Lazy Fair City

[Brant Gaede]

It's not any particular lie or group of lies necessarily; It's the liars as such. Almost everybody knew in 1992 Clinton was a liar and his wife was worse. The Democrats who voted for him knew that helped qualify him for the job in their lights. Ross Perot was the most honest candidate of the three that year. He didn't win, of course. Those who believe what the politicians say are fools even if proved sometimes right. Politicians are whores--for votes and, naturally enough, for money. Trump is attractive for--no matter how he got it--in part because he's got the money. Every other candidate is rooting around looking for it.

--Brant

[Peter]

Wolf wrote about me: Apparently he was incapable of grasping that The Freeman's Constitution had nothing to do with the United States or territorial government or executive power anywhere.
end quote

No, Wolf. If those words had appeared in your preface I would have understood them. Don’t you remember what you wrote?

Wolf explains just before Article One: The Freeman's Constitution does not claim sovereignty in a geographic area, but rather the world at large, affirming that you have an inalienable constitutional right to innocent liberty which no state may lawfully abridge.
end quote

You claim the whole world is ruled by your platonic ideal, which means The United States, and all other territories, including the oceans. Wolf calls his document, The Freeman's Constitution Final draft, August 19, 2001. Final means final. If you were only describing the judiciary you should have at least mentioned that you will explain the legislative and executive branches later, or said your Constitution will not discuss them because ONLY the Judiciary is necessary for a free society.

Wolf is a wild and crazy guy. I think I found his theme song.

Desi Arnaz sang to Ditzy Lucy:
We'll build a bungalow, big enough for two
Big enough for two (my honey), yes me and you
And when we're married, happy we'll be
Under the bamboo, underneath the bamboo tree
Peter

[moralist]

Jonathan writes:

I don't think that it does. The current members of government from both parties, when running for office, did not promote themselves as supporting the policies that they ended up supporting. They sold themselves to the public with quite different ideas than those that they went along with.

While your description is accurate, you ignored your side of the equation. Liars can only be believed by people who love lies.

Again... it's the perfect match of a lying government which governs the lie lovers who created a lying government in their own image.

By virtue of moral law, each deserves the other... so that's exactly what they get. People always get the government they deserve.

Greg

[Jonathan]

Jonathan writes:

I don't think that it does. The current members of government from both parties, when running for office, did not promote themselves as supporting the policies that they ended up supporting. They sold themselves to the public with quite different ideas than those that they went along with.

While your description is accurate, you ignored your side of the equation. Liars can only be believed by people who love lies.

Again... it's the perfect match of a lying government which governs the lie lovers who created a lying government in their own image.

By virtue of moral law, each deserves the other... so that's exactly what they get. People always get the government they deserve.

Greg

Actually, no, I didn't ignore that side of the equation.

I wrote, "Many people were fooled by that marketing method, just as you, Apey, are fooled by the really obviously stupid shit that you repeat over and over here at OL. The only difference is that most of them are much smarter than you are, and they therefore learn from their mistakes, where you just keep repeating the same nonsense no matter how embarrassingly wrong you've been shown to be."

You are a perfect match for nut job doomsayers and the nonsense and lies that they tell. Where others learn from their mistakes and their gullibility, you stupidly dig your heels in and refuse to learn.

J

[moralist]

Jonathan writes:

Actually, no, I didn't ignore that side of the equation.

I wrote, "Many people were fooled by that marketing method,

...and I filled in the rest of the quotation you ignored by describing how people are fooled by politicians. It is because of they love lies. So they elect liars to office and get the government they deserve.

It is a perfect match of the propensity to tell lies meeting the propensity to believe lies.

As far as your faulty premise that I believe "lies"...

I'm a happy healthy married productive independent prosperous Grandpa from living by my "lies".

Where have have your lies gotten you?

Greg

[Jonathan]

Jonathan writes:Actually, no, I didn't ignore that side of the equation.I wrote, "Many people were fooled by that marketing method,

...and I filled in the rest of the quotation you ignored by describing how people are fooled by politicians. It is because of they love lies. So they elect liars to office and get the government they deserve.It is a perfect match of the propensity to tell lies meeting the propensity to believe lies.As far as your faulty premise that I believe "lies"...I'm a happy healthy married productive independent prosperous Grandpa from living by my "lies."

Keep lying to yourself, Apey. If you were happy, you wouldn't spend so much time and effort on all of your doomsday fantasies where everyone but you receives the punishment that they "deserve."

Where have have your lies gotten you? :wink:Greg

Which lies do you imagine that I believe? Be specific. Would one example of the lies that I believe be my view that your doomsday predictions are retarded?

J

[moralist]

Jonathan writes:

Which lies do you imagine that I believe? Be specific.

I already did, Jonathan.

Specifically, you believe the lie that I believe lies. So I told you where the "lies" I live by have gotten me in my life and asked where yours have gotten you.

You see, that's how you can know for yourself the validity of your beliefs. Just look at your own life and see where they've gotten you. That's how I know the validity of my values. They overflow blessings into my life. And by the way, I notice you evaded answering my question as to where your beliefs have gotten you in your own life by asking me another question. Are you ashamed?

And as far as doomsday predictions, I truly enjoy them for their fun entertainment value.

During the 2001 "doomsday" I built a house.

During the 2008 "doomsday" I developed and marketed a new product.

During this 2015 "doomsday" I started another new business venture.

The "lies" you believe I live by, in reality, protect me from getting the consequences you get from believing lies.

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

Ross Perot was the most honest candidate of the three that year.

I trust we all remember why Perot quit the race. He and his family were threatened.

[Brant Gaede]

Ross Perot was the most honest candidate of the three that year.

I trust we all remember why Perot quit the race. He and his family were threatened.

Didn't know that. However, all serious candidates for that office must consider themselves threatened or they might as well be. He did re-enter the race.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Jonathan writes:

Which lies do you imagine that I believe? Be specific.

I already did, Jonathan.

Specifically, you believe the lie that I believe lies. So I told you where the "lies" I live by have gotten me in my life and asked where yours have gotten you.

You see, that's how you can know for yourself the validity of your beliefs. Just look at your own life and see where they've gotten you. That's how I know the validity of my values. They overflow blessings into my life. And by the way, I notice you evaded answering my question as to where your beliefs have gotten you in your own life by asking me another question. Are you ashamed?

And as far as doomsday predictions, I truly enjoy them for their fun entertainment value.

During the 2001 "doomsday" I built a house.

During the 2008 "doomsday" I developed and marketed a new product.

During this 2015 "doomsday" I started another new business venture.

The "lies" you believe I live by, in reality, protect me from getting the consequences you get from believing lies.

Greg

Idiot, which specific consequences have I gotten? The ones that you predicted and dreamt of and hoped and prayed for, but which haven't happened?

Lies and punishment fantasies, that's what you're made of.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Jonathan writes:

Which lies do you imagine that I believe? Be specific.

I already did, Jonathan.

Specifically, you believe the lie that I believe lies. So I told you where the "lies" I live by have gotten me in my life and asked where yours have gotten you.

You see, that's how you can know for yourself the validity of your beliefs. Just look at your own life and see where they've gotten you. That's how I know the validity of my values. They overflow blessings into my life. And by the way, I notice you evaded answering my question as to where your beliefs have gotten you in your own life by asking me another question. Are you ashamed?

And as far as doomsday predictions, I truly enjoy them for their fun entertainment value.

During the 2001 "doomsday" I built a house.

During the 2008 "doomsday" I developed and marketed a new product.

During this 2015 "doomsday" I started another new business venture.

The "lies" you believe I live by, in reality, protect me from getting the consequences you get from believing lies.

Greg

You presume to know way too much about people. Your idea set--or ideology--enables to make assumptions unleavened by much if any data. The idea set in itself may be enough to generalize about people but doesn't give you any grace to dump that on any particular person, especially someone you interact with on the Internet as opposed to face to face. Your basic flaw here is at the most base (social) level. Humans only have in common their biological humanity. As individuals we are all different within that. No one else is you just as no one else is me. Past, present and future. You, however, seem to have this idea of being an ideal and workable moral template and you address everybody as if they are out of this context if not in it and that addresses the totality of who they really are and must be. But that's all hypothetical. It works for trade and face to face personal relationships. That's because you can get a shitload more data from that than from mere Internet postings. All I really know about you is from your declamations about this or that, some greatly helped by photographs of your water systems. If I wanted to have a similar system I'd try to employ you in some capacity depending on how close we were to each other. I cannot say the same about hiring you as an electrician. The amount of vetting I do for an electrician is almost as severe as vetting a doctor, so don't take this personally. To do serious electrical work for me you'd have too much baggage. It would interfere with my evaluating your competence. I'd want to know you only as an electrician. Hiring and firing one is too hard as it is.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

As I've been saying since shortly after Apey started posting here, his primary method of "thinking" is to employ the fallacy of "Affirming the Consequent," and similar fallacies.

If P, then Q.

Q.

Therefore, P.

If something is evil, then Apey doesn't like it.

Apey doesn't like it when others effectively criticize his methods and opinions.

Therefore, those who effectively criticize his methods and opinions must be evil.

J

[Jonathan]

You see, that's how you can know for yourself the validity of your beliefs. Just look at your own life and see where they've gotten you. That's how I know the validity of my values. They overflow blessings into my life. And by the way, I notice you evaded answering my question as to where your beliefs have gotten you in your own life by asking me another question. Are you ashamed?

Actually, I've answered you in the past, but you've ignored that reality in favor of your fantasy that I'm living a doomed and miserable life. I'm very happy and successful. Why won't you accept that? Why do you need to believe in negative falsehoods about others? Your doing so smacks of massive insecurity.

J

[Brant Gaede]

As I've been saying since shortly after Apey started posting here, his primary method of "thinking" is to employ the fallacy of "Affirming the Consequent," and similar fallacies.

If P, then Q.

Q.

Therefore, P.

If something is evil, then Apey doesn't like it.

Apey doesn't like it when others effectively criticize his methods and opinions.

Therefore, those who effectively criticize his methods and opinions must be evil.

J

Evil is as evil does. Mistaken is as mistaken does. Evil is a conscious choice. A mistake is a mistake. Learn from it. Don't repeat. You get what you sow.

I think that about sums up Greg's philosophy. He doesn't occupy a mighty fortress of abstract philosophical reasoning; he is completely utilitarian.

--Brant

[william.scherk]

I'd like to hear more from Wolf on the rise and fall of the plan for Laissez-Faire City in Costa Rica.

All I think I know about the actual location of LFC is that it was in or near the community of Nosara, on the west coast. Nosara and district are home to plenty American expatriates now, with those expatriates having established 'government' and 'community services' in the form of a water district, a fire brigade, national police outpost, garbage-collection and so on. A libertarian surf-topia, led by Americans, migrants. longing-for-the-good-life 'refugees.' It is quite a singular spot, such that I don't wonder it attracted the founders of LFC.

Wolf, where was the LFC actually selling/leasing/offering/intending to purchase land plots -- was it actually in and around Nosara -- at/near the American Project, up the local high ground parallel to the beaches?

I note -- from reading articles and columns at the local Nosara community news online -- that property-holders have to face up to corruption in the land-title system, which adds another level of complication to utopia. See, especially, "There are Now 16 Real Estate Frauds in Nosara."

The kinds of expatriates in Nosara? Lots of Yoga aficionados and tourist surf-libertarian service providers -- enough beauty and infrastructure to attract a growing amount of international visitors and new residents ...

[Value added:] Greg will be interested in this interview with an entrepreneurial/communitarian expat who is Nosara's Water Warlock. He details many practical and intriguing individual solutions to the Nosara Gulch's general 'dry month problem' ... from the local Gulch real estate wise guys: What water shortages? One Nosara resident’s quest to prevent us going thirsty

NRER: Does the first flush make the [collected rainwater] water drinkable?

Nick: No. the first flush makes sure the water is free of debris and isn’t a dengue factory. How far a homeowner takes water purification after that is strictly up to them, depending on what they intend to use to water for. We’re experimenting with ours now, and have a whole filter system dedicated solely to the rainwater. For irrigation, no further filtering is needed.

NRER: So is rainwater collection something the ASADA [locally-organized official water/service board] should be pursuing?

Nick: No. Rainwater collection is an individual choice. It’s one of multiple steps towards a homeowner’s individual water security, although it would be great to see a big rain tank sitting next to the ASADA building itself. It would be a strong message to the 11 or 12 people who actually show up during elections.

Edited September 15, 2015 by william.scherk

[Wolf DeVoon]

LFC never offered real estate for sale, although they had extensive property in Nosara, some leased, some optioned, some owned outright. Headquarters was the leased Nicaraguan embassy compound in the capital city San Jose, next door to the Russians. LFC's "Rand University" (counterintelligence and security compound) and City Club Restaurant and Hotel were nearby, along with multiple leased upscale residential properties. LFC's Head of Security owned a nightclub downtown, which caused an enormous number of problems, including unexplained disappearance of a VIP guest from Italy, unexplained absence of the Head of Security (last seen 4 a.m. fighting with a CIA thug) and a visitor suspected of being Secret Service or Treasury mole staying at the City Club -- when I happened to be O.D. and had to deal with all three. When I woke the boss and told him the scope of trouble, he ordered "Try to keep everybody alive." There was gunfire and a fistfight, but we didn't lose anybody.

After LFC dissolved, I lived in Nosara several years with a dozen ex-LFC neighbors, the brightest and toughest.

Keep in mind that Laissez Faire City was primarily a virtual city operating worldwide with PGP encryption. We had several thousand participants and "founders" in Europe, Asia, Gulf States, North, Central and South America.

[Jonathan]

From what I've read of the LFC clusterfuck, it appears that, unlike Rand's fictional Galt's Gulch, no one seems to have had any notion of actually producing anything. There were apparently no Reardens, Galts, Taggarts, or d'Anconia's, and not even any fishwives, nor anyone even as productively competent as a Boyle -- no one who made or grew or invented anything of value, and no one who had any intention of ever doing so.

J

[Wolf DeVoon]

Good cover story. Nothing important happened. Nobody produced anything. I like it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Monetary_Trust

http://www.memresearch.org/grabbe/ALTAfaq.htm

[Jonathan]

Yeah, like I said, it appears that no one produced anything of value. No real products. Nothing made or manufactured. No durable goods. No mining, smelting, or even the production of food. Just an electronic currency scheme that ended in accusations of fraud, abuse and scams. It appears to have been a failure.

Do you have evidence to the contrary? If so, I'd be happy to review it. And by "evidence to the contrary," I mean reality, not your amateurish, exaggerated fantasies where you cast yourself as things that you're obviously not.

J

[Wolf DeVoon]

things that you're obviously not

I can't guess what that might mean, aside from you being a shithead again.

Financial services 7% of U.S. GDP, mining 5%, agriculture 4%, durable goods 7% (aircraft and autos)

We didn't build F-16s or Hummers.

LFC was a financial services start-up. Programmers came from Intel, Microsoft, AOL and Wharton.

[Jonathan]

I mean that you appear to pretend a lot. You seem to be really bad and kind of desperate when it comes to marketing yourself and your "work" and the image that you want people to believe about you.

But, hey, I could be wrong. I'm willing to reconsider the vibe of phoniness that I get from you. Perhaps you could help me by addressing just one small area that I've asked you about twice already:

You call yourself a filmmaker -- here as well as other places online. Where may we see some of your films?

Have you actually produced any? I mean, you brought it up. If you're a filmmaker, and you obviously very badly wanted us all to know it, then show us your films. What's the problem?

J

[Brant Gaede]

I mean that you appear to pretend a lot. You seem to be really bad and kind of desperate when it comes to marketing yourself and your "work" and the image that you want people to believe about you.

But, hey, I could be wrong. I'm willing to reconsider the vibe of phoniness that I get from you. Perhaps you could help me by addressing just one small area that I've asked you about twice already:

You call yourself a filmmaker -- here as well as other places online. Where may we see some of your films?

Have you actually produced any? I mean, you brought it up. If you're a filmmaker, and you obviously very badly wanted us all to know it, then show us your films. What's the problem?

J

Are you sure you're not being "the problem"? I was once a filmmaker-student at NYU. I, and my group, made a film. I guess that makes made me a filmmaker. Wolf said "filmmaking" in response to my question. What he "obviously very badly wanted us all to know" can't be adduced from that. Now, I was a Special Forces killer medic. How badly I want anybody to know that to the greatest degree is for me to tell you the actual specifics of what happened when I pulled the trigger? I don't care to. Thank me. I've only told two people in the almost 50 years since, one is deceased. But to really know me in any significant sense is to know what I have just told you here. Otherwise I don't make enough sense as a visible, understandable person. I've decided to illuminate myself to a greater degree so more know about me. This is only just the beginning. It has to do with marketing and salesmanship of products I intend to produce. It's not the actual things, for they could be other things--I just use those for they are mine or of me--it's a part of attaining visibility. You cannot do this abstractly but you can tell lies that illustrate a correct (true) abstraction as many are wont to do. I don't. That's why I say I can drive the big rig and fly an airplane. I have the licenses. I also can't swim worth a damn. There are some things of import I won't relate. Maybe I will come to later. The test stone is that aforementioned sales and marketing. Truths can be used against you as a form of banishment. Or even to destroy you. Like Blake said about it: "A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent." It's not the truths; it's the lies slipped in with the package. I don't/won't tell all, I just won't lie but can live with the "lie" of omission.

What a have related here is on the exact same level Wolf did with that one word response. I just armored myself up better. "Badly" or "very badly" has nothing to do with it respecting others. It has essentially to do with my inner state of being becoming more of my concomitant aura. BUFF IT UP! Everybody has one, after all. "Filmmaking" is part of Wolf's. You want him to come with specifics you can use as bullets to shoot him? WTF? WhyTF would anybody do that?

--Brant

[Selene]

Excellent Brant:

"Film making" leads a mind into a certain framing.

What about microfilm? Camera's take film for intelligence purposes industrial, or, governments.

Film can shield something.

Why think by looking in only one alley you can see the neighborhood?

A...

[Jonathan]

things that you're obviously not

I can't guess what that might mean, aside from you being a shithead again.

Financial services 7% of U.S. GDP, mining 5%, agriculture 4%, durable goods 7% (aircraft and autos)

We didn't build F-16s or Hummers.

LFC was a financial services start-up. Programmers came from Intel, Microsoft, AOL and Wharton.

So, as I said, it appears that, unlike the characters in Atlas Shrugged's Galt's Gulch, the characters involved in LFC didn't create any wealth in their gulch in Costa Rica. Instead, they fondled and massaged wealth created by others.

J

[Jonathan]

I mean that you appear to pretend a lot. You seem to be really bad and kind of desperate when it comes to marketing yourself and your "work" and the image that you want people to believe about you.

But, hey, I could be wrong. I'm willing to reconsider the vibe of phoniness that I get from you. Perhaps you could help me by addressing just one small area that I've asked you about twice already:

You call yourself a filmmaker -- here as well as other places online. Where may we see some of your films?

Have you actually produced any? I mean, you brought it up. If you're a filmmaker, and you obviously very badly wanted us all to know it, then show us your films. What's the problem?

J

Are you sure you're not being "the problem"? I was once a filmmaker-student at NYU. I, and my group, made a film. I guess that makes made me a filmmaker. Wolf said "filmmaking" in response to my question. What he "obviously very badly wanted us all to know" can't be adduced from that. Now, I was a Special Forces killer medic. How badly I want anybody to know that to the greatest degree is for me to tell you the actual specifics of what happened when I pulled the trigger? I don't care to. Thank me. I've only told two people in the almost 50 years since, one is deceased. But to really know me in any significant sense is to know what I have just told you here. Otherwise I don't make enough sense as a visible, understandable person. I've decided to illuminate myself to a greater degree so more know about me. This is only just the beginning. It has to do with marketing and salesmanship of products I intend to produce. It's not the actual things, for they could be other things--I just use those for they are mine or of me--it's a part of attaining visibility. You cannot do this abstractly but you can tell lies that illustrate a correct (true) abstraction as many are wont to do. I don't. That's why I say I can drive the big rig and fly an airplane. I have the licenses. I also can't swim worth a damn. There are some things of import I won't relate. Maybe I will come to later. The test stone is that aforementioned sales and marketing. Truths can be used against you as a form of banishment. Or even to destroy you. Like Blake said about it: "A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent." It's not the truths; it's the lies slipped in with the package. I don't/won't tell all, I just won't lie but can live with the "lie" of omission.

What a have related here is on the exact same level Wolf did with that one word response. I just armored myself up better. "Badly" or "very badly" has nothing to do with it respecting others. It has essentially to do with my inner state of being becoming more of my concomitant aura. BUFF IT UP! Everybody has one, after all. "Filmmaking" is part of Wolf's. You want him to come with specifics you can use as bullets to shoot him? WTF? WhyTF would anybody do that?

--Brant

So, you think that it's kind of a generally accepted practice that people who took a course once in filmmaking promote themselves, in online resumes and bios, as filmmakers rather than as one-time students of a filmmaking class? If I took a class on space travel, you wouldn't call it an exaggeration or a bit of phoniness if I went around calling myself an astronaut?

I think the context that you're missing, Brant, is that when "Wolf" showed up here again recently, I thought that I'd refresh my memory of who he was, or who he presented himself as being, so I spent a few minutes Googling and looking over the results, and I noticed what appeared to me to be some rather funny posings. It appeared to me that someone was badly, transparently attempting to craft an illusion. Do a little Googling yourself and see if you don't get the same vibe.

And as I've said, I could be wrong. I've got a pretty damn good nose, but sometimes I misidentify a scent. That's why I'm asking questions. If I've gotten it wrong, I'll apologize.

J