cynicist
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Days Won
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Posts posted by cynicist
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He's talking about this:
Stefan recently commented on the tendency of women to choose to be with men who are violent, abusive, or otherwise unsavory characters, stating that a lot of the violence in the world owes its existence to this tendency. I've had several experiences that have made me think about this in the past, but one quite recently that I think reinforces this idea more strongly than anything in my past.
and his theory is
No, she doesn't want to be abused. But she needs to feel the man she's with is above her, has power over her, is better than her. This is what the hypergamy instinct translates to in contemporary society, given most men no longer hold traditional provider/protector roles.
An alternative theory would be that he doesn't know the truth about her and her family, and the real reason she is drawn to and accepts abuse in her personal relationships.
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A bit. I know the surface stuff and her family sounds great. Educated, loving parents. A brother close in age who she's basically best friends with. I don't know her that well but I would be shocked if she was ever abused by her family.
So she has a loving family, is practically best friends with her brother, and yet she has trouble with physically and verbally abusive boyfriends? Something does not compute.
her lacking a sense of positive masculinity; although close with her father and brother
Hmm...
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Objective refers to that which exists independently of an observer. Subjective refers to that which exists in the mind of a person (subject) like feelings/thoughts/opinions. So if someone says that it feels like it is going to rain, for example, I know that they are describing their experience rather than something that is objectively true. If I'm interested in the truth then I would look at objective measurements of the weather and predictions based on that data when I'm deciding whether I need an umbrella or not.
For example, if I tell Fred I flipped a coin, and I look at it, and it is heads, but don't show it to Fred, then I can say, "I just flipped heads," and that is a true assertion about the state of the physical universe. About that assertion, I am 100% confident that is true. To Fred, however, without any other information, the assertion that I just flipped heads is 50% likely to be true, assuming he saw me flip the coin but did not see the result. If I then show him the coin, then he too can say with 100% confidence that I flipped heads. On the other hand, if I put the coin in my pocket and never show it to him, then I maintain in my mind (subjectively) a true assertion about the universe at a specific point in the past, that is that I flipped a heads at such-and-such a place and time.
And to go into your example specifically, an assertion is a declaration of a fact without evidence to support it. Once an assertion is true it's not an assertion anymore, it's a fact. The coin landed on heads whether Fred sees it or not. Since he can't see it all he has is your assertion that it has, but that doesn't change what happened in reality. The coin flip and it's result is objective, even if Fred never knows what it is and you do.
Take another example, me showing a baby a ball and then hiding it behind my back. To the baby it has disappeared (subjectively it appears to no longer exist) but in reality the ball has just been hidden from view. Objectively, the ball is no longer in the same position that it was before. If I forget that I'm holding the ball behind my back and no longer know where it is myself I may think that it has ceased to exist as well, but that does not change whether the ball exists or not since that event occurred in material reality and not simply in my mind.
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Relaxing acoustic
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In terms of trying to create accurate maps/models of reality, I don't see how the subjective vs. objective dichotomy is useful.
I think being able to tell the difference between truth and opinion is useful if you are trying to gain an accurate understanding of reality.
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I have had this problem too and what helps me is being conscious of it and practicing with other FDR members. What I mean by that is when someone asks about my preference, rather than try to figure out what they want, I focus on myself and see how I feel about the request. If I'm excited/enthusiastic then it's an obvious yes, and if not then it's a no.
Keep in mind that your preference is just your preference, like what flavor of ice cream you enjoy, it's not an imposition on anyone else. (I like vanilla doesn't mean everyone else has to eat vanilla ice cream lol) If you slip up and say yes when you don't feel like it, then bring it up instead of hiding it. And the most important thing is to avoid self-attacking when you do slip or hide it, just recognize what happened and reaffirm your desire to act differently next time.
I've noticed that I really do have to focus on my feelings, if I'm distracted by thoughts I fallback to the old habit automatically. Over time I'm sure the new habit will replace the old.
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I'd recommend a download manager for your problem. This way you can click the links to queue them and not have to sit there to initiate each download as the previous one completes.
Chrome: Chrono
Firefox: Flashgot
You have to use a browser based one instead of a standalone client due to the authentication mechanism. Chrono has a lot of annoying features so you may want to configure things a bit to make it more usable but it will do what you need, just make sure to change the max concurrent downloads to 1 in order to get each podcast as quickly as possible.
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Anyone have any thoughts?
Your friend may be very rational in most areas but as far as morality goes he doesn't have a clue. (which is fine, except what he is arguing for would be an unmitigated disaster in society and even worse it's a product of his history)
I understand nobody wants to have fraud, theft, assault, rape, or murder committed against them. I also understand most, if not all sane people can understand that, but I don't believe this creates a universal morality.Of course it doesn't. Morality (which is defined as universal) is not up to an individual's opinion.
Even if you quantify fraud, theft, assault, rape, and murder in that order.
Meaning you can't steal to counteract fraud, you can't assault to counteract theft, you can't rape to counteract assault, and you can't murder to counteract murder.
These rules would been seen ridiculous by most.
Yeah of course that would look ridiculous, because what does that have to do with ethics? I mean really, rape to counteract assault? That's the kind of stuff you come up with when you try to 'quantify' ethics as if it's some kind of universal scale that is balanced through math. Sorry but it's never going to be that way.
Is it wrong to murder an apple thief?By your definition, I would say no. However, by my personal subject view I think it's wrong to murder murderers.
Furthermore if I saw someone murder a proven murderer I wouldn't care.
Wait so he thinks in his subjective view that it's wrong to murder murderers (which is contradictory of course since ethics is universal, not subjective) but he doesn't care if it happens? Then what does he mean when he says he thinks it's wrong? Most people would interpret that as a condemnation of the action, his explicit disapproval, and yet here it's not?
The problem with universal morals, as I see it, is that if no body has a problem there is no problem.This is the exception to the rule called objective morals.
Why is that a problem? Say that some poor, starving kid steals an apple from me and I'm pretty well off. Well if I don't want him punished, and in fact if I want to make sure he doesn't have to steal in the future by being charitable and giving him even more, what's wrong with that? Your friend is looking at morality like it's some kind of math problem, as if once we establish that theft is wrong then we must respond to all thieves in exactly the same way regardless of the context, while in reality the context is the most important part.
Now a bomb expert moves into a crowded city and setups up shop selling bombs. He has products that could level the entire city if someone broke in and detonated one. He takes every precaution possible to prevent danger of the surrounding individuals. There is a 99.99% safety rating. He is fully insured. He signed all voluntary agreements with his DRO.However, the local individuals don't want him there. They all act together and assign a DRO to break in and disarm, steal, and throw away his private property.
Is this objectively wrong?
By your definition, I would say yes.
However, since nobody but him is worried about their morality breach, wrong magically becomes right.
What stays universal?
No one wants to have fraud, theft, assault, rape, or murder committed against them.
But in this instance they are able to make a subjective moral decision.
Everything is object up to the act, once the act occurs the results become subjective. To me this means it's impossible to determine objective universals called right & wrong.
This is the most ridiculously contrived example... Stefan did a good job dismantling it in a recent video which I'll link below so I'm not going through it all again, but the idea that people would trust a guy who builds bombs that can level city blocks in order to sell them to people is just so insane that it has to be some kind of defense. How could it be objectively wrong to disarm someone who is building explosive devices that could kill everyone in the neighborhood at any time? Why would that not be considered self-defense?
The fact is that morality is defined as objective, so either it exists or it's all just opinion. If he truly believes that morality is just an opinion than he has all kinds of problems, like killers and rapists justifying their actions according to their perspective. He wouldn't be able to rationally say that anyone should go to jail or should be prohibited from doing anything. I think rather than going through the logical arguments you are going to have to talk about his family if you want to get anywhere, since his points are not motivated by logic and you can't reason someone out of an emotional defense.
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Something different, here's some alternative.
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Could you elaborate on this? Or will you let your statement rest on its brevity?
If it is determined by consensus than it is opinion. Morality is defined as a set of principles (fundamental truths) that distinguish between good/evil, which means it has to be objective.
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I was the second call. I just don't feel bad. It was decades ago, and
a) I was bullied as well by my parents, relatives, and others, and
b) A lot of the time people provoked me into fights. I had an obvious handicap and took a lot of heat for it.
For example: one of the hospital visits happened because a bully threw sand in my friend's face. I ended that quickly--perhaps too harshly, but I just see that as a bully getting what he deserved. I'm suppposed to feel bad about this?
If someone comes back from a prison camp he has been in for 20 years and acts like he is still in the camp, should we jump all over him for doing so? Even if he stops?
Also, it's not like I'm still doing any of this. It ended a long time ago.
I have been actually talking to people and asking questions instead of avoidance or talking about myself. Also, I am working hard to not draw conclusions before talking to people. It is slow but steady progress.
I don't understand what "empathize with yourself" means. Don't we do this by default?
God man, can you fit any more lies and excuses into a single paragraph? You seriously think that throwing sand in someone's face warrants hurting them so badly that they have to go to the hospital? I don't see how saying it happened 'decades ago' is supposed to mean something. The reason people feel bad about things they've done in the past is because they can't take them back.
How are you not avoiding? Your whole post was about evading responsibility for the damage you did to others.
As long as you refuse to see it nothing will change. You will make zero progress. Zero.
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I have come to the conclusion that morality can be defined by consensuality. If everyone agrees an action to be moral than by consensuality it is.
That's not morality. That's opinion.
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Belief has to be defined first.
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It's not self-defense if it occurs afterwards (I'm assuming by revenge you mean violence towards the original attacker). That makes it an act of aggression. Think about it this way: If my parents beat me as a child does that mean it is morally permissible to beat them when they are elderly?
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Another question it raises, what about rape? If the baby is a result of action done by others and not the mother, does she have a morally obligation to feed that child? If so, then it's not the decision to make children that entangles the moral obligation, but simply the act of having something grow inside your body? That doesn't make much sense for me?
Are there not ways to terminate a pregnancy in that case? Or give the child up for adoption? Otherwise you would be obligated to feed the child, since you are making the choice to keep them even if there was no choice in the conception. I'm more confused about what part of Stefan's statements you consider to be opinion. Do you think children can survive on their own or something?
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Torture works, beating slaves works, spanking works. Violence does work. Spanking doesn't is not a means of creating well adjusted adults and I've made my position on that very clear in my posts, but it does create obedience in children when performed consistently.
No it does not.
I just checked Stef's channel and there are numerous videos on spanking in the results. In the video titled, "The First Real-Time Study of Parents Spanking Their Kids" he says, within the first 41 seconds of the video, "....and that children misbehaved within 10 minutes of being punished". It took me a few minutes to find that along with the link to the source of the study.
When someone makes a post like you did, which says the complete opposite without citing anything to support it, I'm going to downvote that post. Especially when they claim it to be true, and then say that nobody can deny it. If you did even the most cursory of research into the subject you would see that you were incorrect but you didn't even bother, instead you went straight to your keyboard and fired off your opinion on spanking.
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This guy makes my skin crawl. Why is he your friend again?
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I don't know enough about the idea to actually have any questions about it at this point. but that really does make perfect sense, and it makes you wonder what all those un-virtuous people are talking about when they speak of love I suppose. I will read 'Real Time Relationships" - thanks for the responses.
Neurotic attachment of some kind, like codependency as tjt mentioned above.
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I just looked over one of your prior threads (Objectivity of Violence) to get a sense of why you thought the system was unfair. In that thread, you made the claim that spanking results in obedience, despite the evidence that it is completely ineffective since parents have to keep doing it. Not to mention Stefan has done numerous videos on the subject that include interviews from experts and facts from scientific studies: all that point to you being wrong.
I didn't downvote you in that particular thread but I would have, just on the basis that you didn't put in any effort to check if your idea had merit before posting it. To ignore all that information and just spread nonsense like you did deserves a downvote. Maybe you could show an example of where you were downvoted by someone with a confirmation bias instead? Otherwise I don't see why your complaint should be taken seriously by anyone.
I like being able to read all posts openly without having to unhide them... even if they do end up being retarded and a waste of my time. It was my choice to read past the first sentence. So, I guess it would be nice to let the reader decide if they will continue reading past the first sentence (the rating system suffices, no need to hide all of that user's posts).
It would at least have to be a preference. I like how the feature saves me time and prevents certain posters from damaging my brain with their undecipherable ramblings.
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Yeah that's me, I'll have to make that more clear.
I realize too, that when my sister and I would disagree and an argument would ensue, we would both be punished.
I really hate this kind of lazy, destructive parenting. If conflict is so bad and troublesome, then why punish your children? Oh right, the rules don't apply to adults! I went through something similar and when I was much younger I remember thinking that there really must be something that makes us different, otherwise....
I'm really sorry that you weren't allowed to have your own thoughts/opinions freely expressed.
So there's my problem, the way that I have been conditioned to view my own criticism and disagreements is as a bad thing--as if I'm just trying to cause trouble. This is the thought process of my false self, and really I guess a defense mechanism.
Do you ever notice that happening to your own thoughts? Many times what we replicate out in the world is already being replicated within ourselves. I don't have a lot to say about this besides that it's something I've noticed in my life (around authority/conforming), and when I worked on it internally (basically not bullying myself into doing things) I could see my behavior change when I spoke with others. There is a recent call Stefan did that includes an important bit on disagreement, here is a link if you're interested.
I'm glad to hear that you and your friend had a great, honest conversation about things.
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Yeah she's certainly not a paragon of virtue, I'd say she is the closest to being a nihilist on the show.
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even though she has told me that she appreciates blunt honesty and actually expects it out of people I feel I have been holding back.
This is important. I'll just note it for now and get back to it in a sec.
Her fiance on the other hand sounds like he is mostly lacking all of these qualities. He doesn't have goals, or has trouble setting them and she often finds herself setting his goals for him... almost driving him really. She finds herself telling him what to do because she feels he is incapable of taking action. And they don't share the same outlook on their personal finances (she wants to act when money is low, while he is not bothered by it). He is very uncomfortable questioning the status quo and avoids it.
Sounds like a trainwreck. I actually had to read your post twice just to be sure, but you haven't mentioned a single positive thing about the guy. I mean her actions show that she doesn't respect him at all, and according to you their values are the complete opposite, so why is she choosing him as a partner?
We both contribute openly. I am working on being more honest with her when I disagree... she has never seemed to have a problem disagreeing with me. Like I mentioned earlier, she said she craves honesty and bluntness from other people. Although, I have seen her lose control of her emotions (as we all do, I'm sure) and take criticism very poorly... these instances were when she was under a lot of stress to begin with and the criticism set her over the edge.
This brings up all sorts of questions for me. You both contribute openly, but you are 'working on being more honest when you disagree'? Isn't that the opposite of contributing openly? And why is it something that you have to 'work on'? And now she 'craves honesty and bluntless' but 'takes criticism very poorly'? Sounds like another contradiction to me. The last bit is hard to understand. Are you suggesting that when she is not under stress, she handles criticism very well? If so, why bring up the times that she is under a lot of stress when they are clearly outliers? And what is that fog machine doing in the corner?
As a friend, I feel it is my duty to help her see where she is blind... as I expect my friends to do the same.
I consider the fact that you are interested in helping a friend out of error to be a beautiful thing. How you are planning to do that when she appears hostile to criticism is a mystery to me. Since your question was around where you should start, I think my first quote would be perfect. Why have you been holding back? A conversation with yourself is the best way to help your friend. Once you find out the answer to that question, what to do next will be easy.
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Was this a friend of yours? How did the rest of it go, or did you decide not to continue after this response?
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She states that ascribing qualifiers to non-existent entities (nothing) is meaningless and then puts forward half of the law of identity as if she's achieved something. All of this without any useful philosophical context. And while she's playing Captain Obvious, the guy is dying. I'd say she's better than academic philosophers because at least the guy is not dying because of her. Or is he? I'm not following the show.
That graphic takes what she said entirely out of context. Here is how the conversation actually went:
*Girl and her companion inquire as to why the dying man has not ended his suffering*
Dying man: Maybe nothing is worse than this.
Girl: Nothing isn't better or worse than anything, it's just nothing.
So in the show, she's the rational one.
It doesn't make sense to speak in abstractions when people are bleeding to death.
The guy who is bleeding to death in total agony is saying that not existing would be worse... and she's the one who makes no sense?
Jokes about killing men
in Men's Issues, Feminism and Gender
Posted
While reading this a particular quote of Stefan's came to mind involving pearls and swine...
I'm curious what made you think she would be receptive. I mean she was the one who posted the picture to begin with.