0096 2251 2110 8105

A friend of mine posted a link to a hatred group against Nicaraguans on Facebook, and now he's asking everyone to report it so they can shut it down. I know there's no right to free speech within Facebook's domain, but there's also nothing in the rules that explicitly prohibits racism or xenophobia on their page. So, is there a point in doing this? The rules say that "You can anonymously report any group as offensive by clicking the "Report Group" link at the bottom-left of the group," but I find the "offensive" thing a little arbitrary. I know the button is there for a reason, but I'm not sure if this is going to make any change. I for my part am simply not going to join the group, and won't associate with its members. I don't know if there's any point in encouraging my friend's cause, but... should they get their group closed or not? Thoughts?

I'll have to agree with ctrl y to some extent. I don't disagree with any fundamentals of Objectivism, but I disagree with some of her historical claims, particularly her theoretic and historical understanding of communism, which I've discussed here at lenght before, but I don't think it really does much harm. I don't know anything about psychology, but some scientific evidence would've been nice, I don't know. Anyways, I hope no one goes all mad and make a big fuss about this.

Oh my God... Sometimes I can't believe the things I read in this forum...

Shameless self-bump.

Yeah. It only displays one result, and the rest can't be accessed. Like this:

Well, I don't want to break rules 1 and 2 of the internetz, but I must say I'm proud . Even though he's obviously not going, just as the Jonas Brothers are not going to Somalia, and Miley Cyrus is not going to Antarctica, on the overall it was quite funny. I must have send like 15 votes . Anyways, they ended up finding out and restarted it, so in the end it was kind of pointless.

I hate to keep insisting on this, but my complaint in the 'New Forum Version' thread was just ignored, and I find that option to be absolutely indispensable. So... perhaps I can catch the attention this way?

Ok... I see. I forgot to mention that I'm using the "search titles only" option. Can you see all the 33 results when you use it?

Hmm... nope. It's just that one thread with it's own content in it. :S

Here There's nothing in the second page either.

I think there's a problem with the 'search' function. When you search for a topic, let's say, with the word "concept" in it, then it will return this message: "Your search for the term concept returned 33 results," but only one of the 33 is displayed, and the rest can't be seen or accessed.

Is there any way to go back to one of the old styles? And what’s the points system for? I mean, do you reach a certain amount of reputation, status, etc. depending on how you get rated?

Why did you put "philosophy" in quotation marks?

Well, it raises objections everywhere, and I found the tone of the writer a little condescending in some parts. I don't know if that's really necessary, or if that's the case with other philosopher's entries, but most of it seems fine, in general. It also includes some stuff from Branden, but I haven't got the time to read it properly, so I don't want to pass any judgement for now.

Oh God... Finally! :')

You might like to take this one down too:

Thank you very much!

I'm looking for a thread where someone posted a link to an illustrated childrens book on economics. I think it was about three men who lived in some deserted island, where they had to go fishing every day, and one of them developed a fishing net, and so on... Actually, I'm pretty much just looking for the name of the book. Please, I really need to find it as soon as possible. Thanks.

Absolutely. Most of them can't afford it, and it would simply result in squatting. We are talking about poor families here, which can't even afford three daily meals for their kids, or themselves. Yes, but only a few. Thousands are still left unemployed. Not at all. This is just a sign of the Government's negligence, since it's supposed to be an illegal activity, but these are very remote areas, with a tremendous lack of policemen, where the Government can't and doesn't want to reach. That's why the coasts are full of drug trafficking, sex tourism, and things like that (even slaves were found in Limon a few months ago.) Of course, in places like the downtown, hundreds of people put up their stands on the streets every day, and the police comes and beats the shit out of them all the time, but they persist, or else they die, since there are no jobs whatsoever. I really don't understand how you are so sure that this sort of business brings in decent money to those families. How do you know exactly? I mean, I have to assume you're speculating, because this just isn't so. Quite the contrary. That's why these people make riots all the time when they get shut down. They can barely afford a minumum sustenance with their profits (if you want to call it that,) and you can ask them personally. You may have seen some, probably the most decent, as a tourist, which are the ones you're supposed to see, and drew your conclusions from there, but go and take a look at these people's homes, if they have one, and make your conclusions after that. Yes, but they're not enforced most of the time. Take a look at the current strip mining controversy, for example. I'm not quite sure why you say this is a good thing. Do you support protectionism? There's no real military, in part, because the Government can't afford it. They can't even provide a decent police service. How is not having a military a good thing? Crime is taking over the country. People are afraid to leave their houses, and they get killed on the streets for less than a dollar. Of course, tourists are not supposed to see this. That's the point. Well, that's exactly the impression they're trying to leave on you. Of course, you, as a tourist, get better attention (this is true in most businesses there), and are always tried to be put in touch with english-speaking locals and magnificent dancers, so you can go back to your country and tell everyone how much of a paradise Costa Rica is, but this is far from the truth. The education system is unspeakably bad, I don't even know how you can say that, but that is off the subject.

I'd like to hear your opinions on this. Please take the time to watch the video video (most of it is in english.) I'm just going to point out some of the main issues here. 1) This area, which has a great deal of natural resources and biodiversity, comprises several (underdeveloped) communities. Due to its whole natural beauty and everything, the tourism industry has increased significantly over the last years, and a whole bunch of hotels are getting built all the time. The residents of these communities are running out of water, and the big hotel chains are presumably holding 90% of it (I assume legally, but there's a very corrupt Government) So, of course, the local residents are all complaining about how these hotels are taking all their water and using it for filling up pools or irrigation systems for golf courses. It is said that one of these golf courses consumes the same amount of water as a village of five to ten thousand people. So, now when they see them watering constantly, they start questioning whether or not that water should've or could've gone to them. When the hotels were installing all their pipelines (without any legal permission, allegedly), these people went and blocked everything, claiming that they were defending their rights. On the other hand, these hotels are letting their sewage waters into various streams, and polluting the area in different ways. 2) They also complain about how this so-called development leaves nothing to the community, economically speaking. Now that rural communities are in the middle of international tourism sectors, most people simply go bankrupt with their traditional tourism business (the main commercial activity in that area), and are left unemployed, since these hotels come and cut down the forests they were living off for tourism, and the companies won't hire most of them, since the majority are uneducated and can't speak english very well. Of course, they're poor, and moving out is not an option. Since this kind of tourism is more focused on the hotel as the final destination (all inclusive resorts) tourists spend most money inside their resort complex, and way less in the local community business. They stay in the hotel, eat there, go to the beach there, etc. So, basically, yes, business and tourism increase, but leaves nothing to the still underdeveloped community, in spite of all this isolated development. 3) Now, the issue of externalities and "public property." I'm not quite sure of how to deal with this, since all of my answers would necessarily be circumscribed to a full laissez-faire capitalist system perspective, which is obviously far from what they have, and I don't want all my answers to basically amount to: "Sit and wait for capitalism to come someday" (not that this is the way to achieve it.) These people complain about how the hotels didn't buy the beaches. They claim that beaches are free and that they belong to everyone (or no one ftm) but that now the hotels are just delimiting the public area and simply blocking off the access for the local residents, allowing only clients. Can you do that? I'd usually be more inclined to take the side of the hotel industry, because of all the usual environmentalist bullshit and everything, but there's a lot more to it than that here, and I'm not really sure of how I should deal with this case in particular. I'd appreciate your comments.

Well that's a lunch!

It has been on YouTube since forever, but you can try to take it down.

Hmm… Thanks, but I’m not asking this just so that others accept the definition and I can have nice discussions, I’m asking this because I truly don’t see what the answer is. So… I’m not interested in trying to “lose them,” or keeping my head down when the issue comes up, or deliberately obscuring the fact so that no one asks, or using any kind of diversion really. I'm looking for a real answer. Pointing out the flaws in other systems does nothing in this respect really, and it doesn’t automatically make mine “true.” If we were to use that logic, then no other system in the world other than capitalism could be called “pure” X or “real” X, simply because it involves contradictions or equivocations. That was exactly my point. I’m not asking if corporate capitalism works or not. I appreciate your answer, but we basically ended up were we started. You are begging the question in all your examples. Before you say things like “State capitalism contradicts itself” or “Corporate capitalism involves equivocating on the definitions of corporation and capitalism” or “the inherent contradiction in the term state capitalism is sufficiently obvious…”, etc. you have to first establish and prove that LF is the capitalism in the first place, and you didn’t. You’re just assuming it as a self-evident truth and starting from there, begging the question, as I was told by my professor yesterday, which is true, even if I don’t like it. Like when you say that “laissez faire capitalism” is redundant, or that there aren’t any other capitalisms. Why? And remember: first things first. Anyway, I can live without using the terms as synonyms. It's really not a big deal. I'm just curious because everyone here does, and I still don't see why. Thanks anyway.

I ran into an argument about this with my professor today, and it all basically came down to him condescendingly pointing out that I was just "taking for granted that classical liberalism is capitalism." I was heating up so I couldn't think of anything to say from there and got stuck. Perhaps this isn't the right question, but who gets to call what the true capitalism is? The one who came up with the term first? Every school has its own vision and ideal of capitalism. I know that laissez faire is the way to go, but how do you arrive from that at the conclusion that LF is the capitalism? Is this whole argument reduced to "capitalism is this because this is the one capitalism that works" or "this capitalism is in accordance to human nature, etc... therefore this is the one capitalism"? Like this, for example: This isn't evidence that laissez faire is "true" capitalism, this is simply evidence that "LFC is the only form that recognizes individuals as the prime movers in the economy and is constructed so as to allow them to operate freely." I'm not asking for that, I know what LFC is. What I'm asking is...what is this proof that LF is the "true" capitalism and not just some other variant consisting of? Effectiveness? Ancientness? Accordance to man's nature and his life qua man etc etc...? Then what about all the other systems which don't possess this last characteristic? Shouldn't they get a name then or be called "real"? I'm getting more confused now.