cynicist
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Posts posted by cynicist
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Are you arguing that kissing your boss's ass at work is not voluntary? Indeed, it is voluntary. You are perfectly free to let someone else do it or flatly refuse to fetch him his coffee. Honestly, who treats people like a glorified barista in an office building these days? That's why we have the Starbuck's business model.
We have all been shit on at work before, and it's nothing unusual. You bitch, get fed up, quit, or get fired and move on. If you are not willing to do this, you could end up like this old friend of mine who has worked for the same family owned company for 11 years, forever getting passed up for raises. His goal is to get the owner thrown in jail, and has tried to report him for tax evasion (failed), labor union violations (succeeded), and is now hoping to have a "goodfella" intimidate him gangland style. Yeah, good luck with that one.
Thank you. I'm sick of these 'wage-slave' arguments. There is absolutely no such thing. You can work for a voluntary wage or you can be enslaved, and no, hating your job is not the same as being forced to do anything. If your terms of employment are vague, get clarification. If you don't like a particular responsibility at your job, then either explain that you won't do it or find a new job. I've refused certain things without being fired but yeah, if you just do everything you are told then people will abuse the hell out of that. That's the sad state of the world today.
I wish robots did my laundry but while I wait for Google to get around to that I'm not going to complain that I'm forced to fold clothing...
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I don't know much about BitCoin, but the little I do know seems to indicate this type of regulation would be unenforceable. Why wouldn't all BitCoin transactions just slip quietly into the black market? Can someone who knows more about the intricacies of BitCoin please explain how it would be possible to enforce this law? Does it rely on people being afraid of investigation and prosecution?
Yes it's quite funny to read. How exactly would they be able to confiscate the coins? There are no technical means by which they could actually implement any of this so I assume they would be relying on the threat of jail time to get compliance. Of course even associating wallets with people would be tricky, especially if the user has knowledge of the technology to any degree. (which is why they are requiring registration to purchase coins)
Say for example that I create a new bitcoin address and transfer funds to it. This is indistinguishable from a transaction between two individuals. So how could they know that I own both? At best they could watch for patterns like transfers occurring between the same two addresses consistently. (which is why the recommendation is to use a new address for every transaction to avoid this kind of tracking)
This is why I'm more enthused about hedging against inflation with precious metals rather than BTC (although I own alt coins). Having a nest egg of BTC is next to useless if the government shuts down all the exchanges and confiscates the information (see the Silk Road debacle). I can bury my metal specie out in the woods somewhere and no one will ever find it.
If the government shuts down exchanges it doesn't do anything to the coins you possess. (just like shutting down gold providers doesn't affect your stash of gold) I can bury the hard drive containing them in the woods as well, but there are much better ways of securing bitcoin. The government confiscated the coins held by Silk Road, but one advantage over precious metals is that they couldn't take Ross Ulbricht's (owner of the site) personal stash of coins because his wallet was encrypted and they didn't have the private key to unlock it.
Not encrypting your digital wallet is like leaving a real physical wallet on a bench somewhere. It doesn't sound as impressive to 'confiscate' a wallet that someone left unattended, does it?
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So the idea of so many people being so reactionary towards zeitgeist and just hurling text book capitalist tropes against their marxist tropes and broadly defining it all as Marxism, is a way of using shame to shut down the conversation on the ridiculous clusterfuck of ideas that Peter barely brushes over, of which many are hugely deserving of more independent objective insight outside the 'zeitgeist community', is just sort of a lawyer tactic.
It's fascinating how much random nonsense you can stuff into a single sentence.
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Ok something new. Here is some Industrial Metal. Two because I feel like it.
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So far everyone in this thread just made the same statement that Stef made without showing the logic behind it.
You can pretend that I didn't show the logic behind it in my post if you'd like, but then I don't see why you started this thread. Wouldn't it be much easier to pretend if you weren't posting here?
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Excellent. You'll get your honorary hooded robe and copy of 'The book of Stef' shortly after the initiation ceremony. Please don't share the map to the hidden compound, we've had a few.... unpleasant visitors recently.
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I could be wrong, but I don't think he was stating a fact or quoting a study. The more time we invest in a relationship the more we are affected emotionally by it, so it makes sense that it would take longer to recover. I also wouldn't recommend approaching relationships as if they are math problems...
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Instead of labeling ourselves as Anarchists we could use either Voluntarists, Agorists or Autarchists.
Sure but then we wouldn't get the wide-eyed stares. I like those.
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A few examples are things like taking turns holding me under the water so I couldn't breathe, choking me with a phone cord, and punching me in the stomach so hard it knocked the wind out of me.My parents always just said stuff like " it's pecking order" or " stay away from them."
Pecking order indeed. They abuse your brothers and your brothers abuse you. I hate these fucking people. How are you supposed to 'stay away from them' at eight years old?
I try to talk to people now and most don't want to hear about it. some insult me and say they don't need to deal with my crazy bullshit problems...
Please guard your heart. These vile people will stomp on it just to hang on to the empty fantasies that they call their family history.
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Here's a fun song with summer vibes.
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Thank you Robert, I'm not sure if your reference to fantasy is due to a confusion of religion with fantasy. I had no problem letting go of the 'fantasy' of religion but I think mysticism is something else, which should ultimately be rooted in science.
I've just made a video which I think will explain my position more clearly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBTKmeLB1ME
Thanks, that explained a lot. I want to compliment you on quality of the video. You are an excellent speaker. The core problem with saying that mysticism should be rooted in science is that they are fundamentally in opposition. Based on your description of mysticism, it is not verifiable in the external world through either logic or empiricism since it relies on subjective experiences. (In the video you said that a scientist would have to experience it in their own minds and then translate the experience into the material world) If you accept the scientific method as your primary tool to separate truth from falsehood then anything that comes from the mystical approach is invalid.
Stefan goes into much greater detail in the video series. What you describe is very similar to Plato's higher realm, the idea that there is some divine/spiritual source of knowledge that we access internally. I think you might appreciate the comparison.
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Exactly what you said above. It's what you would expect on a philosophy forum and yet it's so rare.
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You know, I just realized how rare your response is on these forums. It's pretty hilarious actually.
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You could explain the difference between honesty and being mean
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Was there a question here? I have one: how did you embed this video in the forum? I can't figure it out after looking at all of the editor buttons. Do you put the link somewhere in your profile, then use the "My Media" button?
You can literally paste the youtube link into the textbox and the forum will automatically handle all that for you.
It took me forever to figure this out, too.
left-bracket media right-bracket URL left-bracket /media right-bracket
["media"] URL ["/media"] (no quotes between the brackets)
I think that used to be the case but now it is as simple as can be. -
Would you argue that it requires a conscious intent to hurt and humiliate for an action to be classified as mean?
Yes, at a minimum. If you didn't have the intent to do it then the hurt would be accidental.
Would, for example, Stef be classified as a mean person when he put forth arguments which hurt and humiliate bad guys. Is he or is the meanness justified because it is directed towards evil?
The reason he makes those arguments is to help people learn the truth and be more rational, he's not trying to hurt people. The fact that it hurts the interests of bad people is just a side benefit.
Also, your definition makes the adjective hard to apply to anyone as it speculates in the state of mind of the acting person. Most claim doing things out of a desire for good. Add to that the question of whether the person does it consciously or unconsciously. Most claim doing something unconsciously if revealed.
If I trip someone, is it hard to tell my intent? If I punch someone in the gut? If I yell at someone for making a mistake? If I use my key to scratch up their car? I don't think it's hard at all. And you can't be unconsciously mean since it's deliberate.
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The main problem with your definitions is that people who are mean are sensitive to how other people will feel about it, that's why they are doing it in the first place. I would define being mean as 'acting out of spite' (a malicious desire, as in to hurt/humiliate/annoy/frustrate/etc).
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I need someone to socialize with and I am used to their evil beliefs. Why not hang with them?
That's fine, it just means you value friends/conformity over virtue. There is nothing that says you have to take philosophy seriously.
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(could it be... the very same politicians? could it be, that the law only give them more power and less responsibility?)
The problem is they will just say that people need to be more vigilant about who they vote for, and if we could just get the right people in there...
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I get the dieting example. By eating the cake you do the opposite of what the diet tells you, therefore you're full of shit. I don't see how that applies to the second example. It doesn't seem to me that hanging with Hitler is the opposite of being voluntaryist. I don't see how hanging out with anyone has anything to do with voluntaryism. Could you expand on the part I highlighted?
Yeah that's exactly why I used those two examples. Preferences like 'I like to eat cheesecake' are what you might call non-binding. That means that I can say it without it applying to you as well. You can hate cheesecake and we can still get along fine. Morality, on the other hand, is both universal and binding. That means when I say that 'using force is wrong', it's not only wrong for me but for any human being. If it didn't have this characteristic then it could not be objective, and would fall into the category of opinion. (for more detail on morality in particular, I'd recommend reading UPB)
Now, saying that something is wrong/bad/evil is an explicit disapproval of that behavior. If you then consider people who act that way to be friends, then you have a contradiction between what you claim to be your values versus what you actually do. What does it mean to condemn someone for being a murderer if you treat them the same way you would treat a friend? It would be no different than claiming to prefer exercise and healthy foods while eating fatty stuff on a couch.
This is all very counter intuitive to me. I certainly wouldn't hang with hitler or racists because I wouldn't be able to ignore their beliefs and I just wouldn't enjoy my time with them. But I am used to being around statists and I can ignore their evil beliefs. I just don't understand how that makes voluntaryism just a hobby for me.
I used those examples because Hitler and racism are recognized as obviously evil by the majority of society. The reason you feel comfortable around statists is because what they are advocating is not yet viewed the same way. If they suddenly talked about how glad they were that a black person got lynched or that some woman from work was robbed in an alley, you wouldn't hang around them right? But they are cheering for guys with guns to take your money and kidnap you if you should refuse.
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Everyone I know wants me thrown in jail for disagreeing with them because they think that otherwise theres anarchy and the world will end. That is a very understandable position. It doesn't mean they have anything against me, it just means they doesn't want the world to end.
The only reason evil continues is because it can masquerade as the good or the necessary. If I told you I know this guy named Hitler who wants to help make the human race stronger you might think that was admirable... at least until I told you the how. Soldiers fight to protect their country, or invade another country in order to liberate it's people. Elliot Rodger was being robbed of the attention he rightfully deserved from blonde women. That guy I beat up fucking deserved it. All evil is paired with justification because the minute it is in plain sight people recoil from it. So you take your time and try to help the other person understand their error with sympathy and curiosity towards the history that helped lead them to it, but at the end of the day (not literal, it could take months) if they persist in spite of the rational arguments then they are advocating force against you.
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What is the point of having principles? I see them as a method of guiding your actions, a set of ideal standards for you to live up to in your life.
If I'm a fat person who sits on a couch all day and eats cheesecake, but claims that eating healthy and exercise are really important to me, would you take my words or my actions more seriously? Clearly my actions, because it takes a lot less commitment to say something than it does to do it. You might be saying, but it's my friends who are fat, not me! Except that, with regards to statists, we're talking about morality and not dieting.
The difference being that morality is a universal, and dieting is a personal preference. (If I say that something is evil, it is evil for everyone, not just me) So to take the above in a moral context, if I say that I think murdering innocent people is an evil of the highest order, but I'm also friends with Hitler, what would you think of that? If I am making the claim that murder is abhorrent to me, but I'm fine being around people who murder, then clearly what I call a 'standard' is just a nice idea that I don't practice in reality.
But if I don't practice living my standards, then what's the point of having them? At best it would be a kind of convoluted mind game.
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It means that you value your relationships more than your principles. So philosophy is more of a hobby to you than a serious endeavor.
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It's a funny joke but I'm not sure it's a sign of progress. I've seen many instances where politicians are considered thieves and liars, but that's a long way from recognizing taxes/government as institutionalized theft.
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Pain in my gut after uncomfortable experience
in Self Knowledge
Posted
That is really awesome to hear, thanks for sharing the update with us! I have one follow up question if you don't mind: Do you think taking an active role and being more visible to your managers is what made the difference? I have this suspicion that people's perception of your work has more effect than even the work itself much of the time, although that may not be the case here. It's something I have to keep in mind since I value results/effort and I'm proactive when it comes to finding out what I need to know to do my job, so I view a lot of what goes on at meetings/pep talks as boring formality that makes management feel good rather than being an effective use of my time. (may not be the case in your organization)
I hope things worked out with your team lead btw.