Tezza

Yes it is, if it's not, explain why.

Saying things like many wealthy people came from poor beginnings. You don't know this is true, you just hope it is. My view is that it is extremely rare. I've not said that people cannot, do not and will not act of their own volition. People can act of their own volition or at least what they think is their own volition but very often they are doing things for reasons that are hidden from their consciousness or they are simply reacting to outside stimuli or propaganda, societal or otherwise brainwashing. It depends on the level of insight people have, not all are the same. All of this is subjective, drug addict might think that taking drugs enhances their well being and stop taking drugs causes suffering. Animals are much more than instinct. They can have a complex social hierarchy, just like you. They can have their own languages, a mix of body language and vocalizations, just like you. They can feel emotions like love, hate, fear etc just like you. They also make decisions, just like you. They can work together for a pre-defined outcome, organize and plan, just like you. You are an animal, maybe more complex in your language and ability to physically create but an animal nevertheless. You evolved from an ape, you are a member of their species, the primates, you share about 99% of your DNA with chimpanzees. Certain sectors of our society desperately want to separate us out from animals so we can treat them badly, eat them and use them for our own purposes without feeling guilt. Choice does not distinguish us from animals, they have to make choices as well about all sorts of things. What you have quoted here can be correct under certain circumstances but the relationship between thoughts, emotions and behavior isn't just a one way train. A lot of what you are saying just sounds like some sort of biblical or pop psychological preaching to me. So that I don't waste any further time with this discussion, could you answer just one question for me? Do you believe you evolved from apes? yes or no.

Again, you are completely forgetting health, both mental and physical and you don't seem to acknowledge that people have different levels of functioning and education. Many people have difficulties with decision making. Decision making isn't just a matter of an individual being solely responsible for their good or bad decisions. You don't seem to be able to get past the point where good decision making is only possible if a whole lot of other factors are already in place. You seem to be taking it for granted that these factors are in place, that everyone is like you. All of those things you have mentioned will impact on an individuals ability to make decisions, you can't just list them and then separate out decision making as being separate from them. Many things that are beyond an individuals control can impact on their decision making to the point where their "free will" is so constrained that it's not really free will at all.

Yes, I agree that tragedy can happen to anyone regardless of rich or poor, the rich have a buffer to protect them to some extent but that doesn't take into account time. If somebody is injured or disabled in some way, mental or physical and it doesn't go away then 10 - 20 years later, their money runs out. I've worked with people who used to be lawyers, police, judges and bank managers as well as some high flying corporate business owners. Their money protected them for a while but then it ran out and so did their friends and family in many cases. They lost both their finances and their social resources and ended up on a pension, struggling to get by on their own and then referred to me to see what I could do to make their lives better. Everyone who came to see me had a story. It's rarer to see rich people end up in this situation but it happens with long term problems. All of these people made good and even exceptional choices when they were healthy so it's not like the had to learn anything in this regard, it's just that through no fault of their own (usually) they ended up in a situation that was never going to change, even with good choices and "free will". The choices are no longer available and their free will has been curtailed. In today's society a certain amount of money is necessary to be able to do things and having social resources (friends/family) is also important. I don't agree with your concept of poverty, in my experience, usually there are reasons for poverty that go beyond blaming the individual for making bad choices. Mental illness, physical disablement, social isolation, geographic isolation, terrible parental upbringing, lack of education and of course having limited or no money. These are generally the reasons why they have poor planning, bad management etc They can't "learn" their way out of this nor can they exercise their free will to change any of it because they either don't know how to change it, don't know they even need to change it or they are mentally incapable of changing it or they just don't have the resources to change it, or all four. We take a lot of things about our brain for granted but imagine for a moment that you suddenly lost the ability to concentrate or to make decisions or to organize your thoughts or your memory became faulty or your ability to recognize events, faces or situations disappeared or your comprehension ability disappeared. Mental illness can do this and you only need to lose one of these functions and you are in a lot of trouble. You can't learn your way out of it because it is a cognitive dysfunction, the ability just isn't there anymore. It might be temporary or it might be long term. How can people be blamed for making bad choices if their actual ability to make choices is impaired. Free will isn't going to help either, relying on intuition can be dangerous because your thought processes are so impaired. You can't get a job like this or even plot a course out of it. Addiction is not so easy to dismiss as a choice, especially if the addiction started when they were children. I once dragged an 11 year old boy out of a toilet with a needle sticking in his arm and had to give him CPR until the Ambulance arrived. He was given drugs by his parents, should we blame him for his addiction? A lot of hardened drug addicts started in their early teens or younger in bad families, when they are not even regarded legally as being able to make responsible choices by themselves. Once the addiction grabs hold from this age it can be very difficult to get rid of. Do some people find their way out by themselves, yes they do but some don't and it's not necessarily their fault.

I am having a similar problem buying some HDMI cables for my GH4, one to run to an atomos recorder and one to run to the TV. I researched it a bit then ordered a couple, can't even remember which ones I ordered now but I will soon find out. It appears all HDMI cables are not the same. https://au.pcmag.com/tvs-home-theater/60751/slaying-the-cable-monster-what-you-need-to-know-about-hdmi-cables

I was thinking of trying out speed jelly or whatever it's called no Streetjelly, has anyone had anything to do with this? Online live busking. http://www.streetjelly.com

Then tell me your version. But without the personal insults thanks.

The notion of free will is mainly pushed by those who are in a position to have more choices in the first place. It is a stable of middle class capitalists for example. It goes something like this: People have the freedom to make choices in their lives, those who make good choices will have a successful and happy life and should be respected for their good choices and seen as beacons for the rest of us. Those who make bad choices will have an unsuccessful and unhappy life but it's their fault due to their incompetence in decision making and we should condemn them. They brought it upon themselves. This is also pushed by various religious authorities who will site their written dogma as being "good choices" and if you deviate from their dogma, you are engaging in "bad choices". This notion of free will and decision making is lapped up by many as it gives us the feeling that we have total control over our lives, it makes us feel safe and secure. All we have to do is make good choices and we will be ok, those who make bad choices, well, they got what they deserve. It follows then that anyone who succeeds has done so because of their great character and decision making but anyone who doesn't make it in our society or struggles, it's their fault for their poor character, bad choices and decision making. The problem is, people can and do end up "successful" and happy through little input of their own. They are simply born healthy into a family, society and/or business that is already healthy and prosperous. They lead a sheltered life with little empathy for those less successful because they personally have never experienced hardship. It is essential to their self esteem that they believe they ended up where they did because of their own efforts and that those who are less fortunate ended up where they did due to their incompetence. Conversely, people can also be born unhealthy into a family and/or society that is poverty ridden with high crime and drugs. From childhood, they learn to navigate their world according to it's rules and what they are physically and mentally capable of doing. Very often, they are just trying to survive within that world. They also very often cannot escape that world because there are no opportunities around them and because they are rejected by the more successful. They also don't have the mental framework or education to allow them to step up and all of their social resources exist in that world. they may also have physical limitations in what they can do. It is essential to their self esteem that they believe they are doing the best they can given their circumstances and those who are better off than them were either given a silver spoon or are probably rich, distrustful criminals. Did both these groups of people arrive at their destinations due to exercising their "free will"? We all fall somewhere in between these groups, if not align exactly with them, all of us, no exceptions. Life is more about serendipity, ladders and statistics than it is "free will". We may luckily be born into a favorable environment, we may have the ability to recognize or be given ladders by others so we can step up. These can be simple advice or practical help etc and then we may recognize or not that we can adjust our lives according to statistics. You can control a bit what happens to you by recognizing how to place yourself statistically in life. Don't want cancer? don't smoke, have a good diet and exercise. Don't want a car accident? drive sensibly, own a safe car and don't drive a black car Maslow's hierarchy of values shows that in order for anyone to reach a place of "self actualization" where they have control and power over their own direction, a number of other factors have to be taken care of first.

Thanks Kenny, your so kind

The Paradoxical Commandments (with my edits) People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Point out their inadequacies back to them. Hold your pointed finger one inch from their face. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Tell them to F&@K off. One inch from their face. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Use them as they would have tried to use you, then tell them what you did and gloat in their face. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Scream louder about your accomplishments. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Being honest and frank about others failures makes them vulnerable. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Turn the gun back on them and blast away. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Become a top dog. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Make sure your insured. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Tell them they are ungrateful loudly to their face. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Kick them back in the teeth and continue to do what you know is right.

The assumption that everything will return to normal after a period is just an assumption. It might but it might not. Even if it follows past flu like pandemics it will last 2 years or thereabouts. The difference in a modern pandemic now is the size of the population which is over 3 times larger than the last flu like pandemic. The longer it goes for and the bigger the population, the more likely different strains will develop through the increased frequency of mutation. With the 1918 pandemic the virus changed, it started killing children and the elderly and then switched to killing perfectly healthy people in their 20's to 40's. The population of the US is 327 million, the figure being quoted as the expected number infected is 60% which takes it to about 196 million. If the fatality rate is around 3.4% and the hospitalization rate is around 15%. Say 4% for fatality then these figures mean for the US there will be about 8 million dead and 28 million requiring hospitalization. If it peaks without control these figures could double or triple. If the control methods work and they get a vaccine then the figure could be lower. I think the best defense is to make sure your lung function is up to speed since pneumonia and suffocation seem to be the leading cause of death from the destroyed lung cells and pus preventing the alveoli from doing their work. Aerobic exercise might be good. I've started running again to make my cardiovascular system more efficient in general. I figure I'm probably going to get it at some point so may as well be ready for it.

The virus is only just taking off, your calculations are very premature. We will find out in 6 months what the situation is. There are many ways it can go. I think the US will have a big problem, most of the infectious travelers in Australia have come from the US not China and that's considering we had many, many Chinese coming here.

Yes, I guess my view is probably tempered by the fact that I have spent many years working in Rehab so I have seen the dregs day in day out. You seem to want to confuse issues by constantly exploding things you don't agree with into many issues rather than just accepting that others may not agree with your statements and view of the world. Peoples views of the world cannot be dismissed as coming just from themselves, their psychological makeup, but rather a combination of many things including life experience, education, family upbringing etc. It does not automatically follow that someone who has a dim view of humanity must themselves be psychologically faulty in some way. This is just societal conditioning at work. Those who do not see the mainstream view as dictated by television must be sick. I am not an absolutist, as I said, there are levels of egoistic behavior , you cannot separate out why people do things, good people and bad people. Most new organizations spring up because an individual narcissist or someone with narcissistic intent creates them. It's the ego and/or narcissistic intent that creates the organization and in fact, may even be required to trample over the naysayers and knockers that are never in short supply. Once established though, the organization may essentially be a "good" organization and the creator may mature with the organization towards a less ego dominated state or not. Complete arseholes can and very often do, end up creating something good. We all have narcissistic, psychopathic and sociopathic tendencies at different times in our life, some more than others. It's more of a grey scale. It's only the extremes that stick consistently that are "diagnosed" as mental illness. Peoples level of insight varies considerably, that is, their ability to know why they do the things they do, the underpinning motivations, self realization. You may have your view of the world as a utopian garden of eden adorned by selfless humans because that has been your experience, I would think it would be a sheltered one. Or it may be that it is just a delusion you have created for yourself so you can feel good about the world and your place in it. You see what you want to see. You might not even be aware you have created this delusion. How does an individuals level of insight feature in "free will". People running around convinced they are doing or believing things for certain reasons when in fact, they are doing or believing things for completely different reasons that are hidden from them. And who is to judge which is which, and who is really pulling the strings....

See above post.

That all falls apart if you get mental illness or have brain damage, what happens to the inner laws of consciousness then, or a massive mortgage/unplanned debts due to financial collapse not your fault or foreseen or kids etc. Your utopian view of the world as packed full of perfectly healthy, fully functioning human beings bathing in freedom without strings isn't realistic, i would say naive. Sounds like some religious or psychology course. "Some free will" isn't free will. It sounds to me like you don't really know what true free will is, just free will within boundaries which is typical of school/religious and psychological teachings. Follow the rules of the society in which you live and exercise your "free will" within those rules. That's not true free will and for many people who may not fit into the social rules in which they are forced to live it can be hell on earth. What about people who are gay or whose skin or culture is different to those around them or whom have a disability etc You seem to cast off quite extreme life defining conditions and situations as though they are meaningless, apparently, the real physical world doesn't matter to you. The source of all real science, art, philosophy, and religion is the part of us that is governed by higher functions such as creativity, the capacity to love and be loved, to care for others, to sacrifice one's ego and selfishness for something bigger than the self. Humans cannot surpass their ego anymore than they can pull their brains out of their head and continue to walk around. What about narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths etc they are not capable at all of what you describe here. Science comes from statistical analysis and serendipity, neither of which comes from the higher self. Art comes from ego and insanity mixed together in the paint pot. Philosophy comes from extreme internalization of neurological thought processes. Religion is just "old government" run pretty much the same as new secular government, a bunch of narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths who just want power over others and claim they represent an even higher power. Even when humans supposedly sacrifice their ego to a higher spiritual power, all they are really doing is removing from themselves the burden of decision making and siding with an all powerful being that unsurprisingly, makes them feel even more powerful. There are levels of egotistical behavior but it's just levels.

Nice! where is this quote from?

Until a car slams into you or your head explodes from brain stroke or you are raped or stabbed or some other life changing event occurs to you that you had no choice or control over whatsoever. There is no free will, and you wouldn't want it even if it was possible for humans to achieve it, which it is not. Humans are the most indoctrinated species that has ever breathed life on this planet. From the moment you are spat out of mummy's tummy, the brainwashing begins and doesn't stop until you die and I'm pretty sure you don't get any say in that either.

I just used that quote in a political coup I am currently running, except I changed "Men" to People" so I don't get beat up by the women.

I don't think COVID 19 is media hype. Governments have consulted the experts and they know what can happen here. Basically, many get sick, hospitals can't cope and then massive deaths follow. That's aside to all the destruction caused in social and economic systems. The scale can be mediated with action but it's more about slowing it down to make sure the health system can cope over time rather than allowing it to peak. If it peaks then the fatality rate from the virus itself can double or triple and also, deaths from all other illnesses can double or triple. If you have a heart attack or stroke or sudden life threatening problem, even a car accident when it peaks, no ambulance will be coming for you. Even if you can get to a hospital, there will be 10 to 15 thousand patients outside on the ground or in makeshift stretchers in car parks and you will not be seen so you will just die. Viruses are about over population. They are natures way of trimming down species specific over populations and have been doing that job for billions of years. The severity and frequency of human specific viruses will increase over time in line with our population.

I use Nvidia cards, I only install the windows drivers, not all the other stuff. I've never had a problem with them causing any issues with my video editing software or my DAW's.

Nobody can predict anything accurately about the virus at the moment because it is only just out of the box. It appears at the moment that it has a fatality rate of around 4% and cases double every 6 days without containment. That means 1 in 25 people who get it die, with the vast majority of those who die being those with already compromised immune systems, generally older people with other health conditions. Anything around 10-15% require hospitalization for severe symptoms. These figures don't sound big but they are in fact quite staggering and well beyond any countries standard hospital system to service. It means out of every million people infected, 40,000 will die, and anything around 100 to 150 thousand will require hospitalization. I don't think it's really possible to contain it because in a lot of people, it just presents as a cold and people don't go to their GP because they have a cold. Many will get it, spread it and recover without ever actually being identified as a carrier. Nevertheless, Governments have to try to contain. The figure of expected infections from experts at the moment seems to be around 60% of any given population. The longer a virus is out and about, the more mutations there will be and ultimately it will eventually mutate into something like this:

I'm thinking of getting one of these, since my Joyo American works so well, could use it with IR's as well I guess. I don't know that I would use the sound but it would be nicer to get a better scratch track down. The price is right as well of course. But it would have to spend 14 days in quarantine.

I'm already drowning in DAW's, don't need another one.

Anyone tried this stuff?

It's also worth investigating whether an ASIO driver is available for your Realtek sound card, sometimes it is. Check with Realtek.