cynicist

The murderer initiated force to begin with, the DROs that respond by trying to apprehend him are acting in self-defense on behalf of their clients. I know this whole situation is a ridiculous hypothetical, but for a mass murderer to not already be isolated from society would mean that he was fleeing retribution for his crime from a statist society. If a DRO allowed such a criminal to walk freely I would consider it reckless endangerment. Not doing business with someone works with lesser violations like theft or rudeness, but if someone has demonstrated complete disregard for human life I don't think ostracism is an appropriate response. I would put rape in the same category as a violation of the body, though obviously lower than murder. He violates the self-ownership of others, it wouldn't make sense to respect his. If a thief steals my property, am I immoral for stealing it back? It's worse if I'm dead, so I can't imagine why he wouldn't be isolated if he was a known killer.

This example is confusing. I take it from your last sentence that the DRO's are after him because he is a mass murderer. Since this guy has initiated force it doesn't violate the NAP to go after him, that falls under self-defense.

A sophist is a manipulator of language, someone who makes bad but persuasive arguments. Stefan uses a great quote of Socrates from time to time where he defines them as those who, "make the worse argument appear the better". In fact, sophist used refer to a type of teacher that used rhetoric to inspire wisdom; Socrates was the one who gave it the negative connotation through his criticism of their actual knowledge. I tend to reserve it for those who are particularly good with language such as this poster's brother, as I can respect his obvious intelligence even if he is corrupt. After a while you begin to notice patterns in the type of arguments they make, and that's what I am referring to when I say "tricks".

I can speak from experience as someone who has abused a sibling (though not to the same degree) that two things in particular helped me. One is to come clean and try to make restitution as much as possible (even though you can't ever undo the damage), which it sounds like you are pursuing already. The second thing is to explore and figure out as much as you can about why you were doing those things and how you came to be that way. It is hard when the memories have been repressed (even when they are back they don't feel like they are yours), but uncovering the mindset and its source helped me understand myself better. When I first remembered what I had done I was pretty shocked and sad but the worst part was being afraid of my own potential for doing evil. Now that I know where it came from I'm not as worried about it coming back out of nowhere and affecting my life today. I know that wasn't super specific but I hope that helps. A big difference between my situation and yours is that I was much younger (early teens) when I stopped so I imagine the road will be rougher for you. One last tip, when you feel an episode of self-attack coming on remind yourself that you made a commitment to be a better person and commend yourself for sticking to it. You will never be able to make up for what you've done but you can use that as motivation to strive farther than others in society. (who may have done less harm, but also may not have done much good either)

It's not a moral argument though. In order for it to be so you would need to accept the premise that copying a digital file is depriving someone of property, which is just not factual. In reality it's making a copy. Whether or not that ruins an artist's livelihood is a separate argument entirely, and I don't think there is a good argument there either. Piracy has been going on for years and the entertainment industry is making more money than ever. I think the only thing we know for certain is that it is immoral to throw someone in prison for copyright infringement. You are saying artists should not be forced to change their business model, but wouldn't horse buggy manufacturers have said the same when people stopped paying for their product? I agree that people should respect each other's property and if compensation is owed it should be paid, but neither of those apply to this situation. How do you know someone who has downloaded music would have purchased it if he couldn't get it for free? What if it was only worth it when it was free? If someone produced good music and you wanted them to produce more, wouldn't it make sense to pay them for their work? I'm just not sure that this is as big of an issue as you are making it out to be. The popular bands like Nine Inch Nails have no problem giving music away for free because they know their fans will support them. There are even youtube channels where gamers get donations for streaming live content and can make a comfortable living doing so, but obviously only the most popular ones can do that. If they can do that without state enforcement of their 'intellectual property' then I'm not sure what makes music artists any different. In fact there are youtube channels dedicated solely to promoting music artists in genres like dubstep where music is streamed for free and links are provided to buying the tracks or donating to support the artists. I also don't fundamentally see why an artist automatically deserves compensation for music that they produce. If someone wants to compensate them I think that is great, but if I made music and put it on the internet I suspect no one would appreciate it lol. Do I deserve monetary compensation just because I made music? I think that is up to fans to decide, and I don't think there is any other way to do it fundamentally.

I'm not sure I agree with your comment on morality. It doesn't seem to me like they think government is evil at all. They are claiming that: a) coercion is voluntary, which is a contradiction b) morality is subjective c) no one has the right to defend themselves d) theft is a legitimate form of ownership. All of these are pretty morally reprehensible. Below I've addressed them in more depth. a) Free to leave, and go where? Anarchists aren't against particular rules the government imposes, we're against having rules imposed on us at all. There are no societies where this does not occur except primitive tribes or places that are mostly uninhabitable. Their argument (that if we don't like having violence imposed on us we can leave) is equivalent to saying that if women don't like being raped they shouldn't be out in public. Except it's worse because violence against a woman isn't guaranteed and is strongly discouraged in society, whereas statist violence is guaranteed and mostly approved of. b) In other words they're saying morality is subjective. This one is just boring because it's so easily countered. Ask them whether rape is immoral or not when the person committing the act views it as acceptable behavior. They deserve to squirm a little for making such a destructive statement. c) ??? I may not be understanding their argument here. Are they suggesting that because you may be incorrect about how you perceive a particular situation, that all self-defense is invalid? Doesn't this ability to get things wrong also apply to police? So by their own argument shouldn't they be stripped of all weapons or other violent powers? d) Kudos to them for at least not pretending as though society owns the land. On the other hand, what makes the government's ownership legitimate? A person who owns a piece of property had to negotiate with someone else to acquire ownership, through purchasing the land or inheriting it or whatever. The government uses force in order to take things. Do they consider a thief who robs them at gunpoint as the legitimate owner of the property that he steals?

School for me was pretty horrible. I learned to do things that I hated for grades that I did not care about while being surrounded by apathetic or sadistic classmates. It retarded my ability to think for a long while and discouraged me from going to college and extending my prison sentence by another four years for a piece of paper that wouldn't even guarantee me a job. I would be far more concerned with the type of environment your child is exposed to in public school over being somewhat unprepared for college. (The latter can be remedied with some books, while the former could require years of therapy or self-work to overcome)

To some degree. The main themes in my opinion were: the limits that people (particularly the parent) will go to when children's lives are at stake, how gut instinct/feeling is as valid as reason, and how you better be prepared because there are evil people out there and random bad stuff can go down at any moment. There is some attempt to explain motivation but it's fairly shallow. Also, there are some brutal parts but the movie is not as depressing or futile as the trailer suggests.

And that my friends is when the faint spark of an individual human mind is snuffed out and overwhelmed by the darkness of history and cultural conformity...

I have had this from time to time in the past, but not really anymore after FDR. It's certainly understandable when almost everything here is counter to what almost everyone in society believes that you would have doubts about whether it is true or not. I mean the idea that some random Canadian on Youtube knows THE TRUTH and most of society is irrational is funny in a dark kind of way. I think the doubts and skepticism are rational, I mean you have to plunge into this world every day when you interact with everyone else. What helped me a lot was whenever I became worried I would just remind myself to go back to the basics, which is, how do I know what is true? Logic and empiricism (evidence of the senses). So the next question becomes, is what Stefan saying logically consistent and does it match my experience in reality? I used to ignore it like you did when I was first starting to read the material here, but the whole point of this conversation is not to accept things without testing their validity. Once I really understood that and changed my approach to absorbing new information (by first running it through the filter of logical consistency and empiricism) I didn't have to fear doubt because I wasn't placing my trust in conclusions (like atheism or anarchism) but in a methodology. After doing that you feel a sense of stability and trust in your own mind, since being wrong is ok when you aren't attached to conclusions, and you have a guaranteed way of correcting your false beliefs. I'd recommend watching Stefan's Introduction to Philosophy series and critically looking at everything he is saying. Get the principles down and you won't need to be afraid of being wrong anymore, in fact you will welcome correction because it only proves how effective the tools of reason and empiricism are in the discovery of truth.

You are confusing morality with propaganda. Just because someone says something is morally good doesn't make it so. The link above that Pepin mentioned is good but be sure you continue to check out the rest of the Introduction to Philosophy series because he includes a few videos on ethics and politics that are quite good on his youtube channel.

I look forward to the follow up post where he learns about science. Tragic This is a neat sophist trick. You set forth two standards that are "extreme" and then put yourself squarely in the middle of the two and declare yourself as a reasonable person who sees things in shades of gray rather than black and white. I.E. Those who use logic and empiricism to determine truth are being simplistic and unreasonable. I will say as far as sophists go he is rather clever. Take the below line where he mentions the two extreme approaches: Notice how he carefully places the word 'think' into the second sentence dealing with emotions and the word 'believe' into the first sentence which involves science. In other words those concerned with feelings/desires are 'thinkers' while people interested in science are 'believers' no different than us religious folk.

Warning, spoilers ahead! While I loved watching Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhal act in that movie, I wasn't a fan of it myself. I thought the bit around the guy they made to look like a pedophile who was actually an abducted kid trying to piece together what happened to him at the hands of his tormenters was pretty powerful. Reminds me of the repetitive cycles we can get stuck in while trying to understand our own histories. (though obviously not as traumatic, dear god) At first I was creeped out by him but towards the end I felt so bad for him and how Gyllenhal (as a cop of course) had abused him further while trying to figure out the maze connection. Other than that it seemed to be the typical "anything for the children even if violence is necessary" propaganda. There is little exploration into how these evil people came to be or what effect the experience had on the people involved. I would like to see what Stefan thought of it, but I'm not sure I would recommend that he watch it lol. (the brutality was alarming to me, even given the circumstances since Jackman had no way to know anything for certain about that kid)

There is no physical evidence or logical argument to support the existence of those things, and worse than that, the very concepts go against everything we see around us. Ghosts and gods are claimed to be consciousness without physical form, able to have an effect on matter while being immaterial themselves, unable to be detected using conventional means, beings that are immortal and neither alive nor dead, and in the case of god also all knowing and all powerful. That would make them unique relative to every other form of consciousness that we are aware of. Since those are pretty amazing claims to make, making them with any kind of certainty requires evidence just as strong. Scientists who make arguments around Higg's Boson at least have a theory around math which can be disproven (and math is an objective discipline based on logic and empirical evidence). Claims around gods and ghosts are typically unfalsifiable because of the qualities people attribute to them.

Dude, you do understand that Stefan had Chomsky on as a guest right? And that you can admire some aspects of a person while not respecting others? The idea that you invite someone on the show in order to sit there and call him a crazy lefty makes no sense, even if he is, because he might have some valuable things to say about other topics that FDR listeners are interested in. You're acting as if he had a murderer like Mandela on the show....

Hard determinism is unfalsifiable so it's not really a philosophical matter. As Stefan as said in the past, if human behavior was directly causal you could just demonstrate that by predicting someone's behavior or mathematically calculating what someone is going to do just like you can with the effect of gravity on objects. Arguing about hard determinism is literally equivalent to debating whether everything we perceive is sent to us by alien overlords from a separate dimension. We can't disprove it and even if it were true it would have zero practical consequences for us, so spending time on it is rather pointless.

Yeah I have a quibble with that argument. What the ant sees is accurate, it's just limited. We may discover new things in the future that we didn't know about, but that doesn't mean our senses are faulty. Your standard makes it sound like our senses have to be able to detect everything for us to be able to claim what is true, but we don't require perfect and complete knowledge in order to make truth statements. I think you are confusing our ability to be incorrect with our mental model of the universe (ex. horizon making the earth look flat) with our senses being incorrect. In the example of a flat horizon our eyes are seeing things clearly it's just our perspective is leading us to incorrect assumptions about the world. The way we correct our misconception about the earth being flat is using the evidence of our eyes as well as logic. (we travel and the earth doesn't actually end, and we can see this with our eyes) If our senses were inaccurate we would never be able to determine anything with certainty, truth would be impossible. Haha that's the opposite though. It would be religious to suggest any other way of gaining knowledge (besides logic, which is still superseded by our senses). I mean how do you know anything exists at all? If the simplicity of the answer surprises you I think it is important to look at the question more. You are only aware of this post because of your eyes. If you couldn't see or hear or feel, how would you know that my post existed? I'm glad this is helping. It may take time to digest all of this so don't be hard on yourself if it seems simple and you think you are not getting it. It is simple, but can be hard to understand due to our histories. The argument is not "I can't perceive it through my senses so it does not exist", it's "I know X is true because I have validated it using my senses". So we start out knowing very little and add to that knowledge one step at a time through this validation. That's why in science you don't try to prove that something doesn't exist. How could you? By definition something that doesn't exist is not detectable through our senses. We use logic as well, but anytime logic and empirical observation conflict, we accept the evidence of our senses as the primary way of knowing what is true.

Our perceptions being limited doesn't mean they are inaccurate, because the accuracy is relative to our senses. As an example you wouldn't say that a machine designed to detect x-rays was inaccurate because it didn't pick up every possible wavelength in existence, since it was designed with a smaller scope in mind. This is a challenge for building an accurate model of reality in our minds, but we can use logic and science to overcome the inherent limitations of our physiology. (remember even though we can't see x-rays directly we can see the effect of them on the body or the output of machines through our senses) I don't understand how that means our senses aren't reliable. To be more precise, it is possible that what we call reality is actually an illusion or dream but there is no way for us to prove that. Imagine a Matrix-style scenario where everything we perceive is just made up of electrical impulses fed to us by some amazingly complicated computer, how could we prove it? If it is in fact true that we are living in an illusion that we cannot escape or even detect, does that have any practical consequence for how we behave? If it is true and is detectable in some way, then our senses are again 'reliable' despite our current lack of knowledge around the situation. (I put reliable in quotes because I'm not sure that is the right way to phrase it, it's not like we can say our eyesight is unreliable because we can't detect distant stars using them) Yeah it is tricky, I hope the example at the beginning of this post helps.

Well if the keylogger is done in firmware or on a level inaccessible to users it becomes a lot more difficult to do anything about it since any software you try to use to negate is going to be in the operating system layer. A software keylogger can be removed or thwarted far more easily. And they absolutely do inform you. There is a legal notice in the dash as well as a permanent one in the settings application. Also you are wrong about cookies. One reason the data is sent to their servers is in order to proxy all requests so that sites like amazon don't get unique search results. I think you should do more research on this before making these claims. The people in the Linux community who are furious about this change are hard to take seriously. I mean it's a clear on/off setting in the privacy section of your system settings. If they are aware enough to be outraged they are certainly aware of where to go to turn it off. I mean if you trust them to develop the software that runs your computer I don't understand why trusting them with online search is such a stretch. (and it's not forced on anyone regardless) Lol I read that document. So the NSA is putting custom firmware on specific server models that only functions under certain conditions (the correct operating system/etc). Not super scary or relevant to the average user and something system admins should be competent enough to deal with if they are managing sensitive data. If it was a link on Intel providing a hardware backdoor to the NSA on all of their most recent processors then I would be concerned. Here is an article on it. Be warned, it's somewhat technical.

It's not obvious and simple, at least it wasn't for me. I can only describe it that way after spending a long time trying to understand philosophy and unlearning a lot of garbage I was taught growing up. I'll elaborate on some of the examples you brought up to help clarify since I think I see where some of these things are unclear for you. It's not that our senses are inaccurate, we are just drawing incorrect conclusions based on what we see. You could say our perspective is limited, just like the perspective of an ant would be limited based on it's size, but that doesn't mean the ants senses are broken or don't reflect reality. This is tricky but if we couldn't distinguish between reality and dreams, how would we know that we were dreaming? Our senses have limitations that is certainly true, but within the range of functionality they offer us what we see corresponds to what is true. Just because we can't perceive the entirety of existence unaided by technology doesn't mean that what we are perceiving is not real or valid. If I say that the sky is blue I'm saying that I perceive a particular wavelength (visible light) when I look at this area above the earth. So even though I can't see infrared or ultraviolet it doesn't make my statement any less factual. Even if I can't perceive those things I can still detect them and their impact on the world and that is reflected in my experience. (when we invent things like x-ray machines and so on, or see the effects of gravity on objects)

But then of course 95% of people would not enable it because they wouldn't be able to find it, making it pointless to program in the first place. The goal of it is to include online sources in search and generate a little bit of revenue when you go to sites like Amazon. I'm kind of surprised that you would put that kind of feature in the same category as hidden hardware keyloggers that you have no way to disable. I think it is important how you label things. If you start talking about benign functionality like it is the same as the NSA trying to spy on you then it lowers your credibility imo. Like right now I'm about to look at those documents that you posted but I'm already skeptical of the content inside. It's like the 9/11 truther situation. If they were right about some future conspiracy by the government I might not even know because they already discredited themselves by talking about demolitions going on at one of the towers. I forgot to mention that on the plus side at least all of those instances are software exploits, which are possible to defend against. If it was discovered that hardware manufacturers like Qualcomm were cooperating with the NSA I would be a lot more worried. I think that the odds are low though, only because if people found out nobody would want to buy their phones anymore.

That makes sense to me. If we accept that truth exists but reject the senses as valid we still need some way to know what is true and what is false. So the opposite of collecting information gradually and building a model using the senses would be an already complete model somewhere that you can access through higher forms, god, or whatever other spiritual mechanism. Utilitarianism presupposes the same access to a perfect knowledge of how all actions effect everyone because it is required in order to maximize happiness/utility. Well but people only assume access to perfect knowledge to support the theories they have, it's not that they care to have actual knowledge. (If they did they would have the knowledge that they don't know some things, and therefore have no access to a perfect knowledge) I think the explanation (though rather dull) for why people selectively submit to reason is just a matter of practicality. Our brains are naturally wired to process material reality, so I assume it would take too much energy/effort to try and counteract that natural function in areas other than those necessary for survival in childhood. Maybe I'm missing something but that's how I see it.

That sounds like a reasonable concern. Even though you would prevent any type of punishment her parents might want to impose on your children you would still be exposing them to people who inflicted harm on their mother. Obviously they wouldn't know this but they would be able to sense a change in her or you while in the presence of her parents and wonder about it. It sounds to me like the both of you are still doing a lot of growing and discovery around your childhoods. Especially if she is still living with her parents she's not going to have the freedom to explore that relationship for the reasons you stated. It's not surprising to me given these circumstances that you wouldn't feel ready. If I were in your situation I would at least want the relationship with the parents figured out before getting married and having children to avoid future complications. And that's not even being aware of other things that you may not have settled yet. I don't understand the frustration between you two here. Why is being ready now important? I mean I know you mentioned the medical thing but that sounded more like an inference than an issue that you two sat down and discussed. The fact that she sees it as a poor reflection on herself is not good imo. I mean either something hidden is going on and she is right, or she is taking this personally when its not the case and you two should work on figuring out why. I hope this doesn't sound judgmental but it seems like you two have lots to work on so I would caution against rushing into anything just yet.

Blah no it does not. Do you consider Firefox to be keylogging software because by default it takes your input and forwards it to Google? For me a keylogger is a malicious piece of software designed to record your keystrokes without you noticing and send them somewhere you don't intend, while also being difficult to disable or remove. Ubuntu's online search mechanism is no different than what Firefox does and is just as easy to disable in privacy settings if you are concerned about it. On top of that I've never seen a 'keylogger' include a privacy disclaimer

I hope I'm not late or anything but some things certainly struck me about your post. This is generally where the excuses start rolling in Excuse #1: Did that standard of love include hitting, whipping, humiliation, and verbal aggression? Or was that just for you? Excuse #2: Isn't it a bit late for your mother to be showing her concern? Wouldn't it have been helpful if she had actually done anything about the abuse while it was occcuring? By coming to you with concern now, was she actually concerned for you or did she feel guilt over her part in allowing your father to do what he did to you and want reassurance from you that she was off the hook? You? Hurt them? I can't imagine how you expressing outrage over what happened to you as a child would be more painful to them than what they actually DID to you. (your mother included) That's not to say that you should engage with them, just that you are showing much more concern for their feelings than they have for yours which is an odd state of affairs given what you've told us so far. WHAT?! You're seriously going to post that you want to keep the relationship if it can be healthy and mutually beneficial, and then follow that with how your father threatened both you and your brother with your inheritance. I know these things are hard to see but I'm shocked after reading those two sentences so close together. My question is this, are you sure your desire to empathize is actually yours and not their desire to have you call them? So far none of them have accepted any responsibility for what happened to you. And your situation sounded pretty hellish to me. What motivation do you have to continue seeing them? When you think about visiting them, do you feel excitement and joy or misery and dread? My take on this post is that you are ignoring your mother's role as facilitator in your abuse (it would not have been possible without her participation) and you are considering pursuing a relationship with your father who not only was horribly abusive to you in the past but continues to be abusive and shows absolutely no remorse for his actions. You also seem more concerned with the moral nature of a possible backlash against your family coming from you than you are with the reality of how your parents are treating you TODAY. I hope this isn't coming across as harsh, I truly am sorry for how terrible your situation is, but I think engaging with unrepentent individuals like this is a type of slave vengeance that is only going to perpetuate the abuse against yourself by keeping you locked in a cycle with them. I'm not going to tell you what you should do but I think taking a break from seeing them and possibly seeing a therapist (and definitely some more self-exploration) could help bring a clarity to this situation that you currently do not possess.