Kevin Beal

I think that part of the confusion, at least for me, in understanding your questions is with the use of phrases like "has the right" and "should be free to". How we determine truth from falsehood regarding "a right to" or "should be free to" is not something I have enough information yet to determine. Personally, I think the concept of a "right" is a manipulation of language more than anything else, but I'll assume for the sake of moving forward that you mean the basic rights to speech, assembly, due process, etc. 1. The government has no rights because it's not a moral agent. It's a conceptual boundary enclosing people and property. It's a legal fiction. It's not a entity that can be directly acted upon, stolen from, murdered, defrauded, etc. Anything you do to a government, you are doing to something else, and anything a government does is done by someone else. If it's immoral for you to do, it's immoral for anyone representing a government to do. 2. If you mean that no one could morally justify using sanctions on you for voluntarily associating with people outside the geographical boundary, then they could only justify it if you were in violation of some contract, or "freely associating" was a morally unjustified act. (i.e. if you freely associate with slave traders, or something like that, or it violates your home owner's association agreement). Also, you can already associate with people outside a geographical boundary with the internet, so they need not be local. 3. If it's free association, then it's not a moral issue. If some large area of land is owned by people and industrious folk buy land for their businesses on that land with conditions in their contracts that prevent the employment of certain people, then there is no moral issue here. It's all just free association. Nearly all land in a free society would be owned, and in order to preserve the value of their land, the land they sell will come with certain contractual obligations. Nobody would want to sell their adjacent land to someone who would let muslim no-go zones develop there. It would drive the value of their land down. ------------- Everything depends on the meaning of the words you use. "Prevent", "right", "free to", "detriment", "allows", etc. If you mean them in a way different sense than I do, then we could potentially talk past each other and not get anywhere. In philosophy, it's best to start with definitions, establish what are our standards of success and socratically evaluate the logic we use to arrive at our conclusions.

Video game addiction. That's a new one. How interesting As far as topics go for me, it's whatever seems most relevant to me at the time. Romantic relationships is my new favorite topic because of it's relevancy. INTP here as well! The ESXX crowd can frustrate me a bit at times. :/ Your story is a little like mine, although I was definitely a hardcore statist / communist about the time that you were an anarchist. Feel free to share whatever you think is worth sharing. I'll be reading it. In any event, I'll see you around the boards and look forward to exchanging ideas

Heya SS! I swear I've seen your alias around a while, somewhere... Do you post in the YouTube comment sections? How'd you come across the show, and what made you want to come back for more? There are a ton of topics the show covers – which are the ones that scratch your curiosity itches? I'm always surprised at the answer to these questions, and I think it gets a lot of information across about a person. For me, I was looking up logical proofs for anarchism after Ron Paul's campaign fizzled out and came across Stef's work. He was entertaining and what he said made sense, so I kept watching. I was really interested in anarchism at first, but then slowly became more interested in the self knowledge topics and psychology. I'm pretty much a slut for philosophy, though. I enjoy all of it, pretty much.

I don't have context for the call, as I haven't listened to it, but I think you might be misunderstanding the basic praxeological argument. It's about what is logically implied by the act itself, a priori, by definition, and not necessarily a reference to anyone's thoughts, desires or feelings. Consider that if you trade 5 dollars for a friend's rubik's cube and you value the rubik's cube more than your 5 dollars, then that is a distinct and separate act from valuing the 5 dollars more but going through with the deal anyway. The second is more like charity, and less like bartering. By using the words "barter" and "charity" it reveals something about what it is they value while changing ownership. If there is no charity or barter happening, then we can say nothing objective – a priori – about what you do or don't value. How one determines the truth of a proposition like "I value my bullet more than my prey" is purely subjective until that value is logically implied in some kind of action. Whether or not that is true before the shot is fired is not something you or I can comment on, because we're not the hunter. Human action involves intention. For example, there is a difference between doing something accidentally and doing it on purpose, and we describe these acts in different terms. First degree murder and manslaughter are separate acts even if they result in the same conclusion. Philosophy is not concerned with subjectively coming to the truth of propositions. Whether or not your favorite band is Fleetwood Mac (you have good taste, btw) is only something you can determine – it's subjective in that way. We can however come to objective conclusions about subjective things, like by looking at distinctions between charity and barter. By considering their definitions, we already accept certain premises and go from there. Does that help?

Hi SC! How'd you stumble across the forums / show? What are your interests? I find it really interesting just how diverse the people are who post here.

I've read both and I haven't noticed the connection you mentioned. I'm really curious to hear more of what you mean by that! Is it the emotional repression aspect in particular? Was it more than that?

There is a fatal categorical error in thinking that a "gender identity" is the thing itself. By that, I mean that a gender identity must refer to other things. It can't be something which you subjectively relate to (e.x. "I identify with X"). You can identify with another person on a level in which you both have some shared experience, but that does nothing to explain gender dysphoria. Transgendered people present as the opposite sex. To say that they identify as the opposite sex is completely meaningless. I can identify as Jesus Christ, a rock or an island, and that does nothing in any way to change anything metaphysical about who I actually am. Feeling like I am a man is not what makes me a man. It's the body I was born into, which so happens to produce typical behaviors, attitudes and interests. It's not the behaviors, attitudes and interests themselves which make me a man. A woman who shares the same interests etc doesn't become a man. Rather, she is a woman who has male typical interests. The problems goes back to Queer Theory when the word "gender" was hijacked to conflate unlike things. The word "gender" used to only describe nouns and not people. There were only 4 genders: masculine, feminine, undetermined and neuter. "Hen" is feminine, "bull" is masculine, rabbit is "undetermined" (since it can refer to either sex) and "book" is neuter (since it can have no sex). Sex describes people – man, woman, intersex etc. It paints a big picture to describe a person as a woman in a man's body, but it is not a technically true statement. Exposure to or lack of certain hormones in fetal development may change our neurology, and some have claimed this is responsible for producing gender dysphoria. The limited research I've done seems to back this up beyond my own doubt anyway. It raises more questions than it answers though. What are people actually referring to when they use the misnomer "gender identity"? There are plenty of people who share the same interests, behavior and attitudes as the opposite sex, but do not have any desire to present as the opposite sex, much less the agony of feeling as if they are in the wrong body and desire to cut off their genitals like some people with gender dysphoria do. These appear to be two entirely different things – which is why I feel absolutely enraged when parents take a child whose personality resembles much more the opposite sex and puts them on hormone treatments which permanently alter their body chemistry, and give them a new name. Nobody really knows what gender dysphoria is and many researchers are too afraid to research it, if it puts it in a pathological light because they get PC thugs banging down their doors. John Hopkins, where they did the first gender reassignment surgeries, stopped doing it and I don't think they even treat it or diagnose it or anything anymore. It seems they want to distance themselves from it as much as possible. People are quick to compare it to homosexuality, but we understand homosexuality infinitely better than gender dysphoria. Nobody would call homosexuality a disease or disorder, and to avoid being perceived as a bigot, people treat gender dysphoria the same way. But we don't know that yet. People who speak with certainty, that it is like homosexuality in that way, may know something I don't, but more likely, they are talking out of their asses. If someone wants to present as the opposite sex and use those pronouns, I don't really care – if they have gender dysphoria or not. What I care about is the PC police stomping their boots down your throat for saying that you don't automatically buy into the postmodernist worldview that gender is anything you fucking want it to be. I have sympathy for the people who experience whatever this thing is. I have no sympathy whatsoever for the anxious hypocrites who project their own malice, ignorance and discomfort onto you for expressing healthy skepticism. It prevents scientific and philosophical progress in this area, and it's cowardice in the worst sense of the word.

Whoops! Misunderstanding :/

It depends on what studies you focus on. The nature vs nurture debate keeps getting more an more evidence for both sides, and it's been that way for decades. Just as one side seems to look like it's coming out on top, new research comes along to support the other side. The answer of which has a greater effect is an enormously complicated one, and people who talk as if it's certain either way are usually blowing smoke up your ass. NoSpank.net has a lot of resources which support the case against spanking. Also, it's kind of a joke among long time listeners that the degree to which someone refers to Stef as "Molyneux" is the degree to which what they are saying is nonsense. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with it, it just seems to have the effect of depersonalizing someone, which makes it easier to implicate a person in incompetence or corruption. I don't refer to people I like by their last names, for example. If I comment on a Peter Schiff video, I refer to him as Peter. But maybe it's a cultural thing, like how they do in Japan.

The word "and" is exactly what I mean. I'm not saying you have to apologize or anything. I'm not trying to trap you. But if you accuse me of lying and don't accept proof to the contrary, then there wouldn't be any point in debating you. You came on too strongly in each of your responses. It puts you in a position of having to admit that you were being defensive, which would require a whole lot of emotional maturity. I'm avoiding everything, being pedantic and obtuse, making shit up and all of these catty implications you keep making about me. This tells me everything I need to know about working with you to arrive at the truth. It's been very unpleasant engaging with you, but thanks for the opportunity to make an important distinction about UPB that a lot of people get tripped up on.

No. God no. You accused me of lying and I just proved that I didn't lie and you don't acknowledge that. Why would I ever debate with you? I would have to be a masochist.

I'm referring to the chapter titled "Preferences". Here's a quotation straight from the book. You'll notice that I used the qualifier "subjective" with preferences in each of my replies to you. Preferable has nothing to do with subjective preferences. It is supposed to be treated as a shorthand for "objectively required". I could respond to the other stuff you wrote, but you accused me of just making shit up to suit my immediate convenience. No, I've read the book a bunch of times and debated it dozens of times. People come to me to help them understand UPB. I have some idea of what I'm talking about. You sir, are the one making shit up.

If the two statement contradict each other, then you haven't shown in what way they contradict. Behavior being preferable has nothing to do with subjectively preferring it over other options. It is preferable in that it is objectively required in order for the prescriptive proposition (e.x. "you should do X") to be a universal, rather than a particular. If it isn't objectively required in order to meet some standard, then it's like saying "you should go watch the new Val Kilmer movie–it's good", as opposed to saying "you shouldn't steal from people". Why should you prefer it? That question has nothing to do with the P in UPB. At best, it only describes the B, in that you define what a certain action is (e.x. murder vs mercy killing). Preferable and preferred just share the same root word. Preferable doesn't mean that it can be preferred. Instead you can think of it more like Universally Satisfying Behavior, or Universally Required Behavior. Using "satisfying" makes it sound pleasurable, and "required" makes it sound like everyone requires it. The english language lacks a better word than "preferable" in this situation. I promise you that it's not "can be preferred". That is an honest mistake, but it's a mistake nonetheless. I certainly could have misunderstood your argument. To be perfectly honest, I didn't take a whole lot of time to process it. I was busy thinking of a way to explain this distinction because of the false premise stuff I already talked about. You don't have to read or acknowledge anything I've written if you don't want to. I don't really care to take in the spirit of each thread I respond to and respond within a given context. Maybe I and others should do that more often, I don't know, but I've stopped expecting that in my own threads. I don't mean to frustrate you.

Because of statements like this, it appears to me that you don't actually understand UPB. I don't think it makes sense to improve on a theory you don't understand. I don't want you to skip over the part I described because then you will be operating from false premises. Specifically, you are using "preferable" incorrectly and missing the point entirely of why a moral theory would be binding on moral agents.

"Preferable" in Universally Preferable Behavior has nothing at all, in any capacity, to do with people's subjective preferences for one thing over another. The act of "murder" includes an intention. That's why manslaughter and homicide are two different crimes even though the result is the same. When he talks about murder and how it's not murder if someone wants to be killed, he's not talking about the "P" in UPB, even though he's talking about a person's preference to be killed. That can be confusing, but it's only to define his terms – what action specifically is being evaluated. "Preferable" is a condition of satisfaction. Behavior cannot be true, only propositions are true. Behavior is similarly preferable or not preferable. And because acts include intentions, we're not simply talking about the act of "pushing a knife into flesh", but rather something like murder, or surgery. You can think of "preferable" in the following sense: "If you want to make it to school on time, it is preferable that you wake up with enough time to get ready and make the bus." -------------- It's unclear to me whether or not you're using the word "universal" correctly here. To be clear, "universal" is just a synonym for "principle". It doesn't necessarily mean that it's a rule that has no exceptions. This goes back to an old distinction made in philosophy between Particulars vs Universals. It's basically the difference between asking "what would you like for dinner?" and asking "what should we eat in order to stay healthy?". A universal is not meant to be a rule without any possible exceptions, anymore than we can say that kale is unhealthy just because some guy has an allergy to it and it worsens his health. It's a truth that can be extracted and applied in different scenarios. Because we're talking about minds with free will and the capacity to think in universals, there are exceptions, such as with people who cannot exercise that free will (e.x. gun to their backs, hypnotized, etc) or with people who cannot think in universals (e.x. infants). UPB is logically binding on people in that way, similar to how universals of health are binding on people with the same digestive, endocrine, immune systems etc. It just is true (i.e. binding) that murder is evil because of what we know about the act itself. The murder understands principles because he asserts his right to kill and denies that right to the person he kills. He doesn't want them to not kill him back like I want you to pull my finger. He lethally enforces it as something that "should" happen. UPB is binding on him because he has free will and understands universals while he contradicts himself. At least, that's my understanding. Does that clarify? For Gold+ members, I just wrote an article about what UPB really is here.

That's great! Have you been able to achieve lasting happiness as a result of the lessons in the book? What's the general idea? What did you learn and change about how you approached things?

Do I think that something is immoral no matter what uniform they are wearing? Yes. You made this a racial issue. I'm responding to that. Your argument goes something along the lines of: 1. White people make up a disproportionate majority of the police force. 2. The police force commit the majority of violent crime. 3. White people occupy positions (because of a relatively higher IQ, or for other reasons) that are criminal but which don't make it into crime statistics because it's socially reinforced 4. Therefore white people are the more violently criminal race I already stated that this reasoning is more damning of hispanics than whites, which you did not acknowledge, which is interesting. But let me respond to this logic behind: to be in the police is automatically threatening violence. Not all police people make arrests. Not even most. Most work in supporting roles and are morally equivalent to anybody else who supports officers making arrests, politicians, meter maids, judges, etc. We don't know the racial distribution between these different roles. Blacks could be overrepresented in that capacity for all we know. The fact that it is socially supported and is regarded as a moral obligation changes the nature of the crime. It is not insignificant that you and I would far prefer to be harassed by a police officer than other kinds of violent criminals. Even anarchists who fully understand that behind every law is a gun are perfectly willing to harass police officers, call them names and do what would in any comparable situation see them get their asses beaten by some thug, if not worse. The bully on the playground threatens violence in order to steal lunch money from the other children, but clearly we would not include this in the same category of violent crime as a rapist or murderer. The severity of the offense is significant, so comparing a police officer who's never used direct violence to a gangbanger who's actually sticking guns in people's faces is not comparing apples to apples. One is clearly more violent. If we are going to come to a conclusion as to which is the most violent race, we need to focus at least some of our attention on the most violent crimes. As shown in the presentation above, blacks and hispanics are overrepresented. I say I don't care which race is the most violent because I don't care. I don't have a compelling reason that makes me care. If it were asians which fit the standard I provided, that fact alone wouldn't matter to me. It seems like there are two conversations happening simultaneously that are muddying things. First, are the police and government criminals? And second which race is most violent? If you treat the second as if it were the first, then it makes debate difficult because they are different questions. It would be same-ish if you were right in speculating that whites make up more and just get away with it more, but you haven't provided sufficient evidence of this highly unverifiable claim, as I have shown. The fact that it is so unverifiable and you don't acknowledge that your logic is even more damning of hispanics, and that you just pay quick lip service to spanking makes me wonder why there is the implication that whites are the most violent. It seems like you started with the conclusion, to me. It doesn't make you wrong, obviously, it just comes off like confirmation bias. And why? My guess is white guilt. Of course, I could be wrong about that. If we're speculating about things, that's my speculation.

I think the distinction I would make regarding requesting forgiveness is whether or not they: Understand how their actions were suboptimal (let's just say), that they realize the importance of why you don't want it to happen again, and they actually do intend to make things better in the relationship. OR They don't understand, don't care to understand, or don't think they ought to apologize, but do it anyway in order to gain the benefits of your trust. If they genuinely do understand and want to make it better, requesting forgiveness could be interpreted in a way which is not altogether unhealthy. That is, they mean to communicate with that request that they want to do right by you, without the expectation that this forgiveness comes with the benefits of your full trust. In that way it's an indirect way of letting you know that they fucked up, they know it and they don't want to do it again. Alternately, it could be interpreted as a request for your full trust again as a way of demonstrating their trustworthiness by what they do with that trust. For example, let's say I want you to trust me to follow through on commitments I made to you, so I'm asking you to trust me to follow through so I can regain the lost trust by consistently following through over time. --------------------- If however they are in the second camp, then the request for forgiveness is a pretty gross emotional manipulation. If I apologize without stating that what I would like is your forgiveness, then why am I being covert about it? It's anxiety management. If I call you a nasty name and you reasonably get upset about that, and I apologize out of fear of what you might do (e.x. break up with me), then this is all about me and my anxiety, not about you and the quality of our relationship. If you get in my apology that I'm anxious and you accept it because of your anxiety about my anxiety, like I'm giving you a puppy dog look (not in a playful way), or my anxiety is coming through in nervous laughter or badly timed jokes, then I'm just trying to manipulate you and get you to manage my own feelings about the way I did you wrong. Basically, I'm asking you to pretend like it didn't happen. If that's the way I deal with my anxiety, by prematurely apologizing prior to fully processing what happened, then any understanding I have about the situation is shallow at best, and it is unlikely to translate into me regaining your trust. And if I don't think I should apologize but do anyway, then I'm either doing a bad job of manipulating you and thus being condescending, or I'm doing a good job and being very manipulative, clearly. --------------------- Personally, I'd like to space laser the word "forgiveness" out of the english language because of just how often it comes with emotional manipulation, as if it were something chosen and all the propaganda surrounding it. I prefer to just say "trust". It's a little harder to manipulate people that way because they know what they do and don't trust. Forgiveness sounds like this other thing that is ethereal, like some metaphysical object too strange and magical for mere mortals to comprehend. Those are my thoughts, anyway.

I remember contributing to the timestamp volunteer project which preceded the addition of the non-fiction audiobooks to the Youtube channel. UPB, On Truth, Everyday Anarchy, Handbook of Human Ownership and Against the Gods are there, but not the others, it seems. I'd be happy to collect the timestamps for the others if it means putting them on youtube. Them being in mp3 format doesn't allow me to leave and pick up where I left off. Youtube and Audible do that automatically. Also, why aren't the books on Audible? Just curious...

There is a kind of hostility in presenting absolutely crazy (seeming) propositions to people as if they were deluded to think otherwise. When I argue anarchism, for example, I don't say to people that anarchism is obviously true and they are stupid if they disagree. Anarchists who do do that are just speaking to an echo chamber of people who already accept anarchism, or it's some kind of dick measuring contest, or they've already proved the point logically and their opponent is just being obtuse. It's a kind of emotional manipulation because you come on so strong that you are letting people know that trying to tell them otherwise puts them at risk of being the target of their contempt. It's very rare that someone has the emotional maturity to concede when they come on strong and paint ignorance on their opponents. 99 times out of a 100, you just get an escalation, especially when it's despite a debate that was won by a landslide by Stef. I mean, come on – Stef's arguments were fallacious? Did you even watch the video?! Telling people crazy sounding things as if they were totally obvious can be translated into something like: "This is my fragile grandiosity speaking right now that I'm addicted to maintaining by provoking other people's frustration. And I can assure you that if you try and reason with me, I will do my best to maintain this bubble reality I've got going at any cost to myself and people's perceptions of me." I'm not saying that's for sure what's happening here. I'm just responding to this sentiment that having wildly insane beliefs is benign. That being said, I wouldn't feel comfortable telling anyone that they aren't welcome, and I've got a reputation around here and people know who I am and have some amount of influence, more than most anyway. It's not my forum. There are people I wish weren't forum members, even ones with a lot of reputation points and a large presence. If it were my forum there would be no JD Stembal or Dsayers, and some people seem to like them and want them around, so maybe it's a good thing it's not my forum.

That's exactly what is being debated. What is the right measurement? How do we know we've successfully accounted for the variables enough to isolate the causal relationship between two things? It's an epistemic question about what constitutes knowledge of the effectiveness of SSRI's. It's part of a broader debate that's been mostly worked out over centuries. i.e. it's not simple. Personally, I think it's worth trying exercise, vitamin D, and some sort of psychotherapy which helps you manage your expectations before putting yourself on a drug known to cause situationally sociopathic and violent outbursts. But that's just me.

Blacks make up a disproportionate number of federal jobs. They also make up a disproportionate number of TSA agents. They have disproportionately fewer police jobs. Blacks are almost proportionately represented in congress. But really, who cares? Is it simply the statement "blacks commit more crimes on average" that seems to be the problem? Are people going to hear that and then justify bringing back jim crow? Seriously, why does it matter? I don't see black people on the street and run away screaming. If we just take police officers alone, Hispanics are overrepresented by about as much or more than whites, so you're still incriminating a minority using that logic, it's just not blacks. And if you're talking about police officers specifically, they make up 350 out of a 100,000 people, which is tiny. The number of criminals is something like 10 times that by the standard sort of definitions, and you are arguing for expanding that definition, so even more people. There are 513,200 elected officials in the US, which is a much smaller number, who don't seem to be overwhelmingly white, anyway. But then there are 3 million federal employees who are disproportionately black, who may or may not fit your definition of a criminal. And this is a hugely unverifiable matter anyway. Is it all police? Is it only the police who threaten violence beyond carrying a weapon and engaging people as a police officer? Are white cops more likely or less likely to make those kinds of threats? I was unable to find any data on perpetrator's race, myself. I suspect that they don't exist. By all the standard sorts of definitions, blacks a disproportionate amount of crime, and there's no reason I can think of as to why that wouldn't transfer into any other category of criminal you can think up. The causal factors seem to be the same across most categories of crime, immorality. The actual number of violent criminals in the US is low and dropping, so it's obviously not something where you just go "oh, he's black, then you can't be here". That is, unless we include spanking and hitting children as violent crime and that has a significantly higher approval rating among blacks. So, why stop at police officers? Parents make up a gigantically higher part of the population, after all. But to reiterate, I don't care who's committing the most crime except insofar as we can do something about it and prevent recurrence. If dismantling the race baiting narrative places increased responsibility on the people being violent and takes it away from the mythical white patriarchal enslavement class, then I think that's a wonderful thing.

Theoretically, it could be divided up, like if one group had no control over their actions or no consciousness, or something like that. The problem is that if a distinction is made, it can't be arbitrary. Obviously a moral rule that applies to right handed people should apply to left handed people. If someone applies a moral rule to another person's behavior, they have to understand that rule in order to do that, and people who understand moral rules are bound by those rules (especially if they are willing to hold others to it). A murderer, for example, has to simultaneously respect and reject the Non-Aggression Principle, because he has to deny the victim the right he grants himself. These aren't the terms Stef would describe it in, but some definitions are necessary. The term "universal" in Universally Preferable Behavior describes a classical distinction made in philosophy between universals and particulars ("universal" being basically synonymous with "principle"). It's the difference between "what should we eat for dinner tonite?" and "what do we need to eat in order to be healthy?". The first is a particular and the second is a universal because it applies as a rule. "Universal" does not mean "without exceptions" in this sense, but if there are exceptions it has to be meaningful. What's a healthy diet for me may be different for you than me, but it isn't different because your name isn't "Kevin". The term "preferable" is UPB actually describes a condition of satisfaction. An action cannot be true or false. A desire cannot be true or false, but it can be satisfied or frustrated, and whether or not it is satisfied is not entirely subjective. Behavior that is UPB is meeting particular conditions of satisfaction: logical consistency and universality. When behavior meets these conditions of satisfaction, it is "preferable", as in "if you want to go to the library, it is preferable that you go north on 6th St.". Preferability is not the same as a subjective preference, but intention is important. The term "behavior" in UPB is more than objects positioned in space and time. It also describes intentions. In fact, our language itself is syntactically structured based on whether or not verbs involve intentions. It's also why manslaughter and murder are separate crimes. They both result in someone's death, but the intentions of the behavior were different. Intentions are mental states that have thought content. That thought content can be logically (in)consistent. Hopefully that clarifies!

I don't actually believe you have any zero-empathy personality disorders, but narcissism would make more sense than sociopathy given what you've said. And I hear that in some says we all have some amount of narcissism. I'm not sure I believe that, but hey... If you were a full blown narcissist, you would deeply resent me for what I said. A narcissist would assume the value of a thing to others based solely on their own shallow emotional state. They (to whatever degree they are a narcissist) don't process other people's interests and feelings, and determine right from wrong in a purely self centered way. For example, if it bothers them, then that thing is bad universally. And anyone who disagrees is trying to gaslight them, the way I would feel irritated if you – in all seriousness – tried to argue that the sky is not blue on a clear midday, because no one could deny it's blueness. You would be fucking with me. I think it is important to let people know that philosophy won't necessarily make them happy. If that's your goal, then I appreciate that. I'm not convinced, however, that your analysis of your own unhappiness with philosophy is an accurate one, for the reasons I stated (fantasy breeds resentment). I have found that philosophy makes me feel everything more deeply, positive and negative. My decisions and my own proactive approach to solving problems in my life is what makes me happy. Sociopaths cannot feel love. If you feel love, then you are not a sociopath. You can't have it both ways. That's all I was trying to say about that.

Or, it revealed the loneliness you already felt. You may have your cause and effect reversed. This was my experience. Or it's narcissism. Your happiness is not unimportant or anything, but in terms of it being the basis for which you would argue that philosophy is not worth it,... not to be cruel, but so fucking what? Why should anyone care about that? Maybe we should, I just don't know the reason. It seems a bit beside the point, as far as I can tell. If you were a sociopath, you wouldn't feel real happiness anyway, so your argument would be moot. The best you could hope for would be a fleeting kind of satisfaction. If you are capable of complex emotions like remorse, love, compassion, etc, then you are not a sociopath. And if you are a sociopath, then all of your arguments implode in a no null hypothesis, being wrong is proof of rightness kind of madness.