Bryce

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About Bryce

  • Birthday 08/25/1985

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    Houston, TX
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    Bryce Strong
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  1. I receive more brain damage, per capita, at work from my so-called customers than from anyone I've met off Craigslist. I've sold or traded maybe a dozen items on there. The turnaround was sometimes weeks but I believe I've received the best money possible short of waiting on a miracle. I'd buy and sell there all the time if I just knew what to resell.
  2. After the video was removed I looked for another upload. Then I found comments that described the dog owner antagonizing the police prior to the shooting. Apparently video of that exists but I didn't see it. He supposedly parked his car next to the scene after driving by and being belligerent. So if he was antagonizing them then I was wrong (about why he was handcuffed). I don't believe that baiting the authorities in this way is productive. This guy, the Ridley Reporters and of the world are not defenders of rights.Still, the officers were wrong in shooting his dog and I stand by the rest of my comments.
  3. Something without a voice is such an easy target for a coward. I've seen a lot of YouTube videos of or about cops shooting dogs. And I don't think it's a coincidence. A person with a gun, with authority, with a compulsion to kill and a justification to do it will kill. I don't think a moral code is what stops these government employees from so brazenly shooting humans. I think it's that the potential repercussions are much more severe. And god help us when those are taken away. Oh, and let's not forget what the guy was handcuffed for. The ending is graphic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0isxv2jnIo
  4. I learned that haggis hasn't been available in the US for about 40 years because we're not allowed to eat sheep's lung. That was a surprise to me because I thought that I had eaten it. Anyway, I did recently eat real, bona fide haggis and it was good. Whatever I'd eaten before I thought was good, but this was good. I had little rounds of it. That and black pudding. Congealed blood is as appetizing as it seems.
  5. That's funny. I did a lot of fundraising for Cub Scouts and school as a kid. Certain people in the neighborhood never had money on them, otherwise they definitely would've bought some gift wrap. I should've taken a tip from that girl. You see this fire merit badge? Why don't you find your checkbook before I earn another one. The last time I bought Girl Scout cookies was when a girl at the grocery store stood in my way and asked me as I was leaving. But I haven't seen any of the scouts at the grocery store do that since I moved to Texas. Maybe it's store policy or maybe their scout leaders don't care. I busted my ass every year selling popcorn to win those esteemed BSA Victorinox Swiss Army knives.
  6. Bryce, I never said I would push anything. I never even hinted that I would. That doesn't mean I would or I wouldn't. It just means you decided I would out of your own biases, not out of anything I wrote. You misidentified. This is a very simple case of making an assumption on first seeing something, i.e., instantly evaluating it, then presenting that in the place where correct identification should be. This--the epistemological method you have used so far in your posts--is the premise I suggest you check. I call the correct method "cognitive before normative" and the error "normative before cognitive." (This is based on the idea that it's very difficult--actually impossible without blind luck--to evaluate something correctly if you don't identify it correctly.) But it's your mind, your method and your decision. You misunderstood (misidentified?) me but I wrote it in a way that could be and was misunderstood. I've read all of your posts so I know you didn't write it. If I had meant it as you thought I did I would have written, "...you who would press the blue button or anyone else..." And I'm not pissed off. Then again, you haven't written that I was.
  7. Unless he's trying to evade responsibility, if he would contentiously shrug off the anger of the family of the random someone he murdered, I would wonder why he had that John Galt-like demeanor. I think I'd be taken aback by it and question him down to see if he could understand the problem of his decision. Because if he could I would demand restitution instead of killing him. Though I don't believe a man so rationally self-interested would comply with the machine. But if he didn't let me question him down, I would put aside my wondering to kill him. But now that I'm wondering, I wonder if you or anyone else who would press the blue button would accept being murdered so that the subject's close friend would not have to die. If John Galt or Ayn Rand would have made the decision you suggest either would have been mistaken to do so. That's not a premise that needs checking. If I had the inkling I was about to be murdered for my murderer's feelings towards someone I don't know, I wouldn't wait until after he took his action of killing me to kill him. Mostly because I physically couldn't for being dead, but because his intent is what counts. If, as he placed his finger on the button to push it down, he was suddenly paralyzed and unable to kill me, I would hold him as accountable as his twin in the next death machine room who wasn't paralyzed and who did murder my twin.
  8. Yes. I would because a man who wants sympathy for committing 'evil' is worse than a man who doesn’t. And I’m not talking about someone who’s asking for forgiveness for prior questionable actions. This man wants - to bastardize the term - to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to not feel the guilt of his atrocities but not commit to not doing them either if he's under compulsion. This is about compelling the subject to murder and the timer is the clincher. The altruist, seemingly left with no other options, believes that to press either button is compassionate and the timer a coward's excuse to not make an ethical decision (to press one of the two buttons). But I think a rational person would see the timer as an altruist's justification for making murder compassionate. Edited.
  9. I don't know a lot of racing history but Bruce McLaren is iconic. And his company is responsible for some of the most advanced cars in the world. I think this tribute overlaps well onto Objectivism. http://youtu.be/23E1m8ZxFmU
  10. Somehow you think that my will would be tied to that of the guys holding my family for ransom. But I don't control them and therefore I have nothing to "wash my hands" of. Besides, you're not considering alternatives. You didn't ask if I would try to save them nor if I would risk my life for theirs.
  11. Hardly. The subject is being compelled to act for the would-be murderer. Instead of the buttons (or machine or whatever it is) doing the killing it is allowing him to do the killing instead. But he may still decide to not be party to the decision despite being put into the situation against his will.
  12. This is about the initiation of force. A reason could warrant a button-presser killing someone close to him, say to mercifully kill his dying wife. But none to kill a stranger. And he is complicit if he presses either. You're rationalizing. If it were about saving a life the choice would decide who lives and inaction would save both. Frankly, you're insane to think that because a thing or anyone commits to killing several that you would kill fewer in order for it to not kill at all. If you chose a button you are more contemptuous than the maker of the machine. And if the random victim of your decision learned of it before his death, or if the loved ones of the victim sought revenge, you should not be surprised that either would kill you back.
  13. Most men have the will to do what they please, within reality. That's freedom. We are free to do what we will, and the limits we place are only on ourselves. And the reaction of others to that will - good or bad - is separate. Two men who have no inclination to murder each other wouldn't draw a social contract to prohibit one from murdering the other. Hobbes had a different view of this situation. In nature, men do as they will within the boundaries of their capability . In this situation where there is no external restraint on what they do the life of man, as Hobbes says is "solitary, nasty, brutish and short". Which is why we need government to restrain what people do with the fear of punishment. Ba'al Chatzaf So did Hobbes support his government because without it he was nasty and brutal? Understanding that a problem exists is not the same as knowing why it does. And whatever the problem is, correcting it begins with the individual.
  14. Some children are born without brains. Some humans are retarded and others have become vegetables. I'll go out on a limb and say that they don't have much will. And I deliberately didn't write "free will".
  15. As there is no such thing in human social existence as "absolute freedom"--ever--not now, not back then and not in the future--please restate your proposition and its consequences so it makes some sense. --Brant Most men have the will to do what they please, within reality. That's freedom. We are free to do what we will, and the limits we place are only on ourselves. And the reaction of others to that will - good or bad - is separate. Two men who have no inclination to murder each other wouldn't draw a social contract to prohibit one from murdering the other.