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Well there's no DNS similarities I can see.

http://whois.domaintools.com/getpopcornti.me

http://whois.domaintools.com/baboom.com

I think we need more evidence than "they both use normalize and use odd caching techniques" before we can 100% say that they're both Kim's brainchildren.

Well the best in class of developed countries. The US does have the largest military, political hegemony, economic hegemony, and a huge amount of cultural influence compared to other sovereigns.

With that in mind the standard I have is high (top in class of developed countries for certain statistical measures) when you think about these social, cultural and economic dominances reverberate throughout the entire world.

Let's just face it, extremely large and complex systems are unwieldy and unpredictable. You have incredible technical and regulatory debt, and eventually you need to start from scratch whether you like it or not. You don't have to scrap the whole project, but you do need to rethink every part.

This system will collapse. It's too big, too mean, and too proud.

> I work with people who have been working policy for over 40 years.

And in the words of Thomas Jefferson:

> "Unless the mass [of people] retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression ..."

> "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

> "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

> "A people always preserves the right to revise, reform and change its constitution. A generation is not entitled to subject future generations to its own laws."

And to recap the current Federal Government: 1) The masses do not sufficiently control it. The representation per population has decreased and most politicians do not reflect the mosaic of the people but are a class of people on their own. 2) Americans are generally ignorant. Of others and themselves. Whether this is by design or by accident is up for debate. 3) The FED wants to pass extremely personal laws. Whether its for health or for safety, they all take up some of your personal responsibility, and hand it over. The War on Terror and Drugs are examples of the State declaring the right to protect you even against yourself. 4) How many reforms or repeals of laws do we see? How many new laws do we see? We should be reviewing and reforming old laws more than making new ones. Again we see another example of the Federal Government going against it's constitutional framer's vision for a free society.

I don't know about you, but I think the US is already a tyrannical oligopoly. Only instead of the bludgeon, it's weapon of oppression is apathy and propaganda.

If you believe in karma then you know this doesn't bode well for future Americans. I doubt the next few generations of Pakistani will like them.

That said there's so much room for improvement at this point. Eventually people are going to start losing faith in these 20th century institutions and ideas, and hopefully the Millennials and future generations will fix it.

Unfortunately for the baby boomers and gen x, history will look back on them as morally bankrupt, hypocritical and selfish.

Which means the issue is a systemic one, based on the morality of the political class? If so, then I agree.

Unfortunately for America there seems to be no hope on the horizon. All classes of societal are facing moral degradation. Whether it's the poor and their gang/crime issues, the middle class with their consumerism/ignorance issues, or the upper class for their greed/lack of empathy.

Obviously this can be generalized amongst most nations, but I think it's evidently more prevalent in America.

Well it's also a bad thing. A bad thing for the workers who they replace. A bad thing for the unemployed during the initial periods where we don't have jobs for these people. A bad thing for people who don't see the profits of these gains, but have to shoulder more tax burden to pay for the unemployed.

Now why is the rise of a robot workforce a good thing for the masses of humanity again? The humanist in me thinks the futurists don't care about 95% of the current human population so long as 5% of us can enjoy utopia with robots and AI. Completely morally despicable.

This is just an accidental filter for our species. I mean, look at Japan. It has decreasing amounts of young people wanting to procreate or socially interact.

The people who can handle junk food, tv, porn, and the internet, will carry on. Maybe some will go crazy or become dysfunctional, but let's look at the other side of this either or grouping.

The people who can't handle these vices will more than the average, die from unhealthy foods, become depressed or kill themselves due to bad habits/addictions with porn/internet/media.

Eventually, more people who can handle these adaptations will be born than those who can't. It may be a hard pill to swallow, but that's how I see it.

Of course, we all may not be capable of a certain severity of these stimuli, so the truth may be more cynical.

My hope is that we change directions. But I think we have to ask ourselves whether we deserve to exist as a species. We certainly have our faults, and one could say we've crafted our own end if you choose to believe that's where we're heading.

Agreed. The fallacies are simply a toolset for confirmation bias IMO.

Personally, I think cognitive dissonance is a major problem. People in general have opinion set A at any given moment, and when a direct contradiction to one opinion in set A occurs, they either fight it, or flee.

There's a lot of science behind the idea that most people use their reptilian brain in arguments, emotionally defend their already engrained views, and then try to logically defend it after the fact.

The real challenge is while defending your own views, to try and attempt at discerning whether or not you are simply emotionally responding to a cognitive dissonance, or whether you are rationally defending a built up worldview with foundations in knowledge and insight.

I'd like to say I do the latter, but I'm sure everybody would like to agree with that...

It's always nice to see the fallacies of debate promoted so we can hopefully all improve in our exchanging of ideas.

Ones to really watch out for IMO are Appeal to Emotion and Ad Hominem. These two are the most used fallacies in internet debates IMO. The more you familiarize yourself with these, the better you may become in recognizing a poor argument.

I thought it was short for "bro"chure anyway. I ctrl+f'ed brother on every page of that site, and I couldn't find any. If anything, people are placing the gender connotation into this command, like people do with "man"ual... why is it the creator and the people who aren't mentioning gender who are being insensitive? I find this entire argument sexist against myself as a man, as the equivalent of this would be creating something called sis and having everyone come down on your because of the name.

Good points. The main differences I think between a sustainable economy and unsustainable one is between our Bagehotian Banking model versus a more stable Mises Banking model.

Link to an article that compares them in detail: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.ca/2008/10/misesian...

I think it does have something to do with technology, in the sense of how technology, which is a neutral toolset, is being used by the powerful.

For instance, Luddite's first paragraph in wikipedia:

> The Luddites were 19th-century English textile artisans who protested against newly developed labour-saving machinery from 1811 to 1817. The stocking frames, spinning frames and power looms introduced during ^^the Industrial Revolution threatened to replace the artisans with less-skilled, low-wage labourers, leaving them without work.^^

Emphasis mine.

What we're seeing is another revolution. A technological/economical revolution that potentially threatens to replace most workers in general with automated machines on an unprecedented scale. I feel like their is a concern here, and that some people within the aggressive group would most likely identify with this concern.

Links regarding this potential revolution: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21594264-previous-tec... http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/half-of-all-us-jobs...

I don't know what will be the case, whether we create new employment for people like in our history, or not, because we're treading in new territory. But regardless of what direction we take, ignoring the masses in terms of basic needs will be met with violence, death, loss of growth...

Another important factor to include regarding new technologies and industries are that normal people create them. This requires economic freedom to do, and stifling future generations with mandatory credentials and debt is not the most efficient way of doing this.

No offense, but China has been getting tons of gold on its balance sheet for awhile now. USA wont even let Germany have theirs for 8 years, as it'll take that long to get it... which means I question the reserve amounts the US has...

Good point! I imagine some people could take that as offensive/weird however.

That said I donate to an actual charity and am believing that I should start tipping less anyway. It subsidises the company, which should pay its workers, and was meant to be an acknowledgment of great work, not an expected way to earn your average income, like we sometimes see today.

Luckily where I live (Canada), we don't have 3$/hr wages which make you seem like a horrible person for not tipping. So that said, while I could tip both minimum wage workers, I could also just not, as I only earn about $1000 more per month, which is offset still, as I'm still paying off my student debts, which means that while I may seem richer, I am not until my debt is repaid.

> If you are super empathetic, you'll observe most people being relatively insensitive.

Not really. I mean, I empathize with those who view charity differently than me. Besides, I have more empathy for the gas attendant who can't take tips (not allowed) who work 8 steps away from a Tim Hortons attendant who I tip everyday.

How so? Are they Taxi drivers? Are Taxi drivers in Paris in a Industrial Union or a Craft Union?

Do you feel like their violence against other citizens are justified?

Sadly, they probably see the uber drivers as scabs. Even though that's like if the Police went on strike, and started beating up employed security guards...

You make good points. I agree with your point on gold. I was just highlighting the fact that confidence is what is key, and people are not 100% rationale, which can lead to weird confidence, whether that means no confidence for a good system, or good confidence.

I wonder if this has anything to do with ..... ..........?

> If there were a single global universal fiat currency, that might not be the case, but ethereal isn't one.

I think we may see this if bitcoin becomes too popular. I mean, it may be too late by then, but why not try right? Oppressors gotta oppress.

I think some fans of gold don't see the benefits of the network (and network effect) of bitcoin.

That said, if it becomes too much of a liability to store (hackers, taxes, transmission) in the future without the growth, then it'll lose confidence. I feel like any problems with security though would only become a reality when it would hit mass appeal.

Hate to go against my gold bug brothers, but no monetary supply requires a physical backing; just confidence.

Yes backing a currency in gold will give confidence. Yes backing a fractional reserve with a military and resources will give confidence.

If bitcoin can TRULY deliver on its promises as a payment transmitter, than it may just get enough confidence to become a currency as well.

As it stands now however, it looks like a speculative commodity.

Regarding the diet above, which limits your sugar intake to 20 grams a day, what are some potential consequences of starving your body of sugars?

Sounds good in theory (sugar is bad), but it sounds stressful (body starts producing ketones due to suck a lack of sugar, flu like symptoms for a week).

> Your 'unbiased look' at the event is by the guy himself.

Agreed lol.

I guess we just don't agree on the merits of materialism. While I definitely think it helps explain the world, and is our best friend when it comes to our perceptions or reality, it is a poor agent in even CONSIDERING non-materialistic characteristics in anything.

I find the whole thing highly ironic. It's almost like the highly educated / scientifically literate persons in our day and age worship materialism instead of the scientific method. Thats all science is. The methods and the steps we take to create reproducible research. Not the institutions and boards that write to editors claiming that the constant of the the speed of light did NOT change during the 20 years between X and Y.

I for one, can hold onto the ideas of constants, without engaging in a flight or fight response in my neocortex that forces me to reject new or creative ideas without even entertaining them.

For instance, could you investigate the possibility that global warming isn't because of human action? I could even thought I dont BELIEVE it. The dogmatic idelogue of modern science would have you act like a religious person regarding it. /rant.

> How do you know those sites have those trackers before visiting them? The only way to "opt-out" of the sites with such trackers is to stop using the web entirely.

iframes going to facebook, scripts going to google-analytics.com/ga.js, etc mixed with knowledge about what these elements do (facebook iframe article, obvious in regards to analytics, etc).

> In the (European) country I live in, public organizations have been prevented from invading privacy (e.g. setting CCTV cameras) by our national data protection commission.

So public organizations are prevented from data gathering from themselves? Well that solves that problem. I'm sure if the NSA comes out and says they'll start enforcing protection against spying that some would even believe them!

> How is web analytics and personal data mining a product of State spying?

I'm not saying it is! I have no problem with facebook or google. I don't use facebook, and use google only to the extent I am comfortable with. Never have these companies used this information, some exploitable, to exploit me. They want me to use their services.

On the inverse, could you explain to me in your own words why this legislation is necessary?

Sure!

http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=Morphic+Resonance&btnG=&h...

More specific: http://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/sheldrake-1992.pdf

Again, not saying he's right. I'm saying that to dismiss an actual scientist when they say that in general, the field of science has "believers", and not enough people entertaining the questioning of "facts", is a dogmatic, and bad trend.

This is a good unbiased look on the whole event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGzu8TJsyo

I dont reallt care if facebook tracks me through iframes or if google tracks me through analytics.

I volunteered to go to a website, that volunteered to use that service. I can choose not to visit the source sites or the associate ones.

The problem I see with all of this "the governments - or - some government - or - the UN - needs to protect our privacy!!!"

Against whom? Facebook? Google?

How about GOVERNMENTS. If you ask me, any sort of nefarious behaviour commited by web companies are most likely the product of a larger, coercive form of behaviour starting from the government.

I wouldn't go that far. So how would one approach doing scientific work on additional sense in addition to the known 5?

Or what about the idea of constants not being so exactly concrete? Just do yourself a favour and watch the video.

And besides, his theory on morphological evolution isn't based on anything but experimentation and theory. If you dismiss it simply because it seems "too crazy"... then I could argue it could be comparable to the scientists of Galileo, dismissing such ridiculous ideas. Not even worth entertaining...

> non-scientific opinions

hmm... lets check out your link...

> ...be removed from the TEDx archive if the ideas contained in it are wrong to the point of being unscientific...

So who judges this? Did you even watch the video? The whole thing was about questioning things we already THINK we know the answers to. How is the opposite of such not Dogma? Did you even research Constants? He had. But you're right, just plain wrong.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/11/fundamental-constants...

You mean PHD Biologist that lectured at Cambridge University? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake

So if you were a scientist interested in a field that others called, "stupid", you would just change for fear of peer pressure? I admire following your interest with scientific method... Which is what this man advocates, and not just blind faith to stats... Did you even watch the video before forming your opinion?