Without even knowing you, I think I know exactly what is your problem. You're not reading with an open mind. Most people only read books where they agree with the author and agree with the books content. Get some books that you'd probably find disagreeable, and read them with the benefit of the doubt. Assume the author is right, and if you really can't do that, just remember that the writer is probably dead since long and it's just a reflection of how some people thought at the time.
I found that disagreeable viewpoints very seldom takes away any value of a book. Much worse is if it's written badly, repetitive, slow, etc.
Have you read the Bible? It's shockingly different from what people believe is written there. It is a post-apocalyptic survival guide, as well as a collection of human stories and ideas that might date back hundreds of thousands of years.
Have you read the Quran? Reading it is essential to understanding Muslims and their faith. It is first and foremost an anti-christian book, and the faith is foremost anti-christian. Just as christendom at one time was foremost anti-pagan.
There's an immense wealth in mythology from all over the world to read, which takes you on journeys much more profound than any fantasy book.
Have you read the communist manifesto? It is a short pamphlet, energetic and quite fun to read. Even an anti-communist can understand why it riled up so many people.
Have you read the books written by historical figures, instead of about historical figures. The former is much more interesting, while the latter is written by some dusty professor with an agenda.
Think about the most provocative book you can imagine and go and read it. It's just letters on paper, nothing more.
As for sci-fi and fantasy, you shouldn't read that. You only have one life, why would you waste it? You can and should read von Brauns book "Mars Project", which is the only science "fiction" book which should have been written.
For fiction, there are hundreds of classics, and the older the more interesting.
When I read a book and there's an interesting reference to another book, I always download that book as well. This takes you down paths that you never thought existed, and now I have a couple hundred books already on my reading list. If one is a dud, I just delete it.
> Have you read the Bible? It's shockingly different from what people believe is written there. It is a post-apocalyptic survival guide, as well as a collection of human stories and ideas that might date back hundreds of thousands of years.
You must mean hundreds or thousands, right? Modern homo-sapiens are not hundreds of thousands of years old.
> Have you read the Quran? Reading it is essential to understanding Muslims and their faith. It is first and foremost an anti-christian book, and the faith is foremost anti-christian. Just as christendom at one time was foremost anti-pagan.
I've only read parts of the Quran in translation, and I wouldn't say that I understand it that well. It's not organized in a narrative structure like the bible, and there are a lot of parts that are impossible to understand without outside knowledge, like a surah that condemns Abu Lahab but doesn't explain who he was [1]. The Quran is not really the sort of book that you can just read on its own without guidance and expect to understand.
So, with the preface that you should take what I have to say about the Quran with a grain of salt, I'm not sure how you could take away that it's primarily an anti-Christian text. Yes, it criticizes Christians and Jews a lot, but it also has good things to say about them. For example:
"Indeed, the believers, Jews, Christians, and Sabians—whoever truly believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good will have their reward with their Lord. And there will be no fear for them, nor will they grieve." [2]
The main villains of the Quran are polytheists (like Abu Lahab). It talks about them a lot more and never has anything good to say [3]. By contrast, the New Testament barely even mentions polytheists or pagans – most of its criticism is directed against Jews.
Muslims traditionally believe that Jesus was the messiah, that he was born of a virgin, that he performed miracles, and that he's going to return and rule the world in a future era [4]. It's also said that Muhammad was identified as a prophet by a Christian monk named Bahira [5]. Early on, Orthodox Christians identified Islam as a heretical form of Christianity, not a different religion [6]. These do not seem like traits of a religion that is foremost anti-Christian.
It's easy for anybody to find a Quran and read it for themselves. The book cannot be more clear and concise regarding christians. Considering that Mohammad was familiar with christianity, and that the message most repeated in the Quran is that you should not join God with other gods and that you will go to hell if you do – I would say that the primary message of the book is anti-christian. Not against Jesus, but against those who worship him as God.
The most famous saying in Islam (which you all know) is clear about the strict monotheistic message. While the most famous saying in Christendom (which you all know), is clear about the trinity message.
As for joining God with other gods, this became a hallmark of Christendom even more so than just the trinity. But this is also after the time of Mohammad, and bears no relevance when talking about the Quran.
No matter which, the Quran and the Bible are two very different scripts, even though there is a popular belief that they are similar. Anybody who has read both can see that similarities are very few.
> All i want is to not see these dumb shorts videos that I genuinely give no fuck about, but that manages to catch my attention regardless.
My recommendations never shows any low quality content. All you have to do is like good stuff, dislike bad stuff, and subscribe to good channels. The algorithm works surprisingly well.
> we, as a society
There is no we and there has never been. You have to start taking responsibility for your own actions.
> it doesn't change the fact that all the content[^1] in the ecosystem is still produced for maximizing watch time and/or being advertisement friendly.
That's just not true. There is an enormous amount of content on YouTube right now, which is made chiefly with quality in mind, by some of the most professional people in the industry. There's more than you could watch even if you watched for a thousand years.
You just have to use the like/dislike and subscribe functions, so the algorithm knows what you want.
Sounds like the "flag theory", I heard that a few times during my research (the quoted services also cite this).
I think this is not so easy though, depending on the individual circumstances. My home country for example might want proof of my tax resident status of the past years if I ever decide to move there again, which will be difficult, if I have not been a tax resident anywhere. Of course this is easy when you reach a certain amount of wealth, but unfortunatelly I am not there yet and might need some time (if ever) to get there.
I understand at least having a dual residency as a back up plan and that’s our plan with establishing residency in Costa Rica before retirement and keeping our by then paid off condo in the US.
It's optimal because you get left the hell alone. Governments do not know what they citizens do if they are neither living in the country nor having their money in the country. Governments do not know what their residents do, if they are neither citizens nor have their money in the country. Governments do not care what foreigners do with their money in their country if they are neither citizens nor residents.
A simple example would be someone who does not have US citizenship (or Eritrea) and is able to move their tax residency to a second country that has very low or no income tax (e.g. UAE).
There are other countries (e.g. Cyprus) that do not require you to stay for 180 days or more to gain residency, so I think this is the kind of setup he is talking about.
The last piece of the puzzle would be international bank accounts, which gets easier the more money you have (e.g. HSBC Expat, which requires 50k USD to set up).
If you're thinking in these terms, then the advice isn't really for you. You are probably better served by staying where you are, paying the tributes you duly owe and obeying the commands of your government.
The real world application of this advice is that you don't ask for permission, and involve governments as little as possible in your life. This of course means that your source of income has to be adapted to this, usually meaning having your own LLC.
Right because the government doesn’t do anything for its citizens and no one should pay taxes anywhere.
Unless you can provid all of the infrastructure for yourself and insure your property rights are secured from people just taking them.
You realize you are going to have to “obey the laws” of whatever country you live in?
The only way you don’t involve some government in your life is to either live in on a boat or to live off the land in the woods somewhere
You know that LLC is also a legal construct you need a government to enforce. Do you plan to get a passport? Do you plan to be “stateless”? Plan on registering for the countries health care system?
So does the title of thread automagically mean there is some method to avoid being ruled by some government except living in the woods or the middle of the ocean?
I understand that you're trying to make a point, but there's no need to provoke him like that. Everyone has to make their own decisions based on their own circumstances, and pushing them in a certain direction doesn't really help. Let's keep it constructive please.
@scarface_74: My goal is to avoid a high tax that I am used to from my home country without getting (enough) in return in my opinion. I would rather take my chances and prepare for retirement etc myself than leave it to a government.
I never want to be "stateless", quite the opposite! I would like to collect some citizenships to have more freedom, because even with a strong rank other passports still give you access to different areas of the world.
I am fine with paying taxes if the rate seems fair (e.g. not 50% of my income if I am not a multi-millionaire) and if I get a good value for it. Yes, security is one of those values, but depending on your situation, a government may or may not be able to provide that (in my case, my home country was not able to do so, another good reason to believe that my tax is not being used well enough to achieve that goal).
> I never want to be "stateless", quite the opposite! I would like to collect some citizenships to have more freedom, because even with a strong rank other passports still give you access to different areas of the world.
The citizenship part is the easiest part. You can never loose your citizenship, and it is in no way tied to your residency or your income/money.
People who dream about migration almost always and erroneously believe that this means that they have to get on a path to new citizenship. But you shouldn't worry about this, unless you are very anxious to be able to vote in elections.
Then there is US citizenship, which is actually tied to your income, if I am not mistaken.
A citizenship for me would only bring the following advantages
- be able to live in a country without the hassle of renewing visas
- Having a second citizenship if the (political) situation in my home country goes sideways
I am not interested in voting because I do not believe that I can make a difference. I have done so for decades and things have only got worse in my country, so I have lost hope in the political process.
> The citizenship part is the easiest part. You can never loose your citizenship, and it is in no way tied to your residency or your income/money.
If you are a citizen of a country that taxes your worldwide income - like the US it does affect your income. You want to be a citizen somewhere and not end up “stateless”
Thats much easier - finding countries with lower taxation, citizenship via residency and stable economies. Your initial ask was way more complicated.
Look for countries where you just have to prove stable income, or do some type of investment in the country and then depending on the country it takes between 3-8 years to qualify for citizenship after you become a legal resident
What would you accept to be said? What would be good enough for you? Words are not magical, they are just sounds. In the most important situations in life and in death, words are simply lacking. We as humans haven't been gifted with neither a spoken nor a written language which can encompass all our feelings and meanings. Words cannot even come close. So people have to do with what they have. And you are in no position to judge against somebody who means well.
It doesn't take much common sense to realize that someone who's neck deep into grief isn't going to find much comfort in being told something happened for a reason.
I happen to believe that everything does happen for a reason, because in general that makes more sense to me and there's no proof either way; but in the middle of the storm it's an extremely difficult position to hold.
What people actually do need in those situations is presence, someone who listens; not good advice.
I'd rather say something truthful and of support, backed by real action and history if actual support instead of saying something trivial. I remember a friend told me such thing when I was grieving (something along the lines of "you have to pray" or something) and I blurted "oh really? so I wasn't praying. so it was my fault? so I needed YOU to remind me at my worst times? what happened to reason?"... he stopped talking to me for few months, we are still friends... but if he hugged me and kept quiet just the looks of their face feeling sad for me would have been the perfect support I needed. Sometimes silence is way better than telling a religious lie to "comfort me".
> What would you accept to be said? What would be good enough for you? Words are not magical, they are just sounds. In the most important situations in life and in death, words are simply lacking.
It's ok not to say anything.
> And you are in no position to judge against somebody who means well.
Oh yes I am. Having good intentions is not enough. I'm sure - in their own worldview - Hitler and Stalin and Mao had good intentions.
When my partner died and I was left to care for our toddler, I learned firsthand about what is and isn't helpful to hear in such situations. The person who said "I know how you feel, I felt awful when my dog died" missed the mark. So would anyone who would say "there is a purpose for everything". No, there was no purpose, and fuck anyone who suggests otherwise.
"God works in mysterious ways", "there is a purpose for everything", and "trust in the Lord" isn't said to comfort the grieving, it's said to comfort the one saying it (and to help them propagate their worldview). Again, fuck that.
My culture (WASP in USA) sucks when it comes to death and grieving. Denial of Death, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, blah blah blah.
The only advice that's helped me cope with other people is "It's not about you."
When someone tells me "They're in a better place" (or whatever), I just try to remember your point: they're trying to comfort themselves, process their own experience.
There's an enormous difference between expelling a foreigner and imprisoning a citizen.
America absolutely has the upper hand in free speech. In Europe you will get sentenced for blaspheming against the Quran.
Edit: That's why the Quran burnings in Sweden was such a big deal. It was one of the countries who hadn't outlawed blasphemy against Islam. Of course any blasphemy against Christianity is perfectly legal in Europe and strongly encouraged.
You are facing a constitutional crisis right now, something most EU members can say they do not.
> Khalil called his lawyer, Amy Greer, from the building's lobby. She spoke over the phone with one of the ICE agents, who told her they were acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Greer said when she informed the agent that Khalil was a permanent resident of the U.S. in possession of a green card, the agent responded they would revoke the green card instead. When Greer said she needed to see a warrant before Khalil could be detained, the agent hung up. Abdalla said they were not shown a warrant and that "within minutes, they had handcuffed Mahmoud, took him out into the street and forced him into an unmarked car". A Columbia spokesperson declined to say whether, before the arrest, the university had received a warrant for the ICE agents to access property the university owned. The spokesperson also declined to comment on the arrest.
> On March 9, Greer said she was uncertain of Khalil's whereabouts, noting the possibility that he could be as far away as Louisiana. Abdalla, who sought to visit him at a detention center in New Jersey, was informed that he was not there. Khalil is detained at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana. [0]
Without appropriate warrants or being accused of a tangible crime in the court of law, a permanent USA resident has been detained, while being denied his right to speak with his lawyer for a significant part of his detention, with the post-hoc justification being his engagement in "anti-American", though not illegal, activity, ignoring claims of monetary ties with terrorist orgs made on national TV without being able to provide any corroboration when pressured.
Let's ignore political affiliations, who's on what team, and who you're rooting for. Applying abstraction, replace America with "Country X" and you see, plain as day, this as an attempt at silencing unfavorable speech. As a Ukrainian, sharing a language, geography, and personal connections across the border with Russia, I can tell you with certainty: this is how "disappearing" someone looks like. The target does not matter; the "enemies of people" set has a funny tendency to expand, starting from those for whom the least will stand up.
The government breaking the law isn't a constitutional crisis. It becomes a constitutional crisis when different parts of the government pull it in drastically different directions and the whole thing breaks apart. Currently the government is moving in exactly the direction the executive branch wants it to, the judicial branch has found that it has no traction to pull it back and the legislature isn't really even participating except for cheering on the executive. Like it or not, the possibile crisis has already been resolved by the executive discovering that it can do whatever it wants.
> you see, plain as day, this as an attempt at silencing unfavorable speech.
Of course it is. But there's a huge difference between making a foreigner leave, and sentencing a citizen. Any foreigner can be denied entry to a country for any and no reason whatsoever, without any due process. So a foreigner's "right" to stay in a country sits very loosely.
> Any foreigner can be denied entry to a country for any and no reason whatsoever
That's a completely different thing than what happened here. Those are the rules, everyone knows that, and acts accordingly. The biggest problem in the US right now, is that the government isn't being ruled by it's own laws (sort-of). That's what's meant by a "constitutional crisis".
If the US government changed the rules to allow non-citizens to be arrested & held without warrants, then that would a different kind of thing. It would be a little totalitarian, but not a breakdown of the rule of law.
Note, I said sort-of above because the laws are written in such away as to be somewhat vague so that some people claim the government is acting legally.
And outside the US this wouldn't even be a discussion, because you don't have freedom of speech. That's why people consider him a victim for being kicked out.
I think the word "foreigner" is perfectly correct. The difference is that as a foreigner, you have chosen to come to another country – among hundreds to choose from. As a native citizen, you haven't made any such choice and you might not be able to even if you wanted to.
> there's a huge difference between making a foreigner leave, and sentencing a citizen
The White House has shown open contempt for the judicial and legislative branches. Why do you think they'd stop, simply because the person they've chosen to make an example of is a citizen?
But fine, he's a foreigner. What's so hard about the human right of due process, here? Serve the warrant. Appear in court. Argue the case that is, according to those in favor of yeeting this guy out the country, so blindingly obvious.
> Why do you think they'd stop, simply because the person they've chosen to make an example of is a citizen?
The ink was barely dry on my own comment:
> President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court in a series of emergency appeals Thursday to allow him to move forward with plans to end birthright citizenship
> But there's a huge difference between making a foreigner leave, and sentencing a citizen
Not nearly as huge as one wants it to be, especially when the current executive is experimenting legally with citizenship revocation.
You divide human beings under your jurisdiction into wide categories with hugely unequal rights and the incentives are heavy for rulers to remove the inconvenient in their society by reclassifying them. It's much safer for citizen and non-citizen alike to strongly protect the non-citizen in your borders.
where do you get sentenced for blaspheming the Quran in the EU?
Italy is a traditional religious country and blaspheming gets you <checks notes> a 50€ fine. Also, not a big deal if your blasphemies ara against Mary, that's ok.
What they were probably referring to is the times people made a nuisance of themselves or harassed Muslims in public with Quran blasphemy.
Nowhere in Europe is it illegal to sit at home and eat pork. It is illegal to harass other people. I gather that's not illegal in the US (unless the people you harass happen to be powerful) and the general mindset in the US is so far in that direction that a lot of Americans can't even conceptualize what harassment is.
"The UN Human Rights Committee has urged Finland to change the criminal provision, arguing that it restricts freedom of expression."
You can easily find the law in matter, the prime minister on video saying that burning the Quran is outlawed, and many other media links from government channels talking about this. And there are court cases where people have been sentenced in Finland for burning the Quran – not in public as has been the case in Sweden.
Before you write that the law applies to the Bible and Christians as well – it is not the case. Police, prosecutors and judges will not use the law against any other blasphemy than against Islam.
Directly from the courts of law. When European governments and courts do unflattering things, the media makes sure to shuffle it under the carpet. There's a very different culture around free speech and public debate in Europe vs America.
Yeah, but all you reference is Finland. That’s one country with strict blasphemy laws, not specifically about Islam, but about any religion. It’s curious you seem to only care when they apply it to Islam. You get into the same amount of trouble there whether the book you’re burning is a bible or a quran.
And, yeah, I agree. Finlands blasphemy laws are bad and need to be abolished. But the way you’re representing them as specifically about islam and as being representative for most of Europe comes across as disingenuous to me.
And, yeah, there’s more European countries classified as red (worst category) on https://end-blasphemy-laws.org/countries/ but definitely not a majority. Israel is on there too by the way.
> That’s one country with strict blasphemy laws, not specifically about Islam, but about any religion. It’s curious you seem to only care when they apply it to Islam.
The police, the prosecutors and the courts only care about this law when it applies to Islam. Yes, it is very curios indeed!
> You get into the same amount of trouble there whether the book you’re burning is a bible or a quran.
That's absolutely not true. You in fact get into no trouble at all.
I have downvoted your comment because of "the media makes sure to shuffle it under the carpet". These cases are widely reported in national media.
I wasn't familiar with the Finnish politician, but it's easy to find coverage of the case and related news on Finland's national broadcaster: https://yle.fi/a/74-20015426
Well I'm not talking about any Finnish politician. I'm talking about everyday people who get sentenced by the courts for blasphemy against Islam. These cases get local media coverage at most.
Believe me, I think blasphemy laws should be abolished everywhere, but publicly burning Bibles/Qurans/whatever doesn't sounds like a "everyday people" activity to me.
It's not, but it should be allowed to be an everyday kind of thing. If your society does not allow open critique of itself to be normalized, that's bad.
But the US right definitely has no high ground to go around complaining about freedom of speech in the one country that has exceptionally weird and dumb blasphemy laws, seeing as we now live in a USA where the Whitehouse is explicitly saying only they can choose what information journalists have access to. The evangelical right were explicitly calling to deport US citizens for expressing their opinions on college campuses. IMO, reacting at college kids saying the country sucks is one of the most unamerican and pathetic things you could possibly do, but we did once shoot a bunch of college students who dared to stand in a crowd because we shouldn't have been bombing Cambodia, and 58% of the country, when surveyed by Gallup, blamed the students for the incident, so hey, maybe we have made progress, since we only deport them now, instead of murdering them.
This is a somewhat typical European response, even though you might not be European: always blame the victim.
Everyday people are killing each other in trenches in the Ukraine as we speak.
The cases I know where "everyday people" have been sentenced for blasphemy against Islam is when people have emotionally lashed out. One case where a gay man live streamed himself spitting at the Quran and cursing it after the Orlando nightclub massacre in the name of the Quran. It wasn't a real Quran, but the court said that it didn't matter. He might not be an "everyday person" to you. You might have acted more cool in such a situation.
And there are a plethora of other cases where Europeans have been sentenced for publicly criticizing Islam, where no Quran burning has been involved.
The situation in reality, beyond hacker ideology, is that European countries are prosecuting and sentencing people for blaspheming or criticizing Islam. And it usually is not activists who are targeted.
I found that disagreeable viewpoints very seldom takes away any value of a book. Much worse is if it's written badly, repetitive, slow, etc.
Have you read the Bible? It's shockingly different from what people believe is written there. It is a post-apocalyptic survival guide, as well as a collection of human stories and ideas that might date back hundreds of thousands of years.
Have you read the Quran? Reading it is essential to understanding Muslims and their faith. It is first and foremost an anti-christian book, and the faith is foremost anti-christian. Just as christendom at one time was foremost anti-pagan.
There's an immense wealth in mythology from all over the world to read, which takes you on journeys much more profound than any fantasy book.
Have you read the communist manifesto? It is a short pamphlet, energetic and quite fun to read. Even an anti-communist can understand why it riled up so many people.
Have you read the books written by historical figures, instead of about historical figures. The former is much more interesting, while the latter is written by some dusty professor with an agenda.
Think about the most provocative book you can imagine and go and read it. It's just letters on paper, nothing more.
As for sci-fi and fantasy, you shouldn't read that. You only have one life, why would you waste it? You can and should read von Brauns book "Mars Project", which is the only science "fiction" book which should have been written.
For fiction, there are hundreds of classics, and the older the more interesting.
When I read a book and there's an interesting reference to another book, I always download that book as well. This takes you down paths that you never thought existed, and now I have a couple hundred books already on my reading list. If one is a dud, I just delete it.
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