetime Happiness - this equal validity is, of course,
based on equal knowledge of the entire situation of discussion. Thus,
the *only* basis for comment and rejection of the evaluation of another
is both to supply highly pertinent information that the reader may
not know and to state just what the writer's evaluation of the situation
is, after consideration of all known pertinent information. Note that if
more writers began to simply state "this is my fully considered
evaluation" and why, rather than that certain named persons (or worse,
collectives) are *wrong*, then far less often would dissension and
acrimony be forthcoming, and far more often would constructive discourse
take place.

> or if she happened to arrive at the right answer through intuition
> or defective reasoning, but she arrived at the right answer.

There is no "right" answer and it needs to be made clear that the method
here is not so much "reasoning" (which implies objective logic) but
instead evaluation of contributions to one's Lifetime Happiness. In
fact, if you really want to continue to use Moral, then I maintain its only
useful and consistent with reality meaning is that originated
by Ayn Rand, which I have extended to be "that action which is most
likely to cause the greatest increase in my Lifetime Happiness". But
because of all the theological baggage and other misunderstandings
related to the word "moral", I decided not to use it in my system of
definitions, preferring the more general word "rational" instead and
giving it a very clear and rigorous definition as "Rational".

> To most situations, a range of moral responses is available.

Again since there is no possible objective definition of moral (except
possibly Moral as I stated above), there also can be no meaningful
"range" of such actions.

> Value -- including the values of multiple things relative to each other --
> is subjective.

Yes. As Rand made clear, we all have what can be termed a "hierarchy of
values" or more simply a mental "value structure", which is necessarily
subjective to each of us and moreover, because of the enormous mental
complexity of a human's brain, one human can never fully know the value
structure of another.

> The choice of response to a given situation, so long as it takes place
> within the range of moral responses, is not itself a moral question. All
> responses within that range are also within the parameters of the principle
> at stake.

As I have tried to explain, it is not meaningful, and therefore not
useful for communication purpose, to make such statements. Partly this
is because if you use the definition of Moral given above (the only
possible objective - universally applicable - definition that I know),
then *all* actions by *anyone* relate to Morality. And if you don't use
that definition, then "all hell breaks loose" and effectively "anything
goes".

> In the instant case (Amazon, Paypal, Mastercard and Visa versus Wikileaks),
> negative social and/or economic preferencing -- to any specific extent and
> over any desired set of persons including as per Kitty and Paul's decision,
> out to the second degree (i.e. they're not just negatively preferencing the
> companies, but others whom they know to still be doing business with the
> companies) -- certainly falls within the range of moral responses.

This would be true for everyone only if you and they accept the meaning
of "moral" in my sense of Moral stated above. Otherwise all that you
gain with such statements is to begin a multi-person contentious dispute.
But note that Social Preferencing is actually the *only* Non-Violational
form of social response (more fully described as: action to make a
situation more conducive to the increase of one's Lifetime Happiness).

> On the other hand, declining to engage in negative social and/or economic
> preferencing in any or all of the cases, to any extent or to any degree,
> also falls within the range of moral responses.

Yes, but again only meaningfully if one uses the Moral definition.

> I'll use my own responses as examples here.
>
> I've ceased doing business with Amazon. At least as troubling to me as their
> decision to remove Wikileaks from their servers was their issuance of
> multiple, conflicting claims as to why they had done so. They were pressured
> by US Senator Joe Lieberman. No, wait, they weren't, it was because of ToS
> violations in the form of excessive CPU usage (due to DDoS attacks). No,
> wait, it had something to do with prima facie outlandish intellectual
> property claims.

I totally agree that such duplicitous action is highly damaging to
Amazon management. One can only hope that the Amazon stockholders will
replace such people with totally honest and forthright managers - if there
are any left in this world who would want such a job - perhaps Atlas is
already shrugging! However the difference between those actions is that
the first, terminating service to WikiLeaks, is a political action and
has the same negative effect no matter what the reason, whereas the
others are a show of disreputable character, which such contentious
actions often publicly discloses.  So the Amazon/WikiLeaks event is not
all bad after all - it helped many of us to see the true character of
Amazon management and thus, to have more knowledge available for our
Social Preferencing decisions and actions.

> I'd probably have stopped shopping with Amazon and stopped selling books,
> movies, etc. as an Amazon affiliate in any case over the basic matter
> (kicking Wikileaks), but their falsity on the issue made that probability a
> certainty. They're lying about this. What else are they lying about? Was I
> actually moving ten times as many books for them as they were crediting me
> for? I don't like to do business with people I can't trust, and I can't
> trust Amazon.

Well stated and to which I heartily agree.

> Additionally, subjecting Amazon to negative social and economic preferencing
> was a fairly simple matter, without a lot of "rippling" ramifications, for
> me.
>
> The amount of money (in savings versus other stores on purchases, and in
> affiliate commissions on sales) was non-trivial, but it wasn't economically
> backbreaking.
>
> At the newsletter I publish, the policy  has been that any editor can
> feature an Amazon (or other) affiliate link for a book, movie, etc.
> mentioned in one of our stories (and keep 100% of the commissions
> themselves, as opposed to them being treated as newsletter revenue to be
> split according to our internal agreement), but in practice I'm the only one
> who's done so to any great extent -- so the impact of my preferencing is
> mostly limited to myself.

All of which considerations mean that your evaluation of the related
action most likely to optimally increase your Lifetime Happiness did not
take a highly complex and exhaustive amount of consideration in this
situation - although it might for someone else (such as Wendy McElroy's
friend), and for whom the subjective decision and action would be different.

> Negatively socially/economically preferencing Paypal is a matter involving a
> lot more money, a lot more people, and a lot more potential complications.

Please note that there should be no need to add "economically
preferencing", since all economic actions, being necessarily
interactions between people, are already social actions. So "social
preferencing" (even in a less unambiguous vernacular meaning)
necessarily includes economic preferencing. It is for this reason that I
cannot quite see why it is so difficult to get people to apply the same
comparing, evaluating and preferencing accordingly, that they do
everyday in the sphere of monetary exchange of goods and services, also
to the personal character and worth of the individuals with whom they
daily exchange many kinds of non-monetary values, and more specifically
to those non-monetary values which are constantly exchanged by social
interactions.

> My Paypal account is the main conduit through which revenues flow to the
> newsletter, and through which those revenues are then distributed among the
> newsletter's partner-editors. A number of newsletter subscribers (mid
> double-digits) make regular monthly payments in "value returned to value"
> using Paypal. Others make occasional, rather than regular, payments of the
> same type through Paypal.
>
> As a matter of subjective valuation, there's obviously a lot more at stake.
> By negatively socially/economic preferencing Amazon, I'm giving up low
> double-digit amounts of money for myself.

This is an error in reasoning. The previous statements were presenting
the facts of the situation relating to you, Rational Review  and PayPal.
But now you have made a conclusion, "giving up low double-digit amounts
of money for myself", which is not a direct logical inference from those
facts. You also have made no comment to my statement in the article
of a different possible conclusion:

"Clearly our honorable readers and monetary supporters will no longer
want to patronize PayPal, so we will both give them our clear agreement
and assent by immediately terminating our PayPal account, making current
alternatives clear to them and quickly seeking to find more convenient
new alternatives. It isn't as if we will lose much because our readers
and supporters will all be also terminating their PayPal accounts and so
would not be able to send us any money that way in any case."

I think mine is the optimistic conclusion and therefore the one that
should always be one's default thought and action.

> By negatively
> socially/economically preferencing Paypal, that amount would move into the
> triple digits for me personally and would also impact numerous other people,

This is taking the pessimistic view (and is actually pretty insulting to
your supporters) that your supporters will both want to continue to use
PayPal and also not be willing to quickly switch to some other means of
getting the same support to you. Perhaps from much past experience you
have found that this is almost certain to happen (effectively that the
kinds of people that support a service like you provide are fickle and
generally dishonorable), but if good people do not take the default view
that others are also good, then they will surely never either find other
good people or show less good people the way to goodness! (Sorry to
sound like a preacher. At least I didn't write "righteousness".)

> including some to whom I have a fiduciary obligation to maximize revenue by
> any and all means of doing so which fall within the morally acceptable
> range.

This sounds like the argument that some used in favor of Amazon's
termination of WikiLeaks. "Amazon managers did the right thing because
they had a fiduciary obligation to protect their shareholders from any
possible US government attack". Instead, unless you have executed a
contract to the contrary your first obligation is to act in such a way
as to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness. And if you did
execute a contract to the contrary, then you were very foolish. Note
here very carefully that rational (widest-viewed and longest range
thought out) action to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness
*must necessarily* include considering the effects on all other people
who are connected to you. Your personal Lifetime Happiness is
irrevocably tied to theirs. That is the meaning of and the reason for
my adoption of the old rallying cry "all for one and one for all".

Also note once again that the phrase "morally acceptable range" has no
meaning outside of that meaning which I described above for Moral.
Finally, think about any possible objective meaning of "obligation".
I maintain that the only objective meaning for it is equal to the
definition of Responsible given in the Natural Social Contract
<http://selfsip.org/solutions/MSC.html#responsible>.

> As discussed above, there's no moral question at stake here (aside from that
> aforementioned fiduciary obligation, which I might be able to find other
> ways to discharge, and which is a second-order question, not the primary
> one).
>
> It is not immoral for me to continue using Paypal, any more than it's
> immoral for me to stop using Paypal. It's entirely a matter of preference.

As with all your decisions, your decision about PayPal relates only
to your own life purpose: *To act in such a way that your Lifetime
Happiness has the best chance of being maximally increased*.

> Until and unless I find a viable alternative (I'm working on that), my
> preference is to not excessively inconvenience myself and several others
> through my negative social/economic preferencing.

That is totally reasonable thinking. But have you even considered that
there might not have been any great inconvenience (and there might have
even been great gains!) by immediately stating something similar to what
I wrote above to your readers and supporters? I know for sure that if
you had done that I and Kitty would have both lauded you and sent you
more money than we had been doing before. And I bet the some of your
readers currently *not* supporting you would have begun to do so!
Once again, the only approach that will ever get anywhere to making a
better world is an optimistic one that assumes that good deeds will
always be rewarded.

Since I have addressed much of the rest of Tom's response in private
email, which was necessary because of the currently tyrannical
governments under which we all live, I will delete most of the remaining
text, only responding to a couple pertinent items.

> This does not constitute "a life-threatening reason" as I understand that
> phrase which Paul uses.

I should have been clearer that "life-threatening" was merely a shorter
summing up of what I had itemized earlier as "death, incarceration or
financial ruin" - all of which I see as life-threatening in the world of
today.

> I value that income, my ability to generate income for those four other
> editors, the desire to facilitate two-way values exchanges between the
> newsletter's staff and its readers,the goals I have for the newsletter, and
> my negative social preferencing of the government more than I value my
> desire to negatively preference Paypal, and so I won't negatively preference
> Paypal until I find a way to preserve those other values while doing so.

I only wish my own financial situation were better (and that I had not
ruined my own options to help in such cases by putting too much money
into noble lost causes during the 1990s) or I would have offered to
guarantee your income to help you decide to act about PayPal to your
readers/supporters as I described above. As it is, I have already
privately offered several ways that I can help you.

> I do think I've avoided one pitfall that Paul points out, which is
> unjustified moral condemnation.

Yes you did, but not necessarily for the right reason. For example, if
you are doing so to be "tolerant", that is certainly the worst possible
reason. Strong, public Social Preferencing is the ultimate effector of
social order and if people do not start using it constantly with regard
to *all* their assessments of others, then a self-ordered society
without rulers will forever remain unachieved.

> I've invited others to join me in negatively preferencing Amazon, but I'm
> not condemning those who don't -- I don't know what values are at stake for
> them.

I do condemn such people because either there are alternatives or they
were extremely foolish to put all their eggs in one basket and not have
such alternatives. It is not much different than condemning a person who
loses hir employee job and is so narrowly specialized in skills that
s/he can find no other work, yet also has been so foolish as to not have
any assets put away so that s/he can live until getting retrained and/or
finding other work. I may be sorry for such people, but I still condemn
them in the sense of negative social preferencing them, that is, until
they prove themselves worthy of my better evaluation.

> I'm not negatively preferencing Paypal (yet, at least to a significant
> degree -- I've made SOME progress on doing so), but I'm not condemning those
> who do, nor will I condemn those who negatively preference ME for NOT
> negatively preferencing Paypal, as Paul and Kitty will presumably do based
> on their stated criteria

We are not condemning you much Tom, and not really negatively socially
preferencing you at all. If we did that to people who are as honorable
and on the right track overall as you are, then we would not have anyone
at all left to interact with in this world.

> Anyway, that's where I am in terms of my evaluation of/response to the
> article. There are a number of other issues raised in it which merit
> discussion, but my focus so far has been on these.

I expect that I have raised here some of those "other issues ... which
merit discussion" and several more that you did not see, but thanks for
the response that you have made.

I think that it is important to put the above into personal perspective
by making the following closing meta comment:

meta
If the above sounds a bit like lecturing that is because I have really
been lecturing *myself* every bit as much as Tom and others. While I
have *known* all that I say above for many years now, that is quite
different than being strong enough to constantly practice it,
particularly when such optimistic approaches have so many times in the
past resulted in emotionally devastating punishment rather than reward.
So I plan to re-read the guiding principles of this response at times
when I am once again feeling "what's the use. No one seems to understand
me, much less agree with me and help me to spread my message wider."
/meta

--Paul

Last night (actually wee hours of this am :) I uploaded to MoreLife my and
Paul's quarterly at-home health statistics. Notice of this update was made
earlier by me at twitter - http://twitter.com/KittyAntonik - having entered the
"twittersphere" back on Dec 6 with my first tweet:
KittyAntonik Kitty Antonik Wakfer
I rated Julian Assange 98 in @TIME's 2010 Person of the Year poll. Cast your
vote http://tinyurl.com/22w955m
6 Dec
I've been tweeting away on substantial items since.

[And she has become highly adept at it! Much better than me who joined Twitter
far earlier: http://twitter.com/paulwakfer --Paul]

The tea section of our "Beverages and more" page has had some updating,
primarily so that Paul could accurately respond to a recent post at
sci.life-extension on the benefits of yerba matte.Thread: http://bit.ly/eG47sj

The Supporting page now contains the replacement method of XIPWIRE to return
value for value received from what we do/write.

I've updated the (originated in 2003) Page Usage Notes and made a link to it at
the top of those sub-pages that I've most recently modified. This is to make
clear to those unfamiliar primarily how the links at the site work. Yes, there
are newer javascript commands, since the time that most of the website was
created, that could now be incorporated but I and Paul do not think that this is
the best use of our time. (See Supporting page for "gopher" value for value
{V4V})

These can all be accessed from or via the MoreLife front page, where we've
included our Year-End Wishes - http://morelife.org

**Kitty

Paul,

As always, thank you for the incredibly informative replies.

You write:

> What you have missed

Before going into what I missed, I'd like to examine the ramifications of
that statement in the larger context of this topic, as opposed to my
particular participation in the discussion.

The system(s) you are building are built in unique vocabulary. That's not a
complaint -- I don't see any way around building them in that manner.

Unfortunately, any unique vocabulary, even one as consciously and constantly
optimized as the one you're simultaneously developing and using, comes with
a couple of unavoidable down sides.

The first is that if the vocabulary is at all extensive (and it's going to
be as extensive as its subject matter, which in this case encompasses the
totality of human existence), it will require effort (a variable amount of
effort depending on the person's abilities and dedication to task, but
almost certainly a non-trivial investment of effort) to learn it, apply it,
and integrate it into worldview.

The second is that unless the vocabulary is developed as part of a unique,
purpose-built entire language -- and perhaps even then -- it will inevitably
still be subject to misinterpretation to the extent that it includes terms
resembling, or even syntactically identical to, other terms not in the
vocabulary.

I'm a case study in the first down side. I've invested considerable time and
effort in studying your work, much to my own benefit. I have not, however,
managed to fully integrate it, and specifically its vocabulary, into my
worldview (in at least some part because my "day job" involves actively
courting cognitive dissonance by bombarding myself for several hours per day
with the output of other systems and their own vocabularies). This makes me
less able than I'd like to be to return value to the system's architect(s)
in terms of analysis and critique within the terms of the system itself. It
also increases the incidence of "down side number two."

Now, to what I missed:


> the implication of the section of my article
> entitled "A Unifying Approach to Action Decisions", which effectively
> states that all thinking/acting description adjectives such as
> "tactical", "moral", "pragmatic" and "principled" are totally subjective
> to the individual and therefore *cannot* be objectively categorized.


Yes, I did miss that. And that troubles me because, on the basis of my prior
discussions with yourself and Kitty, I should have known that it would be
there.


> The way to interpret the apparent contradiction which you uncovered
> above (and there may well be others) is to understand that in the first
> (and all other statements prior to the "Unifying Approach" section) I
> was using the standard vernacular approach that is the current paradigm
> of discourse. But after starting that section I was describing how such
> adjectives are generally totally subjective social preferencing
> opinions. So to reiterate, in making those statements in the first
> portion of the article characterizing certain actions of others, I am
> making purely personal subjective statements, not anything which can be
> taken as a "fact of reality". My main point is that other people seem to
> be implying something objective when they make such statements. And that
> is why I stated "McElroy is wrong". However in this case, based on my
> fundamental philosophy there is something objective about my use of the
> word "wrong" to describe McElroy's criticism of others for stating that
> her (unnamed) friend's action is immoral. This is because the
> descriptive use of the word "moral" to describe her friend's action by
> such others has every bit as much validity (actually no objective
> validity at all) as do her own thoughts about its valid use for that
> friend's action.


See above on vocabulary. In my opinion, McElroy's use of the term "moral"
(and my own use of it in by subsequent analysis) corresponds closely to your
use of the term "non-violational," and the term "immoral" with
"violational."

If that's the case, then the apparent contradiction I saw in your critique
disappears. Use of the words "moral" and "immoral" is the main culprit in
McElroy's piece insofar as they are inherently subjective, tend to produce
contradictory overlaps in application and seem to have been used in such a
way as to produce such an overlap ("moral" equaling "non-violational," but
"immoral" not equaling "violational").

> I do not know if McElroy arrived at the right answer through a rigorous
> reasoning process,
>
> There is no "objectively right" answer relating to the situation of her
> comment and no "rigorous reasoning process" can change that. All that
> can be done is to go through a thorough mental evaluative process to
> determine whether or not a given action is optimal for increasing
> one's Lifetime Happiness. This is a purely subjective evaluation, but it
> is the best that any human can do. "Rigor" is not the correct word,
> because it generally applies to an objectively logical process, which
> the computation of the contribution of some action toward increasing
> one's Lifetime Happiness is not and cannot be.


See above vis a vis "moral" versus "violational."

If McElroy is taken to mean "non-violational" when she uses the word
"moral," then her first point is, I believe, objectively correct (but
approaching tautological).


>  One fact that McElroy did bring out (and this
> should have been the full extent and value of her comment) was that her
> friend was highly dependent for hir current livelihood on Amazon. If
> that had been the crux of the comment (as opposed to impossible attempts
> to distinguish between acts of strategy and acts of morality), then at
> least her readers would have more completely understood her friend's
> situation and have been able to propose methods of quickly replacing the
> ties to Amazon.


Indeed. I'm pretty sure I know who this friend is, and am aware of hir
situation. I believe it would rise to your definition of "life-threatening,"
to the extent that the physical effort alone of tracking down and changing
hir Amazon links to some other affiliate program would itself be
debilitating.

But, McElroy's application of the subjective "right" and "wrong," presumably
as analogs to "moral" and "immoral," and asymmetrically such that "moral"
correspndes to "non-violational" but "immoral" doesn't correspond to
"violational," does make a hash of the whole thing.


>> To most situations, a range of moral responses is available.
>
> Again since there is no possible objective definition of moral (except
> possibly Moral as I stated above), there also can be no meaningful
"range"
> of such actions.

As per above. I can't speak to McElroy's intentions, but my use of the word
"moral" in that sentence very much DOES correspond to "non-violational." And
if I'd been writing with that term and its proper application in mind, I
wouldn't have had to follow it with several paragraphs of effectively
tautological explanation.

Meta
I'm switching to preceding and following quotations from your message with
dotted lines, as I seem to have mysteriously lost the "quote" formatting
in this email.

[The good news is that this "mysterious" occurrence has enabled me to
determine its cause! It happened because of my own editing/modification
of my response when in the queue and not then making sure that each
line was terminated by a "hard return". The resulting long line
(which I had noticed only when I received the copy from Yahoo groups)
apparently causes some email programs (including yours) to drop the
level indicators by one after that point. It does not cause such an
error in Thunderbird, which is why I haven't clearly seen it before.

I removed your "dotted lines" and reinserted the ">" marks, so that
the result is in standard format to better enable reading and replies. --Paul]
/Meta


> Please note that there should be no need to add "economically
> preferencing", since all economic actions, being necessarily
> interactions between people, are already social actions.


I treat economic preferencing as a subset of social preferencing which may
be usefully broken out for specific contexts.


> So "social
> preferencing" (even in a less unambiguous vernacular meaning)
> necessarily includes economic preferencing. It is for this reason that I
> cannot quite see why it is so difficult to get people to apply the same
> comparing, evaluating and preferencing accordingly, that they do
> everyday in the sphere of monetary exchange of goods and services, also
> to the personal character and worth of the individuals with whom they
> daily exchange many kinds of non-monetary values, and more specifically
> to those non-monetary values which are constantly exchanged by social
> interactions.


Different types of social preferencing may have different effects on
Lifetime Happiness.

As an example, I'll take Hypothetical Person A, who a) owns the butcher shop
nearest my house and b) is an active member of Jehovah's Witnesses.

I deem it appropriate to my lifetime happiness not to have my time wasted
on his religious witnessing.

If he comes to my door, I'll tell him to get off my porch (my time is not
his to waste; I have things I'd rather do with it than listen to his
religious opinions).

If I'm out for a walk and in the mood for conversation, he's not the person
I'll walk up to and start chatting with. Chances are good he has a copy
of Watchtower somewhere on his person that he'll be eager to press on me and
discuss.

On the other hand, his hypothetical butcher shop is hypothetically ten
minutes closer to my home than any other, and has meat at competitive prices
and of competitive quality. It may enhance both my immediate happiness and,
incrementally, my lifetime happiness, to stop there to buy meat rather than
to spend 20 extra minutes buying it elsewhere. So, I am negatively socially
preferencing him in some ways, and not in others (specifically, economic).


>> As a matter of subjective valuation, there's obviously a lot more at stake
>> [giving up Paypal].
>> By negatively socially/economic preferencing Amazon, I'm giving up low
>> double-digit amounts of money for myself.
>
> This is an error in reasoning. The previous statements were presenting
> the facts of the situation relating to you, Rational Review and PayPal.
> But now you have made a conclusion, "giving up low double-digit amounts
> of money for myself", which is not a direct logical inference from those
> facts. You also have made no comment to my statement in the article
> of a
> different possible conclusion:
>
> "Clearly our honorable readers and monetary supporters will no longer
> want to patronize PayPal, so we will both give them our clear agreement
> and assent by immediately terminating our PayPal account, making current
> alternatives clear to them and quickly seeking to find more convenient
> new alternatives. It isn't as if we will lose much because our readers
> and supporters will all be also terminating their PayPal accounts and so
> would not be able to send us any money that way in any case."
>
> I think mine is the optimistic conclusion and therefore the one that
> should always be one's default thought and action.


The initial data available to me indicate that RRND's readers and monetary
supporters are split into at least three groups on the subject of Paypal.

Members of one (small, but more than just yourself and Kitty) group have
publicly expressed unwillingness to continue dealing with Paypal, and an
intention not to deal with people who deal with Paypal.

Members of another (small, but again not a single person or connected
couple) group have publicly expressed disdain for "boycotts" of Amazon,
Paypal or any other company.

The largest group consists of readers and financial supporters who have
expressed no opinion at all, either to me or (so far as I know) publicly.


>> including some to whom I have a fiduciary obligation to maximize revenue
>> by any and all means of doing so which fall within the morally acceptable
>> range.

> This sounds like the argument that some used in favor of Amazon's
> termination of WikiLeaks. "Amazon managers did the right thing because
> they had a fiduciary obligation to protect their shareholders from any
> possible US government attack". Instead, unless you have executed a
> contract to the contrary your first obligation is to act in such a way
> as to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness. And if you did
> execute a contract to the contrary, then you were very foolish. Note
> here very carefully that rational (widest-viewed and longest range
> thought out) action to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness
> *must necessarily* include considering the effects on all other people
> who are connected to you. Your personal Lifetime Happiness is
> irrevocably tied to theirs. That is the meaning of and the reason for
> my adoption of the old rallying cry "all for one and one for all".
>
> Also note once again that the phrase "morally acceptable range" has no
> meaning outside of that meaning which I described above for Moral.


For "morally acceptable range" above, please substitute "non-violational
range, less certain pre-specified  exceptions" (we have agreed, for example,
not to accept advertising from racist organizations).

Both retrospectively and prospectively, my role at RRND enhances my lifetime
happiness. It's work that I enjoy doing and that I believe advances values
which are important to me.

The essence of my agreement with the other editors, which goes all the way
back to the newsletter's beginning and constitutes the basis of the
fiduciary duty/obligation I'm addressing, is that they work for shares of
revenues, and for a vote on a unanimous consent editorial board that makes
major policy decisions, rather than for a set hourly or piece wage, and I do
my best to maximize those revenues (and, therefore, the value of their
shares).

The revenue shares aren't equal (because the work load isn't equal). The
ability to affect policy is, however, equal, and the standard is that
existing policy only changes if everyone on the board agrees that it
changes.

In a recent (VERY recent) exchange on the subject of Paypal and other
financial transaction instruments, I found the board not unanimously willing
to abandon Paypal for either receipt or disbursement purposes.

Right now I'm winding down my non-RRND-related involvement with Paypal --
reducing the balance I keep there, re-routing recurring payments through
other instruments, etc. -- and awaiting completion of a key piece of work
involved (new bank account) in setting up new revenue/disbursement
mechanisms. Once that's in place (I hope by the end of the month!), I'll be
addressing the RRND board with a more specific plan than I was able to offer
them last time in place of Paypal. If they accept that plan, the next step
will be removal of Paypal links from the site, and the next people to be
approached will be RRND's "subscribing contributors" to ask them to switch
to one of several avenues (we've discussed several of them).

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
> Still it is a very strange interaction which neither I nor
> Kitty have had and which I have never heard about from anyone else.

Given this information, I'm beginning to suspect my aminoguanidine,
as it comes from an 'unconventional' source.  Ostensibly it's 98%
pure, but it is an industrial formulation, not food-grade.

I'm inclined to try ag from another source.


> With your genetic heritage, I also recommend at least 5000IU D3 daily,
> even during the summer unless you spend a great deal of time outdoors
> (which is not good for your skin).

Thank you, but I work 12-14 hours/day and it's impossible for me to
research and evaluate this.  I will make note of it however.


> > As I've read that 98% of resveratrol is destroyed in the digestive process
>
> This is the sort of incorrect information that media love to promulgate.
> The digestive process rarely *destroys* any chemicals. Rather chemicals
> are "metabolized", which means that their chemical form is altered,
> sometime being split into component parts (moieties).

Actually I know it's mostly metabolized, but this is how I 'dumb
down' the info in order to communicate with people who are just
learning about all this.  I should have been more accurate here.

Interesting that the metabolites may be beneficial.


> > I use a bucal method:  I measure and put the powder in a capful of (white
> > grape-flavored) vodka (resv is not soluble in water), and swish it in my
> > mouth for at least five minutes then swallow.
>
> I question that your method is sufficient to get much resveratrol through
> the tissue surrounding the veins/arteries perfusing the area of the
> mouth. Do you have any evidence that resveratrol will pass through such
> tissues into such blood vessels?

Tests to determine serum levels of resv are prohibitively expensive.
I do know though, that starting a month after I began my resv regimen
my vitality and stamina began to rise.  In general I now feel as well
as I did at 30. (mid-50's now)  My joints no longer creak, my muscles
no longer ache, and I don't feel old in the mornings.  For four hours
or so after I've taken my daily dosage bucally, I feel a noticeable
sense of mood elevation, or well-being.  This, combined with my
renewed stamina, is enough evidence for me that I am benefiting from
resv.


> Even if valuable, this method would not be easy for someone who gets
> resveratrol in capsule form.

Some good things require a degree of discomfort and/or self-discipline,
as you know.


> > My mood is definitely improved through the mornings when I take it,
> > so I am confident it reaches therapeutic levels in the bloodstream.
>
> But the therapeutic effects could simply be from the metabolites.
> Without doing a multiple 1-person crossover between your bucal method
> and simply immediately swallowing the resveratrol in the vodka with
> blood tests of resveratrol concentration each time there is no evidence
> to know what is actually happening.

Granted, but I'm not stopping it for an experiment.


> > I fell completely off a house roof several months ago and should
> > have been injured.
...
> As opposed to Egill's response (which I am not criticizing), my response
> to the above was a simple smile at your "belief" and at your optimistic
> exaggeration (which is very common and not necessarily negative for the
> person involved - since such "conviction" of benefit from something will
> often lead to it being more beneficial than if one is convinced that it
> will not work - the power of mind over body is very strong in all humans
> no matter how rational).

Fair enough.  Misplaced or not, I was not injured and should have been.
Cracked a rib, or split a spleen, or something.


> However I must say that I know of no evidence
> that resveratrol has any effect which might be described as placing one's
> "cells ... in 'survival mode'"

You must have missed the Sixty Minutes segment on the discovery of resv.
The video is here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5037314n

Meta
I have split this reply into two naturally separated parts. This part
deals with technical terms and specifically with my use of them within
the Theory of Social Meta-Needs and related writings at SelfSIP.org The
other portion (which is deleted from this message and is in a second
response) will mainly deal with Tom's meaning of "moral".
/Meta

Thomas Knapp wrote:
>
> You write:
>
>> What you have missed
>
> Before going into what I missed, I'd like to examine the ramifications
> of that statement in the larger context of this topic, as opposed
> to my particular participation in the discussion.
>
> The system(s) you are building are built in unique vocabulary. That's
> not a complaint -- I don't see any way around building them in that
> manner.

I'm pleased that you understand the necessity of a "unique vocabulary".
My system is similar to any other science which must necessarily use
either new words or define new or isolated meanings of commonly used
(vernacular) words for use within that science. The specially defined
words are called "technical terms". For example, in physics, "force",
"work", "energy", "couple", "moment", etc are technical terms not
identical in meaning to those same words from the vernacular English
language. This critical difference is the source of enormous confusion
when scientists try to describe their results to the media and to the
public, partly because the exact same word *is* used in both. In fact,
the situation is even made much worse because each science branch may
use the exact same English word with a different meaning specific to
that science branch. The only other solution would be to invent an
entirely new word for the technical definition within the science
branch, but this would make it harder for the scientists themselves to
remember and specifically to think about. As it is, however, having two
distinct meanings for a given word almost certainly tends to distort the
thinking of scientists also, and when writing for the public, you will
often find scientists using words in both technical and vernacular
meanings within the same piece of writing.

At least in my system, being highly aware of this problem (40 years ago
my PhD specialty was foundations of mathematics), I have purposefully
sought to avoid such confusion by capitalizing my technical terms in
order to distinguish them for the vernacular words. In that way I *can*
use my technical term and the vernacular word without confusion, even
within that same sentence. (This is predicated on the fact that the
vernacular word itself does not have such different and even
contradictory meanings that it can actually be used at all in an
objectively clear manner.) I have also attempted to choose for each of
my concepts a vernacular word which has one of its vernacular meanings
very close to that of my concept's technical meaning. In fact, I did a
lot of dictionary work and put a great deal of thought into my choice of
vernacular words to use for my technical terms - for every one of them.
This enables the reader to have less trouble understanding my work in a
first reading. However since some of the words that I have chosen have
several quite different meanings when used in the vernacular, this can
still cause misunderstanding, which is why in order to fully understand
my system the reader must necessarily learn and use my technical
definitions. But I am not asking the impossible here, since this is no
different than with learning any branch of science. A major problem is
that most libertarian theorists and/or readers are not trained in *any*
branch of science and do not understand the relationship of technical
terms to vernacular words. I think that few of the Miseans, even realize
that Mises used words in a highly technical manner and his major work
would have been far less confusing if he had made that totally clear by
either defining his terms right up front or as they occurred. Mises was
also not really conversant with scientific methodology and likely
himself did not really understand the place and purpose of using a
technical vocabulary. In fact I do not think that anyone who has not
studied mathematics at a fundamental level really understands the use
and the crucial importance of technical terms and their total separation
from vernacular words.

> Unfortunately, any unique vocabulary, even one as consciously and constantly
> optimized as the one you're simultaneously developing and using, comes
> with a couple of unavoidable down sides.
>
> The first is that if the vocabulary is at all extensive (and it's going
> to be as extensive as its subject matter, which in this case encompasses
> the totality of human existence), it will require effort (a variable
> amount of effort depending on the person's abilities and dedication to task,
> but almost certainly a non-trivial investment of effort) to learn it,
> apply it, and integrate it into worldview.

Yes, but no more than the amount, type and purpose of effort it takes
to learn any branch of science. And, as I said above, at least the
definitions of each of my technical terms are very close to one
vernacular usage of that same vernacular word (which is often not true
for scientific technical terms). It is because of this required
"non-trivial investment of effort" that I have suggested to *not* go to
the exact definitions in a first reading. In that manner I thought that
the reader would see some of the uniqueness and worth of my ideas, and
then would be willing to expend that effort. This is just as a person
looking into any science branch needs to first have hir "appetite
wetted" before s/he has enough interest to make further effort. But
alas, few such people have become "hooked" by what I have written so
far. I am not sure why this is and therefore am not sure what to do
to "grab" more people. I suspect that I need to write a much simpler
version, but how to do that without losing the fundamental differences
between my ideas and current paradigms, even current market anarchist
paradigms, I do not know.

> The second is that unless the vocabulary is developed as part of a unique,
> purpose-built entire language -- and perhaps even then -- it will inevitably
> still be subject to misinterpretation to the extent that it includes
> terms resembling, or even syntactically identical to, other terms not
> in the vocabulary.

I agree, but again this is no different than the use of vernacular words
with highly different (and exact) meanings within any other branch of
science or in mathematics. OTOH, it is far better than the constant use
of undistinguished vernacular words with meanings that are either
unknown or highly different than that of the public being addressed
by the writer. (Such as eg your use of "moral" - with a meaning very
different than that of 95% or greater of even most of your readers, let
alone those who are new to libertarian ideas or who it is most important
convince of the truth of what you write.)

> I'm a case study in the first down side. I've invested considerable time
> and effort in studying your work, much to my own benefit. I have not,
> however, managed to fully integrate it, and specifically its vocabulary,
> into my worldview (in at least some part because my "day job" involves
> actively courting cognitive dissonance by bombarding myself for several
> hours per day with the output of other systems and their own vocabularies).
> This makes me less able than I'd like to be to return value to the system's
> architect(s) in terms of analysis and critique within the terms of the
> system itself. It also increases the incidence of "down side number two."

Again as with learning any new science, one does not exactly "integrate
[the technical terms into one's] worldview". Rather one puts on a
different hat (the hat of a physicist for physics or the hat of a member
of the Freeman Society for my system) when one considers that branch
of science. When once again in the "outside" world one takes off that
special thinking hat. But I think you know that since you state that you
are already needing to frequently "change hats" every day as you read
writings of people who use vernacular words very differently, each
according to hir underlying social/political philosophy. It is because
of the difficulties of this sort of "cognitive dissonance" that I had
hoped to attract some people (libertarians, objectivists,
market-anarchists, even utilitarians) who are already attuned to or at
least aware of some of my meanings as opposed to those grounded in many
other social/political approaches. But again alas this has not happened
and I am not sure why nor the best way to make alterations so that it is
more likely to happen.

--Paul

Carl Cook wrote:
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
>> Carl Cook wrote:
>> Still it is a very strange interaction which neither I nor
>> Kitty have had and which I have never heard about from anyone else.
>
> Given this information, I'm beginning to suspect my aminoguanidine,
> as it comes from an 'unconventional' source.  Ostensibly it's 98%
> pure, but it is an industrial formulation, not food-grade.

A major problem is that due to FDA prohibition, it is not legal for
anyone in the US to sell aminoguanidine for human consumption. Still AG
is a simple enough chemical that has been made for several decades. You
might first query your source about whether or not they got it tested
by an independent third party or simply accepted the Certificate of
Analysis from the company which synthesized it. It also should not be
too expensive to get a purity test done at an independent lab and if
the purity is actually 98% or better then the amount of any reasonably
likely impurity will not likely be the cause of your interaction. For
independent, competent testing, I recommend American Analytical
Chemistry Laboratories at: http://www.aaclabs.com

> I'm inclined to try ag from another source.

That is also another good way to test the situation and potentially
find a solution at the same time.

>> With your genetic heritage, I also recommend at least 5000IU D3 daily,
>> even during the summer unless you spend a great deal of time outdoors
>> (which is not good for your skin).
>
> Thank you, but I work 12-14 hours/day

Working such long hours is not conducive to a long, healthy, maximally
happy lifetime. Not only is sleep important, but also exercise and the
necessary amount of time applied to learning about and looking after
one's body. And that necessary amount of time definitely increases as
one gets older and one's body requires more care and attention to
remain healthy because one no longer has the "reserves" of youth. (By
"reserves" I mean such things as stem cell pools, long telomeres, lack
of AGEs and other cellular refuse, lack of DNA damage, etc.)

> and it's impossible for me to
> research and evaluate this.  I will make note of it however.

Start with 2000IU daily; that much will help a lot. Read some of the
recent LEF articles about Vit D for a quick summary.

>>> As I've read that 98% of resveratrol is destroyed in the digestive process
>>>
>> This is the sort of incorrect information that media love to promulgate.
>> The digestive process rarely *destroys* any chemicals. Rather chemicals
>> are "metabolized", which means that their chemical form is altered,
>> sometime being split into component parts (moieties).
>
> Actually I know it's mostly metabolized, but this is how I 'dumb
> down' the info in order to communicate with people who are just
> learning about all this.  I should have been more accurate here.

Yes, it is imperative in communication to always be accurate in meaning
even if not complete in detailed description. If one makes invalid
statements to another, then either that other person is going to gain
false information or s/he is going to think you have mislead hir, either
deliberately or because you too did not understand the actual truth.
Likely both of these will happen - the person will first have invalid
information and after finding out that it is invalid will view you as I
described. This major mistake of "dumbing down" is frequently done by
parents and teachers (but also by scientists and politicians) who either
do not think the child can understand or simply do not have the patience
to explain. However simple, less than complete, but still fully valid
explanations are always available if one gives it a bit of thought, and
these should always be used. Moreover, your use of such a phrase as
"dumb down" causes you to appear to have the highly negative quality
of elitism.

So in the above, you could just as easily have stated: "I've read that
98% of resveratrol is altered during the digestive process", which would
have been accurate even if not complete. As opposed to "destroyed" which
does not leave open even the possibility of any benefit from that 98%,
the use of the word "altered" automatically leads to the next question:
"altered into what?" and, thus, the possibility that some of the
chemicals resulting from the alteration might be beneficial (or even
harmful).

> Interesting that the metabolites may be beneficial.

Likely because you yourself have been thinking "destroyed", this false
notion prevented you from even considering what effects the metabolites
might have on the body. This is precisely how the use of incorrect
descriptive words, particularly exaggerated ones, can distort and even
prevent additional thought.

>>> I use a bucal method:  I measure and put the powder in a capful of (white
>>> grape-flavored) vodka (resv is not soluble in water), and swish it in my
>>> mouth for at least five minutes then swallow.
>>>
>> I question that your method is sufficient to get much resveratrol through
>> the tissue surrounding the veins/arteries perfusing the area of the
>> mouth. Do you have any evidence that resveratrol will pass through such
>> tissues into such blood vessels?
>
> Tests to determine serum levels of resv are prohibitively expensive.
> I do know though, that starting a month after I began my resv regimen
> my vitality and stamina began to rise.  In general I now feel as well
> as I did at 30. (mid-50's now)  My joints no longer creak, my muscles
> no longer ache, and I don't feel old in the mornings.  For four hours
> or so after I've taken my daily dosage bucally, I feel a noticeable
> sense of mood elevation, or well-being.  This, combined with my
> renewed stamina, is enough evidence for me that I am benefiting
> from resv.

You have totally missed my point, again likely because of thinking that
the resveratrol is "destroyed" during digestion. Your reply above is
reasonable evidence that your use of resveratrol is having effects on
your body (although the evidence would be much stronger if you had
stopped and started it a few times). However *that* is not at all what
I am questioning.

I think that most of your intake of resveratrol is not going directly
into your bloodstream through the mouth mucus membranes but is
staying in the alcohol that you swallow and hence is being digested.
The only way that you could test this is to alternate what you are
currently doing with the method of immediately swallowing the
resveratrol in the vodka. Don't forget that most of the metabolic
changes to the resveratrol occur in the liver, so even if all of it
were absorbed directly in the mouth, within a few minutes of blood
circulation it has all gone through the liver anyway. All that
absorption of a chemical by the mouth's mucus membranes (as opposed to
digestion) will accomplish is one trip through the body *before* the
liver gets a chance to alter the form of that chemical, and, for some
chemicals that are highly damaged (altered to non-valuable forms) by
digestion (such as some hormones), to enable *any* benefit to the body's
cells.

>> Even if valuable, this method would not be easy for someone who gets
>> resveratrol in capsule form.
>
> Some good things require a degree of discomfort and/or self-discipline,
> as you know.

The above seems a bit patronizing to me, even though you do except me
from not knowing this. Moreover it is not much related to my concern
above (which granted, I did not explain sufficiently for you to get my
reasoning related to "not be easy").

When resveratrol (or any other chemical, generally) is purchased in
capsules, not only is that capsule difficult to open, but it generally
contains other chemicals, fillers, etc which may or may not dissolve in
vodka. The whole operation would be quite time consuming and messy, so
unless I have some evidence that it is a far more beneficial way to take
resveratrol, I would not do it myself and I would not recommend it. And
as far as I know at the present time, resveratrol is only available in
capsule form from major supplement suppliers.

>>> My mood is definitely improved through the mornings when I take it,
>>> so I am confident it reaches therapeutic levels in the bloodstream.
>>>
>> But the therapeutic effects could simply be from the metabolites.
>> Without doing a multiple 1-person crossover between your bucal method
>> and simply immediately swallowing the resveratrol in the vodka with
>> blood tests of resveratrol concentration each time there is no evidence
>> to know what is actually happening.
>
> Granted, but I'm not stopping it for an experiment.

This is what I was addressing above, but which you did not answer there.
It appears to me that you are not reading thoroughly to fully get the
meaning and to respond correctly and *on point*. This would appear to be
the result of your being so busy and trying to do everything so fast.
Perhaps you need to review and think about such wise maxims as "haste
makes waste" and others of the sort. And before you respond, realize
that at almost 73 and with a large amount of experience in many
productive work areas, I fully know what it is like to work 16+ days
for weeks on end and the negative results that can have often both
for the short and the long term.

>>> I fell completely off a house roof several months ago and should
>>> have been injured.
>>> ....
>>
>> As opposed to Egill's response (which I am not criticizing), my response
>> to the above was a simple smile at your "belief" and at your optimistic
>> exaggeration (which is very common and not necessarily negative for the
>> person involved - since such "conviction" of benefit from something will
>> often lead to it being more beneficial than if one is convinced that it
>> will not work - the power of mind over body is very strong in all humans
>> no matter how rational).
>
> Fair enough.  Misplaced or not, I was not injured and should have been.
> Cracked a rib, or split a spleen, or something.

But once again "should have been" is either meaningless or logically
invalid. If you had said "the probability that I would be injured by
such a fall would be very large" (meaning that if you fell from such a
height many times over, then you would likely suffer a major injury the
vast majority of those times), then I (and likely Egill too) would have
been willing to accept your statement. But what exactly do you even mean
by "should have"? The use of the phrase "should have" implies an active
purposeful entity who is the *cause* of the effect word after "should".
But who or what is this entity? It is certainly not you, since you do
not directly cause or not cause your injuries. Therefore, it must be god
or reality or something else that decided not to injure you as a result
of this fall. Now since I do not think that is what you meant to imply,
I ask you to either not use such expressions as "should have" or to
explain some other reasonable meaning for that phrase.

>> However I must say that I know of no evidence
>> that resveratrol has any effect which might be described as placing one's
>> "cells ... in 'survival mode'"
>
> You must have missed the Sixty Minutes segment on the discovery of resv.
> The video is here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5037314n

One cannot learn factual science because, in particular, one cannot be
certain of the clarity and validity of what is stated, by watching such
programs. They are only of benefit to quickly get informed of the
existence of some topic, so that one knows it is important to take the
time to research it more thoroughly at sources which clearly present
valid information and do not hype/distort as the TV/radio/news media
invariably does. "Survival mode", if it was used on the program, is
clearly hype without any well defined meaning, since it is not a phrase
which is defined nor used within any of the science disciplines that
deal with resveratrol.

Since I have read dozens of research papers relating to resveratrol, I
am one such authoritative source of information and I doubt very much
that watching that TV segment would give me any information that it is
important to know and which I do not already know. In addition, Egill
and his twin Olafur even moreso (and Richard Kaufman and likely many
other MoreLife readers) are also quite knowledgeable about resveratrol
and would likely gain little if anything useful from watching that TV
segment.

--Paul

Meta
This is the second part of my response to Tom's (reply) message. The
first part is at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/2291
and I have deleted here that first portion of Tom's reply.
/Meta


Thomas Knapp wrote:
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>> Thomas Knapp wrote:
> Now, to what I missed:
>
>> the implication of the section of my article
>> entitled "A Unifying Approach to Action Decisions", which effectively
>> states that all thinking/acting description adjectives such as
>> "tactical", "moral", "pragmatic" and "principled" are totally subjective
>> to the individual and therefore *cannot* be objectively categorized.
>
> Yes, I did miss that. And that troubles me because, on the basis of my prior
> discussions with yourself and Kitty, I should have known that it would be
> there.
>
>> The way to interpret the apparent contradiction which you uncovered
>> above (and there may well be others) is to understand that in the first
>> (and all other statements prior to the "Unifying Approach" section) I
>> was using the standard vernacular approach that is the current paradigm
>> of discourse. But after starting that section I was describing how such
>> adjectives are generally totally subjective social preferencing
>> opinions. So to reiterate, in making those statements in the first
>> portion of the article characterizing certain actions of others, I am
>> making purely personal subjective statements, not anything which can be
>> taken as a "fact of reality". My main point is that other people seem to
>> be implying something objective when they make such statements. And that
>> is why I stated "McElroy is wrong". However in this case, based on my
>> fundamental philosophy there is something objective about my use of the
>> word "wrong" to describe McElroy's criticism of others for stating that
>> her (unnamed) friend's action is immoral. This is because the
>> descriptive use of the word "moral" to describe her friend's action
>> by such others has every bit as much validity (actually no objective
>> validity at all) as do her own thoughts about its valid use for that
>> friend's action.
>
> See above on vocabulary.

Meta
The "above" used here and other places in Tom's previous text refers to text
which is now in my reply at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/2291
/Meta

> In my opinion, McElroy's use of the term "moral"
> (and my own use of it in by subsequent analysis) corresponds closely
> to your use of the term "non-violational," and the term "immoral" with
> "violational."

That may well be the case for McElroy and I agree that it likely is the
case based on what I know of her fundamental approach. However McElroy
does not make that clear and to my knowledge never has. I can also see
how it may be true for *any* libertarian who attempts to be fully
consistent with the libertarian Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). But I
think that this is a major mistake,  because there is a vast difference
between saying: "If everyone eschewed the use of coercion (meaning
physical force or its threat) in human relationships then a society of
optimal liberty would be achieved" and "Everyone not using coercion in
human relationships will enable each human to maximize hir lifetime
happiness" (or even have the best chance to do that). A person can be
totally non-aggressive (physically) and yet may still be a really nasty,
mean person - someone you or I would not want to interact with. But I
agree that the reverse cannot hold. Anyone who agrees with non-defensive
aggression or supports it in any manner is necessarily a person to be
ostracized from one's relationships (to be totally socially preferenced
against to the extent to which one is not in turn highly harmed by such
actions).

Because of this vast difference, the use of that exclusive meaning
(non-Violational) for "moral" (and no other, dependent on context) is
fraught with communication problems wrt most readers. Particularly for
those libertarians with an objectivist background, this is not what they
have learned and accepted as the meaning of the word "moral". Even
moreso it is not the meaning that the vast majority of non-objectivists
and non-libertarians attach to the word "moral". So if you use that word
with that meaning, without explaining it every time, you will confuse,
mislead and effectively lose a very large percentage of your readers.
It is almost like Ayn Rand's constant use and attempted rehabilitation
of the word "selfishness", which in my estimation was a major mistake.
When I created the SelfSIP and chose the words that I would use, I was
very aware of these tactical mistakes and very carefully chose words
that did not have so much baggage and ambiguity attached to them - as
much as I possibly could. That is why you will not find any use of such
words as "moral", "ethical", "criminal", "coercion", "rights", "just",
"good", "evil" and many others within my system - not even in
capitalized form with totally clear definitions.

> If that's the case, then the apparent contradiction I saw in your critique
> disappears.

I agree with you there, but as I said, she nowhere makes it clear that
is her meaning, and furthermore, I would still have the objection that
it is not an *incorrect* action (in the sense of promoting one's
lifetime happiness) to strongly disapprove of the action of her friend
and to publicly state such disapproval.

> Use of the words "moral" and "immoral" is the main culprit in
> McElroy's piece insofar as they are inherently subjective, tend to produce
> contradictory overlaps in application and seem to have been used in such a
> way as to produce such an overlap ("moral" equaling "non-violational,"
> but "immoral" not equaling "violational").

Agreed - as in the example that I gave above. A mean nasty person is not
Violational but his actions may still be viewed by many as immoral
(even though correctly any such categorization can only be done by a
person for hir own actions, if "moral" is used with the meaning that
I stated is the only reasonable one). But of course such overlap is
actually a logical impossibility and as a result no valid conclusions
can be made.

>> > I do not know if McElroy arrived at the right answer through a rigorous
>> > reasoning process,
>>
>> There is no "objectively right" answer relating to the situation of her
>> comment and no "rigorous reasoning process" can change that. All that
>> can be done is to go through a thorough mental evaluative process to
>> determine whether or not a given action is optimal for increasing
>> one's Lifetime Happiness. This is a purely subjective evaluation, but it
>> is the best that any human can do. "Rigor" is not the correct word,
>> because it generally applies to an objectively logical process, which
>> the computation of the contribution of some action toward increasing
>> one's Lifetime Happiness is not and cannot be.
>
> See above vis a vis "moral" versus "violational."
>
> If McElroy is taken to mean "non-violational" when she uses the word
> "moral," then her first point is, I believe, objectively correct (but
> approaching tautological).

Again I agree, but have addressed the problems with using this
definition at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/2291

>> One fact that McElroy did bring out (and this
>> should have been the full extent and value of her comment) was that her
>> friend was highly dependent for hir current livelihood on Amazon. If
>> that had been the crux of the comment (as opposed to impossible attempts
>> to distinguish between acts of strategy and acts of morality), then at
>> least her readers would have more completely understood her friend's
>> situation and have been able to propose methods of quickly replacing the
>> ties to Amazon.
>
> Indeed. I'm pretty sure I know who this friend is, and am aware of hir
> situation. I believe it would rise to your definition of "life-threatening,"
> to the extent that the physical effort alone of tracking down and changing
> hir Amazon links to some other affiliate program would itself be
> debilitating.

Then such person should at the least make that clear to readers, agree
that it was hir mistake to "put all hir eggs in one basket", also admit
the mistake to not have backup savings for such a situation, agree that
discontinuance is the correct and desired action and even ask for help
to achieve that ASAP. I also think that I know who the person is (let's
exchange private email on this) and if it is that person, then s/he is
old enough to have known better than to make such a mistake - ie than to get
hirself so "cornered".

> But, McElroy's application of the subjective "right" and "wrong," presumably
> as analogs to "moral" and "immoral," and asymmetrically such that "moral"
> correspndes to "non-violational" but "immoral" doesn't correspond to
> "violational," does make a hash of the whole thing.

Yes, very much so, not only for the reasons I stated before relative to
the use of "moral", but compounding that confusion with the use of
"right" and "wrong", which even NAP consistent libertarians do not
equate with "non-coercive" and "coercive", respectively.

>>> To most situations, a range of moral responses is available.
>>>
>> Again since there is no possible objective definition of moral (except
>> possibly Moral as I stated above), there also can be no meaningful
>> "range" of such actions.
>
> As per above. I can't speak to McElroy's intentions, but my use of the word
> "moral" in that sentence very much DOES correspond to "non-violational." And
> if I'd been writing with that term and its proper application in mind, I
> wouldn't have had to follow it with several paragraphs of effectively
> tautological explanation.

Agreed, but I have addressed in my first part reply at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/2291 the major problems
engendered by your definitional usage of "moral".

>> Please note that there should be no need to add "economically
>> preferencing", since all economic actions, being necessarily
>> interactions between people, are already social actions.
>
> I treat economic preferencing as a subset of social preferencing which may
> be usefully broken out for specific contexts.

Then I respectfully suggest that a better way to "break it out" would be
to use the term "social preferencing" first in isolation and then write
something like: "particularly in the case of economic preferencing, ....".

>> So "social
>> preferencing" (even in a less unambiguous vernacular meaning)
>> necessarily includes economic preferencing. It is for this reason that I
>> cannot quite see why it is so difficult to get people to apply the same
>> comparing, evaluating and preferencing accordingly, that they do
>> everyday in the sphere of monetary exchange of goods and services, also
>> to the personal character and worth of the individuals with whom they
>> daily exchange many kinds of non-monetary values, and more specifically
>> to those non-monetary values which are constantly exchanged by social
>> interactions.
>
> Different types of social preferencing may have different effects on
> Lifetime Happiness.

Of course, the entire range of types and degrees of social preferencing
will be possible and even reasonable relative to the different
evaluations that individuals place on the target effects and the
personal cost of such actions. The evaluation of the social preferencing
decisions of a person by others will be just as varied and individual.
(McElroy's comment was essentially a public evaluation of the social
preferencing evaluations of others toward the actions of her friend.)
The likelihood that an action will maximize lifetime happiness must
necessarily always be the rational arbiter of the decision behind the
action, if one consistently pursues one's natural life purpose - to
always act to most likely maximize one's lifetime happiness. If this
sounds tautological that is because it really is - though it still helps
to say it again and again in as many ways as possible (a necessary method
for any radically new universal idea).

> As an example, I'll take Hypothetical Person A, who a) owns the butcher shop
> nearest my house and b) is an active member of Jehovah's Witnesses.
>
> I deem it appropriate to my lifetime happiness not to have my time wasted
> on his religious witnessing.
>
> If he comes to my door, I'll tell him to get off my porch (my time is not
> his to waste; I have things I'd rather do with it than listen to his
> religious opinions).
>
> If I'm out for a walk and in the mood for conversation, he's not the person
> I'll walk up to and start chatting with. Chances are good he has a copy
> of Watchtower somewhere on his person that he'll be eager to press on me and
> discuss.
>
> On the other hand, his hypothetical butcher shop is hypothetically ten
> minutes closer to my home than any other, and has meat at competitive prices
> and of competitive quality. It may enhance both my immediate happiness and,
> incrementally, my lifetime happiness, to stop there to buy meat rather than
> to spend 20 extra minutes buying it elsewhere. So, I am negatively socially
> preferencing him in some ways, and not in others (specifically, economic).

This is a good example of what I call a "tiny perfect relationship"
(although it would be more perfect if you did not know that he was a
Jehovah's Witness and you never had any interaction with him outside of
the butcher shop transaction - which he may be very good at including
very courteous and non-confrontational). In the current society, because
there are so many unreasonable, unthinking and even coercion-supporting
persons, it is hardly possible to exist if one totally refuses to
interact in any manner with such people.

This is a fundamental mistake made by many Objectivists, particularly
when they first get hooked on Rand's ideas. It happened to me for a
while and I basically had virtually no friends at all during that time -
if you were not a complete Objectivist then in essence you were some
kind of subhuman. This does not mean that I thought I had the right to
violate you, but simply that I would not associate with you. At the time
the only way that I could live morally was by the method of "don't ask
or even want to find out". With people that I really needed to interface
with for my daily existence (my customers, for example), I specifically
steered any conversation away from topics where their major differences
from my own views might emerge, just so that I wouldn't feel morally
compelled to ostracize them ("morally" in the sense that I used it then).

But after a few years, and particularly after I found libertarianism,
I quit this strict Objectivist approach and changed my methods of
interaction. So yes, in the circumstances of your example above, I would
still buy from that butcher (but more likely these days also cut back on
my meat consumption because that is better for health and longevity).

>>> As a matter of subjective valuation, there's obviously a lot more at stake
>>> [giving up Paypal].
>>> By negatively socially/economic preferencing Amazon, I'm giving up low
>>> double-digit amounts of money for myself.
>>>
>> This is an error in reasoning. The previous statements were presenting
>> the facts of the situation relating to you, Rational Review and PayPal.
>> But now you have made a conclusion, "giving up low double-digit amounts
>> of money for myself", which is not a direct logical inference from those
>> facts. You also have made no comment to my statement in the article
>> of a
>> different possible conclusion:
>>
>> "Clearly our honorable readers and monetary supporters will no longer
>> want to patronize PayPal, so we will both give them our clear agreement
>> and assent by immediately terminating our PayPal account, making current
>> alternatives clear to them and quickly seeking to find more convenient
>> new alternatives. It isn't as if we will lose much because our readers
>> and supporters will all be also terminating their PayPal accounts and so
>> would not be able to send us any money that way in any case."
>>
>> I think mine is the optimistic conclusion and therefore the one that
>> should always be one's default thought and action.
>
> The initial data available to me indicate that RRND's readers and monetary
> supporters are split into at least three groups on the subject of Paypal.
>
> Members of one (small, but more than just yourself and Kitty) group have
> publicly expressed unwillingness to continue dealing with Paypal, and an
> intention not to deal with people who deal with Paypal.
>
> Members of another (small, but again not a single person or connected
> couple) group have publicly expressed disdain for "boycotts" of Amazon,
> Paypal or any other company.
>
> The largest group consists of readers and financial supporters who have
> expressed no opinion at all, either to me or (so far as I know) publicly.

This data, even if accurate (and I accept your judgment here), still
does not answer my question and suggestion about what you could have
done to *change* the situation. Perhaps by writing something like I
suggested above (or similar, maybe even more persuasive) you could have
influenced (shamed even, if that was what it took to effect the result)
many of group 3 above to think and act like those of group 1. With good
refutations, you might also have gotten some from group 2 to change into
group 1.

You have still not directly stated why these methods were not pursued
and why they would not work to solve your problem quicker if they
were pursued. I think (and am concerned) that this is because your
equating of "moral" with non-Violational has affected your tolerance and
unwillingness to discriminate against people because of their actions.

I would maintain that it is far more important to negatively socially
preference an *atheist* who does *not* strongly protest any action
against WikiLeaks (and action hir protest), than it is to negatively
socially preference a Jehovah's Witness who *does* so strongly protest
and act. Besides, in my experience, Jehovah's Witnesses merely stand on
busy street corners with Watchtower ready to give to anyone who asks
them. Sure, their worldview does indirectly reduce my ability to
maximize my lifetime happiness, but from any coercive pov, they seem
totally innocuous to me. The worst that we have had here in AZ is some
bible thumpers who came to the door, went quietly away when told to do
so, but then left candles on our front property boundary - a very minor
annoyance at worst.

[In reading the above paragraph while editing for Paul, I had to go over
with him the first part in order to make sure I understood. I would say
that it makes more sense to be intolerant of (and even somewhat angry with)
the irrational actions - those viewed by me to be not in the actor's long
range best interest, not maximizing of lifetime happiness - of someone
who I had thought highly of than of the same actions by someone whom I
never thought much of at all..... IOW Someone who talks the talk but
won't walk the walk is more deserving of negative Social Preferencing
than those who never "talk the talk" at all. **Kitty]

Response to Kitty: It appears the you still have not gotten my point
and I certainly do not agree that it is more important to negatively
social preference (effectively Non-Violationally penalize) a friend
than a non-friend for the exact same incorrect action. My example was
related to the *likely effects* on one's maximum lifetime happiness
of various types of behavior and the importance of socially preferencing
according to and proportional with those likely effects. Thus while you
may esteem an atheist much more that a theist, to the extent that the atheist
is pro-government and the theist is anti-government, you will correctly
take much stronger social preferencing actions against the atheist -
since hir actions are clearly those that will most reduce your lifetime
happiness.

[OK, Paul, you are more clear to me now on this and I agree with the
immediate above. I have definitely seen instances of pro-government
writings by free-thinker types and anti-government by religionists in
various locations on the Internet.
BTW I would not initiate negative Social Preferencing of "a friend"
for the above incorrect action unless s/he refused to alter hir
thinking/actions following attempts by me to persuade hir that hir
reasoning was faulty. (I acknowledged this early "rush to act" without
discourse in my article, "Incremental Approach - A Better Method for Effecting
Change" - http://selfsip.org/focus/smallsteps.html) **Kitty]

>>> including some to whom I have a fiduciary obligation to maximize revenue
>>> by any and all means of doing so which fall within the morally acceptable
>>> range.
>
>> This sounds like the argument that some used in favor of Amazon's
>> termination of WikiLeaks. "Amazon managers did the right thing because
>> they had a fiduciary obligation to protect their shareholders from any
>> possible US government attack". Instead, unless you have executed a
>> contract to the contrary your first obligation is to act in such a way
>> as to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness. And if you did
>> execute a contract to the contrary, then you were very foolish. Note
>> here very carefully that rational (widest-viewed and longest range
>> thought out) action to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness
>> *must necessarily* include considering the effects on all other people
>> who are connected to you. Your personal Lifetime Happiness is
>> irrevocably tied to theirs. That is the meaning of and the reason for
>> my adoption of the old rallying cry "all for one and one for all".

Tom, either you missed the import and the importance of the above or you
dodged it. But at least you left the text in place, which most
intentional dodgers do not. Please respond.

>> Also note once again that the phrase "morally acceptable range" has no
>> meaning outside of that meaning which I described above for Moral.
>
> For "morally acceptable range" above, please substitute "non-violational
> range, less certain pre-specified  exceptions" (we have agreed, for example,
> not to accept advertising from racist organizations).

Why? Unless such organization promotes racially aimed (or any other)
coercive actions (eg KKK), then such advertising is not violational nor
promotional of it, so why make this or any other similar exception. A
simple disclaimer (as should always be made for any advertiser with
whose worldview owner of the publication site is in disagreement) would
be more consistent with your view of moral and the place of the NAP in
society. BTW, it is partly because of such problems, that I and Kitty
decided right from the start to have no advertising on any of our
websites. We have other problems with most advertising, in general, but
that is a topic for another discussion.

> Both retrospectively and prospectively, my role at RRND enhances my lifetime
> happiness. It's work that I enjoy doing and that I believe advances values
> which are important to me.

I can certainly understand this, value you for it and am happy for you
that it does. However, that fact should not prevent or reduce your
continuous analysis of your relationship to RRND (effectively to your
partners there) and your attempt to adjust the parameters of that
relationship to achieve even higher lifetime happiness.

> The essence of my agreement with the other editors, which goes all the way
> back to the newsletter's beginning and constitutes the basis of the
> fiduciary duty/obligation I'm addressing, is that they work for shares of
> revenues, and for a vote on a unanimous consent editorial board that makes
> major policy decisions, rather than for a set hourly or piece wage, and I do
> my best to maximize those revenues (and, therefore, the value of their
> shares).

This sounds fairly reasonable. I had a similar agreement with three
other partners (all self-proclaimed and apparent libertarians, btw) in a
full service computer business during 1989 and 1990 (after being totally
in charge for the previous years when two of those partners were
effectively my employees for the latter period. We periodically
(actually yearly, but it could have been a bit more often and likely
would have been if we had stayed together longer) evaluated each partner
(including oneself) with respect to what portion of the total profits
that person should get for the next period (but it could also have been
for the previous period since contributions of each to the profit would
then have been better known and portion of profits better evaluatable).
That portion of the profits then became that partner's total income from
the business (he could take advances, if desired/needed).

I don't think that it is a good idea for only one person to assume the
entire responsibility to maximize the revenues, particularly since each
partner's contribution must be seen as having that general goal (think
of the Misean concept and meaning of the *value of productive effort*
(always equal to *market value*) - a meaning that is valid among highly
rational people and only is not when applied globally in the current
society). Assuming such a duty causes you to unnecessarily be obligated
and therefore, was a mistake, IMO (ie is necessarily going to detract
from maximizing your lifetime happiness), unless you are convinced that
the operation would not have been possible without this otherwise
negative obligation assumption on your part. In any case, perhaps it is
time to revisit the assumption of this obligation.

> The revenue shares aren't equal (because the work load isn't equal). The
> ability to affect policy is, however, equal,

That effect on policy is inconsistent with the value contribution of
each - it sounds too much like the idiocy of one person one vote rather
then the vote proportional to shares within a corporation or better
still, the influencing actions within a society that is self-ordered
only by Strong (public and non-anonymous) Social Preferencing.

> and the standard is that
> existing policy only changes if everyone on the board agrees that it
> changes.

A good first approximation, but better still would be a decision by
summed weight of value contributions to revenue, bearing in mind both
short and long term and ostensible and behind the scenes. With a large
partnership this may be almost impossible, because it is very difficult
for each partner to keep abreast of the contributions of every other
partner (maybe not even understand such contributions), but for a group
of four (as I had with my business) this should be quite doable.

> In a recent (VERY recent) exchange on the subject of Paypal and other
> financial transaction instruments, I found the board not unanimously
> willing to abandon Paypal for either receipt or disbursement purposes.

But did anyone even suggest doing what I wrote above? or any other
method to influence your supporters to abandon PayPal ASAP? Without such
attempts any such decision either way is highly premature. Given that
your board is composed of such seemingly hard-core and dedicated
market-anarchist libertarians, this result is very dismaying to me and
Kitty and shows once again that things are far worse and earlier in
potential for improvement than we had hoped.

Hopefully, this unwillingness to abandon PayPal was only related to RRND
and did not apply to the personal or other revenue uses of PayPal for
any of the others (I know that it doesn't for you). Note that this is a
rhetorical hope. I don't expect that you will tell me any names nor will
I devalue you for not doing so. OTOH, I would devalue any of your
partners who required such information to be kept confidential, since
such confidentiality smacks of mistrust of others and is not conducive
to the establishment of a society of total liberty essentially
self-ordered only by Social Preferencing.

> Right now I'm winding down my non-RRND-related involvement with Paypal --
> reducing the balance I keep there, re-routing recurring payments through
> other instruments, etc. -- and awaiting completion of a key piece of work
> involved (new bank account) in setting up new revenue/disbursement
> mechanisms.

Through our private email dialogue I am aware that a major part of the
difficulty of quick abandonment of PayPal was because of your personal
lack of choices due to the personal bank/ID situation "corner" that you
had got yourself into (without enough wide-view and long-range thinking
about possible consequences, IMO). This has been stated here so that
readers are more aware of the difficulty caused by your personal lack of
options.

> Once that's in place (I hope by the end of the month!), I'll be
> addressing the RRND board with a more specific plan than I was able to offer
> them last time in place of Paypal. If they accept that plan, the next step
> will be removal of Paypal links from the site, and the next people to be
> approached will be RRND's "subscribing contributors" to ask them to switch
> to one of several avenues (we've discussed several of them).

Please try the approach that I wrote above, or at least something
similar. Better late than never to persuade these people of the right
reasons to do the right thing (right meaning: to more optimally oppose
the State and all who support it in any manner).

I hope to soon see a change in the donation page of Rational Review and
some explanation of why, and also why it took so long.

[I view the inclusion of "why" (both of them) as a learning tool for others -
to observe the thinking processes of those who have "changed their minds".
The fact that a change is acknowledged is good, but explaining the full
reasoning that brought one to that point, can be even more valuable
to a reader. **Kitty]

--Paul

Paul,

I'm not responding at the moment to the first part of this message (the
portion on language, meaning of the word "moral," etc.), because I think
we're done there. I see some references I need to follow up on, but nothing
I disagree with on its face.

> > Indeed. I'm pretty sure I know who this friend is, and am aware of hir
> > situation. I believe it would rise to your definition of
> > "life-threatening,"
> > to the extent that the physical effort alone of tracking down and
> > changing
> > hir Amazon links to some other affiliate program would itself be
> > debilitating.
>
> Then such person should at the least make that clear to readers, agree
> that it was hir mistake to "put all hir eggs in one basket", also admit
> the mistake to not have backup savings for such a situation, agree that
> discontinuance is the correct and desired action and even ask for help
> to achieve that ASAP. I also think that I know who the person is (let's
> exchange private email on this) and if it is that person, then s/he is
> old enough to have known better than to make such a mistake - ie than to
> get hirself so "cornered".

The more I think about it, the less I see that it's anything like a private
matter, insofar as the person in question -- Arthur Silber -- has
openly/publicly discussed his situation and his relationship with Amazon.

So far as I can tell, he's acting within the range of non-violational
options open to him. That doesn't in any way make it improper to speculate
as to what he "should" do or "should have done," or to posit that what he
has done might have been a "mistake" -- but it doesn't serve my own purposes
to do so.

> >> Please note that there should be no need to add "economically
> >> preferencing", since all economic actions, being necessarily
> >> interactions between people, are already social actions.
> >
> > I treat economic preferencing as a subset of social preferencing which
> > may be usefully broken out for specific contexts.
>
> Then I respectfully suggest that a better way to "break it out" would be
> to use the term "social preferencing" first in isolation and then write
> something like: "particularly in the case of economic preferencing, ....".

Good idea, and I'll start implementing it.

> > The initial data available to me indicate that RRND's readers and
> > monetary
> > supporters are split into at least three groups on the subject of Paypal.
> >
> > Members of one (small, but more than just yourself and Kitty) group have
> > publicly expressed unwillingness to continue dealing with Paypal, and an
> > intention not to deal with people who deal with Paypal.
> >
> > Members of another (small, but again not a single person or connected
> > couple) group have publicly expressed disdain for "boycotts" of Amazon,
> > Paypal or any other company.
> >
> > The largest group consists of readers and financial supporters who have
> > expressed no opinion at all, either to me or (so far as I know) publicly.
>
> This data, even if accurate (and I accept your judgment here), still
> does not answer my question and suggestion about what you could have
> done to *change* the situation. Perhaps by writing something like I
> suggested above (or similar, maybe even more persuasive) you could have
> influenced (shamed even, if that was what it took to effect the result)
> many of group 3 above to think and act like those of group 1. With good
> refutations, you might also have gotten some from group 2 to change into
> group 1.

The process described above relies not only on a major assumption (that I
want to change the minds of the people in groups 2 and 3), but on
assumptions about that assumption (e.g. that in subjectively solving for
Maximum Lifetime Happiness effects, the side of the scale holding my desire
to do so and the likelihood of my success in doing so will weigh more
heavily than the side of the scale holding the likelihood of my failure to
do so and the effects of such failure).

> You have still not directly stated why these methods were not pursued
> and why they would not work to solve your problem quicker if they
> were pursued. I think (and am concerned) that this is because your
> equating of "moral" with non-Violational has affected your tolerance and
> unwillingness to discriminate against people because of their actions.

They haven't been pursued because I haven't yet decided whether or not to
pursue them, nor have I persuaded the rest of RRND's editorial board that
they should be pursued.

It's reasonable to assume a great deal of bias on my part with respect to
RRND. It's not that I'm personally "tolerant" of X (X being a random
hypothetical person, or that person's beliefs/actions); rather it's that I
regard circulation of RRND to, and support for RRND from, pretty much
everyone and by whatever means as a nearly unalloyed good. Maximizing those
two things weighs heavily in the calculations described above.


> >> This sounds like the argument that some used in favor of Amazon's
> >> termination of WikiLeaks. "Amazon managers did the right thing because
> >> they had a fiduciary obligation to protect their shareholders from any
> >> possible US government attack". Instead, unless you have executed a
> >> contract to the contrary your first obligation is to act in such a way
> >> as to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness. And if you did
> >> execute a contract to the contrary, then you were very foolish. Note
> >> here very carefully that rational (widest-viewed and longest range
> >> thought out) action to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness
> >> *must necessarily* include considering the effects on all other people
> >> who are connected to you. Your personal Lifetime Happiness is
> >> irrevocably tied to theirs. That is the meaning of and the reason for
> >> my adoption of the old rallying cry "all for one and one for all".
>
> Tom, either you missed the import and the importance of the above or you
> dodged it. But at least you left the text in place, which most
> intentional dodgers do not. Please respond.

I suspect that I skipped over that intending to return to it, then missed my
omission when I went back over my message before sending. So:

1) I do not agree that the contract I have executed is contrary to the goal
of optimally increasing my own Lifetime Happiness;

2) Note "goal" -- I have no such "obligation."


> > For "morally acceptable range" above, please substitute "non-violational
> > range, less certain pre-specified exceptions" (we have agreed, for
> > example, not to accept advertising from racist organizations).
>
> Why?

Because we agreed, as a generality, that it would make each of us unhappy to
do so.

We are naturally free to reconsider that policy at any time -- and if  (for
example) the KKK shows up with an offer of one million dollars for an ad in
RRND, I'll go to the editorial board and bring up the question of whether we
might all be happier with $200,000 in each of our pockets than with a
racist-ad-free RRND.

> I don't think that it is a good idea for only one person to assume the
> entire responsibility to maximize the revenues

Neither do we. I'm the _primary_ fundraiser, for the same reason that I
enter more content than the other editors (RRND is my "full-time job," it is
a secondary/part-time effort for the others). The other editors do do some
fundraising, usually on a "one to one" basis with supporters they personally
know.


> > The revenue shares aren't equal (because the work load isn't equal). The
> > ability to affect policy is, however, equal,
>
> That effect on policy is inconsistent with the value contribution of
> each - it sounds too much like the idiocy of one person one vote rather
> then the vote proportional to shares within a corporation or better
> still, the influencing actions within a society that is self-ordered
> only by Strong (public and non-anonymous) Social Preferencing.

It is by definition ENTIRELY consistent with the value contribution of each.
That's the voluntary arrangement we arrived at. If that arrangement was not
consistent with our subjective valuations of each others' contributions, we
wouldn't have arrived at it.

> > and the standard is that
> > existing policy only changes if everyone on the board agrees that it
> > changes.
>
> A good first approximation, but better still

Better for whom? By whose standards and on the basis of whose values?

Regards,

Tom

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:

[Meta
Since Alton bottom-posted to an already very long message (my response
to a previous message of his within this dialog), I decided that his text
might be completely missed unless the previous text was deleted and
replaced by a link to it for reader reference.
/Meta --Paul]

> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/2254


I agree with your suggestions and comments on issues others may raise. Here is
my final write up of how Real Estate works in a Freeman Society:

Real Estate is a term that refers to a volume of space an Individual  is
connected (in the manner to be described here,
http://selfsip.org/solutions/NSC.html#connect) and Entitled  by other members of
Society to have no restrictions on what he/she does on their volume of space, as
long it is kept exclusive there.

In this short article, I will explain how an Individual/Freeman acquires,
retains and exchanges Entitled Ownership of Real Estate without the need of a
Government.

For UnOwned/Unclaimed volume of space, it will be necessary for a person to
first show connection to it by being adjoined or occupied with it first to
indicate to others that he/she is physically in possession of a particular
volume of space. Such Connection can also be accomplished by an Agent or even a
robot under the Control of the Freeman wishing to become the Owner, or of hir
Agent. This would enable the proper gaining of Ownership of volumes of space
within the bounds of the Earth or outside of it which are not easily or even
possibly reachable by humans. A Deed of Entitlement (a Valid Contract) will be
included to be an objective specification of the boundaries of this volume of
space, which is necessary for its initial description and Registration. If a
volume of space is not specified so that it is clear to anyone whether or not
one is inside that volume, then there is no possibility for Registration and
Entitled Ownership of it.

Another  method of acquiring Ownership of Real Estate is to purchase a Deed of
Entitlement to it from the current Entitled Owner. However, someone (the
original claimant/Owner-to-be) initially must fully define/describe the volume
of space *before* it first became hir Entitled Real Estate. In addition,
Covenants/Stipulations are necessary to be part of Deeds of Entitlement
specifying the types and amounts of all Existents that are Permitted or Required
to cross the mutual boundaries of this Real Estate, and the Owners that have
certain Permissions and Responsibilities with this parcel of Real Estate. 
Boundary Covenants is a requirement if one is to fully describe and gain
Entitled Ownership (Possession and Control) of a Parcel of Real Estate in a
rational manner, because to the extent that one has no Covenant relative to some
important boundary situation (say the flow of water in a stream entering the
Parcel of Real Estate from another or concerns relating to wildlife and
pollution), one has no Control whatsoever (as least no *Entitled* Control) over
any change in this important boundary aspect of the Real Estate.

Deeds of Entitlement are finalized when the owner registers it electronically
and where it can be searchably linked to hir identity. Here is a more detailed
explanation of these Acceptable Methods in acquiring Real Estate:
http://selfsip.org/solutions/NSC.html#ownership_acquisition

Thomas Knapp wrote:
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>> Thomas Knapp wrote:
>>> Paul Wakfer wrote:
Meta
Deleted remarks of agreement about part 1.
/Meta

>>> Indeed. I'm pretty sure I know who this friend is, and am aware of hir
>>> situation. I believe it would rise to your definition of
>>> "life-threatening,"
>>> to the extent that the physical effort alone of tracking down and
>>> changing
>>> hir Amazon links to some other affiliate program would itself be
>>> debilitating.
>>>
>> Then such person should at the least make that clear to readers, agree
>> that it was hir mistake to "put all hir eggs in one basket", also admit
>> the mistake to not have backup savings for such a situation, agree that
>> discontinuance is the correct and desired action and even ask for help
>> to achieve that ASAP. I also think that I know who the person is (let's
>> exchange private email on this) and if it is that person, then s/he is
>> old enough to have known better than to make such a mistake - ie than to
>> get hirself so "cornered".
>
> The more I think about it, the less I see that it's anything like a private
> matter, insofar as the person in question -- Arthur Silber -- has
> openly/publicly discussed his situation and his relationship with Amazon.
>
> So far as I can tell, he's acting within the range of non-violational
> options open to him. That doesn't in any way make it improper to speculate
> as to what he "should" do or "should have done," or to posit that what he
> has done might have been a "mistake" -- but it doesn't serve my own purposes
> to do so.

I have nothing to add except that I know little of Arthur Silber (his blog:
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/ contains or links to nor profile of him),
that he seems to have few publications on Amazon and that I thought
the person referred to might be George H. Smith, who has dozens of books,
audio tapes/discs. etc available through Amazon.

>>>> Please note that there should be no need to add "economically
>>>> preferencing", since all economic actions, being necessarily
>>>> interactions between people, are already social actions.
>>>>
>>> I treat economic preferencing as a subset of social preferencing which
>>> may be usefully broken out for specific contexts.
>>>
>> Then I respectfully suggest that a better way to "break it out" would be
>> to use the term "social preferencing" first in isolation and then write
>> something like: "particularly in the case of economic preferencing, ....".
>
> Good idea, and I'll start implementing it.

That's great and I see that you've already started to do so by way of your
blog entry at Kn@ppster re Wired Magazine -
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2010/12/social-preferencing-note-wired.html

>>> The initial data available to me indicate that RRND's readers and
>>> monetary
>>> supporters are split into at least three groups on the subject of Paypal.
>>>
>>> Members of one (small, but more than just yourself and Kitty) group have
>>> publicly expressed unwillingness to continue dealing with Paypal, and an
>>> intention not to deal with people who deal with Paypal.
>>>
>>> Members of another (small, but again not a single person or connected
>>> couple) group have publicly expressed disdain for "boycotts" of Amazon,
>>> Paypal or any other company.
>>>
>>> The largest group consists of readers and financial supporters who have
>>> expressed no opinion at all, either to me or (so far as I know) publicly.
>>>
>> This data, even if accurate (and I accept your judgment here), still
>> does not answer my question and suggestion about what you could have
>> done to *change* the situation. Perhaps by writing something like I
>> suggested above (or similar, maybe even more persuasive) you could have
>> influenced (shamed even, if that was what it took to effect the result)
>> many of group 3 above to think and act like those of group 1. With good
>> refutations, you might also have gotten some from group 2 to change into
>> group 1.
>
> The process described above relies not only on a major assumption (that I
> want to change the minds of the people in groups 2 and 3),

Yes, because I can't imagine why you would not want to expend some effort
trying to change incorrect views (such effort that the total of benefits
times success probabilities less costs times failure probabilities is still
positive). ("Incorrect" - in the sense of not being conducive to maximizing
your own Lifetime Happiness (LTH) and also not the LTH of each of them either,
as each will agree once s/he has seen the error of hir thinking/acting.)

> but on
> assumptions about that assumption (e.g. that in subjectively solving for
> Maximum Lifetime Happiness effects, the side of the scale holding my desire
> to do so and the likelihood of my success in doing so will weigh more
> heavily than the side of the scale holding the likelihood of my failure to
> do so and the effects of such failure).

This reasoning is correct (in accord with rational thought to maximize
LTH) as far as it goes. However, until you have tried some method, which
is not highly costly (perhaps even by floating a trial balloon,
taking a poll, etc), how can you know that it will have a low
likelihood of success? If you are always so sure that any optimism about
others is misplaced, then you will very seldom try to improve the
thinking/acting of others. And I am talking here mainly about actions
which extend beyond mere words.

>> You have still not directly stated why these methods were not pursued
>> and why they would not work to solve your problem quicker if they
>> were pursued. I think (and am concerned) that this is because your
>> equating of "moral" with non-Violational has affected your tolerance and
>> unwillingness to discriminate against people because of their actions.
>
> They haven't been pursued because I haven't yet decided whether or not to
> pursue them, nor have I persuaded the rest of RRND's editorial board that
> they should be pursued.

I assume from this that you have presented this approach to your RRND
partners - good.

> It's reasonable to assume a great deal of bias on my part with respect to
> RRND. It's not that I'm personally "tolerant" of X (X being a random
> hypothetical person, or that person's beliefs/actions); rather it's that I
> regard circulation of RRND to, and support for RRND from, pretty much
> everyone and by whatever means as a nearly unalloyed good. Maximizing those
> two things weighs heavily in the calculations described above.

Having been so committed to something outside myself at times in my
life, I certainly have some sympathy for your position here. Just be
careful that you haven't "sold your soul" to this "nearly unalloyed
good" which RRND represents to you. Otherwise you will definitely become
biased, will lose your rational subjectivity and will not be overall
maximizing your LTH. I've also been there before and done those things
to a certain extent.

>>>> This sounds like the argument that some used in favor of Amazon's
>>>> termination of WikiLeaks. "Amazon managers did the right thing because
>>>> they had a fiduciary obligation to protect their shareholders from any
>>>> possible US government attack". Instead, unless you have executed a
>>>> contract to the contrary your first obligation is to act in such a way
>>>> as to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness. And if you did
>>>> execute a contract to the contrary, then you were very foolish. Note
>>>> here very carefully that rational (widest-viewed and longest range
>>>> thought out) action to optimally increase your own Lifetime Happiness
>>>> *must necessarily* include considering the effects on all other people
>>>> who are connected to you. Your personal Lifetime Happiness is
>>>> irrevocably tied to theirs. That is the meaning of and the reason for
>>>> my adoption of the old rallying cry "all for one and one for all".
>>>>
>> Tom, either you missed the import and the importance of the above or you
>> dodged it. But at least you left the text in place, which most
>> intentional dodgers do not. Please respond.
>>
>
> I suspect that I skipped over that intending to return to it, then missed my
> omission when I went back over my message before sending. So:
>
> 1) I do not agree that the contract I have executed is contrary to the goal
> of optimally increasing my own Lifetime Happiness;
>
> 2) Note "goal" -- I have no such "obligation."

Please read my treatise on Social Meta-Needs and think deeply about the
section on the "Purpose of Life". I do not see how anything can be more
of an "obligation" (if that word ever applies correctly to anything -
and by "correctly" I mean here consistently and coherently) than
maximizing one's LTH. I see no other possible rational goal for any
human, since any other would be essentially betraying one's very
humanness. Ayn Rand had that much right (the essence of humanness - "man
qua man"), but she did not found it sufficiently fundamentally in both
science and logic. And additionally she missed some important aspects
and extensions of the ultimate purpose of human life.

Note that I do not use the word "obligation" (an intentional omission)
within my system, preferring instead the words "Responsible" and
"Responsibilities" related directly and always to the terms of a
Valid Contract. All such choices and actions outside of a Valid
Contract must necessarily be constantly reexamined and their
contributions to LTH constantly reevaluated (with all the long-range
and wide-viewed ramifications in mind), else one is not acting
Rationally. That is the reason why one needs to be so careful when
executing any Contract, that one does not get oneself "cornered" -
which is why some form of Termination (escape) clause must be part of
every Valid Contract.

>>> For "morally acceptable range" above, please substitute "non-violational
>>> range, less certain pre-specified exceptions" (we have agreed, for
>>> example, not to accept advertising from racist organizations).
>>>
>> Why?
>
> Because we agreed, as a generality, that it would make each of us unhappy to
> do so.

You snipped the important and expanding part of my first "Why?".

"Unless such organization promotes racially aimed (or any other)
coercive actions (eg KKK), then such advertising is not violational nor
promotional of it, so why make this or any other similar exception. A
simple disclaimer (as should always be made for any advertiser with
whose worldview owner of the publication site is in disagreement) would
be more consistent with your view of moral and the place of the NAP in
society."

I have no problem with the reason being "it would make each of us
unhappy" and particularly that applies to violence advocating racially
discriminatory organizations. However surely there are other ads (promoting
violations or not) that would also make each of you unhappy.
Again I say why not simply ban any ads promoting human violations
in any manner, and put up disclaimers for most (all?) others.

> We are naturally free to reconsider that policy at any time -- and if (for
> example) the KKK shows up with an offer of one million dollars for an ad
> in RRND, I'll go to the editorial board and bring up the question of whether
> we might all be happier with $200,000 in each of our pockets than with
> a racist-ad-free RRND.

To accept any such ad no matter how much was offered is an excellent
example of pragmatism as opposed to principle. Basically I say this
because such a choice and action cannot be conducive to maximal LTH
for any human, given that s/he thinks sufficiently long-range and
wide-viewed. To think otherwise is to think that "the end can justify
the means". Once you begin that thinking *on anything*, you are on the
slippery slope to oblivion as a human being consistent with the essence
of your reality.

>> I don't think that it is a good idea for only one person to assume the
>> entire responsibility to maximize the revenues
>
> Neither do we. I'm the _primary_ fundraiser, for the same reason that I
> enter more content than the other editors (RRND is my "full-time job," it is
> a secondary/part-time effort for the others). The other editors do do some
> fundraising, usually on a "one to one" basis with supporters they personally
> know.
>
>>> The revenue shares aren't equal (because the work load isn't equal).
>>> The ability to affect policy is, however, equal,
>>>
>> That effect on policy is inconsistent with the value contribution of
>> each - it sounds too much like the idiocy of one person one vote rather
>> then the vote proportional to shares within a corporation or better
>> still, the influencing actions within a society that is self-ordered
>> only by Strong (public and non-anonymous) Social Preferencing.
>
> It is by definition ENTIRELY consistent with the value contribution of each.
> That's the voluntary arrangement we arrived at.

You seem to be very obstinately getting your "back up" here.
Note first that my statement was merely about the equal say *on policy*.
My meaning should have been very clear and *was* logically correct.
The contributions (vote effect) on policy of the partnership is *not*
proportional to the revenue shares which in turn *is* effectively
proportional to the value contributed by each to RRND. The fact that
this is the arrangement to which you all agreed, has no bearing on this
fact. All that I was doing was to point out this fact to you and attempt
to convince you that it is not going to be optimal for the LTH of any
of you, by giving examples to help make this clear.

> If that arrangement was not
> consistent with our subjective valuations of each others' contributions, we
> wouldn't have arrived at it.

At the time, of course! But that should not stop all of you from
re-evaluating it continuously (or at least periodically) over time, and
changing it on the basis of new information and new thinking (such as
I have just provided). In fact one important method to promote one's
Purpose of Life (maximization of LTH) is the periodic re-evaluation
of all one's past decisions which are still affecting one's current actions.

>>> and the standard is that
>>> existing policy only changes if everyone on the board agrees that it
>>> changes.
>>>
>> A good first approximation, but better still
>
> Better for whom? By whose standards and on the basis of whose values?

You have deleted the following text which explains just what is "better"
and gave some reasoning why, but never mind, I can still answer your
questions.
Whenever I use the word "better" I mean more conducive to maximizing the
LTH of myself and all parties with whom I am Connected (in this case
most certainly including you and your partners). That is my most sincere
and earnest conviction from what I know about all with whom I am
Connected - most especially including you and your partners. I look
forward to enlightenment from you about why I am wrong in my evaluation
of what will be "better" for you and/or your partners.

--Paul

Paul wrote:
> Tom wrote:
>> Paul wrote:
> >> This data, even if accurate (and I accept your judgment here), still
> >> does not answer my question and suggestion about what you could have
> >> done to *change* the situation. Perhaps by writing something like I
> >> suggested above (or similar, maybe even more persuasive) you could have
> >> influenced (shamed even, if that was what it took to effect the result)
> >> many of group 3 above to think and act like those of group 1. With good
> >> refutations, you might also have gotten some from group 2 to change into
> >> group 1.
> >
> > The process described above relies not only on a major assumption (that I
> > want to change the minds of the people in groups 2 and 3),
>
> Yes, because I can't imagine why you would not want to expend some effort
> trying to change incorrect views (such effort that the total of benefits
> times success probabilities less costs times failure probabilities is still
>
> positive). ("Incorrect" - in the sense of not being conducive to maximizing
>
> your own Lifetime Happiness (LTH) and also not the LTH of each of them
> either,
> as each will agree once s/he has seen the error of hir thinking/acting.)

I do expend a certain amount of time and effort trying to change incorrect
views (more precisely, views that I deem incorrect), but I tend to limit
that time/effort in several ways and for several reasons.

I particularly limit it (to the occasional editor's note or snarky headline
alteration) when working on RRND, because I don't treat RRND as a persuasion
tool and don't think it could do what I intend for it to do if I treated it
that way. More on that just below.

> Having been so committed to something outside myself at times in my
> life, I certainly have some sympathy for your position here. Just be
> careful that you haven't "sold your soul" to this "nearly unalloyed
> good" which RRND represents to you. Otherwise you will definitely become
> biased, will lose your rational subjectivity and will not be overall
> maximizing your LTH. I've also been there before and done those things
> to a certain extent.

The "unalloyed good" that I see in RRND is this: I'm providing a large
number of people with information that they find interesting, INCLUDING
some opinions, and arguments for those opinions, that I agree with.

One benefit of maximizing circulation is that I get to put the stuff I agree
with in front of people who may not know about it yet, or who may not yet be
persuaded, increasing the likelihood that they WILL be persuaded.

One price I pay to get that material I agree with in front of those people
is also putting stuff I DISagree with (but that they agree with, or are
seeking for some other reason) in front of them.

One of my premises -- which may be overly optimistic -- is that if exposed
to the material I agree with and to the material I disagree with, most
of those readers will eventually sort their own opinions out and agree
with me.

Another of my premises -- which may be overly pessimistic -- is that if I
try to only present material I agree with, many of those readers will never
see it ... they'll stop reading RRND because that's not the material they
were looking for in it.

For the most part, I keep my own opinions out of RRND and discuss them
elsewhere because I believe the good that RRND does would be reduced by more
extensive editorializing on my part. That doesn't mean I'll never use RRND
to take a stand, or take a stand about how RRND is operated, but those
are things I take great caution in doing and generally only do after quite
a bit of personal deliberation.

> > 1) I do not agree that the contract I have executed is contrary
> > to the goal of optimally increasing my own Lifetime Happiness;
> >
> > 2) Note "goal" -- I have no such "obligation."
>
> Please read my treatise on Social Meta-Needs and think deeply about the
> section on the "Purpose of Life". I do not see how anything can be more
> of an "obligation" (if that word ever applies correctly to anything -
> and by "correctly" I mean here consistently and coherently) than
> maximizing one's LTH.

I agree that nothing could be more of an "obligation" than maximizing one's
LTH.

I do not, however, agree that maximizing one's LTH _is_ an "obligation."
But -- I see that I have some more re-reading (on "Responsibilities" and
"Valid Contract") to do before I can either defend my position within
the conceptual framework I believe we are in general agreement on, or
understand my error in terms of that same conceptual framework.

> "Unless such organization promotes racially aimed (or any other)
> coercive actions (eg KKK), then such advertising is not violational nor
> promotional of it, so why make this or any other similar exception. A
> simple disclaimer (as should always be made for any advertiser with
> whose worldview owner of the publication site is in disagreement) would
> be more consistent with your view of moral and the place of the NAP in
> society."
>
> I have no problem with the reason being "it would make each of us
> unhappy" and particularly that applies to violence advocating racially
> discriminatory organizations. However surely there are other ads (promoting
> violations or not) that would also make each of you unhappy.
> Again I say why not simply ban any ads promoting human violations
> in any manner, and put up disclaimers for most (all?) others.

Racist ads are something we unanimously agreed not to accept. On other
issues, we do not necessarily agree on what constitutes "human violations"
-- so my established practice is to bring any ad that I think one or more
editors simply may not be able to stomach to the board for ad hoc
consideration (I missed such an an implication once; fortunately the editor
in question ended up agreeing that (s)he could tolerate it after all based
on some larger contextual matters, including the fact that the ad was one
small piece of a larger ad, that it appeared in ad space to which I am the
sole revenue assignee, etc.).

I expect that one of these days we may run into a situation which isn't as
easily resolved. I know that at my personal blog, I rejected an ad a few
years ago from someone who (and who's advertised project) I considered
violational; I suspect that none of my fellow editors would agree with that
evaluation. That advertiser was Michael Schiavo, whom I conclude to have
committed murder pursuant to insurance fraud, but whom many, probably most,
libertarians have concluded otherwise about.

> > It is by definition ENTIRELY consistent with the value contribution
> > of each.
> > That's the voluntary arrangement we arrived at.
>
> You seem to be very obstinately getting your "back up" here.
> Note first that my statement was merely about the equal say *on policy*.
> My meaning should have been very clear and *was* logically correct.
> The contributions (vote effect) on policy of the partnership is *not*
> proportional to the revenue shares which in turn *is* effectively
> proportional to the value contributed by each to RRND. The fact that
> this is the arrangement to which you all agreed, has no bearing on this
> fact. All that I was doing was to point out this fact to you and attempt
> to convince you that it is not going to be optimal for the LTH of any
> of you, by giving examples to help make this clear.

I don't think I've got my "back up," really, but this is an area in which
we may be talking past each other.

In conceptual terms, LTH is an obvious highest value per reason. That does
not mean that in any specific implementation it, or its optimality, are not
subjective.

It seems to me that optimizing one's own LTH is a constantly revisited,
detailed project -- and that optimizing anyone else's, let alone in terms of
their mutual relationships is, if not impossible, virtually so.

> At the time, of course! But that should not stop all of you from
> re-evaluating it continuously (or at least periodically) over time, and
> changing it on the basis of new information and new thinking (such as
> I have just provided). In fact one important method to promote one's
> Purpose of Life (maximization of LTH) is the periodic re-evaluation
> of all one's past decisions which are still affecting one's current
> actions.

Personally, I re-evaluate RRND and my arrangement with its other editors on
a near-continuous basis. I assume that they do the same. We discuss it as a
group several times per year, and there have been changes over time.

> I look
> forward to enlightenment from you about why I am wrong in my evaluation
> of what will be "better" for you and/or your partners.

I don't believe I've said that you are wrong in your evaluation. But I do
believe that there are limits you your -- or anyone's -- competence to
evaluate for others. Obviously such evaluations at a remove are necessary,
but absent extreme intimacy or some kind of "Vulcan mind-meld" mechanism,
insufficient data is always going to be a problem.

This series of posts have been very interesting. Looking forward to the
conclusion.
Thanks
Jack Henderson

Alton Lindsay Jr. wrote:
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
>
>> see text at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/2254
>>
> I agree with your suggestions and comments on issues others may raise.
> Here is my final write up of how Real Estate works in a Freeman Society:

Let me say first that I am very pleased with your write up, although I
expect that it will raise many questions to further answer and explain.
But that is, of course, a good result and a necessary part of any teaching
of a new approach, particularly to something which is currently understood
quite differently.

Here are a few comments for changes that I think would make it even
better. But note the "I think", which means that my suggestions may well
not be true for some people or for the way you are prepared to explain
it. So far my methods of presentation have not done that well, so
something different than my explanatory methods could well be more
influential with others.
Some places I have merely inserted additions, modifications or deletions
indicated by curly brackets "{}", but without comment.

> Real Estate is a term that refers to a volume of space an Individual
> is {C}onnected {with} and {is} Entitled by other members of Society
> to have no restrictions on what he/she does on {hir (his/her)} volume
> of space, as long it is kept exclusive there.
>
> In this short article, I will explain how an Individual{} acquires,
> retains and exchanges Entitled Ownership of Real Estate without the
> need of a Government.

I suggest the following insertion at this point, or perhaps as a
footnote if that is appropriate for where the article is published.

"Note that for the purposes of this article, I am assuming that a
Stateless self-ordered society has already been established of which the
full members (called Freemen) are all Individuals who have signed the
Natural Social Contract (NSC) http://selfsip.org/solutions/NSC.html
Since English words are so often highly ambiguous in their meanings,
in order to be contractually exact, it is necessary to use precise
definitions for all the words which are capitalized in this article.
These definitions (all given in the NSC) are generally very close to
one of the standard meanings of the English word."

> For {an} UnOwned/Unclaimed volume of space, it will be necessary
> for a person to first show {C}onnection to it by being adjoined or
> occupied with it first to indicate to others that he/she is physically
> in {P}ossession of a particular volume of space. Such Connection can
> also be accomplished by an Agent or even a robot under the Control
> of the Freeman wishing to become the Owner, or of hir Agent. This
> would enable the proper gaining of Ownership of volumes of space
> within the bounds of the Earth or outside of it which are not easily
> or even possibly reachable by humans. A Deed of Entitlement (a Valid
> Contract) {containing} an objective specification of the  boundaries
> of this volume of space {is a necessary part of} its initial description
> and Registration {as a parcel of Real Estate}. If a volume of space
> is not specified so that it is clear to anyone whether or not one is
> inside that volume, then there is no possibility for Registration and
> Entitled Ownership of it.
>
> Another  method of acquiring Ownership of Real Estate is to purchase
> a Deed of Entitlement to it from the current Entitled Owner. However,
> someone (the original claimant/Owner-to-be) initially must fully
> define/describe the volume of space *before* it first became hir
> Entitled Real Estate. In addition, Covenants/Stipulations are necessary
> to be part of Deeds of Entitlement specifying the types and amounts
> of all Existents that are Permitted or Required to cross the mutual
> boundaries of this Real Estate, and {for multiple Owners, specifying
> their Permissions and Responsibilities with respect to one another
> for this parcel of Real Estate}.  Boundary Covenants {relating to all
> adjoining Real Estate are} a requirement if one is to fully describe
> and gain Entitled Ownership ({including} Possession and Control) of
> a Parcel of Real Estate in a rational manner, because to the extent
> that one has no Covenant relative to some important boundary situation
> (say the flow of water in a stream entering the Parcel of Real Estate
> from another or concerns relating to wildlife and pollution), one
> has no Control whatsoever (as least no *Entitled* Control) over any
> change in this important boundary aspect of the Real Estate.

Note my addition above of "including". The reason for this is that
"Possession and Control" is *not* equivalent to "Entitled Ownership",
but placing it alone in brackets after suggests that it is equivalent.

> Deeds of Entitlement are finalized when the {O}wner {R}egisters it
> electronically and where it can be searchably linked to hir {I}dentity.
> Here is a more detailed explanation of these Acceptable Methods in
> acquiring Real Estate:
http://selfsip.org/solutions/NSC.html#ownership_acquisition

Again, great work, Alton.
Now go post it around and see what reaction you get!
We could also put in the Focus section of SelfSIP as a guest article
under your name if you would like.

--Paul

> Again, great work, Alton.
> Now go post it around and see what reaction you get!
> We could also put in the Focus section of SelfSIP as a guest article
> under your name if you would like.
>
> --Paul


Thank you. And thanks once again for your comments and suggestions. This
discussion and written exercise have surely increased my understandings of Real
Estate. I will be delighted to see the article on the Focus section of SElfSip.
I will begin posting around ezine type websites and anarchist message forums to
get some feedback.

Yesterday evening I uploaded this new article I wrote over the past week. It was
prompted by the email response I received from the publisher of an online news
and opinion website when I encouraged him to use alternatives to PayPal,
MasterCard and Visa for donations and newly created paid memberships. I was
willing and ready to upgrade my 3 year old free membership, but not using any of
those options - corporations that refuse to transmit their customers' own money
to WikiLeaks without those corporations being legally compelled to act as they
did.

I've provided a bit of WikiLeaks background and responded to the statement, "we
can't afford to do that" with the alternatives I found, which I am confident
that I have not exhausted.
http://selfsip.org/focus/areprinciplesunaffordable.html

I took this opportunity to add multiple share buttons to this article and
several others, plus the Social Meta-Needs essay and the Natural Social
Contract. This will make it easier for readers to let it be known that they
think what they have just read is worthy of being read by others.

Discussion of this and any of the writings at Self-SIP are very welcome here by
those qualified to post by having identified themselves to me and Paul (per the
requirements sent to all new members of the group and available for them to read
in the Files section) and include their full name (and any public aliases) in
their message.

I hope that this article stirs some real thinking and subsequent actions by
individuals who have not yet been sufficiently motivated to extend their verbal
support for WikiLeaks into action as part of their financially related
behaviors.

**Kitty

Two new items were uploaded to the Self-Sovereign Individual Project very
recently.

"How Real Estate Will Work in the Freeman Society" is the output of Alton
Lindsay's exchanges here at MoreLife Yahoo; I and Paul are pleased to have it be
a part of the website. http://selfsip.org/focus/realestateinfreemansociety.html

My article, "Are Principles Unaffordable?" was the top commentary listed at
Rational Review News Digest (RRND) email for Monday January 24th and aroused
publicly acknowledged guilt in at least one prolific libertarian blogger -
Claire Wolfe, but for which she expresses no willingness to correct the
underlying inconsistency and is actually quite evasive. Unfortunately she is not
unlike many other writers (and many commenters to their writings). The entire
online exchange and my & Paul's summary comments: "A Libertarian Blogger's
Inconsistency and Deficiency - A Website Exchange" -
http://selfsip.org/dialogues/misc/inconsistentlibblogger_cw.html

Comments/questions are welcome here for both items above, and all other content
of our websites, from those who have qualified themselves to post by identifying
themselves to me and Paul (per the group policy sent to all new members and
available in the Files section -
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/files/Group%20Admin/)
Since both my article and Claire Wolfe's were announced at RRND, the
announcement page comments can also be used.
"Are Principles Unaffordable?" -
http://rationalreview.news-digests.com/archives/22795
"More Pure than Thou" - http://rationalreview.news-digests.com/archives/23326

**Kitty

Hi Paul, your regimen doesn't include DMSO (Dimethyl Sulfoxide).
Is there a reason for this?

DMSO has several health benefits:
 
DMSO extended the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans by 24.4%
DMSO deactivates Hydroxyl Free Radicals
DMSO (administered intravenously) facilitates the excretion of excessive
accumulated Amyloid (amyloidosis)
More benefits at:
<http://www.hypermed.com.au/updates/DMSO%20-%20Information.htm>

2010 Oct 1;400(4):613-8. Epub 2010 Sep 7.
Lifespan extension in Caenorhabditis elegans by DMSO is dependent on sir-2.1 and
daf-16.
Wang X, Wang X, Li L, Wang D.
The Experimental Research Center, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences,
Beijing 100700, China. xm224@...
Abstract
Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is an important solvent that is widely used in
industry and medical studies, as well as in the study of aging, in which it is
used as a negative control for lifespan assays; however, our data showed that
0.5% and 2% DMSO extended the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans by 24.4% and
23.0% (the first trial), respectively. Treatment with 0.5% DMSO did not affect
the progeny number or the lifespan of C. elegans under thermal stress. Using
real time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), we found
that the expression levels of hsp-16.2, hsp-70, lys-7, old-1, and sod-5 were
enhanced by 2.5, 2.9, 1.3, 2.3, and 4.5-fold, respectively, after treatment with
0.5% DMSO. This suggests that these genes downstream of DAF-16 might function in
the lifespan extension properties of DMSO. Using the transgenic strain
lys-7::GFP, we found that treatment with 0.5% DMSO also caused expression levels
of lys-7 increased by 1.5-fold. Genetic analysis using mutants of aging-related
genes showed that lifespan extension in C. elegans by DMSO was dependent on
sir-2.1 and daf-16 but not eat-2 or hsf-1. In summary, we report the function
and the putative mechanism of DMSO in lifespan extension of C. elegans. This
study draws attention to using DMSO as a solvent when conducting aging studies.
Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PMID: 20828537
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20828537>


J Pharmacol Toxicol Methods. 2010 Nov 6. [Epub ahead of print]
Antioxidant properties of dimethyl sulfoxide and its viability as a solvent in
the evaluation of neuroprotective antioxidants.
Sanmartín-Suárez C, Soto-Otero R, Sánchez-Sellero I, Méndez-Álvarez E.
Laboratory of Neurochemistry, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
Faculty of Medicine, University of Santiago de Compostela, San Francisco 1,
15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Dimethyl sulfoxide is an amphiphilic compound whose miscibility
with water and its ability to dissolve lipophilic compounds make it an
appreciated solvent in biomedical research. However, its reported antioxidant
properties raise doubts about its use as a solvent in evaluating new
antioxidants. The goal of this investigation was to evaluate its antioxidant
properties and carry out a comparative study on the antioxidant properties of
some known neuroprotective antioxidants in the presence and absence of dimethyl
sulfoxide.
METHODS: The antioxidant properties of dimethyl sulfoxide were studied in rat
brain homogenates by determining its ability to reduce both lipid peroxidation
(TBARS formation) and protein oxidation (increase in protein carbonyl content
and decrease in free thiol content) induced by ferrous chloride/hydrogen
peroxide. Its ability to reduce the production of hydroxyl radicals by
6-hydroxydopamine autoxidation was also estimated. The same study was also
performed with three known antioxidants (α-phenyl-N-tert-butylnitrone;
2-methyl-2-nitrosopropane; 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline N-oxide) in the presence and
absence of dimethyl sulfoxide.
RESULTS: Our results showed that dimethyl sulfoxide is able to reduce both lipid
peroxidation and protein carbonyl formation induced by ferrous chloride/hydrogen
peroxide in rat brain homogenates. It can also reduce the production of hydroxyl
radicals during 6-hydroxydopamine autoxidation. However, it increases the
oxidation of protein thiol groups caused by ferrous chloride/hydrogen peroxide
in rat brain homogenate.
DISCUSSION: Despite the here reported antioxidant and pro-oxidant properties of
dimethyl sufoxide, the results obtained with α-phenyl-N-tert-butylnitrone,
2-methyl-2-nitrosopropane, and 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline N-oxide corroborate the
antioxidant properties attributed to these compounds and support the potential
use of dimethyl sulfoxide as a solvent in the study of the antioxidant
properties of lipophilic compounds.
CONCLUSION: Dimethyl sulfoxide is a very useful solvent that may be used at
relatively low concentrations in the development of new antioxidants with
neuroprotective properties.
Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PMID: 21059397
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21059397>


J Gastroenterol. 2006 May;41(5):444-9.
Oral dimethyl sulfoxide for systemic amyloid A amyloidosis complication in
chronic inflammatory disease: a retrospective patient chart review.
Amemori S, Iwakiri R, Endo H, Ootani A, Ogata S, Noda T, Tsunada S, Sakata H,
Matsunaga H, Mizuguchi M, Ikeda Y, Fujimoto K.
Department of Internal Medicine, Saga Medical School, Japan.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Amyloid A amyloidosis is an obstinate disease complication in
chronic inflammatory disease, and there are few effective therapies. The
objective of this study was to investigate the effect of oral dimethyl sulfoxide
(DMSO) on amyloid A amyloidosis.
METHODS: Fifteen secondary amyloid A amyloidosis patients (4 men, 11 women; age,
23-70 years) were treated with DMSO between 1995 and 2003. DMSO was administered
orally in all patients at a dose of 3-20 g/day. The clinical symptoms together
with the renal and gastrointestinal functions were evaluated before and after
treatment.
RESULTS: Among the 15 patients, amyloid A amyloidosis was a complication of
rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in 10, of Crohn's disease in 4, and of Adult Still's
disease in 1. Nine cases mainly involved the kidney, with renal dysfunction and
proteinuria, five mainly involved the gastrointestinal tract, with
protein-losing gastroenteropathy and intractable diarrhea, and one involved both
gastrointestinal and renal amyloidosis. DMSO treatment was successful in 10
(66.7%) of the 15 patients (RA, 6/10; Crohn's disease, 4/4; Adult Still's
disease, 0/1). Eight weeks of DMSO administration improved the renal function
and proteinuria in five out of ten renal amyloidosis patients, but had no effect
on those patients with severe and/or advanced renal dysfunction. With regard to
gastrointestinal amyloidosis, gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhea and
protein-losing gastroenteropathy, were improved in six patients. No serious side
effects were encountered with the DMSO treatment.
CONCLUSIONS: Oral administration of DMSO is an effective treatment for amyloid A
amyloidosis, especially for gastrointestinal involvement and the early stage of
renal dysfunction.
PMID: 16799886 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16799886>


Successful treatment of primary amyloidosis with dimethylsulfoxide and
cytoreductive chemotherapy.
Shibuya T, Murakawa M, Tsuda Y, Harada M.
First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University,
Fukuoka, Japan.
Abstract
A 42-year-old Japanese male was admitted to our hospital because of congestive
heart failure (CHF). A diagnosis of primary amyloidosis was made on the basis of
a heavy deposition of amyloid in the gastric submucosal tissue in addition to
the hematological and immunological findings. Intermittent chemotherapy in
combination with daily oral dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) resulted in a dramatic
decrease of plasma cells in the marrow as well as a gradual improvement of CHF.
With this therapy, the cardiac ejection fraction was markedly improved. This
case indicates that the long-standing administration of DMSO combined with
cytoreductive chemotherapy is therefore effective in treating some cases with
primary amyloidosis.
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1633367>

Ann Rheum Dis. 1982 Dec;41(6):587-92.
Prolonged dimethylsulphoxide treatment in 13 patients with systemic amyloidosis.
Ravid M, Shapira J, Lang R, Kedar I.
Abstract
Continuous oral dimethylsulphoxide (DMSO) treatment (7-15 g/day) was given to 3
patients with amyloidosis of familial Mediterranean fever (FMF), 3 patients with
idiopathic amyloidosis, and 7 patients with secondary amyloidosis. The nephrotic
syndrome and various degrees of renal insufficiency were the major clinical
manifestation in all case. Renal function was used as the main parameter for
evaluation of therapy. DMSO treatment for 7-16 months produced no effect in the
FMF patients and in the patient with idiopathic amyloidosis; they all ran the
predictable clinical course of their disease and either died of cardiac failure
or have been maintained on chronic haemodialysis. In the 7 patients with
secondary amyloidosis an unequivocal improvement of renal function was observed
following 3-6 months of DMSO treatment. It was shown by a 30-100% rise of
creatinine clearance and a decline in proteinuria. This new equilibrium has been
maintained as long as DMSO was administered. No serious side effects of DMSO wee
encountered. Mild nausea and an unpleasant breath odour were the patients' main
concern. We conclude that a therapeutic trial with oral DMSO is warranted in all
patients with secondary amyloidosis. This treatment is unpleasant but bears no
exceptional risks. It may significantly prolong life, though its effect on
amyloid deposits themselves is doubtful.
PMID: 7149795
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7149795>

Lancet. 1977 Apr 2;1(8014):730-1.
Effect of a single dose of dimethyl sulphoxide on renal amyloidosis.
Ravid M, Keizman IK, Sohar E.
Abstract
An amyloid-like fibrillar substance was obtained under certain chemical
conditions from the urine of 11 patients with amyloid nephropathy who had been
given a test dose of dimethyl sulphoxide. This fibrillar material could not be
produced in the urine from 9 patients with proteinuria due to other causes. This
finding may be useful in the diagnosis of amyloid nephropathy and could lead to
a new approach to thearpy.
PMID: 66523
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/66523>

On 02/08/2011 02:18 AM, Orhan Kulluoglu wrote:
> Hi Paul, your regimen doesn't include DMSO (Dimethyl Sulfoxide).
> Is there a reason for this?

There are mainly two reasons:

1. MSM should have similar benefits and is available in capsule form
from LEF (where I get all my supplements at no cost under a special deal
cut with them in 1996). I and Kitty have been taking substantial amounts
of MSM for many years now.
2. I am not sure how I would use DMSO. I don't think that it would be
drinkable, although it might be if mixed with other things (such as my
current "meal cocktail"). The main uses of it that I have seen were
purely topical on sprain and joint problems. I have never used it
topically, but have heard from others that one ends up smelling of it.

> DMSO has several health benefits:
>
> DMSO extended the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans by 24.4%
> DMSO deactivates Hydroxyl Free Radicals
> DMSO (administered intravenously) facilitates the excretion of
> excessive accumulated Amyloid (amyloidosis)

The use of a chemical either orally or topically often does not have the
same effects as IV and my evaluation of risk/benefit is to only use IV
methods when in a life threatening situation.
But I see from the abstracts you supplied that it also works orally.

> More benefits
at:<http://www.hypermed.com.au/updates/DMSO%20-%20Information.htm>

Thanks for this page, which is unreferenced but nevertheless appears to
be scientifically factual. I would be more inclined to accept that if
the website contained either references or an "about" page describing
the names of doctors and scientists backing their activities and statements.

> 2010 Oct 1;400(4):613-8. Epub 2010 Sep 7.
> Lifespan extension in Caenorhabditis elegans by DMSO is dependent
> on sir-2.1 and daf-16.
> Wang X, Wang X, Li L, Wang D.
> The Experimental Research Center, China Academy of Chinese Medical
> Sciences, Beijing 100700, China. xm224@...
> Abstract
> Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is an important solvent that is widely
> used in industry and medical studies, as well as in the study of
> aging, in which it is used as a negative control for lifespan
> assays; however, our data showed that 0.5% and 2% DMSO extended the
> lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans by 24.4% and 23.0% (the first
> trial), respectively. Treatment with 0.5% DMSO did not affect the
> progeny number or the lifespan of C. elegans under thermal stress.
> Using real time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction
> (RT-PCR), we found that the expression levels of hsp-16.2, hsp-70,
> lys-7, old-1, and sod-5 were enhanced by 2.5, 2.9, 1.3, 2.3, and
> 4.5-fold, respectively, after treatment with 0.5% DMSO. This
> suggests that these genes downstream of DAF-16 might function in
> the lifespan extension properties of DMSO. Using the transgenic
> strain lys-7::GFP, we found that treatment with 0.5% DMSO also
> caused expression levels of lys-7 increased by 1.5-fold. Genetic
> analysis using mutants of aging-related genes showed that lifespan
> extension in C. elegans by DMSO was dependent on sir-2.1 and daf-16
> but not eat-2 or hsf-1. In summary, we report the function and the
> putative mechanism of DMSO in lifespan extension of C. elegans.
> This study draws attention to using DMSO as a solvent when
> conducting aging studies.
> Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
> PMID: 20828537
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20828537>

I think that the purpose of this paper is more to show that using DMSO
as a solvent for other tested chemicals will effect the results because
it is not an inert placebo even by itself. I would like to see the same
experiment done with mice or rats.

Again thanks very much for raising the idea of using DMSO, which had
simply slipped from my mind during the last several years. During my
review and thinking I checked LEF and found that they do have two kinds
of DMSO (70% spray and gel forms) available from their store which i
will now be getting. In addition, your post caused me to rethink my
regimen relative to a left knee joint problem that has been negatively
affecting my dancing for several weeks and as a result I will be
increasing my MSM supplement and taking additional glucosamine as a
result. I will be applying the DMSO gel to my knee once I get it.
For now I do not intend to take DMSO orally, because I do not appear to
have any of the dysfunctions for which it has been used that way, but I
will now keep a lookout for any new results about it being positive for
longevity purposes.

--Paul

Hi Paul&Kitty, according to the information given below, even 100 mg daily zinc
intake may harm brain and Omega-3 may prevent this harm. Do you think you should
consider reducing your daily zinc intake? You take zinc with Chlorphyllin w/
zinc, Life Extension Mix.,Optizinc, and Zinc Lozenge. total more than 70 mg per
day. Do you think a possible zinc-induced brain harm or zinc-induced
aggregations of beta-amyloid protein is reversable by stopping to take large
doses of zinc?

A handful of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's were given a daily dose of 100
milligrams of zinc, approximately seven times the Recommended Daily Allowance
(RDA). After only two days, the mental condition of all the study participants
had deteriorated considerably. To avoid doing further damage, the scientists
immediately stopped the study.
More at: http://www.medical-explorer.com/alzheimers.php?014

* Zinc overload enhances APP cleavage and Aâ deposition in the Alzheimer mouse
brain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21179415

* Zinc and Alzheimer's disease: is there a direct link?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9164672

* The omega-3 fatty acid, DHA, decreases neuronal cell death in association with
altered zinc transport. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20006607

On 02/11/2011 09:05 AM, Orhan Kulluoglu wrote:
> Hi Paul&Kitty, according to the information given below, even 100 mg
> daily zinc intake may harm brain and Omega-3 may prevent this harm.

We have never taken more than 90 mg daily (Kitty always less than me)
and always make sure to take extra copper at approximately 1 mg for
each 10 mg of zinc over 40 mg. Also we take lots of things which
inhibit zinc absorption, so much of our intake does not likely get
absorbed. We also take lots of omega-3, both EPA and DHA. For various
other reasons I have little concern that either I or Kitty have any
risk of getting Alzheimer's disease.

> Do you think you should consider reducing your daily zinc intake?
> You take zinc with Chlorphyllin w/ zinc, Life Extension Mix.,Optizinc,
> and Zinc Lozenge. total more than 70 mg per day.

We only take the zinc lozenges "prn", which is medical short form (from
latin "pro re nota") for "as necessary for sickness" (which is very rare
for us). So our average supplemental dosage of zinc for the last year
has been only 64 mg for me and 47 for Kitty. (This would be available
in the online ingredients spreadsheet -
http://morelife.org/personal/health/regimen_ingredients_1meal2of3days.xls -
except that we ran out of columns using Excel format and switched to
Open Office .ods format, But the negative was that when Open Office
saved the file in Excel format so we could put it online, the last
columns were truncated. This problem is now solved with a newer version
of Open Office that enables saving to newer - extended - Excel formats
that allow more columns, so the next online version will be a .xlsx file
that has all the columns.)

Don't forget that the actual amounts of any ingredient taken is very
hard to figure from our regimen pages, partly because many of the pills
contains several ingredients and partly because of our 3 day cycle
containing only 2 meal pill sets, 2 pre-food pill sets and 2 non-food
pills sets. That is why we use an ingredients spreadsheet with complicated
formulas for calculating daily averages.

I recently decided to increase our dosages a little and the current
daily values are: 74 mg for Paul and 52 mg for Kitty. We will try to
upload the new and extended version of our current ingredients
spreadsheet.

> Do you think a possible zinc-induced brain harm or zinc-induced
> aggregations of beta-amyloid protein is reversable by stopping to
> take large doses of zinc?

Some studies do suggest that zinc reduction might help AD, but OTOH
too much reduction would also compromise immunity for which Zinc is
highly beneficial. So I think a better way would be to limit zinc to
perhaps 50 mg daily and take many antioxidants (via fruits and
vegetable polyphenols) in order to prevent and ROS damage from the
zinc (and other free metal ions).

> A handful of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's were given a daily
> dose of 100 milligrams of zinc, approximately seven times the
> Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA). After only two days, the mental
> condition of all the study participants had deteriorated considerably.
> To avoid doing further damage, the scientists immediately stopped
> the study.
> More at: http://www.medical-explorer.com/alzheimers.php?014

This does not imply that high dose zinc will actually cause AD. Even so
I agree that 100 mg daily is too much, particularly if other metals with
which zinc interacts and antioxidant defenses are not compensatorily
increased.

> * Zinc overload enhances APP cleavage and Aâ deposition in the
> Alzheimer mouse brain.
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21179415

The 20 mg/ml of ZnSO4 fed to the mice in their drinking water amounts
to 9 mg/ml of elemental zinc, which is an extremely high dosage,
given that a human drinks about 2 liters of water daily. So I think
this study result is not relevant to any human situation.

> * Zinc and Alzheimer's disease: is there a direct link?
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9164672

This is a 1997 hypothetical paper which has been superceded by newer
studies and reviews. While in vitro results do show both zinc and copper
promoting aggregations of beta-amyloid protein, in vivo "this formation
of Cu/Zn-Abeta complexes is thought to be aberrant as they have been
detected only in AD, but not under healthy conditions" -
http://pmid.us/19877000 Again there appears to be no clear implication
that zinc or copper cause AD, except to the extent that both can lead to
increased ROS if not accompanied by extra anti-ROS support.

> * The omega-3 fatty acid, DHA, decreases neuronal cell death in
> association with altered zinc transport.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20006607

This is an interesting link between brain zinc uptake (reduced by
DHA), neuronal apoptosis and AD. From the paper's conclusion section:

"In summary, dietary DHA reduces the risk of cognitive decline that is
associated with neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimer’s
disease. There is strong evidence that DHA acts through inhibiting
apoptosis. In the current study we have shown that the DHA-induced
decrease of apoptosis in M17 cells is accompanied by a decrease in
cellular zinc uptake and reduction of ZnT3 mRNA and protein levels. We
propose that zinc has a key role in pathways that regulate brain cell
survival and altered zinc homeostasis may contribute to the development
of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease."

But note that this is as yet unproven proposal for which the authors
only provide some evidence and a model. And even their proposal does
not suggest that zinc is a primary cause of AD.

Thanks again for your post, Orhan. It propelled me to reexamine my
supplements and get some extra copper to take. This was particularly
necessary since LEF recently changed to a different form of
chlorophyllin which does not contain any copper, so my supplemental
intake had decreased.

--Paul

[I am slowly getting through the work associated with updating the
Regimen pages for both me and Paul - it is laborious and not at all
one of my favorite tasks. Going through the regimen ingredients table
by Paul precedes our every 3 month order to LEF, then I have to input
changes that result to an inventory spreadsheet along with the actual
inventory status before creating the order itsel. I try but never
seem to keep current with the changes on the Regimen pages themselves
- the html changes are several with each change.

So those pages are on my list for at least some work each day. And
the updated ingredients spreadsheet - with *all* columns - will be
included in the upload. **Kitty]

Here are four more Paypal alternatives I stumbled upon:

Venmo <https://venmo.com/>
This payment system is fairly new and it uses your cell phone to make payments.
It's currently for the U.S. only and you can link either your bank account or
credit card to make payments. There are no fees for individual accounts, but
they charge for business accounts. The fee percentages are unknown for these
business accounts.

I tried signing up to Venmo, but they are under an invitation only process.



Zong <http://www.zong.com/>
This is also a mobile phone payment system. It appears to cover 38 countries
around the world. You can either be charged on your cell phone bill or pay
directly with their plus service by linking your credit card or debit card.
Their fees are 5-10% and if you are a merchant, expect cell phone companies to
charge between a pricey 25-45% of your sale if your customer chooses to get
billed by their carrier.

Ebillme <http://www.ebillme.com/>
This is a billing system merchants can use for customers to pay by bank account
or money order after they make a checkout online. I didn't realize many big name
merchants like Buy.com and Kmart are using them. They charge between 1-2% to
process orders. However,  they only accept merchants who make over $10 million
in online revenue and they have no user to user transactions for sending and
receiving money.

Neteller <https://www.neteller.com>
They are pretty much like PayPal with lower fees (1.9%) for sending money.
Neteller supports over 170 countries, but they are unavailable in the U.S. and
Canada. Mainly I have seen online gaming and gambling websites using them.

Thanks for this follow-up, Alton. I have a couple of comments below,
followed by a proposal for you :-)

On 02/27/2011 09:25 PM, Alton Lindsay Jr. wrote:
> Here are four more Paypal alternatives I stumbled upon:
>
> Venmo<https://venmo.com/>
> This payment system is fairly new and it uses your cell phone to
> make payments. It's currently for the U.S. only and you can link
> either your bank account or credit card to make payments. There are
> no fees for individual accounts, but they charge for business
> accounts. The fee percentages are unknown for these business
> accounts.
>
> I tried signing up to Venmo, but they are under an invitation only
> process.

This is one for those with cell phones to only watch at this time for
enlargement purposes and availability to everyone.

> Zong<http://www.zong.com/>
> This is also a mobile phone payment system. It appears to cover 38
> countries around the world. You can either be charged on your cell
> phone bill or pay directly with their plus service by linking your
> credit card or debit card. Their fees are 5-10% and if you are a
> merchant, expect cell phone companies to charge between a pricey
> 25-45% of your sale if your customer chooses to get billed by their
> carrier.

These are ridiculously high fees, but unfortunately people in some
countries have even less choice of services than in North America. Since
mobile phones are highly used and prized by the upwardly mobile youth,
who also do not seem to really understand the negatives of high interest
payments (such are constant credit card debt) (an almost live fast and
die young approach), I fear that all these mobile phone related services
will have high fees. Xipwire seems to be an exception to this, which is
why I currently favor it, but it has been very slow getting its merchant
interface up and running.

> Ebillme<http://www.ebillme.com/>
> This is a billing system merchants can use for customers to pay by
> bank account or money order after they make a checkout online. I
> didn't realize many big name merchants like Buy.com and Kmart are
> using them. They charge between 1-2% to process orders. However,
> they only accept merchants who make over $10 million in online
> revenue and they have no user to user transactions for sending and
> receiving money.

Yes, we have already used eBillme for a purchase. It was very easy with
no charge to us. I just wish that more online sales places had either
this one, eChecks or Intuit. Even for LEF, we had to mail them a check for
payment of our blood test order before they would send out the test
orders for LabCorp. I don't get our blood tests for free although I do
get them at LEF employee pricing and they had the trust to not need to
wait until our personal check actually cleared the bank payment hold
(which for out of state can be as long as 2 weeks). We just mailed a check
today for a purchase which because of the mail delay and then the hold
delay, I am not expecting to get the product for a month.

> Neteller<https://www.neteller.com>
> They are pretty much like PayPal with lower fees (1.9%) for sending
> money. Neteller supports over 170 countries, but they are
> unavailable in the U.S. and Canada. Mainly I have seen online
> gaming and gambling websites using them.

This one sounds like what those outside the US and Canada should be
using. I wonder how many online stores in those 170 countries are using
it and how many individual people.


Here is my proposal for you, Alton, relative to this and previous posts
on this topic.

Do some research to find out if anyone has a page online with a
comprehensive and comparative listing of all these money transfer
services which can replace PayPal, Visa and MasterCard.
If you cannot find any or even not one that is adequate, then consider
doing your own page. You could finance it by either advertising or ask
for value for value contributions from reader/users. If you need hosting
for the page then we can provide that at one of our several website URL's

--Paul

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer <paul@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for this follow-up, Alton. I have a couple of comments below,
> followed by a proposal for you :-)
>
> On 02/27/2011 09:25 PM, Alton Lindsay Jr. wrote:
> > Here are four more Paypal alternatives I stumbled upon:
> >
> > Venmo<https://venmo.com/>
> > This payment system is fairly new and it uses your cell phone to
> > make payments. It's currently for the U.S. only and you can link
> > either your bank account or credit card to make payments. There are
> > no fees for individual accounts, but they charge for business
> > accounts. The fee percentages are unknown for these business
> > accounts.
> >
> > I tried signing up to Venmo, but they are under an invitation only
> > process.
>
> This is one for those with cell phones to only watch at this time for
> enlargement purposes and availability to everyone.

I got good news about Venmo. I can now register an account and invite others to
do the same. Here is the link: https://venmo.com/get-started

It looks like they were tweaking their service some more before allowing myself
and others to join.

> > Zong<http://www.zong.com/>
> > This is also a mobile phone payment system. It appears to cover 38
> > countries around the world. You can either be charged on your cell
> > phone bill or pay directly with their plus service by linking your
> > credit card or debit card. Their fees are 5-10% and if you are a
> > merchant, expect cell phone companies to charge between a pricey
> > 25-45% of your sale if your customer chooses to get billed by their
> > carrier.
>
> These are ridiculously high fees, but unfortunately people in some
> countries have even less choice of services than in North America. Since
> mobile phones are highly used and prized by the upwardly mobile youth,
> who also do not seem to really understand the negatives of high interest
> payments (such are constant credit card debt) (an almost live fast and
> die young approach), I fear that all these mobile phone related services
> will have high fees. Xipwire seems to be an exception to this, which is
> why I currently favor it, but it has been very slow getting its merchant
> interface up and running.

I guess it will be up to services like Zong to negotiate lower fees with cell
phone carriers, in order to attract more customers. I tried signing up to
Xipwire, but my carrier (Metro PCS) isn't listed.


> Yes, we have already used eBillme for a purchase. It was very easy with
> no charge to us. I just wish that more online sales places had either
> this one, eChecks or Intuit. Even for LEF, we had to mail them a check for
> payment of our blood test order before they would send out the test
> orders for LabCorp. I don't get our blood tests for free although I do
> get them at LEF employee pricing and they had the trust to not need to
> wait until our personal check actually cleared the bank payment hold
> (which for out of state can be as long as 2 weeks). We just mailed a check
> today for a purchase which because of the mail delay and then the hold
> delay, I am not expecting to get the product for a month.

I just used eBillme for the first time on Thursday with Buy.com and you are
right about its ease of use.  What is LEF's pricing on blood tests?

> > Neteller<https://www.neteller.com>
> > They are pretty much like PayPal with lower fees (1.9%) for sending
> > money. Neteller supports over 170 countries, but they are
> > unavailable in the U.S. and Canada. Mainly I have seen online
> > gaming and gambling websites using them.
>
> This one sounds like what those outside the US and Canada should be
> using. I wonder how many online stores in those 170 countries are using
> it and how many individual people.

I just discovered that Neteller was available in the U.S. before but the
Government charged and arrested the founders for money laundering back in 2007,
which made them suspend the service in the U.S. In addition, the Federal
Government passed an Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
http://www.upforpoker.com/archives/neteller-pulls.html


>
> Here is my proposal for you, Alton, relative to this and previous posts
> on this topic.
>
> Do some research to find out if anyone has a page online with a
> comprehensive and comparative listing of all these money transfer
> services which can replace PayPal, Visa and MasterCard.
> If you cannot find any or even not one that is adequate, then consider
> doing your own page. You could finance it by either advertising or ask
> for value for value contributions from reader/users. If you need hosting
> for the page then we can provide that at one of our several website URL's
>
> --Paul
>


I think I can take on this proposal. I would go with the V4V approach on this
one. I'm willing to use your hosting too. Thanks.

As far as other websites with research on Paypal alternatives, I only came
across one called screw-paypal.com. They have a comprehensive list of
alternatives (most I think you are already familiar with), and they have a page
on there stating many reasons why PayPal isn't a good service.

I also found this money transfer service for merchants called PaybyCash that
allows them to choose over 50 payment methods (some are region specific) to
accept despite Paypal and Visa also being listed. I couldn't find anything on
their fee structure and they require a merchant to have at least $50K in annual
revenue. http://www.paybycash.com/

On 03/04/2011 03:02 AM, Alton Lindsay Jr. wrote:
>
> --- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Paul Wakfer<paul@...>  wrote:
>> Thanks for this follow-up, Alton. I have a couple of comments below,
>> followed by a proposal for you :-)
>>
>> On 02/27/2011 09:25 PM, Alton Lindsay Jr. wrote:
>>> Here are four more Paypal alternatives I stumbled upon:
>>>
>>> Venmo<https://venmo.com/>
>>> This payment system is fairly new and it uses your cell phone to
>>> make payments. It's currently for the U.S. only and you can link
>>> either your bank account or credit card to make payments. There are
>>> no fees for individual accounts, but they charge for business
>>> accounts. The fee percentages are unknown for these business
>>> accounts.
>>>
>>> I tried signing up to Venmo, but they are under an invitation only
>>> process.
>> This is one for those with cell phones to only watch at this time for
>> enlargement purposes and availability to everyone.
> I got good news about Venmo. I can now register an account and invite
> others to do the same. Here is the link: https://venmo.com/get-started
>
> It looks like they were tweaking their service some more before allowing
> myself and others to join.
>
>>> Zong<http://www.zong.com/>
>>> This is also a mobile phone payment system. It appears to cover 38
>>> countries around the world. You can either be charged on your cell
>>> phone bill or pay directly with their plus service by linking your
>>> credit card or debit card. Their fees are 5-10% and if you are a
>>> merchant, expect cell phone companies to charge between a pricey
>>> 25-45% of your sale if your customer chooses to get billed by their
>>> carrier.
>> These are ridiculously high fees, but unfortunately people in some
>> countries have even less choice of services than in North America. Since
>> mobile phones are highly used and prized by the upwardly mobile youth,
>> who also do not seem to really understand the negatives of high interest
>> payments (such are constant credit card debt) (an almost live fast and
>> die young approach), I fear that all these mobile phone related services
>> will have high fees. Xipwire seems to be an exception to this, which is
>> why I currently favor it, but it has been very slow getting its merchant
>> interface up and running.
> I guess it will be up to services like Zong to negotiate lower fees
> with cell phone carriers, in order to attract more customers. I tried
> signing up to Xipwire, but my carrier (Metro PCS) isn't listed.

Paul and I do not have cellphones at all and had no problem creating
accounts with xipwire.com. We are both linked to our credit union but
linking to credit/debit card is also available.
https://xipwire.com/info/personal/getstarted/ "XIPWIRE (pronounced
zip-wire) is a secure service that lets you send and receive money by
text message or online." So you can see that using a cellphone is not
the only means.

Also I note that xipwire has some additional info on its "business"
portion :
Your Key to Sales ? On-site or Online

Soon, we?ll be launching a payment gateway that allows online businesses
to automatically accept XIPWIRE payments. Email us and we?ll let you
know as soon as this feature goes live.
------------------

So the above is a good sign that they are making progress towards being
a full PayPal alternate.

[Remember that the major reason we have been promoting Xipwire is because they
specifically *do* support sending money to WikiLeaks. Whether others will do so
when asked, we do not know. --Paul]


>> Yes, we have already used eBillme for a purchase. It was very easy with
>> no charge to us. I just wish that more online sales places had either
>> this one, eChecks or Intuit. Even for LEF, we had to mail them a check for
>> payment of our blood test order before they would send out the test
>> orders for LabCorp. I don't get our blood tests for free although I do
>> get them at LEF employee pricing and they had the trust to not need to
>> wait until our personal check actually cleared the bank payment hold
>> (which for out of state can be as long as 2 weeks). We just mailed a check
>> today for a purchase which because of the mail delay and then the hold
>> delay, I am not expecting to get the product for a month.
> I just used eBillme for the first time on Thursday with Buy.com and
> you are right about its ease of use.  What is LEF's pricing on blood
> tests?

LEF has its list of blood tests via
http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/Blood-Tests/ Most are done through
LabCorp, but some are not. They typically have a special sale in the June
time-frame as I recall.


>>> Neteller<https://www.neteller.com>
>>> They are pretty much like PayPal with lower fees (1.9%) for sending
>>> money. Neteller supports over 170 countries, but they are
>>> unavailable in the U.S. and Canada. Mainly I have seen online
>>> gaming and gambling websites using them.
>> This one sounds like what those outside the US and Canada should be
>> using. I wonder how many online stores in those 170 countries are using
>> it and how many individual people.
> I just discovered that Neteller was available in the U.S. before but
> the Government charged and arrested the founders for money laundering
> back in 2007, which made them suspend the service in the U.S. In addition,
> the Federal Government passed an Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement
> Act. http://www.upforpoker.com/archives/neteller-pulls.html


Another example of government interfering with voluntary interactions
that are assessed to be mutually beneficial to the individuals involved.

[Even though I think that any form of gambling is irrational folly, it is an
action which is entirely up to the individual to decide and to monitor its harm
or benefit to hirself. I expect that the major reason for negativity of all
governments towards gambling is that it tends to reduce the funding for *them*.
--Paul]

>> Here is my proposal for you, Alton, relative to this and previous posts
>> on this topic.
>>
>> Do some research to find out if anyone has a page online with a
>> comprehensive and comparative listing of all these money transfer
>> services which can replace PayPal, Visa and MasterCard.
>> If you cannot find any or even not one that is adequate, then consider
>> doing your own page. You could finance it by either advertising or ask
>> for value for value contributions from reader/users. If you need hosting
>> for the page then we can provide that at one of our several website URL's
>>
>> --Paul
>>
>
> I think I can take on this proposal. I would go with the V4V approach
> on this one. I'm willing to use your hosting too. Thanks.


[Good! Then we can continue discussing this via email, since its details will
unlikely be of interest to others. --Paul]


> As far as other websites with research on Paypal alternatives, I only
> came across one called screw-paypal.com. They have a comprehensive list
> of alternatives (most I think you are already familiar with), and they
> have a page on there stating many reasons why PayPal isn't a good service.

All of the reasons listed are related to transactions with or via PayPal
re products or services and do not include the refusal of PayPal to
forward its customers' money to WikiLeaks, and maybe other destinations.

[And without that reason related to principled action, all the others are merely
the standard gripes that many people have with the leading product or service of
any kind. PayPal also has some major positives relative to other services of a
similar kind, or else it would not be the most popular such service. My proposal
suggestion did not include making any comparison of the overall value of the
services and I think that would be contrary to its purpose re WikiLeaks. --Paul]

> I also found this money transfer service for merchants called PaybyCash
> that allows them to choose over 50 payment methods (some are region specific)
> to accept despite Paypal and Visa also being listed. I couldn't find
> anything on their fee structure and they require a merchant to have
> at least $50K in annual revenue. http://www.paybycash.com/

This last is one of the services I included in my article, "Are
Principles Unaffordable?" -
http://selfsip.org/focus/areprinciplesunaffordable.html  However you've
supplied additional info on the business size required for making use of it.

Thanks, Alton.

**Kitty

Yesterday evening I uploaded my and Paul's quarterly health statistics along
with an update of both our supplement regimen pages. Along with the latter there
is now an updated Excel copy of our very large regimen ingredient spreadsheet
available via the notes section at the top of both our pages. This is a newer
Excel version - 2007 (.xlsx file type) - and has all the columns needed for our
purposes. We actually use Open Office .ods files for our working version because
it (and not MS Excel) is available on Linux. But I saved an Excel version for
the website purpose because most people still insist on patronizing Microsoft
and using Excel, even though Open Office suite and other fully equivalent
applications are now available on Linux (we use and greatly enjoy Linux Mint).

An interesting item for everyone will probably be the 3 photos on our Personal
Index page of us with our "new" stand-at desks. It took quite a bit of doing in
2 stages to get the 4 each 11.75 inch long 6x6 blocks under each desk - at each
corner of Paul's that has solid sides and under the legs of mine. (We had to
wait 2 weeks before we actually got the wood from Home Depot since they had to
order it and then make special arrangements to get it cut - at their expense
since we had been told originally that they could cut it in-house at no added
cost.) Paul also had to wiggle his way under my desk and maneuver himself into
the narrow space next to the window in order to do some additional work there.
But finally after 2 days we had the desks as we wanted them. Now we're on the
look out for 2 appropriate height stools, hopefully on casters for easily moving
into place when we want to sit a bit, and that meet our price. In the meantime
we mostly stand, as planned, and since we're quite light weight can even sit on
very sturdy wooden TV-tray tables with a cushion added.

For all the above - http://morelife.org/personal/index.html

As always, let me know if there appear to be errors.

**Kitty

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dra\
fting+stool&x=0&y=0

[Since we refuse to patronize Amazon, because of its anti-WikiLeaks action
without even requiring a legal order let alone fighting it in court, we did not
even search there. Nor did we search anywhere else on the Internet mainly
because of the high cost of shipping any such large items. These are the sorts
of things for which it is still better to shop locally, mostly at second hand
stores since functionality and not appearance is the prime value factor. --Paul]


you can probably find near free on craig's list if your metropolitan area is
large enough.

[This is a better idea and we will search to see if there are any locally
available that we could pick up during a trip to the Phoenix area which we do
every week or two. --Paul]

Readers are likely to find of interest an online blog exchange that began with a
Twitter exchange between me and Travis Saunders, described as: "a PhD student
researching the relationship between sedentary time and chronic disease risk in
children and youth. He is also a Certified Exercise Physiologist and competitive
distance runner."

Twitter allows messages up to a maximum of 140 characters and will truncate all
beyond that. Therefore a great amount of abbreviation takes place, much like
what I assume occurs with text messaging, although I and Paul do not have
cellphones.

I suggest that for full understanding, people follow the links within the tweets
(messages).

On March 10, after making a Tweet about the MoreLife upload with photos of me
and Paul at our standing desks, which contained a mention (@TravisSaunders)
because it was from him that I got the idea back in February, I noted a Tweet he
had made the previous day:
"Reading: If You Are Not Obese, a Health Professional, or Obesity Researcher,
Should Your "Idea" Count? http://bit.ly/dL304z via @drsharma"

I read the linked article and made a reply Tweet:
"@TravisSaunders @drsharma No mntion of full cnsquencs effects from actions. If
obese R "accepted" & #gov pays 4 hlth probs, incentive less."

The next day he tweeted back:
"@KittyAntonik @drsharma if greater "incentive" to lose weight was all it took,
then we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic."

I responded later that same day:
"@TravisSaunders @drsharma #Obesity Research http://bit.ly/fVJJna IDs incentive
prblm but not fully; no mntion $ or ppl "acceptance". C endng"

A few hours later from Travis:
@KittyAntonik just to clarify, are you talking about increasing the incentives
for individuals or for the economy/society?

Before calling it a night on March 11, I made the following Tweet, which
contains a link to a Twitlonger (for when 140 characters are not enough :) :
"@TravisSaunders Thnx 4 ques re #obesity. Incentives only exist 4 individuals.
Groups R nothing more than (cont) http://tl.gd/97t9j3"

The morning of March 12 I saw the following "Mention" Tweet from Travis
Saunders:
"@KittyAntonik disagree w assumption that obesity is solely the result of
personal choices. Not supported by evidence http://bit.ly/gtyX4I"

This last link is to a December article at the blog Travis Saunders has with a
Peter Janiszewski, called "Obesity Panacea".
I made the time to read it, a paraphrasing of and with a quote from a November
paper at Proceedings of the Royal Society. My moderately detailed response
comment was published immediately (no moderation wait) at the blog -
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/#comment-2191 and I made a Tweet announcing it. Actually there was a 4
minute preceding Tweet to him and so here are both of them in order of release
in late afternoon of March 12:
"@TravisSaunders No such assump re. #obesity st'd! Plz not assum I & @paulwakfer
not fully knwldgble re it & othr hlth iss on wich we write."
"@TravisSaunders My cmnt: http://bit.ly/he9kzw "Evidence" not supprt conclusions
which include logic switch #obesity "influence" in2 "cause"."

This morning, March 13, there was an email notice to me of a reply from Travis
Saunders to my post at "Obesity Panacea" -
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/#comment-2201

My response to the above reply at that blog was made at 11:41 blogsite (Ottawa
Canada) time (9:41pm AZ time). I was not actually surprised to see that my
message was then tagged "awaiting moderation". I suspect that Travis Saunders
was not pleased with my original post and does not want to have anyone see a
response from me to his reply without him already being "prepared" with a
response.

There is also the possibility that Travis Saunders will not allow my comment to
show at all. However if it does not show in its entirety by tomorrow afternoon,
I will place my copy here at MoreLife Yahoo, and likely TwitLonger (of which the
first 140 characters automatically become a tweet).
The link assigned to my "awaiting moderation" comment is:
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/#comment-2219  This will be "live" to my comment *if/when* Travis
Saunders approves the comment.

**Kitty

On 03/13/2011 10:15 PM, Kitty Antonik Wakfer wrote:

[snip]
> This morning, March 13, there was an email notice to me of a reply
> from Travis Saunders to my post at "Obesity Panacea" -
>
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/#comment-2201
>
> My response to the above reply at that blog was made at 11:41 blogsite
> (Ottawa Canada) time (9:41pm AZ time). I was not actually surprised to see
> that my message was then tagged "awaiting moderation". I suspect that
> Travis Saunders was not pleased with my original post and does not want
> to have anyone see a response from me to his reply without him already
> being "prepared" with a response.
>
> There is also the possibility that Travis Saunders will not allow my
> comment to show at all. However if it does not show in its entirety
> by tomorrow afternoon, I will place my copy here at MoreLife Yahoo,
> and likely TwitLonger (of which the first 140 characters automatically
> become a tweet).
> The link assigned to my "awaiting moderation" comment is:
>
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/#comment-2219
> This will be "live" to my comment *if/when* Travis Saunders approves
> the comment.
>
> **Kitty

Since my response comment has not been posted and I can see that it is
still "awaiting moderation", I am placing a copy of it here - actually
the copy that is still sitting at "Obesity Panacea" and I see it when I
use the above link, but is not visible to anyone else except the blog
owners.

Bolded and italicized words in the original are indicated with
asterisks and / /, respectively.


Kitty Antonik Wakfer <http://selfsip.org> says: /Your comment is
awaiting moderation./
March 13, 2011 at 11:41 pm
<http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-co\
al-mine/#comment-2219>


This a reply to
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/#comment-2201
done in this manner so as to avoid the ever-decreasing line length for
replies in this type of exchange.

On 03/13/2011 11:50 AM, Obesity Panacea wrote:
> There is a new comment on the post "Animal obesity: canary in the coal mine?".
>
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/
>
> Author: Travis Saunders, MSc, CEP
> Comment:
> Thanks for that detailed comment, Kitty.

I find your "thanks" to be rather shallow when you have not responded to
any of the points I made in "that detailed comment" and therefore
continue to miss/ignore vital aspects of the entire issue and
analysis/evaluation in general.

> I don't think anyone is debating the fact that, at it's core, obesity is
> caused by an imbalance between energy intake and expenditure

Good. At least that physical/physiological fact is not being denied.
Although it would be far more correct and show more understanding if you
had said the /material cause/ (or even the /effective cause/) of
"obesity is" "an imbalance between ..."

> (it is *not* simply due to caloric intake

I never said it was. What I *said* was that obesity is always
*proportional* to caloric intake after subtraction of energy expenditure.
If you had responded inline to my comments, you would not have been
logically able to make the statement that you just now did without its
error being immediately obvious.

> ... both sides need to be taken into account).

And that is exactly what I did.

> But there are many things that can influence both intake and expenditure
> which are outside of an individual's control

No, you are stating it incorrectly! If you had stated "there are many
things that can influence the /factor of proportionality/ between both
energy intake and weight gain, after expenditure is subtracted, which
are outside of an individual's control" that would be correct. (Although
even here, genetics and other prenatal/childhood factors are the only
ones that I can think of which are *totally* outside of an
individual's control.) But both /intake/ and /expenditure/ result
from volitional actions. We are not talking about someone who is
force-fed or is totally restrained. In all other cases the action of
putting food into one's mouth is voluntary, just as not moving one's
body to increase energy expenditure is also a voluntary choice.

> -- be it genetics, socio-economic status, or the environment in which
> they live.

These are components of the factor of proportionality, which you are
ignoring, and their effects can be directly neutralized by changes in
quantity of intake and/or energy expenditure. Even with respect to those
factors noted above which are outside of a person's control or later
direct modification (at this point in time), however, s/he can
compensate for such -- consuming a different nutritional profile of
foods and doing more and/or different types of energy expenditure would
be two such obvious ways.
Individuals can and have throughout history made choices to alter their
circumstance of birth including both their "socio-economic status"
and/or "the environment in which they live" (or merely the effects of
all these).

> Surprisingly, there just isn't that much evidence that the obesity epidemic
> has been caused by either increased caloric intake or reduced physical
> activity.

Here again you -- and many (?most?) of the current researchers in
obesity -- are ignoring the volitional aspect of food intake and energy
expenditure.

Maybe formula representation would help you -- or at least some readers:

Adipose tissue accumulation over time D [days] = (daily average food
energy intake -- daily average body energy expenditure) x D x F [factor
of proportionality] or in shorter form: Ad = (Ej -- Ee) x D x F

Factor of proportionality is unique to the individual and is comprised
of influences on individual physiology relating to metabolism.

However returning to your statement above, I strongly object to the use
of the term "epidemic" (medically previously always applied to large
outbreaks of contagious diseases) for something which is entirely under
the volitional control of the population. Yes, obesity is prevalent (one
of the vernacular meanings of epidemic), but I don't think anyone is
maintaining that it is a contagious disease and thus it should not be
medically termed an "epidemic".

> Or rather, the evidence for diet and exercise isn't any stronger than the
> evidence for a number of factors. Here is a great review looking at the
> evidence for a number of possible factors:
>
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2932668/

Once again the language used by these researchers is devoid of any
understanding of human volition (or the willingness to acknowledge it),
demonstrated by the fact that the word "choice" appears only once -- in
the title of a cited reference.
Statements such as "cause of this /epidemic/ [emphasis added] remains
unclear" are of little value in a scientific paper without a (brief)
review of the physics/physiology of obesity in an individual. If such
had taken place, then the discussion of "the role of such
[microorganisms, epigenetics, increasing maternal age, greater fecundity
among people with higher adiposity, assortative mating, sleep debt,
endocrine disruptors, pharmaceutical iatrogenesis, reduction in
variability of ambient temperatures, and intrauterine and
intergenerational effects] putative etiological factors of obesity"
could truly "lead to ... effective strategies for prevention and
treatment of this global epidemic." Because it would be obvious that the
most direct and effective prevention and treatment strategy would be to
influence people to voluntarily reduce their energy intake.

> What evidence *would* make you believe that obesity is not simply the
> result of an individual's choices?

First off, I don't "believe" anything. But again you are trying to put
words in my mouth. No, obesity is not "simply", but it is *directly*
(/materially and effectively/) "the result of an individual's
choices". I am aware of no incontrovertible evidence that in any human
population *all* members have increased in weight while eating the
same foods and expending the same amounts of energy as previously even
though various environmental factors have changed in the same way for
all. Graphically this would be represented as a right shift of the
entire distribution curve of number of people (y-axis) versus weight
(x-axis). If the non-individually controllable components of the factor
of proportionality had really changed, then such a graphical right shift
of the distribution curve is what one would expect to see. However, even
if that were true (and I remain open to that possibility) this would not
mean that any particular individual could not compensate for this.

Simply take yourself and your blog partner as anecdotal examples; both
in your mid 20s/early 30s (my estimate) and compare to others of same
gender living in the same general area. It is the choices that the two
of you have made that are the *cause* for you both *not* being obese
while large numbers of those in that comparison group are. I can do the
same for me and Paul, 40 -- 50 years older than you both; and the reason
is the same, even while the number of obese age/gender/location
contemporaries to us is even greater.

I am not suggesting that our having made choices resulting in and
maintaining healthy lean bodies, puts you, Peter Janiszewski, Paul and
me in some sort of elite category with respect to the rest of humanity
(those who are overweight/obese). However, I do suspect that this *is*
the thinking of many in the "obesity field" and is reflected in the
writings and behaviors of "gurus" towards their "followers". Also it is
the promotion of weakness of "the masses" that enables all elitists
(whether inside or outside of coercive governments) to institute
policies of "protection" even at the expense of those "masses", whether
it be as part of the "War on Obesity" or the "War on Drugs" or any of
the numerous other dependency-inculcating influences or
liberty-restricting actions.

In conclusion, it is the choices made by the individual humans in the
presence of the "Putative Contributors" (from title of paper you
referenced) that is of paramount importance (and effectivity) -- and
this is the factor that is being ignored by obesity researchers. I can
only wonder if it is because to bring the subject of human
volition/choice out into the open within scientific journals would
greatly diminish the justification for vastly more research (and PhD
researchers), virtually always at taxpayer expense.

Even more, "obesity research" about how to motivate more people to use
their volition to make better choices is not truly needed since
allowing/enabling people to experience/observe the harmful-to-them
consequences of their own poor choices -- either directly on one's self
or on others -- is the most effective way for them to learn better
choices. I suggest it is the researchers who need to relearn this fact
of human nature, by demonstrating it to themselves.

Lastly, the "Obesity Panacea" should be: "You DO have control! You are
NOT a pawn of your genes and/or your environment! You DO have the
ability to make choices. And to help effect this control we [you and
Peter] will provide sound scientific information and practical
psychological encouragement. BUT the CHOICE is always up to you!"

> I don't think we're ever going to change each other's minds on this one :)
>
> Travis
-------- end of submitted comment ------------

**Kitty

[This is a much delayed posting because I wanted to have an answer for Alton,
who was notified well within 24 hours of the reason for the delay. **Kitty]

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Kitty Antonik Wakfer <kitty@...> wrote:

> Paul and I do not have cellphones at all and had no problem creating
> accounts with xipwire.com. We are both linked to our credit union but
> linking to credit/debit card is also available.
> https://xipwire.com/info/personal/getstarted/ "XIPWIRE (pronounced
> zip-wire) is a secure service that lets you send and receive money by
> text message or online." So you can see that using a cellphone is not
> the only means.
>
> Also I note that xipwire has some additional info on its "business"
> portion :
> Your Key to Sales ? On-site or Online
>
> Soon, we?ll be launching a payment gateway that allows online businesses
> to automatically accept XIPWIRE payments. Email us and we?ll let you
> know as soon as this feature goes live.
> ------------------
>
> So the above is a good sign that they are making progress towards being
> a full PayPal alternate.

Anytime I try signing up to XIPWIRE, their site requires me to enter a phone
number and select a cell phone carrier from a list.

[I duplicated Alton's efforts and found the same "problem". After 2 emails
asking about why Internet-only sign-up to XIPWIRE was no longer visible, I
finally got a response from the VP, Sibyl Lindsay:


-------- Original Message --------
Subject:  Re: Signing Up Without a Mobile/Cell Phone?
Date:  Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:52:06 -0400 (EDT)
From:  Sibyl Lindsay <sibyl@...>
To:  Kitty Antonik Wakfer <kitty@...>
CC:  Sharif J. Alexandre <sharif@...>


Hello Kitty.

Sorry for the delayed reply. We did remove the mobile number
requirement for a brief time. Due to security reason we had to
reinstate the mobile number requirement to protect all of our users
and abuse of the system. I apologize for any inconvenience this might
cause but as a small company we need to make sure we take every
measure to keep the system as secure as possible.
Best,
Sibyl

Sibyl Lindsay
------------end of email-------------

I responded this afternoon:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:  Re: Signing Up Without a Mobile/Cell Phone?
Date:  Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:51:47 -0700
From:  Kitty Antonik Wakfer <kitty@...>
Organization:  MoreLife
To:  Sibyl Lindsay <sibyl@...>
CC:  Sharif J. Alexandre <sharif@...>


Hello Sibyl,

On 03/14/2011 12:52 PM, Sibyl Lindsay wrote:
> Hello Kitty.
>
> Sorry for the delayed reply. We did remove the mobile number
> requirement for a brief time. Due to security reason we had to
> reinstate the mobile number requirement to protect all of our users
> and abuse of the system.

I and Paul are very sorry to be told this now - and not having
received any notification as a customer re. a change in XIPWIRE
policy. Since we do not have cellphone and are Internet-only
customers this would seem to be a necessity.

> I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause but as a small
> company we need to make sure we take every measure to keep the
> system as secure as possible.

You do not make it clear what security you are referring to and for
whom. But I do not expect you to actually explain.

This lack of Internet usage will now necessitate my updating the
articles I wrote which included recommendations of XIPWIRE since your
service is now greatly limited.

**Kitty
--------- end of email --------------

Even though our accounts are still good at XIPWIRE, I and Paul will be
looking for another money transfer company that has a full Internet
capability. **Kitty]


> [Remember that the major reason we have been promoting Xipwire is
> because they specifically *do* support sending money to WikiLeaks.
> Whether others will do so when asked, we do not know. --Paul]

True, and this is potential for preferencing against more services who may end
up choosing not to support sending money to Wikileaks.

>> I also found this money transfer service for merchants called PaybyCash
>> that allows them to choose over 50 payment methods (some are region specific)
>> to accept despite Paypal and Visa also being listed. I couldn't find
>> anything on their fee structure and they require a merchant to have
>> at least $50K in annual revenue. http://www.paybycash.com/
>
> This last is one of the services I included in my article, "Are
> Principles Unaffordable?" -
> http://selfsip.org/focus/areprinciplesunaffordable.html  However you've
> supplied additional info on the business size required for making use of it.
>
> Thanks, Alton.
>
> **Kitty

I had a feeling I saw PayByCash from somewhere before. Your article reminded me.

--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, Kitty Antonik Wakfer <kitty@...> wrote:
>
> On 03/13/2011 10:15 PM, Kitty Antonik Wakfer wrote:
>
> [snip]
> > This morning, March 13, there was an email notice to me of a reply
> > from Travis Saunders to my post at "Obesity Panacea" -
> >
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/#comment-2201

[snip of earlier content]

> > The link assigned to my "awaiting moderation" comment is:
> >
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/#comment-2219
> > This will be "live" to my comment *if/when* Travis Saunders approves
> > the comment.
> >
> > **Kitty
>
> Since my response comment has not been posted and I can see that it is
> still "awaiting moderation", I am placing a copy of it here - actually
> the copy that is still sitting at "Obesity Panacea" and I see it when I
> use the above link, but is not visible to anyone else except the blog
> owners.

[snip of comment content]

When my post was still in the "awaiting moderation" mode 4 days later, I made a
Tweet:
"My 3/13 cmnt 2 @TravisSaunders rsp of same day @ #Obesity Panacea still
"awaiting moderation". It can B read @ http://bit.ly/ezNRLR #health"

On 3/21 was there was a reply Tweet from Travis:
"@KittyAntonik been on vacay since last week, just got your message. our
comments go live automatically unless akismet thinks they're spam."

Yesterday my 3/13 comment appeared on the Blog quickly followed by a reply from
Travis. I responded today and needed to Tweet Travis that again, my comment was
"awaiting moderation". It can (now) be seen at
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2010/12/01/animal-obesity-canary-in-the-coa\
l-mine/#comment-2267

While I wrongly concluded that Travis intentionally held my comment, not
checking blog spam folders at least every couple days is careless and even
irresponsible. (I and Paul started checking our email spam folder daily after we
discovered that some non-spam was being directed there due to some filtering
parameters over which we have no control.)

[In our philosophical view there is little social difference between
irresponsible/negligent harmful actions and intentionally malevolent ones. If
someone is constantly and irredeemably irresponsible with respect to some action
(or lack of action), then the effect on others is precisely the same as willful
action or inaction, and one should negatively socially preference that person to
the same extent whichever is the source of such action or inaction. --Paul]

The "Obesity Panacea" blog has some interesting entries but I (and Paul) still
view the lack of recognition of individual responsibility for consumed food and
expended energy a considerable drawback for this blog and *all* obesity
research. This is a real shame because I think the blog could be far more
valuable to readers than it is now with the current assumptions of its owners.

**Kitty