The more money you have, the more diminishing returns on getting value out of it. Hence, charities, which offer to do Great Things with your money. Most don't. But anyway, what is one to do to get high yield out of lozza money? One thing to do is give lots to one's kids. Friends are also a good target, if they are short on money -- you know your friends and can see if you give them money for a specific thing it really will be a worthy purchase. There's surely other good ideas, low excess creativity now though.

If you're rich and short on solutions, I can help *grin*, you know my email....... *waves*

Suppose you are a bad person. You get angry a lot, have trouble valuing much, aren’t very successful, blame others for your troubles, and hurt your children often. But, whatever, you’re life isn’t so bad. You get through it, enjoy a fair amount of it.

Now, suppose someone claims to be moral, and you notice the implication that you are not. And suppose this person lacks all your bad traits. This might well make you feel bad.

And then you might write a letter to the so-called moral person, attacking him. The content might be along the lines of (if you were exceptionally intelligent and clear, for a bad person): You bastard, fuck you. You’re totally wrong. Oh, and if you reply in kind you’re just like me, except also a liar. Nope, just sit there and take it, Mr. High and Mighty. Oh, and you can’t get resentful because that would violate your moral code, huh? But you are mad at me, aren’t you? Yep, you’re a hypocrite. Now stop implying I’m bad, and get back to your stupid, lucky life.

Another Problem with the NAP

Deterrence policies tell some person/group that actions in a certain category will be met with a certain response. The point is to prevent the deterred party from performing some evil action that would otherwise be performed, without the consequences. The consequences chosen will specifically be things that would be of questionable morality without the announced declaration, because otherwise they'd just be expected. (No need to tell thieves that if we catch them in the act, we won't allow them to continue.)

Two examples would be to tell Saddam that if he nukes Israel, we will kill every last member of his extended family, and a policy of sending every nuke we have at the USSR should it send a single nuke at the USA.

Are these specific policies justified? That's debatable. They have to be evaluated by how effective they will be, what they will prevent, and what we will have to do should they fail (to not follow up would make all future deterrence policies ineffective and is generally not an option).

But by the NAP, they involve initiating force against people who did not initiate force against us. Killing Saddam's family if Saddam attacks us, or blowing up Russian cities should the Russian military fire a nuke, respectively. The NAP cannot accommodate deterrence policies. Whether these specific ones are right or not, the NAP fails to include a general case argument why all deterrence policies that initiate force must be wrong, and is thus an unreasonable way to approach the issue.

The war has started!

(If you don't know where to look for links/news, USS Clueless gives some ideas here.)

Things that are "necessary to explaining reality" exist. To explain reality, we don't need to know if we like people. It's simply not necessary. We can do just fine answering questions like "Do I want to talk to her right now?" and "Do I want to learn more about her?" and "Do I want to spend time doing X with her?". So, liking *does not exist*.

However, there is something the notion does come in handy for. What if, instead of trying to explain the world, we want to *predict*. Then, it is useful. That's what "liking" really is -- an expectation to continue wanting [various things]. The various things including wanting to spend time together, wanting to fuck, etc

Google "rational chic" and you won't find anything. "Rational chick" has 4 junk hits. How dprzzing is that?

"Rational girls" comes up with 8. Here's one.

It begins: My mother used to tell me that if you sleep with covers on you'd have wild and vivid dreams. So every night I go sleep, I'm covered to my chin with bed sheets and covers, no matter the temperature, no matter the season, hoping the linens will surround my surreal self and keep those wonderful tales in my head. I sleep naked. Started doing it as a teenager, so beneath those warm and heavy sheets is my naked and sweating body. It's not like anyone will ever see my naked body. I sleep with the window open too. As if to tempt fate, hoping some young burglar will come in some night and have his way with me.

Damn lying mother. But anyway, what's up with this hope of a burglar in the night? Why would someone want to be abused? There are some really fucked up memes about sex in our culture.

Googling "rational girl" gets 88 hits. Lots seem to be books/fantasy or lesbians. *sigh*

I realised that the "What exists, and in what ways do these things exist?" question is a bad one. We have the word "exists", we don't really know what it means, we want to. I was just writing to an email list about how doing the same thing with "love" is a terrible idea. So here's a solution to the question of existance: regard things to exist, when it is epistemically necessary to explaining reality.

Here's an idea: Our most basic/fundamental theories are the ones that, if changed, would create the most inconsistencies in our worldview.