Jose Perez

I see, interesting.. look forward to reading about your findings.

I am getting better at intervening in cases of child abuse in public and working out what constitues a productive intervention. Today a mother was forcing her toddler son against his will to sit in the buggy at a cafe next to me as they were leaving together with father and sibling. Without hesitation I said: "excuse me, you are really forcing your child". She explained that he has to be sitting there in order to get in the car, to which I replied that he can also walk to the car, for example, and that he clearly doesn't want to do what she was telling him. She then uttered some more nonsense, to which I stood and walked away with a disapproving face; I did not want to witness the very sad spectacle. I think the simple act of being a conscious observer and pointing out what is happening makes for an excellent intervention. Regardless of the response and excuses you get from the parents you can never go wrong by simply pointing out what is happening, which is very powerful in the light that it happens in public.

By the sounds of it, she just believes that you can will your emotions and that leaving is not an option, which is very common. EDIT: However, you wouldn't be "cutting them off completely" either by simply following your true emotions as they happen. You cannot decide the future of your emotional response just like you cannot make the choice to think – and change her behaviour – for your mother.

Ayn Rand made amazing speeches that conveyed corageous and revolutionary ideas... in writing. [C] I love mondays!

You have no control over the emotional response to your mother, but you have control over your thoughts (you can choose to think and rationally process what's going on) as well as over your actions, as you noted. The therapist is right as much as those emotions, like the guilt, are put in you during childhood for the purpose of controlling you – they can be all traced back to the condition of the child as a prisoner of the parents. So yes, if you want to be free, you have to act in order to rid yourself of this element of control and susceptibility to those who have harmed you. I'm really sorry you have suffered this. This action is primarily the choice to think or reason, in order to differentiate between false emotions that stem from childhood trauma and your genuine true self emotions. Therapy can help you with that, but you have to think.

Bad people are conscious of their acts by definition; they are also not exculpated by fear. I didn't say that all religious people are bad, but I imply that most are, of course. The standard for badness is in the power disparity between parent and child. but they do push it, of course. This is what many, including Stef, dont want to see. You have to be pretty unempathetic to think that any parent - let alone religious ones - can abstain from using his power to push his values; that they will just listen to you, stand aside and regard the salvation of their own children, the universal nature of values that binds them to them and the "for your own good" as a matter of opinion. Not only is this unempathetic, it is ridiculous. Every bit of behaviour in the face of your children, conscious or unconscious, bears the mark of the values you live. And trust me, when the child is hurt the parent knows the reason - is conscious.

He has the very common immature mindset of putting blame on others, projecting and externalising the cause of your unprocessed emotions.

I still have no idea what you're responding to in Schwartz's talk. Just look at how you reply here. You get caught with the Newton fallacy so now it's time to dismiss this and look at the "false quotes"... Tell me, what chances do I have to successfully show you that my quotes are accurate and not have you similarly dismiss you arguments? and here we go again. How about objectively looking at the logical consistency of the thesis you are presenting? It's you who has no clue about science and clearly no experience in it either.

Well, Newton was not presenting his study on gravity by making self contradictory statements or appealing to his belief in alchemy and other areas - let alone his distaste about anything to do with gravity. Yes, what "likelihoods" means is that if you are a certain kind of statist you are very likely to be into what Schwartz says for reasons other than reason. If you are into these sort of studies I am sure you agree that your non disclosure adds to my empirical evidence.

Sure as hell there is no point looking at the research of people who *show you* that they cannot reason or even have a comprehensive theory. This guy is just another hyperspecialized fool trying to make a political case. It is also very relevant to know your political inclinations for this reason. Particularly if you believe in statistical studies and likelihoods.

In order to be an empiricist you kinda have to not be wedded to your opinions, not start your speeches with stories about the day you went to buy a pair of jeans and how annoying it was... You also have to be rational enough to know there is no point looking at data and studies issued by people who come charging with fallacies and self contradictions in this fashion. It is very obvious in the case of this guy, as much as it is hard to draw empirical information, I cannot really force you to see it if you do not want to see it - with or without accurate quoting.

"we increase the variable "choice" and we observe that people feel worse, therefore choice is the cause of people feeling bad" - False. Showing a correlation does not establish causality. This is shallow and biased as can be. There are thousands of flawed and narrow-minded studies like this in science all aimed at getting funding for specific branches of study and justifying government action. "it's wrong to give you the choice because that causes you to blame yourself and take responsibility" – False. Again, there are many reasons people have certain emotional responses, and it's not the fault of the person giving choice that this is the reaction they get. It is not hard to see given the way children are treated how this can be the case, and Mr. Schwartz doesn't even have a theory like that of child abuse but is just drawing (biased) conclusions on a bunch of empirical data. "we should blame ourselves and take responsibility for introducing too much choice in society" - First he says people blaming themselves and taking responsibility for choices is bad, and now he thinks it is good that we blame ourselves precisely for a choice we have made – that of introducing choice. Do you see? When you believe in sin, you are sin and all you see is sin... What is your view on the morality or validity of the state, STer? "choice makes you blame yourself when in fact it is "the world" that is too blame for giving you too much choice" ... First it's us that are to blame, now it's "the world"... Ok so if the world is to blame then can we also blame the world for making us introduce more choice and therefore avoid feeling this "bad responsibility"? What about blaming him for advocating the restriction of choice, isn't that more objective than blaming the world? So much nonsense... This guy's study is of course the result of his own unconscious emotional campaign, which is quite easy to see and very often seen at TED's.

When you talk about being or becoming an atheist or an anarchist – as opposed to simply accepting certain truths – it sounds like you think of this achievement in terms of how it compares to other people. So – as we say in philosophy, "compared to what?" – compared to religious people and statists I'd say neither is a major intellectual achievement at all. On the other hand, if you mean it as an achievement in terms of personal relationships and virtue then it is a huge achievement. Perhaps you want to differentiate this from a mere intellectual achievement, and here is why: One of the reasons we know statists and religious people are bad people in most cases is that they are conscious and responsible for what they do, and this consciousness implies that they have the intellectual and empirical ability to work out the non-existance of god, as well as the invalidity and immorality of the state – albeit in a very repressed or primitive manner. We are all born atheist ancaps.

Amazing to have this stuff documented like this! Thanks for sharing it. The bitch's voice when she says "I love you", you gotta love the intonation... And at 43:30, when Parker says "then they shouldn't be enforcing anything", brilliant, just brilliant!

I saw this presentation as part of a TED series called 'Predictably Irrational', which sounds very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy. This man has problems thinking logically and scientifically – which is not surprising being an academic in the field of psychology: "we increase the variable "choice" and we observe that people feel worse, therefore choice is the cause of people feeling bad" "it's wrong to give you the choice because that causes you to blame yourself and take responsibility" but... "we should blame ourselves and take responsibility for introducing too much choice in society" and... "choice makes you blame yourself when in fact it is "the world" that is too blame for giving you too much choice" ... Hard to be this inconsistent even willingly. Anyway, what is TED but a stage for the current intellectuals of the system.

As I recall, the movie's final scene is very symbolic, and shows the typical abusive emotional manipulation of the child. First the dwarf king shows hostility to the Hobbit, which then suddenly turns into a big, loving, thank-you hug... This is pure stockholm syndrome stuff.

If what you say is true, then what does Gandalf represent? What is relevant here is that Bilbo represents the child; I don't think you can argue against that. Gandalf is no doubt a father figure. The wizards are counsellors, intellectuals... here and in many other stories. I have met "wizards" in my own life in the forms of school teachers and many other people who make you feel you're special and that the world needs you... Justifications for statism. The dwarves are a collective, a culture; the idea is not to preserve individuals... Clear as day. And how did he push him, with a knife? Why, he pushed him with passive aggression and appealing to his sense of care for the bigger people (parents, elders...), which is what children do for survival. Bilbo does not need to help the dwarves. He could have spared himself those scars easily, which he would have done if he had been a mature anarcho-capitalist individual indeed. He embarks upon that quest completely altruistically, justifying evil. He is weak and sensitive to the demands of those world-saving lunatics, and off he goes to get some scars in the field... now does that sound familiar or what [eyeroll]

There are many fantasy films like this (Neverending Story comes to mind) all about children getting drawn into meeting parental needs, with all the symbology of a young mind struggling to understand the nonsensical world the elders are presenting them.

For heaven's sake, the Hobbit starts with in-your-face scenes of the Hobbit's property being violated by the dwarves. The Hobbit does not offer much resistance or show assertiveness, recognises the "legitimacy" of this and is ultimately sensitive to their blatant passive aggressiveness when he gets pulled into their nonsensical power quest... The whole thing is about the "goodness" of helping dysfunctional people and their value of violent power, because it is "necessary and inevitable" (just about every argument there is for the state). The Hobbit represents the child and the others the parents in all their political diversity. Anarchy, capitalism, truth and virtue loses because the Hobbit gets drawn into this fantasy and lie, due to his stockholm syndrome.

You have just pointed out Lowe's confusion, not Flake's.[/font] Lowe spoke about the purpose being both 'getting the life that you want' and 'truth', if you read back. Not quite the same thing.[/font] What we have here is people equating truth with a certain ideal in order to use the ideal as a standard for truth. What can we say about that other than that is what every false philosophy and religion has ever done? Exactly the pattern you would expect in a conversation that deals with the irrational aspects of FDR, because there is no magic trick or therapy to make people rational...[/font]

The creator's intent is also to persuade the consumer to buy, and the consumer's intent is to own the product, so the creator cannot be – and often isn't – so strict about this wish. Owning the product means that you can copy it, as a result of which copies may disseminate – and indirectly be also a good thing for the creator. Property is cool. Downloading is cool. [pom-poms]

I think in terms of UPB downloading probably fits into a category of APA. The one regarding rudeness in my opinion. There is no agreement between the producer and the downloader; even with McDonald's there is a tacit agreement that the toilet is for customers. You could even picture a situation where someone needs to download stuff for a moral reason... Aesthetically preferable behaviour is for situations that are not already a violation of greater preferability - like I am not precisely rude if I fail to pay my tax bill on time. Music and movie producers seem very happy to take advantage of this situation with the Internet being one such violation - is that rude as well? There maybe no agreement, but a content provider wants to be paid for their product of course. However, given the fact the product can be copied multiple times, payment is not particularly enforceable. [/font]Again (first you left out my text tasmlab was referring to) you ignore my argument that the Internet - or digital media in general - is not a place where you should massively sell your goods if you are very concerned with getting payed for every item. I obviously understand that people want to get payed for their products - obviously not as much as they just want to make a profit regardless of people's "rudeness". [/font]It is not an amoral situation, as I keep saying. Downloading is an amoral action but it is not done in an amoral situation. It's no problem, you may call me rude as I enjoy my meals - which is a shame, because if you so wanted compensation you would have probably been able to easily persuade me. [/font]If APA is as rational and objective standard then it is hardly a matter of feelings or opinions. Interesting how you don't seem to think it's just your opinion or be careful to express that I would be "rude, yes" for downloading your cookery recipe. I have no idea what to make of this, without considering it as some bizarre strawman. If you ignore my arguments from the start it is understandable you encounter weird "strawmen".

I think in terms of UPB downloading probably fits into a category of APA. The one regarding rudeness in my opinion. There is no agreement between the producer and the downloader; even with McDonald's there is a tacit agreement that the toilet is for customers. You could even picture a situation where someone needs to download stuff for a moral reason... Aesthetically preferable behaviour is for situations that are not already a violation of greater preferability - like I am not precisely rude if I fail to pay my tax bill on time. Music and movie producers seem very happy to take advantage of this situation with the Internet being one such violation - is that rude as well? Let's not even mention the fact that media content is largely built and inspired on the violations of children's property rights. Would you say someone who downloads a nazi documentary or any piece of media that promotes or builds upon immorality is also rude?

Credibility matters when, say, you are giving advice on how to live a happy life, how to be successful, how to be a better person, generally speaking. Which would provide justification for your assertion if that were all that philosophy were limited to. Philosophy is more than that. It is also the study of metaphysics, semantics, epistemology, and other subjects. Subjects where the only thing that matters is the arguments and not the person making the arguments. As it happens, it's the people who most consistently care about the arguments who show the most courage and credibility in their lives. People like him are only lucky that we are not getting trolled into a discussion about who's got the most credibility.

Sue the mother. Sue the parents. Nobody else here shows the clearest and biggest criminal intent.