Falsifying Data Is Rampant Across Industries

[Scaldrew]

Who fills most of the gyms and does most of the "coaching"?

Lets use them to critique the value of barbells, right?

If your ideas about a thing have to based on the worst examples of it then maybe you should just admit you have no business talking about it.

Not to get back in this discussion, but extremism is a threat by itself. The outliers that are mobilised to action and then murder people without provocation seem to me to be a pressing issue, no matter the affiliation. But then those who share similar dispositions and who aren't mobilised to action are inconcpicuously absent from any candle light vigil or condemnation of the attacks. Interesting how that plays out! And then when you do hear of any form of solidarity, it's usually one place of worship or one guy or maybe a hundred. Meanwhile there's literal billions of them. Point nought percent is killing people (not just irreligious people, mind you, everyone) and point nought percent is attempting reforms. What about the other ninety-nine percent? That's what people mean when they say "the extremists are the tail that wag the whole dog". And while I'm not a fan of false dichotomies or Dubya's famous line of "either you're with us or you're with the terrorists", but if you're not worried about the dangerous amount of recurrent violence acted out in your idol's name, I have to wonder if you're really on my side, if you're really interested in putting a stop to it.

And judging a facility by its barbells seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do. Maybe not quite as inclusive of the entire facility, but a decent indicator of standards and levels of quality if nothing else. But then I'm really not sure what your analogy is supposed to mean. If you mean that young personal trainers staff most of the gyms, we should not judge equipment that they do or do not use, then I'm afraid we've entered into the gun control debate and have completely left the communities debate. I don't see how you can derive the quality of inorganic, inanimate objects from the quality of organic, animate lifeforms. That seems like apples and oranges to me (or coaches and barbells, if you will).

[George Christiansen]

Not to get back in this discussion, but extremism is a threat by itself. The outliers that are mobilised to action and then murder people without provocation seem to me to be a pressing issue, no matter the affiliation. But then those who share similar dispositions and who aren't mobilised to action are inconcpicuously absent from any candle light vigil or condemnation of the attacks. Interesting how that plays out! And then when you do hear of any form of solidarity, it's usually one place of worship or one guy or maybe a hundred. Meanwhile there's literal billions of them. Point nought percent is killing people (not just irreligious people, mind you, everyone) and point nought percent is attempting reforms. What about the other ninety-nine percent? That's what people mean when they say "the extremists are the tail that wag the whole dog". And while I'm not a fan of false dichotomies or Dubya's famous line of "either you're with us or you're with the terrorists", but if you're not worried about the dangerous amount of recurrent violence acted out in your idol's name, I have to wonder if you're really on my side, if you're really interested in putting a stop to it.

And judging a facility by its barbells seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do. Maybe not quite as inclusive of the entire facility, but a decent indicator of standards and levels of quality if nothing else. But then I'm really not sure what your analogy is supposed to mean. If you mean that young personal trainers staff most of the gyms, we should not judge equipment that they do or do not use, then I'm afraid we've entered into the gun control debate and have completely left the communities debate. I don't see how you can derive the quality of inorganic, inanimate objects from the quality of organic, animate lifeforms. That seems like apples and oranges to me (or coaches and barbells, if you will).

Islam is the problem with with muslim extremists and the argument for this is the best example of Islam lived out ever: Mohammad.

To make a similar argument for the cases of christian terrorist use Jesus and for Buddhists, Buddha. See how that works?

I didn't say anything about facilities. I said we cannot judge the methodology of barbell training by all the idiots doing it and prescribing it wrong. Hell, if we went by the number of people in this forum alone, who read the book, but then DDTFP, we'd have top say that SS is a horribly written book....which is essentially the same kind of argument as using the average pew warmer to judge christianity.

[Matthew_888]

I agree completely. [A government] is necessary, unfortunately. That which governs least, governs best.

Why do you think a government is necessary?
What do you mean by "the least"?

Here are two points I can see:

1. Without one government, there is no explicit and shared notion of Law. People make up their own things that clash with one an other and we would regress to a tribal state e.g. Lebanon.
2. Without one government, we cannot use credit because there would be no-one to refer to deal with unpaid credits besides ourselves and again: Lebanon.

From 1. the government needs to maintain an explicit agreement on the rules we live by = the Law.
From 2. If we keep credit then the government needs the monopoly of violence (i.e. initiation of force).

Is this what you think about when you say "governs the least"?
The "least" means "monopoly of violence" and "the Law"?

[Crom]

From 2. If we keep credit then the government needs the monopoly of violence (i.e. initiation of force).

Is this what you think about when you say "governs the least"?
The "least" means "monopoly of violence" and "the Law"?

Perhaps you wish to clarify, because "violence" can be both aggressive/illegal and defensive/justified.
Individuals within any government may become illegal/aggressive, and non-governmental citizens may be required to use "violence" in certain defensive actions.

"Monopoly" does not imply "the least" of anything. This is demonstrated by recent events of the last century in which governments which asserted a "monopoly on violence" ended up creating the greatest mass genocides of recorded human history.

I think we all probably want "the least amount of violence"....consistent with our notions of liberty and justice. We could conceivably have ZERO violence if we all became obedient slaves to the welfare state.

[Pluripotent]

Why do you think a government is necessary?
What do you mean by "the least"?

Here are two points I can see:

1. Without one government, there is no explicit and shared notion of Law. People make up their own things that clash with one an other and we would regress to a tribal state e.g. Lebanon.
2. Without one government, we cannot use credit because there would be no-one to refer to deal with unpaid credits besides ourselves and again: Lebanon.

From 1. the government needs to maintain an explicit agreement on the rules we live by = the Law.
From 2. If we keep credit then the government needs the monopoly of violence (i.e. initiation of force).

Is this what you think about when you say "governs the least"?
The "least" means "monopoly of violence" and "the Law"?

The main understanding of The Law in the English tradition is that The Law does not come from government, but from the natural rights of the people, and that if The Law did come from government, then they could apply it as they see fit and choose to apply it to themselves or not as they wished. The traditional understanding is that they can't. The law applies to everyone equally (in theory, anyway). I like this idea.

In our current system, credit (interest rates) are set by the federal reserve which started in 1913, which was probably one of the worst blows to freedom in the history of the US. Also, 1913 marks the beginning of the incredible deflation of the dollar, which is now worth less than a nickle in 1913 dollars. So, great track record of government controlling credit.

[Matthew_888]

I agree that governments are terrible for good reasons as shown here:
hawaii.edu

I agree that a top-down understanding of the law is backward: I cannot see a
better approach than the english one. The reason is that if everything was
negociable, everything would be possible. For example, among many other things,
French are trying to lower the age of consent to 13 yo and I am not happy about
it: why not 11? or 5?

If I lend to any of you a 700$+ Eleiko barbell and I get in return a promise:
"I'll give it back to you next Monday" but instead I get a nice little post-card
that reads "No, I keep it. Thanks." then we have a problem. I cannot let you
get away with it for obvious reasons. So, if we were in Corsica, I would first
warn you, then things would get nasty. We happily got in the circle of
vengeance/violence. I think we all agree that it's a bad idea.

How to avoid this spiral?

A preventive action would be not to steal in the first place. I think we all
agree that it's not realistic to expect people not to steal. At least not in the
U.S. nor in the E.U.. Maybe some day, who knows.

We cannot admit an absence of corrective action. It would mean that anyone can
take anything from anyone else. Ew.

We cannot admit corrective actions based on one's will for reasons stated above.

So: how to decide which corrective actions to apply? How to enforce them?

To choose the corrective actions we need the law and the notion of agreement
that should be explicit to be shared by everyone. It does not matter if it comes
from the top or the bottom for this situation as long as it's agreed upon and
the core principles virtually do not change.

To avoid too much variance in determination of the corrective actions to take,
we need a third party which the only concern is to deduce the actions to take
from the Law.

To avoid too much variance in the application of the law we need a third party
which the only concern is to apply the law.

"too much" or "too little" comes from the fact that we all agree that the law
should apply equally to everyone.

How could be do w/o a third party, what I would like to call a government, that
is somewhat "neutral" w.r.t. everyone else litigations?

Summary: living together means exchanging which means cash and credit/debt
system which means the Law and its enforcement incarnated in a third party
called the government. How could it be otherwise? Can it get smaller than that?

[Pluripotent]

I agree that governments are terrible for good reasons as shown here:
hawaii.edu

I agree that a top-down understanding of the law is backward: I cannot see a
better approach than the english one. The reason is that if everything was
negociable, everything would be possible. For example, among many other things,
French are trying to lower the age of consent to 13 yo and I am not happy about
it: why not 11? or 5?

If I lend to any of you a 700$+ Eleiko barbell and I get in return a promise:
"I'll give it back to you next Monday" but instead I get a nice little post-card
that reads "No, I keep it. Thanks." then we have a problem. I cannot let you
get away with it for obvious reasons. So, if we were in Corsica, I would first
warn you, then things would get nasty. We happily got in the circle of
vengeance/violence. I think we all agree that it's a bad idea.

How to avoid this spiral?

A preventive action would be not to steal in the first place. I think we all
agree that it's not realistic to expect people not to steal. At least not in the
U.S. nor in the E.U.. Maybe some day, who knows.

We cannot admit an absence of corrective action. It would mean that anyone can
take anything from anyone else. Ew.

We cannot admit corrective actions based on one's will for reasons stated above.

So: how to decide which corrective actions to apply? How to enforce them?

To choose the corrective actions we need the law and the notion of agreement
that should be explicit to be shared by everyone. It does not matter if it comes
from the top or the bottom for this situation as long as it's agreed upon and
the core principles virtually do not change.

To avoid too much variance in determination of the corrective actions to take,
we need a third party which the only concern is to deduce the actions to take
from the Law.

To avoid too much variance in the application of the law we need a third party
which the only concern is to apply the law.

"too much" or "too little" comes from the fact that we all agree that the law
should apply equally to everyone.

How could be do w/o a third party, what I would like to call a government, that
is somewhat "neutral" w.r.t. everyone else litigations?

Summary: living together means exchanging which means cash and credit/debt
system which means the Law and its enforcement incarnated in a third party
called the government. How could it be otherwise? Can it get smaller than that?

I would argue that it does matter whether The Law comes from the top down or from the bottom up. For one thing, if you see that everyone above you in the power structure is stealing from everyone below them without consequence (which always happens with a top down approach), the devolution of society into war is likely unavoidable.

But then you make an intellectual leap. There must be a third party to adjudicate the perceived wrong between two parties and determine what a proper punishment is. OK. Fine. I agree. But why must that third party be the government? One could imagine a judicial system that does not require a government (read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for one example), or there could be competing judicial systems independent of the government. There is no reason why the government alone must be this third party, except that this is how we've always done it (at least currently, judicial systems have in the past been much more independent). This is the logical fallacy called a priori; because something has always been this way, therefore it must always be this way. (This fallacy can also be understood to mean the acceptance of a false premise which proves your point. But the premise is wrong to begin with.)

And indeed, if you accept that The Law does not come from the top down, but from the inalienable rights of the people, then it actually makes more sense that the judicial system not be formed by the government, but by some other entity separate from the government that has the same power over the rulers as it does the people to make judgements and enact punishment. There probably should be a separation of The Law and The State.

[Crom]

Summary: living together means exchanging which means cash and credit/debt
system which means the Law and its enforcement incarnated in a third party
called the government. How could it be otherwise? Can it get smaller than that?

That brings up the subject of cryptocurrencies, such as BitCoin and Futuro Coin. Government completely bypassed.

[Matthew_888]

I would argue that it does matter whether The Law comes from the top down or from the bottom up. For one thing, if you see that everyone above you in the power structure is stealing from everyone below them without consequence (which always happens with a top down approach), the devolution of society into war is likely unavoidable.

But then you make an intellectual leap. There must be a third party to adjudicate the perceived wrong between two parties and determine what a proper punishment is. OK. Fine. I agree.

Thanks for the book reference!

Yes, I've put aside the question of where the law comes from as long as we keep assuming everyone agree upon it and is equally applied to everyone (i.e. is universal).

But why must that third party be the government? One could imagine a judicial system that does not require a government (read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for one example), or there could be competing judicial systems independent of the government. There is no reason why the government alone must be this third party, except that this is how we've always done it (at least currently, judicial systems have in the past been much more independent). This is the logical fallacy called a priori; because something has always been this way, therefore it must always be this way. (This fallacy can also be understood to mean the acceptance of a false premise which proves your point. But the premise is wrong to begin with.)

Maybe I was ambiguous: I called "the government" the seemingly necessary thing that maintains the law under an explicit physical existence (paper, electronic, whatever).
In fact calling that third party "government" was pretty much confusing at this point.
So: One Law => One third party that takes care of it. In order to survive, this third party needs some form of resources that I assimilated to taxes (this is why I did the unfortunate shortcut... taxes ≈ government).
Then, as you wrote: "there could be competing judicial systems independent of the government."
So: there are third parties that take disagreements + the Law + taxes and gives back corrective measures (vaguely what courts should be).
then: there are third parties that take corrective measures + taxes and enforce corrective measures (vaguely what law enforcement should be).

So: starting from a disagreement as described in a post above and assuming the Law is agreed upon and universal we necessarily end up with the classic divide of power: executive, legislative and judicial.
We agree that for these functions to be implemented everyone should contribute equally to their needs i.e. "taxes" (taxes discussed here are ≠ from the real world obviously, it would be nice to have a ≠ name here...).
There is exactly one legislative entity since the law is one.
There may be multiple executive entities or judicial entities (but probably one of each for practical reasons).

The fact that Alice tried to screw Bob over its barbell does not end up in a spiral of violence because they somehow agree on the Law and recognize executive, legislative and judicial powers.
They do because they understand than w/o these powers, life would be a lot more difficult.
This system scales for as far as this understanding goes.

1. So: a minimal government would be at least composed of one legislative power, executive and judicial power(s) and one universal tax (cost of universal law).

That brings up the subject of cryptocurrencies, such as BitCoin and Futuro Coin. Government completely bypassed.

I tend to see cryptocurrencies and in particular smart contracts as ways to get rid of the FED (good luck w/ that) and a bunch of bureaucrats, but not as a way to completely bypass the government.
In fact, from 1., I see a contradiction: you cannot have one universal law and bypassing the government ("government" understood as in 1.).
I would argue that a government and a currency are two sides of the same coin.

So, can a minimal government get smaller than described in 1. ?

PS: For those interested in "wtf are cryptocurrencies and smart contracts anyways?" I would recommend this two publications:

IEEE SPECTRUM on cryptocurrencies/blockchains
IEEE SPECTRUM on smart contracts