cynicist
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Posts
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Days Won
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Posts posted by cynicist
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You are right on the recurring theme. I would add that in both situations you are entirely helpless to prevent what happens to you, since the actions taken against you are motivated by the perceptions of other people. To take a stab at the first one it sounds like an accurate description of what many of us go through growing up. The physical imprisonment corresponds with not being able to leave home/school/family, the mental illness with how we are lied to as children, the coma-like state with the dissociation we experience, the release with adulthood and the freedom it brings, and I agree with Pepin that the girlfriend could represent philosophy, or simply a nurturing feminine aspect of yourself or another person in your life.
The second one I'm curious about. What happened a year ago during your depression? Did you have any major changes involving friendships by chance? On that note, is anything happening now? (I ask because you said the urge to seek them out has come up again)
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When you imagine you and her being married with kids and raising a family together, what kind of emotions come up for you? I wasn't clear about your first post, were you saying that you two were moving in together in 1-3 months? If so, why?
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How was communication handled in your family as a child? Were you punished in some way for not participating? (mocked, made to feel guilty, etc) I have struggled with this on and off as a result of how I was raised and the key for me was to remain conscious, even if I feel like I'm on the verge of a strong feeling like anxiety, and see how I feel before responding. I'm not perfect, but I can usually catch myself in situations where I feel a compulsion (happens sometimes with threads or youtube comments) and whether or not, taking a breath and focusing on my feelings makes the compulsion fade away and allows my response to be a decision rather than something automatic.
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Oky Kevin i think i remember what the call was about .
It was about a guy who's mother invited him over for dinners.
And the poor guy had trouble finding a love relationship.
I remember those details but I'm pretty sure it was Stefan telling a story about someone he knew who was complaining to him about not being able to find a woman while at the same time having dinner with his mother every night. Stefan then talked about how a free dinner cooked by your mother sounds nice but there is a hidden cost, in that the time you are spending with her is not being spent dating or whatever. I remember it being one of the earlier podcasts, if I remember the number I'll come back and post it.
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Awesome compilation Lians. This is one of my biggest weaknesses: nourishing my mind at the expense of my body. (which ironically hurts my mind
) I'm looking forward to learning more, and I may revisit this thread for questions later. -
Like a ninja.
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I'm looking forward to fully open platforms like Ubuntu to come to phones, but then again we still need to trust that hardware manufacturers aren't doing anything shady so it's better to just assume all of these devices are potentially compromised and speak face to face when you want to guarantee no one is eavesdropping. I trust Google engineers are genuinely outraged but it would be nice if their apps were more transparent. (Android itself is open-source but all Google apps like Youtube/Gmail are proprietary)
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Kevin has shared some good stuff but just for the simple explanation objective reality is that which exists independent of our internal mental processes. Reality itself includes objective reality and the truth of our subjective experiences, a simpler version would be reality is that which exists. (this is to clarify that feelings of sadness may exist within our minds but there is no way to verify that objectively) Truth is that which conforms to logic or the evidence of our senses, the former being based on the consistent behavior of matter and energy as described by physics.
Let me know if I wasn't clear or missed anything, but I would refer you to the videos by Stefan that Kevin linked above for a more thorough explanation and more on the matter of existence.
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Holy shit man, now I'm afraid of going to sleep
But I'm happy that you figured it out. I'm always fascinated at how our brains communicate this stuff to us. Out of curiosity was it a recurring nightmare or a one shot deal?
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America is the richest, most prosperous nation in human history, capable of feeding the entire world, and we have had IP law, since very shortly after our inception... What evidence out performs that?
How about the level of innovation in steam engine technology both during and after patents? It's a very well written article with quite a lot of supporting documentation.
I was talking with a friend about intellectual property, one thing lead to another and i did not know how whether IP is moral or immoral, i thought if it is amoral even though i don't feel that it is in the realm of aesthetics.
i don't feel there is a distinction between Music albums, Movies & TV series, Books, when it comes to inherent moral reasoning.
So what would be strong arguments and counter arguments if you happen to think intellectual property is amoral?
If you look at the most common form of intellectual property violation, namely downloading media content through p2p, you see that on a technical level it is merely a replication of bits from one machine to another. So to rephrase the question, is it immoral to make copies of another person's work? Since innovation in general relies on taking existing works and making changes to them, under this principle innovation itself would be immoral. It's a ludicrous proposition, but that's why you end up with court cases where Apple can sue Samsung around things like rounded corners and certain gestures when there are only a limited number of ways to do things. (Would many people buy a triangular tablet for example? How do you determine when an innovation is original? Would you require each manufacturer to use a unique shape for their tablets?)
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I've always separated belief and faith, but maybe I'm not using the words correctly. To me they mean:
Belief - Thinking that something is true without having logic or evidence to prove it.
Faith - Believing something is true and thinking that logical proof or evidence is not required.
So a belief might be something that you were told as a kid that you accepted because you trusted your parents but didn't require proof for, and faith would be if someone pointed out that you had no evidence the belief was true or offered evidence to contradict it and you continued to adhere to the belief regardless.
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No, I'm not talking about you in my post, or anyone else here. I'm just talking about past conversations I've had in other places.
Sorry if I didn't communicate myself very well.Oh no my mistake, I thought you were referring to this thread since the topic was similar.
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I kid you not, I once saw people argue themselves into a frenzy over whether casting a shadow on someone's property should be considered a violation of the NAP. Even if they could convince a doubter that the presented case can be dealt with non-violently, the same person would later show up with yet another question. The same pattern could be observed with lifeboat ethics.
That's hilarious. I say that knowing the numerous unconscious arguments I've had. You get so focused on being right that you forget the reason you were arguing to begin with.
So, what's the source of this problem? I think the answer's rooted in how parents react to the preferences of their children. How many parents impose their preferences on their children through threats of aggression and manipulation? What does this teach the child? "Mummy and daddy know what's best for you, and your perception of yourself and the world around you is flawed." What are these children to do when they grow up? How are they to trust their abilities and judgements? To use a metaphor, if you couldn't trust your senses to accurately perceive your immediate environment, you'd need perfect knowledge in the form of a mental image to navigate the world around you. What a terrible curse to put on a young mind...I agree. It reminds me of all the contradictory rules that parents put forth with no reference to principles when we are kids. So you end up constantly testing boundaries and edge cases to find out the shape of the rulebook rather than simply opening it and reading something like the NAP. In arguments on anarchism what comes naturally for people is to jump to edge cases and declare the whole thing contradictory and invalid instead of exploring possible solutions or at least acknowledging how unnecessary much of the government is. It's like if you can make the argument that 99% of the government is useless but you can't quite invalidate that last 1%, people will go back to the position that 60% of what the government does is absolutely vital.
I remember arguing with a friend about roads some time ago. It was so complicated. Looking back all I needed to say was that the government contracts with private companies for roads, so it's only eliminating the middle man. Ugh, If I could go back in time...
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I am certainly trying to pay attention to when a conversation is not a discussion or debate of ideas, and instead becomes something more toxic that I should jump ship on. This actually makes me think of another topic I posted here recently where I brought up the idea of how defending my viewpoints in the past has gotten me met with animosity, and I am the one who gets accused of being harsh and unrelenting.
It seems debate centered around having to defend yourself from others can lead to some odd situations where you can end up being made to look like the bad guy.
I don't think anyone here has been trying to make you look like the bad guy. If an atheist friend came to me and said he couldn't understand where all the animosity comes from when he tries to discuss the idea that god doesn't exist in a church full of catholics, I would want to understand why he is trying to pursue those ideas with people who are quite invested in the opposite. Anyway if you think this discussion has become toxic then I'll bow out, I certainly didn't intend that.
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Cynicist: I don't know. I guess I want to defend myself and let them know that I believe I'm in this rut because of their parenting.
That's what I had assumed, and I can empathize as someone who has been subject to a lot of bullying/humiliation in my life, but these people are humiliating you for not having a job and simple mannerisms; They do not respect you or sympathize with you as a fellow human being who is not perfect. We all possess qualities that can be mocked but not all of us feel like bringing others down. So why are you around them still? Are you going to dinner with them because you want to or do you feel obligated since they are giving you money?
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A canvas is a man-made product, isn't it? I mean they don't naturally just grow on trees. Some one had to make the canvass. It is the product of someone's labor, that's why it's property.I think if we are going to define something as "property" there has to be some basic moral principle that justifies it's ownership.I can justify ownership of man-made property(Houses, Cars, food, canvasses,etc...) based on the principle of self ownership. If I own myself, I own the consequences of my actions. These items would not have existed had someone not created them.Now if things not created by human action are property, what is the principle that justifies ownership?
You missed my point, which was that just because something is unused currently doesn't mean it can't be someone's property. So by that principle just because land is not being actively utilized doesn't mean it can't be owned. It also doesn't follow that just because land is not man made that it cannot be considered property. We don't waste time talking about ownership of air and sunlight because those concepts aren't meaningful since those resources are too plentiful for that to matter. Particular kinds of land and water (with a suitable climate or in the case of water, potability) are scarcer and therefore more desirable to us. I think a possible principle behind ownership of those resources is their potential for utilization as much as current utilization. We know human beings require fresh water and so access to fresh water is desirable as well as some way to transform that resource into something useful for humans. (bottled water, irrigation system, etc) Nobody cares about owning the Arctic for anything besides shipping lanes and a few natural resources, if those weren't a factor then property rights over that area would be as meaningless as property rights over space.
Right now we only care about parts of the ocean for fishing opportunities but I guarantee you the minute other uses for that area become known/viable rights to all oceans on the planet will be divy'd up. A theoretical example would be seasteading or some kind of floating power generation through solar or bio tech. The potential for that stuff just isn't there yet. How we determine access is tricky but I don't think claiming that we all own a piece of everything non-man made on the planet is a reasonable way to do it. We also can't say that no one owns it, otherwise you get the tragedy of the commons situation where a lake used by multiple companies gets polluted because no one owns it and therefore no one has a clear incentive or responsibility to maintain it.
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Yeah, I think that is why I have been approaching internet debates more from the perspective of having someone from an opposing viewpoint challenge me so that I am forced to tackle the material in a more thorough way.
I did something similar with friends before I discovered FDR. I always enjoyed participating in arguments as a way to sharpen my own thinking. As long as you recognize when you are irritated or feel a compulsion to respond I think it can be a healthy thing. These days I'm a lot more selective about who I argue with. I like to think that's a sign of a stronger understanding on my part but it could just as easily be a lower tolerance for frustration.
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Yeah I understand what you mean and I totally get pursuing that with friends. Generally I think if someone is rational in some areas and not others that it has to do with some kind of cost or challenge in their personal lives that would come with accepting that idea. So it makes sense to ask them about it and try and get an understanding of why they might have trouble with it.
I don't think this makes any sense when applied to strangers or internet debates. I think this board is an exception because people who are interested in this conversation are already demonstrating a willingness to challenge themselves.
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If property is derived from self-ownership then "land" is not property.
I'm not sure how that follows. It sounds like you are suggesting that because unused land is not an effect of your actions that it can't be considered property. If you are paying for exclusive use of something (which is a big component of ownership, though as you say not exactly the same thing) it doesn't mean that it is property but it does mean that it could be, a necessary but not sufficient component. If I buy a canvas and hold onto it, is it still my property even though I haven't painted anything on it yet? To use a ridiculous hypothetical, what if a bunch of artists move into my community and want my particular canvas for some reason and I change my mind and sell it to one of them for a profit, should I compensate everyone who might have wanted to use my canvas while I was holding it?
It's not a perfect analogy but I want to illustrate that you are using a lot of assumptions about land being different from everything else. Why does everyone have an equal right to use a particular piece of land?
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Why do you think you should say anything?
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You mention applying philosophy to how I live my life. Can you explain what you mean by this?
Also, I'm not having trouble accepting truth, I'm just having trouble learning it in a way that suits my style and so get overloaded at times with some of the concepts. This is why I talk about these concepts with others online, so that I can work through what I understand and what I don't understand.
You are having trouble accepting the truth about those who don't want to accept the truth. This is not meant to be negative, as I don't think you are naive, but you are putting these ideas out there with the expectation that other people will respond rationally. I'm curious why it is surprising to you that they don't, considering that if you are talking about virtue you are basically putting their virtue into question if their values are opposite to yours. Maybe you see things differently, if so I would be interested in hearing more about that.
I have done this in the past as well. I mean mistaking my willingness to accept rational ideas as a common trait among people. That if I only presented the correct arguments I could convince anyone like I had been convinced and that if it wasn't working it was because I had been unclear. This just doesn't reflect what occurs in reality.
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Yeah I'd, erm, like to hear more about that too.
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Yes, that could be because someone else has said what they wanted to say, and they don't feel like they can contribute, but given that I could have posted a similar topic on a half dozen other boards and got 30 or 40 responses by now it makes me feel frustrated. It's like I am getting too little feedback, (not enough varied opinions), or too harsh feedback. (being ganged up on by a-holes)
It's kind of funny, but if I had to guess I would say it's because most people on this board are willing to doubt and question and are not very comfortable with giving answers due to uncertainty, relative to the rest of the internet where people are more than happy to tell you what to think or how you are wrong, and are very confident in those answers.
I hope you are focusing on real life friends and not trying to talk to random people about these topics, because that would be an exercise in masochism if I ever saw one. You say that you can't understand the animosity but I don't think that is true. You know how drastically different this stuff is; How it challenges people on ethics, their parents, society as a whole, their ideas on what is true. Nobody wants to talk about these things because it shows how messed up the world is (their relationships primarily) and people don't want to see that. So as soon as you bring it up they get uncomfortable (and feel like you are attacking them) and they lash out in order to shut you down. You know this, I'm just refreshing you.
If you want a better sense of how many people are willing to listen and be open and honest about these ideas, just rewatch the Matrix and compare the number of people on the ship to the number of people shown to be plugged in, that ratio is about right. So find your crew and forget about trying to engage the masses unless you are broadcasting like Stefan, because debating random people on the internet about this stuff is just going to make you miserable.
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Congratulations, I'm a Linux veteran (10+ years now) currently running Ubuntu and you couldn't have picked a better time to start using it. This current release is very stable and performs well, and the next one will polish it further. So I'm happy to answer any questions you have if you run into any issues and am glad I can help you with optimizing your current build. So to get started: I'm not going to touch the case since that is mostly a choice of aesthetics. That's an excellent choice for a budget cpu, but since it's actually an apu (processor + integrated graphics) you'll need a compatible FM2 socket motherboard to go along with it. (on the plus side this ends up being cheaper too) I would also upgrade it to the 750k, which gives you an extra 200Mhz clock boost for $4. As far as gpu's go, the HD7770 costs a bit more but is a lot better so I would stick with that. You can keep the same psu if you'd like but your system won't use anywhere near 500W so I'd save some money there and recommend this Seasonic psu instead. (they are well known for making quality hardware) I'm a huge fan of G.Skill for memory but we can bump up the speed for the same price so let's do it
And finally we end up with:
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm ...49.99$
CPU: AMD Athlon X4 750K Trinity 3.4GHz Socket FM2 100W Quad-Core Desktop Processor - Black Edition AD750KWOHJBOX ...79.99$ Motherboard: MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 FM2 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard ...59.99$ GPU: SAPPHIRE 100358L Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Video Card ...99.99$
Power Supply: SeaSonic SS-400ET Bronze 400W ATX12V V2.2/EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply ...39.99$
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL ...47.99
Looks like a good build to me. There is one thing I would recommend, however, which would give you a more noticeable upgrade than a shinier graphics card or faster cpu, and that's an SSD. Solid state disks are essential for lowering boot times and making your applications launch instantly and now that the prices have fallen quite a bit it's much more affordable than it used to be. This is totally optional but if you get one it will change how you use computers and you will never want to go back to using only slow hard drives lol. Having stuff come up as soon as you click it is how computers should work.
SSD: SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive ...89.99$
The total price not including the SSD or shipping charges is $377.94. I do honestly think this is the best PC you can build within your price range and I hope your first build experience is as good as mine was. (I can't see myself buying a desktop ever again) Good luck
I need help
in Self Knowledge
Posted
That sounds pretty horrible, not just the girlfriend but your nephew being so reckless in regards to fathering children. I'm not sure why you are getting involved as you don't seem to have a high opinion of him. I agree with Pepin, if he can't even be honest with you it is unlikely that you'll be able to help him to change anything. (from your description he may be lying to himself as well, and certainly isn't consciously aware of his own motivations)
This situation isn't funny, but putting these two sentences together is. Even not knowing much of his childhood background it would seem likely to me that his desire for a child has something to do with difficulties in his early history. Short of encouraging him to go to therapy and sort out his issues I'm not sure what you can do in this situation.