Michael Archer

Could've sworn I'd posted this. I pissed myself laughing.

Hurp a Durp, I just noticed that typo now. Correction: "Reality exists independent of consciousness; that it's objective." Bullseye, a characteristic defines its identity. The characteristic of A is that it is A. If you say "A doesn't have any characteristics" then A doesn't exist. If that's the case, how can you say "A doesn't have any characteristics?" If A is not A, nothing can logically exist.

I looked at the article you posted. One thing I noticed is that, and I quote: "In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be provided by voluntarily-funded competitors such as private defense agencies " Voluntarily-funded private defense agencies? You mean the mafia and other gangs? Oh god. Capitalism is based on objectivity; statism is based subjectivity. There is no compromise between objectivity and subjectivity for the same reason there is no compromise between food and poison; any system that tries to mix the two, poison always wins eventually. I'm wondering why you think capitalism causes wars. A business man who's wealth comes from creation and production gains nothing from the government taxing his land and property; any business man is anti-war. A statist country cannot produce anything; a statist country must wage war in order to seize goods from people that produced it. Note that in the twentieth century, every single war was started by statist countries e.g. Germany, Russia, Japan, North Korea, Cuba. A capitalist country when attacked has a moral obligation to retaliate; USA was retaliating. Going back even farther to nineteenth century USA; the northern states were industrial and capitalistic while the southern states were rural, primitive and used slave labor. Abraham Lincoln was quoted as saying "A house divided against itself cannot stand." He meant that it was impossible for capitalism to exist with slavery. Lincoln was trying to slowly get rid of slavery, so treasonous slaveholders opened fire on an American military base to preserve statism and slavery; the capitalist north had no choice but to retaliate.

And how is that different from what you're doing? At least I admit I'm not a scientist; that's why I said earlier that I try discuss the implications and not actual facts. If we discussed facts, all it would lead to is eventually one side calling the other side liars since we're not scientists. I do not need to substantiate or provide evidence for the negative. Irrelevant, but I ask again: how is 96% a consensus? I can find you scientists that will tell you that humans are not causing climate change. What's your point? Truth and reality do not care about the majority. I'm negating your assertion that "you're wrong and man-made global warming exists because the majority of authority figures say so", because it reeks of fallacies. Somehow, you managed to use the Argument from Authority and Argumentum ad Populum fallacies in a single post.

Yeah, something like, "Back of giant testicle!" He runs away and shoots a bit. When the Gonarch charges he yells "I don't swing that way!"

What about poor Michael?

Every year, I go to Nuit-Blanche thinking I'll like it, but every year it's the same pretentious stuff. The best part of Nuit-Blanche is the street hotdogs and energy drinks. I never said, "we should force artists to do it for free"; I said "don't force people to pay for it." Come on, you should know that I would never advocate forcing someone to do something else against their best judgement.

I actually liked both parts of the first episode, but I can respect the opinions of people who honestly did not. Actually, you have to be über manly to watch My Little Pony; if you're secure in your masculinity, you know that watching a girl's show won't do anything to affect that and that other people calling you girly are just trolling idiots. You're not going to pretend something isn't fun just for the sake of not looking silly. Wait, no, that's wrong! It's neither manly, nor girly to watch My Little Pony. The attitude "this is for boys/this is for girls" is an outdated, sexist attitude and our society would be better off if we divest ourselves from it.

Rridgway, argument from authority is when a person states "Authority says it, therefore it's true and whatever you lay people say is ignorant. I know this because the authority says you're ignorant!" Argument from authority is not: "This paper written by someone who's an authority points out all these logically deduced facts." Just because you reference or trust an authority does not mean it's a fallacy. It's only a fallacy when you regard the authority as infallible. It's a juvenile way to argue when you say "You're wrong because the authority say you're wrong and you can never discuss this because you're not an authority!" and that what's Rover was doing.

What I don't like about the Your Eternal Reward is that you can't really sneak up on sentries anymore. If a sentry is covering the entire enemy push, you're pretty much ineffectual. Also, there are some classes that are very important to backstab as a spy, yet I would not use them as disguises. These are the Scout, Soldier, Heavy, Medic, and Spy: If you're disguised as a Scout, you won't run full speed and you're obviously a spy. For Soldier and Heavy, you move too slowly to backstab people. For the Medic, people will expect you to heal them and then spy check you when you don't. When people see a spy, their first instinct is to shoot; that's why I don't disguise as spy unless I'm using the Dead Ringer (which I don't).

I don't talk to irrational, condescending, and dismissive people who think that the Argument From Authority fallacy is the irrefutable trump argument. You're right, this discussion is over.

I just realized what a contradiction it is to be an anti-capitalist. To all the people bashing capitalism: you do realize that most, if not all, of the good in first world countries comes from corporations and people who strive to make money, not through altruistic acts? Your computer (and probably operating system) you use to view the internet was created and designed by people wanting to get filthy rich. Your ISP that allows you to connect to the internet is not giving you internet because he's an altruist. Corporations make it possible for me, when I've never even met you, to view your statements against capitalism and these very corporations who make your life so comfortable. It kind of makes me sick. Sounds like an amazing, orderly way to run a society. LOLWUT? Anarcho-capitalism? That's a contradiction in terms! It's impossible to combine peaceful capitalism where men compete with dollars with anarchy (where men compete with guns and brute strength). Money is the result of knowledge, technological advancement and quality of product--you can't have one without the others. Money is the product of a man's ability to think; he'll only trade that ability for things he decides are equal in value. Capitalism, like the mind and body, does not support mediocrity and stagnation e.g. a businessman who makes a mediocre product will lose hard to a businessman that makes a great product. You; opponent of capitalism: by what right do you claim by force the lives and ability of other men? By what standard?

Someone sticks a needle of cocaine in you? That's assault. How is making cocaine illegal going to stop that? Besides, think about it: you said cocaine is very valuable. Why then would people waste it by giving it to other people i.e. taking a loss? I don't think you can inject cocaine either, but not important. So what if people start making lots of plants? If it's legal, at least growers will owe a duty of care to their customers e.g. someone can bring a legal claim against them if they mix the cocaine with flower and claim it is pure. An age restriction would be a good way to start, but I also don't think it's the government's job to be parents.

Circadian rhythm: more proof that humans are naturally monophasic. Trying a new, easier experiment today. Apparently, if you don't eat for sixteen hours, you can manipulate your circadian rhythm. After that fast, once you start eating, your body will consider whatever time you started eating as the beginning of the day. I've been going to bed at four a.m. and waking up at 2 p.m.; I'm trying this so I can reset my clock. Arbiter, that's interesting. So you only get two hours a night and rely on naps throughout the day? How many hours in total do you get per day? Do you function just as normally as if you slept a full night?

That's kind of like polyphasic sleep, but usually the goal of polyphasic sleep is to reduce the amount of time you spend sleeping. The blogger that I posted about earlier said that if staying up all night was boring, then that just means you're boring.

Song, the only "good" part of Anarchy I can think of is that you can manufacture tools and weapons you need to defend yourself. In many systems (e.g. Fascism, communism, socialism) you're forced to make those weapons for your attackers. Human nature is incompatible with Anarchy. Men will always have legitimate and reasonable disputes. In Capitalism, the dispute is settled objectively by the court of law. In Anarchy, the dispute is settled through the subjective nature of an individual's whims. Good for you, but despite what you might think If you are, then you're fit to live in Anarchy; not everyone is. Lemme go grab my dragon...

Hell, anything can make anyone violent. There are many legitimate (from a moral sense, I mean) reasons why someone would want to do drugs. Sigmund Freud prescribed cocaine to some of his patients. Some people get violent when they do drugs granted. A lot of people also get violent when their hockey team loses. *cough*Vancouver*cough*. Should we ban hockey as well?

Axeldeath, Ep. 8 is a good one to end on. I wouldn't say it's bad--it's just not one of my favorites; there's no Rainbow Dash. Now, Ep 9 though...try not to watch another one after that. Ep. 9 is one of the best.

I disagree, Bullseye. Have you ever lived with a baby? They don't sleep during the night; they take frequent naps. Of course, an argument against "babies do it, therefore it's natural" is the fact that we go to sleep during the nighttime. Really, there's no logical reason why we do this--we can do everything during the day that we can during the night (aside from making Vitamin D). The reason why I think we go to sleep during the night is that humans have poor eyesight and the prehistoric humans could not do anything during the nighttime. If there was any time to sleep for them, it would be when they when they couldn't hunt or scavenge the land i.e. nighttime. It seems that the vast, vast majority of people who've tried this have failed. The only guy I could find who did this successfully stopped after half a year since it was just too weird. He said that his perception of time got thrown out the window and he had to correct all these bad habits--he also added that any bad habits you have get amplified the less you sleep. This is a problem for me: I have many bad habits and it seems I develop some weird idiosyncrasy every day; my latest one is double, then triple, then quadruple checking the sink faucet to make sure I turned it off before I go to bed. I've decided against this for a number of reasons. First, there are absolutely no reports of someone doing this successfully for a long time much less doing it successfully for a year. Secondly, it requires a shitton of self-discipline which is something I don't have. Also, I like the idea of sleeping for long periods of time, waking up and starting brand new day with a cup of coffee. Another reason (although it hasn't been proven) is that it could cause sleep problems like insomnia as other people suggested; I have had insomnia once and that was not fun. But the number one reason I'm not going to, I think that it really comes down to the fact that I would have to fight two hundred thousand years of evolution (according to Wikipedia) of my ancestors going to bed at night. This is the reason that dieting is so difficult; you're biologically programmed through thousands of years to eat as much as you can since you don't know when the next meal will be. But hey, if you can pull it off, you're stronger than I am and the whole species. I just know that if I personally try to fight evolution, I'll lose, and I'll lose hard. Sorry for wasting your time, but if anyone else has tried this or knows anyone else who's tried this; now would be an excellent time to speak up. This thread still has its purposes.

School in July? Weird. I'm having doubts. You guys are scaring me. Should I still do this? EDIT: Uh oh. Saw this while reading a blog on polyphasic sleep. Read the last paragraph. My diet is almost all meat; I can't stand most vegetables. I'm having even more doubts...

The government shouldn't fund arts; go to Nuit-Blanche in Toronto sometime and you'll see what I mean. Thanks, Mr. Harper! Artists should make money based on whether people like them or not--you know, an objective standard. It's subjective for the government to decide who's good and who's not. Besides, there are better things to be putting money into. I also see this as way too easy to exploit. Someone will find a loophole, call themselves and artist and collect taxpayer money doing nothing. Why should the people be forced to pay for art?

I don't know Bullseye...drugs affect different people in different ways. If someone has an aggressive personality, a drug will probably bring them out; it wasn't the drug's fault. In either case, people who are violent should be blamed--not drugs.

Banned for assuming that negative rep automatically means I don't contribute to the forums and for thinking that rep actually means something.

Blightmare, it takes everyone a while to go to sleep. That's why I'll set my watch to wake me up in thirty-five minutes. I heard it takes seven minutes on average for a human to fall asleep (could be a bullshit statistic).

Now that it's summer and I have a lot of free time on my hands, I can try polyphasic sleep. Most people think that there's only one way to sleep: awake for sixteen hours, asleep for eight, for the rest of your life. I first learned about this here. The theory is that when you sleep, the stage of sleep that actually makes you well-rested and alert is REM sleep. When you go to sleep at night, you don't go into REM sleep right away; it takes a few hours. Thus, a lot of one full night sleep is just empty hours i.e. REM is what matters. You can train your body to enter REM right when you go to sleep. So I'm going to be taking a 20-30 minute nap ever four hours averaging two-three hours a day. From what I've read, the adjustment period is a bitch. You're depriving your body of sleep, since you set your alarm to wake you up before you enter REM. If you do this long enough, your body just says "fuck it, have it your way" and enters REM immediately. I've read blogs of people trying this and failing; the biggest reason it happens is that they oversleep. One blogger didn't oversleep and reported amazing results. I planning that tonight is my last full night of sleep; I'll set my alarm at 8 a.m. tomorrow and then start sleeping every four hours...given that I don't pussy out and start the day after tomorrow. If I can muster the will-power to not oversleep, I think this will work....or give me a rare sleeping disorder. This thread is dedicated to the discussion of polyphasic sleep. You can share your experiences with sleep deprivation, how to overcome it, your experiences with polyphasic sleep, etc. You can also ask me questions, offer words of support, convince me not to do this (please), or troll me with lullabies and bed time stories. And before you mention it, yes; Kramer did try this in an episode of Seinfeld. All the more reason that this is a brilliant idea.