hazek

Not that you didn't address any of my points but under resist I meant do anything at all (not necessarily employ violence) in order to protect oneself against violent thugs i.e. take action instead of just taking it laying down. For example use Bitcoin or participrate in smart civil disobedience.

Two more things occurred to me. 1. Stef agrees with my main argument! I mean, he may have not said it directly, he may not even know he agrees but he does based on his will kill argument. I mean isn't that the main takeaway from that argument? That once being a violent thug yields no more profit no one will be a violent thug, even if everyone has the ability to be one and many likely have the urge to be one? Wouldn't a will kill be precisely an example of a solution to the question I posed in my OP? 2. Peaceful parenting where not only the parents aren't violent towards the child but they also shield it from all the violence that exists today out there in the real world may not just be counter productive but in fact dangerous and even improving the profitability of being a violent thug. With my second realization I'm a bit unclear about what exactly peaceful parenting means, so depending on what it means I may be wrong. I mean does it mean that Stef wont teach his daughter how to defend herself in anyway and to just ignore the violence? Or does it only mean that he will not use violence as a way to communicate with her in their relationship? I'm confused on this point and I really hope it's the later and not the former. Because what I see the former as is a delusion which is extremely unhealthy for a human being. It's like you'd avoid teaching a child that getting hit by a car can kill you and you should therefor watch how you cross the road and reminds me of this: But even if it is the later, please someone explain to me how is this going to move a society towards more freedom and peace? If his daughter will recognize violence in the real world but wont know enough violence in order to resist, doesn't she become just a tasty meal for those violent thugs that don't mind being violent? I mean unless you expect the entire world to switch to peaceful parenting (and even then some children may be born wanting to be violent) I don't see how creating more harmless peaceful people will disempower the violent thugs of the world, if you ignore violent thugs because violence doesn't make sense to you they can always just kill you, they've done it before... I think some people doing peaceful parenting is going to have the precisely opposite effect and violent thugs will get even more empowered with that many more people out there who will not resist.

I had a realization the other day and I want to share it. First a little context. I'm unbelievably frustrated, frustrated at all the arguing, at all the bickering not just with statists but also between ourselves, frustrated at no visible and tangible change being achieved when it comes to my personal freedom and a life in peace and prosperity. I mean it's a good thing there's Bitcoin otherwise I'd be totally depressed at the world right now. So this is the frame of mind that I'm coming from and when I look for solutions I'm Interested only in those that would ease some of this frustration by actually providing some tangible results. And if you're honest for a second, aside from our folk activism(you can read what I mean by that here: http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/06/patri-friedman/beyond-folk-activism) having a few more people starting to see that the principles we hold dear would actually benefit them and how destructive the status quo principles really are we haven't made any real progress. The state is still as powerful as ever and it's getting more powerful and it appears no scandal no matter how attractions (where are the people in the streets over PRISM?) will hold those psychopaths back. The reason for this post is that I'm here to tell you hat I figured out why. And it's oh so simple. Think about it, if our principles are that much better for a society, why then hasn't the market gravitated towards them yet? Why does the market still support and even encourage the current state of affairs?? Simple. Being a violent thug is massively profitable! Yes. That's all there is to it. Our principles are loosing because they aren't as profitable as being a violent psychopath willing to pull the trigger and destroy lives for their own benefit. Just remember Stef's very successful "The story of your enslavement" video, I mean isn't that the main takeaway? Yes we're slaves, but we're slaves to violent thugs and they enslave us because it's highly beneficial to do so. That's why the market also gravitates towards this violence, there's profit to be made and some people don't mind doing the dirty deed in order to realize this profit. If I'm right, then the solution to all of our problems is very simple, and it's not peaceful parenting or through logic derived objective morality theories. It's market forces. How can we make it unprofitable to be a violent thug? That is the question that the correct answer to will solve all of our problems. I have a few ideas already (some of them I've shared already here in another post) but I wont go into that in this post. I just wanted to get this realization off my chest and see what others think about it first.

Steff, will you teach your daughter to shoot? If not, why not?