Karl

Yeah, they don't make them like that anymore .......thank funk. :-) That's the sort of thing my band makes would make me play for hours on end until they got ......their chord changes sorted out.

You present no argument. All I hear is the bleating of a goat.

Buddhists are not Buddah. They are an interpretation of what they think Buddah said. Buddah is also a man. All men are prone to error. Buddah was equally prone to the same errors as other men.

thus spake ozymandias :-)

It does not matter what I say, only what can be proven. The endless cycle of birth and death is for the living, those that can contemplate it, can know it. Those who cannot will not see what is right in front of them and continually look for the answer somewhere else- thus continuing the cycle. You don't understand because you don't want to, you haven't had a sufficiency of those cycles to want to be rid of them. Buddah said the words and you interpreted them to mean something that fitted your own concepts. We are of course free of all cycles upon death, but then, all is ended so why concern yourself with it ? Lots of people lose their minds. It can be done temporarily, or through trauma. Once that has occurred then any hope of normal function vanishes. A body without a mind isn't anything much and has lost the ability to choose. It is less than an animal. This is why dementia, Alzheimer's etc is so frightening. Losing ones mind is not something to welcome.

Its not 'shrink'. I see a statement which is in conflict with an aim and then speak to that. Is that not a help ? If someone points out that a bridge will collapse if it is crossed then shouldn't the bystander try and warn the one who wishes to cross ? What is strange to me is that you are unable to notice your own hypocrisy. You have opened with an ad hominem and then expound your argument based on an insult. It is simple deduction that there is no life after death. You have failed to define spirit, but a suspect you mean a disembodied soul/ ghost/ collective consciousness that is most definitely not the embodiment of the living persons identity. If this is so, then why even consider it as important. There will be no identity, nothing to be conscious of, it may as well be nothing even if you continue to believe it's something. I'm saying to live 'in the moment' and not concern yourself with making up stories about what the future may, or may not be. It will certainly be what it will be regardless of any such way that you might think today. If I point out that you are not living in the moment then I get this kind of reaction. It's like a stranger who points the way to a place, only to be abused for answering. If it ruffles feathers then that is fine. There is no violence in feather ruffling and no pain should be taken from it. The false ego is upset of course because it has mapped out a delusion that is challenged.

It wasn't experienced during actual physical death, therefore, it is an illusion. Why dream that when you know it is a dream ? You will create internal conflict. Isn't it your wish to wake up and be enlightened ? How can you when you allow the illusions you create to exist. If you simply wish not to face unpleasantness then I wish you well, that is entirely your choice, it is perhaps too much for you to cope with, but if you want to see reality then you must be brave. It is harsher to stop taking the mental pain killers, especially in the beginning, but you will be clearer and you will know the truth because you will never again allow anything but that truth to exist. That is purity of soul. That is action-less action. When there is no conflict, there is no false ego necessary to pretend to do those actions. I do no fear of death Manitou for there is nothing beyond it, but I certainly have a healthy fear of dying and I wish to keep it that way in order that I remember how to live life to the full and love endlessly.

I deliberately didn't pursue this further because I detected a bit of resistance in Manitou, but as you have brought it back up. Manitou remembers she was in the Golden tunnel and so she is identified with it. If there had been no identity, then there would have been no experience and no memory of it. I remember a film, or a dream, but during the film or dream I was not aware of myself. My awareness was on the film, or dream. Don't confuse not having an awareness of self with not having identity. Manitou did not experience death during tantric sex, she experienced life. Death has no experience. To be afraid of death is pointless as there is nothing, to be afraid of dying is natural and shouldn't be rejected, or you refuse to affirm life. Live then die. Definitely live first. Don't seek to die prior to death.

That first techno track with the car scene reminded me of this

Yet, originally you were tied to the negative element of attachment. You wished not to have attachment in the way an addict does not want to take the drug by locking the drug beyond reach. There are plenty here that are equally attached to the Dao and Buddhism. Attachment is to thoughts and not to existent things. Trying to have no thoughts, or refusing to get possessions is equally attachment. Can't win with that line of thinking. It is a dead end. Attachment can only be broken when the truth is realised. That you cannot avoid the pain of loss and should never, ever seek to avoid it. It is the exquisite pain of life, of having loved, to know that deeply is to feel what it is to be human. One who has not loved will never feel loss and I pity them. Those that fear to love are already grieving they just haven't realised it. It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

As I said. I'm out.

Except there must be personal identity because you are experiencing those things. If there was no identity there would be nothing at all. It's like watching a film. You can sit and watch it, completely entertained and forgetting all about anything except for total absorption in the on screen action. It's possible to do this when driving or performing some other skill. It doesn't seem you are there at all, but all the things going on are not spurious events, you can match them even though you are not conscious of making those connections. The greater the focus of awareness-internal or external the more this happens. Still, there is personal identity experiencing those things and matching them to memory.

You understand that consciousness is the passive constituent of active awareness ? That there will be conscious creatures before, during and after death but that none of these will be Manitou ? That the body will decay and take another form is certainly true, but the body is not you, it is just flesh. I have seen many here that believe their own, personal consciousness, or a singular United consciousness of some kind perpetuates. This isn't what you are meaning ?

I know all about it, but, again, sadly you are unable to do the thinking work for yourself. The powers that be don't like libertarians or Austrian economists. They didn't like Jesus either. Would you be hammering in the nails ? Do I really have to dig out Blocks entire story to convince you? Are you just too lazy ?

You won't do your own thinking. I mentioned this previously regarding your dissertation. All you do, on a consistent basis is to drag up bits of what others have said. This is how you were taught. Simply to parrot the state and its supporters. It is simply the fallacy of verecundian and nothing more. It's the worst kind of plagiarism, but I suppose that's what passes for a qualification these days. I have drawn ever closer to terminating this discussion, but had a vain hope you might just begin to utilise your own faculties to argue, but it appears I was too optimistic. Either argue on your own terms without the plagiarism or I'm out.

@manitou "Because we realize Who we really Are, that there is no entity outside of ourselves (and combined Life as a whole) that is directing traffic or doing any judging at all. There is nothing to fear. We don't really die. we are Consciousness itself, and as such we will change forms, through deaths and lifes" Then you have not surpassed fear except by spinning a tale to sooth you. You have reached into the future and not into the now and created this story of immortality and consciousness existing without anything to be conscious of. Though this belief might sustain you, it is a lie that your rational mind will not accept and it will create internal conflict. How can you possibly be 'in the now' if you have created this future 'immortal, immutable you' ? Then you have dragged this future into the present and are making decisions based on this belief. This is no different to the promises every religion makes to its followers. It seems to me- and it's just an opinion-that if you believe in immortality then it creates an attachment to the component of an afterlife. SRM always said that we should not concern ourselves with thoughts of the afterlife because we get further away from truth and reality. If today we worry about death, then let that be reality, do not seek to hide from it. Neither welcome it, or reject it. For you cannot reject what will come to be. Don't create a story that makes it more, or less acceptable. That way there will not be conflict and life flows. Just my 10c worth :-)

Hell on Earth is reading your polemics. :-) I can't speak to all this music, irrational number stuff. I haven't any idea where you are going with it. Private property ownership isn't privatisation. You haven't privatised your own person, house, clothing, job etc. You have temporary ownership and responsibility for these things that's all. It is what you do with that property that adds value to the world. Thus the parable of the talents. Hudson is calling for communism of the bankers, just as Marx called for communism of the industrialists. Currently we have a fascistic banking class supported by the state. Hudson wants to collectivise it. Debt jubilees are not the answer to today's financial problems. We need a liquidation of malinvestment. That means a clear out of those who have invested badly. We should not be encouraging poor actors to continue being poor actors. In the time of Jesus, all loans were private loans and all losses would be private losses. This won't happen today. What we have in artificially low interest rates is a debt jubilee in all but name. The result is the destruction of the savers and careful investors/businesses who have been turned upside down by the gambling classes. As to the rivers. Let them be in privately owned and utilise the law to sue those who pollute (trespass ) on the property. The water from the river, it's fishing and access are then controlled by someone who has a vested interest in achieving some form of income from the property and will therefore will work to keep it sustainable and free from pollution. It's no different to a restaurant owner. In fact this is the case with much of the Highlands of Scotland, which is why the area remains an unspoilt wilderness. It's quite frustrating when you quote Walter Block out of context. Instead of defending him, I'm going to ask you to find the full transcript of his conversation instead of just an excerpt. You owe Walter that at least and not just to take for granted some sound bite you discovered to support your ideology. Hudson by the way has several articles on the Lew Rockwell website. As to global warming, I simply don't give a chuff. I pointed out that despite claims by paid up pseudo scientists who are no different to the Koch brothers, that we hadn't had the temperature rises anyway. Not only do give a chuff, but the numbers were wrong. Same gig with the Ozone hole which was a huge hoax we all fell into- even I did. The reason I don't care is because it's in the future. The free market and private property rights would have already resolved the issue. As no one really wants to solve any potential issue and simply want to make money/ grab power by scaring people then I have no interest in their schemes and scams. I will be long dead either way and its fir future generations t figure out these things if needed. I live in the now, the future is not written by me, or for me. That Hudson piece on Marx and Capital is so idiotic it is downright scary. Money is just a convenient form of exchange for goods. Money therefore is a commodity just the same as any other good. Gold and Silver became the dominant money by the power of the market. This can be seen in prisoner of war camps where cigarettes became the preferred money as they were readily exchangeable and has many of the attributes necessary for a money. So, real money represents unconsumed goods ( as opposed to today's unbacked fractional reserve debt creators that create debt out of thin air ). Libertarians want to end this government fiat, it's fractional reserve system and its monopoly. Hudson does not want to do this, he wants to carry on with it and nationalise the banks just as Marx wanted to nationalise the industrialists. Back to real money, the stuff that has organically become the money of choice. This has traditionally been precious metals because of their relative scarcity, ductility, beauty, diserability etc. However there is no intrinsic value in precious metal anymore than there is in Fiat currency-although you can at least manufacture something out of metal, where as paper is pretty much worthless. It's noteable than a £5 note is no more costly to produce than a £50 note, or much greater denomination, but a precious metal would be heavier. As a commodity then, money is traded and has a market price. That market price is denominated by its interest which, without state interference, would normally rise and fall with market demand. When there is little demand then the rate falls, when there is great demand it rises. Thus, the economy envisaged by the classical economist is wrong. Without the interference of the state, a small amount of savings would largely stay a small amount of savings. It would be worth more during times of high demand and then the market would react to contract its value. Henry ford did not pay his workers more in order that they buy his cars. He paid them more to stop them being snapped up by competing companies after he had spent months investing in their training. In other words, labour is a commodity, however those supplying their labour are not homogenous. Everyone supplying labour is unique, with different skills and capacities. Yet it does not rest there. As Mises showed, every labour supplier has a different value of his time. Some value idleness higher than productive income. Some wish to work hard and earn 23 hours a day, others are happy for a few hours a week.

Ok I've reviewed the video as far as the 10 minute mark. Actually it helped to clear up what Varafoukas, Keen and Hudson have in common. They are Neo-Marxist and we have Neo-Fascists so that all makes sense. Both want big government and totalitarian control. They differ only in so far as their methods for achieving domination over everyone. It's the same old blarney we have been listening to since Hitler/Stalin. It's just been softened. Live under Hudson and you get nationalised, state run financial systems just as was once the case with the USSR and its older capitalist manufacturing structure. Live under the current system and the banking system is privatised, but only nominally. The state runs it through the fed, or should I say it is more of a partnership. In both cases there will be the destruction of wealth for everyone but a small percent. Just like the USSR and Nazi Germany. Neo Maxist align with libertarians against imperialism and intervention. This was of course a feature of both Soviet and Chinese communism that fell on its own people but did not care much for expansionism beyond spreading ideology. However Neo Marxist don't like the free market, ending welfare, denationalisation. Neo fascist like the libertarian free market because it can be twisted to mean 'Neo fascist economics'. However they don't like the non aggression principle which means non intervention. These Neo fascists are termed 'neocons'. They want to expand through aggression and not simply ideology. They will bring what they term 'democracy' to each and every state that opposes them-just as Hitler did with his thousand year reich. If you look between the lines you will see that libertarians offer the only alternative. We oppose expansionism and support a true free market. That's the Tao isn't it. Freedom from totalitarian control ? It's also what Jesus was said to have taught.

Well you aren't familiar with the Austrian School if you have read Hayek. You need to read Mises to understand it, Hayek isn't really Austrian, although some of what he says is similar. The university of Chicago is Freidmanite and is not Austrian by a long stretch, effectively they are neocon. Mises did have a lot of good things to say about Rand and, Rand also had many good things to say, however over the years this relationship fell apart. Rand misunderstood Mises and Rothbard and much arguing ensued. Greenspan was a Rand acolyte. However, he never maintained the conviction and joined the enemy 'the fed' and its state. It must be remembered that Rand was never an Anarchist, she did support the state, but she had a pre depiction for supporting powerful businessmen and not necessarily the free market. A lot of this is misunderstood. His is why I'm suggesting you get this 'pure source'. If you have the ability to digest the heavy stuff then Mises-Human Action is literally the Bible. It has, in my estimation, a few minor faults, but not many and they are only discoverable because time has passed and the greats, such as Rothbard modified some of the philosophy. Mises was an economics professor he didn't do any of the things you have mentioned. I will have a look at your posted video when I get the chance and then comment.

Freedom from the self imposed prison of ignorance is the antithesis of the need for security. If you have no prison, then there is neither need of walls or locks :-)

Right, because your experiences are simply feelings. You don't wish to label them as such because, you would then be unable to label them as credible phenomena of shared reality (and you notice you do invoke a shared forum 'experiencing'). That you feel 'Samahdi' and 'Bliss' I do not doubt, but they are not permanent reality, only fleeting, impermanent feelings, thus you should discard them, but you cling to them instead. Attachment right ? This is only slightly different in comparison to an existing object such as car. An attachment to a car is not simply ownership, but when ownership manifests as 'this car defines me' and 'this car is who I am and it's loss would destroy me'. You can develop inward attachment to pure feelings without outward attachment to existing objects. 'I have Samahdi/bliss and this defines me, without it I am destroyed'. Can you see that at least, or is your ego so strong that even take that first small step is a threat ? When your castle falls here is only you left, it is the core and is strengthened by authenticity, by knowing thyself without attachments. It takes a lot of work to get there, but you can take small steps just by recognising what you are doing-SRM would recommend self inquiry to follow the stream.

I can't get to look at the book unfortunately. Again -Austrian free market is something of a cobbled together word-m very careful to evaluate any claim that begins 'free market Austrian'. Libertarians could be described as free marketeers, but really their Philosophy is adherence to the non aggression principle -essentially they won't hurt people or steal their things-so free market/private property is built into that philosophy. Austrian economics is the philosophy of human action, it doesn't really mention the free market as it isn't a manifesto, it's a social science that describes how men act and is termed praxiology. Privatisation usually mean a state enterprise that is taken over by a corporation-most noteable through the world bank /IMF in poor countries. This isn't the creation of a free market by any stretch of the imagination. It's a state granted monopoly and, as you rightly pointed out some posts previously, it is Neo fascistic and therefore not libertarian. Austrians would simply comment on it and why it would not work effectively. Some people who call themselves free market economists would praise it and some-who really don't understand th Austrian school of economics-like to align themselves with Austrian philosophy to try and give corporatism a more 'authentic' free market flavour. I had the same issues as you over 'privatisation' and I found it tough to understand the distinction between true Libertarians - Murray Rothbard even changed its name to An-Cap after the Koch brothers began co-opting and distorting the principle for their own benefit. At some point I think you are going to reach the same conclusion as I have, but it will take a lot of convincing. It's necessary to understand economics from first principles according to the Austrian School, the what the Law is for, finally the Libertarian manifesto. Books: The Law -Fredrick Bastiat ( short essay). Economics in one lesson -Henry Hazlitt ( economic primer and easy reading) Man, Economy and State-Murray Rothbard ( an easier version of the very dry but genius Mises-human action) For a new Liberty (a libertarian Manifesto)-Murray Rothbard. Finally, if you want a more new age version then: Healing our world in an age of aggression-Dr Mary J Ruwart The first books are all free downloads on Mises.com library.

Don't know about Tao, but Benjamin Franklin said: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Cool, but he doesn't live on macaroni cheese, he eats it prior to competition which is pretty normal carb loading for athletes attempting sustained exercise. I would like to know what he does eat. Definitely good genes. Attitude only gets you so far.

Firstly 'privatisation' is nothing at all to do with the free market, or private property rights. You must first understand th definitions or you will be following duff leads and dead ends. It's really difficult to right every bad idea and confused reasoning you have created here. You seem to think the banks are private, free market institutions, but they aren't. They are tax payer funded corpricracies and oligarchs given free reign by the Government. These are the crooks, banksters and revolving door statist so that have crippled the economy. If you could get this, then you would be coming over to the libertarian side, because it's that side that's fighting these crooks. Here: this is from Lew Rockwell a confirmed An-Cap and a post by Bill Grigg another An-Cap. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2010/06/william-norman-grigg/economic-hitmen-target-you/ Why on earth would they be posting these criticisms which align with several things you have posted ? Surely it's time you wondered why they would be blowing up their own 'Neo fascistic' ideology in that way ? Come on. Realise you have been had by the best smoke and mirrors experts on the planet. Just have a look through the articles on Lews site. Does it seem that he supporters the IMF, World bank, Fed, corporations ? Why isn't Austrian economics taught in universities ? There isn't even a qualification in it. Why has there only been one libertarian ever elected-Ron Paul-and why didn't he ever get anywhere ? Come on dude, figure it out. Why was Ron Paul trying to end the fed ?