No specific dress code, although we will be in the somewhat fancy British Consulate building. Ralph Lauren black bathrobe it is!
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Should've included this in the OP: " 6:00pm to 6:45pm – Beer, wine, and appetizers served" right next to "It's totally free to attend" See you there! BTW, dress code?
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sick cool post beliathon
Myth and falsehood are only worms, burrowing inside the great tree of truth. They are mortal things, while the tree is eternal, and so they are doomed to lose the war for the consciousness of humanity.
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the real solution to this argument would be to cite scientific studies which found out if majority of humans are selfish individuals or altruistic! "Despite the mounting research evidence that humans are wired for empathy and often express their empathic regard by engaging in altruistic activity, the naysayers cling to the defense that people act that way because they have learned, through past experience and conditioning, that helping another person mutes their own empathic distress and provides them a sense of relief and, on occasion, even pleasure, because they have been morally accountable. Hoffman points out that just because one feels better because he or she was able to help another in distress doesn't mean that it is the sole or even a major reason for being altruistic. The pleasure might be an unexpected by-product, but not a prime motivating factor, for engaging in altrustic behavior in the first place." [refer to study 4 for elaboration] -Jeremy Rifkin, The Empathic CivilizationHere's 5 studies and a TED talk for you. Four of the studies are for Homo Sapiens, one is for Capuchin monkeys. Study 1: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/11641621/ns/health-childrens_health/t/roots-altruism-show-babies-helping-hands/Psychology researcher Felix Warneken, of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Enthropology, published the results of a study of toddlers exhibiting altruistic behavior far earlier than previously expected, demonstrating the biological nature of human altruism. The following video will illustrate what happened: Study 2: http://news.yale.edu/2007/11/21/babies-prefer-good-samaritansStudy 3: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/28/science/researchers-trace-empathy-s-roots-to-infancy.htmlStudy 4: http://onthehuman.org/2009/10/empathic-concern-and-altruism-in-humans/Study 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0TED Talk - Frans de Waal: Moral behavior in animals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJxRqTs5nkThis world is also filled with ISIS like people who show no empathy! Not so! ISIS members do have empathy, but only for a very limited sphere of family/comrades. For the rest of humanity, they show little to no empathy. This of course is illogical, incestuous madness, like something transported from the dark ages. Thanks religion, for dragging shitty bronze-age ethics into the 21st century! If you trace back through history, there has always been empathy for tribe-mates, or family / blood-kin. Through social evolution, reason compels us to expand our sphere of empathy wider and wider. Today, empathy is commonly extended to all fellow citizens of one's nation. Not so long ago this would've been a radical idea. The logical conclusion of this trend is that eventually, all human beings will see themselves as citizens not of a nation, but of the world. We will begin to see all our fellow humans beings as kin, who deserve our love and compassion just as much as our own sons and daughters. Shouldn't we, as individuals and civilizations as a whole, aspire to be the best that we can be? Yes, exactly, of course we should. Well said my friend. “Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. Patriotism is its cult... Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.” -Erich Fromm, The Sane SocietyYours in compassion and solidarity,
World Citizen BeliathonYour move, capitalists and sociopaths (insofar as there is any meaningful practical difference).
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Truly, the worst thing that could come out of a libertarian society would be ending up right back where we are now. Not even close. Capitalism without government to rein it in would quickly lead to a nightmarish dystopia where corporations rule hordes of slaves with an iron fist. There would be mass sex-slavery, rampant and never-ending war & murder for profit, and starvation wouldn't even be considered a problem. In a word, fascism. Basically, this: Most logical people make the switch well said!
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Libertarianism only makes sense if you either can support yourself now or you believe you will be able to without today's government regulations. Your "ability to support yourself" is an illusion. Unless you own a farm, grow your own food, AND supply your own electricity, there are thousands of human beings supporting your survival. Without their servitude, you would die of exposure and/or starvation. Many of those humans work for shit pay in places like Mexico, China, and Bangladesh. This is because they're lower on the socio-economic hierarchy than you, which is mostly because they were unfortunately born and live in the wrong nation. The existence and functioning of this hierarchy depends wholly on continuous systematic violence. Without that violence, they stop sending you the food, electricity, or clothes you consume. You might still be able to acquire those goods and services without the hegemony, but it would cost you 5-10x what you are paying now. This system of carefully organized hierarchy-based violence, we call "capitalism".
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I would still perhaps consider the other side that when you compare the evolution of technologies (radio vs tv etc.) you are not considering the HUGE dept fiat has been tied into. If they were to replace this with a cryptofiat how would they overcome the large depts that are tied into it between almost all nations around the world? There is only one traditional way of resolving international debt...
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I want to know if this was manipulation or a legitimate sale. Speculation anyone? What difference does it make? It ends the same regardless of any temporary setbacks or manipulation. The laws of the universe remain the same as they were on day 1, mathematics does not bend to the wills of men.
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all I did was pay one person a quarter to post any news on a subreddit I created, as detailed in the link provided (OP) translation: "i violated the rules of reddit by paying a shill to advertise my donation-soliciting web site, and I got burned"
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Interesting, they were against it some time ago, but then reversed their stance. I wonder what made them change their mind again! They realized finally what they are dealing with here... well not truly, because they are dealing with inevitability, but they must see bitcoin's potential to rob nations of their monopoly over money creations and give back power to the people in a world-changing, irreversible way. Bitcoin is a truly frightening prospect for any tyrant or oligarch that is paying attention.
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As someone who has started working in a foreign country getting paid in dollars...I have seen first hand how Bitcoin is a huge advantage over wire transfer and currency conversion. Easy peasy. You're one of the 99% of human beings on this planet who doesn't know about bitcoin and/or has no idea how to use it. Now I don't need to "sell you" on anything, do I? Bitcoin is an infant technology, wait some months/years and there won't even be any argument, Western Union will simply cease to exist.
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Cryptofiat: governments (and megacorpo) recognize the usefulness of the blockchain tech but don't want to share the power of minting money with the world at large (Bitcoin) but want to keep tight control over it... Please alert me when this FascismCoin hits the market, I'd sure love to divest my savings from bitcoin and dump them there. I'm sure I'm not the only one, either!
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98% humans are selfish individuals.. the best system is the one that rewards the selfish desires of the individual... Do yourself and the internet a favor: read more, learn more, think more, and talk less.
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Let's all take a moment to learn about Ayn Rand, the author/philosopher behind modern "market libertarianism".
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Society hasn't advanced any since medieval times. We're still worried about the feudal lord throwing us in the dungeon if we don't share our crops with him. Well, it's advanced some. Violence-based slavery has evolved into indoctrination/deception/coercion based wage-slavery. But the fundamentals of society remain the same: legitimized violence governs all from the top down. " Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims. The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice." -Derrick Jensen I believe this is going to change within our lifetimes, though. I believe the information age we have just entered is the exit from a world governed primarily by violence and secondarily by reason. Hopefully we'll survive long enough to see a society governed solely by reason, with violence becoming universally repugnant instead of hyper-fetishized as it is now.
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Bitcoin has serious flaws. The blockchain size and the block time. Other coins are going to rise up, each having mathematical certainty. Other reasons?
There are better protocols than TCP/IP and IPv4. And yet we are still using them. Ask yourself why, and you might understand why such "flaws" might actually be irrelevant. network effect
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