Kevin Beal

I did address it and apologized for name calling. (post #47). Does that change anything? If not, then it's interesting to me that you would mention it. I've changed my position and approach based on new information. You haven't. What kind of a person manipulates people with passive aggressive appeals to shame like "I'm super disappointed"? Well, someone who, when they were wounded by disappointing events in their past, were humiliated for for provoking someone else's anxiety about your disappointment. And instead of dealing with it, you take it out on other people by occupying simultaneously the disappointed child and the cruel caregiver who humiliated you. You have to distort reality by projecting to avoid your own trauma. Unfortunately, you want to tear down everybody else for triggering this complex, and so I don't feel sympathy, but resentment. But my understanding of psychology is obviously amatuer. Somebody who knows better is absolutely welcome to correct me. We can falsify my claim by learning how your disappointment was handled when you were young and if you were treated with lots of respect, your preferences honored and invited and all of that. I could be wrong for sure. Let me know if I am.

nevermind

I remember that thread and how frustrated I got in it. I apologize for any rudeness. And it's not like I haven't noticed that people use these colloquialisms rather than their proper definitions. But I refuse to be let other people define my words for me. I've had very productive conversations that got started simply by pointing out the difference in definitions. I'm proud to call myself an "atheist" and an "anarchist". Just imagine you are having a conversation with someone and you use some obscure word that means the same thing but is one they are unfamiliar with, and then through conversation it clicks and they say "oh, do you mean 'anarchist'?" And you have to concede "well, yea..." Well, I don't want to do that. I want to say what I mean and be direct about it in spite of the mental gymnastics people have learned to do when encountering these words. I regard it to be a challenge, rather than an impending trainwreck. The fact that people will say "oh you mean 'atheist'?" is proof enough for me that the dramaticized definition is just a self serving distortion that I don't want to entertain.

I ran out of upvotes, Bipedal, or else you'd get a few of them Also, this criticism that Stef isn't concise is interesting. In his books, he is more concise than in unscripted podcasts, but I don't know that being concise is always best. Something I've come to realize is that with topics that are so counterintuitive or against the current zeitgeist, you kind of have to go about attacking it from a hundred different angles before it dislodges. It's interesting to me how something that doesn't seem important or relevant can later end up serving as a necessary premise for a really profound conclusion. I also used to get confused about Stef's choice of examples and metaphors, but then later realized that the examples I would use instead were far more abstract and less visceral and empirical. The tagline of the show should be changed to "the most empirical philosophy show in the world". His podcasts are like syllogisms spread stretched out across an hour because the premises need explaining and the conclusion require a lot of setup. Really annoying to hear, of course, but I'm going to tell you anyway: I don't think you get it. Also, I don't know how to argue with the idea that tilling soil is violent, or how to talk about empathetic issues with a self proclaimed sociopath. I can't get a toe hold in this mountainous climb of a debate. How do I help someone learn about the nature of violence and ethics who says such things? If you put forward arguments for your position looking for help from others to illuminate faulty premises, then that may help. Putting forward a bunch of proposition which you believe to be true is something you have to counter with facts and very little of what has been discussed is easily verifiable. This is why I'm asking the most basic of questions, trying to find a way in what I perceive to be an impenetrable fortress of assertions.

This is a very antagonizing statement. As have most of your posts in this thread. Like you're lashing out. Do you need to revisit your own disappointment over and over again until it gets resolved somehow? Until everyone apologizes and says the video is indeed benign? Until you are appreciated for sticking in there and letting everyone know how defensive they are? Until your self sacrifice of getting all those downvotes is appreciated? Seriously, what are you looking for? There are more healthy ways of dealing with disappointment. Also, if you're the one downvoting benign replies in this thread simply because they belong to people who've said things you really didn't like, then that is petty in exactly the same respect you are accusing others of. And reactive and defensive in exactly the respect you accuse others of. It's often a trap when you accuse others of things because you might grant yourself permission to do those things in retaliation, but that's just a confession of your own self loathing when you do that. How much you hate the people you openly condemn is just you talking about yourself.

How do you go about learning things like this?

What I liked: I really liked the conflict in the Samantha's growth, her struggle to figure out what really living is and how it inevitably means separation. There was some really good dialog and the colors and the soundtrack were friggin' awesome. Joaquin's character was also very relatable and so irresistibly likeable. I liked watching his own growth and how it skyrocketed with Samantha there. I also liked how open ended it was. What happens to Theodore and Samantha? Nobody knows. I think that what was so attractive to me about the movie was having a kind woman know everything about me, be totally devoted to having my back, challenging me to take chances and constantly growing with me. How could you not fall in love with that?! What I didn't like: I didn't like the whole craziness with Olivia Wilde's character. And there's no way the software testers would not have noticed how rapidly the AIs' "awareness" grew and that they would maybe not want to be a human's secretary for free. And there was a flashback with Rooney Mara's character where she's telling Theodore that she will kill him because she loves him so much, and there is no visual or audio indication that this is any different than the rest of the nice flashback, as if it were a totally normal thing to say. It took me out of the movie experience and repulsed me. Also, the AI seemed way too human to me to be believable, but it wouldn't have been the same movie if she wasn't emotional, so...

Just curious. Why did you join the boards?

I love labels, personally. I feel zero compunction using them. And I don't know what a "self-applying label" is. Labels don't apply themselves, obviously. People use words differently and I'm not about to tell you that your definition is wrong. I'm just telling you how I use the words and how it makes most sense to me.

Then how about because you want to understand the position? It's an excellent resource.

I don't think that's embarrassing. That's something I plan on doing, is making videos on youtube about philosophy and psychology. I think that Alice Miller's book the Drama of the Gifted Child is an incredible book and would highly recommend it. And kudos to you for taking up peaceful parenting!

Atheism - do I believe that any gods exist? Agnosticism - do I know if any gods exists? It's asking two separate questions. There are 4 combinations of these: 1. Agnostic Atheism (Weak Atheism) 2. Gnostic Atheism (Strong Atheism) <- the only rational position 3. Agnostic Theism ("I don't know, but I believe it") 4. Gnostic Theism ("I know there is a god") An agnostic is not someone who believes you cannot know anymore than an atheist is someone who knows for certain there is no god. It's too specific to be a logical distinction.

I guess I've made myself an enemy, hiding in the shadows downvoting my posts. How exciting

True, but what about issues resolved in podcasts #1 & 2? I sometimes see people claim that the government is not violent or some other very basic and false claim like that and wonder to myself "how did they even find this place?"

I'm sorry for wishing I could upvote my own post... I see now that this is bad.

Welcome to the boards! What prompted you to decide to finally join the boards? What is it about self knowledge and the pursuit of truth that you like? Are there any works you'd recommend?

Are you aware that atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive? If I, as an atheist, accept that bug badass advanced aliens exist who would appear magical to me, does that make me an agnostic? Were you diagnosed by a professional as a sociopath, or is this your own belief?

Haha. Thanks! I wish I could upvote my own post...

20% of your customers take up 80% of your time, and is the reason that the customer is not always right and it's actually best for everyone to tell irritating and demanding customers to go take a hike. I like the geek look, personally

Best angles? Lighting? Uh oh. It's worse than I realized! Yea. Just speaking for myself, and other guys that I know personally, what you're saying is very true.

Which is why I clarified what was actually being claimed:

That makes too much sense. It is a shame though, that the selection criteria is so often "he's got a high paying job" or "he's tall" or something else that has nothing to do with virtue. If it were all about virtue, then I'd probably celebrate this, but the guys aren't a whole lot better when it comes to who they end up messaging.

It's from analysis done by the people who run OKCupid, the dating site, from this article. The quote is actually slightly different than what was mentioned: Men rated women's attractiveness on the site to be like a shallow bell curve with the hump being average attractiveness. Women's rating of men on the site however show a very different appraisal with most men being below average. And that's a HUGE sample size they are working with. Maybe the type of men on OKCupid really are below average, or women generally have unrealistic expectation. Pretty frustrating.

I think you might be making a couple logical errors here. Let me know if this makes sense. First, you are suggesting that he's resorting to the "fallacy fallacy" which says basically that you can't reject a claim simply because the argument in it's favor is fallacious. Which is actually not what he said. All he said was "not an argument" which is itself not an argument. "Fallacy" refers to arguments and not the conclusions of argument or claims made without argument. So, actually, he's not committing this fallacy. (Accidentally right is not right at all). Here's the logical form a "fallacy fallacy" takes: p1) Claims that result from erroneous reasoning must be false p2) Your argument contains errors C1) Your claim must be false Fallacies are logical forms which describe conclusions which do not follow from an argument's premises (or factual errors). The claim "this is not an argument" is does not contain any logic in it to be valid, invalid or fallacious. p1) Fallacies describe the form of an argument p2) Arguments are premises that demonstrate a conclusion logically p3) "Not an argument" is a claim and not an argument C1) Wasatch's claim is contains no fallacies Second, pedantry describes trivial and useless distinctions that don't actually address the core of an argument but just dance around it. But if it's true that what you wrote was not actually an argument, then it's not pedantic (at least if we operate from that definition). You can think of it as being akin to the saying "claims made without evidence can be rejected without evidence". It's the reason that putting the burden of proof on atheists makes no sense logically. We have to know what the actual arguments are first. Without argument and clear definitions, there is no goalpost. If you simply assert that god exists, then you extend me the right to make claims without evidence: god does not exist, and you can't take exception to my assertion without being a hypocrite. Third, this is a philosophy forum. Methodology is actually really important. If you cannot demonstrate your conclusions rationally, then it's not really about philosophy, but about something else, right? So, what is it about then? p1) Pedantry is making unimportant distinctions that don't make the point or counter it p2) Whether or not Wasatch's comment is a fallacy fallacy or not does not bear on the veracity of your point or his C1) It is pedantic to point out that Wasatch committed the fallacy fallacy p3) It is your claim that people are being overly defensive p4) When you say mean-spirited things to other members on the forums, this is an example of defensiveness p5) It is mean spirited to say "I'd rather you address what I posted rather than resort to this level of pedantry" C2) You are yourself being defensive p6) It is projection, a defense mechanism in the form of a reality distortion when you take things you consider negative about yourself and disown them by attributing them to other people. p7) You have been pedantic when accusing someone else of pedantry and defensive when accusing others of defensiveness C3) You are projecting your own negative qualities on other people I apologize if I've missed something important. Obviously it's not a nice conclusion and it would be embarrassing to get something like that wrong. *UPDATE* If we accept the premise that pedantry must be a response to an argument in order to be pedantry, then my last argument (C1) doesn't work since Jamiroquai's claim is not an argument. So logically I must concede my argument in the second point, or the 10 part argument at the end. I should have caught that when my definition of "pedantry" changed in premise 1. In this case I concede the argument in the second point since I don't think it necessarily has to be an argument that something is pedantic in response to.

Thanks for the reply! I think that's a very reasonable concern about anarchism, to be sure, but I just wanted to make a quick correction and invite you to check out some stateless alternatives to the police and the justice system. The correction is that, actually, anarchists (at least anarcho-capitalists, anyway) are not opposed to rules and authority. That is to say that we would not be "ungoverned". Anarchy doesn't mean there are no rules, just "no rulers" (near literal translation). The first two podcasts in the stream address this concern very well in my opinion. It's not sufficient to prove anarchism, but it's great for thinking about how a stateless society might work. The solutions being very counterintuitive, which you would expect when we grow up with so much government propaganda about how government stopped racism and the two party system represents a substantive differences and that we're spreading democracy all over the world, and all of that. Which I'm sure you'd mostly agree with is blatant propaganda. FDR1 The Stateless Society - An Examination of Alternatives http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/stateless_society_take_2_320.mp3 FDR2 Caging the Devils: The Stateless Society and Violent Crime http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/caging_the_beasts32.mp3 Please check them out!