Lians

To me, issues of self-knowledge are not about understanding the reality of the situation. That's necessary but not sufficient. Understanding the causal chain of events that lead up to a specific issue is where real progress is made because it gives you information about how to prevent recurrence in the future. You don't feel pain because you burned yourself, but because you don't want to burn yourself in the future. Why did you, as a kid, assume responsibility about what happened to your mum? In other words, how did that guilt end up in you? I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but your answer to my first question is an explanation, not an excuse. It's about his history, not yours. If he hasn't apologized for his behaviour and provided restitution for his wrongdoings, then he must have an excuse for not doing that. That's how human beings operate. I understand that this may be too abstract, so I'll give you an example from my own history. I've heard stories of my father getting really drunk and crying about what he had done to me and how he shouldn't have succumbed to his dysfunction. His excuse with regards to me was the following: "You turned out better than me, you're very strong and you can take care of yourself. There isn't any need for me to do anything. If the abuse turned you into a strong man, then it must have been worth it." If he didn't succumb to his dysfunction, he wouldn't have harmed me. That's a factual statement, not an excuse. An excuse is a justification for a wrongdoing. What's your father's excuse? Why isn't he on his knees, begging for your forgiveness?

One of the tragic things that often comes out of abuse is a disconnect between the body and the mind. You retreat in your mind while your physical body is getting tortured and you learn to associate bodily sensation with weakness: "My body is flawed for experiencing pain but my mind is strong enough to ignore the unpleasant feelings. Hooray for willpower." "I want to eat healthy but my body craves unhealthy food and keeps gaining weight regardless of what I eat. I need more willpower" "I couldn't achieve my exercise quota for the day and that means I'm bad, and by extension, my body is also bad for being so weak. I need more willpower." "I hate myself for blushing when people talk to me. Why can't my body stop giving away my thoughts? What's wrong with it?" If you look carefully, you'll see this pattern all over the place. Judging from your experiences and the language you used to describe them, this is very much the case with you as well. You speak of conquering your problems as if you're at war with your body. Tough luck, your mind doesn't reside in an ethereal and eternal soul; it's a product of your physicality. You either learn how to work in tandem with your body or you're in for a whole lot of trouble. How you do that depends on your personality and your needs. Body work (sports, exercise, dancing, yoga) is what helped me stay in touch with my body. Practising mindfulness mediation can help you gain more compassion and understanding for your physicality. Treating yourself to your favourite food and doing things for the sake of physical pleasure (massages, aroma therapy etc.) can be a good starting point. Very often, we do things for our minds with the goal of pleasure or improvement but we neglect our bodies as if they don't matter. Try to get more in touch with your body while you're waiting for a chance to speak to Stef. You'll be able to get a whole lot more out of the conversation if you're less disconnected from your experiences. Switching gears, I'd like to ask you a few questions: What do you think is your father's excuse for what he put you through? What does he tell himself when the inevitable guilt of his wrongdoings resurfaces? I'm asking you this because I get the feeling that you filtered your story through your father's perspective rather than your own genuine experiences. "The boy went through hell, but he sure is tough. I guess I didn't do such a bad job after all. I shouldn't feel so bad because he's a functioning human being." Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I sensed some guilt for what happened to your mum from the way you presented your story. "If only I didn't go to bed that night," kind of thing. Does your father know about what you saw/heard that night? These are just some things to consider and you can discard them at will. You obviously don't have to share anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Kant vs Locke Rand vs Nietzsche Marx vs Mises

Something like this? I really enjoyed the content and format of those videos. Doing something similar for philosophy or current events would be pretty awesome. I'm looking at you people with musical skills!

What a nightmare... I'm not even remotely qualified to give advice on how you should deal with this level of abuse. However, I do think that leaving your dysfunctional environment is your only chance of ever getting better. You're young but the developmental clock is ticking. The people you've described are not the type that would function normally for ten years. I don't know what happened to you in your childhood but I'm fairly sure your problems didn't start at the age of ten. I get it, your mental fortitude is formidable and you sound like a really intelligent guy. There's one thing that you haven't considered though. Your brain has wired itself to deal with dysfunction. You may be able to control the machinery of your mind, but you can't alter its structure through will power. Ultimately, you're limited to the number of buttons you can push and you're becoming more aware of this limitation by the day. Regardless of your mental mastery, you won't be able to outgrow your environment. That's a good thing. You need your current skills to deal with your father and sisters. I strongly suspect that the purpose of this thread is to reinforce your belief that you don't need people's radical advice because you're stronger than the average person. You're tough, you can deal with it. That could very well be true, but you may pay a terrible price in the long run. What if your father, like you, was toughing it out for years before he finally broke down? What about your mother? Like it or not, you are related to them by both bond and blood. I obviously can't tell you what to do, but I'm going to give you some practical advice for coping with the pain. I'd venture to guess that your body is a mess. Start working out. This channel and this thread are a pretty good starting point. Digestion issues? Don't diet. Eat healthy and avoid inflammatory food. Here's an excellent resource on the topic. Hyperactivity? Practice mindfulness techniques. You can even start a journal when you're more comfortable with relaxation. Watch Stef's Bomb in the Brain series. If you get out of your current situation, save up some money and look for very experienced therapists. Your case is pretty severe, so you'll need an expert to help you work through your history. I hope Mike can somehow push you to the front of the call-in queue because a conversation with Stef can be enormously beneficial for you. I'm really sorry that you live in a world that allows such things to happen to a helpless child. Everyone turned their back on you and the isolation that permeates your story is heartbreaking.

That was an excellent summary of the issue! Your blog is definitely a great self-knowledge resource to have!

This guy has been trolling the board for a while now. There's no point in engaging him.

I'm with ribuck on this one, take the commission but make sure you explore your feelings for this teacher. That being said, I wouldn't get involved in a long-term business relationship with someone like that. If things go well and that's an option, I wouldn't take it. I had a similar art teacher and I can sympathise with your difficulty. I think it's important for you to process your history with her so you don't end up like those former students you mentioned.

She would have become even more dysfunctional and gotten out eventually. You can't stop people like that from having children. You also mentioned that you helped her out because of your friend. Why was your friend dating a drug addict? To me, this seems like the bigger issue here. If you're going to the baby shower, Parent Effectiveness Training can be a great gift. Let her know that the book is a great resource for any parent. You'll have to rely on your instincts, but assuming she's not too volatile, you can even mention that you chose this particular book because she's never seen what good parenting looks like, hence why it's important for her to read it. That's quite true given her background. Finally, I wanted to let you know that I really appreciate your concern for this unborn baby. Let us know how it goes!

Road construction companies! They're sure to generate billions in profit given people's interest in roads.

And you speak on behalf of these people because your education somehow gave you the experience of living a life of poverty? You see, the economic destruction of Eastern Europe was brought about by intellectuals who claimed they understood the poor and wanted to save them. If you're so concerned about them, what are you doing to improve their situation? Are you translating FDR content into Portuguese? Are you going around handing out books? Are you starting charities? It's very easy to rant about social injustice on the internet, but appealing to emotion won't change a thing. Finally, if Stefan wanted to address people who eat out of rubbish bins, he wouldn't be making YouTube videos. His message was directed at people like you and me. People with opportunities who sit around and make excuses for their inaction.

Welcome to the board, Tim! I'm glad you made it here! Dylan, that was an excellent overview. I've lived in both Eastern and Western Europe and have come to similar conclusions. The only thing I'd add to your list is the language barrier. It's a lot easier to disseminate ideas in North America because most people speak the same language.

If what I described existed in your environment while you were growing up, why wouldn't it affect you later on? You acquired all your behavioural templates in your childhood, so it's a good idea to look there first. Also, most parents and teachers are authoritarian figures in the eyes of children.

If we're going to rely on anecdotal evidence, I grew up in Eastern Europe right after the fall of the USSR. There was very little food and blackouts were a frequent occurrence. Criminality hit an all-time high right after the communist regime fell. I have only a few memories of this since I was very young, but I had to adapt to the aftermath of all the madness. What Stefan said in that video really stung the vestiges of the communist propaganda within me, but he was right. Adults were complaining about their situation all the time, but the hell-hole they were pointing at was of their own making. Having your children work before the age of 18 was almost universally frowned upon. They're supposed to be in school, learning how to be good citizens! Letting them handle money was considered irresponsible. Business was a dirty word. The word negotiation doesn't even have a direct equivalent in my native language. All businessmen were exploitive capitalists. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Economic ignorance was woven into the cultural fabric of society and everyone paid the cost. I can tell you right now that the main problem with the Brazilian economy is Brazilian culture. I chose to reject culture while other people didn't. A lot of my friends chose allegiance to culture over me, but that didn't stop me. I'm not saying that people have it easy, but to deny them their choice and responsibility is to assume that they're animals. It's incredibly condescending.

Well, as a kid, suppose you have a preference for how you want to do things. An authority figure comes to you and tells you that your preference is invalid and you should do things in a different way. They've got power over you but they don't negotiate. What do you do? If they're right and don't communicate to you why that is the case, then there might be something terribly wrong with your capacity to process reality. Your preferences - and by extension your senses, emotions and reasoning abilities by which those preferences are derived - are out of whack. You get paralysed, you can't make any progress and then you give up. This happens gradually over time. If your eyes were constantly misleading you, would you keep them open? If the authority figure is wrong, you've got an ever bigger problem on your hands. Now you have to process the reality of the situation. You're surrounded by people who can enforce their seemingly random preferences at will. Since you've got no power and there's no predictability in your environment, you'll be in a constant state of distress. That's pretty bad for you from both a physiological and psychological standpoint. Facing the horror of this reality, adaptation by assuming fault in yourself seems like a pretty healthy strategy to me. At least you've got control over that. Matter isn't behaving randomly, it's my eyes that are messed up. All I have to do is stop relying on them. It's particularly bad if your parents didn't respect your preferences. I remember having hope about the world when I got to go outside my family environment. School was there to extinguish that hope. Overall, the entire system is set up to produce broken human beings. It's not surprising that the expansion in Prussian militarism coincided with the establishment of schooling. As far as I know, that was the actual plan.

Here's an example of what the academic approach did to a passion of mine. I started drawing when I was around 3 and won my first fine arts competition when I was 5. I was later enrolled in one of the best arts programs in the country. My first teacher was a great lady who'd let us do whatever we wanted, and I was winning one competition after another; there were ceremonies, prizes and exhibitions. I was proud of my work. She provided help when I needed it, but I was free to paint whatever I wanted. Enter 5th grade. New teacher, new rules. Now we had structure. We had life drawing sessions, anatomy workshops, landscape painting trips. She gave us guidelines and we had to follow them. I hated it and she hated me. It took me about 2 years to lose all my passion for painting, and I haven't finished a single painting since then. Luckily, I found other creative outlets that weren't part of an academic structure. Question is, will your son be just as lucky?

Bliss N Eso - Addicted Since a foetus, explored life's subtle secrets From my fingertips to my unique double helix I can see history, I can see the past lessons It's your right never be afraid to ask questions How can every religion, claim to be the only one How can they preach love - yet fight each other holding guns I think the golden sun might be able to shed some light I'd rather push peace and knowledge to defend our rights These leaders in suits tell us to fight for one side You think they got their sons and daughters on the frontline? Not down for war but down to get an education We're all equal yet they push synthetic separation But in this matrix I won't be failin to make it This is my cosmos baby space sailin with Sagan I heard it's not where your from it's where your carvin' your view I heard you don't have to wear a suit to argue the truth And so Who are you to tell me how to live my life Cause I won't give this up These are my shoes My view My cue To say I do give a fuck

That was a very good post, Magnus! I was initially attracted to Austrian economics because I had some knowledge in mathematical modelling and computation. I just couldn't believe anyone can claim computational certainty with a system so staggeringly complex. In terms of computational complexity, tightly coupled differential equations are like flipping a bit compared to a model of every person's economic choices. All of this, of course, ignores the even larger issue of subjective value, which I became aware of in my studies of the Austrian theory. Good luck trying to do applied mathematics without a metric. I recently heard of a Markov-chain-based trading algorithm that failed because some politician in Italy proposed a new law. The failure of this algorithm cost the trading company millions of dollars. That's the kind of stability you have in the stock market right now.

I wasn't saddened by the exchange in this thread, so I don't see the cause of your sadness as self-evident. I don't know what's causing you distress, so I can only prompt you to look into the cause yourself. Vitriol, devolve, censoring, insinuation. These are all words that you've used in your posts so far; words that carry an explicit negative and accusatory connotation. You are obviously feeling quite strongly about this topic, so I recommend you take some time to cool down before you continue on with the discussion. To quote the board guidelines:

The reputation in your profile is the sum-total of all reputation points you have received for your posts on the board. The number at the bottom right of a post is the post reputation. OP got -6 for his post and has accumulated -30 in total. Nerburg, I don't know why you got down-voted and I don't think it's particularly important. To me, the most important bit in your post was this: Take my opinion for what it's worth, but if I were in your shoes, I'd examine the cause of this sadness before expecting others to change their behaviour.

If I have the time or desire to point out why I'm up-voting or down-voting someone's post, I'll post in the same thread. If not, I'll cast my vote anonymously. Not everything on this board serves philosophy, but that doesn't make it any less useful. Constructive criticism, at a minimum, requires reason or evidence. This fellow equated an internet board to a democracy, refused to address his error and kept piling on fallacy after fallacy. He did all that while pretending he's concerned about the well-being of the community. This is why people called him a concern troll.

An ad hominem is a statement that is directed at the person rather than the position they are maintaining. This video was about Marx, not Marxism, so there was no need for Stef to focus on Marx's theory. In the beginning of the video, he put forward a heuristic, not an argument. Failure to act consistently with a theory that you espouse, where the option is available, is a good indication of a bad theory. For what it's worth, this is a heuristic that has served me greatly in my life.

I was apolitical prior to encountering Stef's work, so I never considered myself a Marxist, Libertarian or anything like that. I've only encountered Marxists on the internet, so I can't say much about how they live their lives. I suspect a lot of them lead a similar lifestyle. I'd be interested in hearing more about other people's experiences of real-life Marxists. From what I know, Marx's life is somewhat of a dirty secret in leftist academic circles. They don't talk about it in public, but a lot of them are aware of his monstrosity. Formal education doesn't focus much on his life, only on his theories. Similarly to you, I was appalled and disgusted by Marx's life. The man was a monster and it's no surprise that he gave birth to one of the most destructive ideologies that has ever plagued mankind. I already knew much of what was said about him in the video so my response was somewhat dulled compared to yours.

Nice show! Keep knocking down the idols! I'll also second the "Intellectuals" book recommendation. To quote from 16:00 in the video: Marx actually joined the "Young Hegelians" because he was dissatisfied with Kant's treatment of the fact-value dichotomy that had acquired a lot of influence at the time. Much to Marx's satisfaction, Hegel fervently rejected this dichotomy. The supposedly objective and universal labour theory of value was in the making long before Marx came up with it consciously. Talk about bias. Sources: http://ssr1.uchicago.edu/PRELIMS/Theory/marx.html http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=o0Kl1D-rVTYC&pg=PA321

Even a bad approach can be instructive if you learn from it, hence why I provided arguments, not opinions. If you find the test interesting, take it and learn from it. Be on the lookout for bad philosophy is all I'm suggesting.