I'm not entirely convinced about Goldbacks. The main short to medium term issue I have with Goldbacks is with their durability. The long term issue I have with gold in general is the ability to verify its authenticity. This is more of a long term issue because there are no international merchants accepting it that I'm aware of yet. I think silver is much better in that regard, as there are affordable ways to verify that quite easily.

I think silver could be the future of local retail if people would only see its value, but gold is just too small for most retail transactions to be something that can be verified easily.

A more minor issue is premium. There has to be someone paying the premium to get them into circulation. who will that be?

It doesn't matter what I want, the laws of physics require that if I'm living with someone else, then we are sharing a set of rules together. I'm sure you have rules for other people, such as a rule by which if they do violence against you, you'll defend your self. This is ruling other people. So, in that way, you seek to rule other people that live in your shared space.

Anarchist, sovcit, and related philosophies that go beyond traditional libertarian have the mind boggling problem of circling into a quasi-dictatorship pushed into by freedom maximalism. Their personal rules for others must be followed by those others around them, and other people may not set any rules for them. Yet, that other person would claim the same against them, resulting in a clear and substantial societal conflict. This is typically an issue with people who set freedom as their highest virtue. Whether this would be a more localized problem would depend on how wealthy the people are who are involved in the dispute.

Put another way, there is a clear logical contradiction in individual self-rule. Two people may not agree one the finer lines of peace and violence, which naturally involves other people as both individuals seek to assert what they believe to be their rights. The resolution in my philosophy is to not hold the anarchist or sovcit flavor of libertarianism as my system of values.

Trump is aware he lost some support with his war against Yemen, and more support with his war against Iran. He can't continue to attack more countries and expect any support at all by the end of his term. The only people left would be the small fraction of people who are pro-war and don't even admit it generally speaking because they are well aware they are a minority of maybe 15% if that.

The bulk of problem base of our society could be described as excessive violence. People use violence to achieve unequal rights in a classed society of ruling and ruled classes. People use violence to get money and power at the formal organizational level, fully government sanctioned. Violence very often achieves the exact opposite of its intended effect, especially violence that is unjustified.

The best path to peace, is peace.

Yes, but its actually money that is easy to get but hard to spend which gets ignored, yet balances out your cited problem. Almost anyone will hire another person to work if the price is low enough, therefore making small amounts of money easy to get. Then, they have a much more challenging task on their hands than they imagined. By simply giving their money to just about anyone in exchange for something cheap from one of today's public corporations, they didn't pay attention to the way in which it was acquired, then they could be encouraging bad behavior. For example, its very easy to buy an Apple at 25% off the normal price which seems like a good apple in all ways that you can imagine. But you could then learn later they used experimental chemicals to bring the cost down by 50%, and that is why the price was so low. Or, you could learn that they used slave labor to bring costs down by 80%. Ethical shopping is something everyone has a responsibility to do, and it is challenging and an important personal responsibility of morals and ethics for all people who stake a claim to those morals and ethics.

So, the solution to money being spent so easily is to spend it hardly. In doing so, the money may be easier to get as people notice your careful ways and want to do business with you more. Among civil people, money is easy to get and hard to spend.

I don't think it is fair to reduce democracy into a single small pigeonhole of majority rule voting for all topics. The traditional definition of democracy is a government or rule of the people. Even many libertarians or anarchists consider their systems to be a system governance or rules of the people. There is a contingent of people who are trying to change the definition and frankly I don't get the point. Telling people you are against democracy isn't going to gain any support ,and I don't consider it helpful linguistics even if it did.

I advocate for a Caroasi Cooperative Republic, and I certainly consider it to be a democratic form of government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people much more so than a traditional Republic. I consider it to be the most democratic form of government as of yet fully detailed by anyone, and no voting is actually specifically required for the structure to work, it only helps to establish consensus, which could be done by other ways including opinion polling or even unanimous consent.

Dictators are best known for reassigning government money or assets to them self or their allies, imprisoning their political opponents, journalist opponents, puppet "kangaroo" court systems, and rigging elections. Trump has low marks on all these indicators. Not only that, but Trump seems to have actually put massive amounts of his money and assets at risk of being seized by political opponents when they actually used the court system against him in their own puppet courts, which suggests the opposite... that he is fighting against authoritarian opponents. Furthermore, roughly 25% of his political opponents have admitted in surveys they want him to be murdered as evidenced by being shot in the ear by a missed bullet. And of course he has drawn attention to unfair election tactics such as high-risk mail-in voting systems and high-risk electronic voting systems which have shown them selves to be easily exploited.

By that metric set the only US president to have scored substantially may have been Lincoln because of his clear imprisonment of opponents such as journalists, but he isn't known for having lined his pockets with government assets to my knowledge or rigged elections. Of course Biden had his primary political opponent arrested, which was a genuine a shift for the USA away from Democracy and towards dictatorship... that was the most dictatorial behavior ever exhibited in USA history I'm aware of, though viewed in context it wasn't as bad as Lincoln's behaviors.

Trump does show plenty of signs of being an authoritarian, which is common for centrists like the Clintons for example. The most authoritarian part of Trump's presidency is his increased usage of executive orders to accomplish agenda items, suggesting a desire for much more power than in the past. What people don't understand most is that Hitler was a centrist, picking both left-wing and right-wing concepts for his power as National Socialism. Socialism is a far-left position by definition to most people. And, socialism is a relative of fascism because it distances itself from communism by enabling high-regulation private enterprise.

The vast majority of presidents in US history would be fine with accepting any amount of authority given to the office, and be happy to exercise that authority. So many of them wanted to be dictators whether or not they acted as such. Obviously there are exceptions, starting with the starting president.

Both authoritarianism and libertarianism are centrist ideas. People are quite mistaken that because they are moderates, they are not extreme. Pragmatism most often exists because there are no principles or moral values of the person. What is considered "extreme" is entirely subjective. But still, I've offered five indicators of what other people have noticed about what they consider to be dictators and I think they are all sufficient when put together for a proper identity.

Of course the only political scope more authoritarian than nationalism is globalism, which is at the moment a feature of the left, though certainly there could be right wing brands of that possible.

You have chosen to avoid the question in regards to the troop build up against Russia from Ukraine's border rather than explaining what "everyone knows" which presumably somehow included me even though I'm the one who asked that question. If everyone knew that, then times when I asked would result in a direct answer, rather than a dodge. Everyone knows 1+1=2 but if I asked enough people rest assured there would be someone brave enough to just answer the question. It is an important issue that deserves to be addressed head on, not avoided.

What you seem to be missing is that since the troop build-up is a generally accepted fact, that actually that gives you a burden of proof to show that it was not a threat to Russia and they were wrong to consider it a threat.

If someone asked me about a topic I've done hundreds of hours of research on, I'd be very happy to share my knowledge and cite my sources. If instead I failed to do so and simply told them to either entirely accept my conclusion or they should visit a hospital, which is not a place for learning about wars at all, then that would be most likely because I was emotionally bound to my conclusion for reasons I couldn't explain or defend and just wanted them to go away, and just wanted people to respond if they agreed with me. One of the least likely reasons is that I had the answer at my fingertips and simply wanted to verbally bully others who are less knowledgeable although it is within the realm of possibility.

Another thing to consider is that people who respond to internet posts are vastly more likely to be someone will respond if they disagree. That is because not because people are constantly wrong, its because there is no content in just saying "I agree". When you respond with personal attacks even if indirect to other people who could be reading the thread, you are actually providing a reason for people to disagree and distance them selves from your position because of the ad hominem fallacy of name calling rather than supporting your position.

And when you put all of this together, you can guess that wherever I stood before on the issue, I have moved further away rather than towards your position, which is likely the opposite of your intention. So once again, there is a long chain of events leading to the war which included an apparently aggressive act against Russia by Ukraine. And, that needs to be explained by more than telepathy of "everyone" just knowing the answer. Other people may not feel a need to adopt your values as their values. What is important to you, the Ukraine war, doesn't need to be important to them. So I also disagree that anyone who isn't informed about any specific topic should visit a hospital. The reasoning you are using is a bit too self-centered regardless of how sound and "obvious" it is.

Explain how Russia was the aggressor including refutation of their counterarguments. The focus of contention is of course the claim by Russia that Ukraine was sending troops to their border area. Is a build-up of troops by one's border is generally considered by military strategists to be an action of aggression towards another country? How does that apply to this specific situation? I have yet to see a clear statement of facts that leads to a definite conclusion, but I'm confident you can offer the best available case.

I'm not entirely following. Since government is the primary limiter of every human life in many ways, I think what you mean is that we can still accomplish a lot despite the government ruining most aspects of life. Government is actually so philosophically corrupt in many ways in every country I'm aware of with respected geographic boundaries that I don't know of a place in which the government isn't the primary limiter of success in any given person's life.

Every person has the responsibility to replace the government and the only people truly doing well are those who are actively involved in doing what the government does but correctly.

First of all the story you are giving us is a situation clearly showing to be solving itself over time. The guy left ONE kid, a clear long-term self resolving problem. So, bad example. Given a long enough time, those who make the poor decision not to take a special class VOLUNTARILY will be the kind of people to have one or even no kids at all, a self-extinguishing problem. I think actually you have a strong point against your own argument in other ways too. People who have these ultra-fast cars tend to wipe out in ways that only cause them self to get hurt as its less likely they'll be hitting another person by being in a place where they achieved a speed like 120MPH.

Its frustrating that people want to skip STRAIGHT to using violence as a solution as if it becoming dictator is what everyone should do first, and think of other ideas later if the Stalin or Mao thing runs into other problems. Instead of thinking to yourself "what would Hilter do?" perhaps think: "is there a non-violent solution to this problem"?

Have you ever considered that people may not even know about the existence of these sports car classes and that peer pressure to attend may be a 90%+ solution? People claim education to be exceedingly important, so perhaps education just may not be so powerless and ineffective, and instead be as useful as they proclaim out of their mouth.I'm hoping you can at least admit trying something non-violent might make sense as a first step to wean your way off the authoritarian concepts that 85% of the population seems so offensively adapted to from our evil nature.

Israel bombed the sole Christian church in Gaza, which was the only Christian church in Gaza and had been there for hundreds of years. Israel said they are sorry, but at no point since the bombing have they offered the slightest suggestion there will ever be any compensation offered to the victims, or any repairs offered to the church. Is someone actually sorry if they say they are sorry but have no intention of any kind to offer zero restitution of any kind for their damages, nor even commit to change their behavior in the future.

False. Firstly, a country does not have to be assigned to specific borders, that is a subjective social definition you've adopted to describe a country. Secondly, even if a country does need to be assigned to specific borders, one can withdraw land from the country in which it is situated, then start from scratch. Thirdly, countries may and have abandon land leaving it unclaimed. This happened to Liberland. Both countries nearby became jealous and tried to use nasty violence in typical false government fashion rather than respecting other people's basic human rights, reflecting the kind of attitude you allude to, that new countries shouldn't be allowed or the people doing that should be violently assaulted. Fourthly, countries can surely be formed by creating new land in international waters. Fifthly, new countries can be formed in any floating structure on international waters. Sixthly, new countries can be formed in replacement or addition to most Republics by a constitutional amendment to do so. There are likely other ideas I have not thought of as ways to form new countries without any kind of violent insurrection.

What if the world already deletes that which should be deleted automatically without any effort by you. That for which all effort is completed the longest is a prime candidate for deletion. That which attention has been abandoned for the longest time is a prime candidate for deletion.

The unbearable feeling people get isn't resolved with destructive energy, like fighting fire with fire. Rather, the unbearable feeling people get is resolved with positive energy, like fighting hate with love.

By trying to look at that which should be deleted, you may do the opposite and bring it back to life. You may bring more attention, and attention brings life. And so in a way you become that which you hate.

It can be a slog to read more than a page of posts before responding to a thread, so I recommend reading at least the first nineteen posts of a thread before replying. Perhaps for example the eighth post of the first page of posts on this thread already has a direct link to the details of this story.

Women are sensitive, so throwing anything at them at even if they are a friend is questionable, but otherwise is just plain bullying. It is unethical. The people doing that were likely disrespectful to not just women but people in general. It seems mean spirited too because they don't seem to have considered whether what they are doing is ethical. If they did, lets see the transcript.

I have been working on a certification organization. Part of the mission of that is to note the social standing of an organization for determining whether to do business or partner with them in some way. I think this is a step toward the kind of goals you have here and hope to share a business plan soon that seems to overlap with some of your goals. Cryptocurrency groups could be evaluated and certified in certain ways by the certification business. Good standing could involve avoiding government financial privacy violations that would tend to be at the root of some of the problems you've mentioned with government obstructionism in cryptocurrency markets.

That is how tax collector agents and family farm "inspectors" should have to look like. "When the people fear the government there is tyranny. When the government fears the people there is liberty."

What this picture tells me is the left wing backing up their system of virtues and values with force, while the other wing (or wings) do not defend them self, even when they clearly have the moral standing to do so. Not only do these agents have to worry about individuals taking action against them if identified, but rest assured many of them are very much targets to administrations opposing ICE in the future.

While I do advocate for privacy in private life, I certainly am against it for public official as what they are doing is claimed to be at the request or demand of the people they claim to serve. Which one of their "servants" asked them to put on a mask?

While having a superior way of communicating doesn't necessarily make me a superior person to any other person, it does cause other people to be more receptive to my ideas. I agree the topic is protests, so you're warmly welcome to respond in ways that connect back to protests. But, if you bring up something that isn't about protests, such as how superior on person is to another (which is something you brought up), or the Heritage Foundation, since you're the OP, I certainly feel welcome to drift into such topics. While I suppose people might be superior to other people, I'll entirely leave that up to the divine realm to figure out as it is not helpful to mere humans to contemplate that topic which you have brought up. Perhaps putting a full on stop to off-topic ideas without continuing them in any way, shape, or form, is the best way to get back to the core topic. For example, when someone brings up insults as a topic, talking about how they socially rank with others would not help put focus back on the topic, which is protests. You and everyone else is very welcome to discuss with me that topic.

You're attempt to present a case as to why the Index of Economic Freedom isn't one of the most valuable works of modern political science has failed miserably by attempting to deflect attention to my personality, a totally irrelevant concept to this topic, and the sign of a losing argument. Its fine if you have a problem with fact-based comparisons of countries based on objective metrics, but that is how society moves forward.

Anyone with a lot of knowledge and common sense can see that more free countries and successful tend to the top while less free and successful countries tend to the bottom. Can you see that?

I'm very happy for data driven approaches to political science. The Index of Economic Freedom is among the greatest works of political science in existence, and is an excellent objective comparative tool. I am able to talk to you without the name calling, which is a superior communications method.

While I'd agree many economic problems are caused by social problems, I wouldn't go as far to say more than half of social problems are caused by economic problems. Some people want to use violence to solve economic problems at every opportunity, twist, and turn, yet want many social freedoms. These people are considered communists and socialists for the most part. Other people want to solve social problems at every opportunity, twist, and turn, yet want many economic freedoms. These people are considered fascists and theocrats.

Perhaps some people can live happily under a theocracy or an economically libertarian version of fascism with strict social controls. Actually this more or less does exist or has existed: Singapore. And perhaps that is evidence of your point to some degree because Singapore people generally consider them selves happy and well. And while they do rank high in happiness, there are about 30 countries that rank higher. They have heavy handed oppression for people who exercise their property rights to own banned items including those for self defense and spiritual growth. Singapore had low corruption of distribution of resources at least at points in time, perhaps as recently as the late 2010's, though that seems to have changed recently as corruption has taken root in every single place on planet Earth, leaving seemingly no place to hide. I privately predicted Singapore would be doing worse as it adopted large government policies which definitely involved redistribution of resources in questionable ways including the accumulation of debt, and indeed it has been doing worse than before. But of course that starts to veer into your point.

Some people have gone too far into another direction and claimed almost all societies problems are caused by religion. Well, there are some problems that are caused by specific religions and religious conflicts. One example of that would be the tensions of Israel and Palestine. This is also done by non-religious people against religious people like the Chinese Muslim population being oppressed by the CCP. So, atheists certainly don't have clean hands in that regard either, and that brings me to my main point that cultural friction does happen regardless of economic policies or virtuous and ethical distribution of resources.

There are a fraction of sociopathic, psychopathic, and otherwise maladjusted people in society that are not that way because of their economic situations, and those people will continue to cause social problems regardless of the way in which resources are distributed. There are also people who seek social control over others by theocracy (Saudi Arabia for example), secular authoritarianism (Singapore for example), and other ways. And these problems are not solved primarily by economic means.

About half of people around the world want the other half put in prison for verbal insults, and that is a big problem that has nothing to do with economics.