Master Logray

They seem useful. I searched, there are gadgets using sound waves to ward off wild dogs. Would they be useful?

Anything vs dogs?

Nowadays the most popular and fruitful crimes are scams. In the old days a few bank robberies could give you a fortune. I am not sure how much cash are there in the New York banks now with all the electronic ways of banking. I would wonder robbers need to rob every week to amass the same level of fortune. While scammers can get millions by phone calls, or wait for you to click a link. It is more comfortable and safer too. As far as money is concerned, crimes have changed away from violence.

In real life situation, there could be no lights, loud noise, glass on the floor, a few against one, bystander who may or may not be enemy, everything that can be thrown at you .... in addition to knives. Most martial arts cannot handle such and never trained for such. And theoretically, the use of the term self defense is to avoid trouble. In real life, the only chance to survive could be full scale surprise attack first. But one may have to end up in jail. So those trainings are useful but not justified to your whole life in perfecting them.

I support this. Back in the old days I don't know anything, choosing a product, choosing a school, choosing a subject, choosing a career, choosing a place to live - all these need a lot of information which were just not available. Only the highly knowledgeable ones keep newspaper clippings. And many didn't have access to newspaper at all. Without information, there were no real opportunities. Leap frogging was only possible by luck.

Not guesswork, but belief. Belief doesn't need evidence.

It is what he likes. He likes orange and you recommend an apple. Knowledge in internal martial arts, Neidan, meditation, philosophy, Yijing and Chinese medicine are helpful and useful but not necessary in the many Zheng Yi magical practices.

It is a lot of workload. So who is being punished, Bob or the poor mod?

The idea on how to be a good ruler is sprinkled everywhere. Perhaps Chapter 57 and 65 could be examples.

I also think no politics in this site is a reasonable approach. The only problem is the DDJ and Yellow Emperor teachings are directly concerning governance or politics; or using politics as metaphor.

Yes, all Chi Kung in movements need a "coach" in modern term, always available, always correcting the mistakes, always supporting. This is less of a teacher/student type of classroom learning, but more like coaching in sports. Knowing something is not much useful. Ability to always do it correctly is essential. See teacher annually is alright for pure sitting meditation that tends towards observer/emptiness type. It was quite usual in the old days. But the students must have a certain standard themselves.

Then he is not a good teacher. Even though a person can have very high attainment on different fields, he may not able to teach well as teaching is another set of skill. Great master doesn't mean great teacher.

The concept of Karma has a major appeal. It is a remedial and fair justice system, especially when it is linked to reincarnation. Otherwise this concept would have been buried under numerous obscure teachings. But most of the eastern cultures that put Karma on their lips, do not really believe in it. What everyone sees everyday is that this system don't work. Bad are not punished and good are not rewarded. And severity of the action is not proportional. Long ago a Taoist master had written, Master Qiu and some others had saved tens of thousands of lives from Mongols, but there was no promotion to become an immortal due to these acts. If a person kills 10 millions persons, what can the heaven or the hell do? has him killed in 20 millions reincarnations? So I doubt this concept.

I think we need to look at the severity. These guys could be bad but how bad could they be, comparing with their "peers"? American slavery was bad, but how bad? These few guys? Put these in perspective with other atrocities, then these are pale by comparison. Genghis massacred 67 millions Chinese (then Sung Empire), most of these were done in the most brutal and barbaric manner. The Sung Empire had 93 million people. In early Mongol dynasty in China, only 8.8 millions left, attrition of 91%. Everyone was slave in those days. They were treated worse than livestock, let say livestock might have names, the survivors were only allowed a birth date name and things like first night of wedding the bride was to be presented to the Mongols. Si Chuan Province where a lot of Taoist Masters appear, only had 3-5% of the population left. This was not only in China, Persia also lost 90% of the population and many other cities with their people were totally destroyed, Samarkan, Baghdad.... Another example would be Cambodia, in terms of percentage.

He was bad because they customarily massacred the whole cities. Ruthless warlords were normally not so ruthless.