Lians

Artists I follow on Vimeo liked those videos and that's how I found them. I don't know about anything similar, but here's Stef on the subject: Screw Talent! How To Have Power In Your Life! (last question)

Laci became popular because she was the pretty face of the internet atheist movement. Not surprisingly, she mistook her beauty for reasoning ability and decided she could come up with arguments on her own rather than reciting borrowed material. What you see today is largely the result of that.

Classy...

I found these videos recently and thought you guys might find them interesting given the overlap with Stef's views on success:

Jeff Berwick talks about this new trend here: Breaking: All Out Assault on Libertarians Both Online & On The Streets Continues

Paradoxically, the happier I become the more fear I tend to experience! This is because there's a lot more for me to lose now, should I decide to slip into old habits. These days I feel quite comfortable with the fear and the acceptance of this "negative" emotion makes me feel truly alive. In a way, the feeling's there as a reminder of what I value. Also, by opening my heart I invite the possibility of experiencing a lot more pain. Accepting emotional pain as a healthy feeling has helped tremendously in my ability to be vulnerable with the people I love. You could even say that the avoidance of pain hindered my capacity to love and be loved because I was always hiding inside my armoured shell. I need to mention that I've done quite a lot of work in decoupling fear and pain from my childhood experiences. Not reacting to historical trauma makes me a lot more comfortable with those feelings. I believe you're already doing that in therapy so keep at it!

When I first started going down the path of self-knowledge I had to figure out what goals I wanted to pursue. "To be free of pain and fear." "To have the ability to brush off any and all anxieties." "Calm and contemplative personality." "Unwavering happiness!" These are all goals I came up with and I never managed to achieve any of them! I had to challenge all my premises about self-knowledge when I was inevitably forced to confront this failure. Is there such a thing as life without pain and fear? Is it even healthy to not experience those feelings? Are anxieties, in fact, helpful? On and on it went--the seemingly endless questioning that, at times, left me completely lost and confused. However, what came out of this process was the goal of being a loving husband and father; a man who, at the end of his life, has given to the world infinitely more love and happiness than he received at the beginning of it. I then asked myself: How do I become this person? I can't say that I've got all the answers yet, but no amount of pain, fear or anxiety seems overwhelming compared to this new goal.

Welcome to the board! I wanted to express my admiration and appreciation for what you're doing! Your son is very fortunate to have you as a mum! Before philosophy and self-knowledge entered my life I too felt like I was fumbling around in the dark, and even though parenting, for me, is a few years into the future, the thought of bringing the missing light into the lives of my children fills me up with warm feelings. I hope you feel the same warmth! Again, thank you!

He's talked about this in a number of podcasts, and the latest one I can think of is this one (30:34):

The command line version of the program is now ready. I decided against using multiple Tor circuits because I don't want to release code that--with little modification--can be used to take down a website. The option to download through Tor is still there though. I also removed the parallel downloading parts of the code because I couldn't make a decently-informative text-based interface. Besides, spawning multiple fast connections may trigger Google's servers to reject further download requests. I'll check up with Mike to see what I want to do with the tool. YouTube DDoS concerns are unwarranted. The site wouldn't be running right now if anyone could take it down with a few hours worth of code. Their servers are configured to reject requests if you exceed a certain frequency, which is why I've added an option to download videos in batches instead of ripping the whole channel in one go.

Good thing to lose? I don't know. Personally, I try to avoid qualifiers like "good" and "bad" when it comes to my inner world. It sometimes takes me weeks or months to understand the reasons behind a particularly strong feeling so I'd keep digging if I were you!

Yeah, that's why I was going to release it privately. I'm essentially writing a web scraper. It's not that easy to DDoS Google's servers though. While testing the script I was getting 403 Forbidden errors whenever I created too many parallel requests. I managed to route the connections through the Tor network and I'm now trying to spawn multiple Tor processes with different IP's.

Torrents are always an option but I'm not sure how many people would be interested in them. I wrote the script to make it easy for multiple people to create backups in case YouTube decides to permanently suspend Stef's account. Over the next few days I'll create a user interface for non-techies, add an option to download the available metadata (thumbnails and descriptions) and clean-up the code.

I wrote a quick script today and calculated that ripping all 1533 FDR YouTube videos in maximum quality would require 383.6 GB of space. Downloading all the files would take approximately 8 hours and 31 minutes on my 100 Mbps connection.

You can write a python script that does the job in less than a hundred lines of code using gdata.youtube.com and pytube but I wouldn't post anything publicly since downloading videos from YouTube is a violation of their ToS. https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms

Thank you, Mike! I'm working up the endurance to swim across the Atlantic next! Tuur and Jelle, it was great meeting you guys, and I only wish we had more time to connect! It's a good thing we live in the digital age! Ditto! As Stef mentioned during the meetup, philosophy can spread faster throughout Europe given Europeans' more peaceful parenting approaches, but it takes a strong and active community to accomplish that! I think the Amsterdam event was an excellent starting point. It was the first international FDR meetup and I'm really happy that so many people from all across Europe attended it!

Thank you, Brian! It was the last call of a call-in show: Well worth a listen!

There's a lot more to what you shared with your therapist than simply talking about your issues. It was so honest and vulnerable! The sadness was doubtless triggered by you parting ways with your therapist but was that truly the cause? Maybe the action itself was a symbolic goodbye to a part of you that fears this degree of vulnerability--a part of you that came to be when your honest self-expression was denied to you as a child. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Cliché but true!

I heard it's in the making. I'm looking forward to it myself!

A few months ago I listened to a podcast where Michael DeMarco shared the history of his journey to philosophy. Mike, your story had a very profound impact on me and I later told you that I had tears rolling down my cheeks as I was listening to it--in the middle of a supermarket no less! What I didn't mention was a commitment that I made to myself in that very moment of embarrassment: "I'm not going to miss the next opportunity to meet Stef even if I have to swim across the English Channel!" Little did I know that such an opportunity would presents itself shortly thereafter! The pain of having parted ways with all my friends was still fresh so I was very ambivalent about opening my heart to new people. Your courage and the gentleness of a flower-loving FDR member inspired me to fully embrace the anxiety and honour my commitment. I don't have words to express my gratitude so I'll simply share the story of what happened after the ambivalence was transformed into excitement. When I walked out of Schiphol airport I got my first feel for Amsterdam. Bicycles! Bicycles everywhere! What's more, on these bicycles I saw tastefully dressed men and women that had an uncanny pride and ferocity in their eyes. The warmth radiating out of them gave me a profound sense of peace. A fitting place for a philosophy meetup! Contrasted against this background were the FDR attendees I met during the next four days. Despite being beaten down by the world they had retained a capacity for courage and vulnerability that truly amazed me. I was so deeply honoured that they allowed me to listen to their stories! Whether it was self-knowledge explorations accompanied by afternoon tea, philosophical discussions over dinner or RTR conversations while standing on a bridge in the middle of the night, I was continuously presented with new experiences that reaffirmed my deep admiration for these people. The crown jewel was, of course, the day of the official meetup when all my previous experiences were condensed into a surreal flurry of thoughts and emotions. Hours upon hours of philosophy while being surrounded by like minded people! I'd consider that day a dream if its reality wasn't so vivid. I even decided to miss my return flight just so I could stay a little longer! Meeting Stef and giving him a hug filled me up with joy. The voice that lived inside my head for four yeas finally had a corporeal form! I've always been curious about people's body language which is why Stef's presence truly fascinated me. What an incredibly relaxed yet energetic physicality! Anyone who has doubts about the outcome of a philosophical life should meet the man in person! After spending nearly 13 hours in coaches--only option due to my missed flight--and enduring an unpleasant ferry trip I finally got back home. The exhaustion of not sleeping and the intensity of the previous day caught up with me, and I was genuinely surprised when my landlord said the following after meeting me: "Exhausted? You look pretty fresh to me! In fact, you're glowing with happiness!" It was in that moment that I understood what had happened during my mini vacation in Amsterdam. Throughout my life I was always cognizant of the fact that I was surrounded by dull people. However, I never came to realise that this exposure to dullness had managed to tint my vision in shades of grey. Meeting these lovely people in Amsterdam is what I needed to wipe the dullness off my lenses and see the world in all its vibrancy! Thank you so much and I hope you all found the energy to continue fighting your personal battles against falsehood! Feel free to share your experiences of the meetup in this thread!

What an amazing display of courage, Kristi! Is this the first time you spoke truth to someone you consider an authority figure? Perhaps that brought up all the sadness.

I'll send you my number via PM but I suggest you contact TheRobin (on the board) for more details. I'll be a little busy in the morning so he'll be the one organizing the Friday meet up. We don't have any plans yet.

I arrived in Amsterdam today and managed to hook up with Robin. Neither of us have any particular plans apart from getting lost in the city. I'll give you my phone number via PM if you want to meet up!

How is this different from the religious self-policing of thoughts? How do you know that your negative thoughts are detrimental to your well being?