Bardan

Was sent this cartoon on Facebook today, asked to comment. Hope you like my take... Intellectual dishonesty...the old bait and switch... Between Two Boys the moral seems clear. White boy jerk! What is obscured is that each boy is assumed, post-moral lesson, to be a personification of multiple individuals of multiple generations stretching back centuries. The reader is encouraged to retain their moral conclusion about Two Boys after the moral question has been changed completely. A moment's reflection tells the reader that not all whites were jerks to blacks, and that not all blacks were jerked around. Sometimes whites were jerked around, sometimes they jerked each other around; Sometimes blacks jerked white people around and sometimes blacks jerked blacks around. In past history practically everyone was jerked or jerking, most often within their own races. Those living today are not their ancestors. The sins of my father or the crimes against your ancestor happened to them, not us. We should not have to pay for or be apologised to depending on the color of our skin. Being in a racial category does not make one part of a collective innocent or collective guilty. If you think race is a moral category (ie, you are a racist) you'll probably like this cartoon and feel accordingly guilty or entitled, depending on your race. Advancing that prejudice while obscuring the fact you're a racist takes trickery (bait and switch) and a reliance on lack of critical thinking skills in those close to you.

And this board delights in finding deeper meanings in every conversation. Me? Huh! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji1SmtvQUcM

Not at all. Let me assure you I'm not fan of culture either. Maybe better words would have been 'regional practise' so that you would appreciate the examples of Russians and Frenchies that went with it. And I really do think I understand how you feel about touching. I think it's a hard but worthwhile road to walk down to get to a person and a place where you can appreciate that physical contact. It might end up being your future partner's love language as it is for many. I remember when I was 20 meeting a woman in a libertarian group in person for the first time and she had this habit of kissing people hello. I reacted with surprise and bent over backwards like Neo in the Matrix ducking a deadly bullet!!! And because I felt so conspicuous and rejecting in doing that to her I had a think about it from that point on and eventually got to where you see me now.

A blue costume and a magic ritual is what allows us to call kidnapping 'arrest', theft 'confiscation,' and other such magics. Archwizard Brownlee has had to cast a counter-spell to repair that magic ritual backwards in time and tells The Daily Prophet that this is a very annoying waste of Archwizardly time. But that it had to be done secretly and under urgency least somebody take advantage of a loophole in the magic ritual while the blue costumed ones were mere Muggles playing dress-up. The repair spell has now been cast. UPDATED 4:54pm: It's emerged police have made a blunder in the way they administer oaths to returning officers. Parliament is sitting under urgency to amend the Policing Act after 63 officers were sworn in incorrectly. The officers who returned between October 2009 and July 2013 were sworn in by District Commanders or Inspectors. That would have been fine under the Police Act 1958, but the 2008 Act states the oath can only be administered by the Commissioner or a person specifically authorised by the Commissioner. The botch up has earned police a telling off from Cabinet Minister Gerry Brownlee. http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/news/nbpol/256881893-urgent-legislation-to-fix-police-oaths-botch-up

Well, I think it's possible to be an Objectivist without matching it up with peaceful parenting and, indeed, the idea of wamming the two up is rare and probably only the exception thanks to the FDR show. To which I must also attribute the connection between procrastination and childhood treatment... Most welcome to ask the kissing question! It's kinda funny, I never thought of it myself and played back my video to see for myself. Two things spring to mind first.. 1. It's cultural. In Europe, in France, in Russia, etc kissing styles have different attributions than you're used to in the states or we have in New Zealand. So there's no hard and fast rules as to what is friendly, fatherly, or romantic per se. 2. If your little guy gets born and starts wanting to express his affection in his own way then are you going to prescribe another? From an early age my little guy used to gum me on the nose but we had to modify that when he grew teeth, mind you. But he still gives those sorts of "loves" now as he did as an infant. I think in this case the kiss on the lips thing is natural to our family though so he just joined in. Will say though that it wasn't always natural to me. I remember becoming conscious of this years ago at a libertarian party when a lady came to me and I found out I could bend over backwards to avoid that sort of contact! I've become far more relaxed about that since. And maybe that's how it is for you too at this stage now?

Thanks man, I can use the positive feedback. Think it's a bit hard taking advice like that that can so easily be taken as casting your own parenting ideas in shadow. Especially from a new person, and it seems from a male. So this has been an exercise in seeing what it's like to try reaching them.

Joined up an Objectivist Parenting forum on Facebook but it didn't turn out to be what I'd hoped for. In particular, the parents were exchanging "positive discipline" tips on how to deal with their children and to share introspections about why they do what they do. I wrote in and suggested talking to these children face to face. Empirical work, as all good Objectivists should appreciate. This was palpably ignored but I was told my tone was in question. So, I offered to make the following video to remove doubt about my tone...and then was completely banned from the forum for giving out personal information. I don't think there is personal information in here but now that I'm free of the obligations of the forum I don't mind saying this little. Which is that it's on facebook, it's 'positive discipline', and it's intended to be Objectivist. More than anything this is, for me, an exercise in trying to pass on a good message to parents who are invested in bad messages. And I guess I didn't tread lightly enough for that to work this time. And I guess I learned a bit about how volatile parenting advice is- right up there with politics and religion, right?

Concerning Socrates... I once heard a story about children who were driving their Mum and Dad crazy leading up to Christmas. The children would rattle and peek at the gifts under the tree and before that snoop and spy to see what they were getting. Finally, a few days before Christmas, the parents were sick of this and offered to simply cancel the waiting the children were so unwilling to do and hand over the gifts. The children were delighted and said yes. So it was done. On Christmas day the children awoke and rushed to the tree as usual to open their gifts as a family. It was then that it occurred to them the gravity of what they had done. Christmas really was cancelled, replaced by a simple wealth transfer to satisfy an impulse that had long passed by now. It was now that they felt the full weight of the disappointment in this arrangement that their parents had seen all along and finally surrendered to. Somehow the children believed Christmas was going to happen just the same, that their parents would never let this happen and simply buy even more gifts that were just as good. Probably based on past experience of how easy it was to get their ma and pa to cave... Speaking of caves, Socrates' death at the hands of the Athenian State reminds me of this story. In the past I wrote it off as him being a state-worshiping boot-licker. But on the other hand, if he had rabbited on his death penalty, Western Civilisation would never have been the same. We are the children of the story and he is the Christmas that did not come twice but died and stayed dead to demonstrate the lesson of what it is to kill.

Thankyou.I really thought we'd stumbled onto something important here and I'm perplexed that it is yet to go viral.

I'm not up with the play, but I understand work is in motion to do this. Folk are going through each podcast tagging keywords to minutes as part of an on-going project which started in the last few months. I was going to help out myself but my work in taking notes isn't that specific.

Created this yesterday after my teenager identified the similarity to this Trek episode, Catspaw, and Bohemian Rhapsody. I think it deserves a few more hits than it had when I went to bed last night!

Listened to my first Alex Jones with Stef on it. That line about "..not even water filters!" cracked me up too!

Ah, the old re-subtitle of Downfall trick. Someone did one for me one time too. Huge crack up, and very up to the moment!

If I could hear one I'd feel better about getting into it. Don't want to blow my mind or anything.

Well, I'm glad of the above feedback. Thanks. I've developed this theory about the low down... 1. There are friendships of intimacy. They take maintenance, which is a joy. 2. At other extreme there are sociopaths who never had intimacy and don't realise when it's gone. they ape closeness at all times 3. In between there are people who had a friendship, it died, it stopped being tended, and now these great cracks in reality need to be filled in and paved over by, as I said, bullshit such as we're seeing here The predators among us have to keep making stuff like this up to keep the pray confused i guess. "Turn the other cheek", "Honor the father..." bla bla bla n other words, "be a good sheep" That makes sense to me too. But I think this one is more about people who are fooling themselves and others. It's a Weekend At Bernies kinda thing, pretending their corpsified friendship lives on. Possible gains to be had in not having to answer questions to parents about why you're not seeing so-and-so anymore or to face up the real issue that is at the heart of any friendship break.

Well you're welcome and sorry for not hitting the right note. Maybe if it turns out you're reliving Moby Dick as I suspect you will come back to this branch of the puzzle and pick it up again from here. Be interesting to see. Good luck out there.

Might be worth mentioning, since you seem to ask if they're "still" had, that they did go out to all donators in an email. That's how I have heard the series myself. And maybe you did too but lost them? It was a one-off offer for all donators some months ago now. If so, might be an idea to go looking through your inbox. FDRP_137_Mecosystem_1_Introduction.mp3 FDRP_138_Mecosystem_2_Evolution.mp3 * * * Mar 3 2009 FDRP_143_Mecosystem_3.mp3 Also there is a series on ambivalence which is longer and really spikes the ball for this series. Those Jay Early books are indeed helpful and have great cartoon illustrations. Now if my procrastinator alter would only let me complete one of them...

And then, on the other hand, there are relationships that are breached and broken. But rather than repair that friendship or give it an honorable death both sides implicitly conspire to declare it healthy by chanting shit like this.. ^facebook meme that came up one time too many

What do I think. I think I just got hit with a wet fish twice over for nearly falling for it this time! Oh, I could be wrong. I'm new at being a smarty pants. Your synoptic and specifical list seems to match up with someone trying to intellectualise and take refuge in the technical. Yet, here you are at the same time doing the opposite of taking refuge and hiding your attitudes by posting them in a place where they're likely to be called. That's my opinion. And of this too I don't think I can convince you on here but if you'd like to talk in skype to me or to somebody more skillful with the same impression then I'd really enjoy hearing what you would have to say. What do you think of that?

Sweet. Well that doesn't happen very often! Things are going well. I've renewed my interest in FDR these last few days. I'm organising my notes on the show and have made some vb scripts to help me do that. Apart from this I have a large stack of books to read and those are getting more attention at the moment too. Like you, I suppose, I'm rolling my eyes just a bit about the local body elections going on. And how my libertarian pals are getting sucked into it. I'd be really keen to hear more about what you're up to. Maybe swing by Welly some time and see if I still kick tail at table tennis eh?

Sounds good to me, thanks guys.

In your picture it looks like you're a maypole for three children there, Tasmlab, so you're playing for keeps thinking about this. I'm hearing that for c.700 podcasts talking about peaceful parenting the specifics of peaceful parenting have escaped you. And that statement just about flew by me and I was going to start answering your question in detail before it hit me again like a wet fish to the side of my head. That many podcasts on the subject under your belt but me and my keyboard are going to make the penny drop? I don't think so. I think that the reason you're not absorbing more of it and asking if there is more is because you have some resistance to the idea. So to answer your request must first involve talking about that part. I think part of the 'how' you resist is by reducing the idea down to a laundry list of 6 things or so whereas it's actually not a code of intellectual rules.Was that reasonable?

Thanks for that Wesley, it actually does make sense after all. But I don't think I've ever seen it used properly, ever. Must say that it doesn't fit my linear thinking brain for a "NOT on Sunday" to imply a "ELSE, yes" let alone prove it. I have similar problems where I like to say "My house" implies to my wife (but not me) that it is not hers simultaneously. On the up side thought I think that's what lets me code.

Jake, ...but getting her to remove emotional and verbal abuse is not easy, and ultimately is not something I'll be able to do... Run that one by me again? I'm hearing that your wife will not be able to stop being abusive to the kids. That's a whole different proposition to saying that she wont be able to do it within 50 years or 10 or 1. Never? If that's true I don't know how you can stand it. To answer a bit of the first post, I think that making the switch takes forever in a way. What was taken can never be fully restored. It's a slow transition, it will confuse them for a long time and tax their impulse control. There is a certain amount of security and sanctuary that the children have found by knowing the rules at a preconscious level from babies on up and they will resist change, even for peace. I believe I heard it cited that every unit of time spent being treated badly needs double or triple measure of being treated well to counter it. So if you're thinking of doing this better suit up and get started at once with both parents on board and as living proof. That's what we did (ages 7 and 9 at that time) it is more powerful in terms of results than abuse ever could be.

Thanks buddy. I think as an observation and generalisation it's hard to dispute. But for this audience of very clever people listening we can make our own fate. In my imagination solo mothers or guys contemplating dating them are listening to the FDR show, pick this one out, and are shamed. Perhaps to the point of leaving the conversation or of forsaking what could have been a great relationship. I'm not thinking of the population of mums you are referring to whom would probably turn cross-eyed at the mention of the word "philosophy." They are still the exception that proves the rule. Be damned if I ever understood what that expression amounted to except my logic circuit being shot!