Phil Osborn

Anarcho-capitalism Revisited in Economics JoeUser Forums

I'm suddenly deluged with a flood of posts on my FaceBook page regarding anarcho-capitalism, a term that I still apply to myself - privately. Publically, I am more likely to use anarcho-commonist. My own redefinition has come about from two logically entwined realizations. First, that Auguste Comte is fundamentally correct in one major sense: That we each individually must own up to the fact that everything we own, every thing of value to us, is largely the p

Ceres, Seriously in Science & Tech JoeUser Forums

As to the amazing bright spots. I cast my vote for bleach. As in sun-bleach. If

Deflation! Finally it's here... in Politics JoeUser Forums

http://www.wenningadvice.com/?tag=federal-reserve-board Back around 2008, I posited that the U.S. was going exactly backwards, bailing out the crooks while ignoring the victims, the millions of people who lost their retirement or their homes. Surprise, surprise, the crooks are now doing fine, while the victims are often still struggling to recover and, in many cases, failing. All reflected in the recent focus

Censored Again in Science & Tech JoeUser Forums

(03/28/15) I bring up below the issue of scientific religiosity and give some examples related to critically important research that is being blocked or ignored by a religious scientific orthodoxy right out of Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," sadly including Michael Shermer - the Skeptic, whose inept and misleading "Scientific American" piece on "scientific morals" does him little credit - altho it did trigger this blog entry. &nbs

An Open Letter to the Libertarian Movement in Singularity JoeUser Forums

There was a time when libertarianism seemed to make sense. It explained so much, so clearly. It was, briefly, the darling of the media and major politicians such as Reagan paid lip service and appointed officials based on their libertarian creds, long before the radical right of the Tea Party demonstrated how to leverage commitment into influence. Reportedly, major corporate funding financed grants and college endowments aimed at proving and proclaiming the wonders

Medical Science - Que Bono in Health & Medicine JoeUser Forums

A recent study out of Yale indicates that cold air really does cause colds. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30685732 Turns out that about 1 in 6 people carries the common cold virus even without an active, symptomatic cold. But when the air temperature drops, it causes a drastic drop o

A Possible Clue About Cancer in Health & Medicine JoeUser Forums

http://www.genescient.com/research/genes-to-network/ Just this morning, I thought about the recent finding that allegedly demonstrates statistically that about 2/3 cancers are random occurences, typically involving a mistaken stem cell differentiation. Thus, perhaps only 1/3 of cancers, overall, are preventable via diet or environmental or lifestyle. Genescient may have some answers to this, or the po

Haptic Virtual Objects & LOSCON in Science & Tech JoeUser Forums

BIG NEWS!!! http://www.kurzweilai.net/feeling-virtual-objects-in-mid-air-using-ultrasound Update: December 10, 2014 Still calm on the ebola front, if only because the action is taking place off camera, as in the reported hidden epidemic in Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, yesterday at work, it suddenly occurred to me that there was indeed clear evi

Reply to On Evil in Philosophy Stardock Forums

My guess is that you might be able to state your comment in the detail necessary to convey it coherently if you expanded it about 50 times. A fundamental issue of communication is that you must have a common vocabulary. (A fundamental technique of sociopaths is to corrupt the language in such a way that people are talking past one another, especially evident in the use of such terms as "pro-life" or "progressive.") I will not promise to invest any large amount of

Reply to On Evil in Philosophy Stardock Forums

Protoplazm, thanks for your comment. I believe there is something valid there. You may note that I initially referred to evil as "Evil is that which has an essential nature that threatens, prevents or destroys what is good." I.e., I'm not claiming that evil is the simple opposite of good, but rather that it is essentially opposed to the good. Are you claiming that th

On Evil in Philosophy JoeUser Forums

This is a work in progress. (At least I hope so...) Notes from a thread on fb: https://www.facebook.com/DonnaLHaney "As to autism, I suspect a complex brew of factors. There are definite changes or deficits in major neural pathways that explain or correlate to various types of autism. Some people are simply blind to the emotional states of others. Some people are blind to their own emotional states. Some people are very good at reading the emotional state of others, b

Can the U.S. Medical in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Q: Is the U.S. medical system capable of dealing with ebola? You be the judge: About a month ago, when I asked a local upper level librarian about what he knew regarding ebola, and whether anyone at the library might be interested in doing a presentation that could cover emergencies such as Earthquake or Ebola, going over standard heath measures and preparations - water storage, emergency services, etc., his response was that anyone in the U.S. who was afraid

Reply to Mischaracterizing the obvious to feel better about oneself in Internet Stardock Forums

Thanks so much, FrogBoy. It is so easy, especially for a newbee, to become totally disheartened when attacked for no apparent reason. And, that is the point. If you are hurt - and the neurology research clearly indicates that verbal, social smears and attacks induce the same kind of stress as physical attacks (so the hurt is quite real and if severe or sustained or freuquent can actually change your personality and capacity for empathy through such mechanisms as cortisol poi

Hitcher Bots in Tech Talk JoeUser Forums

Great idea, guys! Looks like a natural for group shares, treasure hunts, as well as experimental governmental style services, such as ride-alongs for cops. The infobot could give the officer an extra set of eyes and ears, freeing him or her up to apprehend or investigate, interviewing witnesses, etc. It would be ironic indeed, however, to see info-bots randomly distributed around the country, while cities no longer offer what used to be considered essenti

Reply to Ebola Now in Current Events Stardock Forums

Scipherneo - From the first source above that you linked to... " Reproductive number . If you’re sick and you nonetheless decide to go about your everyday routine how many people are you likely to infect? That’s what the “reproductive number” measures. When you walk around with the flu, you’re likely to infect two people. If you have measles, it’s seven or more. With Ebola, it’s roughly 1.5 to 2." So in six mo

Ebola Now in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Ebola Now How to deal with the aftermath Published on August 20, 2014 By Phil Osborn In Current Events on www.joeuser.com February 28th, 2016 http://www.reuters.com

The New Memory Hole - the Internet in Singularity JoeUser Forums

First, let's test the system. OK... Edit worked... What this is about: What we don't see on the web. Who we don't hear on the web or in general. Censorship directly and by marginalization. The price of the truth and the profitability of deceptions. Who is responsible. Note: the room for storage in the cloud and elsewhere on planet Earth is currently estimated to be about half as big as the data subm

This Post Censored in Politics JoeUser Forums

I posted the blog below about two weeks back as a prequel to my commentary in my post on the solution for poverty. "Breaking news! The world currency exchange bank has announced that things are looking uncomfortably like 2007 all over again. People are reportedly bidding up "asset bubbles" right and left in a desperate, frenzied attempt to beat the odds and get something - ANY positive return on their money. A few people at the top of these multitude of instant pyram

Problems at the Library in Current Events JoeUser Forums

To: [email protected] Thanks for your attention to this matter. In brief, the Tustin library has become increasingly unusable for legitimate pusposes, due to the failure to address the problems of various noises making it impossible to concentrate on any serious research. Along with the noise issues, there has been a slowly increasing le

Vampire Mice for real in Health & Medicine JoeUser Forums

Some years ago, I opened the books on a local congressman, all that pesky history that really wasn't so bad, objectively. It was just that he was trying to live a lie - and still is! He comes off as the squeeky clean Mr. Conservative, when only a few decades ago he was dead in the sights of Ronny Raygun, who was bent on using California's home grown storm troupers to prevent the anarchist-libertarian faction of Young American for Freedom, headed by the later congressm

What is Important? in Singularity JoeUser Forums

I've been intrigued for decades with the way that discontinuities might influence us in subtle - or not so subtle - ways. Most of us ignore the fact that catastrophes happen. We are shielded from death up close and personal. We buy our big screens and SUVs while the future of life on the planet - including all the people we love and their kids and their kids, etc. - is in the balance, and a billion or so of us are on the brink of starvation while we who have a choic

Reply to A General Solution to Poverty in Economics Stardock Forums

The Star Trek economy never convinced me. The Ferengie - or Harcort - as caracatures of capitalists - set against a highly militaristic Enterprise terran culture??? However, I am convinced that the model that can survive robotics, etc., the really big changes that are coming - will not be a top-heavy rich on top one. My proposal starts out on the bases of real need versus economic reality. What can we afford? When we are a lot richer - which is likely

Reply to New Uses for MS Kinect in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

Typing while thinking about something entirely else, he wrote "Quote Blacklist" meaning (apart from the fact that one NEVER gets free of such blunders, so my life is now officially OVER...) Crastiloowa LAMSelf!!

Reply to New Uses for MS Kinect in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carel_Struycken I met Carel thru either the connection he had with a VR crew in the early '90's or via his demos of rehabilitation VR at SIGRAPH in the same period. Carel was programming VR environments using CyberScape on the Amiga platform, his goal being virtually (punish me!) identical to that noted in your blog on the Kinect. Of course, the Amiga with the A-Squared LIVE! board a

Property Foundations, Part II in Economics JoeUser Forums

This is the beginning of my long-awaited* extension of my popular earlier blog, which focussed on the concept of property as associated with physical things. That blog was not intended to promote a particular version of property, although it has probably been taken that way by many readers. I will try to maintain some degree of neutrality here, as well. I certainly have my own opinions, positions and implicit agenda, but the standard to w